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Anniversary & More
Aug. 13th, 2023 11:19 amANNIVERSARY
Kimberly & I celebrated our 23rd anniversary yesterday. Most anniversary lists figure it's too much trouble to list gifts or themes more than once every five years once you're past 10 or 20. One said it was our Air-themed anniversary. Another said we should buy a silver plate or an imperial topaz. Not a normal topaz or even a royal topaz, but an imperial topaz.
Kimberly and I decided to venture out to some of the parks of Kapaʻa and to have an anniversary lunch at a tasty Mexican restaurant called Monico's. Our itinerary ended up something like this:
1. LYDGATE. Head over to the swimming lagoon that Kimberly feels comfortable swimming at. Eye notice saying "Beware, Portuguese Man of Wars". Note that none of the tourists in the lagoon seem to be screaming. Nonetheless, decide that we live on this tropical island and can swim another day.
1b. LYDGATE. Have a nice walk up and down the shore along Lydgate. Watch the beautiful waves. Watch the tourists. Read a bit of _The Magicians_ at a pavilion before we head on.
2. SLEEPING GIANT. Park in the perfect spot at the East Trailhead of Sleeping Giant, which I've never been to before. (I've hiked to the top a few times, but always from the West Trailhead.) Walk up through pleasant forested paths to the .5 mile mark, passing any number of visitors heading back down. Turn around there so that Kimberly doesn't overdo it, because she's still getting her ability to walk back. Check our Fitbits at the bottom and see they read about 1.5 miles, because Hawaiian paths _always_ seem to undermeasure the miles of their paths. (This has been my experience often up in Kōkeʻe, looking at both time and mileage.)
3. MONICO'S. Visit Monico's. Eye notice saying, "Closed 8/12". Reflect that this is a common danger at Kauaian businesses. Talk with a lady who drives up right after us wanting to make donations for Maui relief, as Monico's is apparently collecting them. But not on 8/12. Karen suggests we eat at a Japanese restaurant called Sensei and says definitely not to eat at the new Greek restaurant. She says they charge $2 for ice in your water. And for refills. And a 3% charge for credit cards. And a required 20% tip on every order. And there's more. (She claims.) She says at least three times that all the locals are boycotting the restaurant but that the tourists are too dumb to know better. After suggesting she's in the class of locals four or five times, she finally says "and transplants like me". After walking back to her car, she keeps shouting about the Greek restaurant. I uh-huh, uh-huh while Kimberly talks to my Dad, who she'd texted asking for restaurant suggestions.
4. MARIACHI'S. We finally end up eating at a somewhat lower-brow (but good) Mexican restaurant called Mariachi's . We eat at the Mariachi's in Lihue occasionally, but it's a new experience eating at the one in Kapa'a. Same food though, except they put a slice of orange on everything. They don't charge us $2 for ice in water, but we're somewhat incredulous about that claim in any case.
5. DONUTS. Oh, and we get donuts on the way home from Island Craves. Well, I get a chocolate donut, Kimberly gets a malasada, which as far as I can tell is just a fancy name for a sugar-coated donut where they forgot the hole.
That's not quite the end of our anniversary. After we get home, we nap. Then we play some Azul: Queen's Garden. Then we get some dinner from Kauai Ramen and from Kauai Kookie and eat it while watching Downton Abbey: The Movie, one of the last movies we'll ever get from Netflix's DVD Rental. Ah, for the days when we had a library of almost everything ever made, available in one place, before streaming took off.
LUCY
The one other thing going on is Lucy. She has pretty much stopped eating since we started her on the chemotherapy drug a week and a half ago, which is disheartening, but not a surprise. We're not expecting to see a result (if we do) until 2-4 weeks into the process, so now she's just got the bad effects.
But we fed her before we went out yesterday and then after we got home (before we napped, I think) and then after we were done with our movie.
We are close to the end of our rope here, tube feeding her three times a day and constantly hoping to see progress which we haven't. It's been three months, and she's still not eating. And the chemotherapy is the last option we were offered that might help her out.
If it's not that, it's something neurological or ... something else they haven't considered. And we don't know if there are any other options.
MAUI
Perhaps I should have led with this, but WE ARE NOT ON MAUI. It's about 225 miles away. We did also get the super high winds that caused the disaster on Maui, but were lucky enough to not have any fire spark. We are a somewhat wetter island, I think (the top of the island has at times been the wettest place on Earth), but I've noticed places where our Buffalo Grass is tall and dry here too, so a fire could rip through those locales as well.
THE HOUSE
We've had big projects really stalling out at the house from all of our stressors this year, from Kimberly's coughing problems early in the year to Lucy's eating problems more recently.
But I'm happy to say we've had some progress too. The gaming shelves are now all together in our dining room and look very handsome and are full of games. I've got a long awaited chair in my office to have a comfy sitting area and have a new shelf arriving tomorrow, which will finalize my office and will also open up more shelving for gaming (thanks to a shelf that's moving out). We're down to a couple of boxes to unpack plus around 9 bins of games.
We still have to order a few chairs and an end table and a bench cushion for the Family Room and one more set of shelves for our Harry Potter–closet and I think we'll mostly be done and settled. Four years later.
There's still a deck to finish painting. And my office closet to finish flooring. And more flooring to put down in other parts of the office.
But that's all more revisionary. I'm thrilled that we're close to having the original visionary* part of the house done after years of plague, surgery, and other issues that kept us down.
* Well, we still need to get the backyard leveled out too, so that I don't break a leg trimming our hillside, which I do every 2-3 weeks, but we're waiting for our investments to be a bit higher than they have been in recent years before taking that on.
Kimberly & I celebrated our 23rd anniversary yesterday. Most anniversary lists figure it's too much trouble to list gifts or themes more than once every five years once you're past 10 or 20. One said it was our Air-themed anniversary. Another said we should buy a silver plate or an imperial topaz. Not a normal topaz or even a royal topaz, but an imperial topaz.
Kimberly and I decided to venture out to some of the parks of Kapaʻa and to have an anniversary lunch at a tasty Mexican restaurant called Monico's. Our itinerary ended up something like this:
1. LYDGATE. Head over to the swimming lagoon that Kimberly feels comfortable swimming at. Eye notice saying "Beware, Portuguese Man of Wars". Note that none of the tourists in the lagoon seem to be screaming. Nonetheless, decide that we live on this tropical island and can swim another day.
1b. LYDGATE. Have a nice walk up and down the shore along Lydgate. Watch the beautiful waves. Watch the tourists. Read a bit of _The Magicians_ at a pavilion before we head on.
2. SLEEPING GIANT. Park in the perfect spot at the East Trailhead of Sleeping Giant, which I've never been to before. (I've hiked to the top a few times, but always from the West Trailhead.) Walk up through pleasant forested paths to the .5 mile mark, passing any number of visitors heading back down. Turn around there so that Kimberly doesn't overdo it, because she's still getting her ability to walk back. Check our Fitbits at the bottom and see they read about 1.5 miles, because Hawaiian paths _always_ seem to undermeasure the miles of their paths. (This has been my experience often up in Kōkeʻe, looking at both time and mileage.)
3. MONICO'S. Visit Monico's. Eye notice saying, "Closed 8/12". Reflect that this is a common danger at Kauaian businesses. Talk with a lady who drives up right after us wanting to make donations for Maui relief, as Monico's is apparently collecting them. But not on 8/12. Karen suggests we eat at a Japanese restaurant called Sensei and says definitely not to eat at the new Greek restaurant. She says they charge $2 for ice in your water. And for refills. And a 3% charge for credit cards. And a required 20% tip on every order. And there's more. (She claims.) She says at least three times that all the locals are boycotting the restaurant but that the tourists are too dumb to know better. After suggesting she's in the class of locals four or five times, she finally says "and transplants like me". After walking back to her car, she keeps shouting about the Greek restaurant. I uh-huh, uh-huh while Kimberly talks to my Dad, who she'd texted asking for restaurant suggestions.
4. MARIACHI'S. We finally end up eating at a somewhat lower-brow (but good) Mexican restaurant called Mariachi's . We eat at the Mariachi's in Lihue occasionally, but it's a new experience eating at the one in Kapa'a. Same food though, except they put a slice of orange on everything. They don't charge us $2 for ice in water, but we're somewhat incredulous about that claim in any case.
5. DONUTS. Oh, and we get donuts on the way home from Island Craves. Well, I get a chocolate donut, Kimberly gets a malasada, which as far as I can tell is just a fancy name for a sugar-coated donut where they forgot the hole.
That's not quite the end of our anniversary. After we get home, we nap. Then we play some Azul: Queen's Garden. Then we get some dinner from Kauai Ramen and from Kauai Kookie and eat it while watching Downton Abbey: The Movie, one of the last movies we'll ever get from Netflix's DVD Rental. Ah, for the days when we had a library of almost everything ever made, available in one place, before streaming took off.
LUCY
The one other thing going on is Lucy. She has pretty much stopped eating since we started her on the chemotherapy drug a week and a half ago, which is disheartening, but not a surprise. We're not expecting to see a result (if we do) until 2-4 weeks into the process, so now she's just got the bad effects.
But we fed her before we went out yesterday and then after we got home (before we napped, I think) and then after we were done with our movie.
We are close to the end of our rope here, tube feeding her three times a day and constantly hoping to see progress which we haven't. It's been three months, and she's still not eating. And the chemotherapy is the last option we were offered that might help her out.
If it's not that, it's something neurological or ... something else they haven't considered. And we don't know if there are any other options.
MAUI
Perhaps I should have led with this, but WE ARE NOT ON MAUI. It's about 225 miles away. We did also get the super high winds that caused the disaster on Maui, but were lucky enough to not have any fire spark. We are a somewhat wetter island, I think (the top of the island has at times been the wettest place on Earth), but I've noticed places where our Buffalo Grass is tall and dry here too, so a fire could rip through those locales as well.
THE HOUSE
We've had big projects really stalling out at the house from all of our stressors this year, from Kimberly's coughing problems early in the year to Lucy's eating problems more recently.
But I'm happy to say we've had some progress too. The gaming shelves are now all together in our dining room and look very handsome and are full of games. I've got a long awaited chair in my office to have a comfy sitting area and have a new shelf arriving tomorrow, which will finalize my office and will also open up more shelving for gaming (thanks to a shelf that's moving out). We're down to a couple of boxes to unpack plus around 9 bins of games.
We still have to order a few chairs and an end table and a bench cushion for the Family Room and one more set of shelves for our Harry Potter–closet and I think we'll mostly be done and settled. Four years later.
There's still a deck to finish painting. And my office closet to finish flooring. And more flooring to put down in other parts of the office.
But that's all more revisionary. I'm thrilled that we're close to having the original visionary* part of the house done after years of plague, surgery, and other issues that kept us down.
* Well, we still need to get the backyard leveled out too, so that I don't break a leg trimming our hillside, which I do every 2-3 weeks, but we're waiting for our investments to be a bit higher than they have been in recent years before taking that on.