Okay, pau the nostalgia and sadness for awhile. It’s Tour de Fleece time.
Yep, it’s that time again, folks. That time of year where we handspinners attempt to try new spinning techniques or attempt to spin prodigious amounts of fiber into yarn. This year, I’m in the second category. Continue reading
A week after we got to Los Gatos, a week after the initial shock of my mom’s death, Leilani and I headed home. We were exhausted. When we’d first gotten to town, we’d stopped by Mom’s house to drop Patty off and to spend a bit of time with my sister and brother. Then we headed to our motel. I’d originally made reservations at a nearby one for us, but when we got to our room, we were aghast. It was awful. The room was tiny, the bathroom almost impossible to get into, and the room old and musty. Bless my amazing daughter. “This will not do,” she stated, and found a hotel in town for us to stay at. She was so competent, going to the check-in desk at the motel, getting our money refunded, and directing us to the hotel. A hotel, mind you. I’d never stayed in anything so elegant before. Ever. I was in awe of her competence and determination. When we checked in, I was exhausted and tearful, and told the lady at check-in that my mom had just died and she immediately gave us their bereavement rate. What a blessing after over twelve hours on the road! Continue reading
(As I post this, I saw that the very highway we were on has been closed between Ashland and Yreka because of wildfires. I’m feeling grateful that it didn’t happen with us, but it almost did on the way home.)
Going through my old posts, I realize I never posted the photos of the trip Leilani and I made down to my mom’s; it was a pretty hectic time, obviously. It was such an unplanned, really fast trip down there. And I’ve always been so grateful to Leilani that when I told the family I was going to drive down there, hoping to get there in time, she just said, “Mom, I’m going with you.” And in a very short amount of time, I was on the way to pick her up. We only got as far as Salem because my mother died unexpectedly, but we started out again early the next day. Continue reading
It’s hard to believe itʻs been this long, but on this date ten years ago my mom died unexpectedly. She’d been in the hospital for a week with unmanageable high blood pressure/low heart rate, and on the 3rd of July, her doctors installed a pacemaker for her. The next day she was transferred to a rehab place; we expected that she’d be there for a couple of weeks and would then be able to go home. We were happy about that. During long discussions, three of us siblings talked about how to manage her care once she got home, but several hours after getting to rehab, she had a massive stroke. She was rushed back to the ER; my brother and sister, who were there, hours later made the decision, which Mom had stated she wanted should the situation arise, to remove her from life support. You can read the whole story here, and the story of our road trip back to California six weeks later for Momʻs memorial service here.
Time for anodda da kine!
My Christmas amaryllis from a year ago started blooming again!
Kalakoa is my kolohe pōpoki, and so much like my beloved girl, ʻUkulele, who I miss so much, that plenny times I know ʻUkulele sent her. Just like ʻUkulele, Kalakoa finds balls of yarn, or socks, and brings them into the hallway for me like trophies, meowing so loud, as if to say, “Look Mom, I wen kill dis yarn/sock foa u!” (And yeah, my kitties all talk pidgin.) LOL.
So last night foa my birthday, we went out foa dinnah. We get plenny choices around hea, but I really wanted local kine grindz. I really wanted to holoholo kaʻa up to Patrickʻs Hawaiian Cafe in Vancouver, but ho, da traffic alla way up I-205, cross da bridge ova da Columbia Rivah, den Vancouver. We wen decide dat we going go dea when nomo da traffic.
This happened. Kamaʻāina to da max.
Nolemana and I were heading into Portland for a conference on Saturday morning. I was so grateful for the rain, and I was thinking about that as we left the house. But I screeched to a halt (after checking that nobody was behind me for a long distance) when I thought I saw something out of the ordinary. Llamas. Sheepies. Clouds. Lotsa green. Do you see anything else? (No fair zooming, cuz you gotta see what I was seeing.) Was I seeing things?
So you folks know how much I love trains. How, everytime Nolemana and I go anywhere, we’re alla time looking for trains to photograph. We’ve gotten some amazing shots throughout the Pacific Northwest, including Idaho and Montana. I’ve been called a foamer. I prefer to think of myself as a railfan. I belong to several railfan groups on Facebook; I’ve seen and loved some amazing drone footage by people who follow trains from the air.
Adunno hacome I love trains so much; maybe because my dad used to work for Kahului Railroad on Maui. Continue reading
A Mānoa Girl's Bloggie 