Mountains and Islands

Ron tried to tell me the other night that, because we live on this island, we should be safe from swine flu.  Right.  I passed this jewel of wisdom onto my mom, who added, "And it's not like you have any pigs there."  I laughed so hard I almost soiled myself.  That mom.  When she's on, she's on. Speaking of pigs, I saw a woman on the side of the road the other day, almost to Hilo .  She was leaning against the door of her car, photographing three young, black pigs as they browsed through the foliage that grows thick and lush along the meridian between the north and southbound directions of the highway.  I've seen these little guys several times.  They won't stay little for long.  Anyway, this gal had one bodacious lens.  It was wildlife photography, Hawaiian style. I ventured up into the vog to the gym today, unsure of how much energy I might have after my recent bout with whatever it's been.  Not bad.  Half and hour on the elliptical , half an hour o

Last night, Ron was kind enough to make a quick run to the market to pick up some more ginger ale.  Ours was nearly gone and what we had left in the big bottle had lost its bubbles.  Flat ginger ale just doesn't cut it.  It was about eight minutes 'til six, so he busted on down to Hirano Store, near the end of our road,  plenty of time to make it before they close at 6:00 p.m.  He got there.  No ginger ale.  In fact, when he asked, they looked at him like he'd just sprouted a horn in the middle of his forehead.  Guess there's not much call for ginger ale here.  So, he headed on down the road, not to the next store at Mt. View (their prices are extortion) but the next, J. Hara .  Again, he couldn't find it, so he asked.   "Just a second," said the clerk, who disappeared behind the beverage storage door for a moment.  A different clerk appeared.  "I can help you," she said.  "Right over here." She proceeds to lead him to the freezer se

The latest developments in Hoppsy's health are good and not so good.  The good is that she can now negotiate the back lanai stairs by herself to go potty.  She still slips easily on the hardwood and has trouble orienting the feet on her left side, but her mobility has improved.  The not so good is that Friday night she had a massive seizure.  Right.  Not so good at all.  She had two on Saturday night.  So a quick call to the vet on Sunday got us a prescription for Diazepam (aka Valium) which is used to both stop and prevent seizures.  You wouldn't believe the hoops you have to go through to pick up that prescription, it being a controlled substance and all.  Sign in blood, names of nearest kin, physical address... OK, I'm exaggerating a little.  But it's more than picking up a scrip for Advair , I can tell you that. Long term, there are probably better anti-seizure meds out there, but in a pinch, this works well. I'll just give it to her at night, since that'

OK, so you know how I was bragging about the beautiful day in my last blog entry?  Well I'm afraid I must retract that.  It was nice that morning until about 10:00, then it started pouring.  It's been raining ever since.  In fact, it's been since January.  December maybe.  Who knows.  It's been raining forever. I took Hoppsy to an orthopedic dude over in Kona on Wednesday.  Coincidentally, he once worked at the clinic in Englewood, Colo. where Doc the Doctor Dog had his shoulder fixed.  Besides the trauma of a three-hour car ride, she did pretty well.  I was fully prepared for her to undergo what's called a myelogram , a procedure that requires general anesthesia, in which die is injected into the spinal chord, then X- rayed to see where there might be a blockage of neural transmission.  After examining her, however, the vet decided that the procedure would not likely show us anything definitive.  What we really need is a CT scan.  He's trying to get one of t

Great news!  The sun is out, shining like the burning ball of radiation that it is.  Harley, for one, is loving it! Terrible news.  A home highlighting project attempted Friday morning has gone horribly wrong.  I've got this Bozo the Clown meets Bride of Frankenstein thing going on there.  Not good. Hats.  Now that's an invention I can get behind.  Where do I send my money?  My poor little Hoppsy is struggling these days.  She's had shaky back legs for months.  Years even.  They've never bothered her.  Vet couldn't find anything wrong.  Now, her back legs are stiff when she walks.  Worse is what's happened in the past few days to her front legs.  About a month ago, she developed a stutter step.  We thought she was doing this to adjust to the weird gait of her back legs.  Now, however, her front left paw is dragging slightly on the ground and occasionally knuckling over, tripping her.  This just started.  We were at the vet last Wednesday hoping for a definitive

King Kameha was looking particularly regal today, don't you think? I saw a great bumper sticker out and about this morning.  It said, "Don't believe everything you think." Something to ponder, eh? Hoppsy and I returned to the vet for some X-rays and hope for some definitive answers to why she is walking so oddly.  Her gait is all out 'o wack .  It's as though her back legs have only one slow, stiff speed and her front legs must stutter to maintain the pace.  It also seems that her hips or lower back are sore, since she now hates when I try to feel anything back there or massage her.  X-rays were, unfortunately, inconclusive.  She has an arthritic spur on one of her vertebrae which could be the cause, but only slight signs of any arthritis anywhere else.  So, we're trying some prednisone (yuck!) for a few days to see if she responds.  It's a powerful drug, not to be taken lightly with nasty side effects if taken long term.  I took it for four days to

Yesterday at the winery, I made the mistake of telling a woman how cute her granddaughter was, how adorably precocious, what a great kid.  The youngster was a delight.  She and I enjoyed talking about Hanna Montana and singing B-I-N-G-O.  The grandmother was understandably proud, but once the topic of the youngster was exhausted, she launched into her own diatribe.  Now I'll admit she was a very nice lady.  But the moment I opened the door to conversation, she burst through it like a levy break, her life story gushing forth, a torrent unleashed.  She relived a tragic injury of years ago, elaborated on the gory details of a long and painful recovery, told me how her children coped, enunciated specifics about each and every family member, how often she visits them and for exactly how long, the divorce, she's a writer(isn't everybody?), loves where she lives, doesn't need much money but has all she needs to visit her children and grandchildren whenever she wants, yada yada

Sometimes, after doing so many tastings and answering so many good, bad and stupid questions from tourists, I blurt.  Stuff just comes out, like a burst of hot steam from Old Faithful.  Yesterday, a man was looking at our cigars.  We sell Kauai Cigars.  It was a wet, gloomy day, as has been the case most of the last three months, with emphasis on the wet.  So he asked, "How do you keep them humid?" I couldn't help myself.  I replied, "You're kidding, right? It's like 80-100 percent humidity here all the time." It sounded glib and maybe even a little condescending. I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it.  His wife laughed.  He did not. Instead, he looked at me like I'd just stepped on his toe.  He cleared his throat. "How do you keep them the proper 70 percent humidity?" he rephrased.  Now he was the one condescending.  I mumbled something about selling them so fast we don't have to worry about that, they're fresh and probab