"Sorry for the Excitement"

"Sorry for the excitement." That is what the lady who lives mauka (uphill) of us said as a greeting to me, then to Dad.

Their dog had chased one of their piglets under our house. One of the boys crawled under, and chased their piglet out. Their dog chased their piglet back under the house. The boy chased their piglet back out. Then their dog chased their piglet under the makai (seaward) neighbor's large bush/small tree. The dog kept trying to chase the piglet as the woman tried to catch the piglet. The boy came out, and tried to hold the dog. The boy didn't succeed, nor did the dog, but the woman did manage to grab the piglet after a few tries. The piglet squealed VERY LOUDLY! It stopped after a bit... I guess it didn't mind being held; it just didn't like being picked up. When the woman was sure she had a good grip, she started back mauka to return the piglet. She muttered about getting rid of the pig.

Actually, I kind of hope she does. That pig a rather spoiled pet, and a very large one. She was a nuisance even before she had piglets. (We think a wild boar from the swamp across the street is the father; certainly the humans didn't arrange to have piglets. Or puppies. Or kittens. Their pig, dog, and cats made the arrangements all by themselves this year. All of them. {Amused Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Computer Update {Smile}

I'm relieved to report that my new computer is officially handling email a lot better now. Kind of. Mostly. As in not perfectly, but I can live with this. {Relieved Smile}

I had taken the computer into the shop because it wouldn't delete old mail on the server, and I considered the ISP tech's recommendation that I do that myself unsatisfactory. The Computer Store kept it for a week and a half, then sent it home. Norman warned me that a Microsoft tech he'd talked to a few months before had said that deleting email was a "known issue," meaning they knew there was a problem, and they hadn't fixed it yet. So Norman fiddled with the settings. I'd had it set to delete email if I deleted it on my computer (spam), or if it was over a certain age. Suspecting the problem might be an "and" where an "or" was really wanted, he told it to stop deleting email because I'd deleted it as spam. Last weekend, the quantity of old email went way down at my provider's. I think a particularly large chunk of email suddenly got old enough to delete.

{sigh of relief} So it's working. Mostly. I still have to go in and delete the spam if I want to get rid of it quickly. However, my computer is deleting old-enough email on its own. I can live with this. {Sigh of Relief, worn but relieved smile}

So this week I've been getting back into the blogs I like to read, and trying to catch up with them. I’m also thinking about what else I want to get back into. I had been sticking almost purely to Facebook games because I feel better about dropping them without warning if my computer has to go into the shop. Since it shouldn't now, I can use my computer to communicate with friends and family members the way I like to, including making posts and commenting on others' posts here. {Relieved SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

The tsunami

There are advantages to living at 800 feet elevation. When most tsunamis hit, we're well out of the inundation zone. That includes all earthquake-generated tsunamis, like the one from Japan. My town of Hilo got five-foot waves. so the damage should be limited to coastal areas. Hopefully, we'll even be able to get groceries later today, since we're running low on milk. I figure if that's our biggest concern, we're very blessed indeed today. {SMILE}

Although there is one other problem. My computer is in the shop, so I don't have access to my current friends-and-family email lists. I have a backup, but Dad's computer can't read the disk. I'll have to figure out something.... {rueful smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

My birthday

On Tuesday, we celebrated my birthday. I meant to tell about it earlier, but somehow it's Friday already. {apologetic smile}

My birthday was very nice, in a quiet sort of way. I like quiet celebrations, so that's good. {Smile}

Breakfast was French Toast with Portuguese sweet bread. Portuguese sweet bread really is bread that tastes sweet, unlike the other "sweet bread" which is no such thing. {Smile}

I opened presents before dinner, with my parents popping in and out to see what I got and get other things done, too. It was their choice. {Smile}

Dinner was chicken piccatta. In our house, that's also called "chicken katsu with caper sauce." You could also replace the veal in vienner schnitzel with chicken, and add a caper sauce. Elsewhere, bread the chicken, fry it, add a caper sauce, and translate. {Smile}

Dessert was chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Of course. I love chocolate too much not to choose that! {REALLY BIG GRIN, wink}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Mattress update

First, if I sound tired, I've come down with a cold. That's not the only reason for me to be tired, but it makes everything worse. {lop-sided smile}

{bite lips}

Okay, the mattress arrived early Wednesday afternoon, just as I'd hoped. Once it was on my bed, we quickly realized we had a problem that hadn't even occurred to me in the store.

My bed is a raised mate's bed, with several drawers underneath. The slats that my old mattress rested on are a little higher than most chair seats, tho not as high as a kitchen stool. The old mattress was probably 8 inches thick, so it was noticeably high, but not a problem to get on and off. {bite lips}

On Wednesday we put a two inch bed board on top of the slats, because the new mattress is foam, and foam mattresses aren't supposed to rest on slats like the old innerspring mattress did. Then we put the mattress on top of that, adding another foot. (Yes, my new mattress is fully a foot thick. As Dad says, it shouldn't bottom out on me.)

Now I am just under 5 feet, 2 inches high. The bed, bed board, and mattress came to about an inch below my waist. With my severe permanent vertigo/ terrible sense of balance, I have trouble with stairs, so I can't just use a step stool. I had to climb onto it from the floor. I found I could do this. I did so twice that afternoon, and four more times that night. I also managed to strain my back somewhere in there, almost certainly while climbing onto the mattress. {wry smile}

So... crisis. Dad came up with a plan even before I strained my back. He went to the hardware store Thursday, and bought some one by twelves. I took the mattress off, and helped Dad remove the bed board. Then he took out the slats, and put in the one by twelves, making a solid layer. He ended up adding a couple of the slats, because they filled the excess so neatly. I am very relieved that he did this in one day. I suspect he'd normally take two days to do a project this big, but he knew I needed a bed to sleep on that I could get onto. {smile}

Now we didn't need the bed board. All three of us put the mattress back, directly on the new platform. It is now on the high side of hip height to me. It's still not easy to climb onto, but it's no where near as hard as before. I didn't bother to count how many times I got on and off it last night, and I didn't strain my back again, or this morning, when I attempted to nap. (The cold messed up the nap, not the mattress.) {smile}

{bite lips} It's still not good, but it's doable for now. Dad has another idea for the future, involving building a small ramp to give me a little more height without stairs. But he doesn't have to do it today; he just has to do it before my balance goes out. I think I'll need that ramp most when I'm on two canes. Since my balance is relatively good, I can manage until he gets around to it. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin