Hurricane Felicia

Well, Hurricane Felicia seems to be passing Hawai'i by quite nicely. Hilo got hot, muggy weather, with some clouds, but not even much rain. Other parts of the state are seeing some rain, but no more than heavy-normal. Nobody seems to be getting much more than usual in the winds.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Here's three local news sites. Each had too many stories about Felicia to list each story separately. {Smile}

KHNL's news

KHON's news

KITV's news. This one also links to stories from two newspapers. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

A smile and a wince

Dad and I just got to listen to an unusually long "concert" by a Chinese thrush in our Surinam cherry tree. He went on particularly long, maybe because he was competing with another bird further away. {Smile}

I think his concert just about made up for canceling Advanced Dungeons and Dragons tonight because I re-strained my back at church this morning. {rueful smile, Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Caught up?

Maybe I'm caught up with my general blog reading. {cross fingers} At least for now. At least if you don't count the week+ worth of posts added because a former high school classmate just told me where his blog is. {Smile} I'm looking forward to that reading project. It's past time I caught up with what he's been up to. {SMILE}

Now the main trick is staying caught up with the blogs while catching up with not only that one friend, but all my friends on LiveJournal. Plus not falling too far behind on Facebook. Wish me luck. I think I'm going to need it. {SMILE, chuckle, SMILE}

Oh, and also while trying to figure out where I might submit a short story. Yes, I'm finally working up to actually trying to get a little story published, instead of just sharing it with my friends like I do on LiveJournal. {SMILE} I'll need luck with this, too. {BIG SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

No computer virus? {cross fingers hopefully}

Well... I hope I've come thru the computer virus attacks safely. I read all the advice offered, figured out which I could do without messing up, and which sounded reasonable. Fortunately, the stuff I could do mostly sounded like reasonable precautions. The most alarming solutions were beyond my limited computer skills anyway. {Smile}

So I did what I could. This might have closed a couple of loopholes in my computer's anti-virus defenses. {cross fingers hopefully, smile} Even better, the virus warnings quit, and no repeating "new tricks" turned up. I hope those are good signs. {cross fingers} It's certainly how I'd hope a non-infected computer would behave. {Smile}

If things stay calm for a while, I think I'll count this successful. If not, I'll take the computer to the Computer Store and pay them to look it over. They're the locals I know who I trust to really fix my computer's problems, and not just replace current problems with different ones. {lop-sided Smile}

Now to get back to trying to catch up with the blogs and journals I like to follow. {SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Computer Trouble {Sigh, rub hair}

I have had over half a dozen attacks on my computer while web surfing in the past week or two. A little rectangle from Norton Security - my antivirus - pops up in the corner saying my computer has been attacked, or that it has successfully repelled an attack by some virus. At least two viruses were involved, one "trojan.???", and one I forget at the moment. However, "successfully repelled" seems to be premature, since two-three attacks often follow in quick succession. {half-smile}

I have been following advice I vaguely remember hearing on the news: get off the computer for a couple of hours. However, I'm not sure that's the right thing to do. {pause}

What is the right thing to do? I really would like to know. Some of you are distinctly more computer-savvy than I am. {Smile}

Thanks, Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

{raise head}

I'm sorry I disappeared so thoroughly this month. At the beginning of the month, a Facebook-based game a cousin got me into developed a really nasty bullying problem. I was a target.

I didn't take this well. {small smile} Unfortunately, I holed up until I'd fixed what I could, and gotten past it enough to feel better again. {smile}

So here I am, weeks behind on LiveJournal and the blogs I try to keep up with both. I'll try to catch up and keep up again, but I can't make promises, especially at first. {Sigh} I'll just have to try my best, but I do hope I'm back. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

A New Chair

One reason I had trouble catching up last week was that I went shopping for a new reading chair for my room. This may not sound like the biggest deal, but in our house no one can begin furniture shopping until they've proven that they have a place to put what they intend to get. Believe me, the house is crowded enough, this is necessary. So furniture shopping doesn't happen often, and it's a bit of an occasion when it does.
{SMILE}

Mom took me to three stores one afternoon, taking up about half the afternoon. Then Dad took me to four more stores another afternoon, again taking up half the afternoon. The most comfortable but most expensive chair was at Agasa's furniture and music store. However, I also found a cheaper, reasonably comfortable chair at Home Depot, and this one came with an ottoman. I'd been wanting an ottoman to put my feet up on in the living room anyway. We have a sort of pillow-ottoman, but it's getting rather flat, so it isn't very helpful now. {Smile}

So we got the chair and ottoman from Home Depot. They're mostly covered with some flattened fiber - I first thought wicker, but no - woven over an aluminum frame that's painted brown. The cushions are burnt orange. This doesn't match anything, of course, but it doesn't clash with the maroon and beige in my room, or the golden yellow with green in the living room. This is important, since the chair is in my room, while the ottoman is in the living room. No, we could not keep them together. There wasn't that much space in my room. {SMILE}

The chair itself is sitting very happily in front of one of the bookcases in my room. Thanks to the aluminum frame, it's light enough to pick up and move when I want books from the bookcase. That was both a big selling point, and part of why we went to seven different stores before I felt I'd found the right one. It now has a yellow and green cushion from the living room behind the burnt orange cushion it came with. In spite of trying it in the store, when we got it home, I found I had to slouch at least a little to rest my back. This is an occasional problem when I'm 5'2" and not particularly leggy. {half-smile} So I searched around, and found a cushion that is as wide as the chair, and thick enough, I don't have to slouch. It looks a little funny, but it works. {Smile}

The ottoman is in the living room. There was no space for it in my room. Remember I said I had to prove I had a place to put something before I could get another piece of furniture? Well, that was true for the chair. Oddly enough, no one asked where I planned to put the ottoman before we brought it home. Fortunately. I'm not sure Mom and Dad would have approved my plan, even tho it works. I put it by the couch when I want to put my feet up. Then one of us puts it in front of the fireplace when everyone is done with it, because it's less in the way there. {pause} When I say "in front of the fireplace," think of it being on the hearth, with two legs just barely inside the fireplace itself. It looks a little odd, but it fits, and it's out of the way when someone wants to walk around the living room. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Phew!

May I claim to be caught up now? I think I've read everything on Facebook,
on Livejournal, and on the blogs I try to keep up. I've responded to the
initial posts I wanted to, and I've responded to comments and such I
wanted to respond to up thru yesterday. That leaves only today's comments
and several Facebook app requests. I hope that's close enough. I'd really
like to be caught up again. {SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Merrie Monarch Hula Festival

It's that time again. I plan to be glued to the TV tonight, tomorrow night, and Saturday night, watching the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival. As always, this will cut into my computer time. {SMILE}

As usual, if you want to see what I'm so excited about, it's here on the web. They broadcast the three nights of competition on the web as streaming video, so people outside of our state can see it too. They should have Thursday night (Miss Aloha Hula, the young women's solo competition) up on the web from when it starts tonight until Hula Kahiko (old-style hula) starts tomorrow night. Hula Kahiko should be up from when it starts tomorrow night until Hula 'Auana (Modern secular hula) starts Saturday night. Hula 'Auana will be up from when it starts until indefinitely in the future. One year a friend caught it a week or so afterwards, so they don't take that one down quickly. {Smile}

I'll certainly be watching. It's nice to live in-state, where it's also broadcast on TV. {SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Easter food question

Does anyone have any suggestions for a nice Easter dinner? Ours will be a day late, since Dad expects to have more time to cook on Monday than either today or tomorrow. The problem is that we usually have an Easter ham, but with his congestive heart failure, Dad has to avoid salt. His condition is currently under control, but ham is now a flavoring added to eggs and fried rice in relatively small quantities. {resigned smile}

So we're looking into alternatives. Dad's decided that something bready would be nice and festive. I think he's settled on Chelsea buns with cinnamon added. {Smile}

However, it would be nice to pick out something special for the main course, too. Ham is out for the salt. Lamb is out because they only sell it by the leg around here, and Dad would rather not deal with that. Especially since he thinks "lamb" is a euphemism in that the lamb's lambs have probably had lambs before it reached market. {half-smile}

So... any suggestions? {hopeful smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin