Hysteria: Not just Def Leppard

Let’s put things into perceptive. Swine flu hysteria sweeps into our living rooms via the evening news or 24 hour news, which ever you can stomach. Now the crazy VP says he wouldn’t let his family fly or ride a subway! Give me a break. The Hysteria!

Hawaii has yet to have a one case. However, we have been warned for the past several months about contracting angiostrongylus, or rat lung worm.

Swine Flu? Please. Got nothing on Rat Lung Worm. I know pigs can be vicious animals – remember the concern when little Judy Garland fell into the pig sty in the Wizard of Oz? You thought the farm hands were alarmed over her soiled dress? Nah, pigs will eat anything.

Here on the Big Island, we are warned to wash produce thoroughly to help prevent exposure to rat lung worm. The state Department of Health identified six probable cases of illness caused by angiostrongylus last year. Two resulted in comas. All individuals were Big Island residents and regularly ate fresh raw vegetables from backyard gardens. A good reason to close down the Obama garden behind the Whitehouse? After all, country’s are now banning pork products from the US and now Joe Biden says “Whoa” to public transport. Hey what about being green?

A little information about rat lung worm. The parasite angiostrongylus cantonensis causes a form of meningitis called eosinophilic meningitis, or angiostrongylus. The condition is also referred to as rat lung worm because rats are part of the parasite's life cycle. The parasite is found in snails, slugs, freshwater prawns, crabs, fish and possibly the flatworm in Hawaii.

Signs of rat lung worm can include severe headaches, nausea, vomiting, neck stiffness and other problems related to the brain and spinal cord. Most patients recover from the infection without treatment. Except the two in comas.

Protective action: Eating uncooked snails, slugs, freshwater prawns and fish can cause the rare infection, leading to serious illness. The Department of Health warns freshwater prawns, crabs or fish and mollusks such as snails should be cooked thoroughly before eating. Sufficient heat, boiling 3 to 5 minutes, kills parasites.Thoroughly wash fresh vegetables and fruit before consuming and visually inspect to be sure the produce is free of slugs and snails. Controlling rodents, snails and slugs around homes will also decrease the risk of exposure.

Most Hawaiians have snails in their backyards. Rats too. These pests more common than pigs, although there are many who host swine in their yards. Daily, I pluck slime balls out of the earth and discarded them in the trash. I don’t touch them, and wash my hands afterwards. I don’t seriously consider eating them. I remember Paris, ah Paris.

What warrants hysteria? Look at these numbers: Do the math.

US population: 300,000,000. Contracted Swine Flu: 100. Deaths: 1 (not from US).
Hawaii Big Island population: 150,000. Contracted Rat Lung Worm: 6. Deaths 0, but two in comas. (2006)

I’m just saying…

Oh, I get hysterical, hysteria

Oh can you feel it, do you believe it?

It's such a magical mysteria

When you get that feelin', better start believin'

'Cos it's a miracle, oh say you will

Def Leppard

The Bear

Golden brown. Short curly hair and a sweater embroidered with a pink ribbon. The ribbon, the symbol in the fight against cancer, specifically breast cancer. This was the bear I pulled from the box my father sent me. A bear on a mission.

On April 19th the Trinity United Methodist Church in Gansevoort, passed the little bear around the congregation. From my mother’s collection atop her bookshelf, my father had taken the bear and asked the members to pray for Gail Barley, the wife of Bill, pastor of Living Stones Church in Kona. They filled the bear with prayers. Gail battles cancer and is being treated in Honolulu. This is the second bout.

Since the inception of the monthly Prayer and Healing services, Living Stones has experienced the power of faith in the Lord. People with aches and pains have been healed. Those who were deaf can now hear. Those who were lame can now walk.

On Sunday Tammy testified that she prayed with a woman she met in the parking lot near her workplace. The woman’s young niece had a tumor and was scheduled for evaluation and surgery the next day. It looked grim and the woman struggled to check her emotion. The Lord told Tammy that she needed to pray for the woman’s niece, not later than evening when she gathered the day in reflection, but now. Awkwardly, she asked the woman if she minded that they prayed. Honestly, what do you say, unless you are a total bonehead?

With the woman’s permission Tammy laid her hands on her and began to pray. Right in the parking lot, in the broad sunshine of Hawaii! Long story short, the woman looked for Tammy the next day. During the evaluation the tumor could not be found, surgery was cancelled and the girl went home. When did all this take place? The moment they prayed.

Richard a member in my community group has also experienced the healing powers of our Lord in many ways. Not long ago his hair hung down to his shoulder blades. Addicted to pain killers, he lived an injured life as an alcoholic and a smoker. Screws like Frankenstein's protruded from his neck. It was fused together after a piece of furniture fell on his head. In March, he asked the Lord for healing and through His Power the miracles happened. Now, this man sits next to me at our meetings. He turns his head to me when he speaks. No pain. I see a buzz cut and a clean shaven believer, who basks in the glow of the Lord instead of the glint of a empty bottle. No one can explain where the screws went. They just are not there any more.

Be transformed!

I have experienced miracles in my life. Shamefully, I rarely acknowledge my father as one. It is easier to chalk it up to modern day medicine than the intervention of God. But then I recall the evening I got the news that the cancer had not spread to his bones. I put that in the miracle column. But could He not have easily erased the cancer there, like hitting the backspace key on a keyboard and wiping out a whole sentence? Then there is the miracle of my brother’s eyes and the miracle of my broken heart. So I have no reason to believe otherwise.

I gave the bear to Bill last Saturday and like all other members of Living Stones continue to pray for Gail.

We don’t know the Lord’s will. We wait upon the Lord.

These testimonies are shared on the Living Stones website. Click on the names in the text.

Earth Day Contribution

Big article in the paper about the rising sea levels. I can’t wait. By most calculations my condo will sit ocean side in 100 years. Talk about an investment! I can heard the roar of the waves right now.

Another article offered suggestions on being more environmentally friendly. One should reuse before recycle.

The other day my pen went through the wash. After I emptied the washer and noticed the pen, I gasped. I looked at the wet clothes. There weren’t any blue stains. How I dodged that bullet I don’t know, but all the ink that leaked out of the cartridge stayed in the barrel.

I loved that pen, a Pilot EasyTouch, medium point. Smooth flow of ink. A tip that didn't catch on page and for me, a lefty, the ink dispensed with minimum excess so I didn't end up with the side of my hand smeared in blue. Well, not so such anyway.

I was happy not to be facing a laundry disaster but bummed about my pen. I dropped it into the bathroom trash can.

I cruised into town on my bike (my contribution to fighting the made-man global warming myth) to buy a new pen. Once in the store, I decided to buy refills, figuring I’d retrieve the pen from the trash, clean up the blue deposits on the inside and I’d have my favorite pen back. I won’t lie, this had nothing to do with icebergs melting, penguins dying, the planet exploding, or running out of lumber to make elementary school chair. (Honest to God, I use to worry about that when I was a little kid.) Instead, it was economics. A new pen cost $1.49. Two refills, the same.

Can’t recall ever buying refills. I wouldn’t recommend it unless the original cartridge was actually emptied from usage, not by some mysterious force that occurred in the bottom of the washing machine. The cartridge was empty, but the barrel was full of ink ready to stain my fingers, the sink, and anything within ten yard that wasn’t blue or should be blue. Since I had a meeting to attend that evening I was sure I had blue all over my face. Once ready to assemble and insert the new cartridge, I couldn't find the spring. I carefully picked my way through piles of now stained trash. Found it at the bottom of the mess.

Used half a roll of paper towels(trees that could have gone toward the school chairs)that are on the way to the land fill. Soap, water? Yeah, lots of that too. Go Green!

Another Friday

I swear I don’t know where the days are going, especially now. I am under thirty days left on island. How many more swims, predawn run and church services do I have left? Maybe only one more sunset. It has been pretty hazy for the past couple of months.

Went out to the mailbox to see if the IRS had sent their form for my extension to pay. I needed the extra days to liquidate my assets. Penalties and interest will cost an extra $800, but heck when you owe $51,000, this is chump change. Even though they want their moola ASAP, they seem to have failed to timely send me the forms. (Come to think of it, $800 could buy 37 inches of High Def TV. Oh well)

But the surprisingly nice thing I found in my stark metal box was a card from my sister. The scene captured an afternoon sun spilling long shadows across a snow covered country lane. The beauty of the moment, without the cold, without the dreaded thought of months to go before winter relents to spring.

And winter seems reluctant to move out of the North Country. One teasingly warm day followed by one of spitting snow as if winter angered by pregnant buds, longer days and the sound the peepers in the lowlands, runs through the mountain forest and howls.

Here in Kona we have been sitting in a pattern of high seventies, clear mornings, hazy afternoons. Reminds me of San Diego, expect I don’t have to jump over sleeping bums on the street when I go out for my run.

Tax Tea Party in Kailua Kona

Right Wing Extremist

I went to the Tax Day TEA Party revolt gathering on Kailua-Kona. Cool, I thought. People protesting tax increases, out of control spending, wasteful government use of my tax dollars.I jumped on my bike and trucked up the hill. At least it will be across the street from Borders. I can scoot in there and cool down and get an iced-mocha raspberry something or other. Like a cup of tea!

I even took my video camera so I could upload it to the TEA Party website. Yeah, finally people in this are seeing the light. Everyone must have been sitting at home waiting for their fat income tax return checks, ‘cause there wasn’t a soul on the corner except the construction guys were tearing up the street again.

However, back in Massachusetts, site of the first American tea party, a few looses oolongs from the family protested away. Notice the one in red. And she thinks I embarrass her! Brew away sis.

A Need For Tea

Here's a great system. It is called legal extortion. It works like this. 72% of taxes paid are paid by 10% of the people.Ain’t that great?It gets better. In this country everyone over 18 votes.What do they vote on? What 10% of the people will pay. Don't worry.

The O man is now going to undertake the oppressive tax system.

World by Design

I found out that my church has been passing around my book. A couple of years ago I gave the book to the realtor/agent who rented to me the condo where I wrote The Last Voyage of the Cosmic Muffin. In turn, she gave the book to Sue. Sue goes to Livingstones Church, which gets a rather large mention in the book. She liked what she read and shared it with other people at the church. And here I’ve assumed I had been attending incognito-like.

Tonight, I joined a community group hosted by Sue and her husband. She put two and two together. “You're the one. I read your book. I cried at the end.”

She had been praying that one day she would have the opportunity to meet me. Wow, drawn here because someone had been praying for me to be here. That was weird. Well, at least she didn’t quit her job and decide to travel around the world like one of my sister’s friends did after she read it.

The Search

The drone of the helicopter's rotors thumped against the pigeon-wing-gray sky. It traced the place where blue water snarled at black rock. In short paces, it headed north, then turned south like a caged tiger, bored, it endlessly pads its confines looking for something lost.

He came from California and on Saturday morning he entered the water, spear gun in hand. There had been talk of an evening barbeque in the pits of the Kona Makai Condominiums. A few cold beers, fresh fish grilled to a flakey white perfection and a Hawaiian sunset. We’ll call the guys back home.

It rained off and on all morning. But the waters on the Kona Coast were warmer than what he left back home. And clearer too. In the choppy surf he bobbed along the surface looking for fish. The yellowtails were there, but they were not for dinner. A few parrotfish eyed him as he towed the buoyed gear – a netted bag on a twenty foot leash. He thought he was flying. The element so familiar – water, air and lava rock.

There below him in a deceiving depth fish swam. Spear gun ready. Ten feet? Or maybe it was more. It was farther than he thought. Deeper than he wanted to go. The fish cautiously watched his descent, and slowly kept the distance.

Making no progress toward his prey, the hunter stopped. Through his mask he watched the fish disappear. Confusion leaked into his consciousness and hit him as hard as the surf breaks on the black rocks above. Suddenly his lungs burned for the familiar element. His brained rebelled against better judgment as it instinctively reached out to survive. It demanded that he breathe. He looked to what he thought was up, but could find nothing familiar. The mask must be leaking. Starved for oxygen, he reasoned he needed to remove it.

It was the gear they found floating a mile from where the chopper circled two days ago. The chopper’s sweeps continue but now further to the horizon. The thumping fades, less intrusive as it searches for the body of a man from California. He was forty-nine.

Kona Makai on Dwellable

Shot of the Day

Grey Francolin (Francolinus pondicerianus)

I was in the kitchen when I heard what sounded like a puppy yipping in the parking lot. No dogs allowed in the complex so the curious noise got me to turn the fire down under the black beans (yeah, I do miss this cuisine of Tampa and Tarpon Springs, Florida) and check out the yips.

This fat bird was what I found. Looked like a quail and thought I better look for Dick Cheney.

I snuck back inside to get the camera. I changed to the zoom lens. The male had it in for his reflection hiding out in the hubcap.

I had no idea what kind of bird I had here. More internet searching, but I knew where to look after researching the juvenile cardinal the other day.

I thought the photo is much better than the one posted on the site.

Twitter

Do you get it? Or do you really have a life?

Willingness

The other day I was sitting on the lanai trying to figure out an eleven-lettered word for the clue “Volunteer State?” Those question marks always throw me a curve. As I pondered the puzzle I watched a little bird come bouncing across the patio. Each bounce emitted a peep. Peep. Bounce. Peep. Bounce.

Once she (I concluded such because of the dull plumage, but I later learned this was an immature yellow billed cardinal confined to the Kona Coast) reached the lanai she kept right on track without any hesitation. She hopped right past me and jumped into the condo.

I waited.

Once inside I couldn’t see her. Moving would scare her. I didn’t want a frightened bird flying about, smashing into windows, pictures and mirrors. So I sat quietly.

There were fresh biscuits on the counter in the kitchen. After a little while I imagined two things. She perched on the rim of the plate to enjoy the batch or she continued to jump across the floor or worse my Tibetan rug. I doubted my little bird was housebroken.

I waited.

After a few minutes she floated out to the lanai and landed on my bike. No tell tale signs of biscuit crumbs stuck to her beak. She peeped a few more times. And flew to the neighbor’s tree. Then she took off across the street and into a tall tree down the way.

Gone.

I thought about the disconnect. Sitting in a tree singing a wild song was a bird that moments ago brazenly waltzed into a condo. Who would know this? Just me.

Photolog

Hee-hee. They really are logs.

Pay up, Chump!

Between early morning runs, mid-afternoon swims under a hazy Kona sun and sitting surfside with a sweatshirt on to watch the sunset fizzle out, I’ve been working a plan. I’ve developed this plan of attack after receiving the wonderful news about my 2008 tax liability.

Yeah, it was expected. Yeah, I knew I owed it. No surprises there. What hit me the hardest was that for the greater part of six months I’ve kept my head buried under my goose down pillow. Each month I ignored those monthly statements concerning my investment portfolio. I had been too chicken to look. Knowing the value crashed is one thing. Seeing it on the bottom line is another matter.

With April 15 lurking around the corner, I could no longer avoid looking, because I had to figure out where I was going to get $51000. No typo there my friends. Couple the loss with the amount I owe I wallowed in self -mposed poverty (in theory) during the last week. Add the recent stories of Tom Daschle and Tim Geithner and I cried to the IRS gods, “Why, why, why, does this have to come out of my pockets?”

“‘Cause, ‘cause, ‘cause. You putz.”

Thus the formulation of a plan. Got to have a plan to move forward. Referring back to my March 26th blog on my budget I have been working a plan. Let's review:

1. Write that damn book and sell it. The writing I can do. The selling, not so much.
2. Get a real job. A dreadful thought.
3. Get serious about doing some financial counseling. Under consideration.
4. Not pay my taxes. Now that could be stimulating!

1. Frustration has spilled out words. One will later determine if they have been worthy of print. I’ve sculptured a solid section to my guidebook. For the first time since I got the crazy idea to write a book about how to go back to church I can a finished product. Part of this new found inspiration came from a journal entry I made over a year ago. I asked, if I don’t believe I could write a book, than who will? So I started thinking, "I can write a book" instead of "I think I can write a book." The shift became positive. Marketable remains a question. Shit. But if I don’t put the words down, there is noting to sell.

2. Get a real job. Still a very dreadful thought, but I considered why it might not be such a bad idea. Health care, cat food and a new car sit in the positive column. On the negative side there are the need for new clothes, living some place else and two weeks of vacation. Sickening.

Forget looking at the nest egg! The nest has been ripped from the branches leaving me clutching a thin twig and staring down at a hard landing. Hard landing unless I do something proactive before I lose my grip. So I have brushed up the resume and found a couple jobs of interest on line. And for kicks I filled out an application with the IRS. Kind of a "can’t beat’em, join’em" mentality.

Meanwhile, my uncle hooked me up with the Census Bureau to be a census taker at $17.00 per hour. I did this in 2000. Not a real job mind you. I was a little late in getting in line, but yesterday I got a call asking if I was still interested. A training class is scheduled on April 15th. (God I hate that day.)

The rep told me the training would take place in Salt Lake.

"You mean, Utah? It's a nice job, but not that nice."

"Oh, no. There is a Salt Lake on Oahu," he explained.

"Interesting. That’s closer, but I’m on the Big Island."

Ah, the draw backs to living in Hawaii. All that water! It’s not like you jump in your car (which I don’t have anyway) and drive someplace. With the Super Ferry now defunct because of a crazy State Supreme Court ruling which put several hundred people out of work last month, the only option of travel between islands is to fly. Cha-ching. (About a week ago some nut tried to swim from the Big Island to Maui. About eleven hours into a projected 30 hour swim, a cookie-cutter shark decided the guy looked worthy of a closer investigation. Took a chomp out of him.) Anyway...I digress. The logistics makes attending the class out of the question.

3. I have yet to get serious about making a go of financial counseling, but I continue to get phone calls or emails asking me how to get out of debt. I patiently dole out advice, get no money and eat up my Verizon minutes. Such a living.

4. Now I'm back to taxes. After making a couple calls to the IRS disguising my voice and telling them my name was Jennifer, and discussing the situation with my CPA, financial counselor, Dad and a company that helps those with tax issues I have concluded I have no tax issues. And still too many assets.

Pay up, chump!

It's Foolish

March sure was a long month.

I love challenges. I took up one, to see how many days I could go without spending any money. That is outside of my purchase of the local newspaper. Forget the news, it is all too depressing. I got to have the daily crossword puzzle and in the paper I get two. A deal like that along with the comics can't be passed up.

I stretched out two periods, one of five days and the other eight. It was during the eight day drought that obviously included a Sunday when I didn’t make an offering. That left me feeling kind of sucky. The next week I rounded up my cash on hand of nine dollars, took out a dollar for the Sunday paper and tossed the remainder in the basket. Didn’t feel quite so bad that Sunday.

On Monday I fished spare change out of the recesses of my backpack. Easy puzzles at the beginning of the week. Can't pass'em up. Friday, I can live without, but the solutions for Thursday are in Friday's paper. The dilemmas life throws in my face are unbelievable.

Putting together the financial damages for last month I concluded I broke even after paying HI property tax. I just pray that nothing breaks. The unexpected expenses. You know. When your back’s against the wall, that is when Murphy decides to move in, bringing his law of "when things can go wrong, things will go wrong." I dodged him last month, but that reminds me. The electrician who did some repairs on the apartments in Knoxville has yet to send a bill.

Anyway, I should be able to catch up on my two bills for the month: medical deductible and stupid property insurance for the Knoxville apartments. I don’t understand why it is so much. I’m not in a flood zone or a bad neighborhood. I got a fire hydrant down the street. There is no recent history of tornadic activities in Knoxville (it is the valley verses plateau thing). Must be those tenants.

The next two weeks will be hell as I scramble to liquidate HUGE funds for the IRS by April 15. Seems I can’t make the deadline, so I’ll have issues. What else is new?

I’m writing! That’s good news.