I didn’t see this coming

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My parents both lived well into their 90s. Both died closer to 100 than to 90.

My dad didn’t retire and transfer his small restaurat supply business to a longtime employee until the end of 1998, weeks after his 85th birthday. He took overnight fishing trips on his 28′ fiberglass fishing boat that had once belonged to Duke Kahanamoku for most of another decade, enabled by a younger crew that handled the boat while my dad went along for the ride.

I used assume that the combination of their excellent genes provided a layer of protection that mere mortals didn’t have, which meant that I would be likely to follow them into a similarly long life.

Silly me.

I should have known this was a far too simplistic view of how our bodies work!

I’m still 16-months short of my 80th birthday, and six years short of my dad’s retirement age.

And now I find myself skating on the thin edge of mortality with a potentially (but not necessarily) life-threatening malady that I’m trying to beat by seeking out top-notch cutting-edge medical treatment in San Francisco. I’ve become a medical commuter.

I’m rolling with it, and right now feel better than any time in the past 6-weeks.

Back on March 16, I announced that I would be taking a “leave of absence” for medical reasons. That has proven more difficult than I thought. Although I’ve tried to press concerns about current events into my mental background, I’ve still found plenty of things to share that might otherwise appear prosaic, but now feel very special–sunrise on a rainy day, the sparkle of sunlight in a cats eye, bits of Hawaii memorabilia found in my files, ginger blossoms along our driveway, stories worth sharing from times past. Small pieces of life as it moves along.

I do appreciate all your positive vibes, and am maintaining an optomistic attitude as we move forward a step at a time.

Saturday at dawn

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Today has offered a respite from the past several days of rain.

We walked down to the beach park to watch the sunrise. Didn’t see the sun. And we didn’t run into any of our regular dogs.

Here’s my favorite image of the morning.

Did I mention Kiko is a drooler?

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Let me tell you a bit about Kiko.

She’s the cat we rescued from alongside the Kahala Hotel in September 2024 when she was about 5 months old.

We learned right away that she is, as we were once warned about Kinikini, “a bit of a biter.” These are meant as “love bites,” I think, but human skin is thinner and more vulnerable to bites than that of the average cat.

One of her favorite things is to just somehow teleport herself into my lap while I’m sitting at our dining table with my 15″ MacBook Air open in front of me. Usually she begins by registering her appearance with a quick run across the keyboard, or sometimes a slow walk resulting in a window closed or a computer user logged out. But then she’ll run off and I assume she’s gone until I realize I’m unconsiously stroking Kiko as she sprawls out across my lap, her head always pointing to the right.

And here’s where I discovered Kiko’s other trait. She is a drooler. When she’s happy, she drools! Not a few little drops, mind you. She is a prodigious drooler as long as the lap is available and the petting continues.

I finally documented the scene earlier this week.

First photo: I realize that Kiko has quietly arrived and taken up her position on my lap. She’s wide awake in this photo.

Middle photo: Here’s Kiko in a more traditional view. I stopped the petting momentarily to get a few photos, but when the petting started again, Kiko relaxed and melted.

Bottom photo: I mentioned she is a drooler, and this picture shows the extent of her drooling during a typical session. Well, I admit this may be a bit more than average.

She doesn’t do this to Meda. It’s reserved for my lap and only when I’m sitting at the table concentrating on the computer, while stroking the cat is sort of on autopilot.

Here comes a damp Feline Friday!

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It’s been an interesting 24-36 hours.

The weather forecasts have been grim. Rain and flooding is imminent.

But much of this storm passed north of the island of Oahu, hitting Kauai directly, while another part of it passed to the south, hitting parts of Maui. We’re hoping for continued good luck today, and are keeping in mind that parts of the island were already drenched and primed for additional flooding with the smallest excuse.

And this was not a good week for cat photos. The weather was damp and gray, and far less light than normal found its way inside our house. That’s a great photo inhibitor! No interesting light, no interesting cat pics.

But I did my best, waited for opportunities, and took ’em.

Note that Kinikini is posing in one photo with a paperback book, “North of Foothill.” It’s the recently released mystery by Orlando “Dan” Davidson, who some might remember as director of the State Land Use Commission, and before that executive director of the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation. This is his second book which just made its official debut last month. Available from Amazon and other booksellers.

As I was posting the photos, I realized that this is my sister’s birthday. Bonnie (Lind) Stephens was born on this date in 1943. I came along four years later, and in my first few years she spent a lot of time babysitting me. At least that’s what the old photos show. But later, those four years between us appeared as a huge gulf. She entered the University of Colorado in Boulder in 1961 as I was just starting high school. She didn’t return for nearly 50 years except for brief visits.

Unfortunately, she died a decade ago, in October 2016.

Our present cohort of cats never met Bonnie, who was a cat person in her own way.

Feline Friday: April 10, 2026