It’s the Legislature’s opening day at the State Capitol. Guests have been instructed to be seated by 9:30 a.m., and it takes off from there. By noon, halls will be crowded with visitors looking for lunch and a bit of glad-handing. I’ll be taking pictures of visitors to Rep. Berg’s office on the 3rd floor and taking advantage of the opportunity to meet & greet friends who wander past.

No, that’s not a new homeless camp downstairs in the rotunda, nor is it the home of a restored Hawaiian kingdom. It’s a structure built to protect the central mosaic by Tadashi Sato while it undergoes a half-million dollar restoration. Custom Smalti Byzantine glass tiles have been manufactured by a company in Munich and shipped to Hawaii.

According to the request for exemption from normal bidding: “Two previous installations utilizing the Low Bid procurement system were below the easthetic expectations of the SFCA (State Foundation on Culture and the Arts) and have failed due to poor materials and workmanship.”

The $427,000 project was originally scheduled for completion by the end of 2008, a deadline that has obviously come and gone.

Here’s a link for the day–morphing through pictures of all the US presidents from Washington to Obama.

I stopped by to visit my dad late yesterday afternoon. When I got there, he was dress and in a wheelchair near the elevator, and he was sure that he was supposed to be getting home.

He told me that he would be catching heck if he wasn’t home for dinner by 6 p.m., when my mother would always have dinner ready. I explained that he couldn’t go home, and he seemed surprised to learn that he had spent a couple of weeks in the hospital before landing in this nursing facility. He bemoaned the lack of a bank account, car, or even a bicycle.

He finally accepted that he wouldn’t be getting a ride with me back to the house in Kahala. “Tell Helen I’ll be sleeping in town tonight,” he said.

When I asked where he would be staying, he quickly said that he had several places available. He used to sleep on his boat now and then, for example. I followed up by asking where he had been sleeping recently. He looked at me as he thought about that question. And thought. And thought. Finally he had to admit that he came up blank.

When I finally turned his wheelchair around and headed back, he eventually recognized the hall and the room where, he said, “I’ve got a bunk.”

On Sunday night he had someone dial the phone and he called my mom. He told her that he was in Waikiki and needed me to give him a ride home. I hope he wasn’t waiting by the elevator for two days, although I suppose that in his mind that’s possible.

He’s getting better physically and also now recognizes that he’s not being allowed to leave this facility on his own. It makes the situation more difficult for all of us. One more step on the path of aging in America.