About Aunty

Aunty is a new senior citizen and loving this phase of her life. Less responsibilities, less fear of being weird, able to do more of the things that I want to do! Older, yes, slower, yes, but life is even more wonderful in my golden years and I look forward to even goldener ones.

Swap Meet up for Bloggers

Posted on April 16, 2016 by Aunty

Swap meeters with Randy

A long awaited day arrived this morning at the Kam Swap Meet with Art and Kay of Musings and Jalna & sisters of Photos by Jalna.

This was an EARLY morning meeting, which Aunty is NOT good at, but, when the incentive is there, Aunty manages to crawl out of bed with the chiming of an alarm, down her cereal and coffee, gather what needs gathering, and out the door in many minutes flat. Having tattooed eyeliner is a huge time saver (a future post).

NO traffic at 6:50 am from Kaimuki to Pearl City! Zoom zoom zoom! Parking was easy enough if one wasn’t picky, and the Kam Swap Meet is free! That was a pleasant surprise, and well worth the price of admission, snark snark! Money saved in order to buy more stuff.

Jalna and her sisters are swap meet regulars and know EVERYone. We all stopped by Randy’s Knick Knacks in stall 17. He seemed to be everybody’s favorite vendor with a simple roll up mat and little plastic bagged treasures for $1.

Aunty found a few glass dishes and bought 7 yards each of great upholstery material at $1.50 per yard! Holy moly, for $21, Aunty got 14 yards of fabric. Just a week earlier at Fabric Mart, 5 yards costed Aunty almost $50, and the swap meet find was just as nice or better! It was heavy carrying it around, which made a drop off trip to the car a must.

: Fabric score!

: Book cover

: Inside book

Aunty also scored a very old French book “Un Sejour a Hawai” published in 1881 for $2. Another vendor had what looked like a wonderful original watercolor of a plumeria lei, but upon closer look (Aunty put on her glasses), this was a reprint and so Aunty saved some money. A really cute Louis Vuitton bucket purse also escaped from Aunty because the vendor had left by the time Aunty was on her second pass around. Aunty saved money.

Actually, what Aunty did spend money on was food. Filipino food that called out and tantalized Aunty. So she bought pork lechon, cut up and packaged with a tasty sauce for $12.50 (very yummy), pancit – Filipino stir fried noodles that are good with kalamansi limes (though Aunty prefers it with vinegar), and pinakbet – vegetable stir fry with shrimp or fish (but this one didn’t have shrimp or fish). Banana lumpia would have made it complete but by this time, Aunty was hot, tired, and wanted to go home with her goodies.

It was a potentially dangerous day at the Kam Swap Meet. The lure of things that Aunty did not need and the anticipated promise of so much more temptations – all at prices too good to pass on.

It was great to see Jalna and her sisters, and Kay and Art, each of us finding our own little interests in various vendors, then meeting up at the end of each row before exploring the next. Sweet Didi gave Aunty her own special salt mixture concoction – which will be used on the next perfect steak. Jalna gave some of the special fresh Waimana eggs that she swears by.

This fun day will be haunting. What treasures can be found there next week, or the week after? The only way to know, is to be there.

A perfect steak

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Aunty

plated Once in a while, Aunty loves a great steak. One that is a little bit crusty outside yet soft and slightly juicy inside.

Most of the time, we would cook them outside on a hibachi grill after salting and seasoning with Canadian Steak seasoning (from Costco). It would almost always be great, but it was a bit of a hassle making the fire and getting the charcoals just right hot. This also took quite a long time and if the sun went down before the meat was cooked, it became hard to see out in the yard, and then hard to determine if it was cooked enough, or not.

Sometimes we would pan fry them with the seasoned cast iron pan – smashed cloves of garlic in the heated oil, then cook one side on high heat for a few minutes, turn it onto the other side and wait for the meat to get cooked to medium done with some Hawaiian salt and the Canadian Steak seasoning sprinkled on as it sat in the pan. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it wasn’t so good. It was always very very greasy and rather messy, though also very tasty and filling.

Then, one day a recipe for cooking a perfect steak without a grill came into Aunty’s inbox. This was from Craig Ballantyne, an ultra healthy workout guru that communicates with his EarlyToRise.com website and emails.

One must start off with quality beef – organic is better but Aunty bought hers at Costco, the rib steaks that are about 1″ thick.

Ingredients are:

butter
salt
a cast-iron skillet or regular pan that can be heated on high heat
glass cookware for the oven

Preheat your oven to 450º. Get the skillet as hot as possible on your stovetop. Apply butter to both sides of the steak (not too much, just a very thin layer like buttering toast).

When the skillet is very very hot (can’t hold your hand over it for more than 5 seconds), place the steak in the pan. Cook for 3-4 minutes per side. Put steak in the glass cookware, add a little dab of butter on each steak and sprinkle some sea salt on surface.

Cook in the 450º oven for 7 to 10 minutes. (Don’t forget the salt!). 7 minutes will be a medium rare steak. Aunty cooked for 8 minutes (Aunty likes the number 8) and it was done perfectly medium. Not too greasy, lightly crusty from the butter fry and so soft and juicy inside. A perfect steak, indeed!

It was interesting cooking on the skillet WITHOUT starting with oil in the pan. The butter on the steak contained the fat to the meat, which was quite nice. Clean up was easy, and the glass dish went straight onto the table from the oven, though the stove top gets very greasy with butter. Not sure how to avoid that cleanup…

Kudos to Craig Ballantyne for the recipe! If any of Aunty’s readers have tips for cooking a great steak, please share with us in the comments below, mahalo, and happy eating!!

: lightly butter the steak

: put in super hot pan

: turn once in pan

: after baking for 7 minutes

Update: The first time was a winner because Aunty followed the recipe, exactly. The second time, Aunty forgot to sprinkle sea salt on the steak before putting them in the oven, so they were not as tasty and we had to add salt as we ate. One thought is now to try this recipe with a Himalyan salt slab – having it preheat in the oven and putting the steak directly on the heated salt slab instead of the oven cookware and finishing the process in the oven.

Most recent update: Pal Wandaful let Aunty borrow her salt slab – big heavy thick salt slab! She said to just wipe it down when done – so easy peasy. It took the place of the glass oven dish and salted the meat just right! However, this time the steaks were less than 1″ thick and so they came out a bit too well done for Aunty.

On a big thick Himalayan salt slab, yum!

What is YOUR Calling?

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Aunty

Lani Kwon Aunty went to a HiMa (Hawaii Internet Marketing) meeting this week. Aunty joined a few months ago – not sure why since Aunty is a non-techie, non geekie, non-social media type – but the folks that run it are super nice and they always have pizza and water, and interesting subject matter.

The recent meeting was about finding our life’s purpose. What a big topic – but, what the hey, if anything, there would be pizza, right?

The guest speaker was Lani Kwon, a life coach, mother, speaker, and transformer. After a few minutes of intro, tidbits and pleasant stories, the nitty gritty happened when we started filling out some worksheets.

The first question was, “What would you do if anything were possible?” Sounds simple enough, but take a few minutes and ask that question of yourself. Anything. Nothing holding you back, the sky and beyond, no limits. You have a free pass to life’s candy store.

We were then walked through a series of questions about what holds us back, what keeps us stuck, what we need, visualization, solutions, action planning. The last step of the night was signing a contract with ourselves. A very simple contract. Commitment.

W.H. Murray wrote about commitment in “The Story of Everest”. The moment one defiantly commits oneself, then providence moves too. It is very powerful.

The next step

One’s life purpose(s) can seem very selfish because it is personally fulfilling. However, there is nothing wrong with figuring out what we want and then getting it, unless it is harmful to others.

Perhaps it is time for Aunty to finish up tidying, turn off Korean dramas, put away excuses, and dive in and commit to her life purposes.

Lani Kwon has tickled the tiger (actually, Aunty is a dragon). Awakening the dragon, hmmm. To quote German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

Please sit down and take some time to figure out your life purpose. Please share, if you are willing.

Instead of shoes…

Posted on April 1, 2016 by Aunty

pile of shoes Sometimes Aunty has to brush the dirt off her shoulder, so this will be the beginning of “Auntyisms”.

Aunty cannot understand shoeaholics since her 2 pairs of Crocs are her go-to foot wear. Crocs have the advantage of comfort, style, and long lasting durability. The 3 year old black pair and 1 year old cheetah print pair will last forever and keep Aunty in style, iao (in Aunty’s opinion).

Joe (name change for anonymity), a daughter’s boyfriend, is in town. He is over 6 feet tall with shoes that look like bread loaves and in his first 2 days here, 5 pairs of his shoes are cluttered by the front door. His plan for day 2 was to go shoe shopping.

Come to find out, he has the same fetish as Imelda Marcos – he is a shoeaholic – and he buys about 10 new pairs of shoes every year for his pleasure factor. These are not cheap shoes – they are name brand athletic shoes or good quality shoes that are trendy.

Well, Aunty could not hold back.

“Joe…..”, says Aunty, “what will you have in 10 years if you buy 10 pairs of shoes a year?”

Aunty answered for Joe. “You will have a hundred pairs of used shoes.”

Aunty’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad mentality had kicked into gear, and unwanted advice poured out in the form of a valuable lesson (iao) that the receiver doesn’t really want to learn.

“What would you have if you were to buy a silver or gold coin instead of a pair of shoes?” Again, Aunty answered for Joe. “In 10 years, you will have 100 silver or gold coins.”

The result of this conversation was that the pile of his big shoes disappeared for the rest of his visit and shopping bags were whisked out of sight before this opinionated Aunty would opine.

Imelda Marcos would not have heeded Aunty either, but then, Imelda Marcos could afford all those shoes as well as hoard gold – or so we have been led to suspect after the Marcos regime ended.

Of course, it is easier to preach than it is to practice. It may take time to be able to actually see and believe in the benefits of investing/saving over spending, but slowly, over time, with commitment to one’s future, gold will win out over old shoes, don’tcha think?

When Aunty gets sick…

Posted on March 23, 2016 by Aunty

Aunty and Kay at the tail end of the cold. Notice Aunty wearing a scarf to protect the back of her neck?

It has been years, maybe even decades, since Aunty got sick. This week, Aunty got sick and felt like she was a 100 year old near dead dog.

However, there are actually some good things about getting sick. One of them is having empathy (the ability to feel what others feel) when other people are sick. It feels like the pits. Sore throat, sore body, weak, depressed, listless, headachey, junk.

Another is being able to try what Aunty preaches to her kids when they get sick. These are:

Stay at home! Not just to get better, but also to contain your germs and not spread them.
Don’t eat solids and/or greasy foods. Soups are best. The best of the best is the Hot and Sour soup from Hale Vietnam for fevers/flu in the first day. If done early enough, the fever and flu like symptoms are GONE.
Rub Vicks Vaporub on your chest at night.
Spray Air Detox (from Herbdoc.com) on paper towels and use to wipe your hands before and after touching “community” items such as door knobs, keys, etc. Keep your germs, especially from your hands, to yourself.
Use a cotton neck wrap, like a big handkerchief around your neck, especially keeping the back of your neck protected. Spray it with Air Detox throughout the day.
Drink hot liquids, NO sugar-y or artificial drinks. Aunty started putting kalamunggay leaves in a teapot and adding hot water as her basic daily drink.
Eat ginger – that’s what friend Rayna said to do. It is actually good advice – the li hing dried ginger that isn’t too tough.
Starve a fever, feed a cold? Not sure about that but one concoction that Aunty believes in is maple syrup (or honey), lemon juice (fresh squeezed), and cayenne powder in hot water. This is a delicious hot drink that has everything in it to get through the hard times in place of eating. [note: Herbdoc.com has a Cold and Flu Shot in a shot glass type bottle but Aunty is allergic to alcohol and hasn’t tried it.]
Keep your body, especially your neck and feet warm, but not hot. Aunty’s magic socks are wonderful and comfortable for her feet, and anything will do as a neck wrap to protect the back of our necks from drafts and losing warmth.
Eliminate the toxins. In other words, poop. Aunty’s daily regimen includes Intestinal Formula #1, so regularity is her norm. If you aren’t pooping, you aren’t getting rid of the bad stuff in your body, and you will remain sick longer. Here’s a story that will embarrass one of our daughters, so she will be called Bozu, for anonymity. Bozu got sick and didn’t take care of herself – went out, took meds, got sicker and sicker with a constant fever. Ah! You might think that she needed antibiotics, right? Except her mother doesn’t believe in those because of how it blasts everything, even our immune systems. Meanwhile, she felt lousier and lousier. She kept refusing Aunty’s advice about having an enema even though she was running a fever, hardly pooping and not eating much. Finally, after several days of feeling really sick and missing school, she agreed to an enema. Longs Drugs sells pre-bottled saline water enemas, easy to use by inserting and squeezing. Aunty warmed a bottle up by standing it in hottish/warm water and let Bozu have it.

The trick to enemas is to hold the liquid in for as long as possible, but keep close to the toilet. After a few minutes, Bozu WENT. It was not pretty, but it was super effective. It was as if a toxic dump was cleared out of her. The entire house reeked of a smell that was like over ripe raw daikon (Japanese turnip) for what seemed like days.

She was quite weak after and went to sleep under covers. We did not see her for the rest of the day and night, and when we did, her fever was gone and she felt better. Still weak, but no more fever, and able to eat some chazuke rice (white rice with tea) and ume (picked fermented plum). She was herself in a few more days and mother prided herself on the merits of the glorified enema.

Stay out of air conditioning, if possible. Fresh air is best, sea air on a sunny non windy day is even better.
Rest and take it easy. Watch tv, movies, Korean dramas. Just don’t do much. Your body’s immune system is working overtime to get you well and it doesn’t need additional stress or demands added to its workload. Be a couch potato. Take naps. This time around, Aunty didn’t follow this piece of advice and after feeling a bit better, decided to trim a few trees branches, uproot a couple of papayas and start a patch of kalamunggay trees. This was followed by weeding an irritating spot in the yard. Although it felt good to be doing such useful yardwork at the time, Aunty had a slight relapse later that evening.
One of the worst symptoms of a cold is not being able to breathe easily. Use a neti pot with warm water and Himalayan sea salt or colloidal silver to flush each nostril gently.
Give yourself time to heal. Our bodies are truly miracles that can heal itself. Some people count on their doctors and modern medicine to fix them. If that is what you believe, then go for it.
When you feel that it is the worst that it can be, it probably is. Little by little, you will get better.

Now that Aunty is just about over this dang irritating cold, life is good again. Aunty met with fellow blogger Kay of Musings over at travelerswife.blogspot.com for lunch at To Thai For in Kaimuki. Aunty loves their delicious greasy tasty Thai pork chops but settled for Chicken pad thai instead (avoid greasy foods when sick).

Aunty also wore a scarf around her neck and dressed warmly with long pants (Aunty usually wears a skirt) and magic socks.

It was delightful to finally meet Kay and her cute husband Art in person. Almost like being rewarded for getting over the dang cold that gave Aunty a lesson in life. It forced Aunty to try a neti pot, thus discovering the benefits of it! Next time it will be one of the first things done, with salted water and a few drops of wild oregano oil. It really clears the nasal passages and hastens the healing.

Our bodies CAN heal itself, which is a wondrous and invisible blessing that we don’t always realize until we get sick or hurt. Take care of it, thank it, and please, be well.

Tattooed, POSHd, and pooped

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Aunty

Valerie Joseph and Aunty

Today was a totally full day. Pal Wandaful picked up Aunty and off we went to Ji’s Skincare over in Aiea for our tattooed eyeliner touch ups (will post about that another time), then over to Aiea Bowl for their delicious oxtail soup with amazing homemade ponzu sauce.

We visited Wanda’s handsome sons for some kalamunggay branches (will post about the wonders of the kalamunggay another time), and then headed off to Ward Centre for rubbish cans. Really smart and sharp looking rubbish cans from Bed Bath and Beyond that Aunty learned about from Kay of Musings. The nice salesclerk helped us sign up for text messages so that we received our 20% off coupons right then and there. This will be a big improvement in the kitchen – having a rubbish can that matches the refrigerator and hides the trash with a lid that opens and closes with a foot pedal.

Wanda is very good at helping Aunty spend money, so we checked out POSHd, a newly opened shop of Valerie Joseph next door to Bed Bath and Beyond. At first glance, it looked like it was just for hip young people in the small cute shop with a cheery French atmosphere. The owner, Valerie, greeted us warmly and made us feel welcome and comfortable. A rack of interesting clothes caught our eyes – it almost looked like Issey Miyake (Aunty’s FAVorite designer) but at 1/8th the price and 1/2 the weight. There were at least 3 pieces that Aunty really wanted, but settled on a pair of really funky jockey like pants that were just too delicious to pass on. These were so reasonably priced, looked and felt fabulous on, so Aunty wore them out of the store.

Oooh, said Wanda, let’s check out that olive oil store. Well Aunty is already in an olive oil club that delivers fresh oils every 3 months, but followed her into Island Olive Oil Company. It looked like a brewery with kegs of oils and balsamic vinegar. We sampled several – all were different and quite good. Wanda shared how she would smash some strawberries, pour some of the flavored balsamic vinegar on to soak for an hour, then serve over ice cream. Doesn’t that sound absolutely heavenly? Aunty bought a bottle of the Blackberry Ginger balsamic vinegar. Had to, right?

Oooh, said Wanda, let’s check out Jams World. Almost everything in that store is brightly colored and patterned. Pal Patricia would call it visual overload, and it was, until our newly tattooed eyes settled down and focused on some of the most wonderful bling bling necklaces that had us drooling. Sharon was such a great salesclerk, Aunty ended up buying one that reminded her of Korean drama characters that overdressed with sparkles and glitz as their daily work wear. Wanda bought a pair of Oofos in brown. These are super soft high arched slippers that Aunty had bought with her magic socks at Shirokiya.

Thank goodness the day was almost over and we headed home with a carload of rubbish cans, kalamunggay branches, packages of merchandise (we had also stopped by Nordstrom Rack and TJ Maxx), and leftover oxtail soup. Aunty was so pooped, dinner consisted of Lipton’s chicken noodle soup with cold rice dumped in.

It was a great day, we met so many nice people, and now Aunty’s going to sleep early.

Spam Kim Chee for dinner

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Aunty

Looks like Art and Kay from Travelerswife.blog!

Almost 40 years ago (man, Aunty is old), we used to do craft fairs at our homes with friends. Ann Kondo Corum was a librarian at Kawananakoa School and had just published Hawaii’s Spam Cookbook. She is a super fantastic artist and each page has her delightful cartoon drawings related to each dish. Since she was selling her cookbooks as well as doing original art cards to order, Aunty made her Korean Style Spam dish for our guests. It was really tasty and a hit, and she sold many cookbooks that day.

This is an easy recipe that cooks up quickly with what we already have in the pantry and refrigerator. It is a winner with rice and sort of healthy because kimchee is a good source of natural probiotics to help our digestion.

Here’s the recipe (adjust ingredients for smaller eaters):

1 can SPAM, sliced in 1/2″ slivers (Aunty does logs)

1 12oz jar of Kim Chee

1 small onion, sliced

2 tsp shoyu

Brown SPAM slices in a skillet (smashed ginger optional). Place Kim Chee in a strainer or colander and rinse with water. Drain well. Add Kim Chee, onion, and shoyu to SPAM and cook about 2 minutes.

This dish is also good with sliced zucchini (Aunty does logs).

Tap tap tap to feel good

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Aunty

Decades ago, Aunty took tap dance lessons from Jack Cione with pal Cookie and Gayln. It was fun making feet noise in time with other feet in the room, but it wasn’t a life passion for any of us.

During a tidying session (still to come: Aunty’s review of Marie Kondo’s Life Changing Magic of Tidying), Aunty found 2 thick print outs of Jack Cione’s dance steps and songs. These did bring a sense of joy because of the memories – though not sure whether to toss or keep, yet.

Then, serendipitously (fortunate chance), an email link about tapping for health came into Aunty’s email box this morning. It was like a sign to pay attention, doodoodoodoo doodoodoo (theme from Twilight Zone).

Tapping is part of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) that Aunty had heard about and was curious as to its success and results. Instead of tapping with clinking shoes, one taps gently on specific points on the body with fingertips. It seemed like a God/Universe given gift, so Aunty opened up the link and tried it.

Just like Mikey in the Life Cereal commercial (if you are old enough to remember), Aunty liked it! Ups to you if you want to try it – this first link explains the different point to tap: http://thetappingsolution.com/2016tws/how-to-tap-video.html

And this one will guide you through a 20 minute exercise to tap away stress/fears and begin a great day: http://www.thetappingsolution.com/2016event/R00Ms/D1-MR-3654.php [Update: this was only available for 24 hours – so solly. The Tapping World Summit event is going on for the next 10 (and counting down) days and events can be listened to for free during a 24 hour period, daily. So, once one presentation is up, it then goes away and the next day’s event is up, then away – UNLESS one buys the packages. Aunty is not planning to buy the packages but perhaps will continue tapping and adjusting the affirmations/confirmations/etc. specific to her own situations.]

[Further update: Although the packages are available for purchase for those who want permanent access to the Tapping World Summit 2016, Aunty feels that these are good folks because of the limited sharing of some rather excellent material – limited because of the 24 hour FREE online access for each day’s events. Here is a list of the upcoming topics and speakers: http://thetappingsolution.com/2016tws/schedule.html which included Jack Canfield (pau already, solly), but some rather excellent subjects such as healing relationships with mother on March 1, Tapping for self confidence on February 29, Personal peace procedure on March 3, etc. Aunty plans to “attend” some of those freebies and has to write the days down on her calendar in order not to miss them. Here is the link to access each live daily (available for 24 hours) event: http://www.thetappingsolution.com/2016event/live.php – hope this helps everyone!]

It is quite pleasant, something that is free to do, and in line with socks being magic in Aunty’s quest for excellent health and well being. There are other links to different tapping modes but for now Aunty felt very good about this starter tapping exercise and is now motivated to gather all the books in the house in one big pile and sort with Marie Kondo’s criteria of joy. Aunty’s fear of having a clutter-free house is soon to be conquered.

Happy feet, tapping fingers, clean house. Sounds quite wonderful, doesn’t it?

No get huhu

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Aunty

angrybird You know the feeling – getting huhu is when you get all mad and ticked off. One of Aunty’s jobs is answering the phone, like a dispatcher or receptionist. Most people are nice – especially sales people until you inform them that you aren’t interested in claiming your millions of dollars from the Reader’s Digest sweepstakes.

Some people are quite rude because they only want to speak with the boss instead of the receptionist. Aunty usually bites her lip and holds back. However, during her peak menopausal days of hormone changes and self-righteousness, Aunty was guilty of snapping at them and losing customers. Ho! da terrible, yeah? Maybe so, but it felt good at the time.

On the other side of the counter, back in the day when Aunty was a youngster, going into stores like Carol and Mary or McInerny’s (you remember them?) was like entering a freezer – the cold shoulder, the degrading looks, the down their nose attitude because their radars could tell that Aunty didn’t have money.

So Aunty would feel huhu, as well as hurt. Not good – snapping back at rude people or getting mad and shame because of rude salespeople. All water under the bridge, as they say, but still, those experiences left some scars and regrets.

Solution

Each work day, Aunty gets an email from Paul Tamashiro’s Daily Market Update. Aunty subscribes to his free email service because he sends out the most current mortgage rates for 15 year/30 year/Jumbo/VA, etc. loans as well as an interesting article related to real estate and/or the economy. He also provides some pretty wonderful quotes from known and unknown sources.

One of today’s quotes (from an anonymous source) was:

“When someone is nasty or treats you poorly, don’t take it personally. It says nothing about you and a lot about them.”

Oh man! Is that a good one, or is that a good one!?!

Mahalo to Paul, who can be reached at paul.tamashiro@guaranteedrate.com. Aunty never met or spoke with him, but would bet that he is a nice person.

Wanna Roomba?

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Aunty

Hide and Seek?

Aunty Mimi got a Roomba from Costco. Pal Cookie also got a Roomba from Costco around Christmas time with a $50 off coupon special.

Big deal – how good can it be, right?

Well, according to them, it is wonderful. Their floors are always clean. The little feeler whisker spinners clean around table legs and furniture. It is cute and goes back to its “dock” when it needs to recharge. It just keeps on working and it transitions over rugs, hard floors, and can sense and avoid stairway drops. Blah blah blah blah, Aunty kept hearing it over and over in her head and then decided to get one from Costco.com ($359 + $17.32 tax + $17.52 shipping) because it was not available at the Hawaii Kai Costco last week.

Aunty was able to redeem several Costco cash cards while ordering online, so the final cost was quite low.

It arrived today via UPS, and Aunty read the easy startup instructions, plugged in the docking station and the Roomba beeped and rocked into its charging/resting place. Instructions said to charge overnight but as soon as the battery light on the Roomba was green, Aunty pressed “CLEAN” and the Roomba took off.

It is almost like having your own R2D2 or that other robot in Star Wars, except that the Roomba is really short, works non-stop, and looks like a flat sided flying saucer. It was fascinating to watch as it would gently bump into stuff (Aunty has a lot of stuff) and then try again from a different angle, then take off in a seemingly random pattern. When it would get stuck, a woman’s voice would say, “error 5, clean side wheels” or something like that.

Turning it upside down like a big turtle exposed the dust bin, which got full quite quickly. It took a while to figure out how to remove, open, and clear the bin, but after the 2nd time, Aunty was a pro. Right side up and bin back in place, Roomba was ready to rock and roll again.

Aunty became it’s assistant, moving chairs, boxes, rubbish cans, bags, etc. out of its way so that it could go where no vacuum went before. Because it was so short (about 4″) it could go under shelves, couches and beds, Oh My! and Aunty would follow it around on arms and knees to watch joyfully as it sucked up old dust and debris in hard to reach and see places.

Aunty’s bed became the depository that held a lot of the piles of stuff on the bedroom floor – making it a must-do-something crisis later this evening. Not to worry, Aunty can handle or will just pile the stuff back on the floor again before sleep time, the same for all the stuff that was piled on couches and chairs in the parlor.

Cleaning became like a tag team and even though it was a bit of a physical workout moving things around so that Roomba could pass and clean, it was fun and so worth doing. As Roomba began to deplete battery power, “Dock” would flash. Aunty gently carried it to the room where the docking station was plugged in (under the couch), did a final cleaning of the dust bin, filter, and brushes, and then pressed “Dock” as Roomba slowly sashayed and rocked into place for recharging, with a little tone beeping melody.

According to the manual, Roomba would have gone back to the charging station automatically when it needed to, but Aunty wanted to help it home.

Aunty is usually not demonstrative in showing affection, but after the initial cleaning session with Roomba, Aunty had to say, “I love you, Roomba!” I really do.

by Aunty

a lot of stuff about almost everything

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