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.
Pal Jalna makes my mouth water and my tastebuds go pitter patter. Her husband, son, nephew, and sister are such good cooks, and so is Jalna. This was one of her latest – Beef Barley soup – which I never had. Neither have my kids. It looked easy and I had everything but the barley (Times and Foodland didn’t have it). I found it at Whole Foods and got my beef shank cut at Foodland – 2 thick slabs with bone.
It seemed strange to cook meat and then add vegetables but NOT potato, but I did it because Jalna did it. Here is her recipe and the video that she watched:
Ingredients for four servings:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil 2 pounds beef shank (2 thick slices), seasoned generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 large onion, diced 4 cloves garlic, chopped fine 2 tablespoons tomato paste 4 cups chicken broth, plus more if needed 2/3 cup diced celery 2/3 cup diced carrots 1 bay leaf 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary 1/2 cup pearl or naked barley salt to taste
Salt and pepper beef shank, brown on both sides in stew pot. Remove from pot. Deglaze pot with diced onion, stirring until translucent, then add chopped garlic. Add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste and stir until brownish. Add 4 – 5 cups of chicken broth, diced celery and carrots, bay leaf, and dried rosemary. Put beef shank back into pot, bring to boil, then down to simmer. Simmer for 3 hours. Remove beef and bones (should fall apart) and set aside. Add 1/2 cup of barley and simmer until barley is cooked (about 45 minutes). Add beef back in to heat up on low for about 5 minutes. Now enjoy!
So how was it? Winnahs!!! Really ono! Thanks Jalna!!
A pal from high school sent this video link about the Ala Moana Shopping Center. We used to hang out there, with Liberty House being THE cream of the crop. Carol and Mary was also cream of the crop but they looked down on me – local girl who didn’t look rich. McInerneys was another snobby store and downstairs, Lynn’s had THE best pastrami sandwich on rye with dill pickles as well as delicious Chinese plate lunch choices like Panda’s of today.
I could spend all day there even though I only had $5 in my purse because I did a LOT of window shopping. The current owners are a Canadian company – Brookfield Properties. Over the years, Ala Moana Center has changed. Gone are the old stores that I liked (and didn’t like), but it is still an exciting place to shop and look.
Brookfield has plans to build 5 skyscrapers up to 400 feet high on the property, if they can. The current limit is 150 feet high. I will be watching this and hoping that they don’t get their way. We don’t need more high rises at million dollar price tags. Plant trees instead, please!
Several posts ago I wrote about a statement I came across by Shelly Wilson. “I am a spiritual being having a human life experience.”
It is a really really hard concept to get because it feels like I am a human being that has spiritual insights, rather than vice versa. And being human really limits what I can do. It also boggles my mind and would take the biggest leap of faith to live as if I were a spiritual being and observe my human behavior and quirks as an experience rather than reality.
However, my friends and family know that I am weird and I subscribe to all kinds of financial, self improvement, health and well being sites. Some very conventional and useful, i.e. cooking with Nagi from recipetineats.com, some controversial, many blog sites of friends and friends of friends. Some are naturopathic, some are strange.
Today, I got an email from Nick Polizzi of Sacred Science about a video series called Inner Alchemy. As a teaser, we get 3 parts for free. The 1st part was the question, “Who Am I?” It is a short 7 minute video with Nick talking about that query. The assignment is to take a few minutes and write down our own answers.
I liked the exercise. Maybe you will too. And that’s my post for today.
My absolute favorite ice cream is Dave’s Green Tea in the cardboard like tub. Creamy, flavorful, and green with just the right taste of tea. I still remember a dessert from the Wisteria Restaurant – that iconic wonderful Japanese American restaurant with the best nishime, chicken with eggplant and almost everything else they served. The dessert I loved there was a scoop of green tea ice cream topped with lime shaved ice. Super delish!!! However, it is so sad that they packed it all up and closed several years ago.
But I digress. The reason I wrote this post was to share Aunty’s tip on serving ice cream from the freezer. I used to have the kids be in charge of scooping out the ice cream from the containers because it would be so cold – rock hard and very difficult to scoop out – even with the best scoops and dipping it in hot water, etc. They struggled and struggled, and succeeded because their desire to eat ice cream surpassed the effort and muscle they had to put in.
One day, without any kids to help, I wanted to have just a bit of wonderful green tea ice cream. I stuck our best scooper in the tub and couldn’t even make a dent because it was rock hard cold. Hmmm. I could wait but then I might forget it and it the whole thing would melt. I could put it in the refrigerator and return in about an hour but I wanted it right then and there.
So, I stuck the container in the microwave and heated it for 10 seconds. And by golly, the ice cream soften up enough to easily scoop it into my bowl and was perfect!
Why 10 seconds? I dunno. Maybe 8 will work, maybe 12 will work. In any case, because of that I am eating more than I should. However, somehow, life is even more wonderful when eating something as delicious and refreshing as a scoop of ice cream. That must count for something, right?
Black Garlic is the latest addition to my daily arsenal. Yasumi Gojo of Healing Seitai gave me a few heads of black garlic and asked me to try them. Her husband made them in an old rice cooker and she was sharing it with her clients. Some of them reported better blood pressure and better health. Pal Ryuko who is in the beginning stages of Parkinson’s says it makes her feel stronger. I think that it is making my grey hair black again!
I began to eat one clove a day in the morning and increased to 3 cloves a day. I do like the taste of garlic and the only difficult part of it is peeling the paper off – but it is easy enough to do.
Yasumi taught me how to make this great health supplement with a rice cooker, and I now make my own black garlic with a lot of extra to share.
The recipe
Peel off most of the paper from each head of garlic (actually, this step is not necessary). I use the Christopher Ranch bag of raw garlic from Costco because it is grown in California. I can fit about 18 heads of garlic in the 5 cup rice cooker.
Lay down a layer of wooden chopsticks or popsicle sticks on the bottom of the rice pot so the garlic is not resting on metal. Cover the sticks with a paper towel, then pile in the garlic heads. Try to keep the garlic away from the side of the pot so it doesn’t burn. Cover the pile of garlic with another paper towel.
Close the lid, plug in the rice cooker, and set it on “warm”. Leave the rice cooker on warm for 10 days. The smell is quite strong during the first few days so I keep it in the garage. Unplug the cooker and remove the bulbs when cool enough to handle.
Line the bottom with wooden sticks
Cover with a paper towel
Add the cloves of garlic – try not to let it touch metal..
Cover with another paper towel.
Cook on the warm setting for 10 days
Ta Dah! Black garlic!
And that’s it! I store the blackened bulbs in a bowl on my kitchen counter and peel and eat 3 cloves every morning. When my supply starts to get small, I start a new batch in the rice cooker. Actually, I am constantly making batches of black garlic because I like to share with others who are interested and may have some issues that it could help, just as Yasumi Gojo shared with me.
Costco also sells black garlic. I like the bottle it comes in, and each bulb has only one round clove in it! However, it is rather pricey and it is also from China. Pal Wandaful said she looked up “black garlic from China” and didn’t like how sketchy their practices are with bleach and questionable fertilizers.
I think that I am having more benefits from taking black garlic than my hair getting darker, but I can’t say for sure. It is a natural remedy that has and entourage effect. I just learned about that while researching the benefits of CBD and cannabis. It is the effect on one’s body that doesn’t just treat one thing. It treats everything.
And for that, I am more than willing to have garlic breath in the morning until I brush my teeth. And since we still wear face masks, nobody really notices anyway.
It is hard not to notice, but Honolulu Aunty now has ads on her website. Sorry if it offends my readers – I will make them less obtrusive in the next few days.
I used to have Google Adsense installed in my old website format and then I disconnected from it when I had error problems. That didn’t correct my error problems (still working on the comment error that pops up) with this new WordPress theme that I recently installed. Websites are like gardens – needing constant weeding and transplanting.
The way Adsense works is that I get fractions of pennies when people visit, and if anyone clicks on an ad, I get pennies. Then, after I get 7000 pennies, Google sends me a check for $70. Woohoo! Granted, it takes me about 2 years to make enough pennies to get paid.
Last I checked, I had $69.12 accrued in the account – not enough to get paid, but it was just sitting there after 3 years. So, I had to ask my techie son how to get back in the game of getting pennies again, for it is quite a thrill to get paid without doing much. My monthly social security checks are like that. And I do love and appreciate them.
Mahalo for putting up with Aunty. One of these days I will really retire and not check on my Ameritrade account, the price of bitcoin, or do real estate research. One of these days, but not soon.
Recently I put an ad on Craigslist in order to give away a used air conditioner. I post on Craigslist from time to time about elastic for sale in my “Locker” at Ben Franklin. This time, I put my phone number in the ad.
Right away, I had 2 people interested in the free air conditioner via text. I texted back to the first one with an (808) prefix and that person very politely asked if they can verify that I wasn’t a scam by sending back a 6 digit code that they would text to me. So clueless me, I said okay, and sent back their 6 digit code via text. Then the person asked if I had another phone that they could also use to make sure I wasn’t a scam.
This is when the red flags went up and so I google searched – craigslist verification code scam – and got it verified. This was a potential scam and by receiving and sending back the 6 digit code, the scumbags could use it on Google Voice and get another phone number. Sort of on my account – but not really. It could be harmless but nowadays, anything can be detrimental to the one who was fooled.
I texted back to the scambag that I wouldn’t deal with them and will be transacting with the 2nd responder to my ad.
And then, dang! The 2nd responder texted me “ok, I got your post. For my safety, can I send 6 digits number to make sure you are real?” I texted, “No.” And then got a “?” mark as a response. I said to email me and they wrote, “After verify I must call you… So can I send the verification code?”
Persistant buggah. And I left the message room. I edited my Craigslist ad so it didn’t show my phone number and the default Craigslist email was in place.
A lesson learned about posting my phone number for scammers to scam. And I still have the air conditioner in my car with no takers. If anybody wants a Mitsubishi PK30EK condensing unit (the inside part of a split unit) that is old but still in good condition, let me know! It is a dinosaur that needs the compressor part so chances are slim to none that anyone would want it. But, you never know…..
New blogging pal Jan of DJan-ity had a recent post about phatics. A phatic is “small talk” such as “How are you?” even though you don’t really want to know but ask it as a way to start a conversation. Indeed, if someone were to ask me how I was, they wouldn’t really be interested in a detailed answer. BUT, because this is my blog, I want to answer that question and readers can read, or not, and I wouldn’t be the wiser (unless you leave a comment).
Prior to Covid, I felt stressed by being too busy, I was feeling feeble, sluggish, unhealthy, unable to concentrate and getting terribly forgetful.
And then there was Covid
At first, the Covid shut down in Hawaii seemed daunting and terribly boring. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do. For the first time in years decades, my calendar was blank because everything was cancelled. Thankfully we had enough toilet paper and hand sanitizer because of my daughter’s easy recipe. I started making masks and used up all my elastic, then ordered more from Amazon which took months to arrive. On the few ventures out to get food or supplies, the traffic was so light and parking so plentiful, it was a joy to be on the road again. Honolulu almost felt like a ghost town.
Exercise
TaiChi classes were no longer held, but by chance I found DJan-ity’s (yep, the same one with the phatic word) post about flowers on her porch, in which she mentioned Five Tibetan Rites that she does on a daily basis. Very intrigued, I began to twirl, hook, arch, table, and dog (my descriptions). There was something about those exercises that seemed like the answer and so I struggled through them until they are now a very easy and fast start to every morning. I don’t do the recommended 21, which would be torturous and long, imo. I have settled into a wimpy 3 that works for me. My arm strength is so much better and I can do sit ups and push ups because of these exercises.
Brain Food
I was really getting worried about brain fog and began taking a supplement from Green Valley Natural Solutions called Brain Vitality Plus. It has ingredients that are different from products I have taken before and by golly I now can perform bookkeeping tasks that were getting difficult and I don’t have brain fog anymore. I am still forgetful by nature but have much better short term memory recall now, such as when I would walk into a room and forget why I walked there.
Hair Growth
At the beginning of 2020 I began to occasionally enjoy some CBD sleep gummies from Charlotte’s Web because they tasted so good. I noticed that new baby hairs on my receding hairline were growing so began having 1 before bedtime every night. Now my hairline looks full like it used to. Then, about 2 months ago, at the urging of Yasumi Gojo of Healing Seitai, I started eating cloves of black garlic that her husband makes in an old rice cooker. Prior to, my salt and pepper hair was getting whiter and all those new baby hairs were growing in white, but now my hairs are turning black! I am now in the process of making my own black garlic and will share the method with you in a future post. Sidenote: Do NOT buy the bottled black garlic from Costco. It is made in China. Pal Wandaful did some research on it and warned me about it.
Jan 2021 more baby fuzz!
April 2021 more hair, and darker!
Strength
In the summer, I began to weed and weed and weed our yard. It was overgrown with undesirable plants, as well as being unlevel and wild. At the same time, I started taking BioAstin from Costco made with Hawaiian Astaxanthin. It acts as a natural sunscreen but I began taking it because it was made in Hawaii and supposedly good for a lot of things. Here is a health article about it. What I noticed right away was that I could continue to work in the yard everyday without a break. Before, after a hard day of weeding, using a pick and moving rocks, I would be in such pain the next day that it took me days to recover. Not anymore! I feel like Superwoman now. And I am still weeding and weeding and weeding.
Looks daunting but is an enjoyable challenge for weeder loving Aunty!
Fasting
I read and re-read Dr. Stephen Gundry’s “Plant Paradox” book. It might have been where I first heard about Hawaiian Astaxanthin. I also learned about the benefits of intermittent fasting. I now fast every Monday. After Sunday dinner and my night snack, I don’t eat anything solid until Monday dinner. I have coffee in the morning along with yogurt and almonds (nuts are okay during fasting) and only water or tea during the day. I do get hungry but tell myself that I just have to wait for dinner. It is rather easy to do a one day fast and I am now at my ideal weight and feel healthier. I will do a post about Dr. Gundry’s book. It is a game changer and a life saver.
Looks
My hair is so long now because I haven’t gone to Mai’s Beauty Salon for over a year. I just pull it back into a ponytail. I know I look older, but I don’t mind anymore. I don’t dress up anymore. I don’t wear fancy earrings either because it gets in the way of my masks. If I go out in boro clothes, I feel fine because I am hidden behind my hat and mask. It is rather fun to be incognito. One of the advantages of wearing a mask out everywhere I go is that I don’t have to worry about sun damage to my face. I sometimes wear a mask when I am weeding for that reason. I look like a plantation worker with big hat, mask, long sleeve shirt, gloves,long pants and boots. And I love it!
Time
I also love having the luxury of days of not having to do anything. Sometimes I totally waste the day, sometimes I work so hard and accomplish so much I have to pat myself on the back. Covid has been the biggest disruptor to the most lives in the most unpredictable way. It is as if a whole year has disappeared, and time has been reset. I like being older and feel that the changes that I have made in the “missing” year are really great for me.
How am I?
So if you were to ask me how I am, I would say, “Good, thank you” but I would really mean “I have more hair, I have more time, I am stronger, my garden is looking better and better, and I am not worried about Alzheimers anymore!” And then I would ask you, “How are you?” (comments are most welcome!)
I forget when I saw this poem, but it is so spot on. I hope you have a great day today!
Look to this day, for it is life, the very breath of life. In its brief course Lie all the realities of your existence; the bliss of growth, the glory of action, the splendor of beauty. For yesterday is only a dream, and tomorrow is but a vision. But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day.
Aunty used to love to dance. We would go to YIS dances where girls were free and boys paid $10. We had club social dances with other clubs. I met my first boyfriend there and we danced to “Hang On Sloopy” , flexing our knees and tucking our arms on our sides forward and back. That dance was called the Washing Machine.
We had the Twist (ala Chubby Checker), Watusi, the Charleston, the Chicken, Locomotion, the Swim, and great songs that just made you want to move. We would practice to get the moves right.
Then came disco, rap, line dancing (I only know the Electric Slide), and a bunch of new music and new dances that I did not keep up with or want to do. Instead, when we had our reunions and our oldie music was played, we would get up and move to the beat – mostly with the old reliable Washing Machine moves of swinging our arms and bending our knees up and down.
Bob Marley was a bit after my time. He was the reggae era of a new kind of hippy. Young people seem to like him a lot, and I like the message that he sends of peace, love, and happiness.
Here is a video of a young couple dressed as old hobos dancing to Bob Marley. I like their moves, but will stick to the Washing Machine.
Did you like it? Here’s another one – funky music edited with great oldie stars dancing away and away:
Feel too old to dance? Here is a Toni Basil (“Hey Mickey, you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind…”) dancing at age 74. This was filmed 3 years ago and she is still moving and shaking. Amazing.
Here’s another oldster – 60 year old Canadian teacher funking it up with her students:
