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Good bed = good sleep = better all around

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Aunty and Mary

When Uncle and I first got married we had a cheap full size bed with springs that squeaked and sagged in the middle right away.  Of course we were younger and didn’t know better or have money to spare.  It costed less than $200, brand new.

As we got older, we become pickier, and one of the most important purchases we made was buying a good bed.

At Slumber World (702 S. Beretania St in Honolulu), beds are everywhere on the entire 2nd floor and the choices seem to be confusing.  Not to worry, Mary Racca-Ventura to the rescue.  Mary is the bed sales manager of all the stores.  Petite, dynamic, and personable, Mary will listen, process what she hears, and then steer you to the best bed for YOU.  This means lying down on many beds to test them out.

Back then, it was hard to choose because Uncle liked to lie on his back and have a firm mattress, and Aunty was a stomach sleeper and liked the soft beds.  We settled for an in-between compromise of a TempurPedic king bed with a slightly firm mattress that was too hard for stomach sleeping but perfect for side sleeping and better for the back.  A better option might have been separate twin mattresses – one firm, and one soft – put together with a bridge like joiner.

Those commercials are true

The bed felt like a cloud.  Sleep came easily and bodies felt great in the morning.  The bed was rather pricey but came with a 20 year warranty.  8 years is the average life span of regular spring mattress beds – though most people do tend to keep the same bed for ages longer.  If your body, especially your shoulders, ache in the morning, it could be because your bed is too old and you need a good new one.

The nice staff at Slumber World

Honorable Warranties 

The next good great bed Aunty bought was a smaller bed with a very soft mattress.  Such a delight to face plant and sleep stomach down from time to time!  Mary suggested a special mattress protector that zipped on and off and had dri-cool technology.  This was quite expensive at $130 because Aunty was used to getting cheap ones on sale at Ross.  However, Aunty splurged because of the convenience of zipping off the topper to wash, and then zipping it back on after.  That was 5 years ago.

This past week, when changing out the sheets, Aunty noticed some flaking from the mattress protector after zipping off the cover.  Hmmm.  It was just the underlayer and didn’t affect the top at all but Aunty decided to call Slumber World to ask about it.  After a few minutes of explaining the issue, the salesperson pulled up Aunty’s purchase history and said that the mattress protector had a 10 year warranty and that she would have a brand new dri-cool mattress protector to replace the old one.  What a pleasant surprise!

Satisfaction all around

There is a saying that you get what you pay for.  Slumber World is not a place for bargain shopping but it is the place to buy quality beds with great customer service and good warranties.  As we get older, we need to spoil ourselves.  One of the best ways to do that is having a bed that feels like a cloud.

Just writing this makes me want to go to sleep, and so I will.  Make a wish, close your eyes, and good night!

 

Monster House Update and Victory!

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A 3 story monster with 2 entrances and multiple electrical meters in Foster Village

Wednesday was a GREAT day for us monster house opponents because the Honolulu City Council unanimously passed the 3rd reading of Bill 79, which made major changes to the LUO (land use ordinance) for Oahu.  In short, house sizes for our average 5,000 square foot lots or smaller are limited to 60-70% of floor area ratio to lot size, wet bars (which monster people would convert to illegal kitchens) are limited to 1, laundry rooms are limited to 1, electric meters are limited to 1, and number of bathrooms are limited to 4 1/2. Adequate parking must be provided, and at least 25% of the lot cannot be impervious (concrete or asphalt).  The bigger lots allow for more wet bars, bathrooms, etc. but size limits will still be in place, and inspections will be allowed for a year after occupancy to check that the house has not been altered.

Aunty and fellow members of HiGoodNeighbor.com testified along with others in support and thanks.  A pleasant surprise was that even representatives of Hawaii’s building industry showed support for the bill.  Prior to, they voiced strong opposition to any changes and instead blamed the Department of Planning and Permitting for not clamping down on (mostly foreign) builders who found ways to build huge – legally.  These foreign builders would then alter, subdivide, rent illegally, sell and repeat, all the while not get caught or stopped. This was a case of a few bad apples spoiling the face of our island neighborhoods for profit, so hopefully those bad apples go away.

But not soon enough

It had been a mission for Aunty for about 2 years ever since seeing and reading the news about monster houses coming up in Palolo Valley and Kaimuki.  Unscrupulous builders were buying up old houses, knocking them down along with all the wonderful trees, and putting up structures with the most bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens that they could fit without any regard to their neighbors, parking, or communities.  One of the most heartbreaking stories was that of Missy Mai’i, who bought a little house with a great view of the city and ocean a few years ago.  A monster builder put up a multi-level house on a slope next to her and totally took away her view.

Just recently, the same thing is beginning to happen to Aunty.  The property just behind Aunty was purchased by a contractor a few years ago and he received a permit soon after.  He did nothing for years but rented out the dilapidated 2 story house and cottage on the lot to several renters who came and went.  It was filled with weeds and random plantings and looked like a dump but Aunty could still look out her back windows and see sunrises over Maunalua Bay and Koko Head, about a half inch of ocean, and the charming rooftops of Kaimuki houses.

The bad apple seed is sprouting

This shows half of the total foundation, which continues after the 8′ concrete divide in mirror image to the street beyond

In October, Joey, a young local contractor working under the owner builder contractor began to demo the old houses and everything else on the lot.  The owner builder is foreign but at least he hired Joey.  A huge old mango tree, banana trees, moringa, and avocado trees were ripped out, laying bare the entire lot.  Slowly more work was done, hollow tile walls erected around the property, trenches dug out, rebars laid in, and truckloads of gravel dumped, filled, and leveled into semi-erected walls.

It was at this point, neighbors began to gather and would speak to the owner who occasionally came to view the progress.  Each person had a different story of what they heard would happen from him.  We organized a meeting with the owner so we could all get the same picture directly from his mouth.  He brought his wife who acted like she couldn’t speak English and his pretty young daughter.  He seemed like a nice person and would agree to remedy our concerns about water overflow if it rained heavily, making sure the contractor waters the site twice a day to cut down on dirt flying into our houses, and maintaining green spaces.  His wife suddenly could speak English and assured us that she and her family would start a garden.  They would live in the back house and their other daughter would come back from the mainland to live in the front house.

Construction continued, hollow tile foundation walls got taller, more fill came in and plumbing pipes were laid in and buried, a massive wall of concrete blocks grew right down the middle of the property.  The site was never watered down, water overflow concerns were not passed on to the grading contractor.  At this point, Aunty viewed a set of building plans from DPP (Department of Planning and Permitting) which is available to the public.  The 2 houses were only divided by a common wall and massive – each one were mirror images of each other and 2 stories high.  Two full kitchens, 2 wet bars, 9 bathrooms, 2 dens, 12 bedrooms.  7,386 square feet under roof for a 7,500 square foot lot.  120 linear feet of house with 12 windows on the 2nd floor looming over Aunty.  Yuck, yuck, yuck.

For now, Aunty still has a view and is taking as many photos at different times of the day and plans to paint the view as it is now.  Soon, it will be lost and blocked out by the 2 houses.   It will be like having a 30′ high fence, 5 feet away as Aunty’s new back view.  Hopefully this will be the last of the monsters, and that Aunty can get used to her soon to be altered reality.

Non Techno Aunty in a Techno World

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This has been a very busy week because of yet another marriage.  Two of Aunty’s kids got married in December (one big wedding and one very small).  Wedding #3 was on Wednesday with dinners for family and a beach house party for friends on Saturday.  Whew!  Three kids down, and one daughter left to marry off – the one in this video, catching the bouquet:

A great consequence of all this busy-ness (besides gaining 2 great son-in-laws and a wonderful daughter-in-law) is having son Mikey at home to tackle his assigned to-do list of computer fixing.  He whizzed through updating the company’s google listing search errors, transferred all the files and apps from Aunty’s old Mac laptop to the new one, and migrated emails and folders over (with some glitches that Spectrum and Apple Support helped figure out).  Aunty suspects a conspiracy with internet companies and computer makers that upgrade, morph, and change programs so we are forced to buy a new computer or phone every few years, and it is a pain to keep up, much less understand the new spin on it all.

Do you understand what the iCloud is?

If you do, congrats.  All Aunty understood was that it was storing stuff automatically, but where it was and how to access it was a mystery that didn’t need solving.  Except for pictures.

Nephew David is a photography hobbyist with a good camera and an eye for great shots.  He started sending Aunty bunches of photos with Google pictures.  Lots of them.  Waaaaah!  How to store them when iCloud is full and the desktop is already so crowded and iPhoto had years of old stuff taking up space.  “Mom,”, said techie son, “You need to store all your photos on Google photos because it has unlimited storage, for free.”

Oh, no, ANOTHER cloud thing?

Yep, but it had unlimited space and it was free, so….. Aunty said, “Okay, YOU do it, Mikey.”  And he did, at photos.google.com.   A prerequisite is a gmail account.  He also used an application to “pull” the photos from iPhoto into Aunty’s Google photo account.  This took a long time because each folder needed to be opened up and dragged into the Google photo page to be downloaded.  Once done, it was very nifty to be able to “search your photos” with a subject description (i.e. art or dogs) and create albums from those searches.  Really nifty, and that was just the beginning of Google brilliance.  Sharing becomes really easy because it is connected to your gmail account.  Pictures taken on smart phones also appear instantly on the computer, like magic.

Google also has another free cloud thing for documents called Google Docs – really awesome stuff where you can write, edit, save, etc. – but Aunty was already so full from computer migration and photo library moving, that it was techno overload and will be a lesson for another day.

Like Star Trek

Aunty feels like she has boarded the starship Enterprise, exploring strange, new worlds, to seek out new things and chuck the old.  Except Aunty is old and not ready to be chucked.  So it becomes a matter of learning new tricks, slowly, and one at a time.  It used to be a universal truth that the older you get, the wiser you become.  Maybe we still do get wiser, but those young people are smarter, learn faster and have nimbler thumbs.

Post note:  Aunty has used Uber twice since coming back from California.  Once to pick up her Mazda after servicing and another time to travel from Hawaii Potters Guild to Ala Wai Community Park.  It was VERY convenient.  The hardest thing about it is signing up for it at Uber.com (using this link will give Aunty some Uber credits!)  Google and Uber.  Two made up techie words that are changing our world for the better.

Orchid Eating Bird Pest

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One of Aunty’s favorite pastimes is gardening.  Every plant in the yard has a little story – where it was bought, who gave it, etc.  Lizards run around, bees buzz, and birds perch and poop.  One unwelcome bird pooper is the Bulbul –  an invasive species that was released in Hawaii, probably by a bird lover who let their illegal pets into the Islands. They are black with red butts.  These birds feed on fruits, vegetables, and flower buds – Aunty’s orchid flower buds in particular.

Aunty would stick orchid plants into the stone wall up front and they would do okay, a few buds here and there but not too many flowers because the Bulbuls would find the new shoots and eat them before they bloomed.

This year, Aunty’s orchid plants became profuse with orchid spikes and buds. The Bulbuls seemed to be leaving them alone!  Each day would bring more buds and these slowly grew larger until a few of them started to bloom. Happy happy joy joy!!! until petals seemed to fall off, so Aunty gave it some organic fertilizer to boost the plants. However, it wasn’t the health of the plant causing the petals to break off.  Buds were also being nipped off.  The dang Bulbuls had found Aunty’s trove of orchids and began to feast.

Google searching brought up several solutions and Aunty wrapped either thin wire or fishing line around CDs and hung them from the low hanging tree branches above the flower sprays. They sway hither and thither with the wind and reflect mirror-like light.

Aunty also bought some reflective pinwheels to stick into nearby plants as extra precaution. They aren’t pretty in the tropical garden setting, but they are better than eaten up flowers and destroyed orchid buds.  So far, so good.  Bulbuls are leaving the petals and buds alone.  Orchids are happy.  So is Aunty.

Aunty’s take on Airbnb and Uber

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Aunty goes to City Council meetings to testify against Airbnb proliferation in Hawaii because of alienating neighbors who want stable places to live with those who want to profit from renting out their rooms to short term visitors.  Aunty rarely takes a taxicab, much less Uber, which young people use a lot.  This post is about new tricks for an old dog.

On Airbnb

On a recent 2 day trip to California to attend #1 son’s swift and unpredictable courthouse wedding, Aunty decided to find a hotel near his house, but son found a room a few minutes away on Airbnb for $89/night with private bathroom.  The pictures looked nice and had high positive reviews, so Aunty opened an account with son’s referral link (guest must have their own account) with a very thorough application process, and booked for 3 nights.  Aunty was ready to for her trip!

After taking forever to get off the skinny and long Hawaiian Airlines plane arriving in Oakland late at night, son and fiance met Aunty at curbside and we were off to a house owned by Doris, whom Aunty never met/knew/spoke to.  Since Doris was on a trip and returning the next day, the house was empty and cold.  Son figured out how to turn on the heater and then Aunty was on her own.

Such a surprise!  The bathroom was drop dead wonderful with tiled walls and floor, fantastic soaps, and artistic touches and windows that brought joy to the space.  Bathing in cold weather is BRRRR! but do-able with a lot of hot water.

The next morning, Aunty explored the garden, parlor and kitchen, discovering great art with more artsy decor pieces and arrangements.  The house was so charming and wonderful, as was Doris when we met her later that evening.  We didn’t see each other more than a couple of times after that because she was off to her business and Aunty was mostly with son and new wife and family at dinners, shopping, and such.

Staying at Doris’ place was a great new experience that opened up Aunty’s eyes to the positive aspects of Airbnb from a guest’s standpoint of price, convenience, and location.  It fit Aunty’s bill perfectly because there were NO suitable hotels near my son, and the house was comfortable, quiet, and safe.

After this very positive experience, Aunty has a slightly different opinion about Airbnbs.  Because of its vetting process for both sides – guests and owners, quality and safety are ensured.  However, Aunty still feels that having strangers (even if they are good strangers) in our local residential neighborhoods can be disruptive.  Allowing a few to lend out their rooms or houses might open up the doors to more rooms and houses on the short term rental market – and then there goes the neighborhood for the sake of profit in the homeowner’s pocket.  Not in Kaimuki, please.

On Uber

Aunty’s return flight to Honolulu was leaving at 9:00 in the morning.  Aunty does not like early morning flights because the whole day is shot and getting to the airport 2 hours ahead of time is unpleasantly too early and inconveniences family or friends for rides.  Even though #1 (and only) son insisted he didn’t mind driving the 20 miles and back that early in the morning, Aunty was adamant and insisted on trying out Uber.

This took a bit of time to set up and download on Aunty’s iPhone, with more vetting, a selfie picture, and input of credit card info.  We tested it out the night before from son’s house to Doris’ house.  What a BAM! awakening!  It was like a movie picture segment of inputting a destination on a map (it already knows where you are), choosing your type of ride (regular, luxury, shared, etc.) and then confirming.  The smart phone screen will show the progress of your ride along with name of driver (Jamell), type of car (Nissan Rogue), and arrival time – which in Aunty’s case was 1 minute.  One minute!  Sure enough, a grey Nissan Rogue pulled a U turn in front of son’s house, and there was Jamell – who looked like a younger heavier version of Will Smith.  Eight blocks later, we rolled to Doris’ house.  Aunty thanked Jamell, and he drove off into the evening.  NO cash/credit card/or tip was exchanged.  SO easy!

The next morning, Aunty opened the Uber app and requested a ride to Oakland Airport ($28.41) in a Subaru Legacy driven by Hakan, a bakery shop owner from Turkey.  He helped Aunty with her 2 heavy suitcases (Trader Joes, IKEA, 4th Street in Berkeley) and we were off and arrived safely and in good time for Aunty’s flight home.

Once home, Aunty got to rate each driver (high marks) and give them a tip.  SO easy!  This is going to definitely put taxi companies out of business because there is hardly any wait time, no phone call, and total transparency on who the driver is and how much it will cost.  Uber may be going public soon and that will be a stock that Aunty would want in her portfolio.

Eyes opened

It was a very very good trip with happy events and learnings.  Aunty never thought she would stay at an Airbnb and/or use Uber but this proves the adage, “Never say never!”  Who knows what is next?  Sky diving, bungee jumping?  Er, ah, eh.  Absolutely NEVER.

Andrea Bocceli

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Gorgeous father, gorgeous son. Aunty fell into idolship after watching Andrea Bocceli’s life story on Netflix “The Music of Silence”. He takes on the name of Amos Bardi in the movie, so a bit confusing at first. Still, his talent transcends all.

And here’s another one for goosebumps – with Ed Sheeran in “Perfect”.

Quick and easy home made rope

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When Hawaii had the recent threat of Hurricane Lane looming and imminent, we made sure that we had cases of water as well as filling up buckets and tubs with water in case of disaster shortages.

It was also time to secure anything that could potentially blow around in the high winds and cause damage.  This sounds easy enough to do – until you find that you really don’t have enough rope.

A trip to the hardware store was already out of the question so Aunty cut an old tshirt up, going crosswise, using fabric scissors.  Each strip was about 2″ wide and tied to another strip until the length was long enough for the task at hand.

The resulting fabric rope was very pliable and stretchy, making it easy to tie wire shelves to benches, planks of wood to tree trunks, and securing chicken houses (one of these days Aunty will have live chickens to lay eggs) down to the ground and to the fence.

One long tshirt yielded several yards of rope, enough for everything in the yard.  Unused strips and rope can then be easily stored in a ziplock bag and saved for another day.

Hopefully this is a tip that will be useful to Aunty’s readers, as we seem to have more and more storms and hurricanes aiming for our islands.  So far we have been lucky, but that is no reason not to be prepared and ready for safety’s sake.

 

 

A better way to hold money in the bank

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If you are a saver and have a little nest egg put away, or a person who believes in having cash in the bank just in case a great deal comes along, then you know how piddly the returns that banks give on your money.  Something like one-tenth of 1%.

Somehow we have been conditioned to believe that money in the bank is safe, and maybe it is, but what if you could do better?  Also, why is it, with the recent increase in mortgage rates, our savings rates have remained the same?

A recent post from E.B. Tucker of the Strategic Investor spoke of how interest rates are on the way up, and how to take advantage of it using government money.

The US Treasury is in debt for $21 trillion and is willing to pay anyone willing to “loan” them money, at interest rates that beat the banks.  For example, $20,000 sitting in a bank savings account at .01% will yield $20 annually.  Lending that $20,000 to the US Government for 4 weeks at their current rate of 1.59% will yield $259 annually (if you keep rolling it over every 4 weeks).  How safe is it?  As safe as you believe our government can pay.

For this reason, E.B. Tucker invests in the shortest term of 4 weeks.  At the end of each term, the principal and interest are deposited back into your bank account, ready to use or deposit again.  3 month yields are 1.80%, and 6 month yields are 2%.  The longer the time frame, the higher the interest BUT interest rates seem to be rising, so shorter terms are a better play on this strategy.

How to do it

The first step is opening an account with the US Treasury.  Here is the link: Treasury Direct website.  Complete the forms which will then link to your bank accounts.  Here is a link to a guided tour of the account.  It is rather easy to do.  Choose  either individual or entity accounts.  A personal trust account defaults to an entity account, rather than to an individual account.

There will be a layer of security checks such as choosing a picture and captioning it as well as being emailed an account number (write it down).  You then log in with the account number that was emailed to you.  A one time passcode will be emailed to you for the first time.  After that, your own password is the valid one.

You are now ready to participate in US Treasury auctions!  After you are logged in, choose “BuyDirect” from the tabs at the top of your account page.  Choose “Bills”.  This will take you to a purchase information page with all the available short term bills in chronological order.  Choose the one with the term (Aunty chose 4 weeks) and the date that you want (Aunty chose this week).

Enter the dollar amount that you wish to invest and designate if you want it to automatically re-invest after the 4 weeks.  For this first time, Aunty has decided not to do this, but will probably have it enrolled in scheduled reinvestment in the future when it feels more comfortable.

After you have chosen your term and week, click submit.  This will take you to a page that asks you to confirm this transaction (as in, are you sure you’re sure?)

Congratulations!

Confirm submit, and it is done!  After each auction, Treasury bills will show up in your account with the corresponding interest rate and maturity date.  Four weeks later, it redeems the bills and your principal plus interest is deposited back into your bank account.  Cool!

You can participate in as many auctions as you want, though you must submit each one separately.  Do NOT back out of a page or you will have to go to the home page and log in again.

To see a Tentative Auction Schedule of U.S. Treasury Securities, go to Announcements, Data and Results – though this is a spreadsheet of tiny letters and numbers that Aunty could barely read.

The process will seem daunting, but it just takes a bit of time to learn.  It also feels good – lending money to our government, and getting paid for doing so.

Update, August 11, 2018

Aunty linked her bank checking account and invested $5,000 in a 4 week treasury bill.  Rather surprisingly, only $4993.08 was swept out of the account.  Just before the 4 weeks was up (time flies so 4 weeks is a great term), Aunty opted for the automatic renewal for one term.  At the beginning of that 2nd term, $7.23 was deposited into the account by US Treasury.  Hmmm.

Then, after the 2nd term expired, and Aunty did not opt in for a renewal, $5,000 was deposited back into the checking account, and all was good!  It was perfect timing because Aunty really needed the funds.  

This is an excellent strategy to park money short term and earn more than the banks’ piddly interest on savings.

 

How to make Spam Musubi

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Aunty is a junk cook.  However, the ONE thing that Aunty does well is making spam musubi with sato shoyu spam and ume.

Aunty shared one with Thomas Bena when he was in town showing his excellent documentary “One Big Home”, just in time for the City Council to approve a monster house building moratorium.  This picture is from an email from him about his trip over here.  Cool, yeah?

This recipe will make 5 spam musubis, so adjust accordingly.

 

2 cups of cooked white rice

5 slices of spam

equal parts of brown sugar and soy sauce

smashed slices of fresh ginger root

ume pieces (avoid putting in the small ume with seed so it isn’t a hazard to eaters)

3 nori sheet cut in half lengthwise

Cook white rice in rice cooker – short grain rice is best (Aunty has become a rice connoisseur), stir 10 minutes after done to fluff, and cover until ready to place rice on board.

Heat a skillet or pot and add a heaping scoop of brown sugar in the pot, stir with wooden spoon and then add about the same amount of soy sauce.  Add smashed ginger root and a tablespoon or so of water.  Stir, bring to a small boil until all the ingredients smell wonderful.

Put the slices of spam in.  Turn slices every once in a while, simmer for about 5 minutes, then turn off heat.

Put equal sized mounds of rice on a cutting board and add pieces of ume to the middle of each mound.  Rice should be nice, hot, and soft.

Use a deep bowl for hot hot water from the sink faucet to wet your hands and sprinkle salt on wet (but not dripping) hands.

Grab a mound of rice with your salted wet hands and smash into a ball to compress, and then shape into a rectangle shape and set back on the board or a plate. (This is the toughest part because your hands will be handling hot rice, but you can do it!)

After the 5 mounds of rice have been compressed and shaped into rectangles, carefully put a delicious cooked slice of spam on each rice “brick”.  Allow a couple of minutes to cool, wrap with the half sheet of nori, and you are done!!!

Wrap with waxed paper or plastic wrap if you will be taking these to share or eat later.

*updates:  Use Aloha Shoyu because it is a mild shoyu otherwise it is too salty.  Or, Aunty just tried a super easy lazy way of cooking the spam with Bob’s Barbeque marinating sauce (from Aunty’s favorite fast food drive in on Dillingham and Waiakamilo).  REALLY ono – a little sweeter and so tasty!