Hawaii

The "Fam"

Verne and I are a couple of homebodies. Until recently I’d never been outside the continental United States and Verne’s travel experiences were limited to his four years in the Navy, which took him to Hawaii and Japan. To celebrate my 70^th birthday a few months ago, Jana decided to take the family to Hawaii. She had enjoyed a week on the big island last fall when she and Andy traveled there for a case she was working. In between depositions they explored the island and she used the opportunity to complete her scuba diving certification. Andy was already a certified and experienced diver. Their enthusiasm for diving led them to give this same experience to Lauren as a birthday/Christmas gift. It included an online scuba course, confined water training in a swimming pool, and the four open water dives with a certified trainer. She completed the pool work and ocean dives on our trip.

View from Kona condo where we stayed

We stayed on the Kona side, or western part of the Big Island, about 100 miles from Kilauea, which has been in the news since the day following our return home from vacation when the volcano erupted. It has continued to erupt for the past several weeks with the lava flow recently crossing a major highway on the eastern side of the island making its way to the ocean. It happens to be the highway we took on our first outing when we travelled from Kona to the eastern side of the island to visit a couple of waterfalls and the Jaggar Museum in the Volcanoes National Park, Mt. Kilauea. While at the Museum, we viewed the crater and Kilauea (then tame) through a telescope that showed a small, pulsing flame spouting lava. Interesting, but nothing quite as impressive as the pictures and videos dominating the recent news. We hiked the footpaths around the park, which offered a varying landscape of lush rain forests to desolate fields of fissures spewing steam and gases. We finished our day with a walk through a lava tube, which is a cave-like formation created from hot lava. Amazing!

Walking to Kahuna Falls and Akaka Falls

The following day we toured a coffee plantation. Actually, plantation suggests something much more sizeable than what we found at Rooster Farms. And, what we found when we arrived, pictured below, was really no indication of the quality of the coffee, which in 2016 won 3^rd place amongst over 650 coffee farms in Kona. Also, it is one of the few certified organic coffee growers in the area. Our tour began with tastings of their medium and dark brews and a discussion of the owners and operation. The tour guide was a member of WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). I first learned about this program from the owner of the Amador County farm, Abbondanza, I visited in March. The owner also uses exchange students to work and learn organic farming. I’m sure this proves to be an inexpensive source of enthusiastic labor. Our tasting took place in the open-air residence used for the exchange students. It was open to the air as well as all the local critters. A local gecko lizard joined our group for the tour. Following our lecture, we walked the farm to view the coffee bushes and a large open structure with a wood floor where the beans are dried. We concluded the tour at the roasting room, where the current owners still use the roaster and formula used many years ago by the original owner. This was an excellent tour of a hands-on operation (no automation) with lots of local flavor. I’ve not been a coffee drinker for over 20 years, but I’d take this tour again.

Rooster Farms

Jandy at Rooster Farms

WOOFer guide discussing coffee bushes

Jana and Verne looking for coffee beans

Verne and I had a few mornings to entertain ourselves while the kids spent their mornings diving and communing with the fish. One of the mornings we visited a chocolate plantation for a short tour. Interestingly, cacao trees have a year-round season offering a perpetual harvest for the farmers. From pod to my favorite dark chocolate requires several steps, including a period of fermentation. Since making my first fermented food, sauerkraut, in the Master Food Preserver program back in 2014, and learning of the beneficial bacteria fermentation offers, I’ve had a keen interest in all things fermented. It was a happy day I learned that chocolate is one of those special foods that is healthy to eat!

The five of us joined for a tour of Big Island Bees. My exposure to bees prior to this tour was limited to one sting the first and only year we had a garden, the dozens of boxes in the fields along Jackson Highway going towards Sacramento, and the bee display at the Amador County Fair each year. This tour was exceptional, presented by an educated and experienced bee keeper and ending with a tasting of Hawaiian honey, such flavors as Macadamia Blossom and Wilelaiki Blossom.

Our guide, Joe

Our final Hawaiian experience was to be a night swim with the Manta Rays. Lauren had done it when she and her college roommates spent two weeks in Hawaii following graduation. She’d even come home with a video of the Manta Rays rubbing bellies with her. She loved it! The plan was for the three kids to scuba dive to the ocean floor (about 60 feet down) to view the Mantas and for Verne and I to snorkel for a top view of them. Neither of us had ever snorkeled. Nor am I a strong swimmer (actually, the most I do in the water is to doggy paddle in an effort to stay afloat). And, the water was choppy. And, it was at night – dark and ominous. Did I say the water was choppy? There were large waves (whitecaps) that would fill our snorkels, causing us to swallow the salt water, clear the snorkel, and do it all again. To sum it up, it was terrifying! We were in the water no more than 20 or 30 minutes. Back on the boat may have been worse as it was now listing at about 30 to 35 degrees. Sea sickness! While I kept my eyes on the horizon to avoid getting sick (and it worked), Verne hung his head over the side of the boat until his stomach was emptied of all food and salt water. The next few hours were spent feeling very, very old (I had turned 70, after all) and wishing for land. It was a 3-hour swim and we had 2+ hours to go. In hindsight, it’s laughable. I can still visualize us trying to get into our wet suits (the first big hurdle) and can imagine the stories the captain and our baby sitter, Marc, tell of that night. Mother Nature certainly worked against us, but she did give us a funny story. On a positive note, the kids swam with a Manta Ray.

The scuba divers

It was a great trip and we thank you, Jana, for making it happen!

Kona sunset

One Wedding and a Funeral, Part II (Remembering Sally)

No tears. Those were the last words Sally spoke to me. On April 10th, my best friend died from pancreatic cancer, not her failing heart or failing kidneys, but her very recent diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. For almost two years now I have been expecting the bad news. In June, 2016 she made her final trip to Amador County to party with her friends. That was Sally's idea of a good wake--one she could plan and attend. The following is a reprint of the blog post I wrote after her visit in 2016.

*Warning* If you find talk of poor health, death, funerals, and eulogies morbid or inappropriate, read no further!

A Moser favorite movie from the late 90’s is Waking Ned Devine. It’s a comedy about a small Irish community coming together to claim and share the lottery winnings of a friend and neighbor who died from the shock of his good fortune. An assumed identity results in Michael O’Sullivan attending his own funeral and basking in the glowing eulogy given by his best friend, Jackie O’Shea. Earlier this year Sally told me she was planning her funeral and memorial service (including the menu). Having known Sally for the past twenty years, I wasn’t sure if she was just trying to spare her three children this unwanted task or, more likely, just making sure it was done right and to her satisfaction. Sally loves to cook and entertain and since she moved to Santa Barbara over a decade ago has been heavily involved with her local temple and become the go-to person for all large events involving food. It was during this conversation that a particular line from the movie Waking Ned Devine (“What a wonderful thing it would be to visit your own funeral.”) came up and I rather think that this may have prompted her recent visit to see her old friends in Amador County and host a Pizza Party at her favorite pizza parlor in Pine Grove.

Verne and I first met Sally Simms when we were invited to join (actually, audition) for a local dinner group comprised of four or five couples in the area, including Sally and her friend Neil McElroy. While we were on our best behavior that first night, she had already been warned about Verne (if you know the man, you know why a “warning” was in order) and she took him by the arm as we walked towards her dining room and said, “You are seated next to me where I can keep an eye on you.” From that moment they’ve had a special relationship. Our dinner group, eventually becoming known as the Grub Club, was the impetus for Verne and I spending every Saturday for six months at Home Chef in Sacramento attending their culinary program, subscribing to a half dozen cooking magazines, and accumulating an extensive library of cookbooks. Now that I think about it, even the name of this blog was indirectly influenced by those early attempts at entertaining the Grub Club and Sally Simms. My close friendship with Sally was a slow bloom that began with our monthly (later on bi-monthly and eventually quarterly) Grub Club dinners, my weekly visits to drop off eggs at her home in Sutter Creek (she became my “egg broker”), and later our mutual interest in quilting and creation of Stix Chix (a quilting group of family and friends). From the beginning it has been an easy relationship, with no expectations and no demands on each other’s time. We sometimes talk every few days. Other times, we’re busy and a week or two may go by between calls. When we do connect, it’s always as if no time has passed and we just pick up where we left off. We are interested in each other and find each other interesting. We are both bossy, but somehow have managed over the years to take turns being “the boss”.  If we get a bit peeved with each other (which is rare, but then no relationship is without its challenges), we just manage to laugh and move on. After all, we are best friends.

Back to Sally’s visit in May. As Verne often says, Sally has every ailment known to man. That’s no exaggeration. She lives with constant pain, spends part of every week at doctors’ appointments, takes pills throughout the day that a normal person would require a spreadsheet to manage. Does she sit at home and ask God why? Never. Does she whine, withdraw, and feel sorry for herself? Never. She lives. Sally told me once that her days are not spent waiting to die; instead, she chooses to live each day and do those things that bring her joy. She quilts, even when she has to rely on friends to do her cutting and ironing. As long as she can guide a piece of fabric through her sewing machine, she will quilt. She cooks, even when she has to rely on friends to cut the food because the pain in her hands is so severe that she can’t hold a knife. She plays bridge and mahjong and trivial pursuit. There’s certainly nothing wrong with her mind. She comforts and is comforted by her dog, Elliot, although she can no longer walk him and must rely on greedy little kids down the street to exercise him each afternoon (I say greedy, because the little brats wanted $5 a day to walk him to the end of the block and back!) She always has time for her best friend when she calls and is always more interested in what that best friend (me) has to say than to complain about her own circumstances. Have I told you that Sally laughs a lot? I love her laugh. I sometimes call to just hear her laugh. Sally is a remarkable person and one that I truly admire. She is intelligent and kind and loving and she is my best friend forever.

As for Sally’s visit, which was going to happen with or without her doctors’ approval, it was successful in that she didn’t die on our watch. (I told you earlier not to continue reading if you’re touchy about this kind of talk.) All of Sally’s doctors advised her against making the 400 mile trip. None of us thought it was a good idea. But, she was coming, come hell or high water (what does that saying mean? My mom used to always say it…). Her friend (actually, Sandy is more of a daughter than most daughters are to their mothers) drove her, stopping several times both coming and going, and tended to her needs. They arrived on a Thursday evening around 7 p.m. and by 9 p.m. Sally was in emergency (the first of two trips to our local hospital). They patched her up, gave her some antibiotics and sent her home. The next day we quilted. Yes, Sally has her priorities. We spent that evening partying at Pine Grove Pizza with about 20 of her friends and family in the area. I’ve included a few of the pictures below. It was back to the emergency ward after the party as the infection in her leg had spread. With a few hours of sleep, she was ready to spend another day in the cabin quilting. Amazing (or crazy?)! 

Here is the full quote from Waking Ned Divine that we should all remember. It goes like this, “The words that are spoken at a funeral are spoken too late for the man who is dead. What a wonderful thing it would be to visit your own funeral. To sit at the front and hear what was said, maybe say a few things yourself. Michael and I grew old together. But at times, when we laughed, we grew young. If he was here now, if he could hear what I say, I'd congratulate him on being a great man, and thank him for being a friend.”

Thank you for being my friend, Sally. I love you.