Momma Linda: Monday 18th December

Vaina decorating pine cone Christmas trees with sequins and pipe cleaners for Primary children to give to rest home residents when they go caroling tonight. They started the project in Primary on Sunday and we just finished them up. She actually got me, the Anti-Crafter, to use a glue gun.

Gayela and I got to sample one of Vaina's chocolate creme puffs with peanut butter pudding filling. All from scratch and perfect in every way.

Mkke and his Mom were snoozing and so they missed out on the samples! Oh well. Too bad for them. Vaina was making them for her husband's work party.

But this was the comfy couch we slept on.

Maka (means 'eyes' in Hawaiian) the dog. There was another older smaller dog, too.

Lovely comfortable home in the Kona Palisades.

Vaina working her magic.

Youngest son, daughter-in-law, Oldest son. Cute kids. Made me homesick for my family back home, watching them work and play together.

We were able to sleep in and relax this morning. But not the Barton's! Wow, they have early and long days. Their children all attend a Hawaiian Language immersion school that is at least a half an hour away from their home. So the momma gets up everyone (plus a 3 year old) load into the car. Kids have breakfast and lunch at school.. Vaina was the driver today, even though Sunday and Monday are the days her husband is off work. Today was a baking day for her! YAY! Not that we were going to eat it, but I just wanted to watch her. SHE is a pastry chef, taugh by her Tahitian momma, who was a pastry chef. First, Vaina made chocolate cream puffs with peanut butter filling and whipped topping . Well, whipped CREAM. She makes lovely things and makes it look effortless. She was such a good sport to let me and Gayela just sit and watch her do her magic. I did wash dishes for her as she went along. And for our reward, she let me and Gayela sample one of those yummy things. Mmmm. Mike and Grandma were snoozing on the sofa. Berenice fell asleep while writing in her journal. (Mike is just on "vacation Mode" and sleeps a lot. Plus, he doesn't sleep much at night. I wonder...could it be because he takes so many NAPS????!!! Duh.)
Next, Vaina made a traditional Tahitian dessert made with apple bananas, tapioca starch and coconut milk. She was making these things for her husband's work party. Apple bananas are interesting because ... well, let me just share how this is made! It was fascinating.
She bought 4 hands (four bunches), put them in a big pot, covered them with water (yes, peelings and all, still attached at the stems) and boiled them for about 2 hours. They were ripe apple bananas. Apple bananas are a smaller banana and guess what they smelled like when they were boiling on the stove? Apples. I was so surprised to smell them, and think, gee, that smells familiar. And it smelled like when I make applesauce. After they turned pinky-purplish on the inside, and you could see it a little because some of the peels had split open a bit, she drained off the water and worked really hard with two sets of tongs, taking the cooked bananas out of their peels and putting them in a food processer. She pureed them, stirred in 2/3 cup of tapioca starch for every 2 cups of banana puree. She also only added about a cup of sugar for the 7 cups of bananas, so not much sugar. And a little lime juice (from 1/2 of a lime), a little bit of powdered vanilla (?!) stirred it up and then poured it into aluminum foil baking pans and baked for about 30 minutes at 350 degress. It turned into kind of a thick pudding-type consistency. After it was baked, thickened and cooled ever-so-slightly, she made a coconut milk (with sugar and vanilla added) sauce, and poured it over the pudding, which had been sliced up and kind of stirred around. She let us taste it and it was ono. Which is "good" in Hawaiian. I guess I should have found out the Tahitian word for "good" or Tasty. How about "bon" ? She (Vaina) speaks fluent French, as do their children and most Tahitians.
We were supposed to be heading down to Kona Kays on this day, and I'd told her Sunday that we'd be there around 3. But everyone was sleeping (except me) and by the time they got up, all of Kaumana's family was there, back from school early in order to go to the beach for the work party, then they were going to do Christmas Caroling at the Care Center and give away the little pine cone Christmas trees the Primary kids had made on Sunday. Oh, I also helped Vaina glue the bottoms on to those since they weren't quite completed by the Primary kids on Sunday. I used a glue gun. ha! Me, the Anti-crafter. haha. They were nice enough to say, Oh please help yourself to the leftovers from last night, so we did that before we left.

I really like those Barton's. What a wonderful family.

*********
It was close to 2 pm before we got loaded up and out of there. We headed into town to hit WalMart, where I did some speed shopping for a couple of meals. Yeah. just a couple of meals, expecting to find an empty kitchen at Kona Kay's. Her fridge ended up being quite full. Of what, I'm not sure. I know the freezer smells kind of fishy. But I tried adding our lunchmeat and bread and Milk and cheese in to the fridge, and it kind of sort of fit. Oh well.

I did get a blender from Kay, so that was nice. We were given a bunch of tangelos from her tree, so I juiced those and we cut up one of her banana breads and that is what we had for dinner on Monday night. Lunch had been huge, so that was adequate.

Kay Wilson's house is kind of the same and kind of different. She's modified the "shed" that is an outside guest room. When we were here years ago, there was only a futon bed and a recliner and maybe a chest of drawers. This time there is a bed and many other pieces of furniture. There are fans! Yay. And mosquitos. >:-( Well, I think I saw one come in with me tonight.. I'll know by morning! Sleeping arrangements are not ideal. The king sized bed that is in the bottom bedroom that Berenice and Gayela are to share is up against a wall, and Gayela has to have an outside edge, as does Berenice. So Gaylea opted to sleep on the couch. The dining/living area is very much the same. Stuffy, dark, buggy, but basically clean. There's adequate seating. If we open the doors and turn on a fan, it's tolerable. The kitchen is. . . ummmm...interesting. It's very full. Like all the counter tops and space anywhere is filled with stuff. Really old stuff, and paper goods for her business stuff, and just stuff. that leaves a double sink to work in, 6 inches on the right hand side to switch out blender for juicer. All the drawers are stuffed with stuff. One kind of has silverware, but it's a mess...the drawer next to it is empty except for cockroach traps. So you can imagine what might have been crawling around on silverware in the adjoining drawer. Lower cupboards are full of pots and pans and plates and plastic ware. Lots of platters, few bowls and many plates, but no small ones. And no paper plates or cups... just glass. The bottom cabinets with glasswear has spider webs, too. There are no top cupboards. I selected four different glasses, scrubbed them well with luke warm water (it never seemed to get hot until the next day) and lots of soap and told everyone, "That's your glass for the duration," as I didn't want to have to SCRUB and SCOUR each and every time we ate. Same with three plates. Scoured them well (and they were dirty!) and same with spoons for our papaya. We have a compost bucket and because we use so much citrus, it's about 1/3 full after just one juicing. That's a 5 gallon bucket of compost, folks. That's a lot of orange rinds. ;-) Good stuff, actually.

Our room. There is a mini-fridge, but we never plugged it in. There were some empty shelves to put our bags, plus some entertainment center/stereo cabinet pieces of furniture we could use to put our "stuff" on. No chair ;-)

I thought the big black thing would be an armoir. Not.

I zoomed in on the previous photo to show the hooks that Kay had Mike install last time we were here. Waaaay up in the top of the corner. Over a window. But that was where she said to put them.It's a board with about 6 hooks. That's all the closet was back then.

Now there is THIS for a closet! It, too, is in front of a window. And salt air really collects dirt and I'm so glad I wiped them all off before hanging my white skirt and Mike's white shirt on them (or anything else).

The "armoir" was really just a storage cupboard that was already full of stuff.

Mike and I slept fairly comfortably in our little shed of a room. I opened all the windows and we had two fans going most of the night. I only woke up once in the night itching a bug bite below my knee. I have one on my heel, too. Mike was up lots. He has to go out a closed door, down a step with no hand railing, across an uneven cement walkway, over a little "curb", onto a slanted entry (slippery when wet), through another closed door into the house, down the hall a bit, over another 1 1/2 inch threshold into the bathroom, and around the corner. five times that night. All by night light or hand-held flashlight--luckily provided in the room for us. (Knowing where we were staying, I also had a flashlight I'd packed for things like that.)

So, we're off! Adventures at Kona Kay's! I told Mike, "Let's not do this again, please."

Photos to follow when I figure out where to find them on my device. I have not remembered to ask Kay what the wifi password is, and I have data I can use on my phone plan, but it's a little tricky typing and blogging without my tablet (which only uses wifi). But I'm doing it now with my keyboard and phone! Miracle.

The view out of our windows of the lovely converted shed/apartment.

A view of the laundry room wiring for the house. Mike acutually looked at this to see if the stuff was adequate for all the things that are seemingly randomly wired. He seemed to think it was "safe".

Don't try walking out here if you are unsteady on your feet. This is on the way to the compost . . .which is through the neighboring yard, across the street and through the lava bed.