E pili mau na pomaika‘i ia ‘oe a me ke akua ho’omaika’i ‘oe, ʻŌmea! (May blessing always be with you and may God bless you, Beloved!) Family, friends, MBN Members, it’s strange how little has happened this year. At least that’s how it seems. Lots of people seem to think that now that we’re retired, all we do is sit around and watch TV; but, I can tell you we are busy all the time!
Most of the time we are busy with the house. It’s at least 60 years old and it seems there’s always something that needs fixing. And of course every time we take on “a little fix-it project,” it turns into a two-day nightmare on Annie Road. If it isn’t the house, it’s the yard. Our house sits on a tiny, pennant-shaped lot. We’ve got plenty of shrubs, bushes, and trees; once or twice a month we haul off 1-2 pickup-loads of trimmings to the green-waste site. That’s a lot of work for a pair of cranky old duffers, so we finally got the young fellow across the street to help us out. Whew! We can only stand to work from about 7 to 12 or maybe if we push it 1:00, but after that we’re so worn out we just can’t do anything else – so … the TV goes on and we sit around and watch it – but not all day!
We stay pretty busy with our work in our Parish of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Kapaʽa, too. About a year ago we took on the job of running the RCIA process. That’s the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults – a way to get folks ready for the Sacraments of Initiation into the Catholic Church. The process takes at least 9 months to a year, and at the Easter Vigil Service the participants receive the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and First Holy Eucharist. Last year we had 5 kids and 1 adult. This year we have 1 child and 1 adult. It’s a great job, and we are very happy serving in this way. We still serve as Lectors – Proclaimers of The Word – and occasionally help distribute Holy Communion. This year I am the Chair of the Pastoral Council, too. Crucita is also doing a fair amount of substituting at St. Catherine School – mostly grades 1-6 – and the kids reeaally like her! She had always thought that dealing with kids younger than Middle School would be uncomfortable, but the little-ones won her over. She’s also helping out with our weekly Food Pantry; we feed up to 450 persons a week, many of them children.
Crucita is also very active in the Hawaiʽi State Teachers Association – Retired (HSTA-R). She’s Vice-President this year, and they’ve had some great meetings, tours, and parties. There’s also a Kauaʽi Retired Teachers Association, and she participates in their activities as well. I’m still working at Hawaii Home Infusion Associates, LTD 16 hours a week. Mostly I crank out policies and procedures and troubleshoot personnel issues and computer-application problems. We just had our accreditation survey, and the surveyor made some favorable comments about our P&P manuals, so the old dude still has it – for a little while longer, anyway.
Both of us are relatively healthy. I finally let common sense take the place of ego and got a cane and a parking permit. Walking has become challenging lately – along with sitting, standing, and lying down. We put real stock in the old DuPont saying, “Better living through Chemistry.” It seems we get plenty of exercise just working on the house, so we haven’t had much time or interest in riding our tricycle-built-for-two on the Coastal Path here in Kapaʽa. One other factor was the weather. We had a really wet summer with 15 tropical storms that formed in the east and central Pacific. That’s a record! Fortunately most of them veered away from the islands, and relatively little damage was done.
Our kids are still out on their own. Tim is living and working in New Orleans – makes his money as a street musician. Cherie is back in La Follette, TN where she works cleaning houses and motels. We don’t get over to the mainland much anymore; we took a week to go to a wedding in New Mexico in July, and it took weeks to recover. Looks like our traveling days are over. Facebook and iPad/iPhone are our transportation now. I still write a weekly post for my blog at www.aloha-friday.org and that usually take most of a day every week. We passed the 500-posts mark about a month ago!
Time to wrap this up. In case you were going to ask, sure – you can come visit! And we will close with our traditional Christmas Blessing:
Hope Peace Love Joy
May Hope and Peace and Joy and Love
Be yours in the coming of the Christ Child!
Chick and Crucita
Champion3R@aol.com Cris1BG@aol.com
PO Box 3003 Lihu`e, HI 96766-6003
* Contact us about joining the Moon Beam network if you are not already a member!
http://aloha-friday.org
