You've seen the Baby....

Now meet the Muthah.....

The Pest Control guy had been here the day before doing his thing...and we're pretty sure this creepy crawler scrambled up out of it's hidy-hole in the tree stump in an attempt to escape the Grim Reaper.  But, as they say, resistance is futile. 

And for a little size perspective.....

Oh dear, I just realized, this is likely the very shoe with which I dispatched the baby who appeared in my kitchen.  Hmmmm. 

Karmic coinky-dink?

Not Quite Ready for Architectural Digest...

... but we have been working on sprucing up the place a little here & there.

Our latest endeavor was with "window treatments" as they say in some circles (not the circles we travel in, but....).  So in true time-lapse photography style, our living room has gone from this:

to this:

and now this:

Ooooohhhhh.

Aaaaaahhhhh.

The oh-so-tropical bamboo shades are also in the "dining room".

And we even added some hanging plants  out on the lanai.  Altho, I confess, I may have already killed one of them.  (yikes!)  Hopefully eventually they will be cascading with flowers (if I don't kill them all).

It's all coming along and continues to evolve.

Aaaahhhhh.

Puppy Love

The Ants Go Marching Two by Two Thousand....

The fun just never ends around here.  If it's not centipedes, it might be cockroaches.  If not cockroaches, maybe spiders.  If not any of the above, rest assured - it's ants.

Not ants like back in Cali:  long trails of relatively beefy ants, traceable back to some source and eventually eradicable.  No, no.

These are smaller, faster critters that seem to appear out of thin air (trail schmail) and multiply exponentially while you are watching.  I've had them come suddently pouring out of the overflow gap in the bathroom sink when I was brushing my teeth - redolent of an over-affected horror movie.  I've had them camoflauged in a pile on my kitchen counter (which is a dark corian-like marbly design anyway), keeping possum-still such that I thought it was a big crumb.  Went to brush it off and they exploded in a frenzy of ant-y antics... yikes!

But today.... oh, today took the cake.

As you can see from above, the ants appear willy-nilly in odd places around the house.  We had noticed they seemed to get into our new printer, because we could see them in the LED screen. 

Oh, ha ha, isn't that funny?  Boy, those guys will just get into anywhere. 

But soon (days later), the 3-5 ants that we could see scurrying around in the window were looking suspiciously like 10 or more.  Hmm...I even printed something and there was a little flattened ant carcass on the page.

This might not be so good afterall. We should investigate further.  So Michael opened up some flaps and looked around and... oh dear... there seemed to be a plethora of ants!

So we took the printer out to the deck and started banging & shaking  & trying to knock the ants out.  Insufficient.  We started dismantling the thing, and every new uncovered crevice and cranny turned out to be infested (yes, infested) with ants and ant eggs. To wit...

The more we took apart and uncovered, the more we found.  We vacuumed and dug into little nooks with Q-tips soaked in windex.  And the whole time, of course, they are all trying to furiously move the eggs to a safer place and/or just get away themselves.  Who knew that ant-eggs, when brushed off a table top, are actually wet and slightly milky? 

I mentioned dismantling the copier?  Boy, did we.  I think Michael could hire himself out as a repair man at this point.

Believe it or not, Michael then spent the better part of an hour (while on a work call) doing part-to-part recon, playing Navy Seal, infiltrating every possible hidey-hole armed with Q-tips, a vaccuum and a bottle of ant spray.  Then he had to put the damn thing back together again.

And, whaddaya know - IT WORKS!! (I have always said, that man can fix anything.)

So we are feeling pretty proud of
 ourselves.  We have, once again, met the creepy crawly devil and emerged victorious. 

... my head kind of itches.  Yours?

Kona is Definitely on the Mend!

Great news!  Our Kona girl is making a wonderful comeback from the brink of near disaster.

She's got a great appetite (can't seem to get enough of her white rice & boiled chicken), good energy (actually, it's pretty clear she is dying to get out & run around) and back to her happy, cuddly, tail-waggin' disposition.  She and Ami get to jetisoning themselves around the house in spurts, and then crashing back down for naps when they realize there's no going out just yet.

I think my only complaint is that an apparent by-product of her trauma and/or interim diet is increasingly eye-watering flatulence, which escapes from her with abandon and debilitating frequency.  I may need a gas mask soon.

Sometimes, I think she knows just how I feel.....



And I Thought Spiders had Too Many Legs....

Warning:  Graphic photo, may not be suitable for squeamish viewers 

So I am pretty thoroughly creeped out by spiders.  Eight long spindly legs is at least four legs too many.  But I have now seen worse, and I have conquered.

Hawaii boasts that it has no snakes.  However, our particular brand of venomous horror comes in the form of the dreaded Centipede.  I've heard of them plenty.  I've even seen one, out in the wild (where he sort of looked like he belonged, ergo was not altogether unsettling).  I've heard they occasionally come inside.

Well, I'm here to tell you - yes, yes they do.

Right here in Kihei.  Right in my kitchen.  Perilously close to my bare foot. 

Luckily, my kama'aina senses were instantly on alert when I saw the 3" worm-like form writhing slowly across my floor.  My first instinct was slug.  Yuck.  Inconvenient, slimy,  high gross factor.  But then, faster than you can say "but Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore", I realized "WHOA - CENTIPEDE!"

Instantly herded dogs out of kitchen (not an easy task, as I had just announced it was time for breakfast).  Grabbed first available centipede-deterrent I could find.  Turns out an old beat up rubber Local (flip flop) is not entirely up to the task, but will suffice in a pinch.  It took 4-5 good hard (how hard can you hit with a half-dead flip flop?) smacks to subdue the beast.  It wasn't pretty, it wasn't easy.  But I was victorious.

The spoils of war (and a little eviscertated gut) are thus:

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Pinschers Up".

I'm not sure how to spell this, but... glliklleeschklachk.

No Laughing Matter - Update...

Good news.

Kona was released home to us Saturday morning.  Strict new diet instructions (boiled chicken, white rice) & meds for several days.  Keep an eye on her.

With the proper care & monitoring, we are out of the woods.

Relief and gratitude.  I got my wish.

No Laughing Matter...

All glibness aside... turns out Kona was (is?) actually quite sick. 

She spent all night Thursday night throwing up- almost every 1/2 hour-45 minutes like clockwork.  And she had awful diarrhea, or tried to go but nothing would come.  So neither one of us got much sleep...

I got her up to the vet Friday morning.  Turns out she has something called Hemorrhalgic Gastroenteritis (HGE).  Long diagnosis short - her gut is inflammed from an overload of bad bacteria, which causes internal bleeding.

She spent the night at the Vet hospital, on IV fluids, getting antibiotics, anti-inflammatory, anti-nausea meds.  I think I will be able to bring her home this morning.  She may be on a "recovery" diet of white rice, boiled chicken and cottage cheese for a few days.

I just want her home & well.  We miss her terribly, especially Ami.

Great Escape, Part Two: The Big Kahuna's Revenge

Kona didn't tell the whole story about her adventure on the lam.  Turns out that in executing the daring escape over the three foot lanai gate and down the 4-5 foot drop on the other side, she re-injured her leg and is back to limping a bit.  Thankfully, not quite as bad as it was a couple of weeks ago. 

But the bigger missing piece of information is:  What the heck did she eat?  Poor girl is in day two of tummy troubles.  Started yesterday (the day after the Great Escape) with, shall we say, soft serve #2.  Then today, she yacked up her breakfast and has a mean case of tourista. 

We're keeping a close eye, and of course hoping it's nothing serious (she sort of did this one of her first days on the beach where she just swallowed too much ocean, and maybe ate a small dead crab).  I'm making her some rice right now.....

Poor Kona.  She just can't seem to catch a break, can she?

The Call of The Wild ...

A Guest Posting, from Kona:

"House arrest.  That's what it is really.  Don't let anyone fool you with that "bed rest" con.  I've been under house arrest.  And I just cannot figure out what I did wrong, what I did to deserve this.

For nearly 2 weeks I've been left behind, when Ami gets to go for runs with Dad, or goes out with Mom or Dad and mysteriously comes back a little salty and wet.  I remember salty and wet.  Wait... why didn't I get to go?  Then I get the consolation prize of chasing the water from the hose.  Cools me off, and I do like a cool shower.  And then, insult to injury, whenever we get off the deck to relieve ourselves, I get put on my leash.  But not Ami, no.  How come?  What did I do?

I hear "Good, Kona."  "Poor, Kona" "You're such a good girl, Kona."  "Stay down, Kona."  "Lie down, Kona."  "Stay, Kona."  "Poor, Kona...."  I'm here to tell you, Kona's had enough.

Today was more than I could bear.  First Mom left with Ami.  Such a bummer.  Then, sand in my kibble, Dad left too.  I didn't want to be left home alone.  No way.  No more.

I figured out how to push open the big sliding door and just bullied my way through the screen.  I took a running start, rounded the corner of the lanaii and launched over the gate.  I might have broken a few plants on my landing, but I hit the ground and took off running.  I was free.  I was out of the house, off the lanaii, no collar, no leash, no worries.  Woo-hoo!

I did a little exploring, a little sniffing, a lot of running.  I was free!  But I didn't see Mom, or Dad, or Ami.  Couldn't figure out which way to go.  Couldn't remember the way to the beach.  Made it down the driveway - lots of cars out there.  Whoa.  Kinda scary.  Looked one way, then the other.  Didn't know which way to go.  Lost the scent - there were so many smells.  I felt a little panicky.  Now what?  But no turning back, not yet.  Went down the sidewalk, sprinting from smell to smell.  Still wasn't finding my family.  No longer  altogether comfortable with this whole freedom thing.  Thinking maybe I should turn around.  After a while, above all the sounds of cars and birds and cars and wind and cars, I thought I heard someone calling my name.  I started back up the sidewalk, the way I had come. And finally, there she was - Mom! 

She didn't look so good.

But boy was I happy to see her!  She herded me back to the car, waiting at the end of the driveway.  Told me to "load up" - yeah, like I needed to be told.  I was so relieved to back in a small safe space.  She rubbed me and hugged me, said the nicest things about being worried and scared.  (SHE was worried and scared?  I was a little fklempt myself!)   And then she did the wierdest thing - she yelled at me.  Said I had scared the s&%#t out of her. 

And we drove home.  Dad came running up, rubbing me and petting me.  Ami was happy to see me and really wanted to know where I'd been and what I'd done.  Even our neighbor Tex was relieved I was home safe and sound, as he too had been out looking.

I just hope they learned their lesson - no one leaves Kona home alone anymore. 

But just between you and me, I don't really ever want to go on that particular adventure again."


-Kona