over last night in Hilo for Liz & Glenn dinner at Miyo’s:

Lib:

1.  Food

2.  video games on ipad

3.

4.  New magic cards on the MTG Origins release day

Clem (not in order)

The first half of the kayak trip

Hiking across the crater (Kilauea Iki)

Water slide at Waikaloa Hilton

Minions

Food at Hawaiian Style

Glenn

Monkey in the Middle when he wasn’t in the middle

First 2/3 of the kayak trip

Cabanas

after what in many ways was the fiasco of yesterday (despite Liz’s many attempts to label it a grand adventure), today we rented a car and went up to Volcano so we could take C and L on their first bike across Kilauea iki. 

Which went so much better than I’d hoped. 5 minutes down the trails, surrounded by tree ferns and flowering ginger, C declares “this is one of my new favorite places on Earth!”  When we hit the crater floor and emerged from the trees, she announced “I’m so so so glad we did this” which she repeated often for the rest of the walk. 

L was not as effusive, characteristically, but was excited about the crater. Though once we ascended and were walking back along the rim, was done with the whole mind blowing vistas across frozen lava bubbles and started tapping his foot when we started at EVERY overlook. 

Watching 2 people walk off the ” trail” across the crater toward a steam vent:

L. They aren’t staying on the trail. I think they’ve found a geezer. 

R. Geyser, not geezer. 

L. Whatever, they mean the same thing. 

R.  No, a geezer is a cranky old person. 

L. Oh, well, everyone has found one of those in their life. 

hiding out in the cabana as long as possible before the kids insist on monkey in the middle in the pool 

I know we were just in France for three weeks. But I got off the plane, and the Hawaiian air hit me and I thought “now it feels like summer.”

  

 I had noticed a sound like ice crunching when I closed the left crisper drawer. Then this morning I discovered that the lettuce in there was froZen to the back of the drawer.  

This is the 2.5″ this ice that’s been lurking behind my crisper drawers. 

You can’t see it too well, but that small regtangle to the left of the light is some sort of sensor. And the larger rectangle  to the left of that is has a panel inside that should move but is frozen open. Starting to get an idea of why the brand spanking new ridiculously expensive fridge has been so loud lately. Okay, new in Dec, but still. 
Update: 

I have excavated 2 large vents under all that ice. I think they are where the cold air is supposed to enter the refrigerator compartment. They are completely iced over. 

  I have also open a beer. 

Update 2:

I’ve chipped away the rest of the ice that I could get to. Wore down 2 wooden chopsticks and a bamboo spatula in the process. Faced with 2 vents clogged w ice, I broke out the hair dryer. 

Deja vous, and the reason for the bad mojo title. Our last fridge was cursed from the beginning. We replaced the mother board (twice), and then the compressor. All while it was still under warranty. After that, it would periodically ice over the cold air vents into the freezer. Thus allowing the freezer to warm up, and ruining all the frozen food if we didn’t notice it soon enough. 

Then we would have to defrost the freezer, either turning off the whole thing, or sitting in front of the open freezer holding the hair dryer on the ice blocking the vents. 

Last Fall it was doing it more and more often until our repair guy said it needed another new curcuit board and we called it. The whole reason I went with the LG was that’s what the repair guy reported was most reliable. 

I just got an email from Lib:

Hi guys
I lost my camera.😭😰

did I mention that he’s in Strasbourg on his school trip?  with the new camera that my mom just gave 2 days before he left (him for his birthday, which was yesterday)?

the funny thing is, we gave Clem a new camera just before she went to Strasbourg when she was in the 5th grade.  and the first night she was gone, I woke up every 15 minutes freaked out that she was going to loose her new camera.  and she does have trend of loosing things, but I know I was just fixating on that in place of general anxiety over sending my 11 year old overseas to live with family we’d never met for two weeks.  she came home happy and healthy and with camera.

Lib, I was comparatively calm.  We’d met Enzo, his exchange correspondent.  We’ve done the exchange thing before.  Putting him on the plane to Strasbourg felt easy, esp compared to when Clem went and it was our first time.  and even more so when compared to putting Clem on a plane to Paris 2 months after Charlie Hebdo and 5 days after the GermanWings crash.

And he never loosed things.  ever.  so I barely talked to him about making sure he always put his camera, or notebook, or wallet, etc back into his backpack, not just down on the bench or table next to the backpack.

sigh

when making the wise decision to cancel the Zipcar resv and take uber to the party, so not follow that up with hitching a ride home w Ilonka. Esp when she says to Kakki as we walk out of the party “I hope you don’t mind, I’m taking a roadie”. Roadie in this usage being a plastic timber of red wine,  not the guy who hails the amps. 

ok, slightly embarrassing to admit: I was at SFO (not the embarrassing part) to drop off the boy for Strasbourg (still not the embarrassing part. Though one of the other parents pointed out that for those of us w 8th and 5th graders, this was our 7th trip to the International terminal this Spring without getting to go anywhere ourselves) and I took BART home (em would put that in the embarrassing column but we’re still not there). Sitting there noodling on my phone, vaguely aware we’ve gone under ground so must be back in the city. Suddenly become aware that driver is announcing that next stop will be Civic Center. Which means I completely missed 24th St. stop and am about to miss 16th St because I was playing Candy Crush. (There it is)
Boy is off without a hitch. 

This is pretty calm so far.  loud, but calm.

probably just jinxed myself.  but 10 boys, 10 and 11 yrs old, are sitting in my living room and playing Magic.  and all is calm.

i went to the community meeting for Dolores park to address trash and what rec & park is planning for the opening of the renovated half in June. 

Mostly a waste of time- rec & park staff etc out numbered community 3-1. And they mostly talked about the existing problems. Very little about concrete steps to address them, over than trying to spark a social media campaign and sending volunteers out to peer pressure people into taking care of their trash. 

But they had lunch from Tartine and Delfina, so not a complete waste of my hour. Hope they get more people for the evening mtg.