Car Wash

The ocean salt air and the acid in the rain are not good for automobile paint in Hawaii.  Most people have at least a carport to keep off the blazing sun and acid rain.  Garages are used for extra outdoor space like barbecuing or a party. 

There are few car washes in Kona, HI.  We were told that the couple that are here may wash too well, making scratches, or not well enough.  The Ford dealership recommended an auto detailer.  We decided to be our own auto detailers.

David bought car wash soap, wax, a chamois and a brush you use on the end of a hose.    It was a hot day, but overcast, so we put the car in the concrete area where the runoff would not harm anything.  David got to use the brush on the hose tool.  Men always like to use a tool.  I got a rag.  Of course we had to wash each other as well as the car. The water felt good. 

After the wash and rinse part, I had to chamois the car dry while David cleaned some mats.

Then we tackled the hard part.  I hope our arthritic hands recover.  David used the car wax using a couple towels and a lot of arm muscle.  I put on glass cleaner I found in the shed that is supposed to keep off the raindrops.  You have to apply both products with a swirling motion, and then swirl again to make it shine.  This is time consuming and painful.

But the final product was worth the effort.  Can you see the reflections on the car?  Doesn’t it look shiny and new?  Linda said the Capt of the space shuttle had to put on sunglasses it was so bright.

Gecko Gifts

Two Gecko eggs

We see Madagascar geckos all over the house and garden.  They like banana trees too.  Ours are about 6 inches long.  They are the same as the GEICO gecko, a bright green with red markings on their back.  They are very pretty, charming and sneaky.  If they see you, they don’t move, which is funny since they are so colorful you can’t miss them.  However, they are quick to move away and can slither in and out of cracks and walls.  I’ve seen one jump from post to post on a fence, each time landing parallel to the post.

gecko poop

Geckos leave presents all over the house.  Little oblong black poop with a white uric acid spot on one end.  It can be quite large, considering their size.  We first mistook it for rat poop.  Often the light green furniture cushions will have several dark "gifts" in the morning, or even during the day. 

This morning, for the first time, we found eggs!  They are about 3/4 the size of a dime, round, with a thin shell.  They lay their eggs in pairs up to 6 at a time.  These were on the coffee table by the green furniture. 

Until I looked it up online, I thought some sort of bird had entered the farmhouse.  But sure enough, as David surmised, they are gecko eggs.  I can’t believe they would be so large. 

Geckos eat flies and spiders, so you want them around.  They also like mashed fruit.  David likes to feed them a little bit of smoothie.  Steve on Oahu feeds one a mashed banana.  His is the largest one I’ve seen, about twice the size of the ones found here.  I would say we have at least 4 at all times in the farmhouse and more in the mill house which is now empty, because they have no disturbances, however there is no food, just bugs there.  I could be off on the numbers by a lot.  You can't tell them apart.  It could be there is only one, appearing in different locations, or there could be a dozen or more.

Gecko

We also see tiny wiggly dark colored geckos, mostly outside and active in dark places.  I couldn’t fine out about these dark ones, they don’t look like they have spots to me.  They could be babies.

Geckos make a chirping noise at night.  I haven't heard it during the day.

Here is one person’s information on Hawaiian geckos I felt was well written:

Living in a tropical climate means living with bugs, they thrive in the humid air and lush growth. Even on the relatively dry side of the island (here in Kona) the sheer numbers of insects and other creepy crawlers is daunting. Ants, termites, cockroaches, and much more. We had hoped to leave the giant centipedes and scorpions behind when moving from Arizona, but this was not to be, we have both around the house in Hawai'i.

Dealing with these hordes of insect pests is a constant problem, and spraying gallons of poisons around is not an attractive answer. Most Hawaiian residents quickly realize we have allies, and the smart homeowner learns to encourage the right allies in this battle. The best allies are small, scaly, and can go anywhere in the house, they are constantly on patrol, particularly on the night shift.

Their name is gecko.

Geckos are voracious predators, anything smaller is prey. They will attack, kill and eat cockroaches nearly as large as they are, leaving nothing but bits of wings and the occasional leg behind as evidence of the battle.

In a healthy house the geckos are everywhere, the smallest of crevices can be a home to these little creatures. They scurry all over the outside walls, up and down the siding and under the eves. Windows are a particularly good hunting area as flying insects, attracted to the lights inside, come to the window, only to be ambushed by the waiting geckos. A few will take up housekeeping inside, making their homes in odd corners and in the rafters. They announce their presence with the odd little barks in the night "Tchack, tchack, tchack". Sometimes startlingly loud, these barks proclaim territories and availability to potential mates. The tropical night is rich with echoing barks through the house and across the neighborhood.

These little creatures have become part of the folklore of many tropical regions. Welcomed by almost all cultures they are often considered good luck and welcomed into our dwellings. It does not hurt that geckos are adorably cute, particularly the tiny and delicate hatchlings. Big eyes, bright colors and little splayed claws just appeal to everything humans consider attractive. First welcomed for their appearance, they become considerate house guests, doing their duty of eliminating those house guests we do not want.

Hawaiian culture is no exception, the gecko commonly appears in Hawaiian lore and mythology. The gecko was an incarnation of Mo'o, a magical lizard 'aumakau or guardian spirit who was revered by certain families and believed to offer protection. (1)

There are nine species of geckos that have found their way to Hawai'i,(2) none are endemic to the islands, having arrived from elsewhere. Of these it is likely that four different species either floated to the islands, or possibly came with the Polynesian voyagers, either deliberately or as hitchhikers aboard the great voyaging canoes. These four were present in the islands before the arrival of western seafarers; the Mourning Gecko (Lepidodactylus lugubris), the Stump-toed Gecko (Gehyra mutilata), the Small Tree Gecko (Hemiphyllodactylus typus), and the Indo-Pacific Gecko (Hemidactylus garnottii).

Other gecko species began arriving in the 20th century, these include the Common House Gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus) in the 1940's, the Gold-dust Day Gecko (Phelsuma laticauda) in the 1970's, the Orange-spotted Day Gecko (Phelsuma guimbeaui) in the 1980's. The Tokay Gecko (Gekko gecko) is an even more recent arrival, probably the result of escaped pets and like the Orange Spotted Day Gecko is currently found only on Oahu. The Giant Day Gecko (Phelsuma madagascariensis grandis) has been found in the Manoa Valley and at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, but it is uncertain if this species it truly established. (2)

The early arrivals to the islands were all asexual, meaning that only one animal need make it to the islands to begin laying eggs and spreading into the habitat. This almost certainly made successful colonization more likely. Several of the later geckos to arrive are bisexual. The spread of geckos throughout the Pacific and to the various island habitats has been well studied, offering insights into the advantages of sexual versus asexual reproduction. (3)

Intense competition between the various species has resulted in the increase in some populations and the displacement of some of the gecko species that have been resident for centuries. Most homes have two shifts, typically a day gecko visible around the house in the sunlight and another species during the night. The population around our house is typically Gold Dust Day Geckos by day and Mourning Geckos at night. I do not recall regularly seeing the Gold Dust last year, but this year they are more common.

There is very little negative about living with the geckos in the house. The biggest issue is that they do leave droppings, usually on windowsills and odd corners. Usually dry little things that vacuum up without issue. The loud barks do occasionally catch you by surprise, but soon become simply part of the experience of living with these little critters. You get used to hearing the little skittering claws, knowing that they are usually going after a meal, likely something you would rather not have in your house.

Posted by Andrew Cooper in Random Thoughts

Victim of Packaging

Wednesday I had to go to Urgent Care after I snipped my finger more than the package I was trying to open.  I had no idea the scissors were so sharp!  The next day David was cutting the bandage material to rebind my wound and cut his finger as well.

The scissors cut a triangle in the inside of my middle left finger, close to the palm.  I knew it was deep.  Dr. Sanchez knew it also at a glance, and put three stitches in to close the wound.  She said I was the second person that day with the same type of wound.  She rinsed it with saline for a long time, injected marcaine, sewed it, then just put on a dressing.  I am not supposed to get it wet at all.  That means David is now in charge of the kitchen as well as dish washing.  Also, no beach for me.

This wound is in a awkward position.  If I grip something, or get up and brace myself on that part of my hand without thinking, it reminds me.  Other than those painful moments, it doesn’t bother me at all.

The inability to open packaging is called wrap rage and is the cause of thousands of injuries and trips to the ED every year.

Wrap rage, also called package rage, is the common name for heightened levels of anger and frustration resulting from the inability to open hard-to-remove packaging, particularly some heat sealed plastic blister packs and clamshells. Consumers suffer thousands of injuries per year, such as cut fingers and sprained wrists, from tools used to open packages and from the packaging itself. Easy-opening systems are available, when desired, to improve convenience to end-users.

Contents ·         1 Background ·         2 Frustration and injuries ·         3 Solutions ·         4 See also ·         5 References ·         6 External links

Background

Packaging sometimes must be made difficult to open. For example, regulations dictate that some over-the-counter drugs have tamper resistance to deter unauthorized opening prior to the intended customer and be in child-resistant packaging. Other packages are intentionally made difficult to open to reduce package pilferage and shoplifting.^[1]

Hard plastic clamshells also protect the products while they are being shipped.^[2] In addition, using transparent plastic allows consumers to view products directly before purchasing them.^[3]

The term wrap rage itself came about as a result of media attention to the phenomenon. Although other variants such as packaging rage have been used as early as 1998, Word Spy identifies the earliest use of wrap rage as coming from The Daily Telegraph in 2003.^[4][5] The American Dialect Society identified the term as one of the most useful of 2007.^[6]

Wrap rage has been humorously portrayed in popular culture. A notable example is Larry David's wrap rage in the season seven episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm titled "Vehicular Fellatio." [1]

Frustration and injuries

In 2006, Consumer Reports magazine recognized the wrap rage phenomenon when it created the Oyster Awards for the products with the hardest-to-open packaging.^[3][7] A story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about wrap rage^[8] was featured on The Colbert Report when host Stephen Colbert tried to use a knife to remove a new calculator from its plastic packaging, to no avail.^[9]

A survey in Yours, a magazine aimed at people over 50, found that 99% of the 2,000 respondents said packaging had become harder to open over the last 10 years, 97% said there was "too much excess packaging", and 60% said they had bought a product designed to more easily open packaging.^[10] In a survey conducted at the Cox School of Business, almost 80 percent of households "expressed anger, frustration or outright rage" with plastic packaging.^[11] Consumers also tend to use words such as "hate" and "difficult" when describing these products.^[12]

Consumers sometimes use potentially unsafe tools such as razor blades, boxcutters, and ice picks in their attempts to open packages.^[2] In the Yours survey, 71% of respondents said they had been injured while trying to open food packaging. The most common injury respondents had from trying to open packaging was "a cut finger, followed by cut hand, sprained wrist, bruised hand and strained shoulder muscle."^[10] According to a British study, over 60,000 people receive hospital treatment each year due to injuries from opening food packaging.^[5] The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that attempts to open packaging caused about 6,500 emergency room visits in the U.S. in 2004.^[13] A 2009 study conducted by the Institute for Good Medicine found that 17 percent of adults over the age of 21 were either injured at least once or know of someone who was injured while opening a holiday or birthday gift.^[14]

Solutions

Packages featuring innovations such as easy-open tabs have been made partially in response to wrap rage.

When packagers and retailers are willing, there are many possible solutions to allow easy access to package contents. Easy access, however, can also allow more pilferage and shoplifting. It sometimes adds extra cost to packaging.

The thick plastic of some clamshell packaging makes it difficult to open such packages with ordinary household scissors. More sturdy shears, however, can cut clamshell plastic easily. Medical "trauma shears" are an inexpensive option. Tin snips also make short work of packaging plastic, and the higher mechanical advantage of "compound" metal snips make it possible to cut such packages open even if one has little hand strength.

Some companies are making their packs easier for consumers to open to help reduce wrap rage^[15]: Other companies must keep tamper resistant packages. Forces driving the efforts to improve packaging include pressure from consumers and retailers and from senior citizens who find it increasingly difficult to open packaging as they age.^[16]

Several methods of making packages easy to open have long been available. These include perforations, "tear strip" tapes, break-open components, etc

Flower Arranging Class Two

My arrangement, in a casserole dish.

This Wednesday there were twice as many people as last week at the flower arranging class.  Some husbands came!  The flowers people brought were unbelieveable.  I really had to scramble to find flowers and foilage on the farm.  I got some also along the road.  Turns out a really pretty leaf I brought was oleander which is poisonous. 

Scott Seymour, the flower artist and instructor, saved helping me for almost last.  He could see my flower contribution was pathetic.  In spite of that, I got rave reviews, especially after I was allowed to scrounge leftover blooms and foilage.  I think I will try buying some flowers at the farmer's market next week.  Everyone will be relieved.

Scott is in background

Macadamia Nuts

Picker and bags

This week they picked mac nuts.  First a worker uses a blower to blow all the leaves from underneath the trees so you can see the heavier nuts.  If your farm only has mac nuts, this can be quite a process.  For some reason, with all the mac nut trees we have, they clocked only 10 hours of blowing for over a hundred trees.

In 1986, a farm report stated that the Braund Farm had 220 mac nut trees.  At that time trees were culled, and you can see stumps of trees around the farm.  I haven’t counted, but my guess is that there are 150 trees or more.  One of the nice things about having mac nut trees on a coffee farm is that, obviously you get a crop of nuts, but also the trees shade the coffee plants from the hot sun.

After the ground is cleared, the workers come and “pick” the nuts.  Actually, the nuts are on the ground.  The ones in the tree are too high to pick.  So the nuts are really gathered.  Also, the ones on the ground are the ones that are ripe and ready to gather.  I did not actually see our workers gathering, but I have observed other workers. 



Flower and green nuts

They stoop down and pick up the nuts that have recently fallen, which would be the ones with the green husk still on and intact.  These would be the freshest.  Then the ones with the husk dried enough to have broken open are older.  Then sometimes the husk actually falls off the hard inner shelled nut.  These are slightly shiny and still good.  The nuts with no husk that are dull looking are ignored.  If you don’t pick often enough, there will be these old nuts still on the ground every time.  These are eaten by the rats and the occasional wild boar, as well as chickens and various insects.  Old nuts and nut husks are sought after as soil for growing such things as pineapple.  Sometimes a nut will actually sprout a new tree.

After Thursday night there were lots of big white bags, which the workers had sewn shut with string and piled on the side of the driveway.  Friday, they came again to pick.  There are now 68 of these huge bags of nuts ready to be delivered to the mac nut buyers on Monday.  I have no idea how much each bag weighs, but I don’t want to try to lift one.  I was amazed at how many nuts were gathered.  And they do this about every two months!  The lady up the lane sold her nuts for $.73 per pound.  There may be price variation depending on the quality of the nuts after they get to the buyers. 

There is no mac nut season.  The trees just continue to produce nuts all year long.  I have personally never seen a flower, probably because they don't look like a flower to me. 

All last week was warm and dry weather, unusual this time of year.  The pickers were working in very hot conditions.  However, Sunday night the clouds burst.  Each bag of nuts got wet. 

Loading mac nut bags

Monday the farm manager came to take the nuts to market.  It took two pick up truck loads.  We delivered 5,115 lbs of nuts to the buyer.  He pays $.86 per pound.  The scale weighs the total weight including the 364 lbs of the blue bin.  So the scale showing 1439 lbs had 1,075 lbs of actual nuts.

Unloading bags

The buyer took a bucket sample of the nuts we brought for analysis. Perhaps they will deduct for being wet, I don't know. We got a receipt for the full weight.



Weighing nuts

Scale display

Dumping weighed nuts

Here is some official info about macadamia nuts:

·         Macadamia nuts are not picked from the tree but are fully ripened when they fall and are then harvested.

·         Hawaii’s 700 farms and 8 processing plants employ 4,000 workers.

·         The macadamia tree is related to the protea family.

·         Total Hawaii macadamia nut farm value in 1999 was $37.4 million.

·         Tough nut to crack: it takes 300 lbs. per square inch to break the macadamia nut shell, hardest of all nut shells.

·         U.S. is the largest consumer (51%) with Japan following at 15%.

·         Macadamia nuts are high in monounsaturated fatty acid (“good” fat) and have been demonstrated to help reduce overall cholesterol levels.

·         The Hawaii Macadamia Nut Association’s launching its “100% Hawaii-grown Macadamia Nuts” campaign: “The Hawaiian Macadamia, Grown with Aloha”.

·         Virtually all of Hawaii’s macadamia nuts come from the Big Island of Hawaii.

·         Nuts are high in minerals and protein and are part of a healthy diet.

·         Hawaii growers are the world leaders in cultivation techniques.

Source - Hawaii Macadamia Nut Association

Mike and Mary MacCheyne pick and process their own nuts by hand. Mary is actually the picker. They have about 20 trees. They have a drying rack and dry them until the husk comes off. Then they have a cracker that cracks the hard shell to get out the nut. Then she drys them in a big dehydrator and sells them. When they go to Fairbanks to sell their products at the bazaar there in November, they prepare their chili mac nuts. This is their own very popular recipe. They even grow the chili peppers themselves! Very clever people.

Aftermath of Harvesting

Last week they harvested the coffee and macadamia nuts.  We walked the farm to pick our avos and such and found that our avos, limes, and even a pineapple were harvested as well.  So it will be awhile before we see any more fruit.  We think that we will have to pick what we want before the workers do.  At least it is quiet now and we can concentrate on other things.  Even though we do not do the farm labor, we seem to spend an awful lot of time arranging things, getting bags ready, going to the mill, arranging for them to deliver, checking the plants for beetles, and David has been manually irrigating the whole farm.
Being a caretaker is a lot more time consuming than anticipated.  One thing we have observed is the invasive species which are growing, sometimes around the coffee plants or mac nut trees.  Some of the pretty trees with beautiful blooms are now very tall and plant little trees next to themself and before you know it there is a huge clump of stuff crowding the coffee.  There are these pretty vines with white flowers, but they can climb up anything and get all entwined.  A couple of plants I recognize as house plants are trees, or are covering one or two square yards and moving fast!  The mango tree next to the house has three different other things growing intertwined, next to, or on it.

invasive bush beans

Air potato,widely invasive

Chicken house overgrown with pretty vine

This tree is a house plant in Anchorage

Nice touch to mango tree!  There is even a coffee plant trying to grow.

Flower arranging class at Donkey Mill

Wednesday I attended a floral arrangement class taught by Scott, a landscape architect.  We were supposed to bring our own flowers, which they neglected to tell us, except the ladies who had taken this class before knew this.  As you can see, they are the ones with the beautiful arrangements.  I still can’t think of too many flowers we have here at the farm I can pick for an arrangement, but we sure do have a lot of interesting leaves.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching the other ladies create their masterpieces with a lot of help and encouragement from Scott.  Scott is a treat.

You start with oasis.  It must be soaked in water and his secret ingredient, vodka.  You sculpt the oasis into something round and put it on top of your container, not inside.  Then you find the flowers you want to be the focus, or “pica”.  This has to be an odd number of blooms.  Then you sweep the greens and other flowers gracefully around the pica and fill up all the holes in the oasis.  All the time you are spraying vodka water onto the underside of the flowers and leaves. 

These wonderful arrangements will last for up to a month, if you keep spraying vodka water.  The vodka is good for keeping off the bugs and helps preserve the flowers.

I got a coconut leaf end which is big enough to be a dish, put the oasis in it, and scored a bunch of leftover flowers and greens and took that home to work on.  We don’t have any vodka, however, so I don’t know when I can finish this project.

This last week I have been cleaning out the garden area so I can plant lettuce and other vegetables and herbs.  In doing this, I threw out the ferns, which were one of the favorite things to use in an arrangement.  I also dug up a lot of what I thought were weeds, but they had interesting enough texture  which I probably could have also used. 

As soon as I get some vodka, I will create something and add the photo to this post. 

Okay, it is Sunday and we have a guest for dinner so we cleaned the house and I created the flower arrangement.  I have no idea the names of the flowers or foilage in this arrangement except the citronella leaves used as fill.

Flower arrangement 8-14-2011 for Sarah

Jeff Downing, Ceramist, Artist Talk

Jeff Downing Presentation

Thursday evening, Aug 4^th, David and I attended an artist presentation at the Donkey Mill Art Center, located at the bottom of our hill within walking distance of the farm.

Jeff is a large, strong looking man which makes him capable of the large ceramic projects he creates.  He brought his family with him to the informal potluck event.

His presentation consisted of slides from his early work up to the present.  He is Associate Professor of Art at San Francisco State University.

His presentation became more lively as he talked about his latest works.  He is now doing very large (8 to 12 ft tall) dogs.  You can tell he is influenced by Giacometti and Picasso.  He travels with his crates of ceramic pieces to various locations throughout the United States and sets up his dogs in public areas for an extended exhibition.  They are quite unique and engaging.

I was at first skeptical of an artist who sculpted dogs, but became enthralled at the creative figures, the process of putting the large sculptures together for exhibition, and his lively personality.  Each dog seems to be similar in appearance, in that they seem to be the same breed of dog, but they also have their own personality and of course each one has a name.

*Artist Talk and Aloha Potluck with Jeff Downing 

Thursday, August 4, 6 - 8pm

Ceramist Jeff Downing discovered clay while studying music composition at the State University of New York at Purchase.  His first ceramics class there changed the course of his career. Drawn by its reputation for experimentation in the arts, he moved to San Francisco California where he began to explore hand-built clay sculpture under the tutelage of artists David Kuraoka and Stephen DeStaebler.  He went on to receive his MFA in 1992 and is currently an Associate Professor of Art at San Francisco State University.

Jeff Downing's sculpture is informed by the humor and pop sensibility of the California artist Robert Arneson; by the stripped-down economy of Alberto Giacometti's figures; and by the spontaneity and energy characteristic of the work of Pablo Picasso. Downing's work with dog imagery depends on chance discovery of form, but seeks to invoke feelings concerning the human condition and our varied relationship with the natural world. In Jeff Downing's world view, studying the dog - with all of its expressiveness, intelligence and sensitivity - leads us to a better understanding of the connection between human culture and nature.

Susanna Moore and Jill Ker Conway



Susanna Moore

David and I were fortunate to attend a writer’s workshop with Susanna Moore, author of “In the Cut”, her most popular work.  She asked us to read her first novel, “My Old Sweetheart” before we came.

She said that authors usually write biographical works for the first three or four books, but then they realize they have run out of stories and begin to make them up and create characters of their own.

I’ve heard this before, so it must be good advice, and that is, to first imagine a character.  Imagine everything about her.  What does she look like, where does she live, what does she like to eat, her favorite color.  Then get even deeper into the character, creating a history, family, grandparents, schools, where she gets her hair cut.  Create her childhood, her adult life, her own children, and her life in old age.  Get to know her so well that somehow her story needs to be told.  This was Susanna's advice.

Susanna researches the times, the daily life, the environment of her character.  She said she likes to choose a woman, and that she is alive at the end of the story.  But in one novel, the character instead became a man, and he died.

Another interesting insight into being an author is that once she created a character who, as the writing of the novel progressed, she realized the protagonist hated her sister.  So she had to go back to the beginning and put in hints that this was true.  And once the editor pointed out that no one in the novel had anything to do with food.  No one ate, no one even mentioned anything edible.  So she had to go back and insert food references.  Also, once a character in the 1850's was being created and she needed to know the practices surrounding menstruation.  She had to research this, and then added this to her novel in the appropriate context.

She stated that researching for the novel, as she is doing now in Hawaii since May, is the fun part of writing.  Once it is done, she has to buckle down and write.  She uses lots of sticky notes to remind her of her findings, and makes notes each day to be reviewed the following day over coffee.

I asked a question about how it feels to be writing intimate things about herself and others, and how she deals with this.  She said she has tried to be careful, getting feedback from people she knows before publication.  She said that her daughter, now in her mid thirties, is also a writer.  Her book is an autobiographical novel.  She has asked Susanna for feedback, and she has given comments about the style, etc. and not touched on the intimate details that will be revealed.  However she thinks that the part referring to Susanna's present boyfriend may be hurtful and is hopeing her daughter will make changes.

Susanna's first endeavor, the one we read, was also an autobiographical novel in many ways and related to her and her relationship with her Mother.  I found it very confusing, disjointed, revealing and sad.  After her workshop, I learned that some of the confusion resulted from her quick transitions from present day to her childhood.  I did not notice her use of first person when she was in the present, and third person, when as a child.  There were few chapters, and many ∞ breaks.  Not much was revealed as to why things were the way they were or why things happened.  For example, her Mother just left one day.  The children were apparently not told anything, so they believed she was gone for good, maybe dead, but her departure was just surrounded in mystery.  Later, she came back with wounds on her forehead.  The reader had to figure out that she was probably in a mental institute and had a lobotomy.   It was never verified.  The author presented everything from  the perspective ofher 8 year old self, who had no idea but what she experienced.  This presentation of events from the child’s viewpoint, which left a lot out, was confusing to me who wanted to know the answers.  But the author made the reader figure it out, which you eventuall did.

What I figured out  and which was verified, was that her Mother became upset at her husband’s infidelity (which the children observed but didn’t observe, just having to sit in the car to wait for their Dad was all that was said about it).  She must have had a mental break at some point and went off to the hospital.  Surprising that for the time, apparently nothing was explained to the children by the father.  Later, the mother eventually committed suicide.   But even that was obscure. 

“In the Cut”, by Moore, sounds like a very interesting read.  She said it involved every form of sexual intercourse known to man except bestiality and necro-whatever you call it.  No surprise it was a best seller.

Susanna herself is a work of art.  She is a strikingly beautiful 66 year old woman, educated at the prestigious  Punaho school in Waikiki.  She says she never went to college.  She reads voraciously, however.  She is a professor at Princeton and has lived in India and Germany.  She presents herself as a dignified intellectual artist.

Jill Ker Conway

Before " My Old Sweetheart", I finished reading “The Road from Coorain” by Jill Ker Conway.  It is also autobiographical.  It also is written by a highly intelligent woman, about 70 years old now, who grew up on a station in Australia.  Her world was turned upside down by the sudden untimely death of her Father.  She too left for New York and an intellectual writing and education career, eventually becoming the first woman President of Smith College.   Her memoir, written in 1989, described the deterioration of her mature Mother before the end of her life, as if she had a mental breakdown.  It reads to me like her Mother actually was experiencing Alzheimer’s disease.  I wonder what Ms. Conway would think of that interpretation today.

I was struck, especially after meeting Susanna Moore, about the similarities of these two authors, in age, intelligence, fierce independence, and character strength, especially considering the times in which they grew and matured – times in which I am familiar – times when being a strong, intelligent, unusual woman stood out in the crowd.  I should have asked Ms. Moore if they knew each other, but of course I couldn’t remember Jill Ker Conway’s name due to my “age related attention deficit disorder”.

Susanna Moore has authored eight books and is about to publish her ninth.  She is in Hawaii, her home state where she grew up but left for greener intellectual pastures, in order to research her next novel.  She said her works are relatively unknown here in spite of the fact that the first three are set in Hawaii.

Jill Ker Conway has also authored at least four other books.  She never returned to live in Australia.

The Road from Coorain; An Australian Memoir