I planted a white sapote tree thirty-plus years ago, not knowing anything about the fruit, only that it sounded perfectly adapted to my mountain home. A good decision! The fruit is delicious, and for many years now we’ve had an abundant crop every fall. And the fruits are getting bigger every year!

The fruits ripen in a wide range of sizes, but these large ones are more and more common — and the fruit quality does not diminish with size. Oh, and never mind the rough-looking skin. The fruit is beautiful on the inside: creamy and very sweet.

(We need more neighbors to give away fruits to!)

The fruits are fragile, with optimal flavor just at the point when they are ready to fall off the tree, or just after they have dropped. One of the challenges of the season is keeping Xena Rose out of the garden. White sapote is her favorite! She goes crazy for it.

This past Saturday, I got on an airplane for the first time since December 2019. It was just a twenty minute flight to Honolulu, but it felt like a big step forward. Ron and I were able to see our daughter and son-in-law for the first time in…well, since December 2019, for me. And though we talk a lot between phone calls and Facetime, it’s not the same as seeing people in person and sharing a meal.

In fact, Saturday evening was the first time I’ve eaten in a restaurant in well over a year.

Yes, we are ALL vaccinated. Of course we are! We got our vaccines as soon as they were available to us.

Hawaii still has a mask mandate for when people are inside, and many of us still wear masks in many outside situations. (Probably not at the beach anymore, though.) Even so, I was very surprised how things suddenly felt “normal.” Sitting in a restaurant for two hours without a mask didn’t bother me, and weirdly, since then, I’ve almost forgotten to put my mask on a couple of times in situations that demanded it.

That said, Hawaii’s case count continues to slowly climb. As elsewhere, we need more people to get vaccinated. I see it as a civic duty — essentially, a gift to our fellow citizens. I’m extremely grateful that there is a vaccine. We are so fortunate here in America that we have access to it. There are billions of people in the rest of the world who would dearly love the opportunity to be vaccinated — but it will be a long time before many of them have the opportunity that is available to us now.

My most recent newsletter went out last week with no mention of COVID-19. I suspected that at that point my readers were saturated with virus coverage and didn’t want to hear even more about it from me. But here we are, a week later, and life has changed a lot. Most of us have been asked to hunker down at home so as to avoid contracting or spreading infection. For how long? No one knows for sure but it’s unlikely life will return to “normal” anytime soon. It’s far more likely we’ll learn to live with a “new normal.”

It’s uncanny how much our current situation reflects the backstory of Sarah Pinsker’s Nebula-nominated novel A Song For a New Day. That story is a hopeful look at American society breaking out of disease-induced isolation. We, of course, are just learning to live with it.

For myself, the daily routine hasn’t changed much. You’ve probably seen the cartoons about introverts who always stay at home anyway… Both Ron and I have worked at home for years. The main change for us is that we’re not going out as often, and when we do, the hand sanitizer gets frequent use. (We have two little bottles left, acquired prior to the emergence of COVID-19.)

Here on Maui, we’ve had only a couple of confirmed cases of the virus. In Hawaii at large, infections are still low and all so far seem to be associated with recent travelers, or those in close contact with recent travelers. In other words, “no community transmission” — so far.

My respect goes out to all those parents who are suddenly finding themselves home with young children. Wishing you patience, strength, and courage!

And my gratitude goes to all those who don’t have the option of staying home: first responders, medical personnel, all those working in the supply chain, the brave clerks and stockers at Costco, Target, and all our local grocery stores — and anyone else whose service is essential to keeping the country (and the world) functioning through this black-swan event.

It’s staggering to think of all the people now out of work, many of whom likely have little savings and who may be losing their health insurance. Here in Hawaii, so many people are employed in the visitor industry — hotels, car rentals, restaurants, tours, entertainment. All that is now shut down, or soon will be.

We’re still at the beginning of this. For myself, it’s already weirdly surreal to see TV commercials made in the days “Before.” They show large happy gatherings — wedding parties, people in theaters, or at festivals, or out on the town, enjoying life with friends. Scenes of a lost existence, at least for now.

On the positive side, there are companies and governments around the world seeking both a vaccine and antiviral treatments for COVID-19. If we keep our collective heads and don’t panic, we’ll get past this. In the meantime, please take care of yourselves and of each other.

Mele Kalikimaka means Merry Christmas in Hawaiian, and it’s also the title to a Christmas carol that begins:

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say

On a bright Hawaiian Christmas day…

Too bad today is gloomy! We’ve got heavy clouds with fog blowing through, along with a bit of rain. But at least Christmas Eve was bright and sunny. 🙂

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and wishing all of you a joyful day!

Xena Rose does not have the patience to pose for a Christmas photo, so this one will have to do. (Taken today, December 25, 2019)

Late yesterday Hurricane Lane fell apart. It seems that once the storm emerged from the lee of the Big Island’s two 14,000-foot peaks, strong trade winds lopped off its top and it lost its circular organization — for which we are abundantly grateful!

We’ve still got gray skies in Kula, but no rain or wind so far today. We never did get hit with any heavy downpours. It was the windward side of the island that suffered most from rain, and the west side that endured winds which drove the flames of more than one brushfire.

It’s possible more rain could fall, but it seems the worst is past, and I’ve started cleaning up the deadfall in the yard and have put my potted plants back out. Mosquitoes have emerged in swarms! Right now, a little wind would be welcome.

I really hope this is Hawaii’s only troublesome hurricane this year, but the season runs through November, so the potential for more “excitement” remains — and with global warming, the hurricane threat will become ever more frequent. John Barnes’s novel Mother of Storms is often on my mind.

Ron and I live on Maui, so we’ve been preparing for Hurricane Lane since the beginning of the week when we returned from San Jose.

Earlier in the week, Lane was a category five hurricane. This morning it’s a category two — definitely an improvement but still dangerous — and it’s moving with excruciating slowness. We originally expected the worst effects Thursday, then Friday, now Saturday. The predicted track shows it taking a westward turn before making landfall. We are hoping it turns sooner than expected! Unfortunately, it could also continue farther north than the track shows and if so, that could be a big problem for us.

So far, we’re fine. Here in Kula we’ve had intermittent rain and periods of very strong winds. Trees have been dropping dead branches, and this year’s paltry avocado crop is mostly on the ground. Other parts of the island have seen much worse, and a large brush fire was burning on the Lahaina side last night. A hearty thank you to Maui’s fire and police for all their hard work, and thanks also to Maui Electric and Spectrum cable for keeping the grid going.

Here’s hoping things get better, not worse!

I’ve read several really interesting articles lately. Here they are, if you’d like to check them out:

“The Hunt for Wonder Drugs at the North Pole” by Kea Krause in The Atlantic
Remember how bioprospecting in the Arctic was a background element in my novel Going Dark? This article is about the challenges and potential of real world Arctic bioprospecting.

“Was There a Civilization On Earth Before Humans?” by Adam Frank, also in The Atlantic
Oh sure, this sounds like supermarket tabloid material but in fact this is an utterly fascinating planetary-science article. The author tries to answer the question of what evidence might remain from some hypothetical long-ago civilization.

“Trillions Upon Trillions of Viruses Fall From the Sky Each Day” by Jim Robbins in The New York Times
Did you know that a stream of viruses is “circling the planet, above the planet’s weather systems but below the level of airline travel?” I didn’t. Another fascinating article, and a testament to the awe-inspiring complexity of life on Earth

Finally, this has been a terrible week for the island of Kauai which has suffered record-setting levels of rain. (Don’t worry about me — I live on Maui and we’ve been fine.) It turns out there is a buffalo ranch on Kauai, and several animals were swept away by a flooding river, which led to the surreal scene of paniolo (Hawaii cowboys) rounding up buffalo on the beach at Hanalei. Take a look at the user-contributed video (second video on the page) here at Hawaii News Now.

Aloha and best wishes for a swift recovery to our neighbor island of Kauai!

This morning I was sitting in my office, working on the novel, when my phone bleated an emergency alert. We get alerts now and then. They’ve always been flash-flood warnings…but it was a sunny morning and hadn’t rained in days so a flash flood didn’t seem likely.

I picked up the phone and read this message: BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. That’s the sort of thing that will get your attention.

The family gathered, phones in hand:
“Did you get it?”
“Is it real?”
“Do you think the system was hacked?”
“Turn on the TV.”

I checked Twitter, because that’s where you get breaking news these days. I tweeted the event, simultaneously with several others. There was no emergency bulletin on TV. I found that reassuring, an indication that the mobile alert was a glitch. Then the TV started issuing the same emergency notification.

Not much to do at this point but wait and watch Twitter. By the way, it was a beautiful sunny Saturday morning here on Maui.

There was nothing from civil defense, Maui County, Pacific Command… but around twelve minutes after the initial alert, our Congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard, was on Twitter announcing that she’d talked to officials and the missile alert was a false alarm.

A sigh of relief, hugs all around. Of course we always knew it was a mistake! Sort of.

Really, it was one of those Schrödinger’s Cat moments. You just don’t know until the box is open, and what can you do anyway?

That said, I’ll leave you with this tweet:

This is a good time to inform civil authorities in #Hawaii that 1) North Korea has yet to place a nuclear weapon on an ICBM; 2) US intel says NK won't have such a capability for one or two years; 3) SecDef Mattis says NK's ICBMs do NOT pose an imminent threat to the US. CNN 12/17 pic.twitter.com/hrjj8PVMXb

— #VietnamYear1968 (@TimothyS) January 13, 2018

Xena was not too thrilled about looking into the sun. 🙂