PEARL'S GOLD TREE AND ASHES

Well, President Donald Trump did sign-off on the executive orders he promised during his campaign.  Here is the list.  Uncertain how any one or group can prevent them from becoming reality, but a few are trying:

• 
  18 states (of course, Democratic ones) have challenged Trump on his order cutting birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants.  The attorney generals of those states said that the President has no authority to nullify a constitutional amendment.  150,000 such births occur annually.  This matter will be settled by the Supreme Court.
• 
  Trump's first fire was in removing Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan.  Trump's early contention was he be doing this to promote diversity.  What an idiotic first choice, for she is the only female officer at this high level in the Administration.
• For those so interested, from TIME, the best inauguration photos.  Here is one.

19July2009 was a particularly tragic day for me.  My wife, Pearl, passed away after 47 years of marriage.

• She had been in Kuakini Hospital for about a month.
• I was there daily, and about a month into her stay, a staff member passed on to me a piece paper that showed the bill as of that date of over $200,000.  I thought, oh my gosh, if she's there for five months, that would be around a million dollars, plus other costs, like for doctors.

• 
  She was suffering from BOOP, and the prognosis was that if she survived, she would need to be hooked up to a ventilator for the rest of her life.

• 
  A few days later, it was a Sunday, first the bad news, she passed away.  The good news was that she would not be in a ventilator for the rest of her life.
• She was on Propofol, which was the same sedative used to treat Michael Jackson, who died six days later.

• 
  It was midmorning, and when I returned home, decided to write an article for the Huffington Post, called Gratitude...Not Grief.  It was published that day.  I borrowed that title from Thornton Wilder:  The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.
• I had bought a keyboard and was practicing to play something when she returned.  I also had a Dom Perignon for her homecoming.  I drank the whole bottle and gave away the keyboard.
• The next day, my posting in this blog site was about her, In Celebration of Pearl.

Over the next couple of years, I devoted myself to following up on a few projects in her memory.

• First, though, about the medical costs, a year later I had not received a bill for her hospital stay.  So I went to HMSA, and they said they were still not sure.  Even a co-pay of 20% would be around $40,000, plus doctor bills.  It now has been more than 15 years, and I never got a bill.  I must have a fabulous medical plan.
• I formed the Pearl Foundation to do what I was not sure.

• 
  She loved this yellow colored tree, so I went on a search to find what it was.  
• One trip took me to Thailand.  Their national flower is called ratchaphruek, and I thought this might be it.
• But this tree has long pods, something the Gold Tree did not.
• Professor Hunsa Punnapayak of Chulalongkorn University said he saw the Gold Tree in Pattaya and northern Thailand.

• 
  However, while I was in Bangkok, Pearl's sister  in law, Gwen Nakamichi, who worked at a botanical park in Hilo, found the tree, growing in Hilo, Pearl's home town.  A large one is located close by her Hilo High School, to the right.

Family: Bignoniaceae (big-no-nih-AY-see-ee) (Info)

Genus: Roseodendron (ro-see-oh-DEN-dron) (Info)

Species: donnell-smithii

Synonym:  Cybistax donnell-smithii
 Synonym:Tabebuia donnell-smithii

• The Gold Tree, it turned out, also can be found all over the Manoa Campus of the University of Hawaii, including a bank of them right next to my building where I now sit.  Below is the one at Hamilton Library.

• It took some effort, with the aid of Fresh Onishi, who was a councilman in Hilo, to gain the permission of the City Councils of Hilo and Honolulu, to do the planting.
• Ala Wai Golf Course, which was covered by one of the local TV stations.

• 
  A second planting occurred at the Hilo Municipal Golf Course.  I should mention that a second tree could have been the one selected, a Jacaranda, where the flower has a wonderful aroma.  Appropriately enough, the Gold Tree in Hilo was planted right next to a Jacaranda.
  

• 
  At the one-year ceremony for her in Hilo, I published a book, a compilation of some of my Huffington Post articles, featuring her on the back cover.  In addition to that publication, I also passed out saplings of the Gold Tree so those who came could plant them in their yards.
• So today there are many more gold trees, even at the Ted Makalena Golf Course.

• 
  
  My second remembrance project was to drop her ashes off at meaningful locations, particularly to places she wanted to visit, but I didn't, but now would.  To quote:

In most ways, thus, this was a conscience assuaging repentence.  I added nostalgic locations and places she would have truly enjoyed.

• 
  I had a series on PEARL'S ASHES in this blog in 2017, and when I went back, noticed there was one on 2January2017, a couple of weeks before Donald Trump was to be inaugurated for his first term.  Title?  IS DONALD TRUMP DANGEROUS?   Read that, I was at my prescient best.
• Took me two around the world trips to lay her ashes at 50 sites, and I began to write a book on this experience.  But first, Hilo, where I said:

10 August 2009 was a day I won't forget.  I awoke early to catch the sunrise at Mauna Kea.  However, it was cloudy, and instead of a picturesque view of the mountain, I saw a rainbow:

• I explained how I prepared her ashes for placement.

• Pearl liked to visit Rainbow Falls when she returned to Hilo, so that was the location of the initial ash drop.

• Soon thereafter, we drove up to Mauna Kea for a mass dropping.  When she woke up every morning from her youth, she could see Mauna Kea from her home.

• I left the group and headed west for the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, where we spent our honeymoon, then the Four Seasons Hualalai.  Dropped her ashes at sunset.

• I then drove to Naalehu, for this is where we met and got married.  Dropped her ashes off at this site, with the Hutchinson Sugar Company factory in the background.

• Stayed the night at the Volcano House, tossing the capsule, #6, into Halemaumau Crater (which is now erupting again), with a rainbow in the background.  Here is a reprise of the first six ash layings.

• 
  I then returned home to Honolulu, and on my roof planted ashes #7 in an African Blood Lily plant which has a story.  Her previous stay in Kuakini Hospital was for a breast cancer operation.

While she was recuperating at Kuakini Hospital, I saw in a flower shop a red, spherical flower with no leaves.  I learned that this was an African Blood Lily (Scadoxus multifloras) and grew from a bulb.  I called it a sunburst to inspire her.  I told her that as long as she could re-grow this flower, she would live.  While chemotherapy lasted for a terrible few months, she mothered two more flowers the following year, and they almost kept doubling each year.  That's the view of Punchbowl from our Craigside penthouse.

• Also in Hawaii, Haleakala National Park on Maui, where I experienced another sunrise.  Placed the ashes next to this Silversword plant.

• I will in time on one of my nostalgic Tuesday postings return for Pearl's Ashes #8:  Taj Mahal.

And no, I am not dropping any ashes on the Taj Mahal.  Return for the story, and more.

-

DAY 2: Happy Valentine's from Bangkok

The "free" breakfasts that come with my grand Orient hotels are too good to pass up.  The Marriott Marquis is particularly exceptional, and Sunday Brunch is said to be spectacular.

When we checked into the hotel, we were given a nice room with a junk view.  However, you can just about see the roof portion of Larry's, my Bangkok tailor.

So I went to the M Club and asked for a better view, with a bathtub.

That's the Queen's Park below us, and the Emporium Mall on the other side.

Walked to Larry's and ordered two enhanced vests.  Each now costs $80.  However, if we brought in my own material, the tailoring drops to $50.  So he sent us to a store where I bought six pieces of material.  Went back and asked him to make seven vests, the seventh a mash of the leftover material.  He said they'd what they can.

Stopped by the Emporium.  That photo is a shot back to the Marriott.  The tree produces the Thai national flower, the Ratchaphruek, which is common in Hawaii.

A particularly impressive place to shop in the Emporium is their Gourmet Market.

Of course there is durian.  They sell this horribly smelly fruit in various ways.  Maybe I'll bring some durian chips home.

Here is an assortment of Japanese Wagyu Beef.  The most expensive is from Omi at $60/pound, half the cost of what this gets in Honolulu.  The Matsunaga Wagyu is only around $40/pound.

The caviar assortment is enticing:

You can do your own calculation for the Beluga and Osietra:

Should you wish, you can order these items and work out a preparation scheme with a kitchen here who will serve it to you for a small fee.

The deco was in celebration of Valentine's Day:

Happy Valentine's Day from Bangkok.  Here is some background info of Thailand:

Did you know that the Thai capital Bangkok, also known as the City of Angels, or locally as Krungthep, is registered in the Guinness Book of World Records with 169 characters for the longest name of a place?  I won't write it down, but it starts with Krungthep....

Thailand has 1,430 island, 35,000 temples and 67 million people.  Their previous King, Bhumibol Adulyade, reigned for more that 70 years.  The current King, Maha Vajiralongkorn, just before his coronation, last year married one of his security staff.  She is now Queen Suthida.  This is his fourth wife.  Thus, succession has become a royal mess.

Red Bull was created in this city.  Chaleo Yoovidhya first introduced the drink in 1976, and when he passed away in 2012, was the third richest man in the country, with a net worth of $5 billion.

Bangkok has the largest Chinatown in the world, with over a million with a Chinese origin.  Hmm...  No wonder it is the country with the second-most coronavirus cases.

However, Japan has surpassed Thailand as the country with the most ailing.  The Diamond Princess how has 219 confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The passengers celebrated, in their room, a Valentine's meal of Cupid's avocado and shrimp, California wine and a surprise dessert.  However, they now need to clean their own room, including toilet.

Those in their 80's and 90's work pre-existing health conditions staying in windowless cabins are now being allowed to leave the ship.  I presume to be quarantined on land.

Back to Thailand, Bangkok is where temple Wat Traimit is located, with the largest Gold Buddha in the world:

Here they have some strange laws.  You commit a crime if you:

• leave home without wearing underwear
• use durian fruit as a weapon--not the smell, but the thorns
• step on any currency, for the King is on one side, and you've insulted him
• in most countries there are rest room facilities for men and women--here there is a third one for transgender men known as ladyboys (above photo, and actually, there are only a very few of them--the rooms, anyway, for there is said to be more than a million ladyboys, and they have a high incidence of HIV)

Bangkok is the world's hottest city, by mean average temperature, which is 82.4 F (28 C).  November and February of the coolest months.  The temperature goes up to around 95 F, but tomorrow's high could be a cool 89 F.

Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country never to have been colonized by a European power.  Not because they were so powerful or persuasive.  It served as a buffer between France's Vietnam/Burma and the Britain colony of India.

The country was once known as Siam.  The first known Siamese twins were born here.

Then again, King Chulalongkorn was especially clever, for he also ceded small parcels of land to various European countries, abolished slavery soon after President Abraham Lincoln, and the top higher education institution is Chulalongkorn University.  He was the son of King Mongkut, played by Yul Brynner in The King and I, and reigned for 40 years.

Heard of bird nest soup?  Thailand has a more expensive version made from the saliva of the swiftlet, and nests collected from Thai caves go for more than $900/pound.  There are supposedly health benefits.

The Thai Cryptotora thamicola, which is a blind, waterfall-climbing cavefish, can crawl on land:

The national flower is called ratchaphruek, or Cassis Fustula Linn.  It is known as the Golden Shower or Rain Tree, and I once thought this was the Gold Tree.

There are 1500 different species of orchids growing wild here, and they are the biggest exporter in the world.  The largest flower grows here, the giant Rafflesia, with an average diameter beyond a yard:

It has the smell of rotting meat.

The elephant is the national animal, but you know what that looks like.  Thailand is home to 10% of all animal species, and is home to the smallest mammal (bumble bat), largest lizard (monitor) and biggest fish (whale shark).  Note that the blue whale is larger, but that is not a fish, it is a mammal.

Tomorrow, a tour of the Grand Palace and other temples.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S FROM BANGKOK!

-