Happy Autumn, Moon Festival, and Hobbit Day!

It is now officially fall, if you take the beginning of fall to be the autumnal equinox, which was at 5:09 pm Hawaii time (erm...11:09 pm East Coast U.S. time, and the rest of you will have to figure it out for yourselves). September 22 is also the Chinese Moon Festival this year, also sometimes called the Mid-Autumn Festival, but I won't call it that because I just said that autumn started today. I feel like a bad half-Chinese person, but I don't really know much about the Moon Festival, beyond that we get to eat mooncakes. Mmmm. Today also happens to be Hobbit Day, as September 22 is the birthday of both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. So there are many reasons to celebrate today (though I realize that for most of the world it is already tomorrow, which messes up the alignment of autumn with Hobbit Day and the Moon Festival, but whatever). Anyway, happy autumn, happy Moon Festival, and happy Hobbit Day!

I don't have anything humorous or insightful or cool or geeky to share today, just some scattered thoughts. It has been a very long week, and I can't believe it's only Wednesday. Feels like it must be Friday. The Housemate is on the mainland this week for a workshop relevant to the research he is doing, so I've been having solitary evenings and nights. It's a lot less fun when there's no one to watch TV shows with me (especially considering that this week is the big pilot episode week for most TV shows), cook dinner with me, and dine with me. And cuddle with me. I think of it as practice for when he goes to Antarctica for over three months. But thinking that makes me sad.

My grandmother went to the hospital on Saturday night, just a couple hours after I had visited her at her apartment. She had seemed tired when I saw her, but I just assumed it was because I was visiting during afternoon nap time. I guess later she was feeling extra tired, and very weak. Turns out she had a very low red blood cell count, and low sodium. The MRI also revealed what the doctor told me were "mini strokes", which I thought sounded bad (even a mini stroke is still a stroke, right?), but he said they didn't seem to be causing problems, so it was fine. So every day this week, I've been driving my grandfather from his retirement home to the hospital in the morning, then going back after work to visit my grandmother, help her eat dinner (and make sure she eats well--she needs her strength!), and take my grandfather home. The last time she was in the hospital, there were other relatives that my grandfather asked to help out, too, but his brother is in China right now, and his sister-in-law just had an eye operation and can't drive... So it's been me. I'm happy I'm here to help, but it has made the days especially long. The good news is that they discharged her this evening, and I just drove her home. It will still be nice to visit, especially since she's in the special care wing of the retirement home, rather than her apartment, but at least I don't have to do all the driving anymore. And she's happy to be back at the retirement home, which is good.

Even though I'm going to wait until the Housemate gets home before I watch most of the TV shows this week, I will mention what shows I plan on following this fall. New show Nikita (CW, Thurs. 9pm) has already hooked me, after debuting two weeks ago with a pretty awesome pilot. I'm very excited for the return of Chuck (NBC, Mon. 8pm), How I Met Your Mother (CBS, Mon. 8pm), Glee (FOX, Tues. 8pm), Big Bang Theory (CBS, Thurs. 8pm), and Fringe (FOX, Thurs. 9pm), all of which are back this week. I'm still trying to catch up on last season of Castle (ABC, Mon. 10pm), which came back this week as well. I have high hopes for the Hawaii Five-O reboot (CBS, Mon. 10pm), as well as the new J.J. Abrams creation Undercovers (NBC, Wed. 8pm), about a married couple who return to the CIA, both of which debut this week. I also plan on checking out No Ordinary Family (ABC, Tues. 8pm, starting next week), about a family who suddenly get super powers, and The Event (NBC, Mon. 9pm, starting this week), which looks like "this year's FlashForward"--a confusing, mysterious sci-fi/conspiracy type thing. I actually watched about half the pilot of The Event before feeling guilty and deciding to wait for the Housemate, but I was pleased with myself when I recognized a couple of the filming locations to be here on Oahu, though I don't think the scenes were supposed to be in Hawaii. This got me all the more excited to see Hawaii Five-O, which is shot here in Hawaii and is supposed to be Hawaii. That should be fun.

OK, looks like it's time to end this rambling post. Sorry about that. Tomorrow I'll post the video I took snorkeling in Sharks Cove, which includes a glimpse of an octopus. I promise tomorrow's post will be decidedly less rambling.