Nolo stalls

On an ominous, gray morning, Lilith and I ran into the woman who sometimes walks backwards up hills; this time, she was walking forwards. She is not the subject of this walk, only its first sentence. We also ran into Auli`i, whose person is the retired aircraft mechanic obsessed with Ukraine. "I hear Lithuania is really worried that Putin might invade." I wondered out loud how Putin, who can't defeat Ukraine, could invade Europe, as well. "He probably wants to do it while Trump is still in power," he said. Like everyone these days, we got to talking about hurricane Nolo, sitting off the coast of Hawai`i island. "If a category 3 hit this island (O`ahu)," he said, "it would take years to fix things. We're out here in the middle of the Pacific, by ourselves; help can only arrive by air and by water. They can cut those off," he added, darkly. Later in the day, Nolo is finally turning to the much advertised left (closer to the American than to the the European model). But at 2 pm in Kane`ohe, we have a heavy evening sky, brief gusts of wind, humidity to cut like butter.