It seems that Lucy has taken a page out of Mr. Sox's relaxation instruction manual.... She's a pretty quick study, that girl.HAPPY THANKSGIVING! It was busier at the winery today than I expected, but still relatively quiet. I took a brief break to stroll back to the vineyard to shoot a couple of photos. The first, below, is a large hole in the lava. It looks to be at least 12 feet deep. The story I've heard is that the
original owner of the winery drove his tractor
right into it and lived to tell the story, suffering only a few scratches. The scenic shot is taken through what are some pretty pathetic looking grape vines toward Mauna Loa. I know it's November and grape vines throughout the northern hemisphere are looking a bit scrawny right now, but these look like this pretty much year round. The red blossom below is a lehua. 
The tree upon which it blooms is the Ohia. Hawaiian legend has it that the tree is, in fact, a brave warrior. Pele, the fire goddess, goddess of the volcano, fell in love with the warrior and asked him to marry her. He was in love with another, so he refused. When he did so, Pele became not just a little miffed and turned him into a tree. (She can be a bit pissy like that.) The other gods were unable to reverse her spell. So they turned his true love into the lehua flower so that the two could always be together. It is said that when a person picks a lehua blossom, it rains. The raindrops represent the tears of true lovers being separated. Isn't that romantic?I can't tell you how many people came into the winery today and immediately asked, "Are you open?" This, after passing through our open gate, walking past our "open" sign, seeing our door wide open and finding us inside with music playing. At least a dozen times I was very tempted to say, "No. We're closed. We just thought we'd come hang out here for no good reason on Thanksgiving Day because working for peanuts and spending the day schmoozing with total strangers is so much more fun than eating Turkey and punkin pie 'til you burst, watching football and partying with family and friends." Instead, I and my coworkers oozed aloha, telling people we were open just for them. What the heck. We were, after all, being paid time and a half.
Whitney, my co-worker, got the call of the day. When she answered, "Volcano Winery," the woman phrased her question like this: "We're on the road to Hana. How do I get to your winery?"
"The road to Hana?" clarifies Whitney. "Are you on Maui?"
"Yes," says the woman. "Can you give me directions?"
"Well," explains Whitney in her most patient voice, "We are on another island."
"What does that mean, you are on another island?" asks the woman.
"We are on the Big Island. You are on Maui. They are different islands," says Whitney, who continues, "There is another winery on Maui. It's called Tedeschi. Are you looking for them?"
"No," snaps the brain trust. "We've already been there. We're trying to find you."
Whitney again tells the woman that we are on a different island than she is.
"I don't understand what you mean by another island?" the woman continues. Whitney is now at a loss as to how to continue. She is about to launch into a description of the archipelago and a definition of an island as a separate land mass surrounded by water, when the agony of the conversation is abruptly and mercifully ended. It was then that the ditzy bimbo's husband grabbed the phone to intercede. After some more discussion, he did seem to understand that "different island" actually meant "different island."
"We'll be there in a few days so we'll see you then," he says, then hangs up.
Great. I can't wait to meet the little woman. She'll probably request driving direction to Princeville. This, after crossing our threshold and asking, "Are you open?"
Tomorrow, we'll cook our brined turkey. I can't wait.
A hui hou. Aloha!
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