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Olympics, blather and chocolate ants

OLYMPICS!  Yay!  I love the Olympics.  The opening ceremonies were spectacular and I have high hopes for a peaceful, competitive and entertaining games.  

Closer to home, Crawford got a hair cut the other day.  We trimmed her cute ears and snipped away her shaggy butt fur so as to avoid too many cling-ons.  This photo's a little blurry, but isn't she the cutest?  

The winery was slow and quiet until the last hour of the day today, when the whole world came in.  Many tasted, some purchased, but few tipped.  What's going on, people?  I teach visitors cool local phrases like okole maluna (bottoms up) and pau hana (happy hour 0r work is finished).  I make jokes about there being no macadamia nuts in the Macadamia Nut Honey Wine because the nuts make the wine too crunchy.  I share the knowledge that our Guava Wine makes the perfect accompaniment to Spam.  People laugh.  They think it's great.  I'm entertaining. I'm funny.  I'm informative.  I tell them the best places to eat in Volcano Village or Hilo.  I give them directions to Punalu'u Black Sand Beach or Hilo Coffee Mill or Kalapana to view the lava.  All this, and still no tips.  Americans are cheapskates in a recession, that's all I have to say. 

We had several boxes of gourmet chocolates infested with ants at the winery.  The ants ate very little (as opposed to the uncles; they're such pigs - yuk, yuk).  Still, we couldn't sell them for fear someone might encounter a dead insect inside a box.  So instead, we wrote them off as damaged goods and are eating them all ourselves.  How's that for a perk? They are guava and mac nut honey truffles.  Shoots.  The ants made such tiny little bite marks. Actually, I can't see them at all.  Besides, I thought chocolate covered ants were suppose to be a delicacy.  So, if you bite in and hear a little crunch, mo' bettah, yeah?  Protein.

Tomorrow, I hike to an alpine lake on Mauna Kea.  Should be cool.  Literally.  I expect it to be very chilly up there. I'm taking warm clothes. Got oxygen?

A hui hou.  Aloha!


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