Tags Should Come On Gifts, Not on Trees

We put up our Christmas tree Sunday evening. Assembling the brand new tree in our new house preparing for our first Christmas together was a pretty jolly time. Except for one ridiculous inconvenience. The tags! Eight huge tags just on one electrical cord alone. Do not drive over cord, do not immerse in water, do not use for more then 90 consecutive days, and the list continued. In case we didn't get the warnings in English, Spanish tags were also attached. Each light string on the tree also had several smaller tags attached. What kind of sue happy society do we live in?

Yummy Meat and Festive Farewells

Saturday was a full day. We left the house at 4AM for Mauna Kea and we were in place at 10,000 feet elevation before dawn- waiting for legal hunting hours. The air was dry and fresh and the frost-covered leaves crunched beneath our feet. It really felt like fall. The sun cleared the mountain revealing an amazing view of Mauna Loa, Hualalai and Haleakala on Maui. It was a slow day for hunting, we only saw two game birds all day. I never even had a shot at one, but Chris managed to bag an Urkel's Franklin. We grilled it later in the week along with a quail and a chucker he shot last time.

We took a nap in the dirt, then headed into Waimea town to get cleaned up and ready for the big party. Some of Chris' co-workers took us out to dinner and to hear the Olliephonic Horns at the Blue Dragon. The occasion: Chris' graduation from government service. After a successful 18-year career with the Department of Agriculture, Chris has resigned. It was his first step down a new career path. I am excited to see what he comes up with next, but I hope he takes some time off before jumping into something new. For one thing, I am enjoying eating all sorts of different kinds of meat lately. If he starts working again he'll be too busy to hunt and we'll have to go back to eating food that comes in plastic packages at the store.

The Olliephonic Horns rock the Blue Dragon in Kawaihae:

Tako Tangle

Chris went spearfishing last week and he brought home a huge octupus and a cooler full of fish. He first shot the tako with a spear but it got loose, so Chris dove down and grabbed unto it and tried to pull it to the surface. I wish he was telling this story instead of me. I also wish I could have been there to see the spectacle. The octupus attached itself to Chris and covered most of his body. Chris fought the creature all the way to the surface while tentacles crept down his snorkel, across his neck and back and around his arms. Chris couldn't even stab the animal with the knife he keeps strapped to his arm because the octupus had hold of it. Finally, Chris won the battle and we now have five baggies of frozen octupus in the freezer.