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Aloha Arlene

Arlene, the gal with the lei and the only one not clapping, is the editor of North Hawaii News and she’s retiring from that post and moving back to Alaska. Sold the house, the car and the cat. Packed things up, shipped things out and is handing over the reins to Travis as the interim editor until we can hire her replacement. Here she was being honored at the North Hawaii Rotary luncheon for all the work she has done for the community both at North Hawaii News and West Hawaii Today. She will be missed by many.

I guess this is as good a time as any to tell an Arlene story. Being from Alaska Arlene’s husband Jack often goes moose hunting. Arlene packs the stuff up and brings it down to Hawaii during their stays here. Now I’ve had three occasions to eat moose-meat cooked by Arlene.

#1 Moose tacos. She asks me to have some tacos with her at her house, I agree and she dishes out these tacos. (she didn’t tell me it was moose-meat). Here I am eating this thing and it tastes REALLY gamey. I mean, kinda a musty flavor, or should I say it was turning bad or something. Being polite I didn’t want to say anything but then even Arlene was looking a little weird eating it. Then she mentions something about, “I think this moose-meat has gone bad.” I mean, holy-crap, if it’s far gone enough for her to say something how do you think my taste buds were doing? That was my introduction to moose-meat. She said she adds beef-fat to it when grinding it into mooseburger meat, she said it goes rancid if you try to use the moose-fat in the grind. No shit.

#2 Moose burger, not my favorite but it’s okay this time as I think the moose was fresher.

#3 Moose roast. Not bad, a little gamey but pretty good. I think the slow roasting and spices help to mask the taste.

Arlene can be pretty funny sometimes. The way she got the job as a reporter with West Hawaii Today was that her husband, Jack, was blabbing to his golf buddies that he earned all the money, did all the work and that all Arlene didn’t have to do anything. Not any ‘real’ work like he was doing (she was just keeping the company books, cooking, cleaning and raising kids according to Arlene).

Fuming a bit Arlene went down the WHT office, saw the publisher who she had met at the Ironman Triathlon (he remembered her b/c she got him a beer) and he hired her to report on stuff in North Hawaii. Arlene came back to Waikoloa Village, found Jack drinking with his golf buddies and announced that she had gotten a job. Jack just about fell out of his chair when he realized that he was going to have to cook his own food and clean up after himself, his domestic goddess was free. And so Arlene has been working for our company for some time, but it comes to an end this week, her last as an employee of our company. I told her she’s a pretty nice person…for a republican. She laughed and shook her fist at me.

Do you love your car?
The continuing saga of my car started this morning when I called the mechanic the “D” at D&R Automotive. “Doug” said, he’d see if he could work on the car but quizzed me first.
Doug: Do you take care of your car?
Me: yes
Doug: Do you change your oil regularly
Me: yes, and I just had a tune-up a month ago.
Doug: I don’t like to work on cars if the owner has abused it

I mean am I living in a Seinfeld episode where the mechanic makes me pledge my total love, affection and caring for my car?

When I’ve passed the vehicle love-test he says it’s okay to bring it to his shop. Finally, I might get it fixed. The last I saw of my car it was in the shop and Doug was going to see if he could fix it. If not then I’ll just have to take my car, which has become a hot-potato amongst mechanics, to yet another repair shop.

I’m tired and working on my day-off tomorrow. Good night.

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