Tabhair póg dom, táim Éireannach

For all you bottle and can returners out there like me, you know the sometimes daunting task of hauling the bags of sticky returnable’s to the crackling machines. Well yesterday, Chelsea and I took our highway patrol finds, as well as months of build up from those at Hana Tropicals and the Oasis to the store…. Quite a bit, as bags and bags were crammed into the back of our little yellow Jeep Wrangler. HI returns much more than NY, so even Happy’s monster energy drinks can get us 5cents! (I’m really into recycling and returning fyi, so sorry if I’m getting’ a lil too excited about this...) 

We had waited until St. Patty’s to do our returning to use our money for beer, and had a whole wonderful plan for the day. Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out the way we thought… After a spider bite left my ankle swelling like balloon a couple days ago, I’ve had no choice but to start poppin’ antibiotic pills for a staph infection, so alcohol was outta the question. Also, no one in Hawaii really seems to celebrate the Irish either, or so we thought….

So we get to the store, and the first bag of returnable’s I pull out of the back of the Jeep breaks and glass bottles crash all over the parking lot, making a cut on my already screwed up ankle. Frantically trying to clean the mess, I start picking up glass as Chelsea goes for a broom, and to make matters worse, a bed load of glazed over teenagers in the pickup truck next to us just sit a stare at me, only getting up to go purchase and consume more munchies from the store….

After a rough start, we finally returned our goods, collected our money, and began our search for Sheppards Pie and Corned Beef. Since there are about four places to get food in Hana, who rely on tourists for their income, we figured it’d be worth a shot to just see if they had any specials. We went to all, asked at all, got nothing, so settled on fish lunches instead. (In the long run Omega 3’s are better than beer anyways, right?)

To make our day a little more interesting, we attended the first ever Maui Growers Association meeting with Krista, down the road at Boston Matt’s place. After waiting until after the designated starting time, we began dipping into Krista’s delicious guacamole, and slowly less than a handful of people started showing up. All haoles and aged hippies, they looked around Matt’s farm and listed which flowers they’d eventually want cuttings of, and that was about the extent of the meeting. Walking around the grounds, I heard more about one woman’s life of drugs and alcohol in the first conversation with her than I ever really wanted to know. She was however, Irish. A petite and hyper woman, she talked a mile a minute, and exclaimed; “I’m a Mc! I’m a Mc! I got Corned beef going at Home!” We were invited for left overs for the next day, but we’ll see if that actually happens….

So on a night where most American’s got their drink on while watching March Madness, Chelsea and I jammed to my Irish tunes, ate cheesecake and challenged ourselves to the hard level of Spider Solitaire (I won, Chelsea didn't. Gotta love the luck of the Irish.)  But don’t you worry, I was wearin’ my green. :)

Aloha and GO CUSE!!!!