WELL BRED, WELL FED

Like any good household with pets, the animals come first. The world's coolest dogs live here at Deborah and Cherry's. They are momma Ula and son Maui, seen here being fed one of their doggone gourmand meals. These two eat better than most humans. Certain Arab sheiks, George Clooney, Queen Elizabeth, Barbara Walters, John Madden and Kiara Cvitanovich probably dine better, if they wish. But here in Nanakuli, where the last of the manapua wagons cruise the hood, serving delicacies to sidewalk patrons, this pair of pooches knosh nonpareil.

Cherry's cooking is legendarily delicious amongst those who have chowed down his local specialties, chief of which is ox tail soup. And Debbie's cooking is not chopped liver (which is the one treat she can't make like my momma). On any given Sunday I might awaken to the aroma of bacon, rice or potatoes and the eggs cooked scrambled funky, the way I love them. When Cherry makes dinner he usually brings Deb a small dish of the sauce or gravy he's concocting about an hour before dinner is served. He often buys buns from the Filipino bakery down the road and serves them toasted with garlic butter. Hardly a knife is touched, everything is soft enough for even the highly toothless, like me.

The two doggies, who are always as quiet as an Indian tracker wait with biblical patience until it is time for their serving. It is always a bit of what we humans have consumed. But often it is a blend of chopped and sauteed meat freshly prepared just for them. These are dogs who do not yelp, yip or yap. They do not nip at knees or snarfle crotches. They enter and leave rooms on cue, as if on stage at the Globe Theater. If they piss or shit, they do so like some animated animals, who, of course, are never seen doing so and give off no vile aroma. If one of these dogs were Arab and the other a Jew, there would be peace in the Middle East.

I don't know how this came to be. And I ain't asking. They are just another part of my leeward Oahu getaway hideout, like the MasterCard commercials say: Priceless.