One bowl, and one spoon.
That, I've discovered, is all I need to survive.
My home-alone diet has settled on two staples — breakfast cereal or Campbell's Chunky Soup (on sale for $1.89 a can at Long's Drugs!). And rather than building up a pile of dirty dishes, I've discovered that I can do just fine using and washing the same bowl and spoon for every meal.
Perhaps it's a pity Jen's coming home early. A few more weeks of this, and I would have kicked serious butt on that Survivor television show.
After several aborted attempts, I finally managed to hook up with Wayne and Donica over the weekend at Magic Island. (Martha and Mio, despite much pleading, were unable to join us.)
Inexperienced as I am with simply hanging out with people, I was actually concerned that we hadn't planned anything beyond showing up at the same place. Should I bring a game? Some kind of ball? (Yeah, right.)
Of course we didn't need anything besides each other's company and some snacks. We just staked out a spot of shade under a tree in the middle of the park, and basically talked the whole afternoon away.
Wayne and I helped Donica ponder various wedding-related issues, Donica and I psychoanalized Wayne and deluged him with relationship advice, and the two of them interrogated me as if I was an alien abductee, wondering — basically — what it was like being a family man.
Of course there was the usual trade gossip, but as both Wayne and I are pathetically out of the local media loop, we could only hungrily devour what few tidbits Donica thought to share. Of most interest to me was the prospect of an employee buyout of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, which frankly sounds like the best outcome for an otherwise difficult situation.
;)
Our day at the park was briefly livened up by a major salvage operation going on just off shore. A private yacht had apparently gotten stuck on the reef yesterday, and that afternoon a number of salvage boats converged on the overturned wreckage to haul it away.
Quite a crowd gathered to watch as a large barge with a crane edged up alongside the boat, and divers attached cables to it. The first time they tried to pull it up, however, the boat started to roll the wrong way, so they had to start over and try again.
Finally they got a good grip, and lifted yacht almost completely out of the water, at the same time flipping it right-side-up. It was clear, by that point, that the "pleasure craft" wasn't going to be giving anyone pleasure anytime soon.
Eventually it was time for everyone to head their seperate ways, and as usual, we all vowed to meet up again "real soon." This time, though, we knew we might actually have a chance of making good on our promise, as Kim had just wrote us to say she'd be in town in July.
As a sign of just how meaningless my life has been living alone, I have found a great deal of personal satisfaction lately shopping for bathroom accessories.
Seriously. Figuring it beat lounging around at home, I've invested a shameful amount of time and effort trying to get everything in our bathroom to match. Watch out, Martha Stewart.
See, we got halfway there, albeit several months ago. We picked up a "bathroom set" that included towels, a rug, and a furry toilet lid cover — all in hunter green — and grabbed a soap dish and toothbrush cup, of course also in green.
But we ran out of steam (we are talking about a bathroom here), and there things have stood for months, a mostly-green setting... marred by a light blue shower curtain.
And as is often the case when one's idle brain constantly spins, looking for something, anything to chew on, that little clash suddenly became an obsession. And frankly, I was stunned by how hard it was to find a green shower curtain in this town.
I hit department stores at Ala Moana and in Mililani without success, off and on, since the weekend. I found one on Tuesday, finally, at WalMart, and I was so pleased with myself I went back the next day to pick up a green bath mat... just for the hell of it.
So yeah, Jen and Katie come home on Friday. So soon, and yet, so long from now.
I'm excited, of course, but also a little nervous. A little scared. The only thing worse than the late-onset of a fear of flying, I think, is a fear of flying that's so intense that I actually get worked up when other people travel.
I need another bowl of cereal.