Lockdown: Saved fun

I’m journaling before my day is over, something I haven’t done very many times in the lockdown. If something meaningful happens between the time I post this and the time I retire, I’ll add it sometime Friday.

After the laundry, I got to the Kewalo parking lot just before five. There were still several parking stalls left, but the lot filled quickly after that. Surf was definitely not up, although the forecast says it may get up to three feet on the south shore over the weekend. I think this morning’s dawn patrollers were hopeful, but I overheard some of them saying later that it was terrible, “even worse than yesterday.”

I walked to Starbucks for a latte, then right back to Kewalo, where I watched the sun come up. It was nice.

Got into the water, and that was nice too. I took it kind of easy — didn’t go very far, but it was still a little strenuous. The other night while I was decluttering, I found a partially exposed waterproof Fun Saver, and with the full moon high in the sky just before dawn, I thought today would be a good day to take it into the water and see what I could do.

It’s a lot more difficult shooting with a point-and-shoot while treading water than I would have guessed. Not only is it nearly impossible to hold the camera steady, but you’re holding the camera with two hands, so you have to tread water with just your legs, including your sore knee. Plus there’s the whole viewfinder-is-not-where-the-lens-is situation on fixed-focus cameras like this.

It was mostly shooting in the dark, taking several exposures of each intended shot, and just hoping something interesting or at least keepable would show up.

Still, it was pretty fun, despite all the seawater I drank.

I’ve been in the water three times in a week: Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I’m wondering if every other day is sustainable, or something approximating it.

I had a pretty good phone interview with a donor, then worked with two other donors to set up interviews. Worked on some teaser copy, then played around with the story I’m writing about the donor I spoke to, a UH Manoa football player from the 1970s.

After the news, I worked on the Beast. Since I’m basically doing this one storage tub at a time, and the contents of these things is unpredictable, sometimes the nightly task takes a couple of hours, while sometimes it’s pretty quick. This evening I dealt with one small container and one large one, and they were both nearly full of stuff to throw out. This pleased me, because it didn’t take my whole evening and because the stuff I did save fit into the saver tub I’ve been working on these past few days. I’ve effectively reduced four tubs’ woth of stuff into half a small tub, which means I’m opening up more space for doing this work.

I picked up breakfast at Pancakes and Waffles, a roast pork loco moco, and pretty much burned right through it. I snacked on the rest of those carnitas Lay’s, then got takeout from Teishoku. Sashimi and tonkatsu. The sashimi was pretty good, but the tonkatsu was terrible. I’ve had the same dish in the restaurant, in days when we could dine in, and it was pretty good. This was miserable. I’m very sorry to say it, but if you want good Japanese takeout, you have to get it at a Japanese-run establishment. Which of course means overpaying. But at least you get good food.

I haven’t had dinner yet, but I’m hungry so I’ll have something before bedtime, which should be pretty soon (it’s 9:12). There’s a very good chance it’ll be a cold can of pork and beans from the can, and maybe a can of Vienna sausage to go with it.

I got one text, Crush Girl’s response to my question last night. That was pretty much it.

Oh, the other night I found a couple of photos of Traci, George, and Ross I shot on film when we went to Hilo for a long weekend about thirteen years ago. I snapped photos of both pictures with my phone, then sent them to George’s and Ross’s wives via FB messenger. It led to a little bit of conversation, spaced out over a few days. That was Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and I forgot to mention it.

I’m very tired but I’m going to try and have a nice dinner and maybe watch the first half of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. I have a 9:00 Zoom meeting Friday (ugh) followed by a 10:00 Zoom meeting (ugh). There may be as many as two phone interviews as well (stressful but fun). Still, I feel like I should cram one more thing into my Thursday.

And hey, if you need someone to connect with, I’m good for some texting or IMs. Or FB messenger. Just leave a comment and we’ll work it out.

Long weekend coming up. Let’s finish the week strong and charge into the weekend like it’s our last holiday until Veterans Day. Man, what a long stretch that is. I’ve already requested a few Mondays off for September.

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