A Successful Day

We woke up bright and early this morning to the sound of people in our shack. Turned out they were actually outside in the street, or in the Hana Bay Picnic Co. that we share a wall with, but it really, really sounded like they were right beside us. We cleaned for hours at Bamboo Gate and brought home a motherload of leftover items--ketchup, ice cream bars, yogurt, tomatoes, three kinds of cereal, half a bottle of wine, eggs, soy sauce, angel hair pasta, etc.--all great and organic because the only grocery store in town is Mana, which only sells expensive, good quality, organic stuff.

I took a lunch break to meet up with Holly and her writer friend Sarah at Milagros. It was great to meet Sarah, who is involved in every kind of writing project you can imagine--she was really nice, one of those people you are comfortable with right away. I also chatted more with David, the caretaker of one of Rick's places, today, and found out he does work with writing and animating, and he wants me to write a prose poem he can illustrate. It's awesome to have some encouragement from the writing world. Oh, and I've started editing a memoir for this lady, Lisa, who lives on Kauai. I think I could really get into freelance work.

We were finally able to open our p.o. box, on the third try. The guy almost didn't accept Retha's hand-written note, but in the end he caved and gave us a box (and I can't think of a reason it would be unsafe to post it here): 790704, Paia-Maui, HI 96779. So send me mail! ;)

Tonight we went to a surprise birthday party for Reynolds. We were late, so we didn't actually get in on the surprise part of it, but it was fun anyway. I really despise doing things like that--going to large parties or group activities where I don't know anyone (or worse, I know people just enough to have exhausted every introductory conversation topic but not well enough to talk about meaningful things). It's awkward, and I get super panicked and anxious. And then these parties turn out totally fine, fun even. We made friends with this girl Liz, who is going to meet us at Cafe Mambo for breakfast tomorrow before we go to her church (where Holly and Maria go, too). Other than her, Sarah, and Retha's daughter, all the other people there were guys--have I mentioned how Paia is almost completely dominated by males? It's bizarre, especially after coming from Northwestern. For every woman we've met, we've met probably three men. (By the way, I'm not complaining.)

As I'm sure I've mentioned, we have two cockroaches that live above our shower. We named them Luke and Owen and are considering not killing them after all, since all they do is chill in the corner at night, flicking the air with their four-inch-long antennae. We're not allowed to have a cat or dog, so I guess cockroaches can be pets.