New Zealand/Hawaii Continued
SUNDAY, 3/14/04: Pee at 12:43AM, BAD heartburn, so bad that I lay a bit and then take bag from bottom drawer to get out Rolaids and take maybe 1.5 in dust and fragments from old plastic vial. Pee number 3 at 2:24, taking MORE Rolaid, and it gradually dies. Small dream fragment forgotten, another of being in a car rounding a curve to the left and a green racing car swerves WAY out toward us rounding the curve toward us, and I comment to the Indian driver "He couldn't have missed us by more than an inch!" Felt that everyone carries around his OWN PRIVATE CHICXULUB of immanent disaster! Pee number 4 at 4:14AM, sitting on pot and typing this to 4:22AM, VERY restless, relatively sleepless, morning. Nine days to go; concerned about the uncertainty of what we'll see on Christmas Island? 5:46AM: Fabulous sex-dream of being with a hot young guy, smooth-bodied and bright-eyed, who likes me a lot, but he won't go down on me, and I keep playing with myself, squirting KY over my cock so much that the white spurts look like glistening cum on my body, and I keep playing while he ignores me until I'm totally hard and hugely enormous, and he looks over at me when my cock is about 18 inches long, when we (somehow) are sitting in the front of a car, and I've played until my cock is blade-thin and steel-hard, stretching up from my body like a brass page-clip with my cockhead flat and hard and round like the button-connector on the top of that page-clip, and he licks the first two inches and says he won't be able to go farther down than that, and how would I like that? I'm about to assure him that it would be OK whatever he did, and I'd do anything he wanted with HIS cock, when we're suddenly confronted by a young couple in the back of our car, the guy of the pair suddenly jumps out in traffic and disappears, and the girl in the back demands to be taken to Sky Harbor, which is WAY away from the dock on which we're driving, in the daylight, now, and she's suddenly demanding $100 in addition, which I have in my wallet but then I won't be able to buy any souvenirs from Christmas Island, which is somehow at the other side of this New England-type dock on which we're driving with sailboats on either side of the road, and I know the quandary he's in, because she knows the license number of his car AND that we're having sex in the front seat, and could blackmail him for anything she wanted to keep her quiet about his august position in society. Then he, bizarrely, changes to Ken, dressed in Louis XIV style with embroidered stockings and silk waistcoat, who puts little ornaments like tiny vases and plastic gewgaws on the end of the input line to the JOBCARD I'm entering into the system, marveling how the input gals can keep track of the intricate coding like 2(a),8(3),16(2b), but I tell him to please take these things off because it's just as confusing to have this interrupting him as, and I start tickling his calves through the stockings as he's putting these objects back in full view of the court all around us, and he's trying not to laugh, saying OF COURSE he realizes my point and would I PLEASE STOP, and somehow we're now outside a country-gate in New England, going in to a party in the back yard of this old mansion, with a seated party off about 24 in the garden next door in front of which we have to look perfectly proper, and I wake and type this to 5:58AM, not attempting to make ANY logical sense out of the confused melange of images at the end of the dream. Up top at 6:08AM and take #1 at 6:28: pilot boat (which turned into a Chinese fishing boat), flying bridge, and Kiritimati Island. #2 at 6:33, prow and sunrise over London. #3 6:37 sun's up! Finally it gets bright and hot, and Ken's up too, and the old guys are talking cameras and sea-lore, and the Captain's down below giving instructions about relaying the depth to him constantly, and we're at 51 meters, and he looks up to greet us and says "What a lot of technical jargon to be throwing around at seven o'clock in the morning, when I'm barely awake! No one uses it anymore; no one knows what it means!" Down at 7:08 and breakfast to 8. Take a big shit and up to the lounge at 8:20 with Scientific American to read as we all gather to try to get into the first tender, since we're late in landing and the last tender will leave at 12:15PM. Tell Ken to sit in FRONT with me, but he likes his third-row aisle seat. Guy comes in with the box of tickets and there's a RUSH to the front, I getting into the first 20 or so, but someone in front of me asks for SEVEN and when I get there I get tender TWO, which is a pain, but then someone with a party of three, one of which got tender one, trades me for my tender two and I get off with tender 1 at 9:05, sitting right in the front for a good view as we round the sandy spit of London, but I can't video through the wet-sprayed window, and am glad I'm not sitting on the sides since the side-curtains leak like crazy, as does part of the top, so the poor steward has to sit there and sweat with a towel to mop up the drips. Ashore at 9:25, only 30 aboard because the tide is so low the tender has to ride high to snake its way through the coral and sandpiles to get to the dock. Find they're selling postcards at the lowest price yet: two for a dollar, and buy four, and the priest is willing to mail them, but I didn't remember to bring my address for Sherryl! Stamps will arrive later, they say, and I check out the boat-trip for $25, look at the other stalls, video some of the singers and dancers, and Ken arrives immediately after and the brown-headscarfed woman's urge to go into the first boat to the bird motu seems to have vanished, and only Dorothy and a reasonably presentable couple are going, so I grab Ken and we five take off in an outrigger named Blue Snapper at 9:55. #7 Island at 9:58. It WAS 750,000, not 75,000, palms that they planted over the entire island, the 5000 Micronesians imported for that purpose. To motu at 10:10 and manage to hop off the front without getting my shoes wet. LOADS of BIRDS, and they fly up when we get close, but only VERY close. GREAT videos and snapshots (I hope) of screaming clouds of birds: skimmers, noddies, fairy terns, chicks, eggs all over the place, white (and some black, both of which I take samples of) coral, crab-holes in the sand which William, our guide, digs one of up, and we walk for more and more birds, and all agree THIS is one of the high points of the trip! Very hot, so I put on lotion about halfway through, and bright: I sneeze five or six times from the sun. Birds and flocks, and when they fly over and you're standing still they LOOK at you, the fairy tern positively captivating with its pure white feathering and large intelligent black eyes. Walk all around, another group coming on the other side, and we take a DIFFERENT boat back at 11:12-11:34, scaring a TURTLE who swims off darkly three feet down. Dorothy reminds us that the Hawaiian word for garbage is "opala." Buy stamps, try to put together a half-hour bus tour of some of the other parts of the island, but it doesn't work out. Video more, and then someone tells me about the boxed fish around the block, so I get #20 of fish at 11:58, then #22 and 23 of flowers and tree at 12:02, lots of people still milling around, the band convulsed with laughter with the dancing antics of the older men from the ship. Take videos to 12:06. Tender is filling and the next is coming. Buy $7 and $5 stamps, and IS Kiribati $1 = US $1, or more probably Australian or NZ dollars. Board last tender at 12:22, everyone piling on including the staff and the materials from the dock, and last boat leaves at 12:29 (so much for "Last tender at 12:15") and gets to ship at 12:47 and off at 12:49, immediately to join Ken in the lunchroom at 12:54 for good lunch of two soups and mushrooms, and dessert of Boston cream pie that I recommend to the kindly person who shared his french fries with me. I actually finish before they do. Lunch to 1:40 and want to take a shower, but Espin at the Purser's counter leads me to remark that I have video images from him yesterday, and he eagerly asks to see them, and so I'm back to the room to search for my battery-camera wire but can't find it, but don't think it will work anyway, so take my camera to his room just beyond the boarding door on our row and he observes that the video pin is "bent," and when he screws it into HIS set it WORKS. Look at his images, which he says he doesn't like to look at, and calls the third guy being inducted "cool," and thanks me and I get back to praise his making my wire work (had gone back and FOUND my wire in the last bag I looked in, of course), but Ken's interested in playing a game, so I suggest Monopoly and Espin wants to join us too, so we play until 5 and he has to leave, also winning, but slowing us down so much I tell Ken I refuse to play with him any more. Then to regular Trivia and we don't do very well at all, then play a couple of games of Scrabble at which he swamps me and then we're to the Yacht Club for a VERY good quiche for me, a good soup, very good mahi mahi which I eat only half of, very full, and Ken cleans his plate to the piano music and the heightened [did I forget the piano concert last night??][I didn't] motion of the ship leading him to laugh when an old couple lurched in, when I thought he was laughing at the old man's comment "Is that for us?" when they entered as we were applauding the first set from the pianist! Down at 9:15, but not ready for bed yet, so I read newses and the Kiritimati book that Ken bought for $10, and get to bed at 10:21.
MONDAY, 3/15/04: Pee at 1:13 and 5:05. Just about to get up at 7:45 when Ken gets up and goes in to shit, so it was good that I wasn't in the shower. Dream of being in bed with John Corbett, who seems interested in me, but when I try to kiss and neck with him, he sort of turns his head away and pushes me down toward his crotch, and I can feel that he's very hard and large enough to be really interesting, so I'm just about to uncover his riches when I wake up. Quite rocky outside and the sun is far up and the tiniest bit BEHIND us, in the SOUTH, for the first time in the trip since we're now substantially north of the equator for the first time. Ken comes out at 8:05, I stop typing, and I go in and sit for a shit and see that I have DARK RINGS under my eyes. Shower and out at 8:25 for Ken to be damnably clearing his throat again. Put lotion on my legs and let it dry while typing this. Breakfast at 8:38, sitting with a grumpy couple from Los Angeles, the conversation to my side more interesting about the Norwegian fjords and Palau, and finish in time to get to Dorothy's lecture on the "Stir Fry Population of Hawaii," the "Picture Bride" video of Japan-brides to Hawaii the only interesting point. Make a Yacht Club reservation for 8:30 on the 17th, earliest time available, though she'll call us if there's a cancellation, and I get to room to try to brush teeth, but Boy's fussing around with the TV on, so I just sit down with this from 10:40-10:55 and go to join Ken for his much-desired Scrabble, and I've GOT to win another SOON or will TOTALLY lose interest! DO win by 12:05, which he feels is too early for lunch, so I read Australian news and we go to lunch 12:25-1:55, chatting with a VERY talkative woman from Lincolnshire who has a mobile home in southern France and will be moving in the neighborhood of Alicante. An 81-year-old grandfather joins us as we one-up each other with tales of Machu Picchu, India, Bolivia, Colombia, France, etc, etc. Banana-y cold breadfruit soup followed by red lentil soup, then Bami Goreng, peppery noodles with shrimp and beef made tastier by my addition of a vat of soy sauce. All-cream-filled and topped profiterolles for dessert and STILL lots of talk with VERY slow service. Down to pee and remember that I wanted to hear John on Maui at 2PM, so up to finish the puzzle before starting at 2:01, and 3/17 is St. Patrick's Day. We're there 8AM-9PM, at the Kahului (airport) dock, with a complimentary bus to Lahaina every half hour, four busses go the 45 minutes. Scattered showers forecast, and NO ONE can go ashore until EVERYONE is cleared through immigration, at LEAST two hours, present with passport, and all tours begin AFTER lunch! The Australian dollar is only 704 US, so I "lost" rather a lot buying the stamps, but the profits, they say, go to the local school. This goes to 2:33, sea at "rough," I can SEE the walkers in the hallway tip one way and then the other, and finish this at 2:44 ready to brush teeth and watch TV. Oh, yes, ONE wave splashed HALFWAY UP the deck-six window, and every so often there's a splash past our deck-four porthole. Turn on TV to find the lens of the TV camera on deck NINE is splashed! Turn on and get hooked into AI (Artificial Intelligence). "He went to sleep, and, for the first time, he went to the place where dreams are born." So ends the Stephen Spielberg film at 4:17, which I hadn't remembered AT ALL: his falling into stasis (after his creator, William Hurt, proclaimed him man's masterpiece for being CREATED yet having emotions and dreams) for 2000 years (anything Christ-like here?) when aliens came and recreated his "mother" from hair from the bear, and he has one perfect day with her, except that her creation ends when she falls asleep and her CONSCIOUSNESS ends. And then he "falls asleep" with her as a sort of cop-out, the movie titles ending at 4:23 with all sorts of various-country warnings about licensing, a 2001 film that still features the World Trade Towers. Even Bulgaria is mentioned! Then it starts again! Pee at 4:27 and go up to Trivia. We have another non-speaking woman in place of Algy's (or whoever's) wife, and I give most of the answers, being the only one to suggest answers to 2, 5, 6, 7, and 9, and they talked me into Cape Verde Islands for Porto Sancto instead of Madeira, which I thought it was, until they said it was which GROUP of islands, and what was the name of a group of islands of which Madeira was an island? But we won anyway with 18, the next team with 17, and we got another pen. That's over at 5 [start file 6 at 9:30PM 3/15] and we go up to play a game of Scrabble which he wins again, then we're down to tiny shrimp in a risotto appetizer, my pea soup, and he doesn't even want the consomme, and my lamb shank is very good and he says his chicken breast is OK. His terrine of white and dark chocolate is pretty bad, but my glazed strawberry tart is tasty. Then at 7:10, completely dark, up to the Palm Court for a fast game of Monopoly which I win, at last, ending at 9:10, and down to the cabin to find a notice that the US Coast Guard MUST do a TWO-DAY inspection of the ship, necessitating TAKING KAUAI OUT OF THE ITINERARY. Ken is VERY disgusted with it, saying that HE will write a letter, and as I type he says he wants a drink, so I join him at 9:40 upstairs for a gin and tonic while he turns back and then drinks his second Cosmopolitan, and we're back down at 10:05 for me to finish this, waves heavily white in our wake, and when I tell Ken that I intend to go to bed in 5-10 minutes, he puts down "The Story of Philosophy" and says "Well, I guess I'd better not start reading any of this, then," and starts to undress. Sad ending to an evening. Put things away and get ready for bed myself, still not watched my video or checked the bills. Bed at 10:20 and have trouble getting to sleep.
TUESDAY, 3/16/04: 3:16AM! Two dreams, of testing and bedroom/Charles. 1) I'm a teacher of my contemporaries, as it seems, of my grade-school class which has advanced to college level. I'm not REALLY a teacher, but when the male teacher of our Physics class seems to be intimidated about teaching a chapter in Thermodynamics, which is one circle among other circles of topics on the cover of the textbook, I say something like "Oh, you'd have to make it easy by drawing it out" and the teacher says, "OK, YOU teach it." So I look at the enormous chart of men's faces associated with this chapter, and I take one as an example (Thales?) and draw him on the board and label him as in the book: "Everything boils down to the concept of INPUT (which I inscribe on a band along his forehead), which can be electrical energy, or physical quantities like apples or oranges or tons of coal; and OUTPUT (which I print on a band along his neckline), which can be anything from packages of food to hours of heating for your city to rows of books in a library----" I think this is a wonderfully clear way to start this concept, but I'm aware of a row of people, standing about 10 feet from where I'm somehow standing in a playground teaching this class in the open air, who start TALKING to each other, obviously paying me NO attention, and I get angry and say "Anyone who doesn't want to listen should just leave so they won't disturb the others," and a group leaves, followed by ANOTHER group that chats among themselves and leaves, until I'm left with only three or four guys, one of whom, Joe Safko to be precise, says "Pretty soon you won't have anyone left, then who will you teach?" And I realize the truth of what he says, feel very disappointed (like with the cancellation of our visit to Kauai last night), and sit back down at my desk to wonder how I could have done it better, and what am I going to do now? 2) I'm fixing up the bedroom of my apartment, which is laid out like my house at 1221 Dietz: my bedroom is situated in the northeast, say, with the living room in the southwest; rooms connected with a common hallway. Mom comes to my bedroom door to say that Charles Magistro has arrived (as she may have in real life), but I want to finish fixing up my bedroom before inviting him in for his reaction to my fixing-it-up scheme: I've put all the books (like in my 101 Clark apartment) in cases BEHIND a screen, which in this case are racks and racks of CLOTHING, many more suits and shirts and coats and other articles of aparrel (HOW do you spell that word? I try entering "apparrel" and "aparrel" in file 7 and using Spell Check, but nothing comes up from either variant [and WordPerfect says it's "apparel"), until the whole window-wall of my room looks like racks in a men's clothing shop, and a desk is in the corner by the closet, my bed is behind it, and other pieces of furniture are placed around. I go into the living room to find Mom hunched over at the end of a sofa against the fireplace wall, reading a magazine, or book, or TV guide, and paying no attention to Charles, who's stretched out sleeping on a VERY large sofa taking up most of the room where the sofa was at 1221 Dietz, but he wakes up and starts to apologize for falling asleep, but I say "Come and look at my bedroom. I've still got to put dimmers in the two light switches to control the level of the lighting, but the basic idea of my renovation is there, and I'd like your reaction to it." Finish typing this opus at 3:35AM, having peed. Woke at various times during the night thinking the ship's engines seemed louder and STRAINING during the night, visualizing some OTHER disaster like a lost engine, or a broken pipeline (of which we've had THREE "Code Niagaras" already), or a storm, which will cause even MORE problems in our already highly problemed voyage. Filling files FAST! And even the foam in the toilet rises to a MUCH LOWER LEVEL when it's flushed, suggesting OTHER ways of bad things happening on this trip. 5:33AM: MOST extraordinary sex-dream: I've been invited, or stumble into, an enormous "factory" which has huge rooms devoted to sexual fantasies: 1) a "battle" room in which mostly white-clothed armies, some as small as one man, some a phalanx of similarly-uniformed men, come from the sides and advance to the center in a choreographed "battle" in which decoration and stance and pose seem paramount to "winning." 2) a "waterfall" comprised of levels and ledges like a rapids, oozing soapsuds, foam, SHIRTS, milk, oatmeal from vents that overflow like the crystal terraces of Rotorua, but with edibles, or clothes, endlessly erupting and flowing down to a central reservoir. 3) a sex-orgy-fantasy room in which a) a Christ-like figure (I guess from drawing of Mel Gibson as Christ in his movie, saying "More blood, more blood"), saying "Don't touch my cock, I've very close to cuming," sheathed in condom-plastic into which he injects gouts of blood, so that he's bloody in spots all over his body, even his head which has his hair slicked back, but I can kiss his mouth and he responds slackly and I fleetingly wonder about AIDS, but I'm drawn away from his beautifully-formed, but too-gorily bloodied, body---to a seemingly legless man (from the Flesh Fair in "AI" yesterday, no doubt) whose cock and tits are being wrenched from side to side by machines gripping them, and he shouts "Don't move!" to me, because I might change the pressures on the platform on which his machines are ministering to his pleasures and change the rhythms by which he's engineering his most prolonged, erotic orgasm. 4) Into another room that seems merely loaded with pieces of paper and foam rubber and plastic that I walk unsteadily over, afraid to fall through, or push some off an invisible edge and fall off with it, and wonder how to get to the door to get to another set, amazed at this "party," wondering how (or even IF) I got invited, and how I could make sure I could return to this (I felt) annual affair of stupendous expense and eroticism. 5) a meticulously recreated 40s pharmacy with racks and shelves and displays of notions, shaving equipment, tooth-care implements, razors and blades and creams, all kinds of facial and foot and dental and digital creams and aids and culturing implements, that I thought would be invaluable to finding "just that thing" that no other store would stock, no other modern pharmacy still sell, but extremely useful nontheless, and this was only the entrance-facade to another exquisitely sexual fantasy with an engorged cock and contorted-with-ecstasy face lurking underneath the painstakingly detailed obsessional surface. Awake VERY hard and for a few minutes try to jerk off in the bathroom, but that doesn't work, I go down, and finish typing this at 5:50AM, content to continue letting my sexual abstinence build up ever-more elaborate dream-structures to get aroused with and to write about. 7:19AM: It's endless: 1) I'm at Arno's, trying to hook up hi-fi speakers with wires exactly like my video wires from the last few days, and I say "They're old, but they still work: listen!" And I hook them up and they play, somewhat staticky, for a few moments, and then a wire breaks off at the base and he'd already looked at me balefully and announced: "Bob, they're from 1952!" Well, I KNEW they weren't NEW! 2) I'm eating something mushy with big pieces of fruit in it, and feel something large and HARD in the mess, and fish around in my mouth and pull out my RIGHT CANINE TOOTH! Get home, where there are a couple of guys and two young punkish girls, and I rinse off the tooth and it's perfect in form, like a shell with an arrowhead-shaped root, too large and too flat for real life, and one girl says "No one will ever notice," as I smile at her, and the other says, somewhat contradictorily, "You're right in style," she says, smiling a gap-toothed smile of her own. As I lay in bed marveling at yet ANOTHER duet of weird dreams, I have a five-ten second VERY clear mympths: a) a background of green with a yellow-green beaded tesselation moving slowly down before it, and b) the traditional black-dot-in-yellow-spot-surrounded by dark-green array jittering before the pea-green background, surprisingly distinct, both moving slightly out of sync with each other, slightly overlapping. Then I pee. Flush at 7:27. Ken's used yet ANOTHER (4? 5?); roll of toilet paper! Up 7:38 as Ken goes into bathroom to shave. Put on video battery to charge. Ready for shower. Get out 4 cards to 1) Sherryl, 2) Fred, 3) Shelley, 4) Arnold. Write four cards to 7:54, Ken STILL in shower. NO bridge tour listed for today! Shower 8:04-8:20 and get out to find Ken's suitcase taking up the entire floor because we have new tags to put on, and told to vacate room by 8AM of day of departure, and then says "Anytime you're ready," when I'm in my shorts typing, and he goes out to ask about LOCKING luggage when we leave it out many days from now. Stop at 8:22. Lovely brown pee? shit? spot in the middle of Ken's sheets, thoughtfully provided for my eyes. Leave for breakfast at 8:26AM. Breakfast with the Yasawa clothes-watcher from Brisbane and a wonderful woman from the Scilly Isles (southwest of Cornwall, 1500 people, 5 inhabited islands connected to each other and Cornwall only by boat, flower-growing and tourism as industries) who got on at the START of the trip on November 21 and will end April 29 back in ENGLAND. Back at 9:04 for Ken to try to phone cancellations on the two Kauai tours he booked, and I finish this at 9:09AM. We push things around until going to the last lecture on Hawaii, about how no one knows about just HOW Captain Cook was killed, and then talks about modern Hawaii until 10:25, when we go up to play Scrabble and Ken ACCEPTS some woman wanting to join us, which REALLY annoys me, since he continues to get his great scores and she takes ages and then gives him all the triple-score words, as I just stare out at the somewhat calmer sea, which he of course wins. Lunch for TWO of us, with people at next table joining in, Ken laughing at the menu's calling Quiche Lorraine an ALSACE specialty, for apple-celery cream soup, "crisp" sweet and sour pork which turns into pork tempura (and I can't remember that word, which of course makes me very happy), and the ice cream with my apricot tart dessert is good, as is his strawberry shortcake. I announce with some pleasure that this is the LAST lunch we have in the Seven Continents, but I DO confirm that tomorrow night is a special Philippine dinner, so Ken and I may cancel our Yacht Club reservations. Eat quick to 1PM and go to a Scrabble game in the hot Library (which STILL does not have the "Bones" puzzle solution, for which I searched out the card room, the Library, and the Purser's desk, to no avail. He quickly gets TWO bingoes, there's a guy who CONSTANTLY clears his throat, I'm feeling VERY hot and annoyed, so when he scores another good score I simply RESIGN, which astounds and puzzles and disappoints Ken ("But I wanted to finish the game!"). Then to John for a description of the two tours in Honolulu to 2:38, me getting the idea that our hotel was AROUND from Waikiki Beach past Diamond Head but Ken assuring me that it's VERY well centered, and he goes his boring way though what must be HIS last lecture until 2:38 and I insist on Monopoly, which I win in just under an hour, so Ken of course wants more Scrabble, so I get the game and get LOUSY letters, ending up at one point with 2 U's, a blank, 2 S's, and two other vowels. We stagger through to the end at 4:04 and I don't even WANT to know the score, announcing that it's my LAST Scrabble game for the trip, and he offers me a Valium, which I refuse, saying I've never had one and have no idea how it might affect me, but thank him anyway, and down to the room to the newses and finish this at 4:21 in time to shit before Trivia. Up to the hardest game of all: we only get 12 and the winner has SEVENTEEN, which is quite extraordinary. Then move our chairs up for Ken's (not my Ken's) magic show, and I GET the divided plastic bag with the numbers for page 13 cut off from the number 22 that I got from the OTHER side, and SAW him fold Pat's jack-of-hearts (which really didn't FOLD well because it UNFOLDED as it sat on the table and everyone "didn't see it"), and we also saw the "secret" card at the bottom of the deck, and I got the "five blank" by going to the THIRD card for EACH of six: o,n,e; t,w,o; 1,2,3; and from the OTHER side: f,o,u,r; f,i,v,e; and from the left: s,i,x. That goes until 5:35 and we're back to room to read papers, me going to desk to get a USA Times that has all pages 1-7, rather than one-sided 1,3,5,7 printed. Then to dinner at 6:05: "Pepped Spinach Soup" after another cheeseless goat cheese tart with goat cheese (really) on top, and then apricot duck breast with good cranberry sauce, with a poor Passion Fruit pudding made better with the Sabayon Sauce for Ken's chocolate souffle, which wasn't really that bad. Had the same Shingle Mountain, or whatever, pinot noir, good wine. Then to the room to wait for 7:40 to go up to the Captain's reception, for about three glasses of champagne, some poorly aged Brie, and VERY nice chat with two couples in front of us (the distinguished almost-diplomat-or-Clare-Booth-Luce looking gray-haired woman, and the lively woman who reminds me of the better sides of Mildred; and their two almost-silent husbands). Back to the room to finish this by 8:30, thinking of nothing better than going to bed, but we haven't gotten the Daily Bulletin for tomorrow yet, and I think we want to see it. Start watching my video and Ken sees all through 1:06 minutes of it until 9:36PM. I put things away, we DO get the Bulletin, and listen to channel 40 music while I undress. Bed at 9:50. Pee at 11:30.
WEDNESDAY, 3/17/04: Pee at 2:33. 5:51AM: To pee and transcribe dream of being in a pharmacy or gym of some kind where I want to leave my name and address for their mailing list of products or programs, and at the desk are many white tablets, but they're all filled with name, addresses, lists, and other schedules. Look for a blank corner, but none seems avaiable. Try writing my name in a few spaces, but I always mess up one or more letters in my name (never even GET to my address!) and have to write over them so darkly that I know they're completely unreadable and try to start over. Finally tell a clerk that he needs to put out a new mailing-list tablet, and he tries to look through all the present material and finds nothing to write on, but can't manage to come up with anything new on his own. Still trying to write my name when I wake, lay thinking numbly of my frustrations (and do I REALLY have early-stage malaria?) and get up and pee and type this out, having raised the porthole earlier to see two strips of lit Hawaii towns along the western coast of the big island. Getting to the end at last. Finish typing at 5:58AM. Ken's up about 7:20 and I open the portholes to see that we're being escorted by a huge tug (without any visible tugging ropes) through rock-channel markings outside the harbor of Kahalui. I write my baggage tag and custom slip, which we drop off on the way to breakfast, and shit (amazingly, usually two, and even sometimes three, large shits per day these days) and shower 7:37-8, when we go to breakfast so fast I forget to apply lotion to my legs. Up and find NO fruit at the table, and I have to wait for toasted English muffins. Long wait for grapefruit juice, and though the hot chocolate is served in a bigger pitcher, there's still just only over two cups. They call for immigration A-L as Ken is ordering his omelet, and then he DOES go as someone from the next table goes BEFORE him and says "All they do is look at your passport and pass you through." We suddenly have hopes for an EARLY departure for our rental car in Maui. Ken's back before I have to make a choice to return his omelet or not, and as we're finishing they have the first call for last names M-Z, and I said "I don't have my passport because I never DREAMED they'd get so far while we were having breakfast." Finish breakfast about 8:38 and get down to find Boy (whose real name is Candelario, he says, trying to blush, "But they gave me the name Boy, and then some of the passengers thought I was pretty," more simulated blushing and waving of fluttery hands, "So they added "Pretty," so now I'm "Pretty Boy."" Yes. Ask him to move so I can look into my top drawer for my passport---and can't find it. Look through it a SECOND time, since it's really where it SHOULD be, but it's NOT there! Could it have been stolen? Look through the two OTHER drawers and my A&K bag just in case, but it's of course not anywhere. So I take papers item by item out of the top drawer and about 1/3 the way down come to my passport. Go to the lounge to find a longish line of non-Americans, but only one American couple before me is talking to my immigration officer, and I go through without any trouble, asking Roy (our Seven Continents table waiter) if they'd hauled anyone off to jail yet, and he smiles and says no. Back to the room at the dot of 9, when they make the announcement for the FINAL people to make their way to the lounge with their passports, AND that we must have our passports WITH us when we LEAVE the ship. Ken also reminds me to take my binoculars, and I announce that this is a lucky day for him: "New socks day," and I now, at 9:17AM, relate to Ken that as I typed the phrase the first time, it came out, without my planning, "New cocks day." Don't I WISH. Lotioned up my legs, wearing blue jeans for the rainy-looking day outside, with a high temperature ONLY of 81º predicted, and my fraying blue shirt which I intend to throw away after today's usage. "Last and FINAL call for passengers to Carousel Lounge to immigration IMMEDIATELY, and if you don't show up, you're delaying the others going ashore." I remark to Ken: "It would be a nice time for a Philipino sit-down strike," and he rolls his eyes. Decide to start sorting through my top drawer to occupy the time until we're ready to clear out, now at 9:21. Ken keeps---I don't know what, because at 9:34 the announcement came that "We're free to go ashore!" I put shoes on, pee, drink water, and out at 9:39. Off boat at 9:41, Ken PHONES Hertz, but the bus is THERE and we go at 9:48 on bus. Car is in row F23, license MCJ842. Into car (Mercury Alara) at 10:07, Ken fussing with seat and steering wheel. Exit at 10:10. To Paia at 10:23. #24 Hana Crafts Guild banana bark collages at 10:31. ($3400 for big, $20 for postcard-sized. #25 Paia at 10:44. Leave Paia at 11AM. #26 SURFERS and Iao Valley at 11:10. At Hoopika Overlook to 11:16, many surfers, not very good. I take over driving in Paia, it rains most of the time, but the drive is still spectacular with the African tulip trees in full orange bloom, and get to Hotel Hana-Maui at 1:10, only 2 hours to do the "3.5 hour drive." #28 view from dining room at 1:14. #29 white strelitzia! $45 lunch to 2:05 of his free iced tea, my pork ribs FABULOUS and filling, his potstickers not so great, and we cancel my burger and have only his fish club sandwich, pompano and tomato and lettuce and Furicoco potatoes: mixed with seaweed and spices, and Ken says that Maui is famous for potato chips! Out as quick as we can, lovely place, and he goes to Hana Coast Gallery to 2:20. #30 view at 2:11. #31 featherwork mask for $6500 in Gallery. To Seven Pools at 3:19, paying $10 for the week's pass, down to lower pools I'd never seen before, #32 and 33 of shore at 3:05. #36 and 37 of lower pools at 3:19. Some nice bodies, I pee on trail, look over dryish upper pools which I suspect he misses, and leave at 3:30. 4;05 stop at Waianapanapa, beautiful trees on the way there. #4 rainy waves(?). Leave at 4:17. #6 coast view at 5:08, rainy again and getting dark. To Huelo at 5:40, #7 church at 5:47, in Kaulanapueo. Paia gas at 6:16-6:21, Ken pays by card. Back to Hertz 6:35. Car now has 2310 miles, we went about 110, boat announced to have gone 6500 miles. On Hertz bus at 6:42 back to security at dock and to room at 6:58. Put all the stuff away, dry umbrella, throw away blue-striped shirt with fatally worn-through collar, socks off, smelly already, and finish with souvenirs by tearing interesting maps and photos and ads from about 6 Maui freebie brochures and throwing the rest of the stuff away by 7:40. Read the USA, Australian, and New Zealand news to 7:51 (remarking to Ken that I don't read this much news at HOME!). Then catch up with this until 8:06, sitting in shorts while Ken reads his Philosophy, having wanted to see the Romantic Trio playing in the Discovery Lounge, but going up to find only the regular orchestra playing. He asks me up to have a drink, but I say no, but I may say yes now, what else is there to do now at 8:07, dinner not until 8:30. Finish the daily puzzle when Ken says "They usually announce dinner early, you should be ready." So I comb my hair and wash my face and dress and when there's no announcement by 8:29, he says we should go down anyway. Do so and they were delaying because of the talent show. The Philippine menu was very good: Ken's Limpiang with vegetables he liked, my shrimp was nicely marinated; his corn soup wasn't bad, but my Bulalo was wonderful, with chicken and greens and a tasty consomme. Ken didn't like his curried shrimp as much as my adobo chicken, which I would have liked more sauce with. His flan dessert had good butterscotch sauce, and my Brasos de Mercedes was meringue and sweet and lemony. Down at 9:40 to type this to 9:50 and get up with my video camera for the "Liar's Club" and the Filipino Folkloric Show starting at 10PM. Hope I can stay awake. Doc does a funny dance, but 10-10:30 is all-in-all silly, and then they do IRISH numbers (St. Patrick's Day, you know) and finally at 10:45 they start the Filipino Show, and Giselle is first a female chicken and then part of the Spanish finale, and though they ANNOUNCE a Roy as part of the ankle-klacking Tlinklit dance, it's not OUR Roy, who doesn't appear. I manage to record 12.5 minutes before my battery goes out, and get down to the room at 11:30 to put it on REFRESH and type this til 11:37. Ken, blindfoldedd, snores the whole time. Undress and pee and get to bed at 11:44PM, latest YET!
THURSDAY, 3/18/04: Pee at 5:06, brush my teeth because my lower right jaw aches with toothache, and then pee again! Ken's UP when I reawaken, and I'm up at 7:23, look out at cloudless sky above the too-close dock roof, and without showering go to breakfast 7:35-8:20, with a couple who are Scrabble nuts so the entire breakfast conversation is about big words, scoring, and poor racks of letters. SHE was second in the word contest, but what I thought was trivial (winner got 3XXX words, she was second with 12XX words) she explained was NOT simple: there was only one e and one a, and some major letters were missing, no plurals were allowed, and the words had to be at least SEVEN letters. NOT an easy contest. Ken shits loudly, as usual, and had used up ANOTHER roll of toilet paper as of this morning. Warm sun flowing in, people sitting in the lounge waiting to go off the ship ALREADY, and I'm sure the Carousel Lounge is crowded waiting for the start of the 9AM tour, since it's now 8:27AM. To lounge 8:40 and get bus THREE. Read Sci Am. Group 1 at 8:53, group 2 at 8:57, and we board bus FOUR when THREE is called without our HEARING it called. On at 9:06, typical fuss, told we'd be leaving the Bishop at noon. Leave 9:11, on bus 4, 632. To Bishop at 9:26. #8-10 of sperm whale at 10:26. #11 La Perouse Rock, in French Frigate Shoals; Southeast Island, Pearl and Hermes Reef. #13 Samoa headress at 10:49. #14 Hawaiian Hall at 11AM. #15 12-layer kinomo at 11:02. #16 sitting hula at 11:11. "Chiefs and Chiefesses." 5-6 subtle, subdued hulas; bring back SEX! Hula to 11:27. #17 Happyface spider at 11:35. #18 outside at 11:42. See ALL exhibits, NOT great, ALL guidebooks being reprinted, so I can't have any. Buy $15 hula book at 11:58 and onto bus #4 at 12. Leaves 12:01. Carnivorous caterpillars! To Royal Hawaiian Monarch Room buffet, GOOD roast beef and mai tais (2!) and video Diamond Head at 12:43. #23 and 24 Royal Hawaiian facade at 2:15. Awful singer, pianist, and 85-year-old dancer. I leave to pee at 1:55 and onto POORER seats on bus at 2:20. Leave at 2:33, #26 and 27 Iolani Palace, #28 and 29 of King Kamehameha at 3:57. I feel BEAT. [now at file 7 at 7:38 3/18] Back to ship at 4:20. Shit and shower (without washing hair) and last Trivia 4:30-5:15, with only three teams and we come in THIRD! To room and fuss with news and get to dinner at 6:02, slightly delayed because inspection only recently over and galley is late. Out at 7:28, pick up the US News, and Ken reads me Honolulu restaurant recipes as I finish this at 7:42. Got final bill of $620.91 for Ken (with extra charges for his binoculars and ties) and mine of $449.00, which I haven't checked through yet. Tired, but have to pack to get luggage out by midnight! Pack, for the most part, by 8:15, ready to read the news and do the daily puzzle and get THOSE thrown away. Finish newses at 8:37, Ken putting suitcase in hall ALREADY. Finish puzzle and notice single-sheet Discovery Disembarkation sheets under the door, specifying that the luggage should be LOCKED! Get bag back in, root for lock, lock it, and put it back out at 9PM, just about ready for bed. Get everything put away: lots of stuff on TOP since we're not MOVING anywhere, and final report gives DISTANCES traveled, but in nautical miles of 5371, for which I don't have the conversion to miles. Then at 9:10 Ken gives me the wonderful news that I'll have to wear my mask because he intends to sit up READING until his sleeping pill takes effect, clearing hi throat furiously all the while he reads. I finish this at 9:17PM and figure I'll get out New Yorker and put in earplugs and read until he puts the light out. Bed at 9:45PM.
FRIDAY, 3/19/04: Pee at 12:38 and 3:23, with dream of working at a Turkish dig and coming across an easily-scraped-off bit of "Turkish glass-beadwork" that's so exciting to uncover color by color, bead by bead, that all of us can feel the excitement at the ease of the cleaning, and then others decide they have to get their cameras to record this work, and I'm pleased to think that it'll be MY fingers doing all the work in all their history-making photographs. Feel just GREAT about it. Three days left in trip! 6:22AM: Dream of being in a play without having read the script, though I feel it's "perfect" because I don't know where it's going and my reactions are genuine. We're looking to elect someone to office, but it seems they want me to participate in a plan to kill the opponent because, as they try to prove to me, he's totally evil. I feel I'm doing a good job, though for much of the time I'm off to the side so that much of the audience can't see me, but I somehow think that's good for the "avant garde-ness" of the play and its ideas. THEN a short cute actor has his ELBOW practically in my CROTCH, and I fantasize it's being a porno production and he'll get me excited and we'll have sex (all as a legitimate part of the play, you understand), and I'm excited at this thought. Up at 6 to the john and type this to 6:27, Ken having set the alarm at 6:45 at my request, and I feel vaguely like shitting. Also, the backs of my sunburnt legs are finally beginning to peel. Shit to 6:34 and get back into bed. Ken goes into bathroom without my hearing his alarm ring, and lay thinking: 3 more days, 80 more hours, ten more meals, and get out of bed at 6:51AM just to stop obsessing about the end of the trip. Type to 6:54 after lifting portholes to featureless dock beside us, Ken flushing toilet (and using toilet paper like crazy) through my earplug. Last three hours on ship! We're (green tags) to leave at 9:45, having vacated rooms at 8:30---and then what?? Decide to shower just to pass the time! Shower 7:07-7:19 and out to find Ken gone! To identify the luggage outside? To wait online for breakfast? To bug the Purser about yet again something ele? I keep New Yorker out to read in spare moments, almost finished with it. Ken returns to say "The bags and cabin boys are all piled at the end of the hallway." Indeed? He's back to say it looks like a gorgeous day at 7:24AM. Breakfast 7:32-8:15, coming back to pee and blow my nose to NOT have the right nostril fill the tissue with blood, thank goodness. Pack up the stuff from the bathroom and determine to finish the last New Yorker article and throw it away before leaving. Do it. Ken goes out to ask "Where do we GO?" And the response is "Any public area, sir." I pack everything into my bag, rather heavy, by 8:28. Checking the desk and Ken says "I was about to sit in that chair." I pause, amazed, then use one of HIS phrases: "Well, exCUUUUSE me!" Check everything else, and discover I don't have my wallet and change-purse! Look into my A&K bag and there they are. We get a knock on our door at 8:34, signaling that we should be OUT of there. Ken reads to me until 8:36. Ken wants to finish a few more paragraphs that he's reading, so I get out Sci Am to read along with him. Leave about 8:40AM, not seeing Boy (to avoid tipping him, just as we avoided seeing ANYONE last night leaving dinner from our table), and elevator up to the Discovery Lounge, empty until we get there, then joined by a smoker and a luggage-ridden couple while the waitresses fuss about checking out the bar. Out to see Aloha Tower, and in to check that IT is at Honolulu Harbor, quite different from Waikiki Beach to the east, so I take #31 at 8:45 of Aloha Tower, with low-lying Chinatown behind it. A few passengers are placidly reading on the deck as if their trip may never end. Back to type this at 8:50 and get out Sci Am. People sitting around, reading, chatting, and I almost finish Sci Am when we move to Carousel Lounge, for the last time, at 9:30AM. Pee, get back to Lounge at 9:33 to be called, hand in Cruise Card and get off ship 9:34, and hand over claimed bag and board bus number 3 for the consolation full-day tour because we didn't go to Kauai, at 9:37, second seat on right at window in hot sun. Type to 9:39. Finish Sci Am at 9:48, EVERYONE FUSSING about "how much room on our BUS." Drivers look on in amusement. Bus goes at 9:56. #32 10:22 Koolau Mountain slopes from H3 highway. #33 10:28 WINDWARD Koolau Mountains. #34 10:35 from Pali Highway. 10:42 stop at Pali Overlook. #35-37 from Pali. Video camera DEAD! at 10:50. Roll 7: #1-4 down road. #5 10:57. #7 at 11, last in bus at 11:02, and leave. Off at 11:20 at Waimanolo "mall." I have Jack in the Box 1/3 deli pannini and filling medium caramel shake. Into bus 11:44, NOT late. Two last women shoppers on and leave at 11:57! 12:12 to Halona, no blowing. #8 guy on top and two below at 12:14, and #9 same. #10 beach from Halona. MORE way-out dolphins (whales before). #11 porpoises at 12:20. #12 Molokai leftmost, Lanai partly obscuring it on right, from Halona 12:25 (5 minutes stop to 12:26: 13 minutes). #13 Hanauma Bay at 12:33, #15 water colors at 12:39. Beautifully idyllic snorkeling---taxis and tours allowed even if parking is full: 15 minutes limit, but at 12:48 we're still there. Leave at 12:49:50. Off bus at 1:30 at Hilton Hawaiian Village. To room 1348 at 1:36 and video now WORKS for views from room balcony to 1:45. Bags arrive 1:52. Ken returns 2PM with reservations at 6PM Golden Dragon for tonight and 6:45PM La Mer tomorrow night. Leave for drink at 2:13, on our room, but a call later reminds us that we have to REGISTER a credit card with them. Drink a Hula Cooler, good, to 2:44 while Ken has two 2.5-shot maitais. #16 Bishop Museum at 2:59. Video some of their movies and photos. He leaves to shop and I take #17 of Hawaiian Village from book at 4:06 before he leaves. Out of museum at 4:15. #18 African black-footed penguins at 4:33. Walk to EAST end of boardwalk and watch people and sit to 4:50, and back to take #19 and 20 of entrance statue at 5:10, and #21 from hallway picture at 5:22. Ken comes in (oh, I found plan and time for 7:30 fireworks) and we chat and I finish this to 5:46. Leave at 5:55 for dinner, Ken a slob, but there are even people there in tee-shirts, which had been a definite no-no. Ken refuses to eat outside because it's too windy, then selects his seat NOT overlooking what turns out to be a nice sunset, me getting up 4-5 times during dinner #24?-27 to take pictures. We order the $65 Gala Dinner with the substitution of Glazed Boneless Duck with almonds for my scallop, and "We can't substitute for abalone because the portion is the smallest divided among two people already," so I figure it might not be so bad. Good Gewurtztraminer wine for $30 on a very pricy wine list. Combined appetizer is good Char Shu Pork, Jellyfish, which is tender and reasonably tasty, but Ken doesn't care for it, and large watery shrimp in a good cocktail sauce that Ken says indicates the shrimp were frozen, but then he says ALL shrimp are frozen on the boats that catch them. Shark-fin soup is GOOD, with a beef stock and bits of tender white chicken in the bottom, and when I ask the Dragon Lady, our waitress, how it differs from "regular" shark-fin, she says "The $150 portion has a whole fin, and is much tastier," so I figure we've been lucky with the attenuated version. Then he serves the scallop with Japanese eggplant---WONDERFUL---on my plate until Ken notices that it IS the scallop, which is HIS only, so he gets a portion of the duck with almonds and the rest of the scallops, and IMMEDIATELY follow the fried rice, very nice, the last to not be finished; the sweet and sour beef, which he agrees is steak with ketchup; the lobster claws with lobster in a nice sauce; and the abalone is SO thin and tender even IT isn't that bad, though the mushroom is rather soggy and mushy served with it. We go thrugh all the food, not that much, even though Ken ends with a "Bloat," so maybe he eats more than I do. We share three desserts: a mandarin-topped cheesecake, a chocolate bombe, both recommended, and a red-bean cake that tastes like whipped cream with roach-wings from the bits of red-bean casing in it. We don't finish any of those, but the jasmine tea was nice throughout. Ken finds a nice male face to concentrate on in the crowd, and sunset leaves the sky featureless. We finish quickly by 7:15, hearing drums coming from the performance area, which was said to feature a marching-unit before the fireworks, and we get over at 7:15 to hear Polynesian drums and see a plumpish guy spinning fire-sticks, and I video most of it, which ends with an Americanized hula in which a few pudgy, too-young, unsexy guys participate, and it ends at the dot of 7:30 when the first firework goes up, and we move to a better view, me videoing the WHOLE thing until 7:34, and then the crowd breaks up. Ken wants to go to the room, so I wander out onto the beach and stare at the incoming tide wiping away successive rows of footprints in the perfect yellow sand, lots of planes flying past, a spotlight making UFO lights on the diminishing clouds, boats in the distance, kids skipping back and forth in the surf with their families, and a stocky serious oriental woman in bare feet determinedly waves her metal-detector over the sands, every so often scooping out something tinkly to be saved in her pocket. The tide IS coming in, the temperature is perfect, I stand and watch waves until 8:12 and get back to room by 8:22 to see Ken naked, talking about plans for tomorrow, and I undress and get into bed at 8:39PM, getting up to take the old Odor-Eaters out of the wastebasket so I can use them as a pattern for the new ones, which from the smell of my socks should have been replaced long ago. Threw out the finally-read Sci Am yesterday, but picked up lots of paper to replace the weight with, but won't be overheavy for our final packing TOMORROW! Finish typing this at 6:52AM.
SATURDAY, 3/20/04: 1:26AM: Dream of living in a multi-room apartment in a small building owned by Mrs. Johnson, and I'm trying to watch an important TV program that begins at 9:30PM but the TV in my room isn't working, and I know there are FOUR TVs in the storeroom that don't work either (one has been there so long it's actually rusted and covered with moss, but still she won't throw it out, and I'm considering asking her what day trash is picked up from the street so that I could cart out all SIX TVs that don't work in the building out to the curb to be picked up, but I try to puzzle out in my mind how I did it before when I helped her take junk out to the curb: I know she didn't pay me, but I didn't do it for free---did she give me a month's rent, or a good meal, or some other kind of trade? So what should she give me this time. By now it's 9:35PM and she's tried to tell me to "go to THAT TV" but it doesn't work, and I get an old "lap model" and put it on my lap with its reflective screen in a picture frame, but the channels don't work right, and it's not "replacing" the photo in the frame with the picture I want---in dreamland a typical way a TV goes on the blink. Get more frustrated as time goes on and I miss more and more of the program, until I wake and have almost no memory of the dream until I sit on the pot after peeing, with my laptop, and THINK BACK about it. ONLY SUNDAY as the last FULL 24-hour day to go! Change earplugs and remind myself that TODAY is the day I start melitonin! Up at 6:30AM, thinking that it's 11:30AM in NYC, and our going-to-bed time of 8:40PM last night was a "reasonable" 1:40AM in NYC. Up to fill in the rest of yesterday, noting at the last, here, that I peed again at 5:16AM, having no trouble getting back to sleep then, and having inchoate dreams that I don't remember. Finish at 6:52AM. Out to get my watch and Ken is still sleeping, an astounding amount of sleep! Figure that at this WATCH-time the day after tomorrow we'll be HOME! Bittersweet thoughts of the trip: some nice moments, some new countries, but many more disappointments: no New Caledonia, no Manihiki, no Kauai, even though Tonga and Line Islands weren't meant to be stops, but Ken's comment that "You wouldn't even have WANTED the trip if it were advertised as it turned out" seemed to be depressingly true. My crabbiness from the last few days, I hope, reflects THAT rather than my coming down with malaria, which I decide I WILL test for when I get back to NYC just to make sure. Ken's winning all those final Scrabble games didn't help, the absence of really good companionship on the ship was a negative, and though his pedantry in planning means we see lots of things, his PRESENCE is still a pain: his ugly dressing, his constant throat-clearing, his annoyance at my LEAST annoyance with him, his morning shits and coughs and nose-blowings increasingly resent-making. But he IS with me, and seeing the desperation of those who are ALONE convinces me yet again that I do NOT want to travel alone, even if it means putting up with HIM. It's now 7AM and he MAY be moving around inside. SHOULD put away some of my stuff from packing, so I can pack more neatly for the final trip home. Shit and shower and pee again, swab ear and comb hair and apply deodorant by 7:20, and Ken is JUST getting out of bed. Open the curtains to a cloudy morning. Put more stuff in drawers, noting my CAMERA low-battery warning on with NO spare battery here. 7:48AM: Ken still in bathroom; I've unpacked, sorted "souvenirs" from "take home," checked melitonin schedule, and unpacked odor-eaters. No scissors! Ken's ready about when I am at 8:05 to leave for breakfast. Downstairs to the Tapas Bar for RIDICULOUS prices ($4.95 for a bagel!), so I urge us to the beach area, where I find a Good Morning muffin WITH sausage and scrambled egg for $5.95, and they HAVE hot chocolate, which the other didn't have listed. Read the paper and do puzzles and watch people and eat until 9, when Ken goes and finds out about the Japanese Rice Bird (small, green, black dot for eye) and the Whistling Duck ("But it didn't quack, it CHEEPED!"), and then to a long Ken-bitchy line, to 9:25, for the Hospitality Desk to find we have to have packed bags IN room by 8:30AM and leave at 10:45AM for a 1:45PM flight. Back to room at 9:30 and Ken goes and I do this til 9:32. To Aquarium at 9:53, sitting for movies until 10:25. Good corals growing, great fish, some videos, good (though basic) descriptions, and Dragon Fish a real kick. Leave Aquarium at 11:30 in a stretch limo up Mt. Tantalus for $27 to Contemporary Art Museum at 12:00. Ken goes immediately to lunch, since he's hungry from his minimal breakfast, and I even debate not HAVING lunch until I get peckish after looking through two rooms of ceramics, lots of video about the couple who did them, some other Hawaiian current stuff, a nice "Geology of Dreams" drawing, more great wood-turning, and I get to lunch at 12:50 as Ken is leaving, saying he managed to get me a seat even though they sold out for the rest of the afternoon ten minutes ago. Everyone knows my name through this, and I get his recommended deviled eggs, good, and a prosciutto and mozzarella sandwich with lots of other stuff, but since it's so slow in coming (with good bottomless fresh lemonade for $3 for 6 glasses) I "have a problem" at 1:30, and the waiter lets me leave for the docent's talk, which goes to 2:10 when I leave and finish my sandwich and end up paying $19.75 for a medium lunch! I take 1/3 melitonin at 2:10, #28 Grooms and Hugh (?? Gardens and Earth??) at 2:35. Through at 3:13 and call taxi at 3:15, "in ten minutes" and video and photo more and taxi comes at 3:30. #30 John Bock: Archer at 3:38. To Hotel at 3:48, to room at 3:54, tired. Lay down in shorts and don't THINK I sleep but Ken insists I SNORED. Up at 5:52 and leave for La Mer at 6:28, walking without an umbrella while he carries one. Very elegant, handsome young sommelier, Bruce Willis-lookalike for a server, VERY handsome Italian type who uses my menu as a crib-sheet for the 9 courses and five wines, including the free first glass of Perrier-Jouet, and NOT including the final Pinot Noir they substituted for the announced Merlot with the steak. Not really the BEST food, though interesting people, but not worth the $402 bill on Ken's credit card. We leave at 9:38, I pee and look at the beach from the hotel, then Ken insists on returning by the road while I go by the beach, getting a younger, lower-class, and much more raucous crowd compared with the restaurant, tiny drizzles of rain, and get back to Tapa Tower at 10:04PM, undress quickly; they haven't turned back our beds at all, and my shoe-sand is still all over the floor. Type this to 10:22PM, determined to brush teeth before going to bed. Do it THOROUGHLY for once, doing the puzzle from the New York Times, and finish when Ken demands into the bathroom at 10:45. Bed at 10:50, and fall asleep before Ken shuts off light, to awake later to see he HAS shut lights off.
SUNDAY, 3/21/04: 12:44AM: Wake, coughing, with food in upper lungs. Try to cough it out, but unsuccessful. Go into bathroom and type this and clear throat and pee. Home from this 26-day trip in less than 26 hours! Bathroom STILL feels slightest bit UNSTEADY! Shit at 6:25AM, clearly having gotten fairly good sleep, but stay awake and worry about my slight nausea, my slight toothache, my slight apprehension about the flight, and wonder if Ken would supply me with Valium to try to curb anxiety about all these things. He's up at the dot of 7AM (I'd closed the drapes tightly that he'd removed my chair from closing and simply didn't even try to put back) and I get up at 7:20 and type this, getting ready for the day. He says Valium lasts four hours, so I ask for four and he says he never takes more than two a day. Decide to take one now, at 7:30, before I shower. Shit again, almost diarrhea, and shower and fill my Ambien bottle with EIGHT pills: 2 Ambien, 3 night pills, 1 lunch calcium, 1 2:10PM 1/3 melitonin, and 1 Valium for "later." Not the mention the box of 8 pills for breakfast and the box of 6 pills for dinner. Hope that tomorrow's breakfast will have me either home or with my bag to get them from the 2-week supply. This all takes to 8AM, feeling good in tee-shirt for Hawaii morning, with long-sleeved blue shirt and blue jacket in A&K bag for NYC cold. Sort things between the blue bag and the A&K bag and my pockets, phoning ext. 50 to accept the bill, followed by Ken's calling to say that that does not mean we're checking out now. Lock my blue bag at 8:22 and put it at the room entrance ready to be picked up at 8:30. Ken reads Nietzsche. I've GOT to get a tee-shirt with a breast pocket for room-card, pills, notes, etc. Type this at 8:24, ready for the last drawer-search. Forgot to pack my PILLBOX at 8:28. Leave for breakfast at 8:30. Tapa Cafe has a 5-10 minute wait, so Ken hunts down CJ's New York Style Deli, so much New York that he sends his terrible coffee back and gets tea, and the omelets are enormous, the blue-cheese one having NO blue cheese. Wait for toast and service and have to take the credit card to the desk to be served, where they're having trouble with the machines. Back to the Tapa Court to look for a free Sunday paper, but they seem to be available only for SALE. Back to room to finish this at 9:45, trip winding down. Do puzzles and leave room at 10:32. Sit on a rain-wet bench waiting to identify our luggage, which we're called to do at 10:35 and the bus leaves at 11:01. To airport, seemingly a LONG distance, at 11:25. Get boarding passes at 11:30. Told to keep films in CARRY-ON bag, since my locked bag MAY be checked with a powerful x-ray that could DESTROY film! But it's past that point at this time, the clerk assures me. Onto x-ray line at 11:32 and there's the usual fuss with my belt-buckle and even jean's rivets, and I have to take my shoes off too, to 11:56. Drink a Blue Hawaii for $8.01 while Ken pays $10 for a Hawaiian Itch but gives me the wooden back-scratcher he gets with it, which I give to Spartacus as his birthday present the next day! Drink and chat til 12:25, nothing to look at outside, and I put my long-sleeved shirt on, since it's cool. Do puzzles, the easy ones. Get told "every seat full" and board at 1:25. We back out at 2:10, and I take melitonin at 2:15. Off at 2:25 for a 4:25 flight "unusually short!" Good! Pee at 3:30, lunch at 3:55, pee at 4:37, now halfway! Cloudy before, GRAY now, CONSTANT bumps---annoying and nerve-wracking. At 5:12 BIG bumps, but pilot announces that he'd negotiated to fly at a lower altitude and it DOES get blessedly smoother, though it's now totally dark below. Land at 6:45PM, city bright-lit below with lots of clouds. At gate at 7:02, and I pee AGAIN when the seatbelt sign goes off for passengers getting out. Off plane at 7:09, to new gate and get told we "board in ten minutes." GREAT! Board at 7:25, pee again, wash face, take two Ambien, move out at 8:01PM. Flight time 4:47, again nicely short. Smooth, thank goodness. Off at 8:11, fall asleep after plane ascends into clouds, and wake at 10:02PM. Pee at 12.
MONDAY, 3/22/04: At 12:01AM move watch ahead to 5:01AM, no sign of light outside. At 5:45 OVER Manhattan, having seen slowly lightening Pennsylvania in the gray pre-dawn light, and even see the two bridges and the tall buildings at their base in Brooklyn! GREAT! Land at 6AM, off plane at 6:09. Get luggage fast, Ken says he'll take his own taxi, which sounds silly to me, but I get out at 6:20 to see last two taxis pull away and I'm next with no taxi in sight, quite cold in the morning grayness. He comes up behind me and decides to join me. Into taxi at 6:25, his stuff in trunk, and I'm home at 7:11AM through early-morning traffic jams, giving him $20 for the taxi, which he ends up adding $18.50 to, surely a bargain for both of us. Immediately weigh the luggage and count my money to update that list: Blue bag was 17# at start and 26# at end; A&K bag was 10# at start and 10# at end; starting with 30# and ending with 36#. Start going through luggage and putting things away, unencumbered with mail or newspapers to scatter my time. List five telephone messages and finally make the three necessary calls (two ads, but calls to 1) index for Level C OK by 3/31, 2) Antony Gray, 3) Tom Grasso). Decide that 10:30 is early enough to call Bob Lambiase for my mail (it isn't, but he lets me come up anyway), so I have THAT to start going through, table still loaded with stuff. Also take the last seven photos on the seventh photo-reel and get those ready to be mailed. Had breakfast of just-thawed milk over oatmeal and start getting hungry for lunch about 1:30. Phone Spartacus to plan to start either 1) What's for lunch? or 2) I have your birthday present (having decided that the backscratcher I got from Ken's Hawaiian Itch is a perfect response to his accordian for my birthday), but he's on the phone and says he'll call back. But by 2PM I'm so hungry I open a can of corned beef and have that for lunch, which he interrupts by phoning, and I say that the plans have changed. So much so that about 3PM I decide I just WANT to jerk off, so I undress and get out the porno and VERY MUCH ENJOY teasing myself into a flow of semen even though I've put on three VERY constricting rubber bands. THEN decide I've got to do something productive, so I dress and go out before I can even think, bundling up in heavy coat and gloves against the 34º weather that feels cold (and may have GIVEN me a cold!) and 1) mail film for slides, 2) try Barney's for lecithin, but their pharmacy counter has moved to Court and Pacific, which I go to but find it's only their prescriptions, but find 250 lecithin at 1200 mg for just a little more than the price I paid for 100 many years ago! When I turn left on Atlantic I decide to stop at Sahadi's and get more Near East packets, finding when I get home that I ALREADY have two of them! 3) Stop at Arnold's to get first three chapters of "The Sopranos" (which I later find, looking at the introductory recap from last year, that I haven't seen some of the OLD episodes that would let me watch these with understanding. Lug all the stuff home and pick up new mail and the package for Index C, which I check pagination for while tuna is cooking. Play Spider Solitaire for 1-2 hours in here somewhere. Ken calls with phone bills of $60.84 to Vanuatu! And then his Visa charges of $353.17 from Port Vila and Aggie Gray's. Finally call Spartacus at 10:20PM to find him engrossed in TV so I merely mention I want some previous episodes and say we'll talk later). After dark, recall that I didn't water plants, which I called John about earlier, and put out note to DO that. Watched two hours of my six-hour trip-recorded video while having dinner of tuna casserole at 9:15, tired but not excessively. Finish evening by doing the last New York Magazine crossword, having skimmed all the new New Yorkers and New Yorks and the one Scientific American to get THAT out of the way. Piled the Sunday Times in order on the sofa, regretting that I haven't yet thrown away all the scrap from the mail sort-through. Bed at 11:05PM, and I feel chilled---getting a cold? Below is the letter I sketched in my AlphaSmart, but probably won't need if Ken writes his own version and sends it to them:
To Discovery/GoAhead Vacations/Others:
"A Pacific Journey" looked wonderful in the brochure: 14 tropical islands between Auckland and Honolulu. 14? Right at the start the lack of a fourth engine took Norfolk Island and Ile des Pins from our itinerary. It didn't help to hear how wonderful Ile des Pins was at a subsequent dinner in Port Vila and from well-traveled passengers on the Discovery. Two down. Then the "scenic cruise around Tin Can Island" became a distant pass along one side of it. Then Rakahanga Island and Manihiki Island were ignored "because of currents" (as if the currents in the Pacific were completely unknown?) on our way to Christmas Island. The public-address announcement of this loss (a day after it was apparent from the cruise-map on the wall) was made worse by the announcer saying "We trust you aren't disappointed." Of COURSE we arere disappointed. Two more islands gone. Four and a half islands gone out of 14 is not a good average. The piling on of "special events" during the day doesn't quite make up for over 30% cuts in the very itinerary that caused us to sign up for the trip in the first place.
Samoa Scenic Tours, when they failed to set up our private guided tour as our four e-mails had specified, gave us a driver who drove us around without commentary, possibly willfully "confusing" which village we were to go to for lunch, a kava ceremony, and dancing, which made us miss out on many of the items we'd signed up for. But our day was brightened when Ms. Tanya Grey, the owner of Samoa Scenic Tours, said that she would not accept ANY payment from us for such a disappointing day. THAT is the way to run a business for happy, returning, clients.
Of course we understand that severe weather conditions will change plans, and we're glad we weren't on the "Around New Zealand" portion of the Discovery's itinerary. And some islands, such as Pitcairn, would understandably not want 383 passengers descending on their island (particularly since items had been stolen from their island by previous visitors), though surely, again, the passengers were grievously disappointed, particularly those who had signed for this cruise PRECISELY because Pitcairn was on the itinerary.
GoAhead Vacations has served me well in the past, and I hope to deal with them in the future. I understand GoAhead Vacations had difficulties of their own communicating with MV Discovery's staff---so much so that Mr. Levin had to phone the Discovery itself to get information he needed to plan our private tours on all these islands which, we were told, would NOT have tours offered on them. The fact that there WERE tours offered on most of the islands was somewhat offset by the fact that most of Mr. Levin's arduously constructed and negotiated tours through private agencies cost less and showed us more than the tours offered by the ship itself.
Of course all contracts we signed contain the standard boilerplate that, essentially, "We can do whatever we want to do and you can't do a thing about it, so take it or leave it." And of course we signed such contracts because we were interested in following your itinerary. But YOU did not follow your itinerary, and WE are very disappointed. Can you suggest any remedy for our disappointment that would lead us to favorably consider future itineraries offered by MV Discovery? Or, for that matter, by GoAhead Vacations itself?
We look forward to hearing from you.
Robert Zolnerzak Kenneth Levin
TUESDAY, 3/23/04: 2:30AM: Feel flu-y; pee! Take 2 aspirin and 4 grams Vitamin C. 4:37AM: THOUGHT I didn't sleep, but when I looked at the clock at 4:30 with a dream, I know I had: I'm on a ship, in my similar health condition, participating in some kind of consciousness-expansion program, and we go in for the first evening's---reporting is too formal, but it gives the right impression---someone like John Casarino (IS he still alive? Can I search the internet for him as Antony Gray did for me?) comes in with me, and I look around and see one empty comfortable rocking-armchair, and sit in it, and see John go to a vacant spot and sprawl becomingly on the rug. I say I want to say something of an apology to the group: I'm not feeling very well (I don't say I think I may have malaria---or the flu--- because I don't want them to think of me as dangerously contagious to them, but I say "So I'm not really fully participating, as I feel this group deserves, and I want to apologize for that." I can feel the group's warmth for me, and like the feelng of specialness this "confession" gives me. Another fragment has me standing at the head of a small bathtub which has partially filled with water, though I only took a shower, and I'm running more water into the tub as it drains (rather like draining a small sink in an airliner toilet) and think "I'm using a lot of water," but figure that since this is a luxury ship, they must be used to this luxurious use of freh water, and continue guiltless. Feel good to be in this position, thinking maybe I need something LIKE this to share----ah, yes, added to the group that "I'm also feeling like this in life generally: that as I get older, I DO less and less, even though my level of "doing" has always been so high that it may SEEM to you like I'm very active and participatory, but this is NOTHING like I would have been a number of years ago, in my prime." Also say that I'm concerned about dying, but then isn't everyone? Type this now to 4:49AM, ready for more bed; nose dripping, throat sore, but my lower calves aren't achy-tingly nearly so much as tthey were when I first got back into bed, with chills, at 2:40AM. Up at 9:17AM with a definite COLD. Enter AlphaSmart material and type Monday notes to 10:35AM. Play Solitaire to breakfast at 11:25AM. Then look at the Index C letter and phone Mary Ellen with questions which she answers much later in the afternoon. Read Sunday Times #1. Fill out Cadman Plaza Election form. Get to the Brooklyn Historical Society tour, which I phoned about after sorting through the "to be handled" stack to separate what had to be done SOON, at 2:15, but the lecturer is boring so I look through at my own speed, feeling increasingly sick and weak, and leave at 3:15. Put some things away, play Solitaire a bit, and get to Village Playwrights at 5:50 to find almost no one there. Robert LaRocca waits for his cast and then does a fairly poor movie-script that Eric said he'd call me for the conclusion of, but he didn't. But that meant I had to go to Chelsea Gallery with him and Bill Peterson, where I had good chicken soup and a good burger, too, but too much to eat, feeling bad, and get back to maybe watch an hour or so of taped TV and get to bed at 12:22AM.
WEDNESDAY, 3/24/04: Pee at 6:48AM, cum again, this time only in bed with the book-porno, up to look through New York Times #2, cold AWFUL. Phoned Arnold on his birthday since I went there yesterday. Decide to start plowing through the pile of stuff from the mail I got, and check accounts and put more things away and play more Solitaire, and the day's gone, maybe with more TV, and I'm in bed, fatigued with cold, at 11:12PM.
THURSDAY, 3/25/04: Dream to 3:05AM, recorded on AlphaSmart: Recall Ken's problems with ship-vertigo, taking meclazine, not going to work! Dream of being on an island with elaborate shells, and there's an "elaborate shell game" in which the islander will put a valuable shell next to a particular KIND of shell that you can put down, but if you don't know to put down that special shell, you'll get nothing special from them. I think there are only two of these shells for each tourist, which he has to use like an end-tile in Dominos: at the end, so that the special gift-shells can be appended. But then I go to another part of the island, and they don't seem to follow the same custom, and one woman puts out STRINGS of special shells, all of which I scoop up without telling anyone else, hoping not to break any tabus set up about this ritual. Then I'm telephoning for someone to come pick me up, but I don't know which telephone number to use or which spot on the island to tell the taxi to come to, and the map is very detailed but somehow confusing. I go into a raucous bar and meet a couple of waitresses who jokingly help me out, but the brown-haired one in particular is very helpful: "Look," she says with mock severity, "If you ask for ME, I'll not only TELL you which number to use, I'll call the taxi-company myself so you won't have to spend the extra money after you've gotten through to me." But then I talk to ANOTHER, blond, waitress, who seems more seductive, and ask for HER name but then realize that's NOT the name I wanted to get, so I find the brown-haired one, and she makes a game out of telling me her name: "Is it Farnis? Sniranf?" Until she confesses to Francis, and I feel so great with this that I leap across a desk-top to get to the path where my car is, thinking I might betray that I'm an old person, but knowing to take another step at the EDGE of the desk, I figure, will clue her into my real age. There'd been a movie I wanted to see that only stated once a day, at 8PM, and a clock says 8:30, but maybe they'll have previews and I'll be able to see it from the beginning if I rush there now. Wake still stuffed from my cold and write this to 3:15AM. 8AM: I'm eating dinner after everyone's finished, talking to a teen-aged Rita, and I'm not much more than 29. I can find a half-eaten chicken-part on one plate, but go into the kitchen to a roasting pot to find the whole skin of a pheasant with strange palm-leaf-like garnishes on the top, and ask Rita what tree these came from, and she says indignantly, "The one you GAVE me." But I don't remember giving her a palm tree. Get another meat-rind and remark that they all left the best parts behind. Odd details of a heavily decorated and dish-covered dining room table in a bigger room than any of us ever had, but it's clearly "home." Feel so bad at 8AM that I take my temperature, only 97.9º, coughing and coughing, and root through travel-stuff to get out the Cipro, prescribed back in October 2001, so it's already almost 2.5 years old, and hope to feel better and actually DO the Level C index! Breakfast and do odd things until I've cleared the desk (including three things to be mailed) for Index C, on which I work from 9:55-11:20 to mark, but again leave word with MORE questions, which she doesn't respond to until 3:20-3:35 while I'm reading New York Times #3. Had checked with Audience Extras and reserved for "Johnny Guitar, the Musical" and had some tuna before that, taking Cipro #2 at 7PM, but picking the ticket up at 7:30 leaves me time for a good chicken stew and half a roast-beef sandwich at Au Bon Pain for a better dinner before the actually quite decent show. Bed at 11:32 but can't get to sleep so I'm up to jerk off AGAIN from 11:57-12:43, this time using the VIBRATOR and really irritating my cock-barrel, and my temperature is up to 99.6º. Still can't sleep so I read.
FRIDAY, 3/26/04: Back to sleep at 1:27AM. COUGH horribly! At 5:13AM start reading, take temperature of 97.7º. Get up at 9:45AM, feeling poorly. Have breakfast, play some Solitaire, and type in the index 11:35-2:20, getting it into Juno and hoping that her address is Mary.Ellen.Gilbert, but phone her and it's maryellen.gilbert, so I have to send it again, booting and rebooting the old computer to get on the Internet. Almost finish with New York Times #4 when she calls to say it looks just fine! Do the final puzzle and expect to pick up the NEW Sunday Times TONIGHT! Sure! Phone Sherryl and Rita to get THAT out of the way, still not having gotten through to Yearnwood to verify my endocrinologist's appointment, and get out way before 7PM to meet Ken for the British all-male "Midsummer Night's Dream," which he and Dr. Plotz and his wife like much more than I do, and back at 10:25PM to ask for the Sunday Times at Penny Bridge, wondering why Friday's Times is still on the rack, and it IS Friday! Down to China Wall for egg foo yung for $7.58 that's not as good as before, though I eat only one of the three portions, watching "Tribute to John Harrison," not that great either, and get to bed at 12:29AM, dosing on Suphedrine to not cough. 3/31/04: Spent $6449.56, or $248.06/day, on trip!
SATURDAY, 3/27/04: Wake at 7:30 for a dream, relieved to have slept so long without coughing, do a good Actualism session, and take my 8AM temperature of 97.5º and get up at 8:51 to clip toe- and fingernails, then shave, then check Audience Extras and get a ticket for "Open Heart" tonight at 9 and "Alice" tomorrow at 7PM, not being offered "Blayds." Then get right out to Key Foods for needed items, including milk, then have oatmeal and fill up the pillbox, then phone Arnold about the "Sopranos" tape and agree to meet him at Park Plaza at 1:20. Play one game of Solitaire, then catch up with this until I go out toward Clark's Corner before I realize IT's not Park Plaza, and around building to meet Bob, smoking, and get three tapes, recording "The Last King," that he told me was on at 1PM, and I finish this up to date at 1:45PM today. END OF TRIP! But since my expansions have taken me to another page, I'll catch up more now at 5:10PM Tuesday. Leave LAST "I'm home" messages with Carolyn (who calls back at 6:39PM), Shelley (who calls 12:35PM Sunday), and Vicki and Charles and Fred, who haven't called back by Tuesday. Go through my income tax, looking through pages after page, calculating worksheet after worksheet, and turn up with ZERO taxable income, though I still have to pay self-employment tax. GREAT! Proofread trip journal through page 7. Get to "Open Heart" to get a seventh row aisle seat, and around to Hudson Street for a greasy slice of pepperoni pizza before the mediocre show, taken OVER by the comic, singing, emoting talent of Stan Brown, who has no discernible background for a great personality. Back with the Sunday Times, but only watch TV.
SUNDAY, 3/28/04: Get to bed at 1:09AM, maybe pee once, and up at 9:27, doing Actualism and taking my temperature of 97.5º. My cold is better, I get through both Times puzzles by about 12:30, then watch lots of TV. Phone Paul McLean about 1PM to get permission to call OAT for Amazon trip. Sort more things out and proofread trip journal through page 15. Beginning to feel "back from the trip" and self-indulgent about playing Solitaire. And watching TV tapes. Sit through "Invasion (Robin Cook's)" with nothing familiar, except that I SAW it in 1997! Got to get to more productive things tomorrow!
MONDAY, 3/29/04: Bed 12:40AM. Up about 9AM, get out for groceries and have oatmeal with real milk at last, and finally make wonderful telephone calls: 1) to Paul and OAT and settle that we're GOING on November 25! 2) Finally verify my endocrinologist's appointment, 3) Brooke May clarifies my Schwab positions, 4) Promenade Car Service says I have to INSIST on my rights in the future. Still coughing but cold is much better. I manage to proofread to page 36 of the trip journal between lots of junk-TV watching (I'd seen the first "The Arrival" in 1996, but "The Second Arrival" was new; then watch the last four hours of the end of the last (2002) "Sopranos" season and the first of the new season and get to bed at 12:27AM, thinking of jerking off, but have no energy.
TUESDAY, 3/30/04: Happy birthday to me! In my 69th year now! Wash dishes, clear off weekend's mail, and eat lunch before Carolyn arrives with my birthday Hot Fudge Sundae at 1:30, and she sits to 2:15, when I finish two more Sopranos episodes and finish proofreading trip-journal and finish THIS at 5:25PM, ready to meet Spartacus downstairs for my Henry's End birthday treat by him at 6:30!
KENPAC TRIP SUMMARY 2/26-3/22/2004
THU,2/26: Car 11:20AM, lunch JFK's 7th Avenue Deli, fly JFK-Hawaii 2:24-7:51PM.
SAT,2/28: Fly Hawaii-Auckland 12:05AM (6:05PM Auckland)-6:21AM. Walk Auckland, breakfast at Rebo in Sky City, tour Mission Bay, Winter Gardens, Mt. Eden, then to Art Museum, dine at Vinny's, taxiing in severe storm, and bed at 10:29PM.
SUN,2/29: Auckland Museum for Maori show and lunch, dine at Gault at George's.
MON,3/1: Rebo breakfast, up Sky-City tower, Carlton Hotel lunch, second Auckland tour different, Bay-of-Islands tour cancelled, dinner on MV Discovery.
TUE,3/2: Bay of Islands:Kawiti Glowworm Cave &Kauri Forest tour,LidoDeck lunch.
WED,3/3: "Bend It Like Beckham." Trivia win #1, Captain's Greeting, Scrabble.
THU,3/4: "Julius Caesar (Sisto)." Win 3 Scrabble games. Dine in Yacht Club.
FRI,3/5: Vanuatu: lunch, Klem's Hill, Mele Falls, View Restaurant drinks, snorkel from glass-bottom boat tour, dine at Les Chaumieres outside Port Vila.
SAT,3/6: Spiritu Santo for Matevulu River, Vatthe Conservation Area walk, Blue Hole for box lunch, Fanofo Village for primitives, Trivia win #2, Concert Trio.
SUN,3/7: "The Pirate Movie" sexy. Lido Deck lunch. "Seabiscuit" in Theater.
MON,3/8: Yasawa, Fiji, for snorkel, dances, lunch, village walk, and snorkel. Trivia win #3, Upwords for trial, getting tired of ship's routine.
TUE,3/9: Suva car-tour, Nausori market, Nasilai Village by boat for lunch and lots of kava. Suva Museum and Botanical Gardens. Free mimosas for working 4th engine. Disappointing sunset, Scrabble loss, good Yacht Club Polynesian dinner.
TUE,3/9 NUMBER 2: Power off twice. Dorothy Pyle's "Bounty" talk. Trivia win #4. Pass by Tongan island of Niuafo'ou.
WED,3/10: Watch Western Samoa (Savai'i) pass on way to Eastern Samoa ('Upolu). Apia: Robert Louis Stevenson house tour, Bahai Temple, Papapapaiuta Falls, Sinalei Reef Resort, Sopoaga falls, lunch and snorkel at beach, drive nowhere, to Apia Museum, Aggie Grey's for FREE trip-news, start losing at Scrabble.
THU,3/11: "Early Pacific Migration" talk. "Arthritis" talk. Trivia win #4. Watch sunset. Play Scrabble and he refuses to wait until I find "trionym" &win.
FRI,3/12: "Polynesian Migration" talk. "Island of Dr. Moreau" (Lancaster, York). End of "My Fair Lady." He wins at Scrabble. We miss two atolls.
SAT,3/13: "Christmas Island" talk. Play Family Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. Crossing the Equator ceremony for 30 minutes. Lotion on sunburnt legs.
SUN,3/14: Dock at Kiritimati Island: to Bird Motu, buy stamps, see fish tanks. Monopoly with Espin, dinner at Yacht Club. Read "Christmas Island" booklet.
MON,3/15: "Stir-Fry Hawaii Population" talk. Finally win a Scrabble game. Watch "Artificial Intelligence" again. Trivia win #5. Note: NOT going to Kauai!
TUE,3/16: "Captain Cook's Death" talk. Resign last Scrabble game of trip. Close-up Magic Show. Captain's Reception for champagne and Brie and chat.
WED,3/17: Maui: Hertz rental car to Paia, Hoopika Overlook, Hotel Hana-Maui lunch. Hana Coast Gallery and Seven Pools. Waianapanapa and Kaulanapuoe church stops. Philippine dinner menu and Folkloric Show after Liar's Club show.
THU,3/18: Free Honolulu tour: Bishop Museum, Royal Hawaiian Monarch Room buffet lunch, old-folks show; Iolani Palace, King Kamehameha statue. Last Trivia lost.
FRI,3/19: Check out of MV Discovery. Oahu tour: Koolau Mountain pass, Pali Overlook, Waimanolo mall-lunch at Jack in the Box, Halona no-blow hole, dolphins, Hanauma Bay. Check into Hilton Hawaiian Village room 1348 in Tapa Tower, see Bishop Museum there and penguins! Golden Dragon tasting-menu dinner and time on the beach just watching the waves roll in and out. Tired of trip.
SAT,3/20: Beach Area breakfast, Aquarium, up Mt. Tantalus for Contemporary Art Museum for exhibits and lunch. Nap in afternoon. La Mer dinner, bed late.
SUN,3/21: Breakfast at CJ's New York Style Deli. Bus to airport. Fly Honolulu-Los Angeles 2:25-6:45(8:45LA time)PM. Leave for JFK at 10:11PM,1:11AM NYC time.
MON,3/22: Arrive JFK 6AM. Home 7:11AM to unpack, pick up and go through mail, mail film for slides, phone calls, buy lecithin, jerk off, cold coming on.
(RETURN TO JOURNALS 2/26/04).
KENPAC SLIDES - 1
Roll 1
#1 and 2 in Sky City
#3 of Sky City in the rain
#4 of Carlton Hotel atrium
#5, 6, and 7 in Winter Gardens, one of Ken outside at the lotus pond
#12 picture of scraped paint in Art Museum
#15 and 16 of a clearer Auckland from the window of Auckland Museum
to #23 of a) Carlton Hotel and Mount Eden, b) the Auckland Museum, c) the Auckland Harbor Bridge, d) the boat basin, sold in PERPETUITY and controlled by an anti-extortional-pricing board, and e) comparative heights, with the Eiffel Tower on the right and Toronto and Moscow on the left
#24 March Cuisine poster in motion
#25 skyline from bridge at 1:33 and photos thru #32
Winter gardens through #35 by 3:12
#36 Cenote picture, April 25 Anzac Day, and Auckland Museum at 3:20
#37 Discovery at 4PM
Roll 2
thur #4 to 11:15 of Kawiti Glowworm Cave
#5-7 of Hundertwasser toilets from moving bus
#8-10(?) in Kauri forest, large and impressive and mostly quiet til 12:29
#11 Kauri's healing sap at 12:35
#13 oldest stone building from 1833
#14 oldest wooden building from 1822
#15 Vanuatu at 10:10AM
#16 2 capsized fishing boats from cyclone Ivy at 10:19
#17 ships in dock at 10:22
#18 and 19 Klem's Hill at 12:13
#24 of falls on the way down at 1:26
#24 ships sunk at 3:01
#26 & 27 Matevulu River and mangroves at 9:13
#28 vines forming their own canopy at 9:32
#29 tree-clumps at ocean at 10:36
#31 of Blue Hole
#32 try to get luxuriating cows (Santos' main export) at 1:37
Roll 3
#16 in Suva, Vice-President's residence at 9:24
#17 in the village with poinsettia with white flowers at 11:24
#1?-21 of 1901 church, where I take pictures of it and three trees
#22 from river at 1:17
#28 of Mormon Temple with a golden-gleaming Moroni atop at 2:22
through #34 outside in the garden after 3:40
#35-37 of Niuafo'ou, the farthest-out island of Tonga
Roll 4
#1-7 of the island and the sunset
through #11 of various clouds
#13 of Robert Louis Stevenson lawn: tour starts at 10:47
#14 "End of cannibalism" statue
#15 the villa at 11:18
#16 Bahai Temple at 11:30
#17 Papapapaiuta Falls
#19 Sinalei Reef Resort at 11:53
#20 and #21 Sopoaga Falls, 180 feet, at 12:33
#26 last of Museum photos to 3:58, when it closes at 4
#27 Aggie Grey's Hotel facade at 4:02
KENPAC SLIDES - 2
Roll 4 (continued)
#30-something through #36 of the equator-crossing posing "victims" and the technicolor operating table
#37 of room at 9:30PM
Roll 5
#1 at 6:28: pilot boat (which turned into a Chinese fishing boat), flying bridge, and Kiritimati Island
#2 at 6:33, prow and sunrise over London
#3 6:37 sun's up
#7 Island at 9:58
#20 of boxed fish at 11:58
#22 and 23 of flowers and tree at 12:02
#24 Hana Crafts Guild banana bark collages at 10:31
#25 Paia at 10:44
#26 SURFERS and Iao Valley at 11:10
#28 view from dining room at 1:14
#29 white strelitzia
#30 view at 2:11
#31 featherwork mask for $6500 in Gallery
#32 and 33 of shore at 3:05
#36 and 37 of lower pools at 3:19
Roll 6
#4 rainy waves(?)
#6 coast view at 5:08, rainy again and getting dark
#7 church at 5:47, in Kaulanapueo
#8-10 of sperm whale at 10:26
#11 La Perouse Rock, in French Frigate Shoals; Southeast Island, Pearl and Hermes Reef
#13 Samoa headress at 10:49
#14 Hawaiian Hall at 11AM
#15 12-layer kinomo at 11:02
#16 sitting hula at 11:11
#17 Happyface spider at 11:35
#18 outside at 11:42
#23 and 24 Royal Hawaiian facade at 2:15
#26 and 27 Iolani Palace
#28 and 29 of King Kamehameha at 3:57
#31 at 8:45 of Aloha Tower
#32 10:22 Koolau Mountain slopes from H3 highway
#33 10:28 WINDWARD Koolau Mountains
#34 10:35 from Pali Highway. 10:42 stop at Pali Overlook
#35-37 from Pali
Roll 7
#1-4 down road
#5 10:57
#7 at 11
#8 guy on top and two below at 12:14, and #9 same
#10 beach from Halona. MORE way-out dolphins (whales before)
#11 porpoises at 12:20
#12 Molokai leftmost, Lanai partly obscuring it on right, from Halona 12:25
#13 Hanauma Bay at 12:33
#15 water colors at 12:39
#16 Bishop Museum at 2:59
#17 of Hawaiian Village from book at 4:06
KENPAC SLIDES - 3
Roll 7 (continued)
#18 African black-footed penguins at 4:33
#19 and 20 of entrance statue at 5:10
#21 from hallway picture at 5:22
#24?-27 pictures of sunset from Golden Dragon
#28 Grooms and Hugh (?? Gardens and Earth??) at 2:35
#30 John Bock: Archer at 3:38
#3? to end: my place to finish roll