Friday, when Mike got home from work, I said, “Let's go to Ala Moana and get something to eat.”
So, he changed out of his uniform and we drove downtown. Traffic was worse going into town than I thought, but we finally reached the mall and found parking right away. The food court is really good, believe it or not. It has the typical mall food court places, but then it also has a wide variety of local stuff, including the Poi Bowl, which has yummy kalua pig. I opted for that while Mike got roast beef and fried rice from another vendor. After we ate, he patiently sat on a bench while I went inside my favorite store.
Williams-Sonoma has atmosphere. I love it. I love the smells and sights, the way the appliances and goodies are arranged. I love the CDs, the olive oils you can taste, the batters and mixes and jars of exotic stuff from other countries. Mike doesn't like it at all. Getting him inside that place takes an extraordinary act of persuasion. He doesn't mind sitting on the bench outside, however. This is okay until I want something. And then I either have to go out and talk to him or call him, one cell phone to another across a space of thirty feet or so. Silly.
This time, however, I found a cake pan that was marked down and I wanted it. I didn't call or go outside, I just bought it. He didn't care, which is his point anyway. I always want to involve him, but he doesn't care one way or the other. Why do women do that? Every woman I know does it, though I am sure there are plenty who don't.
After my extravagant $13 purchase, we went to Dairy Queen and got a shake. Mike said, “Hey, why don't we go over to the beach and drink these?”
“Okay.”
So we went across the street to the Ala Moana beach park. It's not in Waikiki, though it's close. We dragged out the beach chairs we always keep in the Jeep and went to sit on the sand. The sunset was typically beautiful, though the sun is too far to the right to see it set from there this time of year. In winter, you can see it perfectly from the south facing shores. (Here is the point where I tried to upload another picture, but Blogger has ideas of its own these days. I used to be able to put three pictures in a post and now I can only get one in. Piece of shit.)
We sat for a long time, until it was dark and the stars were out. (I took the picture of Venus.) Mike had binoculars and he kicked the chair back and stared up into the sky. In spite of the light pollution from Honolulu, he still manged to find a couple of Messier objects. One was a star cluster, and I believe the other was the Trifid Nebula.
And then I remembered that the Hilton had begun setting off fireworks on Fridays again. At eight o'clock, we turned our chairs toward Waikiki. Not a minute later, the first fireworks went off. It didn't last long, but it was nice. We packed up after and headed home. Before we reached home, however, we had another adventure. This one involved a big bad highway and a tiny kitten. I'll blog about that another time, but don't worry, Admiral Nimitz (Nimmy for short) is doing fine.