-- Monday, February 28, 2000 --

2:29 a.m. We've got a well-oiled machine going on here. Packing for our little anniversary celebration that will begin in a few hours. Doing the page now, since it's officially already the 29th. See?

That's my grand scheme -- my plan to work around not having a computer for 24 hours. I'm doing my Monday entry right now, in the middle of the night, as usual. Then, the quick but fabulous extravaganza to commemorate the moment. All perfectly on the up-and-up, date-wise.

And then, no matter what time we get back on Wednesday, I'll be able to post the entry, fair and square, because it will still be Wednesday until I actually go to bed.

Not that I can't live without the computer for one single solitary day -- but maybe I can't. Maybe I like things the way they are, you know? Plus, I haven't missed a day since I began, and that fact alone can make you crazy. But it's a good crazy.

So -- the laundry is done. Mostly folded and put away. I'm trying to get a Fedex ready to drop off before we board the ferry-type boat for the island at the crack of dawn. I can't wait to see if it's going to be raining and if we're going to have the thrill of storm-tossed seas.

I'm taking my camera, of course, and the island is supposed to have flying fish. We'll see about that. I'll probably end up with one of those photos á la Meg: here's a whale. Trust me. Ditto the supposed flock of buffalo. As if I care.

Mostly, I'm planning to pine for my computer and worry about which restaurant will have the dinner to remember. I can't wait to see how an entire little city manages with no cars. Are the streets clogged with golf carts?

Of course, we're not staying at the most expensive place at one end of the island because we are mature. That sort of thing used to really matter -- an old friend of ours called it the "stretch factor." Go for something extravagant so that you can refine your tastes and have goals for the future.

We took his advice a little too seriously. Took many years to pay off the credit cards. He called it the stretch factor, and they called it interest, compounded geometrically.

Well, no time to waste on the past. We climb aboard in just a few more hours. and it looks like the only thing I didn't plan properly for was a good night's sleep.

Maybe I can sleep on the ride over. It's just a short jaunt to Catalina from the mainland -- the song says it exactly -- 26 miles across the sea. That translates into about three hours, give or take.

That's another song. A three-hour tour. Gee. Do you think?