To conclude a busy week, Tawn and I met with a large group – Ken and Chai, Stuart and Piyawat, Todd, Vic, and Russ – at Pizza Pizza, a new Italian style pizza and pasta place on the seventh floor of Central World Plaza.  This place has taken off like wildfire while the neighboring restaurant, Triple-O Burgers by White Spot, sits empty.  It’s not that Triple-O isn’t good, but there seems to be a lot of burger competition in the mall with another place called The Garage and, of course, Japanese import MOS Burger.

Pizza Pizza (not related to the Dominos chain in the US) offers a very good thin crust pizza with high quality toppings.  Unlike some of the Italian restaurants in the Big Mango, Pizza Pizza gets a really crisp crust that doesn’t get soggy before you eat it.  The prices are reasonable, too.

Mid-way through dinner, Tawn took off to meet up with Eddy and get his opinion about our remodel estimate, which we received Friday from the contractor.  After dinner, the rest of the group decided to go out to a bar and sine I was heading back home, Vic asked if I’d take his big duffel bag with me.

On the way back, I stopped by the Starbucks on the ground floor of Central Chidlom, where I found Tawn and Eddy discussing the merits of different types of wood.  We stayed there for about twenty minutes but that location was closing up for the night so we drove to another nearby location that is open until eleven.

After finishing at the second Starbucks and heading back to the car, I realized that my small amenity kit bag containing my camera and my iPod was missing.  We searched the car, we returned to both Starbucks, but it wasn’t anywhere to be found.

I specifically remember holding the bag, which was a bit awkward to hold because I had the iPod in there, too – making it bulky – when I walked along the skyway from Central World Plaza to Central Chidlom.

Today, Saturday, I’ll stop by Pizza Pizza and see if they have my bag.  But I’m pretty sure it won’t be there.  I think that when we were rushed out of the first Starbucks, I left the bag on the table while worrying about grabbing Vic’s duffel bag.  That’s not quite fair to say, as it sounds a bit like I’m blaming Vic for the loss!  Uncharacteristically, I wasn’t paying close attention to my surroundings and probably walked away and left it there.  And I’m sure as there were other customers coming and going, including several tourists, it was picked up and carried out the door next to the table.

How do I feel about this?  Okay, actually.  I’m try to have a “I could live without this if I no longer had it” mindset when it comes to physical possessions, and perhaps to my relationships with people, too.  Try to cultivate an unattachment, if you will.

The iPod was an old model, 40gb that had seen better days.  The battery still works well and it has an awesome collection of songs including a couple of hundred I just downloaded from Kobfa, including Lisa Ono and Janet Seidel.  The camera, a trusty three-year old, had not been performing well in the exposure department ever since the main processor was replaced after I was shooting in the rain last July.  I had been considering a replacement.

Of course, with the remodel going on, this is not the right time to incur the expense of a new iPod and new camera.  The iPod can definitely wait: I don’t actually listen to it that often, only when I’m in the car.  The camera isn’t a huge rush as Tawn has one.