Lest you think this winter has been all trips to midwife and the mountains, think again. We’ve spent our evenings in the bat cave, surfing TradeMe, NZed’s homegrown eBay-Craiglist e-swap-meet.
And have we found some deals for you…
(it’s a glass-topped table. It’s apparently “pottery” and quite heavy.)
Just think, all this wonderfulness …
… could be yours.
For the right price.
Yes, we are looking for second hand kiddie-gear. Furniture, largely.
Those few brave souls who’ve attempted non-baby-related communications with us lately have probably received an earful about how abysmal the weather has been this winter. To wit, it’s been unusually wet and the Tasman Sea’s famed seven-day weather cycle has resulted in three straight months of bucketing rain every Saturday and Sunday.
Desperate times called for desperate measures, so last weekend we pulled chocks and took a wee overnight to the local resort town of Hanmer Springs.
A scant hour and a half away, nestled at the base of the mountains, Hanmer is pretty much that mountain town in central Colorado/Washington/California with it’s one natural draw (hot springs), insufficient skiing to be a luxury destination, and a maybe-next-week property boom.
I will say, after a winter of huddling in our living room, desperately wishing the insulation genie would appear, soaking in the sulphurous waters of Hanmer was much appreciated. And we et some good vittles.
Sadly, whatever Hanmer’s restorative powers, it also seems to cause near-complete desertion by ones meager photographic skillz.
Christchurch, NZ — At their quarterly board of directors meeting, the owners of Note To Future Self dot Org, the leading New Zealand lifestyle and tourism website, revealed they were under “intense” negotiations with an as-of-yet unnamed Kiwi buyer.
“It was always our intention to maintain our easy-going, fun-loving focus,” says NTFSdO co-founder Aaron Marburg, “but the buyer is insisting on a strong shift towards reports on their interests and activities. We’re already taking steps to adapt our content-focused paradigms without alienating our existing readership. We hope to attract key demographics with an almost exponential growth in core cuteness metrics.”
Board chairman Anna Marburg said the deal “sets the stage for a major expansion. It’s going to be huge.”
Very little is known of the reclusive business person, known even to close associates only as “Budleigh Salterton” or “the Bean Sprout.”
Although the deal is still in development, the hand-off could be completed as early as December.
For me, nothing says the Fourth of July like damp, sodden snow, piddling rain and temperatures right around freezing.
On the plus side … short sleeves for Christmas!
Fourth of July or no, today I feel just a bit of pity for our poor republican readers, for behold …
Yes, we have a monarch. And through her benificence, we have the Congratulatory Message Service. Should one of us poor serfs survive 100 years (or 60 married years) as Her Majesty’s loyal subjects, we can apply for a congratulatory certificate signed by our local member of parliament, the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Prime Minister, His Excellency The Governer-General and of course, HM The Queen. It’s been rumoured to even include an autographed photo of the Queen. She’s so dreamy….
Sadly, by the time either Anna or I reach the requisite milestones, we’re much more likely to get a message from King William V, which is somehow not nearly as cool.
I understand there are thoughts that grown, white-collar, computer-nerd types are supposed to keep to themselves.
But gosh darned it, when full-on shuffle played Sleater-Kinney’s “One More Hour” at work this morning, I got just a little misty-eyed.
Sigh.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled indie-rock, fixie-riding, man-pri-wearing cultural brown-nosing.
For whatever reason, we’re perpetually on guard for the possibility that we’ve “been here too long.” That all of the zany foreign Kiwi-ness might have soaked into our daily lives and become the norm.
For the first year, I was acutely aware that the, er, currents of fashion seem to have blown with a great and confounding vigor through the young ladies of NZed. I’ve even been known to exclaim that young women between, say 14 and 24 shouldn’t be allowed to dress themselves.
As example of this, I would often cite our hapless local newspaper’s weekly food and style section, and the “What They’re Wearing” column. Every week, a local fashion leader, say a boutique owner or a shopgirl, is featured modeling what presumably she feels is her most fabulous outfit; showcasing both her fashion nous and her stores’ best items.
For months, “What They’re Wearing” was reliable, harmless weekly entertainment. A safe opportunity to laugh at the provincial locals and their crazy clothes.
Then, without much fuss, the young ladies started looking an awful lot like the girls at he grocery store, and walking around the universities, and you know, perhaps layering four different too-tight-here-too-loose-there technicolor petticoats really is normal walking-about clothing.
Have we really been here too long?
[apologies for the quality of the scanned newsprint…]
Last weekend, Anna and I enjoyed a bit of the rugby, with some help from my co-workers. In this case, Eng-uh-land (the guys in white) versus New Zealand, personified by our ever-strapping All Blacks.
As an outsider, I have to admit, I’m not 100% sure what happened. We sat on plastic seats for 90 minutes or so. There was some cheering and the occasional aerobic workout from a passing wave (known in countries which don’t have to sit next to Mexico as the Mexican Wave, natch). And some home runs were scored. Or points. Or tries, or whatever.
There was some of that hugging stuff:
and some of the lifting stuff, just like in figure skating.
Overall, a good time was had by all.
What I find interesting is that this was perhaps the pinnacle of the sporting year on the South Island (admittedly, the ABs will play South Africa in Dunedin in a couple of weeks). For true rugby fans, this is serious, kids-in-the-back-seat, drive-all-weekend fare. This is like (insert folksy sports story about that one time you and your cousin drove your dad’s Buick all the way down from rural New Hampshire to watch Larry Bird). And it’s held in a stadium with a capacity of 36,000 people (I think. they recently tore down half of the stadium to build a new, slightly bigger stand in anticipation of a Rugby World Cup which, it has come to light, can’t be bothered to visit this side of the Cook Strait). For reference, good old Camp Randall in Madison will hold 80,000 people. And that’s just one piddly college football team.
Oh? The score. I wasn’t paying attention.*
(Thanks to James, with the much better camera, for the pics)
Without much fanfair, my ten year college reunion passed me by this past weekend.
Where does the time go?
Fresh back from another week in Motueka, a few of our faithful readers have reminded me that it’s been more than a month since the last post.
Fine. You want a post, here you go:
Kiwis love trailer hitches. Surprisingly, it’s not a for a lack of large sports utility vehicles. Must be something subconscious. Or maybe it has to do with all those horse floats.
Anyway, I’ve been trying to accumulate photos for a “crazy tow vehicles” featurette, but my shutter-finger hasn’t been fast enough (best so far: a Lexus SC430 towing a massive trailer full of tree trimmings).
Luckily, my neighbors obliged, at least well enough for me to write the darned post:
One Jaguar (an XJ8, if you must know) towing a … generator? Who knows. It would be better if it was towing a massive barbecue, of course.
Filler number two: By far the most testos-terrific car a middle-aged man could possibly desire down here is this thing:
The improbably named Holden Maloo. The El Camino is dead. Long live the El Camino.
Sweet as.
Let this be a lesson to you next time you get the urge to nag me about blog posts….