Destruction and rebirth...

I stopped by the house on Tuesday this week, and couldn't stand to stay...guys--blokes--were crawling all over with chain saws, cutting down trees and parts of trees. My pretty bush with the purple flowers (it's actually just cut back--to the ground--and will come again), the grapefruit tree (neither Manford nor I can eat grapefruits, because of cholesterol meds, and the kids are not likely to; we will plant a lime, or lemon, maybe), and dozens of other bushes, trees, and plants condemned by Mark, the yard guy. I agreed to this. He seemed to know what he was doing. He said this one causes hay fever, that one is invasive, that one has been poorly trimmed for years and is beyond home, that's just ugly...but I still couldn't stand to watch. By Wednesday afternoon I had to agree it looked better, less chaotic, still green. I will go over today (Friday) and see, because Manford says it looks good. Then they're going to plant a bunch of things, mostly native things. And we get to plant some, too. We have a big area for vegetable and herb garden. They did save the pretty, fragrant flowers near the kitchen door. I've been walking around campus and getting inspiration from the flowers and ferns here--they say it's barely spring, but there are flowers everywhere, including familiar daffodils and lots of unfamiliar sorts. There are redwoods on campus, and they must like it here, as the whole campus has only been here 40 years and they are huge. Maybe we will plant a redwood in place of the grapefruit and remind me of home.

We got a sofa that turns into a bed, and it is even comfortable (for one. if two come, they get Joseph's bed, which is the biggest in the house, and he sleeps in the family room). We got a coffee table. Our bed and Emily's bed came. There is hardwood (rimu, and native, very pretty, wood) under the kitchen linoleum, and apparently all over; we had a floor guy come yesterday, and will probably refinish it in the kitchen and dining room, for now, and expand that as the carpets wear out...

We all just want to live in the house, and it will be only another three weeks or so and we should be in there full time. I am hoping to make real progress on the boxes this weekend, once we get some of the closets in order so we can put stuff in there. I got my books in my office, and that feels good. Still haven't found my mug, though...

Carrie

Greetings, fellow earthlings

It has been a long time (to me) since I wrote. Sorry. Been healthy, just busy and (probably) lazy. Emily is in a multiethnic setting at school - I thought you might enjoy some of the names listed in her school newsletter as having birthdays: Zane Thompson, David Su, Tulloulah Moghini, Levi Lewis, Rex Pan, Trish Hauriasi, Henri Wohling, Elyse Amai, Caleb Callaghler, Lamentation Hauriasi, Wendy Turlington, Raj Prasad, Marcus Overwater, Cyprus Tauhara. She still likes school. Had a little cold that kept her out Monday this week, but otherwise fine. Joseph is enjoying chess at noon twice a week, and has gone downtown with a friend, on the bus, to play internet games at internet cafes. Carrie has a conference - New Zealand Psychological Association this week - a good opportunity to network with fellow psychologists, some of whom are mostly academics, some clinical. She will try and get some research underway this year and may blog about that. Beds for Emily and mom and dad will be delivered next Tuesday at 10 am, and a gent is coming to consult about new kitchen flooring next Monday. Wednesday evening we walked the walk with a landscaper who will have his crew at work next week to remove, trim and clean up landscaping that looks like it has been untouched for years. I am looking forward to being a gardner, and we will try to only have native New Zealand plants over time. I am on a little different medication regimen, and am sleeping and moving somewhat better. Have avoided being sick so far. When we move to our house we may buy a Vespa like scooter, and also I will only be a half block from a bus stop for a bus that goes downtown - the car will last longer if we do either or both, and I will feel better about being kinder to the environment. My very best wishes to all who read this. Manford

Two Months

We have been here two months today, and time is starting to accelerate. We have been puttering around in the new house, and Joseph has his room almost all set up. He is the only one with a bed so far, but ours and Emily's are supposed to come in the next week or two. This weekend mostly I opened boxes, looked at the books inside, and wondered where we are going to put them...then I decided to paint some of the shelves (linen cabinet, a desk that is built into a closet) that were bare wood. At least with that, I can see the result, and then get some of the boxes unpacked into the products of my labors. Labours. I primed them yesterday. However, it now involves picking out more colours. At least in these private spaces (also the inside of the garage) not much depends on my choice, and I may get a little wilder. How about plum shelves? On the inside of the garage, I suppose I should be more careful. The reason I want to paint it is because it is a shade of green that harkens back to the 70's, at least. and peeling. Not that it matters, much, but it could be nice if we spiffed it up a bit, and that seems doable. Hey, maybe I could paint it Half Ash.

Emily and I went to a garage sale at a small church half a block from the house (it is Methodist-Presbyterian-something else, combined)--very friendly people, not really much stuff, but we got an exercise machine kind of like the one we had to leave in Kansas (but older...), and one of those small exercise trampolines so we can send Emily to bounce when she gets too bouncy.

The university is on Teaching Recess now, two weeks off from classes--I suppose kind of like spring break. Except that the faculty (staff) don't get it off; just no classes, so lots of meetings are scheduled...but I am looking forward to going to the New Zealand Psychological Society meeting later this week. It happens to be in Hamilton, on campus, this year, so I don't have to worry about navigating unfamiliar territory, but should meet a lot of people and perhaps learn some things...I also finally got myself to take a couple of walks around campus last week, when it wasn't raining, and it was really lovely--there are a couple of large ponds fairly near my office, with a path around them planted with things that are just starting to bloom, and the performing arts building looks out on one of the ponds through a huge two or three story window--I can tell that as spring really comes, it will be an excellent 15 minute break from whatever.

But for now, I'd better get to work--

Stay cool and come visit us!

Carrie

Homeowners!

We did it! We negotiated the banking and legal and whatever bureacracies and we now own a house in New Zealand! It is done without much fanfare, here, no closing meeting where you write the big check--just electronic dealings between some cyberbanks and the solicitor calls and says its yours. This was all happening on Monday during a meeting where clinical students present and discuss cases, and I was trapped in a corner, with my phone buzzing silently in my pocket, as Manford called to tell me various pieces of news: we can't have the colour cabinets I picked out (so today I go again for the colour-choosing debacle), the bank sent the money, we're officially owners, and some other message...we haven't become techy enough to do text messaging, so I just knew he was calling every 15 minutes or so--making me a bit nervous--but it all came out fine, and we got the keys and walked around the house on Monday night, with nothing particular to do. Then, Tuesday, the day of Big Stuff. Manford went early to wait for the delivery, while I took the kids to school and went in to the office for a meeting with a student--then I came by, and ended up cancelling my other meetings, which were non-essential, and staying most of the day, helping to identify objects and figure out where they should go, and pick up Emily (Joseph walked to the house after school). The government inspection guy came at 1:00, having identified 10 boxes from the list that he wanted to check--all our Christmas boxes (looking for pine cones), something the packers labeled a tent, which was really a canopy for Emily's bed, and so not a contamination hazard, and several boxes mysteriously labeled. All the boxes said "Manfrott" on them, and they wondered what that might be (the packing guy thought that was our last name). "Gunnsswanns" turned out to be "glassware." It was the same guy who labeled the boxes and later wrote the list, but apparently he couldn't read his own handwriting. The fellow from whatever agency he was from (biosecurity of some sort) was very nice, and only confiscated one object (a Christmas decoration with some sort of possible seeds on it).

Emily got home and revelled in her toys, and Joseph also seemed quite happy to be sitting on familiar pillows (on the floor...we didn't bring any couches, and right now our family room has a very inviting floor to sit on. Actually, the carpet is quite cushy. maybe we don't need more furniture). Joseph's room works fine if we don't have a dresser. We think maybe he can get by with a small chest/bedside table and his closet.

Our dresser is quite the worse for wear, though. It was gouged in two places, and then I'm not sure what they did to the mirror--dropped it?--and did not break the glass, but broke the frame. They may try to fix it (I'll contact the moving company today), but maybe it will solve the problem of what to do with Joseph's dresser, which is Manford's old dresser, anyway. I did like my dresser, though. Just stuff, though. We are all fine and happy to be settling in.

Stay cool! Spring is coming here, lots of blooming, baby lambs on the way...

By the way, I meant to clarify Emily's post. She did type it herself, at least until the end, when we were in a rush to get off to Meeting. The bird she likes and has seen a bit of is called a Pukeko. It is a chicken-sized blue native bird (I think flightless), and she is quite fond of the idea of it--we haven't really been up close--just seen it on the road.

Emily Speaks

I am having so much fun! I have seen two pookeckose .Last night I went to a disco. I had so much fun. I hope everybody has a lot of fun! I like New Zealand. We are going to a place where they have kiwi birds. I like the kiwi fruit they have here. I hope everybody has fun!

Speech (non) recognition - by Manford

Our local telephone company (reached by pressing 123) uses speech recognition when first called - but not for me - almost no matter what i said, the reply was either "you are calliing about an overdue account, is that right? (and could not then recognize my NO, no matter what accent I useand), or said it didn't understand and then asked me to say more words. When I got fed up and said "Ich bin ein Berliner" and it replied "You are calling about an overdue account, right?" I gave up, redialed for the umpeenth time, growled and made gibberish and it then let me know which number key to press to get some service and that worked. Now all I have to do is go to a Telecom office downtown and let them make a copy of the information page in my passport and have them fax it to headquarters and then we can be signed up for a land line and wireless modem (which they shipped with one day service so I have it now) dsl. So it goes. We hope those of you who have an opportunity to see our Woodlawn house in its current shape will do so, or maybe buy it; but mainly we wish you good health and happiness. We met the former owners of the house we are buying today (Saturday) - they are from Malaysia, he is a pharmicist at a local hospital - with two grown kids. They are very nice.

Contingencies...Carrie

I said I needed to finish grading my papers (wait, marking my essays) before I could write in the blog, so I apologize to all my devoted readers for the delays...I would have finished yesterday except I had to go and pick out colors (or colours) for the kitchen, and it took ALL AFTERNOON. Who would think. We will have a new and exciting colour for our cabinets: barge blue. The ladies there restrained my from my impulse to have actual colour, rather than the subtle and possibly imaginary colours contained in the final selections of "barge blue" (grey with perhaps a hint of blue), seafog mist (or some such nonsense--kind of speckled grey) bench (countertop) and some other fog rendition for the walls. They did have a dizzying and sorely tempting array of colours for the walls, including systematic gradations of non-colour. I think we actually have double fog, or something. they had half-fog, fog, and double and sometimes triple somethings. I was most tempted by "half-ash." Although I really don't want a half-ash kitchen (it was a bit dark), I really would like to be able to say I had one.

Enough about kitchens? I am allowed to add colour as I accessorize. or maybe that's accessorise. they do that sometimes. Then we can change as the fashion police direct. Though I really do think there is something to that trying-not-to-be-too-quickly-dated. A bit too much of the current kitchen is harvest gold. Probably used to have an avocado fridge.

Then I arrived home dazzled and plumb out of decisions, and found that Emily's school had a disco planned that night. In fifteen minutes (5:30-6:30 for the little ones). We rushed over with much excitement and it was great fun: lots of little kids, girls mostly kind of dressed up, and boys looking cool with sunglasses (though it was dark), dancing happily to favorites (favourites) like "Rock around the Clock," "The Locomotion," and "Bob the Builder," DJ'd by a guy who looked like someone's grandpa. Some of the boys were quite good future breakdancers. Popcorn and juice were served, and an hour was just right.

Joseph also had a social milestone, or two. Last Saturday he was included in a group of boys from his Form (homeroom) who decided to go to a local internet cafe to play bloody computer games with each other. I mean that literally, not Britishally. So we said ok, and I ventured downtown and had a nice afternoon exploring the nice main library, and lots of shops around the area--discovered one very nice little street with cafes and a real bookstore (not a chain) and a couple of galleries. Joseph had a good time and assures me they were all on the same team, so were just killing computer-generated people, not each other, and it was a nice, clean, apparently safe place with very flash (snazzy) computers. They appeared to be decent boys...and then on Tuesday he announced that the next day was a half-day at school and they would like to take a bus downtown and play again. Ok, the fledgling is ready to venture out...so we said yes, and he did it, and we all survived. I went downtown to pick him up and the whole area was crawling with teenagers at that time of the afternoon (4:00). Identifiable by school uniforms of various sorts. He still won't let me take a picture of him, but we're thinking of sending Emily undercover. She likes to use the camera. I hardly ever see him in his uniform, anyway, as I leave before he wakes up and he strips it off immediately on getting home, before I get there.

And we are about to close on the house--Monday is D-day. D for dollar. We've been negotiating the tricky waters of international money-shifting for weeks, and seem to be ready...we do a walk-through tomorrow with the realtor, and the previous owners called and want to meet us and try to get us to buy some of their furniture--they seemed quite nice, actually; they are from Malaysia, and had all kinds of interesting shrines and figures around the house. I suppose those are gone, now, but we'll see. On Tuesday they are supposed to deliver our furniture and boxes, boxes, boxes. The shipment will be accompanied by the customs inspector, who is wondering what is in all those boxes, particularly (we suspect) the ones that the packers described on the shipping list as containing "gunsswans." We are wondering what could possibly be in there, too. In our next episode, Carrie and Manford have interesting encounters with international law enforcement...

Stay cool!

After about a week...by Manfoord

After about a week of intermittent, sometimes heavy rains (heavy enough at times to knock flowers off plants and our front yard cherry tree) this Wednesday dawned clear and chilly, with frost on the car windows. As the day progressed so did cloudiness and it was (Emily;s wird) "spitting" by the time I went to pick her up at 3 pm. Whilie still not too cloudy, looking up through the open sunroof my impression is that blue skies here are lighter in color than in Kansas. On to other things. I had a visit with a neurologist Tuesda, and from him learned that the Neuro patch, available in the States, is not, and may not for a long time be, available in New Zealand. So we will try a mix of Sinamet (I am alread taking) and Requip to see if that will get me moving better. Medications are quite inexpensive here, but I almost passed out when presented the bill for his consult - $340.00!! REMINDER - All dollar amonts in our posts are New Zealand dollars. Tanks for the qery about that. I reall haven't yet looked very hard for things to do outside the home - the two major audiology groups in town would basicall have me selling hearing aids and I like that ok even thogh I will have to learn some new software and fitting techniques, and I have grown lazy in my retirement. Time will tell. There is not a lot being done about auditory processing disorder testing or remediation, so maybe there will be an opportunity. I need to find something that will put me in contact with folks outside the family and have that as a goal for August - September. Well, thanks to all who read this, and may you be well. Manford




















REMINDER

A little Kiwiana from Manford

When commenting on car engine power, instead of horsepower the term "kW" is used - e.g., a "12.9-litre naturally aspirated V8 engine which produces 809kW at 7000rpm" (not my car!). You can buy a Compaq laptop for $1099. Front load washers run from $1099 up, ceramic hobs (coktop) $600.00 up, dryers from 999 up, a sampling folks. The kids still like school - Joseph is apparently perceived as bright by his classmates, and Emily was surrounded the other morning by girls wanting to play a game she invented! We are well. It rains at least briefly every day - the skies are an encyclopedia of clouds. Our best to all who read this.

Tag Sale!

I have heard from several friends and neighbors that they are having our tag sale! So as we are buying stuff, people are buying our stuff, and it all goes around in a circle, and I'm not sure whether that's good or bad...but finally the house will be on the market, and another of our ties to the States will be untied. I'm not sure how I feel about that, realizing this week that perhaps part of the reason I have been feeling so confused and inept with respect to understanding Maori (and, to a lesser extent, broader New Zealand) culture is that I am so confused and ambivalent about my culture: what is it? am I allowed to value being an American, while being so uncomfortable with what America seems to represent in the world? And can I recognize that I do value many parts of my culture, when I've just left it, and to value it would be to let the sadness creep (or sweep) in? I used to think about the early 20th century poets (like Pound) who left America to hang out in Paris cafes, and I always identified with William Carlos Williams, who stayed in New Jersey and wrote about real life. And thought I could never leave the country, with all its foibles and diversity. But here I am, and I am not regretting it, just feeling the loss of people and roots.

Ah, well, today I am going to an all-day orientation at the university. I am sure that will be illuminating...the schedule includes hours on health and safety, occupational overuse syndrome, emergency preparedness, unions on campus (I already joined. I have my first official union card) and "finding your way around." That last should be useful. And they do have a break for morning tea (of course) and provide us lunch.

Yesterday was "mufti day" (I've no idea whether that is how you spell it), meaning that Joseph did not have to wear his uniform to school, though being 13, he didn't pick up on whenever this was announced. Luckily, he is still wearing Harry Potter shirts underneath, and could just strip off his sweater and school shirt (who needs to be warm) and he was cool.

I did finish the Harry Potter book. I liked it, thought I can't say I always enjoyed it, and I don't think I'll read it to Emily for quite a while. I'm hoping we can hold her off with the Chronicles of Narnia for a while. She is taking off with her own reading, though; yesterday she woke up early but was found in her bed, reading.

Kia Ora! (that means "be well" in Maori, and seems to be an all-purpose greeting and farewell)
Carrie