Carrie and Manford's 17th Anniversary

How quickly the years have gone by! And here we are in New Zealand of all places. We continue to stay in touch with Stateside family and friends through e-mail and the occasional telephone call (thank goodness for calling cards) and are very grateful for all who respond. We had a small anniversary celebration at Canvas, an aptly named restaurant affiliated with the local museum - artfully presented - Carrie had a tender, tasty filet of beef and Manford had tea smoked salmon - a shared glass of pinot gris and a shared creme brulee with mango at the bottom. Lovely. Manford had an interesting experience - Wednesday of last week - after overdoing it on a walk to school with Charlie dragging Emily along pretty fast so he had to move quickly (he thought - boy I am stepping out well with big steps and rapid pace)that night he experienced right knee pain that was really severe the next day and the next so went to the doctor and the doctor said no more monkeys (ooops, wrong direction there, Manford)he said hmmm, some arthritis in that knee and probably inflamed tendons or at least some stuff in that knee is irritated and inflamed go get some physio so I did and at home have been icing and heat padding and am slowly getting better - thank goodness since Carrie and I leave Friday for a two plus day trip to Wellington - a hilly place. I ain't fixed, folks, for the pain rears its ugly head at night - but am slowly getting better. Yeah, Kiwi driver at Indianapolis - the winner! Sometimes we watch netball on the telly - a game played by women, with lots of passing and no dribbling and no drives to the basket - but if the recipient of a pass is close enough to the basket she can turn and shoot. Ah,shoot I can't describe it very well but bet Wikipedia can if you are interested in learniing more about it. Rugby, of course, and football (that is Kiwi for soccer) and cricket are big over here. We get ESPN on the digital pay Sky service so have been enjoying watching some of the NBA playoffs. They also broadcast the Indy 500 live, starting at 4:30 am but I did not get up for that. Well thanks for your time and attention and tolerance for my ramblings. We wish you well. Manford

Only in New Zealand?

The front page of the Auckland newspaper carried a story - Top Jockey in Intensive Care After Hunting Plunge - which started as follows: Top jockey Michael Walker was in intensive care last nightafter falling more than 10 meters into a gorge while pig hunting. Walker had to spend the night in the bush as one of two friends made the long trek out to raise the alarm. The 24-year-old was winched from a steep gorge at Okau, Taranaki, yesterday morning. He had slipped down a steep slope before falling a further eight metres into a narrow gorge. He suffered serious head injuries and, it is understood, a ruptured spleen and damaged shoulder. Taranaki Rescue Helicopter pilot David Manduell said Walker was saved from worse injuries by the dead pig he was carrying, which cushioned his fall into the gorge...(It is an interesting paper). Well my goals for the next seven days are to finish mowing the lawn, see a movie, and find a power cable and USB cable for my mP3 player, a SanDisk: if anybody has some ideas about how I could best do the latter task with the player, let me know at manfordb@gmail.com or manford_barber@hotmail.com, and thanks. We had clear skies and a "whole" moon, as a kid I was with called it one time, this morning. It is usually in the lower 40s in the morning, warming up as the day goes on and even if the ambient temperature is fairly low the intense sunlight warms you up. Emily gets to play badminton at school today, and sometimes soon Joseph will visit the local University library with the group of smart kids he is a member of, to get a library card. Take care. Manford

Manford's epiphany

Driving around town on the way to the barber shop I realized that while true that slow and steady wins the race sometimes you have to ramp it up - for examplek, when driving one has to ascertain if one can go or should wait and yield right of way to those coming from the right at traffic circles or turning right when one wants to turn left - and another example cooking class, where we have two hours to: listen to the instructor, prepare food, cook food, eat food, clean up. While I struggled mightily to cut up a hard squash (they are called pumpkins here) my partner pretty much cut up about four different other vegetables, some chicken, and dipped them in flour then in beaten eggs then in bread crumbs. Cook them in a litre of one hundred eighty degree oil, take them out when done, and later clean up your mess and the dishes you used - we are having the course at a local boys high-school. You serve the cooked things with finely cut cabbage and some tomato slices and in an ideal world with miso soup and rice. So went the first cooking class. You have to ramp it up because there is not time to lolligag. Emily sometimes goofs around in violin lesson, but seems to be learning a little in spite of herself. She is taking a course each Saturday that is supposed to encourage critical thinking - using visual stimuli as a base for this round - and Tuesdays goes to an hour long dram class that supposedly helps her increase her confidence and have sweeter breath, I believe though I am not sure of the latter. I am going to have to buy some new pants as the ones I currently have keep falling down even when buttoned and belted - all the walking and less eating has gotten my weight down to below 190 lbs. The weather this afternoon is beautiful, but as the year goes on it gets dark earlier and earlier - around six now. Well our best to all our readers. Thanks for taking the time to read thisk, and we wish you well. Manford

Some firsts and some other stuff

Greetings. It is Thursday morning here, Emily is home, she did not go to school because she felt unwell; Charlie is on the bed again; it is cloudy (yesterday was very fine - clear, blue sky all day). We had our first frost yesterday - had to scrape the windows of the cars we typically leave parked in the driveway rather than in the garage - so may change our parking spot to inside soon. The North Island had its first snow - a light dusting - in a few places - enough to get a picture of it in the newspaper. We have been following the political race between Obama and Clinton with some interest - will vote (truly far away) absentee this year. I start a cooking class in Japanese cuisine next week - first night is fried pork with cabbage, onions and beans, according to the ingredient list they sent to me. Joseph left yesterday for a two and a half day retreat with his JEEP cohorts - JEEP does not mean a car but is an acronym for Junior Enrichment and Extension Programme - I believe it collects the brighter kids into a group and offers them some special activities - Joseph hasn't said much about it. I ran across a fairly powerfully written book - "The Master Butchers SInging Club" by Louise Erdrich - if you find it I think you will at least find it interesting. I had my consult with my neurologist on Tuesday - he said I seemed a little better than at the previous visit and wants me to try one additional med that seems to cause people to be cheerier and move a little better. Then I recused myself from physical therapy because I felt I had received maximum benefit for my right arm - it still is somewhat sore in certain positions but time will take care of that, I think. This past Saturday I had a session with a practioner of the Alexander method - invented by an Australian doctor it felt like energy healing in some ways - the therapist works on reducing tightnesses in various locations with light touch - I will learn more about it as time goes by - I sure felt better after the session. Emily has been reading with her mom each evening - they are doing the Chronicles of Narnia now. The local busiinesses sure are heavily advertising Mother's Day - they are hurting for business, I read, and the economy has been hurt somewhat by rising prices for staples like milk (over four dollars for a two liter bottle at our neighborhood food store), and gasoline (near two dollars a liter). I am thinking about interviewing myself at some point in the future and posting it here - we will see if I can do it well enough to want to share - will ask about my impressions of, and experiences with, New Zealanders and about overall impressions of our lives and activities - if you have any questions you think I should be asking myself feel free to send them to me at manford_barber@hotmail.com. I hope all who read this are having a good year. Thank You, Manford

It's May. Sorry.

I'm sorry I've been so remiss...I think New Zealand is mostly feeling like just life now, and it feels like not so much to write about, though we have been busy. My mother and Vince visited for 10 days in April, and we all went to a bach (house) on the beach, including Charlie, and had a nice time. It is Autumn here, but the weather in April was still unseasonably lovely, little rain while they were here. It was cold at night (New Zealand Baches, in particular, have little heat. New Zealand houses barely have heat. The bach had a fireplace, and Manford made fires), but when the sun came out, it warmed us up. Charlie and Emily had no trouble immersing themselves in the surf, which was just out our back door, but the rest of us were a bit more tentative. Charlie chased seagulls and rolled in the sand, and generally got really really messy, so when we returned she went to the groomers and got a really embarrassing haircut, kind of a doggie buzz. I have finally posted pictures from this, after some technical difficulties...

and we also went to visit a Kiwi grower, learned many sound bites about kiwis, which, according to the guide, are the world's most nutritious fruit (he cited a Rutgers Univ study, so maybe that's true...), and are BEST grown here in New Zealand, on volcanic soil...and got to ride in the Kiwi Cart, a kiwi-shaped train...then, a few days later, we visited the other sort of kiwi, the original, bird kind, in a facility where they hatch kiwi eggs that have been stolen from the poor kiwi dads, who sit on them in the bush but are not very successful at helping the little ones to survive the first six months of introduced predators and other stuff--so they hatch them and raise them for six months, and then set them loose (complete with microchips and all)--it was a really interesting place, and we got to see several kiwis, which is very difficult to do in the wild, since they are nocturnal, shy, and rare. In the photograph, they were administering ear drops to one of the birds who lives there full time since a stoat ate its foot off...

Then Grandma and Grandpa left (still recovering in Sacramento, though they said the flight really wasn't so bad), and Emily had her 8th birthday. Small party, by Topeka Collegiate standards--there is no school directory, and it was over school holidays, and we managed to get some invitations out before the end of school, but I am feeling somewhat at sea without her friends' names and phone numbers...anyway, we had a good time at the New Zealand Magic horse show, at a thoroughbred breeding and sales place about a half hour from here--they did a very nice show, with several kinds of horses, from miniature to Appaloosa to Thoroughbred, and the kids got to pet most of them, and ride one at the end, and the fellow who did the show was the horse trainer (and Gandalf double) for Lord of the Rings (they say half the people in New Zealand were extras in Lord of the Rings, and I'm beginning to believe it. the psychologist who spoke to our students yesterday was a hobbit). and one of the horses we saw was a unicorn in Narnia.

Joseph is off tomorrow to a three day camp with his school Enrichment programme...they are to hobnob with each other, contemplate the meaning of their giftedness to society, and experience "flow." All that is not very New Zealand, really; they call people who stand out "tall poppies," and often try to cut them down. I am afraid Joseph is ducking a bit, but he does seem to be happy, has nice friends, and is maybe a bit excited about the prospect of the project they're to start at this camp, called the "in-depth study." Study of what? not clear. Undecided. Maybe he will decide. He says it's like History Day, but there is no paper involved, and no project, and no competition. The camp is New Zealand enough that they are to bring swim suits ("togs") and swim in hot springs. And they actually did have a meeting at the school (the first we've been invited to since we've been here) to answer questions from the parents, and I got to speak with one of his teachers...

And Manford and I are planning a getaway to Wellington (the capitol, an hour's flight south), to spend a weekend doing grown up things and eating grown up food. The national museum there, Te Papa, is supposed to be very good, though the main thing they have been in the news for lately is defrosting (the hard part) and dissecting (interesting to some) the biggest giant squid ever caught. Which I suppose means that Emily would never set foot in the place, but we CAN, if we want to. we could even look at the squid. Or not.

Take care, and enjoy the sun, or spring rain, or whatever comes--
Carrie