Things we Miss

General Tso's chicken
Black people
Dunkin' Donuts
Places that stay open late
Graeter's ice cream
Ambar India
Used CD stores
Bottomless cups of coffee
Cheap books
The Gap
Talkative people
Skyscrapers
Proper sushi ... what is this stuff?
Believe it or not, 24-hour news

It's A New Day

As the last of the election parties die down and the smell of fireworks dissipates, a new day unfolds here in New Zealand. It is the start of what has promised to be CHANGE. "New Zealanders", says Mr. John Key, the newly elected Prime Minister of New Zealand, "have voted for prosperity, for a brighter, more ambitious future."

Sound like anybody you know?

It seems as if people around the world are looking for change. Or at least a way out of the old and into the new. For the last 9 years, Miss Helen Clark has been the Prime Minister of New Zealand. (I bet some of you didn't know that the leader of this country was a woman.) As you may have read in a previous blog post written by Chris, Miss Helen Clark has a reputation of being a strong and tough political leader. Even Senator Hillary Clinton has her opinions about how tough Miss Helen Clark is, having been quoted saying, "Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand: her opponents have observed that in the event of a nuclear war, the two things that will emerge from the rubble are the cockroaches and Helen Clark."

Yikes. (By the way, this was a statement made by Clinton in April 2008. Clark was still PM then. Oops.) Clark and the Labour Party did not win this time around and Key and the National Party will take over.

So while Chris and I wake up to a new day for many Kiwis, we still revel in the new day that has just begun for Americans. Even Americans living in New Zealand.

Chris and I actually took the day off to watch news coverage of the election results as they were being counted. It was surprising to us that New Zealand television actually had an organized television program to cover the U.S. election! And although our election party was small in size (just the 3 of us), it was filled with feelings of anxiety and HOPE. It IS one of those important where-were-you-what-were-you-doing events in our lives ...

The state of Ohio going BLUE. The election of President-elect Barack Hussein Obama. The first African-American President of the United States of America. Seeing the new first family walk out onto the stage at Grant Park in Chicago, IL. People crying. Hugging. Cheering. Sighing with relief. Listening to the inspirational and unifying words of Obama's acceptance speech. Looking at my belly and my husband and feeling as if there is HOPE for my country that I now feel proud to be a citizen of ... because of my voice, my vote, my independence, my actions.

We've decided that we'll move back to the U.S. afterall.

It's a New Day. (ETK)

Check it out for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHWByjoQrR8

Exploding Ginger Beer

I think I might have just averted disaster. I went down to the basement last night to check on my homemade ginger beer. It's supposed to be ready tomorrow. I'd been keeping it in a box, hoping to muffle any yeast-powered explosions.

So, I took a look and all the metal lids were buckled outward with the building pressure inside. I loosened Bottle #1: Fizzzz, but everything was fine. The same thing with Bottle #3. Then I tried to open Bottle #2: First, the sound of gas escaping under extremely high pressure, then lots of ginger beer spurting out of the bottle in a column, like a geyser. I don't know if that means it's going to be good or bad. Or maybe I ruined it by opening it before tomorrow.

I suppose we'll see tomorrow.

Happy Halloween!

Sorry this blog post is so late ... we were sidetracked by the election. Can you blame us?

Anyway, Happy belated Halloween! It's one of our favorite holidays. However, it's not celebrated here in Dunedin like it is in the States. So, sadly we didn't get to hand out candy to cute, costumed little kids. And I know that if I showed up to work wearing a costume, my co-workers would have thought that I was strange.

Nevertheless, Chris and I decided to continue the tradition and dress up this year. We can't let our costume-making abilities suffer because we'll have a 10-month old to be trick-or-treating with next year! (Yes, free candy for us!)

So, with Chris's willingness to help, I had a well-timed Halloween costume. I might not really get the opportunity to do it next year - unless we time things right?! Anyway, who knew Chris was such an artiste extraordinaire?! (Well, I did. But did you?) As for Chris, he chose his own costume. I'm not really sure what he was. I don't think he knew what he was, other than temporarily green-faced for the evening. And morning after. (ETK)

A Mandate

The Popular Vote:
The GOP: 56,088,419
The Democrats: 63,432,250

It is finished. And it has begun. I think it's time for us to remember now that we all want the same things. We might disagree with each other on how to reach our goals, but we can only reach them together. We have to respect our differences if we are going to find a way past them. Race is not a blunt weapon; neither is religion; nor is abortion.

We should all want all of us to do well. If, individually, we are doing well, but people on the streets of our cities are homeless, or working two jobs to try to raise children alone, or denied access to adequate healthcare or education, then we are not doing as well as we think. We need to acknowledge this, and then make changes.

When some of us suffer, we all suffer.

This is not Socialism.

This is kindness.

Bottling my Ginger Beer

For the last week, I've been feeding my ginger beer every day. First you start off with what's called the plant, which I made last week. Every day, you add one teaspoon of sugar and one teaspoon of finely-cut ginger. I've been liberal with the ginger, though, because I want to make sure it really tastes gingery.

Then, today, I zested a couple of lemons, and cut up another big chunk of ginger, strained my plant and added the lemon zest, the ginger, and the juice of three lemons to the strained plant. I boiled about 1-pound of sugar in 1-liter of water. Added it all together and added another 3-liters of water.

I've bottled these 4-liters. They're supposed to sit for a week.

They might explode.

They're in the basement.

In a box.

Great Lines From Great Books #1

Taken from Norman Mailer's Miami and the Siege of Chicago, an account of the violent and turbulent 1968 Republican and Democratic conventions, I thought this line was great and wanted to share it.

Mailer was writing about himself in the third person (only Mailer could do that) when he wrote: "Just as he had known for one instant at the Republican Gala in Miami Beach that Nelson Rockefeller had no chance of getting the nomination, so he knew now on this cool gray Sunday afternoon in August, chill in the air like the chill of the pale and the bird of fear beginning to nest in the throat, that trouble was coming, serious trouble."

Violence followed at the Democratic convention in Chicago. The bird of fear beginning to nest in the throat. Martin Luther King had been killed the previous April. Robert Kennedy had been killed in June. On the other side of the world, in Vietnam, we were killing people who didn't look like us. In Chicago: Tear gas. Cops clubbing demonstrators and journalists. Riots in the streets. Violence in the cities. In other words: trouble, serious trouble. This book should be read in a locked room with the curtains closed, to minimize the effects of the thick fear and paranoia that drip from the page.

Get somewhere dark, warm and safe. Stay there.

Until it's over.