Where Did I Put My Beachball?

Great Lines From Great Books #3

Reading Brighton Rock by Graham Greene on the beach seems more than a little appropriate. Many of Greene's novels had moral, political and religious themes to them; and Brighton Rock was one of what the literary critics call his Catholic novels.

This is Ida on religion, or maybe on beer. The interpretation is open: "At one with the One, it didn't mean a thing beside a glass of Guinness on a sunny day."

Amen.

Sea Lion Baiting

I now have so many photos of people being stupid around seals and seal lions that I've created a separate folder on my computer for them. Living in Dunedin, we're surrounded by wild land and coastline. Just a couple of miles from here, the Otago Peninsula sticks out into the Pacific Ocean like a long green finger of land. And this is where the wild things are.

The first time we saw a sea lion, we were completely shocked. "Look," we said to each other, "a sea lion!" The naivete: we thought it was a mistake. Or an escapee from the zoo. It's sad really but seals, sea lions, penguins and dolphins are something that city folk like us see in a zoo, not on a nice Sunday morning drive to the beach.

But seals and sea lions are not cuddly and cute. Some of them are the size of a car: huge-shouldered, solidly encased in blubber, and covered in scars, like ugly red raised welts. These beasts look like they could easily swallow a child. They are, simply, disgusting. Despite this, Emeline and I have seen, on numerous occasions, people trying to get as close as possible to these aggressive car-sized beasts with flippers that sit, alert and ready to attack, on the beach. Here are some photos of some recent idiots. Just click on them for a closer look. And so now I photograph these people, safe in the knowledge that one day, maybe in a year, or a month, or maybe even this weekend, I'll see an old person get just a little too close, push the envelope just a little too far, and get within lunging distance of a huge bull sea lion that weighs more than a thousand pounds and feels very strongly about its personal space.

I know that time will come. It really will happen.

And I'm waiting.

Playing With my New Camera

This guy was learning Esperanto in the cafe where we had lunch. So I took a photo of him,. I thought it looked cool. Is he alone because he's learning Esperanto, or is he learning Esperanto because he's alone? Existentialism.

A pregnant woman yesterday.

Exploding Ginger Beer

Here's some video of me opening one of my bottles of ginger beer a couple of days ago. For anyone who has ever accused me of lacking foresight, please note that I chose to open it standing next to the sink, leaning over the draining board.

And I carried the bottle up from the basement very carefully. At arm's length. Because it felt charged. Or armed. Like a bomb. The metal lid was buckled outward with the force of the gases that had built up inside. I'm guessing we were a day or two from a messy, gingery explosion down in the basement.

Even more surprising than the fizziness was the taste. It's actually drinkable! In fact, it's a delicious, sharp gingery brew, full of citrus from the lemon zest, with a yeasty, beery flavor to it. Very good! My next task is to make myself a dark and stormy: Dark rum, homemade ginger beer, twist of lemon, and plenty of ice.

It sounds like a good pirate drink to me. Arrrrrrr, shipmates.

Anyway: To the video!

Showered With Love

Chris and I have found that moving thousands of miles away from friends and family is difficult. I guess it's one of the things that stops people from making big leaps in life - like moving to the other side of the world.

Although the sky may be cloudy at times, the sun still manages to shine upon us and continues to show us how wonderful this world and the people in it can be.

We've been living in Dunedin for 9 months now and in such a short time, we've built up a rather nice support system of trusted friends and people. Both of our bosses have been amazing, supporting us at work as well as in our personal lives. Our co-workers have become good friends that make us laugh, think about science and the world, and wish us all the best in the world.

On Thursday, those friends threw us a baby shower to celebrate the impending arrival of our first child. Even more surprising to us was that people whom we hardly knew, other than a nod and smile in the halls or the occasional interaction, attended the shower and gave us gifts. Other friends have invited us over to share meals with their families and have gifted us generously with hand-me-downs.

And as usual, our family and friends from afar have continued to support us, especially throughout this pregnancy. Our parents and siblings have sent us the essentials - a cot for our baby to rest his head; a pram for our baby to explore the world with us; books and clothing for our baby to have an enriched and warm life. Our friends have sent us diaper bags, books, and blankets ... all to welcome our baby and make our lives easier.

Our hearts are full of thanks. We have been showered with love. (ETK)

My Meibomian Cyst

I'd like to introduce you all to my meibomian cyst. Click on the picture at the bottom for a nice close up. It's harmless and benign, but unpleasant. There's a chance it will grow, become swollen, red and painful (and grotesque looking). Or it might even pop! So I went to the doctor. She took a look and said, "I've seen one of those before!" She got a very old book from her shelf and showed it to me. She never actually said the words: meibomian cyst. I don't think she knew how to pronounce it and she didn't want to take a chance. And then we logged onto the computer in her cluttered office and Googled meibomian cyst. Seriously. On Google.

Doctor: Google's really good for that.

Me (In my head): That's funny. I thought doctors were good for that.

She told me that I should try home remedies (hot compress) because I'll never receive treatment in New Zealand for something that is asymptomatic and relatively painless. But it can take 4-months to resolve. Or it can get worse. Prevention versus treatment, etc. The doctor said she could lie and say that it's painful and send me to an eye registrar, but that the eye registrars aren't stupid, they know what a meibomian cyst is, and they will send me home. I could pay privately for treatment, but there's probably a long queue for treatment anyway.

The doctor sat and waited for me to leave -- after printing off the remedies we found on Google! She gave me approximately the same information that my grandmother might have given me, if she was still alive. A hot compress fixes almost anything, after all -- or at least does no harm. In fact, my grandmother would have given me a cup of milky tea with too much sugar in it and a plate of cookies with her diagnosis too. And I'd have been happy.

Yesterday, a bill arrived for $30. This is the co-pay. I'm paying $30 to Google meibomian cyst with a doctor who doesn't want to pronounce it and can't treat it. I could have bought a lot of tea and cookies with that.

I've thought about it for a week or so.

And it's still dumb.

Seaweed!

So, this week I wrote an article for a really nice New Zealand-based food magazine called Dish. It's one of those thick glossy magazines with recipes and fancy food-related articles. I pitched them an idea on eating locally-harvested seaweed after receiving an email about a seaweed cooking class from the local aquarium. I won't tell you too much about it ... I'm not sure if I'm allowed to plagiarize myself. Isn't that weird? It comes out in January. Anyway, Emeline and I attended the class, along with a photographer (which got us plenty of stares). And so it's become a photo assay, with the essay by one Mr Christopher Kemp.

Then, last weekend, we headed out to the coast with our boots on, and with pocketfuls of plastic bags, and I hauled in pounds and pounds of fresh bright green gelatinous seaweed for us to cook with.

Our house stinks. Our fridge should just be thrown away. I feel like we live under a pier.

And Emeline very quickly went off seaweed. Really quickly. I can't really imagine her ever eating it again.

Great Lines From Great Books #2

To continue the series of "Great lines from great books", I couldn't resist blogging about this great line that I found in one of my weekly pregnancy blogs. Lately, it's been difficult to read a book for a long period of time. I can't get comfortable sitting, lying down, etc. If someone developed a contraption where I don't have to hold the book that I'm actually reading, it might work. Otherwise, I've been limited to reading my pregnancy books, blogs, and mags. They work on a weekly basis, most of them, so I don't have to use a lot of energy holding a book. (Slacker.) I figure I'll have all the time in the world to read in the 6 months that I'm on maternity leave.

For now, I have to highly recommend and praise Amalah and her blog "Alpha Mom" (one of her many columns - all of which are just as great.) Alpha Mom has many useful sections for pregnant women and moms out there. One in particular, Pregnancy Calendar, is a witty, humor-filled section that chronicles Amalah's pregnancy with Baby #2 (including past experiences during pregnancy #1). She has given birth to Baby #2, I think, since she was just writing new posts a month ahead of the week that I would refer to. I would recommend this blog to any woman out there planning to get pregnant or already pregnant.

And to add to "Great Lines", here's the most perfectest line from her blog that helps me describe pregnancy:

I think it's pretty self-explanatory. (ETK)

Things we Don't Miss

In case you missed it, our good friend Brian commented on our last post, asking:

Do you also miss:
Traffic
Neocons
Smog
Skyline
Bill O'Reilly
The NFL
Wal*Mart
Junk Mail
Robo Calls
Country Music
American Idol
NPR
The Ohio River
Fireworks/Gunshots
SUVs
Christmas Ads (in October)
Veteran's Day
Co-Pays
Stuffing yourself at every meal?

In most cases, Brian, the answer is an enthusiastic no, but, strangely, I find myself missing some of the things on your list. I miss NPR hugely, although Emeline listens to it at work on her computer (slacker). I miss Bill O'Reilly. How weird is that? He reminds me why I feel the way I feel. I miss co-pays in exchange for good health care ... I'll post more about that in the next few days, but let's just say that I visited a doctor last week and we Googled "meibomian cyst" together. That just seems wrong. Just because it's free, doesn't mean it can be bad.

We get some of the things on your list: Fireworks (in honor of Guy Fawkes last week); and Veteran's Day (Armistice Day here).

Otherwise, we both feel incredibly happy to be uncoupled from the other things on the list, like smog, junk mail (more about that later too), robo calls, SUVs, and the endless cycle of over consumption, followed by indigestion (transport-related/food-related).

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.