August 2008 Archives

In some ways, I've never really allowed myself to establish roots, or rather, I've been conditioned not to.
When I look back at my elementary school days I realize that I changed schools 10 times between 1st and 5th grade.  The change was partly due to a genius custody agreement that mandated I alternate years with each parent.  I don't think they made considerations for the fact that my parents might move out of the same town or state for that matter.  The other factor is that my mother, who refers to herself as "a gypsy", is nomadic at best and had a thing for abusive relationships.  I learned pretty early on that you would have to pack everything you need into one garbage bag in 20 minutes and flee.  

So creating a "home" was a foreign thing to me.  I remember when Jake and I got our first apartment together I never decorated.  Jake would beg for my opinion on decorating or ask me to hang something up that I liked. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  When we bought our first house in California I was a bit more confident that the world as I know it wasn't going to be jerked out from under me.  So I painted, picked out furniture, hung pictures on the walls, and gardened.  Then we had Sophie so I went through the expected nesting period.  By the time we moved, our house was bursting at the seams.  Little did I know I was about to be living out of a suitcase again.

After our well laid plans fell on their rumps, we landed with my in-laws for much longer than we expected with all of our stuff buttoned up in a storage unit and our 4 suitcases full of stuff.  One baby and a year and a half later, we moved into our own place and unpacked all of that stuff.  It just seemed like too much.  We hadn't needed all of this stuff for this long, why do we need it now?  The pile for Salvation Army was growing and growing, finally Jake called it quits when I started throwing away all of our pots and pans because "we really only need on pan and one pot".  

All of this seems like it was training or conditioning if you will for living here in New Zealand.  We brought only our suitcases (even if it was 9 of them) and our sense of adventure.  We scored with a furnished rental which even had a few toys left over from previous renters.  I haven't hung one picture in 4 months.  The only things I've purchased for the girls rooms are a crib for Josie and plastic buckets to hold the small toys that they did bring.  But, I am constantly finding myself wanting for things.  A microplane zester for cheese and citrus fruit.  A digital scale would save me and my laptop so much time and wear from converting every recipe.  But I already have those things at home, in a storage unit.  And I really don't want to buy duplicates of everything.  Then again, what if we are here longer than the one year we expected? What if our rental doesn't renew and we are left with the bare minimum again?  What if?  What if?  I am living in a temporary state again and I'm trying to strike a balance between being an uber consumer and starting a commune where we raise sheep for food and clothing.  Ok, that's a bit dramatic but what I'm saying is I haven't got a cohesive way of thinking or feeling about this due to the unknowns.  Some people seem so at peace with it.  Maybe I'm just not to the breaking point yet. 

We often find ourselves in conversations with folks back home discussing the cost of things. Or rather, how expensive things are here.  It usually peters out when no one has the brain power to convert the measurement system and the currency.  So here I've compiled a small sampling of the items and their costs in our NZ dollars and the cost in US dollars.  Sadly, we are paid in NZ dollars so the conversion doesn't really make much difference to us.  Enjoy and if you find yourself wondering how much something would cost over here, let me know and I'll check it out for you.

1 Liter of Petrol - NZ $1.99 = US $5.36 per gallon
1 dozen eggs - NZ $3.10 = US $2.20 US
2 liters of organic milk - NZ $4.00  = US $5.39 per gallon
1 Chux scrubber sponge - NZ $4.00 = US $2.84 per sponge
1 tube Maybelline mascara - NZ $23.00 - US $19.93
1 loaf multigrain bread - NZ $3.80 = US $2.70
250 g parmesan - NZ $6.67 = US $8.60 per pound
watermelon - NZ $5.99 kg = US $9.38 per pound (it's out of season here)
Renu Contact solution 500 mL NZ $28 = US $ 19.99 for a 17 ounce bottle

I can tell myself over and over that it's almost Spring, but I don't feel it. What I am anticipating, even after two winters in a row, is Fall. Late season berry picking, argyle socks & back to school shopping. Pencils, folders, crayon boxes. Caramel apple cider back on the Starbuck's menu.

I keep trying to do winter baking or cooking and keep coming up with citrus desserts or salads or kebabs. All of my cooking seems to be tied to the season on the Northern Hemisphere. I should probably start buying some pumpkins and making puree otherwise, they'll be nowhere to be found come Thanksgiving. No canned pumpkin puree over here! But will I even feel like making pie in late spring?

I find myself looking at the girls summer clothes and finding ways for them to incorporate their tank tops and light colored skirts into their winter wardrobe. Are little girls supposed to wear red velvet dresses in a winter that does not have Christmas? It's all so intertwined that I can't get the knot of seasons and holidays and tradition loosened for a peek.

People keep trying to make us feel better about being seasonally jacked by saying "But you'll have Christmas outside by the BBQ." I'm sorry, but that is just WRONG and my subconscious will back me up on this one.

I first heard about this phenomenon called "beer o'clock" from my friend Sean, who worked in stop-motion animation in film before becoming an artisan jam maker and Maya animator on such excellent games as Insecticide (plug alert!): I'm not sure if it's an industry-wide habit, limited to vfx or just a few studios but every Friday afternoon at 6pm we gather in the kitchen at work for a social hour to kick off the weekend.

During the week there's a jar labeled "Beer & Kransky Fund" on the kitchen table for everyone to contribute to, which sometime Friday afternoons magically turns into a huge spread of cheese, crackers, dips, chips, wine, beer and fried sausages. Often our friend and baking goddess Lori brings her amazing cookies, and on one very special occasion our friend Victor went spear-fishing and grilled fresh fish for the event.

Most people just stop by for a beer on their way home to their families, but sometimes they bring their families in too. Sophie & Josie are regulars now, and love all the attention (as well as the potato chips) they get from my co-workers. Last week the drum-kit (used for impromptu jam sessions that sometimes accompany the event) was setup but unattended, so Marilyn gave Sophie a quick lesson that turned into probably half an hour of drumming. Josie was enjoying one of Lori's cookies too much to be interested but soon joined her for a bash.

Beer o'clock is a lot of fun, and something we all look forward to every week now.

Here in the Wellington suburbs, it's common for neighborhoods to have their own clusters of specialized shops. While we started out using only the supermarket and the one bulk style store (that we can find) we've started warming up to our local shops.  The fact that they are only one block away has been a big convenience factor.

They are all lined up in a neat little row right beyond the roundabout.

• There's the 4 Square which is similar to a mini mart back home.  If you need something in a pinch, they carry a bit of everything including produce, ice cream, wine, laundry soap and of course, lottery tickets. 
• Indian Take Away which has a killer family pack and some of the biggest pieces of naan I've ever eaten. 
• The Chemist is next to them and resembles a very, very small Walgreens.  It's main function is a pharmacy but they beef out the store with lotions, beauty products, and toys. 
• Hell Pizza who is running a Sell Your Soul Contest is next in line. It's alright pizza if you don't want to make your own but we've been on a pizza making bender lately.  Plus it's fun to try out all the different topping combinations they've come up with.  I think our last was called "Mordor" and I was incorrectly informed that it wasn't spicy.  I should have known...
• The Strathmore Butcher with one of the best signs I've ever seen (see above).  Plus, the dudes are so helpful each time I go in.  They explain things to me and never once have they cringed when I've asked "What's on special?"
  
• The Chinese restaurant which we haven't tried yet, but the menu scares me a bit.  Fish and chips, Chinese food and fried chicken.  I guess once you've mastered frying you don't have to limit yourself to one region of cuisine (if you can call this type of fried food cuisine).  I'm slamming food that I haven't even tried.  Open mouth insert foot for the next shop.
  
• Acropolis Fish and Chips shop that we love.  Or "lurv" if you want to take a hint from their sign and put a NZ spin on it.  I take back my slam on fried food for this shop only because they seem to have recognized their specialty.  Actually it has more to do with the fact that I like the woman in this shop and I am comfortable with burgers and fried fish being on the same menu.  They offer fried candy bars as well and if that isn't close to Americana, I don't know what is.
• The Strathmore Dairy which is an even smaller version of a minimart and carries drinks, ice cream, milk, chips etc. 
• The Barber Shop.  Two chairs, always a line during lunch.  Jake dropped in for a pretty stylish haircut a while back.  
• Last but absolutely not least is the Strathmore Bakery.  It's a bakery/coffee shop/breakfast and lunch place all wrapped into one.  My ideal!  We headed over for breakfast two weekends ago with the girls and they had some of the yummiest yeast donuts I've ever eaten.  They bake cookies, bread, cakes, savory pies and donuts.

To commemorate entering our tenth consecutive month of winter here (the judges may differ on our definition, so for the record we're starting with the "wintry conditions" of November in upstate New York and skipping over some nice days in early fall we had here on arrival, even though everyone blamed us for bringing the bad weather to Wellington) I thought I'd write a bit about the experience.

Winter in Wellington has 90mph winds, drenching sideways rains and temperatures that sometimes approach but never quite reach freezing. We get socked in by storms and roads will be closed north and south of us, but only rarely are we advised to stay off them entirely. There's no snow to shovel or ice to scrape, and it's definitely a break from the average low of 15ºF (that's -9ºC to our NZ readers, and you'll want to add some -25ºF of potential wind chill) we get in upstate NY, but neither is it the mind-numbing explosion into spring and glorious summer your body so desperately needs after an upstate winter, either: it's more like a really long, unnaturally-windy spring in New York (with all the sogginess you'd expect).

As someone who revels in the parade of holidays that carries you from the final heady days of summer, through the harvest into Halloween and Thanksgiving, kicking off the month of delicious food leading up to Christmas and ending with New Year's, I am finding winter difficult to navigate here. We had a holiday or two shortly after we arrived (including ANZAC Day), but since then things have been fairly quiet. I am lost without the usual milestones of winter.

Left to my own devices and understanding that things are inverted, I've done the math and realized that August here is the equivalent of February back home, which means we have 3-4 months of wintry conditions left to endure. Several people have claimed November is actually the most difficult month to bear, which I guess makes it a really cold, windy May. I haven't looked ahead to see what national holidays are coming up, but I understand Halloween has been adopted in some areas so at least we'll have that.

Back home, summer is still in full swing but we would be starting to sense fall on the horizon: the fair is coming and only a month remains before school starts and the days will start to feel fall-ish again. The Cider Mill will be opening in a few weeks, and even now I'm sure all the song birds have already gone (back me up here, Dad). Not long after that some trees will start changing and the air will get sharp at night, making perfect camping weather.

If someone could just please bottle up those smells for me and send them to New Zealand, I'd be much obliged! When Christmas rolls around and you lot are bunkering down for winter there, I'll be getting my shorts on and firing up the barby to make some spiedies for the locals and our summer-deprived kiddos.