Well, at least we don't need anti-malarials

It has nothing to do with the subject of my post, but let me just paint the picture of our setting this morning, because it's nice.  The sky is low and gray and a light mist is falling.  The temperature is just right for coffee on the balcony.  A neighbor is playing classical music and I catch notes here and there.  People stroll on the sidewalks below me, but the street is fairly empty of traffic.  Amiri is supposed to be washing his hands in the bathroom, but I'm pretty sure that he's doing something much more entertaining, because Arram is peering at him through the nearly-closed bathroom door and squealing delightedly.

OK, over to what I actually came here to tell you.   Finally, I have something to complain about.  There are mosquitoes.  Stupid mosquitoes.  And I'll make no 'state bird' jokes, because they're quite small.  And I suppose there aren't that many, really, but we hates them!  Because they're small, you can't hear or see them very well.  Can barely even feel them.  Until you wake up in the morning with ten quarter-sized welts all over yourself.  Maybe we're reacting badly to the bites here for the same reason that our hayfever was so bad-- it's all new.  New allergens, histamine agonists, whatever they are, things we've never built up resistance to.  Poor Amiri has had to add a new word to his vocabulary, and now comes to present me his 'itchies' for kissing just as often as his owies.

We're up on the fifth floor; I wouldn't have thought mosquitoes would fly so high to find us.  Part of the problem is that our windows don't have windowscreens.  I've been looking around, and it appears that most windows lack screens.  I have noticed a lot of ads for citronella and insecticide sprays, though; obviously we're not the only ones getting chomped on.  So there: I think we've identified another entrepreneurial opportunity.  We'll add a windowscreen manufacturing facility to our turkey farm/HVAC trade school.

Auckland seafood festival

Just across the harbor, right there in our backyard, the city put on its annual seafood festival on the wharfs this weekend.  They even floated a pedestrian bridge to connect the piers and make browsing easy.  The sky looks all threatening here, but that was just a passing squall.  Really, it was very bright and hot.  I got sunburned through my SPF 30, as usual.

Here are some of the things we ate.  First, some fresh calamari rings flavored with sea salt, lime and kawakawa.  What's kawakawa?  A local herb, claimed to have medicinal properties, but also with a pleasant flavor, somewhat sharp and astringent. 

 

Notice the starving child pleading for sustenance.

Here's a good platter.  Flame-grilled scallops--so sweet.  Then also there are some scampi.  Scampi are actually not shrimp (aka prawns), but are instead a local deep-water and heavily-armored species that lives in underwater burrows.  Here, they were flame-grilled whole, split down the center, and were served with a toothpick for digging the tail meat out.  And the black bit is a deep-fried paua treat.  Paua are a type of abalone (Can you imagine just finding abalone at an outdoor food stall??  We felt lucky).  There is a fishing limit on abalone:  you can (only!) take ten a day from the ocean.  Here, the rich black meat was minced and battered. 

 

We tried a few other things that I didn't get pictures of:  Some seared ahi tuna and a salmon kebab.  A raw green-lipped mussel on the half-shell from a bucket that was unloaded directly from the fishing boat that snagged them early this morning.  (It was salty, oddly crunchy on one end, and completely offputting on the other end due to its 'feathers'.)  And a scoop of ice cream for our big boy, who'd very gamely trotted along with us the whole time.

 

I think they both enjoyed themselves. 

Arram and his bear

Arram never took to using a pacifier (much to our chagrin on his, um, LOUDER days).  But he has developed a very strong attachment for a lovey.  It's a floppy little brown bear and it's his pal.

His bear comforts him when he's sad.

 

But I don't want to go to bed!  I'm not tired at all, honest!  OK, I'll just chew on my bear till I feel better.

And it helps him to sleep.  He grabs it, rolls over, pulls it close, and drifts off with a sigh.  He sleeps most nights with it in his arms.

Like having a butler in your living room

At the cinema, in addition to the regular theaters and the IMAX big screen, there are the Gold Club theaters.  They seat 30-40 people in a spacious area.  The seats are arranged in pairs:  two big recliners with footrests, and a table in between them.  You are handed a menu prior as the trailers start, and servers bring you food and drinks while the film is playing.  You can push a button to summon a server at any time.  Tickets are no more expensive than a regular movie in LA, and it's altogether quite a civilised experience.

Wonder

I watched Amiri today while he watched me use our new electric coffee grinder.  He was fascinated.  A spoonful of beans goes in... cover on... press the red button... whirring noise... spinning...and then mama's coffee comes out!  It's amazing!  This is a truly incredible thing I have witnessed!

A coffee grinder, from our perspective, is of course an entirely mundane little luxury without much importance in the grand scheme of things.  But a two-year-old doesn't have the years of experience that we do and can't grasp the role of a coffee grinder in the context of the larger world.  Therefore to him it's nothing short of a marvel.

I kind of feel like New Zealand is my coffee grinder.  Objectively, I can recognize that there's nothing inherently that special about it.  It's just a small country, among many others in the world, where people live and work and clean their houses and some days are good and some days are bad.  Life here is exactly like life everywhere else in the world.  But that realization doesn't matter to me.  Regardless, something knocks me out every day.  Whether it's the little birds who visit our balcony or the way the clouds whip across the sky, I feel like I'm seeing our new home through fresh, innocent eyes.  And it feels good.

Plunket

The kids had their well-child checkups today.  It's an interesting system here:  if the kids are sick or need immunizations, they see our family doctor.  But for well-baby visits just to check that they're growing and developing appropriately, they see a Plunket nurse.  Plunket is a family-support program.  They employ nurses, obviously, and also organize neighborhood playgroups and put on parenting classes.

The boys both behaved like wonderful little gentlemen for the nurse (OK, Arram cried when she examined him but he has a thing about strangers).  They both got clean bills of health and we were congratulated for doing right by our kids. 

Amiri is 15.35 kg and 96 cm (33.8 lbs and 3 feet 2 inches), just about the 50th percentile for both.  Arram is 9.81 kg and 75.5 cm (21.6 lbs and 2 feet 6 inches), at the 75th percentile for both.

The post shop

Can I even tell you how cool the Post Shop is?  My mind still insists on calling it the Post Office, and yes, it's the place to buy stamps and ship packages.  But it's so much more!  I have had the best experience every time I've been there.

You form a queue, which is always short, and go up to one of the windows.   At any window, at any time, the clerks can help you with:

• Mail
  
• Banking:  Each post shop is also a Kiwibank
• Government applications, like applying for an IRD number or for housing assistance
• Paying your utility bills
• Renewing your driver license
• Registering your car
  
• Notary
• Prepaid credit cards
• Stationary, magazines, and calendars
• Insurance
• Western Union
  

Slide! No, swings! No, flower swing!

I took Amiri to the playground on the north side of Victoria Park.  He had big fun.

 

 

 

  

Later, I asked him what his favorite toy was.  He couldn't decide.  He loved them all.

Good answer

I just put Amiri to bed.  Even though he's a big underwear-wearing boy, we ask him to wear a pull-up at night because sometimes it's difficult to make it to the bathroom when you're sleepy.  So as usual, tonight he got changed, and then began to carefully arrange his underwear on his bike. 

"Why are you doing that, Amiri?"

"Why not?"

Delivered so offhand and nonchalantly, I couldn't argue with that.  The bike will wear underwear tonight.

Zip cars and bikes for hire

In nearly any shopping/cafe area in town, you'll see bikes like these.  They are do-it-yourself rental bikes.  Just call the number or go online to give your credit card number, and you'll get a code to unlock your bike.  Keep it as long as you want, for four bucks an hour.  You can leave it at any bike kiosk, not necessarily the one you picked it up at.  They even come with helmets (by law, you must wear a helmet on your bike).

Those bikes are great for sightseeing or for window-shopping along the entire stretch of Ponsonby Road.  But what if you've got some real errands to run?  Those baskets don't hold that much.  Well, you can rent cars in a similar program.  Available zip cars are seeded in specific slots in carparks all over the city.  Once you've gone online to verify your drivers license and enroll in the rental program, you can call in at any time to get a code for keyless entry/ignition on a nearby car.  Use it for as long as your need, and then drop it off in the nearest open approved space.  Yet another convenient option for the car-free!

A night on the town

We got a babysitter last night.  We found Amanda online and she's a friendly nineteen year old from Mount Eden.  Amiri shook her hand like a proper gentleman when they met.  Arram started to cry when she picked him up; I guess his stranger-danger is starting to kick in.

With the kids in her capable hands, we went out to dinner just down the street at one of the nice restaurants we always pass.  It felt really good to be out on our own, just the two of us... a chance to connect and have fun together.  Remembering that we're not just parents.  We stayed out until the extreme hour of 11 pm and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

And here's the icing on the cake:  the restaurant was (almost) free for us!  I have started doing some mystery shopping here, just for a lark and to learn about new stores.  I was assigned to shop that restaurant and give lots of feedback about its appearance, food, staff, etc.  In return, most of our bill will be reimbursed! 

Postscript

I forgot yesterday that I took a short video at Maungawhau's crater.  This might give a better sense of its depth.



Mom--Yes, dandelions, I think.  I didn't see any flowers on the prickly tree, though.
Liz--It looked like a kitty up close.  Sunning itself on the fence.  But I agree that the photo makes it look rat-like. 

Monga-Foe

When the boys went to bed for their naps this afternoon, I hopped on the bus and went exploring at Mount Eden.

You walk up the road a way, and then have to climb across a stile into the nature preserve area.   I was looking forward to seeing sheep inside the fence, but the sign seems to indicate that they don't need the sheep to do their natural landscaping anymore since they planted a new kind of grass.

Although it looks like this contraption, which I'm guessing is a sheep-waterer, is still in operation.

I climbed and climbed, way up, to the top of the hill.  The highest (natural) point in Auckland!  It was a really hot day and I was glad I'd brought some water with me when I reached the top.

Below are views to the north and east.  You can see other green parks rising up out of the city.  The one with the obelisk is One Tree Hill.

 

Mount Eden is actually a volcano, as are the other sticking-up green parks.  The crater is very steep and deep.  There are numerous signs requesting that we stay out of the crater, because it is sacred to the native people and also a valuable archaeological site that they don't want damaged.  So when I saw this guy, I tsk-tsked to myself... hmmph, rules don't apply to him, eh.  But then I saw that he had a garbage bag and was picking up errant bits of wind-blown trash.  And when he got to the bottom he shoved the rocks around with his feet to erase the name that some other disrespectful tourist had written.  I forgave him. :-)

This meadow is the site of an epic battle between warring iwi (tribes).   I can just imagine eight or ten fierce Maori warriors crouching in each of these mini-craters and waiting to spring out at their enemies.

This tree attracted my attention because it's so unpleasant.  This tree never gets invited to the parties.

And on the stone fence surrounding the park maintenance building, is a whimsical little stone decoration.  As Amiri says, "Kitties say now, now.'

Pepper man hooked us up

At the market we always stop at the booth where the dreadlocked blonde guy sells peppers, cucumbers, and live orchids.  I let Amiri pick out the peppers and the guy always makes friendly little jokes about what a good helper he is for mum.  I respond that the little boy always picks good ones, since there isn't a bad one in the lot.

I'm sure the merchant recognizes us as regulars.  This time he gave me an elegant bouquet of tropical flowers on the house.  Aren't they pretty?

Coordinated!

Our little boy has gotten quite good on his bike.  Here he is executing a flawless turn without even using his feet!

A summer stroll

We received a notice that a package was being held for us at the central mail-sorting facility over in Grey Lynn because we had not been home to sign for it when the postie came by.   I could have taken the bus, but it was such a beautiful morning that I decided to walk instead. 

I started the day out on the right foot by doing a good deed:  helping a couple to push their stalled car out of the intersection.  Then I walked past the New World market, and then up Franklin Road.  WAY up.  It was a really steep, long hill!  I said hello to the many homeowners working in their gardens (aka yards) who greeted me warmly as I walked past.  I turned onto Ponsonby Road.  Ponsonby is a rather bohemian suburb and Ponsonby Road holds many one-of-a-kind shops and funky restaurants.  I saw a taqueria, fittingly named Taqueria, and a burger place whose name caught my attention.

The walk back after picking up my parcel was much faster since it was all downhill.  I went a total of 8.6 km!   And when I got home, we all went to the farmer's market.

Amiri: once an American, always an American

(He's just showing you his owie.)

Landscaping

Amiri loves our little trips to the plaza next door.  Running, exploring, looking at boats, riding his bike.  Fun stuff.  This time, we played sword-fighting with palm fronds.

Amiri calls the white landscaping stuff at the bottom of the trees 'popcorn'.  I told him they are rocks.  Turns out I'm wrong, though:  they're crushed shells.  Isn't seaside living cool?

Shhh. It's naptime.

Just lately, Amiri has been refusing to take his nap in his bed, instead preferring to construct a campsite on the floor between it and the window.  Note the placement of the lion, which has always been a popular pillow.  The blue fleece blanket was a gift from our real estate agent:  while she led us on a tour through the apartment, Amiri took her hand and apparently stole her heart.

Arram, on the other hand, loves to sleep in the bed, especially if he's snuggled up next to Mama.

But does the alphabet song sound the same?

"NZ" is pronounced "en-zed."

Since it is late and I am feeling vaguely ill, that is all.

Baches? We don't need no stink--- oh, never mind.

Quintessential Kiwi is the bach (pronounced 'batch').  A bach is a remote vacation home in some impossibly gorgeous location.  Some are high-dollar luxury lovelies with SkyTV and glassed-in balconies, but most are more down-to-earth affairs with spartan accomodations that may or may not include electricity and running water.  Yoopers, think deer camp.

Kiwis love buying baches (see the post about retirement-fund real estate barons), but more, they love going to their baches.  You pack up your car with a chilly bin of groceries, some sunscreen and bug spray, some clean sheets, and you're set for a weekend of BBQ and dangling your toes in the lake and looking at the mountains while the campfire crackles.

There is even a whole industry centered around baches.  Being vacation homes, your bach is empty more than it's occupied.  Why not rent it out to those poor souls without a bach?  And further your retirement goals that much more?  Well, because it's a five-hour drive to my bach, that's why, and I don't know if renters would wreck the place--it's not practical.  But what if you had a trustworthy local caretaker to handle unlocking the doors, checking in on the renters from time to time, cleaning up afterward and handling any maintenance?  Yeah... I guess I'd be fine with it then. 

Thus, bookabach.co.nz was born.  Rural folks make some pocket money by handling the logistics of renting out someone else's cabin for a cut of the rental price.   What a nice cottage industry.  (Sorry.)  Baches go from $20-$200+ a night.  We will have to rent a bach at least once-- it's probably in the fine print for the citizenship application.

Totally exposed volar surfaces

You know what's weird?  How many people walk around the city barefoot.  I'll just see people heading down the sidewalk on Queen Street, shoes in hand and feet bare.  Looking like they're on their lunch break from work or just running some errands.   They seem less concerned about broken glass and gutter-rot than I would be.

Here are bare feet I saw at the library.

Free delivery!

In our lazy past lives in California, we got a lot of food delivered to our house.  Pizza, Chinese, omg those good sandwiches... and why not?  Tip the guy a couple of bucks and he'll bring you restaurant food.  To your house.  There is nothing better after a long day than someone bringing you a hot meal.  It's like summoning a genie with a phone call.

There are lots of takeaway places in Auckland that advertise their delivery service.  Usually, there is a delivery area specified (within the CBD, etc)-- OK, that makes sense.  And a minimum order of like 20 or 30 bucks--  yep, I'm still with you.  There's always a delivery fee, though:  in the range of seven or eight dollars.  Yipes!

(Theme of workers being paid decently...not depending on tips... yes...maybe I'll write more on that later...)

The only place in town we've seen so far with always-free delivery is a pizza joint on Commerce Ave.  Sal's NY Pizza, run by Sal himself, a New York City native who seems to have retained the American free delivery ethos.  But in a very California turn of events, they deliver their pizzas riding Segways.  Like tourists. 

For what it's worth, we haven't yet had any food delivered to us.  Just like the car thing, it's another way that we're changing our lifestyle.  So far, so good.

Big helper

Amiri loves to help us.  And now that he's getting bigger and stronger and smarter, he actually does help us out!

He feeds his brother, even though Arram can hold the bottle himself.  (This photo was kind of staged.  One of us is always right there when Amiri holds Arram.)

He LOVES to vacuum.  I think he gets excited when he sees Arram making a mess because he knows soon it'll be time to clean.

He even helps with the laundry.  He helps me unload the dryer and to make piles of towels.  He puts his and Arram's clothes away in their drawers, and delivers mom and dad's clothes to their room.

But raindrops are TOUCHING ME!

Amiri and I took a big walk down Fanshawe St., chased each other through Victoria Park, made close examination of various leaves and sticks along the way, and ended up at New World, our other neighborhood grocery store.  New World is more expensive than Foodtown for most items, but we wanted to take advantage of their good sales on blueberries, brown rice, and baby formula.

Amiri got hungry in the store so I let him have a slice of bread from the loaf I had put in our cart.  He mmm'd and mmm'd over it like it was an amazing treat.  I also got him some strawberry milk to drink on the walk home.

I ended up buying way too much stuff.  Filled both our backpacks, and had two plastic bags to carry in my hands besides.   Hoped I wouldn't regret overloading myself like that on a long walk home.

As we were walking back through Victoria Park, it started to sprinkle.  Uh oh.  The sky got dark quickly.  Soon we were being pelted with big fat rain.  We ran for the trees.   By the time we got under cover, Amiri was complaining of being cold and was extremely concerned that we were being rained on.  It had been a lovely, sunny day when we left the house so I hadn't brought along a sweatshirt or umbrella.

I squatted down to give him some comforting (my heavy backpack nearly overbalanced me and the bags I was carrying got all muddy on the outside).  We waited for a few minutes for the heavy squall to pass, and when it went back to sprinkling we headed out at full speed for home.

During our hugs under the tree Amiri had agreed that rain wasn't scary and that he would walk very quickly with mama to get home fast.  He changed his mind on both of these points once we were out again in the weather.

He expressed his displeasure that the rain continued to exist.
He communicated his worry about the effect of raindrops on the integrity of his backpack.
He found it unacceptable that leaves and grasses stuck to his damp skin, particularly after one trip-and-fall incident.
He opined that walking quickly was not, in fact, the solution to reducing exposure to the rain nor to warming one's self.

The outward expression of these issues was loud, mournful ululations and occasional, counter-productive rag-doll drops to the sidewalk.  It was a long walk home.

Daddy was waiting at home for us with a towel warmed in the dryer.  Amiri got dry clothes (although we honestly didn't get that wet) and then some warm milk with honey.  We did some sweet hugs and reassured him that his backpack wasn't ruined.   He then went to his room for a nap and slept for three and a half hours.  What a busy morning for a little boy.

Unique as

Kiwis have an interesting expression here:  adjective as. 

"Oh, wow, that comedian was funny as." 

"Your new sports car is flash as!"

"Come on in to get a bargain at our Cheap As Deal Days!"

It's a simile that employs no comparator.  It's implied that whatever descriptor would have been chosen is the superlative, so why bother trying to wax poetic.  You are simply expressing that the comedian was as funny as something infinitely funny.  The car was as flash as something infinitely flashy.

These crazy as Kiwis.

Directionality

I'm finally starting to get comfortable seeing cars on the 'wrong' side of the road.  At first, cars seemed to come out of nowhere and every street crossing felt nervewracking, especially unmarked crossings where I'd check and re-check both directions for cars.  But now when I approach an intersection, I automatically know where the cars will be coming from and which directions to look.  I still don't jaywalk, since we're teaching Amiri to follow traffic signals, but I could if I wanted to.

One, um, heck of a pizza

We ordered some decent veggie pizza last night from Hell.  Yep, that's the name of the restaurant!  It's one of the big chains in town.  They have a cutesy little gimmick with devils on their website and pizzas with names like 'Brimstone' and 'Underworld'.  The 'Gluttony', fittingly, has bacon, capiscum, ham, mushrooms, onions, pineapple, salami, tomatoes, black pepper, and garlic.  Whew!  Their kid's pizza is called 'The 333' (because it's half-size... that gave me a giggle.)

The pizza boxes are black and have these interesting perforations.  We wondered what they were, so I investigated them once the box was emptied out.  Turns out it's a make-it-yourself doggie bag, a little origami coffin with the instructions, "For Your Remains".

Ichthy, not icky

Adnan suggested I blog about the Fish Market again, and the goods we get there.

First, the prepared food from the fry shop.  The food there is off the hook, so to speak.  We try to hold off going there as long as we can, but then once a week or so one or the other of us will comment, 'Well, if we can't think of what to have for dinner, we could always just pick something up from the fish market...'  That statement offered up like it's a casual suggestion that suddenly popped into one's head among myriad others, instead of the furtive, hopeful airing of a constantly-clamoring obsession that grips one's brain with clawed fish fins and gnaws...

Anyway.  They've got all kinds of fish, which you can get either batter-fried or grilled.  Even 'Whole Flounder' is on the menu.  I like it best when they have Lemon Fish on special.  (Don't know what a lemon fish looks like, but it sure tastes good.  Yes, I am learning to enjoy fish.  I'm as surprised as you!)  There are fritters, which are an eggy pancake and can contain scallops, mussels, or whitebait.  A la carte oysters, squid rings, scallops, prawns.  Combination platters:  the Decky, Skipper's, and Diver's Catch Meals.  Typically, Adnan will walk over and bring home two boxes filled with all manner of loveliness.   The three of us with molars picnic on an old towel on the floor in the living room with our bottles of ketchup and tartar sauce between us, and make happy noises, and always comment on how little it cost.  Amiri's favorite is the prawn kebab:  five fat shrimp on a skewer, flame grilled with garlic butter.  Last time, he ate three kebabs and asked for more. 

We also have had good luck with our purchases from the store.  Adnan loves their salmon sashimi.  (Yeah, although I have developed a new-found fish appreciation, I still can't join him on that one...I'm still recovering from the horrors suffered during my nauseated pregnancies when every. single. dinner host. generously served me fragrant, oily salmon.)  The last time we were there, I found the Specials Bin, a barrel filled with ice holding all kinds of marked-down treats on cling-film wrapped styrofoam trays.  I got some shrimp and calamari for about $5.  Which became this, one of the best meals I've made in a while, if I do say so myself:

Garlic Seafood Salad

two handfuls of raw shrimp, cleaned and shelled, and sprinkled with salt

two raw calamari tubes the size of your palm, cut into strips and sprinkled with salt

half an onion, minced

five big cloves of garlic, minced

olive oil

butter
lemon juice

oregano

crushed parsley

Cook the onions on medium heat until translucent in a 50/50 mix of Too Much oil and butter.  Turn the heat up to high and add the garlic, lemon juice, oregano and parsley.  When the garlic starts to brown, add the shrimp and toss it all around for two minutes.  Then add the calamari and toss it all around for another two minutes.

Arrange a plate with torn curly lettuce, dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette if you like.  Top with couscous made with saffron, minced mushrooms, and the rest of the minced onion.  Cover with the sizzling-hot seafood and add some fresh-grated parmesan cheese.

A clapping, hollering little guy

He can stand up by himself, holding onto furniture.  He couldn't quite manage it for this video, though.

I want to go touch the water.

Here is a fountain behind Britomart.  The streams come and go, get big and then get small.  And it's irresistable to a small someone.

Mushrooms grew in the park after a damp night

Flowers!

     No, not flowers.  Those are mushrooms.

Eat them?

     No.  Never eat mushrooms outside.  Never ever.

Mushrooms at Foodtown.

     Yes, we can buy some mushrooms at Foodtown.  Those are OK to eat.

Eat in spaghetti.

Possums

I wrote a while ago about the native animals of New Zealand.  Here's one that was introduced: the possum.

Kind of cute, aren't they?

Don't be fooled.  They're bad news.

These aren't the same thing as our creepy North American opossums; they were originally brought over from Australia as a fur source.  They're as soft as mink, but fluffier.

As introduced species without predators often tend to do, their populations exploded and they now pose a huge threat to the native ecosystem.  They kill trees by stripping off their leaves and bark --entire islands have been denuded by these pests.  They harm bird populations both by destroying their habitat and also by eating their eggs.  They also carry tuberculosis and have been responsible for infecting numerous cattle and sheep farms.

There are a LOT of possums here; 70 million by some estimates, and they live for ten years. 

Unless, of course, New Zealanders have anything to do about it.  People really want these animals GONE.  There is a government department whose sole focus is possum eradication.  There are various poison-bait and trapping programs that apparently do a brisk business, with rats and weasels as collateral, but also welcomed, damage.  There's still a possum fur trade (it's so luxurious when mixed with merino wool); because they aren't farmed, every clothing item equals a wild possum killed and wearing possum socks becomes a patriotic act. 

And then there are the 'common-man' tactics for possum population control.   Ranchers pick them off with shotguns.  Drivers make it a point of pride to swerve to hit them on the roads.  There are even quite a few recipes online for the little marsupials, described by one reviewer as, 'tender and similar to duck when young.'

2010!

You might be reading this with your morning coffee on New Year's Eve.  But for us, the midnight New Year's celebration came and went hours ago and the boys slept through the whole noisy thing with its fireworks and boat horns and liquored-up bar patrons downstairs stumbling happily out onto the street.  By the time you see this we'll be at least midway through January 1st, and will have screwed up writing the date every time so far. 

New Zealanders are nearly the first in the world to welcome the new year. (Kiribati Island is technically the first, but that's just because someone drew a divot that put it to the west of the international date line, when geographically it would have otherwise been to the east.  So it doesn't count.  So there.)

Happy New Year!

And a happy anniversary to Kelly and Doug.