We Acquire a House

This week I became a homeowner.  After learning so much about the Auckland real estate market, I felt I better get in there quick.  My colleague is building a house and after hearing about all she's gone through with builders, I decided a renovation was right for me.  We found a cute little fixer-upper, a three bedroom, one bath, two story bungalow,  We're thinking about making the attic another bedroom with en-suite.  And best part of all, the house was free.

Let me back up.

In Auckland, once per year they have Inorganics.  Inorganics is when you take all the broken junk or, in some cases, perfectly good junk you just don't want anymore, and put it on the side of the road for the city to pick up.

It usually sits there for a few days, which means that you can take a walk, survey your neighbor's stuff, and see if it is something that might look good in your house (elbow grease required).


Gorgeous home accented by pile of rubbish


Most of it is total crap; old wood planks, broken stuff you can't even identify, busted TVs with the screens gone, broken vases or dishes.  Some of it is a hoarder's dream; old sofas, tables, baskets, plant pots with a chip or to out of them, toys, shoes, busted handbags, baskets.  I've seen people trying on shoes at an Inorganics pile.  Really?  Cool by me, dude!

In some areas, people put things out that are perfectly good.  I've seen sofas, chairs, side tables, dressers, and entertainment units that, with a little (ok, in some cases, a lot) of elbow grease, could be perfectly nice in someone's house.

The only caveat to "shopping" is to try and beat the rain.  That cool leather settee may have gone through the downpour earlier.  How does it smell?

I'm not being superior - I've had my fun with my first Inorganics.  Rowan and I found a box of moldy garden gnomes.  We are going to clean them up and paint them this summer, but in the mean time, they're cozily standing guard in our little garden.  I also found some awesome pukeko statues with merely some paint chipped off of the beak.  Someone was putting out a children's easel with a blackboard on one side and a whiteboard on the other.  Rowan is in heaven playing teacher and is waiting for a live student.  The rest of us are a bit too scared to join her class, so she has to be content with teaching her dolls and bears.

Which leads me to my home acquisition.  Along with the easel, I found a little wooden dollhouse.  It had some heinous flooring, but Rowan and I have ripped it out and we plan to renovate it over the summer holidays, doing new flooring, some roof shingles, and interiors.  We're going to go slow and make it our dream home. 



Before picture. 
Cat is possible tenant. 
Would decorate with lizard tails
and headless birds.
 

I've had a lot of fun with Rowan, scathingly saying things like, "Winnie the Pooh flooring?  What were they THINKING?"  and she joins in with, "Stickers on the wall?  Ugh!  So babyish!"  Yeah, nice decorating scheme!

So, if you're planning on moving to Auckland, do so a week or two before Inorganics.  With some hard work, you could furnish quite a bit of your house on the cheap.

Word to the wise though; don't leave any of your stuff in your front yard, unless you're willing to sacrifice it to the shoppers!

You know that it would be untrue, you know that I would be a liar

When you live in an uninsulated house, you get really excited about fireplaces in the wintertime.

In the summer, the fireplace stood like a mafioso, quietly lurking against the wall, reminding us of the possibilities to come.  A squat mafioso with a really long neck.

We got the chimney swept, which was totally awesome, even though it wasn't Dick Van Dyke after all.  He was a rangy kiwi guy, with few words to spare but lots of admiration for our fireplace.  "She's a good 'un," he said.

Now the interesting part begins.  How to light a fire!

Secretly I pretend I'm Daisy from Downton Abbey, before she gets promoted to kitchen assistant (or whatever).  Yes, I'm crazy.  I sweep last night's ashes through the grate.  Hands a touch sooty.

Squirrel up some newspaper and place it in the grate.  Think about all the fires I've to light before The Family comes down for their breakfa- no wait.  No, just this fire.

Make a little teepee of kindling sticks.  Light the newspaper.

Dammit, something is wrong with this newspaper.  It is taking forever to light!  What the. . .

Ok, newspaper finally lit.  Yahoo!  Blazing now!  Kindling is. . . standing like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo.  Totally not lit.  Newspaper blazes out.  Kindling barely singed.

Take out kindling.  Grab more newspaper.  Hands now extremely sooty.  Squirrel more newspaper.  Squirrel an entire dang section of the Auckland Herald and make a huge tower of newspaper.  Place Shadrach, Mesach and Abednigo back on top of the newspaper.  Light that stuff everywhere.

Repeat a few more times.  Curse a bit.  Push that strand of hair out of my eyes.  Fire lightning no longer fun.  I'm not a maidservant, I am a grown woman with a university degree who apparently has no luck with a fire.  How to have fire safety in your house? Have me live there.  (but not cook; but that's a story for another time)

FINALLY get it started.  Gently place some broken up pieces of hot log, and place tenderly on kindling.

Get a healthy shovelful of coal.  Ask the kids what the hell they're staring at.  Place coal atop flames.  Say a few prayers, ask forgiveness for the huge spate of language from earlier.

Get a big fat log out, roll it gently on the glowing coals.

Sit back and sigh.  It's done!  If I were Daisy, I'd tell the Granthams to go . . . um, light their own fires.  And then get fired myself.  No reference either, which back then TOTALLY sucked.  Anyway.

Once that fire is lit with the flames dancing merrily, notice the room has gotten 5 degrees warmer.  Yahoo!  Convince myself that Centigrade degrees are way warmer than Fahrenheit degrees so I win.

Go wash the soot off my hands, face, front of my blouse, ear. . . you get the picture.

Eat it, pal!

There are lots of things I love about New Zealand life, but there are also lots of things about Arizona that I miss.  One thing that has been an adjustment is eating out. 

Our eating out has become much less frequent which is definitely good.  We usually eat out only once or twice - Friday night is our dinner out and we might grab lunch from one of the many bakeries around in the weekend, depending on how busy we are (or really, how lazy we are).

It is easy to cook tasty, home cooked meals with the wealth of healthy, fresh produce, freshly made bakery items that don't have preservatives and artificial crap included and an array of proteins from surf and turf.  And it is lovely until you get to the day when you're ready to shout, "Please!  I want to eat something made in a kitchen outside of this house where someone else has to do the damn dishes!"

Eating out is really expensive in New Zealand unless you are purchasing fast food, fish n' chips or bakery items like sausage rolls.  A girl can only take so many sausage rolls before becoming willing  to trade her virtue for some decent tacos.

Don't worry, Mom, I would never trade my virtue for tacos in New Zealand.  I mean, you haven't tried the tacos.  Definintely not worth it.

Here are some of the foods I miss:

Claussen pickles
Mexican food
A Chicago dog
My mom's chicken piccata and pasta primavera
Mexican food
Pizza that doesn't come from a worldwide pizza chain, with a puffy, chewy crust
Crawfish etouffe from Baby Kay's Cajun Kitchen
Mexican food
The mediterranean platter from Pita Jungle
Chik-fil-A (I apologize, sincerely)
Mexican food
and Mexican food.

Seth, meanwhile, dreams of Costco pizza and Someburros.

Quality Time

Now that we've gotten into a routine, I find that I get a lot of really awesome one-on-one time with my kids.  Each are in different sports and sometimes those games conflict. 

Typically when I'm with the kids, they are arguing - the typical stuff.  One of them is on another's side, one said that she hates the other (usually it is Rowan doing the hating), one of them looked at the other the wrong way, nefarious schemes to hide a new toy when we return home, something notable to be seen is not viewable from someone's own personal window, etc.

However, the world opens up when I'm on my own with one of the kids.  Rowan loves to accompany me to the farmers' market and to the shopping center.  In fact, she has made it a strict rule that only she is allowed to go to the farmers' market with me.  No boys allowed.  I think she likes it because I let her get something when we see the Hello Kitty lady.  She's a random lady that imports Hello Kitty fabric from Japan and makes skirts, dresses and purses from it.  She also sells handmade, crocheted Hello Kitty dolls.  Pretty much the only reason to visit a farmers' market. But I digress.

Rowan will chat with me for the duration of our trip.  She could just run a monologue; our times together are mostly her singing me songs from school, telling me the proper way to say things, telling me about what happens at school, with her friends, etc.  I thoroughly enjoy her insights.  She usually sings the New Zealand national anthem in Maori and English at some point.

Seth has deep questions and opinions to discuss.  On Saturday on our way to his rugby game, we talked about skeletons, nuclear bombs, why some countries hate other countries, and where kidneys are located in our bodies.  He was surprised that his kidneys are not located "down by [his] penis."  Always thinking, that guy!  Actually, thats where I would have thought they were, too, at his age.  Not by his, but mine. 

No, wait, that came out all wrong.

Accent Grave

I've been wondering how long it will take for some of our family members to develop accents.  Gary is constantly told he sounds exactly like an American at work, and also by our nephew.

Seth is pretty staunch.  I don't think he will ever sway from his generic American drawl. 

However, Rowan is marching down the road towards Kiwi lingo.  I think her first decision to do so was when they were reading a story in class. I happened to be there that day.  It was a clue story, so the teacher read, "I'm fast, I have black and white stripes, I am a. . ." and Rowan shouted first before any of her classmates, "ZEEbra!" The other classmates shouted, "ZEHbra!" 

Her face went beet red and she looked around at me in horror.  I had been teaching her incorrect pronunciation her whole life!  I was in for it when I got home.

Here are her adaptations:

1.  Mum - switching interchangeably between Mum and Mom (Seth told me adamantly that he will call me Mom forever.  Done.)
2.  Again - she pronounces it very carefully as "agayne"
3.  Tomato - it's toMAHto, not toMAYto
4.  Banana - baNAWna not baNAHna
5. Together - dropping the "r," as in "Mum, can Cara and I walk home togethah?"

It's pretty cute.  She also likes to correct our pronunciation.  She still sounds really American but with enough perserverance, study and hard work (which I think she's trying) she will sound Kiwi through and through - I give it around a year.

As it turns out, I have an accent - a Canadian one.  Everyone thinks I'm from Canada, and when I tell them I'm from America, they start chatting about guns. 

Murders and Confessions

We recenly had a new roommate chilling with us.  She was beautiful, with high cheekbones, a heart shaped face, and large expressive eyes.  A pair of antenna on her like you've never seen before.

Her name was Beatrix.  She spent a lot of time in the bathroom, then moved to the kitchen for awhile, reducing the moth population significantly.  Then she decided to check out the dining room for a little action.

There she met her maker.  A member of her own household. A sociopath who played with her a bit before he bit her beautifully formed head off and chowed down on her body like he hadn't eaten in a week.

That's right, we've got a cat.

The confession is mostly mine.  In a moment of loneliness on Valentine's day, I adopted this little gray kitten who had been rescued by a policeman from a park.  When he was brought to the vet's office his eyes were crusted shut.  The vet nursed him back to health and I couldn't resist him when I saw him.

The kids have named him Rigby. I imagine that he subsisted on wetas and people's leftover takeaways from rubbish bins (like my lingo?), because he will eat anything at all if you're willing to share.  His favorites are butter cookies with jam in the middle and hummus. 

He likes to snuggle and his favorite place to munch on a freshly caught, crunchy cockroach is between me and Gary at 2 AM. 

When I hunkered down to take a lovely photo of Beatrix (destined to be her last) I didn't know he was following me until I saw him pounce. At first I tried to rescue her but in the end, nature won out. 

He doesn't even show remorse.

The Mystery of the Poo

The other day I opened one of the closets in the kids room.  "Something in that laundry basket smells rank," said my husband.

Our washing machine was on the fritz last week, so I figured it was some laundry that we'd missed taking to the laundry place.

Have I ever mentioned that I love laundry service? All your clothes washed and meticulously folded for $30.  That's for about 4 loads of laundry.  I love it.  I wish I could use it all the time.  I might have to do a cost analysis on doing laundry ourselves vs. sending it to a laundry service. 

But I digress.  You want to know about the mystery of the poo.

Investigating the smell in the closet, there was definintely some sort of nasty stench.  A nasty, earthy, rank pong.  Sherlock Mom immediately turned to Seth.  "Did you. . . have an accident and put the clothes in the basket?"

Hey, accidents happen.  We all have had accidents in our lifetimes!

"No, I didn't!  Gee, mom, why would you ACCUSE me of that!" he said belligerently.  After many exchanges reassuring immunity from prosecution and reiterations of innocence, we took the basket out of the room.

The fug remained.

Gary and I started turning his shoes over to inspect the soles.  Now, as far as I can tell, dog lovers are pretty diligent about cleaning up after their pets.  But you never know what happened.  There have been reported sightings of a hedgehog in our backyard.  Something could have been stepped in and then put in the closet unknowingly. 

"Ummmm, here's the source," said Gary.  He pointed to a pair of shoes in Seth's closet.  Sitting atop his flashy blue and orange Adidas was a fat, multicolored poo.

We sat in shock, staring at this unwelcome addition.  What the?  After cathartic discussion and Gary's toxic waste cleanup, we've come to two hypotheses.

1.  Cat

Our house has two cat doors.  Twice we've had visits from neighborhood cats.  Once I was sitting on the sofa and an orange and white tabby walked through the hallway.  Suddenly, he stopped in the doorway and stared at me, outraged that I had the audacity to be there.  He turned and left promptly.

Another time, I woke up at 3 AM, and looked at our open bedroom door.  Just then, a big black and white tuxedo cat streaked past the door on the way outside.

It is plausible that a cat somehow got into Seth's closet and had a potty break, but I tend to doubt it.  Not so much that I doubt a cat would do that.  I've known some psychotic cats in my life who would be quite capable of pooping in some random closet.  No, the reason I doubt it is that I've had cats for most of my life and the size and shape of that turd didn't correspond to a typical cat poo.

I'm actually not proud to have that kind of knowledge.

Additionally, I keep all the closet doors closed.  I can't stand a closet door or drawer left ajar.  It is one of my pet peeves.  That leads me to my second group of suspects.

2.  Child

Children are funny.  They're quirky.  They like to play practical jokes.  Sometimes, dare I say it - they are inappropriate. 

My kids are friends with a couple of kids who are neighbors.  Sometimes they get into fights.  Usually the fights take the form of kicking someone in the mouth and vowing to never play with them again. 

Is it possible that a child pooped in my son's closet, thinking it was the sweetest, funniest kind of revenge?  I'm not ruling it out.  Please let it be known that I am not excusing my own children of this suspicion.  I'm nothing if not fair.  Both of my children have been known to pee in the backyard because she's busy playing and didn't feel like making the trek inside to the toilet.

Believe me, I'm not bragging about this.

The only person I've ruled out of the possibilities is Seth.  He would never poop on his own shoes, in his own closet.  There are not many certainties in this world, but that is one I would never doubt.

I know I'll never get to the bottom of this intrigue.  All I can do is hope that our closets remain poo-free in the future.

Watching It

Being in a new country, it's very fun to check out new shows.  Sports here seems to be made up of rugby, cricket and horse-and-buggy racing.  I kid you not about the horse-and-buggy racing.  One of the channels we have seems to be made up of only horse-and-buggy racing.

Of course, we get some American shows, which means I'll be able to keep watching Modern Family and things like that.  But the best are these new shows.  Additionally, New Zealand doesn't edit out swearing or nudity after a certain hour, so you get shows uncensored.  Which has it's good and it's bad points.

Hands down, my favorite is Come Dine With Me, and it's Canadian counterpart, Dinner Party Wars.  http://www.channel4.com/programmes/come-dine-with-me

In this show, three or four people get together and host dinner parties.  They give scores to the host/ess based on the quality of the food, the entertainment, etc.  You know how sometimes you watch a game show and think, "I could totally win that?" Yeah.  I could win that.  The winner (highest scores) gets $1,000.  Or rather, 1,000 pounds.  No pound symbol on my keyboard, I'm afraid.

My favorite episode was one where the hostess said that anytime there was a lull in the conversation, she'd just talk about her boobs, which went down a treat with the lady who was uncomfortable with any kind of sexual banter.  The second lady?  She was a horse-and-buggy racer.  You just can't escape it.

Another show I enjoyed is Geordie Shore (http://www.mtv.com.au/shows/featured/geordie-shore-3).  Gary and I watched this quite happily a couple of times, thinking it was a British spoof of Jersey Shore.  Then we discovered, no - they are real people.  Wh-wh-what?  The shine dulled a little when we found that out.  We still let the channel linger sometimes when we pass by and Geordie Shore in on.  They curse quite a bit in it, but I admit most of the time I don't understand the accent and later go, "Ohhh, that's what they were saying.  Naughties!"

"Gaz and Sharon is like a Rubik's Cube.  No ma'ah how hard you get them colors to work - it just won't go."  That's poetry.  Think of Daisy, from Downton Abbey, totally trashed, with peroxided hair, wearing a bikini and making out with. . . no, even that doesn't do it justice.  People say, "Innit?" a lot on that show.  One of them is destined to be a horse-and-buggy racer.  I'm sure of it.

Embarrassing Bodies (http://www.channel4embarrassingillnesses.com/) is another that you can't look away from, no matter how much you wish you would.  It features things like - the girl who hates her feet so much that she refuses to take her socks off, ever.  So she showers in her socks.  Then takes them off in 5 seconds and puts on new socks.  If I explain to you the state of her feet, you would probably vomit. 

Then there is the woman who thought she had thrush for 9 years.  Turns out she had something else and would have saved herself 8 years and 11 months of agony if she had gone to the doctor for it instead of just buying more topical cream.  I might be over-simplifying it a touch.  But when it's painful to your "minge" just to walk - don't you think it's time you asked your doctor about it?  Maybe book in for, say, a common cold and then say, casually, "Oh yeah, doctor - can I ask you about another thing?"  You probably don't even need to look each other in the eye.  I know I, for one, could not tell you the color of my ob/gyn's eyes.  But his shoes are wicked cool New Balance ones.  I feel the need to tell you also, that her exam was right there on TV for all of posterity to view.  I can't imagine her calling her friends and saying, "Oh by the way, I'm going to be on TV tonight - set your TiVos!"

Note to self: Minge is a great name for a new pet. 

Finally, the Embarrassing Bodies person who I hope got paid handsomely for his participation, was an older guy who, ahem.  Has some leakage problems, or so he thought.  People in a pub could smell him after he'd, to coin a phrase from my brother, dropped his kids off at the pool.  After his examination - which, let me tell you, they show in full, non-pixellated glory, the doctor says, "I don't see anything - you just haven't wiped well enough."  WHAT???  "Try a high fiber diet.  That may change the quality of your output." 

Thanks, doc!  You'll all be happy to know that it worked. It worked wonders and led him to revamp his whole image!  He came to his follow up appointment wearing a wildly patterened shirt and sporting highlighted bangs. 

Now I have to book my own appointment - preferably someone with a white-hot sterilized needle who can remove the memory of watching a man get an anal exam on television.  Or maybe next time I'll stick to horse-and-buggy racing. 

Bugging Us

New Zealand is full of critters.  The nice thing about it is that most of them are friendly.  It has been a big change coming from Arizona, where you need to be wary of most of the bugs and creepies out there, to come here, where most of them are harmless.

The first couple of days, our kids would scream bloody murder when they saw ants.  "Ants!  Ants!  Don't let them get on me!" they'd yell.  Others would look at us puzzled.  Ants, apparently, usually do not bite here.  There are also a fair few of them around.  Once I found them climbing in orderly rows down my curtain rod to munch on crumbs from Seth's breakfast under the dining room table.  Creepy but probably not painful.

We see lots of spiders at our place too.  Short fat black ones, some with long spindly legs, little hopping ones.  Those suckers are industrious, too.  You can have a new web all over a corner within an hour.  Seems a shame to brush it away.

There's a plant outside our front door that the movers told us attracted monarch butterflies.  He said that they lay their eggs on it and soon there will be lots f caterpillars.  He may have just been messing with us, but we do have lots of butterflies swooping around outside.  Rowan has adopted them all and asked me to get a net so she can keep a few in jam jars.  Which is just what they want out of life, I'm sure.

Cicadas, snails, moths - and don't get me started on the birds. There's a pair of mynah birds livingin the tree outside.  They like to fix me with their beady eyes to let me know they wouldn't be averse to a few leftover toast crusts once in awhile.  There is a constant buzzing, chirping, warbing and singing going on outide.

My favorite, though, was last week when Rowan was making friends with a new, weird looking bug (a praying mantis).  The mantis was on our staircase leading to the front door and she was hanging out there talking to it and singing it songs.  A few minutes later she ambled inside.

"How's it going with the bug?" I asked.  She looked at me, chagrinned, and said, "It's so sad, mommy - that poor bug killed itself."

"Oh?" I asked, stymied.  "How'd that happen?"

"Well - he climbed right up to my shoe, and then squashed himself up on my shoe.  Because I was scared of him.  It was kinda an accident.  He shouldn't have scared me like that."

Tragedy, indeed.

Uneven Exchange

We've been slowly gathering new furnishings for our house here.  Our favorite site is www.trademe.co.nz.  It's an online auction site.  I have gotten really addicted to it.  We have purchased beds, beside tables, dining table, etc.  My favorite purchase so far has been a leather two seater couch and armchair for $37.  I'm sure we will be getting what we pay for but hey, it will stand up to kids!  Paint that sucker with Kool-Aid and lollipops, it only cost $37!

Gary's aunt and uncle are also moving to a new place and they have been extraordinarily generous.  They gave us a sleeper couch and loveseat, mirror, heater, bedside table, queen bed and dressers.  This furniture will NOT be painted with Kool-Aid and lollipops. They also stored it for us and rented a van to help move it.  We are so grateful!

So Saturday when Gary's uncle moved our stuff over to our house, I made lunch.  I made some really tasty burgers but my favorite was this very easy salad.  Probably to make it really fancy you should do some extra steps so I've included those plus my own steps

Grilled Peach Salad

4 small to medium peaches, skin on
1 bunch of arugula (or if you're lazy like me, one of those mixed-leaf bags of salad)
1 ball fresh mozzarella (or if you can't find it, like I couldn't, then a round of goat cheese)
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1 batch fresh homemade balsamic vinaigrette (or if you can't be bothered, like me, a bottle of Newman's Own Lite Vinaigrette)
Salt and Pepper

Wash and halve the peaches.  Make sure they're ripe!  Hard peaches won't do it for you.

Go heat up your grill.  Stack the coals on one side of the grill so you get some direct heat and indire-

Who am I kidding?

Get out a grill pan or plain griddle.  Heat it up on high heat on the stove. Put the peaches, cut side down, and sear until caramelized on one side.  Flip and sear again on other side.  You'll have one caramelized spot on the peach fuzz.  That's all you need.  The key is a yielding, warm peach; it doesn't have to be sauteed all over.

Wash your salad mix and dry thoroughly.  Place in bowl.  Crumble goat cheese on top, or tear up your mozzarella and place it on top.  Put red onion on top.  Toss.  Put warm peaches on top of salad.  Serve! 

I always leave the salad dressing aside so people can add it as they choose.  This was a tasty summer lunch salad!  I would imagine grilled chicken would taste great on this as well.

I wish I had a picture of this to post.  Use your imagination!

Eat in your sun room, looking out at the bay.  You know, as you do.

Decisions, Decisions

How do you decide what to take across the world with you when you move?  We were offered an "allowance" for moving and with that we had to decide exactly how we wanted to get our stuff from Arizona to New Zealand. 

We decided that since our decorating style for the past 8 years has been a fusion of college dorm chic and we've-got-kids, that it would probably be best to jettison our older, junkier stuff than to spend $15,000 to move stuff that was not worth half of that (which was more than our allowance was anyway).  So, we spent some money on packing up a crate about the size of a car and purchasing some stuff here. 

We're calling our new decor "minimalist." 

Anyhow, when I was unpacking I was curious to see what had made it over here.  We packed up the first week of November, and now, the third week of January, it was hard to remember exactly what was in there. 

First priority on moving was kids stuff.  I know that toys are expensive over here, and I wanted my kids to have their stuff that they love and play with.  It was awesome to watch them rediscovering their treasures.  It was Christmas all over again.

Next, we packed up kitchen appliances that are triple or more the cost here to use, along with an electrical transformer box so we could actually use them.  We also packed the best of our clothes, quilts made my my grandmothers, sentimental heirloom-y stuff, and one really nice piece of furniture that we could fit in the crate. 

Here are some things that also made it:

• Three boxes of books.  I had to really cull through my collection.  My most favorites are here.  I ended up taking about 10 or 11 big boxes of books to Goodwill.

• Kids artwork, and random treasures.  Including a hat made by a good friend for Seth when he was born.

• The unfinished cross-stitched family portrait.  You can't see it, but there is a needle dangling out of it.

• My favorite froggie bowl and cup that my Aunt Danna gave me when Seth was born.

• A glass dish.  From New Zealand.  Bringing it back home, baby!

And the funniest thing I brought. . .

• This particular item has also been to Europe, Canada, through the West Coast. . .

. . . my transparent, frayed, slightly pink from a wash with something else Morrissey T-shirt.  I might need to frame this one!

I can't wait to sift through the clothing boxes.  I'm pretty sure a knee-high pair of woolen Waikato socks are in there, which will come in handy soon!

 

On the Road Again

One of the things I feared most about moving here was the driving.  And it was mostly two things.  First, there is the driving on the "other side."  Lets just call it right-hand drive, since by no means is left-hand drive the only way other countries handle traffic.

I went about 5 days without driving.  Each time we've come to visit, I have to orient myself just to getting in on the right side.  "Feel like driving today?" my husband would ask with a chuckle, as I automatically walked to the right-hand side.  "Ha ha ha," we both would grin.

My easy-entry into the world of driving on the right was shot to bits when we bought a car.  Someone had to drive one of the cars home.  I thought about letting Seth do it, but then grudgingly accepted that maybe 7 is too young to try it out, no matter how proficient he was when I first got my iPhone (he had it up and running and watching Lego Star Wars videos on You-Tube within 1 minute of being in his hot and sticky hand while I didn't even know how to answer a call).

Driving home was a 30-minute, white-knuckled journey of terror on the motorway. "These lanes are the Clip-Ons," my husband helpfully instructed as we drove along some outer lanes. "They were added to the original bridge and we all used to say, never ride on the Clip-Ons, they might fall into the bay! Hahaha!" Yes. Ha ha ha. Spontaneously start sweating. Visions of me plunging my two children into the icy waters below as the Clip-On crumbles away from the main bridge plague the entire drive over the bridge.

View from a clip-on, while I was a passenger of course

I used to be a somewhat rational person. 

Anyhow, I made it home without incident.  I've made friends with my GPS system - how did we ever exist before without GPS?  I have named my GPS system Karen, so I can sing "Oh My Karen" when I'm feeling particularly fond of her. 

Parking lots are worse than driving on real streets wtih real cars.  In parking lots, I feel the most vulnerable, and it is easiest to slip into the old driving-on-the-left ways.  Additionally, for some reason, actually parking the car in a space feels tough.  I think the combination of new car and new driving orientation throws me off. 

The second thing to fear is the dreaded roundabouts.  I get them and they are quite handy little traffic flow facilitators.  However, the right of way  rules combined with signalling perplex me.  I know I'm supposed to signal - but when?  On and off?  And why was that jackass behind me blowing his horn when I was clearly yielding to my right?  Howya like my bird, a**h*le!  This is how we do it back ho. . . oh, excuse me.  I got a little carried away by this roundabout.

So in any case, I have mastered most of the driving.  I will get these roundabouts figured out. I only head to the right-hand side of the car as the driver about 2 times a day. 

And I almost never turn on the wipers instead of the blinker anymore.

Electronic Mysteries

We came, we saw, we finally got into our apartment about 7 hours after we were supposed to.  We got unpacked within a day and have a mountain of suitcases.  It is literally as tall as I am, and totally empty. 

So after a day of eating take-out (adjust the vocabulary; it is now take-away!), we went to the grocery store and did some preliminary shopping. 

However, now I have some formidable adversaries in my way; appliances.  They apartment staff graciously left information about how to operate them; they remain a mystery.  I think I have the dishwasher figured out, although the last batch of dishes came out a touch greasy.  The washer and dryer have a step-by-step guide that even (or maybe in my case, especially) an idiot can follow.

The oven and the microwave oven are the real mysteries.  I have to concede defeat to the microwave.  There is no way to figure this puppy out.  I pretty much put a plate of leftovers in there, hit whatever buttons I fancy, and it either comes out or it doesn't.  Trial and error, baby!

This microwave is so mysterious, Rush should write a song about it, and film a video with swirling fog.

The oven has several mysterious pictures on it.  All I can figure is that if you want to bake a cake, there is one setting.  If you want to bake and run the fan, that is another setting.  And then there are about 6 other settings that I have no clue about.  Additionally, there is a magical combination that actually turns the oven on that I am drawing about 2/3ds on.

One thing I love, though, is the outlets.  Seriously.  So, you plug in your appliances; then each little outlet as an on/off switch.  So if you plug in your phone to charge overnight and come back the next morning like one adult male of this household did, and say, "Hmmm, that's strange, I got almost no charge last night" I can nonchalantly say, "Did you remember to turn the plug on?"  Practice your dirty looks now for when I brightly say that to you.  I can take it.

These cute little outlets are like, "Oh, noooo!"

 

Next experiment! - how to get a full flush on the toilet!