I suspect the following dialogue between myself and the attendant at the local Liddil's will only make sense to a Kiwi.
* * *
Toast: Is this a drug store?
Man (indignant): No. Absolutely not. It's a chemist.
Toast (looking around at the makeup,vitamins, over the counter pharmaceuticals, not to mention the busy professionals bottling pills behind the counter): Hunh. Okay. Chemist. Right. A new word. Got any hydrogen peroxide?
Man (even more indignant): No. It's illegal.
Toast (startled): Really? You're kidding. Why?
Man: It is a key component in making drugs.
Toast: Wow. I didn't know that. We use it for road rash.
Man: Road rash? Is that a drug?
Toast (laughs): Uh no. You know... a scrape, like rubbing your knee on a road.
Man (looking a bit relieved): Ah.... no. No … road... rash... We do have plasters.
Toast: Huh? For walls?
Man: No. For wounds.
Toast: Plasters. Okay. So no hydrogen peroxide. How about sudafed?
Man: Sue duh fed? What's that?
Toast: Pseudoephedrine.
Man (immediately returning to state of offense and suspicion): Do you make pee?
Toast: Of course I make pee. All the plumbing works fine. What does that have to do with it?
Man (moving to push some magic button behind the counter): No pee. PEE! The drug?
Toast: People take pee? What?! What on earth does this have to do with my cold?
Man: A cold?
Toast: Well... yes. Why else would I need pseudoephedrine?
Man (now equally confused): To make pee?
Toast: It's a diuretic? I didn't know that! No, I just need to clear up my sinuses. I've got a cold. Need a decongestant. I usually take either pseudoephedrine or guaifenesin.
Man (enlightened and reaching behind the counter for a package): Oooohh! Of course! We have that in combination. Here you go.
Toast (reads the package and gasps): Fenfen! Holy cow! This stuff is illegal!
Man (baffled): Why?
Toast: Teenage girls OD on this stuff, pop it like candy as a diet drug. Hot damn! How much will you sell me? Fantastic for colds.
Man (reluctantly): Well... it's available over the counter, but we have to be sure you aren't using it to make pee...
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Burning Guy
It turns out that one reason Halloween in New Zealand is so unsuccessful is that it immediately proceeds a far more important annual ritual: Guy Fawkes Day. If you are like me – an ignorant, unlettered American – you have probably never heard of Guy Fawkes. Or maybe you have, though in passing as you tried to decipher the messaging of that oddly fascinating Wachoswki movie V for Vendetta.
It's obvious why Kiwi's celebrate this holiday; It's a great excuse to drink a lot and blow shit up. Falling as it does at the beginning of the summer season, it's the ideal opportunity to kick off the holidays and the start of tramping season, vacations, and the pending consumptive Christmas extravaganza... with a bang, as it were. Everyone troops off to the nearest park or stadium at about five in the evening armed with chilly-bins, pavlovas, piss, lollies, sizzlers, and pies, children, chairs and grandparents. Some even haul out a couch. Then everyone nibbles and sips for hours while the bands play, the singers sing, the dancers dance, the kapa haka groups stomp and pound and the teenagers strut their teenage stuff. At dark, the stadium lights are doused and the fireworks begin.
New Zealanders see no reason to burn Guy, though. At least we didn't see a bonfire in Pukekohe. We spent the holiday this year with an Irish history teacher who was full of all sorts of interesting quotes and historical trivia. He noted that in his home country, bonfires are pretty much an essential component of the Guy Fawkes Holiday celebrations. But then again, unlike New Zealand, it is cold in the U.K. on November 5. Standing around the bonfire prevents spectators from freezing to death while waiting for the fireworks. Apparently, the tradition of burning a guy has been expanded in the U.K. to include the burning of just about any disliked public figure. There's a great quote in Wikipedia: “Effigies of other notable figures who have become targets for the public's ire, such as Paul Kruger and Margaret Thatcher, have also found their way onto the bonfires.” I admit to being highly tempted by the opportunity to burn in effigy a few public figures that have earned my own personal animus during the past year.
After the fireworks were over, slightly sunburnt, stuffed with food and good company, we trooped over to our friends' house and got quietly soused while the kids played Wii. The entire experience was like a Fourth of July celebration without the jingoism and Sousa marches and the addition of a haka and a rugby team autographing posters in the in-field. Just a word of advice to Americans moving to the antipodes – buy your fireworks in November if you plan on celebrating the “real fourth.” They don't sell them here in the winter.
“Remember, remember the Fifth of November,Apparently, it's not just the poet...no one knows a reason to forget this event. Certainly not the British or any of the residents of their commonwealth countries. Even after watching V for Vendetta – maybe because of that movie – it wasn't clear to me that Guy was The First Guy... the Guy who created the word 'guy.' Nor was it clear to me that he attempted to blow up the British Parliament in 1605. And it absolutely never occurred to my historically shallow American sensibilities that the English would still be blowing stuff up over four hundred years later to commemorate the thwarting of the Gun Powder Plot. Yes, as baffling as it seems, the English are still so pissed off at Guy, that they have been burning him in effigy for four centuries. Talk about holding a grudge.
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.”
It's obvious why Kiwi's celebrate this holiday; It's a great excuse to drink a lot and blow shit up. Falling as it does at the beginning of the summer season, it's the ideal opportunity to kick off the holidays and the start of tramping season, vacations, and the pending consumptive Christmas extravaganza... with a bang, as it were. Everyone troops off to the nearest park or stadium at about five in the evening armed with chilly-bins, pavlovas, piss, lollies, sizzlers, and pies, children, chairs and grandparents. Some even haul out a couch. Then everyone nibbles and sips for hours while the bands play, the singers sing, the dancers dance, the kapa haka groups stomp and pound and the teenagers strut their teenage stuff. At dark, the stadium lights are doused and the fireworks begin.
New Zealanders see no reason to burn Guy, though. At least we didn't see a bonfire in Pukekohe. We spent the holiday this year with an Irish history teacher who was full of all sorts of interesting quotes and historical trivia. He noted that in his home country, bonfires are pretty much an essential component of the Guy Fawkes Holiday celebrations. But then again, unlike New Zealand, it is cold in the U.K. on November 5. Standing around the bonfire prevents spectators from freezing to death while waiting for the fireworks. Apparently, the tradition of burning a guy has been expanded in the U.K. to include the burning of just about any disliked public figure. There's a great quote in Wikipedia: “Effigies of other notable figures who have become targets for the public's ire, such as Paul Kruger and Margaret Thatcher, have also found their way onto the bonfires.” I admit to being highly tempted by the opportunity to burn in effigy a few public figures that have earned my own personal animus during the past year.
After the fireworks were over, slightly sunburnt, stuffed with food and good company, we trooped over to our friends' house and got quietly soused while the kids played Wii. The entire experience was like a Fourth of July celebration without the jingoism and Sousa marches and the addition of a haka and a rugby team autographing posters in the in-field. Just a word of advice to Americans moving to the antipodes – buy your fireworks in November if you plan on celebrating the “real fourth.” They don't sell them here in the winter.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Not Charlotte
It started months ago. A small spider took up residence in the corner of the kitchen window next to the stove. I don't know why we didn't remove it. DrC didn't, the girls would never think to do so, and I just shrugged and probably thought it was someone else's (e.g. the Man's) problem. Even small, she was very black and very spider-like.
I can pinpoint the date that I decided I liked her and wanted to keep her. It was the morning I was standing semi-comatose, warming my hands over the stove as the espresso brewed and noted that she had caught three ants in the night. Any ally in our ongoing war against the Chicken House Ants is welcome. I poured myself a latte, toasted the newest member of the family, and went to work.
This is not the first time the Conger clan has hosted a spider. We used to watch with fascination as spiders would build elaborate webs between the newell posts on the front porch of our West Seattle home. The dew would dust these complicated constructions and provide an endless source of fractal entertainment throughout the fall. The side yard played host on multiple occasions to the million scattered mobile flying dots of spider egg bursts. Every single spider invasion – whether in the lifelines in Canada or in the plants on the dining room table in Philadelphia – has been a source of pleasure, interest, and education for my husband, myself, and now our children.
Honestly, the only spider scare we've ever experienced was a truly notable and hysterically funny encounter between Jaime and a 13 cm spider in the Karangahake Gorge a few months go. I can't remember the last time the entire family laughed so hard as when Jaime came bursting out of that cave screaming and kareening down the trail at high speed with her hair on fire. Even she found the whole thing amusing after we finally caught up with her, calmed her down, reassured her that there were no signs of spiders anywhere on or near her and most particularly not in her hair. You could almost say that we're a pro-spider family.
So she – our latest spider neighbor – settled in for the winter. But this spider isn't exactly a neighbor, now is she? Living in the kitchen, she's more like a quiet roommate. A quiet, growing roommate. We've watched her shed her skin, like a lobster, several times now. Our little spider has grown to nearly an inch now. Yesterday, she caught a horse fly, the day before an enormous moth. Her web stretches over the entire corner of the window – about a square foot. Mera witnessed the fly capture. It blundered into the web in one corner. Mera was doing the dishes and paused to watch our girl dash over, sedate the fly before it ripped the web apart, wrap it up, and drag it into the center of her lair. Short of an Animal Planet video, I'm not certain how Mera could have been treated to a better visual experience of spider dining.
DrC and I are waiting, I believe, on reproduction. I don't know why, but we're working under the operating assumption that our room mate is a girl. We've been trying to figure out how she'd get preggers, actually. There are no signs of little boy spiders anywhere near by. And if she's a he, he's not getting out there to spread the spider “word” and father a dynasty. So this strategy of “settling into the corner of a window in a house in Pukekohe” might prove an evolutionary dead end. What we're hoping, though, is that before establishing residence in the highly target rich environment of the Chicken House kitchen, there was an encounter between our room mate and another spider which is going to result ultimately in a big spider egg sack.
It also possible that she is just going to keep growing until Jaime freaks out and insists that “Either that spider goes, or I do.” And while I can understand her recent spider-paranoia given her caving experience, I'm going miss her. It's been nice having Jaime around all these years.
I can pinpoint the date that I decided I liked her and wanted to keep her. It was the morning I was standing semi-comatose, warming my hands over the stove as the espresso brewed and noted that she had caught three ants in the night. Any ally in our ongoing war against the Chicken House Ants is welcome. I poured myself a latte, toasted the newest member of the family, and went to work.
This is not the first time the Conger clan has hosted a spider. We used to watch with fascination as spiders would build elaborate webs between the newell posts on the front porch of our West Seattle home. The dew would dust these complicated constructions and provide an endless source of fractal entertainment throughout the fall. The side yard played host on multiple occasions to the million scattered mobile flying dots of spider egg bursts. Every single spider invasion – whether in the lifelines in Canada or in the plants on the dining room table in Philadelphia – has been a source of pleasure, interest, and education for my husband, myself, and now our children.
Honestly, the only spider scare we've ever experienced was a truly notable and hysterically funny encounter between Jaime and a 13 cm spider in the Karangahake Gorge a few months go. I can't remember the last time the entire family laughed so hard as when Jaime came bursting out of that cave screaming and kareening down the trail at high speed with her hair on fire. Even she found the whole thing amusing after we finally caught up with her, calmed her down, reassured her that there were no signs of spiders anywhere on or near her and most particularly not in her hair. You could almost say that we're a pro-spider family.
So she – our latest spider neighbor – settled in for the winter. But this spider isn't exactly a neighbor, now is she? Living in the kitchen, she's more like a quiet roommate. A quiet, growing roommate. We've watched her shed her skin, like a lobster, several times now. Our little spider has grown to nearly an inch now. Yesterday, she caught a horse fly, the day before an enormous moth. Her web stretches over the entire corner of the window – about a square foot. Mera witnessed the fly capture. It blundered into the web in one corner. Mera was doing the dishes and paused to watch our girl dash over, sedate the fly before it ripped the web apart, wrap it up, and drag it into the center of her lair. Short of an Animal Planet video, I'm not certain how Mera could have been treated to a better visual experience of spider dining.
DrC and I are waiting, I believe, on reproduction. I don't know why, but we're working under the operating assumption that our room mate is a girl. We've been trying to figure out how she'd get preggers, actually. There are no signs of little boy spiders anywhere near by. And if she's a he, he's not getting out there to spread the spider “word” and father a dynasty. So this strategy of “settling into the corner of a window in a house in Pukekohe” might prove an evolutionary dead end. What we're hoping, though, is that before establishing residence in the highly target rich environment of the Chicken House kitchen, there was an encounter between our room mate and another spider which is going to result ultimately in a big spider egg sack.
It also possible that she is just going to keep growing until Jaime freaks out and insists that “Either that spider goes, or I do.” And while I can understand her recent spider-paranoia given her caving experience, I'm going miss her. It's been nice having Jaime around all these years.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Halloween in Pukekohe
Hands on hips, I inform the Kiwi youngsters gathered on my porch, “Not without a costume. You can't have Aeron until you get a costume.”
Panic ensues. These are friends of Jaime's. They already know due to my very explicit instructions in a series of Facebook posts that they can not trick-or-treat without a small child. Teenagers are simply not acceptable at the door unless they are escorting a young one. At their age, free lollies require work. And as an American, I have the Halloween Knowledge to enforce this dictum. This is why they have presented themselves on my back door step on a sunny warm evening at the end of October. They are here to collect Aeron – their token small child.
If ever there were an evening less Halloween-y, this would be it. Spring arrived only two weeks ago here in Pukekohe. It feels like it might be a very short one, transitioning immediately into the lovely, warm, incredibly blue summer we remember from our first month in this country. A warm floral breeze wafts gently through the house clearing out the musty odors of winter. It's almost nine and the sun is just beginning to descend on a yard engulfed in riotous spring growth, the grass almost up to our knees. We've thrown open absolutely every window and door in the house to the outside noises of children, birds, and happy dogs.
“What are we going to do?” they ask me. Fortunately, Chicken House is prepared with DrC's costume, leftover face paints, and a whole lot of ratty clothing. Leading the way, Jaime and the boys troop into the bathroom to prepare for the night.
It took research to figure out how we could signal that our house was open to the trick-or-treating phenomena. Not all houses in New Zealand participate. Halloween has not really taken off here in anything like the way it has in the United States. I imagine that the churches inveigh against this most pagan of pagan holidays while at the same time the anti-materialist Greens go on about its American, imperialist consumerism. So not all homes, not all children participate in Halloween. Those who do can not simply put jack-o-lanterns in the yard to signal their willingness to dispense treats. Thing 1) Pumpkins here are green, not orange... which is awkward looking at best. Thing 2) It's daylight... lighting a pumpkin looks ridiculous and doesn't show up from a distance. In New Zealand, you put black and orange balloons on your letterbox which wave gaily in the spring breeze in about as non-threatening a fashion as it is possible to imagine. It looks like we're throwing a birthday party.
“Mrs. C, are we done yet?” the boys have donned some ratty clothes and put on eye makeup. One of them found a plastic monster mask and a black cape. I've seen these kids with “piss and cigies”, hanging out with friends already lost to weed, drink, and dropping out. But tonight, they are in my world where teenagers can have fun without resorting to adult things; they belong to silly costumes, running around in the streets, and candy without a beer, egg, or cigarette in sight. “Almost, gentlemen. A little more paint...” Jaime pulls them back to the mirror as I head into the kitchen to fill the lolly bowl.
This year, the family variously attended five seasonally themed events. Only one of the events came even close to the real spirit of Halloween and that was the afternoon barbie hosted by some friends of ours downtown. I lay this at the feet of Siouxie and Steven who have a circular of well-travelled friends, no small number of whom are from the U.S., U.K. and Australia. Everyone present wore great costumes, the food was fantastic and the conversation brisk, smart and enjoyable. It helps that the two are both university types, their circle of friends truly bright and interesting people, and that Steve has a really nice barbie. Still, standing in my black devil costume on the porch with a chill pear cider, I realized I had to move inside or get a sunburn. New Zealand is so much like Washington state that moments like these – where it's the same but different – leave me disoriented. I couldn't help but contrast this experience with the years during which I had to find clever ways to hide thermals and sweats underneath the girls costumes.
A bullet-riddled zombie and a monster emerge with my sexy, purple-winged eldest daughter and present for inspection and approval. I look down at my prize princess, “Do you approve, my lady?”
Aeron nods eagerly, the smile splitting her brightly decorated face. She is the center of attention, purpose, and fun this evening. For once in her life, being Jaime's youngest sister is conferring enormous advantage, “I approve!”
Sighs of relief and relaxing of shoulders on the cusp of manhood, bags come out, and a practice chorus of “trick-or-treat” as I pass out chocolates and wave the kids on their way. I call out, “Happy Halloween!” as they disappear down the street, little boys just one more time on this night of Halloween and lollies.
Panic ensues. These are friends of Jaime's. They already know due to my very explicit instructions in a series of Facebook posts that they can not trick-or-treat without a small child. Teenagers are simply not acceptable at the door unless they are escorting a young one. At their age, free lollies require work. And as an American, I have the Halloween Knowledge to enforce this dictum. This is why they have presented themselves on my back door step on a sunny warm evening at the end of October. They are here to collect Aeron – their token small child.
If ever there were an evening less Halloween-y, this would be it. Spring arrived only two weeks ago here in Pukekohe. It feels like it might be a very short one, transitioning immediately into the lovely, warm, incredibly blue summer we remember from our first month in this country. A warm floral breeze wafts gently through the house clearing out the musty odors of winter. It's almost nine and the sun is just beginning to descend on a yard engulfed in riotous spring growth, the grass almost up to our knees. We've thrown open absolutely every window and door in the house to the outside noises of children, birds, and happy dogs.
“What are we going to do?” they ask me. Fortunately, Chicken House is prepared with DrC's costume, leftover face paints, and a whole lot of ratty clothing. Leading the way, Jaime and the boys troop into the bathroom to prepare for the night.
It took research to figure out how we could signal that our house was open to the trick-or-treating phenomena. Not all houses in New Zealand participate. Halloween has not really taken off here in anything like the way it has in the United States. I imagine that the churches inveigh against this most pagan of pagan holidays while at the same time the anti-materialist Greens go on about its American, imperialist consumerism. So not all homes, not all children participate in Halloween. Those who do can not simply put jack-o-lanterns in the yard to signal their willingness to dispense treats. Thing 1) Pumpkins here are green, not orange... which is awkward looking at best. Thing 2) It's daylight... lighting a pumpkin looks ridiculous and doesn't show up from a distance. In New Zealand, you put black and orange balloons on your letterbox which wave gaily in the spring breeze in about as non-threatening a fashion as it is possible to imagine. It looks like we're throwing a birthday party.
“Mrs. C, are we done yet?” the boys have donned some ratty clothes and put on eye makeup. One of them found a plastic monster mask and a black cape. I've seen these kids with “piss and cigies”, hanging out with friends already lost to weed, drink, and dropping out. But tonight, they are in my world where teenagers can have fun without resorting to adult things; they belong to silly costumes, running around in the streets, and candy without a beer, egg, or cigarette in sight. “Almost, gentlemen. A little more paint...” Jaime pulls them back to the mirror as I head into the kitchen to fill the lolly bowl.
This year, the family variously attended five seasonally themed events. Only one of the events came even close to the real spirit of Halloween and that was the afternoon barbie hosted by some friends of ours downtown. I lay this at the feet of Siouxie and Steven who have a circular of well-travelled friends, no small number of whom are from the U.S., U.K. and Australia. Everyone present wore great costumes, the food was fantastic and the conversation brisk, smart and enjoyable. It helps that the two are both university types, their circle of friends truly bright and interesting people, and that Steve has a really nice barbie. Still, standing in my black devil costume on the porch with a chill pear cider, I realized I had to move inside or get a sunburn. New Zealand is so much like Washington state that moments like these – where it's the same but different – leave me disoriented. I couldn't help but contrast this experience with the years during which I had to find clever ways to hide thermals and sweats underneath the girls costumes.
A bullet-riddled zombie and a monster emerge with my sexy, purple-winged eldest daughter and present for inspection and approval. I look down at my prize princess, “Do you approve, my lady?”
Aeron nods eagerly, the smile splitting her brightly decorated face. She is the center of attention, purpose, and fun this evening. For once in her life, being Jaime's youngest sister is conferring enormous advantage, “I approve!”
Sighs of relief and relaxing of shoulders on the cusp of manhood, bags come out, and a practice chorus of “trick-or-treat” as I pass out chocolates and wave the kids on their way. I call out, “Happy Halloween!” as they disappear down the street, little boys just one more time on this night of Halloween and lollies.
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