...then Peter Sellers

we returned from the pot-luck supper pretty early last night, it being a school night in Waikikamukau. After we got in the door I remembered the car should be garaged. Having just driven home, one might think that the memory of where I had sat steering moments earlier would be fresh in the frontal lobe. But no, I walked out of the house and opened the passenger-side door! Again! Ready to start muttering under my breath ‘where is it’ with slight asperity (and pretending to be looking for something in the door pocket) I noticed that the two men talking to each other on the opposite side of the street had not really noticed anything peculiar, so I silently shook my head and went back inside, having obviously not found whatever I had misplaced (my mind). Once inside, allowing a couple of beats to go past—time for a self-head slap and duh...you know time for the ‘new’ thought: put car away—I went back out. The anonymous conversation burbled on…both men oblivious to my human comedy.

miscellaneous observation of local customs: dessert is pudding/pudding is dessert. Dessert at the pot-luck was the archetypal, quin-partite NZ dessert. Take a large dish, add a serving of ice-cream (preferably at least two flavors: marble swirl or hokey-pokey), apple/boysenberry crunch with vanilla custard sauce or milk and Pavlova that includes a topping of whipped cream. Now you have pudding. Did you save enough room? (Is this five or six or seven flavors?)

we met a new neighbor today, Austen. a very nice bloke who was having a gas range delivered. he grew up in Christchurch and seemed to know a lot about the houses in the neighborhood--he is possibly an architect. Austen lives with his brother...you may not know that there is no such thing as a municipal gas supply in Waikikamukau. If one wishes to cook with gas or have a gas furnace, one must puchase a storage tank and have periodic deliveries. We hope to convert our wood/coal stove in the basement eventually...