now and then...

You could be forgiven for thinking the most notable event in 1882 was the birth of Igor Stravinsky. Those of us with grandfathers born six years prior to that are apt to have a longer view of history. There are other musicians born that year who are worthy of mention—Percy Grainger par example, a great pianist, a physical culture enthusiast, a pretty good composer and a remarkable example of what the world down under was capable of producing (he was born in Australia).

The hundred twenty-fifth birthdays of these estimable personages also marks 125 years since frozen lamb was shipped from Dunedin to the UK! National Lamb Day was celebrated on February 15th. On that date long ago, the country’s first shipment of frozen meat left nearby Port Chalmers and arrived 98 days later with the meat in perfect condition. New Zealand now earns $5 billion a year from this trade.

Our family big events of late were a 40th birthday party for Tessa, which was combined, from our point of view, with a house warming. Somehow, in Northampton, we never got around to having a proper party of that sort. [We succeeded in taking the bull by the horns of that dilemma (?)] Another big deal was the construction of the mother of all bookcases—necessary for finally releasing much music and some of our books from the 30 or 40 boxes that have been kicking around on the floor of the study/studio/guestroom for the last six months…

Our newspaper (the Otago Daily Times) has headlined other notable events since the last blog entry. This week a large pod of dusky dolphins was observed and photographed 50 meters off the nearby coast (alright, I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, it may have been 500 meters…). There is a confluence of several major currents in these waters and several pods convened into one numbering an estimated 1000. Individual dusky dolphin feats included many jumps in the 3-meter (9 feet plus) range and one string of thirteen flips/summersaults in a row. Also front page news two weeks ago was the birth of the 500th albatross chick--observed in the Dunedin Albatross sanctuary. This institution protects this species and which has its only colony in the world near(ish) human habitation here on the Otago Peninsula.

Apropos of nothing: one of the familiar cultural objects that can make you feel at home—or not—when you travel is the familiar marques/brands of automobiles. Being near to the source of Hyundai, Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Suzuki etc., New Zealand has more of these cars than Golf’s, Audi’s and BMW’s, which are high end products here—which probably accounts for their lesser numbers. The US appetite for ‘utes’ is evident to some degree…Land Rover is a big status symbol. A little research would reveal whether Holdens are original to Australia or if that company is owned by some bigger fish—this might be worthy of research if one felt it was important enough to checkout. Car culture is in a 50’s mode here…people go ‘houning’ downtown on weekend nights, revving their low-riding skirted and fancy low-profiled wheels up and down George Street. The prices of used cars seem to be one of the bargains here (as opposed to beer which is consistently 50% higher in cost). Many used cars are advertised in the ODT as ‘New Zealand new’. (Do they come from Australia or Japan?) (another topic for investigation: does Toyota manufacture in Australia or merely assemble there…)

Mildly disconcerting is the fact that many Japanese cars parallel to their US counterparts are somewhat differently styled here--invariably better looking. Most amusing are the different model names in evidence. We have the Familia (a Mazda), Bluebird (Nissan), Carib (a Toyota Corolla station wagon—which reminds you of the Caribbean?), Skyline (Nissan?) and Emina (a people mover—what were they thinking?) The high-end Toyota next up from the Camry is the Altise (it took me months to remember that this used to be an ‘Avalon’).

enough about not very much…we have survived Tessa being off playing the violin in Christchurch from Tuesday until Sunday. This week I will play in the Southern Sinfonia for the first time. Both Tessa and I are slowly gaining students so things are starting to look good in terms of business…Summer is great!

Waitangi Day in Waikikamukau

Our summer holiday was a welcome break. The return to cool, rainy weather was depressing after the sun and warmth of Wanaka but 'home' does have a snugness of its own. The weather this week, with school returning has of course been glorious, three sunny temperate days in a row!

Waitangi Day was Tuesday. Lily went back to school Wednesday and Willem Thursday. The summer holidays have definitely ended and the new school year has kicked off. It is fine to think, okay—pretend it’s like Labor Day signaling back to school--and substitute this Waitangi business. [For the occasion itself, there is no parallel in American history. If you were able to conflate the occasion of Pete Minuet purchasing Manhattan from Native Americans and the signing of a peace accord with some Hopi’s out West, you would have something like the treaty signed with the Maori’s that is celebrated on Waitangi Day.] There remains a bit of cognitive dissonance about the scholastic year rhythm juxtaposed with the calendar…

When we were having tea on the morning of Lily’s first day back, she came in with the following list that she had written out when she arose early (she said it was like Christmas—so exciting that she had to get up)
Feb. 7th--Lily’s list of “things I’m scared of in school”
1 Not having a nice teacher
2 Maybe I’ll forget something
3 I wear the wrong uniform
4 One of my friends will be in Mrs. Hogg’s class and not in Mrs. Evan’s class
(my class)
5 (Note: I’m not actually scared of number 6)
6 Vacation to be over
7 (I forget what school feels like)
8 Willem’s first day of school is tomorrow
9 (Unfair: number 8)
10 I’m afraid that my handwriting is not good enough
[Lily then said, “Having written these things down, now I’m not afraid of them”]
(At the end of her first day, the teacher was already calling her Miss Sunshine)

Willem was pretty quiet at the breakfast of his first day of school. In the car though, he said "I'm a veteran" and Tessa knew that everything would be fine…) He is quite excited that his courses will include a term’s introduction to German followed by a trial in French. (We have a friend who is trying to organize a Saturday class in Mandarin on top of that!) Wim came home from school yesterday with the news that he had been voted onto the Super Squad for his class. This is a team of four boys that will compete with Year Eight squads from other schools. Each team includes an Entertainer, a Daredevil, a Sports Guy and a Brainbox—his ‘position’. Finalists (in all of New Zealand) are awarded ipods and the winners will get a trip to Australia’s Golden Coast! Also, Lily brought home an informational form from school to fill out. From her answers we now know that her top three occupational interests at the moment are: teacher, scientist and/or fashion designer.

In other household news, we have added three tadpoles to our dining table. They swim around in a modest aquiline expanse shared with a couple of ferns, three tiny snails (water purification) and yummy cooked lettuce or cabbage. A gift from his friend James, Willem has dreams of selling Roley, Poley and Oly to the pet store after they morph into frogs ($5 each?). Also, this past weekend, we gave into the Kiwi (and suburban American) love of a good Barb-y and purchased a gas grill. It has surpassed every expectation on all three of our idyllic outdoor-type evenings.

I am the last of the Kiwikirks to have visited the Amity Health Centre. Our doctor there is not Susie Lawless (Lucy’s sister? cousin?) but a quiet compact man with a dry wit. Dr. Philip (Phil?) White says that taping your ribs is a thing of the past—this could result in an infection. In addition, the extent of my injury is not clear. If the pain goes away in two weeks time, the chest wall is merely bruised. If recovery takes six weeks, my ribs were probably cracked. I have an ACC number, an official recording of my incident that achieves a government contribution towards the fee for service and would have given automatic replacement of lost wages if I had a salaried job that my incident precluded me carrying on. What happened you might well ask? I had ridden up from downtown on my bike and taken a wrong turn so that instead of going only as high as necessary to get to our house, I was continuing upwards. I found myself on Pacific Street (a misnomer in my case) going steeper and steeper in the lowest gear (21st?). A passing van necessitated a pause in the side-to-side rhythm that I had trusted would get me to the top. When I tried to resume this maneuvering, my forward momentum ceased and I slowly (at first) toppled—to the downhill side of the bike, probably coming down with my side briefly on the handlebars before turning a very tidy summersault. After picking up bicycle and startled body, I resumed my climb in the street--the sidewalk next to the road had turned to stairs! We’ll give you an update when the prognosis becomes clear. The pain has subsided now to some degree although the occasional sneeze is still a major cataclysm for the nervous system.

Rather than going into details—other than reporting, as I already did, that we had three sunny days when the mercury would had hit 80, if there were mercury and Fahrenheit existed and today we started out in the 50’s—I will write, verbatim, “The Star”’s
headline and first paragraphs from this week’s edition:

“It’s the favorite saying of residents, gardeners and weather-watchers, and it’s true…
WE LIVE IN A MICRO-CLIMATE
The commonest claim in the city is reality—Dunedin is riddled with microclimates.
For years, residents have said their suburb, street, or indeed ‘the left side of the house’ is not subject to the vagaries of Dunedin weather; that their special spot is ‘a micro-climate’.
Now, after an in-depth investigation (involving at least five phone calls and more than 90 minutes of aimless cruising in the boss’ car) The Star can confirm Dunedin is the microclimate capital of New Zealand.
The verdict is not unanimous, but consensus and several carefully worded statistics do clearly point to a plethora of this climatic phenomena in our fair city.
No one gets to know the subtleties of our city’s suburbs like a real estate agent. The boundary lines between Mornington and City Rise, the difference between ‘wind-blown’ and ‘refreshing vistas’ are their specialty.
The search for bronzed men in Speedos tending pineapple patches had begun.”

Actually, the major event of these three weeks just past was the viewing of a comet that will not be visible again for another million years…We did see it. It was even visible from our bedroom. If you google McNaught’s Comet, you can oogle fantastic photos of this event. What was amazing was the very long trail, a very Disney-esque sparkling thing, under the comet—neither of which appeared to be actually in motion to any discernable degree…(I leave the metaphoric potential of this juxtaposition as material for you other creative types)

wishing you well from the antipodes…