The Byrchen Twigges

The Chocolate Festival in Wellington is the one Wellington on a Plate thing I made it to this year. And it was interesting. ( The Lolly Scramble! )

Kvetchy and hurry-up-and-wait-busy today, so I'm just going to roll with the kvetchiness. More things that I feel like I'm supposed to like but I don't:

Truffle Fries – A friend mentioned truffle fries recently, and I went, "Mmm, truffle fries - wait - last time I had them, I was disappointed, nay, traumatized." The artificiality of truffle oil, and the way the truffle oil makes the fries oilier, all sent me into umami overload.

Faddy “Retro” Makeup – Stop the trend, I'm geting off. Painting on a retro look with standard makeup is not rocket science. And if someone has a thin “celtic” mouth, if they apply heavy red lips, well, they enter a makeup uncanny valley. It’s OK to start the future on your face.

Being In NZ With My Tinfoil Hat On – I have been known to blather on about New Zealand’s superiority as a human being residence when it comes to hydrology and food supply. But with the UK in flames and the US reeling economically, I feel the unhappy helplessness I did close to ten years ago, watching 9/11 from New Zealand.

That was a long strange weekend. Friday, I got a call that my LOL was in the hospital - and not expected to leave. After hospital visits on Friday and Saturday, I went and emceed a Dr. Sketchy, which induced some cognitive dissonance. Then, her family called early Sunday to say that she had died on Saturday night. ( Read more... )

Bitterly cold this morning, had to pry myself out of bed with a crowbar. It's only the second morning that the car has been frosted.

In a blast from the fandom past, a story and an essay of mine have been nominated at the Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards. "The Unnatural History of Tolkien's Orcs" and the rambling talking-about-orcs story "A Question of Breeding." Which includes Radagast. And a kitten. These are vote-based awards, so, uh, I'm telling you about them.

My Little Old Lady is...not doing so well. Last weekend she got diagnosed with cataracts and macular degeneration. She continues to experience increasing shortness of breath after even the most basic self-care tasks. Regarding her with cold empiricism, she ought to be moved to the "hospital" area of the home, where she can get more physical support. But she hates, hates, hates the idea, and after the time I wandered into that branch of the home, I know where she's coming from.

Yesterday was the winter solstice here in New Zealand. This morning, I looked outside and laughed with delight. Snow! In my garden! A good two inches. Wet snow, just starting to melt, but still. "Will you look at that, it hasn't snowed like that here since 1952," I told my bewildered flatmate. I opened the door, scooped up two fingerfuls of snow from the back stair balustrate, and slid the snow into my mouth. Mmmm, snow.

And then...I woke up.

It was only a dream - even though I could taste the snow!

When I went outside, there hadn't even been a frost. Uninterrupted lush wet greenery met my eyes. And my Crepuscule rose was in bloom, even. Some winter solstice!

Finally! Frost! My gardening friends have been waiting anxiously for the first frost, to kill insects and give certain plants a winter metabolic period. Even a sucky gardener like myself wants it - I have some violet seeds for my garden, and they need frost and cold to germinate.

My car was iced up for the first time this winter, too. But...when I was in New England, I bought something at the hardware store of my childhood. An ice scraper. After one minute plying the ice scraper over my car's windows, I was gleefully ready to drive.

I have yet to see an ice scraper for sale in New Zealand. The local cure for a frosted car is, according to my boss, just turning the hose on it!

They were even discussing the frost on the radio this morning, with a sense of relief, as if to say, "Oh, thank goodness, severe climate change isn't happening this year!" Yeah, well, I should've been plying that ice scraper a month ago...

On my flight into Christchurch, when we descended, I saw something unusual; everybody peered out the windows curiously. We were all trying to see if we could discern any changes to the Christchurch landscape post-quake. So hard to tell from the air - had that glimmering slough been there before? Had that industrial neighborhood looked so bleak?

The minute I got off the plane, Christchurch looked like a disaster. But that's because the airport is mid-renovation. Half of the airport looks like a disaster zone, and the other half is getting the dreamy-white-spaceport look. After fumbling around for a bit, I got a cab to my business destination. Driving along, there was a tumbled chimney here, a shored-up porch there. I counted eleven such sites before we passed a Victorian brick house that looked like it had been stomped by Godzilla. Further along, it became clear; Godzilla really didn't like brick buildings.

At my business destination, we promptly went for a business lunch. "How did the quake affect you - no, wait - do you mind when people use the earthquake for small talk?" "No, we don't mind," everyone said. "It's all we're still talking about anyway." Quake impact among six people ranged from needing the house recladded, to still having no sewage, to seeing their untouched side neighborhood double in population overnight. Then we talked about other things. (Such as, Christchurch is the syphilis capital of New Zealand!)

Soon after this, I was bundled off to the venue where I was giving a talk. "It takes ages to get anywhere now, with half the roads closed," said my main host. "The art museum? Still shut...the Arts Centre? Heavily damaged. Us? We're doing okay. This is still home, we're not about to walk away from it. But sometimes when I'm driving around and I pass a building that's been knocked down, like the school I went to, I just want to have a jolly good howl." By now we had arrived in the techy part of town, and I had to admit that Christchurch's claim to being Silicon Valley-like had some merit, as we drove past isolated business-park software office after software office.

Despite the traffic, there was a great turn-out for my talk, and people hung around afterwards, reluctant to tackle the traffic again, but also interested in the topic and quizzing me about working with Agile developers and social media.

There was a sense that Christchurch is ready to start the future. Ten years from now, I won't be surprised if it all looks like the renovated side of the airport, instead of the un-renovated side.

It's a major shut-down holiday weekend here in New Zealand, the last one for months. What better time for me to have a serious toothache?

A month ago, I had a filling the size of a bathtub replaced, and I was advised that it would be sensitive "for about two weeks." It's been four weeks, and I haven't been paying attention to the calendar, and I've been expecting it to ease off any moment. Tonight it became abundantly clear that this hasn't happened. A few bites of a roast vegetable salad clarified that what I thought was a hard-week-headache was more painfully specific.

Luckily, I have antibiotics and my favorite painkillers. I'll rinse with salt water, and eat boring soft tepid things.

My LOL and I went on a gentle excursion on Sunday; a drive to the beach, with a run through the McDonald's drive in. She is not able to walk more than a few steps still, and is spending most of her time attached to oxygen tubing.

We parked at Petone beach on a glorious, sunny Sunday afternoon, and watched the passers-by, with dogs and children. Quite a few people had patronized a local Mickey D's, and my LOL hinted that some fries would be welcome. So, we went and got them, and had some more beach-watching while she noshed. She's been at the mercy of institutional food with healthy intent, delivered on trays far distant from their kitchens, for weeks now.

The next day, I whirled up to Auckland for six hours to give a talk to a professional group. It went really well, but I am still tired today.