How is it suddenly July?!

What happened here? Have I been time-travelling again? How did I get here? This is not my beautiful wife! (How could I grow up in the 80's and not think of the Talking Heads at this point?) Six months have passed since last we spoke! Let me get you guys up to date on what we've been doing! In January we moved back to Ballard and found a lovely apartment walking distance from all of the good stuff! It was very cold, and I spent most of February in flannel pj's unpacking boxes and looking like this. It was all worth it, though- we're loving the new place and being so close to everything, though we have made a little too much use of the proximity to the phở restaurant... In March we went to Atlanta for our awesome USA wedding party. (Thanks again to everyone involved!) In April we were in Costa Rica for my cousin Kevin's wedding to the lovely Kathlen, who is from Costa Rica. It was an amazing trip!! I can't really remember much about May, but by the end of it I had a job! June was work, work, work, and somewhere in between all of those things there was a trip to Oregon, some hiking, some cupcake baking, and even a little bit of sailing! (Thanks, Jess and Wayne!) July brought an awesome visit from our UK friends Jo and Emma, and just after they left our furry new roomie moved in- Cleveland the cat! He's slowly getting used to us and seems to be settling in quite nicely. He very much enjoys chasing Gordon back and forth down the hallway, playing fetch with us, hiding underneath the laundry racks, and leaving tufts of black fur all over our beige carpet. (But what's a little bit of extra vaccuuming among friends?) Now we're all just trying to survive the heat! I can hardly believe it, but it was in the mid-90's today and tomorrow it may go above 100! Seeing as Sea-town is not big on air-con, we're all running around in our tiniest clothes and buying up all of the box fans we can find! Gordon and I were smart and got a fan a few months ago before the high temps hit, but it's still quite toasty in our top-floor flat, and Cleveland doesn't seem too enthused to be wearing a thick, fluffy fur coat... Today G and I decided that if you can't beat the heat at home, then it's a great time to go to the beach! (Cleves doesn't much care for the beach. He decided to stay home with his blue teddy bear.) So we rode our bikes down to Golden Gardens and soaked up the rays for an hour or two and ate Sno-Cones. It was awesomely hot outside! A collapse on the floor and cool shower later, I made a lovely curry from the book Jo got us as a wedding gift (Thank you, Jo!) and we hung out and watched a documentary about Mardi Gras beads and an episode of Heroes. The end. I'm going to stop writing now and get this thing published so I can go to bed. It's not so much that I'm out of things to tell you- it's more the fact that Gordon has already moved the fan into our bedroom... So I hope you're all staying cool where you are, and I'll be updating this again sooner than later! =)

Back in the 206

Ah, Seattle! The Emerald City, land of soy lattes and vegan donuts... With all of the moving around we've been doing, I hadn't even thought about Seattle and what it would be like to be back here, but so far I'm loving it! I know we haven't been gone that long- just under two years- but coming back to Ballard (my neighbourhood, slightly northwest of downtown) really feels like coming "home" in a way. Everything's pretty comfortable- I know where things are, I run into people I know in the streets, many of my closest friends are here in the neighbourhood- it's great! Add to that the fact that they're opening a Trader Joe's down the street, and I don't think it could get any better! (Unless, of course, all of our Atlanta peeps decided to move out here! Come on guys! We have really pretty mountains and stuff!) So right now we're just hanging out at Jess's house while we hunt for apartments. We have a few prospects, but nothing's final yet. Totally can't wait to have an address again so I can get mail, get my CD's out of storage, and set up our kitchen with all of the fabulous kitchen gadgets and cookware we have received as wedding/shower gifts from our awesome friends and family!

On another note, I have been tagged in this post by Kass, so here is the 4th photo from the 4th picture folder on my computer. I appears to be a family of really puffy sea lions. (I can't take any photo credit- I'm pretty sure it came from Cute Overload.) The explanation? There really isn't one except to admit that I have a sickness. I looove cute animals. I can't get enough of them. I stay up into the wee hours watching videos of guinea pigs and Roomba-riding kitties on YouTube, and sometimes I see adorable animal pictures online that are so cute I save them in a folder so I can look at them again later. And the 4th folder on my computer is where I keep them. =) I'm not tagging anyone else, because I don't really know other people with blogs besides Kass, but if you guys want to e-mail me the 4th pictures from your 4th photo folders I'd love to see them! =) Okay, peeps- gotta get back to work! Searching for apartments, jobs, furniture... Hope to talk to you soon!

Back in the USSA!

I'm ba-ack! =) Fresh off the plane from the South Pacific and ready to blog again! =) I'm currently staying with my mom and Kevin in Atlanta for the holidays and will return to Seattle in mid-January. It was not easy to leave gorgeous, sunny NZ or my adorable husband behind, but I get to see all of my peeps here for a while, so it's worth it! Besides, Gordon is meeting me in Seattle in January (just six short weeks from now), and summer will come to the northern hemisphere eventually, right? RIGHT?! (I say this as I listen to the rhythm of the pouring rain on this gross, grey winter day...) At the moment we're just getting ready for Christmas, which always means spending some quality time at Macy's and Target and enjoying the delicious buffet at Sweet Tomatoes. Life is good. Here are some pictures my mom took of my adorable baby cousin, Gianna, eating a cupcake. There's enough cuteness there for five blogs, so that should keep you all happy until Christmas, just in case I don't get around to writing again! ¡Feliz Navidad!

Pengins! =)

Who doesn't love penguins?! I can't think of any major anti-penguin groups operating in the world at the moment, and people don't eat penguins, right? So I think it's safe to assume that writing about them here will not only serve to keep my legions of current readers happy, but perhaps to attract millions of new fans to my blog. ;) (By the way, a quick Google search for "anti-penguin" did yield this weirdness.)

I don't want to talk about emperors, those penguins who march across Antarctica (though you should probably watch the 30-second version of that movie re-enacted by bunnies here), and I don't have much to say about rockhoppers (the ones who apparently compete in surfing competitions). Instead, I would rather fill you in on the cutest and tiniest of the penguins- the little blue ones! =)

Little blue penguins are known as fairy penguins in Australia and as kororā to the Maori people of NZ. They belong to the genus Eudyptula (Greek for "good little diver"), and they only live down here in the southern hemisphere, so you'll have to come and visit us if you want to see some. =) I have met some of these little guys, and boy are they cute! =) At 16 inches, they are the teensiest of the 17-20 modern penguin species, while the emperor is the largest at about 3'7". (The largest extinct species of penguin we know of is called Nordenskjoeld's Giant Penguin, who lived roughly 40 million years ago and whose fossils have been found here in NZ. He was a big guy- taller than me (close to 6 feet tall!) and way fatter (200 lbs)!)

Little blue penguins usually live for about 7 years, but some individuals have been known to live for over 20! They spend their nights in cosy nests in sheltered rock crevices or dug-out burrows and spend their days out in the sea hunting for yummy food like squid, plankton, krill, and anchovies. (Mmm... krill...) At dusk they all come home with full bellies, usually in groups (called rafts) so they're better protected against predators like seals, killer whales, and large gulls. (Some penguins opt for more urban accommodation and build their nests under buildings and stacks of timber. Also, they have no problem accepting the artificial nest boxes that humans sometimes build for them. I'm totally going to put one in the backyard and see if any penguins come to live with us.)

Breeding begins around age 3. They're monogomous (like me!) and return to the same burrow every year to breed (not like me)! They lay 2 eggs at a time, which take about 5 weeks to hatch, and males and females take turns incubating the eggs and caring for the babies. (Very egalitarian. I like that.) They can lay up to 3 sets of eggs per season. After about 2 months of hanging out in the nest and being fed regurgitated food, the chicks have lost their down have grown waterproof feathers like their parents. They naturally know how to swim and are ready to fend for themselves, so their parents kick them out of the nest. They disappear from the colony for at least a year, but will return to the same site to breed, usually within a few metres of where they were raised.

Here in Christchurch you can see some of these guys at the Antarctic Centre, though I'm pretty sure they don't actually live in the Antarctic- it's too cold for tiny penguins down there! They have a small colony living in captivity at the Centre, most of whom wouldn't survive very well in the wild due to various conditions and injuries. Here's a picture of Elvis, who is blind and does a lot of singing. I'm not sure why she's standing on one foot. (All of the other penguin pix here are from the Centre, too.) They live all over the place around the South Island- apparently they're fairly easy to see in the wild, though I still haven't managed to spot any! (We did see a yellow-eyed penguin in the wild, though, and that's far more rare! There are only about 4,000 of those in the world compared to about a million little blue ones!)

So, in conclusion, little blue penguins are short, blue, and very cute. You should come to New Zealand some time so you can meet some. The end. =) (P.S. If you enjoyed reading about the penguins here, you might want to take a look at the similar work done by Julian and Charles from Anderson's Creek Primary school in Australia- they have excellent illustrations on their page.)

UPDATE: September 2010: Ancient giant penguin unearthed in Peru! And he wasn't black (or blue) and white! See story here.

Mawwiage. Twoo Wuv.

Man! Two and a half years can fly by when you spend it living on three different continents with the man of your dreams! =) It doesn't seem all that long ago that I was driving back and forth to Canada (which is really big) on the weekends to spend what little time I could with Gordon before he was potentially whisked away back to a place where he could live legally, and now I get to keep him! =) Forever! =) How cool is THAT?! For those of you whose e-mail addresses I don't have for whatever reason, let me just clarify- WE'RE GETTING MARRIED! =) Hooray! =) I couldn't be more excited if a Dr. Pepper van pulled up in front of our apartment and started giving out free Big Gulps, a vegan Chinese restaurant opened in the empty lot up the street, and a new pair of shoes magically grew in my closet every morning to match my outfit! Seriously. I am ecstatic! =)

As one might imagine, this exchange of vows, being a Kiwi-American affair, may have its share of complications, but none of them are gonna rain on my parade! In the immortal words of Matthew Wilder, "Ain't nothing gonna break my stride!" The big kahuna is all of the crazy, complicated paperwork required to make it so Gordon can come back to Seattle with me! (There are soy lattes just waiting to be sipped at Vérité, and we can hear the call of Mighty O donuts all the way down here!) Who knew there were so many forms a person has to fill out in quadruplicate! Quadruplicate! I have to agree to be on the hook for all of Gordon's bills for ten years or so, just in case once he gets to the US he decides that sipping soy lattes all day is actually his new career path. Also, we'll have to go to one of those interviews like in Green Card where they ask me what colour his toothbrush is and how we met, and then he gets all confused about what kind of face cream I use... Yikes! (For the record, I don't use any- what is face cream? Is it that stuff girls in movies are always wearing with cucumbers over their eyes when their hunky love interests come over for a surprise visit? I think it is, but I can't be sure. I'm thinking it's in the same family as cold cream, another elusive beauty product for which I apparently have no use.) Bronte in Green Card uses Monticello, not Monte Carlo. And that "big, French oaf" can't get the answers right and the feds toss him out like last week's escargot! Oh la la! That's just the kind of thing that can tear a perfectly legitimate couple apart! :o Gordon, if you're reading this, my toothbrush is green and my favourite food is broccoli. =) Yum.

So, there's going to be a party in Hotlanta. We're thinking early 2009. It will be SO MUCH FUN to have some of our closest peeps together in the same place! =) I can't wait! =) I want to keep it pretty simple- I'm definitely not the Bridezilla type, but I could see how I could become one if I had to deal with the colour of chair sashes or cream v. buttercream tablecloths! I don't want to be all stressed out, throwing a tanty the night before the wedding because of some insignificant detail! I'm sure it's every bride's intention, but I want to keep the party pretty small, fairly simple, and more or less free of stress. We'll see. Of course, we can't set a date yet- no idea when G will be legal to attend. We'll just have to wait and see what the good folks at US Immigration have in store for us, and then I'll send out invites. =) Sweet. =) I'm totally getting a tiara. ;)

So, thank you to everyone who has replied via e-mail and snail mail to our announcement- you guys are the best! (Speaking of the best, check out this fantastic card Kass made us!!! =) I love it! =) Especially the sombrero and the cute little pedestal I have to stand on to be as tall as my squid husband. =) Spectacular. Thank you, Kass!) I'll respond to all of those awesome e-mails really soon, and I promise there will be penguins on this blog ASAP! Thanks for the well wishes! Talk to you all very soon! =)

Phone Book Day!

I went out to get the mail yesterday (my favourite time of the day- I love mail!), and there was a small pile of wet, plastic bags full of heavy, soggy phone books just waiting to be claimed by residents of our building, who would presumably give them good homes and lovingly blow-dry their sodden pages... The sight of all of those disintegrating phone books brought up a lot of thoughts and questions for me. I'd like to share some of those thoughts with you now and see what you think.

1) I'm sure there's a reason our phone books were delivered on a day when it was raining heavily, but could the people who deliver them perhaps have tried to find a more appropriate location to dump them other than in a heap on the ground beside the mailboxes (where they are not only not under any kind of rain shelter, but pretty close to sitting in puddles)?

2) Printing and delivering millions of phone books seems like a huge waste of paper, ink, plastic (for shoddily protecting them), and petrol (the gas that's used for the massive trucks needed to ship unnecessary quantities of enormous books all over the place). Shouldn't there be some kind of system whereby a person can opt out of (or, better yet, opt into) receiving phone books?

3) Do we need new phone books? We already have some, and we've never even used them. Not even once. I mean, aren't phone books a little bit antediluvian? Does anyone ever even use them anymore? Isn't the Internet easier/better?

4) Who's going to clean up the pile of plastic and pulp that's left by the fence over there in a week or two when the people who live here have all declined to take wet, (arguably useless) books into their homes?

I think that's enough questions. Now for my answers/opinions.

1) Yes. Leaving them in the rain was dumb/lazy. They could easily have been left by our front doors where they would have been more sheltered from the elements, and thus not rendered useless by water damage.

2) I think there should absolutely be a system whereby people who want phone books can tell the companies who print them that, yes, they would like phone books, please. (Or, at the very least, that no, they would not like phone books, please.) According to paperlesspetition.org, the Yellow Pages industry dropped over 540 million phone books in North America in 2006- that's way more than one per person! (In the UK, according to the Yellow Pages website, it was 28.3 million copies in 2006. That's about one for every two people, which is still a lot!) Why so many?! Well, in the olden days when people still had landline telephones, they would automatically receive the Yellow Pages. Now that more people are switching to cell phones, there's no real list of recipients, so they use a system of "saturation distribution" to make sure everyone and his brother/sister/dog/goldfish can get his hands (paws/pectoral fins) on a copy. Also, there can be many different versions in a single market- some people could get as many as 10 different phone books! Also, if Yellow Pages wants to make money, they have to say things like "we have a distribution of 70 gajillion" so that advertisers will fork over the cash to get their ads in there. If people could easily say no to phone books, those numbers would go down; maybe it would be harder to convince advertisers to splash out on pricey half-page ads. Yellow Pages apparently makes 97% of it's revenue ($14 billion in the US in 2006) from printed directories, and only 3% from online ones. That's why there are so many phone books! Some people try to opt of of receiving them, but it's not easy. I read one account of a person who had called the distributor and requested not to be sent any more phone books, but who continued to receive them. When she called to find out what was going on, she was told that the delivery people are given a list of people who do not want to receive the books, but it's so few people (since it's practically impossible to figure out how to make the request in the first place) that it's easier just to deliver them to everyone than to have to check the list. It's really hard to not get phone books. But I say there's got to be a better way. Maybe it could even be a system where you put a card on your doorknob like the "Do Not Disturb" ones at hotels. Yeah, that's it! The week before phone books come out, they could send a postcard out to everyone letting them know when the books would be delivered. That postcard could have one side that says "NO PHONEBOOKS, PLEASE" that you could hang on your door on delivery day. That way nobody has to keep track of addresses, which seems pretty complicated. It would be simple and easy. I am a genius. (I know that sending out millions of postcards seems like a waste of paper, but it's not as bad as millions of giant books, and it's the best I could come up with.)

3) As for the usefulness of phone books, well, I had to give this one the most thought. My first reaction was that they should just stop printing the things, but having considered it a bit more, I'm not so sure that's the way to go. Though some people argue that phone books are antiquated and want to get rid of them (like the good folks over at Paperless Petition), some people still find phone books to be quite useful. You may be surprised to know that although I use the Internet all the time, I am actually one of those people. Okay, sure- it is completely ridiculous to print 540 million copies of something that's going to be outdated almost as soon as it hits the presses. One could argue that if the phone directory were online, it could be easily updated- no need to print another 540 million books in a year's time. Sounds good. But not everyone has access to the Internet. And not everyone wants to/can afford to pay to call for directory assistance when he/she needs to find a phone number. If I needed a plumber, the first place I would look would be in the book. I like the ease of being able to circle the numbers I have called and make notes next to different companies if I'm comparing price quotes. I find that difficult to do with online directories, and I'm a paper person by nature, so I find the phone book easier when I want to find certain things. That said, I would still opt out of receiving new phone books if I had the option. I can sacrifice a little convenience in the name of saving some trees. Besides, most of us have old phone books lying around the house; I'm happy just to use those for a while longer. Surely some of the businesses that existed in 2004 will still be around, right? It's not really life-threatening for me not to have all of the latest listings, is it? But it is life-threatening to a bunch of trees, so I still think I should be able to decide if I get phone books or not. (Please see my brilliant plan under number 2. It works well in this case, too. I don't have to opt out forever. If I feel like my 2004 book isn't cutting it anymore, I can get new ones. But I don't have to. Did I say "genius" already?)

4) Who's going to clean up the mess over there by the mailbox? Well, judging by past experiences with other people's unwanted mail, probably me. Humph. Stupid, useless, wet phonebooks! Grumble, grumble... Maybe after they dry out I can use the pages to make some kind of phone book crafts like the trees and angels people used to make with old Reader's Digests? Hmmm...

So what do you think? Phone books- only good for dinosaurs, or "keep 'em coming; I hate trees!" I'm interested to hear your thoughts!

P.S. There really are penguins coming your way in a post or two- I just really needed to talk about phone books! I'm done now. Thanks for your patience. =)

Canterbury Adventures

It's been a busy winter for us in cold, cold Christchurch! Our friend Jo from the UK (see her guest blog here) came to visit for about a month, rousing us from our state of apartment hibernation! It can be hard to make oneself want to leave the flat in the icy winter, but with the help of thermal underwear, Jo's new winter wardrobe from Glassons, and the promise of lots of coffee and cake at our city's fine cafés, we managed to get ourselves out and about quite a bit!

On Jo's birthday we went for a lovely walk (partly in the snow!) in the Port Hills, which separate Christchurch from Lyttelton Harbour. We walked from the Sign of the Takahe restaurant to the Sign of the Kiwi, a small café on Coronation Hill. From there we got a great view of the Cashmere Valley and of the harbour. All the way along our route there were stunning views of the snow-capped mountains in the distance and the chilly weather was actually perfect for a nice, long walk. Here is a picture of Jo and I at the Sign of the Kiwi.

Later that week we drove through NZ's longest road tunnel (yikes!) to get to Lyttelton, where we met up with our new friend Suzanne who lives there. We did a little shopping at the farmers' market, then Suzanne took us on a beautiful (and steep) walking tour through one of the cemeteries and back down into the town. It was lovely (and tiring). Luckily, I had consumed enough All Blacks Powerade to get me through the day. (I think the flavour is called Silver Charge, but it says All Blacks all over it, so I decided it tasted like All Blacks. They play rugby really well, but I have to warn you- they don't really taste all that great, especially when warm. I'm definitely more of a Gatorade girl.) Lyttelton, incidentally, is where Peter Jackson shot The Frighteners and where Joe Bennett, the guy who wrote this book I just read about underpants lives. (It was a really good book. You should read it.) Here's a picture of Lyttelton.

We (literally) took the scenic route home from Lyttelton, skipping the tunnel and instead heading over the hills to Sumner, where we ate fish & chips on a bench on the beach promenade. (Jo had the fish; G and I had the chips. We found that the three of us are a lot like that nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat. We make a good team.) Jo had two thumbs up for the yummy snack, but Gordon was distracted by something to the right over there. Was it a bird? A plane? A guinea pig playing soccer? A seven-year-old gymnast doing five press handstands? We may never know...

We're really happy that Jo came to see us; we had a great time! There are more posts to come about our fascinating adventures, so stay tuned! There will be penguins! =)