Here's to a new freedom

I am very happy to announce that for the first time in four years we live in the very same country as the car we own!  Waaaahey.  We settled on a 1999, 108,000 miles on the odometer, Toyota Sienna.  I can hardly believe how great it feels to hop in that vehicle and drive where I want to go.  No more hoping for fine weather, or dreading the cold before we head out.  No more scabbing* rides from people.  In fact, we've been to the west side of town THREE TIMES in two days.  That place almost felt like a far away town, pre-car days.  Don't get me wrong, I love the biking life style, and I've been mourning the potential loss of it over the past couple of weeks with statements like this might be our last ride together for a while, Jbird.  But it takes so much energy to run errands when you're on a bike - or even to decide to do them.  Also, my tummy keeps getting bigger and it was starting to get in the way - I had to bike with my knees splayed out.

We've been talking about this purchase for two years, intending to actually buy something since last October, but only really researching and shopping for a little over a month.  I can hardly believe we've actually done it.  It felt like a huge, hard decision to make.  My dad has always found the cars I have owned in the passed and I was happy not to have to look for them.  This time it was nice to see how great Jbird was at talking to people and running around having the cars checked - I lost enthusiasm very quickly.  Now that the purchase has finally been made, Jbird and I are both tired and grumpy from the intensity of shopping and buying over the passed week.  We drove to Louisville, Kentucky on Wednesday to see a few vehicles down there but ironically ended up buying the very first one we looked at.  

Please don't mind that we bought a big hulking minivan either.  Obviously we're only having the one baby so some might say that the size of the vehicle is a bit of an exaggerated choice.  The plan is to be very comfortable on a long road trip, and to be able to sleep in the vehicle when we want to.  We hope to see a lot more of the States in this car.  I'm currently planning our late-summer trip to Michigan, Canada, and up-state New York.  Won't that be something nice?

*There's a gross NZ slang if every I heard one.  In this context, it means to take from someone else without really being able to repay them. 

The non-wedding parts of the weekend

The rest of our trip was as hectic as I thought it would be.  All Jbird wanted when we arrived around 9am was Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  By the time I decided I wouldn't mind it either, we seemed to have passed the last one.  We had settled on Waffle House, even pulling into the driveway for it, when I realised that that driveway was shared with a Cracker Barrel.  He was a happy man.  I was happy when we found a $4 skirt for me to wear at the wedding at the local outlet mall.  We spread the happiness a little further by also buying some jeans and a new top.  

We met Jeff (the groom) just as he was starting a tour of the Battle at Antietem.  Jeff is a guide tour for a living so it was neat to see him at work.  It was the bloodiest battle on American soil.  23,000 men died and neither side won the battle.  I believe they took some photos there with the wedding party.

Saturday morning, we made a mad dash to DC to visit Alana.  She fed us and we talked our heads off.  Alana was one of my bridesmaids.  We met in Bangladesh and she made the trip from the States to NZ to be there for us on our wedding day.   We were excited when she got a job in DC and we found out we were moving to Baltimore; we lived out of each others' pockets while we were there.  This trip was a bit hairy because getting in and out of DC is a nightmare, roads were closed on both journeys.  We left at 5am and got back to the wedding shortly after 12, just on time to start serenading guests as they arrived.

That night we slept a full eight hours and felt much better for it.  We left for Baltimore before anyone else was awake and made it into town in time for a birthday party of the little boy I used to babysit.  His parents had become our gaming couple as they also love settlers and introduced us to a number of games we'd never heard of.  Our day started with the party and was full of appointments for brunch/coffee/tea/lunch/coffee/dinner.  By house number three, I requested no food and no drink: let's just talk.  It was a really special day for us as we revisited this city we had grown to love and saw some people who are very dear to us, having shared those two years with us. 

While the day time driving was glorious with the colours of fall everywhere we looked, we were handicapped by only having printed google directions for all of our destinations.  For the most part they were fine but there were plenty of times when we had to call people and ask them to help guide us somewhere.  Next time we'll definitely hire a GPS.

Home James and don't spare the horses

We survived the driving, arriving back an hour ago at 9am.  This return trip was the most dreaded trip out of the whole weekend because I knew we'd both be tired after our busy weekend and who wants to go home when you've had so much fun?  We had less time to get home so we took the driving in shifts and it worked surprisingly well.  Jbird turned the back seat into a very cosy bed, with a sleeping bag and pillows and we both slept quite well when we weren't driving.  He hung jackets over the windows to black out the street lights.  I took the 7:30-10:30am shift and the 2-5am shift.  We both slept from 5-7:30 so we made pretty good time.  Cruise control is amazing for trips like these. 

I've had a bath and unpacked my bags.  I'm in bed now and am going to take a nap before I face the day.  My essay is sitting in my inbox with some great feedback from pre-reading so I need to work pretty hard today and tomorrow to turn it into a better essay than it is and that's foremost on my mind. Wedding and trip details will come in future posts.

*the title of this post is something my mother always used to say when we were on our way home.  I thought I'd explain it because you may not recognise it as something someone might say.

Driving to B'more

We're heading off to B'more tomorrow night.  I am making some bacon and egg pie for the trip.  We'll sleep when we need to.  Our plans are hectic.  We'll spend the day at the wedding venue on Friday with the wedding rehearsal that night.  Then on Saturday we'll drive to DC to visit the lovely Ms. Strong.  Back to the wedding venue by midday so that Jbird and I can get ready and play some pre-wedding duos (violin/viola).  We'll enjoy the celebrations for the rest of Saturday, head to Baltimore to visit friends on Sunday and drive back Sunday night.  The plans seem crazy to me, with 1,403 miles to cover and 25 hours of driving but Jbird tells me to stop thinking about all the driving and enjoy the weekend.  He has been instrumental in his positive planning within the presented time challenges.  I am packing an ipod full of songs, snacks, coupons for Dairy Queen, my travel pillow, one essay to proof read, and a sunny smile.  I'm a-ready to go!

What would you do if you holidayed in the Mid West?

When Jbird first auditioned at IU, my reaction was: but we won't live there, will we?  This place was at the bottom of my list for desired locations.  I thought the Midwest was the in middle of nowhere and I couldn't imagine not being on the east coast.  I figured Jbird would go to his audition, have a good time visiting his sister, and that would be the end of it.  All things considered, it's not such a bad place to be.  I've never lived in a town before but without a car, it's nice that everything is so convenient.  People will say on the other side of town which sounds far away, but it turns out that's just a 20 minute bike ride away.  My parents are visiting in a few weeks and I've been wondering what to do with them.  Chicago's just up the road, and I think Dad has some interest in going down to Nashville, TN.  I'm going to convince them Louisville and St. Louis might be nice towns to visit two.  They're all just a few hours down the road.  It'll be a Midwestern adventure.

Vege oil and bridges

When we lived in Baltimore, we had friends who would occasionally lend us their 1980s Mercedes Benz when we were going on a holiday.  It had been converted to also run on vegetable oil but we used it on diesel as the vege oil was a big job to get and clean.  My dad's friend happened to have a retreat on the Chesapeake Bay so when my parents visited, we borrowed the car for a weekend retreat.  Baltimore is on the Chesapeake but it's a huge bay and their retreat was several hours drive away.  The retreat itself was a very nice place to stay.  The house was huge and it was right on the bay.  There were loads of wild birds to spot, swamp grasses, and a hot tub.  When we were there alone, Jbird and I took the opportunity to visit Ocean City.  It is very similar to L.A., except it that it's on the east coast. 

On the way to the retreat with my folks, we'd had trouble putting diesel into the car because we couldn't find the switch to pop open the gas tank cover.  It had taken a long time, and we'd tried every single switch we could find until we finally realised it didn't have one, you could just open it if the car was unlocked.  We'd filled up on diesel and made our merry way. On the drive itself, there's a really cool big bridge that we have to drive across at one point.  Jbird always tries to make me take photos which I find a bit annoying because I want to look at the bridge too and I know the photos will never be similar to what we see, our camera is spectacularly sub-par.

After a lovely weekend of food, wine, books, boats, birds, and hot tubs, we were ready to head back to Baltimore.  The couple we were staying with drove off to catch their grandbaby before it left New Jersey just before we did. We waved them off, got in the Mercedes, and tried to go.  But it wouldn't start.  So we let it sit a bit and tried again.  It still wouldn't go.  Dad and Jbird got under the hood to try to puzzle it out but nothing seemed wrong.  We gave it another try and it started.  Everyone was glad.  That would've been a dumb end to the weekend, we had no idea who could've helped us at that point.

About fifteen minutes into the trip, Jbird mentioned it felt like we were running out of diesel.  It was a bit hard to know.  With all the different gauges for vege oil, heat, and diesel on this ancient beast, we weren't sure which was which (and if any) worked, and what they were for.  But it felt to him, as he pressed on the accelerator, like we didn't have much gas.  So as we drove we started looking out for petrol stations.  We'd just passed through strip-mall heaven* few miles back and there just weren't any more stations.  It started to feel more and more empty and wouldn't you know it, we were just driving onto that terrific bridge I mentioned.  We completely ran out two thirds of the way up the bridge.  At this point, I start trying to get hold of the owners of the car but wouldn't you know it, I could not find any signal while we were on the bridge.  Jbird somehow gets the car to the top of the bridge.  Don't ask me how.  And he coasts all the way to the bottom. It was amazing, you can imagine we were all panicking on the way up it.  As we coast down the bridge, I manage to get hold of the wife and then the husband calls so I have one of them on hold and then we all hang up and it's all really confusing.  After the bridge - which has a magical view with the water glistening all around and really showing itself off - Jbird pulls over to the side of the road and within seconds both a tow truck and a cop car pull up behind us.  He goes to talk to them while I try to sort out who I'm talking to on the phone.  I eventually get the husband, who knows the mechanics of the machine, and he tells me to use vege oil and get it to a gas station.  The thing is, he says, the car doesn't normally start on vege, it needs to warm up, but we're probably warm enough now.  I ask him where the switch is and he says there should be one that when I press will look really red.  Well, to our surprise, it already looks red!  It turns out that the car had been running on vege all the way from Baltimore, and we have an entire tank of diesel left.  That was why the car hadn't started well earlier, the tank wasn't warm enough yet.  I race back to Jbird and his group of helpful men and blurt out "It's alright, the car was running on vege, we have diesel in the tank."  The men kind of stare at me blankly.  They're not expecting my thick Kiwi accent and probably have no idea what I just said, particularly with that term 'vege' which probably comes out like 'vige'.  But that's just an aside. The car runs smoothly all the way home and we've seen the best of the Chesapeake Bay. 

*strip-mall heaven - a nice term for all the millions of Macca D.s, Starbucks, and gas stations that congregate over blocks and blocks in many place in the States.  It only becomes heaven if you stop at a DQ (Dairy Queen) for  a blizzard.  Otherwise it's incredibly ugly.

A visiting kiwi

We had a kiwi guest last week stop by for lunch.  She's originally Argentinian but I knew her as a little, little girl in Auckland when she was BFFs with my mum and we'd see her all the time.  It turns out her mother was a professor at IU and her brother's still here.  She visited him here just last year but we didn't know of her Bloomington connection and she thought we were still in Baltimore.  At the time, I noticed on that-social-networking-site-which-shall-not-be-named that she was at Indianapolis Airport.  I commented on her post, asking why she was there and telling her where we were.  Turns out she had been in Bloomington for two weeks and was on her way home.  What a surprise.  

Her sister-in-law passed away unexpectedly last week so she is here again to help her brother and attend the funeral.  She made sure to include us in her visit this time.  It felt so strange, and so normal, to have her over being all kiwi-like.  The world feels really rather small at a time like that.  It's a fun kind of story to tell.

Swimming in Michigan Lake

On the way to and from Kalamazoo, we stopped at Lake Michigan which is one of the great lakes.  It was GREAT.  I mean, I've been told they're big lakes, but they're really big.  We couldn't hope to see the other side of it.  From one spot in Northern Indiana, we could make out Chicago to the west.  One day we'll really visit that city.  

It was amazing to be swimming in a large mass of moving, breathing water again.  It felt a little bit like home with waves and everything.  Unfortunately, we were charged to enjoy this luxury.  Eight dollars on the Michigan side and five on the Indiana side because we are residents - at least, Jbird has an Indiana driver's licence.  That was very much unlike home.  We did find a spot to swim in in a residential neighbourhood which was free, but it wasn't quite as nice as the pay per car places so we sucked it up and paid.  How many times will we sit on the shores of a great lake, after all?  There's far too much to see in America to expect to do it very often.

Post script on a trip

I don't really know where to begin to describe our trip.  It was hot, the music was great, we had everything we needed for comfort while we were camping.  One highlight was making it to one of the fiddle workshops led by three pros.  They played the Tennessee Waltz together - I wish I had recorded it, it was so beautiful. 

Crossing country to Berea, KY, was fun.  It was a short drive but we managed to make it last all day, stopping on the way for Bourbon tasting at the Jim Beam distillery.  The hotel was gorgeous, everything I wanted and more.  The town itself had some lovely crafts made by the college kids.  The college in Berea is free but the students work for ten hours or so every week to pay their tuition. 

Now we're back and things couldn't be busier.

A Long Weekend

We're off on a short summer vacation today, coming back on Monday.  First we'll head two hours south to Owensboro, Kentucky, for the Romp bluegrass music festival.  Our favourite band, Old Crow Medicine Show is headlining on Saturday night.  There are some other goodies in store too, including The Punch Brothers.  It is my dream to see as much bluegrass as possible while living in the midwest.  Nashville, TN, at spring break was a good start.  

On Sunday morning we'll drive three hours directly east and stay a night at a fancy hotel - Boone Tavern Hotel.  We're not normally hotel dwellers, in fact, we haven't stayed in one since our honeymoon.  We found an excellent coupon on travelzoo.com which gives us a night, wine tasting at a vineyard, some credit at the restaurant, pastries in our room, and terry cloth robes.  

The Owensboro weather report is promising three days at 100 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 38 degrees Celsius).  We're praying for rain but have also frozen 8 litres* of water to put in our chilli bin*.  It's all our small freezer could hold.  We also plan on buying lots of ice blocks.  We are so grateful to friends who have lent us camping equipment, and a car.

We booked the tickets and hotel room such a long time ago, I cannot believe the we are leaving today! I don't know which I'm more excited about:  Camping at the festival and the subsequent overload of bluegrass, or the night at the hotel.  

*4 gallons
*cooler

Nashville - the highs, no lows

I don't want you to think we just sat around listening to music the whole time we were away.  We were busy sightseers by day.  

We enjoyed roaming around the Andrew Jackson's mansion and plantation on his 245th birthday.  Because of that happy coincidence, we got half price entry, birthday cake, and watched his great, great, great grandson saying a speech.  Mr. Jackson was the 7th president of the USA.  Unfortunately, I know he did some cool stuff for America, but my take-away was that he was a slave owner.  With a lot of slaves.  There's nothing good about that.

We visited the Grand Ole Opry hotel which has 9 acres of garden within its walls.  Can you imagine that?  I couldn't and when I got there, I said to Jbird: Oh, they must mean the hotel is on 9 acres of land, because the garden seemed a lot smaller than I imagined 9 acres to be.  Then I saw a map of where we were which was only a tiny portion of the gardens, there were 3 more large garden areas.  It was really huge and impressive, with waterfalls, running man-made rivers, and a lake.

In downtown Nashville there is a replica of Fort Nashborough.  When the pioneers first arrived, it was December and the river that Nashville is on was frozen over.  The pioneers walked across and set up camp on the other side of the river on the site that became Nashville.  I keep thinking that if they'd arrived at a different time of year, Nashville would be a different city.

We went to the Tennessee State Museum and learned a lot about the pioneers, their lives, more prosperous days a little bit later in history, Andrew Jackson, and some African American slave stories.  Then I hit my wall and couldn't take in any more information.  Oh, except there was a random Egyptian mummy which had nothing to do with anything.

The Frist Art Gallery doesn't have a permanent collection but had three neat exhibitions.  When Jbird and I go on holiday, we often visit lobbies of places and decide we can't afford to go in.  This gallery was well worth our $7 entry. 

I'm a geek and requested an inside view of the public library.  I'm glad we went, it's a gorgeous library with a spacious marble lobby and several exhibitions to look at.

We only made it to the lobby of both Ryman Auditorium and the Country Music Hall of Fame but we're hoping to take Jbird's parents one day - his dad is a big country music fan.  Yes, country music, ew. 

The Howling Brothers: providing your every bluegrass need

I have to be honest, I was a bit skeptical that we'd find anything much bluegrass in Nashville, that it would only be country music town and my expectations would be shot.  They weren't, we had a fantastically bluegrassy time.  

Our first evening there we spent at the band's house and they had some friends over for a jam.  It wasn't very old timey, it seemed like they just wanted to play the most beautiful bluegrass songs you ever did hear.  I, in turn, took my place on their couch and sat for hours, grinning like an idiot.  I could not get enough.  

The next night was 'circle night' at a local bar, folk sitting around in circles jamming.  There was a straight country circle (not popular with our group), an old-timey circle, a happy-bluegrass circle.  There were more musos than punters at the bar.  I found my happy.grin.like.an.idiot spot again, but this time we were all singing along.  Just. So. Fun. For a while, our happy-bluegrass circle had a wash tub playing bass.  Literally.  I was in heaven. This is kind of what it was like.  Unfortunately the bones are so loud in that clip, you can't hear the bass, but you can see it.  Also, we were laughing a lot more than that group.

Before we left on Thursday night, the band had a gig in a pub on honky tonk row in downtown Nashville.  I have to say, I loved the sitting around and jamming of the previous nights a lot more.  It's more natural, with some down time, and the solos were more exciting as the musicians could improvise  freely without the pressure of keeping their audience.  

'They' are the Howling Brothers, you can find their website here.  We've also recorded a few clips and Jbird has posted them up on my new youtube site here.  Thanks darlin'.

When I refer to old-time, I'm referring to the very early style of bluegrass, with a lot of layers of fast rhythm, especially banjo.  My favourite old-time album is 'Tis Sweet to Be Remembered by Flatt and Scruggs.  My favourite newer group is Nickel Creek - we danced our first dance at our wedding to this waltz.  Then there's Old Crow Medicine Show who are just fabulous all round.  We've found a festival not far from here where they'll be playing this summer.  Yeeeehaw!

Bluegrass...that's Country and Western music, right?

Jbird and I both have this crazy love of bluegrass.  After our wedding we walked down the aisle together to some real good old timey stuff, I think it was this song - please have a listen and let yourself smile.  People seem to wrinkle their nose or grimace when I mention that we like bluegrass - if they know what it is, in the first place.  It's had a bad rap in NZ and is often judged as hick country music.  It's not! I like nearly all genre of music but country has been all but black-listed from my ipod.  Feel free to sit down with me one day and we'll have a little comparison session.

Because it's not popular in NZ, I've only been to one bluegrass gig in my life.  Old Crow Medicine Show have visited Auckland a few times and we caught them at the Powerstation in 2008.  It was a wicked gig, I'm talking life changing, the venue was perfect.  Nice and small, not too crowded.  I was the Music Specialist at a school at the time.  Guess what the focus was in class that week!?

Jbird has this story he tells about his first night living in upstate New York.  He was fresh off the boat for what has become nearly 6 years in this fine country.  The story goes that he spent that night sitting around a camp fire, playing fiddle with a bluegrass band.  It sounded too good to be true and I've heard the story enough times that it's almost mythical.  

When we were given the loan of the car for this recent holiday, we then had to make a decision about what to do and where to go.  We were trying to decide between going north to cold and windy yet ever so famous-to-us Chicago, Illinois, or south to warm, Music City, Nashville, Tennessee.  Jbird emailed that same band he always talks about and they offered us a room to stay in.  The decision became obvious: Nashville, Tennessee it was.  

I'm beginning to realise that we've moved to the land of bluegrass, the great Midwest.  It's not all corn and beef after all.

Road Trip

Our friends lent us a car for spring break so we're off to Nashville, Tennessee.  Home of country music and the great wild west.  It's not far from here, about 5 hours by car.  I've made a bluegrass playlist for the ride but I guess we ought to tune into the country radio stations Nashville is so famous for.  We're staying with friends who play in a bluegrass band.  They have a couple of gigs while we're there, something to look forward to.  

I've been learning a bit about the history of Nashville.  I know it for its country music claim to fame.  It's just on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains so it was considered 'west' compared to the over-crowded Eastern settlements - NYC, Boston, Virginia, Maryland, etc.  There was a big uproar between the 'whites' and the Cherokees when the whites started to settle.  The 7th, 11th, and 17th presidents came from Nashville.  The 7th - Andrew Jackson - made his money because as a young public prosecutor, he was paid in land claims.  He played a big part in the Civil War.  AND he married a lady who hadn't yet divorced her first husband.  I'm sure to learn more during our visit.

Maybe we'll stop in at the Smokey Mountains for a day tramp on the way(ish) home.  All posts this week following this one have been pre-written as I'm not sure how much time I'll have at a computer.  Happy Spring!

tramp = hike

Bite your tongue

Flying over a section of the snow dusted Rocky Mountains on my way to Denver, Colorado, and then Indianapolis, brought back memories of my first day of high school.  We had a Social Studies quiz.  I get the feeling our new teacher was trying to distill some fear in us, I certainly didn't know many of the answers.    One of the questions was: What State is the Rocky Mountains in?  A lovely redhead in the class who turned into one of my best friends, is an American.  She had just spent the American winter with her Grandparents in Colorado so she knew that the Rockies are in Colorado.  It was kind of a stupid questions as they hit a bunch of states, right? 

This teacher was not a very kind teacher, she was in it for the money, as they say.  Or maybe so she could flirt with the Social Studies teacher next door.  Anyway, she told my buddy that she was wrong - the answer in her teachers' manual was Idaho - and somehow she made her completely doubt herself, even though she'd just been in that part of the world and probably knew more than our teacher.  Our teacher was in a position of power and authority, she asserted herself and did not consider that she might not be right.  

I always hoped I'd never do the same as a teacher but I know I have.  My first year teaching was a particularly hard year and I said all sorts of things I regret now.  I am forming a New Years resolution based on this - I hope to focus on my conversation skills this coming year and somehow bring more grace into them.  I'll keep you posted as I formulate this more.

By the way, the view was incredible from my little window seat in the plane, until we hit Denver after which it was all flat: corn country.

Changing Skies

Flying west across the States on my way here, I had a surreal moment as the plane I was in chased a setting sun.   I had been day-dreaming about the trip to come when I suddenly realised I'd watched the same sunset for 4 hours.  I felt suspended in time.

Driving north to Auckland this afternoon, I was mesmerised by the sky.  It was full of beautiful deep, purple-black clouds dropping fat rain drops while adjacent to me were sunlit hills and the bright Waikato river.  It could have been one of those pictures you draw as a child, rainbow and lightening flashes included.

I do like to observe the sky and I've recently been wondering what it would be like if it were the same every day, if it were constantly blue or constantly grey.  If the sun never set, or maybe it never rose.  Everything would be different.  Seasons, vegetation, comfort. We'd never regulate our sleeping patterns.  The position, shape and size of your house wouldn't matter.   I'm sure it would be quite boring too.

With that thought came the realisation that perhaps the magnificent of a beautiful sunset is found in the culmination of that particular moment.

I've hit the mother-load

To replace the candles and Christmas goodies I brought here from Bloomington, I'm taking back with me: a new wardrobe, including both summer and winter items hand-me-downs from the pretty trendy Bride (who's also moving cities and had a purge) and last season's winter classics from Glassons; hand-me-down towels from the elder sister; old duvet covers for rag rugs and excessive amounts of yarn from a lovely crafty Aunt-who-understands; marmite and golden syrup for me; six loaves of vogels and eight packets of timtams for the Birds in Bloomington who miss home; textbooks for both Jbird and I; and a few Chrissy pressies. I'm still considering taking a bunch of succulent clippings over, but I'm not sure whether they'll get through American customs.

I feel weird.  I want to go but I want to stay. Life feels like it's ready to go back to normal here but it's not normal anymore so I have to go there.  One more day at the beach, a drive to Hamilton to help the newly-weds move in, and a meal with family, and I'll be on the plane.  Fly away little birdie.

Do ya like it?

Many expats have their funny things they obstinately save for home.  Doctors' appointments, children's schooling, golden syrup, marmite.  For me, it's all of those things, but more peculiarly, it's my hairdresser.  So far I have refused to look for another one anywhere else. The first cut she gave me was just before our wedding.  It was a special cut so I had streaks put in and she straightened it. When I went to school the next day, everybody EVERYBODY commented on my amazing haircut.  The children told me I looked like a princess.  Jbird insisted on documenting it in photos.  She thinned it out and it was easy to manage for months and months.

You see, I have curly hair.  People don't know what to do with curly hair.  Baltimore was full of curly hair, but it was the kind of curls found on African-Americans.  They're a whole different kettle of fish, requiring straightening, wigs, and extensions.  It  took me 28 years to know what to do with my curly hair, and it was she that taught me.  Why would I go to anyone else?  For the first time in my life, I'm venturing out without hating it unless it's tied back.  This is a break through!

She has her salon in the Waitakere ranges, surrounded by beautiful New Zealand bush (you. really. must. visit. this. place).  She has done my hair since my wedding and knows all about Jbird and I, over there.  I go to her once a year, when we are home for the 'summer'.  I broke this fast yesterday, as it had only been four months since my last cut by her.  She knows I won't let anyone else cut it, obliterates my split ends, and admires how long it is getting - as a hairdresser, she finds it very hard to grow her own hair. 

When I went yesterday, she gave me a cutting from her jade tree, known as a 'money plant'.  I will plant this in my kitchen in Bloomington and think of her and the fabulous hair cuts.  We won't be back next summer, I think it might be  time to move on.  For the time being.

Social Situations

I want to revisit the idea of social anxiety. I have to start with an apology - I don't have a very clear head as I've recently come back from a hens type meal.  My sister - not the one to-be-wed, the other, bought a bottle of wine to share with me, hence the foggy head.  However, the time to write is now as tomorrow will be wedding wedding wedding.

Earlier in the day, at the afternoon tea part of the hens events, I was almost in tears, I didn't want to go.  I was completely overwhelmed by too many new people, and trying to feel comfortable in a situation where I didn't.  The sister - older than me and oh so much more mature - very kindly went out of her way to persuade me.  Soon after this was a rowing-on-a-lake part of the events where myself, this sister and my mother shared a boat together.  It was a perfect time of the day, beautiful light, and we were surrounded by gorgeous New Zealand native bush.  I was able to relax and we had some nice conversation.  This helped me to forget my discomfit and I then attended the evening meal almost organically.  The dinner was fun, we sat with some fun people, though my angus beef burger was a little well done.  It was funny that my entire table of six ordered the same though we didn't discuss it.

I think we all ALL suffer from social anxiety at different times.  It can't just be me - though I feel like I suffer more than most.  I'm sure others feel the same way.  Remember my original post?  I blamed living in America (click here to read).  

When I review today's anxiety, I was at my worst shortly after I'd had space to think.  Too much space.  When things were busy, I felt better and forgot my worries.  If you have been able to follow and agree with my thread of thoughts directly related to creativity coming from space and time, you might feel as bewildered as I by the idea that negativity that can also flourish in that same space.  Depending on your frame of mind and how you let things flow.  

My little sister's getting married tomorrow.  Where did the time go!?

Preparing for travel

Travelling internationally used to be a delight for me.  I loved to choose the movies, eat the little meals and not be where I was leaving, or arriving, but just be.   

I’m a little more travel weary these days.  Jbird once described it as familiarity with the bad parts of flying; sleep deprivation, waiting at airports for countless hours, lost luggage, armrest wrestling with strangers.  On our last trip home, we flew FOUR international flights with my maiden name on my ticket and my married name on my passport, it was so stressful.  Soph once lost her passport at LAX, what a nightmare!   

Do you know what I hate the most, something that can never be avoided?  Living in recycled air for two days and the dehydration that ensues!  My skin peels for days afterwards.  My eyes ache.  My mouth or nose – depending on which I chose to breathe through while asleep – feel dry and uncomfortable.  

With all the liquid carrying restrictions on planes, this is hard to remedy but I have started making my plans for this trip.  I will carry a bottle, refilling it inside each airport and sip, sip, sip – I have found this even helps the dry eyes/nose/mouth syndrome, so long as you remember to do it.  I will carry little bottles of moisturiser, Vaseline and olive oil to protect my poor skin.  

Is there anything you do to make flying more comfortable?  I’d love your ideas!