New Lynn on the 6th day of Christmas

Today we took the boys to New Lynn. The trains were not running due to scheduled maintenance work on the system.  We took the replacement bus instead and the trip was only marginally longer. The boys rather enjoyed it because they were in the very front seat on the bus, looking out over the front of the bus. Only the driver was farther forward. 

When we arrived, we headed for the mall. The first order of business was of course, (for morning tea) a chocolate ecstasy ice cream cone for Arram and a mango bango smoothie for Amiri. We then wandered down to Whitcoulls for some shopping. Arram chose a Lego set and Amiri got two books. We had told the boys they could have one item each as part of this after-Christmas treat, but Amiri discovered that his books were buy one, get one. So he came home with two.  Smart shopping, that.  Afterward, we explored this rather large mall. 

Lunch was next on the agenda. Amiri had a monstrous lamb burger and Arram went with his favourite chicken nuggets. Cheesy fries and L&Ps rounded out the meal. 

Finally, off we went to explore a couple of small parks nearby. Come along and share our day...

Play-time after shopping. The boys are racing one another across the posts in the atrium of the mall. 

They go in opposite directions. The tricky part is when they meet in the middle. 

 Between some buildings, above the walkway, connecting the train station and the mall. 

The boys discovered that water runs down these bricks. They were soon flicking water at each other. 

A little more water play. This time with a fountain that spurted out sideways. 

This suburb has lots of little parks.

Smile...

If the shoe fits...

For whom the bell tolls...

The boys enjoyed about a half an hour here.

It's Christmas time in the city...

Amiri gets comfortable in another sort of tree.

Arram gets his turn

And they pose for one last shot on top of a brick tent.  Photogenic?  You bet.   

And to top off this perfect day, as we arrived back at the bus/train station to wait for the train replacement bus, our very own regular bus number 149 pulled up. We hopped on this instead. It was a slightly longer bus ride than the train replacement bus, but instead of stopping about a kilometer from our house, #149 stops 100 yards from home. Arram snoozed the whole way home next to me and Amiri and Grammy had a great conversation. What a day.  It was priceless.    -djf

'Twas the day after Christmas, and here at the beach, we all had on suncreen, the day was a peach.

Kaitarakihi beach is one of our favourites. It's the one with parking right next to the beach, the one with the fossils, the one with spiral cone shells, a shallow cave, a mini-blowhole, and so much more. It even has wild chickens. Yes, chickens that escaped from someone long ago and have made the beaches in that area home. 

Today, it surprised us with a really special gift. A genuine puffer fish was washed up on the shore. You've heard of them I'm sure. Called fugu in Japan where they like to eat them raw and where a few people each year are poisoned by the shoddy knife skills of some 2nd-rate chef. Some organs in the fugu are highly poisonous.  Since the condition of this one was WAY beyond fresh, the biggest danger from it were it's sizable spines.

 Kaitarakihi is in a bay. The Tasman Sea and Australia are beyond the two headlands. 

"Let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height!" The pohutukawa with the red blossoms didn't show up as well as I hoped it would.

 Beautiful cliffs and lush vegetation. 

  Pictures don't do it justice. And a few too many clouds that keep the colours from being their brightest. 

 The mini-blow hole in action. Got sand up your shorts? Here's your solution. 

 Arram's four tower sand castle. He was the architect and engineer, Grammy acted as general contractor. 

 From inside a shallow cave located right in the center of the beach.

Another view from the cave. 

There he is on the sand. I decided to move it. There were kids dashing around all over this area. I can't imagine if one of them would step on these spines. They're stiff and very sharp.

I've moved it to a rock along the cliff and Arram helped me rinse off the sand. Note the beak-like mouth. 

We found a couple of purple sea snails this time. We have not seen that color of shell before.

See? Wild chicken dead ahead.  This one was giving us dirty looks. Kiwis are tough; kiwi chickens are even tougher. This one had a walk not unlike Edward G. Robinson. Needed the cigar though to pull it off properly. 

We spent several hours at the beach. It's surprising how tired you can get from admiring one of NZ's watery jewels. We had a quick dinner of turkey and gravy over potato pancakes and spent the rest of the evening in quiet play and videos. Here is Amiri wearing a paper crown from a Christmas cracker. * Look at how he has grown. His legs are starting to stretch out. 

Amiri starts to fabricate his tower from Fiddlesticks. The living room (lounge) is looking properly messed up after hours of play. 

*These are Christmas crackers. Two people pull them apart. A small gun powder charge makes a 'crack' and the insides spill out.

There is always a folded up paper crown, a prize of some sort, and a joke on a piece of paper.  -djf

"Never slap a man who chews tobacco"--Willard Scott

I have mixed feelings about today's topic. I'll tell you why a little later.  It's about smoking. 

I started smoking at Northern Michigan University in 1969. Back then, cigarettes were 35 cents per pack. However, they were available for only $2.20 per carton at K. I. Sawyer, the Air Force Base nearby. One of my suite-mates that year was a Viet-Nam Vet who was happy to bring back cartons for all of us in the suite.  

I continued to smoke for about a year but gave it up after a dose of the flu that seemed somehow to have been made worse by the smell of cigarette smoke. I had never smoked steadily enough to develop a dependence on either the act of smoking or the nicotine, so quitting cold turkey was easy for me. It's true that even long after that, I'd occasionally smell someone else light up and the combination of the burning match smell and the smoker's first exhalation would cause me a bit of longing. I had sometimes bought another pack after such an event, but after a smoke or two, I'd realize that I didn't really enjoy it anymore and I'd toss or give away the remainder. 

The one thing I did continue to enjoy however, and do up to this very day, is an occasional cigar. On our honeymoon, I sought out genuine Cuban 'puros' along Calle de las Huertas in Madrid and tried my first Romeo Y Julieta. Since then, I haven't been able to indulge myself in many more Cubans, but have enjoyed many Honduran cigars over the years. 

When we came to New Zealand, it wasn't long before I began to 'hanker after' a good cigar. I supposed that Cubans might be legal here and started looking. That wasn't easy to do. More than once I asked Jeanne if she had noticed any cigarettes or cigars in any of the stores we frequented. She hadn't. I would occasionally see someone smoking a cigarette on the street, so I knew that they must be available somewhere, but I hadn't run across them.  

Allie knew the score. She told me that here, no tobacco product can be sold openly. It is available, but must be kept in cabinets or behind curtains so no one, especially children, can see it. If you want a pack of Marlboro's, you ask for it at the counter and the sales clerk will open the wooden doors of the cabinet and snatch one out. The same thing for a cigar. The few times I bought one, I felt as though I should preface my request for a cigar by saying, "Joe Sent Me."  And they wouldn't throw the doors of the cigar cabinet wide open so that I could study their selection. I was given a 'menu' of the cigars with just the names and prices and was expected to make my selection that way. 

This is the place in the mall that I purchased a Cuban cigar or two. Notice the 'S' on Smokos. It's made into a dollar sign with good reason. It costs an arm and two legs to smoke here. I tried to take a picture of the tobacco cabinet in the store but the manager wouldn't let me. 

Well, that's no good. I like to look at the apparent quality of the cigar, and balance that against its cost. In the U.S., I was used to gazing into a humidor, (Gust Asp's) or even to enter a 'humidor room', (the bookstore in the mall or Nanoseconds) and examine them at my leisure. The final drawback to enjoying a cigar here is the cost. A Cuban puro here costs many times what it would if I were able to buy it from one of the online sources. I did discover that Cuban cigars are legal here. In fact, I have visited the Cuban Store in downtown Auckland where they not only sell very top end cigars, but  Cuban rum and other products as well. (didn't buy anything) 

So, I've given up cigars. It's not really a big deal since I didn't smoke many of them anyway. And, by giving them up, I'm acting in line with the current plan of New Zealand regarding smoking. 

Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 is an organization and a plan that is not outlawing tobacco products, but orchestrating things so that new smokers will not be developed. According to them, nearly 85% of Kiwi's are smoke-free now and that they want to increase that to over 95% by 2025. The government is helping acheive this by raising the cost of tobacco products by 10% every Jan. 1st. (and by keeping tobacco out of sight ---and out of mind)

I checked today at Smokos, the little store in the photo and found that the cost of a single pack of Marlboro's is now $23.90.  That means that by 2025, the cost will be well over $50.00 for 20 cigarettes. Yipes.

Today, Jeanne found this empty pack of clove cigarettes (Dunhill is the brand) on a lawn not far from our house. Clove cigarettes are still about 70% tobacco and are not a safe alternative to regular cigarettes. 

Look at how a pack of cigarettes is presented. Truth in advertising! 

Don't get me wrong. I too believe that smoking kills and I admire the Kiwi's for saying, "We can do this. We won't settle with having just smoke-free stores or campuses, or public transportation, we'll have a smoke-free country." Wow.   

It's just that every once in a while, I sure would love to prop my feet up on our deck and light up a Romeo Y Julieta. You just don't know how good a really good cigar can be.  Hence, the mixed feelings. I wish I could still indulge myself now and then without spending so darn much money. The last time I checked, the cheapest Cuban would have set me back about $22.00 and like cigarettes, that will just keep going up.

All this talk brings me to the photo below.

This is a new painting that appeared the other day on a wall across from our Henderson Library. Maoris started the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 movement and the message here is aimed at Maoris. The word 'tikanga' means culture or custom. It's derived from the word 'tika' which means what is right or correct. Clearly then, the painters are reminding Maoris that smoking is not part of who they are and encouraging them to go smokeless. 'Good on ya', whoever worked hard to do this painting. 

New Zealand even has the importation of tobacco covered. When we first arrived here, it was possible to bring a fair amount of tobacco into the country with you, in whatever form you wanted. Now, the limit is 50 grams, which is about 50 cigarettes. Probably equal to a couple of cigars. Hardly worth having to list it on your customs declaration. And, if you want to order cigars online, like I did once shortly after arriving, you'll now pay a very sizable duty when your order hits New Zealand's shores. In short, there is no inexpensive way to smoke here. Oh, well...

But, wait a minute, I just had a thought.  I wonder what tobacco seed costs and if I could find it?      -djf

New beginnings

These are in the park next to the Opanuku Stream.

This one too.

This tree is growing out of another's stump at the park above the sugar works in Birkenhead.

What all three of these pictures have in common of course is a new tree or trees are growing up from the stump of an older one. When I saw them, it occurred to me that they are symbolic. They symbolise the way Jeanne and I have started a new life here in New Zealand. 

We started our new lives several years ago when we joined Allie and her boys, (themselves in a new beginning), but we've made it official now, you might say, since the house has now sold. We've closed. It's a done deal. A young mom and her kids now own it. I wish them happiness in their new home.  

Each of us experiences many new starts in our lives. And for each of those beginnings, there is a corresponding ending of another. Schools, jobs, homes and families. That's what life is all about. 

I think that Jeanne and I have been uniquely blessed to have been given this opportunity. I often think about that and thank God for it.  

Got sugarcane? Here's how to eat it.

One summer day in 1961, my mother gave me a list of the addresses of the Governors of every state. She suggested that as a summer vacation project, I write a letter to each of them and ask them to send me an example of a product that was grown or produced in their state. What their state was best known for. I remember rolling my eyes. My soul recoiled in horror. 

If I could have leapt forward in time, gained access to the wonders of the computer age, and been able to mass produce such a letter, I would probably have done so and may have cashed in as all sorts of things began arriving at our house. As it was, at that time in my life, all I had was a ruled tablet and a number 2 Ticonderoga. I ranked writing a letter as one of the most odious tasks I could imagine. And during my summer vacation besides! One was bad enough but to write 50 of them would have been unimaginable. (Alaska and Hawaii had become states in 1959) To placate the parental powers though, I did write several. 

I don't now remember all to whom I wrote. I think I managed about five. Today, I remember receiving something back from only two. The Governor of Louisiana (some underling I'm sure) sent me rice still on the stalk and a similarly placed gofer in Hawaii sent me a six inch long piece of sugar cane.  It's true that on the days I received these two items, I might have grudgingly admitted that Mom's lame suggestion made a little sense after all. Still, upon later reflection, when I balanced the pain I had endured in composing the letters with the real value of the product I received, I did not feel that the deal was worth it. I was not motivated to write any further letters. (I think I also wrote to a western state hoping to get an genuine Indian arrowhead, but that never worked out.)

Approximately fifty five years later however, when I was buying vegetable spring rolls this morning at the Silver Bell Asian Market, and noticed frozen sugar cane stalks in the next freezer, I flashed back to the moment when I opened the little brown box from Hawaii. That hunk of cane I found inside had been as hard as a piece of lumber from Ringsmith's Hardware in Wakefield and yielded no sugar at all when I cautiously placed my tongue on one end. Could I now, a lifetime of years later, finally determine if the Governor of Hawaii in 1961 was growing something worthwhile? I looked at the package of stalks a little closer and decided that, for $3.99, I was going to find out.  

The experimentation here began almost as soon as the sugar cane thawed. While I was waiting, I turned to Youtube to teach me 'How to eat sugarcane.' Here is my synopsis and photo essay of what I learned.  

The package  

I think I got a pretty good deal for $3.99, don't you? 

The first step is to use a serated knife to cut each stalk into pieces 2 to 3 inches long.  

Stand it on end

Trim off the hard outer layer. 

It came off quite easily. What's left in the good stuff.  

Cut the core into 4 pieces.  Chew and enjoy. 

Do not swallow the woody fibers. Fiber is good for you I know but this level of fiber would do things to your insides that should not be done.

I've discovered that at the joints, the removal of the outer stem is much harder and the  product inside is not as chewable. I chose to discard them.

I'm guessing that the boys will not be overwhelmed if, when they get home from school today and ask me, "What's for tea?" (afternoon snack), I pull out sugar cane pieces. Amiri may, since it's supposed to be sugary, hesitantly touch his tongue to a piece, much as I did so many years ago.  Arram will just look at me and shake his head in the way I have come to know means, "Let's not waste my time or your's talking about this." I'll then get out the crackers and cheese and apple juice. 

But, a seed will have been planted. Parents and grandparents are in the job for the long term after all. As I write this, Mom has been dead for many years, but she's still in my heart and she's still managing my life, if only in small ways such as enticing me to buy frozen sugar cane. The seed she planted when I was ten has borne fruit, well, stalks really, as I turn 65.  And once again I owe Mom a debt of gratitude. 

So I am aware that I have a similar oportunity to plant some seeds in my grandsons' lives. I realize that those seeds may not mature for many years. Doesn't matter in the least. I'm in this grandpa gig for the long term. Mom showed me that I've got time, even time after I'm gone. Funny how that works. My job now is simply to plant the seeds. 

And you know, summer vacation here in New Zealand is only a few weeks away. And Amiri does have a computer. A good one. Why not up the ante and bring Mom's idea for me into the computer age? If he wrote, not to the governors of states, but to the head of state of every country in the world and asked them to send him an example of what their country is known for, just imagine what the lad might get back. Hmmmm....

On second thought, I don't think I want him to come to the attention of most of the leaders of the world's countries. In our world today, the innocence of the early sixties is long gone and what too many countries really export is not something tangible and definitely not what I'd want my grandsons to encounter. I'd better give that idea a pass.  

I'll stick with the simple stuff. We'll experiment with things like a stalk of sugercane or a cherimoya. 

I saw a can of sprats in the supermarket this morning. I have never seen a sprat before, canned or otherwise. What the heck is a sprat anyway? Some kind of fish I know, but that's all I know. Maybe I should buy a can and plant another seed. If Mom's sugar cane seed took 55 years to mature, I'm guessing that my 'sprat seed' might be Really slow to germinate. Oh well, as I said, I've got the time...    -djf