Working up a sweat on the trail to Vegas

Some meanderings on our way to Las Vegas:

Scenes from the Auckland Airport:

One miniature rugby ball, bought for a five-month-old boy who will likely use it as a teething toy: $5.50

Two litres of 42 Below vodka, bought at Duty Free: $62 (a savings of nearly $100)

Eating a stranger’s cold, left-behind fries: OK, maybe not exactly priceless, but definitely free. 

Somewhere over the Pacific:

Viking Woman develops some kind of rash (revenge of the leftover fries?) and is suddenly surrounded by Air New Zealand flight crew. Once it’s established she is not suffering from a) Legionnaire’s disease or, b) ebola, moisturizing cream is produced and seems to help reduce the hive attack. Plan B was an emergency landing in Hawaii, which might have made us the most detested passengers on the plane.

Home, as in Langley, British Columbia, visiting family for two days until Las Vegas beckons:

 A visit to the Willowbrook Shopping Centre on a Saturday reveals the mall to have a larger population than our new home of Napier, New Zealand. And they all want to walk in front of me, very, VERY slowly.

I come across the aftermath of a motor-vehicle accident in a busy intersection. While the wife sits on a nearby retaining wall, head down, teary face in her hands, the husband stands at the curb, fists shoved deep in pockets, staring at the remains of his Chrysler 300 and looking for all the world like someone had just shot his dog.

While I did finally manage to track down my favourite Micro-tip pens (unavailable in New Zealand), I was stunned to find that, in the span of a mere seven months since I left Canada, roll-on deodorant has, seemingly, gone the way of the dinosaur. No Ban. No Dry Idea. Only stick available on the shelf. I don’t drive stick when it comes to transmissions, and I discovered w-a-a-a-a-y back in high school that stick deodorant does not do the trick for my personal perspiration. 

I never thought I’d ever say this, but I can’t wait now to shop in the United States of Consumers. Surely that vast and mighty population still seals up the old sweat glands with liquid instead of goo.

As an aside, when I asked the young stock boy the whereabouts of the store’s roll-on deodorant, he looked at me as if I’d just asked to be pointed to the 8-track display. I suddenly felt very old and barely contained myself from starting in on one of my “When I was a young man” stories. I particularly like the one about Betamax.

Do blog writers go to Hell? So where does the line start?

I leave for Las Vegas in two days and, like all dedicated travel writers, I’m doing some research ahead of my trip.

Which would explain why I’m sitting outside the only Starbucks location in Napier, sipping at a grande Anniversary Blend filter coffee, and reading. I’m a block from the ocean and spring has well and truly arrived, as evidenced by the 25-degree temperature. (For those newcomers to this blog, that’s Napier as in New Zealand, where everything is metric and our seasons are flip-flopped.)

So why am I frowning? It’s not the coffee. In a country that went from instant to espresso seemingly overnight, Starbucks is the only joint in town where I can get a decent filter coffee. (“Decent” not “good.” I’m not in North America yet.)

No, what has me down on such a great high of a day is the book in front of me. Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?, by Thomas Kohnstamm, has caused quite the little stir among my Travel Media Association of Canada (TMAC) brethren. Although I suspect part of the kerfluffle is pure jealousy (“Damn! I wanted to write that book!”), there is also a professional reason to wince as Kohnstamm regales us with his adventures as a travel writer for the Lonely Planet’s guide to Brazil.

“…the two most important attributes for a travel writer are a strong liver and a good ability to bullshit,” Kohnstamm informs us on Page 145. To that I would add, luck and good timing. Notice that neither of us has talent on our list.

(I would also add a good editor to the package. I’m reading the Australian imprint, in which some moron — Kohnstamm himself, perhaps? — does not know the difference between leach and leech. See above comment about talent.)

TMAC members have their collective noses out of joint because, apparently (the principle of full disclosure requires me to note that I have yet to reach that particular passage), Kohnstamm admits to faking parts of his research and subsequent submissions. The fear now, of course, is all travel writers will be painted with that same slacker brush (Holy shades of James Frey, Batman!) and will no longer be trusted by the reading public.

Or, even worse, the freebies just might dry up. The horror!

Truth be told, as a fellow travel scribe, I’m not that pissed at Kohnstamm. He’d have to be a better writer for me to waste time working up my ire. HOWEVER, I am less than impressed with how Kohnstamm portrays men through his actions.

Apparently little more than an erection with legs, Kohnstamm spends half his time trying to have sex with women and the other half scheming how to get far away from his new conquest, short of gnawing off his own arm if she happens to be sleeping on it.

In the end, his minor sin of being an untrustworthy writer is overshadowed by his major sin of being a pig.

I can’t hear you, there’s a prostate gland in my ear

Doctor: “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Ireland?”

Me: “The inside of my left ear feels swollen and I’m not hearing very well out of it.”

Doctor: “Let’s take a look. Eardrum looks fine. Nothing wrong.”

Me: “Uh, the swelling? The lack of hearing?”

Doctor: “I’d say you have a mucus blockage somewhere in the eustachian tube.”

Me: “Mucus?”

Doctor: “Snot.”

Me: “I know what mucus is. Now how do I get rid of it so I can hear again?”

Doctor: “Clamp your nose and breathe out really hard.”

Me: “I’ve done that before but I’m always afraid I’ll rupture an eardrum.”

Doctor: “Can’t happen. Of course, your eyes might pop out.”

Me: “What?”

Doctor: “Just be sure to catch them before they hit the floor. Nasty business, cleaning eyeballs.”

Me: “WHAT!!”

Doctor: “Just kidding. Wee bit of medical humour.”

Me: “A very wee bit, actually.”

Doctor: “I see by your charts that your wife is older than you.”

Me: “Yes, by nearly six months.”

Doctor: “Six months? Your chart says 10 years.”

Me: “Let’s see that chart. Oh, right, my year of birth is wrong in your records. I only wish I was born then.”

Doctor: “I thought something was strange because you look older.”

Me: “Bit of medical humour again, eh, Doc?”

Doctor: “No, actually.”

 

I must have a vast reservoir of snot in my head (as opposed to the excrement some people insist fills the space between my ears) because this is the second time I’ve seen a doctor with the same complaint. While I was bit pissed having to pay for being told I was fine, at least today I was able to keep my pants on.

The last time I had my ear checked, I ended up with the doctor’s finger up my ass. 

In the course of the visit, I made the mistake of revealing it had been a few years since my last prostate exam and the doctor was all, right, drop trou, knees to chest, and how do you do. I have to be the only patient ever to go in with a sore ear and came out with a sore butt.

So far no one has diagnosed exactly why my ear acts up. On the plus side, my prostate gland appears to be perfectly healthy.

When more is less. Or, why I’m watching TV in the toilet.

Viking Woman: “I’m fat.”

Me (the faint tinkle of alarm bells sounding in my ears): “You’re adorable.”

VW: “I’m fat and we both know it.”

Me (feeling an initial urge to start scrambling): “There’s just more of you to love, that’s all.”

VW: “There will be more of me to dance on your grave, you keep talking like that. Now, pay attention. We need to go back on the Jenny Craig programme. It worked wonders for both of us last time.”

Me (nodding vigorously while examining an empty wallet): “Yes it did, dear. And just as soon as we win Lotto, we can afford to buy all those yummy pre-packaged meals again.”

VW: “I can’t wait that long. I need to lose many, many kilos right now.”

Me (scoping out possible escape routes): “What’s the hurry, honey?”

VW: “Three words: Las Vegas, pool, swimsuit.”

Me (surreptitiously pocketing the car keys): “Actually, I believe that’s four words.”

VW: “Are you arguing with a fat woman?”

Me (feeling assorted sphincters tighten): “No dear. Never. Wouldn’t think of it.”

VW: “I need to flush out my system.”

Me (perusing the pantry): “You mean by drinking the wine we’ve been stockpiling for my sister’s visit?”

VW: “I mean by doing that lemon-drink-master-cleanse-fasting-diet-thingee.”

Me (wincing): “The one with the lemon juice and the maple syrup and the cayenne pepper?”

VW: “That’s the one.”

Me (swallowing hard): “We tried that a few years ago, dear. Remember how we pretty much evacuated everything we’ve ever ingested, right down to the boogers we ate when we were two? Remember how the cayenne pepper set my ass hairs on fire?”

VW: “I remember that it worked.”

Me (shuddering): “I remember gnawing on my own arm after two days I was so hungry.”

VW: “We should both do the cleanse again.”

Me (eyes popping): “What’s this ‘we’ thing? It was your idea. For you.”

VW: “You’re getting fat.”

Me (going all defensive/indignant): “I thought you liked husky men.”

VW: “Husky, yes. Fat, no.”

Me (shaking my head slowly): “You know I’ll spend the next six days in the toilet. That I will be reading every magazine in the house. Twice. That you will need extra extension cords so you can move the TV into the toilet so I can watch Shortland Street. You know that, right?”

VW: “I think it’s cute when you sprint through the house screaming.”

Me (almost smiling): “Cute? I thought I was fat.”

VW: “Cute AND fat.” 

Me (shrugging in defeat): “Pass the lemon juice. And start gathering up my reading material. Oh, and you might want to turn off the smoke detector. This is going to get ugly.”

Wanna buy a book? It’s a virgin

Hey! Meester! Over here! Wanna buy a Rolex? It’s real. No? How about Gucci sunglasses? Louis Vuitton? Juicy? Chanel? No? How about my seester? She’s a virgin. Or my mother. She’s a virgin too. 

In an effort to explore all possible means to put Brown Girls back into circulation, I attend an evening seminar in Napier conducted by PublishMe (publishme.co.nz). I arrive at the advertised venue one minute before the designated start time. A posted notice informs me the meeting place has been changed. Crap!

I manage to locate the Quality Inn on my first attempt. I park. I scurry. Not a good look. A conference room. Chairs for 30. There are six of us. Two are seniors. One other is a fidgety teenage girl who insists on making pointless, inane comments. Crap is now squared!

A hyped-up fellow named Ocean is shucking and jiving the benefits of PublishMe. His delivery is fervent. It’s filled with passion and optimism. He is preaching to the wide-eyed and the hopeful. And then there is me.

My initial thoughts:

1) If he fathered nearly a dozen children, would his brood be called Ocean’s 11?

2) He is displaying the religious zeal of someone who is selling something he is very, VERY keen on. Because it works, or because it doesn’t involve him forking out any cash?

We are told the usual horror stories about how many writers are actually accepted by mainstream publishers, how the defining factor is not actually talent but rather the balance sheet. Bean counters have taken over the publishing world and, DAMMIT!, it’s time to take it back from those sweaty bastards.

PublishMe was started to make its owners rich . . . I mean, to help poor, struggling writers finally have their precious words printed and bound and on a shelf in their shed, er, local bookstore.

This company is not, we are told, a VANITY PRESS. Ocean spits out these words in disgust, as if someone has just blown chunks in his mouth. This is a legit company, we are told, with all manner of support available for its clients. But, well, yes, it IS a POD (Print on Demand) publisher. Just to be perfectly clear on that.

So, what’s the catch? I ask myself. And by catch, I mean cost.

I’ve been here before, or at least in the same neighbourhood. PublishAmerica, which initially produced Brown Girls, is also a POD publisher. The difference (and it is a HUGE difference) is they make their money, not from charging the writer a publishing fee, but by not doing any marketing per se. That lack of effort pretty much forces the author to buy their book in bulk and then sell copies to family and friends, or risk not earning one bloody red cent for all their hard work.

And so I bought in bulk. I sold my own book. And I made some money. Not a lot, mind you, and not nearly enough to make up for the nine months it took me to write the book and the 10 months it took PublishAmerica to get around to printing the darn thing. But I MADE money. And it cost me exactly ZERO to have it published.

I could have walked away with my two free author’s copies, put them on display under a spotlight and gone to my grave as a “published writer.”

The fact that people I wasn’t related to, nor had any vested interest in blowing smoke up my ass simply to get into my will, actually came up to me and explained how much they enjoyed reading Brown Girls was just a nice little bonus.

At one point in his presentation, Ocean mentioned something about $15 per printed copy, but it was a vague answer to a vague question. And so I went away wondering if, while I was still on Hastings Street, I had somehow missed the “money shot” in the introduction. That the shoe had dropped within the first three minutes and I was not there to hear the thud.

I went away still wanting to know this: How much is PublishMe going to charge Me to be Published?

I e-mailed that question to Ocean, explaining that I would be blogging about his seminar as part of my journey to return Brown Girls to the Land of Readers/Buyers/Walking ATMs. I was not surprised by a lack of response. Mention “blog” to someone and the silence is deafening. My good and kind mentor, Jeff Buick, has somehow managed to lose the ability to click the Reply tab for more than a week now, ever since, in fact, I asked for an update on his progress reviewing my manuscript so I could record it IN MY BLOG.

So I phoned PublishMe this morning. Talked to a nice lady who told me Ocean was dealing with some kind of family emergency. Fair enough. I then asked her my questions about cost.

She told me this: the writer pays for a minimum of 30 printed copies. You can then take those away and sell them on your own, or PublishMe will charge a warehousing fee, try to sell your book via its own website and then pay the writer a royalty for each book sold.

So I PAY to have my book printed. Like it was a poster or a flier or a brochure or a newsletter or a business card. And what about that does not scream VANITY PRESS!!! to you?

I did the math: using Ocean’s pulled-from-his-ass cost of $15 per book, it would cost $450 for that 30-book run. Charge $20 per book (and that is cheap as chips in this Land of Overpriced Everything) for a $5 per book profit, and you would have to sell 90 books just to break even. 

Tally up the effort needed to market your product (website, media interviews, sweet-talking bookstore owners) and that’s a lot of work to JUST BREAK EVEN.

In this life, there are no free rides and no free lunches. And, apparently, no free books either.

I’m sorry, but comparing a POD publisher to a mainstream publisher (comparing a printing service to a publishing house) is like comparing masturbation to sex. The end result may be the same, but it all gets a bit messy and no one wants to see what you’ve got in your hand.

The Bean Bang Theory explained. Finally.

A sharp knock. An unexpected visitor. A man looming in my doorway, paper bags clutched in his hand.

He tells me he wants to make my head explode. He wants to stop my heart.

“What? Again?”

Richard Corney had read my blog about his new company, Flight Coffee. He was disappointed the beans he gave me earlier hadn’t induced the BANG! effect I’ve received (and enjoyed — I call it a Brain Orgasm) from other filter/drip brews. He’s come to my home, bearing three more samples, fresh out of his roaster. He is determined to shock my system, as all good coffee should.

I like Richard. He’s a mate. We share a passion for coffee. And by passion, I actually mean PASSION. Last wish before the firing squad? Coffee, please. Oh, and hold the milk. I’m not dying with a foam mustache, thanking you.

We also share a history.

His Espresso Garden Cafe was the second company I featured when I started as a freelance writer for the Hawke’s Bay Today newspaper in Napier, New Zealand. The story on Flight Coffee will be my final story before I move on to greener pastures (read full-time employment).

I want to say nice things about Richard Corney. I want to say nice things about Flight Coffee. After all, I’ve seen him at work, watched him fuss over his roaster like Dr. Frankenstein tinkering with his creature. Timing, adjusting, fretting, hoping, muttering, pacing — all in the quest for the perfect cup of joe.

And then I had the gall to say I’ve had better.

I try to explain to Richard that my “better” involved Starbucks, where they have all this fancy, expensive equipment, none of which currently resides in my kitchen. Starbucks built its reputation on coffee — filter and espresso. It lives and dies by the bean. I cannot possibly hope to duplicate their filtering process in my humble abode. Well, not until I win Lotto, that is.

But I try. And I hope. And I cross my fingers and hold my breath and brew. The very next morning.

But I can already tell by the colour of the stream pouring from the carafe that I have failed. Richard put his heart and soul into roasting this batch of Mandling Sumatra beans and I’m about to go all Rome on him and turn my thumb down.

Maybe it’s my coffee machine. Or its mesh filter. Maybe my grinder is old. And dull. Or I’m grinding it too fine. Maybe it’s actually a dark roast that clenches my heart like a sphincter and Richard has supplied me with light and medium.

Maybe it’s simply a matter of taste. After all, Viking Woman loves spicy food, but I find it burns all the way down and all the way out. Blisters on my tongue, blisters on my colon — not a pretty sight.

There are a million reasons for the no-BANG! theory and not one of them has anything to do with Flight Coffee. Or that crazed mad scientist of a Richard Corney.

Later, in the dead zone that is the afternoon — when any sane freelance writer should be napping to conserve his energy for the big night of TV viewing ahead — I decide to try again.

This time I use the French press. This time I grind for only 10 John Seconds (measured in rhythmic nods of my great pumpkin of a head), thus making for a coarser grind.

And this time there is something. Not quite a BANG! perhaps, but most definitely a WTF!

I smile. I smack my lips. My fingers tremble from the caffeine high and my bladder screams as it spasms and I know sleep will not come easy to me tonight. And I do not care.

Richard, you little beauty, you legend, you have fed my jones and my jones liked it.

Liked it a lot.

Now my jones, my NEED, my habit, requires more. I may very well be addicted to Flight Coffee. I’m going to assume that’s a good thing.

We must, however, never discount what I like to call the Free Factor. To date, Richard has been kind enough to give me samples. And, as my brother Jerry likes to say (albeit in reference to beer), free just tastes better. I’m assuming the same holds true for coffee . . . 

. . . Nah! This is just good shit. End. Of. Story.

Now stand back. If this cranium of mine goes off, it’s going to get awfully messy in here.

The write stuff? Sometimes I wonder

I wrote Brown Girls in 2002-03 while managing Big Tree Hideaway in Wainui, New Zealand. I actually composed most of the book while strolling the magnificent Wainu Beach and then would reluctantly leave that golden expanse, go home and type.

It followed, then, that I should initially try for a New Zealand-based publisher. I was, after all, living in the country, and my book is set in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, a nation that has close ties with Kiwis (most of those ties being of the financial sort).

With literary agents being a rather new breed on the publishing evolutionary scale in this outback, writers are actually permitted to approach publishing houses directly. Sort of like asking the Queen to pass you the salt at McDonald’s.

I tried the Big Three — Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House — and, considering I’ve already blogged how Brown Girls was eventually published by PublishAmerica, you already know the ending.

I don’t remember all the sad and sordid details (rejection is always sad. And sordid.), but there was something about my manuscript never actually arriving at one publishing house. Now, for New Zealand Post to misplace a package in a country this size is akin to misplacing a crocodile in your bathtub. But, hey, it happens. Or at least it happens to me.

I do remember waiting months and months for someone at Penguin to get off their ass, even as the time was ticking down to when we had to leave for Viking Woman’s next employment in North America. I finally worked up the nerve to send a short but oh-so-polite note asking if any decision had been made as to the feasibility of publishing my manuscript.

And there it was — a mere two days later — the rejection letter in my mailbox. (One delivery I would have gladly had New Zealand Post fumble.) Talk about your coincidence! Talk about your timing!

Apparently, just as teens who are sexually active in horror movies are doomed to perish in ghastly fashion, those writers bold enough to query the progress of their manuscript through the Publishing Kingdom’s Hallowed Halls are instantly rejected for being unworthy. And cheeky buggers to boot.

You might want to write that lesson down. I just did.

I contacted a number of smaller presses as well, including Cape Catley. Their reply was, “Sorry, but we’ve just published a novel set on a tropical island.”

I’d read that book — Temptation Island by Graeme Lay — quickly gave a it a three-word review (“Piece of Shit” No, wait, four words: “Horrible Piece of Shit”), and so was sorely tempted to write back to Cape Catley and say, “Alright, but now do you want to publish a GOOD book set on a tropical island?”

But you do not — I repeat, DO NOT — want to get into a pissing contest with a publisher. It’s almost always comes back to bite you in the ass.

While my immediate publishing future remains in the hands of Jeff Buick, and has now for about six months (see my blog “Buying a Buick”), I can either sit here moaning or start exploring Plan B.

Which explains why I had an interview today with Chrissie Manson of Workforce Development. Her group has joined forces with Creative Hawke’s Bay to facilitate a series of workshops for “artists, including musicians, visual artists, WRITERS and jewellers.”

Except the more I talked to Ms. Manson, and looked at the literature, the more I realized how these workshops were really aimed at the likes of painters and potters and creators of necklaces, helping them determine how much their end product is worth.

Not a whole lot of help for me because, you see, a writer’s end product — the manuscript — remains basically worthless until a publisher says otherwise. To paraphrase an old song, “You’re nobody till somebody publishes you.”

If I had to do it again, I’d be an artist and dabble in watercolours and landscapes. That way, if no one bought my “masterpiece,” I could at least frame it and put it on display in the bathroom or the garage or the pantry.

And then, when someone asks, “Whose cat vomited on the wall?”, I could proudly proclaim, “That’s MY vomit.”

Money, honey

Kiwis, obviously disdaining such scientific inconveniences as solstices, consider Sept. 1 the first day of spring. So I could say to Viking Woman, with some degree of accuracy, “Hey, let’s get out of the house and enjoy this beautiful, sunny spring day.”

And what better way to celebrate what surely must be the end of winter than by going to a farmers’ market and discovering what new wonders Mother Nature has to offer? Which is why we drove the 20 minutes from Napier to Hastings and the A&P Showgrounds.

I cautioned Viking Woman before we even left the house that our bank account was sucking slough water and would continue said sucking until the arrival of the next payday. And so we should only buy what items were deemed absolutely essential to the actual placing of meals on table.

Which would explain why I forked out $2 for a pair of avocados, and $5.50 for gluten-free sausages. Shortly afterwards, I found myself distracted by a buxom young lady in a pushup bra selling, uh, something. When I did finally turn around, it was to find Viking Woman using her bank card to purchase $30 worth of wine.

“What part of ‘we have no money’ did you miss?” I asked her, hissing under my breath in the crowded building.

“I’m stockpiling,” she said.

“What? In case of an earthquake?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you ever happen to notice that, whenever they show the aftermath of an earthquake, they always include security-camera footage of wine bottles smashing to the floor? I’m pretty sure it’s right there in the telephone book: ‘In the case of disaster, please smash all wine bottles first and then proceed in an orderly fashion to a place of safety.’ “

“Well, I’m pretty sure it says, ‘women and children first’ and absolutely nothing about men who pay too much attention to bank accounts.”

“Whatever,” I said, my shoulders, and resolve, already beginning to slump.

“Besides,” she said, “I’m actually stockpiling for our visitors.”

And that was the end of it.

Because one of those future visitors is my sister, whom we’re hoping to impress the hell out of so she will go home to Canada and inform my parents that, yes, John may be located a million miles away but, no, he is not living in a Third World country, nor is he in ever-impending danger of being devoured by some wild critter. Or cannibals. Or both.

So I learned something new today: “We have no money” actually means “we have no money unless we happen to be buying something for a member of John’s immediate family, something which Viking Woman will eventually share.”

Maybe I should write that one down. And then file it under Why Even Bother.

What she REALLY means

Two spouses. A total of 27 years of wedded, um, bliss. You’d think I’d understand Wifespeak by now.

Apparently not.

Case in point: today. With the New Zealand spring off to a fine start, Viking Woman decided to spend a Saturday removing the old, vomit-green paint from a nightstand and chest of drawers we bought weeks ago from the Salvation Army.

At the time of purchase, and in reaction to the elevation of eyebrows nearly to the level of my hairline (and, believe me, that’s quite the hike), she assured me I would not have to lift finger one, that the chore of transforming these battered collections of wood and particle board into beautiful and functional furniture would be hers, and hers alone.

I should have known better. After 27 years? I REALLY should have known better.

Today started well: me at my trusty MacBook, Viking Woman rustling up tools. Me inside, her outdoors. It’s called bliss, folks. Let me rephrase that: it’s called HEAVENLY bliss.

Too good to last? Oh, yeah.

A step sounding inside the door.

“Honey?” 

Here it comes.

“I know you’re terribly busy with your business story, and that it needs to be finished by Monday morning so we can afford to eat, but could you possibly lend me a hand?”

That’s what she said. This is what she meant:

“Stop looking at porn on the Internet, you freeloading freelance writer, and get your lazy ass out here and do some real work for once in your life. I’ve got seven drawers here and I just know you’ll end up begging to use one of them, so earn it, Fat Boy.”

It’s called Wifespeak.

Here’s another example:

She says: “I just want to finish this book before we go to sleep.”

Translation: “You ain’t getting any tonight, you sad, pathetic, hairy toad, so put yer kit back on and stop scaring the cat.”

In other words, she is more interested in some writer she doesn’t know (and who probably had to perform an act of  oral sex just to be published – how else to explain how some of these hacks get into print) than in the 63 seconds of ultimate bliss you were kind enough to offer.

In the end, I did her bidding, partly because I’m a good partner but mainly because I’m ever mindful of the empty glass jar under the sink bearing a handwritten tag that reads ‘John’s gonads.’

I scraped and rinsed, and scraped and rinsed, and then scraped and rinsed some more. And when it was all done and those paint-naked drawers were drying in that glorious spring sunshine, I stripped off my medical gloves (smiling as I did so at the thought that at least one kind of latex-like protection is too small for my appendages) and went back to my trusty computer.

Where I proceeded to write this blog while the experience was still fresh in my mind. And the paint chips still tangled up in my nose hairs.

The fact that the scraping (and rinsing) has caused me to lose all sensation in my right thumb is, I’m guessing, simply an indication of a job well done.

Gizzie, I miss ya

I spent two days in Gisborne, New Zealand, this week. While Viking Woman worked, I wandered the streets, drinking in familiar sights.

We lived in Gisborne for about three years earlier this century. It was our first home in New Zealand.

It’s where we learned the country’s history and tradition, how to pronounce Maori place names (Whakatane = Fa-ka-tanny not Wha-ka-tanny. Or Fuk-a-tanny if you want to shock your granny), and translate Kiwisms (away with the fairies? Box of birds? Sparrow’s fart? Hoons? Larrikans? Squiz?). It’s where we first tasted pavlova and feijoas. It’s where I fell in love with Minny on Shortland Street, only to have her character written out the second I was truly hooked on this classic soap opera.

Gisborne is isolated. Park the train across the section of track that crosses the airport runway (one of only two airports in the world where this occurs), close the port, put barricades across two roads, and you can party in the Chardonnay Capital of New Zealand and surf Wainui Beach while the rest of the world merrily skips to Hell, basket in hand.

Gisborne feels like a city. Or at least a big town. Napier, where we now live, feels like a destination. It lives for tourists. It thrives on their greenbacks, Canuck bucks, euros, Oz dollars. It yearns for yens. 

Napier does not feel cosy, not the way Gisborne did. Part of the problem is the proliferation of cafes. There are some streets where, literally, every second store front is offering a caffeine fix and a muffin. I love coffee, but there really can be too much of a good thing and we have the proof.

I mean, there’s only so many varieties of hot milk an espresso machine can produce. After awhile, all lattes start to look alike. As they should, I suppose. And, prepared with even a minimum of expertise, they all taste the same as well. Where’s the adventure in that? Boredom does not equal comfort.

When a city treats its locals as if it’s constantly looking over their shoulders for the first sign of the cruise ship season, then it stops feeling like home.

I have included a few images of Gisborne for your viewing pleasure. Yer welcome.