Knotty Knickers

I Has A Number!

(Which I have erased because even with money being owed me, I do not wish any actual contact with the my Ex-Husband.)

That's it. For real!  Whooohoooo!!!

I am told I can receive texts free but that it'll cost to send back - how much I have yet to find out.  Will let everyone know as I sort this tellie in a strange land stuff out. 

In less positive news: got an email from the Ex-Husband saying that, once again, the IRS has made me overpay and I am due a return and basically that they are you know, going to put it in his account and not mine.  BASTARDS!  Just got this same shite sorted in October last year!  GRRRRRRRR.  Annoying that while I am the United States citizen and he the foreigner, my being a woman and him a man makes our backwards, patriotic, poopland (love you Mr. President!  I'm not blaming you!) put him first and defer to him on all matters regarding me.  ASSES!

Anyhoo, I'm off to finish sparkling wine and have it off with a very nice, hot, friend of a friend.  If ever I needed my jollies, it is while dealing with the IRS. 

Briefly and With Apologies

Been a bit of a whirlwind.  6:30am I taxied down to the Overlander and settled in for 11 hours of train transport.  Kat and her Monkey screamed and gave me a stupendously warm welcome.  Friday night we ate at a little cafe (the Lakota, of all things!) and then filled up our wine glasses and caught up on life.

Saturday we awoke to big rain.  Fearing there would be even worse in Wellie we devised a clever plan: dress as faeries and cross our fingers that the weather would allow our attendance at the Cuba St. Carnival, if not however we realized that faeries taking in the Monet exhibition at Te Papa was a good alternative.  Turned out that the sun was in fine spirits over the capitol city and we got to roam around the festivities.  Of important note: 1) I bought my favourite sunscreen, Piz Buin, at first opportunity and my sunburn came from missing an area on my left shoulder rather than ignoring the no ozone warnings and heading out of doors without protection as so many Northern Hemisphere chickies like to do and 2) there were a paltry number of folks dressed up for the event; even with the main parade affair happening later on I expected a more festive crowd - instead, our trio of winged sprites was actually asked to pose with someone...

Saturday night we were, understandably, thrashed and stayed in, nice and quiet after calling in for pizza at a place Kat was wanting to lurk about due to a man.

Sunday we went up to Otaki (pronounced like  you are saying 'oh-tacky') for some outlet shopping.  Ripcurl tees which say NZ on them rather than AU; several woolly shirts for hiking to make up for the one I left at home because it had holes in it; and the Kathmandu shop where I snagged a wonderful down sleeping bag.  Kat picked up a birthday gift, we popped into a food shop for picnicky goods, and off we went to a birthday party on the beach.  I made my way happily through some Mac's Summer Ale and Monteith's Radler, had a much more positive experience with smoked goods, and naturally left my Simply Eco Logical Sigg behind.  Made Kat pull into the pizzeria again and consumed a large vege pizza in the car as we two ladies cursed the retarded Aussie who didn't realize I had no interest in him and was merely really munchy and ignoring him to make open my friend.  Twat.

Today, Monday - I BOUGHT A CAR!

Yup.

5 speed manual, thank you kindly.  Blue, pretty much identical in shade to Flora.  It's the Honda HR-V I've linked to before.  Loves it already.  Yes, I got insurance - and it's costing a fraction of what I used to pay stateside.  $150 for the year, compared to $500.  Seriously.  Rock on NZ! 

I followed Kat home and did fine.  Plan to be our driver for excursions the rest of the week so that I can get more comfortable driving about.  Booked myself and my new ride onto the Interislander for the 1st of March - 2:15pm or so.  I'll be driving my own self to the ferry, which is a straight shot pretty much but none the less worrisome for it. 

Am without wireless, but will sort getting photos up sometime soon.  Unfortunately that means I have to sort the photos first - and there are a LOT.  Ah well. 

Meanwhile, am considering naming the new vehicle Fauna. 

A Lesson From Cpt. Hammer

He sang: Your home is where your heart is, so your real home's in your chest.

Despite being a corporate tool, he is right on that one.  I arrived in Auckland today and I am surprisingly chipper.  Only nearly cried a few times in Seattle, and that was due several times to saying goodbye to my Granma - totally understandable by all - and on touching down in New Zealand I had the same warm fuzzy feeling I get when I see Mt. Rainier as I go about my day in Seattle. 

Plus, I had a package waiting for me on my bed, the hostel owner remembered me, as did the Fairy Shoppe girl, and I have a room all to myself!  Life is already sweet as down here!  Save for the Ponsonby Fish and Chip shop serving up not their best breading and the Byzantium Cafe having done away seemingly with super thick and delish berry smoothies.  Still, all in all, I'm good and going to be great.

Snowie made me promise to tell you all this one thing about my trip down: in LAX my carry on backpack got pulled and they wanted to check out the metal item in it.  This is what they wanted to check out.  Funny to me that 1) Seattle security didn't flag it and 2) the security woman was really nice about it, not at all horrified when I explained what it was, noted that it was safer being metal and not an unknown man, and then helped me repack. 

Honestly, I expected it to happen.  That it only happened one of three jaunts through airport security is pretty good indeed!

REI Randomness

Driving to REI with Deb there was a lot of traffic. In all the traffic I spotted a white Ford Focus station wagon, a car I always pay attention to as dear Snow White drives one. The one that caught my eye today going over the I-5 university bridge did so due to a yellow sticker in the back window that looked familiar. Of course it looked familiar. I gave it to Snowie and she put it on her white Ford Focus station wagon. And that was exactly the car I was looking at.

I slowed (which was barely noticeable) and Deb and I rolled down the windows, I honked, and within a moment Snow White did the same. It was just long enough for the traffic to pick up and whoever was behind me to begin honking. We managed to holler 'REI!' at Snowie before driving on.

Lo and behold if on arriving at REI, parking the car, and settling into waiting at the customer service line (black boots went back finally) Snowie didn't walk right into us. She'd gotten off on an earlier exit than us, parked, and had customer service page me. I didn't hear the page, though I'd have loved to, but the gods being as kind as they are (in friendship, 'cause damn they aren't putting out anything for me otherwise, the poops!) still manage to bring us together. To commemorate the occasion I asked the woman behind us in line to take a photo. Here it is:

In honour of today's significance, Valentine's Day if you missed the Hallmark memo, we gave a little squeal over the World Wrap's table number we were given. 14! I took a photo of that too, because I think that St. Val's is best spent with girlfriends. Boys come and go too quickly. (Or they don't show and so don't come and I'm cranky. Idiots.) The two wonderful women in the image below are trusted and true and I adore them. They are just a couple of the amazing individuals in my life who make my leaving possible with their encouragement.

Getting Ready

I packed last night.  Got my yarn all sorted.  Yup.  There is a nice big bag going with me and the cedar chest has bags of variety, bags of similar colour, and bags of projects that my mother can surprise me with should I get bored, run out of projects I'm taking, and be broke in the land of woolly string.

Clothing is still in progress.  Though there are now two very full suitcases in my room.  Going to have to take the big orange Deuter backpack - for shoes and toiletries and Ireland.  

I have a separate bag for things I'm taking on the plane.  Which is only slightly marred by my hating the new laptop sleeve design in my fancy pancy Patagonia Lightwire 25 backpack and wanting something decent and finding nothing else that appeals.  Or that comes in the bright green they were using so much previously and that I liked so much.  Meah.  Will fuss with the messenger bag I have currently.  It's not as comfy to carry and I don't think it carries as much, but I do already own it and I loathe the idea of another trip downtown.  I have things downtown that are fun to do, don't want to break up the fun with no fun trips to backpack shop.  Poop.  Tonight will be a decision night as it needs to be shipped back or packed with trans-Pacific goodies.

In other news related to my departure: Kapiti Coast Motors, right in the neck of the woods that Kat lives in and where I will be enjoying my first week of being abroad, has this listing on TradeMe.  Drool.

And in my life's quest to be a personal assistant, plan other people's lives and spend their money, today I bought (on her penny) Mummy a roundtrip ticket to Nelson to visit me the end of September and first two weeks of October.  There is a school holiday for me at that time and my birthday - so that will be excellent fun.  Maybe I'll just set aside a bunch of yarn for her to bring me then...

Rob Brezny Told Me To Do It

Libra Horoscope for week of February 5, 2009

"Everything has been figured out, except how to live," sneered the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. That's not completely true, of course, which he might have discovered had he not closed his dogmatically cynical mind to the countless humans (many unknown to history) whose lives have been great works of art. Starting from these thoughts, Libra, you are hereby invited to regard the next 11 months as a time when you will make your own life a masterpiece -- a labor of love that is ingeniously imagined and lyrically wrought. Unseen forces and unexpected allies will come to your assistance if you do. 

Mad For Darjeeling

I would post photos from this past weekend in Seattle only I've not messed with my cameras since getting home.  All I've done is crawl into bed, make the furry babies nurse me as I drink hot lemonade, knit, and cough.  Felt a bit of a perk come upon me tonight so I got on the iCal - it works a bit different on this new Mac and I'm most eager to get it all sorted in my head, seeing how planner happy I am.  At any rate, while I was alleviating my fear of the upcoming departure I got a bit of an insane idea.  You see, in order to put myself at ease about what I'm embarking on, I started to look forward to the hair brained and longer reaching ideas of what I'd like to do with the next few years of my life, that always makes the immediate and solidly prepped reality come over all intelligent and manageable.  Many of you know that India and Nepal figure into my after NZ school plans - well, Darjeeling figures largely in the India idea...and as it does figure so largely into my ideas, and as I'm such a fan of the tea of that region (thanks in great part to my Granma), and my throat is sore and researching hot elixirs was only natural with that being the case, I started googling the area's important tea seasons and information.  

The end of my googling is here, sharing with you the grandiose and slightly insane notion that I fancy spending a year in Darjeeling on a tea plantation.  Not the Tuscan sun, perhaps, but deeply desirous and appealing to yours truly.  

No wailing!  It'd be no time soon.  I would absolutely go crazy if I didn't return to the kitten mittens and my friends that are family after oh...three years?  (There, I hear it - the moans and cries.  Therefore I remind you that there would be a goodly 2 month and some visit home in there.  And I put forth once more the eternally shot down suggestion that I be visited elsewhere in the world.  I have become an incredibly huge fan of the individuals who exhibit fervent wishes regarding meeting me in exotic locales, if you hadn't realized, though I absolutely understand the familial connections that limit several of my dearest, closest, most adored friends.)  I allow I'd be able to sit still two years without major issue.  Mostly because I've a scholastic eye on a program in Seattle that would require about that...and then, what could be more stable and fun than a year elsewhere?

You know what makes this really intrigue me though?  It is very grand and rather odd - but whatever else it may be, it is possible.  It has that shimmer of potentiality.  Whether or not it will take any sort of physical shape and form in my heart and therefore insist it's way into reality has yet to be seen.  But it could.  Don't things that could be enchant you as they do me?