[travel] One more day in New Zealand, off to Australia this afternoon
Yesterday the four of us went to an oriental rug store in Petone, then to the outlet stores in Otaki. Shopping ensued, though none of the magnificent carpets caught calendula_witch’s eye. This also involved driving about through even more beautiful countryside and townscape. Plus some pretty decent lunch. Then home for a long nap (me) followed by a fascinating party in a rooftop apartment in downtown Wellington.
Some last minute-shopping in train for today, then we’re packing and off to Melbourne.
Tags: Australia, Calendula, New Zealand, Travel
Posted: 1:24 pm Tue August 31 2010 | Comments(0) |
[travel] Sheep, Seals, and Bulldozers, oh my
As calendula_witch hath promised, here is a post about sheep, seals and bulldozers. Oh, my.
Yesterday the four of us headed out in danjite and khaybee’s state limo (a surplus stretch Volvo S90 retired from diplomatic service) and drove from Wellington to Cape Palliser. The trip went via the very winding, tiny Highway 2 through the Rimutakas, then into the charming town of Featherston, then to Greytown, where rugs and chocolate were purchased. From Greytown we drove to Martinborough for lunch, then on out Cape Palliser Road to Ngawi and then to the cape itself. The route, for them what is interested.
We saw a lot of beautiful countryside. Early flowers are in bloom, including daffodils, kowhai trees, and down by the coast, enormous lupens. The weather was increasingly gloomy as we progressed, but we always had good visibility. The road was increasingly grim as we progressed, but the state limo kept up to the bitter end. And it was beautiful. The Wairarapa Valley reminded me rather a lot of the Willamette Valley back in Oregon, but they’re at roughly the corresponding latitude, with similar rainfall and weather patterns, so this is unsurprising. The coast looked a bit like the Mendocino coast in California, except with more dramatic irruptions of volcanic rocks.
There were sheep. Lots of sheep. (I think I took about a hundred pictures of sheep.)
The lambs had just come in. Some were still orange with their afterbirth. Others staggered around in a state of surprise and wonderment. Others were dead, still born or weather-struck, providing a feast for the hawks.
Later, as we got to Ngawi, we saw a rare coastal bulldozer colony. (I took about hundred pictures there, too.)
Ngawi is a fishing village without a harbor, just a beach. When the boats come it, they’re set on handbuilt trailers and hauled up the beach by bulldozers. This is lieu of a launch ramp, or a jetty and moorage. Several dozen bulldozers line the road, each hooked to a largish fishing boat. Some of them are seriously antique, others quite modern. It’s a very curious sight, and an interesting solution to the obvious problem of protecting the boats from the chronically rough seas there.
Finally, on the last stretch of the road — one lane of gravel and mud — we saw the permanent colony of fur seals that live around Cape Palliser. (I took about a hundred pictures of seals as well.)
These are big seals, rather larger than the harbor seals I’m familiar with. It was a rainy day so a lot of them were up on the grass by the road, above the rocky beach. They were also quite indifferent to our presence. When I got out of the car and walked around with the camera several times, I was sharing their immediate space. Mostly I got a yawn and a blink. Things might have been different if I were wearing a coat made of fish or something.
It was a beautiful drive. We got to see a lovely slice of New Zealand, and some unusual things. Plus a long, fun day in the car. Today we lay a bit lower. Tomorrow we are off to Melbourne, Australia.
Also, due to bandwidth limitations here, I can’t upload the bulk of my photos yet. Watch for photo essays on sheep, seals and bulldozers to come.
Photographs © 2010, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Tags: Australia, Calendula, Cool, New Zealand, Photos, Travel
Posted: 1:40 pm Mon August 30 2010 | Comments(1) |
[conventions] Au Contraire Day Three
Had a good day today at Au Contraire. We were a little rushed in the morning getting out in time for breakfast prior to my 10 am workshop. The first two places we tried were closed, so I declared a punt and we went to eat the hotel. Food was mediocre, service was terrible. The workshop, however, went very well.
After a longish break spent chatting with the lovely and talented E— (whose LJ handle I will eventually dig out of my memory) and a sort-of light lunch at Southern Cross, we made it back for my kaffeklatsch, then my reading which I shared with Juliet Marillier. Ms. Marillier read a fantastic short piece which resonated very deeply for me. After that I’d thought we were going back to chez spector-khaybee for some down time, but due to a miscommunication calendula_witch and I were marooned in the hotel lobby for an extra 45 minutes. I pretty much collapsed then, and wound up dozing until we were rescued and brought home, where I slept some more.
calendula_witch is off now to a largish dinner with Our Hosts at someone else’s home, which I bowed out of due to exhaustion. We have plans to go a-touring through backcountry tomorrow, and I’d much rather have a quiet evening and an early bedtime so I can have suitable energy for that project. Having a great time, but the jet lag and the post-chemo fatigue are intersecting in some odd ways.
Wellington is lovely, I have yet to meet a New Zealander I dislike, and I’m very glad we’re here.
Tags: Calendula, Conventions, New Zealand, Travel
Posted: 11:08 pm Sat August 28 2010 | Comments(3) |
[conventions] Au Contraire Day One
We arrived safely if exhausted in Wellington, NZ yesterday, to be met at the airport by and . After a stop at their house, we hied off for a delicious pizza dinner baked in this oven:
Good stuff, though the cranberry and camembert pizza was a bit different. After that took me on a driving tour, while and went for a walk then went drinking. We circled up at the convention and went to a swell Turkish dinner with a cast of dozen, including , , Amy Thomsen, Dave Clarke, local writer/fen and and her partner Frank Mundens, along with the stylishly late Jeremy and wildilocks from the Wellington community.
Afterwards we attended opening ceremonies, where I saw and spoke to a raft more of US writerdom and fandom. I was so jet lagged that I will not be able to recapture all the names, but off the top of my head, , Elise Mathessen, and Rick, , John Hertz, Perri Lurie, CJ Mills and plenty of other folks, along with one of my favorite Australians, Sean Williams.
Then it was home to ded-and-bed.
Off now to brunch, then I have an auction to run, and some panels to empanellate at. See some, all or none of you there.
Photo © 2010, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Tags: Calendula, Conventions, Food, New Zealand, Travel
Posted: 2:18 pm Fri August 27 2010 | Comments(1) |
[travel] Coming into Los Angeles…
Just passing through LAX. calendula_witch and I are in the Star Alliance business class lounge right now. Free food! Free booze! Flight from Portland was notable for the passenger immediately behind me being arrested when we landed and made the gate. Apparently I missed all the drunk and disorderly fun when I was in the bathroom. He did spend quite a bit of time tapping his foot against the base of my seat, but that isn’t actually an indictable offense.
Off on the Big Hop in a couple of hours. Boy howdy am I exhausted. I do have my Au Contraire schedule now, but I’m too wiped to post it at the moment. I will be the auctioneer Saturday, so if you want to see live, raw feed Jay Lake, come on by. (Assuming you’re in Wellington that day.)
For now, rest easy. That’s what I’m going to try to do.
Tags: Calendula, California, Conventions, New Zealand, Travel
Posted: 10:04 pm Wed August 25 2010 | Comments(4) |
[personal] Random dream notes of late
- With calendula_witch in my Dad’s Camry, driving completely offroad through a very hilly park. She’s behind the wheel, and making some terrifying choices. After speeding through a terribly steep meadow and nearly crashing through the woods into a river, we wind up spending the night at a ranger station. The next morning as I am talking to the rangers one of them picks up a pendant I have dropped. The pendant belongs to Will Smith. I was carrying it in secret. I panic at its loss.
- I’m in Chicago. I’m walking around downtown during the business day. Lake Michigan keeps sending tendrils of dirty-green water after me. This causes localized flooding. Somehow I escape the littoral assault. I wind up in a Hyatt/Marriott/Hilton type hotel room. On the television there is a movie, made in a very grainy, art Super 8 style, recapping my day’s adventures. The part of me is being played by one of those 1970′s Fisher-Price people toys which is essentially a short wooden dowel topped with a round plastic head. In the film my body is dark blue, and I sport a dashing mustachio and a little plastic ascot. Again, the fingers of the lake do not get me.
Anxiety much? And people ask where I get my ideas from…
Tags: Calendula, dreams, Funny, Personal
Posted: 5:21 am Wed August 25 2010 | Comments(0) |
[travel] Off today to the antipodes, forward all my mail to the South Seas
This afternoon calendula_witch and I are off to New Zealand. Portland to Los Angeles to Sydney to Wellington, a ridiculous amount of flight hours and transit time. Longest flight I’ve ever taken before is San Francisco to Hong Kong. The LA-Sydney hop on this flight will be even mightier. Thank Ghu for business class seats. danjite and khaybee will meet us at the other end, pour us into their state limo, and see us to their home. Next week we’ll all four pop over to Melbourne.
Expect unknown amounts of blogging at unknown times. I will probably take a metric frak-ton of photos, of course, on account of because that’s what I do in furrin parts. Of course, those crazy Kiwis don’t know that they’re the furriners.
I won’t be answering my phone much, but I will keep an eyeball on email. Write if you need me.
calendula_witch and I are back on Thursday, September 9th. Surgery festivities the following week, in which I expect to be in the hospital from September 16th to September 20th. (I didn’t really need my liver anyway, did I?) It is my plan to spend as little as possible of the next two weeks thinking about that.
And, oddly, one thing I’m really looking forward to is the night sky. It will be like going to a different planet.
Tags: Australia, Calendula, Cancer, Conventions, health, New Zealand, Personal, Photos, Travel
Posted: 5:12 am Wed August 25 2010 | Comments(2) |
[personal] Fatherhood in the time of cancer
Driving home last night from dinner, I was listening to NPR. Terri Gross was interviewing Scott Simon about his book on adoption, Baby We Were Meant For Each Other. Simon was talking about the mechanics of the adoption process in China, which are very familiar to me as that is how the_child joined our family. Then he started talking about child abandonment and orphanage life in China, which saddened me. Those are realities with which I am reasonably conversant, in the context of being a complete outsider, and they are certainly the realities of my daughter’s early life.
What really broke me was when he then started talking about being an older parent (Simon was 50 when he and his wife adopted their first daughter), and what it would mean when he passed away and left his children behind.
When you peel back all the prognoses and tests and procedures and psychotherapy and family support and love, underneath it all, I truly no longer expect to live to be old. This conviction didn’t emerge until the first metastasis in my lung. The second metastasis which I’m currently dealing with in my liver has only deepened my sense of fatalism. These days, I define a successful life as one in which I survive in reasonable health long enough to see the_child graduate from high school. She’s about to start seventh grade, which means I need to hang in for six more years. Or, given the current metrics, through six more recurrences of my cancer.
None of this is logical. It’s probably not even all that mentally healthy. On a day to day basis, I work at being positive, and I believe I largely succeed at it. (Though calendula_witch might beg to disagree.) But when I’m being honest down to the bone, I don’t see a long future for myself.
That just is. And in some ways, I think I’ve accepted my sense of mortality. I will fight for every inch, all the way to full cure or to the end, whichever comes first. If it does come as I fear, I will have many regrets — books unwritten, places unvisited, people not yet loved, the grief and loss of my parents. But what I want the most is to see the_child into adulthood in good order. What I fear the most is never being able to do that.
Sometimes love is a bitter cup.
Tags: Books, Calendula, Cancer, Child, family, health, Personal, Writing
Posted: 5:28 am Tue August 24 2010 | Comments(7) |
[personal] The day that was
Oi. Such a day. Nothing cancer-related, for a change. I took the_child to the AT&T store at the mall just up the road a mile or two. We were adding a phone to an existing plan. This should have taken 10, 15 minutes. It took an hour and forty-minutes, involved at least five store employees, multiple phone calls to various inside help lines, and four (or possibly more) attempted number assignments. Something was seriously wrong with AT&T’s retail management software. Meanwhile, I, who cannot stand for any length of time even now due to fatigue and peripheral neuropathy, was stuck the whole damned time in an AT&T store with no chairs, stools or benches. The issue was clearly not the fault of the employees, and I remained good natured, but that was damned hard. Eventually she did get her first phone.
I made it home with about two minutes to spare before calendula_witch arrived to pick me up to go to see Inception in the cinema at the same damned mall. As the_child had said, “Why don’t you just have her meet you here?” To which I replied, “How will you get home?” She shrugged, then said, “Magic?”
As for Inception, I was highly entertained. I think I was impressed, but I’ll need to contemplate for a while. At the very least, it was well worth my time. I’d sure like to see it again. Spoilerrific musings possible in the next few days, though given my schedule, doubtful.
Eating leftovers now, then a much-delayed call with tillyjane, who is camping somewhere in Wyoming, then I am to bed with a book. Y’all play nice.
Tags: Calendula, Child, Movies, Personal
Posted: 6:22 pm Sun August 22 2010 | Comments(4) |
[personal] A blinding rush through mud
Swimming in mud lately. Had the expected Versed hangover through yesterday. On the other hand, I managed to finish Endurance.
I’m actually kind of amazed I’ve gotten anything done. Between preparing for the New Zealand-Australia trip, finishing revisions to Endurance, managing cancer issues (second opinion, surgery planning, etc.) and the colonoscopy, I’ve been extremely busy. Way behind on correspondence and other obligations, and won’t likely catch up for a long time. I hate that.
I have some writing and WRPA to do today, along with taking the_child shopping for her first cell phone, seeing a movie with calendula_witch and packing for the upcoming trip. Busy is as busy does.
Tags: Australia, Books, Calendula, Cancer, Child, Endurance, health, New Zealand, Personal, Travel, Writing
Posted: 6:45 am Sun August 22 2010 | Comments(1) |
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