We grew a bumper crop of beautiful chillis this year. New Zealand doesn’t understand Mexican food, and their determination to spell ‘chilli’ that way just proves it. But no matter. We roasted these guys on the grill (or is it grilll?) and they were meaty and charred up just right.

But they had no heat! Whatever combination of sun, rain, and relaxed Kiwi attitude made these the mildest of all Anaheims. Mr Scoville didn’t even stir in his sleep over these.

Maybe next year… or maybe we’ll just give up and have some shipped in on dry ice.

I saw this vignette on a pre-dawn walk in Wellington a few weeks ago. The houses here are crammed in cheek by jowl on a vertiginous hillside. But they’re within walking distance of the city centre and command gorgeous views of the harbour. And so whatever’s behind that For Sale sign and that white picket fence is desirable and expensive real estate.

But even so, I think it takes big brass balls to be the sales agent telling potential buyers a seven-figure story with this digger parked out front and casually reaching down onto the property.

About where that rock in the foreground sits, there used to be a sculpture. I know because I walked by it every day to and from work for the first three years we lived here, and still do a couple of times a week on the way to the pool.

It was kinda metallic and curvy. The plaque said it was to commemorate the Smirnoff centenary… which I always thought was an odd reason to put up a sculpture. But whatever floats the city council’s boat, says I.

A few days later, mystery solved!!

Following a swim recently I walked along the sea wall for a while and came across this painted rock. Cuter in person maybe… it really gave me a smile.

Somebody in our neighborhood Facebook group posted a silly question that said more or less “how come everybody around here is driving a blue Suzuki Swift?”

That post got a lot of comments, mostly people trying to make funny jokes, but some people seriously trying to come up with reasons why, such as pointing out that one of the car repair shops has a few of them for its loaner fleet.

But a few commenters pointed out that this is an example of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon (more prosaically known as Frequency Illusion). I’ve read enough popular neuroscience / cognition stuff that I’m sure I must’ve learned about this at some point, but if so I’d completely forgotten. Basically, if you find your attention drawn to something unusual like the Baader-Meinhof gang or a blue Suzuki Swift, you’ll suddenly see it everywhere. The illusion is the belief that there are actually more of the thing… probably not, it’s just that you’re noticing what was there all along.

And it’s true! We now can’t leave the house without seeing one or more of these little gems. There are at least three different blues on the road, and a shade of green that could be counted in a pinch. I’ve seen two simultaneously on the freeway, and three in a parking lot.

Plus, it’s kinda fun to say: blue Suzuki, blue Suzuki, blue Suzuki Swift!

After the storms passed, we stayed out of the water for a couple of weeks to let the pollution dissipate… all the sewer lines overflowed, and whole hillsides full of 150 years of modern life’s byproducts washed into the bay.

But eventually it seemed safe enough, and our little band of sea swimmers got back in to enjoy paddling around in what’s left of summer. Now, we’re eagerly awaiting daylight savings time next week (or the week after? I know when Flag Day is, but somehow the beginning and end of DST is something I have to look up every single year) because we can get a swim in before work for a few more weeks.

How many years ago did we play Sim City on our PC? Maybe 25? However long ago, there’s a piece of that game that has become part of the family lexicon… if you needed to build more roads, the little news helicopter would fly across the screen and give you a burst of static that sounded like “Grzbd crizzdr traffic.”

And that’s what I’ve said to myself a few times lately, as in the picture here. I’m only driving in commute traffic a couple days per week to go to swim squad. If I leave at 6:20, I’m golden, but by 6:30 the road between home and the freeway is backed up a mile or more.

Since we moved to this house during COVID and it’s aftermath of working from home, we don’t know what to expect long term. I’ve heard other people say that February is the worst traffic month, because it’s back to school time after the summer holidays. But there’s really only one way out of the neighborhood, which only has one lane for cars — the other lane was changed to 3+ carpools and buses only some years ago. And the population is growing, soooo… expect delays or take the bus.

And what about the bus? It’s pretty convenient actually, and cheap. But it’s still a longer trip than the car on any but the very worst traffic day, let’s say an extra 20 minutes each way. When I’m trying to squeeze in a swim before work, those 40 minutes feel like a real burden. So for now I’ll just try to leave on time and every so often I’ll say “Grzbd crizzdr traffic.”

It’s been five weeks plus since my last post. I think that’s the longest gap in blogging in the more than a decade I’ve been doing this.

Life is a gentle whirlwind these days… work, including more trips to Wellington, has been busy. Work-related extracurriculars like HL7 are also occupying some time. We’ve done some weekend projects around the house, gone to a couple of shows, had some dinners out. Pétanque! Swimming! Lee’s got a Tuesday yoga group and has just started volunteering at the library. I’ll catch up with some thoughts about those things in separate posts.

It does seem a bit privileged to be writing in my diary about how I’ve been too fully occupied with basically fun things to write in my diary. We read and hear so much about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and no doubt it is. Just not here, yet.

Fairy houses everywhere! This little treehouse has a ladder to get in.

This volunteer vine suggests that while the worm farm does a great job of turning our food scraps into good looking black stuff to put on the garden, it doesn’t necessarily kill every seed! Unlike a traditional compost pile, the worm farm never gets hot.

But all good! We’re looking forward to enjoying some pumpkin this fall 😀.