Celebrating the Provs coming to visit with Prosecco doctored up with artisanal limoncello and passion fruit from the La Cigale farmers market. Another couple rounds of these and the rain won’t matter at all.
Stoopid rain
We went from the best weather ever on Tuesday to remnants of a cyclone on Friday…. just in time for company to arrive!!!
Happy Waitangi Day
Google honors Waitangi Day, which is pretty cool in itself. A Tuesday holiday makes for another short week here in Kiwiville, which is also cool.And we’re celebrating the holiday with a trip to the beach on our new tandem bike, which is probably the coolest!
Unicorn Apology
I don’t feel like it’s very often that a store goes to the trouble of printing up an apology when they run out of something. And I think it’s even less common when there’s a whole pile of the thing sitting right there.
But it happened today in regards the Fluffy Unicorn Pencil Case at the Warehouse.
The only thing I can figure is that you DO NOT WANT TO DISAPPOINT little Loretta once she has her heart set on a Fluffy Unicorn Pencil Case For Only $10. Do not go there, because she will cut you and then she will cry and so if you are in retail you go ahead and write up the apology in advance.
Full blood blue whatever
Here’s the moon that everyone was mooning over this week. In this dramatic live action shot, I captured the super blood blue moon setting behind the house across from us that is owned by the Moonies. And the Sky Tower, and, I think, a seagull!
Seeport Festival
We had a nice tour of HMNZS Wellington last weekend as part of the Seeport festival down at the Port of Auckland. The Kiwi sailors looked pretty shipshape, but the full beards sported by some of them were jarring to my eyes.
They let us right up onto the bridge, where Lee got to drive…
Back on shore, I got to try out the locomotive training simulator, which was actually pretty fun… I was a little sad about having to push that 10-year-old kid out of the way to get a turn, but he cut in line! (Kidding…)
We also got to see the tugboat race…
and the vintage yacht race…
It was hot hot hot for here, high 80s, part of the hottest January ever, but they had sunscreen stations all over and we survived just fine.
Ooooh, scary
The frigate HMNZS Te Kaha is a fine modern military vessel. But she’s perhaps a little less intimidating with the boy racer effects lighting and decidedly unthreatening kiwi cutout on the stack.
Fireworks and lasers
We had great seats for last weekend’s Anniversary Day concert by the Auckland Symphony Orchestra featuring the Lady Killers. They did a summer on the wharf pops repertoire, which the conductor did his best to sound happy about. But I think he might been more comfortable with Mahler’s ‘Planets’ than with Freddie Mercury.
But the orchestra totally rocked Bohemian Rhapsody anyway… the Lady Killers are all women of a certain age, but at least one of them still has all the high range she needs. Then, the lasers came on and were amazing and so were the fireworks.
Yay!
Wherever you go, there you are
Or at least there you are to within a centimeter or so.
A lot of the Anniversary Day stuff was sponsored by the Port, for whatever reason. And a lot of the festivities actually took place inside the normally fenced-off commercial port.
Being up close and personal with the big straddle cranes was cool.
Lighting of the bridge
As part of the Anniversary Day celebrations, the Harbour Bridge was illuminated, joining lots of other bridges in the latest civic-attractiveness arms race (remember when everybody had to have a needle?). Auckland’s bridge lights are supposedly the green-est, solar-est such installation in the world.
We were out on the wharf to witness the show… the lights really are amazing, as is the computerized choreography. There was some mixup with the audio streaming so we didn’t hear the specially commissioned music, but still cool.
International Buskers Festival
In conjunction with Auckland Anniversary Day last weekend (sort of 4th of July but just for this area of the country), they flew in a bunch of performers. Robot dancers, jugglers, acrobats, and… this guy who was a bit of all that. He’s either actually swallowing that balloon or (much more likely) pretending to. Kinda obscene.
We were in the right place to see the nighttime sampler show, all the acts doing a short sample. Then, later in the weekend we saw the Red Trousers do their complete routine, which was great. They got their start in Vermont’s own Circus Smirkus.
We were fortunate to be in the
Barista Cats
We miss Deja and Vu a lot. They are well cared for in our absence, spoiled in fact, so they might not miss us as much.
As a surprise last weekend, Lee took me to Barista Cats for an hour of cat therapy. It’s a cat café / rescue facility that provides a nice home for rescue cats with special needs who probably wouldn’t find a regular adoptive home.
Suburban Ent
In New Zealand, your ordinary suburban front yard tree is actually just one aggravation away from waking up and tearing everything to bits.
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 