An exuberant cottonwood tree in early November may be as close as we get to a white Christmas this year (unless we come across more hydrangeas).

And that’s OK. I have many fond memories of snowy winter activities, but I don’t find myself drawn to repeat them.

We have a neighbor up the hill who manages to cram a lot of gardening into a very small space. We’ve chatted with her before and she’s even given us some plants.

A few weeks ago we spied artichokes growing in her little plot. One thing led to another and we now have one growing in our own yard. It’s first fruit is already the size of an apricot.

At the time she told us she just grew the plants for the foliage… eating them was way too much trouble. And in fact we’ve never seen an artichoke here. It’s just not a kiwi thing I guess.

But then! She came over with these three beauties and some random herbs and gave them to us. They really are a lot of work to eat, especially as these were smaller than US supermarket ones. But they had wonderful sweetness and made a fabulous dinner.

Maybe soon we’ll have some from our own plant!

As Auckland slowly — too slowly — emerges from its Delta variant lockdown, we’re now allowed to hold limited social gatherings. One household can mix with one other, and everyone is supposed to stay outdoors. With something over 90% of the population groups we normally socialize with being fully vaccinated, the risks seem manageable to us.

Last evening we headed over to a friend’s house for dinner, a thing we haven’t done in months. It was nice!

During the meal we learned that her 21 year old son who joined us over the roast salmon and quinoa salad is not only unvaccinated but has become deeply influenced by anti-rational teachings about vaccines and treatments and, well, almost everything.

I seldom get into ideological tussles with people whose beliefs I disagree with. I don’t think I have the power to change your mind about your gods or your death metal band or your candidate or your kooky diet fad. And for the most part that attitude gets me through social situations with a minimum of fuss. Your gods don’t have power over me, and if they help you live your life, well and good.

But last night I sort of lost it and lit into this young man. He showed me some of his canon of YouTube videos and web sites. He spoke of meta-analysis, Uttar Pradesh, and renowned cardiologists now scaling the ramparts of good sense in service of anti-vax and conspiratorial causes. I tried to speak about science and risk and the sheer lunacy of assuming that a few leaders are bent on hiding so much from so many.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the knowledge base, training or experience to even be talking about these topics. He obviously doesn’t understand what he’s saying in any logically consistent way… his worldview on all this amounts to here’s something I heard online and here’s something else I heard. Counter-arguments are dismissed with pseudo-rhetorical flourishes (I asked whether he believed his website or some other more reputable one and he said ‘that’s just an appeal to authority’) or a studied profession of ignorance (‘I don’t know about that but let me repeat what I just said’).

This non-dialogue went on until I was just unable to continue. No minds were changed as far as I could tell. I felt like the shocked and helpless protagonist in a Kafka story, transported to somewhere that just doesn’t make sense. But maybe that’s what it’s like dealing with any addict or cult member. I’m not in a position to give him a hug and $20 and an invitation to re-enter my life after he’s cleaned up, but that’s what I wanted to do.

We got through dinner and he retreated to his room and his Internet pipeline of mind sludge. And maybe, probably, it will all be ok. Even when COVID becomes endemic in our little city, which will happen soon, most people won’t die or be hospitalized because of it. I can only hope he’s not in the unlucky cohort so he has time to see other ways of thinking about the world. And I can hope that the psychic infection he has contracted is less contagious than COVID-19.

These vases came over from America with all our stuff. Somewhere over the Pacific they became vaaahses, just like the databases turn into dahtabases and tomatoes formally don their royal tomahto-ness.

Maybe the blue one, a souvenir from the Van Briggle pottery in Colorado Springs, can pull it off to pass as a vahse. But for the other two, bought in thrift shops, although they’re still pretty and useful, maybe they’re just vases.

There are a bunch of things like that that we can say to fit in, to sound less like the well-scrubbed Kansas hick in an old movie. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t. But it’s something we notice constantly… to say certain things the way that feels natural is starting to sound a little bit off. That’s a long way from saying we are adopting Kiwi accents, but it’s definitely true that we don’t talk like we did four years ago.

Oh, and… look at the pretty snapdragons!

It’s been a week of swimming extremes.

Above is how it’s been. Incredibly flat and beautiful. The water is warming steadily as spring advances into summer. But it’s still quite clear as the summertime algae hasn’t really bloomed yet.

But yesterday a storm blew in with big winds. Little kids were playing in the spume blowing in off the wave tops like it was snow. For the Friday night happy hour swim it was so strong that I couldn’t get past the breakers and had to go back in. This morning I tried again. I was mentally prepared for the waves and conditions were a little better, and so I had a rollicking fun time and a good workout.

It’s a long weekend here (Monday is Labour Day, and coincidentally will be five years to the day since I first set foot in NZ), so hopefully conditions will get better each day.

One of the things we were reminded about ourselves on receipt of all our US stuff is that we are suckers for stemware. Whether it’s the fancy wine glasses, over-the-top champagne flutes or in this case precious little cordial glasses, we have trouble resisting them when cruising an antique shop or thrift store.

But there are limits to our available storage space, so some of our collection had to go. A lady on our neighborhood Facebook group put up a posting looking for jelly jars to make pretty candles in, and Lee offered her the cordials. We’d offered the glasses for sale ourselves but got no takers.

Within hours this intrepid lockdown crafter had picked them up (giving us one of her jelly jar candles as a thank you) and posted these beautiful candles for sale. I hope each one brings its new owners many hours of sweet scented serenity.

Getting all our stuff meant we had too much for our house to hold. It’s a time to give up on some old hobbies and projects, redecorate, and generally Marie Kondo ourselves.

Here’s some of the things we’ve said goodbye to in the last couple of weeks…

There’s still more to go, if for no other reason than to make room for the next adventures!

The water was as flat and clear as being in the pool. I was the slowest in our lockdown mini-bubble of five swimmers. But no shame in that… they’re all faster than me! For instance… the guy in the red plaid shirt there holds the world record time for his combined marathon swims across Lake Taupo, the Cook Strait and the Foveaux Strait. I’m easily starstruck… did I mention my neighbour was in the Olympics??

Friday a week ago this happened. All our remaining stuff from the USA arrived at our doorstep. No idea why the truck was labeled retirementmoving.co.nz but it did seem kinda portentous.

Here’s the before…

…during…

… more during…

… more during…

And now mostly after. There was shockingly little damage. We now have two or more of a lot of things, and the yard sale equivalent is on. More on that in another post.

It’s great to be all in one place!

…continues to improve.

You learn in school about how momma birds feed their chicks by regurgitating food for them.

But somehow the little sparrow pictures I had in my head didn’t do justice to the violence of the whole thing we saw the other day. These baby pied shags are nearly as big as their parents, but not ready to leave the nest yet. They squeak urgently and undulate their heads while mom works to bring up the next course… we could see the muscles in her throat working.

And then she opens her mouth and one of the chicks dives in , shoving its entire head in to root around in mom’s throat while she just sort of goes limp.

There’s a spot in the park down the road where people feel the need to get off the road and spin their tires in the grass. The other day we saw one of these yahoos and reported him to the police. I’m that guy now, a grumpy old man shaking my fist at those Dukes of Hazzard boys.