Depending On The Street, You Could Be The Most Beautiful Girl On The Street

No point arseing you with a story, is there? You come here for illustrations! And I've been somewhere illustrious! Have at these, worth approximately ninety thousand words:


One of the first things we did was take a ferry out across the Haruki Gulf (from Auckland) to Waiheke Island, which is fucking gorgeous. This is a photo of the Eastern coast of the island, where buses don't run and therefore it is blessedly free of backpackers and people touring the wineries (it has a ton).


This made us feel at home. Actually, NZ in general is a lot like Scotland smooshed with the good parts of Hawaii, but with more summery weather (at least right now).


Welcome to Planet Sheepie, you guys. I LOVE SHEEPIES!


The view from the place we stayed toward Auckland City. You can barely make out some of the skyline in the background.


This is a koru-- the fern is the national symbol, and a koru is one of these yet-to-unfurl itself ferns. Very popular for photographing.


This is the deck (pronounced, "dick" in NZ) of the place we stayed, which was rad. I am still incredibly sick at this point in the trip, lame.


This is a pohutukawa, the New Zealand Christmas tree. These trees flower with these red things for only two weeks, usually right over Christmas. They look totally badass.



Here's JD making friends with some snails in a tidepool on Great Oneroa Beach.



A better view of the beach looking out from the tidepool.


Another angle of Greater Oneroa Beach (little Oneroa beach is adjacent). This is how crowded beaches are on a Saturday, in the summer. I love NZ.


This rooster chicken literally crossed the road in front of our car, forcing us to stop and watch, me laughing hysterically.


These beauties are malbec grapes (my fave!), being grown at Te Whau (pronounced, "Tey Faux") winery, which was ten steps up the road from where we stayed (yes, we went there, don't worry).


This is a proper photo of Te Whau.


Te Whau again, with more drama. Check out that view! DANG


We went "tramping" all over the island, and one of the walks we did was a fantastic hike down from our cottage to Hitapa Bay (what our dick looks over).


Hitapa Beach proper. That "beach" is almost all shells, and sea glass, and we sat there like five-year-olds playing in the cool shells for about an hour. We tried skipping stones, which JD can do because he is a boy, but I suck and am totally unteachable.


More of our trek through the woods.


These sweet, sweet babies lived next door to us. I wish I were an alpaca. Look how sweet! And what a nice place for them to live.


I can't help it. You're getting more alpaca photos. Look how cute it is that you can see the lines from the fur clippers.


Last one, but it's taking all my restraint. Oh, they're sweeties. Look how they give each other sweet alpaca kisses!


Sunset from the dick one night. Not bad.


Auckland skyline from Te Whau point.


On the ferry back to the city...


Auckland City.


On Christmas Day we flew to Wellington, the capital city and most-south city on the North Island. It kind of looks out over the Cook Strait, which separates the two islands, so we could see South Island (aka The Mainland). That city is awesome and incredibly windy.


I am good at photo-taking.


This is the Beehive, where the country's parliament meets. JD respects other countries and their historical figures, as always.


On Boxing Day, which is another national holiday during which nothing is open, we went to the one open thing, the incredible free museum (Te Papa)(Our Place). It's like five museums in one, but free. And it was this pretty all day, then it started raining abruptly and I decided it was my favorite city ever.


After a couple days in Wellington, we drove up the east coast to Napier, the "art-deco" city and right on the coast of Hawkes Bay, one of NZ's major wine regions (next time you buy NZ wine-- which you all should, it's fabulous-- check out whether the wine comes from Hawkes Bay or Marlborough. If it's HB buy red, if it's Marlborough buy the Sauvignon Blanc. You're welcome). Along the way, I took lots of photos from the car.


Planet Sheepies revisited.


Driving, driving, wheeeeee!


This is the view of the area from Te Mata peak, looking out toward Hawkes Bay. Our "motel" was actually right on the bay in Napier, but this gives you a better idea of how pretty the bay actually is.


Again, photo out to HB.


And a third. Can't help it. We went to a bunch of wineries while we were in Napier, and then after a couple days drove up through Geothermal/Volcanic land to get to Rotorua.


On the way, though, we went through Taupo, which sits right on this huge Lake (Taupo) and is beautiful! We stopped at this little alcove to have, oh yes, a picnic. Leftover Indian food and a vegan curry pie from a BP.


Also on the way up to Rotorua, we stopped at Wai-O-Tapu national geothermal park. Umm, that shit was amazing. It's all very hot and boiling and strange colors, and if you were to bathe in it you would run the very serious risk of contracting amoebic menengitis, from which you would almost certainly die. So, you know, don't get any ideas.


More from Wai-o-tapu...


The uber-famous, oft-photographed Champagne pool.


This green is not something I had ever seen before, not even in boxes of 164 crayons! My camera didn't do it justice, it's eyehurtingly green.


In Rotorua, we booked in to a b&b. Last time we'll make that mistake. Although our hosts, including my new BFF Furball here, were lovely, I was sure we'd be murdered in our extremely floral guest room and I absolutely hate the idea of making conversation with an uppity British couple (who referred to NZ as "the colonies" multiple times) first thing in the morning, before coffee. Also the nice lady had a mini-stroke when we told her we were vegan (pronounced, "vay-gan") even though JD had emailed her about it when he made the reservation.


One good thing our hosts did do was suggest a tramp (heh) around this oddly-named Blue Lake. Which we did, and which was awesome.


We drove back to Auckland from Rotorua, and spent NYE on JD's dick (hahahahahahahah) watching these here fireworks they shot off from that there Sky Tower. I'd like to point out that, being on the far side of the Int'l date line, we were in the very first time zone to celebrate the onset of 2008. So suck on that, California.


Some of JD's work friends offered to take us around the west coast of Auckland, which houses several jaw-droppingly awesome beaches, including the one on which my mom's favorite creepy movie, The Piano, was filmed. More on that in a minute. This is a photo out over Manukau Bay before we descended into beach territory.


This, my friends, is Karekare beach, where they filmed The Piano, and with which my mother is obsessed. It is a black-sand beach and I have to admit it's fantastic.


More Karekare.


In mom's honor, we drew a piano in the sand. teehee.


Another rad-ass beach just north of Karekare is Piha. Oh, this is what I always pictured when I thought of NZ.


Apparently there is a lifeguard reality show called Piha Rescue that they were filming that day, perhaps in part because the water was ridiculously dangerous (that's the Tasman Sea you're looking at, and it's rowdy almost all the time. Good surfing, though). Although they did seem to be abusing their whistles just a lot, maybe because of the tv show?


This is cool, isn't it? That big rock sits on the main Piha beach and is called Lion Rock. Figure it out!


And this is called the Blowhole (can you see those weensie people fishing up on the rock? That's how big this is). You can only get over to it during low tide, and next to it is this awesome natural lagoon that lots of children were peeing in and warming up when we were there. Nice.

Yeah so maybe I'll detail some things I liked more later. It was fucking great. Everyone should go there, possibly to live, at the expense of anything else you thought you might want to do. Ahhh. And with that, I am spent. Gnight!

Not Tonight


This is definitely a great idea, she congratulated herself. What could be more practical than getting totally hammered by oneself the evening before boarding an extremely long flight to the other side of the world? Why, nothing at all!

It’s too unbearable to leave any food or drink in the house that her sister in law might find and eat, so in the course of the past three days she has devoured all the cookies, frozen pizzas, and snacky foods in the house, out of spite. The bowl of fruit and the six remaining carrots, she knows, are safe and will be moldy when she comes back. The bag of rice and the frozen peas sleep soundly in their bags knowing they are out of danger for the next three weeks.

It has been a patience-trying evening, she thinks, filling her wine glass for the third time with cheap shiraz that will guarantee a ridiculous clown-version of Red Wine Mouth for the long-haul flight tomorrow. Oh, how embarrassing that will be for her, to be seated for more than 12 hours next to an interesting person born in the same decade as she is, and to be hyper-aware of this person’s eyes traveling always down from hers to assess the damage done the night before.

She will feel compelled to offer something in the way of explanation, or apology, when she notices this happening more than once. “I’m a vampire?” she will say awkwardly, feeling slighted and totally misunderstood. That will end the conversation with alacrity.

All of the mothers have called tonight. All of them have called and gotten weepy on the phone with her, lamenting the distance, the insurmountable distance of this journey. She rolls her eyes as they weep and wail, wondering how a person who only calls once every three weeks, on Sundays when she is not too engrossed in Lifetime movies, can claim this type of ownership over her. This mother has been behaving in such a stupid way since her birthday a few days ago.

This time, the Tale of Her Birth was expanded to include graphic details about how much suffering the Mother had to endure before the doctor (who had left to attend a holiday party in the midst of this) granted her a c-section. Odd that these details had not been introduced in the preceding 25 renditions of the story, but whatever. It surprises no one to learn that this family’s history is not…exactly…what it was previously thought to be.

This is the side of the family that routinely finds itself contacted by long-lost cousins given up for adoption in the 1970s. This is the side of the family that is so world-renowned for its absurdity that people in her graduate program, people who are considered by the rest of the department to be incredibly good-looking (but who just seem arrogant and obvious to her, personally) are prone to confronting her in the small room behind the mailboxes, to say, “did I ever tell you that my parents know your uncle?”

Further conversation on this matter makes it clear that yes, he is aware that her uncle is dead; yes, he is aware that her uncle had a secret second family that he hid until on his deathbed; and yes, he is aware that her uncle was bullied into giving up a child while in high school, just like all of her mother’s relations. She sighs inwardly and smiles at him, shaking her head with feigned amusement at her totally fucked-up genetic blueprint. How in the samhell does this chucklehead know these things about her? She has never spoken to him before.

This genetic cesspool will be the literal death of her, she laughs bitterly into her wineglass. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What right did these idiots have to produce so many doomed children? Fuck.

This evening witnessed a great deal of Being Talked At by her husband’s family members. Hence the bottle of wine. Exhausting, she thinks. It’s fucking exhausting to listen to that unparsable stream of yammering. Have a good time in NZ, sweetie. Oh and while I have you did you get the check from grandma? Because she always thinks you won’t get the check. [yes, the check endorsed to an imaginary name? Thanks much] The kids at school. Retards. How awful, the parents of these retards, wanting their children to sing songs instead of learning to read “help wanted” signs. Now THAT is a life skill they will need in the future. She groans inwardly and spaces out her disinterested “uh-huhs” to mask the fact that she’s taping the catsitting schedule onto the fridge, she’s rolling her eyes to her friend in the living room, she’s eyeing the bottle of wine on the counter and daydreaming about cracking it open by herself with the tivo in the background while she plows through the last remaining academic obstacles to her departure.

What We Need Is A Persuasion, What You Give Is A Retaliation

The silence is abruptly shattered by a question so complete in its thoughtlessness that she knows the Finer Things Club meetings are over before they have even begun: What do you think are the similarities and differences between classic fiction and modern fiction?

Modern fiction, she reflects, in this case means books about stupid shit. She looks at her toenail polish. Pretends to cough. Waits until Bea has opened her mouth to respond and then opens and closes her own mouth, obviously, as though she had been about to say something but then had paused to avoid interrupting.

Really? she thinks to herself, while her friends begin a heated discussion of a paper Kay wrote on Bea’s book in high school English class. About symbolism. Of course.

She vomits quietly in her own mouth and chases it with a swig of cold tea, the last bite of guacamole, and half a scone.

White dresses worn by the characters in Bea’s book represent virginity and purity. Duh. That book sounds promising. Not the symbolism, but the story itself. None of them can pronounce the title but it sounds promising. Kay’s book sounds like it would make her stab people. Two friends and their lives. Their comical foibles. Their life trajectories, their multiple husbands, their children and their siblings and their involvement in meaningful careers and also drug addictions and emotional affairs. Really? Sigh.

She picks up this book and sees the Redbook endorsement on the back cover. Drops it like it bit her. Stirs her tea and half-listens to the ongoing soliloquy about how cultured and knowledgeable Kay intends to become, about everything. This is not what it was supposed to be like, this club. This may have been a total waste of guacamole, she thinks.

*****

She is going to be the best wing-person ever, she’s decided. This kills several noble birds with one ignoble stone: She gets to flirt with boys while her husband is on another continent, but it’s to negotiate potential suitors for someone else to go home with. It’s flirting with a higher purpose.

A means to several peoples’ ends.

She mentally high-fives herself after making that joke in her head. She’s not sure these friends would get it, or laugh if they did get it, so she keeps it to herself. What a waste of her best talents, to keep these stupid jokes to herself. She briefly feels lonely and then shoves it out of mind again.

There’s practically nowhere to get a drink at 11pm in this town, so the new wine bar that serves until 11:30 is kind of a big deal. Sitting at a table with her back to the wall, she scans the bar for dark-haired men who are not thinner than she is. There are only two reasonable approximations. Both look like they might be chowderheaded clowns. But one must start somewhere, mustn’t one?

Don’t look now, she starts.

Her friends both whirl around to look, right now, all over the place. Thanks to this unspoken invitation for All Males to Please Look Over Here, indiscriminate eyeballing ensues. Their cover is blown. Ah well. She will be the best wing-person ever, eventually.