Facing my Fears

Facing your fear

Oamaru, NZ, Wednesday, December 29, 2010

I sleep so well in this bed that I don’t even turn over during the night. Unfortunately I didn’t sleep as late as I would have liked, waking at 3:15 am, but I turned on my iTouch and listened to Pride & Prejudice until 6:30 before getting up.  The sun was out and it promised to be a beautiful day so James said we were going to head to Omarama (Oh-‘Ma-rah-ma) and check out the gliding. Yes, I had said I would go gliding but I was having serious second thoughts as the reality approached. The drive up to Omarama took about 90 minutes since we stopped along the way to take pictures at the Waitaki Dam. Along the way we passed more cows and sheep than you could count. The vistas with pasture lands and mountains in the distance were magnificent. Our first stop in Omarama was at the gliding place to inquire about the possibility of going up. J2 decided he didn’t want to go but James really wanted to do this and I figured it was the one and only time for me so I let him sign me up for a 1 hour flight at 1:30. We took a drive to the Clay Cliffs and had a light lunch and then we headed back to the gliding place. We each were assigned a pilot and got briefed on where to keep our feet and hands and how to adjust the radio controls. The gliders were only large enough to hold 1 passenger and 1 pilot with the passenger in the front seat. I was seated and buckled in and the cockpit lid was locked down. We had to wait our turn with the tow plane.

James, strapped into his glider

James was about 2 planes ahead of me. I kept telling myself that I wasn’t going to get sick and that I could do this. My pilot, Mike, has been doing this for 51 years and hasn’t lost a passenger yet (so he said). Finally it was our turn to get tethered to the tow plane and after a few seconds of being dragged across the grass we were airborne.

My glider still attached to the tow plane

It was surprisingly easy and pleasant. We circled and circled trying to find a good thermal current to gain altitude but only got up to 4600 feet. I saw Mt. Cook and Benmore Lake (many times). We stayed up for 55 minutes and then headed back to the airfield for a perfect landing. I was worried about how I was going to lever myself out of the glider, but I managed to do it more or less gracefully. On our way back to Oamaru we stopped at a Wine Shop where we tasted some Pinot Gris and then we took the scenic way home and stopped at the Elephant Rocks.

Elephant Rocks

It was just a great day.

For dinner James barbequed some rib eye steaks and asparagus and made a tomato and homemade mozzarella salad. Dessert was his “impossible flan”.

It never rains in Oamaru

It never rains in Oamaru

Tuesday, December 28, Oamaru NZ

I headed to bed last night around 9:00. James was falling asleep in front of the television and I was happy to get into my amazing bed and finish reading email before turning off the light at 10:00. I think I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I slept soundly until 2:30 when I woke to the pounding of rain on the tin roof. Once I determined what time it was I was able to go back to sleep until 6:15. I found my way to the kitchen (and, believe me, you can easily get lost in this house) and James made me a cup of cappuccino.  I was content with just some hot croissants for breakfast, along with a glass of cranberry juice.  Mom joined us and we looked out on the dismal morning. Not only was it pouring but the wind was coming from the south (namely Antarctica) so it was quite chilly. Hey, New Zealand, this is supposed to be summer!

After breakfast I decided to try out the enormous bathtub in my room. I filled it with warm water and lavender bath salts and for the first time in my adult life I was able to literally float in a bathtub! It was glorious!

What to do on a rainy day in Oamaru? We all piled into the Subaru Forester and went shopping. Mom and I needed some toiletries that we neglected to pack enough of. We also did some souvenir shopping. I ordered a merino/possum wool vest for John and purchased a convertible cape/shawl/skirt for myself.

We made several stops looking for a sweatshirt for mom (but since this is summer apparently none of the stores are stocking sweatshirts) and wound up at the blue penguin colony thinking that as a tourist attraction they might have souvenir sweatshirts. Anyway it sounded plausible. No such luck. Even though it was raining lightly the James’ and I decided to take the day walk through the little penguin colony. The penguins come up out of the ocean every evening and have their homes in little wooden houses on the shore. They have a building with viewing tubes so you can see into some of these little penguin homes and other nests are located along a walkway. I managed to get some photos of penguins inside their nests purely by sheer luck since I couldn’t see into the little boxes and the ground was too wet to kneel down to look inside. I just bent down and aimed my camera into the entrance and took my chance that there was something there.

A Blue Penguin chick at home

The gardens at Pen-y-bryn

We went out to lunch right near the penguin colony at one of Sally Ann Donnelly’s restaurants called Portside. (For James' birthday I contacted Sally to surprise James with a little celebration at her pub, Fat Sally's, and I wanted to settle my bill with her.) James asked if Sally was around but she is on holiday and it looks like we won’t get a chance to meet her. For lunch I had a chicken curry, the two James’ had fish and chips and mom had a mushroom and bacon stack. The afternoon was spent quietly until 5:00 when James had some neighbors in for drinks. We finally got to meet some of the people he is always referring to, and they were all charming. The sun finally came out late in the afternoon and tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and warmer.

Dinner tonight was lamb shanks with olives, broccoli (?) and roasted sweet potatoes. I was pretty exhausted so I excused myself and got into bed. One problem with going to bed early here is that it doesn't seem to get dark at night until after 10:00, and even then it's not fully dark. It's like being in Alaska in June.

Hydrangeas at Pen-y-bryn

The Yanks Have Landed!

The Yanks have landed!

It seems like ages ago that we were sitting in the First Class Lounge at JFK. Well, that was Saturday, December 25^th and right now it’s Monday, December 27^th and we’re in Oamaru, NZ. We lost Sunday.

Our flight from JFK to San Francisco was very smooth. When we arrived at the gate our names were being paged and it turned out that we were upgraded from Business Class to First Class. I had brought boxes of candy for the flight attendants and while we were getting settled in our seats I handed it to the attendant in charge of our cabin. She was very surprised and pleased. During the flight every attendant from the entire plane stopped by our seats to thank us for the gift and one of the attendants brought us a gift of some games and a deck of cards. I traveled with all sorts of things to entertain myself during the flight but the only thing I used was my Kindle, which could easily have fit in my handbag. There was in-seat entertainment with movies and games and I taught mom to play Sequence.  When we reached San Francisco they called for a wheelchair escort to take us to the next gate. Mom was whisked away and I trudged along schlepping all my bags in their wake. We should have been escorted to the first class lounge, but we weren’t and by the time we arrived at the gate I was too pooped to worry about going upstairs to the lounge for the short time we had left to wait until boarding. They let us pre-board to give us plenty of time to get settled. The long haul flight was in a 777-200 with the strangest configuration in Business Premier: our seats were like little capsules with walls between each seat and the seats were on an angle. It made conversation very awkward. We forced ourselves to stay awake long enough to have dinner (we both had the lamb and were pleasantly surprised at how good it was) and then had our seats made up into full-length beds. It’s a good concept but the thin quilted pad that the placed on the base was no substitute for a mattress. It was like sleeping on the floor. But I managed to get about 6 hours sleep until my neighbor across the aisle woke up at 2:10 am and turned on her overhead light, got down her suitcase and made a considerable racket.  So I got up and went to the bathroom, found the snacks and had a banana and entertained myself watching some tv shows. Breakfast was a fruit smoothie, fresh fruit, choice of yogurt, fresh baked croissants and rolls, choice of hot breakfast items (I had a waffle) and coffee or tea. We landed in Auckland around 5:45 am and were met with another wheelchair escort. Again, mom was whisked away and I trotted after her carrying my weight in carry-on bags. It was not a short walk. The wheelchair finally stopped at a jitney. Well, one thing led to another and I wound up on my face on the floor. I’m going to have a nice bruise on my leg but I didn’t break my tooth or nose. A man rushed over and said that he was a doctor and checked me out.  Auckland had to be the worst part of the trip. We had to go through immigration, collect our luggage and go through customs, bring our luggage to another check in location (my carry-on was too heavy so I had to remove my cooler with my medication and my ugly holiday sweater to make it legal) and then catch a van to the domestic terminal. Again my carry-on was scrutinized and they decided that there would be no charge to check it so it was taken away (so why was I left carrying the sweater and cooler?)  ANOTHER trek behind the damn wheelchair through yet another security checkpoint where they had to go through two of my bags and examine my cribbage board (that I had to carry but never used) and a can of hairspray that were both determined to be innocuous but by this time the wheelchair with my mother had disappeared and I had no idea where the next gate was. I was really pissed that I had been abandoned and I was just tired enough to let the escort know that I was not happy. She felt that it was not her fault that I was held up at security and that she was within her rights to leave me to figure out how to get to the gate. Then she asked me for both our boarding passes and I couldn’t find moms. I had my boarding pass in my hand but I had no idea where the other one was. First she made it sound like an insurmountable problem and I was really stressed, then it was no problem to print a duplicate boarding pass, but just before we boarded she confessed that the original pass was downstairs at the assistance kiosk where she arrived to take mom up to the gate and forgot to pick up in her hurry to race to the gate. The flight from Auckland to Oamaru (Dunedin) was in Economy Class with a stop in Wellington. We received snacks on both flights (cassava crisps) and on both flights the snack/beverage service was suspended after they reached our row due to turbulence. It’s really unfortunate that the last leg of our trip is the one that will stand out in our memory since it was the only glitch in the entire 33 hour saga. Once in Dunedin James was waiting for us at the end of the jet way. We collected our bags (again) and James brought the car around to the curb. Our entire luggage managed to fit in his suv and we headed for Oamaru, an hour and a half away. The drive was past lots of farmland…cows, sheep, deer and assorted vegetables, and small towns. So different from Beijing that it’s hard to picture my brother settling here.  We arrived at Pen-y-bryn at 1:00 pretty wiped out. We were shown to our rooms and had a lunch of cold meats leftover from Christmas dinners. I called home and then laid down for a 2 hour siesta. At 4:00 we had tea in the lounge and then made stuffed artichokes with enormous artichokes that James picked from the garden. For dinner we had the stuffed artichokes along with left over pork belly roast, potatoes and a vegetable medley with homegrown sugar snap peas, carrots and star anise. Dessert was some of James’ homemade ice creams (salted caramel and red current). Mom turned in right after dinner and I’m going to be following her.

My room is the Elizabeth Room (mom is in Victoria, across the hall). The bed is scrumptious and the bathtub is original to the house and is big enough to swim in. I’ll write more about the house another day. Right now I just need to get into a bed that doesn’t move.

Departure Day!

The big day is finally here! I was up at 6:15 this morning and chatted with my brother via email for a few minutes. I found the two items that I had misplaced and wanted to bring with me. Took a relaxing bubble bath and then dressed and made breakfast. The cinnamon buns that Debbie brought me were delicious alongside some scrambled eggs with ham and sausage. I took Rocky for a walk and had a talk with him about taking care of Daddy while I was gone. I was on the phone with Debbie when my limo arrived, right on time. There was absolutely no traffic and Leslie and I chatted non-stop all the way to Forest Hills. I called my mother when we reached the Whitestone Bridge and she was waiting for us when we arrived. We were at the airport by 11:45. I was on my way to pay for a cart for our bags when a redcap flagged me down. They brought out a wheelchair for my mom and a cart for our bags. We entered an empty terminal and had no line at check-in. My brother's bag just squeaked by under the 50 pound limit. We whisked through security (a little too fast for my liking) and then were taken to the First Class lounge. The escort will come and get us a half hour before our flight. Meanwhile we're very comfortable in a nearly empty lounge with complimentary beverages and snacks. I gave mom the digital camera that I purchased for her and she's busy learning how to use it. It takes wonderful pictures of her, but not such good pictures of me.

The Stockings are Hung

The stockings are hung as close to the chimney as we can (in other words, on the closet and bedroom doors in the living room) and the presents are under the tree waiting for the arrival of the "children of the house", namely Debbie and Jimmy, age 39 and 41 respectively. My pumpkin pie is in the oven, the lasagna just needs to be assembled a little later and popped into the oven when the "kids" arrive. I was going to make pie crust from scratch until I noticed that my shortening can says "best before 2006". You can see how often I use shortening. Then I couldn't find my ground ginger and wound up grinding some whole cloves in my Magic Bullet (did a nice job, too.) I've already been to the grocery store this morning. I finally remembered to bring in my reusable bags and someone snagged one of my canvas bags! I couldn't believe that. Well, I guess they needed it more than I. I hope they like their purloined bag.

I'm still in the process of clearing off the kitchen and dining room tables and then I'll strip the bed and do a load of sheets and start the process of packing. I've been delaying bringing down the suitcase until the last moment so I don't make Rocky too anxious. He knows something's going on and he's been very clingy. I've got to make time to do something special with him today.

This time tomorrow (10:15 am) I should be somewhere around Bridgeport on my way to pick up Mom and head to JFK. I've got my phone set to remind me to do our boarding passes later this afternoon.

9 days and counting

I am so stuffed I feel like a baby blimp. Today was the annual Christmas Lunch for town employees and we had a spread of tempting treats including salads, ham, lasagna, shepherd's pie, chili, chicken wings, etc etc. And then another table just filled with desserts. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't the 4th party I've been to this week. Too much holiday is going to make too much me!

What I wouldn't give right now for a good nights sleep! Rocky has been waking me up once or twice a night and I'm getting up exhausted.

I'm down to the "details" in getting ready for my trip to New Zealand. I have someone to help take care of Rocky. I'm trying to shop so John won't have to go to the store except for milk. I know if I forget something the world won't end and he'll manage just fine without me. It's just my way of feeling needed.

If Christmas was tomorrow I would be ready. The only thing I need to do is bring down the stockings (which will relieve the clutter all over my dining room table.)


There was just an very nice article written about me and my club in the new online publication at www.patch.com/clinton/.  

26 Days and counting

Having survived Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Holiday traffic etc, I bravely ventured into WalMart today. I had a short list of mainly toiletries that needed to be replenished yet I managed to ring out at a whopping $204! I had no idea what to get John this year so I'm going to try an electric razor (I'm pretty sure he's going to hate it and I will wind up bringing it back when I get home from NZ, but it has a 45 day money-back guarantee). I also bought a case of disposable diapers for the family my club adopted. Now, when Debbie was a baby Pampers were first introduced. I tried them but decided that the price was exorbitant...79cents/DOZEN Imagine my surprise that the box of diapers I bought today cost $25.00/84. That's an increase of 26.2 cents each or about 500%. I looked at gifts for the family my office is sponsoring but I think I will let someone else do the shopping...I know Kristin loves to shop and Marie is great at finding bargains. I have enough on my plate.

Thanksgiving-NZ-29

We just put another Thanksgiving feast under our belt, more than literally. No matter how hard we try, we just can't seem to scale down the "necessary" items from our menu. This year my mother arrived on Wednesday around 6:30 pm. Tradition has it that the night before Thanksgiving we give thanks for our Asian immigrants by having Chinese food for dinner. I let mom do the ordering and we had boneless roast pork, eggdrop/wonton soup, cold sesame noodles, pork fried rice and a dish I requested called "chicken and shrimp in brown sauce" (not very poetic but very tasty). Yes, we have leftovers, probably enough for lunch today.

Thanksgiving Day I was up at 5:00 just because John's alarm clock didn't know that he didn't have to go to work today and went off at that time. I pulled my 13.5 lb (free) turkey out of the refrigerator to get the chill off before I got to work on it and had my breakfast. Mom brought "flagels" from NY (but no cream cheese or salmon) so I had an everything flagel with butter to start my "forget-about-the-diet-day". Tasted very good, I must say. Tussling with a 13.5 pound turkey is very different from maneuvering a 21+ pound bird into a roasting pan. This was a piece of cake, and he even fit nicely into my 15" Pyrex baker. I seasoned him with some herbs and a bath of orange peel infused butter and popped him into the oven at 8am and started on the sausage dressing. I cook the dressing outside of the bird and inside my crockpot. It comes out moist and a little crusty. I love making stuffing/dressing. It's so much fun to add a little creativity to the table by mixing up what I throw into the pot. This year it was green onions, celery, pork sausage, a diced Cortland apple and chicken broth. It only takes about 3 hours in the crockpot.  While the turkey and dressing cooked I mashed up some sweet potatoes with an egg and a little crushed pineapple and pumpkin pie spice. I added some mini marshmallows to the top. And cleaned up the kitchen for the 3rd time. The turkey came out of the oven around 11:00 looking magnificent. We let it cool a bit and then mom made the pan gravy. I sliced up half of the turkey to bring to Debbie's. Getting from here to there was a project. There was not only the turkey, dressing and potatoes but the shrimp cocktail, cranberry relish (and jellied), ice cream, pumpkin pie, dim sum and sauce but the traditional honeycomb turkey centerpiece, placecards, turkey platter, turkey relish dishes, turkey salt and pepper shakers....

Ok, so we arrived at Debbie's at 2:00. Jimmy was outside in his checked shirt manning the electric smoker. His smoked turkey had just come out. We unloaded the car and repaired to the family room to watch tv and nibble on our pre-feast meal. We sat down to dinner at 6:30 and everything was so good! We had a little communication failure and there were only a couple of pieces of the smoked turkey and the little bit of roast turkey that I brought over. But the turkey is just there for show...it's the trimmings that we all look forward to. The stuffing was outstanding. The corn pudding was spectacular. The artichokes were amazing. And Debbie did all the cleaning up. Ahhhhh. We had to leave right after dinner to get home and feed Rocky. We were so full that we will need the full 29 days to get ready for Christmas.

And it's just 29 days til Mom and I leave for New Zealand!
photos of our feast are at www.nerisews.smugmug.com 

October 24

Yesterday I practiced doing nothing for 8 hours in preparation for the first leg of our journey to NZ. Well, not exactly nothing...I was supervising the refreshment table at our local Halloween Window Painting Contest for 4th-8th graders. I was set up outdoors in a little park with a 6' table, hot water urn, hot chocolate packets, assorted cookies and donut holes, temporary tattoos and coupons for free ice cream cones for all the participants (thanks to our local Friendly's). The temperature hovered around 60 degrees and it was mostly sunny. We had a fair turnout of kids, but this is the first time we've done this event in close to 30 years. I think next year we'll have to turn kids away. I had some assistance at my table from two of my Shoreline Community Women members and my mentee came and helped out for the morning. The storefront windows turned out fabulous. I don't envy the judges who have to come up with 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners from each grade. I solicited prizes from area merchants for the winners which will be given out after the windows are returned to their original pristine condition after Halloween. By 4:00 I was really tired and hungry. For the past two hours I had been dreaming of luxuriating in a bubble bath with a good book and a slice of pizza. Instead, John and I headed for Tolli's to eat a pizza minus the bubble bath. When we got there we discovered that La Pergola had finally opened next door so we decided to forego the pizza (I ordered one to take home) and had a fantastic dinner all by ourselves. The food was fantastic and since we were the only diners the staff was falling all over themselves to cater to us. We met the maitre d', Luigi, the owner, Anthony and even had a visit from our favorite waitress from Tolli's, Josephine. When we told Anthony that we were celebrating our wedding anniversary we were treated to a glass of Luigi's homemade limoncello. It will not be the last time we eat there.
Here's what we had: John had a glass of cabernet sauvignon and I had a pinot grigio. We shared a bowl of lobster bisque and a plate of spidini (mozzarella in a crust served over a light tomato sauce). John's entre was mushroom risotto which was served in a "bowl" made of grana padana cheese. I had hanger steak in a peppercorn cognac sauce served with mashed potatos and steamed vegetables. The steak and sauce were scrumptious. We saved room for dessert, a shared portion of creme brule and coffee for John and a cappuccino for me (mine was served with a tiny biscotti. We took a look at their menus for Thanksgiving and Sunday brunch. I think we will definitely have to take my mother here when she comes up for Thanksgiving.

I'll post pictures of the storefronts at http://www.nerisews.smugmug.com/.

New Zealand, get ready!

Woo Hoo! My mother and I will be heading "down under" to visit my brother in New Zealand on Christmas Day. We won't arrive until late morning, December 27th (I'm being very optimistic that the planes depart and arrive on schedule). I just booked our tickets this past Monday and mom and I are both getting very excited about our journey. I'm not at all concerned about the length of the journey...I'm really good at entertaining myself for long periods of time and Air New Zealand should be quite comfortable in Business Class with lay-flat beds. Mom's going to get me to play cribbage with her...it's been decades since I've played and she says she's a champ. I've already contacted my friendly limo driver and reserved a ride down to JFK on Christmas so all I need to do is pack. And, sick as it sounds, I'm already starting that. As I change over my closet from summer to winter I'm putting the lighter weight items that I want to take with me into my suitcase. James has a shopping list of things he can't get in NZ so I will be tucking boxes of Diamond Kosher Salt and Gillette razor blades (not the Chinese knockoffs that I brought him the last time) among other things in my bags.

My brother is just as excited as we are. I'm sure he never expected us (or at least our mother) to visit him. We can't wait to see his new home and meet all his new friends.

So, that's the exciting news. The mundane things that are keeping me busy are the town Halloween Storefront Painting Contest that I'm working on (my club will be handling the prizes and refreshments); a visit by the mobile mammography van that my club district is sponsoring; fall conference and my wedding anniversary are this Friday; Thanksgiving is quickly approaching and then it will be a whirlwind of Christmas parties and Christmas in Clinton in December. There won't be any time to just sit and relax until I get in that limo. I just made 16 Hanukah cards for a card swap (also this Friday) and I'm working on my Wisconsin album pages, knitting a scarf and have a project that I want to make for a Christmas gift.

I missed work today because John asked me to drive to New Jersey with him to pick up a "bucket" for work. He promised it would be a quick trip, only 2 1/2 hours each way and I could be at work by lunchtime. We left home at 5:30 in the morning and hit every conceivable sort of traffic problem along the way. The highway was stopped dead before we hit Bridgeport. Nothing was moving southbound. Finally cars started driving backwards on the grass at an exit to get off the highway. Just try to change your route with a gps. We wound up making a big circle and getting back on the highway in exactly the same place (drove across the grass again). Suffice it to say the 2 1/2 hour trip took us 5 1/2 hours. We finally reached our destination at 11:00 about as frazzled as we could be and not looking forward to the prospect of repeating the aggravation on the way home. When John told the guy who loaded the bucket into his (brand new) truck about our harrowing trip he told us a "short cut" that completely avoided I-95. I was skeptical, but we actually had a very pleasant ride home through beautiful farmland and our toll was only $1.00. The trip home took 3 hours and we traveled the speed limit the entire time. I still think it would have been worth it to pay the seller to deliver the bucket to us but it weighs 1000 pounds...

Hi from Denver

View from my hotel room

Hi from the Mile High City. This is day 4 of a 5-day training for grantees receiving the Drug-Free Communities grant from the feds. I’m tired and ready to go home to my husband and pup. I’m traveling with the grant coordinator from my office, Kristin, and the director and grant coordinator from the Haddam-Killingworth coalition, Cheryl and Kate. As promised, CADCA feeds us well. Every morning around 10:30 and every afternoon around 2:30 we have a snack provided. Yesterday we had muffins in the morning and an elegant veggie tray and fruit kabobs in the afternoon. We have an hour and a half lunch break so we can either eat at the hotel or there are dozens of places within walking distance. Yesterday I just had the soup and salad from the hotel and ate by myself up near the pool. On Tuesday I walked and found the Thai Hut that someone in our “cohort” told me she had heard about. When I found it I was fascinated by the cook who was encased in the tiny kitchen built into a cart whipping up dishes to order. I had to wait in line about half an hour for my turn (glad I brought my Kindle with me!)

We have had delicious dinners each night. Sunday we had Italian (I had shrimp and crab cannelloni), Monday we went out for fondue and shared a traditional cheese, 3 cheese and s’mores fondue.  I think the tab for that was $12 per person, so it was a very reasonably priced meal. Tuesday Cheryl wasn’t feeling well so it was just Kristin, Kate and me at dinner. We went to a fancy Mexican restaurant where we ate outside (it has been that warm here in the evenings) and I had chili rellenos stuffed with seafood and grilled shrimp. Delicious! Last night we drove to Boulder for dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant. We had Caesar salad and paella Valencia. The chicken in our paella was undercooked so we had to send it back and to compensate us the manager bought us all dessert. It was very pleasant walking around Boulder after dinner even though the shops were all closed.