Life as a Hobbit

Associations are funny things, the often irrational way two things glom together like two slightly sticky pages. When I traveled in China bourbon and chicken were always the first things people mentioned when they found out I come from Kentucky.  Hell, even when I've traveled inside of the U.S. I've gotten some assumptions about toothlessness, shoelessness, and thoroughbred horse racing.  What do people in New Zealand think?   So far I’ve gotten:   Tornados (it's funny to think about people who live in a place with major earthquakes being scared of doom that comes from the sky)  Daniel Boone and his coonskin caps (as well as a discussion of his disappearance from the landscape as a cultural icon, and how NZ has few folk heroes of that ilk, though James Mackenzie the sheep rustler--and his talented sheepdog--is a good example, a kind of tall tale legend of a man who was ballad-worthy after a few jailbreaks and many stolen sheep).   Ugly p...

I shall teach you the rules to a game I played. To play properly school must be in session. I call this game “Mormons or Schoolboys?” You only need to be within earshot of the young gentlemen in question, listen to them for approximately 15 seconds and count how many expletives each spoken sentence contains. If the ratio is about 1:3 then they are Kiwi schoolboys. If the ratio is not quite so extreme, my guess is Mormons. This is what I get for living in a country where school uniforms are the norm.

Trying something a little different this time, here's the photos that I took while on my trip with a few words sprinkled in. Picton By Train

  Birds! Moa  The name comes from the same Polynesian term for domestic fowl.  So we kind of just refer to these dinosaur-like birds as chickens.  The possible traditional te reo Maori word used when they roamed Aotorea alongside humans was "te kura" meaning red bird. A size comparison between four moa species and a human: 1. Dinornis novaezealandiae 2. Emeus crassus 3. Anomalopteryx didiformis 4. Dinornis robustus The moa were kind of wild from an anatomical standpoint. They were completely wingless, they didn’t even have lil vestigial lumps like New Zealand’s other famous flightless bird the kiwi.  Moa feathers are thought to have been less feather-like and more furry, this time similar to modern kiwis, a type of body covering that is more useful for maintaining body temperatures rather than efficient aerodynamics, especially those moa that lived in the colder alpine regions.   Look at how "furry" the kiwi feathers are.  Photo credit Alina Th...

Pretty sure I have COVID, I lost my sense of smell and I've been feverish the last few days.  I am starting to feel better, and my flatmates have offered me butter chicken and couscous so I'm well taken care of.  The two skittish cats I live with have even poked their heads into my room and stared at me with their enormous and unblinking eyes to make sure I'm still breathing. So this is going to be a low hanging fruit kind of post.  Look, food! As I wrote before, often cakes are just called slice, so you could have Belgian slice (which is always covered in bright pink frosting) or currant slice.  Not everything is a slice though, as evidenced by the Cushions with Cherry Jam Filling.  I don't know the difference between a slice and a cushion, I'm sorry. This muffin was Texas in size only, not flavor.  And honestly, it wasn't even as big as a Costco muffin. This drink contains 0% frog.  It's one of the many fruity ciders I have yet to try because they co...

No sweep! Only push! Push brooms vs sweeper brooms isn’t a deep conflict I’ve really spent much time thinking about before.  Apparently it is notorious in the American ex-pat community here that it is very difficult to find a sweeper broom. True enough, both of the brooms in my household are push style. And I do feel like the push style is the wrong tool for the job of sweeping a kitchen floor. Towel drying racks - every bathroom seems to have an electrical layout geared specifically designed around where the heated towel rack will need to be plugged in.  Pulling a nice dry towel off of a heated towel rack is really living, this is an appliance I want to bring home with me for humid Chicago summers and cold Chicago winters. Speaking of electrical sockets almost every single outlet has an individual power switch. When I’m done in the kitchen using the stovetop I can just turn it off at the wall. That switch is helpfully labeled "hob."  This also means that since I’m not ...

Ambo - ambulance.  But way cuter. Sweet as - this one clearly has a ton of different meanings, but from what I've gleaned so far it can mean okay, roger that, message received.  A verbal response that notes the message expressed by the previous speaker has been heard and understood. This works in place of the American English response “perfect” which I loathe, since it is used to mean “I have heard the words you just said.”  I also love that it sounds like people are saying sweet ass. Chilly bin - an insulated cooler Jiggered - dog tired, worn out Flash - fine, fancy.  I feel like I've heard this more often as a thing one is not rather than a thing one is, but that may be from working in healthcare. People who are ill or feeling rotten are "not so flash." Can be a reply to “how are you?” as in “not so flash.”   Lolly - candy of any sort, even chocolate.  This was very confusing for me at first. Slice - a piece of cake (can be anything from a home...