Images of life.

Kia Ora and going the Extra Mile.

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Tonight I’m on a trans-Pacific flight from LA to Melbourne via Auckland. There are kids on this flight who have been on a trip to Disneyland courtesy of the Koru Care charity which is sponsored by Air New Zealand.  To continue the Disneyland experience, the flight attendants have all dressed up in fancy dress to serve the kids and make their flight more fun.   

 
Dinner and drinks were served by Minnie Mouse and Tinkerbell, while coffee was served by a CHiPS police officer.  

 
I have to say that he did take it very well when I asked when the rest of the Village People were coming out.

I’m so impressed by the continual efforts of the staff to do everything to make the flight memorable and fun. It’s a great war to promote the charity, too. 

They’ve also been wonderful to me after a very long and emotionally exhausting day. After a painful and tearful farewell followed by extended flight delays and an international connection time that was whittled down from 6.5 hours to 47 minutes, in which I managed baggage claim, terminal transfer with all my luggage, check in and baggage drop, security checks and getting to the right gate before they closed the flight. When I realised I had made my flight, I burst into tears of relief. The attendants were just lovely and so supportive, and did everything they could to reassure and comfort me. 

I love flying with Air New Zealand and I love the way they treat their clients. They’ve won me. 

Fall.

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Today the leaves are positively dive-bombing off the trees. 

  
The sun is shining again and the sky is azure blue, but yesterday’s snow has caused the autumn leaves to give up hope and cast themselves to the ground. 

  
Roads, garden beds and grass are carpeted with those who have already fallen, while other more hopeful souls still cling desperately to their tree. 

  
It’s easy now to understand why North Americans call this season Fall as well as Autumn. 

Even on a still, sunny morning, leaves dive and drift, collecting in rather tragic piles beneath the increasingly bare trees that only a week ago were vibrant with colour. 

In Australia, I never really had the perception of so many leaves falling and fluttering, or languishing in the breeze. Most of our trees stay green, and the occasional ornamental maple or elm shedding its leaves in a garden or the main street of a country town doesn’t really have the same impact, as beautiful as it may be. 

This sad abandonment of Autumn splendour has a beauty all its own. I’m very privileged to be able to sit here in the sunshine and witness it. 

Carousel.

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Yesterday Sean and I returned to Port Dalhousie to see the carousel. It was built in 1903 and was restored painstakingly in the 1980s.

The carousel has over 60 hand carved animals and some benches that look like sleighs. A calliope organ plays songs from the early 1900s that make a ride on the carousel a trip into history. 

   
   
A ride still costs only 5 cents. 

 
Whaaaaat? In Australia, someone would be charging $5 and blaming it on the price of insurance.

We had a lovely ride that lasted over 5 minutes.  It was simply delightful. 

  

Shopping list…

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Sean was making a shopping list for groceries. Then this conversation happened: 

Me: “You wanted yoghurt. Is that on your list?”

Sean: “Yes.”

Jenn: “Do you have enough granola for your yoghurt?”

Sean: “We have that coming out of our wazoo…”

Me: “Is that what that was?”

Jenn: “Wazoo flavoured granola…”

Me: “What other flavour could you want?”

In the wild.

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As we were driving to Toronto Zoo, we saw a deer in the wild, eating flowers on the side of the road. 

There were no antlers, so I assume it was a doe. She looked up from her feast, saw the car, and bolted into the grasslands further from the road. She moved with incredible speed, yet her movements were fluid and graceful.

There was no time to take a photo, but I was very excited to have seen this magnificent creature in her own environment. I like to think of her out there, in the wild, enjoying the delicious flowers that grow by country roadsides. 

What an extraordinary, unforgettable moment. 

“Meet the Aussie”.

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This afternoon a bunch of people came to Sean and Jenn’s for the “Meet the Aussie” pot luck supper.

It was a really great time. Everyone just chilled and chatted and ate – holy Toledo, did we eat. There was so much good food, and a number of things I hadn’t tried before. 

Pumpkin tarts. Oh. My. Goodness.  

 
Those are amazing. I only had one, mainly because I was minding my manners. I could have eaten ten without any trouble. 

Butter tarts: these would be more aptly named ‘Caramelised buttery fruity deliciousness tarts’. 

  
These are really good, but the pumpkin tarts were better. 

In return, I made two classic Australian desserts: a pavlova and a chocolate ripple cake. 

 
Both were a huge hit. I think I scored a million brownie points with the pavlova.  It was pretty darned spectacular, even if I do say so myself. 

And, in a ‘karma smiling on me’ kind of way, we had an extra guest visiting in the yard with us.  This little guy sat on the fence for some time, and kindly did not run away when I wanted to take his picture. 

 
 All the Canadians thought it was funny that I was so excited about a squirrel, until Sean explained that we don’t have them in Australia. 
The following conversation was all about Australian wildlife and all the dangerous critters we have. That’s more  fun than telling ghost stories around a camp fire because it’s all true. 

As the sun went down and the temperature dropped, people went home and we finished the day very well fed and very tired. 

Conversations You Definitely Would Not Hear in Australia 

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“So, is your Glock your only registered weapon?”

“Yeah.” 

“What about the .22 you got from your brother?”

“That’s not registered.”

“Did you even manage to get bullets for it, though?”

“Yeah, but it sticks sometimes so it’s no good as a defensive weapon.”

“Was that why he gave it to you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”
I was left with just the one question: what exactly was his brother trying to achieve? 

Oh No, You Didnt!

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For some time, LMC has been saying things she’s heard on American tween TV shows. 

One of her favourite phrases is “Oh no, you didn’t!” when someone says or something she doesn’t like. 

Today I was browsing in a shop when I heard stuff land on the floor and an employee say “Oh no, you didn’t!” in exactly the same way and with an accent that LMC had perfected far better than I had previously realised. 

It made me smile.
Even more than that, it made me miss my girl. 

Irony at 1.20am

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Of all the games I play on my iPod, I think my favourite has to be the one where I regularly drop my iPod on my head when I fall asleep listening to a podcast that I started listening to because I couldn’t sleep, and wake myself up again. 

In terms of rather pathetic and incredibly frustrating personal irony, it’s a perpetual source of entertainment that never gets old. 

You might be tempted to think I’d learn. 

Nope.