Marsden is Here

No Rest - 2025 wrap up

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 04:39:05 GMT

Apparently back in June after we moved house it looked like I might get time to catch up on some posting. Ahahaha....[sobs]

For reference I still haven't managed to process the galleries from our family trip to Australia in April; and most of the trip itself has faded from memory. Although I had a laptop with me - because I had to be available for work - I failed to make regular notes, partly expecting everything to be still fresh and partly a distinct lack of spoons. Then we came back with Covid and into the middle of buying a house...

I also haven't managed to post about the unexpected loss of Belle at the end of April. She was a linchpin of several overlapping social groups including KAOS and the SCA; a friend, mentor and inspiration to many.

Our wider social group also took several other hits in short order over the first half of the year, and another dear friend has also been literally laid up with unexpected cancer and complications. I've personally just (December) had another spot removed from my leg at the Dr's insistence, but it turned out to be only a "dyplastic naevus" ... no melanoma.

The term dysplastic naevus is best used for a naevus with a specific microscopic appearance. Only a minority of clinically atypical naevi fulfil microscopic criteria for dysplastic naevus.

It took 3 attempts to get into the surgery; the first assigned appointment was going to be a week D was away so I needed to be able to stay on my feet; I came down with Covid (again) the week before the second; third time was the charm.

While I'm writing about loss; our male kitten, Corby, was hit by a car and killed in October. He was less than a year old; we'd only had him about 9 months.

Horrible news. At some point this morning (after 5am, when he woke me up to demand out) Corby was hit and killed by a vehicle. Someone kind saw him by the side of the road and called the phone number on his tag, then dropped him off to our address.

I've buried him in a shady corner of the garden near where he liked to snooze, and made a little cairn of some of the stones I dug out in the process. Before I need to dig another hole here I need to acquire a crowbar, or digging spike or whatever the proper name for it is. At Dalwood we had a relatively soft, if rootbound, bank, but here it is /all/ clay and stones, and just a spade is not the right tool for the job.

To add insult to grief, while I was digging one of the pet insurance companies we got quotes from at the beginning of the year chose today to follow up again with a phone call.

This absolutely shattered D, as without her consciously realising it he had become her therapy cat and his presence lounging around and snuggling had been a lifeline throughout our other mid-year troubles (which I'm not further detailing here, but they are ongoing situations/stress as well).

We acquired another cat in November; Callie (Calliope), slightly older than Robyn and Corby. She is a very social cat, but not an "attach to one person cat" and also an "must investigate every change in environment" (like someone coming into the room) cat rather than a "stay in one place" cat, so she hasn't been filling the gap. Also it's been a long road getting Robyn to accept her, although Callie desperately wanted to play she has also been well socialised and (mostly) respected Robyn's boundaries. It's only been the last couple of weeks that things have really progressed, to the point today where D was able to play with them both out on the lawn and Robyn even took a little run and a stalk towards Callie.

With D functionally out-of-action from one thing or another for much of the year I've been having to try and shoulder her around-the-house workload as well as my own (and frequently compensating for the teenagers not attending to theirs either); on top of providing transport to/from appointments and trying to keep up enough hours at work that we didn't have to start letting bills slide past their due date. I've had to turn to the bank of Mum twice for big expenses; once when my solicitor required a "retainer" up front before starting some work (despite never having done so before and an impeccable payment record) and again when the Prius needed new tyres /and/ bodywork to pass its warrant. As a person now into their second half-century having to do so really doesn't sit comfortably; and that's only partially due to societal expectations around being the provider for the family.

My personal (accessible) financial reserves have been run dry; in a small bit of good news I'm getting a pay rise in the new year; but unless I can increase the hours I can manage to actually work it's too small (after tax and probable WFF reduction) to make a noticeable difference. And this year there have been many weeks where I've burnt leave to make the minimum hours we need to meet budget; that option is also running out.

Work itself has been OK; there has been variety between small easy projects and long, under-specced projects and work has mostly left me to prioritise achieve both at whatever best rate I can. Our (open plan) office space was drastically reduced this year; we had more than we needed for our current staff (putting aside the real need for at least one more developer) and the company we share one floor of a small office building with needed more space, so renovations occurred. I've adapted to the closer-quarters, but I've also frequently been working at times when I'm the only one in the office.

This overload has run into the NY break; we have all the teens for Xmas and so there is an additional layer of things that I am expected to be on call for. I am exhausted and I think I've managed about two hours of what could be considered real, no expectations rest by way of an afternoon nap yesterday (from which I woke up to an upset wife and errands to the supermarket, which promptly undid it.) Very few of the things that I planned to get done around the house over the past week (things which I have been trying to find the time and energy for for months) have been achieved, let alone any of the things I want to do for myself.

For most of the past several months I've been having to clamp down on my feelings almost constantly to keep from snapping at every imposition or request; going nuclear would not help anything.

~~~
There has been some gaming this year. A ran an excellent Girl By Moonlight game including D, E and I while he was in the country for an extended New Year (though I still - and probably always will struggle with the relationship-heavy style of roleplay). Partway through the year D and I played in a short-lived online Pathfinder 2E game run by S, which I did manage to post my character background from; and subsequent to that we've been playing in an irregular (due to player commitments) Lancer game with mostly the same people.

There is a plan for household D&D game; D & E are keen; R & L expressed reluctant willingness to play but have refused to actually come to the table -- after I spent a substantial amount of time on characters for them and a quick opening scenario (because R's attention span is likely to be under an hour). But there's a dynamic - we'll see if R is more willing once L goes back to Wellington. I've changed tack and found some modules online that I can modify for just D & E's characters.

We've managed to get enough of the household together or had people around for food and physical board games a few times; leaning towards Forbidden Isle (a favourite of R, not so much of mine), Seven Wonders, Splendor and KingDomino.

Computer wise there has been Master of Orion - Conquer the Stars (solo or with D), rationed progress in Hero Wars which remains my determinedly carved out daily attempt at personal time, and BGA where D and I have mostly been playing Terraforming Mars.

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The Battle Hymn of the Ranapublic

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 21:09:54 GMT

Apropos current affairs in the USA, I went looking for the lyrics to "The Battle Hymn of the Ranapublic" (an old favourite of mine) online and despite trying multiple search engines could only find one single solitary copy remaining. (https://www.mummu.fi/poetry)
So here I am attempting to double that number. It would be /a real shame/ if more copies popped up.

The Battle Hymn of the Ranapublic
by John Boardman

Mine ears have heard the croaking of the Giant Barded Frogs.
They are swimming through the marshes, they are leaping over logs.
They are eagerly devouring people, vampire bats, and dogs,
As they go hopping on!

Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
As they go hopping on!

Their hides are leather shields on which a sword has never stung.
They have claws upon the forefeet, they have barbs upon the toungue
With which they torture women who are sensitive and young
As they go hopping on!

Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
As they go hopping on!

They have armor-plated eyeballs and their teeth are made of brass,
Their breath corrodes titanium, their voices shatter glass,
They shoot snake venom from their jaws and napalm out their ass,
As they go hopping on!

Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
As they go hopping on!

They'll jump a seven-meter fence, they'll float like a balloon.
They'll swim like Flipper's brothers and they're fast as a typhoon.
In fact, they say that Armstrong found a couple on the Moon,
As they go hopping on!

Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
As they go hopping on!

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Tae`Len

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 09:35:27 GMT

My traveling name is Tae`Len. This is a contraction of a shortened version of my elvish name which means roughly "seeks his own fortune", which in turn /reverses/ the original meaning of my full given name - roughly "brings his family great fortune".

In elvish it is an amusing piece of wordplay, less so if you are my near kin. For now I have left my family name behind, along with their plots to gain greater social standing.

We were once a noble family in more than just name; and in truth we still hold a good position in society, roughly on the level of the guild masters. The children, myself included, receive a proper formal education and join the (lower) ranks of high society rather than having to go into a trade. If we do happen to pick up a craft as an extension of our studies (as I did after becoming fascinated by the way base metals could be combined to create something with superior properties) we are guaranteed swift entry to guild ranks. Though I suspect this is more from having freedom to spend time perfecting our work than through any overt social leverage.

Invites arrive to all the right social events and councils. The family just no longer have either the wealth or the connections to strongly influence others.

Behind our backs there are whispers that the family has an unhealthy appearance, or has fallen from grace because of a curse. When the plague of icy blood fell upon our kingdom, not discriminating between those of pure or part-elven heritage, it seemed that these rumours would be without substance as we were touched only lightly. This resilience led the famed healer Lady Keldrey to our door in her search for a cure and uncovered a dark family secret.

Prior to my parent's time one of our ancestors had become a vampire and before being slain had irrevocably infected the bloodline with a connection to the Void. This plague, which fed on vitality energy to the point that magical healing would only worsen an infected persons condition, found little sustenance in our bodies. It did however bring our ancestor's "gift" to the fore rendering many of us, including myself, less than living but also not quite undead. Given time it is possible one or more of us would have tipped completely over that edge.

Through experimenting with the weakened plague in my blood Lady Keldrey was able to find a non-magical remedy and saved many lives. However the plague had already left many positions of influence empty and my family, now relatively many and possessed of new strengths, wasted no time taking advantage of this situation.

I have never had an interest in the political machinations which so obsess my elders and cousins. Rather than get used as a pawn and eventually forced into a marriage of convenience I instead chose to swear myself into service with the Lady Keldrey and accompany her on her travels. The family was not happy with this turn of events but could hardly complain; while famed in her own right the Lady is herself also twice royal and potentially wields much wider influence than any match they could try and make in our own kingdom.

Lady Keldrey's quest for information on another great plague of history has brought us to the realm of Akotan, and we have taken up residence at the local Adventurers Guild where another pair of elves, or part-elves, will draw less notice than in other parts of society.
---
System: Pathfinder 2E
Race: Elf
Heritage: Dhampir (half vampire)
Background: Alloysmith
Class: Magus (Mageblade equivalent, but not weapon specific)
---
This was an online game (Discord + Roll20) running Sunday evenings. The party of four undertook 3 missions before it came to a premature end,
* Cleaning out an abandoned house previously occupied by a suspected demon summoner, which had been overtaken by several varieties of unpleasant fae.
* The traditional "deal with whatever is in a cellar leading to an abandoned section of sewers", where necromancers (or someone with necromancer allies) was attempting to gain entry to a lost/buried trial of the gods. After defeating them we managed to access and complete the trial.
* A "track down stolen goods" mission which turned out to be a setup by a rogue bounty hunter to (illegally, in town) snatch our, err, rogue. We fought off the bounty hunter and his goons; and made nice with the local gang leader to let us continue our investigation, but the game ended before we got to the bottom of the matter.

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Busy day

Sat, 27 Sep 2025 08:39:41 GMT

Mowed the berm for the first time. We're a corner section so there is a lot of it. We have an inner and outer berm, separated by a substantially wide sidewalk.

Berm is also the term for the area between a wall and a moat, which fits quite nicely when you look at our our substantial garden wall then the 2-3 metre space between it and the sidewalk. In that context we also have an inner lawn suitable to be described as a bailey. (I think this property probably has more mowable area in total than the Lair did, although it is substantially more accessible.)

We still haven't settled on a name, so I'm now thinking about castle related options.

---

I also took a look at the existing roses (the property came with several) to discover a serious infestation of aphids. Literally layers of them, shake a branch and watch the ones on top fall off levels. So that is going to have to be dealt with with prejudice.

Some of the roses we brought with us, which are still in their pots, have also started picking up aphids - not unusual, but also heavier than usual. They don't usually get to the point of coating the undersides of the leaves...

---

It's been a busy day - quilt show, Riccarton Saturday market and bookshops before I even started on the chores (of which the lawns etc were only one).

This school holidays we've done a swap of kids for the week instead of them all being together and changing cities midway. L seems to be enjoying himself mostly. He switches between being in his room, playing on the Switch in the main room, and wandering around looking for the cats (I think).

He seemed to enjoy most of today's outing, although he and I had to go for a walk outside while D decided what fabric to buy 😃

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A new home

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 01:06:34 GMT

I am months behind on journaling life events, at least as far back as the beginning of April. Rather than chronological order, they're going to get posts as I have the spoons and headspace for each.

We've been house-hunting on and off for about 18 months, as D's inheritance appeared to be on the horizon only to vanish back into complications. The little house we built while an almost perfect size at the time could not stretch to properly accommodate two adults, two full time teenage residents, one semi-regular teenage visitor, two cats and D's needs as her textile art career grows. I know there are many larger families squeezed into smaller spaces, but I still don't think that should be an acceptable state of affairs.

We were originally concerned that a property meeting our needs ...

* four bedroom, two bathroom
* Enough living space to shut off a secondary living space for a studio or a 3 car garage one bay of which could be converted.
* Within about half-an-hour walk from the college

... would be hard to find, but it turned out the market is currently over-saturated with properties in this range, or be it at the very top end of our budget. One agent told us that there was currently about six months worth of stock on the market at the time. Smaller places like ours however were turning over like hot cakes (several in our neighbourhood that we had seen during the past two years). Which was a good position to be in.

Anyway, less than a week before we were due to leave on a big family trip to Australia (another post) an house that had been on the market twice before during those 18 months and that we really liked came back on the market, the same day as D's inheritance finally (and unexpectedly) dropped into her solicitor's trust account. The deadline was set for only 3 days after we would get back from Australia, so we urgently pulled together an offer and left it with the agent to be presented at deadline.

This actually lifted a lot of stress that would have otherwise have been hanging over us the entire trip.

We also came back from Australia with Covid, in no fit condition to do anything except wait for the deadline to pass. After a little back and forth, during which we did /not/ increase our offer, it was accepted and stage two, rush our /then-current/ house to market so that we could make good on the offer kicked in. We'd actually signed up with a real estate agent about 12 months prior, and she had been waiting very patiently, and in the meantime had already moved a lot of things into storage in preparation of open-homing. So we had about two weeks to finish that process and /clean/, and then two weeks before our initial deadline.

This period was also very stressful, especially for D. who despite assurances from our agent felt that she couldn't do anything in her studio while it was supposed to be being kept tidy.

Anyway, we got lucky. At deadline there were two offers, one of which was pretty rubbish and one of which was the best we could hope to get, given that our GV had dropped by 30k in the 18 months. It also had the benefit of not being conditional on yet another house selling, as the purchaser's own house had just gone unconditional.

After a nominal building inspection our sale went unconditional and we immediately went unconditional on our new property. Move-date was the 19th of June, the day before the Matariki long weekend, which gave us (me) a good shot at recovering before the next work week started.

Moving day ... did not go smoothly. Moving days never do, but if the house had been packed according to plan the only things we would have needed to do that morning would have been the last of the pantry, the last of the bedding and a final clean (surfaces / bins. Bin day was conveniently the day before). I did my (exhausted) best in the lead up, but other members of the household either locked-up at the enormity of the task or didn't understand how to contribute to anything outside their rooms (or even pack their own room...). So come moving day /too much/ still needed to be done.

We had my mother and D's friend B to help, and frankly they performed a herculean task as

* The movers called to let us know they would be 1-2 /hours/ early so we decided to get the very stacked storage unit (24m^2 floor, filled a 40m^3 truck)) loaded first. This took me away from helping at the house.
* We had an informal agreement that we would have until _5pm_ to move out. While I was at the storage unit we received notification that the new owner now wanted to move in by _3pm_ at the latest. (Their settlement came through about midday, so from that point they had the right to demand us gone at any time.)
* We'd arranged for access to the new house early (midday) so the kittens could be moved ahead of loading, which took D away from helping at the house we were leaving, but when the truck and I arrived from the storage unit shortly after that
* the truck there was still loading.
* our settlement (needed the money from our sale) hadn't made it through to the seller's solicitor yet, so other than the kittens, we couldn't actually unload anything. Stalled.

This is only one of the issues with our domino housing market, there's this liminal period between settlements where you are technically homeless. It wouldn't have been /such/ an issue if we were only trying to move one truckload of stuff, but the monthly hire on the storage unit was also due to tick over the following day and we really wanted to avoid having to pay for another month of that as well.

Anyway I got permission to at least unload my car into the garage so that I could get back to where the real work was, and /just then/ the settlement came through. I left the truck unloading and got back across town to start loading cars and cleaning. I can't for the life of me remember if made made any more trips before the end of the day, but B did several in her little car.

The moving truck arrived and got loaded - and it wasn't big enough to take everything. All the big stuff of course, but not a lot of the smaller containers. I would seriously had sworn there was more stuff in the storage unit than still in the house, but there you go. It was somewhen after _2pm_....

I tapped our neighbour, A, which I should have done earlier. (Probably should also have tried if T & S if were home as well). She took a 2?3? loads in her big car and we moved the rest of everything across the road into her garage (driveway for the potted plants). About 3:30pm the new owner's son came by to check how we were doing, by this time the cleaning had been finished (thanks again Mum) and everything remaining to be moved was in the garage of the old house so that they could start moving in through the front door if they wanted, so he said they'd be back in about 45 minutes. We still hadn't seen them by the time we were fully out at _4:30pm_ so I did get a chance to quickly go around inside (catching some windows which had been left open), say a goodbye and thank you to the house, asking it to be as good for the new owner as it had been for us before hitting the garage-door close and ducking out.

Moving /in/ was actually a lot easier. The movers had put most of the essential furniture in the correct rooms so for that night we basically had to make up the beds. Dinner of course was takeaway, a mix of fish'n'chips and pizza. Most of the essentials were unpacked over the next couple of days; the rest is still a work in progress. The rate has decreased as we've found everything we need...

We have probably an entire other house worth of older furniture still in the garage (if anyone in interested...) after combining the estate which came down from Wellington with our own and taking the best for the available space; but there are also still enough boxes and other storage vessels that there isn't the floor space to assess it properly. I'm keeping an eye on local groups for opportunities to get rid of the empties/packing material rather than just breaking them down and taking them to refuse.

~~~

Now that we've had a few weeks to settle in ... life is better. The whole estate/house-hunt/move thing is no longer hanging over us. We have enough space that people aren't constantly tripping over each other / trying to hide in their own little spaces. The background/baseline stress level has dropped.

I have an office space which is larger than the (1700mm x 1220mm L) desk and a bar stool, with a door that I can close and a window. It is a large bedroom and doubles as the guest room, so there is also a double bed, good wardrobe/storage, and still enough floor space for a comfortable chair and cattens to tear around in the open chasing toys/shadows.

The master bedroom has plenty of space for a couch making it a proper "quiet retreat" space when needed. We have an en-suite with a shower which is no worse that the one we left behind, a walk-in-wardrobe with a kitty-proof door. (Until they figure out door handles.) Both the kids have bigger bedrooms than the second bedroom in the old house. The main toilet is separate from the main bathroom.

D loves the bigger kitchen, and her new quilting studio which was previously the "media room". We've had to upgrade the lighting of course and she has also had a fixed design wall installed.

The house is about 10 years old and comes with a well established garden which we haven't had the weather + time combination to properly assess but looks pretty low maintenance beyond pruning. I'm going to be able to plant out things which have been living in pots for the better part of five years.

It remains to be seen how ongoing finances stack up. Some bills have gone up, but some have also have gone down/away. My projection is that we should be no worse off week on week.

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Gaming dream

Sun, 25 May 2025 04:13:07 GMT

I had a half-nightmare sometime in the past 24 hours where I was DMing for a too-large group and struggling to keep initiatives in particular straight at the beginning of a battle aboard a fairly small ship. Players included

A
N - playing some sort of heavy fighter.
S - playing a barbarian who channelled the spirits of his ancestors and turned into his grandfather when he raged, and helping track the PC initiatives.
A different S, whom I haven't seen in years.
B, who was in fine form.
Z
At least 2 others whom I can't remember clearly, one of whom was probably D

The party also had a pseudo-dragon or other small dragonlike creature along, whom I don't believe was attached to any particular character, and possibly a cat.

Against them, having just begun boarding over the stern of the ship after sneaking up in an invisible rowboat, casting some sort of becalming spell and getting their surprise round were
- A notorious pirate captain and her boarding crew.
- A smallish dragon, only about 1/4 size of the ship (probably did not approach /in/ the rowboat).

The pirate captain was demanding that the party hand over an artifact - possibly a necklace or amulet - that one of them or possibly an NPC was carrying. ("The something something something is mine!" [points dramatically].)

This encounter interrupted an ocean voyage to a far shore to bring aid to an ally under siege, or something, which at least one player expected to be "pull up to shore, throw a few spells and leave again", job done.

There were also some ship crew NPCs, but except for the captain thy were all aloft, desperately furling sail in case of more wind-based shenanigans.

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Cat resolutions

Sat, 24 May 2025 10:29:14 GMT

Cat Resolutions

I found this while undertaking some email hygiene. Googling suggests it last did the rounds about 2008. Well time it was seen again.

---

I will not run through the house with a condom wrapper in my mouth, especially when my human's grandmother is over.

My human will never let me eat her pet rat, and I am at peace with that.

I will not leap into my human's chair which she has temporarily vacated, and then bite my human on the bum when she sits back down.

I will not puff my entire body to twice its size for no reason after my human has finished watching a horror movie.

I will not sniff at my male human's feet after he takes his shoes off, freeze my mouth open in disgust and then sniff my private parts to compare odors. My female human might find it amusing, but my male human does not appreciate it, especially in front of company.

I will not slurp fish food from the surface of the aquarium.

I must not help myself to Q-tips, and I must certainly not proceed to stuff them down the sink's drain.

I will not bite my human on the rear while she is sitting on the Big White Drinking Bowl.

I will not eat large numbers of assorted bugs, then come home and puke them up so my humans can see that I'm getting plenty of roughage.

I will not lean way over to drink out of the tub, fall in, and then pelt right for the box of clumping cat litter. (It took FOREVER to get the stuff out of my fur. )

I will not stand on the bathroom counter, stare down the hall, and growl at NOTHING after my human has finished watching The X-Files.

When my human is taking a bubble bath, the two pinkish-brown things sticking up out of the bubbles in her chest region are NOT to be played with!

I will not fish out my human's partial plate from the glass so that the
dog can "wear" it and pretend to be my human. (It is somewhat unnerving to wake up, roll over in bed, and see the dog grinning at you with your own teeth.

I will not use the bathtub to store live mice for late-night snacks.

I will not drag dirty socks up from the hamper in the middle of the night, deposit them on the bed and yell at the top of my lungs (Bengal LOUD yowling) so that my human can admire my "kill."

I will not knead my male human's groin at 2 a.m. with claws extended. It seems to cause him some discomfort and he wakes up all grumpy.

I will not perch on my human's chest in the middle of the night and stare into her eyes until she wakes up.

I will not play Herd of Thundering Wildebeests Stampeding Across the Plains of the Serengeti over my humans' bed while they're trying to sleep.

Screaming at the can of food will not make it open itself.

I am a (neutered) cat, not a peacock, and prancing around with my tail fluffed up will not make my balls grow back.

I cannot leap through closed windows to catch birds outside. If I forget this and bonk my head on the window and fall behind the couch in my attempt, I will not get up and do the same thing again.

I will not assume the patio door is open when I race outside to chase
leaves.

I will not back up off the front porch and fall into the bushes just as my human is explaining to his girlfriend how graceful I am.

I will not complain that my butt is wet and that I am thirsty after
sitting in my water bowl.

I will not intrude on my human's candlelit bubble bath and singe my butt off.

I will not stick my paw into any container to see if there is something in it. If I do, I will not hiss and scratch when my human has to shave me to get the rubber cement out of my fur.

If I bite the cactus, it will bite back.

It is not a good idea to try to lap up the powdered creamer before it dissolves in boiling coffee.

Just because I hear voices in my head, I do not have to answer them.

When I am chasing my tail and catch my back leg instead, I will not bite down on my foot. This hurts, and my scream scares my human.

When it rains, it will be raining on all sides of the house. It is not necessary to have my human open every door so I can check.

Birds do not come from the bird feeder. I will not knock it down and try to open it up to get the birds out.

I will not stuff my rather large self into the rather small bird feeder (with my tail hanging out one side) and expect the birds to just fly in.

I will not teach the parrot to meow in a loud and raucous manner.

The dog can see me coming when I stalk her. She can see me and will move out of the way when I pounce, letting me smash into floors and walls. That does not mean I should take it as a personal insult when my humans sit there and laugh.

Yes, there are still two very large dogs in the backyard. There have been for several years. I don't have to act as if I've just discovered the
Demon Horror of the Universe each time one of them appears in my window.

I will not play "dead cat on the stairs" while people are trying to bring
in groceries or laundry, or else one of these days, it will really come true.

When the humans play darts, I will not leap into the air and attempt to catch them.

I will cease my obsession with the box my humans keep their condoms in This box is not for me. I will not knock it on the ground, I will not sit on it, I will not try to scratch it open. Especially when my humans are using the condoms.

I will not swat my human's head repeatedly when she's on the family room floor trying to do sit ups.

When my human is typing at the computer, her forearms are *not* a hammock.

Computer and TV screens do not exist to back light my lovely tail.

I am a walking static generator. My human doesn't need my help installing a new board in her computer.

I will not bring the city police to the front door by stepping on the
speaker phone button and then the automatic 911 dial button.

I will not speed dial the overseas numbers.

Any critter that lives in the house (hamsters) stay in the house and any wild critters (frogs and earthworms) stay outside. I am not allowed to set the hamster free in exchange for finding a frog to put in the fish tank.

I will not stalk the deer in the apple orchard next door. They have sharp hooves and could hurt me if they weren't laughing so hard.

I will not watch the guinea pig constantly as the guinea pig likes to sleep once in a while.

The goldfish likes living in water and should be allowed to remain in its bowl.

I will not put a live vole in my food bowl and expect it to stay there until I get hungry.

I will not eat spider plants and hallucinate behind the toilet.

I will not drag the magnets (and the papers they are holding up) off of the refrigerator and then bat them underneath it so that they adhere to the underside.

I will learn to relax at the vet's office so they will start writing things in my records like "Good Kitty" and "Sweet Kitty" instead of the stuff that's there now like "MEAN!!", "BITER!!!", and "GET HELP!!!!!"

I promise I will meditate more closely upon the causal relationship between going dumpster diving on Sunday afternoon and projectile vomiting Monday, and being brought to the Evil Place Where They Stick Things Up My Butt on Tuesday evening. I realize that if I hadn't done the first, none of the other things would have happened.

I don't need to check my male human's aim in the bathroom.

I will not bat at my male human's family jewels while he is engaged in the act of mating with my female human, no matter how tempting the danglies are. My humans get mad and I might get free flying lessons.

I will not be miffed at my human all day and then kiss her on the nose at 2:00 a.m. to tell her that she is forgiven and can now pet me.

I will not scratch the children of lawyers, no matter how much they chase me or how hard they pull my tail.

If I must give a present to my human's overnight guests, my toy mouse is much more socially acceptable than a live cockroach, even if it isn't as tasty.

I will not soak my catnip toy in the water bowl to make tea. I will not get high and sit there drinking my tea and kneading the floor afterwards. I will not then get delusions of grandeur and make tea in the toilet bowl or the tub. And I will not try to make tea with used socks, dirty panties or hair scrunches when my humans take the catnip toy away from me.

After my (female) human has enjoyed the company of a larger, but equally gorgeous, hairy animal, I will not leap onto the bed, smell where he's been, and then jealously pee there to eradicate his traces.

A warm pepperoni pizza is not a good place for a nap.

---

While I was looking for the source, I also found this site - https://badpets.net/CatHumor/CatLinks.html

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Submission to the NZ Royal Commission COVID-19 Lessons Learned | Te Tira Ārai Urutā

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 03:22:42 GMT

This is very much not what I am supposed to be doing today, but I got sidetracked. Submissions close 27-04-2025 (two days from post).

The COVID-19 Inquiry is assessing key decisions made by the New Zealand Government in 2021 and 2022 in the following areas:

* Vaccines, including mandates, approvals, and safety
* Lockdowns, especially the lockdowns of late 2021
* Testing and tracing technologies (like RATs or the COVID-19 Tracer app), and public health materials (like masks).

In relation to these topics, we need to hear from you about your COVID-19 experiences and how you think the Government should respond to pandemics in the future.

My household got off relatively lightly during the lockdowns - I continued to be able to work from home (although at reduced efficiency) and we were able to keep track of our family and social circles via the internet. My wife has a weakened immune system and she was able to get the vaccine early, about the 3rd tranche if I recall correctly. We had no concerns about the safety of the vaccines. I recall some public debate about the time it took to get vaccines approved for use in New Zealand when they were already in use in other countries, but I also understand that those responsible were trying to follow the official, legal processes as best they could.

In my view the government did the best it could with the information and resources it had. In hindsight of course mistakes were made - mistakes will always be made in a novel situation - but these can be taken on board for future emergency planning. Strictly speaking some legal powers were stretched to/past breaking point; this showed up weaknesses in our system which can be fixed. That these were able to be called out through the courts and acknowledged after the fact I consider a good sign of the strength of our political and legal systems.

Between my wife and several immunocompromised friends we had good reason to try and keep on top of what was known about the virus at any given time. I feel that our distance as a country from the rest of the world and the relatively small impact here has led to many New Zealanders believing that the worldwide pandemic, which is technically ongoing, "wasn't that bad" overall and a sense of complacency. It might have helped had numbers from elsewhere been held up more for comparison with our own numbers.

Closing the borders and extensive isolation measures until vaccines could be rolled out was very much the correct thing to do, I believe that had the previous National government still been in power they would have been "relaxed" about the risks to New Zealand and this would have led to many more deaths. While our household is fortunate in that only one relative has died with Covid as a contributing factor, many of our friends, especially those with relatives overseas, were not as lucky and we share their grief.

I was surprised to learn via events during the pandemic that NZ health workers are not required to be fully vaccinated as a matter of course (something which should be easy to remedy), and at the sheer amount of anti-vaccination, anti-science, anti-government bile which was loudly spilt from some quarters. I understand that these people were and are very much a minority but I am not sure what can be done about it in a future event without the media voluntarily refraining from amplifying their disinformation. It may take an educational campaign on a multi-generational time scale to shift the baseline of New Zealanders understanding of medical science upwards.

Re-reading the submission brief it strikes me that "how the government should *respond to pandemics in the future*" is placing the emphasis in the wrong place. The government needs to be responding to the *possibility of a future pandemic* right now, taking the weaknesses that were exposed in our preparedness and remedying them, fine tuning the tools that were of necessity wielded bluntly this time so that they can be invoked more delicately next time.

There needs to be massive investment in our health system in particular so that it has spare capacity available both for preparing (practising) for the event of another pandemic or similar event, and for responding to an actual event. This includes raising public awareness and mainstreaming of personal health activities like masking and keeping vaccinations up to date. Broader free or very subsidised access to mask, vaccinations and tests (especially the useful all-in-one Covid/RSV/Flu ones), and strong support for employees, especially public-facing / health / food workers taking leave from work while sick, and a culture of not having to work until your body is so run down that it can't effectively fight an exposure.

In the case of an actual event future governments need to be willing to invoke the big guns (border closures, lockdowns, quarantines, vaccine mandates) early and hard. Citizens need to be prepared to "buy into" those actions.

One last thing that sticks in my head from this pandemic was people trying to get back to New Zealand. Next time there needs to be a plan to bring people home ASAP, whether that is purchasing commercial tickets for those who can't afford it or running entire government chartered flights empty out and occupied back, and sufficient quarantine space available.

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Submission on the Term of Parliament (Enabling 4-year Term) Legislation Amendment Bill

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 08:15:48 GMT

In brief, the Term of Parliament (Enabling 4-year Term) Legislation Amendment Bill attempts to establish a 4-year term between national government elections, in exchange for giving non-government MPs a greater presence on select committees. This would come into effect should it pass a referendum to be held at one of the next two national elections.

And the official online submission form. Submissions close 1.00pm Thursday, 17 April 2025

If you want to draw on mine as inspiration for your own personalised submission go right ahead, but please write something unique, don't cut and paste from this without making it clear that you are quoting from another submission :)

I/We wish to make the following comments:
I oppose the introduction of a 4-year term to the Aotearoa/NZ Parliament.

When MMP was introduced the intent was that a party who got a minority of the vote would not be able to get a majority of seats and subsequently act arbitrarily against the wishes of the population. However as we have seen recently it is now feasible for a party which has even less of the vote that was typical under FPP to get controversial policies sped through as part of a coalition agreement. A longer term allows more time for this to happen without the government of the day being held to account.

A system of proportional representation was expected to usher in a change from oppositional two-party politics to co-operative multi-party politics. Unfortunately many New Zealand politicians don't yet seem to have got the memo.

Under MMP the way for a party to manage it's legislative agenda should be to make sure the parts of the agenda have broad cross-party support, such that it can be progressed regardless of which party or parties currently occupy the government benches, not hope to be part of a ruling[1] coalition for long enough to push legislation through. Being able to meaningfully progress legislation while in opposition also allows more time for the legislation to be scrutinised and feedback to be sought and incorporated. Sadly I consider it likely that a longer term will only encourage more of the latter thinking rather than the former.

While the Independent Electoral Review 2023 did recommend a referendum on the parliamentary term (R11), it explicitly stated that it was only one part of a package of recommendations (ref. 5.36) and that more alternative mechanisms to hold the government to account might be needed to make it palatable. The proposed legislation allows for a greater influence of non-government-bench MPs on select committees, but does not appear to bind them to follow the recommendations of said committees any more than at present. As such, this is no counterweight at all to the increased power a 4-year term would give a party intent on ruling[1] the country rather than governing it.

Finally, the current government has repeatedly expressed a desire to reduce costs. Given that the last general election encountered issues which can be attributed to the Electoral Commission already being under-resourced and the Electoral Commission has suffered it's share of additional lost resources as part of recent cost cutting, adding a referendum to the next general election without substantial extra resourcing seems likely to compromise both the election and the referendum.

[1] I observe that the difference between

"ruling" (as in "the ruling party") where those who hold the majority can simply enact what they want done regardless of the intent/expectations of the electorate, and
"governing" which should be regarded as far more about implementing and informing the intent/expectations of the electorate,
also seems to be lost on a significant number of politicians especially on the "right". Were more of our parliamentary representatives set on the latter I might have fewer reservations about a longer term.

I/We wish to make the following recommendations:

I recommend this legislation be dropped, or at least shelved until such time as pursuing it will not consume resources better spent elsewhere. Alternatively it needs to also give select committees the ability to reject legislation and stop its progression through Parliament.

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A very productive weekend

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 10:30:03 GMT

This weekend (since Thursday, so Mr R has been coming to work with me, where he seems quite content to sit at the next desk with his laptop) both D and E have been in Auckland. This has given me the mental, emotional and physical space to make a list (on the big whiteboard) and power through it. Since Friday evening I have, in no real order because there has been a lot of back-and-forth between tasks...

* Cleaned the stove top, oven incl. fittings and trays, and microwave.
- bonus, replaced the oven light blub

* Shampooed the carpet in the living area, which involved moving everything into one half of the room, dry vacuuming, shampooing, waiting to dry, dry vacuuming again, moving everything back, repeat the next day with the other half of the room.
- includes assorted adjacent cleaning, like wiping down the baseboards and power points while I'm paying attention.
- included sorting a lot of things back to where they should be, putting in the garage to to go to storage, or binning them.

* Installed a video card in D's computer.

* Took a car load of containers to the storage unit, picked up a new cat-tree on the way back.
- did I mention we're expecting kittens? Two, brother and sister, once they've recovered from being desexed. Other members of the household couldn't cope with being cat-less at this time.
* Rearranged the garage to function as a proper spare-bedroom (at least during the warmer months) and cattery. Well, 90% completed this task.
- now that we don't have a spare room I've already been sleeping in the garage when D & I's body clocks are at odds, or she needs her audio book to get to sleep.

* Sewed on a pants button.

* Washed a duvet cover and hung the duvet out to air. I only count this as 50% complete as the duvet was still out when this evenings rain rolled in. At the time I was crashed out for a nap after next four items.

* Line trimmed a battery-worth along the back bank (about twice as much area as I had set myself) and sundry weeding.
* Picked up as much as possible of the mummified / buried and still mostly intact cat droppings from the gravel parking area. (About 1/4 of a brown paper supermarket bag). Did not manage part 2, the gravel areas down the side of the house, but that will wait for another day.
* Shovelled the wood chip across the shared drive back out of the gutter and onto the area it is supposed to be chipping.
- this is one of those strange areas which doesn't seem to belong to any of the 3 adjacent properties, although I suspect it's technically the responsibility of the property whose fence actually runs across it. They are not one of the two properties on the drive. The original neighbours at the end of the drive had it chipped when they were doing their landscaping, I weed it occasionally and someone not-me recently went over it with a line trimmer.
* Swept the bulk of the gravel which had migrated out onto the drive since the parking area was put in back in.

* Four loads of laundry, including Mr R's for the week and his bedclothes. Remade the bed.
* Also sundry other regular chores, like feeding the two of us, grocery shopping and and washing dishes.

* Processed and uploaded the Operation Glorious Porpoise photos.
* Made two other journal posts, including this one.

* Got the DVD drive on the main computer (which recently had a motherboard + processer upgrade) sharing and sharing media over the network and managed to watch one episode of Firefly. I'd hoped to manage more, but at least the technical details are sorted out now.

* Did not get to cleaning the Fridge-freezer (which needs it just as badly as the cooking appliances did) but that might be a good place to start next weekend.

~~~
I'm seriously chuffed at accomplishing what feels like a "real person's" amount of work over this period of time and have thoughts about how our home environment is not conducive to this sort of productivity more often, but I don't get to bask in or ponder further it tonight because Mr R has an 8am appointment tomorrow which means a very early start and I had planned to be in bed an hour ago.

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More Mortality

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 09:27:18 GMT

1. In between Xmas and New Year Ellie Kat ate something which disagreed with her, leading to explosive diarrhea and a trip to the after-hours vet tight-as-a-drum with gas.

Whether this was cause or effect isn't clear, but after she recovered she had lost control of her bowel movements; she was unable to "hold it in" and had to squat and drop wherever she was. Another trip to the vet later and the cause was most likely that the bones spurs in the base of her spine had reached the point that the nerve to that are were no longer able to do their job properly. Reluctantly, because she had become very dear to D in the ~18 moths we had her, we chose to have her put down.

E was in Wellington for the whole of this, which was probably a mercy. While Gytha was a very trusting cat and the vets had no trouble getting the cannula in, Ellie was /not/ a very trusting cat and eventually had to be sedated. It was not the peaceful end we had hoped for.

I buried her up by the back fence, in another spot which will get a bit of sun.

~~~
2. #FuckCancer. I did not expect to be attending another funeral, but another decades-long, though not close, friend passed away mid-January. Initially diagnosed with myeloma? (a blood cancer) ~2018 which was initially beaten into remission, then returned a few years later, Robyn was nearly five years younger than me, and had accomplished more in that time than I possibly ever will. She was wickedly intelligent, scarily organised in most areas of her life, went all in when she set her mind to something and incredibly generous. Physical legacies that she has left (mentioned at the funeral) include in her over 4000 memorials and 50,000 photos contributed to the Find a Grave project, contributions to veterinary science (aquaculture) and climate science, and she is the only person I know who has had a charity event re-named in their honour. She was another of those truly good people that most of us can only hope to be.

Robyn packed as much as physically possible into her last few years, and according to her last few Facebook posts had an absolutely perfect Xmas and New Years to round things out. It was noted by more than one attendee at her funeral what a great coincidence it was that it occurred the same week as many of her out-of-town friends were in fact back in town for an an annual SCA event, and so were able to be there in person and grieve surrounded by a support network of mutual friends.

Rest in Power.

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2025-01-02 Operation Glorious Porpoise

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 07:42:27 GMT

River skirmish and picnic

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Leaving 2024, big changes expected in 2025

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 01:47:26 GMT

So, 2024. We've kept our heads above water but little more. Ever in hope of the bulk of D's inheritance actually arriving which has seen delay after delay. It means we've periodically shifted into house-hunting mode as with D's youngest, R, coming to live with us ... in less than a week now ... and D desperately needing more studio space we have outgrown this little house. We're poised to put the property the market (contract signed etc) as soon as we have somewhere else we can offer on. We've seen a good number of places that would work excellently for us, or be they mostly at the very upper end of what we expect to be able to afford, and sales in that space have been slow so I'm confident we will be able to find somewhere.

The landscaping on this property has been done, just lawn, gravel and a little wall along the back bank, thanks to a loan from parental unit which will be paid back when house is sold.

Work this year has been solid, no dramas. The NDRI prescribed by my new doctor seems to be working, I've been able to keep focus a lot better although this hasn't actually increased the number of hours I can manage :( But I'll take writing better code that I'm more confident in / happier with as a win. I've also had more energy for chores around the house in the mornings, though not a lot more mental/emotional spoons outside of work.

Gaming - not much, in person anyway. A short campaign at the beginning of the year while A was in the country. A couple of visits to J & T's. Mostly it's just D and I on BGA, Terraforming Mars mostly with Wingspan, Seven Wonders Duel, or Race for the Galaxy when we don't have enough time/spoons for TM. D gave me Masters of Orion 3 for Xmas so we had an actual computer game that we could play together, the MOO games are exactly one of my cups of digital tea so I may lose more time to that on single player than I should.

Family-wise - D & I had our big trip to Sydney, and we'll have been married 5 years in two short weeks. On one of the boys' visits down R discovered that D keeps all his cards and drawings and stuff and had a bit of an epiphany about how much his Mum loves him (and a consequential emotional overload episode). That's contributed to him expressing his desire to try living/schooling down here for at least a year. E has had a bit of a roller-coaster year including more diagnoses, but has really blossomed in/from their drama group and grown in confidence overall.

We lost Gytha of course, which was a big blow to all of us. It was a bad year for pets - I lost count of how many friends and acquaintances also had to send fur-children over the rainbow bridge.

D has continued to go from strength to strength in her quilting with more exhibitions, more prizes (including a viewers choice), and of course Epilepsy's acceptance into the Houston International Quilt Show. We did manage to raise enough funds to send her there, I'm very proud of her receiving 3 out of 3 funding applications as well as very grateful to everyone who contributed to the GiveALittle. Once she actually gets the write up posted on her website I'll come back and link to it. She had an intense and inspiring time.

~~~

I have taken the work shutdown as holidays again this year, and intended to take it easy. In actuality my time has been mostly taken up with end-of-year administration, reinstalling 2 PCs and 2 laptops (so far) with slimmed down versions of Windows 10/11 in anticipation of increased household computing needs, and "spring" / pre-sale cleaning and clean-out, and I don't feel rested /at all/.

E is at their father's for Xmas/NY so D & I have theoretically had a quiet couple of weeks together. In actuality between our body clocks running almost completely opposite hours at the moment and a mutual lack of spoons we haven't seen as much of each other as we would have liked, nor to get out and visit friends. D has spoiled me with dinners and baking though <3

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Submission on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill

Sat, 07 Dec 2024 06:33:58 GMT

Before we get to my submission, here are some guides to writing your own.

* Emily Writes: How to make a submission against the Treaty Principles Bill
* No Right Turn: Submit to defend te Tiriti!
* Green Party:
Make a submission - Treaty Principles Bill
* NZCTU: How to make a submission on the Treaty Principles Bill
* PPTA: How to make a submission on the Treaty Principles Bill
* Greenpeace: Treaty principles bill submission guide
* Honour The Treaty: Submissions

And the official online submission form.

If you want to draw on mine as inspiration for your own personalised submission go right ahead, but please write something unique, don't cut and paste from this without making it clear that you are quoting from another submission :)

I/We wish to make the following comments:

As a New Zealand / Aotearoa voter I wish it it be on record that I vehemently oppose the "Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill".

There are many reasons to oppose this bill. A big red flag is that I feel the /need/ to specify in making a submission on government business that I am a fourth generation pākehā with not a drop of Māori blood as far as I have been able to determine, as I write to oppose it.

I'm sure others will write at length about any of the legalities, such as the one side does not get to rewrite or solely interpret the terms of an international treaty or decades of legal precedent. These are the acts of a conqueror not a treaty partner, of an authoritarian ruler not a democratic government.

No legitimate government of New Zealand / Aotearoa, whose job it is to represent /all/ people of our country not just those who supported the governing parties[1], should have spent time and resources raising a bill which proposes such things.

[1] Voting being how we choose our representatives not who they represent. Otherwise anyone who cast a vote for an electorate candidate who did not win could rightly claim not to be represented equally in Parliament.

Even having one government willing to promote effectively rewriting our founding agreement at this level, regardless of the predetermined outcome of failure, should be enough to give parties with which we have or seek other agreements over e.g. trade and foreign affairs good reason to pause and reconsider. That damage, unfortunately, has already been done.

Actually doing so shows massive disrespect not only to Māori but to
* every living believer in a properly democratic and multicultural New Zealand / Aotearoa,
* those members of the British Empire whose efforts to do things a better way than their history of subjugation and elimination of native peoples and cultures also made Te Tiriti possible,
* those involved in the (ongoing) process of hashing out existing principles of Te Tiriti by negotiation and legal process over a period of decades, as settler New Zealand has begun to come to terms with the crimes committed against Māori by our previous/current generations and begin restitution and reconciliation,
* every taxpayer whose contribution is being wasted getting to this predetermined outcome instead of being put into health, education, social welfare, policing or any other of our many struggling public institutions.

~~~

This bill to me does not speak to the principles of co-operation and inclusion which underlie the founding and evolution of New Zealand / Aotearoa society, but instead of the politics of assimilation.

This bill speaks of treating all people the same, regardless of their actual needs and history while it ignores

* the fact that Te Tiriti, like the majority of international agreements, is not about individual rights but collective rights, it is an agreement between two sovereign peoples.

* the fact that /any/ individual right which might be considered to bestowed on a Māori individual by dint of Te Tiriti can already also be found to apply to any other equivalent non-Māori individual through other legislation, such as the New Zealand Bill Of Rights Act 1990.

* the fact that a one-size-fits-all approach has never worked - not in health where we treat a broken bone differently from a cancer, not in education where we treat a primary school child differently from a tertiary student, not in housing where different environments, different family sizes, or different physical limitations all call for different design features. The same can be applied to differences between cultures, or indeed stemming from being born into any section or sub-culture of society which is comparatively deprived or privileged.

* the fact that there are already many aspects of society where being a certain "type" of person gains you greater, fewer or different rights even under existing legislation. Landlord versus tenant (and property owners who have the right to vote in more than one local body election versus everyone else), employer versus employee, incarcerated (or under 18) versus having the right to vote, anything where a licence is required (e.g. driving).

There are a great many imbalances even just in the preceding list that would see greater benefit to all New Zealanders by being addressed, before becoming concerned that those hewing closer to one particular part of our shared culture might have privileges not shared by the other. Moreover, this bill leaves unsaid but clearly implies that this "equal treatment" must be the one established by the norms of European-centric colonialism, from which we have inherited our current "Westminster" system of government and so many assumptions about how society "should" work.

After all, I am sure you can imagine how the proponents of this bill would react to the suggestion of legislating that all New Zealanders be treated according to the principles of te ao Māori.

I/We wish to make the following recommendations:

* I acknowledge that the principles as currently understood may continue to be refined or evolve over time, but this /must/ be by due process and proper consideration, not at the swipe of a legislators pen or the narrowly defined options of a referendum which would in no way be able to capture the complexity of the topic.

* Despite my opposition to the bill / process / unnecessary expenditure, now that it is underway I would not wish for the consultation process to be cut short. Everyone should have the opportunity to make their submission, and I can only hope that the sheer number of submissions against the bill will refute the idea that a referendum on the topic at any point in the future could serve any useful purpose.

* I would recommend that the political parties that make up the current governing coalition of New Zealand

- make a public and heartfelt apology to all of New Zealand / Aotearoa for their poor judgement in this matter, the damage they have caused to Māori / Crown relations and our international reputation, and the time and productivity lost to those standing/hikoi-ing/submitting in opposition to this bill.
- publicly and vocally support and commit to upholding the existing Te Tiriti principles
- publicly and vocally commit to the ongoing Te Tiriti reconciliation and restitution process through the Waitangi Tribunal and the recommendations of other investigations which reveal that Māori have been disproportionately negatively affected by Crown actions, such as the recent Abuse In Care inquiry.

I do not wish to make an oral submission to the committee.

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Mortality

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 19:58:59 GMT

Several weeks ago now I attended the funeral of an acquaintance who had died unexpectedly. I didn't know B personally at all well, we've basically just overlapped at social events, but I have known him and his partner since before they were a couple, so apparently over 25 years. I well liked and respected him, and coincidentally had bumped into him (not literally) a few weeks earlier while we were both filling up on either side of the same petrol pump. I think that would have been the first time we'd met since pre-Covid.

People tend to say nice things at and around funerals, but even so the consensus seems to be that B was one of the best of people, the type of perpetually kind, supportive and uplifting person most of us can only hope to be.

He was also only not-that-many-years older than me, falling in that space between parents and age-group peers. By this time in life, I've always considered that it would be normal to have lost grandparents and some number of my parent's generation to natural causes* and some of my own or younger to tragedies*.

*[Aside: natural causes can also be tragic, and on that note Fuck Cancer, again. I am currently and off the top of my head two or less degrees of separation from 4? 5? 6? people that I know of who are making the most of whatever time they have left after terminal diagnoses. At least two immediate acquaintances are in the liminal space between diagnosis of less advanced cancers and beginning treatment.]

So I think it is something about that intermediate generation starting to "suffer medical events" that made this hit harder than normal. Due to the nature of my social group I have quite few friends of about that age and whose funerals I fully expect to have to attend before I turn in my own boots, and I now find myself viewing those inevitable losses with a new clarity, alongside those of my own age. I'm hopeful that they all have another 30-40 years left in them ...

I have health insurances of course, which eat up a painful amount of our budget each month despite being not as comprehensive as I would like and never have being claimed on, and my will is in order so that D will be as taken care of as whatever assets I have left will allow.

I am growing to resent more and more either my own inability to reach out to people that I want to spend more time with /have more memories of before either I or they are gone, or this rat-race of a society which doesn't leave me with the time or energy to do so.

~~~
Most of this post has been bouncing around in my head since I heard the news of B's death, I just haven't had the time and spoons to get it down. I'm writing it now partly because I do actually have an evening to myself and the spoons to do something with it, but also because I woke up from a dream this morning where most of the family (five of the six of us plus at least one uncle and some number of niblings) had been on a family trip back to Erewhon (there was a lot more going on in the dream but not relevant) and when we were starting to leave my father started to get very emotional because it would be the last time he visited.

I kind of woke up with the thought +feeling? +emotion? that "there is a last time for everything" going around in my head, and I'm not quite sure what to do with it. It's a statement of the obvious, that there must be as many last times for everything as there are first times for everything in a life, even if often they will be the same time.

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Dirt under my fingernails

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 07:16:08 GMT

This weekend I have managed to

* Clean the windows and aluminum fittings inside (Saturday) and out (Sunday).
* Mow the lawn (Saturday) (although I didn't manage to rake up afterwards) (mower catcher is bust).
* Clean the gutters (Sunday).
* Sundry other housework and property maintenance tasks.

This time last year any of those might have left me wiped out for the rest of the weekend. Today I still had enough in the tank to handle the bulk of cooking dinner and write my first actual journal post in ages (short though it might be) rather than falling into bed and doing a credible impression of a wax dummy.

I mean I can feel the unaccustomed exertion in various muscles. Although my legs have let up they will surely be claiming payback tomorrow for all the ladder-work involved in the gutters. But I'm still functional.

This was on top of a very solid week at work, and sundry other errands during the week.

I always pick up somewhat during the summer hours, but my motivation, focus and amount being accomplished recently is remarkable for me. I'm going to attribute it to finally being of the right meds, and hope that a crash is not pending before the Xmas break.

I did have to give up on going out and being social on Saturday night after all the energy spent during the day, an event I regret missing, but I guess that's that's the tradeoff that had to be made for all the other adulting.

I'm hoping that whatever motivated me to whip up post means that the gates will stay open a bit and I'll be able to get some of the other words which have been piling up in my head out over the next few weeks as well.

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Photos: 2024-11-13 Toitū Te Tiriti Ōtautahi

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 21:10:27 GMT

Protest gathering in Ōtautahi/Christchurch to protest the bullshit Treaty Principles Bill and support Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

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A weekend in Sydney

Sun, 03 Nov 2024 10:08:15 GMT

D had a Significant Birthday this year, and with some money from her inheritance chose to take us both Sydney for a long weekend, and to cram as much into the few days as possible.

This was my first time out of the country, which meant that I had to bite the proverbial bullet and get a passport. This was a bit of an exercise in itself as the photo we paid for from the chemist wasn't adequate and we ended up just having E take photos of me against the kitchen wall with my phone and using the online tool at passports.govt.nz until we got one that was good enough (the main issue was shadows around the eyes).

We flew Emirates in one of their big planes, although only economy class, and both flights were very nice including the gluten-free meal options.

Flight out was Friday evening (also my first time in the Christchurch Airport International Terminal, which is sadly not as well supplied with power points and charge points as I expected so I didn't end up passing time on my laptop) and we spent most of the trip watching The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare on the entertainment system.

Our arrival in Australia got off to a stormy start, as a flash thunderstorm at the airport initially prevented the airbridges from being connected and then delayed the unloading of luggage. Fortunately as D is an assisted traveler (requiring a wheelchair for/after long stints) we had a local guide to keep us company, whisk us past the queues and through customs, and point us in the direction of the airport train station. Here we picked up Opal cards (prepay cards for all Sydney's public transport networks) and found our way onto the train for Circular Quay.

Aside - I quite liked what I saw of Sydney's public transport network; combining rail, light rail, busses and ferries; and we should absolutely have something like it in our cities/regions. Word of advice though, the airport train stations (possibly just the international one?) are privately owned and you cop an extra $20 charge to travel to/from them, meaning the minimum purchase / top up to an Opal card at that station is $35 - per card.

On the subject of paying for things, NZ Bank Visa Debit cards work just fine for contactless payments, although you will incur an extra charge per transaction. Also make sure to notify your bank that you are going to be in Australia, or they might just slap a hold on your card for use in an unexpected location. (This didn't happen to us.) (Additional tip from D's trip to Houston though, also let your bank know if you are going to be at an event with international vendors who might charge you in some other currency...)

We were within D-walking distance of our hotel, after getting assistance with directions from a friendly local. Two things struck me from the walk, one was the homeless people sleeping around the transit station, which I had half-expected, and two was the smell of cigarette smoke in the street as we passed by various pubs and other nighttime entertainment venues, which I had not. These things are probably a feature of NZ cities as well, I'm just not usually passing through entertainment districts and that time on a Friday night.

We were staying at the Sydney Harbour Hotel in "The Rocks" area. After the impressive atrium the room was actually a little disappointing, but it sufficed. There's a limited amount you can do with an historic building. We did have a nice view of the harbour bridge from our (8th-and-top-floor) room, and of the surrounding area from the roof, right over to the Sydney Opera House (when there wasn't one of a series of big-ass cruise ships in the way).

We didn't actually get to appreciate the views until the next day, as by this stage it was late-night by Sydney time let alone for us still on NZ time and we did a little unpacking then fell into bed.

This became a pattern: wake up/get up on our usual body-clock NZ time (about 7:30am Sydney time) and fall into bed towards midnight Sydney time. It did enable us to make the most of the daylight hours, but yes we were shattered when we got home.

~~~

Next morning we were awake/up as just mentioned and went in search of the hotel breakfast restaurant (buffet). It turned out that breakfasts /hadn't/ come with our booking, but we were able to get a guest discount rate after a trip down to the main desk. The buffet was excellent, although there wasn't anything explicitly gluten free there was plenty of fresh fruit and hot steamed/fried options. We tucked in and got our monies worth most days.

We followed breakfast with a trip up to the roof to check out the pool, which we never actually found the time to use, and the scenery.

Full gallery: Hotel and Surrounds

What immediately struck me from here was seeing the Aboriginal Flag flying pretty much everywhere I saw the colonial flag. This persisted everywhere we went. Why can't we have something as persistent as that in NZ?
(Actually I just did a search on that. The reason is that the Māori tribes aren't in agreement on a united flag. So we get "The Māori flag" flown on e.g. Waitangi day but not at other times." Ref)

Add on to this the acknowlegements on most of the websites I visited (check the market link below), and announced at the beginning of both Hamilton and the Seals for the wild show and although I know that the First Peoples still suffer major prejudice and deprivation, I feel in some ways they have made bigger strides in being acknowledged in a western sense than Māori have. There are the sorts of things that a generation or two of whites internalising as they grow up leads to better outcomes in the future.

Anyway I haven't done a dive into what it took for the First Peoples to get to this point, but given the notorious racism attributed to white Australians I'm certain it has been an epic.

Cutting back to our arrival, in the baggage collection area the flight was actually listed as having come from "Christchurch [newline] Ōtautahi", which I was chuffed to see but caused other some confusion as they tried to figure out where other than NZ the flight had visited. Quote, "Oh! It's the indigenous name!".

Moving on.

Another prominent nearby building was the Sirius Building. I'm pretty sure all the other building around had their own significant histories as well, but this the one I thought to look up as it was neither old or super-modern, and it blocked the view of the sunset which I was trying to catch Monday evening.

We could see The Rocks Street Market setting up below us, so we took a walk through there. We were a bit early this time, but made another trip later in the morning. D encountered a quilter selling appliqued tote bags and also bought some bling from jewelry and crystal stalls.

Between visits to the market and investigating the little shops in neighboring streets we ducked into a little mall across an alley from the hotel which contained one of the must-visits - E had been promised that we would bring home hard candies from Sticky, a hand-made-candy maker.

~~~

Full gallery: Around the Harbour (also contains some photos from Monday)

The actual plan for Saturday was for D's friend and sometime formal quilting mentor L to pick us up and take us for a bit of a scenic tour around the harbour. This was also the first time they had managed to meet in person. Due to roadworks and the market L was unable to actually get parking close to the hotel, so we ended up hiking a bit to get to her car. On that note I found travelling around Sydney to be much like Wellington - /not flat/. Hills and streets at odd angles and sets of stairs everywhere.

Another feature which stood out for me was the way architecture from every period since settlement is mixed and matched everywhere, with for (possibly an extreme) example, relatively stubby old sandstone buildings closely flanked by mid-20th C high-rises on one side and modern skyscrapers on the other. (Much of the old architecture, beautiful though it is, did nevertheless make #EQNZ me a little twitchy.)

During the afternoon we managed to cross not only The bridge but also two other major bridges across the harbour - the ANZAC bridge and I'm not sure which was the other.

The first exciting stop was The Sewing Basket which takes donated fabrics (and sewing machines) and sells them on to support the disabled. As a disabled artist herself D was very enthusiastic about this, and also the prices on their silks. Sadly we had to remember that we had baggage limits and she was ultimately quite selective.

Sadly the sun was in completely the wrong place and reflection meant I was unable to get a good photo of their full-window display of vintage sewing machines....

Second stop was at a harbour-side park where we could look back across to the bridge, and where I took many photos of Australian native flora for D's future quilting reference. My personal favourite also includes some local wildlife. It took several tries to get this shot …

From there to an Australian suburban mall - no idea which one but apparently importantly not run by Westfields, much like our own but with slightly different names on some of the shops. We had lunch at a very nice sushi train just down the street the returned to do some grocery shopping as it had an Aldi - which I was interested in because it is one of the names sometimes floated to invite into NZ to challenge our cosy duopoly, although L noted that having alternatives in Australia hasn't actually had much affect on the same cosy duopoly operating over there - and an Australian Woolworths, where D bought ~half a suitcase full of brands of gluten-free lunch bars which we just don't get in NZ for E to try / snack on for as long as they last. (I've claimed one bar of each type to try myself, and they are all quite acceptable although I found the Rocky Road one a bit too sweet.)

There had been plans to visit a local gallery as well, but we had run out of afternoon so instead L took us to her favourite chocolate and marshmallows place to finish up.

By the time we got back to the hotel D was ready to collapse, so she took a nap while I trawled the internet for somewhere convenient - and affordable - to eat. This was hampered by a) my laptop having issues connecting to the hotel wireless, and b) the enshittification of the internet meaning that most search results turned up only "best of" articles with lists of posh and expensive (and not particularly close) places. I eventually settled on - and snagged a temporally close booking for - Pony Dining, a steak restaurant about a block away. (As far as I could tell no actual equines on the menu.) The meal and service was good, the seating arrangements - some tables inside but most customers seated at the same two long tables outside - were also interesting.

~~~

Full gallery: Sunday

Sunday morning we had planned to do more exploring, but after breakfast D was stricken with a digestive upset :( Fortunately it passed by the time we were due to leave for our first fixture of the day - the afternoon performance of Hamilton the Musical at the Sydney Lyric Theatre. D. is a big musical fan and Hamilton was on repeat in our house for a while, with songs still on at least one frequent playlist, so the opportunity to see it performed live on stage was really the motivating reason for the trip.

I've of course seen the filmed version, but there are a lot of subtleties which really show up in the live show and many of the numbers made a bit more sense. It was a really powerful performance and very real tears were shed by both of us at several points.

After the show it was a not-quite-mad-dash back to the hotel to get changed into our Sunday best and then to Infinity Restaurant in the Sydney Tower. This is a revolving restaurant like Orbit 360 at the top of the Sky Tower in Auckland, although slightly higher class again. This is also the first time I have had to go through a metal detector to get into a restaurant...

Looking inland from the tower towards what must have been mountains in the distance gave a real feeling of the immensity of the landmass which I think would be impossible to get in NZ, even if there was a tower in Ōtautahi looking over the plains. /Not/ that that would be a good idea. (#EQNZ me twitches again.)

We obviously spent much of the evening staring out the window at the view, but of I also had this vision sitting across from me. [ahem]

I am not a foodie or aficionado of fine dining so I am afraid much of the experience was lost on me, but then it wasn't for me :) The food and service were excellent and D found everything met her expectations.

(Sadly the Infinity Restaurant does not have any guaranteed gluten-free options, partly due to the small size of their kitchen.)

~~~

We may have dragged ourselves out of bed a little later on Monday morning, but not too much later because it was Zoo Day! After the previous mornings incident, even though we weren't sure it had been the breakfast D ate cautiously, and then we walked down to Circular Quay to catch the ferry across to Taronga Zoo. We got our closest look at the Opera House on the way past, and also saw quite a lot of Australian Naval ships. I'm not certain if this was normal for Sydney Harbour or whether it was because a certain pair of VIPs had happened to be visiting the city that same weekend (we'd also been aware of a substantial police presence over the weekend, some of which was parked up not far down the road from the hotel, and we also saw a flyover of a couple of fighter jets later in the day.)

From the ferry terminal we caught a bus up to the top entrance to the zoo. Taronga Zoo Sydney is a bit like if you rolled Orana Park and Willowbank together and upscaled. We spent most of 6 hours there, prioritising things we wouldn't see at home (so skipping e.g. African Savannah and Backyard to Bush) and still didn't get to everything we wanted to see. D was feeling up to walking to start with so we didn't grab one of the (limited) complimentary wheelchairs on the way in, and when she started to feel that it would be a good idea later on no more were available. So we took it gently and with her cane she did amazingly well. (I'm grateful we didn't end up with a wheelchair, the entire zoo is sloped and I would have been absolutely, and possibly literally shattered had I been pushing her around for the day).

We did end up with ~10 plushies in various sizes from the gift store to bring home. /Some/ of these will be Xmas presents for the kids … fortunately plushies squish into luggage. Some of the smaller ones travelled inside my dress shoes...

There is a food court roughly central and we were able to get lunch there. Gluten free options were available. I really recommend downloading the app, if only for the map so you can figure out where the water bottle refill stations are.

Absolutely attend the Seals for the Wild event if you get the chance. Here is an official version from three years ago on the Taronga Zoo Youtube channel and there are other versions about uploaded by the public. The show we watched was longer - 20-30 minutes?

Below are a handful of my favourite photos from the day and here is my full Taronga Zoo Sydney gallery.

We had more or less intended to make our way out via the bottom entrance to the zoo, but ended up back at the top just about closing time and after a short wait again caught the bus back down to the ferry terminal.

We had no thoughts on dinner, except really being too bushed after the day walking to go out, but luckily there was a Subway located just after we got off the ferry so that was taken care of. The rest of the evening was spent trying to make everything fit into two suitcases and two carry-ons without breaking any weight limits. There was a luggage scale in the hotel foyer and I made several trips down to it and back again.

~~~

I managed to get a few hours sleep. D unfortunately woke at 2am and did not manage to get back to sleep before our 4am start; catching a taxi to Central Station and then a train to the airport for early check-in. We'd arranged packed breakfasts, but unfortunately whomever made them missed the note about one being gluten free, so the staff quickly put together a box of fresh fruit instead.

Getting to our gate and waiting the ~3 hours until our flight didn't go 100% smoothly. There were issues getting a wheelchair (which after the previous day was essential) and some very loud passengers who turned up partway through kicked off D's autistic sensory issues, meaning we had to relocate farther away from the gate. We did purchase a few things at duty free while we waited, by way of a thank you present for my Mum who had spent the weekend teen-sitting E, and "cooking ingredients".

The flight back was a smooth as the flight over, and the food, breakfast Australian time but brunch NZ time, as good. D managed to snatch a little sleep but much of my trip was spent just keeping her functional :( Strangely although I'd been barely managing to keep my eyes open in the terminal as soon as we got up and boarded the plane I was well awake for the rest of the journey.

The Southern Alps did put on a marvelous show for us though, snowcapped peaks at first nearly indistinguishably from the cotton-wool clouds nestled in the valleys between, until there were gaps large enough to see the brown of a slope below the snowline and down into the river valleys. Sadly I did not get any photos of this, and eventually the clouds closed up completely over the peaks.

The benefits of travelling with an assisted traveler were again present upon landing, although there was a short wait for a wheelchair to arrive after that we were whisked past the queues to customs. We did have a lot to declare in the way of food and silk, but everything was processed and it didn't reach the threshold for GST so that was OK.

The rest of the trip home - shuttle park and ride, and then me being awake enough to drive - went smoothly. D did nap in the car, and we would have poured her straight into bed when we got home mid-afternoon but E was having a teenage crisis and needed her Mum :/

I had to be back at work the next day, and somehow managed to be functional for it.
~~~

Overall despite some hiccups it was a very enjoyable and interesting, if full on with little-to-no time to relax, trip with lots of new experiences and many good memories made.

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Photos: 2024-09-28 48 Hour Saturday Evening

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The 48 didn't really fire this year, I took a few photos Saturday evening..

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Gothic Vampire party for Friday the 13th, hosted at Mordor

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R.I.P. LBTC Gytha, ?-2008 - 30-07-2014 - 18-06-2024

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 10:19:58 GMT

Little Black Tailless Cat Gytha (ne Winnie), aka Twitchy-butt, Bunny-butt and so on, entered my life somewhen before I adopted her when another friend homed her for a while but ultimately had to return her to cat rescue. I had been doing the "at some point another cat will enter my life" thing since Racky's death and this seemed as good a time as any. She became part of my family in July 2014, a little under 10 years ago.

Gytha was one of the most people-friendly and social cats one could ever hope to meet / be the person of and brought great joy not only to myself and my family, but also to many visitors. When I was hosting (often loud) student parties she would often venture forth to meet people and keep company.

10 years worth of cat photos and video

Sadly she developed some sort of digestive issue when I had to change her food during one of the lockdowns (her usual wasn't available) and this expressed itself in gradually stinkier poop, and a propensity to poop elsewhere than her litter box. If I had clicked that she was trying to hide her poop, a trait of sick cats, she might still be with us, but that's just something I will have to carry.

It was D's increasing frustration with the smell and mess, which actually put quite a strain on our marriage before I realised just how stressful she was finding it, that eventually led to a series of vet visits and medications. Probiotics helped a little, at least with the smell, but last Friday the diagnosis was something I can't remember or pronounce, but translates to inflammation of the pancreas, gall bladder and intestine. As an earlier course of antibiotics had no effect, the reason was most likely her immune system playing up.

She was prescribed steroids but on Saturday was clearly in a great deal of discomfort, something I think to this point she had been mostly successful in concealing or I had not been paying the right kind of attention. It was that evening I made the decision that it was time, had big cry, and called the vets Monday (yesterday) - initially, due to other commitments and complications making a late Thursday afternoon booking via the reception, but the vet came back to me later in the day with a slot that we could all manage for mid-afternoon today.

I don't think it really sank in for E until we were sitting in the waiting room with Gytha in aa box on their lap. Gytha was the first pet she had actually lived with, and in many ways "cuddle cat" had become as much hers as mine.

D held up until we got home.

The procedure was a bit different than Racky's (at a different clinic, obviously) - he got a sedative which sent him to sleep slowly and then another shot to stop his heart. Gytha was cannulated, then given one shot and a few moments later just collapsed.

She was a trusting, loving, affectionate cat right up to the end and we are going to miss her so much. I have buried her up on the bank at the rear of the property, in a spot where the morning sun will brush over her even though she is no longer sitting in a window for it.

Depending on how E feels We may look into getting a new cuddle-cat when we move in a few months, that way it and Ellie can come terms with each other and a new house together without any pre-existing territory issues.

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Photos: Operation Tea Party

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A small unit of the KAOS Expeditionary Army meets an equally small unit of ALFs Imperial Army on the field of battle

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Photos: 2024-03-09 Drinkies

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A few snaps from drinkies at the Pink Palace

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Photos: 2024-02-23 KAOS First meeting and party

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First meeting (at Uni) and First party (at the Pink Palace)

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Belated write up of a weekend "in" Hanmer

Sat, 17 Feb 2024 09:14:37 GMT

This has been sitting in draft for a while, being completed by increments as I found the time and energy.
~~~
Although it was our turn to have the kids for Xmas this year L had elected to stay only until after Xmas. As travelling without him is much easier D had spent a large amount of her triennial paycheck on a package deal family holiday at Hanmer Springs for the four of us.

The kids were packed and ready to go bright an early, unfortunately D's body clock hadn't let her sleep until the medium hours so she and I were but later emerging. We got away more or less at the planned time, which was late morning anyway.

We drove up via Rangiora (to catch an Elmer) and with a side-trip into Loburn to pick up one of D's quilts which has recently returned from a collection overseas. The pattern for the weekend's travel was set; I drove, D read, napped or admired the scenery, R played on one switch (or on later days napped), E played on the other switch, read, may have looked at the scenery, or napped.

We stopped at Culverden domain for a late lunch before making the final push into Hanmer where D picked up various package-tour tickets from the pool administration and we checked into the Clear Ridge Apartments. The unit was a bit of a hike to get to, but very nice. I particularly liked the way the bedrooms were separated by a secondary living area / nook and the bathroom seemed to be fully accessible.

The motel is just around the corner from the pools, so after unloading the car we walked down to use the first of our pool-entry vouchers. The pools were not particularly busy and it was quite relaxing.

R & D had dinner fixings back in the motel room, but E wanted sushi so they and I walked up to the Hanmer Sushi & Bowl, where they discovered the joys of a self-serve sushi bar. (They now want one to open here.)

D crashed out almost immediately after dinner and I had some quiet computer time until I felt sleepy.

~~~

Day two was set aside to cross to the West Coast and visit the seal colony at Foulwind Point (R being a little obsessed with seals, at least the plushy variety.) We managed to depart around 9am and had beautiful weather for a no rush, no pressure drive across the Lewis Pass. We stopped in Reefton for morning tea, and then on up to arrive in Westport about 12:30pm, finding lunch at The Port Side Bistro & Bar, although outside was full so we didn't actually get to view the port. I had the venison bites, D had the fish, R had a perfectly R sized bowl of mini-hotdogs and chips which made his eyes widen when it arrived at the table and E picked at a few chips. (I feel we should have got the bread for them, something to remember next time).

After lunch we made our way to the seal colony, where there were disappointingly a lot fewer seals than on our visit about the same time 4 years ago. In addition E started to panic about someone falling off the track part-way along, and this pretty much ruined the entire rest of the day for them.

Image links to gallery.

That said the rest of the day was mostly the drive back to Hanmer, although this stop in Reefton was one of my favourite 10 minutes of the trip - I wandered away from everyone else for a bit while they were sorting out afternoon tea and sat on a bench in the shade with no background noise, no demands, a perfect temperature and breeze.

Back in Hanmer we stopped at the Four Square for supplies and D & I played a game of Splendor before putting together salads / wraps / chips / cheese for dinner in our motel room. We showered before bed, then despite my best efforts it was my turn to not be able to keep my eyes open and D ended up out in the lounge until she felt tired enough to sleep.

~~~

The next morning E was still miserable from the previous day and wanted to cancel everything and go home. I had a talk with them and persuaded them to try looking at the new day with fresh eyes.

We checked out at 10am then went around to Alpine Crazy Putt for our package round of mini golf. E had reluctantly agreed to join in rather than sitting baking in the car, finding some shade or going to the pools by herself for an extra hour, which we had offered to arrange. The course was tricksy, the sun was baking down and we called it at the 14th hole. D, E, and myself all received sunburn.

From there we proceeded to the pools for a couple of hours most of which were spent in the shade in one of the rock pools. D & I did get some quiet time while the other two went off to other pools for a bit, and I took Rhys to spin around the lazy river for a while.

Just before we were about to leave I discovered that, after checking for ice-cream places on my phone while Rhys was still getting changed, I had put it in the pocket of my swimming trunks and thus it had been soaking along with me :o This was a serious downer, but I went back to the Four Square, purchased a bag of rice, disassembled the phone as much as was possible and put the phone in the rice in the hottest area of the car for the return trip.

We departed Hanmer sometime after 1pm, stopping for petrol and a late lunch in Culverden about 2pm. Later, south of Amberley, we had to detour due to a traffic accident but were still able to find the Elmer in Kaiapoi.

To finish the trip we had ice cream at Hornby and were home about 5pm, after which I began the process of trying to get access to assorted accounts - particularly my bank account - without having a phone to receive 2FA codes on.

~~~

The next day - phone aftermath

D was flying to Wellington the /next/ day and so waiting on insurance to sort out a new phone wasn't really an option. Also putting a new one on a payment plan alongside my monthly post-pay required a much smaller deposit than my insurance excess, and spending less money right now mattered.

Surprisingly I managed to find a phone meeting my primary requirement, a replaceable battery. For bonus irony, it (Samsung XCover 5) is also immersion resistant for up to 30 minutes :/

However it wasn't available on click-and-collect in Chch and I couldn't pay it off with my monthly plan via buying online, so I went into the Spark store in Riccarton to see if they could expedite getting one to me. They didn't have any in stock but were able to locate one at the City branch. So Riccarton did the paperwork and took the money and I went over to collect it. I had to go into the office anyway, so it was only a few blocks to walk.

[As a useful bonus the post-pay plan I was on had become a legacy plan (hence why I hadn't been able to attach the phone to it online) and I was able to actually downgrade the plan while still being able to make payments, for a net saving of about $1 a month.]

Something else interesting was the experience of being patient / waiting for service /without/ a phone on hand to distract me. I mean I frequently try to ignore the temptation of reaching for my phone and just practive mindfulness, but I guess it is always just to one side of my thoughts/awareness. Actually not having the option was ... qualitatively different in a way I can't clearly explain at this remove.

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