For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!

For the 14 years I've known Rocky, he's somehow managed to be out of town for his birthday for all but 2 or 3 years out of the bunch. This year was no different: he was away in Auckland for a work meeting (though he did get to meet up with an old friend from grad school, which was an unexpected bday treat). So, The Squidd and I wished 'ole dad a happy birthday a few days late. He did get a homemade chocolate layer cake made by yours truly, so I hope that made up for the lateness of the celebration. For his part, The Squidd really enjoyed his first experience with chocolate cake.

Rocky's parents are coming to visit next week, so we'll celebrate again with them.

Happy birthday, Rocky!

Innuendo

Just the other day while renting Conan the Barbarian, Wordy and I saw a van in the parking lot with the company's printing on the side.

The name was...

Well Hung

Any guesses on what they are trying to sell?

Busy, busy, busy

If you couldn't tell by our lack of posts, Wordy and I have been a little busy. We wish we could post more, but by the end of the day...we are just exhausted.

What's been keeping us busy you may ask? Two simple words...

The Squidd

Simply, The Squidd has a LOT of personality. Imagine my personality and Wordy's magnified by two and add a dash of allspice. He jabbers nonstop from the time he wakes up and up until bedtime. During the day, he has many important points to make to both Wordy and myself. Special/important points are sometimes emphasized with a fart (mainly due to clenching all his muscles to give us his one of kind 'I really mean it' look).

He only has a handful of words, but you can start to tell that he is getting frustrated by the communication gap.

This list will bring you up to date with some of his vocabulary when (not if) he talks to you: dog, duck, up, down, Marmite, d'oh (while slapping his head), eyes, nose, ears, mouth, brow, button, socks, shoes, and double double dog dare. Not to mention, shhshing with one finger over his mouth when he is trying to hide. For some reason he likes singing out loud the letters O P P...which may cause some problems in the months ahead.

He has figured out how to open doors, use levers and fulcrums, and he has even recognized how to count and keep track of his favorite things. This is making it even harder to dupe him out of certain items like keys, toothbrushes, and credit cards.

At the moment, he is very displeased about teeth brushing.

He is completely off the bottle and eats big person food. Likes: Roasted cauliflower, hummus, Marmite and toast, NZ mince meat pie, and anything spicy (all Indian food so far). He even enjoys blowing on his luke warm food to cool it off and feeds himself with a spoon. Last weekend he had his first ice cream at the beach (they serve soft-serve from the ice cream trucks) and he was in utter bliss.

We are having a blast, but my word(!) we are just beat at the end of the day.

Sporting Update

NZ women's hockey team: Black Sticks
NZ men's bowling team: Black Jacks

I kid you not.

Auntie Smeeches Comes for a Visit

My sister just left yesterday after a 2.5 week visit. Despite the earthquake, we had a great visit and had fun at the local parks, beaches, zoo, Franz Josef glacier, etc.

Communication Disorders

Communication disorders are apparently housed in a building not far from Rocky’s building on campus. A fairly prominent sign proclaims this to be the case. On noticing it for the first time, I wondered exactly what was in that building, what the staff people in that building do on a daily basis, and what do Kiwis consider to be a communication disorder. Because it strikes me that perhaps I ought to check it out, plagued as I have been by a number of minor yet surprising difficulties bridging the language barrier between American English and Kiwi English.

An example: Not too long ago, Rocky and I went shopping for a dresser to hold The Squidd’s burgeoning wardrobe (thank you, friends and fam). Because we are new to the area, this was an exhausting proposition. Needless to say, we stopped at many, many stores from crappy to trendy, dead cheap to astronomically expensive. Among our many stops was a department store called Ballantyne’s. While there, we saw one of The Squidd’s teachers. She’s a lovely woman and a lovely educator, but we decided not to stop her and, instead, to let her enjoy her weekend without reminders of work to intruding on her outing. However, come Monday morning, when I went to drop off The Squidd, I mentioned to her that I’d seen her at Ballantyne’s, which I pronounced bal-an-teens. She looked at me oddly and asked me to repeat where I saw her.

So I said it again: Bal-an-teens.

Blank stare.

You know, Bal-an-teens, that department store downtown.

Lightbulb clicked on. Big smile now. Oh, Bal-an-TINES (rhymes with ‘valentines’). Yes, I was there with my daughter.

Seriously? The pronunciation of Bal-an-teens is so off that it’s completely unidentifiable as a reference to the store in question? Huh.

And another: Rocky reminded me that tomorrow we are meant to attend a potluck-style party at the home of his department chair. When I asked him what time it begins, he told me he wasn't sure. And before I could roll my eyes and ask him to puh-leeez find out, he told me the evite says to show up around "midday splicing of the mainbrace." Umm . . .

Earthquake: The Saga Continues

We are still doing fine. Yesterday, we went to the Orana Wildlife Park and fed the giraffes.

After surveying the damage a little more, the places that have fallen down do not surprise me in the least. Brick construction. No to little support for the structures. Built before building standards were set forth. Poorly maintained. Or built on mud near streams.

These are the buildings they are showing on the news.

Summary so far.

After a 7.1 quake, no loss of human life. Zero.

Power was voluntarily shut down to ensure no fires for about 6 hours.

No looting and people behaving.

Volunteers helping out all over the place.

The grocery store was a little bare, but shipments have resumed today.

We are still getting aftershocks, but they last for about 5-10 seconds.

If this quake happened near Philadelphia, it would have been a very different story.