Thursday, August 31, 2006
Madonna Wannabes
However, my current wardrobe is so extremely limited that I only really have the option of dressing as either a frumpy middle-aged woman or a daggy slob. Surprising as it seems neither of these styles have featured in Madonna videos to date- at least not that I'm aware of. It could happen, but I suspect not soon. Even my underwear is too sensible and too aged to pass as Madonna-wear. I'm stuck for a costume, unlike Ashleigh who has been loaned a PVC corset by a groupie, I mean customer.
She pulled out the corset today so we could all wonder at its kinky shine. It looked best on Zane who makes Kate Moss seem porky. I was quite pleased with my reflection in the oven door and gratified at my colleagues wonderment at my waist coming out of concealment: like objects in the mirror actually being closer than they appear, I'm actually more shapely than my daggy/frumpy clothes usually suggest. Tim refused to even allow the corset to be held up against his generous frame and attempts to do so led to a lively chase through the cafe as Kate sprinted after him and the rest of a trailed hoping for a perv*. No luck, and despite the promise (or threat) of seeing Tim in a cheerleader uniform** tomorrow I expect he will, as always, be in his chef gear. I hope to have the camera with me and plan to post pix of the whole Narnia crew a la Madonna so watch this space.
* Just for the record, there were no customers on the cafe during the entire corset episode.
** Apparently Tim decided that he'd rather come as Kirsten Dunst than Madonna, which is fair enough I suppose.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Magnolia of the Year
I love them because of their luminous purity. The pale pink ones show this trait most strongly, but even the dark magenta blooms seem to glow with an inner light. I think this might be because the petals are so fleshy and the pigmentation sits on top of a deep icy whiteness that much catch the light and reflect it. Blossoming as they do in the middle of winter, they seem to light up grey days with warmth and beauty. Magnolias start blossoming on bare branches in the depth of winter, for a week or two the trees are covered in luminous pink and then soft green leaves join and eventually overtake the flowers.
The two families of magnolia that I am passionate about are tulip and star. Tulip magnolias are the ones with a few big firm petals which start in something of a tight tulip-like bud before splaying indolently outwards. They are the most elegant shaped blooms and come in a wide palette of cream through pink to magenta. (See picture above).
Star magnolias tend to the paler shades of the magnolia spectrum. They have many thin floppy petals and I have a physical reflex to the sight of a star magnolia: I can't help but stretch and wriggle my fingers like a baby. Star magnolias seem both wanton and innocent to me and somehow make me think of fluttering angels wings.
If you get up close to a magnolia petal, whether still blooming on the tree or part of the carpet fallen below the branches, they are delicious to the touch. Cool, tender, moist but not sticky, remarkably like the fresh sweet skin of a baby's belly, they are pleasant to hold and stroke until they begin to bruise brown. Eleanor and I met on one of my magnolia pilgrimages a few years ago and Iremember her special interest in fallen tulip magnolia petals imprinted by shoe sole or tire tracks.
To honour this glorious plant I am introducing a new award: Magnolia of the Year. Consideration is solely dependant on my awareness of the tree, so it helps if it is visible to the public and not hidden in a private enclave. The criteria for winning is arbitrary and opaque. The prize is being highlighted on this blog.
And the winner of the inaugral award for Magnolia of the Year 2006 is this fine specimen currently blooming opposite Cafe Narnia on Kamo Road in Kensington, Whangarei. It's just started flowering so will be at it's best for at least another week or maybe three.
What is so remarkable about this particular magnolia tree? 1. It is so tall and so lavishly blossomed that it practically lights up the neighbourhood. 2. I was facinated by this tree even before the blossoms revealed it's identity as magnolia because of the 'hula skirt' (thanks Ash) modestly obscuring the lower trunk. 3. It happens to have exacty the same kind of cream and magenta coloured tulip blooms as my childhood companion tree so it gets points for nostalgia value.
NB Nominations are now open for 2007's Magnolia of the Year Award so feel free to write in about your favourite tree. Next winter the judge might take a tour before making her decision.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Ngawha's Eccentric Style
The entrance fee makes it probably the most affordable attraction in the country, but fortunately it's too far off the beaten track for many tourists to find. The soakers are mostly locals: old kuia and kaumatua soaking away their aches and pains, young families escaping their own prisons of childen inside on endlessly rainy days and all sorts of folks, ordinary and extraordinary, chatting quietly or not at all, enjoying the soothing heat and unique ambiance.
Warning: Not for the faint of heart or delicate of stomach
While wandering around Ruapekapeka, a beautifully maintained and interpreted pa site not far from our current housesit, a cow in the neighbouring paddock caught my eye. At first glance it looked like she was shitting a long red rag. At second glance I took in the new born calf lying at her feet and realised I was watching her expel an enormous placenta.
Due to our facination with the placenta eating we were late for our date at Ngawha Hot Springs but we had to leave before she finished eating and didn’t get to see the cute calf feeding scenes we were hoping for.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Vanity and the Low Maintenance Haircut
This lengthy session of self-regard makes it difficult to feel anything but disappointed when the new hairdo fails to have made my face look any different. The hopeful magic promised by the NEW LOOK articles in women's magazines has not worked, again. I'm still me with the big cheeks and rough skin. Worst of all, that moment of truth is the one when I have to tell the hairdresser what I think of their work. It's impossible to blurt "It's awful" especially when I remember that the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is but 2 weeks, and that it will look completely different when I have washed it and let it dry naturally. So I feign enthusiasm and pay my money.
This time I fled to Narnia afterwards for comfort and sure enough the glad cries, the compliments, the fussing and playing with hair, the enthusiasm for its styling potential got me through that rough worst hour. An hour of not looking in the mirror and of letting my hair relax into its own response to being thinned out was enough for me to start feeling ok about it. After a wash I might even like it enough to post a photo.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Beach Mystery
In situ, on a pile of seaweed and more tightly wrapped, it looked a bit like an old fashioned cartoon bomb, the kind with a sizzling fuse that will leave the hapless cartoon character covered in soot and frizzled hair, with little stars winking in and out over their head, at least until the next scene when they are miraculously restored to full health. So it was with some trepidation that I unwrapped the bright red cloth and found this:
It's a mystery to me. Does anyone out there know why a whole fresh coconut tied up with red string and then wrapped in red cloth would have fallen in or been cast upon the waters of the Hauraki Gulf? Regulars on Tiritiri Matangi said that, next to the dead whale, it was the most interesting thing anyone had ever found on the beach there. There was some speculation about possible Pacific Island People's rituals and jokes about fertility and curses. But no one really had a clue. Do you?
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Tiritiri Matangi
It was at the feeding station on the Kawerau Track, which is a long and lovely boardwalk through rejuvenating coastal bush. The feeding stations which provide nectar-water inside special cages are intended for the stitchbirds/hihi but the bellbirds join them in equal numbers. Their favoured feeding stations are a hubbub of activity and noise with dozens of birds of both species flitting to and fro, ducking into the cage to suck at the flower shaped feeders, chasing eachother around and hanging about singing lustily. As I stood there, less than a metre from the feeder, enjoying the visual and aural feast all around me I noticed more and more bellbirds chiming in with the same few liquid notes until about ten of them were all singing in unison, with the rest providing a counterpoint of clucking and trilling.
This weekend was the first time I'd ever seen bellbirds close up and my first ever sighting of the extinct-on-the-mainland stitchbird so even without the chorus I would have been thrilled. Not to mention personal first sightings of kokako with stunning blue wattles; takahe, like oversized and muted pukekos; North Island robins/toutouwai; saddlebacks/tieke and whiteheads/popokatea. One robin in particular was so fearless that I almost stood on it as it was the same colour as the damp leaf litter on the track. Despite this near death experience it stayed close to me for ten minutes or more until I walked on.
Other birds were delightful to see closer, fatter and in far greater numbers than before including tui, fantail/piwakawaka, kakariki/red-crowned parakeet, and quail. I find quail completely irresistable: something about their shape makes me want to hold them in the palm of my cupped hand. Sadly, no quail has ever allowed me to get remotely close enough for that to happen.
Unfortunately, the only penguin I saw was dead on the beach. I didn't join the night walk and so missed out on nocturals like live little blue penguins/korora, lap-landing petrels/oi and two tuatara!
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Raised Atheist
My father was raised Jewish, my mother was raised Protestant and they raised me Atheist. Somehow as a child I had interpreted my parents’ well-meaning teaching as “religions are interesting cultural practices but really intelligent people don’t believe in God”. That wasn’t the message they intended, but it’s the one that stuck.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
An excerpt from my memoirs
My earliest visual memory is of being in the womb: a warm red light all round me. I remember seeing a little pink hand with stumpy, finned fingers glowing in the light.
Around the same time had my first awareness of being a separate entity, of realising that the whole universe wasn’t me and I wasn’t the whole universe. Prior to this awareness of being separate I had a sense of oneness so total that concepts like ‘belonging’ or ‘connection’ seem heartbreakingly isolated in comparison.I don’t remember anything about my birth. I was my parent’s first child, and the first grandchild on one side and the first legitimate and acknowledged grandchild on the other. I was born very early in the morning
Friday, August 04, 2006
Moving On
Despite practicing non-attachment and impermanence with the Sand Mandala, it was still very difficult to leave Mt Tiger and move on to our next housesit. The steady cold rain intensified my gloom at leaving Bonnie, cosy book-lined rooms, organic garden abundance, peace, quiet and general rural idyll. As is usual for me when making a move like this I barely slept, just enough for disturbing dreams to add to my anxiety.
So, I wasn't surprised to arrive in Hukeranui and realise that it sucked! Fresh paint and polyeurathane fumes filled the house. Once I'd unlocked 42,000 windows and doors to let the damp icy breeze through, the smell wasn't quite so overwhelming but by then Al had a terribly headache so I did most of the moving in that afternoon. In retrospect, my snarling temper of that evening was almost inevitable given lack of sleep, fumes and coldness. Though if I was a more advanced bodhichitta I'm sure I would have handled all these changes and challenges with grace instead of grumbling.
Two days later, the sun is shining into almost every room including the lovely space I've claimed for yoga and art, I've managed to connect to the net some where other than at the kitchen counter and I've decided I quite like it here after all. It's a ridiculously big house, especially for two people. The owners have had it rented out but are now getting ready to put it on the market so it's not really furnished which makes it feel like a motel unit (albeit a 3000 square foot unit).
homely by lining up my library books and
displaying some of my artist's books.