Crazy slowly going am I 6 5 4 3 2 1 switch
December 21, 2005Ruby Bay, New Zealand
9:04pm
Three days until people, namely my father and stepmother, or Papa and Oma, as I refer to them by accident to Stephanie, because I say it to Hud so much, arrive on the overnight flight from I guess LA. I am waiting for the moment to gauge my reaction upon being around people we have known longer than twenty minutes. I am excited and eager and wary of the hype. I have gone longer in my life without seeing my father. Hud waxes on about it daily. First Oma and Papa, then Santa, and then Tony, quite the triumvirate for a three year old.
The whole Christmas season will be great. People from the outside world, boat trips, both sailing, motor and whitewater all crammed into about nine days. Our trip budget is bursting, but we are happy about it. There goes the kitchen reno we laugh, ha ha, cry, dream, ha.
Our frigging broadband internet connection disappeared for no reason. I have exhausted every software/hardware avenue on this Mac and am left stumped and somewhat stranded on an informationless island. I was so connected for the last three weeks, so current with world events and hapless Raptors scores, I was digging it, except for the consistent distraction from the novel, which, after some quick research, I have found I am already well over the expected word count of first time novelists, with about a third left to write. If you think that doesn’t change the perception of a novel, especially someone as eager as I to finish it, then you got another thing coming sparky. I want to wrap it up right now, not so neatly, with smiles and scotch on everyone’s faces. Alas, I hate movies that do that, hit the two hour mark, and go oh shit, people are fading, wrap it up, wrap it up! Johnny marries Suzy, Suzy’s unrepentant father gets hit by a bus, Johnny’s drunken mother cries a wistful tear, secretly knowing Johnny’s happiness was because of her sacrifice, a rose dies, a dolphin jumps…and….Scene. So I write on. Plodding. All quicksandy.
We met another couple from up the road. Interesting only because they are Aucklanders through and through, a NZ animal we have yet to run into so far on this trip. We were only in Auckland for a couple of nights before disappearing into their island fantasy life in Waiheke. So these were city folk, him working for BASF, her a true soccer mom with workout arms and coifed hair and a good old fashioned gin habit. He was a traveling man, operations and strategy, fast talker, short without the disease, and woo hoo, a beer drinker. We welcomed them when they arrived only because the house sitter pawned her job on us in exchange for the use of the pool, a fair trade actually. Later the next day I met them on the beach as Hud and I searched for crabs on the beach while Steph volunteered at a flower shop. Yes, lovely Stephanie is doing three hours a day at a local flower shop to investigate if that is the next adventure in our lives. Anyway, the couple have three kids, 6, 4, and 2, the younger two boys, the eldest, the sweetest, a girl with a pout and seven million questions, including my favourite, “ do you like sausages that come from a cow?” I did not have the heart to tell her that sausages do not come from anywhere but the floor of a slaughterhouse. Ok, I did tell her, and after she stopped crying she thought I was fun because a skipped pretty well for a fat guy.
So Hud had kids to play with for the last couple of days. He ignored them and went straight to the diggers. Good thing too, because the two boys, especially the four year old was a freak, non stop energy, the aggressive energy that is kind of funny and kind of scary as he swings from the chandelier to try and crush his little brother’s cranium. The parents knew it as well, and curbed it as best they could, but they mostly lived in fear of the impending disaster, whether bloody or just expensive. As mentioned, thankfully, Hud just blinked and nodded, brushing his too long blonde hair from his eyes, and went back to playing with the new toys. He is so wonderfully subtle and serious sometimes. Just watching the crazies go by. God I love his little but big personality.
Doing the guest grocery shopping tomorrow. This should be fun.
Love to all,
J.
posted by Jason @ 3:45 PM
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