go, black stars!
i very much ♥ ghana.
love,
maggie
i don't know how to make this picture not so big
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
it seems a bit tricky to update a blog when things appear to be the same, and they are, but different in teeny tiny ways.
one: sodokus have entered my life. i recognize that i'm a bit late getting on the sodoku train, but i have only recently started ripping them out of the daily wellington newspaper during my lunch hour and working on them for the rest of the afternoon. yesterday's puzzle was marked as "medium," and i spent from 2 until 6 working on it. at the end of the work-day, 49 of the 81 sqaures were correctly filled in. this makes me a) probably an undiagnosed moron and b) DEFINITELY in the running for employee of the month.
two: i am such a commuter girl! this past thursday i left Marocka in the afternoon to catch a 30 minute flight from wellington to nelson on the south island to spend the weekend with robin and carolyn's family! as soon as robin decided she needed to leave wellington, i started conspiring with carolyn to make a surprise visit. and it worked like a charm. it's amazing how much carolyn's feels like home because after about five minutes of screaming-surprised fun, it was back to normal: making hot drinks and feeding the pigs. i'm pleased that after a month of working in a high-end downtown boutique, i still know how to seemlessly slide back into farming life. friday morning robin and i cleaned out the chicken house, which is a pleasant enough undertaking if only because it feels sort of funny to have 30 chickens pecking at your boots. and on sunday afternoon while robin and i were having a fifth(teenth?) hot drink of the day, the pigs escaped their paddock and ran up to the house where they were digging up potatoes and uprooting baby broccolis. thomas and carolyn miraculously herded them back to the paddock and installed a, uhm, more effective electric fence. after that perfect weekend of life at the gorge, i hopped back on a 30 minute flight monday morning to get to work with time to spare by 10:00. seriously, if you have no other reason to visit new zealand, you should come just to check out the lax air travel. in two flights this weekend, i never once had to show any form of ID, no one asked me to take off my shoes, and no machine saw the inside of my purse. further proof that new zealand is not only heavenly but also insane.
three: RUGBY. IS. SO. . . AHHHH! incredible? rugby season is seriously heating up in new zealand and everyone here is born being an All Blacks fan, the national rugby team. on saturday, robin, carolyn, and i went to another of thomas' rugby games which only made me like it even more. if a bunch of skinny 16 year olds can make it look hard core, you can't imagine how intense watching professionals play can be. well, you can imagine. and if you can't, you should youtube the All Blacks doing the Haka, a traditional Maori war chant. it makes football with all the foam pads and all the breathers and all the rules just seem so girly. no, that's not it. sure, girls could play rugby, maybe. compared to rugby, american football should be played by ladybugs. or premies.
four: daylight. hopefully. soon(ish). yesterday was the winter solstice THANK THE SWEET JELLY JOP JESUS. i am seriously looking forward to longer days again. in january, robin and i would watch the last bits of the sunset at 10 pm as we climbed into our beds. nowadays, it's good news if the sun fights past afternoon tea. it's hard to know how much of a sunshine person one is until it is sucked out of one's life.
one big hug to new zealand, which still has me enchanted. one big hug to the US, which still has everyone i love.
love,
maggie
one: sodokus have entered my life. i recognize that i'm a bit late getting on the sodoku train, but i have only recently started ripping them out of the daily wellington newspaper during my lunch hour and working on them for the rest of the afternoon. yesterday's puzzle was marked as "medium," and i spent from 2 until 6 working on it. at the end of the work-day, 49 of the 81 sqaures were correctly filled in. this makes me a) probably an undiagnosed moron and b) DEFINITELY in the running for employee of the month.
two: i am such a commuter girl! this past thursday i left Marocka in the afternoon to catch a 30 minute flight from wellington to nelson on the south island to spend the weekend with robin and carolyn's family! as soon as robin decided she needed to leave wellington, i started conspiring with carolyn to make a surprise visit. and it worked like a charm. it's amazing how much carolyn's feels like home because after about five minutes of screaming-surprised fun, it was back to normal: making hot drinks and feeding the pigs. i'm pleased that after a month of working in a high-end downtown boutique, i still know how to seemlessly slide back into farming life. friday morning robin and i cleaned out the chicken house, which is a pleasant enough undertaking if only because it feels sort of funny to have 30 chickens pecking at your boots. and on sunday afternoon while robin and i were having a fifth(teenth?) hot drink of the day, the pigs escaped their paddock and ran up to the house where they were digging up potatoes and uprooting baby broccolis. thomas and carolyn miraculously herded them back to the paddock and installed a, uhm, more effective electric fence. after that perfect weekend of life at the gorge, i hopped back on a 30 minute flight monday morning to get to work with time to spare by 10:00. seriously, if you have no other reason to visit new zealand, you should come just to check out the lax air travel. in two flights this weekend, i never once had to show any form of ID, no one asked me to take off my shoes, and no machine saw the inside of my purse. further proof that new zealand is not only heavenly but also insane.
three: RUGBY. IS. SO. . . AHHHH! incredible? rugby season is seriously heating up in new zealand and everyone here is born being an All Blacks fan, the national rugby team. on saturday, robin, carolyn, and i went to another of thomas' rugby games which only made me like it even more. if a bunch of skinny 16 year olds can make it look hard core, you can't imagine how intense watching professionals play can be. well, you can imagine. and if you can't, you should youtube the All Blacks doing the Haka, a traditional Maori war chant. it makes football with all the foam pads and all the breathers and all the rules just seem so girly. no, that's not it. sure, girls could play rugby, maybe. compared to rugby, american football should be played by ladybugs. or premies.
four: daylight. hopefully. soon(ish). yesterday was the winter solstice THANK THE SWEET JELLY JOP JESUS. i am seriously looking forward to longer days again. in january, robin and i would watch the last bits of the sunset at 10 pm as we climbed into our beds. nowadays, it's good news if the sun fights past afternoon tea. it's hard to know how much of a sunshine person one is until it is sucked out of one's life.
one big hug to new zealand, which still has me enchanted. one big hug to the US, which still has everyone i love.
love,
maggie
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
whoa, now. giant picture on top of a giant picture? too much? see i don't know anything about style. i maybe shouldn't be ordering clothes for a shop?!
BUT
i totes am, especially since i got my business cards in today! i have 500 of them, actually 499 because i already gave one out to a reporter for the wellington newspaper, so get them while they're hot. they say my name on them and "store manager" and everything. bizarre.
today as i was journaling in an attempt to eat up a few minutes of my grueling eight hour days of near solitude, i noticed that the pen i was writing with was a Broyhill Furniture pen. here's what really got me thinking how tiny this whole world is: from what i understand, most of north carolina's furniture business moved to china within the past decade. and now that furniture pen is being used in new zealand by the daughter of a former employee whose bosses are chinese immigrants. and to top it all off, if i calculated correctly, dad hasn't worked for Broyhill since 2006? 2007? amazing that little pen even still works. the gods of globalization must be having an evil laugh right about now.
enjoying today, and enjoyed yesterday, so all signs point to an enjoyable tomorrow. grazie!
love,
maggie
Thursday, June 10, 2010
i have almost finished four full weeks of work! which is incredible because i don't like working - in general. being the manager of Marocka is slowly becoming more exciting, as last week i did my first clothing and jewelry buy. a buy goes something like this: 1) a giant package of individually cellophane wrapped sample clothes comes to the store 2) i freak out like a kid at christmas and tear into all the clothes 3) ten minutes later after the dust has settled, i pick out the pieces that i think will fit in with the store's style and order those. it is fun! (it is okay.)
last week when robin still had a job with greenpeace we took pictures of robin, eva, and me at our respective jobs. the pictures are quite telling in that none of us look particularly happie. we didn't get to stop by caroline's work, but know that she, too, looks mostly miserable most of the time.
see?
so, i am working always, robin is leaving to go to carolyn's tomorrow, and it is always raining in wellington. things could be looking pretty bleak, BUT! somehow they still don't. today i noticed that two of the little bus-stop home things on the way into town have plants growing in their gutters! what are gutters for anyway? i like the idea so much more of them housing accidental fernery. a decorated path to work!
also, with all the rain everything is turning bright baby green again! it reminds me so much of all the times robin and i have driven through fjordland national park, which next to some spot in hawai'i gets more rain than anywhere else on this planet (this fact according to jared diamond). in fjordland there were tiny booger fungi growing on bigger fungi mushrooms growing on giant queen-of-it-all trees. nature's gaudy display of its imperial reign over everything. i remember one evening as we were driving from carolyn's to queenstown noticing that a stop sign (there are NO stop signs in new zealand, so it's amazing to see one period.) had moss growing all over it. i so liked the image of seeing life growing on even the most mundane parts of life. STOP! - for all that is living.
got to go hug robin for the rest of the night. bye bye.
love,
maggie
last week when robin still had a job with greenpeace we took pictures of robin, eva, and me at our respective jobs. the pictures are quite telling in that none of us look particularly happie. we didn't get to stop by caroline's work, but know that she, too, looks mostly miserable most of the time.
see?
so, i am working always, robin is leaving to go to carolyn's tomorrow, and it is always raining in wellington. things could be looking pretty bleak, BUT! somehow they still don't. today i noticed that two of the little bus-stop home things on the way into town have plants growing in their gutters! what are gutters for anyway? i like the idea so much more of them housing accidental fernery. a decorated path to work!
also, with all the rain everything is turning bright baby green again! it reminds me so much of all the times robin and i have driven through fjordland national park, which next to some spot in hawai'i gets more rain than anywhere else on this planet (this fact according to jared diamond). in fjordland there were tiny booger fungi growing on bigger fungi mushrooms growing on giant queen-of-it-all trees. nature's gaudy display of its imperial reign over everything. i remember one evening as we were driving from carolyn's to queenstown noticing that a stop sign (there are NO stop signs in new zealand, so it's amazing to see one period.) had moss growing all over it. i so liked the image of seeing life growing on even the most mundane parts of life. STOP! - for all that is living.
got to go hug robin for the rest of the night. bye bye.
love,
maggie
Saturday, June 5, 2010
the best (moderately okay) thing ever happened yesterday! i got my glasses! it's amazing how much i can see now. the people at the glasses shop seemed unaccustomed to having a client as excited to be wearing her glasses as i was, but seriously, how can people not be pumped? my greatest selfish fear is that i will one day lose my vision, and so to have my vision improved makes me the happiest (nerdiest) girl in the world! call me four-eyes. i love it.
so robin got fired from greenpeace which is exceptional for a few reasons. one: people like robin don't get fired from anything. they are amazing, and so when they stop working for a place, it should be on their own accord. two: i signed up for greenpeace only to have robin get fired and her move to carolyn's. there goes trying to help this planet. three: robin and i have gotten quite strong over the course of this year in working outside constantly, so we easily could have beaten up every single person who works for greenpeace. i know because i met some of them. why didn't we? there's still time.
if nothing else this nine months of living in new zealand has taught me that everything actually does happen for a reason. i just can't yet see the outcome for robin leaving wellington. the answer may come today or tomorrow or in two years, but there will be a reason. there always is.
it's raining this morning in wellington, as it often does, and i am the only one awake in our house. i have a cup of tea nestled between my knees and hair that hasn't been washed in three days. i feel cozy, safe, and happie, as i should. because gratefully, always gratefully, i am.
love,
maggie
so robin got fired from greenpeace which is exceptional for a few reasons. one: people like robin don't get fired from anything. they are amazing, and so when they stop working for a place, it should be on their own accord. two: i signed up for greenpeace only to have robin get fired and her move to carolyn's. there goes trying to help this planet. three: robin and i have gotten quite strong over the course of this year in working outside constantly, so we easily could have beaten up every single person who works for greenpeace. i know because i met some of them. why didn't we? there's still time.
if nothing else this nine months of living in new zealand has taught me that everything actually does happen for a reason. i just can't yet see the outcome for robin leaving wellington. the answer may come today or tomorrow or in two years, but there will be a reason. there always is.
it's raining this morning in wellington, as it often does, and i am the only one awake in our house. i have a cup of tea nestled between my knees and hair that hasn't been washed in three days. i feel cozy, safe, and happie, as i should. because gratefully, always gratefully, i am.
love,
maggie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)