See you Next Year Everybody!! (That's Tomorrow By the Way)

Thank you, everybody, for visiting my blog in 2006. It's been fun to blather, rant and rave, and exciting to try to do something new with my spiffy new camera. Thank you for your comments, compliments, suggestions, and "Yeah, I'm married to the same guy" condolences.

I won't promise to be more polite or intelligent in 2007, but to continue to be on the lookout for interesting/strange things in Nelson and around/about me. I hope you keep coming back.

(I wanted to bring these guys home, until I picked them up and their sandy innards started spilling all over the place. I hope they were alright.)

Prime Minister Helen Clark & Actor John Voigt

I just never saw the resemblance, but here they are: the Prime Minister, and JV (29 Dec post in Fatale Abstraction); I think it's the upper lip.

Centre of New Zealand - The Plaque

The monument points here.

Note to Self: Never Too Early to Plan Christmas Decotations

Jazzy's Tuzla Daily Photo: world peace Christmas.

Pequete's Country Sketches: baby socks advent calendar - (her post has links to the original source.) It would also be wonderful to be able to paint and draw like her, but that'll take decades, so I should at least paint and draw more often.

Liz Elayne's Be Present, Be Here: little trees - (ditto re. her source). Great way to use up my fabric stash or even handwovens.

My Mom Came with the Job

It must have been 1954 or 55. Dad had graduated with a BA in Chemistry, worked as the resident chemist in a rubber factory, got tuberculosis and dropped out of life for a couple of years, and was trying to restart his life. He got a call from his old professor, and went to a job interview at a new university in Yokohama. The interview went well, and he got the job on the proviso that he'd go straight back to grad school. Then the big boss asked if Dad is "taken" personally, to which Dad said no. The boss said he's got a spare daughter and would he be interested in meeting her? And that's how my parents got married. Seriously. (Mom had a veto right, mind.)

Well, he got his Ph. D. in the required five years. Dad also promised Mom that if she married him, he'll quit smoking, but that didn't happen for a long, long time: at times he'd quit for three, five, or one time nine years, and then take it up again. In Japan, before you meet a prospective spouse by arrangement, you exchange personal CV/Resumes and photographs and on his CV, Dad lied about his height by about 5cm/2 inches, and Mom didn't figure this out until about 20 years later, though she suspected something. (Yip, you write your height and sometimes even weight and schools your parents attended, and where your dad works, and all that kind of crazy stuff. So why are we surprised I found Ben in the dark corner of the computer room on my on volition??)

Today is my parents' 51st Anniversary. Their 50th was overshadowed by Dad having been diagnosed with colon cancer in late last November, and the prospect of an operation "sometime after January 15" hanging before them. Though theirs is not so much romantic as pragmatic and reliable (as are many marriages of that generation in that culture), it's still going, and good on them!

Here are two posts I found while I was thinking about my parents: Professor Paul and Myron (posted shortly after his own 50th anniversary this year.)

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad.

Regrets/Changes

As I commented at KB's, I try not to regret too many things in my life because I can't change what I've done, and over the years I learned it's an especially counterproductive exercise for a worrier like me. However, if I can change my future course of action, I take lessons from my regret. (Gee, that makes me sound like a pompous old git!)

Joining DP this year, and hanging around my good friend Marj and her family, again, this Christmas, I have one regret, and that is that we don't participate in many Nelson events, and I regret that. When we bought our house 10 years ago January, we contemplated town (no view) and where we are (sea and sky view): we picked the view, and we still love it, but we are lazy so we don't often make the effort to go into town (10-15 minutes drive!!!). This also has to do with our not having grown up with free public events in Japan, and I don't like huge groups (over 8 or 10) of people, and public gathering where we come from are usually 30-50,000 or more. I feel we should participate, so I pick up brochures and information every year, but have been to very few. Then last night, Marj brought us to this, and it was so wonderful it gave me civic pride. (I think that's what it is: being a seasoned cynic, I don't know what that's like.)

The other thing is, watching Marj's kids grow into handsome/beautiful adults, (they are the closest to "my" kids,) I regret I didn't take an even greater interest in them while they were growing up and in their friends. Marj gave me ample opportunities, but I often felt reluctant because I couldn't see how I could be interesting to kids, and didn't want to be an old bumbling lady showing up all the time. Now that they are such interesting people, I'm kicking myself for having declined (not missed) the opportunity to be there. (Kick, kick.)

Here's to all the new changes I will make in the future: for one thing anything Marj suggests we do, if at all humanly possible, I'm coming, man. And here's a special heart-felt thanks to Marj's family.

PS. Marj gave me a fabulous new cookbook for Christmas, written by the owner of the biggest (the books says) delis in Auckland, with photographs to die for, and most importantly, the exact kind of foods I love to cook and eat. I can be an exceedingly difficult person to buy gifts for at times; this one is fabulously fabulous.

She's definitely getting a belated home-made can/bottle/box of something!

Christmas MeMe

I got tagged by Myron this Christmas morning. It's 10am, and Christmas Brekkie is in full swing around the nation!!!

Three things I want for Christmas:

1) Cookbooks - as I said, we normally have champaign and berries in bed and read cookbooks almost all day, but this year I have no new ones this year. (And look what we're doing at 10am - crawled out of bed to see you all!)
2) Cakes and cookies I don't get any other time of the year.
3) World peace. It sounds trite, but, oh, to have a world where we can have all kinds of opinions and religions and traditions and just show off and shout them out without fear of physical, emotional, or political harm. (OK, no guns.)

Three things I don't want:

1) Things I'm not quite sure what they are/do.
2) Christmas carol season to end - I'm playing my CDs at least until the end of January, folks!
3) Christmas spirit dissipating: why can't we have it all year round?

Santa's Costume

Edulabbe's Santiago Chile's December 23 post reminded me of something I learned in the Small Business Seminar's Advertising course; that the modern day image of Santa in a red and white suit was created by Coca Cola. Apparently this year marks the 75th anniversary of the first ad they had Santa appear in the said garb. Read more here.

Lachezar's Fabulous Christmas

This is Lachezar's Christmas card, showing you Pohutukawa flowers, the New Zealand Christmas tree. In December you can find coastal road in New Zealand, (mainly on the North Island) rows of trees covered in flaming red flowers, and the view is quite magnificent.

Wonderful, Carol!

This was the Christmas greeting I got from Carol of St Paul. Not just a great piece of quilting, but a good study on abstraction, which is a difficult design thing for me. Thank you, Carol. I think what makes one a "pro" is whether one is foolish enough to try and make a living off of one's craft! Have a merry one!

Thank You for Being in Our Lives

We have a ficus Benjamin in the corner of our living room, which, every year, I wash (yip, in the shower), and decorate with lights and ornaments. Some years they are tiny silver glass balls, some years they are silk ribbons of all colors, and some years, small blue grape-shaped ornaments and other blue things.

I was baptized Catholic shortly after birth, and went to a convent school for 10 years in Japan, but have not practiced since my early teens and was never confirmed; I have had at best a difficult/tenuous relationship with Christianity since. For Ben, Christmas is what he sees in department stores and reads in history books, and a time when he must feign surprise and express joy at the cutsy, useless pressies from his wife, when he'd rather have a Nikon D200. (Yeah, right.)

Normally this time of the year is a relaxed one for us, having a Waif's Do on Christmas Eve on very short notice some years, and drinking champaign and eating berries in bed and reading cookbooks on Christmas Day; that's Ben and my tradition. (The stress comes some years when family units arrive later in the year to celebrate New Year.)

I like New Zealand Christmas; we don't go overboard with decorations or presents, but have a picnic on the beach. We have declined all invitation for Christmas Day in nearly a decade, because that, we think, is, for us and everybody else, family time, and we are lucky we have each other.

I miss, on the other hand, that in New Zealand Christmas is not coupled with Hanukkah as in the US, or is a big fat prelude to a less glittery but more inclusive New Year as it is in Japan, and wouldn't it be absolutely lovely if we can connect it to some kind, any kind, of a Maori celebration! Because I am of the belief that inclusiveness (and a measure of political correctness) is a good thing.

This year, I'm still in full-working mode, in fact it's accelerating, so I haven't and won't be washing the fig tree, nor bringing out the fairy lights, but I did buy a pack of six gift tags at the post office, and put six Santas on the tree, as an abridged Christmas wishes. It seems befitting at the end of the year during which we heard, read, and saw so many conflicts and disasters around the world, on a big scale and small.

So, I send you our thanks, no matter what beliefs you have, where you live, and whatever your circumstances today, for an occasion to rejoice in the things we have and the opportunity to share words and photos and good wishes. I hope you will hear similar sentiments many times from those around you, and I hope you will be around us for another year.

And I hope you get some bloody good tucker (translations: festive food) this week or next!!

Meg & Ben Nakagawa
Nelson, New Zealand
24 December 2006

PS - Ben pinched one of the tags to attach to a present I already opened - so he hung a candy cane in its place.

PPS - And please forgive me if I can't journey around the world visiting your blogs for a while longer. I promise I'll come back with vengeance once my Exhibit(ion) opens/closes/my parents finish their holiday in NZ in March.

Nostalgia, (or Rant??)

This may sound a bit nostalgic to some of you, or totally foreign to some others, and alas, some of you were not even born back then. But as I was measuring my next warp, my mind wandered into the semi-distant past.

Ben worked for a computer company in Tokyo for over a decade starting 1982, and I for a shorter time from 1985, so we've been on-line for a fair few years now. We used to use (and my understanding/recollection of these terms may be inaccurate) VM/VNet system called HONE to send files in text format to one another, which was quite amazing as we had to be in touch at least daily with New York, Sydney, Hong Kong and Beijing. It was especially difficult communicating with Beijing, because we had to ring the phone company first thing every morning, book a call to Beijing, and wait for three hours (on a good day) to be rung back by the phone company; once on line, we had a queue by one telephone so everybody who needed to talk to someone in the Beijing office could have a chance; after all the talking was done, then came the daily telex, by which time the line inevitably went dead most days. Well, justifiably after hogging the phone line for up to six hours every day. So to not have to go through the public telephone line and be able to send a file from Tokyo to Beijing (via Toronto, believe it or not) was a great big deal.

Around this time we were moving up from an on-line terminal called 3270 Display Terminal/Emulator, and a word processor called DisplayWriter modified to be able to handle on-line communication; later in 1985, we got the spiffy PC1 without the hard drive, so we had to have the 5.25 inch DOS diskette at start up.

We also had a system, very much like Microsoft Outlook, which had calendars, mail, instant messages, document sharing facilities, among other things, which to me was "space-age" communication, but there was a command line at the bottom where, if you knew shortcuts, you could still enter DOS commands. At one time, I was the keeper of this system for our headquarters, and kept in touch with my colleagues in Dallas, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Amsterdam daily. (About the time Dallas went home, Amsterdam came in!) We also had fora where we exchanged information and websites (though we didn't call it that back then) from where we downloaded fixes.

In 1988, perhaps, Dallas scanned a photo of himself (in a tux at his friend's wedding) and sent it to me, which was almost shocking. I saw my mate Greg's face after speaking to him for over a year. But we didn't have a scanner in the office so I couldn't do the same.

I've been in the peripheral of the IT "industry" from time to time, not as someone who understands the inner workings of computers, but as a champion user. I became rather adept at making good-looking procedural and tutorial documents using Script and later GML. This is akin to...... creating a whole new HTML file from scratch, knowing the commands/options from memory, and a manual sitting by your side, and just typing contents sandwiched by commands; that's the closest thing I can think of.

Then came Windows and icons and mice, and the knowledge of commands became irrelevant, and the files became bigger and messier, and more of us got aching necks, shoulders, backs and tingling arms, and problems became harder to identify. It's still quicker for me to enter commands on a black/green screen than to find the right icon and click, but nowadays, I feel my options are to either learn the new, spiffy (albeit more complicated and messy) ways, or not be able to communicate and expand my horizon. I'm more interested in the contents than the mechanics, so I'm perfectly happy with what I've got now, but I know this "progress" will not stop, and with it, we will continue to have to purchase bigger and badder hardware.

I feel like a real old fogie knowing all this stuff and complaining, but that's the way it is, folks. Now I can get back to the warping board.

If you are interested in obsolete computers/museum pieces, you might enjoy a trip to Obsolete Computer Museum.

Lizzy, Dear, This is Copy Elf!

But I love you nevertheless. I hope the house thing works out next year, and that I'll be staying at your (plural) new house in July. And good on you for throwing such a great birthday party for your daughter THIS time of the year.

My friend Liz, imitating Kate, which is allowed because she, too, is from Minnesota, and I've got to admit, the moves are soooo Liz. (With sunnies on, you look SOOOOO much like your Dad!)

You Are So Lovely, Lisi.

It's been a pleasure "meeting" you this year, Lisi. Many happy and beautiful photos in 2007.

Thank You, Mile Stones

I received this from Mile Stones this morning. Beautiful, as always. I especially love the one on the bottom right. It's been a pleasure "meeting" you this year, Mile.

Kate Has Some Moves

I received this from Kate on Wednesday. Wednesday night, on Channel 3 news, they showed (yes, we do things like this in New Zealand :->) the exact same clip, with Prime Minister Helen Clark's head. I must say, Kate, you have better moves!

It has been great "meeting" you this year, Kate, and for me, so meaningful to see so much of Minnesota through your and other Minnesota bloggers' eyes. And I hope (expect) to see more of my old haunts in 2007, you guys!!

NDP Approaches a World Famous Celebrity

Or, "Ben Fascinated with Sand on His Shoe"?

I'm Behind a Bit...Quite a Bit, in Fact...

I don't know where last week went, but I'm 1-2 week/s behind, people! I'm finally starting to panic, because I had a piece to wash yesterday, but there was something in the water that didn't feel/smell right so I washed a sample piece which came out stiff and starched-looking. (I should have washed Ben's shirts instead!) So I decided to fringe Piece 4, and of course because I am behind, I'm making fringes half the size as usual, twice as time consuming. Go figure.

And, and, and I just agreed to the Picasa Terms of Un-Endearment without reading it, because I just wanted to upload the picture. I hope it doesn't come back to bite me.

Big Bird

Where's your sun hat? Where are your sunnies (sun glasses)? Have you used the sun screen, Big Bird?

Christmas Card from Mimmu

I got the gentlest electronic Christmas card from Mimmu just now. Thank you, Mimmu! Keep warm.

Undertall

My friend Phlegmmy had an interesting post on Friday, December 15 on "New York City [about to] ban its restaurants from serving any foods containing the evil trans-fatty acids," which brought a bunch us chubbies out of the woodwork discussing size-based discrimination. Phlegmmy always has something nice to say - she told me I'm only undertall. I'm SO going to use this word until it gets into colloquial use in the blog world, you guys. Being an adipted Kiwi, I quickly came up with a more self-deprecating version, "overwide", but let's go with the glass-half-full version!

I'm just undertall, people!!!

Ben's Salmon Dip

As with most of my recipes, the amounts are only an indication. Add/subtract as you wish, please. Meg recommends trying with half this amount to see if you like it the first time.

INGREDIENTS:
250g Philly's Cream Cheese spreadable, whipped version or the original block
100g sour cream
210g Canadian red salmon in tin/can
1/4 to 1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
juice of 1 or 2 lemon/s
dill or tarragon or parsley or chive or a mixture- dried is fine; if fresh, chop finely.
salt & pepper
Smoked salmon bits, optional.

PREPARATION:
- Soften cream cheese if using a block.
- Mix and whip in a bowl cream cheese and sour cream.
- Add lemon juice.
- Drain and squeeze the salmon so there is very little liquid left. (I use a paper towel to wrap and squeeze.)
- Take out salmon skin and bones as much as possible; break into smaller pieces; the size depends on whether you want a creamy, smooth dip or a chunky one. (Meg likes the bones left in for texture, so it's up to you.)
- Add salmon bits, red onion, green herbs with the cheese mixture.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Give it a final mix, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rest in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.
- If a more chunky texture is desired, add smoked salmon bits.


This is a nice, pale pink-orange dip that's versatile. Serve with crackers, fresh vegetable sticks, on top of baked or smoked salmon, or baked potatoes. On toast the next day is nice, too.

If there is too much liquid, tip the container and drain. Do not leave in the sun for too long if you are on a picnic.

Caught in My PJs

Speaking of my neighbor the Super Physio, we have a "driveway" party around this time of the year. (There are ten houses down this narrow driveway we share - it's almost like a dead-end alley.) This year, this past Sunday, it was held at her house. We arrived late because I just could not decide what we were going to contribute food-wise, and ended up taking Ben's salmon dip and nibbly things like chocolate covered coffee beans, yogurt-covered raisins, sugared dried ginger roots, and three types of nuts.

Anyway, we got there two hours late, and two hours after THAT, the party was over, so our nibblies didn't get finished, and because she has a teenage son, we left that plate there. Otherwise WE would have nibbled on them, you see.

So yesterday, at around 11 in the morning, she brought back my plate. Shock! Horror! I was still in my PJ's. I had to throw on this apron that covers me from neck to knee, but she could still see the PJ bottoms and of course me being the tactful person, I had to point them out to her, didn't I.

I usually get up at 7am, blog, eat breakfast, shower, and then start work or housework. Yesterday, I blogged for a long time, and then started to work on the last two posts of "How I Make a Scarf" series in Unravelling, AND photographing a few scarves to add to the Gallery of my web page at the same time, and I was nearly finished, but not quite, when she came.

And I don't even usually wear PJs - I prefer sweatshirt and sweatpants.

Oh well, the way our garden/yard is perpetually messy/weedy, I don't think she was very surprised. I can't decide if that's a bad thing or a good thing, and I'm definitely too old to be caught like that.

PS - Today on my way home from the dentist, I saw a woman wearing a T-shirt that said: "Too Old to Die Young"

PPS - 2008 party is scheduled at #40; 2009 is probably at our place, meaning, we only have 23 months and a bit to tidy our garden. Yikes...

A Short Life

I never quite made 150cm/5ft, and have been trying to live in a tall world. I look up a lot, so the tendons (??) on my neck have permanently shrunk(??); I also tiptoe a lot, especially when working on normal-height counter tops/kitchen benches, so my calf tendons/muscles have done the same, and I walk funny. At least this was the explanation given to me by three different physiotherapists when I asked to be spoken to like a five-year-old. (I don't do medical jargon.)

This somehow relates to, I think, the way I use my shoulder instead of my arms, causing some numbness, which I previously thought was strictly from overuse.

In addition, for the last three years, I've been wearing multi-focal-lens glasses - the kind where the close up is at the bottom of your vision. I need to look at the computer screen through the bottom of my glasses, and guess what? I'm looking up again. (And I do have "reading glasses" I'm supposed to use when working on the computer, too.)

I was taught some great exercises to remedy this but a super physio, who just happened to have been my next door neighbor as long as we've been here, but it's not going to right itself immediately. Meanwhile, I feel all tingly, and if you turn off the lights at night, I'm sure I'll light up like a Christmas tree.

So, anybody want to rent a short/rotund tree with two branches with no electricity required?

Gassed

I love to buy/send cards/postcards, and though I honestly don't expect anything back, it's really nice to receive things in the old-fashioned post. Today, I went to the dentist's office, and was told the appointment before mine was substantially delayed, so I went to the Post Shop (POs in NZ are privatized) to check our PO Box, and found this from Phlegmfatale, of whose Fatale Abstraction I am quite fond.... (Is that the right place to insert "of"???)

I'm such a wossy, I need lots of laughing gas to have my teeth cleaned, and because of the amount of gas I need, my dentist Paul can clean my teeth only half at a time because he inevitably breathes some of the gas that leaks and travels up and start to feel woozy. Today was the left half, having had the right half done on 6 November.

Phlegmmy likes to have her teeth cleaned, you see, and I love having had my teeth cleaned, but not the act of it; today we had a couple of sore spots which of course Paul dug and prodded and did whatever good dentists do to clean sore spots, and I was slouching down halfway down the chair. But realizing that only prolonged the treatment, I tried to think of Phlegmmy's this necklace in its entirety, the individual beads, the order and the arrangement, right down to the tiny wire bits that connect the more interesting bits. (In fact, these connecting bits I remembered most vividly and accurately.) And that's the only thing that made the 45 minutes bearable.

Thank you, Rita, you saved me in more ways than you can imagine today.

Our Hooded Friend

Many of you know our hooded friend - any guesses?

Now I'm Just Being Silly

I feel very ambivalent about this shawl, but I like the shot.

I Like What I Do

And how's this for a Bob shot?! (I knew I should have picked the gray carpet!!!)

Fern Frond

Photowannabe had a photo of a young fern frond. I wished I shot this one. Here in New Zealand, there are many native ferns, big and small, and they are all around us. Air New Zealand's symbol is a Koru, a fern frond. I used to think it looks a little bit like a snake all curled up, but now I love to find them.

Piper in Nelson

In case I didn't stress it enough, I love bag pipes and pipers. Two guys were taking turn busking one Saturday; I was late meeting Ben so was rushing, but had to stop and shoot this guy, didn't I. He wasn't bad, but there were a few store keepers wishing they'd both go away.

On the corner of Trafalgar and Hardy Streets.

It's Seriously Summer Here

Think about It - For Just Two Minutes

Dwell on the possibility. Check this out! Spread the word.

There's Always One Show-Off

Thanks, Lisi!

And we love it!! (But it's so dark in our office I had to use the mini tripod Ben bought for me for Christmas. Yes, I got to open one Christmas present tonight!)

Serendipitous

The Whale Cracks a Smile

This sculpture at the foot of the Cathedral Steps has made a few appearances here and in NDP. Today, while waiting for Ben to pick me up, I sat at the bench and found him cracking a smile, and I remembered talking to the sculptor a few years back about the crack he found in the marble as his work progressed. I think he's kind of cute from this angle.

I had just had a few of my work photographed by Dan the Camera Man and had with me a few scarves that I would have loved to have photographed on his back, but I wondered if that would be considered desecration of art (the sculpture, that is.) I'm still tempted, so I might try another time.

When in Doubt, We Go to Rabbit Island

Coming home from a day's sailing

Nelson from Rabbit Island.

Rabbit Island Picnic Grounds

Lest you think all is tranquil...
I turned to the left and found the source of the music. The place is big enough that if you are so inclined, you can always find a big patch all to yourself, except lunch time on weekends for the remainder of December, when many office, sports team, and other organizational Christmas and Graduation parties take place.

Season to be Jolly

Starting about now, all over Tokyo, they'll be folks like this who had a bit too much to drink at Year End parties. I didn't miss the obligatory company do's, where "girls" had to pour beer and sake for the "men", until I started following Macky's Tokyo DP. Now I miss the camaraderie, the food, and even the sake, a bit. But not the men.

I Need a Winning Lotto Ticket

I haven't check out all you good people's blogs the last few days, on account of I'm actually on the loom working more, but today I had did a quick dash around Europe and Asia.

I've been wondering how much I dare invest in the Exhibit, other than the actual yarns for weaving, on such things as display setup and afternoon tea goodies, when one of your blogs' word verification just cracked me up: "loanz"! See, in New Zealand, tooooooo many organizations and businesses call themselves xxx-NZ, and it was like a very bad, not-so-subliminal message to me. Loans-NZ!

I hope I can get around the Americas and Oceania tomorrow.

Sorry, but if you want to smoke and harm yourself

A bit of rain won't hurt you!!!! This is Work Place Health & Safety going haywire!!!! And 7 meters from the building? They smoke just outside of Ben's window, so lock them up, seal the container, and throw away the keys.

Gee, you think I don't like smoking?

PS - Well-constructed, but hideous from any angle because of its purpose. The students could have constructed a play house and donated it to a local kindy!