Flippin' Frost!

In New England (the region in the north-east of the United States composed of 6 states: Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island and my home state - Massachusetts) there's a saying attributed to Mark Twain...  "If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes."

I knew this to be true of New England, but I didn't think it would be the case in New Zealand as well.  But it is!  Though not to the same extremes.  We don't have sunny shorts and t-shirt days devolving into snowshoe days, but we do have sunny shorts and t-shirt days that devolve into huddle around the radiator nights.

Which leads to this in the morning:

(The grass in normally green, even in the winter.)

Which wouldn't be such a problem, but in January, the middle of our summer, we took a gamble and planted a tamarillo tree seedling.  I knew that here in Napier we get a frost or 2 a year, and that tamarillo trees are subtropical and can't handle frosts, but I figured I'd be able to protect it on the rare occasions.

Well, this winter frosts are not such a rare event.  We had 1 or 2 early frosts and I could feel the chill in the air as night descended, so I covered the tree with an old bed sheet.  And it did fine.  As recently as last week I took photos of my thriving tamarillo tree to show my mom back home.

And then we had the frost to end all frosts, which struck quite unawares, bringing to mind the Mark Twain quote above.  I didn't cover the tree since it had been so warm during the day.  And then last night we had another surprise attack.  When I went to bed it was raining, and everyone knows it can't frost when it's raining.  But apparently it can frost when it stops raining in the middle of the night and a cold front moves through. This is our tree now.

:(

Serious Crunch Time

Three days from now we depart. One week from today we arrive in New Zealand. In between we hang with the rellies in California. I need to pack.

We're taking the full allowance. 2 bags per person = 8 bags. 2 of those are car seat bags, so the rest will be clothes, shoes, and other assorted stuff that we forgot to put in the container. Toys, books, appliances, etc. Hopefully it all fits.

We had a lovely going away party just before Thanksgiving. About 100 people showed up to wish us well on our move. I didn't think we knew that many people.

Our last American Thanksgiving was a traditional feast with family. Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, the works. We'll have to try to keep up the tradition in New Zealand. Maybe we'll do 2, one in November as usual, and then one in New Zealand harvest time, since really, it's a harvest celebration. You can never have too many reasons to stuff yourself silly. I hope we can get turkey there.

let's talk about sports

While I'm waiting for my FBI background check to be processed I've got some time on my hands. I'm using a lot of the time to stress that I won't get residency in time to move to New Zealand in October of 2008 like we're planning. I know it's a year away, but remember, we had to wait over two and a half years for Aidan's US citizenship (the USCIS website says it should take about 7 months). The Immigration New Zealand FAQ says "Once you know which branch will be processing your application, you can access their processing times on our website, which is published in their individual branch pages, under the heading 'Processing Times'." Being in the US, I'll be submitting my application to the Washington branch. Their page doesn't have the 'Processing Times' heading. :( Guess I'll have to call them on Monday so I can stop stressing (or start stressing more).

Until then, let's talk about sports. In New Zealand, the biggest sport is rugby, and they've recently had a devastating result in the Rugby World Cup. They were eliminated by France in the quarterfinals. Oops. They were expected to win the Cup. As they are every time. And as the rarely do. They're good at choking I guess.

Over here, the biggest sport is baseball. And my local team, the Boston Red Sox, last week made it past the equivalent of a quarterfinal round, by beating the Los Angeles Angels in the American League Division Series (ALDS). Now we're in the American League Championship Series (ALCS) against the Cleveland Indians, playing for a spot in the World Series. Last night we won the first of the seven game series. Yay! 4 minutes to the first pitch of Game 2. Here's hoping for a sweep!