Stories My Mother Told Me II


I read something like that, and I wonder: "How did I never hear that story?" Then almost instantly, I start to wonder if I had heard it, and merely forgotten it. Such is the richness of one's life, that there is no need to mention a stint as an eleven year old adman. Then I start wondering, "What would an eleven year old do with a savings bond...and where is that savings bond now?"

Several years ago, but not so long ago that my grandfather was still alive, my mother got a call from a man who held a savings bond (purchased by his father) in her name. (Or have I got this backwards, and it was the other way around?) Apparently, my grandfather was involved in some sort of pyramid scheme with US savings bonds; there are probably several more of these bonds out there somewhere.

In case you were interested: E series savings bonds (available from 1941 to 1980) earned interest for up to 40 years; a $25 bond purchased in 1952 (at a cost of $18.75) would be worth around $170 today.

Stories my mother told me

My mother loved having a bright house; she loved having a bright house so much, that there are no curtains in her bright house. I must have lived here for a summer or two during college, and not being one to wake up with the sun, I taped aluminum foil to the windows. She did not care for this look, and bought a couple of removable/expandable curtain rods...from which I hung beach towels.

Whenever I'd complain about the brightness or lack of privacy, she'd tell me about some great-aunt with diabetes, who due to complications (from diabetes) was in a wheel chair and blind. As a child, my mother had hated visiting this aunt, as all she seemed to do was sit in the dark all day.

Everyone who has walked into her house in the last week has commented on how bright it is...Nicole and I had been thinking it looked darker than we remembered, probably because 1) our NZ house is pretty bright and opening/closing Kiwi curtains is a lot of work 2) it's summer in NZ.

This wasn't a very good story, was it? I'll try harder next time.

Eulogy

Everyone has been telling me that my mother could talk for hours about her children and grandchildren. Please cut me off if I go on for too long.

My mother was the most generous person I have ever known. She hated spending money on herself. In recent years, she began giving her house a well deserved renovation, though she always worried about how much it was costing. We had several conversations about how expensive her new furnace was, and how the old one was only leaking a small amount of carbon monoxide.

A long, long time ago, she paid for my college almost entirely on her own; tuition, books. dorms, a little extra to allow me to order a pizza every once in a while. This seemed fair to me at the time, as I wasn't really that interested in going. After college, her home was always open to me and my sister when we got tired of paying rent elsewhere...and her home still seems to be open to way too much stuff that never made a permanent move with either of us. When I started pharmacy school, I never asked for any tuition money, though I'm sure she would have given it to me if she could have. She did lend me money to buy a car when I started, and never complained when I took lot longer than planned to repay her. When we bought our first house, we needed a little extra money to prove to the bank that we were worthy of a loan...the next day we had 3 months of mortgage payments in our account. Years later, I told her to stop sending me $25 for birthdays, anniversaries, and Hanukkah, as I figured she could use the money more than I could. Occasionally, she would let me take her out to lunch (on her birthday or Mother's Day), but the checks never stopped, and after we moved to NZ, she began mailing them directly to our American bank.

Nicole says I had been talking to my mother every day since moving to NZ. I think it was more like once or twice a week, but over the last 9 months she had started to get very good at skyping. She was eventually able to tell when I was online, and sometimes could manage to stay in the frame of the camera. Many of our conversations were about movies she had seen or books she had read. Perhaps because of this I have been feeling much guilt for being so far away.

My mother loved meeting new people, especially Jewish people. I cannot count the times when she spotted a Star of David or a Chai on somebody and exclaimed: “Are you Jewish; I'm Jewish too." I still have a fear of elevators. If you met her more than once, she would probably hug you the next time you saw her. I think I hate hugging people because of this.

Nicole probably remembers the transcript better than I do, but I believe my last words to her were: “I'm sorry I moved here.” “Are you crying? I'm crying, too” she replied. She was having a little trouble catching her breath, but if she was crying, it was not noticeable.

Maybe this doesn't really relate: radio in NZ is horrible (especially because Nicole's car stereo only gets one station). Last week this one station played Werewolves of London (by Warren Zevon). Warren Zevon was best known for this song, and also for being a frequent guest on David Letterman (and a frequent stand-in for Paul Shaffer). A few years ago he was on Letterman one last time; he was dying of mesothelioma, and knew he only had a few months to live. Maybe you've heard one of his quotes: “I enjoy every sandwich.” Today we're at a funeral; tomorrow go and do something you enjoy. Eat a sandwich. I don't know if my mother enjoyed every sandwich, as she thought she had at least another 10 years in her, but she was living up until the very end. She could walk, she could see (two of her biggest fears about having diabetes), and she was on a South, South Pacific cruise. And if she had ever met Warren Zevon, I'm sure she would have said: “You're half Jewish? I'm Jewish, too”.

Traveling Camera

My mother bought her first digital camera just before leaving for Australia. All 49 pictures from the memory card can be viewed by clicking right here.

These are a few of my favourites; if you knew my mother, you'd understand why.





I also like this one. My mother was once reprimanded at the San Diego Wild Animal Park for petting a giraffe while she fed it a carrot. (The carrot feeding was allowed, but for some reason you are not allowed to touch their heads.)


The last photo was of Picton. It would have been taken on Sunday (the camera says 10:46 AM, but I'm not quite sure what time zone it's set to).

You didn't leave me anything that I can understand

[Note to any customs or immigration agents that might be readers of my page: all of the items pictured below are used, and owned by me for more than 90 days prior to their arrival in this country. Nicole did not buy anything from zappos, and I did not go a little crazy over the last few weeks on amazon.]


I had asked my mother to bring a few hard (or impossible) to find items with her on her trip to NZ. As I got a little carried away on the things we just had to have (like a charger for my laptop, a flash for the camera, a tuxedo shirt, cleaning solution for my electric razor...the list goes on), I gave her a ranking of which items to leave behind if she ran out of room in her suitcase.

A few days before she left, she started worrying about whether her few electric items would work here (or rather in Sydney, as our house is well stocked with 5000W 240 to 120 step up/down transformers). She struggled to read the fine print on her camera charger, but eventually we decided all she needed was an outlet converter. I told her to bring a couple, as we always seem to be needing another one...especially if she wanted a lamp in her room. Four have now appeared here. As have a couple of tail lights for my PT cruiser that I must have mentioned to her the day before her flight. And a bag of tefillin that belonged to my great-grandfather that she found in her garage during a recent clean out.

All packed nicely in a Holland America canvas bag...I assume she meant to give it to us when her ship docked in Napier today. We were back in time to see it off.


Nobody ever loves you like your mom.

Today I stopped and shopped inside the walled city

Saturday drive out to Palmerston North to look at a sailboat. Palmerston North is the closest real city to us...and by real city: I mean there's a university and a shopping mall. It's been 9 months since I've been in a mall, and it sort of gave me a headache.


There really is not much going on in Palmerston. We stopped at the wind farm, as it's on the list of things to do. [I'll leave off the bit about the airport also being on the list...]


A nice convention of pre-1920s cars was driving around Woodville (a very small town on the way to Palmerston.


And yet another in the series, Nico having a pint (Note: I'm sure the Irish think Guinness anywhere outside of Ireland is bad, but it's just plain dreadful in NZ.


My apologies yet again for the lack of posting. I've been spending most of the time trying to tame the jungle that is our backyard. Here's a 200 kg weed that I have mostly defeated:

Just like Maui used to make

Unless you have a very nice friend or family member with a very large car, the best way to see Shine falls (Hawke's Bay's best waterfall) via the Boundary Stream Track would be to have half of your party start on one side and the other half on the other. Each group would walk in opposite directions, pass each other somewhere in the middle, and then drive the other group's car home. Did that make any sense?

Perhaps that would not be the best way, as one of the groups would be walking downstream (downhill) and the other would be walking uphill for 4 hours. So we went with a more complicated plan: Two cars drove to the finish, everybody crammed into our car, and we drove 15 km (over gravel roads) to the start. Here's a photo of one of the times we had to stop due to car sick passengers. There are 8 people scattered around the car.


Here's a little bit of Boundary Stream (taken while crossing):


Mi amigo Jason thinking about crossing the stream (and about to splash me):


Why yes, that is a giant boulder that nearly crushed the "Beware of Giant Boulders" sign.


A little bit of paradise (you have no idea how difficult it was to get this close after a few days of heavy rain)


Photographing water moving that quickly is challenging as 1)the heavy canopy of trees allows very little light through and 2) the falls are spraying a heavy mist on everything within view.


Like many reserves, this one is surrounded by farmland...or more correctly, sheepland. Get in line, you sheep.


In other news, here's my very Kiwi emergency repair of an old pipe in our garden.


In still other news, here's my brand new (to me) kayak:

With a Model A out front, and a 20s/30s band in the back, it was quite a party.



Nico and I didn't look too ridiculous as a few other people also dressed up.


Either the turnout was surprisingly good, or Kiwis drink a whole lot. (It is not evident from the picture, but that is a very big box.)


And to answer your question, the most white russians I have ever made at a time while wearing a top hat is: 10

We are officially unpacked.

Alternative title: And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.



In other news, I made a new friend in the garden. She has promised not to eat my brain.

The Big Laskowski

At our new address, we received invitations to open house events at two competing bowling clubs. [In case you didn't click that link, bowling in NZ is what one in the US might call "lawn bowling"...whereas what one in the US would call bowling would be called "ten pin" here.]

We were planning on attending the (closer) event at the Port Ahuriri Bowling Club, but as we walked down the 200 stairs to get there, it was evident that the members of the Port Ahuriri Bowling Club do not know how to throw an open house.


And so we opted for the Bluff Hill Bowling Club open house. Here's Nicole and our bowling coach, Rod. (Notice there are actually people in attendance.)


A little walk around downtown Napier turned up this gem: The Centennial Gardens.