You can take a crosstown bus if it's raining or it's cold II

Weekend trip to look at another boat. The boat turned out to be more of a project than I am interested in taking on at present (especially if Nico is going to make me keep gardening).

A few highlights of our trip to Auckland:

Breakfast at Sheinkin, an "Israeli-Inspired" Restaurant. I'm not really sure what that means. Probably the place is owned by Israelis, but Israeli food turned out to not be popular, so it became a sort of Kiwi-Israeli-Eastern European fusion sort of restaurant. (I had salmon and eggs; they were good, but I don't think you'll find them in Israel...)


Coast to Coast walkway, a 16 km walk across Auckland. It's supposed to take 4 hours, but could take much, much longer if you felt like stopping at any of the sites you pass along the way. A few highlights of our walk across Auckland during our trip to Auckland:

A cricket game in the Auckland Domain. (A domain is a park, in case you don't read Nico's blog. There is no link to Nico's blog because her blog does not deserve a link.)


View from the top of Mount Eden.


Climb up One Tree Hill (As sung about by U2.)

Nicole taking one of many breaks (this one on the porch of an old cottage that was relocated to this location in 1920).

These may look like regular sheep, but they are clearly city sheep.


Crazy college kids. (In case you have a small monitor, it's a play on the quadratic equation.)


View from the top of One Tree Hill (notice how far away downtown has gotten).


We took the bus back to the hotel, rather than walking another 16 km (actually, with all the missed turns and back tracking, I'm sure it was more like 20 km).

Saturday night, we caught the late show at Auckland's (only?) comedy club. I can't say that I get Kiwi humour yet, and the only really funny guy was Maori...probably not a good idea for me to tell Maori jokes.

Sunday morning: coffee as big as your head, man.

Coffee in New Zealand usually comes with a fern leaf on top. If the barista likes you, you might get a heart.

Some boats at low tide at Shelly Park Beach.


Don't ask what we were doing in Shelly Park...

Tree #1

This isn't really tree #1, it's a bonus tree that my coworkers bought for me after I requested they not send flowers. It came from a friend's family farm, and I'm told that if I treat it right, it will someday give us avocados.


Although our backyard is spacious, we had no room for another tree, so I spent a couple of weeks carving up the jungle. I'm still not finished, and I don't know what I'm going to do with all these bags of vines, trees, weeds, etc. (A macadamia nut tree is on the way from the same farm, so I really should get back to work.)

Tree meter

Just a little update to this post, since I'm on a blogging rampage tonight. .

114 trees funded; 246 left to go 148 trees funded; 212 left to go!

Looking through pictures from last months California trip...

As could be expected, most of the trip was business, and not great blog material. But a few highlights did appear on the memory card:

The LA Arboretum. We had a couple of hours to kill before a dentist appointment. [Thank you to my old, old, old friend Dr. Huy and his lovely wife for not hurting us too much.] Kiwis will be surprised to learn that you have to pay to get into the Arboretum. Everyone else will be surprised to learn that we used to have peacocks showing up in our backyard and on our roof (circa 5 miles away). If you ever have a stray peacock running around your property, the Arboretum is not that interested in retrieving it; they'll tell you not to feed him, and he'll come back on his own.


A rugby game at the Newport Pier? Yes, UC Irvine has a rugby team. Go figure.


Nico sitting in her old car. (A big thank you to my father for lending us a Miata from his collection.) I'm not sure why I was driving...probably because Nico got confused by the location of the steering wheel.


And here's my old, old friend Tak, and his much better half at Tommy's. I ate at Tommy's twice during the trip, and it was about as I remembered it. I only ate at In-N-Out once, and it was much better than I remembered.


A very poor photo just before we left for the airport. I never thought I would miss Whittier.


Thank you to all our friends (and family) who bought us beer, lunch, and/or dinner during our visit.

A day at the Cape

Since moving to Hawke's Bay Nico and I have not eaten out very often; partly because we are poor Kiwi folk (and restaurants tend to be expensive), and partly because restaurants here are not great; not to say they're bad...just sort of average...expensive and average.

On that subject, the first in a series of restaurant reviews at takealotofdrugs.com:

1) Fox on the Quay. Many consider Fox on the Quay to be Napier's best restaurant. I would classify it under the header of "Fully Licensed Cafe", meaning it's the sort of place where you could have coffee in the morning, a glass of wine in the afternoon, and dinner at night (fully licensed meaning they have a full bar). Located across the street from the Sailing Club in Ahuriri, most tables (or at least the outdoor tables) have a nice view of the water. The occasional loud passing car can be a bit distracting, otherwise the atmosphere is pleasant. [Aside: I had a comment about NZ restaurant aesthetics, but this post will end up being way too long. Instead, I've included a photo of the Cape Kidnappers Light House.] Nico ordered chicken breast with sesame, lime and coconut paste on baked kumara wedges with rocket and fresh mango chutney (and rated it excellent), I had artichoke ravioli with tomato concasse sauce, grilled artichoke and finished with shaved parmesan (and rated it pretty good). We passed on dessert, though they all sounded fantastic. Overall rating: good, but not great.


2) Clifton Bay Cafe. I may have written about the Clifton Bay Cafe before; all we've ever eaten there are coffee and scones (or today: tea and scones). The scones are superb, giant, and two for $5. The coffee can be ordered in a bowl. The real food always looks very good when it's brought to other people, but we are never able to pass up the scones. The wine list is also impressive, but does not really go with coffee and scones.


Now that the business is out of the way: We took a walk to Cape Kidnappers this morning (and walked back this afternoon). I wrote about the walk last March, so I won't bother repeating myself here. I was attempting to 1) take a photo that is worthy of framing and 2) take a cool picture of a gannet.

Here are some of my efforts:





And some gannets:

I met a girl who sang the blues, and I asked her for some happy news. She just smiled and turned away.

Just when you thought there was nothing affordable to do in NZ: A free wine festival!!! 12 wineries pouring way too much wine.



A guitarist was playing all your favourites of the 60s and 70s. Nico is the only person I know who won't get bored listening to all 6 verses of American Pie...twice. (We also saw him the day before at the Hastings Market.)

Here's Nico enjoying a pint of ginger beer.


PS: The wine cellar is now full.

PPS: Takealotofdrugs has about 6 regular readers...hard to believe I offended all of them with one post. My sincere apologies to all affected parties.

PPS: This blog is like bad television: You really don't have to watch.

Something a little brighter

First things first: These are limes. They came from a coworkers farm...there are a whole bunch, and we already ate/drank 20 of them. They are a little past there prime, so we're in a hurry to finish the rest of them off. If you drink a lot of margaritas, it is easy to go through a whole bunch of limes. I know the limes look orange, but trust me...they are limes. I ate one thinking it was an orange. They look orange, because we are in the southern hemisphere, and the earth refracts colours differently down here. They are not oranges.


Up next, Maraetotara Falls. It was on the way to the beach, so stopping at a waterfall sounded like fun. I am confident that those girls had help carrying the kayaks to the little lagoon.


Here's a Kiwi doing what Kiwi's do.


Apparently, everyone else had the same idea as me. Our quick stop at the waterfall was the first time I have felt crowded in New Zealand.


But a short walk down stream, and we were alone.


Onward to Waimarama Beach. XMAS Day is like the 4th of July for beaches in NZ. Here's a crowd shot.


Christmas Dinner.


Nicole with a glass of wine.


Nicole's feet in the water that was clear enough to drink. (Her feet are under about a foot of water.)


And a picture I shot from the water.

XMAS in paradise

I've just been rereading how I spent my last few Christmases:

2009: Our house had just sold, and Nico had gone up to visit her parents leaving me to move out on XMAS eve. The next day, I appear to have gone sailing, and snapped this photograph of a pelican with my cell phone. Afterwards, (a common theme over the last few years, I went out to dinner with my mother...at a restaurant that was open and not Denny's): Cafe Tu Tu Tango. We had planned on seeing Avatar, but by 2009, everyone had apparently discovered that Christmas is boring, and everything except a late night 3-D showing was sold out. We both agreed a 3-D movie would give us headaches, so we skipped the movie. I ended up with a headache anyway, after meeting mi heathen amigo Tak at a bar in Orange. We drank a lot of Guinness...


2008: No XMAS day post. From a couple of nearby posts, I see we drove up to Nico's parents...if my memory of the complaints is correct, after arriving in the middle of the night on XMAS eve, we left on XMAS day (note: this was actually spending 2 nights in Red Bluff, not one--also days in Red Bluff last longer than other places...which reminds me of a joke I probably have already typed somewhere on this blog: "If your doctor ever tells you that you only have a year to live, spend it in Red Bluff.") If my memory of the complaints continues to be correct, we then stopped at my sister's Hanukkah party, and left without staying long enough...and fled across the bay to the City. We ate in some restaurant near Union Square...that's the great thing about XMAS in San Francisco: everything is open.


2007: XMAS in Wine Country. I remember a few days of bicycling around in freezing weather. Hagafen Cellers was open on XMAS Day. The people working were more interested in talking to the more Jewish looking people in the winery. We went back the next year, and the winery across the street was also open...to capture the overflow traffic, I guess. We drove home on XMAS Day, and were going to have dinner with my mother (at a Downtown Disney restaurant), but I think I was feeling sick from an encounter with the nephew, so we cancelled.


2006: XMAS in Vegas. Vegas is even better than SF for Christmas. The casino buffets tend to get very crowded, because some of the restaurants on the Strip close down...but it takes very little effort to find non-buffet restaurants that are open as usual.Open Table shows we ate at Tortilla Joe's (Downtown Disney), so we must have driven home on XMAS Day and had dinner with my mother.


2005: I have no entry for 2005. Open Table shows we ate at Naples Ristorante e Pizzeria (Downtown Disney). Nico may have been at her parents, so probably just me and my mother. There was a 3 hour wait for people without reservations; by the next year, I was making reservations at all the Downtown Disney restaurants, so we would have our pick of places to eat without waiting.

2004: No entry...I think my mother and I ended up at a Mexican restaurant (El Pescadero, or something fishy that isn't there anymore), as it was the only thing except Denny's that was open in Whittier. The menu was a bit scary (real Mexican food has a lot of things with brain in them), but they made us some more conventional fare by request.

2003: The day of two Denny's. Enough said. We waited an hour for dinner (my mother's neighbor came with us). My mother was supposed to find a restaurant that wasn't Denny's that was open. She failed! After the same problem in 2004 (where we happened on the one place that was open after driving around for an hour), I got a little smarter and came up with the Downtown Disney idea.

I often tell people that we used to go to Disneyland every year when I was little, then when I got older, I worked there...so I never want to go again. Most of this isn't true: I may have gone a couple of times as a teenager, but I don't remember going as a child; oddly, we did have a few Thanksgivings there...probably because my father didn't like my mother's family. For the most part, Christmas was just another day...when nothing was open. The part about working at Disneyland is true, at least for a few years; and I spent many Christmases working at other jobs...partly as a good deed, partly for the overtime, and partly because it's just another day...except nothing is open.

Anyway, nothing is open in NZ today. But the weather is beautiful...I'm still 3 weeks behind on gardening, and maybe I'll have some beach photos later.

I miss you Mom; I wish we were out looking for an open restaurant (that's not Denny's) tonight.

Something big

Since my mother's passing, I've been recommending (in lieu of flowers) that interested parties make contributions to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. My mother was a strong supporter of diabetes research, and always helped Nico and I fundraise during our annual (and sometimes biannual) Tour de Cures. Tour de Cure is actually run by the American Diabetes Association, and their main interest is Type II diabetes...but my mother (with Type I, or "juvenile" diabetes) never seemed to mind. We have received several contribution letters from the JDRF; thank you to everyone who made a donation. I know she would have appreciated it.

But I digress. I've been trying to come up with some better way to memorialize my mother, and was drawing a blank...until Nico and I undertook the unenviable task of cleaning out her house. We came across several "Plant a Tree in Israel" certificates. Some were probably gifts for Bar/Bat Mitzvahs of her children; I remember planting one by hand when I was there (if it's still alive, it's probably a pretty tall tree by now), and my mother also planted one during her pilgrimage.

Our discovery came at a good time, as Israel has just suffered her worst forest fire in recorded history. The only problem: we already have a bunch of "Plant a Tree" certificates...I want to do something big; something that would allow my mother's friends, relatives, and descendants to visit and remember her. I had inquired with the JNF (the organization which plants the trees), if they could create a plaque or something (like the "Janice Lasko Memorial Woodlands") and place it by the trees. Unfortunately, they do not provide this service...but if I have 360 trees planted, they will inscribe her name on a plaque in American Independence Park in Jerusalem.

As of this moment, the Boat Fund and the Lasko NZ Timeshare are closed. If you can help me plant some trees, please do so. No donation is too large or too small ($5 buys a tree, if you had a number of trees in mind).

Videos of my mother

I've run through my 1 terabyte external hard drive and discovered I have no video of my mother. I was never that in to shooting video; our only video camera is our little Sony point and shoot that just happens to have a video function--in fact nearly all the videos that are saved on my hard drive were taken by accident when someone flipped the switch to movie mode.

A gem I did come across during my search: Tana and Jaemon in a Kayak. (I feel obligated to type: "She's not paddling."