Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Nam took this picture of Danielle and Emory and posted it on Facebook.

Saturday

New Zealand was supposed to have been hit with a storm "the size of Australia" yesterday. Apart from some really crazy rain and a bit of wind, everything in Auckland is status quo this morning. I was on the bus home last night when the torrential downpour and wind began. I stepped off the bus with my soon-to -be-turned-inside-out umbrella and braced myself for the walk home, when I spotted Iain waiting for me in our car! We drove home to a delish meal of spaghetti carbonara.

Today we're taking Blue to the vets -- his breathing has gotten labored with even the mildest exertion. He's also losing weight quickly and we think he doesn't have long to go. I am still so thankful that we got these four months with him. We'll just have to see what the vets says. He still seems really happy, though, and even chased a kitty who wandered into our yard.

After we return from the vets it's off to Hallertau with new parents Sarah and Sean.

USA! USA! USA!

Thanks to Facebook most of you know that I was in the US for two weeks, getting my annual Target fix, plus enjoying other "must dos" like rare hamburgers, Greek food, Oprah magazines, having a decent cocktail, and indulging in lots of my mom's cooking.

There were a few downers. I left 2 bracelets at the LAX security checkpoint and didn't notice they were missing until I was in Charlotte. It took my mom and I about 34 threatening phone calls and 5 days to get them back. We were on the phone at least 15 minutes every day, leaving voicemails, getting transferred to different departments, hearing a different story every time. There's a number to call for Lost and Found, but it's voicemail and they never ever ever ever ever call you back. I called so much I was like, "Hey, yeah, it's me again."

The whole ordeal culminated in my mom going right to the head of HR to demand to speak to the head of security. This was on day 5. I received a humble callback from some chick named Patricia. What's interesting is that I'd already left Patricia 3 messages, each time growing more and more frantic ("PLEASE call me back!!"). Danielle said that I sounded like Liz Lemon. I guess when Patricia's boss got involved, she rang me back immediately and was all, "How can I help you?" Horrible. But the bracelets are back and I've learned a very valuable lesson: take off all of your jewelry before flying.

The rest of the trip was pretty fabulous. A lot of relaxing, a lot of visiting, a lot of eating. While I was sipping Veuve on my parents' lovely patio, poor Iain was back home dealing with a fender bender and a flea infestation. Poor guy. This year we've got some fun New Zealand travel lined up for the both of us.

Here are two cool pictures of my fam - the rest are all on Facebook.

OH: I learned another valuable travel lesson. When you can, purchase the day passes to the airport lounges. For $40US, I booked a day pass to the USAIrways Club lounges. I had 24 hour access in any airport, so I was good to go for Buffalo, Charlotte, and finally LA. It was a godsend. Free wifi, comfy chairs, a clean bathroom, it's QUIET, and you get a free glass of wine and/or free water, coffee, tea, etc.

Winter Weekends

I think I've said this before but we've had an absolutely stunning winter. With the exception of a few freezing (not literally) days, it's been sunny and mild. And thanks to my massive down coat, I've been able to sit outside and enjoy the sun!

Tama doesn't like the cold, however, and prefers quick outside trips followed by long bouts of lounging in the sun. He's definitely not a winter kitty and would much rather have us all in the house together. Conversely, Blue is like a polar bear.

I've also sort of kind of maybe possibly started to watch rugby, or at least tolerate it. It's entertaining, to say the least. I never got to this point with American football (and never will) and still can't fathom cricket.


This morning, after I finish rewatching the hilarious Old Spice guy spots, we're heading out for a clifftop walk in Mairangi Bay. We'll make the walk to Browns Bay, have brunch, then walk back. It helps justify the hollandaise!

Brunch!

We continued our theme of having friends over for brunch and hosted Julia, Ian (not to be confused with Iain), and Tash (short for Natasha) last weekend. While I'd like to say our riveting conversation kept everyone around until the late hours of the afternoon, in reality I suspect it was the radiators.

Iain broke all the "brunch" rules and made a delicious roast beef, cooked to temperature for each individual. This was possible only through some serious mathematical equations and two pieces of meat.

Lunch

We had a light Sunday lunch at Bees Online, the awesome place with the stupid name where we took Iain's parents. Pictured here is my latest pet peeve: salads served in really deep bowls. I mean, how the hell am I supposed to eat this?!

Hotel bars

Yesterday we met friends for brunch then decided to wander around the Viaduct by ourselves. It was sunny and gorgeous so we stopped at the Hilton for a drink. I love hotel bars because it always feels like you're on vacation. They have a stunning bar that overlooks the entire harbor. I reached for my camera and realized that yet AGAIN, I left it at home. Damn it! We had a nice wander over to the Westin which was also picture-perfect but alas, no camera. Instead, here are a bunch of house pictures!

More on that list of what we've been up to...

4. We celebrated our 4 year anniversary in style last Thursday in style: a small tasting platter at The Lobby in the SKYCITY Grand Hotel, followed by a traditional Iain Cosmopolitan at home.



3. Now that our weekends aren't spent buying sinks and pricing doorknobs, we have resumed our social life. This has been an absolute novelty. The first year we were here, I was in school so our social life sucked. Then it was all about the house. It's so nice to have a weekend arrive and have nothing to do. Wanna go have brunch? Sure. Two hours of Tivo'ed Gossip Girl? Why not. Sleeping in? What's that? It's great. For example, last weekend we had brunch with friends on Saturday, and on Sunday we hoped in the car and just drove around to different cafés. And why the hell not?

These pictures are from 3 different places we visited. The best part is that we had no intention of doing this, and two of the places we found we didn't even know existed. Really cool! And a really inexpensive way to check out a bunch of places.

One of the places had this insane back garden with a terrier running around, a huge cage of pigeons, and tropical plants everywhere. I can't even imagine how cool this place must look in the summer!

We're Back!

Okay, after a few month's hiatus I've decided to start up again. This is mainly due to the (sad?) fact that I really missed blogging, and while Facebook is great, I don't always want to post everything on it.

I promise not to keep rattling on about the bloody house - we're in it, it's great. I'll post some pictures.

Here's a quick run-down of what we've been up since I last posted:

1. I had minor foot surgery. This thrilling undertaking was 500x better than the same surgery I had on my other foot back in 2003. Incredible -- either they've made huge medical breakthroughs in bunion surgery (doubtful) or the first guy I had in Philly was crap (likely). I got to work from home for a week which was great!



2. Iain got promoted! (I can't remember if that was mentioned before). I'm still working for the same folks and am enjoying it a hell of lot more than I used to. Karma can be a good thing.

3. Iain's parents visited for 9 days in May. They were our first official houseguests! We spent the week eating way too much. It was a really good time and (hopefully) nice and relaxing for them. I think Blue had the best deal: he received twice the number of belly rubs and pats. Tama was still skittish but not totally freaking out, so that's progress.







More posts to come!

Weekend

This weekend was going to be all about packing, cleaning, and getting prepared for the move.

So why did we wind up:

1. eating lunch by the beach
2. wandering around the Viaduct
3. visiting friends, Jenny + David and week old baby Max
4. watching rugby (Iain)
5. seeing Precious (me)
6. having drinks with our 85 year old neighbors, Mitch + Lois

Maybe it had something to do with the weather -- spectacular!!

Kitchen Krisis Averted!

Stupid kitchen. Wrong handles, wrong wastebin, and UGH! Wrong sink!

What should've been one of the easiest parts of the construction almost turned into one of the worst. We've discovered three mistakes in our kitchen, the latest being the sink model! An appointment with our kitchen designer was scheduled for Saturday, so we spent Friday evening going through all of our paperwork. Yep - they installed the R100 sink, not the RJ10 sink! And the handles? Bilma, not Bilma Straight! WTF???

Even though the company was in the wrong, I was still nervous and suffered a sleepless night on Friday. We've heard horror stories of people going back to their installers and being ignored, or handed some arcane set of terms and conditions that absolves the company from everything. How many months did we spend comparing kitchen sinks? The thought of all that research, only to get stuck with the wrong sink was depressing.

We've had a good experience with this company, which is why we were so disappointed when they screwed up. The garbage bin and even the handles I could live with but the sink was just WRONG.

Just in case they didn't own up to the mistakes, we went in guns blazing -- invoices, pictures, pdfs... and a back-up plan involving a social media blitz if they refused to own up.

We were pleasantly surprised. Our designer took responsibility for everything. She'd gone on vacation during the process and in the handover, a bunch of things got screwed up. And from her tone, it sounded to me like we weren't the only dissatisfied customers.

They're completely re-doing our kitchen counter to install the right sink, and we're being compensated for the handles and the garbage bin. They'll also pay for our plumber to come back in and re-install the faucet and garbage disposal. Whew!

We celebrated with a delicious lamb dish and rosé at a tapas place called Altar.

In the Closet

It was Waitangi Day on Saturday. This meant that a lot of the stores were closed, forcing us to actually set aside house crap and enjoy the weekend. It's the height of summer -- really hot, really sunny, really awesome.

We went grocery shopping and visited a few tile stores to see if we could find something affordable for our kitchen backsplash.

Answer: no.

Damn!

Looks like more subway tiles... we investigated a glass backsplash, but the price is still the same: $1200+. Since we're already so far over-budget, we'll compromise and get some subways. We'll probably live.

Pictured below is Iain on Saturday while we figured out our upstairs closet configuration. We measured our own closets in the rental and figured out what we think we'll need in the new house.

The closet is going to be a freestanding structure so we're investigating closet companies -- for those of you who immediately leap to your California Closet / Broadcast News / SATC fantasties, you're not alone. This, however, is going to be a basic closet with some shelves.


Boring: the freestanding closet was a big discussion when we first started renovations -- we didn't want to build a closet for fear it would affect resale in case a future owner wanted to use the "dressing room" space for an office or baby room. But you know what? We need to live there, too, so we're revamping a lot of our "resale vs what we actually want" decisions.

(This late-in-the-day decision has left us with a perfect and now useless cable, power, and phone jack right where the closet will go. Brilliant!)

We finally nailed down a good design which I incorporated into Excel and emailed to our closet dude. Done!

Cut to four hours later and we're at Flax in Browns Bay for a late lunch.


We love this place because of its proximity to the beach. It's like being in Miami or LA or... New Zealand!


We ordered some fish cakes instead of something good like the burger and fries. Alas... trying to be healthy. I should've returned mine - it was vile. Iain didn't mind his.

After our 2pm lunch we headed for home for a quiet afternoon of laundry and books.

New Year's Day!

Yesterday was gorgeous outside, so after a morning of catching up on emails, Facebook, and bills we headed into the city to meet our friend Toni for brunch at Northern Steamship. There, we enjoyed fries, mussels, and wings and exchanged work horror stories. There's something both depressing yet comforting knowing that everyone suffers the same irritations in their job, regardless of company or title.

After that we headed back to Toni and Max's for further wine and conversation. Iain regaled us with a half hour lecture on why he hates ad agencies while I oggled their gorgeous vegetable garden, full of Swiss chard, basil, arugula, tomatoes, and parsley. Throughout the garden are dozens of little wooden spikes to prevent Stella and Stanley from using it as their litterbox.

We ended the day with a delish ham and mac + cheese dinner while watching episodes of Glee. Actually, the mac was a little dull -- Iain is worried he's losing his touch. I may have to take over cooking duties! If so, it's pasta every night!

Today we're back on house duty and it's off to the stores for tile and carpet shopping.