Level One: How has so much time passed?

How has so much time passed? 

FRIENDS!

I've made friends in seemingly unlikely places.

Went on a yoga retreat at "The House With No Nails".  There were 5 people who came, one other from my hometown of Tokoroa.  We did yoga, drank wine, went on an e-bike ride, went to the spa.  The woman from Tokoroa and I became fast friends after the weekend.

She invited me to her yoga class, which you had to be in the know to go to.  We went out for drinks one night and did a pub crawl.  We return to the wine bar, get another drink and I see a couple dancing West Coast Swing.  So I immediately run up to them.  He asks me to dance.  They tell me about West Coast Swing in Hamilton.  And then I find out from them about NZ Open just the next weekend.  So- of course I have to go.

Jacqueline and I go to a special Alice and Wonderland event in Taupo.  I win best dressed and I'm sure it is for my light up eyelashes.

You can see here that I want to be Jacqueline's friend but she is too cool for me.  Jacqueline is expecting people to be dressed to the 9's, but most people don't really bother.  I have taken her to San Francisco parties where people really *do* bother.  But there were still some clever outfits and we had a nice time and ate pretty food.  I liked the food quite a bit but it was too sweet for Jacqueline's taste.

I buy myself a tent because I answer a questionnaire on where I feel most at home and the answer surprisingly is "my tent".  And I plan to go to KiwiBurn so I need a tent.  I put it up in the front yard and enjoy hanging out in it.

I go out for coffees in Tokoroa with Jacqueline and a friend from SF.

I play with facebook video with my niece.  Had I mentioned yet that I found out over covid that I'm an auntie to a 9 year old?  See the resemblance?  She's kinda like a mini me!

I vote.

I take hanging yoga with my new friend in Mt Maunganui.

I stay with family in Auckland and hang out with other nieces and nephews.  My niece loves playing monster trucks so we played monster trucks.  While staying with them I go to NZ Open for West Coast Swing.  I double booked myself: Mt Maunganui one day, NZ Open the next, so I join in a few days late.  It takes me a little while to warm up to a new dance group so I don't have much pressure on myself- I'm happy I showed up and danced a little.  Oh- on the way there I walk into a political rally that was right next door.  NZ elections are just about to happen.  That was my first and maybe only political rally that I'll attend.  I see people I know from the Bay Area West Coast Swing dance scene and they have come back to New Zealand because of covid.  I ask another person to dance because I see he is wearing a "Mission City Swing" t-shirt (from San Francisco).  I can't quite tell if I've met him before but we discover that we were both at a West Coast Swing convention in February in Sacramento.

On the drive back I decide I want to go by the Anna S store with a coffee shop in it.  I don't remember where it is so I search for it and end up in Morrinsville.  (The one I had actually gone to was just outside of Auckland.)  There are cows all over Morrinsville.  I go to the shoppe and have lunch with a mannequin wearing a very fancy mask.  I see Anna Stretton (the designer) out of the corner of my eye as I am talking to someone in the shoppe.

As I go to leave the town I see:

I walk up to the door and take a picture.  I almost leave but then I decide to push on the door and start crashing a pole class.  They tell me to come in and I talk to someone there and find out they do have lyra classes.  I had been thinking I'd get my own lyra hoop and put it in the front yard, but at this point I've only taken 4 classes total.  Classes are a better bet for me.  And Morrinsville is only a little over an hour away.

Kinda amazing: for years I've been trying to get back into West Coast Swing and Lyra and I happen upon both very easily in New Zealand.  And so my life begins to fill up.  And then there's boxing.  I start up at the local boxing club too.

I hang out in my tent, I take extra walks for "Walktober" (a work thing where we track our steps.)

I find alpacas on my walk and they are very curious about me.

We have a tea party at home (at the "big house") for my host mum and people she works with.

I'm deciding I'm done with the whole online dating thing, or near to it.  A guy messages me and I think, "fine- I can talk to him."  Things go nicely and he asks me to join him for coffee in the nicest way possible: no pressure whatsoever and leaving it up to me if I'm ready to meet or not.  So many guys are so pushy, don't want to get to know me at all before practically demanding to meet coffee ("If you aren't on here to meet people, why are you here?")  It is very refreshing and skilled to offer up the suggestion but in no way imply that we are done talking if I don't jump on the suggestion.  I tell him, "yes, lets meet for coffee."

Halloween!  There is a burner (people who go to burning man/local burning man events) party in Auckland.  Jacqueline tells me of a wine expo in Auckland that same weekend.  So- I go up to Auckland and do both.  :)

I find a coffin at the burner party so of course I have to go and sit in it.  One of the DJs plays a Sofi Tukker song (the morning dance parties) so of course I have to get up and dance.  I've been practicing my solo dancing!  I made myself talk to a few people, so made some 5 minute friends.  But I decide I'm done at about 11pm.  As I leave I'm told that the party is just getting going.  :(  Well- I made the effort to go and I was ready to be done and I had to drive back the next day.  It is ok if some parties I really participate and some I'm a wallflower in the coffin.

I had forgotten it was a bring your own drinking vessel event.  Luckily I had my tea cup holster on and I was prepared.

Next up: I go with my new friend Silvia and her school (she works at the local intermediate school) to "The Trots" (horse races).  All the Waikato schools are invited and each school gets dressed up in some costume.  We are traffic cones.

There's dancing at the end of the night.  There's a lot of music from the South in the United States.  With the current political climate (the date is November 6th in New Zealand, November 5th in the United States) and the elections, the claims of election fraud before the elections ever took place and the covid denial I'm really not in the mood to hear music from the South.  I'm in New Zealand!  Can't I get away from all of that?  For the first time since being here I'm missing my San Francisco and the music we listen to and the way things are there.  But I took a lovely picture from the outside looking in.

Second date: he asks me to take a drive to a nearby town.  Jacqueline lets me know that it is the Steampunk Festival in Thames.  Perfect!  Excuses to wear my tea cup holster twice in a row!

We go, make our own hats, see all the people in their elaborate dress, see some steampunky cars, go to the local museum.  In the museum somehow we are asked if we are considering moving there.  I immediately answer no, he says something like, "Who knows.  We might consider it."  He's obviously the more romantic one, which I like.  But my hat is obviously the better one because his is hiding behind our drinks.

Straight after that I go to a Mindfulness and Self Compassion retreat.  I wanted to meet more people into meditation so this sounded perfect.  I got very judgy about the retreat, feeling like we "weren't doing anything" and "when's it going to start?"  Then I got kinda meta and realized that that was much like my inner voice telling me I wasn't doing enough and most of what I do at work isn't the real work but just stuff I have to do to get to the real work.  The whole retreat was about learning to be gentle with ourselves and I learned all of that- gently.  We did guided meditations several times a day and I was *out*.  Out and deep into the meditation.  Or maybe I was sleeping.  Regardless it was an amazing time and I made new friends.  The grounds at Mana are amazing with lovely walks.

I saw the sleepy Buddha and decided that was my new best friend.

I went for breaks in the spa and an outdoor bush bath.

One morning I woke up early and went for a bit of a walk and watched the sunrise.  I found these lovely hammocks and called my adventure buddy.  I think he was thinking of me at the same time.  He and I want to start a burning man camp with swings, so anything like a hammock makes me think of him.

My morning walk took me up to The Sanctuary.  And I got there right 

on time for Sofi Tukker.  So I did my dance there.  And again the next day.  We were told to try singing in there so I did that as well.  I sang the two songs that were feeling like the theme in my life at the moment- the two songs I mentioned in my previous post.

On my way up to the retreat the car overheated and I pulled over.  I sat with the bonnet open and I googled what to do.  A guy came up, asked me about the car trouble, told me it was best to leave the car there, not to drive it and offered me a ride to the retreat.  So- I took it.  I messaged Jacqueline when I got there.  So then there was how I was going to get back.  I got some offers to get rides but then Jacqueline suggested a day trip to Cathedral Cove.  We ended up staying the night up there in Coromandel with her friend as well and had an amazing girls' weekend.  Somehow the unplanned ended up with plans that will most probably be long time memories for each of us.

I made a friend at the retreat who insisted several times that we *had* to take a particular road (the 309) and that that drive was much better.  We stopped at a very Kiwi place for a drink, complete with toilet bowl planters and a waterwheel made from hard hats.  The rest of the drive was on mostly gravel roads that weren't very wide and had hoons coming at us and spitting up rocks from the other direction.  Jacqueline was not impressed with my new friend Brad, who was in the travel business.  We joked about selling t-shirts at the end of the 309.  I asked him later why it was such a great drive.  He told me it was faster, it was fun, we could enjoy the bush but we'd have to drive really slow.  Too bad he didn't tell the people driving at us to drive really slow too.

We stayed at a place called the Church and walked over to the Church Bistro for dinner.  Yet again I uncharacteristically ordered the fish and Jacqueline uncharacteristically ordered the steak.  I made the right choice but Jacqueline took this picture making it look like I was eying her friend's meal.

After dinner we went by the nearby beach and had a glass of wine and were trying to be socially distanced even though we are in each other's bubble.  And no one needs to keep to their bubble: it is level one.

Next day we went to cathedral cove, which was stunning.  Turns out it was the first time any of the three of us had been there.  First up was brunch and I taught the two of them something from my retreat: a gesture for having compassion for yourself.  Of course they were taking the piss.

On the drive home we stop by a place with natural hot springs at the beach (Hot Water Beach).  People dig out pools and can have their own little hot pool.  I said we didn't need shovels and we could just take over from other people, which worked out perfectly.

After we saw this photo Jacqueline decided her friend was pointing in the wrong direction, that there was something way more interesting the other way.

Another day with Silvia at the Mt for hanging yoga.

And then: ABBA tribute band!

Our 4th(?) date was a foursome of us going to see the Australian ABBA tribute band that was touring all over New Zealand.  We decided that they probably had to quarantine for 14 days to come here and that's why they had so many dates available and in so many towns.  We were in the front row and some of the youngest there.  We had an amazing time.

Next in Kimberly and Jacqueline's very busy life: her cousin's bridal shower.  We made "love potions" for gifts, fashioned after the love potions my burning man camp gives out.  The tea party had been a kind of dry run for the bridal shower.

I have the "brilliant" idea of a pinata for the kids.  I touch every single kid and the bat many times (as I was spinning the kids).  At the end of the party I'm very tired.  And I have another event to go to that Jacqueline has told me about in Napier: one with light up art.  It is 2.5 hour drive away so I take a nap and head on my way.

On the drive I pull off as I have learned to do when there are signs of some attraction.  I find a waterfall.

On the drive to the event I joke to myself that the sunset I'm seeing is the most beautiful one I've ever seen.  And it quickly turns into that.  I find myself desperate to find a place to pull over and take photos and I see other people pulling over to take photos too.

I get to "Walk of Wonders", which turns out to be my first visit to a winery since being in New Zealand in March.  But I have no wine.  Instead I see burning man art.

I'm not there very long before I see some burning man art that is significant to me; one of the only kickstarters I've participated in was for this art.  The artists work in the same company as I do and that is how I heard about the kickstarter.  And the piece that I get as a gift for backing is based off another friend's Theory of Everything (physics theory).

Damn!  Is this the same design as I kickstarted?

Besides joining the kickstarter I also had attended the opening in San Francisco several years before, in 2014.  I'm always excited to see their art in burning man, in light art events in Oakland, wherever I find it.  Seeing that in New Zealand made me feel like I was in exactly the place I needed to be.  I felt like all the choices I made in my life brought me to that moment.

The event felt very much like burning man but with tons of kids and everyday people everywhere.  I got woodfired pizza which is also a big memory of burning man.

And there was a gigantic disco ball which also brought back memories of the disco toilet.

I sat there looking at the disco ball in awe of my life and everything that has happened to get me right to that moment.  There were hedges they lit up in different ways to show different faces.

And, of course, fire!

There was an after party as an extra ticket.  I got it but spent most of the time back in the car charging my phone.  I have two batteries to charge my phone and should learn to actually bring them with me.

What next?  Thanksgiving!  And I've got a cold.  Thanksgiving is postponed, I go in for my first covid test.  There's also Jacqueline's grandson's first birthday and I'm too sick to attend.  So is another kid from the pinata spinning so - I blame the pinata.

So- Thanksgiving plans foiled.  Instead I celebrate it several days late.  I make the turkey for the first time ever by myself.  I make my father's dressing, my baked brie, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie.  And this ends up being our 5th(?) date, just the two of us having Thanksgiving several days late.

What Thanksgiving is complete without nap time with the kitty?

Thanksgiving time means Christmas time and sending packages to the US.  And the kitty has to help with wrapping and testing out the boxes, as all good kitties do.  Presents are late this year due to my cold.  Presents are normally late just to me being me.  But this year it is the cold because Jacqueline is keeping me honest.

Leftovers and Jacqueline and I have our Thanksgiving even more days late.

Holiday event at work to paint Russian dolls.  My package doesn't arrive and the night before Jacqueline hands over ones she already owns and says I can repaint them.  I decide I want to try different painting techniques for furniture on them.  The first is layed frozen paint.  The second is crackle, the third is a combination plus glow in the dark paint on top.  My team sits together on Google meet as we paint the dolls together.  They all have 7 dolls.  I have 3.  As I wait for the paint to dry I work on the Meow-Wolf themed hallway and paint with stencil paint that will glow under the dark light.  More to come on that in a future blog.

Whatever number date we are on now, natural hot spring in Taupo.  Super duper lucky: we got there before the crowds.  We had a pool to ourselves and traded with another couple.  We then went for an e-bike ride around lake Taupo.

And then: Jacqueline's son's graduation!  It had been cancelled due to covid but then re-scheduled.  Graduations: super boring and super worthwhile.

And then CS Education week.  As I know Silvia, I've been introduced to the intermediate computer teacher and I go in to talk to her class and the end of the year general assembly.  Oh- and my dolls finally arrived(that's what I'm holding).  The kids were so enthusiastic and ask me to come back next year.  So- I'll be looking into more volunteer work and trying to convince kids to get into computer science.

More Morrinsville and Lyra and slings/aerial yoga.  I was not interested in silks but they tricked me into getting into silks by calling it yoga.  And now maybe I like it more than Lyra as it is less painful.  Well- I'm proud of my bruises from classes.  It shows how hard I'm working.  Plus I can quickly see my strength increase as so much of both classes is pulling myself up using my arms.

My doing the vampire and the bat.

Holidays at home.

Kitty starting to learn about suitcases.

I joined Silvia's outdoor bowls team.  Kinda like bowling.  Kinda like bocce ball.  I scored 1 point in the season and I think that is quite an accomplishment.

Wellington for my SF friend's pirate birthday.

I learn that my friend's girlfriend worked at Okororie, which is an important place to my family.  She knows a few of the extended family.  The place has been terribly mismanaged for years and now I have the dream that we all take it over and turn it into a kind of Esalen.  And yet I've never been to Esalen.  I was supposed to go for my first time with my adventure buddy.  We were going to go to, "Mindfulness in Deep Relationship: Cultivating Sources of Relational Nourishment", but, you know, covid.  I'm beginning to understand just how many different classes and workshops I've done since living the Bay Area and how much it has influenced whom I've become.  I started attending something through work called "Connection Dojo" and I'm basically laughing at myself feeling "so Bay Area" as I practice something like NVC (Non violent communication), but with someone living in Texas.  My guess is that to most New Zealanders that would all be very hippy dippy mumbo jumbo.

And another winery for lunch.

And then fighting off yet another cold/flu/infection.  And, yes, there was a pinata there.  Evil pinata.  I didn't even touch it and I started falling ill.  This time I went to a doctor for a regular checkup and she noticed the inflamed lymph nodes, saw the post nasal drip, did a blood test that showed I'm fighting off an infection.  And maybe, just maybe, I'll stave this one off.  I was sick last Christmas.  I was sick from mid-November to mid January last year.  And if I hadn't been- would I have run away to New Zealand so fast?  Probably not.

Ugh.  After my first cold I say something to my local yoga instructor right before class about how it is better to have a cold than covid.  I get an earful about how covid isn't real, the test would return positive if I stubbed my toe, it is all government manipulation and people got sick on the princess liner because of 5G.  I really didn't expect to hear all of this in New Zealand.  Oh- and immunizations are terrible terrible things and he won't get one for covid even if it means he'll never travel again.  His grandson is sickly because he got immunization shots that basically have messed him up for life.  Class starts late because he's too into lecturing me about this - and he knows I'm in New Zealand basically because I ran away from covid.  Ugh.  A life dedicated to yoga doesn't necessarily mean gaining the emotional intelligence to know when it is inappropriate to spout your beliefs, though I would have hoped it would have.

I stave off the cold!  Christmas miracle!  And zinc and vitamin C and D and tons and tons of rest.

Christmas and I'm baking up a storm.  I go up to Auckland on the 24th for xmas with family there.

Then I stop by CBD to see some of the same art I had seen down near Napier.

Next up: xmas at home in our xmas dresses.  The Christmas dresses just lasted for the photo.

Again, nap time with kitty.

Hike along local river.  Supposedly not so many tourists in New Zealand due to covid but you wouldn't have known that on the short walk on Boxing Day.

Anyway- I guess that is where all the time went.  There was still time to fret about covid in the US.  New Zealand has had 25 deaths from covid and the total number of deaths this year is below (1200 fewer as of August) what is expected because fewer people are getting the flu, etc.  US is over 300,000 deaths attributed to covid and looking like 300,000-400,00 excess deaths (excess deaths are deaths beyond what would have been expected by looking at the number of deaths in previous years.)  *sigh*  And I'm left wondering who is writing the history books.  Fact checking, acting with respect and decorum have been thrown out in the United States and I wonder how history will look back upon these times.  Oh well- at least I've learned that vaccines are terrible things and I shouldn't get them (I'm actually someone who has insisted on all the vaccines I can get even if I have to pay out-of-pocket and I have a little book with a record of them.)  Give me science or give me (I will get) death!