Weight Watching

It’s January in NYC 2003. One of the worst snow storm in years has hit and the city is hip deep in snow.

J & M (my brother & sister-in-law respectively) were out from NZ for Chrissy. We’d all traveled to NYC for a visit and were on our way back to Cali. M had free miles on United, while J & I were doing the Jet Blue thing. As such we were leaving from different terminals & M was flying out before hand (being on an earlier flight). So prior to heading over to the Jet Blue terminal at JFK we were seeing M off.

The snow had (finally) finished coming down – the air was so clear and crisp – our breath was billowing around our heads in steamy clouds. We’d gotten out of the taxi, bags in tow. As we neared the terminal doors, a black sedan and a black hummer pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the terminal doors.

M was immediately sure it was a celebrity – and wanted to stay out in the zeroish temperature to see just who was flying out from JFK that day. J not being the type to get particularly celebrity struck was not amused by this idea. Myself being somewhat the type to get celebrity struck elected to stand with M to see just who was in the vehicle.

After about 4 minutes, the sedan ejected a couple of very large men who walked back to the hummer, and one opened the door.

“It’s the Duchess of York!” M squealed. She had a better vantage point that I did to see just who was in the vehicle. J was suitably unimpressed and took himself off into the heated terminal. On the other hand M & I were beside ourselves – so we were quite content to wait in the cold until Her Grace alighted from the vehicle.

And what a production that was – from my vantage point I was able to first see a hand extend from the back seat with a purse held out – one of the large men took it and handed it to a smaller guy who’d exited from the other side of the vehicle. He then disappeared to the boot of the vehicale where additional bags were collecting themselves. Next one leg (ending in a very fashionable black boot) swung out, followed by its mate (also in the same fashionable black boot) – and then Sarah, Duchess of York exited the hummer.

I will say this – she is much prettier in person than you’d expect. Really.

The big burly guys were looking at M & me a bit askance, so when Ms. Ferguson was in front of me I said, “May I have your autograph?”

To which Fergie replied, “Yes you may, and it’s so nice to be asked.” I guess crude Americans use "can" rather than "may" - I'm thanking my NZ education at this point.

Now the only bit of paper I had on me was a free post card from Tower Records advertising Rice Krispies – Snap Crackle & Pop. The post card has bubble wrap on one side, for you to pop (snap & crackle) or send I guess.

Sarah turned it over – a look of perplexity across her face. I explained it was the only “paper” I had and offered my (nice) black ink pen. With a slight shake of her head she extended her hand, and thin point sharpe was placed into her open fingers. She didn’t even have to look – the men just knew.

As The Duchess was signing my postcard, M let her know she’d stayed up all night to watch her wedding – and it had inspired hers – and she just thought she was tremendous and a great role model.

Sarah was quite taken and asked if M was from Australia. M politely corrected her letting her know she was from New Zealand. Fergie was most apologetic and mentioned how much she enjoyed visiting New Zealand and wonderful the people were.

During their conversation my postcard had been signed and handed back to me – I think I mentioned that I thought she was fantastic or something equally banal – the pen had been returned to what everplace the security guys secret those things in and then in a whirl wind of commotion they were headed into the terminal. I guess I hadn’t been allowed to use my pen as it may have been poisoned, or I may have tried to hawk it on eBay.

In any event, I had my royally signed postcard.

M & I were quite taken by her service – she hadn’t had to even think about wanting something, the guys had it for her before she’d even had to ask.

As a lark M & I began to play princess (duchess) and server – it soon grew old.

Anyway, we joined J in the heated terminal and breathlessly related out royal experience. J wasn’t impressed, and this being post 9/11 herded both of us to the screening area where we’d need to separate from M.

We saw M up to the checkpoint, where the security guards pulled her aside. That’s when we heard from the VIP line Sarah, Duchess of York shout “Let her through, she harmless, she’s from New Zealand!”

I always knew I liked her.

Biohazard

The world has a more global reach than ever these days, except apparently in New Zealand. My father was a pilot for Air New Zealand, and he would relate with a touch of frustration (and a touch of amusement) the story of foreign pilots landing in NZ saying that the local time and date was (for example) 7:15am, Monday August 3rd – 1962.

Time did catch up with Aotearoa – but I do like the fact that you can walk into a local New World grocery store and buy yourself some SARS.



SARS for only 94c - that's got to be a deal.

A novel idea

I’ve been novelized. That is to say, I have inspired a character in a novel. I wonder if this how Little Orphan Annie felt. Did she see herself on the page when reading about herself and Daddy Warbucks? Were there situations she wished the writers had written from a different perspective?

A friend that’s a (published) writer has finished his new book, and one of the main characters is based on me. Yes, me.

I’ve been lucky enough to read the draft manuscript – and it’s quite a surreal experience seeing things you’ve said on the page. The situations you were in, laid out for all the world to read. Well, those who purchase the novel anyway.

Of course, as it is a novel there’s a fair amount of story telling going on. So let me say here and now – that despite what my friend PC may tell you, I have never been a porn star, not appeared in any porn movies. Nor am I planning to become a porn star. The reason I mention this is because my character in the book has a back story, and part of the back story was being a porn star in his early 20’s.

What that says about the writers’ perception of me, I don’t know. I guess what it comes down to is if you have a friend that’s a writer, don’t annoy them. I was thinking about this, and on one hand - OH MY GOD – and on the other hand, very flattering. (From a purely physical perspective of course.) ^_^ Male porn stars are renowned for their perfect physiques – well in gay male porn at least. In the straight world, not so much – but there you go. Thankfully my character was a gay male porn star in his youth, not an overweight nasty-ass porn star.

I wonder who will play me in the movie…..

Accent grave `

Being from New Zealand, I’ve never considered myself to have an accent. I mean Americans do, the English, the French – well, most everyone has an accent – but people who have them never think of themselves as having one.

I received an e-mail from a friend of a friend from Canada visiting New Zealand – I loved it SO much I’m posting an except here.

Language
I never thought this would be a problem for us; in fact I thought we had a leg up on most people in this respect. But oh no, we’ve had our share of difficulties. One night early in our trip before we became fluent in Kiwi-speak, we spent about three minutes explaining to a waitress that
we needed more BREAD. Simple enough you would think; well think again. After a great deal of arm waving and raising of voices she finally exclaimed “Oh that’s more BRID you want!”. I should have anticipated the problem because I had noticed the day before an elocution-trained TV announcer saying “This is Winsday, the sivnth of Fibrary”. You get the picture - the letter e is almost
always pronounced as an I. Ixcillent! The trick is figuring out why the third e in this case does not become an I. There are many such ixceptions. But after a whole month we’ve gotten a pretty good handle on the local dialect and we get by most of the time without having to resort to shouting.

Distance/Time
All the trailheads have a sign with a time shown but never a distance. I don’t think kiwis realize how stupid this is. It takes a while to develop the conversion factor from kiwi walking time to walking time for other (regular) people. After considerable experimentation we’ve finally
got it figured out. For example on a recent walk which was marked as 4-6 hours here are the conversions:
Time for a kiwi walker* - 4 hours
Time for a very fit foreign walker - 6 hours
Time for a normal/average walker 2x4 = 8 hours
Approximate time for other walkers including the slightly overweight woman from Minnesota in all new LL Bean gear:
2x6 = 12 hours.
*Kiwi walkers can be easily identified. They are never shorter than 6ft 3in, weigh less than 11 stone (154lb) without their boots, and have about 0.005% BFI.
Incidentally they always say, as they are flying past you on the trail, something like “Keep it up mate, you’ll get there in good time.”
What they are really thinking though is “I feel sorry for you mate. You just don’t have the
genes to climb mountains.” It was no coincidence that Edmund Hilary was a kiwi!

INDEED!
IXILENT!

wht r u doing?

I’m not sure my mother gets what text messaging is all about. My brothers back in New Zealand got her a cell phone for her birthday. It’s finally been activated, and Mum really wanted to try out this "text messaging" she’s heard so much about.

As my number is the only cell number she knows, she began texting me. I responded to her (many) messages. (I hoped that she had added international texting to her plan or these quick text bursts could be really expensive.)

Anyway, a few days later I got a call from my mother asking if I’d received her texts. She was just calling to make sure they’d gotten through ok – I guess my replying to her wasn’t enough verification; she needed to hear as well as see the response.

Technology - making all our lives easier.

Except my mothers.