I ended a toxic relationship today

Imagine if we treated personal relationships the same way we treated professional ones: We'd interview five people for an hour, maybe two, and if one of them was interested we'd make an open-ended commitment. At some point we'd feel unappreciated and try to find a new relationship without telling the current one. If we were successful, we'd tell our current relationship we were leaving...in a month.

And we'd all be okay with this and think it was perfectly normal.

But let's face it, it's crazy. It's inefficient, there's no security, it's unrewarding. 

Now imagine if we treated professional relationships the same way we treated personal ones: We'd meet with lots of companies, we'd have a good idea of what we were looking for, we'd understand what they offered and when we found a good fit we'd make a long-term commitment. Both sides would work to support each other, to learn and grow from one another. Not every relationship would work out, of course, but you wouldn't start the relationship with the expectation that it would fail in a couple of years. 

Of course, given that work relationships start out in such a dysfunctional way, it's no wonder so many become toxic. I resigned today because my work relationship was taking a lot from me and not giving me anything in return. The company wasn't listening to me, it refused to change, it couldn't even acknowledge the issues that I've been complaining about for over a year. Maybe it was just so wrapped up in its own problems, it didn't have any time for me. Maybe it never really cared about me, and I've just been fooling myself from the start. 

Unfortunately, I don't know if the place I'm going is any better. I talked to them for two hours. They seemed OK, but they're just replacing someone who left, so who's fault was that? It doesn't matter; what's important is they're giving me more money. It's not like I'm making a commitment; if I don't like it, I will leave.

I used to think dating apps were superficial--a few photos, a couple lines of text, no real depth--but it turns out that's what people like; they'd rather meet up and see if there is chemistry before trying to figure out the rest. Google "Tinder for jobs" and you'll see lots of people have created similar apps, but where does it go from there? Do they invite you to come work for them for a day or two (with pay) to see if you're compatible? Do you slowly work your way up to being "exclusive"? Do you eventually become committed after showing mutual respect, shared values and the desire to build a future together?

I don't know if any of this would work, but it can't be worst than the current situation. As for me, check back in 18-24 months so see if I'm happy, or I'm actively looking. 

Jimmie Rodgers, R.I.P.

I just learned another musical icon passed away January 21 this year. Every year, the family would drive from Los Angeles to Tucson, Arizona, to celebrate Thanksgiving with my mother's aunt. It's an 8-hour drive under the best of circumstances, but of course the traffic leaving LA on a long weekend, and returning after, was always a nightmare. My father would get off from work Wednesday afternoon, pack the car (and three kids), drive all night and arrive Thursday morning. My father would then crash and wake up about 3pm, just in time for dinner.

I'm sure we were little shits during the drive, but oddly I just have fond memories of those trips. Things I loved:

• My great-aunt Irene, who was a real firecracker.
• The food was fantastic (especially the turkey sandwiches on white bread with cranberry sauce the next day)
• Driving past the Cabazon Dinosaurs, which were always closed.
• Driving through the desert. To this day, I love the desert.
• My father's DIY roof racks (before roof racks were popular).

Things I didn't like:

• My great-aunt's dogs. This was before asthma relievers, and I would lie awake all-night struggling to breathe. I often ended up at the hospital for a shot of adrenalin. Imagine drinking a dozen cups of coffee and you'll have a rough idea of how much fun that was.
  
• My great-aunt's clock, which chimed every 15 minutes. As my brother and I slept in the lounge, this was maddening. When I grew up I learned there was a simple lever that would silence the clock.
• My great-aunt's corset, which hung on the back of the bathroom door for as long as I knew her. I later learned she was a can-can dancer in her youth, and that was obviously a memento from that time.
  
• My great-uncle, my great-aunt's brother, who lived next door and was very unfriendly. After my great-aunt died, and he was on his own, I still visited him at Thanksgiving each year, but never liked him.
  
• Tucson. The entire town was a retirement community, and anything that might have been interesting was closed for Thanksgiving apart from the cinema. In November it was always cold and wet (although one year it snowed).
• Doctor Demento always played Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. You could only hear this in Los Angeles and I always wanted to leave early enough to catch this, but we never did. When I was 16 and had my license, I volunteered to drive the entire way, and refused to stop the entire way, but still missed it. (I was an adult before I finally heard it, and it was absolutely worth the wait. I even travelled to Carnegie Hall, in New York City, just to hear Arlo Guthrie play it live.)
  

But what I remember most about these trips was my father had a set of tape cassettes that he only played on these trips. Music from Roger Miller, Johnny Horton, Bing Crosby and Jimmie Rodgers, that clearly shaped my musical tastes. When I grew up, it was easy to find CDs with all the other music but Jimmie Rodgers had disappeared. (It did not help that he shared the same name as another singer from the 1920's/1930's.) I was able to record my father's albums, and eventually was able to find CDs, so I'm still able to enjoy such maudlin classics like "It's Over," "Their Hearts were full of Spring," and my favourite, "Waltzing Matilda" with the wonderful lyrics:

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong,
Under the shade of a Coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled,
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda,
You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me,
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Down came the squatter mounted on his thorough-bred
Up came the troopers one, two, three
"Who's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."

From Wikipedia: "The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot (waltzing) with one's belongings in a "matilda" (swag) slung over one's back. The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker, or "swagman", making tea in a billy (metal bucket) at a bush camp and capturing a stray jumbuck (sheep) to eat. [Tucker means food.] When the jumbuck's owner, a squatter (landowner), and three troopers (mounted policemen) pursue the swagman for theft, he declares "You'll never catch me alive!" and commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby billabong (watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site."

My great-uncle passed away in 2000 and my last trip to Tucson was in 2001, which I wrote about here.

P.S. I hope I don't have to keep doing these, but Alex Hassilev, the last surviving member of the original Limeliters, is 89, so expect another tribute soon...

Chris Barber, R.I.P.

I've mentioned Chris Barber on the blog several times, but I don't think I ever discussed the significance. He formed the "Chris Barber Band" in 1954, at the age of 24. They played "New Orleans Jazz" and their first record had a hit with "Rock Island Line" (https://youtu.be/CublT5vFS2o) that made Lonnie Donnegan famous. (Lonnie went on to popularise "skiffle" music which inspired a generation of Brits to pick up guitars, including Paul Mccartney and John Lennon.)

In 1959, Chris Barber had another hit with "Petite Fleur"  (https://youtu.be/dRFjEko04U0) which went to #3 in the UK and #5 in the US. After that, the band started touring in the US. The musical circuit at the time included a stop in Hartford, Connecticut, where my Uncle George lived. He loved their sound (and was a bit infatuated with their lead singer - and Chris Barber's wife - Ottilie Patterson) and even had the band back to his house one night.

Jump ahead almost 50 years and I had just moved to the UK and my uncle was telling me about Chris Barber. I googled him and discovered that, not only was he still performing, but he was playing in London that week! I bought a ticket and fell in love with their sound just as much as my uncle had. Afterwards, I met Chris Barber and told him the story. I think he was happy to have someone under 70 in the audience.

After that, I saw him whenever he was in London. He was almost 80 when I met him and still maintained a grueling touring schedule, playing a lot in Germany and Asia, as well as the UK. I last saw him in 2013, before I moved to New Zealand.

I haven't thought about him in ages but I googled him this morning to discover he'd passed away four days ago, at the age of 90. Wikipedia said he retired in 2019 and that he was suffering from dementia. He'd been given an OBE in 1991 and published his autobiography ("Jazz Me Blues") in 2014.

As an aside, Pat Halcox played trumpet for the Chris Barber Band since it formed in 1954 until he retired in 2008, a partnership that lasted 54 years. The first time I saw Chris Barber I got to see Pat play, and the last time I saw Chris Barber he told the audience Pat had passed away.

Chris Barber was a legend, and a wonderful link to my uncle who passed away in 2012. I feel privileged I got to hear him play, and lucky to have a number of his CDs in my collection. (I think one of them might be signed.)

You can read more about Chris Barber here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56270163

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/03/chris-barber-obituary

You can buy his CDs at https://www.chrisbarber.net and (should the pandemic ever end) the Chris Barber Band continues to play and tour. 

City slogans

Wellington's motto is "Absolutely Positively Wellington." While sitting behind a bus one day, I got to thinking: How stupid is that? When your town motto is really just the name of the town, you have a serious identity problem. (And a grammar problem, as well.) So I looked into it and discovered it's been the town motto for *30 years*!

I found a news article that explained that, following the stock market crash of 1987, newspapers were having trouble selling advertising because the news was so gloomy. They hired Saatchi & Saatchi, the marketing company, who published feel-good stories about locals doing well using the tagline "Absolutely Positively Wellington." It was very successful, and in 1991 Wellington adopted the tagline as their motto.

Then I looked around and realised that it could be a lot worse.

Auckland hired Saatchi & Saatchi to do something similar; they came up with "Auckland A." In 2008, Auckland spent $1.8 million rebranding to "Big Little City." (I suggest they just adopt their nickname, "City of Sails.")

In 2017, Invercargill adopted the city slogan: "Dream Big". This replaced the earlier slogan, "Friendly." Before that, it was "Where Dreams Come True" and "City Of Water And Light." (What does that even mean??)

In 1988, Dunedin's motto was  "It's All Right Here," which might look fine in print but was pronounced, "It's alright here." In 2008, before an international cricket test match, the city used the slogan, "It's All White Here." If you're a cricket fan, you'd know the New Zealand team is called the "All Whites" (after the all-white uniform) but if you're not a cricket fan, you'd think Dunedin is very racist.

In 2001 they changed their slogan to the enigmatic, "I Am Dunedin" and last year they changed it to, "A Pretty Good Plan D" which I'm not even going to comment on.

A sample of other meaningless town slogans in New Zealand:

• Ashburton - "Whatever it takes"
• Canterbury - "Of course you Canterbury"
• Christchurch - Was "Fresh Every Day" before becoming the "Garden City"
• Dannevirke - named after a Viking-age fortification line in Denmark, the slogan "Take A Liking To A Viking" was clever but sounds pretty needy.
• Featherston - After trying "Wake Up Featherston," they changed it in 1999 to "Try Featherston, it will blow you away." Now the "Welcome to Featherston" sign just says: "If you lived here, you'd be home by now."
• Foxton - "The Fox Town of New Zealand"
• Gore - "A little bit wild, a little bit out there"
• Hamilton - It started with the innocuous "Where It's Happening" but in the 1990s they changed it to "More Than You Expect" and then "City of the Future."
  
• Hawke's Bay - "Everything under the Sun"
• Hutt Valley - "Right Up My Hutt Valley" was adopted in 1995 to try and draw Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt closer. It did not go down well; Lower Hutt then adopted the slogan "We've Got the Lot" in 1999 while Upper Hutt became, "A great place to live."
• Manawatu - "Young heart, easy living"
• Matamata: 'You matter in Matamata'
• Naseby - "2000ft Above Worry Level" (This was adopted as a book title in 2020.)
  
• Tauranga - "Tempt me Tauranga"
• Te Puke - "Stop and taste Te Puke" (Te Puke is known for growing kiwifruit.)
  
• Timaru - Was "Touch, taste, feel" before being changed to "Feel the heartbeat"
• Tuatapere - "New Zealand's Sausage Capital"
• Wairoa - "The Way New Zealand Used to Be"

The funniest unofficial slogan must be Porirua. In 2012, then Mayor Nick Leggett started referring to Porirua as "P-town," seemingly unaware that meth was called "P" in New Zealand. (I don't know why.)

P.S. In 2014, Lonely Planet called Wellington, "The Coolest Little Capital in the World." That seems like a much better slogan to me.

Birth of a holiday

The delightful "Nightmare before Christmas" starts with the poem, "Now you've probably wondered where holidays come from. If you haven't I'd say it's time you begun."

Of course, they come from ritual and custom, but are made official by government. In the US, in 1870, Congress designated four federal holidays:

• New Year's Day
• Independence Day
• Christmas Day
• Thanksgiving Day*

These originally only applied to federal workers in Washington DC, but in 1885 extended to all federal employees. Six more were added over the next 113 years:

• George Washington's Birthday (1879)**
• Memorial Day (1888, originally called "Decoration Day")
• Labor Day (1894)
• Veterans Day (1938, originally called Armistice Day)
• Columbus Day (1968)
• Martin Luther King Jr. day (1983)***

Most US businesses do not provide paid time off for Washington's Birthday, Veterans Day, Columbus Day or Martin Luther King Jr. day, so most Americans only get 6 holidays per year.

In the UK, during the industrial revolution, holidays weren't just local, they were dictated by the factories -- when they shut down, everyone went on holiday. The Bank of England, however, had to be open every weekday for the government to function. In 1871 the UK defined the first "bank holidays" and in true "United Kingdom" fashion, they were different. In England, Wales and Ireland these were:

• Good Friday
• Easter Monday (Easter being the first weekend after the full moon which occurs on or after 21 March)
• Whit Monday (The day after Whitsun Sunday, the seventh Sunday after Easter, which often marked the beginning of the summer)
• The first Monday in August
• Christmas
• Boxing Day (aka St Stephen's day, the day after Christmas)

Scotland, being more puritanical, did not approve of religious holidays -- in fact, in 1640 Scotland made the celebration of "Yule vacations" (i.e. Christmas) illegal and New Year's Eve (Hogmanay) became the main midwinter holiday. As a result, Scotland did not get Easter Monday, Whit Monday or Boxing Day but got New Year's Day and the first Monday in May instead. (Christmas and Good Friday were still considered public holidays in Scotland.)

In 1971, the UK replaced Whit Monday with "Spring Bank Holiday" on the last Monday in May, and the holidays are the same across England and Scotland: New Year's Day; Good Friday; Easter Monday, the first and last Mondays of May; Summer Bank Holiday****; Christmas Day; and Boxing Day. Scotland also takes 2 January and St Andrew's Day off, while Northern Ireland takes off St Patrick's day and the Battle of the Boyne*****.

More than that, though, is that businesses have to abide by these holidays so most people in England and Wales get 8 holidays per year while Scotland and Northern Irelance get 10. The British government can also change the dates or declare extra bank holidays and they have done so four times in the past 20 years: In 2002 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II; in 2011 to celebrate the Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton; and in 2012 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II; and they have already announced an extra holiday in 2022 to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.

New Zealand, as a member of the British Empire until 1947 (or 1986 or 2003, depending on how you define "independence") inherited the UK bank holidays (plus 2 January) but eventually replaced the "spring/summer bank holidays" with:

• Labour Day (1999)
• Sovereign's Birthday (1952)
• ANZAC (1966)
• Waitangi Day (1976)

The Holidays Act 1981 set out these dates plus established an "anniversary" holiday for each region (Wellington gets 22 January, Auckland gets 29 January, etc.) so in total they get 11 holidays.

Except now New Zealand has 12.

Matariki****** is the Māori name for the Pleiades star cluster, also known as Seven Sisters or Subaru in Japanese. In the Southern hemisphere, Matariki rises above the horizon in late June/early July and Māori mark it as the new year. It was a time of celebration and there have been efforts to make it a national holiday since 2009. Jacinda Arden pledged to make it official if re-elected and has just made good on her promise, although she did delay its implementation by one year to avoid any economic impact after Covid-19, so it won't be celebrated until 24 June 2022. (She needn't have worried: Stats NZ reported today that New Zealand's unemployment rate, which was expected to rise to 6% because of covid-19, fell to under 5%.)

So there you go: A new holiday is born, in case you needed another reason to wish you were in New Zealand.

* Thanksgiving had been informally celebrated since 1650. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a "national thanksgiving day" as the last Thursday in November. In 1939, in the middle of the Great Depression, November had five Thursdays and retailers were concerned because (then as now) many Americans didn't start Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving. To appease them, Franklin Roosevelt moved it up a week. In 1941 it was set as the fourth Thursday in November.

** In 1968 George Washington's birthday was moved from 22 February to the third Monday in February in order to create a three-day weekend. Contrary to popular opinion, it was never renamed "President's Day" and makes no reference to Abraham Lincoln (whose birthday happens to be 12 February).

*** Washington's birthday was the first federal holiday to celebrate the life of an individual; Martin Luther King Jr. day was the second. Reagan signed it into law in 1983 and it first took effect in 1986. However, some States did not enact it until 2000, and today Alabama and Mississippi celebrate "Robert E. Lee Day" on the same day!

**** Originally celebrated in England on the first Monday of August and not celebrated in Scotland at all, England now celebrates the "summer bank holiday" on the last Monday in August while Scotland celebrates it on the first Monday in August!

***** Do not go to Northern Ireland for the Battle of the Boyne holiday, better known as "The Twelfth." It's ugly.

****** Matariki is a shortened version of Ngā mata o te ariki o Tāwhirimātea, or 'the eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea,' the god of weather.

New Zealand citizenship

New Zealand law states you have to be in New Zealand for five years on an "unrestricted" visa before you can apply for citizenship. That is, a visa that allows you to stay indefinitely. I wrote about this before: A "resident" visa has an expiration date but you're allowed to live in New Zealand indefinitely; you just can't leave. (If you do, and the resident visa is expired, they won't let you back in.) It's kind of messed up.

Regardless, I got my resident visa on December 9, 2015. (I'd been in New Zealand for over a year before that but was on a tourist visa.) Today I was eligible to apply for citizenship, and I desperately wanted to give the government $470 for no benefit whatsoever. Seriously, unless I wanted to join the military or get top secret clearance*, there is no benefit to being a citizen over having a "permanent resident" visa. I still get to vote, I still get a pension**, I can still leave the country and return***, etc.

But in my desperate effort to be like Jason Bourne, I wanted another passport, so I applied. In the past I took my own passport photos and they were awful, so I decided that this time I'd get my passport photo taken professionally. It cost me $20 but was so worth it:

New Zealand law states you have to be in New Zealand for five years on an "unrestricted" visa before you can apply for citizenship. That is, a visa that allows you to stay indefinitely. I wrote about this before: A "resident" visa has an expiration date but you're allowed to live in New Zealand indefinitely, you just can't leave. (If the resident visa is expired, they won't let you back.) It's kind of messed up.

Regardless, I got my resident visa on December 9, 2015. (I'd been in New Zealand for over a year before that but was on a tourist visa.) Today I was eligible to apply for citizenship, and I desperately wanted to give the government $470 for no benefit whatsoever. Seriously, unless I wanted to join the military or get top secret clearance*, there is no benefit to being a citizen over having a "permanent resident" visa. I still get to vote, I still get a pension, etc.

But in my desperate effort to be like Jason Bourne, I wanted another passport, so I applied. In the past I took my own passport photos and they were awful, so I decided that this time I'd get my passport photo taken professionally. It cost me $20 but was so worth it:

Of course that looks awful, but contrast it with my other passport photos****:

 

 

When I finished my application, I got a friendly email that read:

Tēnā koe,

Thank you for applying for New Zealand citizenship. We will assess the application and tell you the outcome within 5 to 10 months.

 

After it's approved, I still have to schedule (and pay for) a swearing-in ceremony, so I'll be lucky if this is completed within a year.

 

* New Zealand is part of the "five eyes" alliance with the US, UK, Australia and Canada, so my US or UK citizenship would probably qualify me, anyway.

** The cheeky bastards make me take any other pensions first and then "deduct" that from my New Zealand pension, so once I've taken my US pension they will not likely have to pay me anything.

*** Even during the pandemic, I can leave New Zealand, but if I want to return then I have to spend two weeks in a "government quarantine facility" and pay $3,000 for the privilege. (The quarantine facilities are all 4-star or 5-star hotels and include three meals a day, so $3,000 for two weeks is actually heavily subsidized, but I still don't want to do it.)

**** In my last US passport photo, I wore a Hawaiian shirt. I thought it was funny. Now it would mark me as a radical extremist.

 

***** That's far too many asterisks. What would my English teacher say... 

Lecretia Seales

From https://lecretia.org/about/

Lecretia Seales was a lawyer based in Wellington, New Zealand. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2011. In January 2015, Lecretia’s health entered a decline despite her treatments and she came to the end of her options for treating the cancer effectively.

She began to review her end-of-life alternatives. She discovered that if she was very lucky, she might die quickly, but that the more likely outcome was that she would have to undergo a drawn out, undignified death, after losing her mental faculties and all quality of life. Her other alternative was suicide.

Lecretia would have liked the choice to receive physician-assisted death, to bring about her demise before she entered a long, pointless and wasteful period of suffering prior to her death.

On 20 March 2015, Lecretia and her lawyers filed a statement of claim with the High Court of New Zealand arguing that her GP should not be prosecuted under the Crimes Act 1961 in assisting her in her death with her consent, and that under the Bill of Rights Act 1962 she had the right to not be subjected to the unnecessary suffering of a long, cruel death. Her claim was denied.

Lecretia’s case brought awareness to the plight of the terminally ill, and through her hearing she both clarified the current state of New Zealand law and catalysed New Zealand politicians into engaging with the issue of assisted dying for the first time in more than a decade.

Lecretia passed away on 5 June 2015, the same day the judgment was released to the public. In December 2015, Lecretia was named New Zealander of the Year by the New Zealand Herald.

Parliament had attempted to legislate assisted dying or euthanasia three times since 1995 but all had been blocked. The End of Life Choice Act was passed in November 2019 with the proviso that a public referendum needed 50% support before the Act became law. In October 2020, it passed with 65% and will become law on January 1, 2021. 

If a person requests assisted dying, two doctors – the person’s doctor and an independent doctor – must agree the person meets all the criteria:

• is suffering from a terminal illness likely to end their life within six months
• significant and ongoing decline in physical capability
• unbearable suffering that cannot be eased in a manner that the person finds tolerable; and
• be able to show they can understand the decision and communicate their response.

The person then chooses a method, date, and time and can change their mind at any time. The lethal dose can be administered by the person (ingested or intravenously) or the doctor (feeding tube or injection). In Victoria, Australia, where it is already legal, most people ingest pentobarbital as a drink.

I mention all of this for two reasons. First, obviously, the option of physician-assisted dying has become very personal to me, and I am very grateful this is an option. And second, because my wife and I were house-hunting and looked at a home just a few blocks from us. It's very hard to go house-hunting because it's a constant reminder that at some point my wife will not be able to use stairs, and may not be able to get out of bed, and we want a place that she will be happy in.

This particular house was perfect: One level, on the flat, just a short walk from the shops, quiet with a lovely deck and backyard. The vendor said she was selling the house on behalf of her niece, who had died a few years previously. We noticed handrails in the shower and asked if she had mobility issues. That's when the vendor told us her niece was Lecretia Seales.

I'd only been in New Zealand about six months when her court case unfolded on television but I remembered it well, especially how heartbreaking it was she died the same day they unsealed the judgment. Unfortunately we did not get the house -- the New Zealand property market is out of control, and we were outbid by a significant amount -- but it was only because of that interaction that I realised the End of Life Act was a direct response to her case, and that I owe a debt of gratitude to this woman I'd never met.

Queenstown hotel and spa

My wife and I found a hidden gem in Queenstown. Technically, it's in Frankton, about 10 minutes from Queenstown, between the airport and Lake Wakatipu. We spent four nights there, with all meals included, and the best part, it was free*!

I should note they didn't have a pool or a masseuse (though they did offer physio and, uh, "colonics") and they only had single beds and shared bathrooms/showers. There was a lounge with piano, but we didn't discover that until the third night. (To be fair, it was behind a plastic curtain that said "red zone" and it took us several days to work up the courage to go through.)

If you want to go, the place is called Lakes District Hospital, but I should warn you they're quite particular about who they let in. Collapsing outside the ambulance bay seems to be a good way to gain entrance, though.

At the beginning of the year, the airlines had a sale and I booked a 3-day trip to Queenstown, including an all-day coach/cruise tour of Milford Sound, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand. (And there's a lot of beautiful places in NZ!) Of course that got cancelled and the airline and tour gave us credit, not refunds. A few months ago, there was another sale so I rebooked the flight for November. Then I found out the Milford Sound tour was now only offered Fridays and Saturdays, and the new flight landed Saturday afternoon.

Last month and I got an email that the flight had been "impacted" by Covid-19, so I could accept it or change to a different flight for free. The "impact" turned out to be the flight was ten minutes later, but I took advantage of the offer to move the flight to Friday, and then booked the Milford Sound tour on Saturday. Then I found out that the Airbnb I booked was not available on Friday.

Then I had a brilliant idea: We could rent a campervan. My wife had wanted to do this for years, but pre-Covid, these were ridiculously expensive and often had a minimum booking of one or two weeks. Post-Covid, with no international travellers, they were less than NZ $100/day and you could rent them for a weekend. I booked a 7-meter, three-berth van with a toilet, hot water shower, kitchen and bbq.

A couple of weeks before the trip, my wife developed nausea so the doctors gave her some new meds to try. On the morning of the flight she was feeling ok but by the time we landed, just an hour later, she was pretty miserable. It was a ten minute walk to the campervan pickup and I, being cheap, refused to pay for a taxi. Along the way we passed the hospital and my wife announced she was going there.

Obviously in hindsight I should have gone with her, but I thought she was just tired and needed a place to lie down, so I said I'd get the campervan and meet her there. She later told me that by the time she crossed the street, she felt very ill, and it turned out we were in the back of the hospital so she ended up at the ambulance bay, which was locked. She pushed the button and then laid down on the ground.

Meanwhile, I was two blocks away, completely oblivious. The guy was showing me how everything worked, and when he was showing me how to fill the water tank, the pipe fell off in his hand. He was clearly quite embarrassed by this and went off to find a mechanic. They said it would be forty minutes to glue it back on so I walked back to the hospital. That's when I found my wife in ED, shaking terribly, obviously in a lot of pain. The doctor looked at me and was clearly wondering why I would drag her onto a flight when she was like this. I assured him she was ok when we left.

Queenstown is known for skiing and is the original home of bungee jumping, so I'm sure the hospital is used to tourists showing up with all sorts of injuries, and their goal is to patch them up enough that they can get home. They took the same approach with my wife, though I was still hopeful we could continue the trip. I collected the campervan and even bought some groceries. It then sat in the hospital parking lot for two days before I returned it. They were a bit surprised I returned it three days early with only 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) on it, but they assured me there would be no refund.

They tried her on various drugs and every time she felt a bit better, I'd start looking at booking a flight, but then she'd relapse. Her main complaint was a debilitating headache, but an x-ray and CT scan didn't find anything. They put her on an IV with an anti-psychotic medication that also happened to treat nausea and migraines. It helped, but only for a few hours. On Sunday they tried Oxycontin and she was feeling so well, we talked about getting a hotel room and spending one day in Queenstown before catching our scheduled flight Tuesday morning. A few hours later, she was doubled over in pain and we never got to see Queenstown.

Monday afternoon we made a plan to give my wife all the drugs at 8:30am, get her to the airport at 9:30 for the flight at 10:30. A friend was going to meet us in Wellington so she'd be home by 12:30pm. It was a four hour window but it was the best plan we had. They gave me a prescription for Oxycontin and asked me to get it filled before we flew. It was 5pm, the nearest pharmacy was a 20 minute walk and they closed at 6pm, so not a problem. Except, that pharmacy was out of stock, the next closest pharmacy was a 40 minute walk, and they also closed at 6pm. I called an Uber and we ended up getting stuck in horrendous rush-hour traffic. Thankfully (!) there was a new shopping mall under construction and he took me down a dirt road through the site and got me to the pharmacy just before they closed.

(I'm sure the hospital would have just given me a few, but I'd spent four days feeling completely helpless and they'd finally given me a job to do and I was determined to to do it.)

Tuesday morning went as planned. I tried to call Uber but it turned out they were banned from the airport, and the closest they could drop us was *further* than the hospital! We got a regular taxi and paid $20 to go about half a mile. I'd arranged for "assistance" at the airport which, it turned out, was just the airline giving us a wheelchair to use. We checked in, got to the gate, and then they announced the flight was delayed by an hour. Later they announced it was at a different gate.

A few years ago, we were in Auckland when I developed shingles and my wife drove eight hours non-stop to get me back to Wellington. She wanted to go straight to the hospital but I insisted we go home, so I understood when she insisted she just wanted to go home. Since then, she's had a couple of periods where she felt like she was sliding down that path but has been able to get the pain under control. No doubt we'll be meeting with the doctors and hospice to try and sort this out, but for now she's doing okay.

In two weeks, we're planning to fly to Napier to see friends. It's just for a weekend, but then in January we're planning to fly to Auckland to visit the kids on camp, and in February we're probably going to drive to Auckland to drop the kids at University. Hopefully we can get this under control so it doesn't impact our plans.

* Uber to airport: $32

Flight to Queenstown:  $179

Campervan for five days: $507

Groceries: $133

Uber to pharmacy: $15

Taxi to airport: $20 

Soy chai latte at airport: $7

Total: $893

So maybe not free, but four nights in hospital in the US would have bankrupted us so I am not complaining.

Leaky buildings

In 1952, the New Zealand building code required framing timber to be treated to resist pests, rot and termites; it required a cavity around the framing timber to provide ventilation; and it required eaves and flashings to deflect water away from the building.

All three were slowly chipped away by an industry that wanted to make houses cheaper and faster. By 1992, the New Zealand building code had abandoned all three of these principles. As a result, an entire generation of homes were built using untreated timber, no ventilation and ineffective flashing. The results were predictable and dramatic: New homes were unlivable within ten years.

All buildings leak, but these buildings -which often didn't have overhanging eaves and lots of architectural embellishments that werent easy to flash - would leak more. The water would get inside the frame and be trapped against the timber; there was no cavity for it to drain away and no ventilation that would allow it to dry. And since the timber was untreated, it would start to rot very quickly. This also invited pests and fungi to flourish, so it was not only structurally unsound but unhealthy to live in.

A government report in 2002 finally addressed the issue and by 2005 the building code had been changed to include these three elements again. (Although still not at pre-1952 levels.) There were a lot of lawsuits, both against builders and the councils who had allowed it. The only remediation is to rip off the entire exterior, replace any rotting wood, treat the rest, then re-clad the building. This can easily cost in excess of $200,000 and is not covered by insurance. Plus it can't be lived in for 12-18 months!

New Zealand has always had a shortage of homes, never more so than today, and replacing all buildings during this 13 year span is obviously not going to happen. So kiwis play russian roulette, buying homes they hope will survive their occupancy, and that they can pass the problem to someone else. It's a terrible situation that the building industry and the government, in a classic example of "regulatory capture," have inflicted on the public.

A tale of four toasters (and four toaster ovens)

When my wife's original toaster died in 2016, I convinced her to get a toaster oven. I had bought one in my early twenties and had it for about fifteen years. (For all I know, my ex-wife still has it.) Since I never had a microwave, it was my go-to appliance for heating small meals, plus it made great toast. If you can love an appliance, I loved that toaster oven.

She agreed and I did my research and bought one that was disappointing from the start. In particular, it didn't make good toast. Instead of pushing a button, you had to set a timer, and if you didn't get it exactly right (or watch it like a hawk) it burned the toast every time. That is, except when you forgot to put it in "toast" mode, in which case you came back to warm bread.

My research also indicated the heating element tended to blow after a couple of years, so I paid $10 for the "extended warranty," which is something I never do. Two years later, the heating element blew, so I took the whole thing back and they gave me a new one! A year later, the heating element on that one blew, so I took it back but the model had been discontinued so they refunded me the purchase price! It was like I'd rented a toaster oven for three years for $10.

Now at that point I should have listened to my family and bought a toaster, but instead I listened to the salesman who sold me a "better" toaster oven. I got that home to find it took up the entire countertop, so it immediately went back and I came home with a much smaller one. This one had the same issue as the first one -- burnt toast -- so my wife went to Kmart, picked up a $9 toaster, and the kids were ecstatic. They'd been without a decent toaster for a quarter of their lifetime! Bread consumption shot way up.

Of course a $9 toaster is not going to last, and within a year it went supernova -- literally, when you turned it on, it lit up like the sun. (We unplugged it before we saw what happened next.) We took it back to Kmart and, to their credit, they replaced it without question. A month later, the lever on that one stopped working, so we were going to take it back but then Covid-19 lockdown happened. When the lockdown was lifted, our car died and was in the shop for nearly a month. When we finally got the car back, we took the toaster back to Kmart and were told the warranty had expired two weeks earlier*.

It was a moot point, anyway, as they were out of $9 toasters and I refused to pay more. So we went back to the toaster oven, and bread consumption went way down. A couple of months later, they were back in stock and we bought a new one. Two weeks later, it looked like this:

Now, you might be wondering what happened to cause the plastic to literally melt off the top and sides. Was it a fault? Did the kids stick a knife in it while it was turned on? No. My wife decided that, rather than use the toaster oven to heat up a tortilla (which it's really good at!) she would rip the tortilla in half, stick it in the toaster briefly and remove it when it was warm. Of course she got distracted and left the kitchen for a moment; the tortilla halves flopped over and by the time the toast cycle had finished, they were on fire. Fortunately my wife returned and caught it before anything else happened.

Do I tell this story to embarrass my wife? Yes. Did I take the toaster back to Kmart, tell them the toaster caught fire spontaneously and demand a full refund? No, but I did think about it. (My father would have done it.) I did go and buy a new $9 toaster, bringing the total I've spent on toasting appliances over the past five years to $122 (plus about $1,800 on bread).

* Some of the details have been changed to make a better story.