what I do...

As much as I tell people I want a profession where I can readily explain to a five year old what I do (as in cooking, farming, fighting fires, being a doctor, building things, teaching -- not so much things like risk anaylsis, marketing, consulting, hedge fund managing...) I ended up with a job that it isn't easy to explain to people.

I picked up a bunch of rambling verbage over the years. Phrases like " finding solutions, "
"improving functional communication," and "identifying assistive technology to bridge
the gap between needs and current capabilities" for "people with limited functional speech.."

well tonight at dinner someone summed it up rather nicely giving what so far is the best description of what I do - at least for people in my TV generation:

"so you're a MacGyver for the nonspeaking!"

A more formal definition of what I do can be found here

Friday...

On Friday, I spent a good part of bed recovering from the week and my completely miserable head cold. 

 This mostly involved laying in bed reading Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemna.  This is a fantastic book.  I urge you all to read it.  The middle section is particularly interesting to me.

I will have to take some time to really think about it as well as other similar things floating around in my brain. Maybe someday soon I'll be ready to post something semi-coherent about it here - and maybe even half spelled right!

We also went to pick up our ABC posters and I began working on my next poster - my presentation for the conference in Boston.  A similar work mode....  

.. no major progress yet, but at least I've sorted out a way to use my home printer to print the final project. It wouldn't look as nice as the other $150 print jobs at the conference, but I need to start being realisitc with myself:)

We also went out Friday night to the Embassy Theatre. There is a lovely cafe / classy bar there.


The couches are super comfy and there was a lovely jazz band called the Vipers.

I couldn't get over the girl playing the piano. She was not only also singing, but also playing the bass line with her bar feet on the organ pedals!

There was some nice dancing to be had too.

We finished the evening with some amazing gelato...

wow!

Sick on a Sunny Day...

Well I'm home sick with another cold... too bad its my day off.. too bad its absolutely beautiful out today.  But at least it gives me some time to post some of my recent photos.  

Midweek I traveled for work.  I can't afford to fly at the moment, so I really treasure these work-paid flights.  The planes are fairly small, which makes the experience much more like when I was taking flight lessons.

That said, this was my first experience with a classic Wellington take off.  I wish that I had take a photo of us passengers trying to traverse the tarmac to the plane.  The wind was strong.  Trouser legs were rattling against our legs.  We were carefully placing one foot at a time.  You actually needed the hand rail to climb the steps, or you'd topple over.  Upon finding my seat, I realized that the plane was bouncing not from luggage being tossed in, but by the strength of the windy gusts!  I texted Traveler; I knew he would understand my excitement and mild trepidation at the thought of taking off in this wind. Then I turned off my phone and get ready for the adventure.

The wind sock tells part of the story...




I distracted myself from the stomach in throat sensation of the initial climb out by taking photos of Wellington.





The flight time is less than an hour and often feels more like a scenic ride than commute to
to Hawkes Bay which is on the eastern side of the North Island.  Napier is famous for its Art Deco artchitechure built after the massive earth quake here.

This trip I took some time to explore a historic Pa just south of Napier.  I guess during the earthquake the ground here revealed desireable minerals and sadly this lead to some unforgiveable quarrying in this archelogical spot.  The views from the top were amazing.  I also was amazed to learn that most of the city is located in what used to be an estuary!



I also returned to a favourite cafe.  Its a simple place, but reminds me of the Hope Co-op that existed in Forest Grove circa my childhood.  

There are tons of books laying around to read, great chai tea, and even a blackboard for kids 

to draw on.  I particularly love that they serve black beans, which is a rarity here.

It was a productive trip, and soon time to head home.  Here are some shots from the flight back.



And this is the famous road between Wellington and the Wairarapa... its is crazy windy

.. and oh so scary when windy.

Getting down on your knees...

I was thinking about all the times life brings you to your knees...

Drinking an entire of coconut milk recently was one such occasion - what was I thinking!

But sometimes it is to look at something from a different angle

or to talk to a kid pre-growth spurt

or to work on a school's computer when there aren't any chairs

or to talk to kids in wheelchairs

or to be crazy indepedent plumber women wrangling blockages from the bowels of the plastic pipes!

 kiwi-spirit is infecting me and I love it - yes I know I have a long way to go, but little steps.

That said, I am full of mixed feelings about the 'terrorism' raids in the East Cape area here.  I haven't been here long enough to have much perspective, but it seems to have upset a ton of people.  Whatever the facts, I really doubt that the  people accused were "threating on the lives of Helen Clark, George Bush and John Key" (as quoted in scoop article linked above attributed to Sunday Star Times ).  I mean really what does Bush have to do with this! 

Just for background, John Key is MP for the national party here (roughly 'conservative') and Helen Clark is our prime minister (labour party, roughly progressive/liberal).  I have no idea what Bush is, but unfortunetely we all know him....  

Moments of today

Today was a whirlwind of work and activity.. some snapshots

• Radio NZ has a show on Physician Assistants possibily being phased in here
  
• workign for 3 hours to make a Dynvox communication software do what I want, and then having the newest version show up in the mail just as I banged out a possible solution with the old version
• Being kindly reminded that I'm a "yes' person. .. One day I will need to learn to say no, or my desk will overwhelm me.  
• being voted female MVP on the ultimate team for tonight's game
• Wearing the brightest glowest coolest orange t-shirt on the ultimate team
• earthquake in the middle of the night
• big wind storm in the middle of the night
• Traveler predicitng both earthquake and wind storm the night before (granted there is an earthquake of some sort nealry every day here and wind is fairly common too, but I was still impressed)
• drinking too much coconut milk and making myself sick
• 2 buses and lots of stairs as a commute this morning - in my silly black boots
• no incoming emails the entire work day to distract me - not one!

Labour Day - first work, then play, then thanks

So Labour Day fall on a different weekend in NZ.  For me, it was a 4 day weekend since I do not work on Fridays at the moment.  It was an amazing weekend.  I gave myself permission not to work on the poster presenation and instead just said 'yes' to each social opporutnity that arose.   

I had frisbee practice,  joined a kiwi style lunch of grilled yumminess, a dinner party with a never ending stream of great conversation, clothing 'shopping' at a friends house, veggie market adventure with a person I met on the internet, and a few dates with Traveler... 

I didn't fret about my ASHA poster presentation at all...
Normally I don't do anything, but painfully procrastinate. 
Today I just got on with it.. 
               ---- well got on with not doing it:) 

There was work to be done though:

I cleaned up the closet

and the closet room

and got my sewing maching working

and even made a fun fort in back out of the old lumpy futon mattress.

It completely reminds me of the hideaway in Marita's stairwell cupboards and bathroom fort as a kid.  I've been doing a lot of fort stuff lately. I frequently throw my threadbared yellow blanked overmyself and yell out 'fort.'  

Perhaps this says that I haven't grown out of the 'fort' thing yet... then again the best houses and places have a sense of hiden forts, and I think that's true for other people too.

After work, play is a good idea, and today Traveler suggested that it was time to go to the zoo.

I left my keys, wallet, and drivers licence and just brought my camera.  Not having my wallet is so freeing for me - and annoying for those around me, but today he kindly let this be part of our zoo date.

The zoo has animals



servets - long legged cats


views

with Dr Suess trees!

and really really great signs.





they're not kidding! its quite a fall too...

Now there weren't signs for all behavior. Not to judge too strongly, but I completely approve of the boy climbing the trees, but am not sure what to think of the man leaning over the fence with sticks to remove porcupine quills from the enclosers. His kids thought it was really cool though...
 
The baboons here are on the opposite side of the fence from our last zoo exerience.

So is this lady reading the paper on her deck (she is a very small red dot on the deck). I wonder if kids come to her house and think how cool it is that she really has lions in her backyard!!!

After all those fun and games, my dearest friend Laura emailed me. So I immideatly emailed her back.  soon we were IM chatting in the most inefficent way possible. But that is alright because I was able to email her a photo.  Trav snapped this photo while I was racing about doing just that.  

Today I hope she got a sense of how grateful I am to have such an amazing postive person as my best friend.  I'm honoured that she shares so much of her life with me and sad that she's so far away (yes I know Laura, that is ALL MY OWN DOING).  She is one incredible human being - and I think she still loves forts too!