For those of you who know me well, you know I enjoy my routine. Routine is hard when you don’t have a job (hence the term vacation). As we settle in, life for me is marked by flurries of activity and periods of waiting/figuring out what to do next.
The daily routine starts with coffee and my routine/addiction to the bean has been improved by our new drip coffee maker. We now have internet in the house, a huge bonus when you’re a house husband. Gmail, facebook, espn.com, Stuff (NZ and world news) and fieldhockey.com connect me with my world (yes, my world is a small place).
I see Beth off to the bus stop and then it’s dog walk time. While driving has been a relatively easy transition, walking the roads has been far more challenging. To say we live in hill country is a mild understatement. Life on the mount is filled with narrow winding roads and few sidewalks. I continually seem to be walking on the wrong side of the road as it pertains to dog management. Tatum still sees buses as a terrorist threat and is unpredictable as to when she thinks one needs to be attacked so being on the "right" side of the road is key.
Dog management is one of my major responsibilities. I’m starting to measure my success as to how the dogs interact with the outside world and we’re making progress. Down the hill from us is a small park reserve and I got my daily test as to how we’re doing with off-leash adventures. Will Tatum bolt at distractions unknown? Will Sammy find something disgusting to dive-bomb into? How will they make out with new dogs and people? All good measures of how we are going.
Now that we have a tv and cable (satellite in NZ), I’m learning our new programming. Most of the programs are American and are from the past season. Not all of them are network programs. Homeland is new to us here and is probably the best new show we've found. Trying to figure out a schedule is another matter completely, especially as it pertains to live sports coverage. Life without sport was not an option for me, so Sky TV is essential. However, North American sport and New Zealand sport are quite different. We have four channels of sport and if you don’t like cricket, rugby or football (soccer) you’re pretty well screwed. I like football (very good), I’m learning cricket and I have no appreciation of rugby (yet).
When you’re looking to be around the house all day, cricket is the soap opera of sports tv. It’s on from 10 in the morning until 7 at night as New Zealand and South Africa are currently in a three day test series. I don’t know that my appreciation of the game could ever compel me to go to a match, but as I said it is compelling background material.
The highlight of today is we actually get ice hockey on today, San Jose and Nashville. Live in the US 7pm pacific time Thursday is Friday afternoon here. Life without the program guide is unimaginable. You never know what’s going to be on. Wednesday we had March madness, the first four games, though I haven’t seen it on the schedule since. Sports Center is on twice a day (unlike the perpetual loop that’s on in the States) and one edition is the American version and the other is Australian. The Australian version is 80 percent rugby. Pardon the Interuption is two Australian guys and I don’t appreciate them the same way I do Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, though I don't think Beth equally appreciates Kornheiser and Wilbon at all (she called them the screaming guys back home).
This past Sunday we took a drive out to Akaroa. It’s probably only 40 kilometers from Mt. Pleasant to Akaroa as the crow flies, but as the crow flies is not how the road goes. The long and winding road is the understatement of the millennium and there are stretches of the drive where you feel like you’re on a World Rally course. The trip out was almost 100 kilometers through incredible green hill country. The two lane road is like a roller coaster and amazingly, there are cyclists with bikes loaded with camping gear making the trek on the same lanes.
Driving is a good allegory for life for me. I tend to drive fast, with purpose (a polite way of phrasing it), and with little consideration of those around me. In America that’s fairly par for the course. In NZ I am conspicuous in my arrogance at so many levels and am provided with a daily opportunity to work on my serenity/patience. Life is not a race and I’m not the only person with places to go. Slower can be better.
On the big news front, I have a job that gets me out of the house. I’ve taken a job coaching the ladies team at the Selwyn Hockey Club. It’s not a full time job, but it’s an opportunity to do something I like and definitely helps me learn the culture. I’m grateful for the work. The season starts next Sunday and while the team has been strong in the past, I’ve been advised that this season will probably be a rebuilding project. So am I.
All in all, it’s been a great three weeks. G’day from Christchurch.
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