A Kiwi Christmas, Part 2

Christmas dinner at the girls' house. Brooke was kind enough to cook the whole meal for everyone and then spent the next 48 hours depressed and in a foul mood because she missed her family during the holidays. That's what she gets for cooking Yorkshire pudding. Speaking of fowl, New Zealand apparently doesn't do turkey, so the Gables staff dissected a chicken instead. I love fowl. It almost made up for the fact that I like only half of the crew at the table.

Taiwan doesn't do Christmas, of course, so the dinner coupled with my awesome elf hat is the closest Bonnie will likely ever get to the North Pole in her life.

See above.

Hanpus does a lot of pink. He says Swedes love pink. I told him it takes a real man to be able to pull it off. Then suggested that he consider switching colors. He just growled like he wanted to eat me.

What you don't see is the 23 year old Playboy Bunny just out of the picture to the right. It explains the face. That's a lie, I'm actually quite deep in thought. Solving the Pakistani political crisis, while pimpin' the Keebler costume. A jack of all trades, master of none...

I'm tempted to go on the Internet, buy two of these, convert to a fundamentalist sect of Mormonism, move to Provo, and name our kids Jezebel, Ruth, Ezekiel, and Sarah.

I wore that hat for 12 hours straight. That means that I was 10 minutes away from moving to Munchkinland and joining the Lollipop League.

Downtown Russell, Christmas night. Or a picture of Ursa Major. No, it's definitely downtown Russell. What it says is, "it's raining. The humans are dead." Think the movie "28 Days" and you've got the picture of what town looked like on Christmas. Deader than disco.

At this point, I'm running home, because it's so dark and eerie that I'm pretty positive that some wild animal lurks in the darkness ready to pounce. And you think I'm kidding. Nobody would've heard me yell. They were all passed out in their own vomit.

Christmas in Russell!

Santa at 35 degrees south

Christmas in Russell, sad to say, was much like any other day, with the notable exception of the meat pack that my flatmate cooked up for us to celebrate J.C.'s birth. Yes, it rained. All day. After opening my gifts, which Santa was so kind to mail to me this year for $40, we settled into a carnivore's carnival of protein--lamb, pork, and beef. Prior to the festivities on the porch, Mass was packed at 11:30am, a full complement of 40 people packed together in Russell's tiny Catholic church. St. Peter's in Rome--eat your heart out. I had slacks and a light sweater on and was the most dressed up out of the whole lot. If only I owned flip-flops, I would've been less conspicuous. Battling a headache from Kiwi beer the night before, I returned to 4 Little Queen Street for another reminder of how great Santa Claus really is.



My flatmate received that shirt for doing something noble, though I can't remember what. He came home recently and said, "look at this cool shirt. Thai silk." He was serious. "Interesting," was all I could muster without asking him which crime family he belonged to. If they don't have an English mafia in New Zealand, perhaps they do now. Ignore the elf grabbing ass. Suffice it to say, that was not my first glass of wine. Nor was it my last. What can I say? I'm entirely comfortable being asexual here in Russell. You really don't have much of a choice.

Juan Valdez smoking a Cuban.

See what $40 in postage brings for Christmas? Lots of thin things.

We decorated on Christmas with a Saddam Hussein replica Santa.

Ah, an L.A. Times Sunday Crossword book. Life is good. Look up "Dork" in the dictionary and it's this picture.

Is that an elf hat or am I the new court jester? I can juggle, you know.

This one is titled "Irony." I thought I'd have my English flatmate hold up my new "How much do you know about the American Revolution?" quiz book. He didn't know much. Perhaps that's why they lost in the first place.

Quizzical look. Cologne inside the box. What is my family trying to tell me from half a world away?

Santa still kicks butt even when you least expect him to. Look at that bounty!

Doing my best Rudolf imitation, aided, of course, with Speight's, The Pride of the South.

There's just nothing like waking up with a hangover headache and diving right back into the abyss. It's called 'alcoholism,' and it's Russell's favorite disease.

Christmas morning. I'm so excited. All the little, tiny, hobbitt gifts under my little, tiny hobbitt tree. I would go wake my parents up, but they'd probably be pretty perturbed seeing as how Mom and Dad upstairs barely know me.

My colleague, Brooke, piggy-backed me for a good 50 yards on Christmas Eve. I think that's one of the events in those Scottish Games they have. That and telephone pole tossing. Wait, she's Cornish, not Scottish. Maybe she should move.

Hanpus (Ahn-poos), the Swedish cook, and the two Czech girls at The Pub, Christmas Eve. Those smiles say, "he's so large, we have no choice." And large, he is. Must be the Viking lineage.

Fiona, the new Taiwanese "dishy," or dishwasher, at zee Gables. Bonnie's friend. She doesn't normally drink, so what do we do? We bought her a shot of tequila and jaeger and after smelling it, she downed it and muttered, "sweet." No effect on any of the 100lbs covering her bones. She's a machine. Her English vocabulary now includes "you" "go" "away" and "jaeger bomb."

Fiona meets the West!

Zee French chef at Zee Gables--the one, the only, the indomitable Bernard.

And Megan, on the left.

That's the worst looking face since Texas Chainsaw Massacre hit the screens.

In fact, I think that's the exact face they borrowed for the film.

This was going to be CT's "I'm so vain, but I'm bored" solo shot. Brooke had to stick her Cornish beak in.

Christmas Eve, The Pub, Russell, 2007. Feel the spirit.

Oh yeah. I can almost hear Santa's sleigh bells from here.

Mark at his inebriated best, doing, you know, nonsensical Mark things while trying to grope every girl that walks by. Drunk Mark should be a movie.

"Warp speed, Captain Picard?"

I've offered English lessons to both of them. Back at my place. You know, to improve the girls' chances in an increasingly dynamic marketplace.

'Tis the season...

Christmas is a week away. I learned of this when I checked the calendar recently. Russell has gotten in the festive spirit--one of the trees in town has a string of lights that appears to have been put up during Happy Hour. If the tree were a woman and the lights its makeup, it would look like Courteney Love (http://www.imnotobsessed.com/2007/07/31/courtney-love-in-bad-shape/) after a meth binge. Oh, the Pub has a Christmas tree, too. Which is fitting, I think, because everyone I know here says that Christmas Eve and Christmas day are all about getting plastered. I don't think that's the exact sentiment that "Joy to the World" was intended to convey, but we all should know by now that Christmas is less religious than commercial, and for the Pub, it means good business. I don't know about you, but when I think of the baby Jesus, I think of rum and coke. If the nativity were to take place today in Russell, the Holy Family would receive gifts of vodka, tequila, and cointreau. I'm pretty sure that's not a joke. Jesus would be in Russell AA before he was 15. Wait, is that blasphemous? That one was a joke. I know Jesus could hold his liquor.


On to some pictures....



I got out of Russell the other day. This is me on the park grounds of the Treaty of Waitangi--don't make me go back, it says. It's an interpretive dance I've been working on. I call it "Cabin Fever," it'll pass in 8-10 months. My colleague, Brooke, borrowed another colleague's car and the two of us headed north to Kerikeri for some grocery shopping in a real grocery store. I saw people there that I didn't recognize from The Pub. Other humans inhabit this country! Amazing! Anyway, Kerikeri is nondescript, but it's grocery store did have an excellent wine selection. I spent $88, of which $50 went to three bottles of wine. If you're scoring at home, that's an alcohol ratio of %57. But, that's okay. I may be halfway to becoming an alcoholic, but I take a multivitamin. Basically, I'm perfecting the art of simultaneity: I'm lowering my chances of getting cancer and upping it for that liver transplant in 2023. Ah, picturesque Russell!

The view from the grounds of the Treaty of Waitangi across the bay to Russell. It really only takes a few miles of separation from my 'hood to get me excited. Even if there was a man-eating animal racing towards me in this shot, you still would've seen me with a smile on my face. Thankfully, all of the man-eating animals are in Australia. Seriously though, it's amazing what motorized transportation can do to improve one's mood.

The flagpole marks the exact site where British officials and dozens of Maori chiefs gathered in February 1840 to sign the Treaty of Waitangi, which officially made New Zealand a part of the British Empire and consigned them to talking really funny. The treaty grounds are located across the bay from Russell. It's 5 minutes by ferry and 3 by taxi, or if you drive it like we did, it's about 30 minutes by road and car ferry. Thank you Mr. Rand McNally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi

The view out to sea from the treaty site. I wish I could photoshop out the gray sky, but then that wouldn't be giving you a realistic image of what New Zealand looks like. The locals say it's unusally wet and gray this year, but all I know is that I'm about a week away from buying serotonin on the Internet from China. I'm going to get Roger Clemens' trainer to inject some of it in my butt at the gym.

Who's that sexy fella' at the base of the flagpole that nobody can really see but that is there so you'll have to trust me? It's your 33rd favorite blogger!

A few more days of this really awesome weather and the flagpole will have a new addition--165lbs of American meat strung up by the neck.

Let's file this one under "You Get the Point."

Adjacent to the flagpole is the treaty house that James Busby, the British Resident in New Zealand, lived in with his family during the 1830's. Busby played politician for several years with the local Maori chiefs in a largely successful attempt to assimilate the European settlers, traders, and whalers who were increasingly moving into the Bay of Islands prior to 1840. Busby wrote the Treaty and used his influence with the Maoris to gain their acceptance of the document--a treaty spurred in large part by the presence of the French nearby--so the story of Maori-European relations in New Zealand essentially begins with his name. Jimmy Busby...what a guy.
That's a fake Busby munchkin that you're looking at in the replica of the Treaty house bedroom. She scares me. Something about little lifeless girls in old buildings. I've seen that movie. It doesn't end well.

This is Busby's work room in his treaty house, which was built in 1833-4. They stuffed him and sat him in this pose for tourists to pay $12 to see. The nice part is, he really knows how to take a good photo. Very erudite and serious, almost as if he's birthing an entire nation. My complexion is the only thing whiter than his face or his drapes.

Some of the original lumber and brick walls, along with the foundation, are still intact, even after a major restoration in 1989. Here's a link that I bet you'd never come across in all your life. And probably still never will. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_house

Local Maoris built this meeting house in 1940 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the treaty. It sits next to Busby's treaty house. Excellent photography, don't you think? Don't blame the photographer; there was a very large Maori man (on the left) doing a ritualistic greeting of an American couple during all of this and I sort of didn't want him to think that he was like, you know, a special exhibit at the zoo. The consequence was a Hubble-like photograph of what looks like deep space. My nickname in high school was "Ansel Adams." It was either that or "what's his name again?" I've forgotten. Like a violent crime victim, I've blocked that whole experience out of my mind.

This is what digital photography has done. It's made amateurs look even more retarded than they already are. Here's a sign about other events in the period 1834-1839 that took place on the big lawn surrounding the flagpole. The Maoris signed a Declaration of Independence in 1835, a full five years before the Treaty of Waitangi was formalized, in response to a growing French presence and thus enlisted the help of the British Crown in protecting them and their land. Even the Maoris knew not to trust the French.

I bet the French do a better Christmas, though.

Wait, where's the delete button on this damn blog anyway...

Two historic flagpoles within sight of one another. The other one, here in Russell, is on top of one of those hills just to the left of the flagpole in this shot. If you look closely, I put a BC flag on that one to commemorate a 10-win season and yet another trip to The Proctor & Gamble Priapism Sports Bowl of Topeka.

Since I have nothing to add here, let me just say that...I have nothing to add here.

How in the hell do you erase photos you've already uploaded into the blog? This would seem simple. This is where you figure out that my degrees are in the liberal arts.

This must've been the exact view the Maoris had in 1840 of the incoming British party as they landed to walk to the field above to negotiate the treaty. I found a transcript of a conversation at that moment between Maori chiefs in the sand next to the sign:

Maori Chief #1: "Damn. White people."

Maori Chief #2: "Fish and chips. Fish and chips. That's all those people eat."

Maori Chief #1: "If I have to talk about Manchester United one more time..."

Maori Chief #2: "Sambuca?"

Maori Chief #1: "Make it a double."

Hobson was sent by the Queen to negotiate with the Maoris; Busby essentially authored the treaty document. The Maoris talked among themselves for a day. And the white guys won. Same story, different country.

Heyyy, sexy thang! I'm talking about the Maori War Canoe. Long doesn't describe this any more than it would The Great Wall of China. You can fit the entire nation of Nicaragua in this thing and still have room for Daniel Ortega's personal cocaine stash. I think the Navy SEALS could use this thing the next time they wanted to surreptitiously land on, oh, say, Greenland to establish our next missile defense site. I mean...every Navy SEAL.

This is Brooke. She deserves her own shot because she was driving. Now, in this case, "driving" is a euphemism for "CT hadn't been that naseous since having that ear operation at 4." Just like it's likely a statistical improbability that we're alone in this universe, it's also a statistical improbability that she should have a driver's license. Accelerating into sharp turns allowed me to understand a bit better the training that NASA gives its astronauts. I need some ginger ale just thinking about it. Let's move on...

The closest I'll ever get to being tall, dark, and handsome.

The front of the war canoe. I'm thinking this will be a hood ornament on my next car.

You could train for a marathon by running around this thing. Twice.

There he is. The man, the myth, the shipwrecked captain. It was Christmas party time at the local social club, and the theme was "Shipwreck." Along with a broken compass, a broken telescope, and some seaweed attached to his blazer, the ol' flatmate prepared for a night of alcohol intake unseen since the days of Caligula. Notice again how he gets into character. I mean, he even sewed that crest on the coat. You have a responsibility to the world to get cirrhosis if there is sewing involved in your costume.

It's breathtaking, his poise. Sure, he's had some grape juice by this point, and sure his ship is only beginning to run aground, but he still manages the seaweed-aided left-arm fold while staring at a naked fijian native through that telescope. And he's pimpin' that moustache! As any Englishman would tell you, "brilliant!"

Notice the empty wine glass on the table behind me. This has got to be the worst photo of any human on the planet in the last 6 months.

Say 'hello' to the newest member of Men at Work.