The Hobbit Part Three

I went to see the final Hobbit installment yesterday and like all the other movies Peter Jackson made from Tolkien's works, this one had some good and some bad moments.

The Bad:

If anybody had possession of all the gold shown in the dwarf hall it would immediately render the substance valueless. As we all know from Econ 101, gold's relative scarcity gives it value. This isn't Jackson's fault. Tolkien wrote the story that way and the hoard represented greediness in mankind not a Middle Earth marketplace guided by an invisible hand.

Every time those damned elves start speaking to each other or making elvish angst faces I start to blush.

The most cringe inducing is when Kate Blanchette comes floating along and does dialogue with anyone. This gives me the worst case of secondary embarrassment ever. I mean ever! It's like the emotionally overwrought conversations you used to imagine yourself having with your favorite boy band member when you were in seventh grade- only this time it's not written out in your diary with the wonky lock that anyone with the grip of a toddler could break into. Everybody can see it! Just stop it already.

As a bird lover, I must protest Jackson's not staying true to the story where the thrush whispers to the archer where the dragon's weak spot is. There was a crow and some giant eagles but the thrush part was my favorite.

The Good:

The landscapes are breathtaking, although Jackson really can't take credit for that. So...um, well done to the mountains, trees, rivers and various weather conditions it took to get everything just right for the background shots.

Jackson featured a kunekune in both this and the second Hobbit film. It's nice to see this lovable pig on the big screen.

The female elf created to keep the film from being a total sausage fest kicks ass as do many of the female villagers from Lake-town.

Billy Connolly's battle pig was awesome.

When the characters weren't humiliating me with their words there were some pretty awesome battle scenes.

Benedict Cumberbatch was interviewed in a special "making of" segment before the film and he said he would like to come back and visit New Zealand.

I have a spare bedroom. I'm just going to put that out there.

In the future I may try to set aside nine hours in my day to watch all three films back to back.

Darude - Sandstorm on Eight Floppy Drives

I was recently reading about the lasting phenomenon that is Darude's "Sandstorm."

It still gets played and recognized despite being released almost fifteen years ago.

Just a few weeks ago a guest at a party I DJ-ed asked me to play it.

And then there is this video:





If my partner had done this and then asked me if I liked it my immediate response would be "marry me now."

Eight, individually programmed floppy disks..

Total nerdgasm.

Not a Special Snowflake

Not long ago I hit the "next blog" button to see where it would take me.

I found blogs full of people bragging about how little Hortense and Archibald loved frolicking on the beach during summer vacation or others humble bragging about how exciting and uncommon their lives were.

Don't I sort of do the same?

Ugh.

This blog is random. It's birds one day and politics the next.

It perfectly highlights my Jill-of-all-trades-and-master-of-none background.

I suppose I'm having some sort of "who am I and what am I doing with my life" mini crisis.

And for the life of me I can't figure out how I had so many people in Germany reading my blog that one week.

Who the heck do I know in Poland? Pakistan? Venezuela?

I don't know what to do with myself at the moment. I'm getting professionally restless.

I will be DJ-ing tomorrow night and I am not looking forward to it. I always get anxious beforehand and feel sick when I'm on my way to the venue.

Sometimes I look for academic programs here in New Zealand involving the kea but what in the hell would I say? "Hi, I have a BA and Communications and MA in International Policy Studies. Sometimes I sit for hours watching captive kea fly around and I think this would make me an excellent candidate for doing a science with these birds."

I was just reading some of the thesis titles for PhD students at the University of Canterbury and they used words like "allee effects" and "cytokinin regulatory genes."

As someone who recently weenied out of her social science PhD program I'm now easily intimidated by the ideas of others and their seemingly effortless embrace of abstract theories.

I tried doing some paintings and have a feeling they were just too kitchy to sell. Still, I have to thank my brave friend Annika for putting them in her shop.

I tried to get information about being a Spanish translator for the NZ Language Line but they wanted someone with a specific background in interpretation. I don't have that.

And then there was that painfully awkward time I was going to translate for a Mapuche speaker and I froze up because I couldn't understand what he was saying.

Maybe I could specify that I am fluent in Mexican Spanish and can handle most of Central America?

All the journalism jobs that come my way are up in the North Island and if I was hired it would mean leaving my family and commuting home on the weekends.

Siiiiiiigh.

I don't know what else to say so here are some pictures I took of birds and one of me with Kiki on my shoulder:

White Faced Heron

Pukeko

Peacock

Bird lover experiencing a mild existential crisis.

Rugby's Children

This is not a sports piece. The Rugby in the title is, in fact, a Kea.

I just want to put this out there so avid All Blacks fans won't waste their time reading through an entire article completely devoid of a single shout out to Richie McCaw (or "Richie McAwesome" as my partner likes to call him).

My first meeting with a Kea took place at Willowbank in 2012.

Before that time I had no idea that they existed, or that Kiwi were endangered and nocturnal. It was a time of ornithological darkness.

When I entered Kea enclosure back then, I was amazed at how fearless the birds were. One bird in particular flew right up to me and gave me a long searching glance.

I now believe that this bird was Rugby, the patriarch of the Kea clan at Willowbank.

All the Kea at this park are the children of Rugby and his mate with the exception of Kati who was brought in injured from the wild.

Rugby is a bit of a grouchy old dad type. When one of his older kids tried to allopreen some of his wing feathers in a show of affection he thrust his foot out to the side and pushed them away.

He puffs up all his crown feathers to show visitors he's the boss and will often condescend to perch on one of their shoulder's before nipping their ear.

He will sometimes venture out of his territory and perch majestically on a fence post. When you turn to look at him he will fluff up his crown feathers again.

Two of his older children are Bill and Kiki. They both have lost all the yellow around their ceres, eyes and lower beaks.

Unlike some of their younger siblings they have achieved certain social graces such as perching on a visitor's knee or shoulder without trying to nip their ears or head.

Not so their younger siblings, one of whom still tries to land awkwardly on top of my head before losing his balance and flapping ungracefully to another perch.

Kiki will occasionally pull lightly at bits of my hair or touch the top of my head gently with the tip of her beak.

One of her younger siblings gave my hair a strong pull before nipping me right in the most sensitive part of my upper ear. The result of this was something I like to call "Hair By Kea."

In their book, "Kea, Bird of Paradox" Bond and Diamond reason that Kea are capable of destroying many types of hard materials and the fact that they don't inflict damage to humans means that they are being playful with us. I agree with this assessment although the playfulness can still sting at times.

Kea can tear holes in the strongest hiking equipment or delicately pick small seeds from your hand.

Their chicks are all born with yellow wattles so parents can feed them safely.

After young Kea chicks have fledged their fathers will usually take on feeding them while they learn to feed themselves.

I was amazed to observe Bill sitting in a tree and feeding Kati one day. I took this as a sign that she had been fully accepted into the clan even though she was an outsider. I was also later told that Bill did this with a lot of his other siblings.

I have seen Bill chase off some of the other Kea when they seemed to be ganging up or pestering visitors. He seems to be the older brother who keeps the peace.

At some point, a PhD student came to Willowbank to do research on Kea learning behaviors and she taught two of the birds to perform gestures for a food reward.

Two birds will still respond with these gestures when given a command.

If Bill is told "hold your beak" he will grab his beak with his foot.

He will not do this for everyone and obviously he's looking for a treat when he does. What was interesting to me is that I used to go into the enclosure wearing different outfits and hairstyles but Bill would always fly over, look at me for a moment and grab his beak with his foot.

From this and the behavior of other Kea around myself and the keepers I would surmise that they are capable of recognizing and remembering certain individuals.

I don't know the name of the other trained bird but it is an older male with a pink leg band who, when told "Wings," will give a little hop and flash the red color under his wings.

Sometimes if I hop a few steps without saying this word he will hop too.

It is well known that Kea have an extended adolescent period in which they explore and play.

I have seen two Kea playing where one will roll on its back and kick it's legs in the air while another pounces on it.

They will often switch roles and playfully pull at each other's feathers.

I have never seen any signs of open aggression, injuries or feather loss when they do this.

When one Kea wishes to warn off another they will usually drop their head, fluff out all their feathers and unfold their wings so that the flight feathers are spread out and touch the ground.

They will also push each other with their feet or chase the offending Kea away.

Sometimes two Kea of seemingly equal status will stare each other down while touching beaks.

They will also make nipping gestures which rarely seem to end in an actual bite.

I have seen older birds (including Rugby) allow the younger ones to take food or playthings away and it seems to be part of their learning experience.

As for human/Kea interactions I have played several games with the birds myself.

One involved picking up a small stone and tossing it. The young Kea then picked up the same stone and tossed it as well.

I have played hide and seek on the feeding stand with one juvenile where I would hide under the stand until he came over to look at me before I popped up on his eye level and he ran to the other end of the feeding stand before coming back to look at me when I hid.

I play chase with several of the younger birds where I will run towards them while they retreat and then I run away and they chase me.

I play another game where I walk my fingers over their fence perch toward them and they hunker down (very much like a puppy ) and then crawl forward toward my fingers and try to nip at them before I pull them away. Once I wasn't able to pull them away quick enough and my index finger ended up in a juvenile's beak. He did not bite down on my finger much to my relief.

Kea like poking their heads into bags, purses and baby strollers so they can steal toys and food and then play keep away from each other.

I lost my favorite lip gloss this way when one of them reached into my purse, pulled it out and tossed it to another one who ran off with it.

I chased him under a tree where he put it down. It was full of holes and beyond saving at that point.

I recently volunteered to work during Willowbank's 40th anniversary celebration and found myself entering the Kea enclosure with a scrub brush and bucket of water.

I was watched and followed.

Several birds tried to push the bucket over while another pulled at the handle and one perched on its edge and gazed at the dirty water.

My scrub brush was nipped and chased.

It was the most fun I have ever had while trying to clean something.

That same day I had to rescue a baby's hat and pick up a coke can that had been carried off by the Kea.

The best part was talking to visitors about the birds and their habits. Usually when I try to talk about birds people get antsy or look bored (yes I'm talking about my family members) but for one sweet day, people actually listened to my bird knowledge.

My three favorite birds are Bill, Kiki and Kati.

I like Bill's patience with his younger siblings and Kiki's habit of perching serenely on my shoulder and letting me rest my head against her feathers.

I admire Kati for her determination not to let a missing top beak keep her from having a good life. I often let her try to gnaw on my fingers while stroking her neck feathers and telling her how tough and strong she is.

She's developed a way of using her tongue as her upper beak and grinding up large bits of food against rocks so it is the right size for her to eat.

These are a few of my observations on Rugby's children.

"Kea facial expressions" from Kea Bird of Paradox

Antarctica and the Amerikiwi

Once or twice a year the U.S. Consulate in New Zealand travels from their home office in Auckland down to Christchurch.

The meeting place for their services is at the departing terminal for the U.S. Antarctic Program.

I had an appointment to go and sign the paperwork for my son so he could get his Certificate of Birth Abroad and U.S. passport.

I arrived at the location early and this gave me time to look over the facilities.

There was a post office to send packages and mail down to loved ones at the bottom of the world.

Just past this was another office with maps of Antarctica and departure instructions for visitors.

Beyond that was the clothing distribution center where participants get all their heavy duty cold proof gear and smart red jackets.

Around the corner was the actual departure terminal for Antarctica.

The hallway to the check-in counter was lined with clear photographs of polar landscapes and penguins.

Flags of many nations hung from the ceiling.

There was a baggage x-ray machine and a poster showing prohibited carry on items. (Even carefully screened program participants aren't immune from suspicion of terrorism it seems.)

Across from the desk was a large room with theater seats and a movie screen. Above the seats hung a long wooden dog sled.

On one wall there were more polar photographs and on another there were images of the different aircraft that had flown Antarctic missions since 1955.

I wasn't going to Antarctica and yet, I felt a thrill being in that place as if others before me had left some sort of emotional imprint.

I could just imagine what it would be like to go.

It would be like that scene at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind where selected individuals get a briefing before they go off into the unknown.

Prior to my consular appointment I had seen a large hangar with "United States Antarctic Program" written on it.

I had also seen the U.S. Air Force C-17 fly over my house on its way down to McMurdo base. The drone of its engine is distinctive and it flies a different path than other planes.

I visited the International Antarctic Center recently and went inside a frozen room with snow in it where they recreate winter storm conditions from the region.

There were certain areas to hide from the wind gusts but I thought I would be a badass and sit on a snowmobile near the center of the room.

The room got dark, powerful fans turned on and the temperature dropped several degrees below freezing. A recording of the howling winds was played and bits of snow hit my face. I soon regretted not taking refuge in the igloo or gust proof regions of the room.

Another display area featured videos of scientist pulling up all sorts of creatures from the deep and talking about how they had developed methods for surviving their extreme environment.

I recalled that one of my professors at Lincoln had been down to Antarctica and talked about how wary the people living at the bases are of newcomers. Apparently things can get pretty strained when you're cooped up in one space for a long time.

There was a display at the Center on how people living at the bases fight depression and boredom.

I hoped it might be possible to hitch a ride down with the crew on the C-17 but the National Science Foundation- which handles the funding for U.S. missions- makes it clear that they don't do that sort of thing.

I don't know why I have suddenly developed this strong urge to see Antarctica. It was unexpected.

I started looking at ways to get funding and an invitation to go down.

I knew I would never qualify to go there and "do a science" unless it was a social science and after my professor's description I can only imagine that my close observation would make people's paranoia act up.

I also think I would be a prime candidate for the early onset of cabin fever.

In case you are wondering how to get down to the southern-most continent, www.usap.gov has the details.

They take engineers, pilots, scientists, service specialists (such as a cooks) and artists,

I think the last category would be the only one I would have a chance at and even then, it definitely would not be for poetry.

Roses are red, violets are blue
There's lots of snow here, and penguins too

Perhaps the appeal of the place is that is holds so much undiscovered wonder and is still relatively difficult to get to.

A few flights from Australia that will go over the region for an exorbitant fee but they don't land there.

Cruises down there are really expensive and sea conditions make land exploration unpredictable.

I guess I better start working on my painting, photography and poetry skills.

Perhaps I could write a musical called "Antarctica!"

It worked for a U.S. state so why not a whole continent?

The Brief Return of DJ Red

I stopped DJ-ing some months ago because I was pregnant and over being hit on by drunk 20-year olds.

My mixer and case sat in a hall closest collecting dust.

I finally decided to contact another female DJ that worked at the same pub as me and see if she wanted to buy my gear.

She did and when I was delivering it to her I mentioned that I would happily take any extra work she might have. She sent me a list of dates almost immediately and I said I'd take them.

My first gig was to be a small gathering at a private residence.

I felt sick to my stomach about it for days.

I reactivated my Virtual DJ account, added some tracks and put cue points in some of the longer songs.

I went to my favorite second hand store and bought two dresses that minimized my "just had a baby" lumps and made an attempt to part my hair in a different location than normal.

I know what you're thinking;don't get too crazy there party animal!

After the other DJ met with the client she called to give me the details and told me he had a nice house and was very particular about the music he wanted.

After she gave me the address I looked it up on Google maps and found that it had been on the market at the beginning of the year and that a virtual home tour video had been made.

I watched the video and felt even more anxious. There was a swimming pool and a tennis court and a little courtyard with a fountain. The house was huge and obviously very expensive. I felt an impending sense of doom.

I tried to arrive at the location early so I could set up and get comfortable but I got lost and arrived with about 15 minutes to spare before the guests arrived.

The husband and wife were obviously concerned that everything would go all right and told me their guests were doctors, lawyers and other professionals and that they wanted to make a good impression.

I soured their first impression of me by asking if they were Russian. They were Romanian.

For the rest of the evening I looked in vain for a opportunity to express my admiration of Nadia Comaneci.

I spent several panicked minutes trying to remember how to hook up my laptop to my old mixer and then connect it to the other DJ's equipment. I failed miserably and contemplated running away and hiding somewhere.

I tried to call the boss on my phone but I ran out of credit (yes, I have one of those phones). Finally I asked to use the house phone and then struggled to dial the number correctly. The wife told me to dial "1" first and this got me through.

After more fiddling around and some reassurances from the boss, I was finally able to connect and get sound out of the speakers.

By then many of the guests had arrived and were standing in a tight circle giving me occasional glances that seemed to express a curiosity as to whether or not I might be some sort of living art installation entitled "Faux DJ With Paunchy Midsection."

The first time the husband came over to me it was to say that I needed to play less House music.

Alas, this was often a comment I received at the pub where I used to play.

I knew this meant I would have to trot out the Top 40 hits and throw in some 80s and 90s stuff.

I had forgotten how difficult it could be to try and please everyone's musical tastes.

I had also forgotten not to assume that others would agree with my examples of beat mastery and sampling genius.

One day I will show up to a party and someone will ask for an obscure dance remix of a song and I will win the day by having it on hand.

I played with the sound turned down at first so I didn't drown out the conversations.

The rest of the evening saw a rather comical back and forth of the husband telling me to crank up the volume while his wife came over seconds later and asked if I could turn it down a bit. They always seemed to miss each other and must have thought I was constantly doing the opposite of what each of them wanted.

Several of the guests came to talk to me and they were all very nice.

One was an eye surgeon and we talked at length about an unfortunate side effect of my PRK.

Soon the alcohol began to kick in and people began to lose their inhibitions.

This first manifest itself through slight twitches and barely perceptible shuffles before eventually erupting into full blown dance extravaganza.

My impression of Romanians (based off the two that I met that evening) is that they are very gracious and hospitable. I say this because the wife kept insisting that I eat something and get something to drink. There was a lovely catered spread but I didn't want to stuff my face in front of the guests and I have a rule about not drinking and mixing.

At the end of the night the husband presented me with a nice bottle of Italian wine and the wife packed me a little tupperware container with some homemade cakes, strawberries and chocolate truffles.

I left their home feeling like life was pretty good and hummed the melody to  Dragostea Din Tei most of the way home.

I don't really want to go back to full time Dj-ing. I feel like I'm getting too old for it and I put a high value on being asleep by 10 p.m.-but I wouldn't mind a few more intimate house parties with cordial couples like this one. (The wine and cakes weren't a bad addition either.)

Mr. Pickwick and the Tittlebats

I have started reading the works of Charles Dickens.

Somehow I made it through high school, college and grad school having only perused "A Christmas Carol" twice.

My mom always liked to rent musicals back in the heyday of VHS so I had seen "Oliver!" numerous times.

I started reading "Great Expectations" a few weeks ago and laughed when one of the characters becomes an actor in the "theatuh" and gives a shaky performance in Hamlet.

Dickens writes that the actor playing Hamlet's father had a terrible cough which he carried with him into the afterlife.

There were also some stockings that weren't doing the wearer's legs any favors.

I read "Oliver Twist" next and was surprised to see how the writers of the musical had made Fagin a more sympathetic and likable character.

What I have enjoyed so far is how Dickens manages to make his social commentary with a touch of humor.

In Oliver Twist, Mr. Bumble is completely unfeeling toward the welfare of the parish orphans and is consumed with pride in his power over the unfortunate. In the end, he marries a disagreeable woman and loses all employment when he conspires with a criminal to hide Oliver's true identity.

I just started reading The Pickwick Papers and was delighted by the titular character's paper entitled "Speculations on the Source of the Hampstead Ponds with Some Observation on the Theory of Tittlebats."

The word "tittlebats" put me in hysterics and caused Nick to give me the side eye (he didn't see anything particularly funny about the word.)

Heh, heh. Tittlebats.

Mysterious Encounter Upon the Lawn

Last night when I went out to bring in a garbage bin, I heard a strange rustling sound behind me on the lawn.

I turned and saw a lump sitting on the grass and assumed it was one of the stray cats in the area that likes to poop in our boxwoods.

Feeling like I could actually do something to prevent a clandestine scat session I approached the lump and watched as part of it broke off and scuttled into the hedge.

What remained behind seemed to be an improbably large mound of poo.

As I got closer I leaned down and saw that it was actually a hedgehog.

I had never seen one out and about before and I was excited by the discovery.

I ran into the house to tell Nick and his mum but they didn't seem as thrilled as me.

I went back out onto the lawn and saw that the lump was gone. I heard a scratching noise behind me and saw it scurrying toward one of the other natural areas.

I followed it and it proceeded to employ its defense mechanism which was to freeze and pretend to be part of the landscape.

I couldn't resist the urge to poke gently at its spikes. It responded by blinking a couple of times and stoically maintaining its posture.

I saw a captive hedgehog in a pet store once and the same need to poke at it had overtaken me then.The end result was me getting my finger nipped. It didn't break the skin but it did give me a mild case of hurt feelings.

I decided to leave the creature alone and let it get about its business. I bid it goodnight and returned to the house.  

An Odd Source of Inspiration

I recently went to a cafe with Nick and I saw this painting hanging up on the wall:

The original painting is called "Mystery of the Missing Migrants" and is by artist Charley Harper.

I recognized it because I used to have it in the form of a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

Whoever painted the one in the cafe had given it a different title, signed their name to it and was attempting to sell it with no mention of Harper whatsoever.

This bothered me immensely so I sent an email to the cafe telling them about the origin of the piece and asking them to contact the artist or the studio that provided the replica.

The reproduction did some good however in that it got me interested in Harper's art again.

I spent a lot of time looking at cached images of his work on Google.

I decided to try and apply his methods to paintings of New Zealand's bird life but, unlike the cafe artist, I have created work that is my own and I give credit to Harper for inspiring it.

My first painting was of a Goldfinch and I was pretty happy with the results:

Below are some other examples of Harper's work:

As you can see, Charley's birds are minimalist and reduced down to basic geometric shapes. 

Tails are triangles, bodies are semi circles and legs are angles. Despite this simplification, the richness of the colors and patterns make the birds easy to recognize.

As a lifelong hater of math, I was surprised at how much sense geometry started to make when it took this form. 

Getting the circle, semi circle, angle and triangle ratios correct is easy because the bird looks wrong if they aren't done properly. 

I can almost feel long unused places in my brain waking up when I work on the rough drawings in my sketchbook.

So far I have done the Goldfinch, a Kokako and a Fantail. I'm thinking of doing a larger painting of Kea for the baby's room.

Song of the Week: Peking Duk - Feels Like

Visiting With Kea In Arthur's Pass

There is something reassuring and exciting for me when I see the snow capped Southern Alps.

I used to gaze on them as I drove to work every morning and feel some stirring that I couldn't quite express.

Last Friday, Nick's mum offered to take the baby so I could have a day out and I decided to drive to Arthur's Pass and look for Kea.

The drive takes about two hours and passes through the Canterbury plain before a slow climb up into the hills.

It is spring here and there are trees bursting with cherry blossoms.

I love long, scenic drives and this one was perfect.

I checked for Kea at the three locations where I knew they would visit but had no luck except for one bird that flew off before I could get close.

In between my searches, I climbed most of the way up the Temple Basin Track and managed to twist my ankle several times on the way back down.

Temple Basin

At about 4 p.m. I pulled up to Death's Corner and saw a couple with a stalled van.

They were from the Czech republic and the man was trying to fill the radiator with water but he didn't have enough. I gave him a large water bottle I had purchased in the village.

Two Kea had flown in silently while I was taking in the view and were walking around beneath the stalled van.

The birds were both juvenile. One male and one female. Neither of them had been banded.

The two had discovered some peanuts thrown on the ground and took turns hopping cautiously toward them while keeping an eye on me as I sat nearby.

The male set his crown feathers on edge to show dominance toward the female and if she didn't get out of his way fast enough he would chase her off.

The female Kea.

While she maintained her distance, the male would take a peanut in his claw and eat it a few inches away from me.

The male Kea.

I hadn't realized how accustomed I am to the more tame Kea at Willowbank. They take liberties with my boots and bags and whatever I happen to be wearing because they are used to people in their enclosure and to me in particular.

These two were cautious and  I imagine it comes from being wild and young and still learning about humans.

One of the Czech tourists took this pic for me.

Both birds appeared to be in good health.

I left after about 30 minutes of observation and headed home.

One day I would like to rent a small cabin in Arthur's Pass, get a research grant and stay a while to study the Kea.

Boy Meets Kea, Boy Sleeps Through Experience

I set out to buy one of those baby carrier thingies so I could take the wee one to meet the Kea at Willowbank.

I haven't figured out how to get him into the darned thing without looking like some clumsy Houdini wannabe with a tiny assistant.

It was cool and windy when we went out so I had put A in his white sweater knitted for him by his great grandmother in the U.K.

It bunched up around the arms and neck in the carrier and made him look like some sort of human/puff pastry hybrid.

I hadn't made it through the front door of the park before he had fallen asleep in his pouch.

I walked down to the Kea enclosure and was greeted by all the usual crowd who always take turns perching on me, pulling my hemline, trying to deconstruct my footwear, plucking at my sweater or jacket and  gently fluffing my hair about in a gesture that may be allopreening.

Two birds actually peered down at the baby from my shoulder and seemed to be giving him a study.

One of the juveniles tried to have a pull at his sock before I blocked him with my hand.

I do wonder what they think of him.

I was hoping he would gaze at them through his blue gray eyes and form some early infant memory that would propel him to study them in depth at a later age.

Oh well, he's only a month old. Mustn't rush things.

Seeing the West Coast

Some weeks ago Nick and I drove over to the West Coast to visit with his mother's friends.

We were also picking up a washing machine that was going cheap due to an impending move by its owners to Australia.

We drove through Arthur's Pass and saw a female Kea on the bridge. I rolled down the window and called to her and she hopped sideways a few times and bent down as birds do before they take flight but we couldn't stop and she was left behind.

The closer you get to the coast that touches the Tasman Sea, the more Jurassic looking the ferns become. It really does start to look like a lost world that hasn't changed in eons.

There were beautiful Rimu trees with their weeping leaves and huge flax bushes that grew up right beside the highway.

The house we visited was a villa that had been established in the 1930s.

It had a wrap around porch and a variety of trees the original owner had planted. This included a tall Kauri and several varieties of Eucalyptus.

In a side pasture there was an old tree with delicate orchids growing on its branches and on our way to look at it we sent a few Pukeko running for cover.

At night we went out to feed the eels in the nearby stream and we could see a sky full of stars.

The ceaseless pounding of the surf could be heard as well as the occasional cry of a bird in the bush.

We walked down the unpaved driveway and saw twinkling glowworms giving off their soft green light from the exposed clay soil.

I now have some very pleasant memories of the West.

A tiny orchid.

The Baby Kiwi

Baby Alexander was born on August 21 at 1204 a.m.

He has fat cheeks, Phil Collins hair, no noticeable eyebrows, one everyday chin and two back up chins.

He looks like a little old Norwegian sailor in his knit cap.

Nick and I are very proud of him.

The teenosaur stayed home from school today and taught him how to draw rabbits and his grandmother kept an eye on him while Nick and I had a nap.

We are a very happy family.

Re-Floating the Whale

I found that the best relief from my tired, aching, incredibly pregnant body comes from placing myself in the hydrotherapy pool at our local aquatic center.

I like the pool because it is there specifically for people who are recovering from injuries or who just want to submerge themself and not do much else.

It's short on people with svelte bodies who are prone to sudden displays of athleticism and for that reason I find it most welcoming.

Access to it is gained by a long ramp and by the time the water is covering my bump, the terrible ravages of gravity start to be reversed on my lower back.

I just like to float around or prop my arms on the side of the pool and soak.

When I float on my back the words "a hump like a snow hill" come to mind. I wonder if Melville would be flattered to be remembered in such a way?

I wish someone would invent a portable water tank for pregnant women which could be like a hoveround/aquarium combo. They could call it "Mermaid Rover 1."

I know it is specifically written in the ten commandments, "Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's mobility scooter" but sometimes when I see my elderly neighbor whizzing out of the driveway in his with a jaunty orange flag flapping in the breeze behind him, I feel the creep of envy.

The worst part of the pool experience is getting out again. Each step up the ramp leaves me more at the mercy of the force of gravity and makes me want to "return to sea."

I am fearful that one day they will have to employ a crane and a crew of confused marine biologists to get me land bound again.

This fear will not keep me from the pool however. It's the one relief I have left in these last weeks of tribulation.

Pregnant Women Aren't Livestock

I am due to give birth to my fourth child any day now and for some reason I have become incredibly incensed and defensive.

I am anticipating hospital staff trying to pressure me into breastfeeding which is something I have been unable to do with my last three children.

I don't know if there is some brainwashing cult out there for health professionals that make them push, cajole and guilt new mothers into thinking that "breast is best, in all cases" but that shit needs to stop.

Yes, it is great if you can feed the baby from your own boob as nature intended. But if you can't or *gasp* don't want to there shouldn't be a huge army of Nursing Nazis that descend upon you to make you feel like shit about it.

Lord help the insistent lactation consultant that tries to bully me into attaching my spawn to my teat.

With my first born I tried and tried and tried to breast feed. Switching to formula was a lifesaver and at the current age of 16, I can say that my daughter has grown up safe and healthy.

The eight and nearly four-year old seem to be doing well too.

The free baby book and sample package given to me by my midwife had a section devoted to breastfeeding.

I thought I was on to something progressive when I read its acknowledgement that some women are not willing or able to breastfeed. But then it went on to list a series of health complications and developmental difficulties that can occur from not breastfeeding.

The local NZ news site Stuff.com featured an essay by a woman who had undergone a C section and become gravely ill and how she was treated by hospital staff when she expressed doubts about her ability to breastfeed and asked for formula.

Her treatment made me livid although, the supportive comments from fellow moms on her post were somewhat comforting.

I think being pregnant brings up memories of my time living in the southern U.S.

Despite my mother's dubious claims that "things have changed" I recall the omnipresent attitude in that region that because women are the ones who carry the babies, motherhood alone must be their highest calling and the most fulfilling thing they can experience.

The attitude of many men there seemed to be "I knocked you up, what more do you want?"

I don't think this attitude or the re-enforcement of "traditional gender roles" is good for families.

If anything it seems to isolate fathers from having a closer relationship with their children and put more unnecessary pressure on their mothers to do everything for the children and have no time left for themselves.

I recently read an article in a local magazine about young mothers who had become entrepreneurs because being a 24-hour baby slave was leaving them feeling depressed and unsatisfied with their lives.

To me, dedicating myself to child rearing 24-7 is a waste of my intellectual gifts and accomplishments. I need mental stimulation and to contribute something to the wider world other than being a brood mare.

I will be a much better mother if I am also able to do things that maintain my mental well being and make me feel like a whole person. Motherhood alone will never do this for me.

I think another problem is that too often men are still pushed to be the breadwinners of the family and many people don't have extended families to help raise the children.

In my case, I have a supportive partner who takes an active role in parenting. This was one of the reasons why I fell in love with him in the first place.

I am also fortunate to have his mother here with us and a teenager who is really good at being a big sister.

This is a huge relief.

Overall society still expects women to sacrifice careers and personal goals for the sake of motherhood. We are made to feel guilty and terrible if we don't drop everything and let our individual identities fade into the title of "mother."

Eff that.

I am looking forward to singing my little one to sleep and giving him baths and teaching him all about birds (because dammit, one of my children has to inherit my love of avians and since none of the others seem to care the youngest will have to accept his fate.)

You can be a good mother and not want to spend every waking moment with your baby.

While I'm listing grievances and misconceptions that piss me off, let me just go into a few of the other things I've been reading that have made my brain hurt:

A recent article by the NZ magazine North and South asked why aren't more smart women having kids?

Their article only concerned women who have achieved higher education and it left me feeling icky for several reasons.

First, there was the assumption that "smart women" must have some sort of higher degree. Intelligence exists in various forms and a college degree isn't a requisite for having one of them. This seems to suggest that only the "ignorant masses" or "the rabble" are breeding.

The next thing is that the article completely left out the contributions that men can make as fathers and caregivers which would make parenthood more equitable and, in my opinion, doable.

Lastly, as someone who was until recently enrolled in a PhD program and who is expecting, why wasn't I consulted? *sniffle*

Next issue:

Where the hell does the Supreme Court get off letting a corporation like Hobby Lobby dictate to women what they can and can't have access to with their own healthcare coverage?

This coverage is not something "given to women" it's part of a compensation package that they work for and earn.

Hobby Lobby is not a thinking, breathing entity. It should have no say in how its employees live their lives and what they do with their hard earned benefits.

If the thought of a woman controlling her own fertility or preventing the implantation of an egg hurts someone's fee fees maybe they need to do some soul searching about why they are obsessing about what goes on in someone's private life. Cause that's just creepy. And these people never follow through to ensure educational and financial funding to women who are forced to raise children by themselves.

The only thing this decision has going for it is that lead to another scathing commentary from the feisty goddess known as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I am tired of white old men having the power to legislate and control what is and is not appropriate sexual behavior for women.

There is nothing like a bunch of womb-less assholes dictating to women that they shouldn't have sex until they are married and even then it should be for reproductive purposes and that if they do have the unmarried slut sex, they deserve to have to carry any resulting pregnancy to term because that's what Jesus and the GOP have declared to be best for the cattle, er chattel, I mean women.

And God forbid any of their taxes have to pay for the resulting welfare necessities of a single mother with limited means trying to raise a helpless child on her own.

You can't have it both ways.

And woe betide anyone who declares pregnancy to be "a beautiful thing" within my hearing range.

There is nothing beautiful about morning sickness, low blood pressure that makes you almost faint every time you stand up, being bed ridden by a preterm labor scare, throwing up and pissing yourself at the same time and facing the dangers and complications of giving birth.

Did I mention that I have had severe postpartum depression with each pregnancy? There is nothing quite like finding suddenly that life has no meaning and you want to die while there is another human life depending on you for everything.

Only an out of touch individual who has never and will never have to go through the process would say something so daft and untruthful.

And by the way, I'm not "glowing" right now, I'm burning up because my internal temperature gauge has been set to Mt. Pinatubo and there's nothing I can do about it.

Final issue:

People need to stop shaming women who breastfeed in public. That's what breasts are for. They aren't just titties and fun bags for the drooling frat bro's pleasure, they are life giving feed stations for baby homo sapiens...unless we're talking about my breasts in which case, they are disappointing drip bags that malfunction and stress me out, but still, you get the point.

A Day With The Kea

I went to hang out with the Kea at Willowbank the other day and took the following photos:

The look of curiosity is unmistakable.

A pickpocket moves in.

Kati has lost part of her beak but can still hold her own. She likes to perch on my gumboots.

Kea like to interact with new people and objects in their territory.

   Bill shows off his signature "hold your beak" move.

Sometimes humans become a favored perch. The Kea feathers have a wild, musty smell that I find comforting. Their feathers are also very soft and it's like having a pillow rest on your shoulder.

The Awesomeness of Pick-A-Part

 I have mentioned before that I bought a piece o' crap car off a NZ site called Trade Me.

Whenever I crank the old girl up I always listen for the sound of something falling off or malfunctioning.

Rather than rattle off the list of dangerous experiences and constant costly repairs I have had to make, I'll just get straight to the latest loss.

Some days ago I realized that my right indicator light, cover and socket were missing.

This was weird and I still have no idea where it might have gone or when it came off.

I knew there was a junk yard up the road because I had passed it on numerous occasions and seriously contemplated selling my car to them for parts.

A few days ago I stopped by the place, which is called "Pick-A-Part," and asked about any Audis they might have on hand.

The place is really cool and has a sort of country fair/theme park feel to it. You pay $2 to get in, bring your own tools, remove the parts you need from the available cars on the lot and pay for them on your way out.

I told the lady I would come back with my toolkit and she gave me their website info so I could see what make and model of Audis they had.

I found that they had a 97 A4 as well as a 96 and 98.

Today I got out my teeny tiny tool kit and headed back.

The teenosaur went with me for moral support.

She decided to stay in the car while I went in and looked for my parts.

I was issued a high visibility vest and asked by the man at the gate if my tool kit was a child's version.

I was expecting this sort of thing and gave him a rather wan smile.

He told me where to find the Euro car section and sent me on my way.

I waddled off in that direction and soon found a blue Audi just like mine at the edge of the lot.

The part I needed was easy to pry out with my needle-nosed pliers and to my great relief, the whole assembly came out in one piece. It only needed to be separated from the plug wiring it into the car.

As I waddled back toward the office I got a double takes from two of the other guys out there harvesting parts for their cars.

I guess they don't get too many heavily pregnant shoppers on the lot.

I paid for the part at the office and the grand total was $11.

I returned to my car and triumphantly and showed the assembly to the teenosaur. She looked up briefly from her magazine before continuing with her reading.

I attached the socket to the plug and slid the two prongs into their holders. It fit beautifully.

I put the key in the ignition and turned on the right hand turn signal. It blinked steadily at the front of the car just as it should.

I did a small victory dance while the teenosaur looked around nervously to make sure no one was watching.

To recap:

Entry to Pick-A-Part: $2
Part Purchase: $ 11
Cost of Labor: $0

Grand total for the repair: $13

I will keep this place first in my thoughts for any future parts purchases.

With my piece o' crap Audi, there are bound to be plenty.

Things I Have Learned About Israel

When you live in America, especially in one of the Southern States it is rare to hear anyone criticize Israel.

In the Heart of Dixie you get the occasional "the Jews don't believe in the baby Jesus!" but this is usually overlooked by the fact that there is an Old Testament Pentateuch/Torah connection.

In the U.S., the dominant Judeo-Christian beliefs and total fear, suspicion and disdain of Islam coupled with the lack of knowing any real, live Muslims means one side can easily dominate the conversation when nasty conflicts break out in in the Middle East.

This was my life until I moved to California and actually met some real, live Palestinians.

Along the way I also met some real, live Iraqis, Iranians, Afghans and Egyptians who have become close friends and respected academic colleagues. But this post isn't about them so I'll not digress further.

My daughter's best friend when we lived in northern California was a girl whose father was Palestinian and whose mother was American.

They had family in Jordan and would go to visit there in the summertime. The family was able to get Jordanian citizenship and when I asked why they didn't get Palestinian citizenship I was treated to a bitter laugh and intense look from their mother.

I had a lot to learn.

At grad school in Monterey I became friends with Amer Shurrab.

His family story would horrify me and inspire me to do research on the Mavi Marmara flotilla and Gaza region.

In 2009, Amer's two brothers and father were returning home to Kahn Yunis one night when IDF soldiers fired on them.

His father begged the soldiers to let an ambulance through for his sons but they would not and told him if he moved they would fire on him.

One of the brothers died on the spot and the other bled to death through the cold night. After 20 hours, the father was eventually able to get help.

While this was going on, Amer, who was in the U.S. was calling the Red Cross, human rights groups and reporters in a desperate plea to get help to his family.

From a New York Post article about Amer's family:

"Asked about the incident in Kahn Yunis, a spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces said, 'The IDF is unable to reconstruct and investigate every single event that occurred during the intense fighting, and cannot confirm or deny every claim made by Palestinian and other organizations.'"

In short, the IDF could not be bothered to investigate why soldiers ambushed and opened fire on unarmed civilians who were returning to their home.

Amer showed me photos of bullet holes from where the IDF had fired into the walls of his family's home.

Sometime later when we met for lunch I noticed that he was sad and quiet and when I asked him what was wrong he told me that his father had recently died.

I didn't know what to say so comfort him. Doing so seemed impossible.

I would later watch him give a presentation at our school and break down when it came to talking about his brothers.

Despite all of this he advocated for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

I wondered at his strength in being able to do this. I don't think I would be able to.

From 2007 to the present Israel has maintained a blockade of supplies entering into Gaza and this ongoing control has led to food insecurity, lack of access to clean water, lack of access to building materials to repair homes destroyed during Operation Cast Lead, and stunted growth as well as numerous health issues in Palestinian children.

In 2010, Israel's Navy intercepted a group of boats in international waters and killed nine people on board the largest ship known as the Mavi Marmara.

The stated purpose of the flotilla was to break through the naval blockade and take humanitarian supplies to Gaza.

The boats were shadowed by the navy before they ever got into Israel's territorial sea and long before the raid they had changed course to head north and away from the Israeli coast.

At about 4:30 a.m. the Israelis scrambled the radio communications between the boats and sent out jet skis and helicopters with armed commandos.

According to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea they had no right to take these actions while the ship was in International Waters.

Later post mortem reports would find that two of the victims aboard the ship had bullet wounds in the top of their heads, meaning they were shot dead before the commandos had even landed on the deck of the ship.

Israel's P.R. machine sprang to life claiming that those on board were Islamic extremists and that they found weapons aboard the ship.

They showed grainy photos of people on board the ships fighting the military members.

The fact that the military had no legal right to be on the ship was left out of the narrative for maximum emotional effect.

In reality, those on board the ships were a mixture of activists and human rights workers from various countries.

The "weapons" found were the knives located in the ship's kitchen and a ceremonial sword that was kept below deck.

The ships were forced to dock at an Israeli port and the passengers were made to sign incriminating statements about themselves written in Hebrew.

They were then deported back to their home countries.

Col. Ann Wright was aboard one of the boats in the flotilla (the Rachel Corrie) and when she visited my school I was able to get a first hand interview of what happened to her.

She said the laptops and recording equipment of those on board the ship was taken from them. At that time (2012) her own laptop had not been returned.

She said the fact that she was an American meant she received a better treatment than many of the other passengers who were interrogated.

She said when one woman was about to board her plane to return home one of the soldiers was giving her a hard time and when she started to cry they "slapped her silly."

Many of those on board spoke of being strip searched and mistreated while in confinement.

The incident destroyed Israel's previously strong ties with Turkey and lead to a U.N. review of the events titled "The Palmer Report."

This report found that Israel's naval blockade was legal.

To do so the report had to site the San Remo Manual instead of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

According to International Committee of the Red Cross:

"The [San Remo] Manual is not a binding document. In view of the extent of uncertainty in the law, the experts decided that it was premature to embark on diplomatic negotiations to draft a treaty on the subject."

Instead, current issues are resolved through customary law which is outlined in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, a document that makes no mention of the legality of naval blockades.

Also, the San Remo Manual refers to warring factions at sea, not civilians vs. an armed naval entity.

None of this is really germane to what occurred however because the flotilla was nowhere near the blockade or Israel's territorial sea at the time of its capture.

Israel's action, in my opinion, remains illegal and atrocious.

This isn't the first time Israel has attacked a ship in International Waters. In 1967 they attacked the U.S.S. Liberty killing 34 American crew members and injuring 171 others.

On YouTube I watched a video of a former female IDF soldier talking about how she had detained a young Palestinian boy for throwing rocks. After giving him a lecture she ordered her coworkers to release him. A few hours later she noticed he was still in the company of some of her fellow soldiers and found that they had detained him and burnt him with the lit end of their cigarettes.

A friend of mine who was traveling through Israel on her way back to the U.S. was stopped and questioned by security at Ben Gurion airport. That person didn't like her "attitude" so they ordered a body cavity search on her.

She said she felt helpless and humiliated while the staff conducting the search laughed.

When she tried to speak to a U.S. Consul in the country she was given a dismissive reply.

These are a few stories that do not touch on the illegal Jewish settlements that have forced Palestinians off their land or the 1947 occupation by Jewish settlers of Palestinian lands on the recommendations of the U.N.

The current crisis has raised my ire toward the political factions and religious zealots who see nothing wrong with attacking the innocent Palestinians and further dehumanizing and destroying them.

I have read editorials that say, "that's what they get for electing Hamas as their leaders."

I doubt the little children who have been maimed and slaughtered are able to grasp the concept of Hamas and, more importantly, they were certainly unable to vote for them.

Others say Israel has a right to defend itself.

But what about the Palestinians who were on the land before them?

Are they to move quietly off their lands without protest?

Do they accept their status as "less than" because some of God's chosen people believe they have a divine right to the territory?

Hamas is a group of hateful, extremists shitheads who should not be firing rockets into Israel or calling for its total destruction.

However thanks to the Iron Dome, incredible military might and billions in foreign aid from the blindly supportive U.S., Israel has been able to knock all but a handful of these rockets out of the air and then enter Gaza to act in a heavy handed and tyrannical fashion without consequences.

Every time the IDF strike's a refuge such as a school, home or hospital they do so under the claim that Hamas was there.

This excuse stunk of bullshit from the moment when the IDF slaughtered four young children playing on a beach.

This time however, there are reporters and U.N. workers on the ground to counter their claims and shine light onto the persecution of innocent Palestinians.

On the 23 of July the U.N. Human Rights Council launched an inquiry into alleged human rights abuses by Israel.

In the report, U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Kyung-Wah Kang found that;

"In Gaza, 443 or 74 percent of the killed are civilians. One third of civilians killed so far are children. One child has been killed each hour in Gaza over the past two days."

An easy way of shutting down conversation about this conflict is to claim that anyone who criticizes Israel is Anti-Semitic.

To claim this is to ignore the dissenting voices of Jews and Israelis calling for peace and a workable solution to the conflict.

The fact that millions of Jews were slaughtered during the Holocaust does not grant politicians and Zionists in Israel the right to persecute and extinguish the rights of another people.

I would rather suffer an eternity in hell than claim allegiance to the sort of God who would pick favorites and rain blessings on them when they tormented others.

Stubbins and Archie

This is Stubbins. He's a Yellow Collared Lovebird:

I bought him as a companion for Archimedes since he always seemed lonely and beyond consolation from mere human interaction.

Here there is a online buying service called Trademe which is a lot like Craigslist in the U.S. 

I have learned from experience that what you see and what you get off the site are often two separate things.

My Audi A4 for instance; it looked pretty damn flash in the ads but in real life it is a massive piece of shit and money pit.

I have only purchased one item from Trademe that has caused me 100% satisfaction and that was my Fijian Kauri custom made table that a recently widowed woman was selling. 

It was everything it seemed to be and its warm glowing wood is a jewel in the dining room.

I have a theory that Archimedes once had a companion but when I went to the pet store to look at birds he was the odd man out.

Lovebirds are very sensitive and can pine for a long time if they lose a mate. 

My mother the family therapist said she thought he might have some grieving and separation issues.

Anyway, I found a lady on Trademe who was selling lovebirds for cheap and I decided to buy one.

I bought a little carrying cage for it and watched as she scooped it out of the larger cage and put it into mine.

As soon as I got him home I put his cage out in the conservatory and let Archimedes out so they could interact and talk to each other.

They called to each other and Archimedes landed on his little cage and inspected him closely.

I finally moved the new guy into the larger cage and was a little anxious that Archimedes would bully him a bit.

He did. So I removed his swing and happy hut and other things that he would see as his.

After trying to mate with the new birds several times, Archimedes settled into a routine of allopreening and then bullying the new bird.

I soon noticed to my chagrin that the newbie had an injury over one eye and that his feet were deformed so perching was not easy for him.

Parrots have zygodactylous feet which means they should have two toes facing forward and two facing backwards. All of the newbie's faced forward.

I quickly began to admire him though because, despite this and being bullied by Archimedes he stubbornly held his own and managed to perch anyway.

At night he would sleep at the bottom of the cage so I bought him his own happy hut to keep him warm and comfortable.

Unlike Archimedes, I could pick up and pet the new bird and he would not flip out.

So a few weeks have gone by and the two young bachelors have become good friends.

I've named the new bird Stubbins because his little feet are stubby. 

His eye injury has healed completely.

As you can see from the pictures below, he and Archimedes have formed an attachment to each other and seem to be getting along quite well.

Alexander the Fidgety

Nick and his mum and I were out looking at laptops on Saturday when I started having regular and powerful contractions.

I called the midwife and she told me to head to the hospital.

Just that morning I had an ultrasound of the baby because the midwife thought I was a bit big for 33 weeks of pregnancy.

The result was the image of a full cheeked healthy baby who had all his important parts working the way they should.

But there I was, later that day, plunked into the maternity ward and strapped up to a fetal heart monitor.

To my left was a giant window overlooking Hagley Park in the fleeting winter light and beyond that were cranes and empty buildings that told the story of the slow Christchurch rebuild.

I felt excited because this pregnancy has gotten to the miserable phase most pregnancies do and I was ready for it to end.

Why shouldn't baby Alex come now if he really wanted to?

I'm an indulgent mother I suppose.

I was trying to mentally prepare myself for the coming struggle and the word epidural hung on my lips.

The midwife arrived looking flustered (she's pregnant too) and I asked to make sure she was feeling okay.

The doctor on duty appeared to be a young Indian Fijian and I liked him immediately.

I was poked prodded and tested and tested positive for fetal fibronectin- a substance that apparently causes the placenta to come "unglued" from the uterus.

Preterm labor seemed imminent and I was told I would be spending the weekend under observation.

And so followed a sleepless night in the baking hot maternity ward (it's kept warm for the babies).

I received two shots of steroids and pills at eight hour intervals to stop my contractions.

I was given a list of ills that could befall the baby if he came too soon and I felt guilty for having been glad he was on the way.

My blood pressure was always good and the baby was moving with his usual gusto.

All the nurses and doctors and midwives were very kind but I hated being in that hospital all the same.

I wanted to get out and run away. I wanted to go home and do laundry. I wanted to fuss over my lovebirds and water my plants. Anything except the pseudo prison experience of a hospital stay.

People are there to look after you but you cannot exercise your free will and leave.

It drives me crazy and makes a thousand little things feel like the end of the world.

When Nick and his mum left the first night I felt sad and lonely and wanted to cry.

I suppose I will never get over the stay I had at a military hospital for depression several years ago. There was hopelessness and despair in abundance and I'm not sure how I survived the pre, actual or post experience there. Many of the patients had given up on wanting to live and at times I felt the same way.

I thought it would be nice to just go home and give birth in the bathtub but if the sprog comes early he will likely need the kind of care that a caring partner, older sister and paternal grandmother are unable to give.

I was released to go home today and was so relieved to get into my own bed.

Nick's mom was kind enough to do our laundry and clean the house and make dinner and I am so grateful for her help that I don't feel I can say thank you enough times.

Every time I get up from the bed I have strong contractions.

I feel like a certain stubborn baby is about to make his way into the world whether or not medical science thinks its in his best interest.

For now I will just lay in my bed and wait.