The "My Life" Update

I am now working full time for a law firm that handles mostly conveyancing and wills.

The buying and selling of property is mostly straight forward but the wills have taught me that humans beings get rather cruel and finicky towards the end of their lives.

I applied to the law school at the University of Canterbury and I plan on taking basic courses while working.

If all goes well I should be a barrister/solicitor in five to eight years.

At that rate I should have about ten good years of practicing law before I retire and reminisce about the good old days from my small cabin in Arthur's pass where I am surrounded by keas and beech trees.

I will have a birthday in two weeks. I don't really care about this. I used to but I don't anymore.

I am finding that as I get older things that once amused me and mattered to me no longer do.

I used to want to be popular and thought of as clever Now I want to go unnoticed.

I also daily thank the powers that be that the internet wasn't around when I was younger.

I'm started to feel distant from young people. I have to mentally refrain from starting sentences with "in my day..."

I have given up heels for sensible footwear with ample arch support.

I have many plants growing in pots at the moment. I also have a rickety raised garden bed where I am growing cauliflower, tomatoes, basil, cilantro and some cornflowers.

For some reason this damned feral cat keeps getting in there and turding it up. I want to rig up some sort of water spraying system with sensors so it gets squirted every time it tries to drop a poo bomb.

The library is having a Diwali celebration next Saturday and I want to go. I am still holding out hope that one day I will make the effort to enroll in a Bharatanatyam class but in the meantime I will watch others and feel inspired.

The baby is saying "no no no" now and pointing at things he wants. He is fascinated by the vacuum cleaner. So...normal baby things there.

I have taken up coloring in those adult coloring books. Nick is not impressed.

The same guy who wages war on imaginary villages on his iphone is exasperated by my coloring habit.

Tomorrow is Labor Day and I am going to Arthur's Pass to hike up the mountain trail to Temple Basin. I will be heading over to Otira for lunch and checking out the view from Death's Corner. Nick has accused me of going so I can "secretly feed the Keas,"

Pshaw!

The Weekend in Pictures: Glacier Edition

Nick took me over to the West Coast so we could visit with some of his friends and so I could fangirl over the abundant bird life.

We passed through Arthur's Pass and I was required to go and squee over  scientifically observe two groups of keas.

The drive from the pass to Whataroa was lovely even though it was peppered with Nick's commentary about who drove off of what cliff and who stole what from which pub and what sort of injury he sustained on which rugby field.

The man has lived a full life.

Alex napped quite a bit in the car and was pretty cheerful when he woke up. He especially enjoyed going in and out of the sliding door at our motel.

We had some awesome steak and venison for dinner and took a soak in the local hot pools.

The next morning Nick dropped me off at the foot of the Franz Joseph glacier trail.

Look at my smug face. I was about the hike the hell out of that terminal moraine.*

Pokey ice sheets make for some interesting rock formations.

We can all learn from stickman's misfortunes.

The glacier in all its bumpy majesty.

Another view of the glacier with the dirty bits at the bottom. No one said nature was tidy.

Behold the abrasive power of slow moving ice!

The shy Tomtit.

*Nick would like you to know that he taught me about "terminal moraines." Apparently his geography teacher was a bit obsessed with them.