when i was little, i used to eat sand, and many other yummy, crunchy, outdoor mineral-based things. (and it hasn't done me any lasting damage at all, twitch twitch). i thought i was over the habit, having had no sand-cravings whatsoever in the intervening 20-odd years, and even joked about it a couple days ago with some friends. little did i know.
yesterday some friends and i went to check out a horse trekking place about an hour south of auckland. we were booked in for a three-hour ride, and were joined by a fourth rider plus the guide. the first stages of the ride took us down through beautiful farmland and valleys to the beach, on the west coast of the manukau harbor's south head. the cliffs were misty and green, and the sea was pounding blue and brown, making for a spectacular landscape. ours were the only hoofprints on the beach. the horses knew as soon as we got to the sand that the best part of the ride was coming up, so although we kept them at a walk partway up the beach and back, they were dancing at the bits and raring for a run.
my horse, a dun mare named kahlua, turned out to be a speed demon. as soon as i gave her her head, we were off up the beach like a shot, although to my surprise she preferred to run up in the driftwood line, and nearly unseated me jumping a log. i guided her back down to the water's edge, where the real excitement started. we had a fantastic gallop for a few hundred meters, until kahlua aimed to overtake the horse in front of us, but instead of passing politely, headed right up her tail. i guided her off to the left, but she immediately shied at a rock, this time tossing me out of the saddle for real. i slid down her right side (lightly clunking my head on the way down, probably against saddle or hoof) and into the deep black sand... with my right foot still stuck in the stirrup.
well, if kahlua was spooked by a stationary rock, she really didn't know what to do with a flailing body trailing off her right side. so she kept running. i was dragged for probably a few dozen meters, in which time i flipped myself over from back to stomach a few times to try to free myself and to see if any other rocks were approaching that i might get dragged over. in the end i opted for stomach - fewer pounding hooves in front of my face, and i probably didn't want to know about oncoming rocks anyway. and did i mention eating sand? yeah, lots of that.
in seconds, or minutes, or years, i came free and came to rest on my side. at this point i knew i was fine - not dead and pretty sure nothing was broken, so the next few minutes were probably the worst for the onlookers, as i lay in the sand unmoving. shortly i was able to take stock of my limbs and found that although my left leg, which had been flapping around under the horse, was very sore, nothing else seemed painful, including the foot and knee that had been snagged in the stirrup. i was too dizzy to sit or stand for a while, but was otherwise completely fine, to my own and everyone else's amazement. i did catch a ride back up the hill in a truck instead of on horseback, but other than the developing bruises on my leg nothing seemed amiss. i spent the rest of the day with a light headache, icing and elevating my leg, and sleeping, and today can confirm that i actually i did get off with only bruises. they even cover the normal day-after discomfort of sore infrequently used muscles.
the most lasting effect, in fact, seems to be the sand, which i expect will gradually dislodge itself from my ears and eyebrows over the course of some months. maybe i'll even be sandless again by the time i next go riding. :)
i will get some reflections posted about the colossal squid stuff one of these days, but in the meantime, i want to share something else. this fine fellow is a tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) and he's been sitting in a big tree above our back patio singing his heart out for the past two days, in spite of heavy rain and generally wretched weather. last week was fun and exciting, but the tui's bubbly whistles, squawks and constant chatter have also made me glad to be home.
ok, i know i've been quiet on the whole colossal squid thing - busy week! all you need to know is happening on the blog and webcams though the te papa site here. see you online :)
i had some trouble uploading about half of the dive pics the first time, so here are the rest.
my grandmother is 97 years old today. that's pretty incredible on its own - three years shy of having lived an entire century. and at such an impressive age, one would be completely entitled to any help needed for everyday life. but get this. bestema gets around completely under her own steam - she has two teflon knees and has had eye surgery, lives in her own apartment, plays the organ, goes swimming, does crosswords, and is ON EMAIL for cripes' sake. my dad gave her a digital photo frame for her birthday and said someone would come over and help her set it up - but she's already done it. she is quite simply one hell of a granny. and not 'just' a grandmother anymore, either - three times a great-grandmother, with a fourth on the way! (but not from here.)
so in her honor i'd like to share a few of the memories i've gathered at her extremely capable hands, over the last almost 30 years' worth of visits.
during the early years of my life, we used to visit bestema & bestepa in florida at easter. these visits were full of tropical magic (compared to march-april weather in minnesota), with sunshine, palm trees, intrepid early morning anole-hunts, and pastel summer sun-dresses. sometimes our cousins would visit at the same time. we all dyed and colored eggs on the days leading up to easter, then went on a thorough search through the spiky grass, knobby palm trunks and prickly bromeliads, trying to recover them and any foil-wrapped chocolate eggs before the slugs found them. one year i camped out on the front steps with my cousin kurt in the hopes of catching the easter-bunny red-handed... and caught the easter-bestema instead. there were swims in the pool, trips to the beach and to the suncoast seabird santcuary to see the talking crows and the huge brown pelicans. dad would put me on his shoulders and hand me up slices of bread to feed the wheeling, diving seagulls. there were grapefruit fresh off the tree in the back yard. during these visits, bestema taught me almost all the card games i know. there were trips to sea-world, where i can remember seeing shamu and petting stingrays. i can also remember (with horror) my first roller coaster, at busch gardens - i think i was five and either they didn't have height restrictions in those days, or dad snuck me on. thanks, dad.
later on we would visit sometimes at christmas instead, at bestema & bestepa's newer house nearby. this one was a little different, but still included the necessary 'florida room,' and still had everything inside that let us know whom we were visiting - a night light in the bathroom made of christmas lights piled inside glass bottles, shelves of knick-knacks we had grown up loving and handling oh-so-carefully, and the grandfather clock that bestepa (appropriately) had built. the new house backed onto a golf course with a big pond, and came with a sense of adventure - sometimes there were alligators in the pond. we mostly watched birds - skimmers, ducks, and the occasional heron - but it was deliciously chilling to think about what might happen to them at any unexpected moment. here, too, there was a pool, and a community clubhouse with a pool table.
every year around christmas, if we weren't visiting, we received packages of homemade lefse. these packages were carefully guarded by our parents, and had to be shared out in small doses to make them last. the taste of lefse is still the taste of christmas for me. and there were other bestema specialties from the kitchen - lemon meringue pies, and the most supreme chicken and dumplings - mouth-watering to think about even now.
the first quilt i can remember was bestema-made. many quilts followed it, but the first one was particularly special - a crazy mix of fabric squares in all different colors and textures. my favorites were the dusty green olive velvet squares, which all wore thin from constant stroking. when i ran away at age 5 (to live in the hallway outside our apartment - this lasted an hour), i took a box of saltines and the bestema quilt. when the dog chewed a hole in it, i was distraught until bestema made it new again. some ten years ago, we converted my stockpile of high school t-shirts into a new quilt, and most recently bestema has been helping me on the first quilt i've ever undertaken (admittedly a rather ambitious pattern for a beginner, so still a long way from being finished).
recently, bestema moved to north carolina, to be near my uncle, cousins, and the new additions. last summer, dad and i stopped through to see her and the rest of the family. we took a trip out to the lakeside property where my aunt and uncle plan to retire, and bestema hiked down the hill with us, and then rode in the inflatable kayak back across the lake. i told you, she really is amazing. and we are so lucky to have her.
happy 97th, bestema. we love you!
that is all.
i know that's super corny, but i like the way it looks, with the backwards 'd.' like someone spelled the whole treacherous word right, except for one tiny detail.
i digress.
in the slanting pumpkin-colored rays of the sunset (on my walk home form work at 5pm - thanks, daylight savings), a spiderweb gleamed, slung between the lowest branch and the trunk of a licheny tree.
it was well-enough maintained that i thought there had to be an orb-weaver lurking somewhere nearby, probably camouflaged against the bark. and sure enough.
and then i found $20.
every once in a while, rumors of freshwater octopus or squid crop up (usually right around this time of year, in fact, as discussed over here on TONMO). some people are, in fact, very taken with the idea; these folks may or may not also be fans of the tree octopus. but sadly, no species of cephalopod has ever made the transition from sea to fresh water, as far as we can tell.
... until now! ;)
tomorrow marks the end of an era for me. (don't get all excited - it's not the phd, not yet.) it will be my last (currently scheduled) sleepover at kelly tarlton's, auckland's aquarium and my place of employment for the last 3.5 years. kelly's is not the world's most glamorous aquarium, but for what it is, it's pretty impressive, and it has a great history. in the early '80s, new zealand underwater explorer and archaeologist kelly tarlton wanted to bring the marine world he knew from diving to the public of new zealand, so he began looking for a site to build an aquarium. he realized that the old underground sewage tanks of auckland city had been unused since the '60s (and what a pleasant realization that must have been) - four concrete tanks each holding more than 1,000,000 liters. within ten months he had converted the tanks into two large aquariums and two equally sized filtration beds, pioneered the underwater viewing tunnel technology now used in aquaria worldwide (and molded the acrylic himself in a massive home-built oven), and filled the tanks with around 2000 animals inlcuding sharks and stingrays. all this funded, no less, by treasure kelly recovered from the wreck of the ship elingamite, off the coast of new zealand.
tragically, the 18-hour-days kelly was working in the months leading up to the aquarium's opening in 1985 proved too much, and he died of a heart attack in his sleep six weeks after the opening. march 17 marked the 23rd anniversary of his death. he was 47 years old.
Recent Comments
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Dee Dee Rules! said:
I love these!!!! OMG what type of camera did u use??? read more
on diving the poor knights -
grinninberit said:
they have the cutest mouths! it always looks like they're about to say something very very happy. :D read more
on and now, a pufferfish -
grinninberit said:
i can only imagine how many baths you'll take now JUST so you can play with the bath squid!!your children... read more
on freshwater squid found! -
i have a sea & sea, which is essentially a nice little point-and-shoot digital in an underwater housing. it's not... read more
on diving the poor knights