missing your kids a little is a good thing because i can tell you that having enough of them is too much.

i always knew we moved around a lot when i was little but now i know exactly how much because it turns out my dad kept a spreadsheet of all our addresses.

and in the few instances where the city remained the same, it still involved me changing schools so it might has well have been across the country.

“when you wish a guy dead and it turns out to be your best friend you know, its the pits.”

-bill lansford, the war, disk 1

it was equally fun to watch the table next to us react to a typical dinner conversation with ethan as it was to hear what he was thinking.

we discovered the bollywood star after reading a feature story about a “wanganui monsoon wedding” in the local paper. this was our first trip and everyone was quite happy with the meal and the kids were even more impressed by the large screen television playing bollywood music videos.

as we were getting ready to leave ethan asked -

“why are they wearing those shiny things around their ankles?”

“some people think they are attractive”  i responded.

“and why are they only singing and dancing?”

“i guess indians like singing and dancing movies.”

he then gestured to the staff working in the restaurant and asked -

“then why aren’t they singing and dancing?”

now that we’ve had traffic school lets talk about pedestrian safety.

in the center of wanganui along victoria avenue their are specially marked, raised cross walks. you so much as look at one of those cross walks and cars will yield.

at all other intersections there will be a pedestrian signal with a lovely chirp to assist the hearing impaired. notice everyone respecting the signal and not walking when the red hand is displayed. typically, all vehicle traffic is stopped when the pedestrian signal is green and you can cross horizontally, vertically or diagonally to get where your going. as soon as the pedestrian signal turns red you become invisible. and so does that baby stroller your pushing so don’t think that buys you any special consideration.

as for the rest of town, remember that previous business about pedestrians being invisible. yeah, thats the rule everywhere else.

consider yourself warned.

i have been pleasantly surprised by the smooth transition to driving on the left (wrong) side of the road. what isn’t going as well is obeying this crazy law of giving way to the guy making a right turn in front of my left turn.

in other words, the red car has the right of way – obvious, right…

we did learn another thing about new zealand over the labour holiday.

we spent our weekend in the trout capital of the world, turangi. i was very much looking forward to the famed trout dinner but you can’t buy trout because its against the law to sell.

in new zealand, trout is a game fish only and if you want any you better bring a pole and get your own…

we passed our first public holiday in new zealand. labour day.

observed would have been too strong a word because the only thing we learned about labour day in new zealand is that most folks have the day off and if your rude enough to go to a restaurant causing another to work who also should have had the day off, they charge you an automatic fifteen to twenty percent premium.

its certainly not good news we haven’t found a place to move to yet, but the house hunting continues to be entertaining.

we walked in to a house the owner hadn’t seen for months and the previous tenant had trashed. our new zealand sponsor announced to the owner

“its grotty here.”

i may not have known the full meaning of grotty at the time, but i knew it wasn’t complimentary. instead of being insulted the owner sullenly agreed.

bloody candid, honest folk these new zealanders.

if you happen to see ethan in the next few weeks i’d suggest asking him about the car catching on fire.

his version of the story has him diving under the car and putting out the fire out with a sippy cup. each time he’s told it, it gets a little better so prepare yourself for quite a yarn.

last weekend the data allowance on our internet connection was reset – meaning i got a fresh 6gb of internet action before dropping back to modem or worse speeds.

over the ten days of hobbled connection i managed to transfer another 3.4gb over the 6gb limit but this image haunts me on every click i make knowing each byte has me closer and closer to being denied high speed internet access.