Sheepish Moments

Sheepish Moments.

When you pack your suitcases for another country it pays to take along a good supply of don’t-take-yourself-to-seriously capsules. You are naturally going to look like a chump quite often. On our second day we were outside very excited taking photos of squirrels while the locals looked on with a Yeah-right-a-squirrel-big-deal look. Now that I have been here nearly a year I too have developed a blasé attitude towards them. They are everywhere, cheeky and more visible than the birds. But when we first encountered them they were fascinating.
In my ignorance I had the idea they would be about the size of cats. I think children’s picture books greatly misled me on that score. The publishers can be glad that I am a New Zealander rather than an American or they could find themselves in serious litigation for misrepresentation of the facts. I now know that Squirrel Nutkin is more the size of a fat bush rat than Garfield.
While the squirrels were smaller than expected, ants were not. Again the local populous were amazed as the whole family gathered in astonishment around a line of huge black ants marching along our porch steps. We got quite a reputation for being interested in wild life among the camp ground where we were staying. Soon armies of small boys were scattered though out the forested area around us in search of every snake they could find. Paul had let it be known that he passionately wanted one. When the snakes started appearing, and it dawned on me exactly what was going on, I let Paul know just how equally passionately I did NOT want one. This has continued to be an ongoing tussle between us during this time. At one stage the local dump yielded up an old glass aquarium that Paul thought would be perfect to house a snake collection in the basement. I however, told him to rethink that thought. So far I have prevailed and I intend to keep it that way for the rest of our time here. Connecticut had grass snakes. Colorado has rattle snakes! We do get much satisfaction telling Americans New Zealand has no snakes and you can wander barefoot through the bush as there is nothing that will harm you. Then its their turn to look bug eyed with astonishment.
Just before we left New Zealand I met an American doctor who had been in New Zealand six months. I asked him how he liked living in Kiwi Land?
“ It’s great “ he replied. “ Its similar enough to be comfortable and different enough to be fascinating.”
That has been our experience here. Cars are not new to us, but huge pick-ups and long stretch limousines are. Light switches are not new to us , but all working upside down are. T- (oops I nearly said the Americanly unacceptable word) bathroom apparatus are not new, but self flushing ones in airports definitely are!
The first time I encountered one of these was a shock. It was an overly efficient aggressive one and I left the cubical thankful not to have been sucked some place I’d rather not go. I had a great fear of not being finished before these intelligent appliances activated until I encountered a tardy one. I assure you there are few incidents in life where you feel more ridiculous and out of control than when you are trying to pretend to a bathroom apparatus that you have gone again and it needs to get on with its job. I think they should at lest come equipped with a manual button so it is possible to over ride their authority.
Even kitchen appliances can provide some sheepish moments. I tried for days to work out how to light the gas oven. Eventually I asked a neighbour who just turned the knob round to the required temperature. Apparently they just leave a small pilot light burning continuously for automatic lighting. This bothered me as it seemed so energy wasteful even if you do have a gas tank the size of a small water tank outside. That night a skunk strolled underneath our open bedroom window and I leaped out of bed and rushed into the kitchen convinced that the strong burning hair smell was the pilot light exploded and the house was on fire.
I didn’t tell the neighbours that one.
We did tell them about the coffee filters though. It was too good a story not to share. If they have this type in New Zealand I have yet to encounter them. They looked exactly like gigantic cup cake papers to us. The opened packet had no label to indicate what they were and in the land of huge vehicles, huge stoves, huge refrigerators, huge chicken breasts it seemed logical to conclude they were for huge muffins. Ruth sent many folded up in letters back home pointing out that we thought Texas muffins where big, but take a look at the size of Connecticut muffins! I figured they must have huge patty pan trays to support the gigantic cup cake papers of the monstrous muffins. That must be the logical reason for the cavernous ovens . We all thought is was a huge joke and felt right chumps when we learnt the truth.
Until yesterday that is, for sitting magnificently, in a cafe were monstrous muffins . Large as life and cooked in, ( drum roll please), COFFEE FILTER papers. So don’t be surprised if you find some Colorado muffin papers in your letterbox from Ruth soon.

Wave Graciously Like the Queen.
A friend made the observation that kids who return from living in America are more confident than the average, that they don’t have trouble standing before groups and speaking.
That got me thinking and I realized it is because over here we are like mini celebrities. The minuet we open our mouth’s we turn heads. We are immediately an impromptu stage show.
We are odd.
Now in New Zealand , our family was odd too. But in New Zealand our family were a peculiar odd, where as in America we are a charming odd.
Anything weird we say, wear or do here is put down to haling from the land of The Rings. We have the film industry to thank for the current popularity we enjoy. It is quite fashionable hereto come from Down Under.
We do try to quality some of the more outlandish things about ourselves, by explaining that the majority of New Zealanders don’t actually live half the week ( like we used to ), in tiny cottages in the hills with no electricity and an outhouse bathroom , just for fun.
Notice how politely I said that. I don’t think they would know what a long drop is over here.
Unfortunately I think they miss the qualifier as we have been asked the stereotypical question -“ do you all wear grass skirts down there?” So I am sorry folks but there are going to be a large number of Americans who think you all wear 1930s clothes, homeschool and make your own bread and soap, in spite of all our best efforts.
But our more weird areas aside, there is something about living overseas that makes us realize just how typically Kiwi we are. Little things like washing.
Unless things have changed dramatically since we left, nobody thinks anything of washing hanging outside on a line. Over here it is just not the done thing. In some areas it is actually banned and the difficulty of getting good clothes pegs reflects this.
Imagine, a beautiful, hot, dry Colorado day and not a sheet or towel let alone anything as plebeian as undies in sight. Yet in all the houses unseen driers, sucking bulk electricity will be hard at work. Americans seem to be rather squeamish in certain areas and obviously laundry falls into this category along with the objectionable T word, ( we’ve learnt to say bathroom instead),and naked feet.
Apparently going about barefoot suggests that you are a vagrant or generally immoral or an undesirable character. Scratch the immoral, I’ve just remembered immoral is fine , it’s just tootsies on display that aren’t. This has been a difficult transition for Northland kids. We had heard rumours of this before we left New Zealand so as part of our preparation we bought the boys and Rachel shoes. We had a few weeks of sporadic training before we hit the States but it wasn’t sufficient time to retrain a lifetime habit. I figured that the snow would sort the problem out and paid scant attention to it, after all I was raised in Northland myself. I had to revise my attitude when we were politely told one day that is was not acceptable. They would overlook it this time ( on account of our accent ), but next time all shoeless boys ( and possibly one girl) would be thrown out. Now I would have totally understood it if it had been a restaurant but it was an electronics store.
Since then we have tried to be much more diligent resulting in a few false starts to the library as a vagrant boy has been discovered in the back seat of the car. However round home the whole family is apt to slip back into comfort zones if the weather is hot. This resulted in the German boy across the road worried that we didn’t have enough to eat and other deficiencies . But his mother , who has a funny accent and is an actor on the American stage every day herself, assured him it was just our way.
So folks we you next see us back home we will all be wearing large cowboy hats and boots and ready to sign up for speaking engagements.