The human brain is very good at picking out patterns, even creating patterns where they do not exist. From this many superstitions have arisen, as events that are unrelated are somehow linked in their significance.

One common such superstition is that “things happen in threes.” When two seemingly related events occur, you are left waiting for that third shoe to drop. Well, for better or worse the Universe provided such a pattern for us.

At the beginning of October Jake was shot and lost a leg.

At the beginning of November Ferrari fell over dead of a bowel torsion.

Yesterday one of Yvonne’s horses slipped and fell while jumping at an event, and broke his leg. The vet on site thought it was a hairline fracture (and thus could be fixed), so they rushed him to Massey (the big vet hospital 2 hours north of here) for treatment. At Massey they discovered the injury was too severe, and he was euthanized.

What a terrible experience, especially for poor Joanne who was riding him. To be 14 years old and lose your pony must be truly awful. Especially if you are left blaming yourself when he slips beneath you. (The ground is very hard due to a lack of rain, but yesterday a light mist fell, leaving the surface greasy and slippery.)

Zam had been trouble since he arrived. He was a willful, smart, difficult horse. He taught Joanne to have a great “seat”, as he was prone to bucking and rearing. Yvonne had put in a huge amount of work trying to correct his behaviour problems, as well as some niggling back injuries he had earlier. Joanne had pushed through the frustration of his bucking and resistance to have great pride in what she and he could do. And, like only a 14 year old girl can, she loved Zam.

I guess the only consolation is that the superstitious part of my brain can now stop waiting for the third bad animal-related thing to happen.

So, the lab tests came back- food poisoning (campylobacter). Seeing as I am the cook, this was a self-inflicted illness. Perhaps I should get out of the habit of licking the knife clean after cutting up the chicken?

I am a grumpy sick person. I don’t like being sick. On the up side, my body is very good about just putting itself in standby mode, letting me sleep the sick away. Better than being awake and miserable. I don’t get sick much.Probably due to a healthy outdoor lifestyle (minor contribution), and a lack of human contact in said lifestyle (major contribution).
This sick is remarkable, as it actually made me think about going to see the doctor, something I have not done for an illness in 20 years. I am feeling a bit better this morning, though, so I think I may hold hold off on the call.

I managed to be well enough last night to attend the AWN (American Women’s Network) annual Thanksgiving dinner, which was quite nice. Ended up sitting next to Michael, a nicen fellow from SF who is now the art director for Weta. Looks like he and his wife will be coming over to see our alpaca sometime. :)

Had a bit of a fright Wednesday night, as Zahir was a bit crook. Alpac a are sufficienly stoic that by the time they show symptms, they are pretty darn sick. At first we thought it might be Haemonchus contortus- barbers pole worm. This is a nasty blood sucking worm which is really deadly. Now I think it was just a case of normal intestinal worms. We drenched everyone, and (fingers crossed) all seems to be well now. Now it is just a matter of checking the ‘paca regularly, and waiting for the next female to unpack!

Saturday night we were invited to a housewarming/early Guy Fawkes celebration at Robyn and Selwyns place in Churton park. They have a nice little townhouse, and two very large cats. (Mmmmm, good eatin’ there) In the back yard Kerry spotted some bananna passion  fruit vines growing in the trees running up the steep bank behind their place. With a bit of effort, including Ben climbing up a tree to whack at them with a stick, we collect 4 ripe fruit. Very tasty. Too bad they are a horrible invasive plant that must be eradicated.

Apparently there is much more actual edible fruit than in “real” passion fruit.

And Selwyn got to indulge in his fit of annual pyromania, and set off a bunch of fireworks in his back yard.

Luck arrived this week in the form of free tickets. Tam won two at work, and then our friend Michail provided two more free comp-tickets he had scored through his work (a transport company that among other things moves around sets for opera companies).

So Saturday afternoon we were off to the radio Tarana-sponsored Bollywood Dance competition, as part of the Diwali (festival of lights) celebrations. That afternoon was 3 hours of dancing from the intermediate and advanced groups. We were entertained b y quality dance routines to seriously adrenaline-pumping Bollywood music (left my ears ringing for an hour afterwards). The hall was large (TSB areana), and quite full. I think we had most of the south-asian community of Wellington in there with us. We disagreed with the judges over the first place and runner up in the advanced section. Having watched (and participated in) plenty of dance performances in the last 6 years, I have strong opinions on the matter now, and the runner-up’s were robbed. They had a high and consistent skill level, a kick-ass choreography, and most importanly- they could all perform.

I also had to respect the group from Upper Hutt college. That group was mainly kiwis, where most of the troups were exclusively south-asian in descent. And when asked about their preparations for the show, they admitted they only took one week for everything- choreography, costumes and practice. I hope they keep at it, as given a bit more time and experience they could be quite good.

After a quick dinner (Indian food, of course!), it was off to the Opera. Turandot, the last opera of Puccini. Executions, insane oriental potentates, a suicide, all you could ever want from the opera. The stage directiion was wacky, with only one person in period costume, but it worked for me. Ping, Pang, and Pong in their color-ccoded fur-trimmed “pimp jackets” were a hoot. The mug-shots of all the people executed (a list that gets added to during the performance) was also very nice.

So after all that culture on Saturday, what do we do Sunday? Clip alpaca toenails. But that was a worthy job, and entertaining in its own right. We also took more photos for the coming web page. Today is a beautiful fine and sunny day, the first in about a month. Hopefully that warm weather will get the grass growing, we have the moisture, now we need the sun.

Winter in Wellington. Dark, cold, rain. Time for a party!

On Saturday we hosted our annual darkest-day party. And this year I could even attend, I was not stuck in a boring AANZ AGM down in Christchurch! People started to show up shortly before dusk. We had a roaring fire, plenty of food and mulled wine, and the shining of many tea-lights to carry us through the dark night.

It was a “bring a plate or bottle” sort of party, which in practice means that everyone brings enough food/drink for 3 or 4 people, and there is complete overload. It was great! All up we had 27 guests, if I counted correctly (they kept moving!). Two people ended up staying the night (one who had too long a drive home, the other who was out past her restriced drivers licence cutoff), so they got a giant scrummie breakfast, too.

Now I have 3 days to prepare for my trip to Dundein next weekend for the AANZ conference. All I need to do is come up with fun material for my 50 minute talk (”alpacas- te details are in the science”) and make a powerpoint slide file to send down. Oh, and I need to pick out some very warm clothes for my trip. A huge winter storm double-tapped the bottom of the South Island last week. They are just getting airports reopened now in many places, and were talking of 2-3 meter deep snow drifts on the main roads. “Bitterly cold southerly winds” have been a common feature of many weather reports. In fact, it is what has been reportred for us in Wellington today, as we catch the edge of the latest storm that hit our southern neighbors. I am gad I have built plenty of shelters for the alpaca.

So what have I been doing while Stephen is swanning around the East Coast ?

Er, playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, mostly. After playing a bunch of games at Alan’s B-day party, I gave in to temptaion and bought a used X-Box off TradeMe. The PS2 is great for RPGs, which is what I mostly play, but Stephen and I really like playing games *together*, and there’s only so many times you can replay Neverwinter Nights before the entertainment value palls. (Yes, I know, KotOR is *also* an RPG, but Stephen’s away, remember ?) So the X-Box came with a bunch of games, plus Kerry has loaned us some of theirs, plus now I can actually look at the cheap used games in EB or Gamesman, because I have something to play them on. I anticipate getting nothing useful done this winter. :^)

The long holiday weekend was spent at the first ever Darton Collegium — a “collegium” being an SCA event comprised mostly of classes. I learned all kinds of cool things about Medieval leatherworking techniques, what sorts of modernly-available thread is most appropriate for handsewing various types of garments, etc. I missed the bookbinding class, but I suspect it will be reprised. There were people from some of the other local Medievalist groups there, too, so it was good to meet them and share perspectives.

This past weekend, Kerry and I grabbed some alpaca fleece and went up to a felting workshop at Dianne’s place up in Judgeford. Man, felting is hard work ! Definitely need to arrange some kind of mechanical aid for this kind of thing. We made “cria covers” — although they might be better suited to pillow covers or something. We learned why it’s important to card or comb the fleece first, or be very assiduous about pulling apart the staples: anything that still thinks it’s part of a lock will bind back into the lock when you felt, making little loops and warts on the finished surface. So our pieces came out a bit goofy-looking. But we had fun & got to chat with alpaca people (okay, well *I* had fun and chatted to alpaca people — I’m not sure what Kerry got out of it, apart from maybe sore shoulders…). It was a good day for it, too — sunny and not too cold.

In place of our usual Friday-night gaming slot we’ve been playing other games. We played a four-board game of Robo Rally, and not only did we *finish* at a reasonable time, I actually *won*. I don’t think *either* of those two things has happened before… And Geoff took away our little robot figures and painted them for us. Thanks, Geoff !

I haven’t been doing much with the week-nights (apart from A&S and KotOR), mostly because I’m still (yes STILL) getting over the Dunedin Death-Grip. After a couple of false starts where I’d think I was doing better and go to dance class or something, and then fall over for the next two days, I’ve been deliberately taking it very easy. I *think* I’m now over the hump, and am just dealing with the lingering cough. I haven’t had to take a day off work in a couple weeks now, I’ve been going back out for walks at lunchtime, and this week I’ve gone back to getting up at the usual time. I’m now horribly out of shape, though, which is annoying, and missing dancing is a bugger. Oh well, it beats gallstones, right ? Meanwhile, Stephen, convinced that my ability to feed myself properly has atrophied since I’ve been living with him, carefully stuffed the fridge with leftovers for me to eat while he’s away. Hee. I’ve mastered the one-match fire, too, so I’ve been keeping cosy.

The alpacas are fine. (Metservice keeps pushing back the days when the bad weather is supposed to finally get us, so while it’s been chilly, it hasn’t been *bitter*, or too wet or windy.) I’m sure the cats think I am *slack*, though, as I’ve occasionally let the food bowls get empty before remembering to refill them. On the other hand, I think *they’re* pretty slack, too — we had *two* mice in the the house Saturday, and Kerry and I had to catch both of them. *tsk*

Only a few more days to go til Stephen gets back !

So we’re still enjoying summer weather here — it’s been summery for a couple of weeks at a stretch, now, and we’re about to the point where we could use some rain again.

We do do things besides all the alpaca things we post about, never fear. Stephen has re-written yet another set of gaming rules for his club, in addition to running our regular Friday night Ars Magica game — which has been going almost a year now ! We had a nice time chatting with Zoo people at MJ’s party & have a standing invite from the bird guy to hit him up for a tour the next time we’re at the Zoo. We went to the Manukau Medieval Market (now in Levin!), where Stephen enjoyed some of the SCA fighting he missed at Canterbury Faire (plus he got to ham for the crowd of punters), and I gave a wadge of money to this lovely Afghani woman in exchange for some new jewelry that I adore (ferret shock, I tell you).

Today we went to the Cuba Street Carnival, where I resisted mightily the urge to give Sara more money and instead did my best to hook her up with Traysi, who’s opening a new bellydance boutique upstairs from Indeja, and then had yum char (dim sum) for the second time this month, with about 25 other people.

I finally finished building my new computer. I gave up trying to restore all of my old settings and just did a clean install. We lost some of the software we didn’t have disks for, but now have a couple hundred more gigs of hard rive to play with. We hooked the new machine up to the TV so we can play DVDs that won’t play on the regular player. We’ve been dragging friends over to watch the new Dr. WHO, Torchwood, Battlestar Galactica and Heroes. Okay, not “dragging” so much as announcing “Geoff just got the next three eps of Heroes, you free tonight ?” and arranging the furniture to make room.

One of the women from my waiata group at Council invited me to a four-week newcomers/recruiting thing for the chorus she sings with. They do, get this, barbershop. Fifty women singing dominant sevenths through their noses. They’re a weird, wacky bunch, and though I’m not sure I’ll stick with it after the intro seminar, I’m enjoying the heck out of it in the meantime. I sing bass, apparently.

Got lots of projects on tap, including getting the conservatory fixed. Stephen’s been dealing to all of the young gorse that’s come up, encouraged by the went start to summer. I’ve got sewing to do, and I need to sand the drawers on the gorgeous Chinese chests I bought, oh, months and months ago now. I’m glad we’ve got a holiday coming up.

I know most of you will, but if for any reason at all one of you readers in the US is thinking you might not vote, consider yourself taken by the shoulders and (gently) shaken. VOTE. DO IT.

We have, and ours are on nice, re-countable paper. Neener-neener. (They even sent us tiny little number 2 pencils to complete the arrows with. Isn’t that thoughtful ?)

Those of you who have known me for years know that I don’t buy many tech toys. At the Home&garden show a few weeks back I made an exception and purchased a Cent-o-meter. It is very cool, and very useful.

There are two units, a sensor/wireless transmisser that you clip over the power cable coming into your fuse box, and a digital display you can take around the house. The digital display will show how much power you are consuming in kW, cents per hour, and kg of CO2 per hour! Pretty nifty. When you consider a cent an hour of drain is about $90 over an entire year, it is worthwhile tracking down all the trickle-loads in the house.

In NZ this is made easier as the power outlets have switrches so you can turn the outlet off, even if things are plugged in. I discovered that the washing machine, turned off, draws 10 Watts. Likeise the hub and inkjet printer in my office. Turning off those two at the wall is already $40 a year in savings!

Once I am done playing with it I will loan it out to friends to they too can see where their power is going, and how to find some savings.