In New Zealand, we turned the clocks back this weekend -- it seems like a sort of April Fool’s joke that seasons officially change here on the first days of months rather than according to the earth’s tilt relation to the sun. The observable effect is the same: the days are shortening and the air is no longer filled with the scent of bloom and growth. My short-sleeved tops were thrown back in the suitcase a few weeks ago, and the weather is becoming, as they charmingly say here, unsettled. The wind and rain that flooded Fiji last week is heading to New Zealand, and let’s face it, I can have wind and rain at home, where I can also hug Bill, pet my cats, and camp out in my studio.
So I’m heading to the airport today. Call me crazy (or, more precisely, a tad homesick) but I’m looking forward to sitting in my cattle class aisle seat and scrolling through the choice of movies that will divert me before the Ambien and the magic of chemistry allows me to wake in San Francisco. Whenever I’m faced with a long flight I think about how The Future we were promised as little baby boomettes never eventuated. How I’d like to say “Beam me up,” and arrive home in minutes, where an army of automated devices would free me for more leisure time to ride my jet pack. The future we got, the one with Skype and GPS and books being read to me on a device no larger than a pat of butter, is equally fantastic, of course, but there are moments when I still pine for my robot maid and paperless society (except for the paper of books, which I’m not yet ready to give up).
Back in the present here in the land that’s like home but not quite like home, what Kiwis are learning to live without for the foreseeable future is Marmite. Yes, almost as scary a prospect as the incoming blow from Fiji is the run on the salty, smelly, slightly sweet spread that Kiwis prefer on their morning toast. The production glitch is yet another aftershock of Christchurch’s earthquakes, and it was reported as if the switch to Vegemite, which is produced in Australia, might result in a national identity crisis. So some things are indeed just like home, including the media which can manufacture high drama over the shortage of brown sludge. No Kiwi I talked to seems to be concerned with the empty spot on the grocery shelf where Marmite used to be, but the papers do seem concerned about that potential hole on page 2.