More Kiwi Slang U.S. Meaniing Used in a sentence
Stink One : An expression of disappointment
Come Right / Be Right: It will be OK. It's not a problem - "Bro. Oh stink one.
Your leg is totally buggered but no worries. Dr. Jay
will make it come right"
Skint: Broke, No Money - "But dude, I'm totally skint and I can't afford
Dr, Jay's outrageous but totally justified bill."
Skull: To drink an entire beverage in one gulp without a breath - "Bro. Maybe if
you skull this bottle of Tequila your
buggerd leg will come right."
Squizz: To have a look
Twink: White Out - "Bob. I had a squizz at your pictures and you need to have
emergency surgery on that leg. It'll cost $25,000 US"
"But Doc, I'm totally skint. I can't afford it."
"Ok. Hand me that twink and for 50 bucks I'll touch
up your X-rays."
Sprog: Small Child -
Torch: Flashlight - "Honey, It's after midnight and the sprogs are lost in the
swamp again. Where's the torch?"
Tog: Swimsuit - There should be a committee of frat boys to decide who
gets to wear thong togs at the beach.
Wobbly: Temper Tantrum - "When I told Mr. Witherbee that it was time
for another colonoscopy he spit the dummy
and had a major wobbly right here in the office,"
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Sunday, April 28, 2019
Greetings from New Zealand; the Canada of the south
Well, Fergal and I have been "tearing" up the south island pubs for 5 months now. We always go out trash talken that we are going to paint the town red and close down every pub within a tank of gas but usually around 10:00 we are dragging our-sorry-selves back to our SEPERATE homes for a nice cup of camomile tea and bed.... But for Greymouth 10:00 PM actually IS the absolute zenith of decadence so I guess we are a couple of bad boys after all ..... I would get a bad-ass tatoo but they are just too ouchy. Unfortunately our drunken rampage is comming to an end. Fergal's contract is up next month and he is headed back to the UK. Everybody keeps asking me what am I going to do after he leaves. I think the answer is obvious; detox, rehab and try to get on the "A" list for a liver transplant......and do I really have to do all 12 steps?
But then I think it may be premature to commit myself to a life of pious sobriety. I've been watching the cooking channel now and then to enhance my pathetic cooking skills and noticed that the secret that seperates the abysmal from the great chefs is that the great ones add wine to everything so I tried it: to venison roast, to coq-au-vin, to cheerios.... it really works! Then one day last week in the middle of creating my first true culinary masterpiece (my opus 1) "uh-oh" I had no wine. Not to panic. I also learned from TV that a good chef can think on his / her ( New Zealand is very P.C.) feet and improvise so I grabbed a handy bottle of gin, put on a couple or 10 splashes and popped it all in the oven at 175 degrees CENTIGRADE for 25 minutes and voila....I rule. Iron Chef watch your back.
And talking about Political Correctness, sometimes these Kiwis drive me nuts. You have no doubt all heard about the mass murder at a mosque in Christchurch a few months ago. It was a terrable thing and the whole country did a fantastic job of supporting those affected which was very good. But then came a gush of soul searching, hand wringing and politically correct mea culpa from the lefty leaders as if the people of New Zealand did something wrong or there is rampant racism or islamophobia which enabled this to happen. Believe me the Kiwis have nothing to apologize for. The killer was some random crazy dude from Australia who chose New Zealand specifically because it is so open and welcoming and to demonstrate that no place is safe. It's maddening that so many feel guilty for something that wasn't their fault.
On a happier note Sarah and her beau Andy just left last week after three days of shamelessly POSH Kardashian "camping" and hiking along the Routeburn Treck down south of Queenstown. The weather was unbelievable. We where 3 days on the trail under cloudless skys which down there is highly unusual and with absolutely stunning views of the Southern Alps. I booked the trip through a company called "Ultimate Hikes" and they provided all the transportation and trail guides but most importantly the private lodges along the trail. At the end of each day, out in the middle of nowhere, we had our own 4 star rooms and beds and showers and heat and fancy dinners and breakfasts and box lunches and a bar. No more tent camping for this cowboy. We also spent a day doing adventure stuff in Queenstown and on the way back to Greymouth a helicopter ride to the top of the Franz Joseph glacier and then local stuff around Greymouth and of course no one leaves without a finding little New Zealand gold. But most importantly Andy fixed it so I can connect to my U.S. HBO and Net Flix accounts so if I don't write any more on my blog it's because I am binge watching something on TV.
Laura and her main squeeze Matt where here last month. They said they came for a visit because they love me but I suspect they were really checking up on me for Helen; assessing my chances of surviving on my own until September so Helen can adjust my life insurance policy accordingly. I really believed that the Abel Tasman track that I took (forced) Laura and Matt on would be pretty easy since it was along a string of orange sand beaches. The beaches were really cool but between each was a lot of up and down through the bush and over the rocky headlands jutting out into the sea. We did thirty five miles in 3 days, staying in communal huts - rustic but adequate, sleeping in communal bunk beds and eating dehydrated food and energy bars and hanging with adventurers from all over the world. Definitely tougher then the Routeburn Track with its' small chocolates on freshly fluffed pillows every night. We had one night of pouring down rain but woke before dawn the next morning to clear skies. We had to get up at O-dark thirty to make the low tide crossing across a mile wide estuary to pick up the trail on the other side. There were several low tide crossings along the way but this was the longest and I thought the coolest part of the trip - wading knee deep in water, crossing a giant tidal flat opening eastward to the sun rising over the Pacific Ocean. Very cool! Long story short we all made it and in a unanimous decision by the judges (me) the 2019 award for toughness on the trail goes to Laura and Matt. After that a few days in and around Greymouth panning for gold, checking out the kiwi birds, rubbing elbows with some locals and driving the coast road - still I think the prettiest road I've ever been on. And now that everyone who is coming has come and gone I don't have to clean my house ever again. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
I guess you all know by now that Rachel had her baby and so is now more convinced than ever that epidurals are the next best thing to those to-die-for Louis Vuitton strapless hooker-red stilettos she's been pining over for 6 months. Those of us who know Rachel best; me, Laura and Sarah, where taking bets on how long after Helen left Virgina it would be before Child Protective Services showed up but Rachel and Bryan, as it turns out, are great parents and little Benjamin is doing just fine. She gets her nurturing skills from me you know. Anyway, next week I am headed over to the hood in Virginia to hang with my new best homie Ben in his crib in his crib and make sure he chooses, as I did, the road less traveled, which will make all the difference
Lastly I need a ruling on something from some local Chelan residents. (No, not on the morality of my whiskey for gold scam which buy the way is turning out to be quite profitable.) I just got back from my ususal 5 mile run and as aways I was running commando, No not that kind of commando. I just never run with wires on my head relentlessly piping in that Godless abomination they call music these days (Hey you kids get off of my lawn!) I could see maybe Rock and Roll or the stock market report but that blasphemy...No. I like to always maintain total situational awareness and keep all my senses open to, and my mind free to be seduced by, the world's randomness. It also keeps me from being killed by cars comming up behind me. Which is to say my mind is free to wander and I passed a local school with an old basket ball court and two little Kiwi kids chucking up baskets. Well, you know how thoughts lead on to thoughts and I started thinking about "little" Joey Harris and how he totally schooled Steph Curry in the NBA 3 point contest and then I epiphanied maybe we should start calling him "Joe-3" It just came to me. It's a gift I guess. So what's the ruling?
Dr. Jay
Well, Fergal and I have been "tearing" up the south island pubs for 5 months now. We always go out trash talken that we are going to paint the town red and close down every pub within a tank of gas but usually around 10:00 we are dragging our-sorry-selves back to our SEPERATE homes for a nice cup of camomile tea and bed.... But for Greymouth 10:00 PM actually IS the absolute zenith of decadence so I guess we are a couple of bad boys after all ..... I would get a bad-ass tatoo but they are just too ouchy. Unfortunately our drunken rampage is comming to an end. Fergal's contract is up next month and he is headed back to the UK. Everybody keeps asking me what am I going to do after he leaves. I think the answer is obvious; detox, rehab and try to get on the "A" list for a liver transplant......and do I really have to do all 12 steps?
But then I think it may be premature to commit myself to a life of pious sobriety. I've been watching the cooking channel now and then to enhance my pathetic cooking skills and noticed that the secret that seperates the abysmal from the great chefs is that the great ones add wine to everything so I tried it: to venison roast, to coq-au-vin, to cheerios.... it really works! Then one day last week in the middle of creating my first true culinary masterpiece (my opus 1) "uh-oh" I had no wine. Not to panic. I also learned from TV that a good chef can think on his / her ( New Zealand is very P.C.) feet and improvise so I grabbed a handy bottle of gin, put on a couple or 10 splashes and popped it all in the oven at 175 degrees CENTIGRADE for 25 minutes and voila....I rule. Iron Chef watch your back.
And talking about Political Correctness, sometimes these Kiwis drive me nuts. You have no doubt all heard about the mass murder at a mosque in Christchurch a few months ago. It was a terrable thing and the whole country did a fantastic job of supporting those affected which was very good. But then came a gush of soul searching, hand wringing and politically correct mea culpa from the lefty leaders as if the people of New Zealand did something wrong or there is rampant racism or islamophobia which enabled this to happen. Believe me the Kiwis have nothing to apologize for. The killer was some random crazy dude from Australia who chose New Zealand specifically because it is so open and welcoming and to demonstrate that no place is safe. It's maddening that so many feel guilty for something that wasn't their fault.
On a happier note Sarah and her beau Andy just left last week after three days of shamelessly POSH Kardashian "camping" and hiking along the Routeburn Treck down south of Queenstown. The weather was unbelievable. We where 3 days on the trail under cloudless skys which down there is highly unusual and with absolutely stunning views of the Southern Alps. I booked the trip through a company called "Ultimate Hikes" and they provided all the transportation and trail guides but most importantly the private lodges along the trail. At the end of each day, out in the middle of nowhere, we had our own 4 star rooms and beds and showers and heat and fancy dinners and breakfasts and box lunches and a bar. No more tent camping for this cowboy. We also spent a day doing adventure stuff in Queenstown and on the way back to Greymouth a helicopter ride to the top of the Franz Joseph glacier and then local stuff around Greymouth and of course no one leaves without a finding little New Zealand gold. But most importantly Andy fixed it so I can connect to my U.S. HBO and Net Flix accounts so if I don't write any more on my blog it's because I am binge watching something on TV.
Laura and her main squeeze Matt where here last month. They said they came for a visit because they love me but I suspect they were really checking up on me for Helen; assessing my chances of surviving on my own until September so Helen can adjust my life insurance policy accordingly. I really believed that the Abel Tasman track that I took (forced) Laura and Matt on would be pretty easy since it was along a string of orange sand beaches. The beaches were really cool but between each was a lot of up and down through the bush and over the rocky headlands jutting out into the sea. We did thirty five miles in 3 days, staying in communal huts - rustic but adequate, sleeping in communal bunk beds and eating dehydrated food and energy bars and hanging with adventurers from all over the world. Definitely tougher then the Routeburn Track with its' small chocolates on freshly fluffed pillows every night. We had one night of pouring down rain but woke before dawn the next morning to clear skies. We had to get up at O-dark thirty to make the low tide crossing across a mile wide estuary to pick up the trail on the other side. There were several low tide crossings along the way but this was the longest and I thought the coolest part of the trip - wading knee deep in water, crossing a giant tidal flat opening eastward to the sun rising over the Pacific Ocean. Very cool! Long story short we all made it and in a unanimous decision by the judges (me) the 2019 award for toughness on the trail goes to Laura and Matt. After that a few days in and around Greymouth panning for gold, checking out the kiwi birds, rubbing elbows with some locals and driving the coast road - still I think the prettiest road I've ever been on. And now that everyone who is coming has come and gone I don't have to clean my house ever again. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
I guess you all know by now that Rachel had her baby and so is now more convinced than ever that epidurals are the next best thing to those to-die-for Louis Vuitton strapless hooker-red stilettos she's been pining over for 6 months. Those of us who know Rachel best; me, Laura and Sarah, where taking bets on how long after Helen left Virgina it would be before Child Protective Services showed up but Rachel and Bryan, as it turns out, are great parents and little Benjamin is doing just fine. She gets her nurturing skills from me you know. Anyway, next week I am headed over to the hood in Virginia to hang with my new best homie Ben in his crib in his crib and make sure he chooses, as I did, the road less traveled, which will make all the difference
Lastly I need a ruling on something from some local Chelan residents. (No, not on the morality of my whiskey for gold scam which buy the way is turning out to be quite profitable.) I just got back from my ususal 5 mile run and as aways I was running commando, No not that kind of commando. I just never run with wires on my head relentlessly piping in that Godless abomination they call music these days (Hey you kids get off of my lawn!) I could see maybe Rock and Roll or the stock market report but that blasphemy...No. I like to always maintain total situational awareness and keep all my senses open to, and my mind free to be seduced by, the world's randomness. It also keeps me from being killed by cars comming up behind me. Which is to say my mind is free to wander and I passed a local school with an old basket ball court and two little Kiwi kids chucking up baskets. Well, you know how thoughts lead on to thoughts and I started thinking about "little" Joey Harris and how he totally schooled Steph Curry in the NBA 3 point contest and then I epiphanied maybe we should start calling him "Joe-3" It just came to me. It's a gift I guess. So what's the ruling?
Dr. Jay
Saturday, April 27, 2019
Sunday, February 24, 2019
After Helen and I finished doing smoochy face on facetime on St Valenitne's day last week she started in griping about the cold and all the snowing going on in Chelan this winter. To me the pictures look like a winter wonderland. "Honey," I said "Let go of those bad vibes and open your (Shoot, that sun burned spot on my back is still soar. How could ALL those beach volley ball girls miss the same spot with the sun block? Stupid English / Swedish translater app.) heart to the wonderous beauty of nature."
She also tells me the people around town have been giving her the stink eye and throwing some hate on her because I haven't been doing my blog. Well. to all you loyal complainers .....know this.....Helen is not the boss of me. She did, however, text me this morning saying no more phone se... "romance" until I get going on my blog so here at my computer I sit on a sunny summer Saturday (say that five times fast) in Greymouth.
Our little clinic depends on an endless phalanx of temporary docs from throughout the English Commonwealth: The U.K., Australia, Canada, South Africa, India, to man the battlements against disease and pestilence but we got our first doc from Ireland last month: Fergal O'Driscoll. Everyone else at the clinic is here with a spouse but Fergal's main squeeze decided to stay home for his 6 months here so we inevitably fell in together and are now two wild and crazy guys around town. In fact I'm pretty sure most people think we are an "item." Now I'm not a homophobe or anything but in this case I AM a homodenier - Fergal and I are just drinking and carousing buddies but sometimes the categorically false and totally wrong and unfounded perception of our "relationship" works to our advantage. In the pubs all the young ladys think we are a cute couple and so let their guard down. Now you understand that Fergal is Irish and has the gift of gab to the max and so, to any random stranger, within 3 minutes Fergal becomes the best friend they never knew they had. It's kind of sad actually. With their shields down and between Fergals' verbal magic and my boyish good looks we hardly ever have to roofie drinks anymore
I ran a 1/2 marathon last weekend in a town about 60 miles up the coast. I was shooting for a time of 100 minutes but came in at 110 minutes. I am pretty sure I could have run 13 miles in 100 min but everything is metric down here so the race was listed as 22 kilometers which is supposed to be the same but just sounds longer. Damn metric system. Anyway, on the way back we; Fergal and I, picked up two kids hitchhiking around NZ one of whom was Liedy; a 20 somthing young lady from France. Well, I'd been preparing for this moment for donky years and after they were safely in the car and with my best ever inspector Clouseau impression I said: "En moi confiance je suis un medecin" which I thought ment: "Trust me I'm a doctor." but judging from Liedy's reaction it's apparently closer to: " Would you like some candy and pictures in my widowless black van little girl?" Fergal immediatly used his powers to make everything righteous and we talked all the way back to Greymouth about Brexit, the yellow vest thing happening in France and argued about weather French or Italian wine is better.
I have been in country now for six months and I was thinking the other day what do I miss most about home...other than the obvious...MY WOMEN....and the kids and my FJ-40 (Toyota Land Cruiser) and the dog and my Chelan buds and my FJ-40 and the turtles and my house and my FJ-40 and my tractor....but other than that I would have to say the magic kitchen and the magic laundry room are what I long for the most. Gourmet meals would magically appear and the dirty dishes would just vanish overnight. My dirty cloths - and I am talking some pretty groatty undies - would just disappear and then reappear clean and nicely folded in my closet and drawers. Yes, I definitly miss that a lot. It just does't work the same down here. It must have something to do with being south of the equater.
FYI two more quirky things about New Zealand; No lie but it is a federal law that every employer here must provide to every emplyee all the wherewithal (tea, milk, sugar) for tea time in the afternoon and this is the only non-third world country with no capital gains tax and since I am a tea drinker and don't like paying taxes this place is looking pretty good. So the question then is; for how much or, more accuratly, how little can I be bought and enticed to stay here forever by the siren's song of low taxes and a free cup of tea every 4 PM on the dot? Well it all comes down to physics....and just regular physics not quantum physics so don't have a cow. As you know Rachel is due to deliver our first grandchild ( a boy... little Charles Jay I'll call him ...no matter what his birth certificate says) sometime around the Ides of March. My expectation is that once born, like a super massive black hole out in space, little C.J.'s grand father event horizen will extend out light years beyond all reckoning and once crossed neither I nor even light itself can slip the unresistible pull of his drooly, poopy gravitational field. Which is to say between little C.J., MY WOMEN and my FJ-40 I will be back in the states sometine in September. I also feel it is my sacred duty as a grand father to teach little C.J. all the bad habits that took me a life time to aquire and perfect.........but then again if they throw in free scones with afternoon tea??hmmm?? Recalculating...Recalculating.
Now for some housekeeping info. I live in shoe box of a house about 100 yards from the Tasman Sea. I can hear the waves thundering on the beach all night which is kind of a relaxing lullaby (See Helen, at least My ears are open to natures wonders) and I generally sleep like a rock. Laura and her hunk of burning love Matt are coming to visit in a few weeks. I plan on testing their mettle on a three day hike on the Abel Tasman Coast track; a pretty flat walk along the north coast of the south island and so, as far as metals are concerned , aluminum will sufice. That of course assumes we avoid the quicksand and the crocodiles. Sarah and her sig. other Andy will be coming in April . To them I will show no mercy and we will be going on a gruelling 3 day mountain adventure along the Routeburn track down in the southern alps of New Zealand. All I am going to say about that is that "Routeburn" is Maori for "Donner." I'll let you know.
So that's it for this installment of my blog
I think I'll give Helen a call.
She also tells me the people around town have been giving her the stink eye and throwing some hate on her because I haven't been doing my blog. Well. to all you loyal complainers .....know this.....Helen is not the boss of me. She did, however, text me this morning saying no more phone se... "romance" until I get going on my blog so here at my computer I sit on a sunny summer Saturday (say that five times fast) in Greymouth.
Our little clinic depends on an endless phalanx of temporary docs from throughout the English Commonwealth: The U.K., Australia, Canada, South Africa, India, to man the battlements against disease and pestilence but we got our first doc from Ireland last month: Fergal O'Driscoll. Everyone else at the clinic is here with a spouse but Fergal's main squeeze decided to stay home for his 6 months here so we inevitably fell in together and are now two wild and crazy guys around town. In fact I'm pretty sure most people think we are an "item." Now I'm not a homophobe or anything but in this case I AM a homodenier - Fergal and I are just drinking and carousing buddies but sometimes the categorically false and totally wrong and unfounded perception of our "relationship" works to our advantage. In the pubs all the young ladys think we are a cute couple and so let their guard down. Now you understand that Fergal is Irish and has the gift of gab to the max and so, to any random stranger, within 3 minutes Fergal becomes the best friend they never knew they had. It's kind of sad actually. With their shields down and between Fergals' verbal magic and my boyish good looks we hardly ever have to roofie drinks anymore
I ran a 1/2 marathon last weekend in a town about 60 miles up the coast. I was shooting for a time of 100 minutes but came in at 110 minutes. I am pretty sure I could have run 13 miles in 100 min but everything is metric down here so the race was listed as 22 kilometers which is supposed to be the same but just sounds longer. Damn metric system. Anyway, on the way back we; Fergal and I, picked up two kids hitchhiking around NZ one of whom was Liedy; a 20 somthing young lady from France. Well, I'd been preparing for this moment for donky years and after they were safely in the car and with my best ever inspector Clouseau impression I said: "En moi confiance je suis un medecin" which I thought ment: "Trust me I'm a doctor." but judging from Liedy's reaction it's apparently closer to: " Would you like some candy and pictures in my widowless black van little girl?" Fergal immediatly used his powers to make everything righteous and we talked all the way back to Greymouth about Brexit, the yellow vest thing happening in France and argued about weather French or Italian wine is better.
I have been in country now for six months and I was thinking the other day what do I miss most about home...other than the obvious...MY WOMEN....and the kids and my FJ-40 (Toyota Land Cruiser) and the dog and my Chelan buds and my FJ-40 and the turtles and my house and my FJ-40 and my tractor....but other than that I would have to say the magic kitchen and the magic laundry room are what I long for the most. Gourmet meals would magically appear and the dirty dishes would just vanish overnight. My dirty cloths - and I am talking some pretty groatty undies - would just disappear and then reappear clean and nicely folded in my closet and drawers. Yes, I definitly miss that a lot. It just does't work the same down here. It must have something to do with being south of the equater.
FYI two more quirky things about New Zealand; No lie but it is a federal law that every employer here must provide to every emplyee all the wherewithal (tea, milk, sugar) for tea time in the afternoon and this is the only non-third world country with no capital gains tax and since I am a tea drinker and don't like paying taxes this place is looking pretty good. So the question then is; for how much or, more accuratly, how little can I be bought and enticed to stay here forever by the siren's song of low taxes and a free cup of tea every 4 PM on the dot? Well it all comes down to physics....and just regular physics not quantum physics so don't have a cow. As you know Rachel is due to deliver our first grandchild ( a boy... little Charles Jay I'll call him ...no matter what his birth certificate says) sometime around the Ides of March. My expectation is that once born, like a super massive black hole out in space, little C.J.'s grand father event horizen will extend out light years beyond all reckoning and once crossed neither I nor even light itself can slip the unresistible pull of his drooly, poopy gravitational field. Which is to say between little C.J., MY WOMEN and my FJ-40 I will be back in the states sometine in September. I also feel it is my sacred duty as a grand father to teach little C.J. all the bad habits that took me a life time to aquire and perfect.........but then again if they throw in free scones with afternoon tea??hmmm?? Recalculating...Recalculating.
Now for some housekeeping info. I live in shoe box of a house about 100 yards from the Tasman Sea. I can hear the waves thundering on the beach all night which is kind of a relaxing lullaby (See Helen, at least My ears are open to natures wonders) and I generally sleep like a rock. Laura and her hunk of burning love Matt are coming to visit in a few weeks. I plan on testing their mettle on a three day hike on the Abel Tasman Coast track; a pretty flat walk along the north coast of the south island and so, as far as metals are concerned , aluminum will sufice. That of course assumes we avoid the quicksand and the crocodiles. Sarah and her sig. other Andy will be coming in April . To them I will show no mercy and we will be going on a gruelling 3 day mountain adventure along the Routeburn track down in the southern alps of New Zealand. All I am going to say about that is that "Routeburn" is Maori for "Donner." I'll let you know.
So that's it for this installment of my blog
I think I'll give Helen a call.
Sunday, January 6, 2019
I know it's been a while since I 've written anything but it's raining today so I have time and I have lots to say. So buckle up and hang on it's going to be a bumpy ride
First, to all you Debbie Downers who gave me a snowball's chance in hell, which is to say took a short position, on my survival down here without Helen....a pox...a pox I say on you and your family. I'm still on my feet - Yes maybe a little malnourished and with multiple vitamin deficiencies, scurvy comes to mind, and coughing a bit from the smoke inhalation from countless catastrophic culinary calamities and yes I am still struggling with my plyntiphobia - but getting counseling and in recovery - 3 days, 14 hours and 33 minutes - I get my first clean clothes coin next week.... but still on my feet. Hey! I'm a victim here too ya know.
So how much does it rain around here on the west coast you ask? It rains so much that ducks carry umbrellas ($50.00 to anyone who comes up with something better) but it does rain enough that a lot of pretty nice houses out in the wop wops (Kiwi for boon docks) get their domestic water from what runs off their roof. No kidding. The rain water is collected in the gutters and drains into big
in- ground cisterns and then pumped straight into the house. When there is a drought ( three days without rain) the local fire department sucks water out of any convenient creek and fills every one's cisterns. Now New Zealand is known for all of it's beautiful birds. In fact the only mammal native to NZ is a small bat. So with all these cool birds flying around one has to wonder what all is up there on the roof. So if offered a beverage when visiting a house outside the city water supply it is my policy to, no matter how dehydrated, decline the "anything with water in it" option but rather opt for, if offered, beer, wine or whisky - single malt is preferred but a fine bourbon will do nicely in a pinch.
Now that we are on the subject of bourbon whisky I need to tell you about my new fall back carer path as a bootlegger / gold miner. A month or so ago I drove out to the wop wops about 30 miles outside of town and 7 miles up a gravel road to a grass field car park and trail head along the Moonlight River to hike up the Moonlight River trail. Parked there were two RV campers and out in front of one sitting in the warm sun drinking what looked like warm beer was this casually groomed Kiwi dude. Most Kiwis are pretty friendly as a baseline and on top of that throw in who knows how many beers and before I knew it I had a new best friend. So Mark lives up there with his friend Martinez who lives in the other van and they both support themselves by panning for gold in the Moonlight River going into town every month or so for supplies. Between them they usually find about $100.00 worth of gold a day but every once in a while they find a nugget worth thousands of dollars. Well he didn't have to say gold nugget twice to get my attention and after talking about gold for a while I didn't have time to get very far up the Moonlight trail. The next weekend I went back up the Moonlight to do the hike and afterwords dropped off a 6 pack of beer as pay back for the gold panning advice. Mark was overjoyed to get more beer and payed me with a small $15.00 gold nugget. It was then that I realized that I had the fever.....The gold fever and Mark said from the look in my eyes I had it bad. I also realized I had stumbled on to a new business opportunity. Meanwhile back at the ranch Rachel and her hubs Bryan were due to arrive in a few days for a 2 week visit (Even at 30 weeks pregnant, 2 weeks with Rachel was go, go, go, and fun, fun, fun and left me physically and financially drained) and so to give them an authentic, back woods, off the grid, New Zealand hillbilly experience I arranged with Mark to return with R and B for some supervised hands on gold panning time. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Rachel would get the fever bad with the first tiny glint of color (gold) in her pan. Leaving nothing to chance we arrived back with a nice bottle of Makers Mark bourbon whisky. Mark was ecstatic and helped us, mostly Rachel, find about $50.00 U.S. in gold and, as expected, Rachel was more than willing to kill anyone who tried to take HER gold away. So the coin of the realm up the Moonlight appears to be whisky and gold.
I do need a consensus ruling on this. Am I a bad person for running whisky up the Moonlight for gold or is it just good business? Why does the word "enabler" keep coming to mind? On second thought to heck with what you think....I must have more gold!
So how is business? The patients and the medical problems down here are pretty much the same as in the US. The other doctors, nurses and people in the clinic are great. My house is small and humble but funtional. Helen says I need to work on my humility anyway. I am hopping to jack up my humility score enough to become damn near perfect. The country is beautiful, there a lots of outdoor things to do and the Kiwis are super friendly. I've adjusted to driving on the left side of the road with hardly any life threatening close calls....yet. The pay is enough to support my living and exploring expenses and if I ever did need to, I know where to find a bit of gold to supplement my income. I 've even gotten pretty good at using the Med Tech the computerized medical records system which is much simpler than the ones available in the US. The way the clinic is set up and run however is very inefficient especially regarding the doctors time. The administration keeps saying we need more primary care doctors but I tell them I could see 3 times as many patients if I had my own nurse to boss around and a transcriptionist. Stephanie! Marie! Help!
First, to all you Debbie Downers who gave me a snowball's chance in hell, which is to say took a short position, on my survival down here without Helen....a pox...a pox I say on you and your family. I'm still on my feet - Yes maybe a little malnourished and with multiple vitamin deficiencies, scurvy comes to mind, and coughing a bit from the smoke inhalation from countless catastrophic culinary calamities and yes I am still struggling with my plyntiphobia - but getting counseling and in recovery - 3 days, 14 hours and 33 minutes - I get my first clean clothes coin next week.... but still on my feet. Hey! I'm a victim here too ya know.
So how much does it rain around here on the west coast you ask? It rains so much that ducks carry umbrellas ($50.00 to anyone who comes up with something better) but it does rain enough that a lot of pretty nice houses out in the wop wops (Kiwi for boon docks) get their domestic water from what runs off their roof. No kidding. The rain water is collected in the gutters and drains into big
in- ground cisterns and then pumped straight into the house. When there is a drought ( three days without rain) the local fire department sucks water out of any convenient creek and fills every one's cisterns. Now New Zealand is known for all of it's beautiful birds. In fact the only mammal native to NZ is a small bat. So with all these cool birds flying around one has to wonder what all is up there on the roof. So if offered a beverage when visiting a house outside the city water supply it is my policy to, no matter how dehydrated, decline the "anything with water in it" option but rather opt for, if offered, beer, wine or whisky - single malt is preferred but a fine bourbon will do nicely in a pinch.
Now that we are on the subject of bourbon whisky I need to tell you about my new fall back carer path as a bootlegger / gold miner. A month or so ago I drove out to the wop wops about 30 miles outside of town and 7 miles up a gravel road to a grass field car park and trail head along the Moonlight River to hike up the Moonlight River trail. Parked there were two RV campers and out in front of one sitting in the warm sun drinking what looked like warm beer was this casually groomed Kiwi dude. Most Kiwis are pretty friendly as a baseline and on top of that throw in who knows how many beers and before I knew it I had a new best friend. So Mark lives up there with his friend Martinez who lives in the other van and they both support themselves by panning for gold in the Moonlight River going into town every month or so for supplies. Between them they usually find about $100.00 worth of gold a day but every once in a while they find a nugget worth thousands of dollars. Well he didn't have to say gold nugget twice to get my attention and after talking about gold for a while I didn't have time to get very far up the Moonlight trail. The next weekend I went back up the Moonlight to do the hike and afterwords dropped off a 6 pack of beer as pay back for the gold panning advice. Mark was overjoyed to get more beer and payed me with a small $15.00 gold nugget. It was then that I realized that I had the fever.....The gold fever and Mark said from the look in my eyes I had it bad. I also realized I had stumbled on to a new business opportunity. Meanwhile back at the ranch Rachel and her hubs Bryan were due to arrive in a few days for a 2 week visit (Even at 30 weeks pregnant, 2 weeks with Rachel was go, go, go, and fun, fun, fun and left me physically and financially drained) and so to give them an authentic, back woods, off the grid, New Zealand hillbilly experience I arranged with Mark to return with R and B for some supervised hands on gold panning time. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Rachel would get the fever bad with the first tiny glint of color (gold) in her pan. Leaving nothing to chance we arrived back with a nice bottle of Makers Mark bourbon whisky. Mark was ecstatic and helped us, mostly Rachel, find about $50.00 U.S. in gold and, as expected, Rachel was more than willing to kill anyone who tried to take HER gold away. So the coin of the realm up the Moonlight appears to be whisky and gold.
I do need a consensus ruling on this. Am I a bad person for running whisky up the Moonlight for gold or is it just good business? Why does the word "enabler" keep coming to mind? On second thought to heck with what you think....I must have more gold!
So how is business? The patients and the medical problems down here are pretty much the same as in the US. The other doctors, nurses and people in the clinic are great. My house is small and humble but funtional. Helen says I need to work on my humility anyway. I am hopping to jack up my humility score enough to become damn near perfect. The country is beautiful, there a lots of outdoor things to do and the Kiwis are super friendly. I've adjusted to driving on the left side of the road with hardly any life threatening close calls....yet. The pay is enough to support my living and exploring expenses and if I ever did need to, I know where to find a bit of gold to supplement my income. I 've even gotten pretty good at using the Med Tech the computerized medical records system which is much simpler than the ones available in the US. The way the clinic is set up and run however is very inefficient especially regarding the doctors time. The administration keeps saying we need more primary care doctors but I tell them I could see 3 times as many patients if I had my own nurse to boss around and a transcriptionist. Stephanie! Marie! Help!
There are a few things I find challenging however. Call it what you want but the medical care here is definitely rigidly rationed. I have trouble with this for several reasons. There are many patients that don't get the care they need because they don't score high enough on the access score to see a specialist and even if they do, but there is no availability of the service, then things just don't get done. This is particularly true for orthopedics. There is virtually no availability of non emergency orthopedic services so I have many patients enduring years of disabling hip or knee pain waiting for their hip or knee replacements. In general patients here wait for months to years for things that would generally be done in days to weeks in the US. Also it seems that here many times the specialist's primary concern is the system and not what is best for the patient. For example I have had several patients with a history and / or symptoms that would get them a colonoscopy in a week or so in the US get declined by the surgeons here because their access score is not high enough even though their symptoms are worrisome for cancer. I even volunteered to do the scopes myself at no charge but that is against policy. And this is especially vexing since colon cancer is the number one cancer killer in NZ and there is a big national campaign to educate people about early cancer symptoms and detection. While the US system is far from perfect it was my training and was generally my experience that "What's best for the patient" is the guiding principle in treating all patients in the US and the system is flexible enough to allow for the fact that every patient is different. The other thing that I have a problem with is the unavailability of some very useful medicines - particularly for Type 2 diabetes which is very common down here, These meds are expensive but are much much better than what is available. It just bugs me to know that I am unable to offer my patients what I think is the best treatment available.
This all would be understandable if New Zealand was a poor third world country but it's not. It is fairly well off. Helen keeps telling me to keep my mouth shut, don't make waves and just do my job and enjoy my time in NZ. But keeping my mouth shut is not something I excel at so I guess we'll see how it goes.
Cheers
Monday, December 3, 2018
I am off to see the latest Harry Potter prequel movie which is so much cooler down here since down here everybody talks like they belong at Hogwarts. But I do love the local theater. It's less than a mile from my house and you can get beer AND popcorn even in the cheap seats What a country. And all that smack bad mouthen' running down and generally harshen the gigs on the Kiwis I wrote last time for not having Thanks Giving and football? I take it all back - except maybe the football part. I mean come on. Have you ever watched a whole soccer game? A while back I tried to get into it and watched a couple of games but then gave up and haven't been watching for a few months. I heard I missed out on seeing 3 goals. Anyway, apparently every district in NZ gets an official holiday all its own. Kind of like Alabama deciding on its own to give everybody in the state a random holiday to celebrate pentasexual liberation day. And today was the day for the West Coast district which is where I live so I had an unexpected day off. It's like found money. I was as blissfully euphoric as a 7 year old boy on the first day of summer vacation. I thought about going out and looking for gold in the Moonlight River where I am told the only problem is that you might break your back schlepping out the giant nugget you would inevitably find but my legs where still a little trashed from bush hiking and mountain climbing all day yesterday so I decided to put off becoming obscenely wealthy for another week. Instead I did the wash and planted flowers. Actually maybe I wont have to find any gold after all. I just read that our dear president tweeted that he worked out a deal with Chinese to eliminate import duties on imported cars. I predict the stock market is going to go up side nuts tomorrow.......tomorrow down here but today there?????
And to the Donster I say: "Please tweet us with respect."
And to all my Canadian followers, if any: " Keep your stick on the ice."
And to the Donster I say: "Please tweet us with respect."
And to all my Canadian followers, if any: " Keep your stick on the ice."
Thursday, November 22, 2018
How pathetic is this? It's Thanksgiving and the best I can manage is a turkey sandwich from Subway over my lunch break working like any other day at the clinic. Yes! No they don't have Thanksgiving down here. Can you even comprehend the depravity? And no Thanksgiving day football! And I'm not talking about that weenie soccer football that all those skinny ass, funny talking, pansy ass foreigners play but good old American FOOTBALL played by real mobile home sized men, all strong as an ox and twice as smart and all able to eat an ox in one sitting. Neither do they have the 4th of July or even Ground Hog Day. Damn heathen Kiwis! What is truly odd is that despite haveing no Thanksgiving Thursday all the stores around here still have a "Black Friday" sales blitz just like in the states. I guess it is the worship of the all mighty dollar, be it the New Zealand dollar or the US, that transcends all cultural differences and is the one thing that truly binds us together.
All together now: "Kumbaya"
I keep meaning to write more but when I sit down at the computer I like to first You-tube google up some nice up tempo boogie-woogie piano music for inspiration. Well you know how it is. One thing leads to another and pretty soon I am way down the google rabbit hole watching armadillos play the cello. And did you know that tin is Bolivia's major export?
Peace Out
All together now: "Kumbaya"
I keep meaning to write more but when I sit down at the computer I like to first You-tube google up some nice up tempo boogie-woogie piano music for inspiration. Well you know how it is. One thing leads to another and pretty soon I am way down the google rabbit hole watching armadillos play the cello. And did you know that tin is Bolivia's major export?
Peace Out
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)