WOOOOOOO It's Sprrring Breakkkkk!

Well, it was. I'm back at le farm de bluebaire (that's in honor of the new French WWOOFer here, Natalie, the 30-yr-old fine art restorer on vaca from her life). Just washed the purple off my hands after spending the day picking the stems out of last year's frozen blueberries (making b'berry sauce for serving up pancakes at an arts fair in Welly this weekend). Luckily I'm a seasoned stem-picker-outter; all those years of smoking pot really did pay off!

My last 2 reports, 2 weeks apart, were both from Nelson (and the latter was my first successful drunk blog, score!) The in-between-time was spent WWOOFing. The ride from Nelson to my first assignment on an estuary was the most difficult 10k's of my bicycling life (and, yes, I am including the time I pretended to be a mountain biker on the Q-Char). The wind in New Zealand has made me understand why cultures have assigned god-status to the elements. Sh!t is NASTY! There is no biking in a straight line when the Aeotearoa Wind has taken you under Her possession. And sometimes, when you are delicately sandwiched by a motorway and the ocean, on a narrow path with another cyclist blowing zigzags towards you (and of course it's raining bonkers), you can't pedal enough resistance to move even an inch forward. At these times, you may scream louder and harder than you have in your life, expelling demons from many, many years back.

Once again the search party was sent in motion when I took longer than a crawling baby to reach my destination, where Lisa and Mark were expecting me. No smalltown joke, word got to their estuary that a strange biker was pedaling around downtown (I probably looked lost but I was just busy taking pictures* of all the funny "Welcome to Richmond - It's All Good!"-TM signs), so Lisa cruised the strip in her minivan, calling out my name as I passed, to my great surprise (and relief).

*Yes, I got a camera. I have beef with capture-it-instead-of-living-it culture, but Brynmore eloquently convinced me: "You'll regret it." Regrets aren't my bag, baby. One day I'll get that software ish figured and get some pics up in this joint.

Lisa and Mark were very generous hosts. I got my own bach (the kiwi term for a mini summer house, usually by the beach) and it was pimp. It even included a copy of Tommy Lee's autobiography (entitled Tommyland) which I strongly recommend reading, unless you (unlike me) remember the tabloid stories about him and are disgusted in advance. I wouldn't blame you, but I will say, it was a thoroughly entertaining book, and you can skip the chapters where he tries to downplay his adventures as a wifebeater and just focus on the times before that when it's all drugs, explosions, and Heather Locklear.

Indeed, when you spend your entire work day fighting bamboo roots (in my short experience I have found this to be the nastiest root of ALL TIME -- in one epic battle I fell onto some hacked shoots and tore a giant hole through my only pair of shorts, one of the 3 pairs of underwear I'd packed, and let's not even talk about the scar on my ass), thinking about your life as measured against Tommy Lee's can consume a lot of brain space. Have I partied enough? Should I try hard drugs? Would tattoos get me laid? Let me tell you, it was an agonizing 3 days.

I wanted to last more than 3 days, but honestly, being around a married couple with 2 young kids, on an estuary next to a shitty town with no weekend fun = Yawn. You'd think an estuary would be pretty, and if you knew shit about birds (I don't) you'd be all peeing your pants in excitement over the rare species there, but I was put off by the view of a lumber processing plant across the way, with its grey towers and plumes. In this country you can get picky about your views, and rolling green hills and mountains is the only acceptable situation.

And sure, married people with kids can be cool, but these two were a classic example of cool-before-the-kids. They'd traveled a ton, the guy had a great record collection and was in London for 92 electro and, shit, they set themselves up with 2 properties big enough to rent out some land so they could do farmwork all day for the love of it. But most of the chat-time involved being neurotic about the kids (the word "No" was frequently employed), so I didn't really get into the good stuff with them. Being 30, I now have friends with partners and kids who are super fun to hang with, so I know it doesn't have to be this way. The hubb and I did rock out one day when wifey and kids went to get videos for a rainy day -- he cranked their sweet stereo system so I could have a tour of NZ's best tunes (all that dub and reggae work.. it's funny/super refreshing to see a bunch of crackers who aren't all obsessed with whiny rock -- it makes a bit of sense when you remember that this is, after all, an island). And I don't mean to hate - they were very kind and really treated me like part of the fam.

The cool thing about the estuary was that it was near another estuary, incorrectly dubbed Rabbit Island (I didn't see a single bun, and you can drive onto it). It's a nature reserve for day visitors only. It was a beautiful bike ride there past vineyards and a schoolbus that sold berry ice cream. The beach was peaceful except for a shark heard that had washed up on shore (no lie, there were a bunch of dudes crouched around it and we took some pix - forthcoming). This all def made the estuary worth the pitstop.

My last night there, as I lay in bed trying to move my hands (pick-axing is NO JOKE.. I couldn't even squeeze a tube of toothpaste**), I let the late-night TV programming spin around in my head (I'd just watched a documentary on Shaolin Kung Fu followed by an amazing show wherein a young Japanese cooking apprentice prepared incredibly complicated dishes under the impossible-to-interpret gaze of her sensei) and thought about my life.

**For all of you who may be inclined to send packages, life is not the same without my favorite toothpaste, which is Nature's Gate raspberry mint and if you haven't tried it you have-to-haveto.

So far, since I left for college, every year of my life has felt like the best -- maybe not during every moment/breakup/pants-peeing, but still, there's always a sense of being a bit wiser. But I have not been a drummer for a destructively famous rock band. I have not ridden a motorcycle while lit on fire. What's a girl to do?

Nothing super crazy is on the brain (yet). I would like to learn a martial art (this would easily be combined with feminist work), and Asia isn't so far away. I also predict that I will be dying for a party after a while of being in NZ, where everything closes at 9pm, and I hear the dj/dance scene in Barcelona is where it at; I could copy Brandon and teach English in Spain. And, if I could find a way to not just be feeding the industrial-resort complex, I wouldn't balk at Fiji or Tasmania or or...

This is not to say that I'm not starting to miss the everliving S out of y'all. What else would move me to type about my life on here for hours, other than knowing that people actually care? Leaving Boston for Seattle for over a year, then coming back to the Bean on my way to NZ, I was most happily shocked to realize that everyone really does still love me, just as much. Maybe it sounds obvious, but that idea just turns on the waterworks for me. (Awwwww.)

So, thoughts just turning over like mulch. If anyone is interested in any of these excursions, drop me a line. The alone time has been good but I like collaboration too. And, p. to the mother s., The Blueberry Farm needs some WWOOFers this Jan and Feb. Jus sayin!

I will deliver the rest of my non-tawdry (sorry) spring break tales shortly. For now this weary typer must rest. Before logging on here, I went down to my lil house in a field to change into pjs, and my cat (Precious, and no, I did not name her) came meowing at the door, right on time. I think it's so cute that she wakes up and goes to bed with me, and - ok, I'll admit this - I heard myself say to Precious, "Aw, hi, I love you." I know, I know, it was way too soon. It's only been a month, and I was on vacation for half of it.

Ok, no, seriously - do I love this cat? I mean, god, I don't know. It's just too weird to think about. I think the point is that I may be a bit in my own head out here, and it's good, but I am starting to confess love to the cat, a cat that, let's face it, I barely know. So please keep the communiques coming; I clearly need them.

Off to bed - gotta finish reading He's Just Not That Into You (I tell you, these farms are stocked with only the best in literature). It seems like the perfect read for a very single lady with no current interest in dating, who may well just be losing her mind. And happily so.