Category: Random

Fee Writes

Random

A Change of Scenery

The cat survived! And, her mum was so pleased to see her. In fact, she even commented on how her darling looked sooooo good. ….. Well Done Me!

Leaving the suburb of Pyes Pa I had a night free, so off I went to Katikati to stay with my dearest friend Caitlin. How great that was! Chilling out with great conversation and good food with her and her darling hubby – nothing could be sweeter.

But it came to an end the next afternoon when I left to get back to Tauranga and to start the next house-sit.

So, where am I? Geez it sounds like a Where’s Wally book! I’m now in Devonport road about two blocks from my favourite restaurant, Grindz – a cafe that serves my kinda food!! Definitely within walking distance. I can see that on my days off I’ll be trotting along there, with laptop underarm, to get my coffee fix and work on my book.

For those who don’t know Devonport road … this is the road that goes through the CBD shopping – kind of Tauranga’s version of The High Street. Although, nowadays, because of the malls that have been built, Devonport road is not as bustling as it once was.

The house has a beautiful outlook over the water, seems to get the winter sun nicely during the day, but sure is cold in the morning as the night air circulates around a fairly open plan living area. Still, it has such a lovely feel to it, there are no animals to look after and the owners are away for 10 weeks.

Finally, I have been able to unpack properly. The lady of the house kindly provided an empty closet in the room and empty scotch dresser … although, as you can see by the photo of my packed wagon above, I don’t have enough to fill it all. She thoughtfully also cleared a couple of shelves in the pantry so I don’t have to keep my “pantry” boxes in the kitchen as I normally do.

It probably all sounds very mundane to you, but trust me, it’s the little things that make my life easier!

Now it’s all hands on the computer. I really must get this next book finished. I’ve been asked to speak or do a cooking demo at a “Vegan Vibes” expo being held here in September and it would be excellent if I could have this book ready for sale. Might be pushing it a bit, but we can live in hope.

Haven’t totally committed to the cover of the book yet … your comments will be appreciated.

On that note – I will say adieu and get my focus reset.

Fee Writes

Getting Ready To Leave

Wow! – 5 weeks goes by so fast. Now there’s a bit of a countdown going on here at the moment as I move out tomorrow.

The kitty cat is, I’m sure, looking forward to “mum” coming home – hahaha, just kidding….little kitty cat has no idea at all. I thought she would suspect when brought out the suitcase for the clothes and start dismantling the gear in the kitchen and bathroom, but she just went off to her favourite chair, curled up and has been asleep most of the day. She did wake up and lift her head for about 30 seconds when I got the vacuum cleaner close to her, but didn’t see it as a threat so just went back to sleep.

“Dismantling the kitchen…” Now that sounds like I have a lot of stuff. I really don’t. Although, living at Pyes Pa with Greerton so close and all those Op Shops, I have to admit it’s been difficult to stay away from them. So there has been occasions that I have relented and spent a few hours mooching about and trying to ferret out the good stuff.
Found an excellent winter coat – excellent winter shoes and a pretty decent jersey.

Now let me tell you a little story ….

The little kitty cat that I’m looking after is now 18. Her mum had told me that if anything went wrong to take her to the vet and he would make the call.
Well – it happened. Little miss stopped eating and just spent the entire time on the bed sleeping. She managed to drink a wee bit of water, but that was all. So worried was I that at one stage during the night I kept waking up and checking to see if she was still alive. By morning the decision was made that we were off to the vet.

The vet turned out to be a locum (temp) – a lovely lady locum vet and both she and the nurse decided that it wasn’t too cool an idea for me to have to take on such a responsibility.

The upshot was that the vet thought the kitty cat’s kidneys were probably packing in and that other organs were slowly shutting down, however, without taking blood tests she wouldn’t know for sure. Puddy was pretty dehydrated as well which was what I had thought, so… in went a couple of liquid, slow release patches, a shot of anit-biotics (or something like that), a bit of cleaning of the teeth which could have started the whole thing and to top it off, a shot of steroid (which the vet reckoned would give her a new lease of life and should last for about four weeks, plenty of time till mum came home).

Back into the car cage, into the car and a quick 10 minute trip home …. out of the car, out of the cage and guess what the little princess did? Yup, straight to the food bowl and into the tucker. From then on there’s been no looking back.

Moral of the story is: When I’ve gone out to pasture, remind me to get into the steroids so that I can see out the end of my days full of beans, eating well and sleeping when I want.

I still have about 24 hours to go before I leave, but I’m hoping nothing will happen on my watch!

Fee Writes

Animals | Random

The Latest Residence.

I have been in this home for exactly one week and four days … bit remiss of me not to let you all know.

So what’s it like? Let me first introduce you to Puddy Girl (pronunciation as in pudding).

Puddy Girl is a Burma.
Puddy Girl is very little.
Puddy Girl is very fluffy.
Puddy Girl is very old.
Puddy Girl rules the house.

O.k. enough of the “See Spot Run” type of writing, I know you’re a well educated and intelligent reader.

She was fine the first day, then, once she realised that mum was not home, she got a bit huffy. Of course, not when the food was about….oh no, that’s when she really cozied up. But once the tummy was full, she would just give me the evil stare and be very stand-offish until it was time to eat again.

This little kitty has her own cat door, which she is perfectly capable of using. However, it seemed to tickle her sense of power to go and sit by the sliding door, start meowing and turn and stare at me. Softy that I am when it comes to cats, I’d jump to attention and go open the door. With that she’d saunter out about three steps (well, let’s say four to cover all of her paws), stop, sit for few seconds with her tail across the slide rail, then get up and come back inside.

Just over a week later and at night there was a break through. She jumped up on my knee, settled down and went to sleep while I watched TV. Score one for the cat sitter!

So I’m back in the Pyes Pa area of Tauranga city. It is the older part, rather than the newer sub-division of the last home in the same suburb. The streets are tree-lined, the property has a well established garden, wonderful herbs, even veggies that I’m able to harvest along with a very old apple tree. I think I may have to make an apple crumble one night!!!! I’ve discovered an awesome ice-cream made from coconut milk rather than dairy. It’s called Little Island and it’s the best dairy alternative yet. As you can see, there’s a nice selection

And speaking of all things yum. Our own N.Z. company, Whittakers, has brought out the most delish chocolate ever!!!!! This is the Doris Plum and Almond one that Nigella has been advertising on TV – and, I’ll admit, she’s spot on with how yum it is. Good on Whittakers AND… it’s vegan!

Only one other change to report. I’ve picked up the reins as co-ordinator for SAFE again, only this time I have a lovely lady sharing the role. This is making it a whole lot easier and already we’re booked to have a stall at one of the Saturday markets.

As we all know, it’s now winter. Damn!

Oh, and Puddy Girl has decided not to set the china dog onto me after all … we’re quite good friends now.

Fee Writes

Random | Rants

Here’s Something That Might Tweak Your Thought Process..

I follow a woman on twitter called Pamela Geller. More from the point of her insanity and her ridiculous vlogs. Which demonstrates to me how the other half think.

She’s an American political activist and very outspoken about the Islamization of America. Her hatred is pretty far out there … a bit like Sarah Palin in her heyday, (who seems to be having a comeback now that the Donald is welding some power …. more entertainment for me).

But Pamela wrote something I was quite surprised at. You see, the lovely Dali Lama came out the other day talking about refugees:

“When we look into the face of every single refugee, especially the children and women, we can feel their suffering,”

said the Tibetan spiritual leader, who has himself lived in exile for over half a century.

“A human being who is a bit more fortunate has the duty to help them. On the other hand, there are too many now,”

he said, according to the German translation of the interview in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

“Europe, for example Germany, cannot become an Arab country,”

Source: RedState

His idea is that we should look after them only until they are able to return to their country and help rebuild it. This is an idea that I, too, believe is the way to go. From my understanding, no true refugees ever wants to leave their homeland … let’s face it – would you? And, I’m sure you’d want to “go home” to reclaim your country as soon as you could.

As for Pamela Geller – well, being the Islam hater that she is, she jumped on what the Dali Lama had said. Most of what she wrote was just agreeing with him and dissing others e.g. The Pope. However, she did write one sentence that pretty much summed up the ongoing ebbing and flowing of cultures:

“It is an obvious, practically mathematical argument to say that if you continue to import people from one country into another country, and that the people from the other country do not adapt to the new country but bring with them the ways and language and culture of their old country, that the new country will eventually become the new geographic location for what is in essence the other country. This is not a complicated idea, despite my ridiculous sentence.”

Source: PamelaGellar

Perhaps this is the way of the future? Perhaps New Zealand will morph into a hybrid of Asian and Pacific and a completely new culture will emerge?
Perhaps Europe will meld into a combined Christian/Islamic culture?
Or perhaps the dominant culture will win as in the case of the English over the American Indians, to name just one.

Remember that old song about the “Melting Pot” ?? It was about colour and religions, well now, perhaps we can sing it again with the idea of cultures????

It will be a shame to see cultures die out, but it’s happened before –
The Incas and the Aztecs, the ancients Romans and ancient Greeks. The Persians, the Mayan, the Druids and going right back to the beginning – the Mesopotamian Civilisation.

It won’t happen in my lifetime and not even in your lifetime, dear reader, but it will happen …. of course that’s if there is a living, breathing planet and we haven’t killed it first.

Would like to know your thoughts if you’re game enough to express them in the comments below

p.s. In case you’re wondering … I also follow John Oliver, The Young Turks, NZ The Daily Blog along with others…all via social media.

Fee Writes

Quick Post | Random

On The Move

Today is “Exit Day”. I’m off from the Papamoa Burbs and heading back to my digs for a week.

It’s been nice here … handy to Fashion Island, which I did visit a couple of times – handy to the motorway which meant easy access to work, the city, the Mount and anywhere else I fancied going.

What have I done here? Written a bit more of my book and done some sketches. Met the cool guys next door and spent a lovely evening on the wine with them.

And, apart from that and the odd outing, it’s been a fairly quiet 5 weeks, but then I didn’t expect much else.

I’ll leave you with the sketches:

Category: Random

A Change of Scenery

The cat survived! And, her mum was so pleased to see her. In fact, she even commented on how her darling looked sooooo good. ….. Well Done Me!

Getting Ready To Leave

Wow! – 5 weeks goes by so fast. Now there’s a bit of a countdown going on here at the moment as I move out tomorrow.

The Latest Residence.

I have been in this home for exactly one week and four days … bit remiss of me not to let you all know.

Here’s Something That Might Tweak Your Thought Process..

I follow a woman on twitter called Pamela Geller. More from the point of her insanity and her ridiculous vlogs. Which demonstrates to me how the other half think.

On The Move

Today is “Exit Day”. I’m off from the Papamoa Burbs and heading back to my digs for a week.

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