Thursday, May 11, 2006

...but what happened to their bodies?!

One of our most talented friends has started making these beautiful hat stands. Aren't they pure art? It is Diana's special method of paper mache over a styrofoam base and then of course hand painted by her. I'll have to get her to send some more pictures, because she also makes some amazing boudoir (sp?) dolls and has crocheted a giant, life-sized girl which is simply amazing. Diana puts these up for sale from time to time on ebay. If you are interested, check out her auctions under "misspandudabakers" as the seller, or email me and I will put her in touch with you!


Poor Rosa... makes her look kind of sad in comparison...




For those that are starting to think that I'm making this whole New Zealand thing up, here's a photo that a friend took on their camera phone at McCracken's point last week.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

interesting story..

Okay, so no fun pictures today, but I offer instead an entertaining (?) story.

We were fortunate enough to have another beautiful, sun-filled day that I've been told we just don't get here this time of year. I got to see some beautiful scenery and walk on a nice beach with some of my new NZ friends. Later in the day, I decided I wanted to go see the sunset at the beach. I was almost too late, but found an amazing, isolated stretch that I hadn't seen before (this was in-town as opposed to the other beach walked on today...). When I say isolated, I mean the tide was just starting to come in, and mine were the only set of footprints in the sand. Amazing, eh? It was completely undeveloped (as most of the direct waterways are around here; something about belonging to the queen...), so it was water, beach and tall forest (I believe it is a logging area).

So I walk and I walk until I realize the beautiful pinks and reds of sunset were almost gone and replaced with the indigo of impending night. So in the light of dusk, I see a big lump in the sand that I decide will be my turnaround point. As I get closer, I let my mind play tricks and see a large dead goat, horns and all. When I finally get to this object and let my eyes adjust, I realize that my brain had a very good reason for trying to make this object into a dead goat. It was a dead goat. A dead goat without eyes by the way... So I decide that this is, in fact, the perfect turnaround point. Suddenly, I realize that it is no longer, dark, but now it's DARK. Fortunately, the moon was eerily rising behind the pitch-black forest At one point, I swear I heard something running up behind me. But alas, I made it back to the van without being mugged by satan-worshiping goat killers or goat zombies or anything of the like. I thought I was walking at a good pace out towards the goat, but I think it took me almost 30 minutes to reach the goat, and about 5 to make it back to the van. :)

I realized that I was also lucky that I was the only one out, because if I hadn't noticed my footprints cutting back up to the path which led to my van, I would have certainly passed it.

I do wonder what that goat was doing out there. Even without eyes, he looked sort of happy. I've always thought that goats were eternal optimists...