just one thing before you go ...

i was talking to my ex-step-father (don't ask questions, just go with it) ... and he was saying that he doesn't ever prepare for vacations because he always goes to the same place and he doesn't do any activities beyond eating and sitting on the beach.  must be relaxing.  anyway, as you could imagine, our adventures take some planning.  and of course when you're leaving for an extended period of time, there are all these little things you have to get done before you go.  as stressful as this can be, the past 3 weeks seem to have included an inordinate number of ridiculous problems.  observe:

- went to the dentist and found out i have 4 cavities, one of which needs a root canal.  after many phone calls with my insurance company i found out that said root canal is not covered because i have 8 other teeth that touch.  yup, that's right ... because i am neither a hobo nor a crackhead, my teeth are too good for a root canal to be considered a "necessity."  moving on!

- spent an extended period of time desperately trying to prove to a community college that i am in fact a resident of new york ... please note that i have never lived in any other state other than new york in my entire life.  thankfully i finally convinced them (it involved my brother venturing into our mother's attic in search of old tax returns) and they have allowed me to enroll in online classes.  nothing better than lugging a bunch of textbooks around an entire continent for 2.5 months!  yay!

miss fifi took this lovely shot of me
amongst the flash flooding caused by the
"hurricane" ... do not confuse this flooding
with a small puddle created by a hose left on.
news casters have assured me that this is
hurricane related devastation.
p.s.  does this guy have enough sandbags?
p.p.s.  does this guy even understand what
sandbags are used for?

- went out to long island because my mother was having a medical procedure done, only to experience a minor earthquake while she was in the operating room.  it was a very minor earthquake, but seriously?  an earthquake?

- after planning a nice little going away party for ourselves, our lives are interrupted by a "hurricane" and the city's entire mass transit system is preemptively shut down for no reason, making our party impossible to get to.  thank you to those two devoted guests who attended!

- however, during the extreme boredom of the non-hurricane, i was able to finish the online portion of my scuba certification.  i am now ready for the practical portion of my open-water training!

- yesterday i proudly strode into the dentist office for the 4th time in 3 weeks, ready to receive my crown, only to find out that the crown didn't fit.  really?!  but it was so expensive!  and of course there is not enough time to re-adjust the crown before we leave today, so i am being shipped off to Oceania with only a temporary tooth that is cemented in place.   no salt water taffy for me.  le sigh.

- and today, before we leave for the airport at 3pm we need to rent a zip car, load it with our crap, and move our remaining stuff into storage.  why didn't we do that yesterday?  because after the crown fitting i spent several hours tracking down textbooks.  one of which i found in nyc and was able to purchase for the bargain price of $145 (what the hell?  these books aren't even interesting!  why are they so expensive?)  the other the bolshevik was cleverly able to find on a new zealand website and it is being shipped to our hostel in auckland.  ridiculous.

so .... off we go!!

things i didn't do

so i had this whole idea that i would write insightful and witty posts about the many odd culture shock things that happened when i returned to new york and wound up living in long island for a month.  of course, i did not do this.  and really, the only massive culture shock moment i had was when i stared at a shopkeeper in disbelief when i got change for a $20 without any grumbling, complaining, dirty looks, etc.

across the street from this lovely
sewage treatment plant there is
some sort of recycling center
that collects and sorts through
garbage.  you can imagine
that the smell in this particular
area leaves much to be desired.

then once we moved to nyc for the summer, i thought i would write about our random nyc adventures ... like the time i found a piano locked up in front of the nearby sewage treatment plant.  obviously, when you find a piano in front of a sewage treatment plant the first thing you do is go to the nearest public library to find a book of sheet music (all they had was children's folk songs).  then call your friend to sing several rounds of I've Been Working on the Railroad, only to later be joined by a passing unicyclist.  yes, this happened.  exactly like this.

but alas, poor forsaken blog readers, i didn't do that either.

i also did not bore you with the many details of tests and classes i am taking in order to become a certified school librarian.  apparently, years of experience as a children's/teen librarian does not count for anything when you want to be a librarian inside a school that would work with children and/or teens.  of course there is much red tape and many hoops to jump through.

BUT, the bolshevik and i are about to depart on a new adventure and i think that it is only fair and just and proper to try to resurrect this sadly ignored blog!  so here's the deal:

this is merely an artist's rendition
of what it might look like if i tried to drive
a pickup truck full of money all the way
to tahiti.  i do not plan on bringing
any large sacks of money with us, as the
bolshevik has urged me to pack light.
also, driving pickup trucks to tahiti
 is not recommended.

the bolshevik and i are going to new zealand for about 5 weeks to go see the rugby world cup and then traipse around the country seeing many beautiful things.  we may even go zorbing!  then we will go to australia to visit my aunt and also see more beautiful things and go on more zany adventures.

but my favorite part about this trip is that after months of fretting over the jacked up prices of air travel, we found an amazing deal on air tahiti which provides us with a FREE LAYOVER IN TAHITI ... yes, we are going to tahiti!  and we are getting A FREE HOTEL ROOM FOR THREE NIGHTS!  they keep offering us these deals to upgrade to a super fancy room that floats in the ocean, but f*#@ that!  we will keep our free tahiti room and just walk the 30 seconds it will take us to get to the ocean.  TAHITI!

we leave next week.  hopefully i will get my act together and keep you moderately informed.

xoxo
miss dewey d