Movies and Moving.....But Going Nowhere

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.” – Mark Twain

[First, an apology to my patient regular blog readers (you know who you are) for the large gap between posts. In addition to inertia, procrastination, and maybe a bit of writer's block, the following entry may exonerate me somewhat.]
We have been back in Timaru from the USA since the end of June and haven't been far out of town since. There are several reasons for this. I was away in the states for six weeks and felt the need to put in a longer stretch of working, in part to accumulate future time off. It was very busy at work. The hospital has been unusually full during this cold winter. In particular there has been a lot of serious cases of influenza in younger, healthier people. Australasia is considered a good predictor as for the epidemic headed to the Northern Hemisphere for the 2015-16 flu season, so please, get your flu shot (or as they say here, "flu jab"). The cold weather makes the roads more treacherous with ice and snow, and bundling Fayne up for a ski trip will coincide with Hades featuring ice skating. In New Zealand, they believe Spring begins on September 1, but they failed to inform the meteorologists.

Satellite View of Snow on the Southern Alps Mid South Island, NZ

The view from the hospital remains quite stunning: to the East the ocean and to the West the snow-capped peaks.
Work remains a constant challenge. Just in the last few weeks I have learned of several strange and interesting diseases, which unfortunately almost always means bad news for the patients. It is not an exaggeration to say that genetic research and expanding diagnostic capabilities have led to an exponential growth in medical knowledge. This can be either from defining new illnesses or better understanding old ones. Sadly, it doesn't mean we have better ways to treat them all.
As I spend more time here, it is clear that while healthcare systems differ, human behavior is fairly universal. In the US, doctors still generally earn more if they do more and malpractice worries can lead to many unnecessary procedures. In NZ, there is no incentive to see more patients or do more, and malpractice is not a real worry. As a result, a cardiologist may be in no hurry to catheterize a patient, and if a delay leads to a potentially preventable heart attack, there is little consequence. I see less urgency for quality improvement. One of my colleagues says there are two types of patients here with aortic stenosis: those that are too early for surgery, and those that are too late. Bottom line: I suspect overall mortality and life expectancy is about the same in both countries. 

The Fourth of July was soon after our return. This ranks alongside Thanksgiving as American holidays for which there is no real Kiwi equivalent. So, a group of us Yankee ex-pats gathered at Camille H.'s place for a semblance of an All-American BBQ.

I baked a cake

Six Yanks and a Kiwi- July 4th 2015- Nic, Olivia, Roxanna, Judd, me, my better half, & Joe

We felt it wouldn't be right without some pyrotechnics. Camille even looked up a recipe for cooking up your own sparklers at home. Eyebrows were raised when she attempted to buy some potentially incendiary agricultural products, so fortunately Louise the pharmacist donated a box of "Safe and Sane" explosives left over from Guy Fawkes Day 2014, the only period you can legally buy them here. Thanks Louise!

No fingers were lost

Modest, but festive

Part of the price I pay for being so far away from home is missing important milestones. This included my father's 90th birthday, September 3, 2015. The family was well-represented by my sisters and nieces making the effort to go down to San Diego/Coronado to celebrate the big day. 

(L to R: Moo, Koo, Char, Ruth, Birthday Boy, X, Em.)

 It looked like fun!

My Dad riding his trike with Xania

The next week, Athena and Xania took off for a trip to Cuba......I'm so jealous!

A picture is worth 1,000 words

The Movies

 The New Zealand International Film Festival came to Timaru in August, and as in years past, we enthusiastically dove in, gorging on 13 films in 11 days. A brief rundown for those interested:

1. Sherpa - An excellent documentary about the 2014 climbing season at Everest through the eyes of the natives.
2. Maru - Another doc, a great companion piece to #1 about three climbers trying to scale previously unclimbed Himalayan peak.
3. Grandma - Lily Tomlin is great as a crusty widowed professor helping her granddaughter through a tough time. The whole cast is great.
4. Clouds of Sils Maria - For true film buffs, enigmatic, outstanding performances from Juliet Binoche, Kristen Stewart (yes, that Kristen S.), and Chloë Grace Moretz in Swittzerland. Seems like it should be in French, but is in English.
5. The Second Mother - Brazilian film in Portuguese with a remarkably believable portrayal of a maid (Regina Casé) for a rich São Paulo family, visited by her daughter from the country.
6. Latin Lover - A fun Italian film with the last screen appearance of Virna Lisi, also with Almodóvar regular Marisa Paredes playing ex-wives of a late great Italian film star. The families he collected through his international career gather in his memory. It is an homage to cinema of the 50's through '80's, funny and fun.
7. Amy - The life of chanteuse Amy Winehouse by the director of Senna, notable for amazing private footage of her early years. What a talent, but the predictable unraveling of her short life was hard to watch after the first hour.
8. Tale of Tales -Italian director Matteo Garrone did the acclaimed film Gomorrah (2008). This film is described in the brochure aptly as "Python meets Passolini", a vivid, beautiful, strange, unsettling, and funny anthology of three 17th century Neopolitan folk stories. It has an international cast, is in English but feels like it is in Italian; not for everyone, but not boring.
9. 45 Years -Classy British adult film with Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay about to celebrate their 45th anniversary...secrets are revealed! Or are they??
10. Umrika - Indian film in Hindi about a young man wanting to leave his village and go to the mythical land of the title (AKA America). Not great; I wanted to like it more.
11. Phoenix - German film with some good reviews, but I found it a slow, improbable tale of a Jewish holocaust-survivor looking to reunite with her husband who probably turned her in.
12. Going Clear - The Scientology doc, well done, but you should probably know or suspect most of this by now. Spooky Tom Cruise-fu.
13. The Mafia Only kills in Summer - An Italian comedy about the Mafia in Sicily and their eventual comeuppance. Made by Pierfrancesco "Pif" Diliberto, the "Italian Jon Stewart": Not as good as he thinks it is.

The Movings

By far the greatest amount of time, energy, and stress over the last two months here has involved two significant moves, almost simultaneously. First, the Hospital administration decided it was time to move back into the Gardens Block, the former nurses' dorm that was used for offices prior to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. They relocated all the doctors' offices to the old brick administration building, but then decided that it was less earthquake-proof than the Gardens Block. So after four years and plenty of reinforcing beams later it was back again to the GB. There are some advantages of going from a large common room with five physicians to single private spaces, but.......................

My new office

The Hallway to my office

....they have only finished about 50% of the work! There is dust and wet paint in the hallways, noisy drilling and sanding, and dangling electrical wires which we must navigate around multiple times a day. I feel I should wear a hardhat. It is not clear why they didn't just wait another few months until the work was done to move us in.

Level One entry hall....

with this friendly welcome posted by a helpful worker.

The bigger change was moving out of the flat we have rented for the last year into a wee house much closer to the hospital and Botanic Garden. Compact but efficient, there is plenty of room for guests (hint hint), with three bedrooms (one we will use as a dining room) and his and her bathrooms. As it is unfurnished, we had a lot of shopping to do. Those who are familiar with our condo in Richmond may notice a similar decorating style. We call it "Middle Briscoes" after a Crate and Barrel/ Pottery Barn-like chain in NZ. (BTW, dealing with the cable company is just as frustrating here as at home.)

So you can see, it has been a busy time here. The next trip back stateside will from before Thanksgiving until after New Years. See you then?

The winter gloaming, Caroline Bay, Timaru

Babar's Nightmare

Babar's Dream- An Illustration from Babar the King by Jean DeBrunhoff (1933)

One of the unexpected privileges of parenthood is being able to rediscover some of the delights of children's books. Read from a contemporary perspective, the Babar books have unpalatable colonial and racial aspects. The stories and art are compelling nonetheless. In the third installment, the King of the Elephants is having a troubled time; there is unrest in the kingdom, and his dear friend The Old Lady is deathly ill from a snake bite. As he sleeps, he is visited by a sea of Misfortune, represented by grotesque creatures labeled "illness", "ignorance", "despair", "fear", etc. "Graceful winged elephants" come to chase away Misfortune, and Babar awakes refreshed, and TOL recovers. This depiction of his worries always moved me, and at times I feel like that when return back to the States, as I did for six weeks in May and June. There is such an intense compression of dramas, traumas, business, and time restraints, it can feel overwhelming. There are the Graceful Winged Elephants of dear friends, family, and fellowship to help ease the burden. Also, when you get back from a "vacation" and look at the photos, it is much easier to recall the good times than the bad.

You won't get much sympathy when your travels take you to a quite posh seaside resort in Laguna Beach, where I went for an endocrinology conference. The biggest trauma there was the embarrassment of having to wait in a queue in my Nissan Versa for valet parking behind the Ferraris and Lamborghinis.

Montage Hotel, Laguna Beach, CA

The So Cal trip also took me by San Diego to see my father, and to Morro Bay, where Los Larsons abide. For the second year in a row, I got to watch NBA basketball Finals Game 5 with Lars and Kate (great fun for all Warrior fans, and great to see them).

Panoramic View over Morro Bay and Rock

An early stop on our trip was to go to Davis, CA to celebrate Heather F's n^th birthday.

The Birthday Girl with Heards and Nishikawas

A later visit with HF and David N included a visit to the new yurt and the old Co-op.

My brother Charles recently was out of the hospital and I was fortunate to see him literally start to get back on his feet, with major assistance from his wife Pam and their tremendous network of loyal family and friends.

Family members, like people and their pets, seem to look more similar as years go by.

We made a little more time than usual to spend in our home in Fort Bragg, and it was much needed. I ended up working four grueling days in the hospital. I will simply say, if I had even a sliver of a doubt about my decision to take my talents to the South Island, it was extinguished. No matter how much time we allow, it never seems enough. We explored a wonderful new public walkway along Glass Beach and the ocean through what was mill property, and appreciated again what a beautiful and special place the Mendocino Coast. It was a joy to see a place you have lived for over 30 years from a brand new perspective.

Looking down on Glass Beach

The best part was catching up with our many friends, like Judy V, Linnea M, and Sue and Richard N.
We maximized the chance to catch up with Christine and Doug, and even had Sunday brunch at the Little River Inn with Christine, Adriane S., and my sister Margaret, up to scout out plans for leading a tour of Seniors up here later in the summer.

Adriane, Xtine, and Margaret

Another reason I can't really expect any pity: we ate really well. Going back down to the Bay Area we stopped in Healdsburg for lunch with Terry K at Bistro Ralph. It is always great to see her.

TK, trying hard to forget she is a 49er fan

I was overdue for a trip to Watsonville to see Emma and Rick Nestler, both recuperating nicely for problems earlier in the year. Connie and Bill joined us for a feast, the first one Mrs. N has prepared in a while. Two pies, no waiting! Spectacular!! And with Dr. N, we played his first game of dominoes  (he was masterful) since an unfortunate man vs. table-saw dispute.

There was a lot to celebrate with my sisters et al.: Cheryl's BD, Cory's BD, and Xania's HS graduation. Margaret rented a beach house at Stinson Beach the last weekend in May to help everyone celebrate, and we were able to spend a night.

Last but most, the key reason to return in June is to celebrate many Sofia M W Heard events: her BD, his BD, their wedding anniversary, and of course to keep up with the grandkids rapid growth and development.
I had a great time riding bikes with Kimarra.

From Sofia's FaceBook page

Do you remember when you had this much fun riding a bike?

I could fill pages of the blog with photos of my incredible grandchildren, but for the sake of those perhaps not as enthralled if they are not yours, I will include two collages.

Kimarra- Age 5½

Isaiah- Age 2½

And of course, there was Sofia's 25^{th
(I can't believe my baby is a quarter of a century old!).}

The Heards celebrate Mommy's BD

On June 24 it was time to wing back to New Zealand, and the relaxing feeling of returning to my regular, uncomplicated life and work. Cold winter weather had arrived, as I could see from the window of the plane over the Southern Alps.

The low winter sun over Caroline Bay is still quite lovely.

There was one big difference on returning to work, however. Dr. Bernhard Kuepper, a fixture since before I arrived here, has taken a leave of absence to work in Queensland, Australia for six months to see if the situation is better for him there. I wish him the best of luck, but would certainly welcome his return if it doesn't work out.

BK and his Groupies

His  fellow Senior Medical Officers share a farewell toast- Nic, Camille, me, Thomas, and Bernhard.

We didn't miss celebrating Independence day, as Camille Hemlock invited her fellow Yanks to a hotdog and chips and dips party. I brought this patriotic cake....

and Louise the pharmacist donated a box of home fireworks (hoarded since Guy Fawkes Day in November)  for our pleasure. Thanks Louise!

And a Happy Belated 4th of July to all you out there.