Enforced garbage collection

Whilst driving down the highway it is not uncommon to see this sign - "Caution: Prison inmates working ahead" And then a few minutes later you see a dozen or so men dressed in bright orange vests picking up garbage from the roadside and putting it in bags. The NC Department of Correction's website states that "Today's N.C. prison inmates work on the farm, on road crews and in prison construction. More than 2,000 minimum and medium custody inmates from more than 60 prisons work on the state's roads, clearing right-of-way, picking up litter and patching potholes. Medium custody inmates work under the supervision of armed correctional officers. Minimum custody inmates work under the direction of Department of Transportation employees." One thing I can say is that the highways in NC are incredibly clean and in our recent travels we did not see any litter lying around. I guess there must be a lot of prisoners to do the work.

Bumper stickers I have seen around here...

Friends don't let friends re-enlist

Don't blame me I was born red

Drill for American oil

Don't pray in my school and I won't think in your church

W 2004

Grandad, we got the Hawthorn DVD!

Doctors, Dentists and Chiropractors, oh my!

It seems to be our experience and the experience of other Australians living here that medical professionals here in the US are good at getting your money. They are good at diagnosing issues, putting forward the standard treatment plan, executing the plan and charging a lot of money. Whilst proficient, it is almost like entering a factory with robots. There is no discussion of alternative treatments and drugs are often the medical answer (which is no surprise given the amount of marketing that is entered into by the pharmaceutical companies - I have often seen sales reps at the doctors surgery. In fact the reps have their own sign in desk and room to go to at our doctors office) No wonder our health insurance costs are so high! I think the best policy is to stay well.

I spoke too soon...

...the Tribeca is STILL at the mechanic so Andrew continues to revel in fact that he is driving the Outback. Apparently some fuse has blown and each time it is replaced it blows again, so they are looking for the real problem.

Lucy is starting gymnastics tomorrow. This is to help her learn how to jump. The latest effort is standing on tippy toes, arms reaching for the stars and grunting. Despite the effort she's not leaving the floor!

Product of the week will resume next week. I ran out stored up blog entries and haven't been to Walmart since. In fact I've decided except for dire emergency not to go to Walmart ever again. I watched the documentary called 'The high price of low price' and was astounded at the exploitation of the Walmart staff, the Chinese factory workers, and the environment. As a consumer if you can buy things so cheaply there and nowhere else you have to ask how are they doing it. They are killing main street America and small independent businesses. Conversely Disneyland has built a main street in their theme park in Florida to preserve this piece of history!

Enough miscellaneous musings. Thanks to everyone that commented or sent emails, I feel loved again. And although we may be celebrating Anzac day with gusto we aren't going back to Oz anytime soon, but thanks for asking Channah.

The fridge is still broken...

...and the servicemen in our area don't work on Saturdays. Andrew is off to Costco again tonight, this time to buy a bar fridge ($129) instead of spending a fortune on dry ice. We are going to ask for a new fridge as this one is clearly defective when it is only 15 months old.

The fridge is broken AGAIN!!!!!!!!

We booked a service call last night at 7pm over the internet and thankfully the service repairman turned up at 8am this morning. Good job! He has fixed the fridge and tried to get us a new one but since it is fixed they are not going to do anything else (until next time). At 8pm last night Andrew drove to Costco and bought the standalone freezer we had been eyeing out. It is only 7 cubic feet but it is also only $200 + tax. We wanted an upright model but given the urgency and the fact that we can't take it back to Oz we settled for the convenient and meat saving option of a chest freezer.

Note to self: never ever buy GE electrical appliances.

Life in general (with confetti thrown in)

Life is busy. Andrew spent last week in Boston for work whilst in Wilmington we endured a number of thunderstorms which flooded the backyard.
Our family is reunited and blogging has now resumed.

Spring is a wonderful time of year here in Wilmington. Most gardens are planned around this season and as such there are explosions of pink and purple in every garden as the azaleas start to bloom. Next week is the Azalea festival, the biggest social event in Wilmington. Who will be crowned the queen of the festival? I'm holding my breath (well not really) but I am looking forward to visiting the first farmers market for the year.

Whilst we have planted a summer garden out the front we still have a number of azaleas that have surprisingly bloomed red despite their neglect over many years. Our ornamental pear trees have puffed out with white flowers that have given way to green leaves which has created a confetti of petals across the yard. It is very fun to walk through the petals to the mailbox whilst splashing in the puddles as there is quite a lot of it. I think churches should allow confetti regardless of the mess! Despite the beauty of this process the flowers themselves reek of the bog of eternal stench, sorry to any disappointed or delicate readers!

We have a nest of baby birds living in a holly bush. There are three babies so new to the world they have not opened their eyes yet and just continually open and shut their beaks in the hope that a tasty bug or worm will be placed inside. They are so cute and fluffy that the naturally curious Lucy wants to play with them.

On Saturday we had a grill next door with Sam & Sheila and on Sunday we celebrated Julian's second birthday. Juju is one of Lucy's best friends and we attended his birthday party at Ogden park. Happy birthday Tuba!

I like Mike!

Although the US Presidential Elections aren't being held until November there is a lot of hooha about the party nominations. It has been going on for months and months already and there is seemingly no end in sight. People are very vocal about their political affiliations wearing badges on their clothes (see the title of today's entry), putting bumper stickers on their cars and giving you an ear lashing on their personal opinions. We are staying well out of it, especially given that we can't vote. Though according to Rick voters should be required to do a quiz beforehand to determine their capacity to vote. I don't call that democracy!

Netflix Update

Here are the latest movies we've watched. The best one in my opinion, which Andrew decided he didn't want to watch, was 'The Lives of Others'. I just wish we had of seen it before visiting Berlin (not possible of course as it was released in 2007)!

• Half Nelson (2006)
• Guess who's coming to dinner (1967)
• Office Space (1999)
• Amazing Grace (2006)
• Frida, 2002
• Melinda and Melinda, 2004
• Notes on a Scandal, 2006
• Stranger than Fiction, 2006
• The Lives of Others, 2007
• North by Northwest, 1959
• 49 Up, 2005
• Spellbound, 2002
• March of the Penguins, 2004
• The Pursuit of Happyness, 2006
• A Charlie Brown Christmas, 1965
• The Last of the Mohicans, 1992
  

In contrast to last time I reported on Netflix I enjoyed all of the movies listed above.

One of the movies from the previous entry was Wordplay. It is a documentary style film on the New York Times Crossword tournament held annually in Stamford (started long before 'The Office' had a branch there) This inspired me to check out the NYT crossword. I didn't realise there would be such a vast difference in crossword styles between Australia and the US. The US uses a lot of 2 word phrases (without any indication it is a 2 word answer) and also uses a lot of colloquialisms. Having struggled through many of the crosswords I have come to the conclusion it is too big a cultural barrier to jump and I have gone back to doing Australian cross words. (I used to do 'The Australian' crossword on the train between Sutherland and Kogarah stations in the mornings) Maybe after a few more years of living here I will attempt the NYT version again.

It's not easy being green

As I've mentioned before recycling is not easy here. Previously we were driving to a open air 'depot' with massive recycling bins to dump our stuff. These days we are subscribing to a private company for recycling services that pick up on Wednesdays (regular rubbish is picked up by a separate private compnay on Mondays) It costs us about $10 a month for the recycling service. The only issue is that they don't pick up all recycling (ie for plastics they can only take plastics with 'necks' so we have to take all of our fruit containers, of which there are many, to the depot) Although Australia seems to be doing a lot with recycling, getting rid of plastic bags and the like I'm afraid unless this American behemoth gets on board with the same mindset our planet is going to be stuffed.

Cross cultural mission

It's time for another look at cultural differences.


Good things in the US:

• Saturday mail delivery
• 4 lane highways
• Pottery Barn
• Walmart
  

Bad things about the US:

• High fructose corn syrup
• the number of 'holidays' they celebrate that require gift giving, dressing up and house decorating (next 2 are Valentines day and St.Patricks Day)
• 'Zee' instead of 'Zed'
• Walmart

Product of the week - Monopoly

Whilst in Asheville (Western NC) we stopped into a famous old department store called the Mast General Store. It's full of hiking equipment, traditional clothing and 'old-timey mercantile'. We came across this National Parks version of Monopoly and decided we had to get it as the Great Smoky Mountains are in the position of Mayfair. There are 'mammals' and birds' cards, tents and ranger stations instead of houses and hotels, and the playing pieces include a camera, a canoe and a hiking boot. Don't get caught littering in the park or you'll receive a large fine!

New Year roundup

We've all had the flu here and given the weather it is no surprise. The last Saturday of 2007 saw us at the beach in 25 degree weather. The water was freezing but that didn't stop Lucy running in and out of it whilst begging Andrew to take her in further. Following that mild weather we plunged into the cold with daily temperatures between -5 and +4 degrees. But then to finish off the week we've had weather of 22 degrees today. Yesterday we all lay out in the hammock in the sun and then rushed to the front garden when we heard the ice cream van drive around. It is truly crazy! Especially when we were buying dry ice from the supermarket to keep our milk cold in the esky while the fridge was being fixed. It would have been colder to leave it outside on the deck! The good news is that the fridge/freezer is now fixed so we are back to normal again. And we are all feeling a lot better.

Happy New Year!

We've made it into the new year, only 16 hours behind Sydney! We've starting 2008 in the dark ages as we now cool our food with dry ice (the fridge is bung and can't be fixed until at least Friday) but on the same day we reduced our car insurance to $950 for 6 months (vs paying the same amount per month).

In 2007 we spent 8 months, 3 weeks and 3 days in the US and I'll leave you to calculate how many days we spent in Oz (these seem so long ago). Here are some of the highlights of the past year:

• January - Lunch at Kobe Jones with Kel and Lucy on a gorgeous Sydney day


• February - Finishing the backyard garden and deck


• March - Lucy's baptism and our last pizza party in Sutherland


• April - Moving day (no more packing or sorting or stressing)


• May - Lucy's first birthday in Airlie gardens


• June - Long weekend in Charleston SC learning to cook gumbo


• July - Watching mom's taste vegemite for the first time


• August - Smelling the roses in our garden


• September - Watching Federer win his 4th US open in NYC


• October - A week in Asheville NC to see the Fall colours


• November - Enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with our new church family


• December - Eating at our third revolving restaurant (this time Seattle)

Netflix

We joined up to Netflix a few weeks ago. When I heard about the business model, when living in Oz, it didn't really make sense to me. Finding a post box or going to the post office was always a hassle for me - I thought it was just as easy to go to the video store. Little did I know that in the US you can post movies back from your own mailbox! So we now have created a queue of movies and here's what we've seen so far (in reverse order):



Million Dollar Baby, 2004
Evan Almighty, 2006
Night at the Museum, 2006
License to Wed, 2007
An Inconvenient Truth, 2006
The 40-Year-Old Virgin, 2005
Ten Canoes, 2006
Memoirs of a Geisha, 2005
Annie Hall, 1977
Wordplay, 2006


I rated them all 5 stars except for four of the movies which I rated 1 star. Can you guess which four?

Product of the week - Peppermint

This one is for you Kevin - a non-edible product of the week! This weeks product is my Williams Sonoma Holiday cleaning kit. The kit comprises of hand soap, moisturiser, dishwashing liquid and counter spray. And they all smell like peppermint! It is really good fun and the kitchen smells delicious. To add to the festive mood we have Christmas songs playing each night and we have a magnetic advent calendar that Lucy gets to open each day to discover a new piece to put on the nativity scene. Isn't Christmas a great time of year!

A reason to blog

"But that feeling of impatience arose because I was aware that what I didn't hear now, I never would hear, there'd be no instant replay, as there can be when you listen to a tape or watch a video and can press the rewind button, rather, any whisper not apprehended or understood there and then would be lost forever. That's the unfortunate thing about what happens to us and remains unrecorded, or worse still, unknown or unseen or unheard, for later, there's no way it can be recovered."

a heart so white by Javier Marias

Keeping up appearances

One of the cultural differences we have encountered is that Americans seem a lot more worried about appearances than Australians. Here are some examples.

We don't have blinds on the windows in the living areas of our house. So whilst Andrew was away in Oz we put up some sheets and picnic blankets on some key windows so that it didn't feel so open whilst I was home alone. When visitors came over during the week they were shocked about the sheets. They would prefer either nothing on the windows or proper blinds. Everyone was full of suggestions for where to get cheap blinds and someone even gave me a coupon. It's not that we don't want blinds its just that we need to save up to buy them (we just got the fence installed!) But it was interesting that nothing was a better option that sub-prime. In the land of convenience you must buy buy buy.

Another example about appearances is that Southern belles can't leave the house without makeup. I never see anyone (else) just whipping out to the shops in their trackies for milk. At the supermarket everyone is nicely dressed with perfect lipstick. In fact this is an easy way to spot northerners as they aren't usually so well turned out.

When we first moved in we didn't have a lawnmower (and still don't). The grass got really long and wasn't looking too good. All the neighbours offered to lend us their lawnmowers (one person offered twice). We were just waiting to get things sorted out at home so weren't too worried about having an immaculate lawn. But clearly others do worry and they spend an inordinate amount of time keeping it looking good. Two ironic things have now happened: Wilmington is now in drought and we aren't allowed to use the watering system anymore; it's winter so the grass has gone dormant (ie brown). Our front lawn is now looking good, aparting from its winter hibernation, but it was never something we really worried about too much.

Appearances can be deceptive.

From U-boat to Pulpit

I finished reading this book a few weeks ago and although it's a departure from this blog's regular theme I still wanted to tell you about it. Since visiting Sachsenhausen I have been wanting to get hold of the book written by Martin Niemoller “From U-Boat to Pulpit”. I tracked down one English copy in Fort Wayne Indiana - a green cloth bound 1937 edition. On the flyleaf is a list of the members of the “Conference reading Circle #2 1938”. It is an amazing adventure story of the life of a German submarine captain during World War I. Reading abou tthe war from an alternative perspective is really challenging! Niemoller later went on to become a minister and whilst first siding with the Nazis in the 30’s soon realized that they looked to corrupt the church. He took a strong stand on this and for this he was jailed in Sachsenhausen and Dachau but survived. This patriotic German who served his country with so much fervour in the first world war was incarcerated by his own countrymen in the second from 1937-1945. A very brave man and author of the famous poem “First they came” (check it out as it is still so relevant today) It is worth quoting something he wrote during his u-boat days: “Is there peace anywhere? Will peace come to us – or shall we, like the Flying Dutchman, spend year after year at sea without rest or respite? And we are, as ever, faced by the eternal questions: life, the universe and God? These questions are not prompted by curiosity – they force themselves on us. All we know is that we have not found the answers to them.”