Chinese New Year - a family affair

TLM has been in a Chinese dancing group over summer, with practices culminating in a performance at the Chinese New Year festival day on Sunday. This year she got to be in the parade too.

Here's a picture of her bun. It was my first successful attempt, with the help of a "doughnut" and a great many pins (her hair is less than shoulder length).

The boy was roped in to be a parade marshall, which meant he could walk around in his normal imposing manner and give scary looks to people who got too close to the floats or the vehicles towing them.

And me, I got to sit in the back of the drummer's float (which would have been hellish if my ear's hadn't been cleaned out) and give out water to dehydrated dragon dancers. Watching these guys and gals trot around in formation under the hot sun and with arms held aloft most of the time, I could really appreciate how hard a job it must be. It's just as well the boy didn't get roped into that, 'cos he'd have had to train for months to get into shape.

I would have liked to stick around for the performances after TLM's but they were hot and tired and wanted to go home and eat sorbet. Fair enough.

I've had an earful

This is what happens when you are a hyper-allergic person with a tendency to collect rock-hard bits of wax in your ears:

• they throb and make your head feel like they're full of fingers
• you can hear the sea
• the insides of the ears get itchy so - as much as you know you shouldn't - you dive in there with a finger and poke around, looking for whatever it is that's tickling them.
• You go a bit deaf. You're probably a bit deaf already, but now it's really noticeable because when you walk your footsteps thunder inside your head and drown out everything else...
• everything else except for that plastic bag which makes a terrible racket so you stop trying to fish out whatever it is (your lunch maybe, or your sunhat)
• then, if you haven't done something about it by now, the pain comes.
• you visit the doctor in case you've developed an ear infection. Because that's, like, serious (permanent hearing loss!)
• where, if you're unlucky, it takes several visits to several doctors (because they are part time and you can almost never get the same one twice in a row) before you're told that all you needed was a severe micro-sucking to remove the build-up.

I texted the boy, who was worried about me because I was up all night feeling little stabbing pains in my left ear, "doc says just maxi waxy ear sucking booked".

Turns out those places that specialise in this sort of procedure are very busy (imagine working in a place where you spend all day sucking out ear wax!) so I have another 40 or so hours to put up with before blessed relief (I hope) comes. 

Bolero!

I finished a bolero today, made in Rowan Cotton Jeans yarn, in purple. It's still too hot to wear it, although I could have done with it last night when we were out at dinner (with the boy's aunt and uncle from the UK.)

More knitty details on Ravelry.

Next up is baby gear for a workmate whose partner is due in May. I've already started a couple of items but they are on hold until I find out whether vegans approve of wool...

Accidental fun

I had to force TLM out of the house today. She's been such a homebody - partly because she spends so much time at school or after school care, partly because she loves indoor activities (e.g. watching DVDs and playing computer games), and partly because she can't get to sleeps poorly at night.

We went to Te Papa and went on one of their virtual rides. I wonder how long that's been available...the museum has been around for decades and I only just knew about it yesterday! There are two rides and I chose to the one least likely to cause motion sickness. You get into a capsule which "descends" into the depths of the ocean, into the crater of an undersea mountain. I never realised travelling downwards into the ocean would be so rocky (or maybe they do that on purpose to appease young audiences?).

Then we went out to the wharf where Rugby Sevens high-jinks were still in full swing. We saw Roman gladiators, Smurfs, super heroes, and more. Funny how on certain occasions men like to dress like women and women like to dress like...um...teenagers who've just discovered their girly charms.

A Latin American drum band, also dressed Sevens-style, had everyone dancing along behind them as they progressed along the wharf. Even I broke out some moves, but TLM must have been embarrassed because she kept trying to hold my arms down.

And then, just as we'd got in the car to go home, we passed the park and spotted several highly intriguing bouncy castle thingies. One was a Jurassic Park bouncy castle, and three or four others were rugby-based obstacle course bouncies. TLM and I had a go at the bouncy shark, which is basically a really steep, fast slide. I screamed all the way and thought I was going to overshoot the end and kick some poor kid in the face (but missed).

Also, a shout-out to the boy's aunt and uncle who were in town yesterday. We had a truncated dinner with them at Chow (TLM was restless and fuss-making so we had to leave), but I really enjoyed meeting them and recommended iconic Kiwi foods such as hokey pokey ice cream, fish and chips and roast lamb with kumara wedges.