Fall is for Suckers

A Facebook message from Kate made me realize that I haven't been keeping up with this blog as I would like to. So here I am. Don't worry- you haven't missed much in my life. I work on my thesis sometimes in the daytime and look for cars with Alex at night. Sometimes we drink on weeknights and eat whole bags of potato chips to ourselves and watch 30Rock. Tzatziki is my favorite kiwi chip flavor.

It's turning into fall here but guess what- the trees don't lose their leaves. According to the girls on my hockey team, only the lame imported trees change color, which is such a relief to me. I hate all that shit about the beauty of fall and scenic road trips in October- fall is for suckers. Sure, it's fun to play sports in the chilly evening and wear scarves for the first time in months and drink something warm outside and see the steam, but then it gets bone crushing cold and I want to crawl inside my own belly and die.

So to fend off the depression sinking in from having to bear another winter in one calendar year, I bought myself a fabulous new wool coat and Alex bought a space heater for our bedroom. The coat is long, gray, and has a belt at the waist and those cool tabs on the sleeves, like an old driving coat. Also I bought a hat and some sweaters at the thrift store, and broke the washing machine in my flat trying to get the thrift store smell off them. The landlord will not replace it. My flatmates hate me.

Car shopping with Alex might be the funniest adventure we've ever had. I've only ever gone seriously looking at cars with my father, who does all the serious looking for me, kicking at tires and crawling under the bodies and revving the engines and listening to the wheels while I drive in circles for him. I just wander around the lot, peering into windows and alternatively trying to appear defiant or adorable, depending on how I think the negotiation is going with dad. I think Alex has only looked at antique cars with his dad. Now that we're on our own, we usually just stare at the passenger's side of the car because we think it's the driver's, get in and go for a test drive around the block, and get back out and stare at it again with the owner. Occasionally we poke a tire with our toe, and when they ask us if we want to see the engine, we say "Oh sure, sure," and stare under the "bonnet" for awhile. (BTW, I think that England used to pretend that their cars were nineteenth century noblewomen, and the tradition has stuck with the colonies. Kiwis call the hood the bonnet and the trunk the boot. I wonder where the petticoats are?) Then we usually offer the owner a sum way under what he's looking for (Why can't we find a woman selling a car? Our friend bought a car off a cute pregnant lady who was moving back to Australia to be with her mom for the birth. Unfair!) and he says that he's looking for more, and we try to play hardball so we go home, all the way talking about how much we really liked the car and thought it was great, and the guy sells it to someone who will pay higher than us and we lose.

I'm playing hockey for my school. BTW, when they say "club sports" in any other country, they just mean "the school's team" and not just-for-fun. Also you don't have to go to the school to play for the team, or be an undergrad, which is how I can be on the team. I play in a relatively low division because we have about six teams at this university and I suck, but it's still pretty serious. We were kicking ass in the first two games, but then school holiday rolled around and all of our undergrads went home to visit their families and we barely even have enough people to play anymore. We may have to forfeit this weekend, and last weekend we got murdered 5-0. It's pretty frustrating. What's also frustrating is that playing hockey with a bunch of eighteen year olds has made me realize that I am getting old. And out of shape.

Alex has been cooking a lot of really good soups recently, which is also making fall much more tolerable. Although last week he spent like twelve hours boiling down vegetables into a delicious stock, and when he left it in a bowl on the counter to cool down, my one flatmate thought it was garbage (how I don't know) and dumped it down the drain so she could wash the bowl. The next day our (only kind-of) wilty spinach got thrown away. Life in the city is hard.