Mitch, Tau and AJ at Omaha Beach House

It amazes us that even after two months back from New Zealand, Tau still raises things that we thought he would have long forgotten.

When we catch and hold his swing in mid-flight at the playground, he knows that saying “AJ’s password” (”Love ya, AJ”) is the only way to get the swing going again. He also remembers that the “AJ hug” requires a “tap, tap” of his hand on our backs.

The third thing he “remembers” cracks me up: I recently told him on the way home from daycare that Mommy would be home when we got there. “What are you going to say to Mommy when you see her?” I asked. His response? ” Hello gorgeous!” I almost drove the car off the road. He tells me AJ taught him this.

So as I mentioned, most of my blogging energy is going into my new site (those of you who haven’t seen it, let me know and I’ll send you the URL). That means not much nobaddays-ing these days.

But I did want to touch base on a couple points.

1. It snowed in San Diego County yesterday. Yes. Snowed. And it was cold and windy. I had to wear a sweater. And run to my car. And turn on the heat. Yuk!
2. This week I started a three-month tech-writing contract with a small software company here in San Diego. For the techies: They develop a media-hosting/social-networking platform that fits seamlessly into their customers’ websites. Think YouTube but higher-quality and for the corporate media market. Online newspaper and TV sites. That sort of thing. I’ll be documenting their admin tool. Love being at a small start up again … fun product, fun people. And I really love that I’m only working four days a week and 20 minutes from home!
3. Dave and I celebrated our seventeenth anniversary last week. See pics of the yummy dinner I made on Flickr to the right.
4. And yes, my fortieth is coming up this leap year’s day. We plan to be away that weekend, so family if we could talk the weekend before or after, that would be grand.
5. I hoped to post about New Zealand the whole month of January but didn’t get around to doing that, did I? Dave stepped in admirably with posts on wine and coffee but I had planned to tell you all about our travels there. So many posts still sitting on the shelves of my mind. Time to clear them out but with the new job and a bunch of other things I want to get done around the house in Feb and March, I don’t think that’s going to happen. So please make do with taking another look at our pics. I think they capture just how lovely and relaxing our visit was!
6. Finally, belated happy Valentine’s Day everyone! We kinda skip over it here at Casa Nobaddays but Tau apparently did quite well — he came home with a goodie bag stuffed with candy and cards from his classmates. All along the lines of this one last year.

That’s all she wrote for now!

Sticking with the “quality is more the norm than the exception” theme from my Savvie posting, Sue asked me to blog about the coffee in New Zealand.

Shortly after arriving in Auckland, I let AJ and our newly introduced sister-in-law Jules know that I was partial to good coffee. Turns out they are too. This gave AJ and Jules every opportunity to show off their local stomping grounds, starting with the coffee shop in their local Warehouse outlet.

AJ cringed with embarrassment. His sister and brother-in-law arrive from the US — home of Starbucks, Peets and Seattle’s Best — and the first coffee shop we frequent in Auckland is at the Warehouse! Later that afternoon AJ demonstrated his own perfected latte-making skills. Their coffee of choice is Gravity because, as the ad goes …

 
Tiny Mairangi Bay Village, where AJ and Jules live, has about 30 shops ranging from a FoodTown to a yoga studio to upscale dress shops and everything in between. Coffee can be ordered in at least six restaurants and cafes in the village, such is the love affair locals have with their Joe. Much as in the US/Canada Pacific Northwest, coffee is intricately woven into the Kiwi lifestyle. Coffee shops are filled with folks reading the paper or magazines, working on laptops, coffee-moms meeting girlfriends for a morning latte after walking the kids to school, toddler and dog in tow, business folks brokering deals in suits and the occasional tourist contentedly taking it all, trying desperately to learn the local coffee lingo:

• Skinny latte = Latte made with skim milk
• Long black = What we call an Americano, served without milk or cream
• Long black with milk on the side = Americano with milk on the side (the closest to what we drink here in the US)
• Short black = Espresso

Some shops we visited, like The Red Beret in Motueka and Zest in Nelson, are so busy that customers find themselves cleaning their own tables in order to be seated. Once seated, the patron can then sit back with their long-black-with-milk-on-the-side and pastry, only to politely have to stand a few seconds later to let a new mom pass with her pram. An aside: the prams in NZ are generally larger than most Kiwi cars, which makes for a tight squeeze in coffee shops.

We found the Kiwi roast of choice to be medium-dark and espresso shots were always extremely flavourful. None of the “this espresso’s so weak I can see my mother-in-law through it” shots that our friends at Starbucks have become really famous for. The kind where the espresso shots are no longer “pulled” by hand but triggered into action by the cash register/computer and then shot off by an automated espresso machine.

Sign at Mariposa Palms Nursery and Cafe

Two really unique coffee destinations that AJ and Jules took us to were Morris and James Pottery & Tileworks & Mariposa Palms — both in Matakana, an hour north of Auckland. The Morris and James cafe sits in the courtyard outside the sales center for their very unique and beautiful pottery. And Mariposa Palms cafe is nestled under the palms sold at their plant nursery. In addition to pairing a serene setting with superb coffee, Mariposa also offers free puppies and espresso to unruly children.

Even though we were fortunate enough to frequent some very memorable coffee shops throughout our time in NZ, it is this story that I like to tell to highlight just how good Kiwi coffee is. When we were staying up in Paihia, Sue, Tau and I drove out to Matauri Bay for a morning on the beach. After leaving the main road, the rural drive passes more livestock than homes and finally makes it way up and past the Matauri General Store before the steep road down into the bay.

Being low on supplies, we decided to stop and pick up something for lunch. We then realized that while one half of the very humble looking general store was exactly that, the other half was the local bar. On the counter of the bar sat a very high-end espresso maker. I was floored. Beer, wine and coffee - the Kiwis know a thing or two. After ordering lunch at the bar, we sat out back in the sunshine and drank our long-black-with-milk-on-the-side and ate our meat pies (Kiwi meat pies really ought to be the subject of an entirely separate post). Here in the middle of very rural New Zealand, miles from the nearest town, the owner knocked out a couple coffees so smooth and rich that they rivalled any other cup we tasted in urban NZ or the US for that matter.

Aerial View of Matauri Bay