Up Front: Where You From?
231 Responses
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Heh, as Megan posted, I was typing a comment which boiled down to "KITTENS! Pics!"
Home is where the cat is. Though I also need a patch of dirt I at least have usage rights for.
There are some photos here (can't find an 'if you're not on Facebook' link for these). Not of kittens.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
multiple boutique-sized volcanic cones
When I first moved to the US I was quite literally lost for a while until I realised I was completely used to knowing exactly where I was by referencing which of the cones was visible. In the flat places I was living I actually had to use street signs!
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Emma, you mentioned over on another thread about the sewerage issues. Given you're in the general vicinity, is there smells and assorted grossness now?
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Emma Hart, in reply to
Emma, you mentioned over on another thread about the sewerage issues. Given you're in the general vicinity, is there smells and assorted grossness now?
No. Or at least, not from the sewage treatment plant. (We were told we totally shouldn't move here because of the smell from the plant. You can never smell it. When you can smell something whiffy, it's low tide at the estuary.)
There are still a few streets where there are or have been sewage leaks where it's really whiffy.
But what they're talking about with the sewage now is an overload causing a catastrophic oxygenation failure in the ponds. Things seem to be getting better, but the messages around this have been really confusing. In the eastern suburbs, there've been constant conflicted messages about whether we should be flushing (our street was offered chemical toilets if we wanted them, not told we should be using them) and I don't know if the conservation message is getting through in the west at all. Because, y'know, Fendalton's waste goes through a fuckload more piping than ours does, and still (mostly) ends up in the same place.
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
So is teh problem the pond, or the pipes? Or both.
(And do those rules apply to visitors? Just askin')
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Emma Hart, in reply to
So is teh problem the pond, or the pipes? Or both.
(And do those rules apply to visitors? Just askin')
Both.
And, seriously?
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
No, I am joking. Mostly. I'm actually wondering how the hotels and things like that are coping. Given there's so few of them actually operating. (And I will be staying in one in a few days.)
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Isabel Hitchings, in reply to
n the eastern suburbs, there’ve been constant conflicted messages about whether we should be flushing (our street was offered chemical toilets if we wanted them, not told we should be using them)
I specifically asked the young soldier who offered us a chemical loo if we should be using it and she had absolutely no idea. This week they put two portaloos in our street and a dump-site round the corner which I am taking as a very strong hint. I do, however, find moving from flushing (albeit sparingly) to using the camping loo again quite hard psychologically - a step away from any hope of normality.
Megan It seems like the convention for public loos (eg in malls or restaurants) is to flush normally but assuming you have a loo that's your own for the duration of your stay my gut feeling is that the "if it's brown flush it down..." rule should apply.
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
I do, however, find moving from flushing (albeit sparingly) to using the camping loo again quite hard psychologically – a step away from any hope of normality.
And the thought that you may have to do it for some time? I get the impression that people are starting to get more and more frustrated atm, and I wonder how that's going to manifest.
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Isabel Hitchings, in reply to
I wonder how that’s going to manifest.
I suspect we're going to see a lot of mental health issues over the coming months. It's like when you're depressed and can't foresee anything good happening for a long time except with a rational basis. We're managing by making sure we fit some 'good things' into every week but I know people who are still too scared to do things like sit in a movie theatre or go where there are crowds and I worry about them greatly.
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
Especially with winter coming, and the general uncertainty of what is going to happen to the city. I was talking to a counsellor about this, and she wondered if there was planning to get trauma specialists and counsellors down there.
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I wonder if anyone else feels as helpless and useless in the face of all the hardship Christchurch people are going through as I do? What a bloody mess. Bad enough looking at it, but trying to live in it? Ghastly. And scary.
Is there anything we can do to help?
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Ok Let’s see if this works and it’s not my fault if this derails
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Emma Hart, in reply to
Ok Let’s see if this works and it’s not my fault if this derails
Aw, wookit da kitties! D'aw!
See, that helped.
Especially with winter coming, and the general uncertainty of what is going to happen to the city.
Yeah, y'know, we keep hearing, get back into routines, do things normally as much as possible. And I completely understand that. We just don't have that option. There's almost nothing we can do the same was as we used to. And it's so draining, the extra twenty minute drive to get groceries. I wanted boots and a bra the other day, we had to go to Riccarton.
I'm certainly worse than I was a couple of weeks ago. All my recognised stress responses are going off - which boils down to 'run away and do something REALLY stupid'.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Aw, wookit da kitties! D’aw!
Yup that pretty sums up home for me at the moment :).
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Jacqui Dunn, in reply to
Yup that pretty sums up home for me at the moment :)
When my cat (she lived to 20+) had five kittens, I spent several weeks, head down, bum up, watching them. Lost a whole summer that way, but the thought of it still makes me smile. I envy you, I think.
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Isabel Hitchings, in reply to
Aaaaww!
I suspect that, if you can't magically fix the sewers and the roads right now then supplying kittehs is one of the best things you can do for my flagging spirits.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
if you can’t magically fix the sewers and the roads
Sadly their godlike powers are limited to sucking the bad smells from Christchurch and depositing them in their litterbox. But they're only small and so you won't notice the difference there for a while - however, we've noticed the change at our house!
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Emma Hart, in reply to
Is there anything we can do to help?
I've been pondering this, because the immediate practical answer is, "Well, no, not really."
So let me be less immediate, and less practical for a bit.
Take a hunk of money and put it aside. And next year, when Chch can function as a first-world city again, and host a Great Blend, come down. Meet us, talk to us, drink with us. Stay in our hotels, eat in our eateries, drink in our drinkeries, shop in our shopperies. And possibly more important than all of that, give us something to look forward to.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
I think that's a great idea. I've been racking my brain because I wanted to send your family a lovely care package, but spending money in Chch is a good idea too. (I will be in June. I should start saving now!)
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Robert Urquhart, in reply to
__Is there anything we can do to help?__
I’ve been pondering this, because the immediate practical answer is, “Well, no, not really.”
As a mostly unaffected person in Christchurch, I’ve been pondering the same question - is there anything I can do to help - and come to the conclusion that the best I can do is still stay off the roads, continue working (from home), have my spare space available if my friends in the east need to get out of it for a while, and flush conservatively. That’s it.
Maybe I’m looking in all the wrong places for ways to help. I don’t know.
It’s … just depressing :(
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When out of the district I used to say I was from the Bay of Islands. However, that became awkward as people automatically assumed I lived right next to a beach (the problem with having "Bay" as a region/district name; it's not all coastal) when we were mostly inland.
So I eventually switched to saying I was from Northland instead. If there was further enquiry (generally the person had been to "Northland") I then had to go through a succession of areas south from where I was from until I said a town/area name they might recognise. So from Northland (grew up in Pakaraka (inland), and before that the Waikino Peninsula. A bit further on from Kawakawa in both cases.
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Isabel Hitchings, in reply to
Yes! Having happy things on the horizon is going to make a difference especially when most of the news is along the lines of "Thing x will not be fixed for a minimum of y months."
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Jacqui Dunn, in reply to
And next year, when Chch can function as a first-world city again, and host a Great Blend, come down. Meet us, talk to us, drink with us. Stay in our hotels, eat in our eateries, drink in our drinkeries, shop in our shopperies. And possibly more important than all of that, give us something to look forward to.
What a lovely idea! Thank you.
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Does allowing items from Christchurch in my TradeMe searches help? There's lots of bargains there, one of the only booming businesses is selling off superfluous items. Give some leeway on the time for settlement, if you have a heart.
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