Beware of Avocados

I've typed avocado so many times in the past 48 hours my phone now tries to autocorrect half my words to avocado. Saturday night I was excited about embracing my Texas roots and had just finished preparing some excellent fajitas. The last step was cutting the avocado. My attempt to carefully remove the pit resulted in the knife slipping off the pit and slicing through my finger (the base of my left hand ring finger). Due to the amount of a mess it made, we immediately went to the ER. Fortunately I was seen quickly, stitched up and under control. Since they were scared I had cut a nerve, the sent me to another hospital with a hand specialist. I was scheduled for surgery on Sunday. I was impressed at how friendly everyone in the hospital was and how efficiently things seemed to be dealt with. Since it was an accident, everything is covered and there is no cost to me. I was amazed at how thorough they were and spared nothing, even though there is no monetary benefit to them.

I arrived at 7am for surgery, having fasted and no liquids since midnight. They assess all the patients and then prioritize the order of surgery. Being unfamiliar with the public health system I didn't expect to wait too long, especially since the waiting room population seemed small and i seemed about fifth on the list. WRONG. Around 4pm we had been waiting so long they gave us a room with lazy boys and control of the remote. Around 5pm my hopes got up when I was changed into my hospital gown. Around 6pm, they came to pick me up for surgery but then notified me that an emergency had come in and it would be another hour and a half. After 18 hours of no food and water and 12 hours of waiting, i finally had a breakdown. Fortunately I recovered and at 8pm I was finally taken into surgery. They said since it was so late I would have to stay overnight, so Sean went home, but when I woke up they said they were calling him to pick me up. Everything went smoothly and the staff continued to be extremely friendly and helpful. Since they knew i was starving they immediately gave me some food, but I had to laugh when they handed me an orange. The nurse asked me if she should peel it for me, considering I only had one functioning hand.

The good news is that I have had absolutely no pain. I guess that is the advantage to cutting a nerve. Every once in awhile I have had the really annoying sensation you get when your hand starts waking up after going numb. I'll definitely take that over pain though. I have the stitches for about two weeks and then it will be between 6 months and a year before the nerve is completely grown back and i have my feeling back. right now the entire side of my finger is completely numb. My middle finger gets a bit freaked out because it doesn't know what its touching. In other good news, it was about 36 hours later, but I finally got to eat my fajitas! I made sure Sean cut the avocado though.

The saddest part for me is that all my paperwork says avocado knife injury, so now I am going to go into some database and one day be a statistic on how many people injure themselves on avocados.

On a happier note, the weekend before Sean and I went up north to his parent's place in Tutukaka for the weekend. We took a few trips to the beach, did a short walk and played some cards. Sean and I did a stunning hike up Mt. Manaia in the Whangarei Heads on the way back to Auckland and the pictures don't really do it justice. It was fun to see more gorgeous scenery. The weirdest thing was that the prettiest bit actually contained an oil refinery. If only Houston could look like this.

Just a roadside view while driving around just a few miles from Sean's parents

The base of Mt. Manaia

Scenic look-out on the way up.

 

Yep, that peninsula contains an oil refinery

short side trip to a waterfall

And for the record, this post was typed with one hand and a lone finger. Sorry if there are any typos.

Life of the Unemployed

Sean finally started his job last Monday and is enjoying it so far. He really enjoyed having to take a half day off for the doctor and having a public holiday in the middle of the week. Talk about easing into a job. This has left me pretty bored at home and ready to start working, but I'm doing my best to stay productive. I finished painted my furniture and got my room together. I still need some stuff on the walls and painted a picture last week to hang somewhere.

I got the idea from the side of a Kleenex box.

Last Saturday we went to Sean's parent's house for dinner and did a bit of sightseeing on the North Shore before heading over there. We hiked up Mt. Victoria and had a picnic lunch, the hiked up North Head and went down to the beach for a bit of a swim (I finally found some warm water). We had a great meal at his parent's house and then headed home for the evening.

View of North Head from Mt. Victoria

View of Mt. Victoria and the city from North Head

Since Thursday was a public holiday, I forced Sean to get out of the house with me and go to the botanical gardens. It was extremely overcast and supposed to rain, but it turned into a beautiful day so we are glad we went (though wishing we had thought to put sunscreen on). There was a sculpture exhibit going on throughout the gardens and it was fun to finally see a rose garden here in bloom (I kept going to them during the winter when they were all pruned). The sculptures were neat and we had a great day.

This was part of the permanent collection and probably my favorite. Its a bunch of shovels.

These flowers looked crazy

Saturday we headed out to Shakespear Regional Park, which is about 45 minutes north of the city. I had never heard of it before, but wow was it worth the trip. It was on the end of a really long peninsula and the drive down the peninsula was stunning. I probably had my jaw dropped the whole time. At first we did a 5 min walk to a waterfall which ended up really underwhelming (though I would really like to see it when it has some water flowing). We quickly headed to the original trail, which was a 2 hour hike around the park. Our first stop was a viewpoint that had 360 degree views. It was remarkable. I have a video of it if you want to see it. We then hiked around the edge and ended up at the beach you can see in the pictures.

Notorious New Zealand Sheep. We hiked through a few herds.

We headed back home, but once we saw a sign pointing to Big Manly Beach (we were in a town called Manly), we couldn't help but go check it out. There was also a Little Manly Beach but we skipped out on that. It was so humorous driving through the town because everything had Manly in front of it: Manly Liquor Ban, Manly Fruits, Manly Pharmacy, etc. We stopped in another bay for a quick peek then headed home, exhausted.

Yesterday didn't go to plan, but we were able to stop by Big Gay Out, a big LGBT festival nearby. Our flatmate performed a dance with some drag queens and it was really entertaining to watch.

That's pretty much the excitement in my life. I'm going to try and be a bit more aggressive with the job hunt this week and get a bit more homework done. Let me know what you have been up to!