Good morning! 
(I can’t believe I’m cheerful…)
I woke up before my alarm again. But not early enough to go back to sleep and have a chance of waking up again in time to comfortably go to work. Bother.
I’ve been dreaming of going to New Zealand.
Well, actually, last night I had a long, complex, and interesting dream that almost all the people in the world vanished and I was left alone. Eventually I met up with another woman–I was female in this part of the dream–and we huddled together for mutual comfort. Then, we found two dogs. Then other people, some of whom I knew from work, appeared, and we ended up with a thriving little settlement with an economy based on sharing tasks and making bread. By this time I was male again and had resumed surfing the internet. I woke up when I hit a disturbing piece of artwork.
Yesterday I and my closest friends M and C saw some family friends off at the airport. The family friends were a family of four of last name C: husband G, wife D, son L (16), and daughter H (9). They were returning to New Zealand. I met them at the airport, ans I live in the city and they were all coming down from the outlying town of Georgetown.
The C family had been staying at my friends’ house for a month and using it as a base to drive around and visit people. G was from Canada. D was from New Zealand and had come over years ago as a nanny, met G, gotten married, and had kids. Four years ago they moved back to New Zealand.
I’d met the Cs before they went back to NZ, and had the occasional video chat with them at my friends’ place. I was rather fascinated to discover that in the three years since they moved, the lids had picked up a New Zealand accent, H especially. I guess it makes a difference the younger you are.
L is now taller than I am, with dark hair and sunglasses. My first impression upon meeting him was, “Wow! He’s turned into one of the cool kids!”. H is a charming redheaded girl with freckles. We all went out to see the Simpsons movie on Friday night–L is a huge Simpsons fan–and I spen some time talking with H. She’s very smart. It’s so cool to see how they’ve grown into interesting people.
I hadn’t met G before. He is, among other things, a musician, and he played at the Georgetown homecoming festival this past weekend. (My friends M and C used to live in Georgetown, that’s how they met the C family.) He still has his Canadian accent. D, of course, had the New Zealand accent she grew up with.
I’d been up visiting M and C a week ago, and saw the Cs. I was sitting on the couch with my laptop showing Google Earth to D, and we discovered that you can zoom right in on their house in New Zealand. (“No, it’s the one with the black roof! Isn’t that the trampoline in the back yard?”)
At this point a Skype window popped up on top of Google Earth, and it was J from Brazil calling. I met J online through Esperanto, and he is a Brazilian diplomat now living (at it turned out) in Japan. We chatted a but in Esperanto, and I explained what was going on to C and D. C stuck her head into the field of view of my webcam and waved hi, made as if to kiss me on the cheek, etc. Then J said hi to her in perfectly good English. He’d known what C was saying all along. Man, was I embarassed.
So yesterday we saw the Cs off at the airport. Terminal One may be vast and expanded, but it’s still a seething mass of people at times. We stayed with them as they waited through the lineup to check baggage. I think both L and H were a bit teary at the end, and we all hugged. Then they went through into US passport control (Toronto has US preclearance facilities, and they were connecting through LA).
Now I want to go to New Zealand.
It would mine - and it was while I was reading your OP.
He spent a long time at the salt lick while I was brushing him.
Let’s just hope that they keep the Mother Yeast better protected than Bush beans does their bean recipe!
:dubious: Their lake; their rules.
What it was mornin’ when I posted the OP.