Uncle Dan 1940–2010

Some sad news today. Uncle Dan, the eldest of Mum's five brothers, died this afternoon. He was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in early 2008 although it was only six weeks ago that his cancer became terminal. From there it was a very rapid decline indeed.

Dan captained Air New Zealand 747s for many years. He invested his (considerable) salary in the stock market and made several squillion dollars by employing a long-term buy-and-hold strategy. He had a number of Warren Buffett books on his shelves. Dan's reluctance to spend his wealth (he and his wife lived in the same house in Christchurch's Memorial Avenue since the sixties) didn't go down too well with some members of the family but I always got on well with him. He was a pretty decent golfer too.

Holiday

Today is the first real day of my holiday. Officially it started on Tuesday night, but the last four days have been taken up with Christmas and family, which aren’t conducive to holiday at all.

My last day at work was a successful one. I was able to keep a fairly low profile, just like I have in the rest of my time with the company. My colleagues very kindly bought me two books – Andre Agassi’s autobiography (I’m just past the crystal meth, or gack, phase) and Vroom with a View, an account of a journey from Milan to Rome on an old Vespa. We had morning tea and lunchtime drinks (I was happy to pay for them), after which I cleaned my desk, packed a box of memorabilia, said my final goodbyes, then I was off.

I took the 7:30 flight to Christchurch and stayed the night at Uncle Dan’s – he and his wife Anne live on Memorial Avenue, just yards from the Airport. Dan has lost even more weight. Though his surgery was a success, the weight loss is a real concern, and his illness seems to have affected him mentally. Sadly he appears to have given up on life. He showed me some pills he’s recently been prescribed, supposedly to help him put on weight. Citalopram. I was on that for nearly eight years. During the first year I did indeed gain weight, though I doubt the medication had anything to do with that. Whatever, his illness has now become mental just as much as physical. On Wednesday morning we drove down to Mum and Dad’s place in Geraldine.

We spent Christmas Day up the Rangitata, at a place called Stew Point. There were seven of us – Mum, Dad, Dan, Anne, another of Mum’s brothers, his third wife, and myself. It’s nice to get out of Auckland; it would be hard to find a place less like Auckland than our Christmas picnic location. I sometimes think of Geraldine as being in the wops, but this was the real wops. It was blowing a gale up there. It wasn’t easy trying to eat ham and turkey without being savaged by a bull or my paper plate disappearing.

Yesterday I met up with Phil in Timaru. His mother lives in Waimate. The carnival had just started up so we tackled the crazy golf course. Phil beat me by six shots. The hole that replicates the Port Loop Road was my undoing. Phil flies back to Auckland today, and will soon be meeting his Danish girlfriend. Last night Mum and Dad had a barbecue; it seemed everybody was there. I wasn’t in the mood for all that food and drink, and having to explain my, er, career change. Now everybody has gone and I can breathe a sigh of relief. I no longer have to explain anything.

Triple birthday celebrations

Yesterday I didn't feel good at all. The morning's strategy meeting went by in a complete haze; at some stage I was probably informed of what work I might have been expected to do in the next few months and in what order, but everything in that meeting just bounced off me. While my colleagues discussed high-level business plans or made in-jokes that I pretended to understand, all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there. However my ears did prick up at the mention of suicide exclusions. Currently we pay out on suicides as long as the policy has been in force for a certain length of time, but because suicides make up a significant percentage of our death claims it was suggested we exclude them completely. This matter was discussed for all of thirty seconds, and I don't think we'll actually go through with the proposal, but it's only an issue at all because so many New Zealanders are killing themselves. Our suicide rate is above the OECD average and almost twice that of the UK. Why should it be so high in such a beautiful country as New Zealand? The best explanation I can come up with is that a relatively high proportion of Kiwis live in rural areas and are therefore isolated; many of these people also have access to guns. But maybe it's also because kiwi blokes don't feel they can talk about their problems. I really don't know.

After the meeting I raced off to see Andy - I was half an hour late. He could tell I wasn't at my best and that my work was probably having an impact, so he brought in a woman to assist me with my work situation. She was very helpful. I told her exactly what was going on - Andy said if it was a job interview I'd have given a good demonstration of what not to say - but there was no point in dodging the issue. So far I've managed to control myself, but I'm concerned that if I stay in my current job much longer, I might suddenly blow up and injure myself or someone else.

Yesterday was Andy's birthday. It was also Uncle Dan's 69th birthday so I emailed him, wishing him all the best at what must be a very difficult time. I don't know what it is about August 21st, but Bazza's speedo also clicked over (mentioning Bazza and speedo in the same sentence just gave me a really bad mental image). I was the only person to call him yesterday - evidently nobody else knew or cared that it was his birthday. Apparently he's dropped a few kilos since I last saw him. We'll hopefully get a game of tennis in next weekend. While he's got a new racket and should be fitter and meaner than ever, I've been almost completely absent from the court of late, so I imagine I'll be in for a tough time despite my good record against him.

The woman from the flat down the road never got back to me. I called her yesterday but she had forgotten who I was. She then remembered, so we talked for a couple of minutes until her phone cut out. I tried ringing her back but couldn't get through. I very much doubt I'll ever hear from her again. I never got my hopes up too much - I've learnt not to - but even I expected things to go a bit further than this.

I wasn't in the greatest of moods last night so I broke my "no poker till September" promise, thinking that might make me feel better, which I guess it did. I entered the next available freeroll tournament on PokerStars which happened to be razz, a game that shares some similarities to badugi and deuce-to-seven in that high cards are bad and pairs are bad. I made the top 5%, but eventually bombed out in 133rd place after 2¾ hours.

Dad came up with a clever idea for deriving an income from my puzzles, so I've spent some time today on that. I sent off my CV to a couple of agencies and did a long session on Bazza's exercise machine. It's been a gorgeous day outside, but as has so often been the case lately, it was wasted on me.

The Burner

I'm writing this post from Mum and Dad's house in Geraldine. It's great to get out of Auckland for a week. I flew down on Saturday; Air New Zealand have just implemented comedy safety announcements: "When an oxygen mask appears above your head, don't ask why, and don't ask if you can have it in a different colour." Mum and Dad picked me up from Christchurch airport and we stopped briefly at Uncle Dan's. It was the first time I'd seen Dan since his diagnosis with throat cancer 18 months ago; he seemed in remarkably good spirits, albeit a couple of stone lighter than I remember him.

On Sunday I went to Pleasant Point to watch Dad fly his plane at the Model Aero Club. For a while he had me fooled with what I thought were some rather nifty aerobatics, but in fact all those impressive-looking vertical loops weren't in the script at all. The electrics were dead, and the plane - which Dad had spent many evenings making - came down in a local farmer's back garden. Dad wasn't a happy bunny; he went home with his tail between his legs while the plane's tail was no longer attached. He still thinks he can salvage the situation. I realise now he just enjoys gluing bits of balsa together; actually flying the finished product is secondary.

The engine room of Mum's life, on the other hand, would seem to be the golf course. I had a hit with her yesterday - quite a lot of hits in my case. It was the first time Mum had used her new club - the Burner. By spending a few hundred dollars on this club, whose head is the size and shape of a large spud cut in half, she's become one of the "haves", rather than the "have nots", of the golfing community. We played nine holes; I consistently scored double par. Mum is out playing a tournament right now, with the Burner of course, which is why I'm able to write this post.

I still don't feel quite right. I'm not sure if it's the depression, the drugs, or something else. Tomorrow we're planning on going to Hanmer Springs which is uncharted territory for me. I wanted to talk about the strange thing that happened to me last week - it was strange precisely because it happened to me - but I'm fast running out of computer time.