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Check in at NAIA (Terminal 1, eww, you think they’d clean the x-ray machines once every ten years; you haven’t even left the airport and your luggage is already grimy) three hours before the flight, then wait. A slight delay, then an hour and a half from Manila to Hong Kong; worried about missing the connecting flight, but Marlu’s friend Pearl took charge and moved us to business class so we’d get out first. (By the way, did you know that there’s now an extra charge if you want the bulkhead/exit row seats?!?) Then ten hours from HK to Auckland. Total: 15 hours.

From Auckland airport it’s a three-hour drive to Tauranga. We make two pit stops, first at a former mine whose name I didn’t take note of because my head was splitting (Three different headaches merged into one monster pain, plus a fourth psychosomatic headache from being unable to boil myself immediately upon landing). Couldn’t really look from the pain, so I shot at random.

A second pit stop for snacks at a biker bar and beer garden with vintage motorcycles. I asked about public transportation: there’s none. There’s a train system across NZ, but it’s for transporting sheep and cattle.

I haven’t seen any sheep yet. We may have run over a possum. “No, I didn’t run over a possum, I was making sure it was already dead,” our driver said. Aha! Kiwi humor.

Book illustration for The Once and Future King by Michal Lisowski.

Every year I read T.H. White’s magnificent retelling of the Arthurian epic The Once and Future King, then I resolve to look up fewmets and never get around to it. Fortunately a reader put the question to The Straight Dope and I am now enlightened.

So fewmets are to deer as tath is to cattle, spraints to otters, crotiles to hares and billitting to foxes. We’re talking about animal droppings; they have specific names. Bonus words you can use in business meetings: jumentous (smells like horse urine) and shardborn (born in dung).

The Straight Dope on the nomenclature of animal droppings.

From David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s Imelda Marcos project Here Lies Love: Please Don’t by Santigold.

I mean New Zealand. According to the information sheet, “New Zealand experiences relatively little air pollution compared to many other countries, which makes the UV rays in (NZ) sunlight very strong during the summer months. In order to avoid sunburn, visitors should wear sunscreen, sunglasses, and hats when they are in direct summer sunlight.”

Reaction 1: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

Reaction 2: You mean Metro Manila pollution is good for something?!

Reaction 3: Okay, I have sunglasses, and VMV Hypoallergenics makes an amazing SPF 70 sunscreen for face and body that has no smell. Didn’t have time to order a proper sun hat from Mich Dulce and I don’t think she’s in town anyway. But I found a wide-brimmed hat in ac 632 that almost, almost fits my head! Just have to make sure it doesn’t fall off (use hatpins). There were hats in the Filipiniana section of Landmark at one-tenth the cost but none of them fit, and our local hat-makers really need help with design.

Autumn has begun in that part of the world, so I’m getting a reprieve from this blazing summer.

What I know about NZ: Crowded House, the All-Blacks, locations for The Lord of the Rings, and why the toilet flushes in the other direction (Coriolis force).

Off to the airport shortly. It’s a long trip; taking The Brothers Karamazov.

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Gilbert, thank you for your very kind offer. Please send all snail mail to Jessica Zafra c/o Anvil Publishing, 8007B Pioneer Street, Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila. Enclose your return address so I can write you back (though it may take a while).

This is The Death of Hyacinthus, a painting by the Venetian artist Giambattista Tiepolo. His source is a tale from Greek mythology: the god Apollo has a discus-throwing competition with his mortal friend Hyacinthus. The god underestimates his strength; a discus strikes Hyacinthus and kills him. Except that there is no discus in this picture. There is a tennis racquet. Bottom right corner, see?

This week’s LitWit Challenge: In 500 words or less, tell us the story that you can glean from this famous painting. In short, What is happening in this picture? Your story need not have anything to do with the Greek myth, but someone has to be killed by a tennis ball. Bring on the melodrama. Post your entries in Comments on or before 11.59pm on March 27, 2010.

The winner gets a hardcover copy of Murder Is My Racquet, an anthology of tennis-related crime stories edited by Otto Penzler, and a hardcover copy of The Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland, a novel inspired by the Renoir painting.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.

kratienza for her scary tale of a Barbie who was evil even in the mitotic stages!

Congratulations! You can pick up your prize any day starting tomorrow, Monday, at the Customer Service counter of National Bookstore, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati. (Our winner actually filled out her user registration profile so we don’t have to ask for her full name. Yay!)

Thanks to all the people who joined the Bad Barbie challenge; we had a blast reading your stories.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.

Our next LitWit Challenge commences at midnight.