A couple of days ago I went into the local chemist (which shall remain nameless, except to mention that it has "Flatley's Pharmacy" written on it and a big, flashing, neon cross sign attached to it) to pick up some over-the-counter medicine. It's just normal stuff (for women) that one could buy in any grocery store in the US, nothing special, but here in Ireland you can only get it at a chemist during opening hours, and you can't just go to the shelf and pick it up and buy it quietly because, for some reason, it's kept behind the counter where you have to ask for it in front of all and sundry. Nice. The place is staffed mostly by women, but there is one man working there who is, well, let's just say he's a bit creepy.
Caoilte and I drive by a few times to scout out whether he's working, and I don't see him, so we park up and go in. I wait in line behind a couple of people, and just as it's my turn to ask the nice girl behind the counter for the medicine, doesn't this guy just appear out of nowhere. He looks at me, stone-faced, and says "can I help you?"
Ayayayay.
I take a few seconds to assess the situation - should I ask him for this stuff, or just cut and run? It's 1730 and they're about to shut, so I suck it up. "Yes. I wonder if you have something for _insert condition here_" "Oh, yes," he tells me in a voice I swear you could hear next door, "we have this kind and this kind and this other kind and..."
Blink.
"You know what," I say, "I don't care. Just pick something and bag it up."
He picks a box off the shelf and puts it into a bag, then rings it up: €17.99.
"Holy cow," I gasp. "It's expensive to get cured in Ireland!"
He stares at me, the expression on his face completely unchanged. I hand him a €20 note, get my change and leave with Caoilte in tow asking me what the stuff is for. Cue another awkward moment as I explain random female problem #579820 to an 11-year-old boy. Fun, fun.
As we are driving home I remove the box from the package and notice, on the back, the price sticker: €9.45. WTF?? Of course by now they are shut, so I have no choice but to wait until tomorrow to go back in and rectify the error. I leave the package unopened, spending the evening in some discomfort, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let this guy get away with overcharging me.
The following morning I drop Caoilte off at school and head over to the chemist, which doesn't open until 1000. How convenient. I camp the parking lot and wait. When they open I go in and creepy guy is in the back, so I beckon him over and he comes to the counter, where I produce the medicine and ask if he remembers charging me €17.99 for it the day before. Of course he does, so I turn the box over and point out the price sticker.
Check.
"Oh," he says, "the sticker must be wrong." He stares at me. I was afraid he'd say that. I point to other boxes of the same product on the shelf behind him. "Could you hand me one of those?" I ask. He complies, and I point out that the sticker on the back of that box also says €9.45. He tells me that sticker is also incorrect. He goes over to the computer, which is out of my line of sight, and does something, then comes back and tells me it's still €17.99.
Check mate.
I turn on my heel and leave the store, clutching the bag with the medicine inside, absolutely fuming. The price on the box(es) ought to be the price you are charged, and I'm pretty sure that, by law, it has to be, but I'm American and he's seen me coming. I shop there fairly frequently so it makes me wonder what else he's screwed me over on. By the time I get halfway home I'm pretty pissed off - pissed off enough to go back to the place and confront him again. I make a U-turn and head back to the chemist. I find him standing in the back as usual, and this time he seems quite surprised to see me. He approaches the counter where I'm standing but says nothing to me. I hand him the box of medicine.
"I'd like to return this, please."
He looks at me for a few seconds without speaking, then motions me over to a more private, screened area, where he takes the box and examines it like an Egyptian doctor conducting a virginity test.
"Wouldn't it have been better," I ask, "to have made €9.45 from this than to have lost a sale and my business forever?"
I get no response. He finishes examining the box, decides it hasn't been opened, goes over to the register and rings up my refund of €17.99, which I thoroughly check to ensure every penny is there.
I win, asshole.
18 May, 2012
25 September, 2011
Hillbillies: not just for Arkansas anymore.
There's a guy up here named Finn who lives not far down the road. Nice man, never married, I'd say in his fifties or so. I run into him every now and then and he's always pleasant, and he recently stopped by my house with a book on the local area and its history that, it turns out, he wrote himself. I've never met an actual author before, so I had him autograph it, an act which visibly pleased him.
Yesterday I was in a cooking mood and I made a pan of enchiladas. Up here, if it's not made with potatoes or served with potatoes it's probably not going to appear on the table, so whenever I make enchiladas they're always a hit. Yesterday, as they were cooling on the counter, I decided to walk some down to Finn and get some exercise in the process.
Caoilte and I set out around 4pm but couldn't pass Lucy's without stopping in for a cup of tea and a natter. After half an hour or so dark clouds began forming and it started to look as if it might rain, so Caoilte and I headed down the road to Finn's place. It's about a mile and a half away and the walk is beautiful with rolling green hills separated into lush green oases filled with sheep, cows, or nothing but late-season dandelions and whin bushes, all of it set against a backdrop of the Bluestack mountains and, smack in the middle of it all, the camelback humps that line what's known locally as "the Gap." Finn lives on a beautiful, wooded hillside that stretches up into a fully-fledged forest. He's a farmer by trade, and as Caoilte and I walked down the hill toward his house we saw him working with another, younger guy loading metal poles into a trailer.
We walked up the small lane to where they were working and stood, waiting for one of them to notice us. When they did I immediately wondered if I'd missed some local course on food delivery etiquette, because Finn smiled broadly at us but turned six different shades of red. Had I embarrassed him? Was bringing food to a confirmed bachelor to be construed in these parts as some sort of medieval courting ritual?! Finn took the Tupperware box and asked me what was in it, so I explained to him what enchiladas were and thanked him for the book he'd brought me a couple of days ago, mostly for the benefit of the younger guy who was stood there taking in every word, grinning like a hyena. I asked Finn if the little lane, which I'd never been on before, led back to the road we live on and he said it did, but warned me of some dogs at one of the houses along the way that might chase after us. He very kindly offered me the use of a stick, which I declined, and Caoilte and I went on our way.
The lane got narrower and more mucky relative to its increase in altitude, until we found ourselves approaching the top of the hill it spans. At the apex were two houses, one new(ish) and the other, well, let's just say we discovered the dogs. They didn't give us any trouble because as soon as they started to bark a greasy-haired woman who was sitting in the front window rapped loudly on the glass and both dogs shut up. The house itself wouldn't have been out of place in Arkansas, with mangy dogs out front, smashed cars stuffed with empty feed bags elevated on concrete blocks, tin cans and garbage forming sort of a moat around the outer walls, and various other bits of farming detritus blighting the landscape like a pox. Such was the state of the place and the feeling of unease it gave me that I practically kicked Caoilte to walk faster past it, and advised him in hushed tones NOT to look at the dogs, the house, the occupants, or anything but the road ahead until we'd passed by.
Once we were past we relaxed a bit, and after a few hundred yards we noticed, on our right, a group of HUGE Charolais bulls standing knee deep in a field of mud. They'd obviously been there for a while because the mud, rather than being knobbly and cloddy, was as thick, smooth and silky as chocolate pudding. There were probably 20 of them there, huge things all standing in a giant clot under a few sparse trees. I offhandedly said to Caoilte, "sure am glad we're not on THAT side of the fence, eh?" A few yards further on there was a tractor reclining on its haunches in the mud, clearly stuck there, and beyond that the gate to the field hanging wide open, as if whoever had driven the tractor in there had been in too much of a hurry to get out to shut it. And there were the bulls, standing against the trees looking at us, nothing between us and them but a swinging, open gate. My heart jumped. I grabbed Caoilte and we increased our pace, not to a run because we didn't want to attract the bulls' attention, but to something of a panic-stricken power walk. To our left was a small lane leading up the hill which might have offered an escape except that on it, just beside the junction, was a huge cow and her calf, just standing there looking intently back at us. Jesus. Some little lane of horrors this was turning out to be!
Now, dogs I'm not afraid of. Snakes, cats, mice, hamsters, sheep, goats, all good. But cows--cows I am VERY afraid of, and bulls most of all. They weigh up to 2,400lbs, they can be skittish, and they aren't terribly sympathetic (or empathetic) beasts. We practically began sprinting down the lane, kicking up mud as we raced down the narrow, dirty double tracks. We didn't slow down until we came to where it intersects the road that we turn down to get to our own home.
Later, talking to Lucy and Larry about it, we learned all sorts of things about the area, including the fact that hillbillies aren't just for Arkansas. Suffice it to say we won't be walking down that back lane again, and we're pretty damn lucky we fell in with good people to begin with who steered us right when we were looking for a place to live last October.
Time to make some more enchiladas.
Yesterday I was in a cooking mood and I made a pan of enchiladas. Up here, if it's not made with potatoes or served with potatoes it's probably not going to appear on the table, so whenever I make enchiladas they're always a hit. Yesterday, as they were cooling on the counter, I decided to walk some down to Finn and get some exercise in the process.
Caoilte and I set out around 4pm but couldn't pass Lucy's without stopping in for a cup of tea and a natter. After half an hour or so dark clouds began forming and it started to look as if it might rain, so Caoilte and I headed down the road to Finn's place. It's about a mile and a half away and the walk is beautiful with rolling green hills separated into lush green oases filled with sheep, cows, or nothing but late-season dandelions and whin bushes, all of it set against a backdrop of the Bluestack mountains and, smack in the middle of it all, the camelback humps that line what's known locally as "the Gap." Finn lives on a beautiful, wooded hillside that stretches up into a fully-fledged forest. He's a farmer by trade, and as Caoilte and I walked down the hill toward his house we saw him working with another, younger guy loading metal poles into a trailer.
We walked up the small lane to where they were working and stood, waiting for one of them to notice us. When they did I immediately wondered if I'd missed some local course on food delivery etiquette, because Finn smiled broadly at us but turned six different shades of red. Had I embarrassed him? Was bringing food to a confirmed bachelor to be construed in these parts as some sort of medieval courting ritual?! Finn took the Tupperware box and asked me what was in it, so I explained to him what enchiladas were and thanked him for the book he'd brought me a couple of days ago, mostly for the benefit of the younger guy who was stood there taking in every word, grinning like a hyena. I asked Finn if the little lane, which I'd never been on before, led back to the road we live on and he said it did, but warned me of some dogs at one of the houses along the way that might chase after us. He very kindly offered me the use of a stick, which I declined, and Caoilte and I went on our way.
The lane got narrower and more mucky relative to its increase in altitude, until we found ourselves approaching the top of the hill it spans. At the apex were two houses, one new(ish) and the other, well, let's just say we discovered the dogs. They didn't give us any trouble because as soon as they started to bark a greasy-haired woman who was sitting in the front window rapped loudly on the glass and both dogs shut up. The house itself wouldn't have been out of place in Arkansas, with mangy dogs out front, smashed cars stuffed with empty feed bags elevated on concrete blocks, tin cans and garbage forming sort of a moat around the outer walls, and various other bits of farming detritus blighting the landscape like a pox. Such was the state of the place and the feeling of unease it gave me that I practically kicked Caoilte to walk faster past it, and advised him in hushed tones NOT to look at the dogs, the house, the occupants, or anything but the road ahead until we'd passed by.
Once we were past we relaxed a bit, and after a few hundred yards we noticed, on our right, a group of HUGE Charolais bulls standing knee deep in a field of mud. They'd obviously been there for a while because the mud, rather than being knobbly and cloddy, was as thick, smooth and silky as chocolate pudding. There were probably 20 of them there, huge things all standing in a giant clot under a few sparse trees. I offhandedly said to Caoilte, "sure am glad we're not on THAT side of the fence, eh?" A few yards further on there was a tractor reclining on its haunches in the mud, clearly stuck there, and beyond that the gate to the field hanging wide open, as if whoever had driven the tractor in there had been in too much of a hurry to get out to shut it. And there were the bulls, standing against the trees looking at us, nothing between us and them but a swinging, open gate. My heart jumped. I grabbed Caoilte and we increased our pace, not to a run because we didn't want to attract the bulls' attention, but to something of a panic-stricken power walk. To our left was a small lane leading up the hill which might have offered an escape except that on it, just beside the junction, was a huge cow and her calf, just standing there looking intently back at us. Jesus. Some little lane of horrors this was turning out to be!
Now, dogs I'm not afraid of. Snakes, cats, mice, hamsters, sheep, goats, all good. But cows--cows I am VERY afraid of, and bulls most of all. They weigh up to 2,400lbs, they can be skittish, and they aren't terribly sympathetic (or empathetic) beasts. We practically began sprinting down the lane, kicking up mud as we raced down the narrow, dirty double tracks. We didn't slow down until we came to where it intersects the road that we turn down to get to our own home.
Later, talking to Lucy and Larry about it, we learned all sorts of things about the area, including the fact that hillbillies aren't just for Arkansas. Suffice it to say we won't be walking down that back lane again, and we're pretty damn lucky we fell in with good people to begin with who steered us right when we were looking for a place to live last October.
Time to make some more enchiladas.
14 September, 2011
I think I've met a leprechaun!
On the school run each morning there are a number of routes I can take, but I usually opt for one tiny back road that not only cuts about a mile off the journey, but offers me dual advantages of no traffic and very little cow poo. I realise that your average person wouldn't likely take cow poo into consideration when calculating the most efficient route to school, but this is Ireland, remember, and I live down a warren of back roads lined with dairy farms. Cow poo is something I consider frequently.
This morning, like every other, Caoilte and I set off to school, laughing along the way at a small bird that seemed about to flap itself to death trying to outrun our car. This happens a lot, actually. We very often find ourselves chasing some poor bird or rabbit that seems hell bent on leading us down the road rather than moving out of the way.
When we arrived at the school I let Caoilte out and dutifully watched him go into the building, then I headed back to the house. Up the Carricknamana road I went, turned left at the top of the hill, and was engaging fairly heavily in some serious coffee fantasy when I pulled up short behind a load of dairy cows breakfasting on either side of the road. This wouldn't be an unusual sight anywhere else up here, but on this little rarely-used road it was quite a surprise. In all the time I've lived here, I've never seen cows on this tiny stretch of potholed blacktop.
There's not a lot to do when you wind up trapped behind a cow parade other than crawl along behind, so that's what I did. The two in the back seemed a bit put out by my lurking and increased their pace to a slow jog until they caught up to the others, then we all just settled in for the ride. Seconds later a HUGE green tractor came screeching up behind me, blaring its horn like it was late to a fire. I thought perhaps he wanted to pass me, but the narrowness of the road left me nowhere to go. The only options I had were to continue on behind the cows or pull off the road and into the ditch. Really, I wasn't about to take the ditch. I was already so close to the cows' hindquarters I could have told you if one had farted. I stopped, peering curiously into the rear view mirror.
Out of the tractor hopped a little old man, hat barely on his head, stick in hand, screaming as he hopped down the road, "Did yis not hear me blowing the feckin' horn?! Jesus, I was blowin' the feckin' horn! Did yis not hear me blowin' the feckin' horn?!" I didn't have a chance to answer as he ran down the road, waving his stick, screaming "ye bastards!!" at the top of his lungs. I realised that the cows weren't being led into a field down the lane, as I had assumed, but had gotten away from this guy at some point and he was now having to chase them down to get them back. By following them I had inadvertently pushed them further down the lane. Oops! I backed up and looked for a place to turn around, but I couldn't get past the tractor, which was taking up nearly all the lane. There was nothing I could do but sit and wait for the cows to come back up, followed by the angry old farmer.
The cows came up, one by one, and squeezed by my car like lipids navigating a clogged artery; I am prepared neither to confirm nor deny the sucking up of a seat cushion or two as these huge things passed close enough to jostle my mirror. The farmer finally came into view, following up the herd, still yelling "ye bastards" at them between swishes of his stick, hat clinging precariously to his head as he cursed and spat and stomped his little wellies. When he reached my car I put the window down and apologised for what I now realised was partially my fault. I explained that I had thought they were being led into a field down the lane, and that if I'd known they were loose I wouldn't have followed them. "Ach," he said (he was missing some teeth), "ahm te auld to be running after these wee bastards! They shoulda' gone in the gate, ah was TWO MINUTES behin' 'em, the bastards -- GET UP ye bastards!! -- ahm too aul' for this, the feckin' bastards..." It was all I could do not to laugh as I put the car in first and drove on down the lane toward home.
Later, over tea in Lucy's kitchen, I related my story. "Ah," said Larry, "that could be nobody else but Reid. Aye, he'll give ye a touch, now!" Lucy laughed and nodded.
I love living here.
This morning, like every other, Caoilte and I set off to school, laughing along the way at a small bird that seemed about to flap itself to death trying to outrun our car. This happens a lot, actually. We very often find ourselves chasing some poor bird or rabbit that seems hell bent on leading us down the road rather than moving out of the way.
When we arrived at the school I let Caoilte out and dutifully watched him go into the building, then I headed back to the house. Up the Carricknamana road I went, turned left at the top of the hill, and was engaging fairly heavily in some serious coffee fantasy when I pulled up short behind a load of dairy cows breakfasting on either side of the road. This wouldn't be an unusual sight anywhere else up here, but on this little rarely-used road it was quite a surprise. In all the time I've lived here, I've never seen cows on this tiny stretch of potholed blacktop.
There's not a lot to do when you wind up trapped behind a cow parade other than crawl along behind, so that's what I did. The two in the back seemed a bit put out by my lurking and increased their pace to a slow jog until they caught up to the others, then we all just settled in for the ride. Seconds later a HUGE green tractor came screeching up behind me, blaring its horn like it was late to a fire. I thought perhaps he wanted to pass me, but the narrowness of the road left me nowhere to go. The only options I had were to continue on behind the cows or pull off the road and into the ditch. Really, I wasn't about to take the ditch. I was already so close to the cows' hindquarters I could have told you if one had farted. I stopped, peering curiously into the rear view mirror.
Out of the tractor hopped a little old man, hat barely on his head, stick in hand, screaming as he hopped down the road, "Did yis not hear me blowing the feckin' horn?! Jesus, I was blowin' the feckin' horn! Did yis not hear me blowin' the feckin' horn?!" I didn't have a chance to answer as he ran down the road, waving his stick, screaming "ye bastards!!" at the top of his lungs. I realised that the cows weren't being led into a field down the lane, as I had assumed, but had gotten away from this guy at some point and he was now having to chase them down to get them back. By following them I had inadvertently pushed them further down the lane. Oops! I backed up and looked for a place to turn around, but I couldn't get past the tractor, which was taking up nearly all the lane. There was nothing I could do but sit and wait for the cows to come back up, followed by the angry old farmer.
The cows came up, one by one, and squeezed by my car like lipids navigating a clogged artery; I am prepared neither to confirm nor deny the sucking up of a seat cushion or two as these huge things passed close enough to jostle my mirror. The farmer finally came into view, following up the herd, still yelling "ye bastards" at them between swishes of his stick, hat clinging precariously to his head as he cursed and spat and stomped his little wellies. When he reached my car I put the window down and apologised for what I now realised was partially my fault. I explained that I had thought they were being led into a field down the lane, and that if I'd known they were loose I wouldn't have followed them. "Ach," he said (he was missing some teeth), "ahm te auld to be running after these wee bastards! They shoulda' gone in the gate, ah was TWO MINUTES behin' 'em, the bastards -- GET UP ye bastards!! -- ahm too aul' for this, the feckin' bastards..." It was all I could do not to laugh as I put the car in first and drove on down the lane toward home.
Later, over tea in Lucy's kitchen, I related my story. "Ah," said Larry, "that could be nobody else but Reid. Aye, he'll give ye a touch, now!" Lucy laughed and nodded.
I love living here.
30 June, 2011
The Chair
So I'm reading Fox News, keeping up with the US Joneses, when I see that the "Fox on Sex" section, which is usually tamer than an issue of Tiger Beat, is featuring sex furniture. Sex furniture? On Fox? Do Republicans even *have* sex--outside of Capitol Hill, and with their actual spouses? I had to click. Most of the article was silly stuff, the usual assortment of things I suppose your average church shut-in might find titillating, but nothing too out of the ordinary. There was this one thing, though... a Tantra Chair.
Tantra chair?
I clicked, clicked again, and there on my screen was one of the most beautiful pieces of furniture I'd ever seen. Never mind its Tantric qualities, which are, by the way, optimally and graphically explained on the "film" tab in full living HD. It's one gorgeous bit of kit! Curvy, sensual, ultra-modern, sleek, with all the right angles - it's the Jessica Rabbit of living (or bed-) room furniture. It's also nearly 1200 euro.
I had to tell Milo.
I sent him an email with screen shots, since I was sure the site would be banned by the Army and therefore inaccessible from a war zone. God forbid any of our troops should have anything resembling entertainment, let alone anything to dream of other than killing people and blowing stuff up.
Just after lunchtime, as Caoilte and I were getting ready to see the new Transformers movie in Letterkenny, my neighbour, Lucy, stopped in to see if I could run an errand for her. She made the mistake of asking what I'd been up to - so I told her I'd been shopping for a chair.
"A chair?" she asked.
"Yeah. Wanna see?" I replied.
"Sure."
I brought up the web page, which opened not to the tame little splash page but to the page depicting a few of the chair's uses, as demonstrated by a gorgeous, naked couple. "Oh my," she said, pointing to the man, "does it come with that?"
After a bit of giggling and a lot of sticker shock, I closed the computer and Caoilte and I headed out to see Transformers. Afterward we stopped by Argos to pick up the item Lucy had asked me to get while we were out, then headed back home. I stopped by to give it to her and she mentioned that Larry was interested in seeing this chair, and could I bring it up on the laptop for him. Grinning, I complied. In fact, I went one better and clicked the "film" tab, so he could enjoy the videos in all of their glory.
Now, Lucy and Larry are farmers, down-to-earth, lovely people in their 60's who lead about as conventional a life as you can imagine. They're also two of the most open-minded, accepting people I know (remind me later to relate what shall forever be known in these parts as the 'attic chains incident'). As I left, the image of Larry glued to the laptop screen while Lucy chewed her dinner looking at me completely non-plussed made me laugh all the way home. Later, I texted Lucy and asked her how Larry's heart was doing. "I switched it off!" came the reply.
At 1900 Milo showed up in the chat room and said precisely what I thought he'd say: "order it now!" Very soon, the Tantra Chair will be the showpiece of my living room.
Americans. Providing entertainment to County Donegal since 2008. :)
12 December, 2010
The School Christmas Play
Tonight was Caoilte's school play, which turned out to be more of a "Christmas carol church service" with 15 minutes of "school play" thrown in for good measure. Why do I continue to fall for these ruses? Perhaps if I'd grown up here in Ireland I'd have known to expect it.
I spent an hour and a half in an unholy crouch position, never knowing when I was going to be expected to stand, sit, or whatever else, and I did it proudly in the front row in my yellow Michigan hoodie, Guess jeans, and a pair of orange and white Reeboks. They really should include more pertinent information in the permission slips, like, for example, that you might want to put on something other than what you cleaned house in today. I'm sure everyone wondered who the heathen was. Well, until Caoilte, in his Roman toga, announced in perfect Standard American English to emperor Augustus that he was fairly sure a census would reveal that some buggers have been engaged in some serious tax-dodging, a statement which elicited knowing smiles and nods all around.
It didn't take long to take in the surroundings, the church is fairly small and I was able to entertain myself quite well watching the teachers, who both had long brown hair, lean over the candles that burned at the end of each pew to tell the kids to shut up and stop fidgeting. I found myself betting on which one's hair would catch fire first, but the evening passed without any incendiary action occurring.
I was subsequently beaten to death (metaphorically, of course), with a seemingly never-ending series of "lesson/prayer/response/carol/lesson/prayer/response/carol" until, out of nowhere, I suddenly had an image of that red Ikea kitchen we both love put where the altar was, and then I couldn't get it out of my head, which meant I spent the remainder of the evening trying not to break into a fit of giggles every time the reverend turned his back to do the washing up. I mean sort out stuff on the altar.
The production of a felt-lined wooden bowl at the head of each pew by a lackey in black rayon caught me completely off guard, and though I had two tampons in one pocket and a tube of chapstick in the other, I decided that it would probably be better not to add these to the communal pot. I was quite pleased with that decision when I saw the lackeys present the reverend with the bowls, and even more so when he went up to the altar and held them up to god, and again I had to stifle a fit of the giggles as I imagined god peering down into the bowl to see who'd given him what for Christmas and going "WTF?!" Man, who knew church could be such a hoot?!
At the end of the ordeal we did what everyone else seemed to be doing, and joined the queue to get out. There is a gauntlet, apparently, that one is expected to run before being allowed out the door, and this includes a formal goodbye and some sort of conversation with the reverend. I wasn't listening to the people in front of me, and when it was my turn the only thing I was really interested in knowing was where he was from, since I had spent most of the service trying to pinpoint the origin of his British accent. Turns out he's from London. It took us a further ten minutes to get past the clot of over-70's having a natter (and blocking the exit), and ten more again waiting for them to actually make their way to their cars so I could get out of the lane that was being used as a parking lot for the event.
Next event: the Easter play. I'll be sitting in the back and yes, I'm taking my iPod.
I spent an hour and a half in an unholy crouch position, never knowing when I was going to be expected to stand, sit, or whatever else, and I did it proudly in the front row in my yellow Michigan hoodie, Guess jeans, and a pair of orange and white Reeboks. They really should include more pertinent information in the permission slips, like, for example, that you might want to put on something other than what you cleaned house in today. I'm sure everyone wondered who the heathen was. Well, until Caoilte, in his Roman toga, announced in perfect Standard American English to emperor Augustus that he was fairly sure a census would reveal that some buggers have been engaged in some serious tax-dodging, a statement which elicited knowing smiles and nods all around.
It didn't take long to take in the surroundings, the church is fairly small and I was able to entertain myself quite well watching the teachers, who both had long brown hair, lean over the candles that burned at the end of each pew to tell the kids to shut up and stop fidgeting. I found myself betting on which one's hair would catch fire first, but the evening passed without any incendiary action occurring.
I was subsequently beaten to death (metaphorically, of course), with a seemingly never-ending series of "lesson/prayer/response/carol/lesson/prayer/response/carol" until, out of nowhere, I suddenly had an image of that red Ikea kitchen we both love put where the altar was, and then I couldn't get it out of my head, which meant I spent the remainder of the evening trying not to break into a fit of giggles every time the reverend turned his back to do the washing up. I mean sort out stuff on the altar.
The production of a felt-lined wooden bowl at the head of each pew by a lackey in black rayon caught me completely off guard, and though I had two tampons in one pocket and a tube of chapstick in the other, I decided that it would probably be better not to add these to the communal pot. I was quite pleased with that decision when I saw the lackeys present the reverend with the bowls, and even more so when he went up to the altar and held them up to god, and again I had to stifle a fit of the giggles as I imagined god peering down into the bowl to see who'd given him what for Christmas and going "WTF?!" Man, who knew church could be such a hoot?!
At the end of the ordeal we did what everyone else seemed to be doing, and joined the queue to get out. There is a gauntlet, apparently, that one is expected to run before being allowed out the door, and this includes a formal goodbye and some sort of conversation with the reverend. I wasn't listening to the people in front of me, and when it was my turn the only thing I was really interested in knowing was where he was from, since I had spent most of the service trying to pinpoint the origin of his British accent. Turns out he's from London. It took us a further ten minutes to get past the clot of over-70's having a natter (and blocking the exit), and ten more again waiting for them to actually make their way to their cars so I could get out of the lane that was being used as a parking lot for the event.
Next event: the Easter play. I'll be sitting in the back and yes, I'm taking my iPod.
11 October, 2010
Solving the unsolvable.
I'm caught in an eddy, a trap of sorts.
Milo and I married in February 2008, before I retired, and we moved to Ireland in June of that year. We were here for four months, blissfully happy but unemployed, before he took the job in Virginia and we had to move. Since he deploys frequently, and for extended periods of time, and since we're all three unhappy living in the States, Caoilte and I come back to Ireland when he's deployed so we can at least have the consolation of life in the place we call home while Milo is away earning the money to build us a permanent home here.
In the meantime, we have moved no fewer than nine times in the past two years (Doenrade NL to Brunssum NL to Ireland to Charlottesville to another place in Charlottesville to Ireland to yet another place in Ireland to Michigan to Charlottesville and now back again to Ireland), and, frankly, I'm exhausted and so is Caoilte. Our furniture has been in storage in Dublin since last December, and I will finally be able to sleep in my own bed again on the 20th, when it is scheduled to be delivered to the new house. My bed, yes...but I'll be sleeping in it alone for nearly the next two years.
I cannot help but reflect repeatedly on the four months we had together in Ireland, before October 2008. They were the happiest, most golden days of our lives and we desperately want to create more of them. The question is how. When Milo is in Afghanistan we don't see each other for six months at a time, over a period of a year to 18 months. The Army limits him to two weeks of leave every six months, which, given the fact that he has zero days off in theatre, is woefully (I think criminally) inadequate. So he works 180 days in a row, 14-17 hours a day (often more), and is allowed two weeks to recuperate and be with his family before returning to work another 180. Wash, rinse, repeat.
What bothers me about the whole thing is the cycle we find ourselves in. I know we're working toward a goal, our dream to build a home in Ireland mortgage-free, but I worry about the emotional and spiritual toll the whole thing takes.
When he's in Afghanistan and I'm here in Ireland, we must deal with the constant, nagging ache of separation. We've been in love for six years, together for three, and married for two and a half, and of the 32 months we've been married, we have spent 14 months apart. He deployed for 13 months last year and returned on 21 May, which was, ironically, the anniversary of the date I first enlisted in the US Air Force. In August he was told he'd be deploying again, in September. All told we had just four months together before he left again, and that's not easy for anyone.
And so I find myself circling a drain, of sorts. I can have my Milo, the man I love more than anything, the man with whom life and love are magical and the universe is a bubble of bliss we create and inhabit, but only at the expense of having to live in a place we both dislike (Virginia). On the flip side, I can have the home we chose in the most beautiful place on earth, with all of our friends just yards from our door and a warm, happy day to day existance, but only at the expense of having it all without my love.
I ponder it daily, live and breathe it, wonder how to remedy it, imagine how we might overcome it. Why is it that I can have home, but not my man to hold me close at night, or I can have my man but only in a place we refer to as the Ninth Circle of Hell?
Tell me, anyone -- how do you solve the unsolvable?
Milo and I married in February 2008, before I retired, and we moved to Ireland in June of that year. We were here for four months, blissfully happy but unemployed, before he took the job in Virginia and we had to move. Since he deploys frequently, and for extended periods of time, and since we're all three unhappy living in the States, Caoilte and I come back to Ireland when he's deployed so we can at least have the consolation of life in the place we call home while Milo is away earning the money to build us a permanent home here.
In the meantime, we have moved no fewer than nine times in the past two years (Doenrade NL to Brunssum NL to Ireland to Charlottesville to another place in Charlottesville to Ireland to yet another place in Ireland to Michigan to Charlottesville and now back again to Ireland), and, frankly, I'm exhausted and so is Caoilte. Our furniture has been in storage in Dublin since last December, and I will finally be able to sleep in my own bed again on the 20th, when it is scheduled to be delivered to the new house. My bed, yes...but I'll be sleeping in it alone for nearly the next two years.
I cannot help but reflect repeatedly on the four months we had together in Ireland, before October 2008. They were the happiest, most golden days of our lives and we desperately want to create more of them. The question is how. When Milo is in Afghanistan we don't see each other for six months at a time, over a period of a year to 18 months. The Army limits him to two weeks of leave every six months, which, given the fact that he has zero days off in theatre, is woefully (I think criminally) inadequate. So he works 180 days in a row, 14-17 hours a day (often more), and is allowed two weeks to recuperate and be with his family before returning to work another 180. Wash, rinse, repeat.
What bothers me about the whole thing is the cycle we find ourselves in. I know we're working toward a goal, our dream to build a home in Ireland mortgage-free, but I worry about the emotional and spiritual toll the whole thing takes.
When he's in Afghanistan and I'm here in Ireland, we must deal with the constant, nagging ache of separation. We've been in love for six years, together for three, and married for two and a half, and of the 32 months we've been married, we have spent 14 months apart. He deployed for 13 months last year and returned on 21 May, which was, ironically, the anniversary of the date I first enlisted in the US Air Force. In August he was told he'd be deploying again, in September. All told we had just four months together before he left again, and that's not easy for anyone.
And so I find myself circling a drain, of sorts. I can have my Milo, the man I love more than anything, the man with whom life and love are magical and the universe is a bubble of bliss we create and inhabit, but only at the expense of having to live in a place we both dislike (Virginia). On the flip side, I can have the home we chose in the most beautiful place on earth, with all of our friends just yards from our door and a warm, happy day to day existance, but only at the expense of having it all without my love.
I ponder it daily, live and breathe it, wonder how to remedy it, imagine how we might overcome it. Why is it that I can have home, but not my man to hold me close at night, or I can have my man but only in a place we refer to as the Ninth Circle of Hell?
Tell me, anyone -- how do you solve the unsolvable?
First Day of School
Monday has arrived and we're still in a hotel, waiting for the house we've rented to become vacant so we can move in. That could happen as early as Thursday, or as late as next Monday--in any case, the end is in sight.
Today also marks a new beginning, as it's Caoilte's first day at his new primary school. We bought his uniforms and school supplies on Saturday before we headed over to Giant's Causeway for the afternoon, and last night we even managed to get to bed early, which, for us, means before 2300. This morning Caoilte didn't tarry long in bed - he got up, took a shower, and got all dolled up ready for his first day. He looked lovely!
Yes, he has to wear a tie!!!
Preparing for the school day while you're living in a hotel presents some special challenges, and for me the main one is packing a healthy lunch when I've no refrigerator or kitchen in which to prepare one. I booked a bed and breakfast rate, so breakfast is taken care of, but lunch will have to be accomplished each morning on the way to school. This morning we stopped by Costcutter in Ballybofey, as they have a deli that prepares sandwiches. Caoilte got a ham and cheese, and also bought an apple, a Ribena juice box, and a cheese and breadsticks dip packet. The school has a school milk programme, so he'll also get a carton of milk each day at snack time. His school has a healthy eating policy that says sweets and other less healthy snacks may only be brought on Fridays, and the other children (all ten of them!) are apparently militant about monitoring each other's lunches for contraband, so we'll see if his lunch today passes muster. He's been really excited to meet some new friends and get back into the social swing of things. I'm grateful he has the opportunity to have friends again, as we haven't lived in a neighbourhood with children since we left Cavan Upper last August.
Back at the hotel I find myself a bit lonely. I've a lot to do today, some things I've been avoiding and absolutely must take care of, but I'll leave all that for another update.
03 October, 2010
The Irish Cat Fiasco
Bringing a pet into Ireland from outside the UK is a balancing act between the insane and the impossible. It isn't for the faint of heart, and requires walking a tightrope of rules, regulations, and general bullshit unlike anything you've experienced before (unless you've previously worked with the Army).
Last Thursday I sent both of my cats ahead a day on the afternoon Aer Lingus flight that arrived at Dublin on Friday morning. I arrived in a rental car at John F. Kennedy's Aer Lingus cargo terminal to hand them over to an agent of Pet Express, a pet travel specialist based in California.
Now, I went through this process last year with Niamh, before I acquired Colonel, and one must have all of one's ducks lined up in perfect order and quacking in perfect synchrony from start to finish in order to complete the process with the least amount of pain possible. I'm retired Air Force, so I know all about lining up ducks, and I usually do it fairly well.
My oldest cat, Niamh, has a Dutch pet passport, has had her rabies shot, her titre test, and more shots than most children. My kitten, Colonel, was acquired last October in Ireland and has a UK pet passport, his rabies shot, and his titre test as well as the same shots and treatments as Niamh. What he didn't have, however, was the required six months between the titre test and the date of importation into Ireland. He was three weeks shy.
Ireland has an extensive list of rules for bringing in a pet, unless you're coming from the UK, in which case you can get on the bloody boat with your five dogs, eight cats and a ferret and they don't even look at you sideways as you drive your little ark off the boat in Dun Laoghaire. But bring a small cat in from the US and it's vets drawn at nine o'clock.
The requirements for importing a pet go like this, and must be done in this exact order or it's no good and you have to start all over:
1. microchip implanted
2. rabies vaccination
3. three weeks after the rabies vaccination, conduct a rabies titre test (at an approved national laboratory)
4. wait for the titre test to come back and then annotate that it is positive within a certain range. The titre is proof that the pet is immune to rabies, and can not become infected with it.
5. Have a USDA vet-approved vet sign a health certificate within 30 days of travel.
6. Tick and tapeworm treatment within 24-48 hours of landing in Dublin.
But there is one teeny, tiny step that absolutely can not be overlooked if you wish to be united with your pet on the other side...after a positive and acceptable titre is annotated, you must wait six months before the pet can enter the UK or Ireland without being subject to quarantine. I thought I had this system down until I faxed my cats' pet passport and other paperwork to Pet Express and discovered that Colonel was going to be three weeks shy of the quarantine period and would need to spend those three weeks in quarantine at Lissenhall veterinary surgery in Swords, Dublin.
Well, it's not the end of the world, right? Six months in quarantine will run you about 2,000 euros, plus vet fees and a whole new round of the same vaccinations your pet just had. Three weeks in quarantine is a whole lot cheaper, and Colonel is worth it, so it's all good.
So on Thursday afternoon I met the Pet Express agent at JFK's Aer Lingus cargo terminal and handed over both cats, both of their pet passports, their health certificates, Colonel's Irish vaccination record, and two airline-approved travel carriers. The lady, who was very nice, put both cats in her car and I signed all the necessary paperwork before we said goodbye and drove to our hotel for the evening. Sorted.
Or not.
On Saturday morning I arrived in Dublin and endured the great Irish Rental Car Fiasco (see previous blog entry), after which I made my way to Lissenhall to pay the fees and collect Niamh, who is eligible to bypass quarantine. I walked in, as I did last year, and sat in the chilly little reception room to wait for the vet, who, in keeping with Irish cultural norms, was fashionably late arriving. Well, it was a Saturday.
I read all the posters, checked out the scale in the corner (it was there last year, too), counted the spiders on the ceiling, and tried to stay awake. Eventually I was called into the anteroom where I picked Niamh up last year. Niamh was conspicuously absent. I looked at the vet. He looked at me.
"Have you got Colonel's pet passport?" he asked.
I blinked.
"Shouldn't you have that?" I said.
"Mmm." he murmured.
"Mmm" is never good in Ireland, nor in England. It's like the Turkish tongue click, which is usually followed by "Inshallah" (god willing) and a trip to the shop for cigarettes with which to bribe the officials. In Ireland, however, it's a bit more complicated and a lot less straightforward. I explained that I'd handed Colonel's pet passport to Pet Express and, if it had been lost along the way, then they were going to be responsible. He suggested I call Pet Express and Aer Lingus to track it down. Now, the whole reason the cats had to go ahead of us a day is because Aer Lingus cargo people do not work on weekends, nor does the one and only authorised pet courier who takes the cats from the plane and delivers them to Lissenhall. Nor does Pet Express. In fact, in what I can only determine is a concerted effort to dissuade people from bringing their pets here, Ireland has mandated only one authorised agent (Pet Express), only one authorised airline (Aer Lingus), and only four authorised US-Dublin routes by which a pet can enter Ireland, and only on business days. And before you ask, yes, it does cost a small fortune.
I decided to leave Niamh at Lissenhall, too, and board her while I waited for Monday to start making phone calls. Maybe Einstein could function on two hours of sleep, but I couldn't. I left Lissenhall with my son, my luggage, my rental car, the single Valium I have left, and no cats.
On Monday I started the rounds of email and phone calls. The pet passport had still not turned up, Pet Express said they handed it to Aer Lingus, Aer Lingus said they hadn't seen it, and Lissenhall said they would "put the skids on" to Aer Lingus to see if they could look a bit harder for it. By Wednesday the situation hadn't changed, but I heard from Lissenhall that Pet Express was having the USDA send a certificate that would verify Colonel's rabies titre and allow him to be released on schedule. Lissenhall also said that Pet Express has offered to pay for it and a new pet passport.
I'm going to leave Niamh in boarding so she can be close to Colonel, whom she abhors. I'm going to consider it penance.
Last Thursday I sent both of my cats ahead a day on the afternoon Aer Lingus flight that arrived at Dublin on Friday morning. I arrived in a rental car at John F. Kennedy's Aer Lingus cargo terminal to hand them over to an agent of Pet Express, a pet travel specialist based in California.
Now, I went through this process last year with Niamh, before I acquired Colonel, and one must have all of one's ducks lined up in perfect order and quacking in perfect synchrony from start to finish in order to complete the process with the least amount of pain possible. I'm retired Air Force, so I know all about lining up ducks, and I usually do it fairly well.
My oldest cat, Niamh, has a Dutch pet passport, has had her rabies shot, her titre test, and more shots than most children. My kitten, Colonel, was acquired last October in Ireland and has a UK pet passport, his rabies shot, and his titre test as well as the same shots and treatments as Niamh. What he didn't have, however, was the required six months between the titre test and the date of importation into Ireland. He was three weeks shy.
Ireland has an extensive list of rules for bringing in a pet, unless you're coming from the UK, in which case you can get on the bloody boat with your five dogs, eight cats and a ferret and they don't even look at you sideways as you drive your little ark off the boat in Dun Laoghaire. But bring a small cat in from the US and it's vets drawn at nine o'clock.
The requirements for importing a pet go like this, and must be done in this exact order or it's no good and you have to start all over:
1. microchip implanted
2. rabies vaccination
3. three weeks after the rabies vaccination, conduct a rabies titre test (at an approved national laboratory)
4. wait for the titre test to come back and then annotate that it is positive within a certain range. The titre is proof that the pet is immune to rabies, and can not become infected with it.
5. Have a USDA vet-approved vet sign a health certificate within 30 days of travel.
6. Tick and tapeworm treatment within 24-48 hours of landing in Dublin.
But there is one teeny, tiny step that absolutely can not be overlooked if you wish to be united with your pet on the other side...after a positive and acceptable titre is annotated, you must wait six months before the pet can enter the UK or Ireland without being subject to quarantine. I thought I had this system down until I faxed my cats' pet passport and other paperwork to Pet Express and discovered that Colonel was going to be three weeks shy of the quarantine period and would need to spend those three weeks in quarantine at Lissenhall veterinary surgery in Swords, Dublin.
Well, it's not the end of the world, right? Six months in quarantine will run you about 2,000 euros, plus vet fees and a whole new round of the same vaccinations your pet just had. Three weeks in quarantine is a whole lot cheaper, and Colonel is worth it, so it's all good.
So on Thursday afternoon I met the Pet Express agent at JFK's Aer Lingus cargo terminal and handed over both cats, both of their pet passports, their health certificates, Colonel's Irish vaccination record, and two airline-approved travel carriers. The lady, who was very nice, put both cats in her car and I signed all the necessary paperwork before we said goodbye and drove to our hotel for the evening. Sorted.
Or not.
On Saturday morning I arrived in Dublin and endured the great Irish Rental Car Fiasco (see previous blog entry), after which I made my way to Lissenhall to pay the fees and collect Niamh, who is eligible to bypass quarantine. I walked in, as I did last year, and sat in the chilly little reception room to wait for the vet, who, in keeping with Irish cultural norms, was fashionably late arriving. Well, it was a Saturday.
I read all the posters, checked out the scale in the corner (it was there last year, too), counted the spiders on the ceiling, and tried to stay awake. Eventually I was called into the anteroom where I picked Niamh up last year. Niamh was conspicuously absent. I looked at the vet. He looked at me.
"Have you got Colonel's pet passport?" he asked.
I blinked.
"Shouldn't you have that?" I said.
"Mmm." he murmured.
"Mmm" is never good in Ireland, nor in England. It's like the Turkish tongue click, which is usually followed by "Inshallah" (god willing) and a trip to the shop for cigarettes with which to bribe the officials. In Ireland, however, it's a bit more complicated and a lot less straightforward. I explained that I'd handed Colonel's pet passport to Pet Express and, if it had been lost along the way, then they were going to be responsible. He suggested I call Pet Express and Aer Lingus to track it down. Now, the whole reason the cats had to go ahead of us a day is because Aer Lingus cargo people do not work on weekends, nor does the one and only authorised pet courier who takes the cats from the plane and delivers them to Lissenhall. Nor does Pet Express. In fact, in what I can only determine is a concerted effort to dissuade people from bringing their pets here, Ireland has mandated only one authorised agent (Pet Express), only one authorised airline (Aer Lingus), and only four authorised US-Dublin routes by which a pet can enter Ireland, and only on business days. And before you ask, yes, it does cost a small fortune.
I decided to leave Niamh at Lissenhall, too, and board her while I waited for Monday to start making phone calls. Maybe Einstein could function on two hours of sleep, but I couldn't. I left Lissenhall with my son, my luggage, my rental car, the single Valium I have left, and no cats.
On Monday I started the rounds of email and phone calls. The pet passport had still not turned up, Pet Express said they handed it to Aer Lingus, Aer Lingus said they hadn't seen it, and Lissenhall said they would "put the skids on" to Aer Lingus to see if they could look a bit harder for it. By Wednesday the situation hadn't changed, but I heard from Lissenhall that Pet Express was having the USDA send a certificate that would verify Colonel's rabies titre and allow him to be released on schedule. Lissenhall also said that Pet Express has offered to pay for it and a new pet passport.
I'm going to leave Niamh in boarding so she can be close to Colonel, whom she abhors. I'm going to consider it penance.
Photos of Kerry and Bunratty Castle
McGillicuddy Reeks, County Kerry
Looking back toward Kenmare, County Kerry
Strawberry Fields Dutch Pancake House, just outside Kenmare, County Kerry
Wood stove at Strawberry Fields Pancake House
Caoilte at Strawberry Fields
Caoilte at Strawberry Fields
Nom nom nom!
My pancake - met ham, kaas, tomaten en prei. Lekker!
Caoilte's pancake, met appels, suiker en kaneel
My favourite tree (Killarney National Park)
Tree in Killarney National Park
My favourite tree
My favourite tree
Yes, I really love trees
Killarney National Park
Killarney National park
Caoilte at Bunratty's drawbridge
The bar in Bunratty Castle (Shannon)
The great room in Bunratty Castle (Shannon)
One of the rooms in Bunratty Castle
View of the river Shannon from a turret of Bunratty Castle
View of the Shannon from a turret of Bunratty Castle
One of the rooms of Bunratty Castle
Strawberry Fields, the Dutch pancake house in Kenmare
A tree in Killarney National Forest
Killarney National Park
On the road between Kenmare and Killarney
Caoilte at Killarney National Park
Killarney National Park
Torc Waterfall at Killarney National Park
Killarney National Park
Killarney National Park
Killarney National Park
Killarney National Park
Caoilte at Killarney National Park
Killarney National Park
Killarney National Park
Killarney National Park
The Gap of Dunloe
Killarney National Park
The Gap of Dunloe
The Gap of Dunloe
The Gap of Dunloe
The Gap of Dunloe
The Gap of Dunloe
The Gap of Dunloe
I'm in love with a violinist.
I decided last night to stay in Limerick for the weekend. We can't do any house hunting until Monday anyway, and I really didn't fancy a five hour drive to Leitrim, so despite knowing Limerick by it's more common name, 'stab city,' I made a reservation at Patrick Punch's Hotel, just outside the town centre. Well, why not!
We arrived in Limerick around 1430, and when I realised how close it is to Bunratty, I simply had to make a detour to see Bunratty Castle.
Bunratty Castle rises from the verdant county Clare countryside as imposing as any keep I've seen, tall and light-bricked and perfectly square, crisp corners stretching to blocked towers on all four sides. Very impressive. The castle also puts on medieval banquets, one of which was scheduled for 1730, so I bought tickets. Touring the castle just after 1500 we could smell dinner cooking, so we walked around with rumbling tummies and watering mouths until 1715, when it was time to show up at the drawbridge. Those of you who know me will be shocked to know I wasn't late, no siree! The whole thing kicked off with a reception in the grand hall replete with Bunratty honey mead, and after finishing my cup I was really looking forward to having some more at dinner. In the centre of the grand hall was a harpist, a really exceptional harpist, and I was mesmerised by the gentle, quick movements of her fingers on the strings, the rapid adjustments she made to the tuning pins between string plucks, and the perfectly serene look on her face as she played. I was also fascinated by the playing position of the harp - she pulled it between her legs and rested it against her breast and I couldn't help but see it as both instrument and lover. It sang to her and through her.
So I was all caught up in the harpist when the violinist appeared, a mop of dark hair, broad smile and shoulders, and tantalisingly muscular thighs wrapped in 80-denier or so black tights. For the next 20 minutes I don't think I moved. The music continued through all four removes of the banquet, where to my disappointment the mead on offer at the reception was replaced by white and red wine, but I was fairly delighted to find the violinist playing at the head of the table at which Caoilte and I were sat. When the banquet was over we left through the gift shop, where we bought a couple of bottles of mead and a CD of the evening's music. I listened to it all the way to the hotel.
Well, mostly just to the violin.
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