Donegal and Carlyn appears to drink a beer!

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I'm sure that someone somewhere in Donegal has an internet connection but I had no access to one at all. It was like going back to the stone ages of not knowing how my loved ones were doing because I couldn't connect with them for three whole days. What did we ever do before that fabulous Al Gore invented the fabulous Internet? My, my, how spoiled we have become.
Anyway, we were in Donegal for three days and by we I mean myself, Carlyn and my wonderful Aunt Brighidin and Uncle Pearse. After a lot of miscommunication on my part my Uncle finally got it through my thick head that he and my Aunt were planning to drive Carlyn and I up to Donegal and show us around. This was so very unexpected and very welcome as we were planning on renting a car and driving ourselves up and had we done so we could very well be up there still trying to find the road to Dublin and swearing the sheep we just passed looked vaguely familiar. So they drove us up and all around once we got there and we couldn't be more grateful. They are wonderful traveling companions and I really love them because they laugh at all my jokes even when they aren't funny!
The reason for the trip up to Donegal was to see my Uncle Shem and his family and get more of a feel for the Doogan side of the family. We had dinner with Shem and family the first night we were there, Carlyn got wacky and drank a beer although the picture doesn't actually prove she did but I saw her so I know she did and it's the only one she's had since we got here but that is a different story altogether. The second day in Donegal we went to Glen Veigh National Park, which consists of a beautiful castle on a lake and no the castle never belonged to the Doogan's (although I learned from my Aunt Nodlaig that the IRA occupied it for a short time around the time of the civil war in the 1920's and since my Aunt Sheila was a part of the women's branch of the IRA she would go up and make food for the lads, which probably went a long way to ending the occupation earlier than it might have due to the fact that she was a terrible cook) but I love going there because it's a beautiful setting.
That evening Carlyn opted to stay in rather than go to dinner so I had Pearse and Brighidin all to myself and they talked my ear off. I loved every minute of it because I believe that when I was growing up I would have loved to have Aunts and Uncles around all the time and I didn't so I'm soaking it up while I can.
We headed back to Dublin the next day by way of Slieve League. The photos of the rocky path and the cliffs tumbling into the sea are Slieve League and it was spectacular. The weather was pretty good for viewing the cliffs, could have been better but I have learned that in Ireland whenever you aren't getting rained on it's a pretty good day.
We are back in Dublin now and spent the afternoon at my Aunt Nodlaig's house having lunch and being entertained by her wonderful story telling. When I was a kid I loved my Aunt Nodlaig, she always sent us the best books and letters that should have been turned into books they were so creative.
That's it for now, I must close my eyes.

Lisanisky House

I am a complete idiot when it comes to putting photos on my blog and actually labeling them because apparently what I consider labeling a photo means something completely different to those who know what the hell they are doing. I will instead give you a narration as if I was conducting a slide show, one you can simply walk away from if you get bored and I will never be the wiser.
The first photo is of my cousins Ginny and Sarah with me at Clonmacnoise. We were very irreverent as we walked around the grounds made up of a Cathedral, a church and the resting place of St. Ciaran among other things, laughing as we tried not to step on the graves of the dearly departed. Hopefully we will not burn for our behavior.
The next photo is the actual resting place of St. Ciaran, the man who built the first church on Clonmacnoise. I took it for Keiran since they have the same name.
Then next is the girls having dinner at Sarah's house. We ate, drank and made merry until 3 in the morning and I did not turn into a pumpkin even though it has been at least 10 years since I purposely stayed up past 11:30. The dinner was delicious, the conversation by turns serious, hilarious, comtemplative and ridiculous. I loved being with all these women who I am related to and finding out we have so much in common despite growing up thousands of miles away from each other.
When we first got to Sarah's house we took a walk around the grounds. Enda built a beautiful wall out of stones taken from an out building that was falling down. It is a beautiful wall and must have taken days to build and doesn't really need to be held up my Uncle Pearse just has a way of bringing out the clown in me.
I love the view from her orchard, especially when the sun is shining, which it did for us the day we arrived.
Finally we have Derek and myself on the pier on Dun Laoghaire. It was again a beautiful morning with the sun shining thanks to my weather controlling super power.

Ireland:Day 2 continued

The reason for the continuation is I can't seem to figure out how to post more than 4 photos at a time. I am challenged that way and Duffy is not here to help me, which he would do but only after sighing and shaking his head at my obvious idiocy. Good thing I love him so much and have a lot of self confidence that isn't dependent on my ability to navigate the world of technology.
ANYWAY, as already stated we went to Christ Church today but only got there after getting lost due to my screwed up sense of direction, which is usually quite reliable but was on the blink today for some reason probably having to do with the entire glass of wine I drank last night with dinner. (I was not hungover, in case anyone was wondering... or cared.) On our way to the Church, while we were "lost" we stumbled upon The Bald Barrista. About a month ago I did a web search for coffee shops in Dublin because I do love me a cup of decaf coffee in the afternoon and now that Duffy has turned me into a coffee snob it can't be just any cup of coffee it needs to be really, really good cup of coffee (so right there Starbucks is out). My search brought me to the website for The Bald Barrista, a coffee shop run by a man who also teaches people how to make coffee the right way. Happily, as we were wondering around lost looking for an enormous church that is pretty hard to miss unless you are going in the wrong direction, we stumbled upon The Bald Barrista. Noting the location we vowed to return after seeing the church which we did. Now, I drink Americanos that are mostly espresso with a little bit of water in them and when I make them I pull the shot first and add the water second. The thing about ordering them in a coffee shop is the barrista almost always puts too much water in no mater how much I EMPHASIZE that I only want so much so to solve this problem I have taken to ordering a double shot of decaf espresso and another cup full of hot water. When I asked the Bald Barrista (for he truly is bald) to do this for me he looked at me as if I had lost my damn mind and for a moment I thought he was going to ask me to leave. Instead he told me he would make me his version of an Americano and we could see how that went. While he was making it he told me that you always put the water in first and pull the shot into the same cup on top of the water because then the espresso isn't being broken up and the crema remains undisturbed. (Apparently crema is a bit of a diva and falls apart at the slightest provocation.) Duffy would love this guy and I loved the Americano only realizing after the first two or three sips I had forgotten to order a decaf but I drank it fully caffeinated and all because I have a feeling the Bald Barrista might have strong opinions about decaf espresso that I really wasn't ready to hear. The good news is I am only slightly buzzed from the caffeine and since I am on vacation I don't have a set bed time!

Ireland:Day 2

We went to Christ Church Cathedral today, among other places and laughed most irreverently at the memorials engraved in the 1700's with s's that looked like f's. It probably doesn't sound very funny to anyone unless you were actually there but we found it highly amusing and in honor of our amusement we wrote a poem, to be placed on Carlyn's grave stone should she bite the dust in Ireland because she looked the wrong way before crossing the street, using the engravers style of replacing all the s's with f's.

Ode to Carlyn

Here lief Carlyn
She waf a filly girl
With foft and filky hair
But she meffed up and didn't look left
Fhe will be miffed feverly

Anyway, we found this to be hysterical....

We are finally here!

We are in Dublin and were welcomed here with dark gray skies and lashing rain. Fortunately, my super power involves changing the weather so tomorrow will be beautiful. I didn't sleep a wink on the plane, never do, too excited and my butt hurt.
We napped for a few hours upon arrival... at my cousin's house, not in the Dublin airport baggage claim although we could have as my bag was one of the last off the plane! After the nap and a refreshing shower we heading into Dublin on the train were we wandered, trying hard not to look aimless and jet lagged, don't know how well we succeeded. We found a really good, somewhat trendy Thai restaurant on a back street and gladly sat and ate something not loaded with MSG and salt like the lovely meals we were offered on the plane. It was delicious and relaxing and made me need another nap so we headed back to the train station and back to Derek's.
More tomorrow... hopefully I will be more coherent then!

flat

When I was in junior high I was very small. I had always been little but at a time when everyone around me seemed to be growing taller and curvier I still looked like a little boy (I am a girl). Oddly, it really didn't bother me that much. When I was in 6th grade my mom cornered my sister and me in the bathroom and explained all about the things that were going to happen to our bodies in the near future, mainly that at some point we would start having "periods". When she explained what those where all I could think was GROSS, I did not sign up for that and would like to take my name off that list. That is why it didn't bother my in junior high that I was still little, thin as a stick, flat as a pancake and showing no indication of ever getting curvy.
In junior high there was a boy, Bruce Johnson, whose personality was as big as his physicality. He was the class clown, the loud kid who always had some crack to make about what the teacher was trying to teach, the one who liked to snort all the snot out of his nose into his mouth, swallow it and say, "too good to waste" with a stupid smile on his face. For some reason he liked to single me out in English class to tease. I have three brothers, a sister and an Irish mother so his teasing really didn't bother my all that much, I received worse at home on a daily basis. His attempts at making me the butt of his jokes rarely affected me but it did make me wonder why it was me he focused on day in and day out. Of course, looking back I realize he must have had a crush on me and in typical 13 year old boy fashion could only express it by attempting to make my life hell which he failed at miserably for the most part.
Then there was that day, that day I will always remember, the day he managed to succeed in making me want to melt into the floor. As usual we were in English class and as usual he was sitting in front of me and as usual I was listening to the teacher and he was cracking jokes whenever he got the chance. About halfway through the class period Mr. Smith, who up until this day had my respect, started in on vocabulary. He would throw a word out and ask someone to use it in a sentence. When the fateful word came up and Mr. Smith made that fateful decision to have Bruce Johnson use it in a sentence you would think I would have felt a change in the barometric pressure or at the very least a shiver run up my spine but I didn't. "Bruce." he said having no idea, although he should have, what he was about to do, "Could you please use the word 'underdeveloped' in a sentence."
Bruce didn't even have to stop and think about that one, his devious mind was nothing if not fast. Just as my mind came to the same conclusion as his he blurts out, "Deirdre is very underdeveloped."
I must have turned three shades of red, I know Mr. Smith did. I tried to make myself smaller than I was. I plotted Bruce's demise while he laughed.

New Year's Resolutions

I have never been a believer in New Year's resolutions until now. For some unexplainable reason, this year I feel compelled to make and actually write down a number of resolutions. Call it optimism now that the democrats have controll of the house AND senate, call it peri-menopausal induced behavior, call it feeling my mortality and needing to make my mark. Call it what you will while I write it down.

I resolve to accomplish the following goals in the next 12 months.
1. Complete my novel and have it ready to send out to publishers.
2. Take a course in Ashiatsu massage.
3. Get a massage once a month.
4. Write a post in my blog once a week.
5. Last but not least... master the fine art of making a layer cake that looks as good as it tastes.

There, I have done it now. I have written down my resolutions and must accomplish them or suffer humiliations galore.