My Life as a Dub

Prague, Czech Republic

2008-11-11T17:14:00.003Z

A few photos from T and I's long weekend in Praha... Most Leggy...

Obrigada Portugal

2008-09-09T16:21:00.003Z

Better late than never... Tommyboy and I spent an idyllic week in Portugal in August and I never got around to posting the pics... well, until now. Click the pic above for a bunch of photos that make me long for the sun... and don't forget to check out my fancy, four euro, absolutely, enormous sunglasses. I'm a fashion magnet, what can I say. ;) (The ones I brought lasted about a day before I broke them.)

36 Hours in Riga...

2008-09-05T14:24:00.004Z

From Riga, Latvia

...but we did so much it felt like 36 days. My work colleague and I went over to Latvia this week for a marathon meeting to discuss a hotel / spa related project. The meeting alone was enough to fill the day but in addition to a 6 hour meeting, we managed to fit in, 2 nights of drinking mojitos, a business lunch, a business dinner (yum), a walking tour of Riga complete with a stop at the coolest Moroccan teahouse ever to drink sweet, minty, Moroccan tea, a record release party for a Russian teen singer wearing the tightest leather pants I've ever seen and a Nascar race (ok, it wasn't a Nascar race, it was a taxi ride from the airport, but it might as well have been a Nascar race!) Our guide for the walking tour was our client and a native Rigan who speaks five languages (Latvian, Russian, English, Spanish and Portuguese) and was very knowledgeable about his city (not to mention super generous with his time). He showed us all the most beautiful Art Nouveau architecture, the medieval old town, Swedish and Dutch influenced neighborhoods, a few choice bits of Soviet blockitecture, hidden statues on the tops of buildings (a boy reading, cats with arched backs, wolves, faces etc...), a canal and park bursting with brightly coloured flowerbeds, and a great Cuban bar where my workmate and I ended up drinking mojitos, listening to a great Samba DJ till 3am, and ogling the adorable and probably gay bar-staff (well, maybe that was just me...haha). Considering how little time we had in Riga, we definitely made the most of it... perhaps a bit too much as we nearly missed our flight home, since someone (who shall remain nameless and wasn't me) was hungover as a donkey and slept in... Next stop: Uzbekistan, I've heard great things from my new Latvian friend ande tour guide, Who's up for it?!

A Side Order of Eco-Fries with your Upside-Down-Poke?

2008-08-04T10:41:00.005Z

Just when I thought I could no longer be surprised by Irish-isms, that I could answer the dog, ride the joer and wind my neck in, with ease... I was, of course, wrong. The world of Irish slang is apparently an inexhaustable resource...

I was out the other night in Belfast for Tommy-boy's birthday with a few of our favo(u)rite northies. We were in a newly-opened-restaurant-bar called, "Made in Belfast" which seems to epitomise the latest trend in Irish-eating-drinking establishments. Enter, the eco-friendly, "recycled" bar. The premise of eco-dining is that instead of kitting out your new business with fresh-from-the-factory furniture top-of-the-line faux-marble table tops and brand-new hipster scandinavian light fixtures, the place is decked out in an eclectic hodge-podge of granny-chic, straight from the latest second-hand auction or car-boot sale. The result is part 70's rec room, part college coffee-house and part dusty-vacation-house (with maybe a little bit of southeast asian brothel thrown in for good measure.) And marketing-ploy or not, I like it (although it's only a matter of time until McDonald's co-opts it and opens a McGreener-than-thous.) Dublin's version of the eco-bar opened last week and was absolutely packed to the rafters last friday when I hit it up - and serving a damn fine mojito if I do say so myself.

Anyway, so here we all were, comfortably perched on Thai-rice-sack pillows and faux-fur animal-print cushions digesting a tasty dinner (served in a random selection of plates and dishes of course.) It was Tommy-boy's birthday and so it was time to loosen the belt and squeeze in dessert. The waiter quickly read out the choices, apple crumble, berry pannacota and an upside down poke... what? excuse me? Sexual adventurous-ness not withstanding, an upside down poke doesn't sound like something that should be done in a crowded restaurant on a Saturday evening... Instead of slapping the waiter (or dragging him into the kitchen for a better explanation ;)) I waited until he was gone and looked at my table-mates for clarification (hopefully without diagrams...haha.) Apparently a "poke" (now, don't be dirty) is simply an icecream cone, something your Granny would make for you when you visited her on a Sunday afternoon, "Would you like a nice, poke dear?" (Oh, god, the possibilities are really endless.) An upside-down poke is the hipster-bar's attempts to bring you back to your childhood-idyll - basically vanilla icecream in a little bowl with a cone sticking out the top. Care for a lick?!

A little bit of Summer

2008-06-16T12:27:00.001Z

Click the pic to check out some photos from my recent trip to Boston.

8k and Running

2008-05-22T14:43:00.004Z

Much to my shock and surprise, I found myself standing at the starting line of the Dublin Docklands, "Fun Run," the other day, with a number strapped to my back and 8 kilometers of pavement between me and the finish line. When I talked to my family a few days before the run and told them I had signed up to do it, they actually laughed and then pointed out that short legs run in the family. That's support for ya! Needless to say, I had never attempted any kind of public race before, and have always considered distance running to be a torture only marginally above hanging upside down from one's toenails...

To be fair, I do cycle to work everyday and I regularly run a few k at the gym several times a week but the treadmill is a far cry from hitting the pavement with 2,000 other people (and 4 very fit co-workers.) My expectation was that I would run half and walk half and hopefully manage to make it over the finish line before dark...haha.

Amazingly, I managed to jog the entire 8k. I had decided that I would make it to 3k and then walk but when I saw 3k, I decided to push for 4k and then 5k and then 6k... by the time I hit 6k, it seemed easier to just keep going. (forward momentum don'tcha know...) I managed to finish in 55 minutes which may seem ridiculously slow to all you sporty types but for me was a good 15 minutes under my time on the treadmill.

I'll not be running any marathons anytime soon. (My legs are still sore from the run two days later) but it was great to prove to myself that it was actually possible. I have to say though, that the best part of the whole experience was after the race, stripping off my sweaty clothes, taking a really hot shower and eating a big bowl of icecream in my pajamas... mmmmm, the real taste of victory. :)

Roma

2008-05-14T09:26:00.002Z

Better late than never... Here are a whole buncha photos from my recent trip to Rome with Tommy-boy, LoloFerrari and JD. Good stuff. We managed to cram most of the major sites into three days while regularly stuffing our faces with pizza and gelato. It was defo a whirlwind tour but lovely nonetheless. :)

KleptoGarden

2008-04-23T10:12:00.004Z

Oh, the saga of gardening... I've never before lived in an apartment that involved much in the way a outdoor upkeep - or if I did, I always had a nameless, faceless landlord who didn't much care if the garden looked like little house on the prairie.

These days though, I have a full-on proper back yard (which was pretty overgrown when we moved in 3 years ago.) While, it was pretty to look out the back and see ivy and honeysuckle and various bits of flora, it was becoming increasingly unusable - more Jungle Book than The Secret Garden. Every time Tommyboy and I looked out the back - we felt more and more guilty about the state of it... So, one fine non-rainy Saturday, we attacked it with all the tools we could pilfer from Tom's parents. We cut back everything we could get our hands on in the front and back of the house. Strangely, it would appear that our Garden has arms as how else to explain all the unlikely things we found when we gave it a haircut...

I was in the midst, of cutting back the enormous and half-dead bush in the front of the house when I noticed a black clump hidden in its middle. After more chopping and closer inspection, I pulled out a small black ipod nano in a leather case - previously owned by Tommy boy and mysteriously disappeared 6 months earlier.

A few hours later, when Tom emerged from the tangle of vines that was our back garden, he came out clutching the long-gone and long forgotten remote control for the living room stereo.

Apparently, our garden likes electronics. How it managed to snare them for itself is a mystery... that the ipod, after a little scrubbing and a recharge, still works, is a miracle.

Budapest

2008-03-04T17:26:00.000Z

London A to Zed

2008-02-06T14:01:00.000Z

Click the pic for a few photos from my recent trip to London.

The New Year cannot be denied

2008-01-16T13:24:00.000Z

So, okay, like everyone else, I've been procrastinating... After spending ten days, socialising, stuffing my face, drinking wine, walking the city and generally trying to squeeze all my favorite things about life in Boston into a week and half, I was pretty wrecked. Jet-lag was wicked - lots of late nights and painfully early mornings getting back into the routine of work. Only now that we're easily halfway through January, am I fully back into the swing.

I joined the gym this winter to try and stave off the lethargy of life in the far northern hemisphere - The sun has only really fully woken up around 9am these days and it's back in hiding by 4:30pm at it's lowest point... I think there is definitely a tendency for hibernation written into my genes - I just want to sleep and eat biscuits (that's cookies for all u yanks ;) ) and lie on the couch with the remote. While I have been hitting the treadmill (and the climbing wall and the pool), I've still managed to get entirely sucked into the void of the couch and the telly on a few occasions. In keeping with the Irish tendencies toward overindulgence followed by repentance - January TV has made the shift from Dessert Porn (soft focus and close-up on the chocolate fudge cake) to documentaries about tummy tucks and industrial food production. Those of you who know how riveted I was reading 'Fast Food Nation' (and how I tortured you all with "fun" facts about meat production for months after) will know that I am powerless to resist a show about battery chickens or chemicals in the food supply. It's like a car crash. I just can't look away. And it wasn't just one documentary - it must have been industrial food week on Channel 4 because I watched a three-part series on free range chicken, a 'Dispatches' expose on ready meals and a screening of the film 'Super Size Me' all in the course of 4 days. Unfortunately (or fortunately) for me - I missed Jamie Oliver's exploration into chicken parts and their many uses... To add insult to injury, I was also reading 'The Omnivore's Dilmena' a book about the evolution of food chains and the environmental consequences of industrial agriculture... Bring it on! The fact that I'm not a raw-food vegan (or even a proper vegetarian) at this point, is a minor miracle. Just don't ask me to eat any chicken nuggets okay?!

Well, viva la new year... 'onwards and upwards' I guess. 'Start as you mean to go on' and all the rest of it. Only 11 months until everyone's pouring booze down their necks and sucking down battery chickens and sticky-toffee-pudding by the bucket-load. Untill then, maybe it's time for an organic, sustainably-farmed, locally grown fair-trade salad with your guilt?!

And to all a Good Night

2007-12-21T15:02:00.000Z

Hello all,
I'm departing from Mickeyland tomorrow a.m. for the Christmas holiday (but not before going out on the lash with the coworkers for our annual Christmas do. I'm going to be sensible though, really. ;))

No matter which side of the pond you happen to reside on, have a lovely Christmas (or Chanukah / Solstice / Kwanza etc...). Here's to lots of relaxation, reading, eating, and other coziness for the next two weeks. I am defo set to turn my brain to off. Can't wait.

Check out the link for angelic goodness:
www.dcoy.ie

Glamo(u)rama

2007-12-03T14:01:00.000Z

Had our work Christmas Do (for the clients - our own staff do is still to come. ;) ). My boss invited his sister, who's a make-up artist to come in and do all of our faces for the party. (Well, all the women, we couldn't convince the guys to get into the eyeliner...). It was great fun. Most of us don't bother with make-up on a daily basis - no point in putting it on to sit in front of a computer all day - so it was fun to see everyone all dolled up.

As I always do, I went out with the best of intentions, it was a Wednesday night afterall and I was wearing heels... Alas, at 3:30am, after dancing my face off and drinking free G&Ts all night, I was still sitting in the pub. So much for sensible. It is the Christmas season after all.

As usual, I am making really stupid faces in all the photos - some things never change!

Tis the Season...

2007-11-18T15:16:00.000Z

Party season has begun. I look forward to the elongated Christmas celebrations in Ireland with a mixture of anticipation and horror. On one hand, it's all great fun: mulled wine and Christmas decorations, and a bit of banter and general good-will. There's a real 'kids on Christmas Eve' vibe to everything. People are a bit giddy and well up for anything and there's always some event to look forward to.

On the other hand, it's absolute drunken-ness on the streets of Dublin, playing dodge the puke during your Sunday Christmas shopping "adventures", pants that have suddenly become two sizes too small and best of all: waking up in the middle of the night with a mouth that tastes like an ashtray, a pounding headache and the vague feeling that you've said or done something wholly innappropriate which can then be replayed in yer head through the wee hours of the morning until it becomes an elephant sized disaster and you think that perhaps it would be best to pack yer bags and jump on the next plane to a new life. (but maybe that's just me. ;) )

In the States in general and New England in particular, we have two things that moderate all of this good fun/complete excess: Thanksgiving and Puritans. Without Thanksgiving to mediate, Ireland moves from fairly muted Halloween fesitivities into two months of full-on, hard-core Christmas debauchery on Nov. 1st. The Christmas decorations go up, Marks and Spencer start showing dessert porn on TV (super-close up shots of sticky-toffee pudding, dripping with creme anglais and some husky voiced female in the background: "Not just Sticky-toffee-pudding, M&S Stiiiiccccckkkkyyyy-toffffeeeee-puddddding"), and best/worst of all, the partys begin. In addition to the easing into the Christmas season that Thanksgiving provides, we New Englanders have a history of Puritanical self-denial. Sure we try to fight it, we're cosmopolitan, modern folk after all... ;) but there's a little man in a pilgrim hat somewhere inside of us that says, "perhaps you shouldn't have that fifth pink cocktail with a strawberry on top, you disgraceful, excessive slob, you should in fact, go off and whip yerself with tree branches instead while running on a treadmill and eating brocolli..." (well, maybe that's just me again... ;) ) Generally though, I think we New Englanders are a bit more reserved than yer average Dub and all this messy whiskey-induced emotion, absolute indulgence and carry-on of the holiday season is both absolutely compelling and a little bit overwhelming at the same time. Either way, there's no denying it's here.

More than enough food for thought

2007-11-13T17:41:00.000Z

I've been thinking alot lately about how people fnd meaning and purpose in their lives. Maybe because I've been reading alot - about a lot of horrible things really, honour killings, alcoholism, and global warming to name just a few. And whenever I read another article about poverty in Africa or sex trafficking or, insert social ill here, I'm upset/worried/pissed-off. And then I put down the article and go to bed and wake up in the morning and go to work and forget. I spend my days drawing little pictures and laying out type and giving careful consideration to kerning and clean lines and the relative merits of helvetica. ;) And for the most part, I enjoy this but it all seems rather insignificant when faced with all the broken things in the world that desperately need attention. Sure, I ride my bicycle and recycle and vote and try to work on projects that contribute to the greater good, like public gardens and literacy schemes but it seems like small potatoes in relation the worlds big woes... I was reading a collection of quotes today (for use in a book we are putting together at work) and I came across a couple that seemed really appropriate to my frame of mind these days... Maybe they just make me feel better about working at the "frivolous" job of art instead of working to end world hunger but they moved me and it's nice to find a little piece of inspiration now and again...

"Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, it’s unlikely you will step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume that there’s no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there’s a chance you may contribute to making a better world. The choice is yours."
Noam Chomsky

"What is success? To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; that is to have succeeded."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

html-mnop

2007-11-09T16:09:00.000Z

I've recently rediscovered the joys of html... After my horrendous first job in Ireland, I had serious web PTSD. ;) But I'm coming back to it... slowly. I'm building myself a personal website and having a bit of fun customizing the blog... Don't worry. I won't leave it all neon pink forever... but I'm craving a bit of colour after spending my day designing a corporate identity for a Human Resources Company.

Kingdom Come

2007-10-31T13:43:00.000Z

Took a trip to Co. Kerry last weekend aka "The Kingdom." It's a haul from Dublin (just getting out of Dublin during rush hour on the main roads would make ya cry.) When you get to Limerick, yer still only half way there... but finally, 6.5 hours later, Tommy-boy and I rolled into Dingle. We rented a house for the weekend with some friends and the place was completely sweet - with gorgeous views out the windows of mountain peaks and pastureland. Our first night in Dingle, we ended up in a pub which was also a hardware store called Foxxy Johns (I'm sure there's a story there...) It seems a lot of the pubs in Dingle lead a double life... not surprising considering there are 50 pubs in a village of a few thousand at most... Viva la tourism. Anyway, the pub-slash-hardware-store had a bar on one side and a counter on the other with a haphazard array of nails, screws and tools... The next night, after a day of sightseeing on the rugged coast and a big seafood feed, we again found ourselves in another local pub - but this time the pub doubled as a welly-shop. Boxes of wellys lined one of the walls along with pillows, raingear, mattress covers and a scale (for weighing the wellys?!). There was a big group of us as it was a birthday night out so we all plonked ourselves behind the welly counter on a long bench and got comfortable. :)

If any of you find yerselves on the remote southwestern shores of Irlanda, Defo stop in Dingle. I spent a few mornings wandering the village and in addition to the 50 pubs and the grocery store, the town is choc-a-bloc with galleries and craft shops and little cafes and bakeries and restaurants. (I certainly did my part to support the local economy. ;))

It was great to get out of Dublin for the weekend but the highpoint for me was surfing. It sounds a bit odd to be surfing in late October but if you have a good wetsuit, it's like wearing a seal, and probably just about as warm. ;) A fabulous friend (who organised the whole weekend and was a great tourguide) lent me her board and gave me my first surfing lesson. Despite the fact that I couldn't feel my feet after I left the water (it doesn't feel cold until you get out!), it was great times. I definitely want to give it another go...perhaps in the summertime though!

Local Colour

2007-10-02T16:38:00.000Z

By my New England standards, Ireland is completely lacking in proper seasons... I'm used to sweltering in a bathing suit in July and freezing in a snowsuit in February... Ireland could have you wearing jeans in July and well, jeans in January. And February. And April. There are really only two discernable seasons in Ireland: light and dark. In the summer it's light out until nearly midnight and in the winter it only gets light at 9am and stays light for a few anemic hours before the sun disappears again for 15 hours.

And so, with the closing of the summer (that never really happened weather-wise), I am trying to suck every last little bit of juice out of the remaining light and sun of the year. Autumnal light is arguably the most beautiful light of the year in any part of the northern hemisphere and is particularly lovely here. I took a late afternoon stroll through the neighborhood where I work, (which is called Ringsend) enjoying the warmth and sun. Ringsend is quinessential, old skool, docklands, Dublin but it's also undergoing a bit of revitalization / gentrification (depending on who you ask) with lots of new construction mixing with the old. Click on the pic above to see my hood in all it's gritty, glory.

Oh, but it is...

2007-09-17T12:39:00.001Z

It may not look like a wedding photo but click the pic above for photos of my lovely friends' wedding. The wedding was on Cape Cod on probably the most beautiful day of the summer. Go Jess and Shawn. :)

Wedding Season

2007-09-14T13:02:00.000Z

I went to two fabulous weddings this month, for a total of five this year and two more to go before Christmas. Is there somethin' in the water?! Click the pic above for my fabulous cousin's wedding. Unfortunately, there are fewer photos than I would have liked but perhaps I shouldn't have trusted the kodaking of the moment to a 9 year old... Oh well. ;)

Where am I?

2007-09-13T12:32:00.000Z

(Click the pic above for some pics of the Boston peeps.)

I'm back. My holidays are over and I'm sitting at my desk at my job in Dublin. There's a wee bit of sun peeking out but it's nothing compared to the glorious New England summer that I left behind in Boston.

I keep having dreams lately where people from my life in Dublin meet people from my life in Boston. The dreams dip in and out of time and place, with my college boyfriend (circa 1996) meeting up with my present-day self and my current boss in Ireland meeting my dad in the states. Sometimes the various people get on like a house-on-fire but mostly they can't relate and I start to stress when I realize they have nothing in common - I'm the only bridge that links them and I'm not enough. It's like a rugby fan trying to relate to a Roman history buff. They have no common ground on which to meet. It's all very disconcerting but really totally appropriate to my life right now - my head is in two places at once.

I struggle everytime I go "home," to Boston and then return to my "home" in Dublin adjusting to one place and then the other. I may be able to make it from my parents' house in Boston to my apartment in Dublin in the bones of a day but it takes much longer for my mind to catch up to my circumstance.

Right now, I'm almost there, trying to get back on the ride that is life in Dublin, but I am always aware of what I might be missing in the other place. No matter where I am, what country or continent, I am always thinking of someone who's not there.

Saunter On

2007-09-09T20:44:00.000Z

I've been away on a lovely holiday to the U.S. and A. for weddings, beaches, lobstah', family time, BBQs with my ladies, Walden Pond (and an unfortunate case of poison ivy.) I've been back for nearly a week but between going back to work, tossing and turning all night (cuz of the jet lag) and trying not to scratch, I still haven't managed to post the latest photos... So while yer all waiting with baited breath for visions of blue skies and warm weather photos, here's a little youtube gem. It's a *homemade*, Derry City (in Northern Ireland) version of that "united states of whatever" song, (whatever it's called.) It's pretty rough and rugged so if yer easily offended by the use of illicit drugs, premarital sex, street fights or giant ballbags beware... ;) They've pretty much jammed every Norn Iron colloquialism they could find into this song but unless yer well versed in the complexities of Norn Iron speak and can understand a thick Northy accent, good luck trying to cop it all. ;) I'm well used to the northys and their crazy long vowel sounds and even I struggled the first time I heard this one.

In case yer totally lost, "Saunter," is a Derry phrase which basically means, "F*ck Off / Piss Off or another colourful Nornism, "Take yerself away to f*ck."

Misunderestimations...

2007-08-13T12:41:00.000Z

Was in the office the other day and my work colleague was typing away, writing up something. He turned to the room and asked, "How do you spell Michael?" (The name Michael in Irish is pronounced: Mee-Hall.) Always wanting to be helpful, ;) I started spelling away: "Sure, it's M-E-A-T-B-A-L-L." After everyone in the room started laughing their asses off (except for one other colleague who also thought he was asking about how to spell meatball) I realized my mistake. Whoops. Mee-hall, meatball...same, same.

On the same mispronounciations and general word-mangling tip, I heard this story from a friend recently: She's a flight attendant on Aer Lingus and regularly works the Dublin to US destinations routes. She was standing in the airport in the states while the passengers filled out their flight boarding cards to board the plane to Ireland. An American woman approached her (Why are they always American?!) and pointed to a word on the boarding card. "I don't understand this," she said. "What don't you understand?" asked my friend. "This word," the passenger responded and pointed to the card, "Ser-nom-ie." After realizing that the woman was not talking about tidal waves in Southeast Asia, my friend realized that the word the passenger was pointing to was, "Surname." The correct pronounciation did nothing to help the clueless passenger who still didn't cop the fact that a surname is your last name.

In her travels, my flight attendant friend also ended up staying in the same hotel as a bunch of members of the SWAT team (who were at a SWAT team convention - who knew?). Apparently, their brawn is a whole lot bigger than their brains as a number of them thought that Belgium was in Ireland. Hello? Basic geography people. I told her that she should have asked them if Mexico was in the United States and see how they responded. ;)

Where do these people come from and why, why are they allowed to represent my homeland?!

Pushing up the Slieve

2007-08-08T12:23:00.000Z

The Bank Holiday weekends always inspire me to do something beyond laundry and a walk round the city centre. That extra day off seems to motivate everyone to take advantage of it. And so, Tommy-boy myself and a few friends found ourselves up in the Mourne Mountains for a day-long hike. The Mourne Mountain range rises abrubtly out of the sea and to an elevation of about 2,700 feet. On the drive from Dublin to Belfast (a drive I know all too well) they come dramatically into view just across the border into Co. Down and I've always wanted to climb in them.

After sorting out all the major details, the group of us picked out a mountain in the range to climb called Slieve Binian. It looked like a reasonable hike of about 8 miles and isn't the highest peak in the range so we thought we could all do it no bother... But sometimes the best laid plans fail... We drove along the coast for miles looking for the beginning of the trail and finally found what we thought was the Slieve Binian carpark...

We jumped on to a half-assed trail and just started to climb. And then we lost the trail but continued to climb. Everyone kept looking round asking, "Is that the trail?" There were a few mirage trails: "That's the trail, I see it up ahead!" Fortunately, since there are few to no trees on these mountains it's near impossible to get lost in them. Yer either going up towards the summit or down towards the sea.

Finally we came upon some other hikers with a map who informed us that we were not climbing Slive Binian but were in fact climbing, Slieve Donard, the highest mountain in the range and in NI. The hikers pointed us back in the direction of the real and actual trail (saving our ankles from prickly gorse and mud slides) and away we went. It was a good climb, with the last peak being the steepest and hardest and if it wasn't for my pride, I might have given up but was so very glad I didn't when I saw the incredible views from the summit.

All in, we were up and down the mountain in six hours, slightly weatherbeaten, midge eaten and with sore feet but otherwise feeling aces. If anyone's up for a hike... I'm in.

Daisy is a Lady

2007-08-03T12:45:00.000Z

From Jerry Springer to Fat-free Fro-Yo, there are many opportunities to shake my head and say, "Only in America," in that sad world-weary voice (also used for disappointing but slightly amusing children.) It's less often that I can say, "Only in Ireland," (unless we're talking about 43 straight days of rain). That is, untill now.

I came into work the other morning and my work-colleague was talking about a beauty pageant he'd been to the day before. Everyone was fussing over the contestants, dolling them up and getting them ready for show time. These little beauties were shiny-clean, and looking their very best, nails filed, lips painted, and perfectly groomed. You might be wondering what's so unusual about that, Beauty pageants happen every day all over the world, but the contestants in this affair, were not little Jon Benet Ramsays but were, in fact, Fresian Cows. It was an extravaganza of Bovine beauties... The cows were brushed and oiled (to show off their attractive black and white spots). They were placed in "decorative" pens complete with gingham drapes and milk jugs filled with wild flowers. They had their lips painted and their nose-hairs plucked and last but not least, these farmland hotties were fitted with special raised platforms to make them look taller. (No Joke!) After I stopped laughing and got back into my chair, I realised that I was actually disappointed to have missed it. Afterall, how often do you get the opportunity to go to a cow beauty pageant?! Seriously. Only in Ireland. ;)

Taking off my Aran Jumper and throwing it on the ground and stomping on it...

2007-07-19T12:42:00.000Z

Well. Finally. Just when I had given up and decided to slit my wrists, the sun appeared again. It was still lashing down last Friday afternoon when I set off with a big group of people to Co. Clare for the weekend. One of my softball friends turned 30 and she organised a big trip away with her friends from all over Ireland and everyone converged on the west coast on Friday night with rain gear and beer. After we'd all resigned ourselves to the fact that we were heading off camping in possibly the worst weather of the summer, we woke up on Saturday morning (in a hostel) to the most glorious day. This must be what people in drought feel like when it finally rains... It was absolutely divine. We took the ferry from a little town called Doolin over to Inis Oirr (pronounced Inishere), the smallest of the Aran Islands. On a bad day, I'd say a small island might be claustrophobic (nothin' to do but sit in the pub and get locked) but it was really, really, lovely on a hot sunny day. We spent the entire day outside, took walks, ate icecream, and generally soaked up the sun.

Since the weather was good, we decided to go fer it and camp. There's no campground on Inish Oirr so you just pitch your tent wherever suits. We found a sweet spot behind a dune on the beach and set down. Unfortunately one of the people who was supposed to bring a tent bailed and we found ourselves in the clown car situation of having 4 people trying to sleep in a 2 man tent... It's a good thing we stayed out until 3am at the pub - the less time spent in the tent, the better! In the end, there were only three of us in the tent but it was a serious tight squeeze! I really love camping, sleeping out in the air and waking up outside but I was a happy girl when I arrived home on Sunday night and snuggled into my lovely, warm, soft bed. And I only have to share it with one other person. ;)

I'd like to say that that streak of good weather continued... but that would clearly be too much to ask. I got actually drenched to the skin this morning as it poured buckets out of the sky during my entire 25 minute walk to work... It's lunchtime now and my jeans are still wet and my shoes are like two little lakes next to my desk. Monsoon season continues... Why exactly did I move to Ireland and not Tahiti?!

Click to pic above to see the exotic Irish sun making its brief appearance on Inis Oirr!

A Glasgow Kiss

2007-07-16T10:37:00.000Z

For those of you who might not be familiar with Glasgow, a "Glasgow Kiss," isn't a peck on the cheek but is actually a headbutt to the nose...

Contrary to popular opinion, we found Glaswegians to be beyond nice. Our taxi driver was super chatty, a random punter on the street gave me his subway ticket with free fare on it and everyone we talked to was generally extremely friendly and helpful. The reputation of Glaswegians as a bit rough and tumble probably has more to do with the fact that it's home to the world's most contentious football rivalry (Celtic vs. Rangers) than the nature of the population at large. In fact, Glasgow is full of incredible architecture (both Arts and Crafts and Victorian), a ton of free museums, lots of indie cafes and ethnic grocery stores and an enormous park that's both beautiful and seemingly well used. It's also home to a lot of people whose accent is completely indecipherable. I did a lot of smiling and nodding and whispering under my breath, "What the f*ck is he saying?!" The wedding ceremony might as well have been in latin. ;) Fortunately, most of the other wedding guests who were from Belfast (only a short distance away and with it's own mental accent) also had no idea what any of the Glaswegians were saying so I didn't feel so bad about my cluelessness...

We managed to stay out at the wedding until the wee hours of Saturday and still get up and get a bit of sightseeing in on Sunday. Amazingly there was a bit of sun in Scotland on our last day there. After my last trip there a few years ago, I was expecting an arctic chill. Climate change must be in effect when Glasgow is sunny and warm and Dublin is drowning in it's own precipitation.

What's that on my face?!!!!

2007-07-13T12:48:00.000Z

Well, it's certainly not sun. The running joke in these parts is that we wouldn't recognize the sun on our faces even if we saw it. Which we haven't. For, well, either 38 or 43 days according to various local radio stations. Sure, the sun's made a few brief appearances: one beautiful afternoon playing softball, a nice enough evening sitting at an outdoor cafe with my work-mates, but overall, it's been gray, gray, and more gray with rain that regularly lashes out of the sky making my umbrella into an inside out lollipop, totally useless for keeping me dry.

I think I'm going through the five stages of grieving now, and I certainly haven't gone anywhere near acceptance. I'm stuck somewhere between denial and anger. As I was having my daily whinge to Tom about another day of 'Fucking Rain,' he pointed out to me that when you grow up in Ireland, you just don't expect to have summer and that instead of summer, Ireland has beer. hhhhhmmmmm. Not a good enough trade as far as I'm concerned. As far as the weather goes, I've been drinking a lot more tea to cope than beer. My teeth are probably going to turn yellow and fall out. Either that or my poor over-caffienated heart is going to give out. Maybe I should switch to beer. Better a belly than heart palpatations... ;)

Yours in wet wellies,
D.

No. 31 has Arrived

2007-07-12T13:02:00.000Z

Making up for lost time... my all intimidating, milestone of a 30th birthday went by with a bit of a whimper so I decided that my 31st should be a proper piss-up. Pizza and red wine and communist bars and disco dancing and fat frogs in full effect. Click on the pic for the full badness. ;)

Work on Display

2007-07-06T13:09:00.000Z

Hey All,

After many months of work, the Dcoy website is up and running... If ya wanna see some recent work (some mine, some by our other sweet designers) have a look. The url is: www.dcoy.ie

Am off to Glasgow this weekend so photos of Scottish debauchery will be forthcoming. :)

International Rules

2007-06-12T20:24:00.001Z

Summer has finally truly arrived in Ireland with temperatures (drum-roll please) above the 70 degree mark. It was gorgeous on Saturday and one of my softball teamates suggested a picnic in the park. We ended up spending 5 hours there in flawless sunshine. Loveliness. I even played my first game of Cricket (with a couple of South African guys, an Ozzie, two Americans and a few of the local variety.) We even adopted a couple of Nigerian kids and added them to the game for a while. Practically a model UN! ;) We also had a throw-around with an American football but strangely I'm much better at Cricket than I am at football. I've never mastered the art of the spiral throw. All this sportiness was interspersed with bouts of eating...melting bits of cheese, strawberries and red wine handily disguised in plastic juice bottles.

Truly one of the best days I've had in a long time. The night ended (as they all do here) in the pub. It was great craic talking to people from all over the world about everything from the price of gold in Western Australia to the taste of springboc to Sex-Ed for 50-year-old Irish women to the best ways to get laid in Dallas if you happen to have an Australian accent (a long story...) And then there was the Lesbian Penis story (one for another day I promise. ;) ) Such good stuff. If only every day could be this warm and sunny and filled with good company and good beer.

Northy Goodness

2007-06-12T20:09:00.001Z

Here are a few photos from a recent trip to Donegal. It was Tommy's friend's 30th birthday and nearly 40 people converged on a tiny town in Donegal to celebrate. The first night, we all went out for a meal and then to the pub (of course) which featured a "local" band whose oldest member couldn't have been older than 15. (Check out the pic!)

It was one of those weekends that was a perfect mix of debauchery and ruggedness. A night at the pub follwed by a day spent outdoors. It was the first good weather of the summer and I was actually able to go swimming (with a wet suit of course!) in the icy Atlantic. I also borrowed a body board and I can't tell you how amazing it was to be in the water again after 10 months on dry land. I was meant to live in the tropics I think. If there's anything better than surf and sun, (even if the sun is weak and the water is subzero) I don't know what it is. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of our swimming adventures or the pristine beach we were on. (Fortunately, there are not photos of me in my wet suit... ;) ) Swimming was followed by a pub lunch in my favorite Donegal local. (I had raw oysters and soup and brown bread and hot port...Irish food at it's simple best.) And then a trip to a nearby waterfall and an evening spent sitting by a roaring fire. When Ireland is bad, it's cold and wet and dark and dismal, but when the sun shines on this little island, there is really nothing like it, and Donegal is it's pinnacle.

Age before Beauty?

2007-05-15T12:23:00.000Z

Time is cruel, at least that's what they say... As my 31st birthday approaches, I think I'm beginning to understand the phrase in a whole new way... Lest you think I'm about to blabber on about the passage of time or something that actually matters, let me reassure you that what I'm really on about is cellulite and crow's feet.

So... there I was, wandering through the aisles of Penneys looking for a cheap pair of track suit bottoms (that's sweat pants for my North American peeps). I found a few pairs that weren't pink and didn't say baby or hot-stuff or jail-bait on them and off I went to the dressing rooms. Now dressing rooms are just cruel places... maybe light is the real problem and not time cuz that greenish flourescent light would make Cindy Crawford look like $hit. I have always been slightly horrified by all the lumps and bumps of my physique in front of a full length mirror under that unforgiving light but I have now graduated to looking back and forth from my ass to my face with equal horror.... cottage cheese leg...crow's foot....lumpy tummy...laugh lines....dimply ass...furrowed brow. It's enough to make a girl run out the door and straight to the botox clinic. (Okay, maybe I do still have a few principles left. I'm not yet desperate enough to inject poisons into my face... but give me a few years.)

It's great to look forward to huh? A lifetime (well, maybe half a lifetime at this point) of insecurities and slow downhill slide. I'll have to start slathering my face with oil of olay while running on a treadmill, eating handfuls of anti-oxidant vitamins, and listening to stress-reducing new-age music on my ipod except that that sounds pretty horrible. Ah well, fuck it, I'd rather eat a bowl of ice-cream and take a nap... Does icecream have any anti-aging properties?

It seemed like a good idea at the time...

2007-05-09T12:39:00.000Z

Life has gotten ridiculously busy as of late. The softball season has started. Work has been mental and I've been spending my weekends everywhere but in my house. For now, here's a few wedding weekend photos to keep things ticking over... Went to a black-tie wedding a few weeks ago and snapped everyone in their monkey suit best. As seems to happen after a few drinks, we were all a bit giddy and decided that we should all do our best impressions of mafia bosses and trophy wives. Good thing I had a camera to kodak the moment. ;)

I've decided to give flickr the boot since they have been bought by Yahoo and are hiding half my photos in an effort to make me pay them to host my images so here's the trial run of my new photo hosting peeps, picasa. Click on the pic and see if they're any good.

Cheers.

Ahead of myself, behind the game

2007-04-10T16:31:00.000Z

I'm back on Irish soil and back into the routine and my to-do list is about five miles long (as it always is after you go away and neglect your everyday tasks for three weeks.) So... more Berlin updates and photos later, for now, here are a ridiculous amount of thailand photos for your viewing pleasure. Not sure how long the links will be valid but there are so many photos, I didn't want to clutter up my web photo archive, so kodak gallery it is... Happy viewing.
thailand 2007

From Bangkok to Berlin

2007-04-07T08:21:00.000Z

As you can see, I'm having a bit of wanderlust lately. Maybe it's because I've seen off a few friends lately on round the world trips and I want to get in on the action or maybe Tommy-boy and I were a little over zealous with the credit card this winter when the dark, dreary Irish winter was making us want to run in any direction as long as it was away from TV watching and stodgy-food and routine... Long story short, here I am, one week after returning from Thailand, in scenic Berlin. To be honest, when we had to get up at 4am the other morning to catch the flight, the thought of going anywhere other than my bed was pretty exhausting, but now that we're here, we're having a really good time. As soon as we arrived and saw the amazing architecture, street upon street of trendy cafes and boutique shops and incredible museums, I immediately got my second wind. We went to a really interesting exhibition yesterday called 'art and propoganda' which explored the way that Germany, Italy, The Soviet Union, and the US used visual mediums to promote their agendas in the 1930s and 1940s. Incredible stuff. There was everything from the WPA photographers (Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans etc...) and Norman Rockwell illustrations to Italian futurist portraits of Mussolini and El Lissitzky Russian Constructivist Posters... and of course plenty of disturbing Nazi propaganda. The whole exhibition was housed in an I.M Pei building (very modern, lots of geometry and glass) which is connected to the German History museum next door which is housed in a baroque German building with a central coutryard full of artists and designers peddling their wares. So far, Berlin has been full of great art, architecture and design interspersed with kick-ass cafe culture and a damn good pint o' German beer now and again. Not bad at all.

More than a taste for Thai

2007-03-28T08:16:00.000Z

Green Papaya Salad is my new favorite food! We went out for dinner last night at a little restaurant in a bamboo hut along the main road in Ko Lanta and had yet another amazing thai feast. Green Papaya salad is a little slice of heaven: Shredded green papaya with a little shredded carrot, roasted peanut and sometimes string beans or cucumber with some kind of sweet citrusy sauce made of lime juice and possibly a little papaya juice or sugar and maybe a dash of fish sauce. It is incredible. We've decided to take a half day thai cooking class while we're here so hopefully I'll be able to find out exactly what's in it and replicate it back home cuz I don't think I can live without it.

So far, Thailand has been the only country (outside of Italy of course) where I can happily eat the local food every day for every meal and be completely happy about it. It's so light and so full of all my favorite things, fresh veggies, noodles, rice, fresh chilis, lime, lemongrass and basil and seafood of all varieties. In the nearly two weeks, I've been here, I have only had one bad meal (the saltiest pad thai ever in a beachside place now known to us only as the MSG Hut... haha.) Last night, Tommy boy and my lady friends took a long walk on the beach at sunset. It's great to be able to follow the light and tide so closely and watch how they interact and change. Sure beats looking at a computer screen all day. Anyway, the fisherman come up on the beaches at sunset and fill their longtail boats with fish and other seafood: giant crabs, and red and white snapper and giant prawns and barracuda and they build these roaring fires to cook them on. The diners pick their fish where it gets weighed and tossed onto the barbecue to join the already cooking whole potatoes wrapped in foil roasting on the grills. They also set up tables with fresh salads and pots of sticky rice. God, did I say I love thai food yet!

The best thing about it, is that unlike France where I ate cheese by the truckload or Spain where I lived on Pico e Pane (bread and crackers), you can eat thai food all day and still look halfway decent in a bikini. Good stuff.

Creature Comforts

2007-03-27T07:13:00.000Z

I was walking on the beach last night around midnight with Tom and we were looking up at all the stars. Now, I don't know much about astronomy but it really looked to us like we saw the big dipper... except that it was upside down and in a corner of the sky. If that's really the case and we're not astronomical idiots, it is my first glimpse into a completely foreign sky, a truly different perspective on the earth. It was quite something... The beach was almost entirely empty at that point except for a few lanterns lighting up a few bars and some roving wild dogs exploring the beach who kept running up between Tom and I, appearing in the dark. Thailand is a place lived much nearer to the creatures of the world than my sanitised apartment in Dublin. You are hardly ever without company of some sort, whether it be insect or amphibian. At first, it's a little disconcerting, being used to a creature-free life but after a while, it becomes kind of great. There are geckos large and small absolutely everywhere and in every colour and size. The biggest ones, hide in the rafters and croak like throaty frogs and happily, they all eat bugs. There are frogs and toads, albino and spotted, hiding behind the bathroom mirror and in the grass. There are birds making all sorts of sounds in the trees that seem to big and impressive for bird-song. There are (unfortunately) cockroaches the size of my palm skittering about at sunset and (yikes) crawling up the bathroom pipes in our first bungalow. There are cats and dogs everywhere (looking decrepit and half-dead in Bangkok but vibrant and playful on the islands.) Roosters and geese appear where you least expect them, on city streets and inside doorways of houses. There are butterflies that seem to glide and then fall and then glide again in a least graceful manner. And then there's the beach... Hermit crabs of all sizes in all types of Crab accomodation. Giant Squid, Puffer-fish, sand crabs and shellfish. It's Life with a capital L and it surrounds you and envelops you. Geckos eating ants and ants eating geckos, Crabs eating squid and birds eating crabs. At first it makes you a little squeamish, even as you try to pretend that it's perfectly grand but after a few days, it's wonderful because everywhere you go, you discover something new (or it discovers you.) I could definitely get used to this (cockroaches excepted of course!)

Well my time has run out once again. I apologize if these blog entries read like a diary. It's hard to organise my thoughts and coherently spit back out all of my experiences here while I'm racing the clock and the slow internet connections (and roosters and thai babies and sunstroke...haha.)

Back to the beach!

Snorkel heaven, Tuk-Tuks and Thai Babies

2007-03-26T03:15:00.000Z

Snorkelling is my new favorite thing. :) Tommy-boy and I have gone twice on this trip and both times, it was like swimming in a tropical fish tank. The first trip left from Khao Lak and was a day trip to the Ko Similan islands. The boat takes you out to various reefs and just dumps you in the water for about 45 minutes at a time and what you see is incredible. Coral in all colours waving in the water, fish of all sizes, with black and yellow stripes and aqua blue with shimmering pink scales, schools of fish which swim all around you, sea anemone and clownfish, parrotfish and zebra fish, and the water is a crystal green-blue. It's actually heaven. The Ko Similans are the epitome of a tropical paradise... white sand, palms and clear water and they're a national park so they're protected from development. The other snorkeling trip we took left from Ko Lanta and took us to another national park island called Ko Rok. Both trips offered spectacular trips and by the second trip, Tommy-boy (who was nervous about snorkeling at first) was the first one off of the boat and the last one one and was dragging me around the reef to point out fish and coral. It was great to see.

We left Khao Lak on Friday morning and had to flag down a bus on the side of the road to make the two-hour journey to Phuket (for 90 baht per person - the equivalent of 2 euro!). It was a local bus with piped in Thai elevator music...haha... but it was air-conditioned and we made it to Phuket in good time. After that we had to find a taxi. The drivers get kick backs for delivering farangs to various tourist industries and bartering for fare is standard so getting a taxi can be a bit more complicated than it seems... As soon as we arrive in any given place, we're swarmed with people yelling, "taxi!" "tuk-tuk!" etc... and you have to wade through and try to figure out who looks reputable and who will take you where you want to go for a reasonable price. After walking around Phuket for a while, we got ourselves a reasonably priced taxi and made it to the pier. Unfortunately, the ferry operators decided to jack the price up by a few hundred baht and since the ferry route goes through Ko Phi-Phi which is tourist central, we had no choice but to pay. The ride was thankfully smooth and airconditioned and we ate pineapple on a stick and settled in for a few hours until we literally had to jump from one boat to the next to get from the Phi-Phi boat to the smaller boat which would take us to Ko Lanta.

We took the Ko Lanta version of a tuk-tuk to our bungalows when we arrived at the pier which is a motorbike fitted with a roof and side car with a long bench. You can get five people into these things! The transport has been creative to say the least! It was such a relief to arrive in Ko Lanta after an entire day on buses and boats and when we arrived, our friends, Jess and Melinda were sitting by the ocean waiting for us. Loveliness.

We've decided to base ourselves from Ko Lanta for the rest of our trip. This island is beautiful and there are so many things to do. There are small thai children who want to get onto this computer and a rooster keeps crowing from somewhere behind me so I'm off. More later.

Cheers.
D.

More bang for your Baht

2007-03-24T04:49:00.000Z

Hi All,

Sorry for the long silence but I've been away from the internet for the past couple days, and god knows that can be a good thing sometimes. I am having such a blast here, I don't know where to even start. We've done so much over the past week.

The rest of our stay in Bangkok involved a trip to an incredible temple Wat Po which has an enormous, gilded reclining buddha inside an equally bejeweled temple. Even the buddha's feet are inlaid with mother of pearl. We took a ferry up river to get there which gave us a great view of a bunch of other riverside temples and then we took it back down to chinatown where we wandered through the flower and vegetable market and ate a tasty indian dinner in the tiny restaurant hidden down an alley. The kitchen was next to the restaurant down this alley and we could see the cook making kebabs. The Rough guide reccommended it or we never would have found it and given the cleanliness... or lack there of, of chinatown, we were a bit skeptical but the food was delicious, light nan breads, and indian curries and cool lime soda...mmmm. We also hit up the Bangkok aquariam which featured an enormous coral reef and shark tank. Strangely, it also had corporate sponsorship which manifested itself in brand name washing machines and cars converted into tropical fish aquariams... cool but wierd. The next day we got up early and went to tour "Jim Thompson's House" which was put together by this American who was born in 1907 in Delaware and fell in love with Thailand after being stationed there for some reason. He brought together six traditional thai houses from various parts of thailand and had the disassembled and brought to Bangkok where he had them put back together again and interconnected to make one large compound. Thai architecture is very minimal looking on the inside and very much to my taste, lots of dark wood and clean lines and open air. There was also a glorious garden with lush tropical vegetation and flowers and sculpture.

We learned the value of bartering at the Patpong night markets where all the vendors quote ridiculous prices just to see if anyone is dumb enough to take the bait. I still probably got stroked but picked up a great pair of beach shorts and handbag for under a tenner. The Patpong market is also home to the Thai sex industry so while trying to buy cheap asian goods, the farangs are accosted by people trying to sell you the ping-pong show... while beautiful thai prostitutes lean out of doorways in black bikinis. I'll leave the mechanics of the ping-pong show to your imagination but the ping-pong is not the only feature of these thai sex shows... the touts hand you a list of other things that these women do with their "lady gardens". Yikes.

Tuesday was a traveling day and we flew to phuket and took a taxi up to Khao Lak. The taxi driver was a boy-racer who overtook motor-bikes, tuk-tuks and songthaews with ease and none of the taxis have seatbelts! Luckily we arrived in one piece to Poseidon Bungalows down a dusty, dirt road onto a beautful ocean front outcropping. Our wooden bungalow was on the end of the path and had a little porch looking out onto a wide blue sea with pink hibiscus flowers blooming all around it. We spent the first day moving from the beach to the open air restaurant and just tried to adjust to the fact that we were truly and properly on our holidays!

Well, I haven't caught you up yet, but I've been sitting here for too long already and it's time to get back into the sun. More on the Ko Similian and Ko Lanta islands soon.

Lots of Love from tropical climes.

D.

Sawasdee from Thailand!

2007-03-18T15:19:00.000Z

After a ridiculously long flight sandwiched between a 68 year old Christian Missionary and a snoring Tommy-boy, I have made it to Bangkok, our first stop in our uber accelerated bakcpacking holiday. Good stuff. So, far it's been fabulous, even the twelve hours of flying wasn't as bad as it could've been. Thai Airlines kicks ass. The food is quite edible, they come around periodically offering you all the booze, water, mango juice etc... that you could want to drink. They put orchids and free toothbrushes (new ones!) in the loos and then present you with a fresh pink, orchid pin on your departure. So, far we've found the thai's to be really friendly and lovely (bar a few randomers who come up pretending to be your friend and then try to sell you stuff... but you can't really blame them for trying.) We were able to check into our hotel early in the morning and get a much needed kip in before braving the city and the day.

It's hard to know where to start in describing Bangkok. It is definitely not for the faint hearted! According to our taxi driver, Bangkok is home to 11 million people and feels nearly endless in it'size. It's hot, hot, hot, like the hottest August day in Boston (not that I'm complaining!) and wherever you go you are hit with smells both horrendous and heavenly. It's got everything from the fanciest uber-modern, air-conned malls to the most derelict corners complete with mangy stray dogs, half-collapsed buildings and the occasional rooster. The whole place is an explosion in colour. The Wats (temples) are grand, gilded, palace like structures full of colourfully dressed people and delicious incense sticks burning in the bases of potted plants sprouting bright yellow flowers. The tuk-tuks are bright blues and greens and the taxi's are electric pink. There are vivid little shrines built in random corners like the edge of an open market or on a building site to bring good luck (I think.) We rode about 5 km in a tuk-tuk tonight to come up to Khao San Road (backpacker land) and it was fabulous to see Thailand whizzing by at night, with it's monuments and street vendors and the wind blowing in on all sides. We arrived in one piece despite the fact that road safety seems to be significantly less interested in safety than any other place I've ever been. Throngs of people can be seen stuffed into the back of open pick-ups and speeding down the highway. While riding in the tuk-tuk, we saw two young thai women and a baby of about 2 all riding along beside us on a motorbike (with no helmets.)

We also went to the Chatachuk market today which is an enormous, densely packed open market made up of interconnected tin shacks and open air stalls creating a maze of every possible item you could imagine. You could buy everything from knock-off adidas trainers, to strawberry smoothies, to necklaces, to fried locusts to chopsticks. It was amazing fun to browse through all of this stuff (especially as most of it costs pennies.) We ate our first street vendor food, super-spicy bowls of noodles and extra cold bottles of water.

Tonight, we've been exploring Khao San Road, an overload of neon and street stalls and tanned backpackers and thai babies all flowing en masse down a little strip of road. We had the most incredible thai dinner at an outdoor restaurant, Singha and red curry and noodles and fresh rolls and brown rice. Heaven.

Now, the lack of a proper night's sleep for the past few days is catching up and I'm almost out of internet time, so that's all for today. More soon.

Lotsa love to you all.

D.

Sat Nav in Norn Iron

2007-03-09T17:16:00.000Z

That's Satellite Navigation in Northem Ireland for those of you not familiar with a) modern technology or b) the local vernacular of a contested area of the world in the North of Ireland. Check out this hilarious wind-up. Good luck even understanding the 'Jon Joe' if yer not familiar with the Norn Iron accent...

www.scrabo.co.uk/jonjoead.mp3
www.jonjoe.net

The Darndest Things...

2007-03-09T16:08:00.000Z

Funerals are a bit different all over the world but I find that no matter where they are, the coming together of family and friends mean that all of the best, funniest, stories come out, some may be those family stories that everyone’s heard a million times and some come out of the blue. Here’s one for the archives:

It was the late 1970’s and Tommy-boy was only a wee thing toddling around Belfast with his mummy and daddy. They had a friend who was not only a bit clumsy but also a bit of a potty mouth and was prone to saying, “f*cking Jesus” whenever he dropped something/stubbed his toe/lost his keys etc…

Fast forward a few months and wee Tommy is in the local butcher shop with his mommy. It’s packed out with people getting their shopping in. Now I don’t know if this is actually true but I imagine the other shoppers to be mostly women, perhaps middle-aged moms and grannies getting the meat for Sunday lunch; a solidly ‘good-Catholic’ type of North Belfast lady and I imagine that the butchers was a small shop, a little local hole-in-the-wall (as it still is today.) So, Tommy and Mommy are in the queue. The lady in front of them is placing her order and asks the butcher what kind of cheeses he has today at which point wee Tommy looks up and says to his mommy (and inadvertantly the whole shop) “fucking cheeses.”

The Media Show

2007-03-01T16:08:00.000Z

Check out my place of employment. The Media Show did a piece on the role of Graphic Design in Marketing and came to Dcoy (my office) for a visit. The license tender that the segment is discussing precedes me but hey, if you can tolerate all the market-speak, you can see my office and co-workers and yours truly pretending to discuss big-important matters with the sound turned off. ;)

A little Slice of Sweden

2007-02-21T14:01:00.001Z

IMG_6112
Originally uploaded by di_juice.

Tommy boy and I took a lil trip to Stockholm last weekend and all you get are these stupid photographs... ;)

It wasn't actually as cold as it looks, the temperature hovered around freezing but god love us, it was dry the entire time and unlike Ireland, the buildings were all lovely and warm inside. With hats and gloves and scarves, we were more than happy to spend most of the days outside wandering Stockholm's archipelego...

Sweden may be kinda cold and a bit dark but what a happy place. Gorgeous food, gorgeous architecture, gorgeous interior design, gorgeous people, gorgeous parks, gorgeous waterways and lots of happy healthy looking children running around looking red-cheeked and well, happy. Kind of like the world of the stepford wives if they had better taste (and weren't robots...)

We stayed in a sweet hotel with (of course) super-modern ultra-hipster swedish interior design, lots of Marimeko style textiles, light coloured wood and clean minimalist lines not to mention, big windows, modern art installations and a breakfast to knock you on your ass. I ate homemade waffles with cream and jam, softboiled eggs, Swedish bread, Swedish cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles and a mug of cafe au lait every morning (no, not on the same plate!) kinda like a gourmet version of the college dining hall. Thank god I don't have access to that kind of grub everyday or I would be the size of a house...haha.

Tommy and I walked the city from top to bottom everyday, highlights included touring a 17th century Swedish warship that was perfectly preserved, walking the medieval city (gamla stan) with it's narrow laneways and beautiful squares (very similar to the look of Cadiz in Spain or the old town in Nice, France...) and eating chocolate cake and beer in the middle of the day while looking over the most beautiful view of several of Stockholms major islands.

We started our days visiting our fancy-pants hotel gym and ended them kicking it in the fancy-pants hotel sauna. There were several delicious meals had with equally delicious (and expensive-yikes) bottles of wine. There was much fish to be had and much of it to be had raw. (Had amazing sushi and kick ass tuna carpacio.) There was shopping in ridiculously tasteful "malls" and neighborhoods and there was coffee in a hipster dive of a coffee-shop on a Sunday morning. All Good stuff.

If I could speak Swedish, I might have to relocate... although I just might miss the toothless bartenders and dive bars and dirty streets of Dublin too much. ;)

The Hell of a Thousand Sports

2007-02-07T13:23:00.000Z

My ex-boyfriend's father used to call my girlfriends and I, "The Hell of a Thousand Mouths" when we got together... but this my friends is something altogether more horrendous and sinister: "The Hell of a Thousand Sports." It's what happens when 2 premiership "football" matches, 1 Six Nations Rugby game, and The Superbowl all happen on the same day. I'm lucky to be here I tell ya.

I managed to avoid active spectatorship of the Manchester United and Celtic games (although I was forced to listen to a bit of Glasgow Celtic on the radio.) I watched the Rugby with Tom and Family in Belfast which was mostly more painful for the players than it was for me since I was comfortably ensconsed on the couch in Tom's parents house and able to periodically doze off when I got bored. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for The Superbowl. My first mistake was going out at all when I already had the beginnings of a cold and two previous nights of partying under my belt. My second mistake was letting Tommy boy talk me into wearing my seriously high-heeled boots out of the house. We started out at a bar on one side of the city centre and after realising that we couldn't reasonably be expected to listen to the faux-American DJ guy marketing various sponsors, we split across town to another bar that we thought *wrongly* would be less crowded and less of a wank-fest.

By the time we arrived at Bar No. 2, my feet were falling off me and the place was absolutely packed. We soon realised that this was because all the Rugby and Soccer fans had been sitting in the place all day long. The first soccer game kicked off at around noon and we arrived at around 11pm so you can imagine the messiness and chaos that ensued. we had to wade into a corner to try and get a square of space near a TV and were surrounded by a charming mix of Extremely Drunk Irish Rugby fans singing and yelling "Chug, Chug, Chug" at the top of their lungs while spilling pints on anyone in the general vicinity and Rowdy Testosterone filled Yanks yelling "U-S-A, U-S-A" and jockeying for any kind of TV Space while messily eating 1 euro Hot Dogs. To add insult to injury, there was a hard-core meat-market vibe to the place and I can't count the number of $hitfaced guys who decided to grace me with their presence by asking inane questions and spilling beer on my shoes. Oh, the joy.

Who would've thought that the Superbowl could actually be worse outside of states. Football + Rugby + Soccer + Drunks + Crowds + Uncomfortable Shoes - Guacamole and comfortable seating arrangements and chicken wings = Hell.

I'm only just recovering now and it's Wednesday. If I see a football I might curl up in the fetal position and start rocking back and forth and drooling.

From Malaysia to Me(h)ico...

2007-01-28T11:11:00.000Z

What's the connection you ask? Well, for those of you who might not commit every exciting blog entry I post to your eternal memory, let me remind you... I was at a wedding last summer in Belfast when one of the guests asked me if I was Malaysian...

And now, faithful readers, my seemingly ellusive ethnic identity is causing Irish people from Dublin to Belfast a surprising amount of confusion...

So. I found myself in the foyer of a large Irish bank, setting up with a local photographer. We were faced with the fun task of shooting the board of directors for an annual report that I'm in the midst of designing. (with a camera!) The execs were late (of course) and my job as "art director" (!) was pretty much sorted so the photographer and I were just chatting away waiting for a bunch o' middle aged peeps with expensive clothes and bad teeth to show their lovely faces for the camera. American politics and culture came up (as it does) as well as Irish immigration (and my place in it.) The photographer asked me about my Irish ethnic background (or lack there of). "You don't have any Irish background, sure ya don't?" and then the hillariousnesss, "You're Mexican right?" I thought he was joking and had a laugh only to realise that he was completely serious... Amazing. I'm kinda loving this exotic new background I've got... It's as if they've never seen anyone with brown hair and eyes... I'm a Mexican-Malaysian-Italian-American mutt... haha.

Oh, and Irish of course. I found myself at Finnbarr's G.A.A. Club in Cabra last night (at some guys 40th birthday party) where I met a guy with the most amazing (!) tatoo I have ever, ever seen! ;) He had quite a beer belly and around the belly button was written in orange, white and green in a celticy-cartoony font, "Made in" (curving above the navel) "Ireland" (curving below the navel.) When he found out I live in Dublin, he was like, "Ah, yer half Irish then," before asking me to dance with him to the a cappella version of "Living on a Prayer" being belted out by a guy with a Tina Turner wig who was part of a two man "cover band" with a propensity for Tiffany and Abba covers. God, if only I had a camera.

Cheers, from the land of Mexican-Malaysian foreigners mingling with girls in gold, spandex dresses hanging out with guys with bad tatoos eating cocktail sausages and pints of cider in North Dublin on a Saturday night. Viva la difference!

The Pursuit of Happiness

2007-01-14T16:38:00.000Z

January pretty much sucks doesn't it? Christmas and the holiday mad-rush, drinking like a fish and eating like an elephant days are over but it's still dark and cold and here in Ireland, there's not a bank holiday in sight until April.

Maybe because I'm sitting here listening to "Breathe Me," by Sia (that song that's played at the end of Six Feet Under when Claire is driving cross country and everybody dies... ;) ) or maybe it's because Tommy's away in Manchester and I have the house to myself, but I'm feeling so very January today... Introspective and slightly moody and thinking about where I've come from and where I'm going and all that.

Life is so quiet these days. I get up, I go to work. My job no longer gives me a heart-attack the way that freelancing in different offices all the time did. I chat with the co-workers, eat some toast, drink some tea, do some design... I bike home, turn on the heat, cook up some dinner, watch a little channel four wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, perhaps a fire in the fireplace, read a little bit of whatever I happen to be into at the moment, turn on the 'lectric blanket and hit the hay. It's so lovely and comfortable in some ways, but it's also so repetitive and boring as well and the Januaryness of it all just sends me into myself... It's like no matter how old I get, there is still an angsty teenage girl inside me, walking around smalltown America in combat boots, listening to her walkman, all heart and no head, and wondering, "Where is my life going to take me?"

I moved halfway across the world to see if I could make it work and Damn, it actually works. I have created a life for myself that is what you could call successful, happy, fun, all kinds of good things but as is the way, life is life wherever you choose to live it. You still have to get up and go to work and do the laundry and pay the bills. I wonder if we're all just a bunch of junkies in a way... looking for the next emotional fix. If things get too tumultuous than of course, we look for the rock but it seems to me that the reverse is just as true. When things get too quiet, too routine, too mundane, we're not as greatful as we probably should be for the lull, we're off looking for the next challenge, the next adventure, the next heartbreak. We're all a little bit addicted to the drama... or maybe that's just me. ;) Perhaps, I just need a vacation but I suspect that it's in my nature to walk around the streets of my own mind like a teenager with a walkman, to feel things both good and bad in a pretty intense way. Maybe that's the blessing of January... the yearly question to the self, "Where is my life taking me now?" ...and do I actually want to go there?

I hope that all of your Januarys are full of warm cups of tea and long naps and cuddles (and maybe some good Indian take-away and a DVD)...it's another year coming for us all bringing who knows what, for better or for worse and all the rest of it. The ride's beginning again... I suppose the trick is making sure to enjoy it.

Dreams of the forgotten child

2006-12-29T11:11:00.000Z

I woke up this morning from the strangest dream. I dreamt I was babysitting three kids, two older boys about 3 and 5 and a baby girl of maybe about a year... In the dream, I had sort of had these kids thrust upon me as they were the children of a friend of my parents and my mom had voluneered me for the job. My mom and the three kids drove me into the art college (don't ask me which one) and I jumped out and went inside. She met me inside with the two boys but we both totally and completely forgot about the baby. About an hour later, I suddenly realized, Omigod, the baby is still in the car! I told my mother who seemed less concerned and stopped to chat with a friend on the way back to the car. In the dream, I was running, running, through the underground carpark trying to get back to the car and thinking that I had probably killed my parents friends baby. Everything started to go in slow-motion and then I woke up before I could make it to the car.

Since I'm on my holidays at the moment and didn't have to get up, I promptly fell back asleep and continued the dream. The baby wasn't dead but its parents were due back bery soon when I realized that I had completely forgotten to feed or change the kids diapers. When I gave her a bit of food, she absolutely devoured it. Then the kids parents came back and my mom felt the need to come clean about leaving the kid in the car. I was like, "No, don't tell them, what they don't know won't hurt them.." but she insisted so I pointed out that it was really her fault because she had taken the kids out of the car.

Then the parents took all the kids. (They didn't seem so upset about the car incident) and they left and went and got on a plane. The plane then crashed right into the art college and we all had to run and hide so as not to get hit by bits of exploding plane...

Is this a sign that I'm not ready to procreate????!!!! Maybe you shouldn't let me babysit your kids...haha....

For those of us who don't believe or don't know what to believe...

2006-12-12T13:35:00.000Z

Poetry is religion for heathens... This poem came (once again) in an email from my lovely mother... author unknown.

Lute Music

The Earth will be going on a long time
Before it finally freezes;
Men will be on it; they will take names,
Give their deeds reasons.
We will be here only
As chemical constituents—
A small franchise indeed.
Right now we have lives,
Corpuscles, Ambitions, Caresses,
Like everybody had once—

Here at the year's end, at the feast
Of birth, let us bring to each other
The gifts brought once west through deserts—
The precious metal of our mingled hair,
The frankincense of enraptured arms and legs,
The myrrh of desperate, invincible kisses—
Let us celebrate the daily
Recurrent nativity of love,
The endless epiphany of our fluent selves,
While the earth rolls away under us
Into unknown snows and summers,
Into the untraveled spaces of the stars.

New uses for Old toys

2006-12-10T10:45:00.000Z

A strange phenomenon is afoot in the bathroom (loo, jacks, toilet or whatever else you want to call it.) Possibly this 'technology' is sweeping the world but it's so bizarre and ingenious that I kind of doubt anyone else has thought of it yet. The bathrooms of Dublin have turned into a teenage girls bedroom circa 1972 and blacklights have been installed in most of the toilets in pubs and club around the city. These blacklights are not replacing the main overhead lights but have been installed inside each toilet stall blocking out all natural or incandescent light as soon as you close the door. This has the strange effect of making you feel as if you've just landed in your own disco box or as if you should light up a spliff and pull out your Jimmy Hendrix posters. This blacklight trend is popping up all over town and I'm starting to be surprised when I go into a public toilet and the lights aren't there. Why blacklights you might ask? Has the Dublin City Council been watching 'Dazed and Confused' one too many times? Are lava lamps the next natural step? This is where the strange genius comes in (and the sinister side of Dublin comes out.) Apparently, black lights are junkie repellent. Maybe the death of the blacklight was due to all the hippies moving on to hard drugs as it is impossible to find a vein under blacklights. Who figured this out, I don't know, probably some ex-junkie turned city-beaurocrat who used to hang out at psychedelic parties in the 70's... but whoever's selling these bad boys is making a fortune, the junkies are going to have to retire to the alleys and the rest of us are forced to see all the day-glo lint and green freckles on our bodies while squatting over the pub jacks. Unfortunately blacklights seem to block out those wet pee spots on the toilet seat as well. mmmm....

One Great Big Sigh of Relief.

2006-11-19T16:37:00.000Z

Units of Alcohol: 0, Slices of Pizza: 6, Cups of Tea: 25, Radio Executives: 5, Circus photographs: 180 (edited down from 600), Hours of Overtime: 29.5.

I apologise once again for my blogging neglect but really and truly, I have a good excuse. After I organised a radio station circus (with a little help from an actual circus and one kick ass project manager ;) ) and got over 600 photographs, the hard work of actually putting together the related document kicked in. In case you're all lost, I was working on a licence tender document for a radio station which is basically a request to set up shop in a particular region. There's only one licence on offer at a time and the various radio entities all vie for it trying to out do the other contenders by producing a more amazing tender request.) Since the content for this document only showed up on Monday, it was literally, a circus in my office all week long culminating in a 20 hour work day on Friday that didn't wind down until half three in the morning followed by a 10 hour Saturday in the office getting all the artwork ready for print and designified. There was much stress, a bit of drama (as is the way when yer office is full of execs who have more money than God and know it). There were a few laughs, a few scares, one cartwheel (I was overtired, you can't blame me.) There was extreme overtiredness and tea and bicuits at three am when we finally got sign off on the content and lastly but definitely not leastly, there was 14 hours spent in my bed catching up on sleep last night followed by one extremely long and extremely hot shower.

Now that this baddie is out the door and gone to print, I feel like I've just been released from a passionate (yet destructive) love affair ;), a whirlwind romance where we met under auspicious circumstances, we flirted, there was that first kiss, the first fight, there were promises made and promises broken, there were tears, there were triumphs and at the end of the day, we parted, how could it be any other way?! and yet we left the closest of friends... And now. I'm a new woman and god, there's just so much time to not have to think about pagination and colour balance and the negative vs. the positive merits of clown imagery on the marketing intentions of the brand... haha. I'm free. Now I can officially turn my energy towards an upcoming holiday that for me, here, doesn't actually exist. Despite that unalterable fact which means that I will be at work next Thursday like every other ex-pat, I am organising a little 'Giving for the Thankless this Saturday which will involve lots of cooking and cooking of large, meaty birds. Since I've always had my Gourmet parents to turn to for large holiday feasts and I am for all intents and purposes a semi-vegetarian, I have never in my life attempted to cook a turkey... all I know is that you stick it in the oven and baste it sometimes... Well, it can't be harder than putting together a 400 page licence tender document can it?

Bank Holiday Lovelies

2006-10-30T19:19:00.000Z

Everyone loves a three day weekend (except my liver who looks forward with trepidation and back with horror...)

Work has been crazy busy lately (although I HAD to go to the circus last week to do RESEARCH so I can't really complain...even though it was technically a 16 hour day.) Three days of sleeping, drinking, eating, and other loveliness was well deserved. The party actually started on Thurs. night when one pint turned into last call with a couple of co-workers. The next day included a leaving do for another co-worker and therefore, bottles of wine needed to be drank (?) with lunch. Trying to go back to work and be productive after that was ridiculous, I tell ya.

I went to a "fancy dress party" friday night which is Ireland's strange and oddly innapropriate name for a costume party. (I guess if they called it a costume party everyone would show up with their suntan lotion and their bathing "costumes.") As it was pretty last minute, I just grabbed all my goth gear (fishnets, black clothes, leather bracelets, etc...) and had a friend pickup some white face paint and vampire teeth. Can't say I was very original but at least I wasn't lame and totally uncostumed like soooommmmmeeee people (Tom included.) There was lots of dancing and ghost lollipops and cool costumes to be had (and my liver got a much needed break if you don't count the bottles of wine we all drank with our tasty thai dinner pre-party.) Funny how no matter where you are there is always that one guy at a party who is ridiculously shitfaced, with or without really bad B.O. (with in this case) who runs around talking too loudly and trying to either start shit or vomit in your boots. This time, the guy was also one of those close dancers and the bang off him (as they say here) was worse than three day old feet. He was also strangely obssessed with talking about the 'ra and he wasn't from the North. Maybe that was supposed to be his costume, "disgruntled IRA man." He kept walking by people and saying Up the 'Ra and Tiocfaidh Ar La. (Note: Pronunciation of that bizarre looking alphabet vomit is "Chuckie - are - la," and is a nationalist slogan meaning, "Our day will come." Next time you find yerself hanging with a bunch of Northies talking about Chuckies, you can tell your own personal kneecapping story and they'll all think yer the coolest thing since sliced bread. ;) ) Anyway, other than wierd, smelly, drunk, political-rambling guy, it was a good night out and followed by that most necessary of a good, long, lie-in.

Had a couple people over fer dinner on Saturday night and Sunday was back at it with Tommy as we went to see the Scratch Perverts (Hip-hop / scratch DJs.) They didn't actually go on till 1am making me feel very old as I was already yawning by the time they showed up on stage. Had to drink multiple red-bulls (which I generally hate, btw) to stay awake. More dancing and minimal drinking was had and other than a few hundred smelly men in one smallish room, it was good times. We left round quarter to 3 and given that it was a bank holiday Sunday combined with Halloween, the streets were absolutely mental. It was like Dublin's 3am version of Times Square at rush hour. Hundreds of people everywhere in every state of "fancy dress" and every state of drunken debaucherousness. Temple bar is gross at the best of times at 3am on a weekend but this time, superman and his sexy nurse were the ones puking on their shoes. The excess of a drunken Dublin weekend is truly something to behold. It's filthy (read: dodge the growing pool of piss on the sidewalk coming from drunko in the corner; dodge the pile of puke and unidentifiable chunks of someone's stomach.) It's rowdy: ("You lookin' at me?") And yet, it's festive somehow. It picks you up and carries you along with all the allure of a train wreck. You just have to have one more look at the stumbling girl with a skirt so short that you can see her belly button. You have to see if that guy really is going to blow his hand off with that sparkler. It's like one big, dirty, drunken carnival... Watch yer step, like.

For a change of scenery, I woke up "early" this morning after staying out till 4am and went to meet up with a couple of people to watch another friend run the Dublin Marathon... From complete debachery to complete self-denial in a few hours. The Dublin of 11am is a far cry from the Dublin of 3am. I watched serious athletes looking like death warmed over as they crossed the 26 mile mark... and then I went home and took a nap.

Well, back to the grind tomorrow. If any of you plan to be in the Dublin area next Friday and want free tickets to the circus (so I can run around getting photos of ya...) give a holler. ;) If only I could beam you all over... Till then, Be good, be happy, and don't run any marathons or puke in any gutters.

I know why you really read this...

2006-10-17T12:34:00.000Z

Don't worry, I'd have to live her for 30 years before I would run out of new Irish slang for the blog. I'll take a break from discussing the meaning of life to bring you more of what you really want... Working in an office is an endless source of new slang... I practically have enough to write a book so here's a few of my new favorites:

Nosebag: Heard this one the other day while eating lunch with the co-workers and no, it doesn't have anything to do with white powder or American Psycho. One of the co's leaned over to the other and asked him, "Good nosebag?" In the great tradition of animal feed...I guess, she was asking him if his food was nice.

On the batter: There are so many ways to describe being on the piss in this place, it's truly amazing. Not sure where this one comes from unless it's a reference to the battering your head takes after a night of hard drinking.

A cuppa / A Rosie / Scald: In the words of Death Cab for Cutie, they're all, "different names for the same thing," that most important and ubiquitous drink, tea. Everyone in my office drinks at least three cups a day (and some as many as seven) so it's no surprise that there should be so many monikers for it. Several times a day I'm asked, "Anyone for a cuppa?" The less used cup of Rosie is one of those cockney rhyming things...A cup of Rosie Lee / Tea. I have absolutely no clue who she is and so far no one in the office does either...It's a mystery. A cup of scald is my favorite...so rough and ready and given how many times I burn the shite out of my mouth everyday, it's well apt.

Hummin: This one came up when we were trying to brainstorm a campaign for a bank at work and I found out that someone who's humming isn't necessarily singing in the rain. Said hummer is in fact just a smelly b*stard. Can be applied equally well to people or things... "That bathroom is hummin' since you've been in there." Quite a good one I think, especially for things that smell so bad, they're practically vibrating. I can think of a few people who fit the description but I suppose I won't name and shame you, ya smelly feckers.

Well, the list goes on but my lunch break doesn't so the rest will have to wait. Happy Tuesday, hope yer all enjoying yer nosebag and a cuppa.

The Grim Reaper at the Door

2006-10-14T10:17:00.000Z

I don't mean to be morbid but I've been thinking a lot lately about mortality. I found out yesterday that my English Professor from Hampshire College recently died at the age of 40 from Leukemia leaving behind a wife and children and a life only half lived. Looking through the Hampshire memorial section, I found three women ex-hampshire grads who all died last September in freak traffic accidents within 5 days of eachother. All we're young, recent grads, 21 or 22 years old and apparently well loved (although not known by me). I'm currently waiting for news on another person, a family friend to find out the extent of the Cancer eating into him (and the Dr's seem to be stringing him along - but that's another story all together.) Heard an anecdote at work the other day about a woman from Donegal, 32 years old, who felt ill a few weeks ago and died of Leukemia within a few days, again leaving small children behind.

We try to fool ourselves. I suppose we have to in order to function. We have to tell ourselves it won't happen to us. But who's to say. I sometimes wake up in the morning and think, today could be the last day of my life and I just don't know it yet. I was reading the blog of a friend this morning who was talking about the nature of fear and how sleeping outside in the pitch dark with nature's sounds all around made her think about the rise of religion and superstition and all the rest of it. We need to think that we're not alone in the dark. We need to think that our teddybear nightlight is powered by more than just electricity and that our mother will protect us from anything that might be lurking under the bed.

It would be so much easier to believe in a god in the sky, to really believe in that old lady phrase, "It was just her time," to be able to look up and think that there is a master plan, a method to the madness but I can't help thinking, when I lie in bed at night that shit just happens, randomly and for no good reason. Children are left without parents, Parents are left without children, grave injustices are perpetuated all over the world by the hands of other humans or the hands of fate or just plain bad luck.

My question is this, How do you live with this knowledge? How do you go about the mundane details of your day knowing how fragile and precious your life really is? How do you let the people you love walk out the door, knowing the world is out there for better or worse? I've always been a sensitive, ruminating type person but I can't possibly be the only person who thinks about these things and millions of people get out of bed every morning without a god to hold their hand, myself included. For those of us who don't prescribe to a religion with a big pappa in the clouds, who live without that teddy bear nightlight, where do you find your meaning, comfort and solace? How do you make sense of the monsters under the bed who are so much worse than you ever thought they were as a child?

A Softer, Silkier Rain with half the fat and twice the fibre?

2006-10-11T19:36:00.000Z

I should credit the following poem but to be honest, I'm not sure who wrote it. It came to me from my most fabulous mother who still manages to be the hippest 60something I know.

Hard Rain

After I heard It's a Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
played softly by an accordion quartet
through the ceiling speakers at the Springdale Shopping Mall,
I understood there's nothing
we can't pluck the stinger from,

nothing we can't turn into a soft drink flavor or a t-shirt.
Even serenity can become something horrible
if you make a commercial about it
using smiling, white-haired people

quoting Thoreau to sell retirement homes
in the Everglades, where the swamp has been
drained and bulldozed into a nineteen-hole golf course
with electrified alligator barriers.

You can't keep beating yourself up, Billy
I heard the therapist say on television
to the teenage murderer,
About all those people you killed—
You just have to be the best person you can be,

one day at a time—

and everybody in the audience claps and weeps a little,
because the level of deep feeling has been touched,
and they want to believe that
the power of Forgiveness is greater
than the power of Consequence, or History.

Dear Abby:
My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes and trousers
are covered with blood-
but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America.

I used to think I was not part of this,
that I could mind my own business and get along,

but that was just another song
that had been taught to me since birth—

whose words I was humming under my breath,
as I was walking through the Springdale Mall.

Too bad I spent my day creating posters for a building society so that it can more effectively peddle its personal loans to entrepreneurs and suckers alike... "I'm only a pawn in their game..."

How Now Brown Cow

2006-10-08T20:02:00.000Z

Okay so I did have a tan (a fairly dark one) and I did ask a question about Malaysia, but still...

I was at a wedding, less than 24 hours after landing in Ireland from Boston, I found myself in Belfast at said wedding schmoozing with people I sort of knew and plenty of people that I knew not at all. Tom's cousin had been showing off his Malaysian made suit earlier in the evening and pointing out how finely crafted it was. I saw another guy who had a similar looking suit (and a similar looking face - probably a brother or cousin of the Malaysian suit wearer) and I asked him if he also had his suits made in Malaysia...His wife (I think) looked at me in response and asked if I was Malaysian... Huh. I've been mistaken for many ethnicities...Spanish, Jewish, French but never in my whole life has anyone looked at me and thought, small Asian Island chain... To make matters even stranger, I was asked earlier in the evening by another wedding guest if I was from Belfast. An easy mistake, you might say, except this woman had heard me speaking more than a few sentences and unless she was asking me if I was from Belfast, ME, I really don't know how my Yank accent could have been missed...

So now I'm not sure if I'm exotic, ethnicity unknown in the eyes of the Irish or one of the locals...talk about Identity crisis. Tom's granny refers to me as the dark one (when she remembers me at all) but I think this is meant as a compliment or at least a simple descriptor to help her failing memory. How strange and somewhat wonderful to be exotic...except when I'm not... I think I better go research my family tree now... maybe I am actually Malaysian and just don't know it. I'd say cheerio in Malaysian except I don't speak it. So, uh, see ya all later.

a long holiday...

2006-09-28T16:18:00.000Z

It just doesn't seem right to jump back into ex-pat blogging without some explanation of where I've been for the last five weeks and why I've been away for so long... Most of you already know that I flew back to Boston for September to get married (again - second time, same man.) Wedding planning is first and foremost, ALOT of work so my poor wee blog was deprived. Apologies to all who were waiting with baited breath for the next installment ;).

To make a very long story a little shorter, here are some of the highlights of the month and season o' the wedding:

The shower: A Barbecue where it didn't rain and we managed to eat dinner for 40 (even though there were less than twenty of us there.) Tom called on the telly and somehow managed to talk shit to Marina about her new voiture and didn't get his teeth handed to him (he was 5,000 miles away afterall.) Lorraine coined the term vagiterian...don't ask... and I found myself the new owner of red silk lingerie and a pepper grinder with multiple settings (among other lovelies...) I also ate my face off...did I mention that. Culinary deliciousness by mom and the ladies. You go.

The Hen: Margarita's and Mexican food. The introduction of long-distance friends and family into my local calling area...heaven. The Cantab lounge where it was the Chicken Slacks (Soul Revival) anniversary gig and involved amazing soul music, a wierd R&B belly dancer, a circus act, and more booze than you can shake a stick at.

The rehearsal dinner: Afternoon mani-pedi's with the ladies, my cuz, my bro's g.f. Between the hair, nails and skin, I've never been so groomed in my life. Grooming follow by Upscale Chinese food (Damn, I really did a lot of eating, no wonder my pants don't fit...) All the Irishies and all the Yanks in one place. Once again, more food than I even thought possible. Beautiful tall vases of flowers, a surprise champagne toast, c/o a most thoughtful and ever generous friend, cosmopolitans, and general good will going on between all present. This month was just a love fest. Seriously. The night was ended with more candle-lit drinks and a swap of family for friends... wine and good conversation and the first time my bro and his friends met up with some of my friends... A crazy mixing of worlds all round. V. Nice.

The wedding: A little breakfast with Tommy boy at our B&B and then more mad grooming, exfoliating, shaving, hair, make-up, and a mad dash from the cosmetics counter back home to don the dress, and all the rest of it...By the time the wedding day actually came, I was much calmer and the pre-wedding preparations were a (mostly) happy chaos which involved running around my crowded house in a bustier and knickers yelling, "just pretend I'm wearing a bathing suit." Thanks to extreme helpfullness on the part of my friend/photographer and M.O.H/Cousin, it all came together pretty damn well and we made it to the venue on-time and in Beamer style. I was well nervous about the ceremony but managed not to trip over myself on the way down the aisle and while I was more fancy-pants looking than ever before, I still felt like myself, no long trainy bullshit or veil over my face or drag-queen make-up. I had always imagined that I would be completely stressed out during my own wedding but I have to say, I had a fukking blast. It really was a stellar, stellar, day. Beautiful tall orchids in black pots, that dappled autumn light everywhere, people handing me delicious things to eat and drink and most importantly, the company of almost all of my favorite people in one place all looking relaxed and happy. I could go on and on and tell you about the Irish musicians, or the mojitos or the giant vase of lemons and sprays of yellow and green flowers but I'll save the details for my journal and not bore you all with them. Needless to say, it was a peak experience for me, and all the more so for being mostly unexepectedly wonderful. I was never one of those little girls who played bride or imagined my wedding day. I never really gave it much thought at all... but it is definitely something I'll look back at more fondly than I ever looked forward to it. It really rocked.

Post-Wedding: More eating (of course). A brunch the next day...something like a mini-wedding part two (or three?) with bagels and quiches and casual clothes. One last hurrah before people started catching flights back from whence they came. The day ended with a drive to the end of the Cape (Cod that is...) and a search in the dark for our holiday house. The week on the Cape was a very, "This is your life," moment where people came and went, Irish and Americans, family and friends, and we had leisurely dinners, and gorgeous bike-rides, swims in the crisp atlantic, sunbathing, picnics, walks through provincetown admiring art galleries and drag queens, raw oysters on the pier, barbecues, afternoon naps... I had forgotten how much I love New England, how much I love warm, sunny, weather and wild atlantic beaches and quirky New Englanders who are everything from whiskery, reticent, fishermen, to half-dressed flamboyant hippies, to sunburned tourists with melting icecream cones... I love it all. Really I do.

In the interest of not writing a novel and completely intimidating any potential readers, I leave it here, the hole in my blog writing sufficiently filled. I'm back in Dublin and attempting to get back into the routine of my life here... Alas, the party's officially over, time to jump back into life as a stranger in a strange land. I'll keep y'all posted.

-D.

The hardwork of being a girl

2006-09-08T23:33:00.000Z

Fuuuuuuuuukkkkkkkkkk. I have been spray tanned, had my face prepped and primed and cleaned and coloured, had my hair coloured and sprayed and pinned and teased, had my boobs stuck into a madonna style bra that goes from my armpits to my waist in order to fit into a dress with a 27 inch waist. I've been moisturized and exfoliated and moisturized some more. The make-up artist at mac reccommended a 300 dollar facial to get rid of the "dead skin" and "fine lines and wrinkles" on my face (as if! 300 feckin dollars. They better fill my fine lines with gold leaf for that price.)

I guess there's a reason why celebrities look so good. It's a fulltime job and requires a bigtime pocketbook to look that sparkly. I feel like a mastercard ad: cut and highlight $200, wedding make-up done by goth guy wearing rainbow eyeshadow, $45. Nervous breakdown caused by wedding planning overload... priceless.

Why wasn't I born a boy? Shit, shower and shave sounds pretty fukin fabulous to me right now.

Why I hate Aer Lingus - Part II

2006-08-21T14:56:00.000Z

I should have titled this entry, why I love the Shannon Airport - Part I but since I like to complain, I'll just gloss over the fact that the Shannon airport has free wifi which does actually rock when you find that your flights been delayed for an hour and you've already been waiting an hour for said connecting flight. Bast*rds. So, here I am in Shannon, been here since around 2pm and my flight was supposed to leave 15 minutes ago. Argh. So close and yet so far... I am actually dreaming of homemade pesto and tomatoes from my parents garden and yet... am surrounded by rambunctious American children, giant bags of tayto and cadbury vending machines, all conspiring to make me a) cranky and b) fat. I will do my best to love the wifi and stave off a desire to eat ten bags of crisps and someday, gawdwilling, I'll see you all in Boston. At least, I've managed to escape from the mid-western jesus-geeks student group I was traveling with from Dublin. The best shirt yet: GAP (in giant letters, not unlike the ubiquitous clothing brand of sweatshop fame). Underneath the words GAP, the phrase: God Answers Prayers. Well, jesus, if yer up there, can you get me to Boston sometime this century??? Onwards and upwards.

From A to Zed

2006-08-20T19:21:00.000Z

Here's another batch of Irishisms for the foreign ear. I never get tired of this.

Naf - Usage: "That club sounds completely naf with its lads in track suits dancing to white boy hip-hop." Have to say I love this one... almost as good as manky, naf is used to describe something supremely cheesy, tacky or otherwise lame.

Gaff - Today is rhyming day. Don't ask me why I decided that naf has one f but gaff has two... but it's my blog so I get to do the spelling. The plaid carpeting in my gaff is completely naf so it is. I really do have green and orange plaid carpeting in my apartment and it is quite eye-catching - in a bad way. For those of you who've seen it, I apologize, for those of you who haven't, come visit. You can sleep in the spare bedroom with it's equally naf, nautical wallpaper.

In case you haven't copped on to the definition of gaff, mine is clearly a wonder of modern interior design. So much better than calling it an apartment or a flaaaaatttt.

Holliers - Just as I had embraced calling them, "holidays" and dispensed with the yankophile, "vacation," I find that I'm still out -o- the loop. Holliers, baby. The beautiful thing is that I'm actually on my "holliers" starting tomorrow when I fly off to warmer climates and an office-free lifestyle. I'm all for it.

Half-inch - More fun with rhyming. To "half-inch" is to pinch. As in, I'm going to half-inch Tom's suncream tomorrow when I fly off on my holliers to warmer climates and leave him to the cool Irish shores. In case you're incredibly thick, to "pinch" something is to steal / gank / obscond with items that are not rightfully yours.

Buck your ideas up - This one only really works if you have a strong Northy accent and an air of righteous indignation about you. It basically means, "Get it together... sort yourself out... catch yourself on." Example, if Tom thinks I'm doing the dishes after I cooked him the loveliest meal of the century he will be bucking said ideas up...

I didn't just lick that off a stamp - This one implies that the speaker can back up his facts, that it came from a reputable source. Heard spoken during a meeting by the most bad-ass, tattooed web developer while dropping f-bombs left and right and telling us wild stories of corporate conspiracies. This guy went on, no holds barred in a room full of suits throughout the wankiest marketing meeting ever. Fair play... or in American, you go. I'll take a geek over a marketing exec any day.

So there ya go. Pretty soon I'll be playing on the other side of the pond. Hopefully, you've learned your lessons well and when I half-inch the last piece of cake at our next dinner pahty, you can tell me to buck my ideas up.

cheers. see you all on the flipside.

It's a small world afterall...

2006-08-13T15:51:00.000Z

Have had many six (or fewer) degrees of separation moments lately... the strangest being that I met one of my present co-workers over a year ago and we only recently figured this out. We were being being tortured by having to attend one of those ubiquitous "networking," events. From Ireland to California, these things are the same load of sh*te. Fingers foods and fake smiles and handshaking and self-promotion. Gross. I was being introduced to many by my companion (who it must be said was trying to be helpful) and I met my current co-worker in her previous job in another design agency. We were both pretty uncomfortable and immediately escaped to the snacks and wine table and set upon the mini-quiches and the glasses of wine and agreed that except for the mini-quiche, this shindig was indeed horrible. A few weeks into my current job, this networking debacle came up and a few minutes later, it all became clear. Stranger still, we never would have pieced this together had my current company not been doing work with my original companion who invited me to the networking whoredom. Confused? So am I. Dublin is a tangled web of people who all know someone's brother's sister's nephew and it's even more magnified in the little world that is design.

The other night, I was out for a few pints. I arrived with my current co-worker and met up with his girlfriend who I had met before since she is close mates with someone who dates someone who works at another company I used to do work for. Other people from this other company were also there as was a coworker of my coworker's girlfriend (ha. Try sorting that one out.) This person turned out to be the sister of someone I worked with at yet another design studio and I had met her once before at a design lecture. It's a small island afterall.

more euros please

2006-08-09T17:07:00.000Z

Sitting here in the office (have actually been working in one all summer) and just heard on the radio that Dublin is the 8th most expensive city in the world to live in... that's IN THE WORLD... shit. As I was going off to the bathroom to slit my wrists, the radio announcer said that this fact doesn't particularly matter as Dubliners are paid relatively more than people living in other cities... I dunno if I'm convinced. I think I should get a raise.

The Cheek

2006-08-03T20:43:00.000Z

It's Aluminum, FFS... or maybe just tin foil... but I'm all for real chips and real beer. God save my waistline.

Subject
BRITS REVOKE USA INDEPENDENCE

A Message from John Cleese

To the citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1- You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium", and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been
pronouncing it.

2- The letter "U" will be reinstated in words such as "favour" and "neighbour". Likewise, you will learn to spell "doughnut" without skipping half the letters, and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise".

3- Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up vocabulary).

4- Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

5- There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter "u" and the elimination of "-ize".

6- You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save the Queen.
July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

7- You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent.

8- Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone, or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

9- Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

10- All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

11- All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect.

12- At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

13- The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) - roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

14- You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

15-- The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not
actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

16- Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

17- You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like a bunch of
nancies).

18- Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.

19- You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

An internal revenue agent (i.e.tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.

When Ireland is Hampton Beach, NH

2006-07-22T09:24:00.000Z

You would think I would tire of talking about the weather but New Englanders and Irish folk are endlessly fascinated by weather and since I am of both worlds, I fekkin' love it. Anyway, maybe global warming is to blame but we've had a spate of warm, sunny weather again. On Tuesday temperatures were the hottest recorded in Ireland since 1887. All the gorgeous beaches finally got some use and the newspapers were full of pictures of splashing kids and hotties in bikinis. lovely.

Went to a wedding up north last weekend that took place in a seaside town and damn, it was almost like a proper hot, New England, summer weekend. The seaside town was, like seaside towns everywhere, a main street morphed over time from quiet, sleepy, village, overlooked by mountains and on top of the sea, choc-o-bloc, with kids eating soft serve icecream and begging their parents for change to play the penny arcade. There was the local hardware store selling inflatable dinosaur water-wings and family-run hotels and little greasy spoon diners for your fried breakfast. Despite how diverse the world really is, it's comforting to know that from Wolfsborough, NH to Newcastle, Northern Ireland, little kids get icecream all over their faces and play ski-ball and run around on the beach while their parents nurse their hangovers with a platefull o' grease...nothing like eggy goodness with toast and coffee to help recover from a late night. The more things change...

Well, paint me brown and call me spud

2006-07-13T12:49:00.000Z

I have truly become accustomed to my surroundings so it would seem. I am no longer reomotely surprised or disappointed by the weather here (last summer was a shock I tell ya) and have learned to expect to wear "trousers" and carry a jumper all year round. But that's not all. I have flipped, joined the darkside and embraced the world of the fake tan.

The last time I used fake tan I was about twelve years old and had already turned my hair a horrifying shade of orange with sun-in. (Don't tell me you don't remember sun in. Every pre-teen girl was walking around with brassy orange hair that year pretending to be a California blond...) Apparently orange hair was not enough for me that year, I needed orange skin to match so I bought myself a bottle of fake tan and smeared copious amounts of it all over my pre-teen self. I, of course, didn't know to wash my hands after applying and my hands and feet turned an even brighter shade of pumpkin orange than the rest of my body which more closely resembled a bengal tiger with uneven stripes. Never again I told myself. At a time when I thought Bic perfume (pronounced Beec in a french accent and shaped like a Bic lighter) and strawberry lipgloss were the height of sophistication, even I knew that the fake tan was a disaster.

Either fake tan has come a long way or I've become a lot better at exfoliating and applying various creams and lotions... cuz I'm in love. I found this moisturizer with just a bit of fake tan in it and I'm using it to top up my real tan (and yes, I do have a real tan. It might not be hot here but the sun still shines from time to time. ;) ) I'm a brown goddess... Oh joy for small pleasures. Just like fiji it is, only colder and rainy and expensive.

Yank Spotting

2006-07-06T20:01:00.000Z

I had the strangest experience... I am starting to be able to identify Americans on first sight and I have no idea why. I'm not talking about the obvious ones with pot bellys and two cameras around their necks loitering around the Guinness Brewery with shopping bags full of Guinness t-shirts. I was on the DART today (Dublin's commuter train) on my way home from Ringsend where I'm currently working when I spotted two Americans. The train was sitting at the main train station in Dublin while a million sweaty, rumpled commuters tried to get on and off the train at the same time. Amidst the crowd, I noticed a girl, probably around 8 years old and an older woman (presumably her mother) and right away I knew. They weren't particularly overwieght or overwrought with technology or decked out in Old Navy gear or reading a Dublin map so I honestly have no idea how I knew. The woman was pale and freckly with ginger hair and an Irish looking sunburn and the little girl was skinny and tan with light, sunbleached hair and brown eyes. There was nothing about them that obviously said that they were yanks and I was preparing myself to be wrong. Onto the train they tumbled with the disgruntled office workers of Dublin and sat right across from me. I waited for them to speak (sad the things you find to amuse yourself while commuting) and out came a little American girl accent and an American Mom (not a mum or a mam.) Spot on.

At this point, I get kind of a cozy feeling when I encounter Americans here - I mean your average, everyday Americans, the kind of people you'd see on the street everyday in any American city just going about their day. Sometimes someone will pass by me on the street and I get the same feeling I got today. I just know they're yanks. Maybe it's an earnestness in their faces or the casual way that they're usually dressed (more for comfort than couiture) or the way they seem to be taking in their surroundings. Was it the gangly kid legs with super white trainers on her feet, the sun kissed hair? Honestly I don't know. People are just starting to look American to me in the same way that you might say someone looks Italian or Jewish or Irish... Given the multi-ethnic nature of Americans, the identifying characteristics are vague but nonetheless there.

At sixes and sevens

2006-06-26T14:28:00.000Z

It's been a while but believe it or not, I never get tired of disecting all the euro-slang I can get my hands on so here's another installment:

Butchers: Used in such colourful sentences as, "Giz a butchers at your tits love..." heard at 3am on the rowdy and drunken streets of Dublin. Translation, "Can I have a look at your breasts if you wouldn't mind." This is one more in a long line of cockney rhyming slang...somehow look became butch became butchers... I have no idea how but surely Tom does. I'll have to ask him and get back to yas. ;)

Class: This one is used nearly as much as brilliant and means essentially the same thing. "That new bike of yours is class."

Sorry: This one drives me crazy mostly because the first person I ever heard using it is someone whose presence is like nails on a chalkboard... Not a board game or an apology, this word is used by everyone, everywhere to mean simply, "What did you you say?" Example: "mumble, mumble, mumble." Response: "Sorr-y?" You have to lilt your voice up in a really annoying way at the end thereby making the mumbler think they just said something stupid or obscene. Hate it. Hate it. I'll stick to, "what," thank you very much.

Yoke: Gotta love those words that can be used in so many ways to mean so many things. Examples: "Give us a look at that yoke," or "Where is that yoke-joker?" Can be used in place of any person or thing. Kinda like hoobajoo or thingamabob but not quite as cool.

Knock you for six: This must be one of those granny phrases cuz you only ever hear it on TV or see it in print ads. "The taste of this new fizzy, crap-filled shite drink will knock you for six." "The savings will knock you for six." Again, the origins of this one are a mystery but the closest Yank phrase is probably something like, "knockin' your socks off" (but definitely not knockin' boots unless there's something I don't know about fizzy, crap-filled, shite drinks on TV.)

In Fairness: Filler, like the word essentially, basically, in actuality... It's used to distill or support a point, and used at least as much as we say basically. Example: "Yer man was absolutely bolloxed last night and boked on his own trainers on the way home." Response, "In fairness, you also boked on yer own trainers on the way home so give a man a break." In fairness, this phrase is not used quite as much as the dreaded, "Sorry?"

Sarnie: Sambo, sandwich... not to be confused with a Shambo which is a *trademarked* sandwich shaped like a shamrock. Magically delicious.

Jammy: Used most often with that other favorite of all favorite Euro slangisms: C-U-Next Tuesday. Means something to the effect of smug, cheesy, lame. As in, "Look at that Jammy cunt over there in his new jumper thinking he's the dogs bollocks."

At Sixes and Sevens: There's the number six again for no notable reason that I'm aware of. Being at sixes and sevens seems to describe me a bit too much lately. Translation: Being at a loss, at a loose end etc... I'd rather be knocked for six thanks very much.

Hey Thanks Everybody

2006-06-25T20:07:00.000Z

Am feeling well loved on me birthday despite being several thousand miles away from most of my favorite people. Got a few lovely, thoughtful pressies in the mail, several international phone calls, a few emails and texts and an off-key rendition of Happy Birthday sung to me last night by a bunch of very drunk buddies in a very loud bar. There was even a shot of goldschlager involved (cinnamon snot in a glass...mmmm) Even Tommy boy managed to get his very hungover self out to the Dublin Mountains today for a bit of a hike and some Irish seafood. Good lad. So, thanks very much everybody. It is well appreciated and makes turning t(h)irty (*gasp*) almost bearable. Cheers.

playin' baseball by the airport

2006-06-21T19:37:00.000Z

playin' baseball by the airport
Originally uploaded by di_juice.

Getting out asses kicked is more like it but it was still a decent game. I'm actually one of the tiny people in the picture. Look closely... hint: I'm playing second base. ;)

Everybody loves an Italian girl?

2006-06-18T13:43:00.000Z

The World Cup has descended upon Ireland (and the rest of Europe) like a medieval plague...highly contagious and completely incurable. And I admit, I'm feeling a little feverish. It's pretty near impossible not to be at least somewhat interested when every newspaper, television and radio presenter has something to say. The bookies are filled with people considering their odds. It's the talk of every barbecue and presented on the big-screen in every self respecting pub in Dublin. So, okay, I give in. I watched the Poland vs. Ecuador game (rooting for Poland of course as every third person you meet in Dublin is Polish.) I even watched a bit of the England vs. somebody-or-other until I got bored and left Tom and co. at the pub to go shopping. But not until last night, did I actually watch a game that was truly riveting. For that you need to actually care a little bit about the outcome.

I spent yesterday afternoon playing a softball tournament in the blazing sun (no complaints there) except part of our team was missing and we got our asses absolutely kicked. I had a great day personally, stopped some hardcore line-drives that came in my direction but those innings get long when you're standing in the sun and the other team is going through it's batting rotation over and over again. Rough. Anyway, after we picked our sorry selves off the field, we decided to go watch the USA vs. Italy game in the city centre. Italy was predicted to run-over the US like an SUV over a baby-carriage but hey, what's a little more defeat after being the big-time tournament losers.

When we got to the bar, it was absolutely packed. Tom's Italian co-worker estimated that the place was made up of about 50% Italians, 20% Irish and 10% Yanks. Outnumbered once again. Tom asked me who I was going to root for but living abroad has made the answer only too obvious. To a european, I am only one thing, an American, pure and simple. To claim anything else as your own is simply comical and/or prepostorous. Who do you think you are? In the states, it is pretty much assumed that while you may be an American, you also carry with you another ethnicity or nationality. You're Italian-American, Irish-American, Russian-American, Jewish, African-American etc... Here, it doesn't matter if you can make a mediterreannean feast that would rival mama tuscany. It doesn't matter if you can step-dance or jig or play the bagpipes or pepper your speech with yiddish. If you sound like an American that's what you are. Unless you can speak the language of your ancestors, you're just freeloading. End of story. So. okay, I accept it. And I embrace that fact that yes, I am an American, first and foremost, shaped as much by my country of birth as by anything else, and god-damn it, I'm going to be proud of that fact.

Except there's a problem. When the Italians get rowdy, start talking with their hands and chanting at the top of their lungs over and over again, "Italia, Italia, Italia," it sounds sexy as hell. When the Americans (small in number though we may be) start chanting "U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A," we sound like frat boys or marines about to go kill a bunch of Iraqis. It may sound stupid but I really wanted to be able to be proud of my people, and not the people who left Italy 100 years ago but the people of my birthplace and yet... It's hard to have national pride when you hail from a country that is currently acting like a spoiled child on crack. Still I did my best.

And it was a good game to watch. They were an aggressive, feisty bunch of footballers (on both teams.) A few minutes into the game, an Italian player elbowed one of the Americans in the face and basically split his face open. The Italian was sent off (a red card) to the horror of the Italians and the American was cleaned up, washed up, patched up and sent back to play. Two Americans were later sent off for, "Bad Tackles," and the US got a game winning goal that was awarded and then taken away because one of the players was, "off-side" by about an inch. Not a dull moment I tell you.

Ultimately, the game ended in a 1-1 tie which seemed like a win for the Americans since everybody expected them to roll over and play dead. I suppose for us, that might be as good as it gets. If the Americans get eliminated, I'll start chanting Italia cuz it really does roll off the tongue, but until then I'm joining the frat. U-S-A in the house.

Who's yer Daddy?

2006-06-17T11:52:00.000Z

Dad as the Lord Mayor of Belfast (as if!)
Originally uploaded by di_juice.

The Lord Mayor of Belfast?! Thankfully not, but he did get to don the big fishes robes and sit in his chair in the City Hall. We got the up-close-and-personal tour of Belfast City Hall because we got connections yo! (Tom's mother knows the people that know the people...or something like that ;) ) I even got a Belfast commemmorative coin (ye-haw) from an Ulster Unionist MP who was disarmingly nice... killing the cat with kindness perhaps? It was quite interesting to get the tour from someone who can talk about the queen mother and the lord mayor without a hint of sarcasm. Spot of tea perhaps? Amazingly, the unionist contingency of Nor'n Ireland seem to be under the impression that England actually gives a shit about them. S'pose it's no stranger than thinking that the 'ra really has the republican's best interests at heart at this point. At the end of the day it's all about the benjamins, or whose got the robes of power on or the key to the drugs trade and a little something extra for the family. Viva la revolution?

Gettin' my dance on

2006-06-14T21:31:00.000Z

Gettin' my dance on at the Wedding o' Michelle
Originally uploaded by di_juice.

Just returned from Michelle's wedding with good pictures, some new buddies and the tell-tale sign of any great wedding, a wicked hangover. The guy next to me is Pete, one of the mad Belfast boys who has perfected the art of dancing like a mad thing and not spilling his drink. Good stuff. If you want to actually see the bride or any of the non-drunk, non-hairy chested members of the wedding entourage, click the pic

When Ireland is Spain

2006-06-14T09:53:00.000Z

Yes, it is. We have had nearly a month of unabating good weather. Sunny, bright, slightly breezy, low to mid 70's (I think. This whole fahrenheit to Celsius thing is still a bit of an enigma.) For Ireland, this is tantamount to Paradise. It's as if the moody, fickle stormy toddler that is Irish weather woke up one morning and had magically changed into Shirley Temple in the night. Good morning Sunshine. Inexplicable but so welcome. Amazingly, I have managed to get a good bit of colour and even the hint of a sunburn over the past few weeks. I've been able to trot out all my gathering-dust-in-the-back-of-the-closet short skirts and Old Navy five-dollar flip-flops. Truly a beautiful thing. Even up in Donegal last weekend where the weather is at it's most unpredictable, the sun shone strongly and the beaches were packed. All this great weather was in full effect during my parent's visit and I truly think that they don't believe that it actually rains here. They didn't even have to use their umbrellas. We spent the last day of their trip up in Howth (coastal, fishing town.) We sat on the pier in the sun, got fish and chips and ate them out of paper boxes while lying on the grass, took a stroll through the village and picked up oysters and salmon from the fishermen on the pier to take home and feast on that night. If the weather were always this good, I might never leave!

I have the measles and the mumps, a rash, a gash, and purple bumps...

2006-06-10T09:16:00.000Z

Yes, I look like a little giraffe at the moment... and why you may ask? Well, I thought I might actually have the measles as I spent the other night projectile vomiting every last bit of bile from my system and lying on the bathroom floor in a sweaty heap. I woke up on Friday morning and Tom looked me deep in the eyes (very romantic) and told me my face was covered with little red dots. Uh-oh. Unfortunately, the life of the freelancer means no work = no pay so I dragged my spotty ass out of bed and went to work. Tom's office had an outbreak of the measles a few days ago (who gets measles these days! It's like telling someone you've got smallpox...) so I decided to go to the Dr. just to be safe. Unfortunately it's fifty euro to see the doc but seemed well worth it for peace of mind. Turns out, I broke a bunch of little blood vessels on my face from the Excorcist like force with which my dinner wrenched itself out of my stomach. Gross. Fortunately, my nicey doctor told me they should heal up in a few days. I have to go to a wedding on Monday so I hope I'm not looking like the elephant (wo)man by then. Otherwise, my face is going to match my dress. Pink with little flowers on it. Lovely.

Visitors and such

2006-05-30T20:03:00.000Z

Been so, so, busy. Working like mad but finally got myself a holly-jolly holiday. The weather has been amazingly dry and sunny. The fam arrived yesterday and I've been giving them the Dublin grand tour. Today we went to the Powerscourt estate which is a huge and beautiful estate with Italianate and Japanese gardens and a gorgeous old mansion which has been renovated and filled with a lovely cafe and textile stores and galleries. Also took them to Glendalough to see the Wicklow mountains, two clear, clean, glacial lakes and a fourteenth century monastic settlement. From there we headed back to the city and hit up the Italian quarter for some most tasty red wine and crostinis. Am I a kick-ass tour guide or what. Unfortunately, the revolution was not televised as my digital camera shite the bed, so to speak. Damn technology. You will all have to use your imaginations. Tomorrow off to Amsterdam. Talk soon.

EuroVisions

2006-05-20T22:06:00.000Z

For those of you not familiar with the EuroVision Song contest, let me enlighten you. Every year, Europeans (and Europeans to be) have the opportunity to win the Eurovision title by entering a song which is voted on by all of those europhone and sms text messagers out there in the EU and beyond. The song must not have been commercially released and the performers tend to be the unfamous, wicked-stepsister version of Brittany Spears singing in English or French with an off-key Lithuanian accent. Hit me baby. Yikes. They are notoriously cheesy. No one admits to watching Eurovision at all but I can guarantee that everyone I talk to tomorrow will know who won.

Me. I know who won. Not cuz I saw a single video but because I watched the entire tally of voting which consists of various people wearing too much make-up and too little clothing, reporting from {insert name of country here.} "Hello from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia..." I switched it on cuz everyone who called me tonight assumed they were interupting me watching said Eurovision and that I would be less than pleased about being disturbed. So, on it went. And here is what I've learned: 1. German men should not dress up as Cowboys and present their votes astride a large plastic horse and 2. Cronyism is alive and well and living in Belarus...okay and everywhere else in the present and future EU... Romania votes for Bulgaria, Estonia votes for Latvia, Sweden votes for Finland, Bosnia Herzogovenia votes for Serbia votes for Croatia votes for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia... Impartial, objective voting, no doubt. Strangely, Irlanda, land of insider trading if there ever was one votes for.... (drum roll please)... Lithuania?! I knew we had a large Eastern Euro population but who knew...

I know you're all on the edge of your seats now and you just simply must know whose country was graced with the 2006 Eurovision Song of the Year title... I know you wanna know so just admit it. And I know what yer picturing too. Some cute blond thing being backed up by Metro and the Metrosexuelles singing some drippy song about heartbreak with a hip-hop producer keepin' it live in the background... but, no. You would be wrong. The winning country: Finland. Again, you're thinking hot, tall, milk-fed blondies but again, you would be wrong. Think, Ozzy Osborne meets the Phantom of the Opera meets Bzerker from Clerks. Glam-pseudo-pop-metal dudes dressed as monsters singing with a mixture of gravelly basetones mixed with that, "I just grabbed yer balls and squeezed them, " heavy-metal yelp. Go team. Europe does have taste after all... If you happen to like biting the heads off plastic chickens and throwing them into an audience made up entirely of Greek Eurotrash. Now that's entertainment.

Brand Revolutionaries

2006-05-06T09:39:00.000Z

Hi All,

Sorry for my long blogging absence. I've been ridiculously busy being the all-purpose freelancing bitch of Dublin. Have been booked nearly everday for the last month and I'm finally kind of settling into it instead of walking around in a state of total stress dealing with all sorts of new situations, people and expectations. I'll be a bad-ass businesswoman yet. Maybe I should start renting those 80's wall street movies...you know the ones with American Psycho type business men and woman with heels like daggers and shoulder pads like linebackers... I definitely need a bit of training on the ruthless front as I am owed ridiculous money at the moment and am struggling a bit to collect. Maybe what I really need is a heavy man, built like a brick shithouse, with knuckles dragging on the ground. He can pay a visit to my late / non payers and make them an offer they can't refuse...

I was walking into one of my many placements the other morning and what should pass me but a large truck advertising a marketing company. This was one of those trucks that is absolutely covered on every surface and the campaign gracing the panels of this one was: Richmond Marketing, BRAND REVOLUTIONARIES. If that wasn't bad enough, the truck was covered with red communist stars, various famous revolutionaries, and those iconic Workers of the World Unite characters with fists in the air. Holy good fuck, What balls. Karl Marx would absolutely turn in his grave at that one. This is, after all, a MARKETING company, as in ADVERTISING, as in, we have no souls and worship the almighty dollar (or euro as the case may be) and could sell Hitler brand petroleum products to Jews if we put our filthy, amoral, cute little minds to it.... hhhhmmmm. I'm sorry. Do I sound bitter. Is it because I am slowly being turned into a brand revolutionary myself. The next thing you know, I am actually going to start to care about whether that milk packaging I created really makes you feel like yer mom is giving you a big hug. It is somewhat ironic that I was attracted to design for its artistic and communicative possibilities, for it's independent, self employment options, for guerilla artists and Barbara Krueger type political message making, and here I am, making the benjamins for the big boys. Is there no escaping it? So glad to know that my life's contribution to this world is so meaningful and important... Just send me that fekking check please.

Lions and Holy-Rollers

2006-04-23T09:39:00.000Z

Lest you think I'm about to enlighten you with some sort of Morality inducing religious parable, let me put your mind at ease... Read on without fear that Jerry Falwell might pop out of a dark corner to save yer soul (for a price of course.) Anyway, I digress...

The good news is that I have been working like an absolute slave lately. I am a freelancing whore available by the hour, day or week...haha. Got a weeks worth of work last week for a studio, then a logo design project, then more packaging design work for another studio, then a little project for DIT. It is lucrative as hell (or maybe just seems it since I haven't yet paid any taxes on it) but it's also a bit stressful going into new working environments all the time and trying to always be at the top of your game. But really, I'm not complaining. Have to say that I love owning my own time and can make my previous monthly salary at the Spoiltchild in less than two weeks of freelance work. Can't complain about that. I've also joined a softball team which had its first two practices last week so while not chained to my computer, I went out and ran around in the rain and attempted to catch flyballs hit by burly Irish men.

So all this is good stuff no doubt...but I still kind of feel like my head is going to explode. Spent the last three days (including Saturday) working like mad to get this packaging design done for a pitch on Monday. In between time was spent drinking whiskey with temporary co-workers... On Saturday afternoon when I was doing last minute bits and pieces at the studio, the managing director threw me the keys and the alarm code and said he was off and I could just finish up and lock up if I didn't mind. I suppose it's a great compliment that he assumed that I wouldn't abscond with twenty computers or all their secret recipes or what have you but it was a little freaky to have the entire responsibility for a large, kitted-out studio that I had never before attempted to lock up. Yikes. Mostly it went smoothly, I finished up and managed most of the closing up tasks except for one of the security locks which I just couldn't get locked. If they go into work on Monday to find all of their shit stolen, I suppose my freelance career might take a bit of a hit... ;) They already probably think that I'm a religious freak ;). I was in the studio a few days ago sitting at a desk across from this really nice girl (who stole me Cadbury chocolate from the front desk) when she sneezed. I automatically responded, as you do, by saying, "Bless You." One of those moments followed where you imagine that everyone goes quiet and stares and points at you. I guess Irish people don't say, "bless you," when a fellow cohort sneezes. They just ignore it. (Rude Bastards... ;) ) Anyway, given that they might think I'm the next Tammy Faye and they might get their studio ransacked, I'd say it's all gone very well....haha Here's to self-employment.

On the wild beasts front, I was out last night at the Market Bar with Michelle and Bryce telling them my sneezing story and Michelle was telling me her culture-shock tales from when she first moved to Boston. Soon after she arrived in Boston, she was out with a few of her new co-workers and mentioned that she couldn't wait to have a lion this weekend. Everyone was baffled. A lion? huh? She was actually saying that she couldn't wait to have a lie-in meaning that she wanted to sleep in but everyone thought she wanted to go to the zoo ;). Now come Friday, Bryce will say that he can't wait for a tiger or a mountain lion this weekend. Grrrrr. Must say, after my packaging and security related frenetics, I had quite the lie-in this morning. And amazingly enough, it's a beautiful sunny day. Time to run as far away from this computer as possible.

Hope you're all well.

Tramp Co

2006-04-18T21:21:00.000Z

Ok, so it's actually Tram Co and is the name of a cheesy as shite bar in the student ghetto of Dublin but I've been thinking it's a suitable name for my local post office as well. By tramps, I mean not only women with ten children and make-up that would make a transvestite cringe but also the trainspotters-in-training in their dirty jeans looking like they might keel over and die any second. Not to mention the young disinfranchised males travelling in packs and the neighborhood busibodies who loudly complain about anything and everything. God, I love my neighborhood.

Today was tax day. Unfortunately, even moving out of the entire USofA does not exempt one from paying Uncle Sam his due. Since I am a woman of forsight and organisation, I was, of course, running off to the post office today with my Massatucky state taxes in hand desperately seeking an April 18th postmark. I arrive to find what appears to be a large crowd of the aforementioned demographic watching an older man trying to break into the Post Office. Somehow, the lock jammed and the post office had to hire some guy to literally crow-bar the door open. After a half hour wait in between a young blondie and an old lady with a crutch who literally tried to run me down to get a better spot in line, the lock was broken and like Metallica fans trying to get an autograph, we all squeezed in the door. Waiting in the que, I had in front of me one group of young rough-and-ready guys trying to cash their dole checks without proper ID, several screaming children picking up pieces of the crowbarred door and getting yelled at by their mother, and a good dose of cranky old ladies stepping on my heels to get their stamps. Oh joy. I did finally get my stamps and proceeded to put a stamp on the wrong side of the only envelope I could find in my apartment to hold my nearly overdue taxes because I was busy hating all humanity. Bastards. Maybe I should just give in, shoot some heroin, pop out a few sprogs, and draw my eyebrows on. At least I would fit in.

What do I know about Basketball? I'm Scottish!

2006-04-08T09:34:00.000Z

Spoken in a loud pub in the financial district of Dublin by a slightly tipsy scotchy bemoaning his loss in the fantasy basketball pool. Ah well, maybe ya had to be there. Well, it's been too long my fine friends, but here are a few more linguistic gems for your coffers...

Rapperbait: Hoodlum, Hooligan, Skanger, Skiprat. There are so many words for these little scoundrels...I do wonder why??

Wingnut: Someone with ears like our old friend Steve-o of auto-defenestration fame. Ears like satelite dishes. Ears like this wierd guy on the North American Sports Network whose ears are not only huge but also pointed oddly forward as if they've been ripped off Reservoir Dogs style and sewn back on. yum.

The Jacks: Les Toillettes of course. Don't ask me why.

Giz us a...: Used in many a northy sentence as in, "Giz us a fag." Translation: I'd like a cigarette please (not a gay man thank you very much.) In case yer still confused, it's Give us a fag. The royal we in effect. Me and my imaginary friends.

Manky: Something that's icky, bad-tasting, slimy or otherwise gross. Like Irish cooking...haha.

Yous: What would seem to be grammatically incorrect English is widely used and I fear, like all the rest, slowly sneaking into my vocabulary. Usage: "Would yous two ever shut up. Yer doin' my head in," or "What would yous'uns like for yer dinner?"

Fierce: Used mostly in the South I think. Usage: "That man is fierce tall" or, "I've a fierce thirst on me." (For what, you might ask? But really you should already know.) Up north it would be a powerful thirst instead of a fierce one. Buncha parched lads in these parts.

Pong / Pongy: Smelly, smelly. Usage: That lad has a pong on him...he's a pongy fecker.

Poxy: Little, insignificant, shite.

There are so many but I hear them, tell myself to write them down for future blogging and then have another whiskey and forget. Alas, that's all yous get today.

French Drivers = NYC Cabbies on Crack

2006-04-06T08:39:00.000Z

Yes, it's true. They drive like absolute maniacs. After realizing that the cars would swerve between lanes like they drank beer for breakfast, that mopeds and motorbikes would appear out of nowhere like loud flying hairdryers and that noone seems to know what their indicator it for, I gave up the driving to Tommy. Once the stresses of driving were firmly on Tom's shoulders (poor lad) we had a grand time. The southern coast of France is kind of like a southern Spanish mountain town, a tropical island and South Beach, Florida all rolled into one. There is money, money and more money everywhere...giant yachts the size of small oceanliners dot the coast. Cannes' main boulevard is a who's who of high-end retail, omega, fendi, prada, louis vuitton etc... etc... But if that can be overlooked (cuz I'm not particularly moved or awed by riches) the natural surroundings are amazing, the people are much friendlier than Parisians and the geographic proximity of Italy means that the food is divine. In the spirit of South Beach, Art Deco is also alive and well on the French coast...from typography to architecture to landscaping, it is Art Deco heaven (if yer into that which I am.) And all of this Deco-ness was interspersed with timeless French architecture with it's wide wooden shuttered buildings with ornate wrought-iron balconies. Add to the mix, the mediterreanean influence of the red tiled roofing, the tropical plants in terracotta pots, ornate mosaic tiling and marble sidewalks and you have the South of France. A melting pot of loveliness. My only compaint is my own gluttony. When it comes to cheese, I have no brakes...There were thin crust pizzas covered with gooey mozzerella and fresh vegetables. There were salads with thick slices of goat's cheese. There were cheese plates with melting triangles of brie (and a whole baguette to spread it on.) There was creme caramel and creme brulee with a perfectly caramalized, crunchy, sugared crust. There was fish with creamy sauce and fresh herbs. There was gelato, hazelnut flavored and honey and pine nut flavored and plain old chocolate flavored. And it was all love and all good. In addition to the olive oil, and pistacho nougat, and apricot jam, and ceramics and sunglasses that I brought home to Ireland, I also brought home the world's worst dairy induced stomach ache ever...I may have to go on a vegan detox now ;) but hell, it was worth it.

One of Many Artists on the Square - Cannes, France

2006-04-04T08:05:00.000Z

Saturday Market in Cannes
Originally uploaded by di_juice.

Click the pic to see Cannes, Saint Tropez, Nice and Monaco. All stunning.

Bon Jour Provence!

2006-03-27T11:09:00.000Z

A mini-break has been scheduled at last. Can't wait. Tommy and I are headed off to the French Riviera this week. We fly into Nice and are staying in a hotel in Cannes. I'm planning to eat my face off, rent a bike and tour around the coast, drink lots of regional red wine, and check out a few sites including the Matisse and Chagall Museums in Nice. Good stuff. Needless to say, I'll be coming back with lots of pics for the blog. If anyone has been to Provence / Cote d'azur / French Riviera and has any tips for us, they would be well appreciated. If not, Au Revoir pour Maintenant... Talk soon.

(Do) Good things come in Threes?

2006-03-22T19:09:00.000Z

Three months and counting...until the big three-oh (30). I'd like to pretend that this doesn't concern me, that it's just a number and I can cope perfectly well with change of all sorts...but obviously, that would be a big fat lie. There's something symbolic about thirty... as if it's the final hurdle to true adulthood and once past it, you can no longer consider quitting your job and backpacking through India, piercing your tongue, or wearing your hair in pigtails. Might as well just give up, sit back in my Ikea kitted out apartment, work late nights to further my, "career," and add to my wine rack. Except that I don't have an Ikea kitted out apartment, my career appears to be, "on-hold" and my commitment to it tenuous at best, and any wine that enters my house gets consumed before it could form any semblence of a collection. ...And therein lies the problem. I think I assumed that I would have it all figured out by now, that I would have published a novel, become the new basquiat or Beth Orton, won a gold medal in the Olympics, or at least turned into a jaded but successful corporate whore with a plasma screen TV and open-plan flat. Thirty always seemed both so old and so far away... and here it is. And I'm still broke, still renting, still trying to sort out a viable career that doesn't make me want to rip my hair out, and still waiting to be able to go into some yuppie wine-bar and drink expensive bottles of French wine without looking at the price tag.

I know, I know...poor me with my oh-so difficult life. I do realise that I've got it really, really, good in comparison to many and I honestly do appreciate that. But Thirty does give one pause and I really can't help but take stock and ask myself if my life is living up to my expectations (which admittedly are a little high.) I think I will raise my kids to be happy janitors. ;) When I was a kid, I really thought that I was special, that I would grow up to be an exemplary adult and I would change the world in some way or accomplish something really notable. Remember those books about Harriet Tubman, or Thomas Edison or the guy who invented penicillin that you used to read in school... and your teachers would give you that schpiel about how these people believed in themselves and distinguished themselves from the pack and all that cult of individuality stuff. Maybe they should have just told us straight up: You guys are not that special and most likely you will grow up to be middle managers or sell car stereos, or work in a toothpaste factory and the sooner you get used to that idea, the better. Oh and while we're at it, there's no Santa Claus and no Easter Bunny and someday a long way in the future, you will probably have no teeth and need to wear adult diapers. Maybe they should just get it all out of the way early and spare us the disappointment. ;)

On a more positive note, I suppose turning thirty makes me realise that, in the words of the prophetic, John "Cougar" Mellencamp, "your life is now." There's no putting off your dreams... so I guess I had better start writing my novel now. ;)

Happy Paddy's!

2006-03-17T11:15:00.000Z

Hey All,

Hope that wherever you are in the world that the weather is better than it is here in Dublin. Lots to do but it is as they say here, "a duvet day". Open fire and a copy of The Quiet Man would be more appropriate that going outside.

Tom and I had a late night last night and so are getting a late start this morning. We decided to celebrate Paddy's Eve with Italian food and Russian Vodka...haha. Actually, we had a great, great night out. Went to Dublin's Italian quarter (very small but very authentic.) We went to an Italian Wine Bar called Enotecha Delle Langhe and oh, the deliciousness. Lovely, spicy, glasses of Italian Red Wine in big-bowled delicate wine glasses. We also had a board of crostinis: toasted italian bread with, pesto, or sweet roasted peppers, or tomatoes, or courgettes in a tasty, slightly garlicy mash. Yum. After that, we murdered a Caprese, made with the most luscious mozzerella, fresh tomatoes, greens, and garnished with proper olive oil and balsamic. Absolute Heaven, I'm telling you. The atmosphere in the place was great too. We sat at the bar but the place is small and packed with rustic wooden tables and even a sofa or two. Left feeling more satisfied than I have in a long time. Post-prandial, we went into Pravda, the Russian themed bar (like the People's Republic on a grand scale.) I had been there a few times but never noticed that they had a sizable Stoli collection behind the bar. Oh Stoli, how I have missed you. Nursed a Stoli vanilla and Coke in the upstairs bar and looked down into the main bar where they where showing the cheesiest leprachaun film I have ever seen. Top o' the mornin' to ya and all that fiddle-dee. Bryce and Michelle came out and met us and we found a table and just kicked it for a while. Good food, good drink, good company. Good Stuff huh?

Well, get out yer leprachaun hat and your plastic ass cheeks with pog mo ghoin (sp?) written on them. Yikes. Every other sad bastard in Dublin will be donning their pseudo-leprachaun gear and if you can't beat 'em, join 'em...haha. Have a lovely Paddy's and try not to drink any green beer.

A Very Long Engagement

2006-03-15T16:33:00.000Z

the ring, the rose, the champers in a plastic cup
Originally uploaded by di_juice.

...or a very short one as the case may be. We may have been married for months but the engagement has just begun. haha. The ring we designed was finished last week and Tom and I took a hike up the Cave Hill in Belfast where I got my first look at it (along with a rose and some champers.) He even remembered the plastic cups. What a doll.

Better late than Never

2006-03-07T17:25:00.000Z

red leaves
Originally uploaded by di_juice.

Click the pic for more Botanic Garden shots (which I know you have all been anxiously awaiting ;) ). You'd never believe this place is in the middle of north inner city dublin. Definitely voted the best place to bring a book and a snack and find some little corner to plunk yourself for an afternoon. Gotta love the life of leisure. (If only I could spend everyday this way.)

All Left Feet

2006-03-06T15:55:00.000Z

Rioters like shoes. At least, this is what I have to conclude after seeing the destruction wreaked upon Foot Locker and Schuh during the Love Ulster Riots last week. The Irish Daily Mail (not the pinnacle of journalistic integrity but good for a few down and dirty pics) ran front page photos of rioters strolling out of Foot Locker, with armfuls of Adidas bags and Puma trainers. The shoe stores were more wrecked than anything else I saw in all the destruction.

Some of this shoe related bootie included 99 special edition Nikes (retailing for 100 euro a pair). Amazingly, instead of pairs of shoes, the stolen footwear consisted of all left feet which begs the question of what one does with a whole bunch of left feet. Maybe, someone is planning to use them to create a sculptural ode to Nike, or will it be a performance art piece on the Troubles in NI? "We're all left feet up here." Or maybe, someone is planning to start a shoe company for amputees? It is a mystery.

Pancake Tuesday

2006-02-28T16:42:00.000Z

Okay so it's not as good as Mardi Gras but Pancake Tuesday is what we get around here and it's better than nothin'. Yup, so I bet you non catholics out there didn't realise that today is the day you have the freedom (and one could even say obligation) to eat lots and lots of fried, bready circles...flapjacks, crepes, pancakes... If it's got flour, eggs and butter than get to it.

This tradition apparently started because during lent yer supposed to give up all the good stuff (good stuff being, butter, eggs, milk and other yumminess) so on Pancake Tuesday (really called Shrove Tuesday) you're suppose to use up all the leftover dairy products in the house and feed everyone pancakes. It's also kind of a last hurrah. Eat up cuz lent is long(ish) and you won't be seeing anymore of this stuff until Easter (when you can once again, gorge yourself on chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, and other easter basket lovelies.)

It seems slightly odd how religion so often involves food rituals...whether it's fasting, not eating pork or shellfish, not mixing your meat and dairy or eating fish on Friday... Worship the food, or lack there of it. Is it a pagan thing? Is it that some of these things were practical at some point in history? (It just wouldn't do to have your congregation getting poisoned eating bad meat now would it?)

Well, I'm happy to join in and worship the food (just not the rules) and god knows, my pseudo-vegeterian self can easily live without the meat. (Shellfish on the other hand. Not a chance. A life without oysters is not worth living.)

In my foodie world, an appreciation of glorious culinary delight is enough of a religious experience for me. No one who's tasted a homemade warm piece of banana bread with butter or fresh pasta covered in bright green pesto can tell me that that is not communing with the gods. Thank you to the powers that be (if they be at all) for basil and bananas.

Well, since I'm not a Catholic (at least not a practicing one) I will not be embracing lent and saying goodbye to the eggs and butter but I'm happy to eat some pancakes. Bon appetit.

Up the 'Ra

2006-02-26T16:44:00.000Z

Well, well, well... arrived back in Dublin today from a lovely but whirlwind trip to the homeland. Came back to find that the city has been rioting in my absence. God Dublin, Can I not leave you alone for 10 days without you wrecking the place?! ;)

The Orangies tried to march down O'Connell Street on Saturday (The Love Ulster Parade) and the hardcore Republicans (and some dodgy apolitical skiprats looking for a piece of the action) didn't take kindly to that...to say the least. In fact, they responded by blocking off the whole parade, throwing halfers at the garda, breaking windows, starting fires, looting, burning out cars and other such proactive and productive behavior designed to facillitate further peace and understanding between these two perpetually warring factions. Oh joy.

Amazingly, the Gardai didn't see this coming and decided not to move all the bricks, curb stones, pebbles, bits of cement and other debris which were piled up all along O'Connell street since the city is in the middle of doing some major road renovations. And yes, hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that but even my foreign ass could have figured out that leaving a whole bunch of potential weapons all over the road and scheduling a politically fraught march down said street might not be a good idea. And now the city is faced with a street full of smashed windows and debris.

Sinn Fein proper is distancing itself from all this debauchery and issued a statement before the parade instructing its constituents to ignore this, "Sectarian parade," and to essentially not take the bait and wreck the place... but like everything in Irish politics, there is Proper Sinn Fein and then there are break off extremist factions (criminals in disguise - in my opinion) like the Continuity IRA who refuse to participate in a cease fire or political negotiations of any kind... and apparently these are the peeps who encouraged skangerville to come out and stop this march by any means possible. But I can't for the life of me, understand how there can be a connection between shouting, "Up the 'Ra," and smashing in the windows to the Kilkenny Design Centre and Nassau Street Cafe... Do they have something against arts and crafts and drinking espresso? "Ah, for the love of the 'Ra, let's go loot Topshop and get ourselves a few new jumpers and while we're at it, what the fuck, lets burn out a few cars cuz ya know, that'll really piss off the brits." It is a mystery.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way supporting the Loyalist attempt to walk through the capitol city of the Republic of Ireland (which is notably NOT part of the UK). Bunch of inflammatory w*nkers in my opinion but free speech is free speech and the Nationalist / Republican front have unfortunately made themselves look like a bunch of thugs (which some of them no doubt are) with their destructive response. Sometimes you gotta wonder of it's in our nature as humans to try as hard as we can to destroy eachother and any semblance of civilisation. Feel the love huh?

Inside Out

2006-02-10T11:22:00.000Z

"And so it happened again, the daily miracle whereby interiority opens out and brings to bloom the million-petalled flower of being here, in the world, with other people. Neither as hard as she had thought it might be nor as easy as it appeared." - Zadie Smith On Beauty

Been doing a lot of reading lately, Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson, even some extremely depressing short stories about India which I put down after about 10 pages. As you can probably tell, I've got a lot of time to myself at the moment. Read the passage above and I thought it seemed so fitting of my situation right now. As difficult as it may be to imagine, I am naturally a bit shy. (My old co-worker called me a chatterbox...haha...I was just talking to try and cover up the vast expanses of awkward silences in that job...) Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy being social and being with other people. I actually really need and desire it but before I go out to spend time with people I don't know that well, I always get a little nervous and have to make a conscious effort to reach out and make friends. Maybe I just got too comfortable with the ones I already have. It's nice not to have to explain yourself, not to have to earn intimacy and trust, to be able to show up at someone's house and pull off your shoes and sit on the floor and drink a glass of wine in your socks. That said, once I've made the leap and met up with people it is, like most things, not as hard as I anticipated and usually a pretty good time.

Spending this time by myself can be nice. I've caught up on household chores, done a ton of cooking, taken long walks, went to the lovely Botanic Gardens, read all the novels that were piling up on my bedside table... but it also gives me a lot of time to think which isn't always a completely good thing. Quite easy to get wrapped up in yourself, to start thinking alot about your life, the past, the future... This last week has been quiet and mostly calm but right now, I'm really craving some noise... a room full of ladies drinking wine, eating snacks and shooting the shit. I could really use a good, cynical bitching session about someone's day, their crazy boss or mad mother-in-law or that Newbury Street / D4-head Biatch who stole their parking space. Maybe I just need a little humor / humour interjected into my situation. So many things in this life are made bearable by the fact that they can be made really funny. Maybe the problem is really that I need more people to tell my stories to. Or more stories to listen to. I suppose that's the point of the blog eh? But it is a little cyberspace impersonal and there's no laugh track, not yet anyway.

Well better to be in flux, between jobs, between countries, between cultures, between weddings (?!) than to be stuck in a really unsatisfying routine as had been the case for a while. Would be nice to have a little more expendable cash so I could fly me over some entertainment ;) but I guess it's up to me to make it happen.

Yay to Friday which means that there is human contact on the horizon. I'm off to meet Michelle for lunch (a fellow self-(un)employed-person) and later will be meeting up with Helen and Co. for some (what else) drinks and hopefully a bit-a-craic will be had. I need to get my bookworm ass out of this house.

Will give you all the job low-down shortly but that's a whole other blog entry for another day.

Lotsa-love to me faithful readers.
D.

Shiny Peppers in Clifton, Bristol

2006-02-05T11:41:00.000Z

Shiny Peppers in Clifton, Bristol
Originally uploaded by di_juice.

...and lots more photographic loveliness. Bristol has the largest concentration of beautiful architecture that I've ever seen in one place...not to mention indoor and outdoor markets, picturesque neighborhoods, seriously old-skool English Pubs and the world's oldest suspension bridge. Pretty damn sweet.

Squids and Yo-Yos

2006-02-02T11:56:00.000Z

Yes, it's that time...another installation of the foreign language that is Irish-English...and these really take the biscuit:

Slow Coach / Too Big for your Boots / Takes the biscuit: So close and yet so far...They're almost like our expressions but just a little bit different. Makes us look like a bunch of cake eating rednecks...Too big for our britches??? Slow Pokes??? Straight outta that gay cowboy movie...Ye-Haw.

On the Lash / On the Piss / On the tear: It wouldn't be right not to include a few new ways to discuss self-inflicted alcohol poisoning.

A few Scoops / A few jars: If one is on the lash they would be consuming these...well more than a few but you get the idea.

Well-Chuffed: Well pleased. Grand so.

Ah sure it'll be grand: Example: How 'bout that hike up Mt. Everest in our skivvies? Answer: Ah sure it'll be grand.

That's Us / Is that us?: Not a philisophical questioning of the nature of self but in fact just a statement replacing my coveted and much missed, We're all set. Thanks.

A bit o' rough: Heard it used on the radio by a northy guy, "Those English girls are posh and all they want is a bit of rough...and I realised that I am a bit of rough." mmmmmmm. The sexy builder with three days of stubble and a pair of dirty work boots on...also seen on Diet Coke ads circa the 1980s.

How's the form? Yet another way to say, What's the craic?

Not too Bad: This is the Irish "fine thanks." As in: "How's t(h)ings?" Answer: "Not too bad." As if things are always shit but you know, today they're not actually as bad as they usually are... A nation with low expectations????

Heart Scared: Scared shitless, completely freaked out... Boo!

Have ye no homes to go to??: As in: It's 3am and the pub is closed but no one's making a move to go anywhere...The nice way of saying...Get the feck outta here and go home to your beds.

Crackin': term to describe a hottie

HCH: Abreviation for a "High Class Hooker." There's been a two day debate going on on the radio about whether Dublin girls are a buncha HCH's. Or as Kanye would say, "Golddiggaz."

Come on to fuck / Shut up to fuck: Not as bad as it sounds... Just used for emphasis as in: Will you hurry the fuck up? or Shut the fuck up. Not a good one to use when speaking to foreign children...haha (good advice from the creative Ireland forums...)

And last but not least...

Squids and Yo-Yos: More slang for the coveted cash...Quid and Euros being twisted in new and creative ways as in: Give us a few squids will ye? or Why can't I win yoyo millions? (or if Tom is the one talking: Maybe we won yoyo milly's!)

If yer scundered by all these strange and startling uses of the English language...just keep tuning in for more expert translation from yours truly... ;)

Cheers.

Ze Darkness

2006-01-26T13:13:00.000Z

I was dreading the winter weather this year, imagining lashing down rain every morning but I have to say that it's really not been that bad. There have only been a few mornings where I've had to bring the 'brolly. And stranger still, it has yet to dip below 40 degrees. I'm gonna be in for a serious shock when I visit Boston in February. The hardest thing about Irish winter is something I hadn't anticipated at all and that's the dark. During the shortest days - the sun doesn't even rise until 8:30am and it's pitch black again by 4:30pm. Thankfully, I've noticed that the sky is a lighter, brighter shade of blue in the mornings than it has been which gives me hope. I can't wait for Spring. I guess I'm in the mood for a new beginning. Although I've lived here nearly a year now, I really haven't settled in as much as I'd like. I've heard it said that it takes a year to really get comfortable in a place so I guess I'm looking forward to finding my stride here. Hopefully my next employment will be more well considered than my current one. I really made a balls of that one. The next time I'm about to make a really bad decision like that, can someone please talk me out of it!

On a good note, I'm going to join a casual softball team this spring and the cliquey North Dublin Ladies in my yoga class are actually starting to talk to me now that I've come back for a second semester. Assuming I find a job with less of a commute and more of a social atmosphere, maybe I'll even make a few friends of my own...Imagine that. ;)

I went to a leadership training this week that stressed how important it was to have a bit of craic at work...you know, banter, going out for a pint now and then, eating lunch with someone other than your computer, a bit of goofiness, a christmas party...whatever works. And it is so true. I realised that the jobs I've loved most all had great people and a somewhat social, positive atmosphere.

Well, Here's Hopin'. Please send out good vibes (or sumthin') that I won't become the chronically unemployed, broke as a joke, hermit in this town and that my luck is about to change...

On the Up and Up

2006-01-22T21:12:00.000Z

I am full of blogging guilt...I've neglected my lonely wee blog for nearly 10 days now...whoops. Well, since I will be leaving my job in 8 days (but who's counting) I'll have lots of time to blog my little heart out (as long as blogging continues to be free cuz I'll be broke as a joke in no time ;) ) Am really looking forward to having a bit of down time and to be bidding farewell to my three hours of commuting every day. I'll miss my cheese and tomahhhhto toasties at the Black Bull on Fridays but when I'm lying in my bed on Feb 1st at 8:07am (instead of sitting on the commuter train) I don't think I'll mind at all.

Am still hoping to win Euro Millions so I can spend my days lying on the beach drinking Mojitos but barring that, I suppose I will have to either become freelancer extraordinaire or get myself another 9-5pm. sigh. I'm such an office bitch. Heard the other day that one has more likelihood of being in three plane crashes than winning said yoyo millions (and thankfully the probability of being in even one plane crash is quite low.) But a girl can dream right? Sugar Daddy where are you?! I simply must work on my tan (and I'm not talking tan-in-a-can here. ;) )

Spent the weekend in Belfast which was surpisingly relaxing. Ate pizza, went for a hike, helped Tom's mum make a veggie lasagna for her book club...Am I becoming too domesticated these days? Shit, I hope I'm not becoming more Desperate Housewives than Sex in the City. I'd rather be Miranda than Susan (who bears a frightening resemblance to Michael Jackson if you look closely) anyday. Well, nonetheless, I got my cook on this weekend (and my eat and drink on as well of course...)

On Saturday afternoon post-hike, Tom and I went into the city centre and finally, designed and ordered an engagement ring...nothing too fancy mind you and no diamonds (just can't get into those) but I think it will be lovely when it's ready....just have to wait four to six weeks. After exercising Tommy's Visa card, we decided to check out this new fancy-pants bar called The Vaudeville. The whole place is full on Art Nouveau...It's like Rennie MacIntosh Tearoom meets a whore's bedroom...lotsa curves, red and black chandeliers with lots of little lampshades, super high ceilings, mosaics, faux-marbles, floor to ceiling mirrors etc.. etc.. The whole effect is slightly tacky but kind of cool. And they have tasty passionfruit martinis to boot. yum.

So starts another week. I'm off to lie on my bed with the electric blanket on full blast reading the Sunday Times...mmmm. Hope you're all well and keepin' warm.

I'm yours

2006-01-13T21:19:00.000Z

Was walking around city centre today on an errand to pick up a print project at a shop along the quays. It was spitting on me all morning - that light misty rain that just makes you feel damp and frizzy - but it was warmish and I had my ipod so I was enjoying being out and about.

Had some time to kill before the train to Drudgeda so I took myself shopping...well, window shopping anyway. The closest I came to a purchase was a red pleather studded belt that was the enticing price of four euros - but do I really need a red pleather studded belt?? Penney's (nearly) strikes again. While I do love my red, pink and white striped velour track bottoms purchased for six quid at Penneys, they don't always come out with stunning gems such as those... ;) (They're kind of hideous but I really do love them...pure cat in the hat.) At the moment, they have a (not so) charming line of baby tees out for spring that only someone under 14 yrs. old or over 300 pounds ever seem to be seen wearing. You know the kind I'm talking about...T-shirts with two strategically placed peaches, t-shirts that say, cutie pie or maneater, or what are you lookin' at? But today's gem was one that said, "I'm his because he appreciates perfection." Ironically, it seems that the further from perfection that a person actually is, the more likely they are to wear that t-shirt. Skanger - o - matic. Not to get all analytic on y'all but don't you think it's a bit odd that the phrase is I'm his? You would think that if one were in fact the picture of perfection (whatever that is) that you would be claiming this perfection appreciating man as belonging to you, not the other way round. Come lick my boots fecker. (I own you, you sad little worshipping, foot licking man who realises that I am in fact way out of your league but appreciates my flawlessness and therefore I will allow you to do all my cooking and cleaning for an occasional snog.)

I should probably be asking myself how my time came to be spent pondering the grammar of t-shirts purchased by illiterates. (You would have to be illiterate to wear some of these shirts, I'm telling you.) Maybe I should go back and buy the one that says 'Geek' or how 'bout, 'Desperately seeking social contact with people who don't smell.' I'm just sayin'.

It can't be good if you don't feel bad

2006-01-04T20:24:00.000Z

Okay so people are known to overindulge come the holidays...too much Christmas Pudding...too much strong ale...or whatever else you choose to eat, drink or smoke come December, but apparently we are all supposed to pay for it come January. I know this is a somewhat universal phenomenon (at least in developed nations celebrating winter holidays) but it seems the debauchary and penance are on a whole other level in the olde country - at least in this olde country. The Christmas holidays are long (most people have about 7-10 days off) and Christmas is a BIG DEAL, followed by Boxing day which is just an excuse to keep Christmas going a little longer (not that I'm compaining about any of that.) Point being, that people really get into it...it being Christmas...as well as turkey, ham, stuffing. potatoes (roast, boiled, mashed - usually multiple tatty dishes at each meal), lager, wine (red, white, mulled...even a white zinfandel if yer lucky ;) ), Christmas Cake, Christmas Pudding, Christmas Trifle, Chocolate biscuits, even the occasional (or not so occasional) line of coke, handful of pills or other mind-altering bad boys if yer that way inclined. It is the time to indulge with a capital I. And if I thought the indulgences were extreme, the time to repent is just as intense. Every single billboard between the train station and home is telling me how to, "lose a jean size in two weeks" (just eat crunchy nut cornflakes twice a day - you might be toothless but at least you'll be skinny.) Last night, there were three different documentaries about food, the Detox Diet, Super Size Me and my favorite, a documentary about people who can't stop eating... The first thing I saw tonight when I got off the train was a sign announcing the debut of a book called, "The Family GI Index." Ah, just what every family needs...Honey I think your blood sugar is too high... And my favorite morning radio show read off a list of the top twelve worst toxins to ingest - with the number one baddy being "fizzy drinks," - phew at least there's one thing I don't drink (unless you count the all those jack and cokes I drank last week.)

So, Repent sinners, put down thy chicken leg...get yer fat ass on ye olde treadmill and commune with whole grains and flax seed oil. Catholic guilt is alive and well. I expect this to last about a week before that Guinness arm starts gettin' a wee bit twitchy and you just can't help but exercise - your right to party...up goes the pint, down goes the wallet...hee hee. Happy New Year Everybody. And put down that cookie. ;)

Spotted Dick (no custard)

2006-01-03T21:53:00.000Z

Spotted_Dick
Originally uploaded by di_juice.

and Microwaveable too!

Spotted Dick with Custard

2006-01-02T20:56:00.002Z

No, this is not some horrible venereal disease you learn about in sex ed. but is in fact, a (supposedly) desirable and tasty dessert. I was wandering the aisles of Asda (which I recently learned is owned by Walmart...booooooo to the evil empire of Sam) and I came across this unlovely sounding dessert in the freezer section. It looks like some kind of cakey thing with raisins (or should I say sultanas as they are known here.) I just started laughing out loud and until Tom came over to see what I was looking at, all the other people in the aisle probably thought I was off me rocker. But, really. Do you want to eat spotted dick??? Truth really is stranger than fiction.