The Postman Always Rings

…..but not on the phone. He calls to the door when he delivers one of the packages--usually from my mother.

Of course in all this time we have developed a relationship. Not of the sordid kind, but of the friendly, looking out for us, waiting until I'm home from the school run to deliver parcels kind. We've been here for nearly 5 years so that's a lot of care packages from family in Texas. He also drives a taxi in the off hours so we've hired him to take us to the airport and out to dinner too. He brings the kids birthday chocolate and Christmas sweeties and has stopped by for tea. This Christmas since the kids can read he's taking off all the customs stickers so they won't know what presents are hidden inside. We all shout and run for the door when we see his green van…Eugene's here!

My friends all think it's a bit odd but I am glad for this personal touch. When we moved house last year his route changed so he still delivers to us. And when I'm out jogging I can count on a honk and wave from my friendly (friend) postman.

After all, life is the relationships and experiences you have. I am glad to know that someone is out there watching my back and caring about my homesickness. I think it's a bit of what's missing in the world today. So, cheers to the friendly people of an Post. Happy Christmas and thank you for delivering all those packages.

Potato Man

Co. Wexford, just below our county, is nationally known for its potatoes and strawberries. In the summer when strawberries are at their peak of juicy sweetness, highways and country roads alike have white vans posted along them selling green baskets bursting with red heart shaped berries.

All year round, potatoes can be had from the same white vans. Wexford farmers travel the 50 km through Co. Wicklow to deliver the iconic staple of the Irish dinner table.

There's a man who brings his into our estate some mornings, delivering orders or hoping to fill an urgent need for a bag of spuds. Last week the bell rang. I answered to find himself standing on my stoop….'you ok for potatoes?' He was in his sixties, around 5'10, and wearing nice brown trousers with a jumper and jacket, hands rough and nose bulbous all topped by a tweed cap. 'Yes sir, thank you, I'm fine for potatoes.' Nothing to it, he smiled and headed back out to the van with Wexford Potatoes and his mobile phone number embellished on the side.

Try your hand, take the chance. That's Ireland.

Oh! Christmas Tree

We got our Christmas tree today. And just in the nick of time if you believe Mitchell at the green grocer. We have always waited until the 15^th or so to get the tree but the kids were too excited to wait another minute. So, all bundled up, all in the car, work gloves and twine at the ready, inspired by last night's viewing of Christmas Vacation we headed to Get Fresh to procure our tree.

We used to live right around the corner from Get Fresh so frequented it for all our fruit and veg. Since we've moved to the new house I only get over there on the rare occasion or for special things like the tradition of buying our tree from Cormac. Cormac owns Get Fresh and we've known him from our first weeks here in Ireland. One of the first times I met him, I was chatting to a baby Rowan…something like, you're the most handsome man, I love you! Cormac, not hard on the eyes in a rugged Irish way, looked up stunned for a minute suspecting me of chatting him up. As is my usual skill of making a situation more uncomfortable I said, Oh, I'm talking to my son. Not trying to get fresh…..forgetting or maybe subliminally influenced by the name of the shop, Get Fresh. He chuckled and gave me a smile and from then on we were locals. Names were exchanged and greetings were offered every time I set foot near the leeks and parsnips. One of Rowan's first real words was 'Cormac' and now he's in the same class as Cormac's neice…..that's why people in this town look over their shoulder before a bit of gossip. It's very small.

Every year we buy our tree from Cormac. There's nowhere else we would go.

Back to today. We looked over the strangely meager offering of Christmas trees all bundled up like giants' wigs in enormous hairnets. How to tell which is best when you can't see them freed from their bindings? We had a few opened up to have a better look, they sprung out, boughs extending, needles flying. We chose the third one. Not too tall, not too full, the perfect Charlie Brown Christmas pine.

As we looked and chatted, Mitchell told us we were lucky to have come early this year. We were good not to have waited because apparently there is a shortage of trees this year--something to do with a seven year cycle. Next week there may not be a tree to spare!

It's such dire straits for Christmas trees in Ireland that the delivery driver from the little farm in the Wicklow mountains requested a gardai escort into town for fear of being hijacked for his bounty of decorative pines. Imagine the festive bandits; lying in wait for the Christmas tree truck to pass…..pouncing with ski masks, work gloves and twine to abscond with Ireland's last crop of Christmas cheer.

I'm waiting for the public service announcement: Don't buy rogue trees! Verify your supplier before you even think about twinkly lights and baubles…….there's trouble about!

The Second Thanksgiving

The turkey. I used to always go to my local butchers, owned by Molloy brothers although the name of the butcher is Hayes….see previous posts for how this is common. On our second Thanksgiving I went in the week before to order my turkey. The thing is, the Molloy brothers only sell Irish turkeys and none of the turkeys named O'Grady, Butler or Ahern were fat enough yet. They still had a few weeks to enjoy life before sitting on Christmas tables all over Co. Wicklow.

It was this that sent me to the grocery store to find a fresh turkey, which I suppose came from the UK or somewhere and was not as fat as the Irish Christmas yokes. I got my bird in the end and it was fine if not Irish. The real problem was the ham. And it continues to be a problem for me still. They don't have beautiful spiral sliced HEB cooked hams with their pouch of glaze here. I love those hams. They are my favorite part of the Thanksgiving table and are perfect with green rice (broccoli-cheese rice), sweet potatoes, and ambrosia. I'm not a big fan of turkey so these things are Thanksgiving to me.

Before anyone says, 'wait, we have lovely hams and bacon here' I must tell you that yes, you do but they are just not the same. I don't like having to boil my ham, drain the water, wrap it in foil, cook it in the oven, apply the glaze halfway through and then finish cooking. It isn't spiral cut and it isn't what I think of as a ham.

We stayed here that second year and celebrated the day on Saturday rather than Thursday which has become our custom. Thanksgiving Thursday might be my loneliest day in Ireland. No one knows it's meant to be a special day…it's just a regular old Thursday. The kids go to school, Paul goes to work, I buy up all the potatoes, cream of mushroom soup, canned green beans, and cranberry sauce and no one seems to notice. Saturday is the day we feast. And by feast, I mean we sit at the table for 20 minutes and say what we're thankful for and then go back to watching football and Christmas movies.

It's more the day, the preparations, the atmosphere of celebration and rituals that make Thanksgiving so great. And we have been able to recreate that here on the Saturday after thanks to care packages with cornbread mix, French's fried onions, canned pumpkin, and Cheez-Whiz. We do miss you all, knowing that you're at the mall, going to the movies, and eating turkey, cranberry, and dressing sandwiches on white bread while you watch college football.

A Day of Action

Today all Irish public workers were on strike. Although a more positive spin was put on it by calling it a squeaky clean, gung ho, 'day of action'. The issue, as is the case with most of these things, is heated. Those who called for today's picket lines did so because they believe that with all the cutbacks in government due to the recession, their salaries and pensions are carrying more of the burden than others. I am mostly ignorant of the differing views so cannot make any assertions but I can tell you what I heard on the radio and how the day of action affected me.

Public workers here are the same as at home, think postal workers and other government officials who have extreme job security and a nice pension at the end of your duty to your country and government. So far, so good.

From my miniscule knowledge the problems are these: 1) higher level officials of the government are not taking the same pay and pension cuts as the lower level people such as teachers, public health nurses, and the like 2) private workers who are losing their jobs due to the recession, while given huge 'redundancy' packages relative to the US, are not protected or compensated in the way the public workers and so they wonder, why complain??? at least you still have a job 3) is the same argument across the world and time eternal, it is why revolutions happen and it is this: why are the little people having to pay the bill for the 'fat cats' who got us into this mess in the first place (or something to that effect as I've heard ad nausea on both sides of the Atlantic since this whole thing blew up).

Now to how it altered my day…I can speak freely and from the heart here. My kids were home from school today and thankfully I don't have a job to get to and babysitters to arrange. You should know that it rained non-stop 100% of the day. You should also know that swine flu, or H1N1 as the politically correct US prefers to call it, is on the 'rampage' here at the moment and vaccinations are only being meted out in waves of most necessary first and anyway the public health clinics who do the shots were on strike.

Taking all these things into account you can understand why the following occurred today: the one and only, state-of-the-art, American style shopping mall was jammers. I went there because I couldn't go to the park or the seafront and I didn't want to expose my kids to wall-to-wall swine flu free for all at some play jungle. There are probably five to seven thousand parking spaces underground at this mall. At 12:30 this afternoon the entire red car park was full. The adjoining green car park was practically full but that did not stop us from sitting in an underground, ventilated traffic jam praying for a free space. My first thought was, recession? Someone should tell all these people. But then I realized that everyone was here for the same reasons as me. There was nowhere else to go.

We were all there with our kids in tow, prepared to slog through the mall instead of sit another day inside the four walls of the house while the kids bounced on the sofas and drove us demented. Better to release them onto the public and catch a break for a couple of hours. It was mayhem but the kids loved it. They took a notepad and wrote down their wish lists as we made our way through the enticing Christmas displays. They whinged because they wanted ice cream but for the most part they were actually quite exceptional. We got some family Christmas shopping done, long lists taken down, and killed 3 hours.

On the way home, the radio news told me that they are planning another 'day of action' for next Thursday. The kids are already off next Friday for an inservice day so that makes it a looooong weekend. Pray for better weather, at least no rain, and I can handle it. But I am totally fecked if it is lashing from the heavens and there's nowhere else to go but Dundrum.

Are you married?

In the past week I have been flirted with by two men—both Irish and both well into their 70s. As I stood in line at the grocery store with Leo in his perpetual perch in the buggy, the man behind me decided to chat me up. He was about 75, big and burly with a reddish, whiskery face and bushy eyebrows. His first question was "Are you married?" That's one way to start a conversation. Next was, "where in the States are you from?", rapidly followed by "deep in the heart of Texas". People have notions about things. Ireland is all sheep, Guinness, and rain. Texas is all snakes, tequila, and desert. Of course neither are more than generalizations of places that are many things plus those.

Back to Mr. Whiskers—he laughed and told me how he was supposed to play in a pub in Dallas once but didn't go; he remembered the name of the pub, McSomething's. As I paid and struggled to cram my purchases in the bottom of my buggy while Leo howled I thought, "Oh, yea, I'm one appealing mama." Right.

My other flirty septuagenarian is someone I've seen daily for the past 4 years. He never smiled or acknowledged me or the kids until about 6 months ago. This coincided with the sporting of a bright new button up shirt he wears with a tie, suit jacket and brown trousers. He walks somewhere every morning with a carrier bag and huffs his way along at a brisk pace.

So, he started saying good morning. That turned into a regular thing and in the past few weeks I've gotten the brightest, fullest smile you've ever seen. It really cheers me right up because it is so genuine.

And then on Sunday as I passed him on the way back home with my newspaper, we engaged in the regular greeting/weather commentary. Something like: Good morning. Good morning. Lovely mornin'. Yes it is. We're right to get out and enjoy it while we can. And then, the ultimate. One of the sweetest things any 'stranger' has ever said to me….."It's always a lovely morning when I see you", accompanied by his bright, boyish smile. Seriously. It almost made me cry. I guess it's not really flirty in the true sense, more like kind and innocently lovely.

 

 

Updates

An update on my post The King. Our local paper shared the news that he's won an award for best entertainer in Ireland. Congratulations!

Plus, I got my email update from babycenter.com yesterday and the topic was "becoming a young American". It was about teaching citizenship, social consciousness, and civic duty. I couldn't help thinking of my post about how the kids are Americans but with Irish experiences and how that's shaped them. I think we can be patriotic from afar, almost more so because the distance makes you idealize things. The land of conveniences and plenty looks pretty good when you're paying 20 euro for an organic chicken and hoofing it through sideways rain to go to the bank or post office.

In fairness, the grass is always greener.

We sing the National Anthem and America, the Beautiful at the top of our lungs in the car and always change the original God Save the Queen when watching football games. (sorry to any British I'm offending) Someone asked Rowan if he were to play rugby would he play for Ireland, America, or France. His immediate answer was America. That's a good place to start.

 

 

 

In Hot Water, Revisited---Happy St Patrick's Day

The American/Irish comedian Des Bishop cannot be bested in his explanation of both the immersion tank and hot press. I will not attempt to compete and suggest anyone interested in living in Ireland have a look at his routine.

I will though tell you my own view of this strangest bit of Irish domestic life.

When we moved here in July of 2005 our lovely relocation agent met us at the house we'd rented and gave us a quick tour. She showed us the boiler and clucked about how good it was that we had a tumble dryer in the shed, made sure there was a clothes line, and above all showed us the: da, da, dum….Immersion Tank. 

It was in a cabinet or 'press' in the bathroom just over the tub and resembled an ancient piece of moonshine equipment wrapped in yellow insulation. It had two switches attached to it. 

One said 'SINK', the other 'BATH'. 
She went through a quick and mostly incomprehensible explanation about how you turn it to 'BATH' an hour or so before you want to bathe or shower and then you have to remember to turn it off again after.

And if you want hot water to wash dishes or clothes you have to turn it to 'SINK' but be sure not to leave it too long because it just wastes heat. Okay. Turn it on before, off after, halfway during….what?!

American hot water heaters are in a broom closet and you really never see them unless they break, the pilot light goes out, or you want to sweep. 

We don't turn them off and on and we certainly don't have conversations about how we need to get home because tonight is bath night and we have to get the immersion tank turned on. 

You want a bath, you turn on the faucet and the bath fills up…..with hot water.

The press that the immersion tank resides in is called the hot press. Hot enough to finish drying the clothes that won't dry on the line in the damp Irish weather. A friend dries the clothes on the line, finishes them in the dryer, folds them and puts them in the hot press and then puts them away in drawers. 
The hot press is valuable space in any Irish home. In an ignorant act of blasphemy, I just threw all our towels and extra razors and soap up there along with the scale and other detritus I didn't want laying around. I have to say the towels were always nice and warm after being in there even if they were crunchy from hanging on the line.

A very ingenious way around this whole immersion tank minefield is the electric shower. 

Electricity and water might not sound ingenious to you but somehow, very carefully I'm sure, it works. There is a switch in the ceiling with a cord that you pull, very similar to the 'emergency somebody help me nurse alert' in hospital bathrooms. 
When you pull it, on comes the electricity in this little hairdryer looking box inside the shower (again, I know) with on/off switches and temperature and water pressure controls.

I can't imagine going for anything less than 'high' for pressure as it is more of an American low but nonetheless, the choice is yours. Once you get it going, you have hot water for days. Stick the kids in there and you've conquered an hour of playtime and they come out pruney and squeaky clean.

Sadly, baths are not good. I have not managed to fill up the bath at either of my Irish houses because the hot water runs out before it gets even a quarter of the way full. Last night I tried to make up the difference with the electric shower but it took forever and wasn't really hot enough. I even added two kettles full of water and achieved a bit above tepid. Really. 

What a waste of heat and water; two of the ten Irish commandments broken in one single act.

Locked

When you're drunk you're 'locked'. And when you go out 'on the piss' you're having a 'session'.

Wednesday night I was all of the above. It started out very innocently with a grown-up dinner at 8. A reasonable few glasses of wine sipped with the 3 course meal of mushroom and leek soup and sea bass with tomato salsa followed by Toblerone cheesecake. See, grown-up. Something happened to me between the cheesecake and the bill. A session switch clicked in my head and I was on my second wind.

We stayed in the restaurant until they asked us to go downstairs to the pub. We stayed in the pub until they asked us to go outside to the late night bar. And we stayed there until they turned on all the lights and they asked us to go home.

I have always wondered where the expression locked comes from and I think I've gotten to the bottom of it. We used to have lock-ins at the skating rink where we would stay all night skating and playing games like who can make the best mummy with a roll of toilet paper. And the church youth groups have lock-ins to raise money for charities or church trips. A very different kettle of fish.

When we were in the pub portion of our evening they locked the front doors. This was common practice back in the days when pubs were mostly for men and rules were easily bent. The doors were locked, the few remaining regulars ensconced inside drinking the early morning hours away. Locked.

To leave the pub we had to follow a circuitous path behind some men of a certain age through a tiny Alice in Wonderland door and into the makeshift outdoor bar. This area is usually part of the restaurant but there must be some elastic regulation regarding where people can drink until late (or early) so they've industriously come up with a plan. So really it's the opposite of a lock-in now.

One more expression solved. I am getting such an education. You're welcome.

The King

Elvis is alive and well. I pass him every morning on my way home from the school run. It's old Elvis and he spends the day at the coffee shop on the Main Street, smoking. He has lamb chop sideburns and wears big, gold, dark-tinted sunglasses. 

I'm sure his nights are spent sweating through sparklebilly jumpsuits and crooning his heart out. I have no idea where he performs but I'd love to know. He seems nice enough and offers up a grunty greeting as we pass one another. 

Sinead O'Connor used to live here and you'd see her playing with her kids in the park. She never spoke and seemed terribly shy. She moved because 'Bray is full of weirdos'.
Bono lived in the Martello tower. A true tower built in 1800s to protect the then British empire. A line of them were built along the Eastern coast of Ireland and Western coast of England and Wales. Some of them are still tourist attractions, others are privately owned and have been renovated into residences. He even wrote a song about Bray's promenade. He lives north of here now but you can still spot him in the local pub, always wearing his signature sunglasses. 

Booker prize winner, Anne Enright lives near the park. She is known for updating her kitchen with the winnings her book, The Gathering, earned her. 

And Jonathan Rhys-Myers was made to stay here during the filming of this last installment of The Tudors so he'd be close to the studio and allegedly not get into any trouble. I wonder if he ever spent an evening at The Koo, a dance club where propositions are very direct and to the point. 

Back to Elvis. He's the real celebrity here. He is out among the regular folk, walking around, saying hello, patronizing local business and spending his evenings entertaining.

Should I offer him a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich?

Small Stuff

Paul is at home. In Austin. And we are all four still here. In Ireland.

I am sad.



This morning I came downstairs to make my coffee and just wish that I had my Krups coffee maker set on a timer with the welcoming good morning sound of coffee brewing away. Instead I have to, in my sleepy stupor, do as I have done for 4 years now and:

• fill up the electric kettle with fresh water
  
• pop it on to make the boiling start
  
• monitor its progress because this kettle is crap and always pops up before it's finished
  
• fill the once quaint French press coffee maker with grounds—heaping tablespoons full
  
• wait for it…..
  
• pour boiling water over grounds, stir and press
  
• finally enjoy a cup of coffee; but only two because that's all you can make at one time.
  

Don't sweat the small stuff, right? But you know what? It's always the small stuff that breaks you. It's the cumulative small stuff, stacked one on top of the other that finally tumble and AHHHH!!! I lose it!

Like John Travolta said in Pulp Fiction, 'it's the little differences'. Electric kettles, crappy dryers, no school bus, no school hot lunch, no drive-thru pharmacy or fast food or bank, needing a euro for a grocery cart, xenophobic neighbor, expensive marshmallows and no Velveeta!

Ok, the coffee has kicked in. I feel better. Paul is still in Austin but I guess he is sad like he says. It's his birthday tomorrow and he'll be alone, he has to sit in meetings all day, he's jetlagged. But, he does get to eat some Tex-Mex, go through the Wendy's drive thru if he likes, feel the warm fall air through the open car window and get his free birthday pitcher of beer at the Crown.

Eurotrash

Trash is cash here in Ireland. If you want to make some big bucks privatize garbage (rubbish) collection. When we moved here there seemed to be only one company monopolizing the rubbish cash cow…Green Star which is inexplicably all done up in purple. It was really confusing to me at first and I'm sure we were totally fleeced because we didn't understand the logistics of it. Everyone said to get a wheelie bin but we didn't really know what that meant or how to do it. Sounds silly now but it was all so new!

In Texas you pay the city to take your garbage away and with that they provide you with a really big wheelie bin (garbage can) and a blue plastic recycling box for all your bottles, cans and paper. The fee is on your general utilities bill and you barely even notice it at all….or at least I didn't. When I was growing up in East Texas you could drive yourself out to the dump and get rid of your trash. You would just throw all the black Hefty bags right in the back of the pickup and be on your way. We used to ride back there in the bed of the truck to keep it from blowing around and I'm sure kids still do.

Here, if you don't have a contract that includes a wheelie bin you have to buy these purple sacks from the 'news agent' for 6 euro a pop and cram all your crap in. And then you have to buy a clear one of these for recycling at around 4 euro. Our first week here we had 4 purple sacks out on the path come trash day. One of our neighbors asked how we could have so much rubbish and said we must be rich to be able to afford it. I know now that I would think the same thing. 24 euro a week for Greenstar rubbish sacks adds up to a lot of green….hey maybe that explains the name.

Now might be the appropriate time to mention the litter. It is a problem here and it doesn't take a genius to discover why…it is free to ditch your shite. Even better if you can cram it into someone's wheelie bin on rubbish day, or just fill up black bags and leave them next to someone's purple ones and maybe they'll get picked up too. Not a chance….mice will though.

When the mice showed their appreciation for our plastic rubbish bags we got wise. By that time, a couple of new companies came onto the scene with competitive pricing. One of them is called Eurowaste, which always makes me chuckle and to which the title of this post eludes, and another is Access. We chose the latter and they delivered one big black bin for our rubbish and one big green one for the recycling. No glass though, we still secret all our wine bottles away in a plastic tub and Paul takes them to the bottle bank when it gets too embarrassing.

The lovely people at Access come every Wednesday and happily remove our refuse and recycling to someplace unknown. Thank goodness for them. I heard that all the recycling from Europe is actually dumped in a landfill in China and not recycled at all but I hope that isn't true. I haven't been washing out all those shampoo and yogurt containers for nothing. And it does make me feel a bit sad when I think of the dump days and all that used up junk buried underground all over the world.

Just think of all that money. Greenstar thanks you.

What the feck?

It may surprise you to know that 'feck' isn't a bad word. Certainly not like its country cousin with the 'u'. It's a nuance of language here that a word can be made appropriate for general conversation just by changing a letter. One of the first times I heard feck was when a friend, a very serious and exemplary mother by all standards, used it in conversation with the kids within earshot. She would never have said you know what instead as that would be improper. Shite is another example of this. Add the 'e' and you can say it all day long.

There's also a national obsession with talking about fairness. You hear constant refrains of 'in fairness', ' to be fair', 'fair play to ya'. Usually the first two are given as excuses when someone is complaining about something or to soften the blow when things don't go your way. For example, a certain airline loses your luggage after a missed connection and a day at the airport with 3 kids and when you complain….'in fairness we all travel and have had this happen' or 'to be fair, you're not the only ones this happened to'. This is very unhelpful as it makes no difference whether someone else's luggage was lost last week because I have no clean knickers right now! You'll get 'fair play to ya' when you've done something well or succeeded at something surprising; like if you complained about your lost luggage and they upgraded you to business class for the long-haul flight. (Unfortunately that's not what happened).

One of my favorites is 'come here'. Let me explain. When (usually) women are talking and there's something needing emphasis or to change topics or to subtly break off from the conversation they say come here. The first few times I heard it I thought I was supposed to step closer. "But I'm standing right next to you now." I would think. 'Come here' is often accompanied by 'and wait 'til I tell ya'. This means gossip and it's probably going to be good. The 'come here' when it's time to keep walking or hang up the phone is like this, "So, come here, where're ya off ta?" or "So, come here, I'll see you at half two".

So, come here, here's a list of some Irishisms and their meanings. Please feel free to amend or add your own as I'm sure not to remember them all.

Yer man/woman—that guy/lady

Ye—ya'll or you guys

Eejit—idiot

Fillum—film/movie

Cop onto yourself—get a grip

Twig—figure something out

Straightaway—right now

Footpath—sidewalk

Make strange—stranger anxiety, for babies

Bold—naughty

Rubber—eraser

Rub out—erase

Thanks a million/mill—thanks

Messages—groceries

Plasters—band-aids

Suncream—sunscreen

Wagon—a bi*ch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dirty Laundry

 

Would you consider hanging your laundry or 'washing' out on a line to dry? Why not? Texas has the perfect weather for drying washing. Sheets, knickers, and vests would be dry in no time almost any day of the year. Why, because we just don't. There are things called dryers for that sort of thing….nice manmade machines that roll the clothes around in a heated drum and toss out all the wrinkles and damp. Don't be silly!

One of my first nights out with new friends provided me with an insight into what a spoiled life I actually had with my tumble dryer over in TX. And quite frankly, how wasteful it was. One friend said her Dad came over while she had the tumble dryer on and made her come out with him and look at the electric meter, oh how it spins! Think of all that money wasted on drying clothes when you have a perfectly nice day for hanging out the washing. Another said she'd never had a tumble dryer. Ever. She has 3 small children. Just think of that, not forgetting of course that Ireland isn't known for having the sunniest, driest weather. She has one now but really it isn't so odd that she didn't. They don't really use them over here.

The second most popular topic of polite conversation is the washing. If you've hung yours out yet, what a good day it is for hanging washing, better get the washing in the weather's changing.

In the old house we had a tumble dryer. It just didn't really work very well. It wasn't like the ones I was used to with the filter poking out of a vent in the side of the house for the steam to escape through. Instead it had a tray in the bottom, not unlike one of those freezer trays filled with water or that strange blue stuff that you put in a cooler, where all the water from the clothes would go. I always wondered how the water got there. Anyway, this water thing would fill up periodically and have to be taken out of the dryer and emptied. I'd stand out in the cold in my robe and flip-flops pouring used clothes water into the bushes. And for all that, the clothes still wouldn't get totally dry. Not that nice fluffy bury-your-face-in-the -towels dry. This contributes to bitterness.

Another option is to hang your clothes all over the house on drying racks and in the hot press. What's a hot press? A press is a cabinet and it's the hot one because it has the immersion tank in it. An immersion tank being the hot water heater. More on that another day. So, in the winter and early spring when most days are cold and wet and not fine days for hanging the washing, one must decorate the house with it. Our kitchen eating area used to be the drying area, not very good feng shui I found out because that was our money corner and it is not good to have your money corner cluttered.

With all of that I do have to admit that I loved hanging out all of Paul and Rowan's white undershirts in a perfect row along the clothesline. It made me feel very organized to see them all lined up like sails or bunting at a picnic. And sheets are especially nice dried on a line. But I would never iron them. My neighbor asked me one day if I was always ironing because of how often I washed the sheets. "What?!?" , I asked, stunned, "iron the sheets?" I'd never heard of such a thing. I send work shirts to the cleaners so I don't have to iron them for crying out loud. No way, never, not a chance will you ever catch me ironing sheets!

I have to admit my horrible, lazy secret here. In the new house we have a perfectly lovely, carbon bigfoot print, meter spinning like Christmas Vacation tumble dryer and I use it with reckless abandon. Sweet, sweet joys of life.

Weather Report

The weather is a constant topic of conversation around here. It has to be really as it is such a factor in our lives here on an island on the edge of the Atlantic. A day can be made or lost depending on the state of the weather. "Lovely day", "Blustery day", "Fresh mornin'", "Dreadful weather" are all common greetings as you pass people along the road. If it is a lovely, fresh day you'll hear constant refrains of 'long may it last' and 'please God' and if the weather is rotten the talk is always about how it's meant to be nice again next week. A weather report in the paper or on the radio can be comical. There was once one that said, and this is absolutely the truth, something like: "sun in the east, blustery across most of the country with a slight chance for thunderstorms and gale force winds, possible chance of sleet, hail or snow".

The amazing part about this weather obsession is how quickly we all forget. Today for instance is a gorgeous, sunny and warm day (highs are probably 62 degrees F) and no one remembers that it was raining nonstop on Sunday. We are all thankful for the moment when it comes to the weather. It is truly a case of enjoy the here and now because it could be lashing from the heavens again this afternoon. The kids go by the old saying, 'red skies at night, shepherds' delight. Red skies in the morning, shepherds' warning." And it really does seem to hold true. Same goes for a terrible day like last Sunday. It has never been more miserable, wet, dreadful as it is at that time and how can we live in such a country with such weather, etc. Then the blustery wind blows the rain clouds over to Wales or into the vast Atlantic and everything is rosy again.

To that point, there is a certain mania that comes with really good summer weather. It is so fleeting yet so absolutely perfect when it is the height of a good summer here that everyone goes a bit loopy. Running around in tank tops and sundresses, fleeing to the sea and jumping into the freezing water like it's the Caribbean, and mass purchasing of barbeque meats, beer, and suncream are common side effects of a good Irish summer. There is a wonderful camaraderie in the air along with the warmth; we are all happy and smiling and hopeful, long may it last.

You know that Waterboys song that goes, 'your love feels like high, high summer'? (If not, have a listen it's a really pretty song.) Well, it used to not make sense at all to me, being from Texas where summer temperatures can reach 100+F/40+C. How could high summer be good to compare to a beautiful love? It is oppressive and miserable and gives you the horrible crotch sweat…that's what I used to think. But now I get it. High summer in Ireland or Scotland where the Waterboys are from (I think) is one of the most gorgeous and perfect things on this Earth. It is green, beyond green, and everything is in hypersharp focus, filtered through the brightest, clearest sun. There is a soft breeze to keep you cool and endless blue sky over a glass smooth sea of deep blue and shades of gray and green.

You know it will be a fine day when you can smell the sea….a salty, sharpish, smell like your true love's sweet sweat in high summer.

Four years gone. How have my ideas of the world changed? Ireland has become simply where we live with everything that goes with that. We know people to stop for a chat on the street, we can find our way around our little town even understanding all the dual named places and what it means for something to be 'at the top of the hill', we have friends who we regularly meet for the kids to play, a coffee, a drink, dinner and a gripe session. It is where I live, what I do, and how I view life. I see things from two angles now; as an American in Ireland and as an American IN Ireland…where the American is blurred and I see home from a different perspective. It is odd how you learn things. It kind of seeps into your consciousness and changes your viewpoint without you realizing you're changing. Not that I've undergone some dramatic alteration, that would be overstating it, but I have begun to take things for normal that at first seemed different and new..…things that would seem quaint, mystifying, and strange if we were only visiting tourists.

I think back to those first exciting, confusing and lonely months here. In my mind I documented all the new details, trying to incorporate them into my life. Details like paying for parking at a parking box within a shopping center to go to the grocery store, using a euro coin to borrow a shopping cart or 'trolley' (the first time I did it there was an attendant at the trolleys who saw me coming, obviously out of my element and taking pity, simply rolled me a trolley freed from its chains, I naively thought was how it was always done), taking your own shopping bags for your groceries and SACKING your own groceries as the somewhat surly, definitely bored, person at the cash register sat (yes, sat…they have chairs here) not entirely patiently as I struggled to stow away my purchases with my cranky 3 and 1 year old embarrassing me by seeming so darn loud. And that was just the grocery store.

People walk an awful lot here and everything is measured in how many minutes it takes to walk from point a to point b. And there is usually a hill involved. So, if the shop (grocery store) is around 5 blocks away you'd be told, "the dunnes stores is just a 3 minute walk". Or for directions to the school you'd be told, "just through the town and up the hill". No one uses street names when giving directions either. It's place names and hills and minutes that serve as markers. Which is not very handy when you don't know the area. And everything seems to have more than one name. It's like they keep calling places by their previous names as well as by the new one, figuring it out is like peeling back layers of old paint. For example, there's a pub commonly known as Jackie's but the name on the outside is O'Driscoll's. No one calls it that so you have to sort of know. Best of luck.

In retrospect I can also see how I must have appeared to them. In the beginning I just kept smiling and trying to ingratiate myself with the people I would regularly see. The smiling was probably seen as weird. Why is this strange girl always smiling at us? was probably whispered among the older neighbors I would pass on my way out to the shops. Most of my neighbors were older and they would pass by with a nod of the head. When we got here I had a big red jogging stroller for Sofia and Rowan. One of the selling points of the town and location of our house was the proximity to the sea. And the mile long Victorian era promenade along it. It is perfect for a jog and that was the potential I saw when I first laid eyes on it. People are always walking along it, kids ride their small bikes on it even though the ground is painted periodically with 'no cycling' in big yellow letters, dogs run and chase and it is the center of the St Patrick's and summer festivals every year with amusements and rides erected for weeks on end. All of this yet no one really jogs, especially women. You have your occasional guy or two pounding by the walkers and you will sometimes see a woman jogging but it is definitely not the norm. And then there was me. With big red. And shorts! Taking up so much space plowing up and down the mile long promenade, smiling. Always smiling. My friends now who would see me back then like to joke about how I was so alien in my shorts with tanned, Texas sun legs, running along behind my big red stroller with the two kids.