Ireland: Day 1

So, it's been about a month since I got back from vacation with The Husband and three of our unruly friends, and I'm finally getting my act together to sum up my thoughts and post some photos.

As soon as we landed in Dublin we jumped into our rental cars and started careening across the countryside looking at the lovely sites. We were fully expecting to drive manual transmissions, but the rental agency randomly blessed us with automatics. Driving was more difficult than I expected with driving on the left on tiny narrow roads and roundabout after roundabout, so not having to figure out shifting with my left hand at the same time probably saved my life. Not that I didn't do my best to sacrifice it to a giant truck the first time I tried to make a right turn across traffic, but that was terrifying, and we shall never speak of it again.

Despite the complexities of traffic and navigation, we made it to Powerscourt, a gorgeous estate and gardens (featuring a pet cemetery of all things).

















Next, we headed to Glendalough, a ruined monastic settlement founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century. Eventually we made our way to a bed and breakfast in Cashel for the night.













Still to come: Day 2 featured a couple of castles, some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen, tacos and margaritas, and some rather floppy full frontal (no photos of that - sorry).

Adventures in Babysitting

I did manage to get an actual job at an actual address last week for three long days. However, they were super fun days, so I hope the annoying little issues of working for an agency are ironed out because I really enjoy this job.

When I worked for this same agency in college for five years (Shut up. I got two degrees.) I sat for hundreds of families, and only ever had one really disastrous experience. Most parents are nice, and most kids are nice, so I could never turn this blog into The Nanny Diaries. However, people are infinitely weird and interesting, and kids are particularly quirky people, so they are occasionally blogable.

Last week I spent more than 30 hours over the course of three days with a five year old I'll call Freckles. The most notable aspect of this assignment was that there were three humongous dogs cooped up with Freckles and me in a two bedroom apartment, including one very large puppy, maybe 30 or 40 pounds, which just loved humping one of the other dog's heads. Then, at one point, it chewed a hole in Freckle's comforter and pulled out a bunch of the stuffing.

It might have been a slim Rottweiler or a stocky Doberman. I asked Freckles what kind of puppy he had, and he told me, "A Chihuahua."

"Are you sure?" I asked him. "I really think Chihuahuas are way smaller than that."

"Yeah," he said, completely deadpan. "She's a Chihuahua."

I still have no idea if he was messing with me or not.

Freckles also told me a joke:

Q: What's sticky?

A: A chicken with goo.

Ha ha ha ha! Right?

Dad of Freckles was quite the character himself. Instead of coming home after work on Friday, he requested that I meet him at a cigar bar to drop Freckles off, which was weird enough. But, once Freckles and I got close to the place, he got really excited because he thought we were going to the cigar bar where they gave him bubble gum. Then he started to doubt himself because maybe it was the other cigar bar that had the bubble gum. Evidently this kid spends a lot of time in cigar bars. Like I said, people are weird.

Random Photo Friday: Bonus Edition

My complex system of random photo choosing identified this picture as my subject for this week.



However this is a picture taken during my trip with The Husband to Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in October 2005, which has already been sufficiently documented in this Random Photo Friday post. So, I decided to spin the wheel again in hope of providing a new photo inspired reminiscence for you, my reader.

The next photo I chose was a self-portrait memorializing a really good haircut I got sometime in the fall of 2005. I looked absolutely adorable, but not very anonymous. Thinking that a big blurry blob obscuring pretty much the entire photograph wouldn't hold much visual interest, I decided to try again.

Finally, after tossing out a couple more photo selections that had already been posted, I switched up my picture picking strategy and came up with this to share with you, my reader. Although, if you are my reader, you were probably there when it was taken. But, you were having a good time, so that's OK.



(Everyone's face is pretty blurry or obscured here, but if any of y'all object to literally ones of people spotting you on the internet, let me know.)

This was a spur of the moment gathering on April Fool's Day, 2006, on a perfect warm evening. We never even went inside after settling in on the back porch. I don't remember what we talked about, but we were out there for hours, laughing and drinking wine. All the pictures of this night are fuzzy and softly lit (just like my memories of the event). Everyone looks beautiful and happy, and every time I look at this set of photos I feel really lucky to have such friends in my life.

Pretty

I ditched my friends and their invitation to pub trivia on Sunday to "work in my yard." Except it was true! Look.



We planted Salvia:



Some mystery plant that didn't have a tag on it and we forgot what it was by the time we got it home:



White Mealy Sage:



Verbena (which looked pretty much D-E-A-D with a capital D a few hours later. I watered it, so we'll see.)



Plumbago:



We planted some other things, too, but they don't have flowers yet. Pictures of leaves are pretty boring, so I didn't bother. A couple of things we planted earlier are looking lovely, however.

Lantana:



Bee Balm:



Other Lantana:



Poppies: (Just for decoration. No heroin manufacturing going on here. No, siree!)



And, Cosmos:



Still to come: photos of Ireland and the vegetable garden that ate Dallas.

Working

Or trying to, at least.

My tenure with the child care agency has turned into a cavalcade of errors. It started off well enough with a week long assignment at a fitness center's drop-in day care. The week after that I was going on vacation, so I didn't send in my schedule. I knew I had to notify them each week when I could work, but it didn't occur to me that I needed to alert them when I couldn't work. I got a really annoyed phone call from the agency about not contacting them by the deadline, and I apologized my butt off.

When I got back from vacation, I emailed them with my availability for the week. I got worried when I didn't hear back and double checked that I sent them the email. Evidently I attempted to email the agency, but I typed the address wrong and had missed the deadline for the week by the time I re-emailed them, leading to another embarrassed apology.

The next week, I successfully submitted my schedule, but when they called to give me an assignment I forgot to check my voicemail all day. After a series of increasingly irritated messages from the agency, I finally called them back to discover they had given away my job and - of course - to apologize.

Last week my phone rings and (Yay!) it's the agency calling, so I pick up to eagerly accept my assignment. Except that I hear, "Hello, Responsible Badger?"

"No, this is Unruly Duckling," I say.

"Oh. Sorry, Duckling. I dialed the wrong number. Have a great week!"

Right, another great week of being a housebound, unemployed loser!

A few days later the agency calls again and correctly identifies me by name when I answer, so now I'm really excited. They have an order for me from Jane Doe. "What is Jane Doe's address?" I want to know. The agency is confused because they thought I'd been there before, but, no, I've never met Jane Doe or her offspring. It turns out the order was for a different Duckling. Never mind!

Today, wonder of wonders!, I receive a detailed message from the agency about a job for three days this week. I call back to confirm the information, and the agency expresses concern that the home phone the client gave them was disconnected. However, they received the request by email, and they were able to leave a message on the cell phone the client provided, so no big deal, right?

Well, I used to live on the same street as the client, and I'm pretty sure there are only apartments all along that road. Lo and behold! Googling the address confirms it's an apartment complex, but there wasn't any apartment number on the address for the order. I left a voice mail for the agency letting them know I need a better address, but I haven't heard back yet.

Maybe it's time to look for another gig.

(Cue whining and procrastination)

Random Photo Friday: Christmas 1986 Edition

I'm so glad someone invented digital cameras. If I took a picture like this nowadays, I'd delete it and try again. I did fix it up a little bit using modern digital technology, so there's that.

Anyway, my family has a long and faithful tradition of photographically documenting our Christmas trees each year. This one isn't too goofy, but get a load of the extra awesome faux fiber optic tree topper there. And is that wall decor fashionable for the mid-eighties, or is it a hold over from the seventies my parents were still enjoying?

I was nine years old and in fourth grade in 1986. This was the last year for quite a while I was remotely cute or cool since I hit puberty the next year way before any of my friends did. And not in a good "early bloomer with big boobs" way. Puberty mostly just stunted my growth and gave me a bad complexion and chubby thighs.

Christmas of 1986, however, I was still a cute little girl in a red velvet dress.

Unruly Duckling: Where is She Now?

Wow. It's been about two months since I last posted. It seems like longer, actually.

I was busy having a teeny, weeny nervous breakdown and quitting my job. The good news is that I have found my true calling as a semi-housebound agoraphobe with a burgeoning fixation on clean base boards, as well as a penchant for hyperbole. (evidently)

When I quit my job, I was afraid that I would regret it and that I was just blaming my job for my unhappiness when I really had more serious issues I wasn't addressing. However, I feel 99% better since quitting, so I think it was the right decision. Objectively, there wasn't anything so horrible about that job that should have made me utterly miserable, and I wish I could figure it out, but I'm tired of thinking about it. So: moving on...

I am "working" for a child care agency providing babysitting and temporary day care staffing. I say "working" because they haven't had an assignment for me in almost 3 weeks. That's a little bit my fault because I discovered the hard way that the agency appreciates it when you actually return their call when they want to offer you work. Since I lost one assignment for not calling them back for five hours, I've been obsessively checking my voicemail to no avail.

However, I really did enjoy the one week they had me working at the day care of a fitness center. Did you know that 40% of children are now named "Colin"? (not based on a scientific sample)

In other news, I took a really awesome trip to Ireland with The Husband and 3 of our friends. I'll post some pictures pretty soon. Also, our vegetable garden is going coo-coo bananas. Do any of you want some home-grown green beans or some Swiss chard? I can totally hook you up. The tomatoes, however, will be all mine (and The Husband's).

Looking forward, I may take another stab at this whole gainful employment thing. I'm also taking some tiny little baby steps towards being a foster parent. The Husband thinks maybe we could get some of those polygamous sect kids to teach me how to sew and can vegetables and stuff. In the long term, I'm becoming more enamored with the idea of getting my Masters degree in Counseling. However, I missed the deadline for this fall semester, so I have many months to get distracted from that whole project.

By the way, I signed up for that Twitter thing that all the cool kids are talking about. I'm not sure I really get it, but feel free to Twit at me.

Damn Skippy

I'm surprised I scored so well, considering I'm kind of drunk.

100%ALCOHOLIC

Update

Everything is stupid and boring. That is all.

Random Photo Friday: Small Rodent Edition

Random Photo Friday is becoming more of an occasional series than a weekly one, but it's still fun when I remember it.

Anyway, this, quite simply, is a squirrel.*



Here is a closer look at that squirrel.



Cute, huh?

I took this photo during a trip to Ohio to see the bay-bee. (Hey, all the photos on the post are gone! Darn The Husband must have changed his website around where they were hosted. I'll get right on fixing that.)

This squirrel is special because it's black! Instead of brown! So of course I had to follow it around for half an hour trying to take its picture. Aren't you glad I did?

*I wonder if it is possible to write a grammatically accurate, correctly punctuated sentence with commas between every word?