Ireland: Day 3

On day three we left our B & B in Dingle to visit the Cliffs of Moher. However, between the cliffs and us loomed the Connor Pass, a narrow, winding mountain road. As I was concentrating on not driving into a precipice, The Husband took some photos out the car window so I could enjoy the scenery at my leisure later.









Evidently, it was pretty.

The Cliffs of Moher were very crowded, but quite lovely. However, once again, knowing what I do now, and considering how little time we had, I wish we'd decided to make one of the other trips on our list. We actually saw gorgeous sea cliffs at several other sites - particularly Slieve League and Dunluce Castle - that I thought were just as impressive as the Cliffs of Moher. Of course I took a billion pictures of everything, so you can judge for yourself.











Plenty more blue ocean and green hills to come...

Random Photo Friday: Not in Ireland Edition

Here are my dad, brother, and me at Lake Texoma in February 1990. My mom's taking the picture.



I am twelve years old, and I am Cool. Yes, with a capital "C". You can tell by the giant Guns N' Roses button I'm wearing on my awesome jean jacket. Seriously, that thing was about 8 inches across. (I thought I might still have it somewhere, but I couldn't find it. I did, however come across a calendar noting that on this very day in 1999 I went to a Poison concert, as well as some candy I brought back from Finland seven years ago.)

Seventh grade was a very rough year for me. My dad had graduated from vet school, and my family moved from Bryan to Denton, TX. For some reason the Denton school district wouldn't admit me to the honors classes despite my high test scores. The combination of puberty, finding my social footing in a new school, and soul-destroying boredom in class was volatile.

My grades plummeted, mostly on purpose. I thought seeming dumb would make me more popular among my new found friends. Also, I started sneaking out at night, stealing cigarettes, and getting drunk. To tell the truth, most of my friends were much better behaved than I was. Being the Bad One for a change was fun.

I'm sure I seemed like a really screwed up kid, but I was just wearing this personality like a costume. My parents reacted to my new obnoxious self in the best way possible. I got grounded a few times and received some very uncomfortable lectures, but I really felt like they gave me enough room to work through this weirdness until I was ready to be myself again. If they had sent me away to a camp for irritating preteens who don't act right or something like that, it probably just would have reinforced my experiment in delinquency.

Even though I was trying my best to be a jerk, we still got along pretty well and enjoyed family outings. In the same photo album as this photo were pictures of another camping trip, a family Easter egg hunt, and a vacation to Galveston. I actually remember happily participating in all these activities, so I guess I wasn't trying hard enough.

Ireland: Day 2

Day two in Ireland finds us in Cashel in Tipperary Co. After breakfast we walked to the Rock of Cashel, a complex of ancient buildings on a plateau over Cashel with absolutely breathtaking views of the green and misty countryside.

























I wish I could have spent a whole day just rambling around the hills and fields, but we were trying to cram a lot into our time in Ireland, so we moved on to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney stone and leave Ireland with the gift of gab.

Knowing what I do now, I would probably wouldn't have made the trip to Blarney Castle so we could spend more time on the Dingle Peninsula or visit Connemara, which we ended up skipping completely. The castle itself wasn't particularly impressive, and it wasn't located anywhere especially beautiful. It's one of those things that you just have to do when you're a tourist in Ireland, but it's not high on the list of my favorite sights.

Actually kissing the Blarney stone was different than I imagined. You have to climb up a steep spiral stairway in a very narrow tower. It was almost enough to give me an attack of claustrophobia. We were there before the peak of the summer season, so we got to go straight up to the top of the castle without waiting in line. One of my friends casually remarked that people probably have to wait in line for ages on that narrow winding staircase during the summer. Just the thought of being trapped in that tower crammed in with hundreds of people above and behind me still made me hyperventilate days later.

Once you get to the stone kissing area, you have to lie down on your back and hang over the edge backwards and head-down until the attendant tells you to kiss whatever rock happens to be in front of your face. It was very awkward, but kind of thrilling, too. As you can see in the picture, I'm so short that my butt was actually over the edge so I would be able to reach down far enough to reach the stone.





After we were done getting our eloquence on we headed into Cork in search of a Tex-Mex restaurant. As I've mentioned, I am on a quest to eat Tex-Mex food in every part of the world. We found an advertisement for a place called Cafe Mexicana and only with the help of our trusty GPS were we able to track it down. It was actually in an alley off the main street, so we ended up walking around downtown Cork holding the GPS out in front of us as we executed a series of shrinking zig zags getting warmer, cooler, warmer, cooler, warmer, hot, red hot, there it is!

We started off with margaritas, which may have been The Husband's favorite thing about the whole trip if he is to be believed. However, they tasted a little weird to me. Traivor was watching the bartender over my shoulder, and he made the margaritas with Sprite. Sprite infused margaritas might not be too bad actually, but it seemed like every lemon-lime soda type beverage we tried tasted like artificial sweetener. Are those sodas made with saccharine or aspartame or something like that in Europe? Google would neither confirm or deny it.

Anyway, I ordered guacamole and refried bean tacos with a side of rice. It was all very tasty and pretty much what I would expect here at home. The Husband got beef burritos, which sounded kind of weird because the filling was sort of like roast beef, but he seemed to like them. The meals came with red and green salsa. The red was really bland, which I expected, but the green had quite a jalapeño-ey kick to it. I actually feel a little disappointed that I don't have a bizarre Irish Tex-Mex experience to report, but at least I enjoyed my lunch. Sealegs and Traivor also had some Tex-Mex in Dublin, I believe. Would either of you care to compare and contrast?





I know the photos suck, but they don't suck as much as the fact that I don't have photos of our next little encounter. Once we left Cork, we headed toward our next B & B in Dingle. (Heh heh. Dingle. How appropriate.) While driving through some small town we stopped in a short line of traffic at an intersection. Walking down the sidewalk towards us was a group of four or five sports fan type guys acting enthusiastic or maybe drunk.

When they spotted the car in front of us, they started jumping up and down, making gestures, and generally hooting and hollering. They were rocking the car and making faces at the driver when one of the guys whips his pants down. His meat and two veg were just flopping all over the place as he simulated sexual congress with this car. Before I could shut my mouth, which was gaping in horror, it was all over. I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've seen male genitalia in the full light of day.

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)