Extended Team Dinner

With so many of our friends gone over the last year. We decided to do an extended team dinner to include Mick, Derbhile and Orlaith's teams with everyone who still works with us or was made redundant in the last year come. We headed to Yamamori's one of the best restaurants and is somewhat resonably priced for a 30 person dinner. They have long benches there so we could have 14 people at each table. It was so good to catch up with everyone and to have us all dressed up to hit the town.

After a fabulous dinner, we headed to our Secret Bar. Since it was still early for a Thrusday night (10:00) we got to have one of the smaller rooms with its own bar and fireplace all to ourselves. Many of us had to go back to work the next day, so after a few pints we called it a night. Edell did not have to go back to work, but I did, hence the happy and sad face in our photo. Since I have no family here, this is my family Christmas dinner!

Strange Anomaly #32

The presentation of news here is quite different. While watching the news on the telly they will how what the front pages of the paper looks like for the day. When reading newspaper articles, there will be a large picture that will take up most of the page, but really has nothing to do with what the article is about. It will just have a one liner at the bottom, I think they just use it as an excuse to put a large picture, of say, Colin Farrell or David Beckham, generate interest. It is also great that there are two free newspapers in the morning Hearld and Metro. Both are good for different things, word scramble and sudoku. Also the horoscopes are vastly different, one is up beat and the other is always glum.

Girly Holiday Potluck

With the recession in full swing, we wanted to stay in and not head to the pub to do our Chris Kindle gift swap between the girls. There was a 7.69 Euro limit and we were just to make or buy something that was to go into a bag and be pulled out randomly. I made the main course with Tullia and all the other girls brought a variety of other things for our yummy potluck. Cathy made one of her Groovy Fairies that Karen got, I made a necklace that Cathy got, I got the grab bag from Claire, Edell got a handbag from Karen that got red glitter all over the house that I think I am still finding and Ruth got some sweets and a purse.

Ben was supposed to evacuate the house, but he stuck around to get dinner and the yummy dessert as well before heading to his movie. After he took off, we had girly chats and a few drinks to catch up since it had been a while since we had all gotten together. We need to do more potlucks!

Off to see the Kerry Nolans!

Karen got us train tickets to visit her and her family in Kerry for the weekend. We hopped on the train early that morning, with our names digitally over our seats, which is pretty cool. Just after lunch we got into Farranfore where her Da came to pick us up. Just as we got off the train trying to mind many of her bags she was moving home with, I nearly forgot my own, oops. As we appeared at Chez Nolan I could smell something YUMMY wafting from the kitchen. Bacon and cabbage! Her Da is a good cook and I devoured the mean before we set off for the Crag Caves. As we headed into Castleisland I noticed how wide the street was. This may not seem like a big thing, but this was the second widest road in Ireland. O'Connell Street in Dublin is first. Of course, these are about as wide as Burnside.

We walked through the Crag Caves where huge underground rivers once flowed. It was a strange tour sine we were the only two on it, and the guy givingt the tour used to go to school with Karen so he would talk to us about what she has been up to, and then she would say things like Ladies and Gentlemen, over here..... There were Reindeer there for Santa so we took a few pics of them before doing our own bit of Christmas shopping. Her Da just waited patiently in the car for us. When we headed back to her house we stopped and Grandma and Grandpa Nolan's house. We had a spot of tea accompanied with bread, tomatoes, cheese and some butter. It was just the snack I needed. I did have a bit of a hard time with the Kerry accent, but it started to come to me in the end. We got to her house just in time for me to meet her mom Margaret. She was off to her company dinner. Dave made us girls a nice fire to curl up in front of and watch a movie. When our movie was over we headed into the town to get some din din at the chipper. As we go into town we saw a parallel parking a Lamborghini tractor in town to pick up some take away. Now that is a sight you don't normally see. The chipper was packed as I scanned the board to see what I wanted. There was stuffing and coleslaw chips. curry chips, or mushy peas on chips?! I like gravy and chips, or even cheese on my chips, but mushy peas. Those country folk are strange here for what they cover their chips in. The stuffing and coleslaw was actually quite good and went well with our fried chicken. Then it was off to bed, it was so quiet and peaceful I slept like a rock until I heard my phone vibrating, which really was just the cows mooing from across the street, HA!

We slept in Saturday and had a filling breekie before heading to Killarney. We spent the sun filled morning walking through the the national park, muckross, hiked up to torc waterfall and stopped at some ruins. After running around the place, we saw a man pull up in his horse and cart pulling some tourists. We had our jelly babies sweets and when the horse Padrig heard the crinkle of the packaging he bee lined in straight to Karen. We got to feed the horse and your man took our picture with the horse and castle in the background. If we had been a couple, it would have made a perfect Christmas Card picture. Next stop was Killarney town where we shopped successfully for our Christmas dinner outfits. While at the grocery store for some nappies, I noticed a special spraypainted logo on the parking and it was for child/parent. Now that is something new. Killarney is a great town, and was so alive with tourists, markets, shoppers and life. After our crepe snack, it was back home for some homecooked supper. While Karen repacked her suitcase and did some chores, I took a long HOT bath and headed to bed. The train ride up was nap time and I finally could feel refreshed enough to do the push just before Christmas.

Thanks for giving at Thanksgiving

This year was my turn to have my friends come to Thanksgiving Dinner. Now that our place can fit more then 3 people at a time in it, we could have our dinner in our Temple Bar Pad. This year I thought we would have less food since I did not have Ben's sister and friend to help, but of course, I made more food, and had more people. Tullia did come over to help me make a few things the night before since she wanted to learn how to make stuffing and mac and cheese from scratch.

Luckily my friends can eat. None of this polite European pick at stuff; nope, we all had food overdose of Pumpkin pie, turkey, sweet potato pie, stuffing and all the other trimmings. They loved it. We had some return faces from last year, but for the most part, this was a lot of people's first American Thanksgiving. We had people on our bed, on the floor, four squished on our little two-butt sofa and general standing filling the kitchen. Most of the food was eaten and many went away with recipes to make it on their own. Edell ended up making the sweet potato pie for Christmas dinner for her Irish family and they loved it. Spreading the American love of food around!

With all the food, there was much wine flowing (since that is what people brought for us hosting), and I am not sure where Karen got the Santa hat from, but she went outside and reappeared with it. Maybe it was the Nightrain that made her do it. I had my folks bring her over a bottle for her since a song that she likes sings about it, I wanted her to try it, and yes it is a gross and I remembered it to be. It was just that kind of night. It was great to again spend the holiday with our friends since our families are so far from us. Now that I am thinking pumpkin pie..... I think I just might go and make one now, yummy!

Strange Anomaly #31

No cool-whip to be found. Only a sugarless liquid creme that you have to whisk yourself to make nice and fluffy. All I want is something jammered packed full of sugar! Even the aerosol cans have no sugar. Just depressing. No good whip cream on our pumpkin pies........

Blast from the Past

Lacy is an old friend from college. She went on Ben and I's first date since at the time she was dating one of Ben's best friends, Josh. We were friends with Lacy for several years, but then after her and Josh split, and we moved back to Portland our lives sort of drifted away. Thanks to the technological genius for which is Facebook, we got back in touch. Lacy used to live in Belgium, in the same town our friend Jen is from, and she was going back for a belated high school reunion. Since she was going to visit a friend in London, why not make a pit stop in Dublin before heading home!

Lacy happened to also be three months pregnant when she made this trip, needless to say, the trip was planned well before Baby Heinz was growing. Lacy came during the week and with her just looking forward to relaxing and wandering the streets of Dublin, it was great to have dinner with her and have a quiet night, until the weekend came! We hired a car to take her to some of our favourite places in Ireland. We headed to to Glendalough which is where we take nearly everyone, but like I said, it is a great place to show people a bit of the Irish countryside. We gave the trolls our passage across their bridge, which is what our friends son Briton had taught us. Nice walk around the lake with the autumn leaves falling and a bit of sunshine coming in through the trees. So far our autumn had been quite mild and rain free, hopefully the winter will follow suit.

Eating was also a must along the way, and we treated her to all of our special places. Fish and Chips at the best chipper in Ireland, yummy ribs, Chinese food and Italian. When we stopped at Johnny Foxes, we had a great lunch and I love it that Lacy can get Ben to do silly things like posing with the creep old lady wax figure. I need to keep her around more often, I don't even get him to act that silly! I did make her take a sip of my Guinness just to show her how different it is then what you can get in the States. For not being a Guinness fans, we both like it. It was great catching up with Lacy and getting to show her our town even though it was not the most exciting we made the best of our time. It was a quick few days before she headed home and I am glad that we got to reconnect with an old friend!

Dublin Gigs

Concerts here are quite the hip thing to go and do quite often. They got to them all the time, and I figured I might as well jump on that bandwagon. I thought I could check out some local Irish or Dublin bands. Little did I know, the biggest gig that everyone was looking forward to was a US group called MGMT, shortened from Management. There was a huge group of us going to the Ambassador but since Karen and I got our tickets the minute they went on sale, we were on the main floor, which is open standing space, so depending on how ambitious we were with the crowd we could have pushed out way up to the front. We stayed towards the middle with the other 15 or so people we came with upstairs in the balcony where they have seats are quite civilized. The band was very techo type music so when their most popular song came on, it is like they hit play on their pre-recorded music and just sang the lyrics. I had fun dancing with Karen ant it was too bad were were not with the rest of our friends, but the next one will be better!

A few weeks later, Edell had an extra ticket to Fleet Foxes. Again, another band I had never heard of but could hear Sean listen to it through his headphones, so I did know the music well. It was a free ticket, and since Vicar Street is only a 5 minute walk from my place, I said sure! We met at Lord Edward's pub for a few scoops before hand and then made the trek up to the gig just in time for them to come on. Again to my surprise, they are actually from Seattle. Folky rock is the best way to describe them, but since this was a smaller gig, we could all stand together and had a great time swaying to the music dancing and humming along. If anything, I have gotten to appreciate a wider range of music, i just wish it was a little more Irish influenced, oh well!

Flirty at Thirty

My birthday got started with seeing my parents, which is a good present. Although the surprise party Karen was planning for me was ruined by one of my co-workers I was still excited to have a party. I knew the date they were celebrating, and Ben was in on it, I just did not know what. We headed to one of what I think is a very attractive pub, Market Bar. It is in an old building that has great detail , the only issue is, since the space is so open, it is hard to hear people. We had a few pints there while everyone arrived. Past colleagues that I had not seen in a while came in from out of town, some of Ben's co-workers, my co-workers and some of the other friends we have made along the way. Good mix of people for sure!

We then headed to Ukiyo's, a Korean Karaoke place. I was just touched at the gifts and who came, I was just so happy to have everyone I care about in Ireland there. Since were were about 30 people deep, we had to sit at two tables. The girls even had a fantastic cake that had candles that I got to blow out! Dinner was over in a flash as I was just sooooo excited. After dinner and dessert and a few more drinks, we headed downstairs for the fun to begin!

Now, for the record, I have never done Karaoke, I sing terribly, I have made fun of my own singing before when I was working at Benson's radio station. But this is completely different. We hired out two rooms that each half could fit comfortably into. Since you can shut the door, you are only singing for your friends and with your friends, so you are just there to have a good time, not worry about the fact that none of you can sing. The boys sort of took over one room, with even Ben pulling out an aggressive version of AC/DC that I did not know he had in him. Everyone else was as surprised, it was great! Daddy Pierce made sure since it was MY birthday and I could play any song I wanted, he is so good to me!

We sang for hours and when our voices were reduced to shouting whispers we were off to the next pub. Most places would not let in such a large group so people started dropping off. The last 10 of us finally got into South Williams pub, where the music was crap, but I ddid not have to walk in my heals anymore. One by one I said goodbye until Claire and I were the last onse to wrap up the night with a little Jack as the lights came on. Since it is impossible to get a taxi at 3 since everyone else is, I had her walk almost all the way to my place on the other side of town where the taxis come back into town, knowing she could catch one. I got my last birthday hug, tucked her into a taxi and went home. A good 30th birthday especially since in my wisened age, I did not wake up with a terrible hangover. I still remember my own mother's 30th hangover, and I was not ready for that sort of pain... this year!

Strange Anomaly #30

With space for parking a hot commodity, I love the misparked smart cars that can just fit in anywheree since they are about as long as a normal car is wide. I need to get me one of those someday!

Surprise 21st Birthday!

I dream the strangest things but I do sometimes come up with good ideas! Who would suspect a surprise 21st birthday party....... especially for someone who's birthday is in December and will be turning 24. Well Karen did not! I have gotten to know her flatmates since Karen lives so close to work and we will hang out there on a weekday. I emailed Louise about using Karen's place for the surprise party since they have a large living area, kitchen, patio and is easy for people to park at. Karen's birthday is 2 days before Christmas and with growing up in a small community in the country she never had a birthday party with friends and what not. Although in Ireland you can drink well before 21, the 21st birthday is still a big birthday to them since it is a right of passage into being an adult. Usually you get the keys to the house since before that you would never need the keys as oyu would have a stay at home mom.

My job was to get Karen out of the house for a few hours. Luckily her flatmates always head home over the weekends and she has the house to herself so I never have to try that hard to get her our of the house. Claire, Karen and I dressed up fancy and had a wonderful meal in town. Even the meal was a surprise. Since I am not good with surprises, I told her it was a night of surprises and that I had somehitng in store for the both of them. Once I got her in town, I let Catherine and Katrin know and they headed to Karens to start decorating the place. I have given all the bunting, decoractions, collage of pictures and the all important key for the girls to have ready. Dinner was yummy and then we headed to the 'Secret Bar'. It has no name and it brand new. It is over another pub so you have to know to go in this little side door and up the steps. Looks like it should be straight out of SoHo. Very hip crowd and even though we were dressed up, I knew we would not stand out. We had a bit of craic there and around 9 I said it was time for the last bit of the surprise. We hailed a cab and we headed to Milltown. Karen was confused since we were essentially leaving town, but I said one of the surprises was that Lorna was going to go out with us and we had to pick her up. I texted them that we were on our way!

When we pulled up to the house, you would never know it was packed inside. We giggled as Karen unlocked the door and as soon as she opened it, from the dimly lit foyer a chorus of voices yelled "SURPRISE". I wish I could have seen Karen's face. The lights went on and she saw all the 21st banners, college mates, work mates and she knew it was for her. We all had a great night, snacking, drinking, giving Karen her 21 kisses, shots, video games. The craic was ninety! I was beat by about 2 since there was so much planning and I worked so hard to keep it a secret for so long. Karen was happy and that made it all worth it. Her flatmates were even nice enough to clean up everything. All in all, a party that she will remember, albeit a little early or late, depending on how you want to look at it!

News Flash

With those overused words 'the downturn in the economy' it finally effect us to more of a degree. Besides our friends departing Dublin at an alarming rate, our paywages are being downsized at an alarming rate as well. My whole firm has taken a 30% cut in pay, and I was cut back to 4 days a week. Hence all the typing today! The one plus side is I have a day off durning the week to run errands, go across town to the cheaper food markets, and have time to myself. Have to stay positive. Now just keep your fingers crossed for all those competiotns that both our firms are going after.

Here is a sample of one of the projects I have worked on. Down in the Dock Lands - Barrows Street, across from the Google Headquarters.

Horse Market

At the first Sunday of each month horse traders descend upon Smithfield Market to sell tack and horses. It is sad the mistreatment of the horses which is why it is good the Gardi are there to keep them under control from kicking their horses. There were horses of all sizes and types. Plus it is good that the boys that mind the horses keep out of trouble by focusing on other things then drugs. It was nice to see horses again!

Nothing like a Session in a Recession

What better way to fight back the blues of a recession with a mental session. There have been some great ones. Some of the more interesting highlights.

Catherine heading back to Oz was a sad time for me and Tutti since she was one of our walking mates. Catherine had to go back since her visa ran out, but I do hope to see her again soon! Of course the day before she left, she had a mishap on her bike and ended up with stitches in her chin.

We headed to McSoleys on Halloween with the few in Dublin that dared to dressup. I have given up trying to get my friends to humour me by dressing for one of my favourite holidays, but I still enjoy watching other people dress up. Claire and Ania's last day was Halloween and all was well until we started on the Baby Guinness shots...... Then I had to quickly depart.

Claire is one of the most social butterflies here and anytime we go out we always seem to bump into people she knows. Which is great, since she is so full of personality, as are those that we meet. Some of them I have a bit too much fun with dancing and nearly get dropped but it is all for a laugh. And it is great meeting people like Mark who can do the best Joker impression that can send chills up your spine. His flamboyancy was great to be around.

October was one of the saddest events which saw most of my friends made redundant. We headed to the Stags Head for one session to go down in infamy. Although I had to depart rather early in the night, the craic was ninety!

On just a typical Friday night as we enjoy the banter we decided to grab a few beers and head to Colin's. He had a stylophone, 2 guitars, harmonica and a melodica. A melodica is a piano that you can blow into to make the keys plan in the piano. A stylophone is a little metal synthesizer. Niall, Colin, Sean, Karen and I at one point were all in time with each other and it sounded great. We had fun jamming and switching up instruments. After a while though Karen and I got sleepy so we curled up together and fell asleep for a while before heading off. Colin's house always seems to be a good end to the night for a bit of late night hygincs! Hopefully there are more to come in the future!

Celebrity Sightings

On just a normal night out it is amazing who you can run into in Dublin. Among those can be celebrities. Since Dublin is the main city in Ireland and with it not being so big you will run into some of the many Irish celebs. A regular Tuesday night out just grabbing a few scoops we saw Niamh Cusack (Jermey Irons wife) talkign with Stephen Rea at Grogans. It is one of those Pubs that true Dubs go to, no tourists, you have to sort of hunt for it since it is not on the main drag, and the Irish respect the privacy of their celebraties.

We saw Colin Farrell bumping in his SUV with the windows down driving through Ranelagh - you just do not do that here you seriously bring attention to yourself, which he did. One Thrusday night while walking on Grafton Street shopping I almost literally ran into Gabriel Byrne.

Now I only have to see Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Cillian Murphy to round out my Irish celebrity sightings!

Misadventures of Tutti and Bambi

With so many of our friends gone at work, many of us have forged better and closer friendships. I sit amongst a sea of empty desks and with Sean out on site, I can only really see Tullia since Colin is in shouting distance just not sight. Once we moved to Temple Bar, Rutti Tutti Fresh & Frutti and I have been doing the 3mile walk into work. Takes us about an hour, or more if we stop for our early morning coffee where yer man butters my scones.

She has also been showing us the little hidden jewels of Temple Bar. Recently we did the Temple Bar Revisited Group 91 - this tour was lead by Paul Keogh in conjunction with his wife Rachael who were a part of Group 91 back in the early 90's as up and coming architects who were instrumental in the revitalization of Temple Bar. Some of the more interesting ones were the Wooden Building by DeBlacam and Meagher. The wooden building is an elegant and carefully detailed modern brick-clad apartment tower within the former walled medieval city. The dark red brick and thick creamy pointing is beautifully off-set by the warmth of the hardwood panels.

Temple Bar Gallery and Studios by McCullough Mulvin Architect is an early 20th century industrial building has been adapted as a gallery and artist's studios. Rooftop studios sit as a separate metal-clad element on the square on a rendered base - a metal atelier above the city configured to provide external balconies. The composition in plan and elevation recalls 20th century painting. The two of us archi-tits spent most of the morning with Ben running around checking out all the architecture since this was the one weekend it was all open to the public.

Tullia also introduced me to the Irish Film Institute which is in a great building overlooking the Saturday marketplace where I get my plethora of fresh fruit and veg now. Some of the great romantic French comedies while the French Film Festival was going on at the IFI was 'Un Basier s'il vous plaît' (Shall we kiss) and 'Dialogue avec mon jardinier' (Conversations with my gardener).

We also have taken a beading class together with another friend Cathy where we got to make 2 necklaces and learned how to crochet. After our Thanksgiving celebration the girls came over for leftovers during our break so we could show Ben our creations. For the past few months Tutti and I have been beading like mad, don't be surprised if you end up with one of our fabulous creations for birthday and Christmas gifts! Currently we are trying to get in on the Saturday Markets here to sell our wares.

One of our more interesting conquests was going for a 'jog' in Phoenix Park and finding the deer. When I think of deer, I think of something I could ride, that could possibly kill me and stands 2 meters. These deer are about a meter tall even with the antlers and are all sorts of different colours. Black, brown, spotted, light, dark and nearly white. There are nearly 400 of them protected in the huge park but they do cull the heard from time to time. We also went as they were mating. We saw several fights, broken antlers, some fighting between girls, a few attempted mounts, but only one three second mounting that we did catch on film. We went out two different days and found the groups right in front of the papel cross just lounging about in the sun. We could get pretty close to them as well, within about 3 to 4 meters. Just amazing to have wildlife so close in the city. Just a few mile walk and you forget you are in a city centre.

In keeping up with our phyical fitness and no rugby in sight for a while, we have been doing yoga in the office in the Dome at work during lunch. Within 4 months of starting I went from not even being able to reach my toes to now folding in half with the teached climbing on top of my back to give my muscles a better stretch. Pretty awesome stuff. And headstands all by myself. Some day I will be able to walk on my hands like my dad did when I was a kid.

It is just nice to have some live so close to that you can pop over and watch a movie and drink a bottle of wine just to unwind after a stressful day. And it is nice to have a partner in crime for our little mischievous laughs, giggles, and wacky wig filled ideas. With us living so close we have also be co-hosting dinner events of cakes and tea. For Ruthie's birthday we tried our hand at a new muffin recipe which was a disaster since we just broke up the candy bar instead of having chocolate chips which gave our muffins a solid chocolat bottom. I like to stress bake since it is so easy to follow a recipe when the rest of your world is in chaos.

there once was a girl named Bambi
who was nothing sweet like candi
she befriended Tutti
who was super fruti
and together they are just dandi!

Strange Anomaly #29

Much to Ben’s Chagrin, I have picked up the habit of the bouble or triple bye that sort of fade out and you hang up. At first when I heard it I thought everyone was annoyed with me but since I chat so much on the phone with Irish people at work, and are surrounded by them, I hear it so much I have picked it up. Now people back home must think I am strange...... well stranger then before if that is possible.