March’s 5-day weekend

I know it is a bit late, but March was Edell’s Birthday month, so I have to start out with that. Her friends are so nice and welcoming of Catherine and I, the only other person I really knew besides Edell, and her party was in a great location. She does have a great group of friends that it was good to catch up with them since I only really see them once a year. The music got a bit loud around midnight, when I sensed I was too sober to keep up with the screaming over the music. I was just happy that I did not pass out at her thirty-wONEderful birthday like I did at her thirtieth.

With where St Patricks Day fell this year, I got to have a 5 day weekend. It had been a while since Ben had a day off so we slept in and managed to leave the house just in time to catch a bit of the St Patrick’s day parade that was a bit goth themed. It was so crowded due to the sunshine making an appearance so we headed for burgers and green beer. I know, so cliche, but I had to do it!

My last work buddy Paul, has a fabulous wife Meg, that invited me out for girls night at their place so Ben could get some much needed time alone at the house without me underfoot. They have a great group of friend that were good to chat with, and if I had not forgotten my keys at home, I would have stayed longer to enjoy the champagne drinking and little nibbles she whipped up, but I did not want Ben waiting up all night for me knowing he had to get up early and go back to work on the Saturday.

It has started warming up, since spring is in full swing so Ben and I trekked out to see the King Tut exhibit at the RDS on the other side of town. We stopped for our favourite breakkie in our old neighbourhood, Ranelagh, at Hobart’s on the way there. With the proper fuel in our bellies we could continue on in our trek and make it through the huge exhibit. It was all replicas, really well done, but nothing was real. Even the death mask of Tut was a fake. It was good to see the tomb recreated exactly how it looked when they opened it, even though it cost an arm and a leg to get in.

And on a completely non-Irish note, we did get a new tenant for our fabulously remodeled condo, as completed by my father and his buddy, Bud!

Fire! Fire!

Seemed like a totally normal Friday at work: quiet and uneventful. But this Friday proved to be quite different. Paul is on his sabbatical, and with my boss away at meetings, it was only Vinny and I in our little room. As I have stated before, fireworks are illegal here, but we thought we heard a bunch of fireworks. I stuck my head out the window to see if I could see anything, but I didn’t. I could smell fire though and just figured it was teens up to no good.

A few seconds later my co-worker said that neighbor’s house was on fire. The popping noise was the slate tiles flying off the roof and breaking sue to the heat. They still are not sure what started the fire but it destroyed 7 out of the 8 houses in the terrace, so they are tearing down the whole thing. It was scary to watch, and as some of you know, I watch my neighbor’s house burn down as a kid, and know how devastating it can be. The fire brigade worked hard to stop the fire from spreading to the adjacent buildings, but the wind was determined to spread it further. Luckily no one was hurt, and it did not spread too much, but still terrible.

Strange Anomaly #65

Apparently it is OK to drive in reverse up a wrong way as I learned this afternoon when I was nearly taken out by a large vehicle. And when I got a bit angry and shouted, “You are going the wrong way on a one way, I have the right of way here!” She got angry as well and shouted back, “But I’m reversing up the one way?” As if it made it alright that she had nearly taken me out. So when I gave out about this at work, they were like, yeah, it’s acceptable to reverse the wrong way, but WTF?

Boom Busy

It was like a boom weekend all over again! Like in the good olde days of 2007, we started the Friday with a bit of coffee and cake for Tom’s last day. That night was sadly his leaving do, but it was good to see the group together as it has been a while since we had all had a reason to get together. Tutti and I had a great walk back home as it has been months since I had seen her.

The next morning, as I was recovering from my whiskey drinking, I got a call from Edell to meet up for coffee and some chats. It was great to see her as she had been so busy with work our little nightly tea break had become further and further apart. A bit of girl time is always good, too! That night Ben and I meet up with Tori and Andrew for a few cheeky pints and to generally catch up on things. We have been all running in different directions and had been a while since all of us had time off at the same time, so it was a much needed session.

Then finally on the Sunday I headed out to Greystones to Catherine’s for a very civilized Sunday Brunch. I made American style French Toast, that they ended up loving, as we eat ourselves into a food coma practically. Catherine had great crepes and Ruth was in charge of the meat. I even had my heart-shaped egg maker that was super cute. I headed back on the train and had to stop myself from dozing off, luckily the small child next to me kept me entertained but did eventually bully me off the train when I accidentally told him I was to get off the stop before I was supposed to and he stated that i needed to get out. As with any Sunday night, it was full of conversations with our loved ones due to the time difference. I exhaust myself now that I can have the freedom of Skype on an iPad and pace to my hearts content. It has been years since I have been able to pace and talk on the phone with the reception to my mobile phone limited to a small corner of our window sill.

I felt good to do nothing on my day off on Monday, to well, catch up on my sleep and relax!

Two Surprise Visits

The first surprise was when we arrived back from Portugal I got a text from Karen who said she was on the train back up to Dublin and if we would meet up with her before she flew back out in the morning. She surprised her parents with a visit over Christmas so it was great to see her before she headed back to Vancouver. It was good to see all the girls together again!

We were not expect any house visitors this year, so it was a second great surprise a few days later that Bruno and his friend Jaime came for an extended weekend visit. Jaime had never been to Dublin, so we enjoyed the many pubs the city as to offer. After fighting off colds, we were not up to staying out until 3 or 4 in the morning, Bruno more than knows his way around the city, so we gave them the house key and let them explore the city. We took a walk down to see the new docklands, as it had changed immensely since he had left. While checking out the new theater by Liebskind, I was nearly egged by a bunch of skanger children. If Jaime had not told me to watch out, and if I did not have lightening fast reflexes, I would have taken one to the face. I so wanted to run down those little 10 year old punks and teach them a lesson, but they are like a little pack of wolves. Alone they may not be that strong, but as a pack they are fierce. I kept my cool and kept walking since they were not worth it. We hopped on the LUAS instead and headed to the other side of town to see the Criminal Courts since Bruno worked on that as well. Bruno’s little bank building was halfway built, so we hope to have him visit in May when that is completed!

Strange Anomaly #64

Voting here is unlike anything I have seen before. It does work great for a small country. A person lives within a certain constituency. When it comes time to vote, there is a percentage of the people within the constituency that a candidate would have to get in votes in order to win. A voter goes in and marks the candidates with a number 1, number 2 and so on, for what ranking they want to give each candidate. If there is not a clear winner they keep ruling out the lowest ranking candidate and somehow take the second choice numbers from each individual voter and start adding that so that they kept removing the lowest until their is a clear winner. Confused? I am, but I know I did not explain it the best, but really, it makes sense if you get a good Irish person to explain it.

So at the end of the long weekend there was a new Dáil (house of representatives if you like) and a new Taoiseach (prime minister would be the best example in English) for a complete change in party from the long standing Fianna Fáil to Fine Gael. I asked if there were any left wing type parties (since there are like 6 or maybe 7) and they are not any. Sinn Féin may have been radical during their day (they were the birth of the IRA a long long time ago) but they are pretty right wing now. But when it comes to ‘voting’ in the new Taoiseach, it is not like the states where you vote on the person, instead, when you voted in your candidate for your constituency, it takes into account their party, and whatever party holds the majority in the Dáil, their party leader becomes the country’s new leader. So you vote for the group, not the person. And contrary to what the New York times stated, our new Taoiseach is not a Ms. Edna Kenny it is a Mr. Enda Kenny, who, by the way, looks like the dad from Alias, Victor Garber. RTE did make that mistake, so I am not alone in thinking that.