Summer in Dublin

This summer, from July 4th-20th, George's Dock in the Dublin Docklands will be transformed into a "tropical seaside oasis", dotted with palm trees and beach cabanas, and will play host to activities such as yoga, tai chi, chess, volley ball and sandcastle building.

Bring your own beach towel, or relax on a sun-lounger and watch the world go by. Just hope that the weather plays ball or "tropical seaside oasis" could be words the organisers may regret using. - Irish Times

WTF? Are we thinking we're Paris now?

So I popped by Blogger today...

... on my way into my blog.

If this is just not like the beginning of a turf war with the neighbour then I don't know what it is.

But anyway.

I am the type of consumer that if, I am accosted by a service provider. And forced to make a choice between a relationship and money.

I will always choose the most cost-effective solution.

Because I am not well off to do otherwise.

But I expect options.

For my freedom.

Dare I ask what is the price of freedom nowadays?

Nova Scotia

is the beginning of the rest of the world.

It could be an Arcadia.

It was once.

It was Acadie.

I met a woman tonight.

Who is a Valley Baptist.

And she and I sat in a bar.

Uncomfortably.

That I, of course, had picked.

But we had a good chat.

We are all the same, us women in the office.

That's what I love about this job.

It's just a pile of women on a big floor of an office building.

And if I am anything.

Which I have never yet even believed that i could be.

But if i were

despite myself

i would be a leader of women

because that is the hardest job in the world.

and anyone who can do it

whether they are female or male or not sure

has my total respect.

Fuck the timelords...

... the librarians are going to win.

I don't follow technology, because they immigrate numbers into the language and that is foreign to me and I am rule-bound (which may or may not be my fault)

but it's all a spectrum.

So you talk to the people next to you.

Like in a cinema queue.

But hopefully a Leonard Cohen gig.

Paul Watts in Ireland,

has a ticket to Leonard Cohen,

who is canadian,

and is playing in halifax,

where queenie lives,

and she can't get a ticket,

episode 28,

in queenie's,

... lives her life again...

... in (the usually),

ever decreasing circles,

etc.

Himself is a Grampy at forty four

So Himself has become a Grampy.

At forty four.

Which makes me a step-grandma.

At thirty seven.

Which is a bit young.

But it's just for the weekend.

Phew!

Kitty has one of those rubber babies home for the weekend. It cries and does all the baby stuff and is supposed to teach her responsible behaviour (which includes not producing a real one I assume) and the stress of parenthood etc.

I'm a mom for the weekend! She announced on the phone.

Granny decided not to travel this weekend and by a serendipitous stroke, is missing the baby.

Hurrah!

Kitty was not appreciative of my glee at missing the baby.

I explained it would be shit if I were there.

Why?

Well, I would just stand looking over your shoulder all weekend telling you that you were doing it wrong.

True, she said.

She wasn't meant to say that out loud of course, but it's true what I said was true, so I shall just have to deal with it I suppose.

I am in two minds about a plastic baby being a contraceptive device, if that is what it is.

Maybe they work.

I think a distinct lack of suitable boys is a far better one myself.

Worked for me when I was young.

Plus the terror.

Of knowing.

That I would have to tell the Queen Parents.

That was the main barrier method in my life.

All the experts tell me that terror is a bad way to rear children.

And it is, absolutely.

But there is nothing wrong with sharing your dreams with your children.

It is the way that you articulate them that is fraught with danger.

That's why it takes a village to rear a child.

My grandchild will be fine tonight so.

Down on the island, with her great grandparents and her uncle and her grandfather.

Who assured me that if it cried during the night that it would get thrown out the window.

I asked him whether he had thought of a name yet.

So he changed the subject.

And told me another story of someone leaving the island.

I wonder why we all move around so much.

We get bored of each other I suppose.

It is the way we live now.

But it is very hard to say goodbye.

And as you get older, it gets harder to say hello as well.

And then Facebook starts making you do it.

Bah.

Facebook takes a new and scary turn

When I logged onto Facebook this evening, it gave me a list of people I may know. Mostly it was people who had four friends in common with me.

It gave me quite a jolt.

There were people on the list that I have been avoiding on Facebook for ages. So I'm wondering, are they getting the same message? And if so, are they avoiding me? Or are they just busy? Or have they not noticed the thread yet?

Interesting times ahead.

There was also someone I thought was a friend. So I must have been blocked.

Oops.

Mental note not to do that again.

There were people on the list that I'm pretty sure are avoiding me.

That's the beauty of Facebook.

Or it was.

You could avoid people without seeming to.

AND NOW YOU CAN'T.

So it's The Buttery in 1989 all over again.

Episode 27 of Queenie lives her life over and over again in ever decreasing circles.

Never mind.

Queenie is definitely middle-aged

Queenie always felt that a sign of youth was shouting at the evil nincompoops on the radio that constitute the news broadcasts. Moaning Ireland particularly irked her, for two reasons. Firstly that you had to listen to it to know what was going on for work (boring), and secondly because it was the same players spouting the same lines day in day out. Plus the tearing into them style of interviewing (which was apparently invented by her ex, but she only had his word for it, but he was usually right about stuff like that).

Leaving Ireland was a relief in a way. No more IBEC. No more Vintners Association. No more Tom Parlon. No more Willie O'Dea. No more Michael Ring (I'm hearing a lack of women here, I'm sure there were annoying women too).

Here in Canada, the CBC current affairs stuff is pretty good. Particularly around teatime. And during the day they have great arts programming. And a great Internet-related show. And a show called Dark Arts, which is about healthcare, which is fantastic, hosted by a doctor who gives House a run for his money.

But in the morning.....

In the morning it is local. Lots of weird people from Musquodobit talking about pig roasts and the occasional 'news' item about a wind turbine that's going to spoil the view from Anne Murray's summer cottage.

There's a boy interviewer (who thinks he's Irish) and a girl host, who introduces the items but NEVER does an interview. I think she butters the toast while they're going on.

I often wonder how Aine Lawlor would cope if she'd washed up here.

Anyways, this morning, I hit the wrong button when the alarm went off and got onto the Dalhousie SU radio by mistake.

Flashpoints was on. Flashpoints is their current affairs program.

It focuses almost exclusively on the war in Iraq (and global warming). It talks about framing a lot. It explains the different sects in Iraq which is good because it means I don't have to plough through the actual newspaper articles in order to keep up with who is on the side of the workers and who is not.

This morning they were talking about the credit crunch and the continued bail out of the investment industry.

Socialism for the rich apparently (?!)

The guy with the beard (don't ask me how I know, I just did) kept repeating that phrase randomly in a triumphant tone.

This was while the woman was explaining that most of the investors were mom and pop pension funds (?!)

Then they urged everyone not to drink Starbucks coffee anymore because they don't pay their managers overtime.

And they do something weird with their tips that I was too sleepy to follow.

Time passed, spent talking about al-Sadr, that renowned hero of the Iraqi working class, when the host crowed that there were calls coming in about the Starbucks item.

Great, said mom and pop investment funds girl.

Two of the calls were pointing out that Starbucks was the only coffee chain in Canada to give part-time workers their health benefits and the third said that the tips were fine. Thank you very much.

Mom and pop investment fund girl (who may or may not be mom and pop funding her to go to Dal girl too) said that really the point was that everyone should get free health care.

Ehm, we do, don't we?

You are middle-aged when you find yourself shouting at the anarchists on the radio.

Also, when it is the day after you went to Rona and bought a toilet and a hand basin and considered that fun, it must be true.

Ah well, it was a good long run....

Okay I am sick of this now

Sick of it.

It snowed from 8.30am yesterday morning until 11pm and then it started again at 5am.

Himself had to go to work at midnight and he didn't get back until 11.10am, at which point I just handed over the frying pan with his breakfast in it because I had to go out.

Now it is 1.17pm and I am back, making my breakfast quietly because he is asleep.

And this is Himself's weekend off.

We have been doing this since November.

We have to do this; we have to try to get some sleep even though one of us is always getting up, or going to bed, or getting dressed, or getting a phone call from work, or trying to have a life with the sound muted; we have to drive up and down the province for work, for the kids, in snow and rain and sleet and hail and blowing snow and wind and more frigging sleet; we have to deal with wives and their lawyers and our lawyers and landlords and neighbours who don't work so they run around the apartment making noise all night, and supervisors who don't see why they should ask the person who's turn it is to plough snow to do it, and people who want to know when they're getting their Internet, and boilers and shitty equipment and twenty four hour shifts in the middle of bumfuck Nova Scotia, and we have to do the shopping and the laundry and the bill paying and the entertaining and all the things that people have to do all the time...

And we have to do it all with a friggin' foot of snow on the ground every three days.

I am FUCKING SICK OF THIS.

So now I will eat my breakfast and go out and shovel snow off the steps, and the yard, and the car and the path to the laundry and then I will do the shopping and the laundry and the housework with the sound muted and hopefully, at some point Himself will wake up.

Of course, I'll be tired then.

Bah!

No wonder I made no sense last night.

This is why I left Ireland

Well, there were a few other reasons, but this was the main one....


Jesus... will somebody tell everybody that it's over. And they should all just watch Jericho.

And imagine being old.


Gilmore to urge Labour to make itself relevant to voters again

STEPHEN COLLINS, Political Editor

THE LABOUR Party leader, Eamon Gilmore, is expected to call on his party today to change itself if it really wants the Irish people to entrust it with the task of changing the country in the 21st century.

Mr Gilmore is due to address a new Labour Party commission, established by a motion of the party conference last November.

The commission is charged with examining and reporting on all aspects of the party's organisation, campaigning and political activity and to make recommendations on the role which Labour should take in the modern Ireland.

The commission, chaired by Greg Sparks, who served as programme manager for Dick Spring when he was tánaiste between 1993 and 1997 will hold its first meeting in Dublin today.

There are more than 20 members on the commission, representing various areas of the Labour Party, including the parliamentary party, councillors, constituency organisations, Labour Youth and the trade unions.

The commission will hold a series of meetings with party members around the country in the coming months. It is due to report to the national executive committee in advance of the next party conference which is due to take place in late November.

Mr Gilmore will address the opening meeting of the commission today and it is expected to make a major address on the direction he wishes to see the party taking in the years ahead.
He is expected to encourage the party to present the Irish people with a clear and understandable statement of what it stands for in modern Ireland, not just in relation to the immediate concerns of today, but to Ireland as it will be between now and 2020, and indeed beyond.

Mr Gilmore has emphasised in the past that Labour's values of equality, solidarity, community, and democracy need to be expressed in the language of modern Ireland to make them relevant in the lives of ordinary people.

He is expected to stress that there is a need for the party to expand the meaning of the term "Labour" to go beyond the old image of a downtrodden proletariat and Labour as an interest group representing a particular form of paid manual employment.

Mr Gilmore will suggest that the term Labour today applies to those who work for themselves, as well as those who work for employers and was not confined to paid work, but applied to those who work at caring for the elderly, for children and for those with disabilities.

He is also expected to emphasise that while Labour is the party of public services that means it should be the party of the public who use them, as well as the public servants who produce them.
Similarly, while Labour was the party that emphasised rights it should also emphasise responsibilities.

While Labour had steadily up-dated many of its policy positions it had not projected that modernisation. While Ireland had grown and changed it had not been able to project that development to the public.

The Labour leader will say that having left behind the closed, authoritarian society of the past, and provided for a far greater measure of personal freedom, hard questions now needed to be asked about the society that we had created, and about the responsibility we all have for the kind of society we will bequeath to our children.

He will also refer to the hard choice that will have to be made as the halcyon days of the Celtic Tiger recede and tightening public finances forced a more exacting scrutiny of taxation and expenditure decisions

The novel is back on by the way

By which I mean that when I have time off I choose to spend it staring into the delicious middle distance, working through a particularly knotty part of the plot.

It's how I cope with a winter that arrived too early, bang on time, like he was awkward and early to a party, and then found alcohol and decided to stay until the last allotted moment, and then wouldn't get into the private ambulance, and eventually not even the one provided by the courts...


.... and then some...

That kind of a winter.

But I know from the Queen Mother and by grapevine from the Queen Dad that it was a hard winter in Ireland too.

I think

I may have fucked up the last post.

What I meant to say is that I love people who can blog in the snow.

But I'm in a state of relief really.

I will tell you all about it some day.

When something happens that's worth writing to you about.

There are some nights when Kentucky blue grass is all that will do.

And we have Beethoven's bi-centennial coming up next week.

When I imagine you listening to Beethoven, I always imagine that you have your glasses down at the end of your nose.

Facebook envy

Is anyone else suffering from it?

I surely am.

I find Facebook a great chore, but at the same time, some days, the reason I get up in the morning.

Where is Ken?

Is Joos near a silverback?

And what is that one that's always tanned and on a beach somewhere exotic doing, and why is she still following you around online being your friend....

And oh look, there's your husband's ex-wife's sister's husband's neice's friend.....

On your cousin's closest friend list....

Anyways...

I don't have brothers who have girlfriends/ spouses/ mates who like sisters...

And I still haven't figured out how to make friends on the Internet.

That aren't scary after a while.

Or else I move country....

Anyways, I don't have cheap flights anymore. Or rather, I removed myself so far from my life that I have to choose between instant gratification and home, which may or may not be a sign of growing up ...

But for me to read a blog post about a woman that I love who is in a place that I know all about, but where I never have been ...

... Having the time of her life, and then it snows...

... which is shit, I accept ...

... but hollow laughter....

Hollow laughter is pretty good actually.

Power off for Earth Hour boys and girls.

Let's all do something really useful.

The snow is still on the ground, but it must be Michelmas term by now

I actually took pictures of the snow tonight.

To show you that I am not messing.

And this is the worst year in seven.

That's what really scares me.

It's only a seven year cycle.

Oh well, as one gets older, one has to live dangerously.

However that may manifest itself.

Happy Easter to everyone who knows what Michelmas means.

Sunshine.

Misery

I have spent ALL DAY trying to get through to the Leonard Cohen ticket line.

All I get is the engaged tone.

St. Patrick's Day

They are discussing Paddy's Day and all things Irish on CBC at the moment.

So they are interviewing Irish pub managers of course.

The interviewer just asked a guy 'what's the difference between SPD in Ireland and in Canada?'

'Oh, SPD is a holy day of obligation in Ireland. You usen't not be able to get a drink on SPD.'

I would have pointed out that it doesn't snow in Ireland on SPD, whereas in Canada it usually signals that big March storm that marks the end of the winter. We are looking at 35 cm this weekend, hooray not.

I wonder how many listeners know what a holy day of obligation means?

Really though, I am scratching my head at the enthusiasm with which Canadians approach SPD.

I mean, we don't celebrate Ukranian Day, despite the large Ukranian population in Alberta.

And Ukranians like to drink just as much as the next Irish man.

And Ukranians would probably know what a Holy Day of Obligation is.

'Tis strange.

But not to be sniffed at.

At one with the universe. Finally.

So it snowed again last night. Well over six inches of meringue-like (I have tried to spell this word six times and nothing looks right) fluffy egg-white snow.

The trees were sooooo beautiful. Just covered in white, blueish-tinged in the new moon light.

And when I left work tonight it was almost gone.

I was too hot in my snow boots. So I wore my stilletoes home and didn't fall on my ass once.

Maybe if I am one with the weather it will become one with me and stop snowing.

We didn't get the kids for March break.

SWWBMF called a few weeks back and said she needed a break.

Could we take the kids?

Sure.

I booked the time off.

Come time to get the kids, SWWBMF had changed her mind.

Lucky I have an understanding work environment.

I should start charging for my stories about why I am constantly changing my leave arrangements.

Anyways, we didn't bother to complain.

Maybe if we become one with the universe of SWWBMF the universe of SWWBMF would stop spinning.

I am going to bet myself the pair of shoes I won recently and a nice new top that it will stop snowing first.

Going to the island for the Paddy's Day party.

Better get my party piece ready.

Not about chirpy things so much as horny screaming ones

While we're on the subject of birds, The Old Man of the Sea, or Himself as he's usually referred to, tells me that he knows when spring's-a-comin' because the sea gulls sound different.

Apparently their calls change and sound all horny in the springtime.

Queenie, raised in an inland place where seagulls in the sky were so rare that the sight of them meant BIG WEATHER TROUBLE in the Irish Sea, thinks they sound the same all year round, but Himself knows a horny gull when he hears one.

The cry changed about a week ago, if you're at all interested in the sexual practices of Larus ridibundus, so spring's-a-comin'.

Even though the weatherman was quoted in the paper this week as saying he wouldn't put his snow shovel away until May, if he were him.

The level of nuance in the universe that Himself can read always amazes me.

Of course, my ability to remember to pay the bills on time every month amazes him.

It's all about what you're good at.

However, increasingly I feel I have gotten the shitty end of the talent stick.

I want to be able to sit on the couch and feel a small gust come in the sitting room window, just for a moment, and predict what time it's going to snow.

I want to be able to figure out what everyone on the island will be doing at the weekend, by the direction of the wind on Thursday.

I want to know what direction I am driving in the city. At all times.

Oh wait, that's right, I can now.

I have a new car.

Well a new to me car.

It has a compass in it.

I R vurry pleased with my new car.

Sorry, our new car.

A little brother for Albert.

Well, a honkin' big red 4WD brother.

Don't tell any of my green friends.

I called him The Beast.

I adore driving him. I don't care what the snotty bitch in the Prius mouthed at me the other day.

It's MY ROAD.

I'm so buying this bumper sticker.

Himself wants to put a lift kit in it. And he keeps checking out strange chrome objects online.

I think not. I don't know what a lift kit is, but it sounds too white trash even for me.

Chirpy things

While I was waiting for the coffee to drip into the coffee pot, I texted our mutual friend and told him about the door.

You went all Queenie on the door, did you, he replied. Go watch Eastern Promise, it'll make you feel better you know.

It's nice to know I'm an adjective to some people.

It's nice to know some people remember the little things about me.

That's the problem with the winter here. It's very isolating. Everyone just bunkers up for a couple of months and doesn't really go out.

So by week fourteen you just want to kill someone.

Then you wake up one morning and go outside and there it is....

Chirp, chirp, chirp.

OhMYGoD the birds are back! THE BIRDS ARE BACK!! HIMSELF, HIMSELF, WAKE UP DUDE, THE BIRDS ARE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cue delighted crazy dance around the apartment as Himself confirms that yes, he too can hear the chirping so it is not in Queenie's head.

Then, later that day, it snows about half a foot.

So not only are you now having another fit because it is SNOWING AGAIN, but now you are freaking out about the poor ickle wickle chirpy birds freezing to death.

Himself assures me they won't but he can't provide any detailed information on exactly why that is.

So every morning starts with a straining out the window, just to make sure it's still there.

chirp, chirp, chirp.

Any chance of another blogpost?

I just have to put on another pot of coffee first.

I don't know whether to be annoyed or pleased when I get these requests. I mean, it's a full life, lying around watching the weather channel and moaning about how crap and meaningless the winter months are. I don't have time to be typing chirpy reports on how my thirties are going. Having said that, the fact that anyone actually reads this stuff is mildly reassuring: I may be slowly losing my mind, but I can apparently still describe it in reasonably interesting ways.

Someone mailed me the other day to say they had read my whole blog.

In one day.

They have that type of job, apparently.

In the interest of seeing what that would look like, I flicked back a bit.

The shame.....
Self-Indulgent wittering R US

Nevermind.
It's my self-indulgent wittering.

Anyways, I will put the coffee on now. And think about something chirpy to write about.

Women's Day how are ya

First of all, let me wish all the women in my life a very happy International Women's Day, particularly those of you who don't get to have a Mother's Day or a Valentine's Day (which is hugely over-rated anyways, IWD is much better I think).

I told Himself the other day that Saturday would be IWD and due to the fact that I have banned Valentine's Day flowers, I would like some flowers on Saturday (which he will have forgotten by now, having the memory of a guppie fish these days), and he said 'International Women's Day, eh? When's International Men's Day?'

I replied that the other 365 days of this year are IMD and he was not to be such a smartass on Saturday if he knew what was best for him.

He didn't think that was fair.

He should try having a womb.

Anyways, he's not even here to bring me breakfast in bed this morning because he was up at six am and gone off to do a First Aid course before I could come to enough to say 'FLOWERS!!!'

Then he has to go and fix a boiler or something. Because he has to drive it to Pictou County next week to boil stuff at a powerplant or something equally hellish-sounding.

But he's still going to be back in time to take me out tonight.

Yeah.

I won't be passing out from holding my breath today for sure.

He will try his damnedest to take me out tonight though, because he was at the receiving end of my annual 'when is the effing winter going to end' fit this week. So obviously, I need to be brought out to a place where there are other people and waiters and musicians and all the trappings of civilised existence before I gnaw my restraints off and go for him again.

It's been a bad winter.

WhaddoImean, been.

It's still winter for twelve more days.

I met a friend on the street the other day. He said 'how are you doing?' I did the Nova Scotia winter blues shuffle, 'hmmm, you know', pained smile, looking at the ground.

Me too, he said. He said he asked a mutual friend (who is the most Irish Canadian Irish person I have ever met) the other day, if he was in that mood.

Our mutual friend said: 'where I want to kill someone, just to watch them die? Yep.'

That sort of sums it up for me.

My friend said 'everyone's in such a bad mood, we should just put everyone in a room, get them all roaring drunk and just have a big fight, get it all out of our system'.

I suddenly realised that's why we have Paddy's Day in March. Unfortunately, I have to go to work on SPD this year.

You gotta take your opportunities where you can find them.

Last night I came home to find I had locked myself out and as Himself was up to his eyes in boilering stuff for the foreseeable, I squeezed out through my neighbours exit hatch, climbed down the fire escape and ripped our fire door off its hinges with my bare hands to get in.

Boy did that feel good.

After the feeling came back into my fingers.