Give thanks

Well, the day is nearly upon us, and it appears I was too far afield. Monday, I trekked over to Newbridge, where there is a huge Tesco and an upscale shopping mall (called Whitewater, though Danny said it really should be called muddy water given the amount of precipitation we've had to deal with). I stocked up on everything I needed for Thanksgiving--except the turkey and a pumpkin--as well as supplies to decorate two Christmas cakes for Danny's school raffle.

Somehow it made perfect sense to give a traditional job to someone fresh off the boat, and someone was even kind enough to loan me a pastry tube before I could point this out. The first one, decorated last night while I was working out the correct proportions of eggnog to brandy, came out whimsical: egged on by a non-brandied Marcus, it features two sugar snowmen having a sugar snowball fight. I drew the line at splattered snowballs on snowmen's faces and dismembered snowmen a la Calvin and Hobbes. The second cake will definitely need a more elegant tone, and I have an idea, if I can only find a snowflake cookie cutter.


But back to being too far from home base. On Tuesday, I headed into Blessington town: the internet and phone weren't getting me anywhere, so I clearly needed to talk to people. After checking every market (health food store, Dunnes and Kenny's SuperValu) for a pumpkin, my eye fell on a butternut squash (the label says it is an exotic vegetable. Whatever.) I recall that it makes a decent substitute, so bag it.

Then across the street to the butcher. I've only ventured in there once before, when Marcus needed a kidney ("Can you get one with the ureter still attached, Mom?") for biology class. And there, in the case, a lovely free range turkey. It was all I could do to now elbow my way past the little old lady who couldn't decide if she should buy one sausage or two, but when it was my turn, the fellow apologetically let me know it was spoken for just a few hours ago. You see, he explains, we only put one out to show people what they'd be ordering for Christmas, we don't expect anyone to buy it. But, he says, as he sees my bottom lip begin to tremble, I have a crown. Yup, it's the top part of the turkey (I don't want to know who got the drumsticks and wings). And it's in my fridge. The stuffing will just have to go underneath the bird instead of in it.

As for the cookie cutter, Helen, who grew up around here, says, oh, you'll be wanting to go to House of James in Naas for that. Which is, of course, closer to home.

Hunkering down

Jack Frost came last night, painting random surfaces (mostly windshields) a chilly white. There's a dusting of snow on one of the Wicklow hills, and Met Eireann warns of "showers turning wintry" on Thursday. Which is all just a way of saying that it's cold.

I nipped up to Dublin City on Saturday, ostensibly to attend a workshop on taxation (which I did attend and almost understood), but also because I wanted a decent knife. I have tried to make it work with the supermarket-grade knives that came with the house, but have cite irreconcilable differencse. I was hoping that proximity to the continent would make it easier to find a good knife, but there appear to be only two kitchen shops around, both within a block of each other in Dublin. Lucky for me, the first one I hit had a lovely display of Sabatier, which fit the bill perfectly. A solid-looking garlic press also jumped into my shopping bag and I didn't say no.

Without Thanksgiving to act as a buffer, Ireland launched itself into Christmas season--the day after Halloween. The fun size candy was dumped unceremonously into the half-off bins (hooray, fun-sized caramel bars!), and those same shelves filled overnight with Cadbury and Bassett's and Mars and Smarties and After Eights and all sorts of Christmas-sized packages and advent calendars and holiday crackers and goodness, you could put on so much weight and put holes in your teeth just thinking about eating it all.

Downtown, and even in our own small village, lights deck the storefronts, and the heaving masses and buskers cram the pavement. Lighted signs tell me that all the downtown parking lots were full, full, full, making me feel even more virtuous for having taken the bus. The bus runs from the center of Blessington to right into the heart of Dublin, takes about the same amount of time as driving myself, and costs only Eur 3.30. I'm sold.



An extended holiday season means that there are more weekends to schedule holiday parties and such, but that doesn't mean that they manage to spread themselves out so we can pace ourselves. No, this is the week that one school has its coffee morning (invite people in for a cuppa, get them to put some cash in the pot and maybe buy a few handmade gifts and a raffle ticket); and the other school has its Christmas Bazaar (with raffle and tombola, please provide a donation from your family ASAP). Next week is fallow, then we get hit with three holiday parties in quick succession, from Friday evening to Saturday night.

We're planning to pull the kids from school a few days early and head down to Germany for Christmas, where it is already snowing. Good thing we brought the woolies!

Cold turkey

My first year abroad, I was in France for Thanksgiving. I was the only American in the entire town (the other one arrived after the new year), and I couldn't afford to fly home. It was my first holiday out of the nest, so to speak, and I hadn't realized just how American I was, at least in this aspect. More than the turkey, I realized I missed the cold sandwiches (lots of mayo and cranberry sauce) and pumpkin pie the next week.
The next Thanksgiving I was back in the States, and gleefully joined the insanity of flying to my parents, a pie on my lap. I firmly believe that the TSA should make a specific exception for pumpkin pies in carryon for this week. Anything less would be Unamerican.
My years in Germany were a challenge, but I was still young and energetic. Not wanting a repeat of my French turkey fast, I set out, determined to find a turkey in November. A chat with a French butcher (just across the border from Freiburg had the fellow shaking his head--he would have to order a minimum of six fresh turkeys, would I purchase them all? I was a student, with no fridge of my own, just a cubby in a communal dorm fridge. This wasn't going to happen. I finally located a butcher in the basement of a supermarket in Freiburg who procured a frozen turkey for me. I headed into town on the tram (I couldn't ask Alfred to carry it on his bike's handlebars), and returned home with a frozen lap. The bird rested on my friend Ute's balcony for two days, where I don’t think it thawed at all since we had a cold snap. Frozen fingers stuffing the thing, another family tradition.
My mother, worried about me, sent a box with a can of cranberry jelly, a bag of stuffing, a can of pumpkin and a can of succotash. I love corn, I hate lima beans. She knew this, but that's a subject for many years of therapy. Given the size of the bird, we had a few starving-student friends over, and demolished everything, even the succotash (without my help).
So here we are, once again faced with the turkey-in-November-in-a-country-that-eats-their-turkeys-in-December dilemma. And of course, my liberal-jerking knee really wants a free-range bird, for both health and moral reasons. I've been at this a week now, and T-day is approaching.
One of the most useful things I have learned over the years professionally is how to estimate how much time a job is going to take me. My clients love that I deliver on time or a little early; I love that I don't have to sweat getting it done under the wire. But this is Ireland, and it takes a half-hour of conversation to ascertain that they don't have a turkey. Since I'm still quite new to the Irish Way, it means I have cleared my calendar to allot the rest of the week to procuring The Bird. Wish me luck!

Black and pink

After supper last night, Alfred took the boys over to the hotel to watch part of a big rugby match. (He maintains that this helps him advance professionally, so he can talk with his co-workers more intelligently.) Apparently, the rules of the game don't matter as much as the showmanship, which consists of grown men trying to intimidate the other team in a ritual called the Haka.



I should note that what's funny is that the All Blacks (who won, 18-16) are a national team who were playing against a regional team. By the way, this is what they call a friendly game.

From the ridiculous to the sublime: I woke this morning to pink light, and when I looked out the window (the Wicklow mountains are to my left) the sky was ablaze in a glorious sunrise. With the moon still up and the birds going crazy, Disney couldn't have painted a prettier picture.


I wonder which will be the subject of conversation around the water cooler?

A desk!

When we started to think in earnest about this adventure, we realized that much of it would be an exercise is prioritizing: just what is important enough to pack and bring with or pursue once we got here? Conversely, it was an opportunity to shed the excess: if we do without it for a year, can we do without it altogether?

Well, after a month of moving my laptop (a must have, given my line of work) back and forth from side board to kitchen table and back again each day, I learned a few things:

• Optical mice don't work on glass tables
• Food and keyboards don't mix
• Reshuffling piles of paper every day is extremely inefficient

The painfully obvious answer is a desk. If this were Seattle, or any other large city, I would head to IKEA. But it's not open in Dublin yet (long story, buy me a cider and I'll tell it to you), so we decided to trek to Bristol, combining a good visit with a lightning shop at the big blue box.

The other hurdle is that this tiny house has four sofas in it (no, I'm not kidding), and there was no way to get even a token desktop in. Our very cool landlady graciously gave us the key to the other house in the village (number 36) so we could swap out furniture. We figured out that by removing one large coffee table and turning one sofa 90 degrees, we could sneak in my tiny desk.

Of course, I also had the trek to Florida and back last week, so assembling the desk was one of the things that just didn't Get Done. But with a calm moment during the week last week, and patience with a screwdriver (I miss my drill, but not enough to buy a new one), I have a desk!


Astute viewers will also note the laundry rack. Yes, we have no dryer, which is something I sorely miss, as the amount of laundry produced by four people in a muddy place can be prodigious, and we're only barely keeping up. One load a day is the maximum, since that fills the two racks, which need at least a day to dry. We have discovered we can speed drying marginally by turning the rack in front of the radiator.

Eagle eyes will notice a white thingy poking out one side of the computer--the Omnitel guys assure me that it will be just a few more days or so until they can get the broadband working. In the meantime, I invested in a USB dongle that gives me a mobile broadband connection to the tower on the hill. The pipeline is smaller, but has been very reliable, and can even carry a voice call without a hiccup. Which means you can call our Redmond number, and if we're not asleep, we'll pick up and talk to you. While sitting at the desk, no less!

On the road

I drove into town yesterday to knock off one of the last two administrative tasks, applying for a PPS number (the equivalent of a Social Security number) for the two boys. I has tried to do it last month, but the capricious clerk requested a letter from each school proving the boys were attending class. Alternatively, I could have brought the boys with, but I still haven't figured out how that would prove they were in school.

At any rate, I set out early, and planned to drive over the hill at Bohernabreena (gotta love that name) thinking I would arrive shortly after they opened and lessen my wait time. I did manage to get there and be first in line, but wasn't as early as I had hoped since I ran into traffic issues. When I told Alfred I had met horses on the road, he assumed I meant I had met lads training racehorses with buggies, a fairly common occurrence around these parts. But no, I meant I met horses, not buggies. It was one of those quintescentially Irish moments, and reminds me why we are here. These were stocky draught horses, working stiffs who had left the office without permission.


The soggy weather confirms that it is late autumn, one of my favorite seasons. It always seems to get short shrift with the precipitous attitude merchants have toward the holiday season, but I like falling leaves, and have never figured out why people think upstate New York should corner the market on fall colors (yes, I have been there in autumn).


I did not capture the event on film, but when I stopped to take this next picture, a pair of black and white terriers (one salt, one pepper) came out of a neighboring house to investigate me. When I proved to be uninteresting, they squoze under the fence into the field where cattle were grazing and proceeded to chase them. The funny part is that the cows actually ran away.


The Irish authorities tell me to drop by after Monday and they'll write down the boys' numbers for me: apparently they don't bother mailing such things for children. I wonder what happens if I don't stop by because the roads are clogged with livestock?

Flamingo in the pansies

I have been away for nearly a week, on my annual translation pilgrimage. This year's conference was held in a resort in Walt Disney World, and the organizers went to great lengths to keep the cartoon characters at bay (One colleague relates the story of trying to have a difficult conversation with an employee, only to be interrupted by Goofy at an inopportune moment.). But Florida is still Florida, and Disney is still Disney: our mascot was a relatively innocuous flamingo, flaming pink and sporting tennis shoes and glasses--no, not the intellectual kind, these were purple with rhinestones. A dozen plastic lawn flamingos were purchased to decorate the poolside planters lest we take ourselves too seriously.
My travel day was a bit unreal, from the fresh code orange alert for election day, to the perennially false resort environment, to the early election returns. The juxtaposition between the fall color on the Wicklow hills and the perfectly groomed grass and palm trees was jarring, not to mention the sheer scale of things. I don't think the motorway around Dublin is as wide as the hotel driveway (and people go around the roundabout the wrong way!).
The warm weather, incredible fresh orange juice, and historical election results helped me adjust, and soon I was wearing sandals every day, though I still needed a sweater indoors because of the air conditioning. Sessions were attended, business cards were exchanged, meals were shared poolside. When it came time to leave, ,the traditional drawing was held for free registration for next year's conference, and another dozen names were pulled out of the bowl for--you guessed it--a lawn flamingo.


Which explains how something so pink ended up somewhere so green.

Wheels

You asked, here they are, the new Hellstern fleet. The good news is that the blue beast passed its NCT (National Car Test) on the first try, though our neighbor told us that never happens.

The minivan (a Renault Scénic) looks pretty big next to the little Clio, but it's actually a wee bit smaller than a Mazda 5. It's completely gutless, but the dual sunroofs are pretty cool.