Amy’s Gripping Commentary

A lot… but a lot can’t be said here.

I’m in South Bend for my great uncle’s funeral. It’s sad of course, but also nice to be with family. I am glad my family is close and I hope my great aunt feels the love of family during this time. My brother and I have nice memories of staying with them when we were kids. He claims Uncle Firm rescued him from being stuck between the wall and the bed when he fell out one night. We remember going to the pool and their dog and eating a lot of ice cream with them!

I am supposed to close on a house tomorrow in Indy. It’s in a really cool neighborhood and I’m partly excited about it… it needs work and there are other considerations about the future use/habitation of this property, but overall I know it’s a good deal and I’ve always wanted to have a home in a place like this. I hope the surrounding crime-y neighborhood doesn’t infiltrate! Watch this space for my exasperated experiences in remodeling a century old home.

Work is kicking my rear and has been for quite some time. I was able to offload some routine work to be able to work on a project that is due around my birthday. I will need many stiff drinks to celebrate when it is done. So far we are moving along and I’m trying to balance the need for management feedback on the work in progress with the need not to waste their time or slam their calendars if I don’t have everything done that I need to get done.

That’s all I can say for now about the compartmentalizing of my thoughts and energy these days. I must get back to editing some slides! I love data but I’m not as big a fan of trending it some nights.

Went on vacation a couple weeks ago with my mom and Emmy. Emmy likes hotel beds and condo couches just fine. I got a sunburn.

I’m also putting my name on the NaBloPoMo list again, though it’s a shadow of its former self with a new hosting location and no categories and prizes that, well, seem more promotional for authors (blogs over books! this month at least) than community-donated. I need some way to weed out total vapidity, and being on BlogHer doesn’t really excite me in the first place. In years past I enjoyed finding other blogs by writers who shared my Myers-Briggs type or took pictures of the contents of their refrigerators. Anyway, I don’t have as much time to read the webz anymore but hopefully it’ll get me to post more often this month. November starts a depressing winter season so I need something to look forward to! I will try not to rant about work every day.

Note: Emmy fell down the back steps yesterday and re-injured her leg that just had us at the emergency vet last weekend. Well, all her legs this time. She’s trotting about normally now but her collection of bloody cuts and bruises has increased significantly. She is kind of like a giraffe: leggy, awkward, and not meant to use stairs.

I spent five or six hours at the emergency vet today with Emmy, who hurt her foot/leg yesterday while on squirrel patrol in the yard. It’s not broken (unless the radiologist sees more than the emergency vet did), but her foot is swollen and she’s limping. She scrapes up her feet and legs a lot in the yard, but this is the first time her limping lasted more than an hour. It’s been over 24 now. She has a slight fever and is resting a lot. I’m glad it’s not worse!

Meanwhile, I had planned to go to work all day but those plans were scuttled. I did some work at the vet during the long waits and now I’m still plugging away at reports here at home. Last week I was in a four-day project at work that did not allow me to get normal work done, and the previous week I was on vacation, so I feel VERY behind. Someday I’ll catch up. (I’ve been saying that for years.)

My mom had a scary medical incident a few days ago and we are all grateful she’s home and feeling good now!!

Not much else to report. I rode my bike to the Irvington Halloween Festival this weekend (funnel cake!! Did you know there is different batter for an elephant ear, which has cinnamon sugar, while the funnel cake gets powdered sugar?) and I’m working working working. Clover continues to heal. Happy Halloween tomorrow! I haven’t busted into the candy yet.

Today is Grandma’s birthday! We had a party last weekend with lots of good food and laughs. It’s a good thing she can take a joke since there were more than a few Oldie von Moldy statements directed her way.

The dogs said to tell you happy birthday, too, Grandma

Last year I told a few stories about spending time with Grandma. And she wasn’t too happy this past weekend when she noticed I cut my hair.

Hope you have a great day and eat lots of cake!

Mom look: a Huffy Sea Pines bike!

Matt just finished his triathlon here in Indy. I rode my bike downtown to watch with Dad and Andrea.

An Irish Thanksgiving meal: actually it was five Americans and a British guy, who has been quoted as saying the title of this post, which I think had something to do with not paying to swim in a pool. He had pumpkin pie for the first time (made with pumpkin we had our visitors bring from the States because you can’t get canned pumpkin here).

Our Irish coworkers wished us happy Thanksgiving way more times than I’ve ever heard it in the US and asked if we were going to take vacation days. Seeing as how it’s freezing cold here and there’s nothing to do in Ireland in November, we just went to work!

Emmy ate all the bread off the counter again today but we managed to have a nice spread and even heard Alice’s Restaurant on internet radio. Now it’s time for bed!

Phoning it in tonight… tired from work and visitors. Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow in the States! David’s mom is here and is cooking a dead bird. I made a pumpkin pie and Emmy the dog stole a loaf of bread from the counter, bread crumbs from the trash, and pearl barley and rice noodles from the pantry. Everyone plays a part… kind of glad I’m escaping at work most of the day.

Enjoy these cards from someecards.com and don’t eat too much mash (that’d be mashed potatoes)

About a week and a half ago, I got up at the butt crack of dawn and got on one of these:

Then I went to Amster-amster-shh-shh-shh*

Twenty hours, a taxi, two planes, and a bus after leaving David fast asleep in bed, I arrived a few thousand miles west to drive on the right, sneak around town, and put on a play:

We did This is Your Life for my mom’s BD and I got to surprise her!

Only my brother and his wife (and their dog) were in on it and we had a great time surprising the rest of the family. Then I had to hurry back home and get back to work with some serious jet lag. But it was fun! I just don’t want to do it every weekend.

*Anyone who was in Mr. Short’s music class in the eighties at Nuner elementary will be able to sing along. Also, the Amsterdam airport is fabulous. This trip also marked the end of the line for my aging backpack which has been around since high school. I finally replaced it but I kind of miss it!

I know it’s not nice to say people are old, or even to divulge exactly how old, but today is my mom’s 60th birthday and 1. I don’t think she’s old and 2. everyone should know it and tell her Happy Birthday!

My mom and I have scarily similar personalities (and hair, for that matter). We enjoy things the same way, worry about things the same way, shy away from spotlights the same way, and focus on our introverted passions in the same way. I think anyone who can spend a lifetime doing what they love has it all figured out–I need her to teach me that one a little better.

Mom was always the soft touch when we were in trouble, always let us spend the night with our friends or bring people over to the house, always got up early to fix us breakfast and get us off to school (even though we are equally not morning people–I truly understand this accomplishment), and took me to school when I then missed the bus anyway. I even liked being sick because she’d fix grilled cheese, tomato soup, and 7Up. I liked when I had dentist appointments because instead of rushing me back to school, we’d go have lunch at Wendy’s and read the antique ads on the tabletops. She organized great family vacations and made the awesomest Halloween costumes–usually when we only made up our minds about a day before! She even sewed us a fort made out of fabric for the trees in the backyard.

I’m sure the more important, lasting skills she and Dad taught us were reading at early ages and how to treat everyone fairly, not to mention the importance of a healthy family dinner eaten together. They were also so supportive of everything we did which built our confidence automatically. It’s strange to reflect on these things now because they sure didn’t seem like big deals to me as a kid.

Anyway, thanks, Mom, for being a great mom and have a happy birthday! We love you. Now I’m going to embarrass you with pictures from your trip in June (and thanks to Margel for taking some funny ones!).

1. Looking lovely at Cahir castle
2. Uh oh, there’s about to be a rough boat ride on the Atlantic…
3. Not looking so lovely after the boat.
4. A town called Quilty!
5. At Slea Head
6. Aww, poor 18th century American prisoner
7. At Dunbeg stone fort
8. Climbing Ballycarberry castle
9. Inishmore, Aran Islands: gray day at Dún Aonghasa
10. Not the porticullis!
11. Hanging out in Kilmalkedar Church
12. Riding the dolpin in Dingle
13. Ice cream! Killarney, amongst the hen parties

I think I’m a day or two late but happy birthday to Grandma! Grandpa loads my blog in the morning and prints new posts for her, so I hope she’ll see it. I’ll post this picture of us from not too long ago, where she complained about my hair hygiene and made us laugh.

I shared that story with my 15 year old cousin after she posted on Facebook that she was recently at Old Country Buffet with Grandma, who told her her haircut was the ugliest one she’d ever seen. I love it! Grandma tells it like it is.

It was always fun to spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. You got ice cream and sugar cereal and hamburgers and trips to the mall and painting parties and a cool dog. We videotaped ourselves lip-syncing and dancing and dressing up. Then we’d make her pictures crooked just to hear her holler.

And who can forget this picture I posted on my website over ten years ago: she came all the way out to Massachusetts to see me in college (or maybe it was for graduation?) and, well…

(as Grandma says)

Sorry for the absence… been on vacation for a few days with my mom and her friend who are visiting Ireland. Poor David stayed home with the pups but he’s probably happier there anyway. A couple teaser shots:

near the Black Fort, Inishmore, Aran Islands

Slea Head, Dingle Peninsula, Co. Kerry

Mom baby-talks the baby sheep

I’ve developed a fascination with customs and border patrol shows, where people try to bring sausages into Australia and then argue for hours about paying a fine because they didn’t declare their booty. I’m hoping to glean some tips on what exactly makes for legal import, what paperwork you need to visit a given country, and what it is about immigration enforcement that gets people so riled up. It’s uniformly sad to raid, arrest, and deport a hard working person. I won’t say whether it’s good or bad for the country’s resources, just that if someone is willing to cling to the underside of a truck to sneak into a new place, the old place must be pretty bad indeed and I have sympathy. I find the American debate about illegal immigration particularly bizarre for being a nation of (mostly) immigrants. How long must one squat to make it legal? Ten years is not enough if you ask the lawmakers, but a couple hundred apparently takes care of it. A couple hundred years of history is but a blip over here, as well as in the grand scheme of who has the “right” to keep someone out because they got there first.

Meanwhile, Irish radio advertises Cuban vacations. The complete lack of info on Cuba in the U.S. leaves it a foggy, concrete, communist country of the 1960s in my mind… and apparently it’s a nice place to take a vacation if your country lets you go. When I was trying to book a flight through London from Spain after the ash cloud canceled the direct Irish flight, the agents had to consider what country’s passport I held to know if the UK would let me through. It’s bizarre to me that you can’t just go somewhere.

In other news, my brother has jumped into the world of blogging and is posting his magazine articles as well. His writing appeals to a broader audience than my ranting (I realize you are only here to see me fall off a cliff like other tourists or to look at my dogs), so go on and visit at General Tomfoolery! Bookmarked in the sidebar as well. Also Arliss the cranky bunny has a new post up.

From a day touring a bit of County Tipperary (and a smidge of Co. Waterford) with my stranded guest, Carlton, a few weeks ago, I give you a lot-easier-to-upload gallery of pictures:

The first four pics are from Cahir Castle, built in 1142, including a view of the town and some from inside the castle.

The next six pics are from the Rock of Cashel, which had earlier structures but most of the remaining ones are from the 12th and 13th centuries. Despite the scaffolding, this is a fascinating place and very well preserved/restored in many parts. The tour guide was quite good and the soaring walls and fresco remnants (I think they’re still called frescoes in Ireland) are worth a visit. The view on a sunny day is pretty too.

The last picture is from the Vee Gap area of the Knockmealdown Mountains, but either volcanic ash or a general haze kept the view a little dull. Carlton and I went on a fuel quest right about then and fortunately the GPS found us some just in time.

This just in: David has just arrived! Our company driver picked him up at Shannon. I hope he isn’t mad that I didn’t get up at 3 a.m. to go get him and have to take a day off work! I will see him at lunch. He claimed his steak on the plane (good old business class!) was better than any he’d had at home and he felt sorry when he saw the folks in “steerage” when he got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. I pointed out we will be back in steerage soon enough, but this year we get to enjoy horizontal plane sleeping.

His account of the arrival at the house:

*going to the door*
Dogs: Who the F*** is thatOH it’s YOU!!!
*commence Velcro/shadow dogs and a lot of Walter jumping*

Been very busy planning the move. My stuff ships out Tuesday, but I have another week or maybe a little more, depending on the employment permit arrival.

Anyway, I found this while cleaning up for a fun going away party:

My first pets and their method of dispatch:

I also found evidence of hours spent at our first home computer, an Apple IIGS, for a school report. I drew a diagram I saw in a textbook, I think around 5th or 6th grade:

And here we have Amy creating a Rudolph-pulling-Santa’s sleigh photo op. I don’t know if we DID anything once dressed like that or if I just made the outfits and had the picture taken, but there ya go.

Some random thoughts to prove I’m still alive.

I did indeed have cadaver bone put in during my osteomyelitis treatment! It was irradiated, powdered, and mixed with what is basically plaster of Paris, but it still sounds exotic. Unfortunately I’ve had some additional dental pain recently. You’d think I traumatized my teeth or something.

Arliss had her fourth surgery a week ago (vet and I agreed she didn’t need a CT scan after all) and she’s doing great! She even gained weight in the last two weeks.

Loving the Indy Winter Farmers Market on Saturday mornings. The place is PACKED and I love seeing cyclists with panniers riding in the snow! Note: the local chickens went on strike when it got super cold the last couple of weeks, so eggs were harder to come by. I like being able to get a half dozen a month since we don’t use more than that, and then I can take the carton back to the farmer to use again.

I discovered recently-reopened El Sol de Tala. This town has more Mexican (I use that as a geographic/ethnic term loosely) restaurants than you can imagine, but this one place stands out. They even have a veggie menu. It’s not the same old enchiladas anymore, people!

Following a craving, I had French toast at Denny’s, and even if they hadn’t ruined it with cinnamon and powdered sugar, it still was nowhere as good as Dad’s. He also blows away every pancake on earth.

I’ve finally heard from some of the relocation folks and the target start date in Ireland is March 1. There’s so much to do that it’s hard not just to plop on the couch with 81 SVU reruns on Tivo and ignore the obvious (that’s how many were scheduled in this two week period). One of my current focuses (okay, foci) is pantry raid: use up all the groceries that line our cupboards and freezer. In the past week we had breakfasty stuff to use up biscuits and fake sausages and last night I made chik’n and rice casserole. My freezer has several fake meat products that I’ve always kept as backup, but usually have been creative enough not to need for most cooking. I see a lot of chili in our future for the ground ‘beef’ crumbles…