So which famous bald guy is he? He asked if he looked like Bruce Willis but the eyebrows put him more in a Telly Savalas-You Don’t Know Jack-Patrick Stewart-Mr. Clean-Andre Agassi category. At least he doesn’t look like Sloth from Goonies, one of the pictures that came up in a Google images search for famous bald guys!

We finally got a response from the immigration department, and now they want more evidence (back in time) of our relationship to allow him to stay. Time to dig out the old hard drives to see if we can come up with what they want; my purging philosophy means I probably don’t have copies of plane tickets from trips we took together six years ago and even my email has changed. Even harder is that we left anything old and paperwork-y back in the US! It’s frustrating because we’re here spending money and paying taxes (my ability to be here and work is not in question), we’re not trying to get him a work permit, and my employer has supplied a letter in support of his being here with me. We already gave all the evidence that he’s on my insurance and we both have income/bank accounts to support ourselves. Once again, sneaking in would be easier! Harder to do in an island country, I suppose.

By the way, my friend Kathleen has a blog now that she’s here working as well. We’ve been taking some trips together so you might hear about our days in Waterford and Clonakilty faster from her!

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…

We were able to do a Skype video call tonight so I got to see how she’s doing. She was lounging like nothing happened! Hopefully she’ll be up and hopping soon. I feel far less worried about her knowing she has such capable nursing staff!

Wildlife was mostly cormorants, jellyfish, and mussels, plus all the seagulls. Anyway the kayaking was fun but I opted out of course day 2, while David and our friend Kathleen did that this past Monday. They had to practice getting back in after intentionally falling out of the boat, and it doesn’t sound like the water was particularly comfortable even with a wet suit!

Flashback: I found a disposable 35mm camera at a petrol station (€12!) and used it during kayaking, then found a place in town that actually develops fillum. (That’s film but we can’t get over the way it’s pronounced here.) Fortunately the processing was cheaper than the camera itself. The pictures aren’t the quality I’m used to with my digital, but the risk of drowning a good camera was too high to try for snazzy photos. Also, I didn’t think paying a fortune for a special case to take my camera underwater was worth it.

And now, time to reminisce about working nights at Qualex… are they even still in business? [nope!] On busy summer nights we’d develop, print, cut, and package 40,000 rolls of film. The slowest night still had 15,000, the amount of film used by northern Indiana, southern Michigan, and a few remote MI towns that flew in their orders! The couriers would drive to every pharmacy, grocery, and photo shop within a couple hours and that’s how all your next-day and two-day processing happened. Didn’t matter if you took it to Target or Kroger: same place made it into prints.

At the time I couldn’t predict there wouldn’t be a market for any of it just a few years later. Those nights in factories make me appreciate where I am now! I did enjoy that kind of work, though.

Here you go, scanned fillum photos!

1 Creepy statue of children that’s supposed to be in honor or memory of them…
2-8 Dublin Castle, mostly palace-like, where the Brits ruled locally for centuries and it’s now used as a government facility (rather more Irish now). There were excavated remains of some of the old walls and moats from the older castle.
9 Typical evening: computing in the hotel. That thing on our feet wasn’t very wide and was at the end of the bed. What is it for?
10 Ikea! Our first trip. David has been very anti-Ikea at home (he wanted to build high quality furniture, not buy cheap stuff), but he admitted they have a lot of neat design ideas and when you need a desk and have no tools, you have to branch out a bit. I was disappointed we got there so late that we couldn’t explore the acres of stuff and eat in the restaurant.
11 Merhorse (?) lamp post, near Trinity College I think
12 Mr. Bagpipes, for “anything that requires the unique sound of the bagpipes”
13 Rainy shopping area. There was also a women’s running event in town that day so we were surrounded by freezing wet people in shorts and participation medals
14 I always pick up street rubbish in a top hat
15-19 St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which dates from the 1200s, including Jonathan Swift‘s grave and an amazing tiled floor. Handel’s Messiah was first played here according to what we heard when we were there, but there is some disagreement when I look into it online.

We actually tried to go cliff walking at Howth nearby on our last morning in Dublin before going home, but the fog was so incredibly thick we couldn’t see the road, let alone any cliffs or water. Some other time! ‘Tis a weather dependent country sometimes.

Would you believe I’ve written FIVE HUNDRED posts? The only interesting thing I found for 500 at Wikipedia is that’s about the year when they stopped burying people in catacombs.

I spent four minutes making that stellar chicken picture, too.

Some quick stats: I’ve had this domain (as website, since blogs weren’t invented yet!) for nine years. We had 1104 visitors in the last month. For the top 25 searches coming to my site, there were seven variations on my name. Other notable searches were vegetarian poop, cymbal-playing monkey, paperclips are more useful than, “happy chicken” indianapolis, and baby huts for guinea pigs from pet stores in glasgow. Visitors came from 65 countries, at least since I switched to the new stats service a couple months ago.

STOP THE PRESSES! It’s also four years to the day that I started blogging! This deserves another fine piece of art.

Vegas bunny is quite ill and is having a ridiculous surgery on Thursday. I’m worried about her.

This month sure sucks so far. Next!

1. The hydrangeas here can’t pick a color. I know they vary based on soil acidity, but the variety here is amazing and often occurs on the same plant.
2. I don’t think these were the intended diners when the pet store put out this dog food.
3. General Tso’s Tofu
4. The thing that trims the hedgerows
5. Stuffed portobellos and campers
6. Walter lounges

The term “American Dream” came to mind; my dad used to say that a lot in the context of all sorts of things people want or do (not just manifest destiny/pulling up by your bootstraps stuff, more as irony or social commentary). It’s funny that working hard and getting lucky in the US led to my American Dream happening on another continent.

On that note, we are still working on David’s immigration stuff. Ireland is skeptical of our living in sin despite my employer’s benefits blessing (in case I dump him and he becomes a burden on the state, I guess), so his passport doesn’t allow him to be here more than a couple more weeks. Conveniently we have booked a trip to Iceland on the day his Irish stay expires and I wonder if we’ll get all the remaining paperwork sorted in time or if he’ll be living in Eyjafjallajökull for awhile.

P.S. Thanks, Grandma, for your letters!

A few pictures from day three in Dublin (I’ll catch up someday):

These are all from Kilmainham Gaol. The jail was built in 1796 and used until the 1920s. Men, women, and kids stayed in it, and many famous political prisoners passed through (or were executed on site). I found the jail very interesting. You may recognize it from several movies and a U2 video.

From the pictures: 1. monument to the 1916 Easter Rising leaders, blindfolded and with their charges listed at their feet
2-3. Front entrance, with closeup of the snakes and chains above the door
4. Intake ledger from the Great Famine years, with trespasses including “about to commit a felony,” “stealing three loaves of bread,” and “common prostitute annoying the public.”
5-7. Cell doors and halls. Prisoners would get work to do through holes in the walls, like pieces of rope to tear apart into strands. Other work at the jail included breaking rocks. #7 shows the three levels of prisoner areas.
8. A main hall and cell area, built in an oval and letting in a lot of light, which was supposed to improve criminals’ dispositions.

When we visited this jail/museum, I finally bought David and myself cards that get us in free to lots of state-operated heritage sites around the country. You have to sign your name and record the location of purchase on the back and then record the same information each time you use the cards at new places. I loaned our cards (tsk tsk) to my mom and her friend when they visited so they could save on admission fees. I was humored that someone actually looked at the card and asked my mom how she liked Kilmainham Gaol and how long she was in Dublin, which caused her to lie about it, and then her friend wasn’t in on it and said they’d never gone to Dublin… ah, the jig was up!

In the end David and I were with her, and I tried to make that decision when her days were more bad than good, and I know it was the right thing. Still sucks though. We are already remembering her quirks in a happy way, though. I wonder when I will see another doggy love nibble or nosing of the radiator or the fun police again.

I do want to thank everyone who sent kind words here, on Facebook, and through email… I appreciate them very much. Even if I’m a little more animal-focused than most people, I’m comforted that others recognize how important the bond can be (and so many of you are dog people that I know the feeling is understood).

Tried to keep ourselves busy the last few days… we went to a surprisingly well-attended concert in the pouring rain last week, Chicago brothers Hypnotic Brass Ensemble who were opened by a Nigerian group. They played at Charles Fort just up from our house. I think most of the people there had bought their expensive tickets ahead of time or they wouldn’t have braved the ridiculous weather. We were given free tickets so it was more of an adventure to us! David gave up before I did; we had all our fancy technical rain gear on, but mine’s all new and his seems to have lost some of its waterproofness over the years. Rain pants FTW! I love them.

Kinsale in better weather this week

Yesterday the weather was better than at the concert (though not exactly good), and we reattempted a hike in Co. Tipperary in the Galtees to Lake Muskry. We took Walter there a few weeks back and discovered it was mostly through sheep country and dogs aren’t allowed. Would have been nice for my fancy Hiking in Ireland book to have mentioned this fact… at least now I know to expect dogs not being allowed just about anywhere we want to trek. He’s a good dog but I can see why farmers wouldn’t want a dog among their livestock, plus they might shoot him or leave out poison, and that’s just not fair to chance.

Anyway, the wind howling through the valley hurt our ears but we trudged through the sheep paths and made our way up a ridge where there was a corrie (lake) suspended in the hills. It was a neat hike and we’re glad we went, but we didn’t do the whole mountain loop because it was just rather crummy out. The sheep were skittish when we got near and some of them can really run fast! David got to play with his backpacking GPS for the first time. The maps are too expensive but at least it can keep a trail of breadcrumbs running so you know how to get back.