Learner

Occasionally I have mentioned, that I love a great first line of a book. In the case of this first sentence I had just exited out of the front door of our office building to began walking across the parking lot to head home from work and while walking reached into my coat pocket for my phone and opened my Kindle App to glance at the new book I had just downloaded. Running my finger across the phone to move ahead in the pages to the first chapter and line and promptly laughed out loud.

"At first, it appeared they both wanted the same cock."

And how does that lead to a picture of Wills and Kate, one asks?
And also I should explain that the first line is referring to a chicken of course.

I'm on a road trip... Left the office early yesterday taking some PTO to head to #61's school conference and then onto my sisters for Miss O's birthday party. Savoring an indolent Friday morning watching the Royal Wedding with my very prego sister and a second cup of tea. Wills and Kate hop into the above Aston Martin that runs on wine and my sister laughs after noticing the "L" on the front of the car. Bringing a laugh from me as well as she points it out and a flood of memories from our second trip to Ireland.

It all started with the first trip to Ireland, My sister and I had rented a cottage in West County Kerry in a small town called Kilgarvan. The cottage was owned by Kevin O'Reilly and he also owned a bar a short walking distance from our cottage. We asked one night in the bar, what the "L's" stickers meant on the occasional cars.

Deepest apologies......To be continued....My dear sister is requesting I shower and get motivated......

And now a week has passed....very prego sister (Due May 15th) went to work Wednesday morning and thought.."My those feel like contractions." But talked herself down and went about her business, they were having a work party for her afterall, at one. At three her contractions were three minutes apart and her co-workers decided to take her to the hospital and Gabriella was born at 7:20. Exciting stuff that. I'm an Auntie again and was thinking that since 5/4 (Wednesday) at work was Star Wars Day (May the fourth be with you) and now Gabriella's birthday, perhaps we should call her Princess Leia instead.

I know my niece would love that name. Also Kate a commoner cannot be a princess in her own right or name but must take on Princess as William. Meaning she is Princess William of Wales. But being a Duchess is not a bad gig.

But I digress....

On the second trip to Ireland, my sister, Tara my nineteen year old niece and I purchased a packaged trip from my friend Shannon Tate of Scottish Dream Tours. As we headed out of Dublin we made jokes about the occasional car with an "L" sticker being losers, because people with the sticker were generally bad drivers. The "L" sticker stands for Learner and the learner has to keep them on their car for quite some time before becoming a fully qualified driver (years actually). As foreigners we felt we were above them because we were licensed and handling the roads quite well.

On a late Irish afternoon while at the grocery store in Waterford we came across the sticker itself for sale and later that night in our jammies slipped quietly out of our bed and breakfast to put the sticker on the back of the car. Days passed and Shannon had yet to notice it, so we moved the sticker to a new spot and more time passed and still he had not mentioned it. It was driving us insane... at a stop at a petrol station, we saw him physically register it, finally. He jerked as he saw it, flushed red and paused, glancing quickly all around. Us three girls watching him from the car started giggling, progressing to laughter as he got in the car. But still he did not say anything.

Putting the car in gear shaking his head at our uncontrolled laughter we melted down into weak puddles of uncontrollable laughter, tears streaming and not able to breathe. And still he was annoyingly silent about the "L" and I finally caught enough breathe to make a snide comment about how long it was going to take him to realize he was a loser like the rest of them.

He sputtered, turned red again and promptly launched into a speech about how he was mortified that he had been making snide comments about all the drivers with "L's" on the car because he had one too. We were laughing so hard at him and gave in and told him we had put it there. That took awhile to sink in and I'm not sure he really believes to this day that we bought it at the grocery store and placed it on the car but I posted the following on his FB page after my sister pointing out the sticker to me on the Aston Martin.

"Hey going to post it here too! Even Wills has to drive a "loser" car, but at least it runs on alcohol. Now that is the shit! Happy Friday, Kerry and I are watching the wedding and she pointed out the "L" and we thought of you of course and our trip. LOL!"

• • Scottish Dream Tours The confusion on both our parts was quite amusing surrounding the mysterious "L" that appeared on my car. That was quite a tour with many wonderful moments and lots of laughter! I''d love to do it again. Happy Friday to you and Kerry too! We are having an amazing time here in Wales and have a really fun bunch.
    

    
    

    April 29 at 3:02pm 

  • Kerry states their was no confusion on her part. Lol. Still can't believe they sell the sticker in the grocery store. Good times and definitely want to do it again. Kerry is very prego.. Due n two weeks.

    April 29 at 8:46pm

Princess Leia herself

2011 Easter fun

Golfing. Chico's Pizza. A game of 31.  Many new memories and another Easter passes.

Golfing with #61

On the fence

Egg Hunt 2011

Me

Mickey Blue Eyes

Processing

Processing Easter

Easter brings to mind; traditions and how they begin. Some of the best traditions are by accident, meeting people that you come across in life and incorporating something of their history into yours. Some are by convenience, and others are based on fond memories of your childhood. My Mom likes to give Easter baskets filled with candy and that irritating fake grass that hides your jelly beans so delightfully. I asked her why she still does it every year because her grand-kids are adults now as well. She told me that it was something her Mother always did for her and her brothers and she loved it and loves carrying on the tradition. Last night I came home from work and there were three Easter bags on the counter one for me and the other two for my sons. I peeked in their baskets and then took mine with me to bed with a movie.

Me I like the simple things. Or perhaps I'm just cheap. But no I really like the simple traditions; my annual Easter basket from my Mom and her homemade orange rolls. The orange rolls an old family recipe that came from a neighbor on the Air Force base we lived on in Michigan when I was little. And Easter Sunday spent at my in-laws (prior) farm in Warden for the processing of the spring calves.

The Grand-kids; the youngest two now seventeen, all gather and still have an Easter Egg hunt first thing in the morning. The money eggs get more expensive each passing year. I have pushed for condoms in the plastic eggs but have been vetoed as not appropriate. My desires of not wanting to be a Grandmother anytime soon, outweighed by resounding no's. I still think it's practical and smart. The mix of plastic and real eggs are hidden in the surrounding ten acres of grass and orchard. The Grand-kids; one a parent now herself (...just saying...would have been practical for her to find a plastic egg about three years ago with a rubber inside when she was a teenager...) run through the yard hollering and loping like they did when they were little. Rounding up the dozens hidden around the farm and occasionally not the current years eggs.

The baskets of found colored eggs are removed from their bright primary colored shells, sliced and stirred into a large pot of white gravy. Towers of golden toast are laid to rest on the table. Easter breakfast is ready. It has many names; Shit on a shingle, Egg paste (my contribution in the late eighties) and just plain old Easter breakfast. The toast is ripped into chunks and the thick gravy is spooned on in dollops on top of the bread, add some salt and pepper and dig in. Simple fare that is addictive.... I swear. 

Rounding up of the calves begins after breakfast; Grampie rounds up the kids, assigns them positions in the pasture and then grabs his golf cart for some hope of control over the chaos that always ensues. Know matter the amount of planning, the management of moving cows from where they want to be to a location where they are separated from their babies always creates chaos. It's my job to organize the tags, syringe and antibiotics for inoculation. Also I grab the bag of thick miniature rubber-bands and the tool of which I do not know the name, but you place the rubber-band on this device so that the guys can stretch the band open and place it around the calves balls. Strangling any hope of future life from them and eventually the balls fall to the ground of the pasture floor shriveled and useless. The boys get the job of conducting cow traffic into the chute and into the contraption that rotates as it holds the calf still. The girls assigned to direct the finished victim traffic. The calf is identified as male or female and is promptly inoculated, has it's ear pierced and branded and if it has swinging balls they are strangled to the slow death as previously mentioned. Every year there is always one calf with balls so big its takes three to tango with them and just once out of ten years one lucky legend had such big ones he got to keep them for future use. 

After all this excitement we go golfing which was in invented in Scotland and that brings to mind the United Kingdom as a whole. The rolling hills of Scotland dotted in sheep and the forty thousand shades of green in Ireland and it's very happy grazing cattle. In the UK they now call prophylactics the lovely name of latex. Condoms once upon a time were made out of linen, animal intestines and bladders (many were sheep). However, they were quite expensive and the unfortunate result was that they were often reused. In 1666, the English Birth Rate Commission attributed a recent downward drop of the fertility rate to use of 'condons', the first documented use of that word (or any similar spelling). Condon (Latin for receptacle), Condoms, rubbers, latex, prophylactics have a long and fascinating history check it out on Wikipedia.

In closing from the words of our military and one of it's slogans for the promotion of condoms.
"Don't forget — put it on before you put it in. On the other hand, if we didn't forget once in a while and have accidents we would not be able to carry on family traditions.

Happy Easter.

Egg Hunt 2010

#61, Mickey Blue Eyes and their parents 2010

Bren & Trav Easter 2010

Processing 2010

Calypso...The search to answers to questions unknown

Moke

I love music and happiest to surf through the channels when on a solo road trip to Roslyn to see my boys, finding a song for each passing mood and mile. Yesterday I came across John Denver and Calypso.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35x_rwyBh-8

It is also a dance style that I brought up in conversation recently and learned while on vacation in Barbados. My niece The hills of Tara and I went there in 2006 and we took a snorkeling trip on a catamaran and at some point we had a lesson on how to shake that thing from one of the guys working on the boat. We just could not shake him after we docked and for the rest of the trip. So now after listening to John Denver's Calypso whom he wrote about Jacques Cousteau and his boat named Calypso. I find that they are nicely intertwined in my little world of writing somewhat useful information. I have included Sean Paul who features some Calypso dancing in his videos (The Barbodians love his music). While visiting the island we rented a moke (Flinstone like car, see picture above) and road tripped all over that island. A year later my boys and I went on a cruise with a stopover in Bridgetown Barbados.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy8eIhenr0w&feature=related

The places you've been too, the things you have showed us, the stories you tell. I guess this is reflecting the mood of the month, pure wanderlust. Yesterday I drove to Roslyn to hang with #61 and Mickey Blue Eyes. It is also mushroom season so number #61 and I headed out to my secret spots and were lucky to find some morels just breaking through the thick leaves in the first spot.

Crouching down and letting the eyes adjust to the forest floor, inhaling the scents of musty fungus. Slowly they appear, almost growing before your eyes, because you missed them the first couple of sweeps with the eye. We checked the second spot with no luck and we did not have time to hike the two hour round trip for the location that usually brings the mother lode. We took them back to the house and I cleaned half. Nothing tastes as good as that first batch of fresh wild mushrooms sauteed with onions and garlic.

The boys headed to Seattle and I drove down the road to the Spirit Mine Liquor store to see Sassy Red Head before hitting the dusty trail and turning that dial on the radio looking for the song that suited the mood.

On the rocks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LefQdEMJP1I

Eww baby baby said sweet and sexy like the taste of Irish Cream Whiskey on the rocks. Feeling some Pitbull and T-Pain for musical accompaniment this soggy Friday evening. Met Slo at Cousins for some chat/face time and now back home trying to come up with a blog theme.

I have some ideas:
Bailey Irish Creme Whiskey because I have been drinking it in the last hour.
My road trip tomorrow.
Shopping: because I actually did some. I had to drop a wad at Walgreen's for basic necessities and that shit ain't cheap.

Having some trouble coming up with the idea and flow. Ah ha... secrets. Yeah that's what I want to discuss, secrets. I have been asked to keep many in my life.

Secrets are a dark dirty stash of power.

I'm asked all the time at work to keep them. I kind of like that part of the job. Knowing important stuff before it happens to the rest of the world and with Amazon it is the entire world. 

At one point in my life I had so many secrets I was keeping, that when I had to get my wisdom teeth removed a close friend thought it would be best if she drove me to and from the appointment versus my husband at the time (one and only husband, that seemed to imply I might have done marriage more than once.) She had heard this rumor about how anesthesia can make you spill your beans. So in her best interests she drove and it just made me sleep like a puppet on the string. I had brief moments of humor and alertness only to collapse into the sleep of the dead in random moments.

But truly getting to experience Anesthesia.... now that was the shit.
 
I went to the net to research secrets, to perhaps find intriguing history or other useful tidbits of information and found that I was disenchanted with that whole idea after going to a link called treasure chest and read a couple of secrets about girls being raped by parents and the next site was... well let's just say I'm going to move onto another topic not feeling the secret thing any longer.

Irish Cream Whiskey next passing idea... However after once again hitting the web for further research, find it sadly disappointing to realize my drink of choice was invented in the 1970's.

It has less history than I do.

And for the life of me and my laptop I cannot get the Baileys website to open, moved on to Carolan's which is a honey based cream whiskey and its website worked, but lacked in creativity as well as history as the second best selling Irish Cream Whiskey in the world. Better luck with Saint Brendan's though, it had a decent website and through their chosen name some history with the Saint. Liked the bit about him being a traveler. Plus it's cool I have been to all the locations mentioned even Bushmill's which they secretly don't mention by name.

Saint Brendan's Irish Cream Liqueur is named after Saint Brendan the Abbot, a celebrated sixth century monk known for his remarkable travels. His adventurous spirit guides us while we seek out the most authentic, all-natural, Irish made ingredients for our Irish Cream Liqueur. Our triple distilled Irish whiskey is crafted just steps from the Giant's Causeway on the northern coast of Ireland in the world's oldest distillery. Our cream, pulled from the finest milking cows in Derry, gives Saint Brendan's its full, rich texture. When we combine the two in our Londonderry facilities we form the truest Irish Cream Liqueur available on the market today.

Stuck in Colder Weather

I love the first line of a book, especially a well thought out first line that grabs you and you have to read it over and over because it is so intriguing. Or a line in a song combined with music that makes you just....

might understand life for a minute.....

Sometimes the words flow and form in a confluence that catch your attention and I experience a moment of brief peace. I'm so restless these days and for many reasons; spring is slow to come and I'm tired of the cold wind. I'm out-growing my location, job and other such things.... and want to be gone and in a new place. A freedom that I can taste when I swallow because it is so close at hand.

A friend once called me 'flighty'.
I replied, "No I'm not. I'm just restless".
Flighty implies (in my opinion of how the word feels on my lips) that I'm not responsible or timely and can't make a decision. I'm not that. I just feel like I'm being called to leave, that I'm not in the right place, a pull that is so strong that I have to fight the yearnings because of my responsibilities.
With some disappointment in her still, reflecting back at that moment. A change of scenery, location and making new friends is calling to me constantly and maybe that is why it appears to her I'm 'flighty'. My sister and I love to drive and take road trips; and one of the best parts of us, as a pair traveling together is that we don't like to backtrack....taking the same way twice is not an option unless it is the only way out. Some of my restlessness comes from the fact that I don't want to backtrack to a place I have already lived.

I want to go and I want to go far.

There is this song out now by The Zach Brown Band that I love called 'Colder Weather'.

"Your a rambling man and you ain't ever gonna change. You've got a gypsy soul to blame and you were born for leaving. Born for leaving."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oouFE51HcqM
Click above if you want to listen to it....
 
When I first heard that line, It answered something for me...
yep that's why I'm restless. I'm itching to leave.
Plus I get bummed by people who don't want to change or are scared of adventures. Paralyzed by fear and cannot leave or go even when they are stuck in ruts. A rut is caused by traveling back and forth over the same road; soon a hole forms and then along comes the weather, filling the hole with water softening the dirt which soon forms into mud and the next thing you know you are stuck in mud, deep in a rut unable to move. I find that if you have to keep traveling over the same road, It's best to just go barefoot in the mud so you don't get stuck and lose your shoes.

I then move ahead in my writing process as I do while writing. Thinking about the photo I want to paste for this blog and the feelings behind writing it invokes and wanting to capture a photo of the same. And I enter a couple of phrases in the search bar; restless winds for one and nothing is popping up that I find appealing so I change my phrase to blustery weather and up pops this photo.

And how could you not be intrigued by this? It's comical yet brilliant. Then I look next to it and there is a poem and have to shake my head in how this whole damn blog get's tied together with restlessness, weather, a song and poem all of the same ilk and a photo that is whimsical yet shows sad longing. (Or perhaps just misery, boxers in the rain and such, but they don't seem to be in a rush....)

The Rainy Day

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.