Christmas in Cork

I hope everyone had a wonderful and happy Christmas!!!!

Last Saturday was a lazy day in West Cork.  I hung out at the Coffee Shop with Carol and had a delightful lunch of veggie quiche and tomato bisque.  Yum yum yum.  I also took a quick walk down to the harbor and enjoyed the weather while it wasn’t raining.  The weather has actually been quite mild – some clear (even sunny) weather each day before the rain sets in.  Sunday evening we cooked Union Hall cod and veggies at home before heading over to O’Donovan’s Hotel in Clonakilty to see a wonderful West Cork all-female band called Ré Nua (which means “New Age” in Irish).  Check out their website if you have a sec:   www.renuamusic.com -  they play a blend of Irish, country, folk music with a touch of classical. They are really very good and one of the singers actually directs the Clonakilty choir Pam is a member of called “Allegria.”  At the end of the Ré Nua performance, Allegria went up on stage and sang two Christmas songs with them.  The whole evening was delightful – and involved lots of wine (yum!!!) and mince pies (bleh!!!).  That’s funny because every Thanksgiving and Chrismukkah Mom makes Dad his mince pies and no one else will tough them (well, except Bob).  Here, mince pie is the official Christmas pie.  They are everywhere!

Monday night I headed to my friend Trace’s out in Rosscarbery.  I made it all the way there by myself in the dark (with no wrong turns!!) in my little marshmallow of a rental car.  I didn’t even use my GPS!!!  Just directions Dennis gave me.  Those of you who know me know that’s pretty amazing!!  Anyway, her friend Gillian was having man trouble so the three of us spent Christmas Eve and Christmas together, drinking wine, eating Union Hall smoked salmon and cheese/honey.  We even roasted chestnuts on an open fire!!  Trace is an artist as well (in fact you can’t shake a stick in West Cork without hitting an artist) and made me a lovely painted canvas for Christmas.  She also gave me an adorable tea cup with a poppy on it!!!!  Everyone knows how much I love the poppies.  All the gals loved the painted ornaments I made for them as well (a knock off of Mom’s design – of course).  For Christmas dinner we went over to Trace’s friend’s Irish cottage and had roasted spuds, brussel sprouts, and my contribution…… kugel (Jewish dish), which everyone loved!!!!!  They also had turkey and duck, but obviously I didn’t eat any of that.  Afterwards we had Christmas Pudding with custard and cream!!!!  I didn’t mind the Christmas Pudding – it was kind of spicy fruity cake made with brandy or rum.  It’s hasn’t become my favorite new dessert or anything, but it was pretty tasty.  The day after Christmas – St. Stephen’s Day/Boxing Day – we went to another friend’s house – one of the local organic farmers – in another wonderful old Irish cottage – and had more wine and more food.  By this point I guess you are sensing a theme. . eat . . drink. . .eat .

I have had high hopes of walking all over the place – getting some good exercise, but it’s really just been a lazy holiday so far.  Mostly we’ve just been sitting around gabbing and catching up.  It has been wonderful!!!!  I have posted a few pictures below. 

Mince tarts!!!  Dad's mouth is watering.

Pam and Me at her gig

Pam and Dennis

Pam, Dennis and Me

 

Re Nua

Re Nua and Allegria in the background

Great little craft co-op - I bought a lovely ornament here

Trace's house - decorated for Christmas

Union Hall smoked salmon

My rental car marshmallow

Christmas day at Trace's - gorgeous weather!!!

Dinner in a proper Irish cottage!!

Christmas Pudding

Amy O'Sullivan has landed!!!

Well, I spent my first night in Ireland and I can honestly say that 5 piping hot glasses of mulled wine is the only thing that could have helped me shake off the jetlag so quickly!!!!  I have never had mulled wine, so when the host of the party I went to last night handed me a glass of, what appeared to be just wine, I almsost scremed out loud when I felt the hot wine touch my lip (no comments from the peanut gallery please).  Pamela must have read the panic in my eyes 'cause she said "It's mulled wine - served hot."  I don't need much of a learning curve so I was happy after that.  It felt wonderful on my sore throat (yeah, I got a sore throat the night before I left - naturally).  Five glasses later - after a 7.5 hour flight and 4 hour drive from Dublin(including a 5 hour time difference) - and I was starting to lose my steam.  We headed home around midnight and I slept till almost 11am today.

Yesterday's drive from Dublin was fairly uneventful - took a couple of wrong turns and had to do some u-turn and such, but my GPS got me right back on track.  In fact, I think I might actually be in love with my GPS.  Didn't they do an episode on Boston Legal a few years back where the guy with Aspergers Syndrome was in love with his electronics - literally in love?  Well, that's exactly how I feel about my GPS.  I feel a total sense of comfort and freedom with him at my side.  And love.  I hope he never leaves me.  He completes me.

So, I am spending the first three nights with my friends Pamela and Dennis Marshall and then I am spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my friend Trace Irwine.  Trace called me and asked me if I like cream or custard with my Christmas Pudding.  "Well, I said, I've never had Christmas Pudding before, so I can't really say."  So, one thing for sure I know is that I will be having some Christmas Pudding with either cream or custard.   I got a look at a Christmas Pudding in the grocery store and I'm not sure it's going to be something I like, but I'm willing to give it a go!!!  I think it's like fruit cake - with lots of rum or brandy in it.  Bleh.  Open mind. 

Stacey - you will be happy to know that my bed in the Marshall household is flanked by Jesuses.  I feel very "watched over" so to say - I think he's reserving judgment on what to think of me though, but so far we are getting along just fine for now. 

Anyway, I am off for a nap!  More later.

That's not my plane - Just an Aer Lingus plane -
But I love them 'cause they have a shamrock!!

Painting I did for Carol of The Coffee Shop hanging on the wall!!

My tasty lunch today



My Roommate x2



Chrismukkah in Ireland!!!!!

Hey y'all - this isn't a real post, just a promise of exciting posts to come!!  As you know (I think you know), I am heading to Ireland for Chrismukkah!!!!  This will be my first Chrismukkah ever away from my family, and while I will miss seeing Maya and Micah open their gifts and the tasty Sullivan/Philipp dinners and cookies, I am SUPER excited about sharing the holidays with my friends in Ireland.  I leave Thursday, December 20th and land in Dublin at 7am on Friday.  I will rent a car and then drive the 4 hours to Union Hall.  Luckily I made a few really great friends while I was there in Spring/Summer 2011, so I will spend my time in their homes while I am there!!!  I plan to blog while I am there - so stay tuned!!!

Agnes, Trace and Pamela (and me of course!!)

Carol (Runs the Coffee Shop)

FEW PICS OF UNION HALL:

And Then There Were Two . . .

It's a sad day in Conference Room C today.  Contractor Jenny has decided to take another contract gig at a big firm.  She has been trying to get back with a big firm since she was laid off.  This is her opportunity to wow them with her contract skills and will hopefully transition into a permanent associate position.  Fingers crossed for her, but DAMNIT I will miss her.  Once she leaves, it will just be me and Contractor Juniata left to hold down the fort at this never-ending-gig.  I'm like Kramer on Seinfeld when he wanted to see how far the car would go on one tank of gas. I have to see this gig to the end!!!! 

Hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving!!  Squeeze all your loved ones and eat lots of tasties!!!

Bunches of Love
Amy

The Ladies of the Conference Room
(Amy, Jenny, Juniata)



Shit Happens (Sorry Mom)

I was driving down I-85 Saturday morning at 65 mph gabbing with my sister about Italian sausage and motorcycle underwear when I realized I'd just bypassed my exit (DAMN!!!).  I was on my way to my laser chin hair removal appointment and now I was going to be late.  And that's when it happened.  With no warning whatsoever.......I shit my pants.

I assure you, while it seems like I might make some of this stuff up to make the blog more interesting (or to make my life look more ridiculous - if that's at all possible), this epic nightmare did indeed happen to me at 8:45am Saturday morning on my way to get my chin hairs zapped.  I was already feeling a bit wonky from the day before.  I'm not sure what got ahold of me - I blame it on the gas station cheese I purchased after my hair appointment on Thursday night, but who really knows what goes on in our insides.  We could guess all day and never figure it out - sometimes I think our insides just want to let us know who the boss is.  Anyway, I left Jill's charity event on Friday evening earlier than planned because my stomach was hurting and I was feeling nauseated, but I took a long bath when I got home and I actually felt pretty good when I woke up Saturday morning.  When I realized that I had just crapped my pants I was faced with a dilemma. Do I go home, or continue on to my appointment.  I know many of you don't find this to be a dilemma, but just before the "incident," I had already called ahead to say I was on my way but that I was going to be a few minutes late.  Plus, I had cancelled the last two appointments.  Certainly after missing my exit and crapping my pants - all the forces of the universe were pointing towards - TURN AROUND AND GO THE FECK HOME AMY, YOU JUST SHIT YOURSELF!!!  However, as tears began to stream down my face - something came over me.  I was  hell bent on making it to this appointment.  The forces were trying to stop me, but I was having none of that!!  NONE OF THAT - I tell you!!!  After that, my survival skills took over.  I reached behind my seat, grabbed a wad of napkins and shoved them down the back of my pants . . . . . . and continued on to my appointment.  No fecal fiasco was going to keep me from completing my mission.  I have put up with a lot of shit from other people over the past few years, I could certainly figure out how to deal with a bit of my own without panicking and turning tail.

Once I arrived, I rushed past the receptionist- saying over my shoulder "I'm here, but I really need to use the facilities" and I disappeared into the bathroom.  I did a quick, but thorough "clean up" and then returned to the reception area with my sweatshirt pulled down as far as I could get it.  The receptionist informed me that since I was now 15 minutes late she was going to have to get the main Doctor/owner dude, who was currently finishing up some paperwork, to treat me and if I would please just have a seat.  *Gulp*  My "clean up" job was pretty good, but I was now sporting a wet spot on my pants so I had to sit sort of sideways on my hip as not to leave any "evidence" behind. 

The doctor called me in and I jumped up on the examination table (white leather - of course - this place is kind of high falutin).  I have been treated by the main Doctor dude in the past, and while the zapping does not take longer than like 2 or 3 minutes, he is a bit of a chatter box.  This time after he zapped me he proceeds to say.  "You know, I just treated a woman who really really impressed me.  She was just so amazing that I had to google her after she left.  I found out that she won a Pulitzer Prize.  Isn't that amazing.  You just never know who you might meet."  I just looked up at him silently as he beamed with pride at having met such an amazing patient, all the while fighting myself internally from saying, "I just shit my pants.  That's pretty amazing."  But I didn't say it out loud.  I just jumped down from the examination table, gave a quick glance behind me at the white leather table (just to make sure) and went home.

[SIDEBAR - Sorry Mom - You begged me not to blog about this "incident," but I just couldn't NOT.]

[DOUBLE SIDEBAR - The talk of Italian sausages and motorcycle underwear was because I drew my brother-in-law for X-Mas gifts this year.  In case you were wondering.]

A Whole New Me - - - from the chin up

Ok - I have been super busy these last several weekends, making blogging close to impossible (that might be an exaggeration, but just go with it).  Anyway, I have a ton to blog about from Halloween, but just haven't had a minute to put it together yet.  I will try to get that together this weekend.  In the meantime, I will share my new hair do with you.  Why a new hair do, you ask?  Well, it is no secret that I have a few gray hairs sneaking onto my head.  However, this didn't bother me so much at first.  I mean, I haven't seen my natural hair color since I was about 14 or so, so I figured what's the big deal, I'll just keep coloring it.  Well, the last time I got my hair colored (dark reddish - as you know), the hair stylist was trying to talk me into highlights and going lighter with my hair to help hide the grays for longer - - - and she says to me "I mean you're about 60% underneath your color."  I said "60% what"?  She responded "60% gray" all nonchalant, like she had just asked me to pass her the mustard.  I said "WHAT"?  This time with more emphasis.  And trust, I know how to emphasize.  She said, "yeah, you got a lot of gray under there."  The nerve.  And she didn't even whisper it.  I immediately took to social networking so that I could further emphasize my disgust to my nearest and dearest.  When I told Darryl that my stylist told me I was 60% gray underneath my hair color - he responded, as any good friend would, "well tell her to stop looking under there!"  I felt much better after than and went on with my life. 

Anyway, (this was supposed to be a quick in-and-out post, but you know me - I'm long winded).  Long story short (you're welcome), my grays started sneaking back onto my head very soon after I had my hair colored.  I am the type that will go way beyond the recommended time for a re-color, so I was not happy to be faced with hideous gray roots only 3 weeks after my coloring.  Yesterday I decided the stylist was onto something with the whole idea of going lighter so that they grays aren't as evident when they start sneaking back onto my head like the plague.  I emailed her and said I was ready to "go light" (I'm going to refrain from making the obvious joke here).   I asked her if I needed to book any extra time or if the usual time for a coloring was appropriate.  She said the usual time would be plenty.  She was wrong.  I arrived at the salon last night at 5:00pm and didn't leave until 9:00pm (a usual hair coloring lasts no longer than an hour).  When you are going lighter, you have to strip the darker color down (with bleach).  It all sounds very violent, I know.  She put the bleach on my head and set me aside.  My hair turned a lovely pinky/orangy color.  Final step (or so we thought) was to add the new color and voila, done.  Didn't go like that, at all.  As she was rinsing the color out she noticed that the lightening wasn't necessarily even so she added a gloss and let that sit on my head.  Mind you, the bleach already sat on my head for nearly 30 minutes and the new color already sat on my head for over 30 minutes.  Now some gloss was going to sit on my head for 5 to 10 minutes.  My frowzies were already like "WTF dude."  Anyway, She took  me to her chair and started drying me.  That's when she started shaking her head.  I don't like it when doctors or hair stylists shake their heads while looking at my body parts or hair.  But she just kept shaking.  Then she says to me "It's a little uneven, so we have two options, we can go back in and do highlights (more bleach) and add a different color in between the highlights or we can try to put a whole new color on and see if it evens out.  I'm not sure why she was asking me, but she looked like she was trying to lead me towards the highlights, so I said "let's go with highlights."  So, some bleach sat on my head for 30 more minutes and another color sat on my head for another 15 minutes and now I have a new hair do.  And a bit of a headache.  I am getting used to the highlights and she tells me the copper color will fade and make a nice strawberry blond.  I guess my hair is still "in process."  I am not totally in love with it yet, but it is growing on me.  The Ladies of the Conference Room gave their stamp of approval.  

A collage of my road to strawberry blond
(top left - was after the first bleaching; top right was after first
round of coloring; bottom right and left shows the highlights and the
in-between the highlights color - oy vey)



You can't really see the blond stripes and the too orangyness
in this pic, but all in all It's growing on me



Wow, most people can't eat the whole thing...

I don't know about you, but it seems that whenever I am scheduled to go somewhere for fun, where I might be featured in several photographs, or visit with people I haven't seen in a while, I get a huge zit, contusion, carbuncle or whatever on my face just before leaving.  It is a curse that I have been unable to lift thus far.  I am on constant search for the antidote.  It continues to elude me.  Even before I was rudely "made redundant" from DLA Piper back in 2009, Earl the Cat marked me - on the eve of my "redundancy" - by scratching me across the face.  Nothing like being made redundant with two festering scratches across your eyebrow.  It adds an additional level of patheticness to the whole scenario, wouldn't you say?  Damn that curse.

Anyway, as you know, I went to Chicago this past weekend to visit Darryl and Benji.  The night before I flew out, I could already feel the underground zit building on my chin.  It was the kind where you can't actually pop it, but rather it takes up twice as much mass and just makes the whole area look red and angry.  I did as much mitigation as was in my power before turning in, in hopes that it would reverse course sometime in the night.  It was silly thinking that the curse would let me off that easy.  I woke up Friday morning with Earl the Cat on my pillow - curled around my head.  Rather than make him move, I started to fall back asleep.  Before you judge me, keep in mind that abuse victims often return to the source of the abuse on average of seven times before actually changing their situation.  If we are looking on the bright side - I'm halfway to either killing Earl the Cat with a frying pan or some other less drastic means of preventing him from introducing his claws to my head ever again.  As you can surely predict, just as I was almost back to sleep, I was awakened with a panicked cat screech and claws penetrating my head and chin.  I think it was my sudden snoring/snorting that startled him (whatever - I'm just guessing again - it could still be the frowzies).  I knew I was bleeding, but I just couldn't bring myself to move.  As I clutched my head (that's just an instinctive reaction when daggers have just been removed) I thought to myself  - oh yeah, the cycle requires that I now chase Earl through the house and beat him with my flip-flop.  With flip-flop retaliation now out of the way, I went to the bathroom to survey the damage.  Now my chin housed an underground zit that looked bulbous enough for a small family of spiders to come streaming out at any minute and a collection of fresh scratches compliments of Earl the Cat.  Swell, just swell.

Much to my dismay, I did not find Darryl and Benji huddled in a corner of a dank apartment building in the big scary city of Chicago begging for me to rescue them and take them home with me to Atlanta.  No, no they seem to be doing just fine in Chitown.  Their luxury city apartment is surrounded by windows overlooking the City and Lake Michigan (apparently it's not the Mississippi River.  NO!!!  Of course that's not what I thought.  I say that for clarification only - just in case YOU thought it was the Mississippi River.  Sheesh.)  We had a lovely three-day visit.  It rained both Saturday and Sunday, but that didn't stop us from walking all over the city!!  We visited Chinatown, went to an off-Broadway show (Kinky Boots - fabulous!!), visited "the Bean" and Buckingham Fountain and ate lots of good food and enjoyed each other company.  I didn't even let it get me down (much) when the dumb-ass waiter at one of the local pubs actually said to me while clearing our plates "Wow, most people can't eat the whole thing" in reference to my shrimp po boy sandwich.  "Really, did you just say that to me?" was my exasperated response.  Obviously he hasn't been properly trained in good customer relations - much less interacting with women!!!!  And in my defense, it was a normal po boy sandwich - it wasn't the size of two sandwiches or anything!!!!  Benji and Darryl both cleaned their plates too and I didn't see him throwing any shock and awe their way!!!  The nerve!!

In front of Buckingham Fountain



 

Buckingham Fountain



This is us reflected in "The Bean" - I don't know why Benji looks
like a terrorist...

Breakfast Bloody Mary
(strategically covering my zit)

 

After dinner in Chinatown

Picture on the boys' balcony - that's Lake Michigan in the background
(aka Mississippi River)

Evidence of my most recent feline abuse (ignore the view up my nose)
If you look close enough - you can also see the outline of my new traveling chin zit!!!