Documentation

It's Friday and I'm working from home, from an interior room in my house, waiting out the second tornado warning in seven days. The first one scared me a bit. This is suburban Maryland, not Tornado Alley, and we don't see a lot of Wizard of Oz action around here. Or we didn't used to, because again--second time in a week. Climate change is real. And I'm jaded already. Other than moving a little farther away from the windows, I didn't do a darn thing to prepare for a tornado hit.

Well, that was quick. The tornado warning ended after 15 minutes. The roof is still attached to the house, and we're not in theoretical Kansas anymore. Onward.

*****
Saturday morning. My son was supposed to have a baseball game this morning, which the league cancelled because of field conditions, then reinstated because the field dried quickly in this morning's bright sun and chilly wind, then cancelled again because they had already told the officials not to show up and those officials, busy men apparently, were no longer available.

I was also supposed to have some work to do this weekend, and now apparently I don't have work to do.

It would appear that I'm using the word "apparently" a lot.

Do you see what I did there?

Anyway. From having what I felt was too much to do in too short a time, I have all of a sudden ended up with more free time than I expected and as always, this is a source of panic rather than relief. Because if I don't figure out what to do then I'll feel that the day has gotten away from me, escaped me like a slippery fish, which is really what you get for trying to fish without a hook.

Anyway. It's feast or famine. I feel either overwhelmed or desolate, and there's no in-between. I think I'd like an in-between.

I'm a fun girl, aren't I?

*****
It's Sunday now. Yesterday was actually a pretty good day. I planned and organized a bit. I wrote some things down. I manage stuff better when it's written down. Writing about something makes it real. There's a saying: If it's not documented, then it didn't happen. For me, if it's not documented, then it won't happen. So I documented the next month or so, and now I feel like it will happen, one way or another.

And do you see what happened? Yesterday was an in-between day. I wrote that I needed an in-between day, and voila. The pen really is mightier than the sword.

*****
Speaking of writing, I am watching Season 2 of "The Crown" on Netflix. It's 1956, and Queen Elizabeth II is making last-minute changes to her Christmas speech after having listened to Prince Philip's speech from the royal yacht Britannia. It's an incredibly moving scene, as two people separated by thousands of miles and the breadth of the British Commonwealth and the weight of the Crown declare their love for one another--in a quiet and understated, but unmistakably clear way--in front of millions of listeners from all over the world.

*****
April is almost over and not a second too soon. With May comes a pre-summer onslaught of last high school things and last middle school things, and I don't feel quite ready but I have a plan and it's in writing. It's documented, so it will happen.

Round 1

It's Easter Sunday, 8:15 PM. I'm glad that Easter is over. Spring is the worst.

*****

It doesn't make any sense that spring would provoke such anxiety and dread for someone who loves summer as much as I do. But it does, and I don't know why. Actually I do know why, but I don't want to talk about it. Or write about it. 

*****

I just finished Sandra Tsing Loh's The Madwoman in the Volvo. Years ago, I read Depth Takes a Holiday and A Year in Van Nuys, which were very funny. And then I forgot about Sandra Tsing Loh, until I found this memoir, which she wrote in 2014. A memoir of near-breakdown depression and anxiety was probably not the best reading choice for me right now. And that's probably all I have to say about this book. Except that it's possible for a writer to be too honest. 

So now I'm reading Amy Tan's The Opposite of Fate. Personal writing by Asian-American women writers who had difficult childhoods was not necessarily a literary theme that I chose, but here I am. A long time ago, I read The Joy-Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife, both of which (especially the former) I liked a lot. And then I just kind of forgot about Amy Tan. I'm glad I found this one.

The Opposite of Fate was published in 2001. It's a series of short essays, many of them about her work or the aspects of her life that fed her work. In one very funny piece, Tan breaks down the fallacies and errors that have crept into analysis of her work and her life, all the result of careless Internet research. This piece reads as very contemporary (not that 2001 was ancient history), and serves as a reminder that even after the 2016 election, we still tend to rely heavily on the Internet and to believe much of what we read online.  By "we," of course, I mean people other than me, because I am automatically and reflexively skeptical of every word I see online. But lots of people I know, even the smart ones, still share political memes and tweets that scream "Russian Troll Factory" to anyone with ears to hear, so to speak.

*****
In the foreword of The Opposite of Fate, Amy Tan describes the pieces as "vignettes" or sketches or something less structured, less serious and purposeful than an essay. Sketch isn't right because these are very well-crafted little pieces of writing, but I get why she doesn't consider them essays. They're less outward-facing than an essay normally is, a little more personal, but not directly personal--she approaches her own life from a slight angle. It's very meta. Anyway, she's much better company than Sandra Tsing-Loh. I finished that book a few days ago and I'm still trying to recover my will to live.

*****
Well, that was harsh. It's Wednesday morning now, 6:45, and I'm writing when I should be waking people up and making lunches and generally preparing for the day. And I'll do all of that, in a minute.

It's do-or-die day for the Washington Capitals, game 7 of the first round of the playoffs against the Carolina Hurricanes. My son and I can't stop quoting the David Pastrnak Dunkin' Donuts commercial: "Hey ref--check your voicemail. I think you missed some calls." As an official myself, I am usually loath to criticize referees and linesmen, but I'll make an exception for Monday night's egregious failure to see what was plainly a good goal.

And that was a lie anyway. I'm not at all loath to criticize NHL officials. I'm the opposite of loath.

*****
It's Thursday now. I'm ready to start my own personal summer right now, but I was hoping that the Washington Capitals wouldn't be starting their summer until mid-June. I don't have enough to do, and now I have to figure out which of the remaining teams to root for.

On January 22, 2017, the words "Tonight's attendance: 1.5 million" scrolled across the Jumbotron at American Airlines Center, home arena of the Dallas Stars. Dallas happened to be playing Washington that night, and so I happened to see it; and for trolling Donald Trump, the Stars earned a special place in my heart forever. They are still standing, so they're my team until next October. I still get to watch hockey, but it won't be the same. At least I have a good book to read. 

Charm City

It's 6:30 Saturday night and I'm in a car on 95 North, halfway between Washington and Baltimore, just like Meg Ryan in fucking Sleepless in Seattle. Crusty today, that's what I am. Crusty.

We're on our way to watch the Baltimore Orioles play the Minnesota Twins. I don't care much about baseball anymore, and I really don't care about American League baseball, especially during the Stanley Cup playoffs. But it's a beautiful night and we have free tickets, so here we are.

I like Baltimore. It's a little rough around the edges right now but it'll be back. I like the harbor and the industrial brick buildings and the Domino Sugar sign and the Bromo Seltzer tower and Fort McHenry and of course, Camden Yards. Camden Yards is a great ballpark, even if you're not an Orioles fan.

We're in our seats now, waiting for the second game of a twi-night doubleheader. It's still light out at 7:45 and the sky is almost perfectly clear and it's starting to get a tiny bit cold but I'm wearing a warm sweater and I'm perfectly comfortable, halfway through a very lovely draft beer and surrounded by happy Baltimoreans on a holiday weekend.

*****

We don't come to Orioles games very often, but when we do, they tend to be memorable. I visited Camden Yards for the first time on September 19, 1998. It just so happened that Cal Ripken Jr. had started to feel a little tired, and had decided to end the famous streak, on that very night.

Ripken’s absence from the starting lineup didn't attract much attention. At that point in his career, he had begun to slow down a bit, and he wasn't playing all nine innings of every game. But the stadium began to buzz a bit when the sixth inning came and went with no Cal. By the eighth inning, all of Oriole Park was on its feet. No other player has come anywhere close to breaking that streak, and it's not likely that any player ever will.

In 2015, Baltimore exploded in fury in the aftermath of Freddie Gray's death.  On April 25, my husband and sons and a friend were at an Orioles game. It was another Saturday night in spring, this one much colder. I'd been outside all day at my older son's track meet, and I gave up my ticket because I couldn't bear the thought of sitting out in the cold for three more hours. I watched the game on TV, hoping to see my family in the stands, so I was watching as the non-violent protests turned non non-violent, and the Baltimore PD shut down the stadium and surrounding neighborhoods, preventing fans from leaving the ballpark. They were allowed to leave 30 minutes later, and everyone made it home safely.

*****
Oh my God. The Old Bay fumes are killing me. Welcome to Baltimore.

*****
So one more game, on September 11, 2015.  The Orioles scored 10 runs in one inning, including two grand slams, against a Kansas City Royals team that didn't know what hit them. That's two grand slams in one inning, not one game. BTW, I looked it up and that has happened a lot more than you'd probably guess. The Orioles won that night.

Still one of my favorite pictures--
it's actually my lock screen photo. 

*****

4-0, Twins, after 2 innings. We might not stay for the whole game. But this is an enthusiastic crowd. 

Wait, did they just score 6 more in the very same third inning? Because it's 10-0 now.

*****

When it comes to American League baseball, we are the fairest of fair-weather fans. At 14-0 in the fourth inning, we packed up and drove home, with the windows open to the breeze and the radio playing top 40 until we were close enough to DC to find the radio broadcast of the Capitals game. It's nice to get out of town once in a while, but it's nicer to be home. 

Transient

When it comes to the physical world, I tend not to notice things. I can drive past the same bench for years, and have no idea what it looks like. (Still.) And it doesn't matter how many times I drive to a place; I can still find a way to get lost. I don't know why this is. Faces stay with me, and I'm very good at matching colors, but geographical landmarks fade into the background and I don't notice them until they change, very dramatically.

Right next door to where I work. a whole building just came down and I barely noticed it. I'm lucky enough to sit by a window; and a few weeks ago, I looked outside and noticed a backhoe moving back and forth, rhythmically gathering piles of debris from one spot on the site where the building once stood, and moving them to another spot. I understand now why 4-year old boys like to watch the action at a construction site. It's very entertaining.

But now a building that's been there for the whole almost year that I worked next door to it (and presumably much longer), is just gone, shoveled away like piles of dirty snow.

I don't really care about the building at all. I have no idea what it contained and I don't even remember what my office view looked like when it was still standing. And I'm not worried about what's going to take its place. Things change.

Last year, I read Maeve Brennan's The Long-Winded Lady. Maeve Brennan moved from place to place when she lived in New York. She lived in hotels and efficiency apartments, and she went out for dinner almost every night, eating at the same restaurants over and over. She never seemed to stay in one apartment or hotel for more than a few months at a time, but she still complained about the pace of change in New York. Every time she looked out a window, or walked around a corner, an old building was coming down, replaced by a high-rise office or apartment building. Brennan herself moved constantly, but she wanted New York to stay the same; that is to say, the same as it was when she found it.

*****

I've never been to Paris, so I've never seen Notre Dame. All of the Americans I know who are mourning its near-destruction are attached to a building that they saw only a handful of times. But I understand. There are lots of places, important and obscure, that I love as much as Parisians love Notre Dame. And they're all temporary--the 800-year-old cathedral, and the 100-year-old beach town, and the neighborhood pool and the who-knows-what-it-was building outside my office window. Nothing man-made is permanent. Nothing.

Scheduling

It's Monday, and I had a a training class today, for a subject about which I know absolutely nothing, that subject being Microsoft Project. The trainer started the class by asking each of us (15 or so) to introduce ourselves and tell the class a little about our Project experience. I was the only person in the room to claim no experience at all, but the trainer didn't seem troubled. And that's what training is for, amirite?

I sat in class all day, and I still don't know how to schedule anything. We spent a lot of time covering what I would describe as technical-administrative background, like licensing and server vs.  online and desktop client (whatever that is) vs. Professional. I'm sure that it's helpful to know the difference between one MS Project product and another, but I'd prefer to learn how to actually use the tool, which is pretty confusing. Even the iconography is confusing. Why a push-pin for "Manually Schedule"? Why not a pen or a pencil? Or a calendar?

*****

Training Day 2: We're actually learning how to schedule things today, which is reinforcing my already-certain knowledge that no one should allow me to schedule or plan anything, ever.

I have one kid graduating from high school in June, and another one graduating from middle school (and making his Confirmation). I'm awash in dates and deadlines, all of which are in writing, but in lots of different places.

One thing that I do know is that both graduations take place on the same day, at the same time, in different places. In project management parlance, this is what we call a conflict. I'm not sure yet how we'll resolve this conflict--split up to cover both events, or skip the middle school graduation altogether in favor of the high school one. The eighth grader won't be happy with that solution, and I won't blame him.

Later tonight, I'm going to dig through all of my notes and emails and make a single consolidated list of all of my dates to remember: Graduation and rehearsal (its predecessor task), times two; spring concerts (also 2), track meets (3), prom (1), Confirmation and rehearsal (1 of each), awards nights (2), baseball games (who knows how many), and college signing deadline (looming).

This is all relatively simple. People do this all the time. They raise their kids and move them confidently from one stage to the next, completing all of the associated administrative tasks with little or no drama. I have no idea why it's so difficult for me. 

But do you know what's not simple? Microsoft Project. I do not claim to be the brightest bulb in the proverbial chandelier, nor the sharpest knife in the proverbial drawer. But I cannot see the value of a scheduling tool--a thing that is supposed to simplify and clarify--that is so complicated that two full days of training leave me nearly as ignorant as I was when we started this class. 

My life, on the other hand, is not that complicated. I don't need enterprise-level software to track and manage my critical path. I just need to write shit down in one place. If only I would. 

College ruled

A day or so ago, I was sitting in a meeting. I could write that sentence almost any day of the week and it would be true; but in this case, it's actually true and I really was sitting in a meeting. The person sitting next to me was writing in a brand-new notebook.  And I could tell from the neatly underlined dates and the careful way that she turned the page that she was in the new-notebook honeymoon phase, which I know well. I have terrible handwriting, but when I have a new notebook, I make an effort, for at least a few pages, to write clearly and legibly, and to keep things organized. For posterity's sake, of course.

Two days later, I was in another meeting, sitting next to another person, writing in another notebook. She wrote in large, neat, squarish cursive that marched diagonally upward across the page, blithely disregarding the horizontal ruled lines. She drew little boxes and shapes, crisp arrows that pointed sharply from one word to another, as if to remind herself of a connection between the two words that wouldn't be apparent otherwise. I had to stop myself from staring over her shoulder to study her notes.

*****
My son had an accepted students day at a small, private, liberal arts college in Maryland. It's a beautiful place, and the swim coach is recruiting him heavily, much to our surprise. He's a good swimmer, but not college-recruit good, even in a Division III school. Division III schools, of course, do not offer athletic scholarships, and this is a very expensive school.  My son was offered a partial academic scholarship, and we have some money saved for his education, but not enough to cover four years of tuition and room and board.  And I keep thinking that we have time to sort it all out, but he graduates from high school in about 60 days or so, so the proverbial clock is ticking.

Accepted students' day was lovely. I am a pretty typical college-educated suburban middle-class mother but I grew up in a working-class inner-city family, and my sisters and I were the first in our family to graduate from college. When I'm at high school band concerts and swim meets and college visits, I nod along and act like I know. But I feel like an impostor, surrounded by people who were born into the educated middle class and have never questioned their right to be there, and know with utter certainty that their only path is upward. But they're all very friendly and kind, and I won't mind leaving my son among their children. I'll just need to remind him occasionally not to take anything for granted, not to assume that his presence in college is an entitlement nor that his middle class good fortune is a lifetime sinecure.

*****
Didn't I start this thing with notebooks? I think I did. I think I did. And I almost bought a new notebook today, at the bookstore of my son's possible college. It was a small leather-bound notebook, its dark-blue cover embossed with the college logo. The leather cover was stiff enough to keep the pages clean and flat, but flexible enough that it would have softened in time. The whole thing fastened neatly with an elastic band.  I imagined that it would be nice to write in.

It was also $24.95, and I have three more notebooks that I haven't touched yet. We haven't decided yet where my son will go to school, but if he wants to go to the private school, then we'll have to make some lifestyle adjustments. I might have to stop buying things, just because I like them, just because I'm a bona-fide member of the middle class and I can. I might have to write in regular notebooks, like everyone else.

Mental acuity

It's Sunday morning and my 14-year-old son and I are hanging around the parking lot at St. Patrick's, waiting for the next influx of Mass-goers to bring us their food bank donations. My son will make his Confirmation in May and this is the last of his required service projects.

We arrived at 7:45, when it was raining though not yet windy and cold. Three hours later, the rain has ended but the temperature has dropped and the wind has picked up, and welcome to spring in Maryland. We are taking shelter in my car for a little while until the 11:30 people arrive.

After an early wake up call yesterday, I got things done, until about 2 o'clock. And then I stopped. Hit with a combination of a lingering cold, tenacious jet lag, and the annual spring depression and anxiety cluster, I sat on the couch and watched reruns of “The West Wing,” and read my book and did practically nothing else. The word "inert" was coined to describe my level of activity .

Had I planned to do nothing all afternoon, I suppose I wouldn't feel bad about doing nothing all day. But I had planned to accomplish things. I did a few things, but I didn't do everything I wanted to do, and I didn't even try.

In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis writes about a man who realizes too late that he spent too much of his life doing neither what he wanted to do nor what he should have been doing. (Or should have done. Not sure which tense is appropriate for that sentence. Also not sure if the comma after a title should also be italicized or not.) I suppose that a few hours on the couch don't necessarily pave the road to perdition. But I don't like the feeling that a day got away from me. 

*****

It's Monday now. Dinner (chicken thighs with onion and garlic) is cooking and the Capitals are playing one of their last regular season games, against the Florida Panthers. And that is all I have to say today. It's one of those days. I can't sleep and I can't keep a thought in my head and I can't shake this cold (which was probably the flu at some point) and it's been Lent since the beginning of time and I just want a piece of chocolate. Bloody hell.

*****

Well, that was delightful, wasn't it? I'm so much fun in April. Come back tomorrow and I'll tell you more about my panic attacks, heart-pounding anxiety, and crying spells. Supah fun.

*****
Here is the real test of my multitasking abilities. I'm substitute teaching an 8th grade CCD class, and they're taking an Archdiocese-wide standardized test tonight, so all I have to do is stroll about the classroom and remind everyone not to talk.

So what were we talking about? Oh, yes, multitasking. I do too much of it, to the detriment of my cognitive powers. Case in point: I just spent three minutes trying to pull the word "cognitive" out of the fog that surrounds what's left of my brain. I find myself so distracted and mentally disorganized that I can't remember from one minute to the next what I'm doing, or what I need or want to do. So I started using the Pomodoro method again. It's helpful. Very helpful, actually. I find that I can do just about anything for 25 minutes, and for the last three days, I have been an exemplar of productivity and organization. 

*****

But back to the eighth graders. I love eighth graders. I own one, in fact. However, I should have known that a Director of Religious Education who claims to a potential substitute teacher that the Archdiocesan assessment will take up the entire class period and that she won't have to teach anything is about as truthful as the animal shelter volunteer who tells the potential dog parents that the dog they're considering adopting is three years old and has reached his full growth. In both examples, the unsuspecting, good-hearted sucker is walking headlong into a wind tunnel of adolescent energy that's just hitting a growth spurt. 

The kids finished their tests in 15 minutes, leaving me with almost an hour of what-the-hell-do-I-do-now time to fill. Since it's a Confirmation class, I went around the room and made them all tell me about their Confirmation saints and why they chose them. Then we read the Gospel reading for the day. Then we prayed a decade of the Rosary for their teacher, who just had a baby. That left me with 20 minutes to fill, so I let them talk and socialize for the rest of the class. Then I had to explain that the blanket terms "talking" and "socializing" do not encompass activities such as arm-wrestling and paper-throwing and punching. Really. Really. 

*****
It's Thursday now and my state of mind has improved somewhat. Or I should say that my mood has improved, because my mind, which isn't a steel trap on its best day, is a pile of pudding. Case in point: "Pile of pudding" is the best metaphor I can conjure right now. You can't pile pudding anyway. And I can't think so good. 

KP

Today was my first day back to work after a week away. I don't usually mind returning to work, and I didn't mind it today. I like my job and my colleagues (that's such a fancy word, isn't it? Like I'm a university professor or a corporate attorney), so it's not a hardship to be in the office. Only I couldn't concentrate. I didn't have any good ideas, so I just did detail work. I made plans and checklists. I would have organized my inbox, but I didn't think of it--that's how uninspired I was .

In project management, there's a concept called lessons learned. At stages throughout a project, and at the project's conclusion, and really any time that something occurs to you, you should document lessons learned--good or bad--so that the next project team will benefit from your acquired wisdom. It's a good practice. I could apply it to my recent trip, because as much thought and effort as I put into packing, I could have done far better.

Lesson Learned #1: Pack pajamas that you don't care about. You can ditch them to make room for the stuff you'll acquire along the way. I suppose that Lesson Learned #2 could (or should) be not to acquire stuff along the way. But that's crazy talk.

*****

It's Wednesday, and I just finished grappling with a daily struggle. I dislike cooking, so much so that I will do almost anything to avoid it; and so every day, I have to force myself to start dinner before I involve myself in 25 other projects that will only delay the inevitable, which is that dinner must be cooked, and I must cook it.

Every day, I tell myself that I'll start dinner THE MINUTE I walk in, instead of checking email and folding laundry and washing lunch dishes and starting a blog post and preparing tomorrow's coffee and perusing the mail. But something almost always distracts me, and then it's an hour later, and everyone's hungry, and dinner is nowhere near the table. It's not even on the stove.

Today wasn't much different, though dinner is cooking now as I write this, so that's a step in the right direction. I should try to learn to like cooking. I certainly like eating.

*****
Thursday night, and the Capitals are playing the Hurricanes for the second time in a week. And I cooked again tonight, a meal that I make pretty often. My family might be sick of it, but they ate it happily enough.

I've been waking up at 4:30 every morning, and I haven't been able to go back to sleep. I don't think it's jet lag-related, because I've been back for almost a week now, and this happens all the time. It's probably more to do with spring, season of PTSD and panic attacks, predictable and vivid as cherry blossoms. This too shall pass. I do need to sleep eventually.

*****
It's Friday now. Do you know what I did today, other than wake up at 4:30 AM? I painted my nails, a cranberry red color. This is worthy of mention because I never do this. I don't think I've ever painted my nails a bright color, ever in my whole life. And all of a sudden, I decided that I wanted to have red nails. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's a little jarring--it looks like I'm bleeding out from my fingertips. Maybe I'll get used to it.

My older son is leaving tomorrow for his high school band trip to NYC. 60 students, 2 teachers, and eight heroic parent volunteers are going to descend on Manhattan, colonize a hotel, visit the Statue of Liberty and Rockefeller Center and the 9/11 Memorial, see a musical, sit for a master class, and perform at  Hofstra University. And if the itinerary is any indication, they're also going to eat like passengers on a Carnival Cruise ship.

*****
It's Saturday morning and I slept in all the way to 5:30. Progress. According to this morning's news, cherry blossoms are at "puffy white" bloom stage, with peak bloom expected on Monday. I care more about the forsythia, which are at peak right now. I love forsythia, so unassuming and cheerful and so fleeting. Three weeks, and the blooms are all gone, turning the forsythia into plain green shrubs until the next early spring.

I drove my son to school this morning, where he and his fellow band members gathered with their suitcases and duffel bags and backpacks and instruments, waiting to board their bus to New York City. Excited and happy, they rolled their suitcases and shouldered their backpacks and waved to their parents with a glance over the shoulder. It's 9:30 now so according to the itinerary, the buses left 30 minutes ago. I'll miss that boy, but he'll be back on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, it's a stuff-to-do weekend. I have shopping to do and an already pretty clean house to clean and swim team business to conduct and some work to finish. It's Lent, so I'll probably go to Confession. My nails, painted just yesterday, are a mess, because I forgot for a moment that I don't live the kind of life that allows a person to keep her hands nice, so I'll probably take the nail polish off. But it's also still the weekend. So I'm not going to cook.

Ruby Tuesday

I'm happy to be back in America and especially happy to be in Section 416, Row L, Seat 10 at Capital One Center. It's game time minus 14 minutes and I'm waiting for the puck to drop at one of the last regular season games of the year. Capitals vs. Hurricanes. Don't get me started on the ridiculousness of a hockey team from North Carolina.

I like getting here early, seeing the stands fill up, watching the zambonis, listening to pre-game commentary from John Walton and Mike Vogel. We have different seats this time. My son, who is much more observant than I, noticed that the Capitals logo is right side up from this side of the ice. It's a hopeful sign.

First intermission : Capitals 1, Hurricanes 0.  I usually walk the concourse during the intermission but I don't feel like it right now.

The seats filled up very quickly tonight. The 400 level at Capital One Center makes coach class on any airline seem wide open and downright roomy, but 400 level fans are a hardy lot. We look askance at the one percenters in the suites and the 100 level. But if we're being honest (and we're always being honest because we're the gosh darn salt of the fucking earth) then we have to admit that we'd ditch the 400 level in a New York minute, if we only had a chance.

Tonight's Twitter song poll choices:

“LA Woman,” The Doors. Why? What do The Doors or LA women have to do with the price of tea in China at a hockey game between Washington and North Carolina?

“Cool Jerk,” The Capitols. This makes much more sense. It's the Capitols, and tonight is bobblehead night for Evgeny Kuznetsov, famously labeled a “jerk” by noted hockey curmudgeon Don Cherry. Whatever, Don. Kuzy is the coolest of the cool jerks. He is, in fact, the king of the cool jerks. 

“Ruby Tuesday,” The Rolling Stones. So it's Tuesday, obvs, and ruby=red, so this is a clearly relevant selection, and the best song of the three. I'm an Instagram girl, so I won't actually cast a Twitter vote, but l’d vote for “Ruby Tuesday.” “Cool Jerk” will win, though.

For some odd reason, Coldplay’s “Sky Full of Stars” was playing during the song campaign, adding to the confusion. I'm going to go full suburban white lady and declare my love for Coldplay, especially “Sky Full of Stars.” I like Coldplay and I cannot lie. As Kuzy would say, “Let's fuck this shit.”

“Cool Jerk” was the winning song and the Washington Capitals were the winning team, with a 4-1 final score that clinched a playoff spot. With three assists, our second favorite Russian was the player of the game. I'm in the car (not driving) and it's much more fun to listen to the post-game radio show after a win than after a loss. We're in first place now. Let's go Caps.

Transatlantic

Friday, March 22. It's 2:17 PM Dublin time and who knows what time wherever I am 40,000 or so feet over the Atlantic Ocean. I'm very happy to be going home.

I should be writing this on my Chromebook, but the space bar isn't working. Because the WiFi isn't working either, I can't find a fix for the space bar. So I'm using Keep Notes to write. Necessity is the mother of invention.

I just finished a white wine mixed with Diet Coke, which is a surprisingly good combination. During drink service, the very nice young flight attendant asked me if I wanted one or two white wines and I foolishly and hastily said "just one." Poor decision making on my part. It's slightly turbulent and another wine or two would not be a bad idea. But it's all good. It's all good.

What is wrong with my space bar, anyway?

*****

I started to feel fluish on Tuesday or Wednesday and I ignored it, for two reasons. Reason one: I ignore all health issues less serious than bleeding from the eye sockets. Reason two: I didn't want to ruin the trip for everyone. But now the trip is pretty much over, so I can stop moving for a bit and just rest. 

Except that I'm 40,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean.

We arrived at Terminal 2 of Dublin Airport just a little less than 3 hours before our flight, and we needed every minute of those hours. I can't express in words the relief of finally shedding all of the extra bags, then passing through both security checkpoints and just waiting at the gate.

Because my travel companion is temporarily disabled by a broken arm, we were granted the privilege of early boarding. In the future, anyone who wishes to travel with me will need to have some sort of injury or disability because it's quite an advantage to have the cabin almost to yourself. We were comfortably settled, with all of our belongings stowed and arranged, before anyone else was even allowed near the plane. And then we got to watch as our fellow travelers (in the literal sense) settled themselves and their belongings, with less time and a lot less room to move.

According to the in-flight map (which wasn't available on the flight over), we are somewhere south of Greenland. I'm listening to music now. I made a playlist, which includes some of the usual suspects (Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga); and a few outliers (The Ting Tings, Betty Who, Michael Jackson, Aaron Neville, Bill Withers). It's a good mix. I can't worry about anything when Aaron Neville is singing "People Get Ready."

*****

I never understand people who complain about airplane food. It's not that the food is so good, it's just that we're on an airplane over the ocean and it's a bit of a miracle that any hot food at all is available. I remembered that it was Friday so I asked for a vegetarian meal and a moment later, I was a bit character on a Seinfeld episode. Call me Vegetable Lasagna.

We're halfway through the flight now. Still south of Greenland, pointing toward Newfoundland. We still have a way to go but we're closer to the United States than Europe now.

We passed over Newfoundland a little while ago and we're approaching either Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island. The path on the map keeps shifting a bit so I'm not sure. Or maybe I just like the names of the Maritime Provinces. I was an Anne of Green Gables girl. Two more hours or so.

We passed right between them, actually, and now we're heading toward the East Coast of the United States, in a path that will take us right between Boston and Montreal. It's nice to be back in a place where people care about hockey.

*****

Saturday, March 23. The preceding was what you get when I'm stuck in a tiny chair with nothing to do except watch silly movies ("Crazy Rich Asians"--ridiculous) and good TV shows ("Derry Girls"--awesome), listen to music, read, and monitor the flight path. I didn't sleep, but I did get up and go to the bathroom 57 times. People probably think I'm a drug addict. I'm still sick, and I'm too tired to write anything more. It's nice to be home. 

En route

It's Wednesday, a day and a half before we leave Ireland for home. I completely did not want to come on this trip and although I can't wait to return, I'm very happy I came. I like Ireland much more than I thought I would. Of course it's beautiful; I knew it would be. I've seen the pictures. And of course, I knew that it was rich with history and art and literature. But when I was growing up, my family made a sentimental big deal of our Irish-Catholic heritage, and I was steeled against it.

With its indescribable natural beauty and its amazing culture, Ireland would have enough laurels to rest on. But it's also incredibly energetic, while retaining a calm, unhurried good humor that makes every interaction a joy. Well, almost. Basil Fawlty was the one exception. Irish people always seem interested in others, though not in an idly curious, intrusive way.

So I'll miss Irish people. I'll miss proper tea, served in a cup and saucer. (I could use a cup and saucer at home, but I won't be able to duplicate the tea itself.) I'll miss the sudden shifts from still overcast skies to bright warm sun with wind blowing the clouds across the blue sky to a heavy shroud of fog and chill. And back again.

*****
Now it's Thursday, and I'm back on Iarnród Éireann, on the second leg of our train journey from Killarney back to Dublin. Believe it or not, on the first leg, we sat facing another young couple that included a dark-haired pretty girl with glasses. If they were students, they were likely graduate students--they looked a bit older and considerably more stylish than the two from the first trip. Couple number two spoke English with Italian accents, and they were reading English-language versions of two of Dan Brown's novels: Angels and Demons, and another one whose title I can't remember, but which my mother told the young man included a section too scary to read alone, especially at night. "Don't tell me any more," he said with a smile, "I don't want to spoil it." They ate chocolate biscuits from a cellophane - wrapped package and politely offered to share. After a few cookies and a few pages of her novel, the girl fell asleep on her boyfriend's shoulder.

As on the trip from Dublin, the trains arrived and departed promptly on time. Irish Rail is easy to understand and navigate after one or two trips, and I feel confident that I could get anywhere in Ireland via train, but this will be my last trip for a while. We go home tomorrow--a longer flight because the wind will be against us, but a shorter elapsed time because we gain rather than lose four hours. I miss my family. I miss my house. I miss not having to check for my passport every five minutes. True story--I left my wallet containing my passport and driver's license, two credit cards, and about $850 in dollars and euros combined on a barstool in Dublin, and I found it a few minutes later, with nothing missing or disturbed. This could have been a very different trip. But that's Ireland, I guess, and that's the proverbial luck of the Irish, even the American, three-generations-removed, 3/4 Irish variety.

I'm so sorry. I'm from Barcelona

t’s Tuesday afternoon, just after 1, and I’m on board an Irish Rail train bound for Cork. We’ll change trains in Mallow for our destination, Killarney. The train was scheduled to leave at 1 and it pulled away from the platform promptly at 1. Apparently, the trains here run on time.

Heuston Station is a huge, mid-19th century rail station in Dublin, right around the corner from the hotel where we stayed. Outside, it’s a pre-Gilded Age granite and sandstone landmark and inside it’s a typical modern commuter and distance rail station, filled with coffee shops and bookstores and newsstands and lots of people.

I’m going to look at a map of our route now. We are passing through what most Americans think of as typical Irish countryside with rolling hills and farmhouses and contented Irish cows. I might need to take a picture.

An hour and a half later, and we’re still proceeding placidly through the countryside. We’re in a four-seat cubby with the pairs of seats facing a table, and my mother and I are riding backward. Poor planning on my part, but it’s not uncomfortable. Our seatmates are two young American students, a boy and a petite, dark-haired girl with glasses, obviously a couple. They studied and complained about their workload for a while, and then the girl took a nap on the boy’s shoulder, as he alternated between scrolling his phone and looking up birds in a field guide. When the dark-haired girl woke up, he told her that he’d seen a particular type of sandpiper that he’d been hoping to see. She seemed happy for him.

The Irish countryside is really just as beautiful as everyone says it is. And now we’re in the insanely picturesque town of Killarney. It’s too picturesque, in fact. It feels like a Potemkin village. Our hotel is very quaint and charming, and if it was a person, I’d want to smack it.

When we arrived, the innkeeper (I have to assume that he is the innkeeper) was busy at some paperwork. He held up a “wait a moment” finger and said “I’ll be just a tick, ladies.” He didn’t look up. After 90 seconds or so, I said hello again and told him that we had a reservation for two nights.

"Of course ye do,” he said, still not looking up. “Name?”

I told him my name. “Ah,” he said. “Here we are. Two nights. Have ye any bags?” And we did, of course. Another staff member, possibly his wife, bustled over, smiling and welcoming. She showed us to our room with its polished wood floor and flowered wallpaper and crushed velvet sofas and toile drapes and 25 pillows on each bed, and we settled in.

A few minutes later, I remembered that I had VAT refund forms to mail, so I went back to the front desk and asked the innkeeper if he wouldn’t mind sending them along with his outgoing mail.

“Well, I could,” he said, “but ye’d probably feel a bit more secure if you posted it yourself, wouldn’t ye? There’s a shop across the street, and a post box just in front. Ye can’t miss it.”

Actually, you can miss it, because I did, never having seen an Irish mailbox. I carried the envelope back into the lobby, hoping he wouldn’t notice, but he did. “Ye didn’t find it?” he asked.

“No, but I’m sure I will,” I said.

He sighed. “Well give it here. I’ll post it for ye.” Well, that wasn’t hard, I thought. I heard him mutter to himself as I walked away, “Ye can see it from here. I don’t see how ye can miss it.”

"I mean, this is supposed to be a hotel, not a Burma railway!"

So it’s Day 3 on this beautiful green island. No matter that we’re staying at Fawlty Towers. We'll see the Ring of Kerry tomorrow, and then we'll sit in a pub and listen to music. As it turns out, the mailboxes are green.

Dubliner

Everything looks better after you sleep. Things make so much more sense.

We arrived in Dublin at 5:15 AM on Sunday. After a brief regroup, we came into the city and just joined the St Patrick's Day crowds. My traveling companions were exhausted by 3 PM, having been up all night, and I was too, but I didn't want to sleep and miss daylight in this beautiful city. So I went back out and explored Dublin on foot. I was literally asleep at the table at 8:30 PM last night, and then I slept like I'd never slept before.

It's Monday now, and I think my body is on Dublin time. I woke at my normal early hour, dressed, drank delicious instant coffee, and went out to walk along the quays. My mother and sister and friend were still in bed, and they take some time to get ready in the morning, so I had two hours to wander and take pictures and breathe the chilly spring air.

When everyone was ready, we went to shop on Grafton Street, and then to visit the Book of Kells at Trinity College. I spent more money today than I normally spend in a month, and I'm not even panicking about it. I might suffer buyer's remorse over the two (one for me and one for my husband) Aran sweaters and silver and Connemara marble jewelry, but I'd probably be even sorrier not to have brought something home.

The Book of Kells, though beautiful, was a little disappointing. The exhibit was well done but only two of the four books are on display, so visitors can only see four folios at a time. But the Long Room at Trinity College Library was astonishing and well worth the 14 euro admission price. I'll remember those ancient stacks of books and the long, dark history-filled corridor that houses them forever.

We're going to Kerry tomorrow, via Irish Rail or Iarnród Éireann, I'll miss Dublin but we'll be back for a night on Thursday.