twangypearl the elastic girl

back on ould sod

Yesterday, while we were on a train to Munich, the Fertility Clinic rang and rescheduled our first appointment to Friday, that is, tomorrow, which means: Gaaaah! My blood pressure is climbing even as I type this. As is my custom though, I am determinedly hanging a sign up in my head which says: THINK ABOUT THIS LATER. Combined with some loud interior la la la singing in there, this strategy helps me to survive all manner of embarrassing Dr's appointments/ interviews/exams.
It is hard to hear over the la-la-LA-ing, though. I have loads to do in the house, and catching up with work, and making lists of all the Fantastic Things I planned to do when I got home. (Coming home from holidays is the equivalent of New Year's Eve because as I leave, the thought that I may never see home again never fails to enter my head, uninvited. So when I get home, I am all new and full of vim, because, surprisingly enough, I AM ALIVE! I make all kinds of resolutions. I am reborn! Hurray!).

Before I forget all about Zell, here is a quick tour of our photos:

Wonderfully repressive sign on carriage of train. The grumpy old woman in me loves this.

Cake-like building in Innsbruck, with icing window frames. (Photo does not convey wilting heat).

I am a giant framing device. I am massive, bigger than Alps! I AM A COLOSSUS.

Day of big long walk down mountain. In the battle between fear (avoiding chairlift, but walking all the way down to the town) and laziness (taking the frightening, frightening chairlift but avoiding big long walk), I fear that fear won.

Far far distant town of Zell, and no way to get there except Shank's Pony. Hrmm.

Your cowardly
Twangy

International relations

As  we prepare to leave Austria tomorrow, and return to our regularly scheduled lives, I have the following insight to share:

Some Austrians I have encountered have this funny way of frankly staring at one. While I see that this is probably cultural, and not meant to mean anything, it is deeply disconcerting for an Irish person. In Ireland, you see, the routine tends to be:

• Accidentally catch someone’s eye as he/she is thinking about his dinner, or having other private thoughts, and thus has face in neutral or straight position.
•  Immediately switch to charm-defensive, don’t-hurt-me, I am nice, Nervous Smile.
• Receive corresponding, I won’t hurt you, I am nice, and you are nice, disarming smile from Other Irish person.
• Go about business, reassured that all is well with world.

In Austria this everyday exchange is more on the lines of:

• Receive frank stare from Frank Starer
• Try Nervous, Disarming Smile
• Receive further frank stare
• try Nervous, Disarming smile, harder this time, for surely, this time, it’ll take
• Receive further frank stare
• Now unable to fake any more smiling, as face is in rictus, turn and run like rabbit from Frank Starer and whole nerve-wracking situation.

Yesterday, while up a mountain, and thus, in Glad to Be Alive At All as Have Survived Cable Car Mode, a woman in black tights and ballet shoes* caught me twice in her Frank Stare. I shot down the mountain path with JB hot on my heels, saying she’s after us! GAHHH!
In Ireland, the Frank Stare signifies Deep Disapproval and is to be used only in cases of excessive sweet package rattling in the cinema, or cycling on the pavement, or similar.  To live in Austria, as an Irish person, would thus mean a life of feeling one is being disapproved of, and is thus sadly struck off the list of countries where I’d like to live.**
More insightful observations soon! We leave Land of the Frank Starers tomorrow. As home and all that means approaches, and this delightful alpine parenthesis ends, I confess to a little nervousness re my various test and proddings I am to receive at the hands of the Dr at the clinic. Also my father is to be allowed spend a night at home next week, which is good, and everything, but just slightly alarming too.
Your rabbit-like
Twangy

*which only added to the menace

**although who knows really why they stare, possibly they are thinking: Ah so, sehr gut, wilkommen in Osterrich, Shy Little Foreigner! I mean, for all I know.

weird is the word

It's been a while. The thing is, that apart from being unhumanly busy with my work for the show, I have also been put to the pin of my collar in this whole (in)fertility dance we are doing. Poor JB has to go to the wanka.torium at the hospital tomorrow to have his boys' velocity or whatever measured. And if that wasn't enough to be going on with (which it was, lemme tell you), I have also had a nasty bout of cystitis which reduced me to a blubbering wreck last week. (Was that last week? These days are so full, and yet so dull. They feel like months going by.)
And, and, FriendL and I had a really frightening experience with a foster dog. (All day he'd been fine,  we'd walked him round the neighbourhood, played in the garden and then in the evening, I went into her kitchen and he trapped me in there, barking aggressively, guarding her with his hackles up. My heart was pounding madly. I averted my gaze like they tell you to on the Dog Whisperer and put a chair between me and him. L had to come in and put him on the lead. To sum up: Me, frightened, never so much, of a dog.
Poor L was so disappointed and demoralised by the whole fiasco. It was almost like moving a lion around the house, he had this primal presence - very frightening. in the end the German Shepherd Club people came to get him and even they managed to get bitten by him. Poor thing. They really didn't know what to do with him).
My cousin, her partner and mother came to visit. Luckily they are staying in brother's house so the responsibility for their having of fun is less. What happened to those days when we were young, when there was just so much time to talk and so much to talk about? We're so weary now, and guarded.
And and and, we went to Eindhoven last weekend to see Jo in a show. It was mild, flat and slightly foggy.

Our hotel room window was sealed up. The show was like a cross between a rave and an art show.
Look at me, I am all ravey like a young one! Jo and Ive were well, if a little tired and back-bent in Jo's case, after the rigours of the performance. We went to Dusseldorf on Sunday, on a train that raced over flat fields populated with Shetland ponies.

And read a guidebook that was hilariously poorly translated and full of strange assumptions:
Forget all those cliches about Dusseldorf shopping!
We did our outmost to unburden ourselves of the above and mooched around the Altstat and the river, and to the Schadowstrasse where Dusseldorfers window-shopped with great aplomb.
I do love a change of scene. There was another fun time we had in a biergarten with Jo and Ive. (They're such a hoot, everything is "creepy" and "weird". It's like they are in a permanent state of alienation from the world. Oh! and "random", if it's not weird it's "sooo random". I wonder if this says anything about their lack of faith in destiny? Do they feel they are really rattling around meaninglessly? How weird it must be.)
Well. Talk about meaningless and random but I fear this is about as good as it gets at the moment. 

Your faithful weirdo
Twangypearl

oddities, and sweetness

• On the way to the Hospital to Save the World with Art, one kidney patient at a time, a young feller ran at the tram I was sitting in, banging the window hard. For what, one can hardly guess. I feigned indifference, of course. (Fake the cool, will be written on my tombstone.) On the way home, it happened again, with another school-dodging teen (it was about 2pm at this point). Apparently, running at trams like a bull is the new black.

• On the electric train back to town last week, I heard a strange gasping cry. I turned in my seat and it was a girl, maybe 17, crying desperately. I was in agony not knowing whether I should go and ask her if I could help. Normally I would have, but something about her demeanour suggested to me she wouldn't like it. And after a minute I heard her explain (loudly, on the phone), that her dog had died. "I can't stop crying" she said. "And everyone is looking at me like I have ten heads." I don't know what the point of this story is, except it was slightly unsettling. I feel dissatisfied with it, as if it is unfinished. Which I suppose answers my question. I should have said something. At least I'd know I tried.

• I went home and gave myself a reiki treatment. Ooh, it was nice and restorative. I felt so much better after

• One of "my" patients, when you say hello, says, by way of a greeting: There you are, love. (An expression I've only ever heard in Roddy Doyle novels). Then he said he wished we could come whenever he was in for his dialysis, he is enjoying the work so much. That was so sweet, it makes up for all the oddness.

And:

• Spike, tasting the frost today. I asked him what it tasted like, and he said "frosty". Hard to argue with that.

100 miles in 4 days

Friday lunchtime: Castletownshend

Friday afternoon: Drumnagumna beach

Bar overlooking Drumnagumna

building selves up

Fast forward to Friday afternoon:
Ferry to Clare Island (sighting of porpoises)

Ambitious route-plotting in Schull
Saturday: Ballydehob

Wait for me!
Sunday - Bantry and Durrus

Bantry to Skibbereen and home

a trip to a Certain Scandinavian producer of Semi-Disposable Furniture

After our abandoned attempt to get to Belfast or bust on Wednesday of this week, we deja-vued all over again yesterday, me and my mother. This time, Dundalk slipped by dreamily, unlike our previous non-trip which had us studying the railside flora minutely out of the window for an HOUR and a HALF, while the mood of our companions lifted and plunged from giddy hysteria to despair in a perfect wave-like pattern. There was a man sitting near us, with his wife/partner/companion/who knows and their toddler son. He was wearing a shirt which had the following on the back: TAKING ALL OF IRELAND FOR JESUS with an image of a shamrock encompassing what was indeed the whole of the country. There was something vaguely threatening about it. I mean, I am all for Whatever Gets Your Through the Night, and why not, but what with the vaguely militaristic language (the taking of a country?) and the Republ*can overtones, and the religious zealotry, I think we are looking at a threefer.
People. Weird, them, sometimes.
The trip went well, though.
***
I don't like the word BINGE, do you?
***
I don't like the word GROUT, either.
***
I remain, your word-fussy traveler,
Twangy

FORRRTY

Last weekend we went to Belfast to stay in a nice hotel, go to a Certain Megastore that sells Semi-disposable Swedish Furniture and celebrate my cleverness at staying alive for so very long. 40, that would be. ImPRESSive. Clever of me, I think you'll agree. The buses I have dodged, the cigarettes I haven't smoked! the bottles of gin I haven't downed! the heroin I didn't mainline! You have no idea.

Belfast is always interesting to me. It is a strange discordant mix of familiar and foreign - of grand Victorian architecture stamped on the wild Irish landscape. The differences between the two sides of the border are evident - it's clear that there has been no boom there as there has in the Republic. The building sites on every corner are lacking, the bursting optimism, the wild energy, the rampant materialism, the immigrant workers. Instead you can see the signs of an old prosperity from times gone by in the redbrick houses and the grand squares, and there is a quiet charm - people really do seem glad you came - but as someone who grew up with a horrific story on the news every night of sectarian murders it is hard not to feel a shiver when you see graffiti that supports one of those sides, or when you walk through an underpass, not to think of it as a murder scene. But no doubt I am being a naive and loose-lipped southerner.

As for the Certain Megastore that sells Semi-disposable Swedish Furniture, I think a veil might be drawn. We were there for 6 hours and it didn't break us. Hah! Take that Certain Megastore that sells Semi-disposable Swedish Furniture! Oh, but for one thing. We left so late that the last bus had gone and we set out wearily on foot to find a taxi or a bus. Half an hour of trudging along the dual carriageway later, and by some devilish Swedish trick of design, we still had not left the Certain Megastore that sells Semi-disposable Swedish Furniture. It still loomed immensely to the right. Quite unworldly, it was.

The hotel was pleasant. Worn out from our endeavours we slept for hours, and when I woke I went for a swim. Ah yes, now I remember the point of all that - the steam room was wonderful. It was in a countrified area outside town (which though grand in scale in the centre, out of town it is strangely stunted, by its troubled history, I suppose, and has none of the suburban sprawl you get in Dublin). There was a strange hall in the local village. It seemed immediately wrong - almost sinister. There was a slogan over the door: Vene, Vide, Tace. Which if my Italian serves me, means He came, he saw, he remained quiet. Stayed quiet? How can that be something to live by? Unless you're in the fecking Mafia, of course.
(It was a Masonic hall, we later discovered.)

Speaking of Italians, a certain ex-friend was in touch for my birthday. Said she: Even if we don't talk, I remember [your birthday]! I hope you have a good year, not like the bloody awful one I had. (Translation my own. I love using those square brackets.)
I took the advice of the Masons, and stayed quiet.
And then, (bloody global community, I heap curses upon you) she found me on Facebook, and asked, in fake American this time: do you wanna be my friend again?
The word NO springs to mind. But you know, in fairness and maturity (see above for shocking number of years I have been on planet) I think I'll just tell her why I was upset, (for unbelievably I don't think she is aware of the degree of her soul-sucking negativity), and leave to her to decide what to do about it.
More on this later, no doubt.

House is coming together beautifully. We are painting and cleaning like the wind (and by we I mean, JB is painting and I am cleaning. I remind myself of Anne in the Famous Five. JB would have to be Dick, I think.) in time to move in by the 10th. It is so exciting to get acquainted with this new and exotic part of town. They have all sorts of parks and whatnot to explore and the neighbours! they speak to us! and everything! One even wished us good luck in our new house and hoped we'd be happy in it.
'Tis quite the thing.

this post is brought to you by "net.gear"-

an unsecured network! Hurray.
I am back from Kerry. Allow me to list the wild thoughts that are batting around my head like demented moths.
1
Like Caesar, "Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf." Well, not so much deaf as quietly buzzing static. I have found though, that like extreme heat and irritating relatives, it is better not to fight it but to accept it in a calm dignified manner. Otherwise, a madness/heat exhaustion/bloody murder could easily ensue, I suspect. (More on this simplified pseudo-Buddhist-ic philosophy later.)
2
The first class ticket was lovely. Well-mannered ladies spoke in hushed voices at a pleasant distance, a sweet little girl called Daddy! once in a while in a low voice, and all was spacious and carpeted.

3
Until, that is, we got to Mallow, where I passed an hour or so walking up the main street of the town, trying my best to lengthen my right arm by lugging my bag around. The town was a last minute bustle of farmer types and busy women, punctuated with the occasional Big Issues salesperson or concertina player saying "Hello, lady".
4.
Then it transpired that there was "no driver" (seriously. I Quoth) for the train to Killarney so we had to risk life and limb in a bus to Killarney with a Lunatic Yun Fella from Cork who drove as if to beat the land speed record. There was an older man with a white comb-over on the bus who was casting around rather desperately for a conversation. You know, the type who has to involve everyone in his personal arrangements?

BIG loud voice:
Sorry to disturb you, but what town was that now?
(Yunfella, tolerantly, for a sub-contracted racerboy): Ah, not at all, sure I'm used to it. That was [insert Cork/Kerry town]
Beat
Lonely Older Man, in loud voice, leaning over Yunfella:
SORRY TO DISTURB YOU THERE!

It turned out he was staying in the Gre*t Southern for a Christmas Special, on his own.
Poor crater.

5
All this made bearable by the wonderful This Americ*n Life. Speaking of which, I obeyed the irresistible call of the lovely Ira, and donated some $$ to it to keep the broadband free. I got this email back from him, the old charmer:

Dear TwangyPearl,

Thanks for helping Chicago Public Radio pay for the

This American Life

podcast and web streaming! They cost the station more than $100,000 a year, and you’re a big sweetheart to help them cover that huge expense.

If you chose a premium, we’ll send it out in a few weeks. And if you have any questions about it, email Chicago Public Radio

Listener Services

at listenerservices@chicagopublicradio.org, or call them at 312.948.4855.Also, if you didn’t check the box requesting “periodic updates and communications from Chicago Public Radio,” you won’t be put on mailing lists of any sort.

Thanks, again! Your friend, Ira Glass

I am a sweetheart. Isn't that great? He's my friend, Ira. I love him. He is creeping, modestly, with his Ira charm, up my list of boyz (move over Jerry Seinfeld, Clive Owen, and Paul Weller, you old newses, you. (Although I still love you all.) (I must also confess to being won over somewhat more recently by the wild but funny and charming Russell Brand)). The word National Treasure when attached to Ira is not entirely inappropriate. He did keep me going during those long lonely Sundays in New Jersey.

And for that I am eternally grateful.

6.
Moths seem to have deserted me momentarily.
Normal service will be restored ASAP.

Kerry - 07 with sunshine

In Kerry I was gently reminded of how nice it is to get away from it all. It. Computers, work, obligations, conversations, TV, pressures, responsibilities. The Lord knows I don't have too many of them, but this didn't prevent me escaping them with delight and having a lovely time laughing with the JB. We cycled for miles and at night fell into a deep healthy sleep in the dark back room of the creaky old house. The sun lit up the land and bounced off the sea around us. We went to Valentia and walked out to the Lighthouse past where the first transatlantic cable was sent, to what felt like the very edge of the world.

Next county Newfoundland, indeed.

Kerry snippet:
At the kitchen table.
e: Do you have any jam in the house, do you think?
KDiddy: I never have jam in the house E! Too. Much. Trouble.
JB, in explanation, to me: It must give backchat.


Ah. Lovely days.

tragedy + time = comedy?

Let's gloss over the comedy of disasters that was our anniversary, leaving it aside to mature till distance has softened the memories of the endless Kildare roads with no sign posts that led us back to Castledermot 3 times, like a recurring nightmare, when no-one in their right mind would ever want to go to it even once, and the running out of petrol on the road to Altamont House, and the endless snacking in the car, the temper tantrums and stamping around -
(I think I'll leave that hyphen there, poetically.)

Here are some photos though.
It was pretty countryside, even if it had problems with communication.