Meet Teddy Larkspin

Our original weekend plans for our time in Ireland included hiking, climbing, castle watching and sheep observation (I suspect that in their natural habitat, sheep stand around chatting about the appalling state of the fencing on the cliff-side bluffs around the Irish countryside, plotting a campaign to increase safety standards in the work environment, but taking the obligatory time out to complain about the weather).

When we arrived in Cork, we made it a priority to acquire last year’s “Tour the Aran Islands” mountain bikes at a very reasonable rate from our friendly local bike shop. We love the freedom of biking around town, avoiding all the worst traffic and parking issues that come with living in a city riddled with one way streets, traffic circles, and zoned parking. Traffic laws don’t pertain to those who own bicycles… (Lizz Robnett, perpetuating the problem). Even going to the grocery store is an adventure on a bike! One can only get home by conjuring up childhood Tetris skills in an attempt to fit all their grocery store purchases into two small bike baskets. YOU trying fitting a box of cereal, a bag of

granola, a jug milk, a head of lettuce, a bag of apples, a bag of pears, a sack of potatoes, celery, cucumber, fish, bread, a container of pesto, two mozzarella balls, a container of yogurt, an 18 pack of eggs, 2 chocolate chip cookies, strawberry-rhubarb jelly, the smallest jar of peanut butter I’ve ever seen, a heart attack sized salami, and a stuffed chicken into a 9”x14” basket that has been precariously zip tied to the back of YOUR bike! …I rocked at Tetris…

Aside: Peanut butter is SOOO American – I know this because I hear about its American-ness ALL THE TIME! Please, tell me about how bad peanut butter is for me while you spread a thick layer of Nutella on your brown bread, go ahead, but a few things first: 1) I admit that Jiff has its problems, but all natural peanut butter is actually quite nutritious. 2) Though it is believed that peanut butter was developed by botanist/inventor/peanut product aficionado George Washington Carver of Missouri (circa 1890), in actuality peanut butter was developed by the Aztecs, who I’m pretty sure, in the 15th Century, had a very different idea of “westernizing” the world. Still worried about Americans taking over the world, one jar of peanut butter at a time? Well, in a slightly disappointing turn of events filled with irony and my own disillusionment - it was a Canadian chemist by the name of Marcellus Gilmore Edson who originally gained the patent on today’s version of peanut butter. So, HA! The cat it out of the bag Canadians! Don’t worry; we won’t blame you if you feel the need to slap American flags to all of your bags in order to shield you from all those comments stereotyping Canadians as Peanut Butter lovers.
I find myself liking peanut butter even more now that I’m having to defend its honor on a weekly basis.


All that fun aside, we recently decided that in order to realize our dreams of a weekend adventure that doesn’t necessarily involve 2kg of potatoes and a litany of dairy products, we would either need to commit to something with four wheels or be stuck wishing that the local bus system came with cup holders, a place to put your wet gear, and about 10,000 more “off the beaten path” bus depots.

As we all know, car years are more similar to cat years than our own, in that we’re not exactly sure how they work, but we’re pretty sure that they have a considerably shorter lifespan, no matter what you feed them, and that there is some exponential component that hits you entirely out of left field; one day you’re fuzzy little friend is vibrant and zooming around with endless amounts of energy and the next, you spend $3000 replacing the EVERYTHING.

As our time here in Ireland is yet to be determined, we decided to forego the unwanted attachment issues and sentimentality that comes with the honeymoon years of owning a new vehicle by skipping straight ahead to “do you hear that funny rattling sound?” 

Meet Teddy Larkspin. Teddy makes up in character and retro style photo ops what he lacks in youth and general function.

What was that Teddy? Everything hurts? AND you hate hills? Push on Teddy… push on.

Seeing our mechanic’s eyebrows arch when we told him Teddy’s age was about as amusing as the fact that the purchase of this vehicle essentially resulted in an immediate relationship with our neighbor’s mechanic.

Though we were originally going for something which might accommodate two adults comfortably resting in the back seat with hot chocolate, sleeping bags, and a travel sized game of Yahtzee, we’ve settled on something with a bit lower gas mileage and room in the “boot” for a 2 person tent, a Jetboil, and an unidentifiable object that continues to rattle about.



On to bigger adventures, my friends… On to Hiking in Ireland! To be continued…

It's Snowing

It’s snowing.  

In my experience “talking about the weather” has always been used as a euphemism for “meaningless filler conversation.” So when I say that the Irish love to talk about the weather, make no mistake, they actually enjoy talking about the weather… as a serious topic of conversation. However, when asked to describe the weather in Ireland, I have yet to come across a single local that doesn’t describe it as “dreadfully awful.” Really? Dreadfully awful? Not just one or the other, but, in fact, both? When confronted with the fact that it is sunny and windless outside the response typically includes the word “unseasonable”, a look towards the sky, and a “Thanks be to God.”

10 pts and a packet of biscuits to whoever
can accurately reference this picture.

Aside: I always thought that, if there is a god(dess), s/he/it would be somewhere in the ether (think ancient alchemy, not oxygen), the energy of everythingness, as opposed to in the sky. In this case, instead of looking at the sky when referring to God, wouldn’t you just look around at everything, all wide eyed? Granted, that might come across as more scary and weird… OR God might be so magnanimous that our universe could represent one molecular structure that contributes to the formation of one crumb of one biscuit that sits in a cupboard awaiting to be eaten… which is why it’s so dark in space! We could quite literally be the cream in God’s coffee.

Being able to discuss the weather is so important that during our first semester of Irish Language 101, our first lesson was on how to introduce ourselves and the second was on talking about the weather (yes, we are taking Irish. We will, at some point, be able to chat about the weather in Irish… to each other). We spent the better part of the semester describing every climate condition that we could potentially run into here in Ireland. I have no idea how to ask where the bathroom is or how much something cost, but I can certainly tell you all about how terrible the wind/fog/lashing rain was last night; should the sun come out tomorrow though, it’s still bound to be “an-fhuar ar fad!” (REALLY F’ing COLD!).

We came to this country with the words of Irish countryman Oscar Wilde in our conviction: “there is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” When we showed up to a club event on a rainy, windy, day wearing jackets, the event coordinator took one look at us, shook his head with a smirk and just said “…you’re so American…” before checking off our names and walking away.

Perhaps people consider the weather to be so horrible because they refuse to change their wardrobe to include something more insulating than a jumper (a sweat shirt) and a pair of jeans. Of course the weather is shitty if you’re dressing for a mild autumn day in California! What? The Irish weather conditions didn’t meet your expectations AGAIN?! Strange!

Since we arrived here in August, people around Ireland have been proclaiming that this would be, by far, the harshest winter seen in Ireland for decades! Over the course of the first month I heard this no less than 37 times. Even with August being one of the longer months (both in days and daylight) this seemed gradually more and more suspect; 2-3 mentions = interesting, 4-5 = believable, 20+ = fanaticism. By the end of August there was genuine shock amongst the locals that the sun hadn’t yet disappeared for the year and there was a general consensus that the Indian Summer, typically reserved for September, must have arrived early. So much for September... When the sun stuck around through the bulk of September and crept into October (this is when all of the rain clouds most commonly park themselves over the entire country, like a nation-wide word bubble that says “our weather blows”), we were assured that the weather was whimsically unseasonable, more than warm by Irish standards, and that there would be an influx of melanoma patients country wide. AND clearly this was the calm before the storm!

I’ve come to learn that these declarations of “worst winter ever” are made with the same conviction each year - by everyone (clearly they were wrong about last year, but this year will be different).

One of two things is happening here:

1) The weather does, in fact, get increasingly worse each year, leading us to believe that southern Ireland will soon take over as the new Moscow - in which case I am wholly prepared to wear an entire sheep… the entire one… “did your hat just BAAAHHH, at me?” Yes sir. Yes it did.

2) Global warming is fucking up local weather predictions, which have remained exactly the same for well over 200 years; the island may, in fact, be becoming increasingly warmer, leaving everyone totally dumb founded at their fantastic weather and therefore justified in complaining that they were woefully unprepared for how bloody nice it has been. 200 years from now, if the populations continues to increase at its current rate of -2 million/100 years, there will be approximately 12 men left in Ireland, all named Seán, and all of whom will be sitting on a bar stool in jeans and hoodies complaining about how dreadfully hot and humid it is, BUT how potentially fucked their winter will be. FYI - while we know that Global Warming has contributed to more erratic weather patterns worldwide, erraticism is defined by the unpredictability with which things happen, rendering all guestimations of spontaneously shitty weather null.

3) While these proud Irish love talking about the weather, they also seem to have a rather pessimistic view of their motherland, which, in combination, leads to an exhausting continuum of Armageddon winter/“Day After Tomorrow” style winter vortex discussions.

4) When have I ever stopped at 2?

It was in retaliation to the general climate pessimism here that we refused to accept the necessity of radiant heat for several months until, reluctantly, sometime in late November we finally admitted to ourselves that it was time to run the heater.  Learning to use the heater/thermostat in our little home was surprisingly complicated for two graduate level students, reminding me that practical knowledge accompanies experience. Life lesson, check.

I MacGyvered a drafty window!

Turning on the heat was legitimately a good idea. Admittedly, the return of feeling to my fingertips was vital to my concentration, a cold nose is very distracting, and knitting a gigantic beanie for the yoga ball in order to make sitting on it bearable now seems like a ridiculous idea. I expect that I will be far more productive now that some of my energy can be allocated  to brain function rather than being reserved for heating my extremities.

Right now it is snowing; this is FINE because I brought my dad’s down fill safari adventure jacket - appropriate for the rugged mountainous outback of California or the 1978 secret coffee shop rendezvous in sub-zero temperatures – circa 1978 (it comes complete with enlarged wind proof collar, multi-function utility pockets, sweat stains, and an enthusiastic mustache!)

The City of Cork is currently at a level “Red” weather alert due to the 1 inch of snow and the 4 inches of slush accumulating around the city’s low lying areas. According to the weather warning, it is inadvisable to go to said low lying areas, do any form of roof work, or put chairs outside on your deck (real).

Although my classroom is located on the third floor, the building itself is arguably located in a low lying area… heretofore time to make a blog entry.

We’ve been remiss in our blogging goals, but it turns out that graduate school is actually quite demanding and being an immigrant is full of time-consuming red tape.  Who knew? That said, we are currently full of New Year’s resolution and pre-semester optimism, so stay tuned.  Or comment, or sign up so that if we ever do write another blog entry, you’ll be the first to know.