Mind of Mindi

Day 4 of the trip through France, Belgium and The Netherlands with my great friend, Anne!  We arrived in Marseille Thursday evening, stayed in a very nice hotel - although they put us on the 1st floor so no real view and the twin beds mated prior to our arrival and presented as a double bed - first night and I’m already in bed with someone.

Friday involved moving from the swank hotel to the Etap Hotel near the harbor - not nearly as comfy, but definitely affordable!  If only we weren’t on the ground floor facing a square full of cafes and people … loud people until at least 3 am.  We visited our friend good Fannie at her work, enjoyed a few beers in our square and then met up with Fannie for dinner - her first girls night out in a long while.  Of course, since we are all out of our early 20s, we didn’t paint the town red, but had a great time over good food!

Saturday we met with Fannie and her son Gael for coffee and lunch.  Bought amazing Marseille soaps so now my suitcase smells delectable.  Then off to the train station to reserve our seats to Paris for Sunday - wouldn’t you know that SNCF is on strike Monday - Wednesday, so also booked our train seats from Paris to Brussels for Tuesday in the hopes that Thalys won’t participate in the strike.  Of course, this took a big chunk of time, so decided to re-energize with more beer and sun - although chilly, the Marseille sun is WARM!!!  Hopped on the #60 bus to go up to Notre Dame de la Garde - amazing views above Marseille!  Made the mistake of waiting for the bus back down to the harbor at the wrong stop, along with 20 other people, but finally figured it out and an hour later the bus arrived.  Then off to Fannie’s for dinner with Nico and Gael - great food, talk and friends - what could be better?  HA HA!  I’ll leave it to Anne to describe the trip back to the hotel from Fannie’s:  http://euardasule.blogspot.com/.

Sunday we’re on the train to Paris!!  After lugging our suitcases and bags through the metro (only 2 lines, it could have been worse), we find our hotel: Le Chat Noir Design Hotel.  We have the 8th floor room - yes there’s only 1 on this floor - and a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower (and I’m sure other landmarks - still figuring out what they all are).  Definitely a nice change after ground and 1st floor rooms!

More to come soon (when I have free wifi again) and one of these days I WILL get pictures successfully uploaded … where’s my IT team when I need him?!?

After more than a 6 month coma, my IT team finally revived me!  To catch up:

It’s been a busy spring and summer - many much-loved visitors from the states, (Washington, California and Indiana). Together, we travelled around the West of Ireland - photos to come soon. Many great nights, a few bad mornings.  And amazing sights!!

I travelled to Amsterdam, San Francisco, and Prague - really loving Dublin’s easy access to the rest of the world!

Attended: the U2 concert at Croke Park, the GAA All-Ireland Football Semi Final (Kerry beat Meath) and the GAA All-Ireland Football Final - Kerry beat Cork!! - thanks to the fabulous Killarney friends!

Currently, our friend Uncle Markie is visiting from Seattle - the way he cooks for us and stocks our bar, he’s the best guest ever!  He is grand fun, as well, and it’s been a fab visit!

One of the best things living in Dublin is the abundance of little fruit and veggie markets throughout the city. In SF, it is similar, just on a lesser scale. And of course, Dublin doesn’t benefit from the abundance of fresh produce sitting at its door. But that’s what I want - a great bag of produce sitting on my doorstep!

Of course, there are still times when I can’t stock up on a good selection of fresh produce at the corner markets, and I desire the ease of the home delivery. So the research begins: in Dublin, who delivers the best produce bag?

Trial #1: Home Organics - www.homeorganics.ie

Ordered online the Seasonal Mediterranean Bag - carrots, potatoes, beet root, celery, onion, garlic, kale, rocket, broccoli, tomatoes, lemon, oranges, apples, bananas, avocado

Received a call the next day confirming the delivery time for 2 days later. Delivery was earlier than scheduled, so the bag was left at my door. The potatoes and onions were small, but all were in good condition and tasty. The following week, received a call inquiring about the experience and desired order for the week. As we don’t cook very much, we have enough veggies to last another week. Overall, the experience was good and I will consider using them again in the future.

Since moving to Dublin, I’ve been more than a little disappointed with the lack of good yarns available. I expected plenty of locally spun yarn, and a great variety of European yarns - I mean, I’m in Ireland surrounded by sheep! But so far, what I have found is less than what is found at the yarn stores I have visited in the states. So it’s back to the internet to meet my yarn needs! I most recently purchased from YarnMarket.com - they have a great range, prompt delivery, yet the prices could be better (they are pretty competitive, though). I’ll devise a list of my favorite sites and post it on the yarn page for those interested.

While in the US for the holidays, I was able to visit Sarah Jane’s yarn store in Indiana for the holidays - I just love to touch the yarn before purchasing! I found a delightful Alpaca yarn for my next sock project - Misti Alpaca. It’s so soft and should be very warm! I can’t wait to finish my current projects and get on with it!

Who knew darts, I mean Darts, was such a popular sport?  I just turned on the tv and “World Darts” is on.  It is the championship Dart tournament - this is day 6 with 8 players remaining.  Not only am I amused that we get too see all 9 days of the tournament (thank you BBC2), but when the players are introduced, it is like watching the WWE!  This guy, Hankey, made his grand entrance as Dracula and his Dart-ing shirt matches the cape - a full costume!  The Dart arena reminds me of the movie Kingpin, just with a big target board instead of bowling lanes, and Dracula Hankey totally resembles Woody Harrelson’s character, but with both hands intact.  Both participants (are they really athletes?) are sporting the ever-70s-popular hairy chest and chains look - who needs to button their shirt past the nipple area, anyway.  And you got to love the slow-motion shots which show the participants’ faces, not the dart moving, and the observers (fans?) cheering and jumping.  Too funny!!

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything (maybe I should include ‘weekly blogging’ as a new year’s resolution?), but I’ll get back to all the missed events in future posts. Or will try.

One day, my partner woke me up to show pictures he’s taken of a little friend on the bathroom windowsill: an orange cat. Our bathroom is on the 2nd level (floor 1) of the house, so I was a bit amazed that he was all the way up there. The window overlooks the roof of the kitchen below, so it wasn’t completely odd that a cat would walk across the pitched roof to make it to the windowsill, but why all the way up here? By the time I got my butt out of bed, our friend had moved to perch on the thorny garden fence, at the same height as the kitchen roof. Throughout the day, the cat napped there, and we couldn’t decide if it was stuck in the branches and thorns or just napping. Finally, about 4:30pm, when it started to get dark, I went outside to check on our friend, and he was still there. This time, he meowed at me and I knew it needed help getting down. It was stuck in an area surrounded by thorny branches and could still reach the roof, but had nowhere to jump down. Obviously, getting up seemed easy - it’s just getting down that proved impossible for the little guy.  Read the rest of this entry »

Six weeks ago, our landlady arranged to install an attic door, flooring and a light in our house. This was very welcome news, as one of our bedrooms has become the designated ’storage’ room, since there’s only one closet in our house and it’s under the stairs, so very small and dusty.

The first step was to add the attic door/stairs to allow access to the attic, the second step the flooring/light, and the third step was the finish paint. Here’s how the timeline actually went:

• 6 weeks ago: Door & steps installed - took 4 days
• 4 week ago: Finish paint - took 4 days
• Today: Flooring - and maybe the light? - installed. This was after an early morning phone call to see if I would be home (thank goodness I planned on it). I don’t know how long it will take, but I’m guessing 4 days.

  UPDATE: They finished both the floor and the light in one day!! Now, to start moving all the storage items up there - knowing me, it may take another 4 weeks!

Gotta love the life of an Irish builder!!

I’ve always known that I have a low alcohol tolerance, but had hoped that the many years of training my body to accept more than my limit would eventually pay off. Many times in the past, the day after proves this approach isn’t getting me any closer to my goal. But, if you don’t succeed, try, try again … right? It could be that after a certain level of going over the limit, my judgment clouds and I take in much more than I’m ever intended to drink. Perhaps. So, I’ve adapted a few strategies to keep the balance: drink on a full stomach, hydrate myself prior to drinking, and have 2, no more than 3, drinks in a given place. The success rate of this strategy is about 75% - and I can live with that.   Read the rest of this entry »

What a good question! Right now, the mind of mindi is a loud cavity full of emotions, various semi-composed lists, monster problems with nonsense solutions, and visual hallucinations brought on by the lack of good ‘ole american preservatives.

This blog will hopefully be where my brilliance will shine, my humor will make you pee your pants, and my insight will make you change your outlook on life. Or, it will be a whole lot of ranting! Whichever seems easiest on any given day.

On to the ranting…

The recent election has introduced patriotic pride back into my life, which has been missing for at least the past 8 years (I’m actually ready to admit that I’m American, not Canadian, which is usually the first assumption here). Yet, I find the future a daunting challenge for the president-elect: great expectations for one man, a poorly organized party, and a young family; religion breaking through to the other side (what the hell happened with Prop 8, California?? and since when has the Freedom of Choice Act been Obama’s Act? It was introduced in 2004, people… more to blog about these topics in later posts); and world chaos reigning supreme, including my joining the before-hated ranks of facebook and starting this blog. What is happening?!?

So I cope by hiding in my shell of knitting - yes, knitting. Thank goodness for my young niece who provides avoidance tactics in the form of many hats and sweaters for years to come. And MovieStar.ie provides Netflix-esque service, although it doesn’t send movies in order nor does it have copies of all the movies it says it does (will we EVER get Weeds or Dexter?).

Ah, but the best thing yet are the peat fires! Our house is about 80 years old, so the heat is, well, not well distributed. Although the house has been remodeled, there are areas of severe heat-loss: every outside door or window latch, the ‘damp-proofing’ hole in the upstairs den/closet, and the hole in the ceiling caused by the introduction of the attic door. The poor radiators just don’t stand a chance (and we haven’t figured out how to keep the pressure at the proper level). Luckily, every room has a fireplace and we have had many days and nights sitting in front of the fire. As Ireland is basically one big peat-bog, peat briquettes are readily available and cheap … and smell amazing when burning!

Enough ranting for tonight…more brilliant insight to come later - check back in a few days, months, or years to see if it has appeared.

Cheers!

Welcome to my inner-most thoughts and feelings on the world as we know it. At times, this may be blank…like right now! I’ll be updating when I have something to say.