Sideshow Anecdotes

"Life inside the music box ain't easy/The mallets hit the gears are always turning/And everyone inside the mechanism/Is yearning/To get out..."

--“Musicbox,” Regina Spektor

Some really great and entertaining things have happened in along the roadside here in Ireland.

You can go back to one of my earliest blog entries and click on the photos link to see my St. Patrick's Day celebrations in Miltown Malbay, out in County Clare. Good fun, even if the parade theme intended participants to “take the piss out of” the U.S., as they say.

The Irish are real and honest and what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of folk, but I've also found that nothing is taboo and everything is fair game when it comes to “slagging” (also known as “taking the piss,” noted above) and humiliating people for sport. And they are truly masters of sarcasm.

Overheard when someone asked an Irishman and former Limerick resident what he misses about Ireland since his move to England, your man replied, “I miss the insincerity.”

...

I've heard a lot of great live music while here, and I've traveled a lot on the weekends and on bank holidays, dragging Lola with me wherever and whenever I can. So far we've gone with friends to Cork, West Cork, Sligo, Dublin and out to the edge of the earth at Spanish Point for some beach time...

...which is exactly what she and I did on Labor Day weekend, when I participated in my first-ever Ramadan Treasure Hunt. Anyway, the family of one of my housemates is an endlessly entertaining and creative bunch, and they decided to create the Ramadan Treasure Hunt, which involves said family of revelers who devise clues and divide everyone into teams that drive around the countryside near the Cliffs of Death, and the team making it back with all the answers in the least amount of time wins. Someone along the way realized they were holding this event at the onset of Ramadan, hence the name. And winning earns you bragging rights and the first chance to draw a prize out of the bag that everyone else gets to draw from also.

After the hunt, one of the O'Sullivan family members decided it would be funny to craft an Evil Eye from a marble and molding clay and put it in Lola's nose-nook.

Which he did.

And it was.

For your enjoyment, above.

...

Never the photojournalist, I forget my camera mostly always, so it's a miracle there's any evidence of my ever living here. But I rather like that the images are just filed in my brain and mine to keep. Or maybe that's a convenient excuse for forgetfulness. Dunno.

Thanks to the Aaron Dunn family for stopping by on their Irish holiday, and for picking up the check for breakfast. Much appreciated.

Happy Autumn, y'all.

j:.