written 12.05.05, 2:14pm: The chairs at our house are not as good for sitting in and writing as the chairs at Mom & Dad’s house. Too straight-backed, I think. I note this from several seconds worth of observation, not the hours one might expect me to have put in by 2:15 in the afternoon. But oh, no, I bought a big fat Mary Gentle book last night while we were in Dublin, and made the mistake of not being able to finish it in one evening. (Not, at least, without staying up until 1:30 in the morning, which I wasn’t willing to do.) So I had to finish it this morning, and have learned a valuable lesson: only read skinny books while writing books of your own. :)
The book, 1610: A GRAVE IN A SUNDIAL, was very good and puts me in mind of working on THE QUEEN’S BASTARD. Sadly, no one is paying me to work on TQB, so it’ll be HoS or CD in a few minutes here. I’m leaning toward HoS, I think. We’ll see.
More behind the cut…
I may have made a critical error in housing decisions. I assumed without checking into it that a body could buy a monthly train pass, a la Caltrain or some such, and I am no longer at all sure that’s true. Ted & Shaun have gone into Dublin to explore a bit and do some shopping and to check the internet at Mom & Dad’s, and they’re going to see about the train thing. If in fact there is no such thing as a monthly pass, any profit in living as far out as Athy will be very thoroughly eaten up by ticket fees, and I will be extremely irritated with myself. :P
Other than that, though, things seem to be going pretty well. I keep meaning to make note of Things That Are Different, but by the time I sit down to do so, I’ve generally forgotten what they are. Oh, but here’s something: the fruit and fruit juices are so unpreserved as to border on the bizarre. Apples are mushier. Apple juice isn’t as sweet (and is therefore much more drinkable, IMHO). Pineapple juice is thicker and not as sweet. Strawberries, which I don’t think are particularly sweet anyway, aren’t as sweet. Mom said she got a mango on Henry Street which was the first good mango she’d had since leaving Florida (at age 9). Clementine oranges are exactly the same. :)
Ted and I were in Dublin yesterday, and decided to stop and eat at the Hard Rock Cafe (for two reasons: one, we said, “We’ll do it eventually, why don’t we get it out of the way now? And then again later?”, and two, it was becoming pretty clear to me we were going to go walking down the street, stopping and looking at menus at all the restaurants, and were going to get increasingly hungry and incapable of making decisions as time wore on and we’d eventually be incredibly crabby and hungry and end up eating somewhere we didn’t want to anyway). HRC food is pretty much the same everywhere I’ve eaten it, but holy cow (so to speak), I had beef added to my nachoes and it was *in**sane*ly good beef. This is probably partly due to not having had beef that I can remember since coming here, but also just the wonderful glorious delightful lack of chemicals and preservatives in the meat. Wow, it was good.
*laugh* When we eventually had dinner last night, Ted was going to make rice and realized he had no measuring cups. Then he said to himself, “Are you a chef, man, or aren’t you?! It’s a simple two to one ratio! If you can’t handle that, you’d better get out of the kitchen!”
Mere minutes later, he wondered aloud if not having measuring cups was going to prevent me from making bread, and while I admit that I dug out Mom’s measuring cups when I made bread at their house, because I’ve never made bread with*out* measuring it out before, I found myself pretty offended at the idea that I actually *required* them to make bread. :)
All right. To work now. :)
You use measuring cups to make bread? Interesting. I do measure the liquid, but the flour I put in by “experience”. I love baking bread. It’s one of the things I’m going to do a lot of when we finally can move out of Mom’s. :)
Do you know if they use antibiotics in beef in Ireland? I’ve pretty much proven, though extensive (and fairly horrible) trial and error that my problems with meat stem from the nasty things they feed to it. But if I could eat it freely when we come to visit you, that would be most excellent indeed.
I dont’ think they do. The beef has a different taste here. Also have you tried Australian or New Zealand beef. They have a time requirement that says that if they must us antibiotics it must be so many months before the animal is killed otherwise it is only good for dog food.
Thanks for the idea, Ted! I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it, but it’s worth a shot.
There’s a farmer down the road (he from whom we get our chickens) who uses no antibiotics, no hormones, no chemicals in processing, and organic feed. He’s going to give me some beef when he butchers his next cow so I can try that out. It’s insanely difficult to get chemical-free meat around here…