catching up!

written 2 December 2005, 1536 hours: Apparently not being online doesn’t stop me from wanting to write journal entries, so I’m doing so even though I probably won’t be able to post this until Monday.

Good news: the internet cafe up the street has wireless, so we can in fact post and be in at least reasonably regular email contact with our usual email addresses while we wait to get our own network. I’d like to say I’ll probably only haul my laptop down there every other day, but c’mon, who are we kidding. Odds are good I’ll be there daily.

Ellen: I have not forgotten and I have in fact written the article, which I will send to you as soon as I get online. Of course, by the time you *read* this, I’ll have already sent it, but dammit, I didn’t forget, and I’m sorry it’s late. :P

More behind the cut, because this will all get very long otherwise.

We spent last night in Dublin, partly because it was the easiest way to juggle all the stuff going on with the animals and partly because we had not yet figured out how to turn the heat on at our house, and it was really, really cold. Breic was quite wide-eyed at both Ted and Shaun, although he warmed up very quickly and started making overtures, which went over better with Shaun than Ted, because when Breic finally met Shaun, it was after Shaun’d gotten up from a 5 hour nap, and poor Ted was trying to stay awake while Breic was trying to charm him.

My *goodness* Breic tried hard to impress Shaun! Shaun had a bowl of cereal, so Breic wanted one, and he sat at the table without squirming and ate the entire bowl’s worth of cereal, almost entirely with his spoon instead of his hands, and when Shaun got up to make a sandwich Breic asked him to come sit back down wif him, pwease, and when he saw Shaun pick up his cereal bowl he wanted to do the same, and my *goodness* wasn’t he just being a little charmer!

Seirid, on the other hand, got one look at both (or either) of them and began to scream bloody murder. Which is what he did when he met me, too. :)

We did get the heat turned on this morning. The landlady called back and we went through everything and finally it struck her that perhaps the fuse for the boiler wasn’t on, so sent me to look for it, and lo, it was not. Nor was the one for the cooker (which is what they call stove/ovens; nothing like calling a kettle black, I guess!), which explained why my attempt to heat up at least the downstairs by turning on the oven had completely failed, too. But now everything’s warm, except the living room, where the radiator has inexplicably failed to heat up. I’ll have to ask about that.

The bed *bruised* me! The springs in it are so stiff, or so close to the surface, or some combination thereof, that I woke up yesterday morning with an incredibly painful purple and blue bruise on my right hip. I typically sleep on my right side, with the left only for variation, because sleeping on my stomach or back hurts my back (and I have bad dreams when I sleep on my back), and the bed *bruised* me! I asked the landlady if it could maybe be replaced, and Mom suggested we flip the mattress just to see if it made any difference, and Ted said we have this soft stuff that went into the bottom of the pets’ kennels, and we could put that under the sheet on my side of the bed for padding. I suggested wrapping cotton batting around my hips. :) Ahh, the irony: having lost fifty pounds I’m now in need of padding!

I’ve been trying to unpack, and have been somewhat thwarted by a lack of hangers. There aren’t many chests of drawers, so the lack of hangers is a problem. I went forth to boldly search for some, and came back with some American-style peanutbutter (crunchy for me, smooth for Ted), some mini apple pies, and a package of … Maltos, or something. Whatever it is they call Whoppers over here. I ate all the Whoppers. I don’t feel good now. :)

(In 10th grade, my friend Rhonnie got a 3 pound tub of Whoppers at Costco. She and my other friend Kelly and I ate all three pounds of them in about a day and a half. Since then I can’t stand Whoppers, but I’m also drawn to them in this sick moth-to-flame way. Once in a while I give in to temptation and have it reconfirmed that yeah, I don’t like those very much.)

Um. I also came back with the information about wireless connectivity at the internet cafe, and knowledge of who they get their broadband through, but no hangers. Couldn’t find any! I also couldn’t find a mattress pad, which I looked for too.

Oh! But what I did find (buh) was a Curves. I couldn’t go in to look around because they were closed, but the last thing I expected to see was a Curves. I’m not real clear on whether Curves uses “real” weights (ie, weight machines that actually employ weights instead of spring-or-band-loaded resistance), though I’m pretty sure they *don’t* have free weights. Still, if they’ve got ‘real’ weights, I might use that place for a while. Between that and swimming, I might get fit as a fiddle!

Ted, who is still very very tired from the trip to Dublin, went to London this morning to get the pets. I haven’t heard otherwise, so I’m assuming they’re probably back in Ireland by now and working on moving out toward Athy. I’m sure it’ll be probably 5, maybe even a little later, before he gets here. I hope it’s all gone well. *worried looks*