What the !?!

Fiona’s lounging about in her Hello Kitty pajamas last weekend, quietly knitting her favorite teddy bear a little scarf when she drops a stitch and blurts out, “Oh fuck!” I’m so shocked I can’t speak. I stand over her searching for a severe reprimand and wind up just stammering, “What did you just say?! No. Stop! Don’t repeat yourself. I heard it. What are you thinking?” She’s uncharacteristically contrite, “I’m sorry Mommy. It just slipped out.” She apologies so sweetly that I calm down and forget about it. Until later, while walking with Myles, discussing a scene we read in Harry Potter. Harry and Ron are trying to save Hermoine from a mean giant troll and Ron yells, “Hey, pea brain!” Myles tells me he wouldn’t yell “Hey, pea brain” if he encountered a troll. “I’d be so freaked out!” he says. “I’d probably yell,” – and here Myles switches from chatting to actually yelling -- “Oh FUUUCK!” He resumes chatting, like what he just yelled across the entire village didn’t block all blood flow to my muscles. “I mean, a troll… I think that could really hurt if he hit you with his club…plus all his drooling and gross slobber… Mom? What are you doing?” I’m frozen, ten paces behind him, jaw open, no words coming out. “What?” he asks innocently. He really doesn’t realize he sounds like the most literate kid in the trailer park. Nobody around us seems fazed in the least. Fuck is such a common word here. The boys in his school use it all the time. Ditto Fiona’s classmates. I’m still not used to hearing it, especially from my kids’ mouths. But it is such a part of the Irish lingo that I think its edge has dulled. Radio announcers, TV commentators, newspaper columnists all use the word. Everyone calls Brian Cowen, the Irish Prime Minister, by his nickname, “Biffo,” which stands for Big Ignorant Fucker From Offaly. I was shocked to hear this, having assumed for months that Biff was just a cute pet name for Brian until our friend Sam explained the acronym. I asked Sam, a respectable member of the Royal College of Surgeons, if he didn’t think it was a tad disrespectful to the Prime Minister. “Disrespectful?” Sam replied, puzzled. “He can’t help it if he’s from County Offaly.” Sometimes I think I’m living in a sort of opposite universe where fuck is as benign a word as freckle, but pants means something really illicit. It’s hard for me to figure these things out, since I don’t have any close girlfriends here to ask. I would test out my theory on the other moms at school, but I’m too shy. I’d like to say, “Hey gals, fucking gorgeous weather this morning, huh?” just to see if I get any reaction at all. But the last conversation I had at drop-off didn’t go so well. A mom complimented me on my torn Levis. I was wearing black stockings underneath. “Oh, thank you Maeve,” I said. “I like to think the black peeking through somehow elevates my tatty pants.” She suddenly stopped smiling at me, and gracefully walked away to join up with her friends. I was confused about the cold shoulder, until Fiona told me that pants means underwear, which are usually called knickers, and trousers are what you wear to cover your legs. Great. Maeve thinks I wear jeans with holes to reveal my racy ripped lingerie. (“Fucking floozie,” she probably thinks when she sees me now.) Onto more evidence that supports my theory: Guys wave their middle fingers here to their friends in situations where American guys would high-five each other, and French guys would probably kiss each other. It’s a gesture that could mean ‘Great to see you;’ ‘Thanks for the lift;’ or ‘Later, dude,’ etc., depending upon the situation. But John brought forth the best evidence of all. He called me from his office on his birthday to report that it was the feast day of St. Fechin. “Who? St. Fucking?” I asked, pausing my grocery shopping. “You’re joking.” Curious about this Irish saint who shares a feast day with my husband, I’ve subsequently asked a fair number of people what they know about St. Fechin. Nobody yet has said, “crazy name for a saint, eh?” Nope. They all say something along the lines of “St. Fechin? He’s a martyr, maybe… forget exactly what he did. But I know the name well.”

Prime Minister Brian Cowen, aka Biffo

National Anthem

The Irish Times, this country’s paper of record, held a contest challenging readers to write a new national anthem. They published the winning entry on Monday. It epitomizes Irish humor on many levels, and I can’t do the song justice in words. I recommend a quick listen. You can hear it by logging onto http://www.irishtimes.com, type “National Anthem” in the search box and then you’ll be able to click on the blood boiling winning entry to hear it. I will provide the following background: the sheep’s baaaa in the song masks the word -- you guessed it -- “fucking.” The bits of Irish language (Gaeilge) spoken are meant to be ironic. (They are the first words Irish kids learn in elementary school: “one, two, three; yes teacher, I am present today.”) The mockery of the language has many cultural connections. Most Irish people find Gaeilge annoying: it’s an official language of the country, so the government mandates that all schoolchildren learn it well, and that all public signs, documents, etc. are written in it. It is practically a dead language, spoken only in a few remote regions by old codgers who people suspect just speak it for the government stipend involved. Yet it is, paradoxically, also a beloved language, as it’s revival at the turn of the century symbolized the rejection of English rule and the re-establishment of an independent Irish national identity. Finally, the current real Irish national anthem is in Irish, so nobody really understands it when it’s sung before sports matches.

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Ryanair

One of the best things about Ireland is it’s proximity to nicer countries. Michael O’Leary, Ireland’s most excellent entrepreneur of all time, seized upon this simple geographical fact and transformed a little fleet of jets into the largest international low-cost airline, called Ryanair. Thanks to Michael, the Irish have become a well-travelled bunch who sport tans in January and dine in London over long weekends. We’ve used our vague idea that it’s probably a good thing to live like Irish people do during our stay here to justify all sorts of indulgences, including taking advantage of cheap travel around Europe. We flew to the Canary Islands for New Years (pictured here), the French Alps in February and Croatia last week, returning just before airports shut down due to the hazards of flying through atmospheric volcanic ash. We’re following John to Bordeaux in May where he’s giving a lecture, then off to Florence for a few days, just because some friends asked us along. I know I’ll pay a steep cosmic price someday for the polar bear that’s sweating to death right now from all the carbon miles I’m racking up. But I’ll worry about that later. For the time being, I’m happy to be a flying pig, wallowing around in these low fares. Round trip to Paris? 25 euro! Budapest? 19.99! Ryanair travel is a bit like travelling on Southwest Airlines, except instead of landing in Omaha or Indianapolis, you debark in Tuscany or the Riviera. Ryanair keeps the fares cheap in part by eliminating all aspects of free service. Checking a bag costs 10 euro. Using the toilet in the cabin costs a euro. (While they last. Michael has announced that he is contemplating removing the lavatories in some of the shorter haul planes to make room for 2 more seats.) Typically, flights are completely full because Ryanair maximizes profits by savvy routing and passenger consolidation. The seats don’t recline, again to fit in more passengers. So you always feel like you’re sitting in the lap of the person next to you, who may or may not be your relative. Reserving seats costs extra too. Getting groped by your neighbor isn’t as bad as it sounds considering the savings, unless he’s a vomiter. Barf bags aren’t stocked, of course, so you have to bring your own. There are no seat pockets to stow them in, as that would add weight, and require someone to clean them out after each flight. (The cabins are possibly cleaned annually, provided there’s soap left in the lavatories because passengers were too cheap to pay a euro to pee.) There are no complimentary beverages or meals, but you can buy a drink or a sandwich, provided they haven’t run out, as they stock as few snacks as possible to keep the weight of the airplane as low as possible, to save on fuel. The friendly flight attendants smile all the time but really don’t have anything to do except sell these weird smokeless cigarettes that I think Michael invented to keep fidgety smokers calm while the plane bumps around because if it doesn’t land on time a large carrier will have parked its aircraft in Ryanair’s slot. Michael negotiates these really low rates with secondary airports, again to keep costs low, so Ryanair pilots are the ugly stepchildren of the airport scene. The pilot on our Croatian flight got into some sort of fight with the air traffic controllers on the ground in Zadar --something about not landing, no open space yet. The pilot landed anyway and literally stuck his head out of the window to carry on the argument as we were touching down. But he steered us to safety nevertheless, as Ryanair only hires multi-taskers, to save on labor costs. Mind you, I’m not ranting. I really love Ryanair. Sometimes, when I’m feeling naughty, I log onto their site and peek at the fares just to see where I could go for $50 – Biarritz, Bologna, Barcelona. I visualize myself wearing sunglasses because I actually need them … I’ve shed my wool sweater for a tank top… I’m speaking French… drinking prosecco…the fish isn’t battered and fried! The Ryanair site has become my internet porn. I close it quickly when I hear someone approaching and fake like I’m researching persistent pediatric coughing.

Wellington Boots

It rains a lot in Ireland. But the western part of the country is the wettest. So when we visit my mother-in-law in the west, we often wear Wellington boots. She maintains an admirable collection of man-sized Wellies for her two sons and their former schoolmates - who might visit to go fishing - because she believes sons are never too old to be dressed by thier mothers. She also has a growing collection of child-sized Wellies for her six grandchildren. Wellies are the perfect boot because they are entirely waterproof, slip-proof and immune to all trends in outerwear fashion. There are no coolmax liners to fuss with, no neoprene flaps, no gortex laces, no labels on the outside. Just 18 inches of thick rubber. Adult boots come in basically two colors, cowpat green and blackeye blue. I would wear them everyday in Ireland if my husband didn’t mock me for looking like a “culchie,” which I think is Irish for hillbilly. But my kids aren’t big fans. They are part of the Crocs generation. Shoes, to them, should ideally look like the paw of a cartoon animal, slip off easily and weigh just a few ounces. But, fundamentally, my kids don’t like Wellies because, like ducks and children worldwide, they don’t give a flying wallenda if their feet get muddy and wet. Wellie makers must have cottoned on to kids’ indifference to comfortably dry feet, so in order to appeal to this demographic that doesn’t need their product, they make kids’ boots in all sorts of colors and designs. Today I made the kids wear Wellies since it’s raining outside and I’m cold. Myles couldn’t find a masculine looking pair, so I dug out a girl’s pair, pointing out that they were blue. “But Mom, they’re also covered in pink and purple flowery umbrella thingies,” he objects. “Well, they’re mainly blue,” I say. “And umbrellas are for everyone.” He doesn’t buy the unisex argument anymore, ever since I made him wear a sailor suit that he later saw a photo of Fiona wearing years earlier. “I mean, Fiona and Isabelle wear these,” he protests, as if the boots hold some transferrable whiff of girliness. He finally relents when I mention that nobody will see them anyway since the nearest neighbor is a half mile away and, being a farmer, he'll be wearing Wellies today too. "Yeah, but his mom won't make him wear girl boots," Myles sighs. I mention his mother is probably dead, and Myles darts me a hard look and fleetingly wonders how hard it would be to just wipe me out and choose his own shoes. Luckily, he’s forgotten all about the boots when his grandmother later takes him into the village to buy milk. Any man in the village around mid-day here who is not drinking in a pub is probably a farmer or a lumberjack, provisioning some 8,000 calorie snack to keep himself going until tea time. After a couple of these brawny types ruffle his hair in the shop, he remembers the offending boots, pulls them off and spends the rest of the afternoon barefoot, re-contemplating the possibility of my demise.

Maybe It's a Goat

Fiona, Myles and I are visiting John’s mom this week in Clonbur, county Galway,while John spends most of the week working in Dublin. Grassy, rural and sparsely populated, Clonbur is our favorite place to play outside. But today’s icy rain and hail combined with a north wind makes playing outside rather dismal. Playing inside is fun, as long you move around the house enough to stay warm and oxygenated. The front two rooms of the house are filled with smoke from the smoldering peat and wood fire. I hang out long enough to get warm, which is about how long my eyes can tolerate the smoke. Once tears flow, I know it’s time to wander to the other end of the house to breathe. Lungs refilled with bracing cold air, I dance with the kids to the ABBA cd that they’ve been playing for 2 days. This helps keep us all warm. We used to not be able to play music in Granny’s house because she said she was tone deaf and didn’t like it. Now that she’s becoming just plain deaf she doesn’t seem to notice it. Fiona and Myles have spent the day making up games, including one that involved figuring out which small toys would stick to their cheeks after they licked them. I spend a lot of time staring out the window at the two sheep that have declared squatters’ rights in the yard. Out of sheer boredom, I find myself trying to convince my mother-in-law that one of them is actually a goat. She takes the bait. We’re both strong willed, and spend a lot of our time together subtly trying to prove the other wrong about unimportant things. It’s part of our dynamic. She’s far more stubborn and smarter than I am, so I usually lose the spar. I’m getting a total kick out the fact that I am really convincing her that this ugly old sheep is a goat. She pauses play to make dinner. She rarely accepts my help in cooking or grocery shopping because she says she likes to do these things for us when we visit, which is very sweet of her. But I do feel guilty. She makes us leftovers for dinner – cold ham and last night’s boiled cabbage and potatoes fried together and renamed “bubble and squeak.” This suits us very nicely, as my kids love debating which is the bubble and which is the squeak. As a leftovers queen myself, I love this tradition in English cookery. You mix up what you cooked last night and rebrand it with a charming name, such as Shepherd’s Pie. I think only English cuisine can withstand this second cooking without any change in flavor and texture. It’s a purely lateral move, culinary speaking. Dessert -- or “pudding” as it’s called in these isles -- is a different story. My mother-in-law says it doesn’t keep until the next day, so she never tolerates leftover dessert. She enforces this rule by making sure that everyone stays at the table and continues to eat the dessert she’s made until it’s gone. This sounds like delicious fun until you taste the dessert. Tonight it’s ‘steamed chocolate pudding,’ a soft greasy lump of smooth, slightly salty, wet brown dough. It’s entirely inedible. I later try to figure out how anything can taste so bad. Hard to say what precisely went wrong, but I discover that she used three different sorts of fat in the baking – lard, suet and margarine -- any of which could be rancid. Or perhaps the 23 year old cocoa powder is the culprit. I can’t date the cocoa powder exactly, since it was manufactured before expiration dates became mandatory. But based on the two clues I find on the can, it was purchased sometime in the eighties. It has a price tag in Irish pounds, so it pre-dates the euro. More tellingly, it has a recipe contest with a June 1987 entry deadline. I’m confident that the saltiness was imparted from the plastic tub it was steamed in, since the tub was recently used for steaming steak and kidney pudding. Luckily, the kids and I quickly realize we can hide the pudding in our bowls under the cream we’ve splashed on it. A few strategic smashes with our spoons make it look eaten enough. I can tell the kids share my stress about the forced finish-off-the-pudding rule, because I see them shifting their worried eyes between their grandmother and the remaining wet brown lump on the serving plate. She stands up, hand approaching the lump. Our throats tighten. “I don’t think this was one of my greater successes,” she says. “I think I’ll chuck the rest.” Whew. “If that animal out there were really a goat, I’d throw it outside, since goats will eat just about anything,” she says. She shoots me a hard stare. “But I realize you’re wrong,” she declares, through her wise half-smile. “It can’t be a goat, or else it would have rooted around in the compost. It’s a sheep.” Aarrgghh! She wins, again.

Good Friday

A judge in Limerick officially established last week that there are two institutions far more respected than the Catholic Church in Ireland: rugby and the pint. Rival teams Munster and Leinster face off tonight in Limerick’s Thomond Park stadium, the home of Irish rugby. Today is also Good Friday, and pubs, by law, aren’t allowed to open. But Irish pub owners -- collectively called Publicans -- are more omnipotent than the Church ever was (*). They lobbied to allow Limerick pubs to open on Good Friday and won. Pubs are to Irish sports fans what the watering holes in the Serengeti are to wildebeest and zebra: a place to socialize, lap up a lot of brown frothy drink, and forget about the stalking lion or the Celtic tiger. Rugby fans who aren’t ticketholders are far more likely to watch the match in a pub than on their couch at home. Pubs always post a list of match times on their door so passers-by know what the TV above the bar will be showing. The pub atmosphere during a match is really festive, in part because children are allowed in pubs and these half-pint fans often paint their faces the colors of their favorite team. Tomas, who with his family owns Burke’s Pub, our favorite place, told us while serving us a pint on Holy Thursday that he predicts this is the last year pubs will have to close on Good Friday. The Limerick judge’s ruling set a precedent, he says, that will open the doors of all Irish pubs by this time next year.

*The Catholic Church is no longer the omnipotent force in Irish society that it used to be, not simply because so many priests have been exposed as pedophiles and granted sanctuary by their superiors. Contraception and divorce have been legal for years; clergy no longer teach in public schools; shops are open on Sundays. Church pews lose out on Sunday mornings to warm beds, bike rides, leisurely lunches, anything really. And the Holy Hour was abolished decades ago. The Holy Hour was a 60 minute stretch on Sunday afternoons when pubs weren’t allowed to sell drinks. After its elimination, Good Friday and Christmas Day remained the only times when pubs, by law, had to close.