Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Hi all!

Last night, I got out of my sleeping, eating, reading slump and agreed to go to a class BBQ. I know, I know... I'm hear for SCHOOL! But I had a meeting with Tom yesterday morning, and I am not doing to badly and am right on schedule work-wise, so I decided to be sociable :)

For the past several days, there has been sunshine most of the days, which has been a HUGE blessing - and of course, the one day Nicole decides we need to celebrate (for any reason we chose), it decides to rain. A LOT. haha! so not surprised - and half-expected it!!!

So we all agreed to a potluck/covered-dish/whatever you call it, and we had pizza, flavoured tortilla chips, veggies and (hidden valley ranch - aka something you can't find in Eire) dip, garlic bread, potato salad, about every meat you can think of, and s'mores for dessert! There were 11 of us. lol!

The evening started out non-threatening... it hadn't actually rained, but had been overcast all day - a "grand, soft day," as the Irish say. It was also described as a "close" day, meaning kind of muggy... regardless -- we decided to risk it and spend what time we could outside on the deck. At one point, these tiny transparent snails started appearing on the tabletop and I got a little creeped out and had to move - I can't help it that I'm so weak.

ANYWAY!

So we all spent a little over an hour out on the deck visiting and catching up - some of us hadn't seen each other in nearly two months - and just before Diane & Eddie arrived, we decided to start up the grills.

Now, keep in mind: these are not "grills" perse. They are makeshift, temporary grills that are sold in grocery stores, made out of rectangular foil pans (the kind you put small hams in for Easter), laden with coals and covered with some kind of lattice grating. Overall, they are about 11x14x4. And we cooked something like 12 sausages, 6 chicken patties, 6 pork chops & 4 burgers on TWO of these things! AND we still managed to make the s'mores later that evening!!!

But. before we get to the s'more making, let us begin at the beginning:

The grilling began with 2 men (Jonathan and Dave) ACTUALLY READING DIRECTIONS on how to work the fake BBQs... we wanted a photo, but weren't quick enough on the draw. Oh well.

Then there was a 20min heat-up phase, during which guy # 3 (Eddie) arrived with most of the M-E-A-T*. And about 2 mins after the meat was placed onto the lattice, the rains came.

and it rained. and rained. and rained some more! At one point, there were 3 men, 2 grills and 4 umbrellas out on the deck --- and 8 women standing around the dining room table stuffing our faces and giggling**!

Once the food was cooked, less the steaks that were placed onto the George Foreman, the men returned to the dry indoors, changed clothes, and enjoyed the rest of the evening.

The rest of the evening was not terribly eventful -- but there was the free entertainment provided by #1 making s'mores over fake BBQs, #2 burning marshmallows with a mini-blowtorch-type apparatus, #3 watching a marshmallow expand in the microwave (the Irish had never done this and it drew a crowd...), and #4 singing respective national anthems (Jonathan & Eddie sang the Irish, Nicole and I attempted to sing the unsingable American, and Serena had us almost jumping up and cheering for the Italian "SI!") while waiting for our taxi.

And this is what my life is like outside of the 'usual'.

*Insert male, Tim Allen grunt here.
**This post is dedicated to the amazing men in the world who are willing to make food with fire while getting drenched in the process - it takes sacrifice!

(it's the little things...

...that make a person feel at home.)

For those of you who heard me whine about the weather here in Ireland while I was enjoying SK sunshine, I would like to state that yesterday was quite a nice day! It was warm and sunny with some clouds meandering in late afternoon... no complaining here!

I don't have much to say:

I flew for 22.5hrs and arrived into Castletroy around 7:30pm Tuesday & since then I have slept, ate and walked to the library (only to be disappointed that they did not have the books I ordered nearly 3 weeks prior through inter-library loans...).

Ireland did not change much in the past couple weeks - except for an obvious influx of tourists. There were lots of tourists before I left, but there are masses everywhere you look now. And I did find myself really happy when I heard the Irish flight attendant say "cheers" to one of the Amsterdam airport employees as he helped closed the plane door on my flight to Dublin... I had missed the quaint little "irishisms" and I am glad to return to a world where they are everyday lingo :)

On a different note, I miss everyone in Canada and am so glad I got to visit with as many people as I did! It was truly a special time for me and I am especially glad that I was able to celebrate my BFF's wedding! :)

I'm fairly certain I've reached a point of split-personality where I am in love with too many places and feel at home in all of them.

love you all...

I can sleep in August

so I don't really have much to say, but since I learned this past week at church camp that a heckuva lot more people read my blog than I thought -- and that one lady has my blog on her bookmarks, but is disappointed that I don't blog often enough -- I decided to send out a short update:

since arriving in SK after a 24hr unexpected delay in London, 50hrs of travel and about 10 hrs of sleep in 5 days, I decided to get exceptionally ill, hang around Stoon for a couple days waiting for my luggage which had been missing for 3days, have a dress-fitting for the wedding I'm standing up in, get one bag, and go to camp a couple days late...

I love going to camp! It is such a wild experience going to a place where "everybody knows your name"*. I was told about 30 mins (and 50+ hugs) after my arrival that I needed to stop being so nice to people. The person who made that remark was not very thrilled** that our conversation was being interrupted by greetings and hugs and hellos from people I love... so apparently, I must expose abrasive-Steph to people from now on in order to maintain decent conversations with my faves... :)

lots happened at the camp, but not much of it was actually story-worthy. I am most excited about the fact that I was able to visit with nearly everyone I needed/wanted to - that's about 200ppl - in the course of 3.5days! I love them all so much...

since the camp, I have begun to feel a little better - I got over my jetlag on Friday-ish - and the illness is subsiding. I have helped Ang pack a trailer-full of tables & chairs, had my second dress-fitting, gone through about 18 boxes of stuff I had in storage all year, recycled 5 boxes o'stuff, gave 2 boxes to Sherie, packed one box to bring back to Eire and left 10 boxes in storage for future shipping to SC, and got some research started/continued on chapter 2 of my thesis... not too shabby!

the rest of my week is mostly wedding-stuff: one more fitting tomorrow or thurs, some pre-decorating stuff tomorrow afternoon, some research squeezed in whenever possible, and then on the road to PV for the weekend, woot!!! :)

I think that's all for now, love you all ~
Steph

*I just started singing the "Cheers" theme song in my head...
**more of a joking, smartmouth remark than actual irritation

Greyhound flashbacks...

for those of you who don't know my Greyhound story - the title is probably odd - but trust me, it was so much more dramatic and painful than the current saga:

took a 4am bus from UL to Dublin Airport on Saturday. Arrived an hour early - good start, eh? WRONG. after being awake since 630am Friday morning (less a few tiny naps), I crashed on the mezzanine level and got caught sleeping by a custodian. I found out that Aer Lingus and Northwest Airlines are not networked together, so I was only able to checkin for the Aer Lingus flight - and had no boarding pass for the last 2 flights. once I was able to check in my luggage, I went up to grab some breakfast and buy some souvenirs for friends. (fyi: spar at the airport does not carry full size toothpastes - nor does anywhere else in the Dublin airport!).

11:20 plane leaves around 11:40 and arrives in london 20 mins late. after waiting to get someone to unlock the door into the building, I make my way to the train and then on to terminal 4. I find the NWA/KLM desk only to find out that (after 30+min of cross-airport travel) my first flight landed 5 mins after boarding for my transatlantic flight closed - and since I was not checked in, I was restricted from the flight.

flight changed to 24hrs later.

back on train - to Aer Lingus desk. they comped me 2 meals and a hotel for the night. ummm... maybe I should say "motel" in the shape of a "hotel". the bathroom wasn't clean and my hairdryer had blue sparks flying out of it when I tried to put it on high.

managed to find a grocery store with my friend's toothpaste, YAY!

crashed. with no fan. for 11 hrs. :) I guess I can sleep without a fan after a 3-day conference and being awake for the greater part of 60hrs!

today, I arrived at Heathrow 3hrs in advance. got to the check-in counter with my boarding passes to make sure my baggage was checked through on this flight, but NO. That would make life too easy! :)

The airport had no record of my baggage. 2 NWA employees and 30min later, they found my bags and told me to check with NWA after I crossed security to make sure that NWA had them logged into their system. Did that. The lady SAID it was there, but to check with the people at the counter to double (in this case, quadruple)-check. checked with the employees at the boarding gate - was told that the luggage "would" be on my flight.

flight sat on the ground for nearly an hour, spent the first 2hrs in the air without audio/video because the system kept crashing, arrived in Minneapolis after nearly 10hrs on a plane... to NO LUGGAGE.

spoke with 2 NWA employees in MSP who informed me that there is NO record of NWA ever having my baggage, that London hires out employees who are contracted and not actual NWA staff, and that the people in London probably (and I quote) "just told me that my luggage was on the flight to keep the line moving".

so this trip, I have cried, once again -- but not in the good way!!!

:)

*sigh*

still in MSP. called the 800# and complained. can't file a missing baggage claim until Canada if I want my luggage to be shipped to me in SK on NWA's tab and then it will be an additional 24-48hr minimum before my luggage arrives.

if it arrives. my luck with missing luggage is all or nothing. should be 'interesting'.

PS
my scrapbook, my primary thesis texts, and the books I bought at the conference are all in my checked luggage...

I hope to never repeat this experience & I honestly wish I could get out of flying with NWA on my return flight, but that is not an option, eh?

later!

Howdy!

I just wanted my Canadian folks to know that I had several mini-Canada day celebrations throughout today... random outbursts of "OH Canada" and "HAPPY CANADA DAY!" in public places, haha! Nicole warned me that she'd have to disown me if I embarrassed her :)

Anyway, not much else to say. I got that chapter written, 4 days late, and have bumped my future deadlines back a week, so I don't have another one due until a week after I return from SK. (WOOT! about the SK part, not about the returning - or the chapter-writing)

This week, I am helping out a little with a Utopian Studies conference hosted by The Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies at my university and will be pretty busy until I hop on the bus to Dublin for my FLIGHT Sunday -- so for those of you I get to see in less than a week - YAY!!! - I am terribly excited!!!

okay - off to bed now - registration for the conference begins in 8 hrs.

what a boring post. sorry.