Dublin

"I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book."  James Joyce 

On my last visit to Dublin, with Steve, we suddenly found ourselves at the Wax Museum in Dublin.   After visiting Trinity College to view the Book of Kells, and having an enormous lunch at O'Neills,

(only in Ireland do you get potatoes with your potatoes!) we had time to use before we could check into Barnacles, so we used our discount from the Dublin Hop on Hop Off bus to check out the wax museum.

It was very entertaining.  They start you out in the Writer's Room, where sat James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Peter Kavanaugh, Samuel Beckett and Brendan Behan.

Some of the figures appeared strangely real.  

Now I have been fascinated with Irish writers for awhile.  I picked up Ulysses at the library, but didn't have any time to actually sit down with it and read.  In college we touched on the subject of Joyce and Ulysses.  I have always wanted to actually read the book.   So while walking along a street in Galway, I drug Steve into a bookstore.   I found a paperback of Ulysses for 3 Eruos  and while perusing the store I also bought a biography of a journalist (man) who spent a year living on the Aran Island of Inis Mor.  Now after visting that island, i just had to purchase this book also.  Am I the only person who goes to Ireland  and brings back books?

Our last day in Dublin we were signed up for the Literary Pub Crawl.  Now I am here to say this is well worth the effort.  We stopped in at Davey Byrnes pub for supper and a drink before we checked in at The Duke to begin the pub crawl.   I was going to order a Gorgonzola sandwich, but they were out, so I had a bowl of soup and brown bread.   Now the pub crawl also ends at Davey Byrnes pub (after a stop at O'Neills and the Strand) and we learned that James Joyce frequented  Davey Byrnes, while writing Ulysses, eating a gorgonzola sandwich, he set a scene in Davey Byrnes pub.  

So now I really need to sit down and read the book.  I believe I will have time this fall, when I can sit in front of a fire in the fireplace with a cup of tea and read.

It's Hockey Night in Urbana!

"Always keep your composure. You can't score from the penalty box; and you need to score to win." Bobby Hull


Wow!  I a can barely believe the Illini Ice Hockey season starts today!  I stopped in at the ice arena and picked up tickets for Friday's game.

The team will be quite different this year, both goalies graduated, and they were awesome.  A lot of players are new.   I am excited to be in the ice arena again, hear the roar of the crowd and see the Illini skate.

Thanks to the full moon

Backing out of the drive way this morning I was struck with how beautifully the sun was rising.  The sun was peeking out of the bottom of a cloud and was quite lovely.   Then I headed west and was awestruck.  The full moon was enormous and bright in the western sky.  Living on the prairie has some advantages, such as seeing a large portion of sky. I am fairly certain the autumnal equinox is one of my favorite times of the year.


So, I just returned from a week in Ireland.  A magical, transformative week, and I have been longing to be there still. Having to return to work and get back to normal, not to mention I came home to an empty house, which was terribly difficult, has been a struggle.  The glow from the week in Ireland has been keeping me going.   So when I saw the sun and the moon this morning( I wish the weather had cooperated and stayed cool instead of being terribly warm) I felt very good about being here in Illinois.


It was an amazing week in Dublin, Wicklow, Glendalough, Galway, The Burren ( including a delightful lunch in the town of Doolin) the Cliffs of Moher, and Inis Mor one of the Aran Islands.  The people are delightful, and full of stories, the pubs are amazing, one could spend a lot of nighttime in just about any pub and be perfectly happy.

The beauty of the countryside was truly awesome.  I really could have stayed for several days in each place we visited.


Dublin, while being a big city is fair indeed, like the song says. There is so much to do and see and historic pubs to visit. You can sit in a pub where James Joyce sat eating Gorgonzola sandwhiches and having a few pints (which i did actually) and visit a pub where Michael Collins held meetings. It is just amazing.  Really!


Here is a bit of a tribute to Dublin:

In Dublin's fair city,

where the girls are so pretty,

I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,

As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,

Through streets broad and narrow,

Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

"Alive, alive, oh,

Alive, alive, oh",

Crying "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh".

She was a fishmonger,

But sure 'twas no wonder,

For so were her father and mother before,

And they each wheeled their barrow,

Through streets broad and narrow,

Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

(chorus)

She died of a fever,

And no one could save her,

And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.

Now her ghost wheels her barrow,

Through streets broad and narrow,

Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh

This statue of  the fictional Molly Malone is at the corner of Sussex and Grafton Street and near Trinity College.   The locals call her the "tart with the cart" or the "trollop with the scallop". They love to sing the song to tourist and there is ALWAYS a female tourist getting her photo made with Molly.  It is truly delightful.

Urbana Sweet Corn Festival

"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love." Sophocles


One might ask, " What does love have to do with the Urbana Sweet Corn Festival?"  Well I will tell you.
Two years ago, the Urbana Sweet Corn Festival began on Friday evening August 22. I met Steve at the Courier Cafe that evening.  I wasn't feeling the best i have ever felt  and he had to go to work at 11:00pm, but that meeting changed my life.  So thank you Urbana Sweet Corn Festival!


 The next weekend on August 31 Steve picked me up and we took off for the Allerton Barn Music Festival to see Pacifica Quartet.  This was the beginning  of the best relationship I have ever had.


Now, two years later we will be at the Urbana Sweet Corn Festival on Saturday to eat some corn, Xinh Xinh will be serving Sweet Corn Egg rolls and Sweet corn Naitaing, and there will be ears of sweet corn and lemon shake ups and snow cones!   Then a chance to hear the Delta Kings.


It will be fun to be on the streets of downtown Urbana eating sweet corn.  I love it that Steve and I met during the Sweet Corn Festival and he use to grow corn.  Sort of corny, but it makes me smile!

My university town

"I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances."

Martha Washington

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Recently, I read a blog post, about the town I live in and it painted Urbana-Champaign in a very negative light.

I have been reading this person’s blog, off and on for a few years.  I stopped reading because I just couldn’t take it anymore, all the negativity.

So I began searching for some positive attitude quotations and was delighted to find Martha Washington expressing exactly how I feel about life and happiness.

I have had a tremendous amount of change in my life. I, like Martha, learned from all this change (yes some of if was terribly sad change) that I am responsible for my happiness. I don’t look to the circumstance I am placed in to be happy. I look to myself, and my attitude.

I was also happy to find my dear old friend Ralph Waldo Emerson had something to say about positive attitudes. I can always count on Emerson to have exactly the right words, that I cannot come up with on my own.

My town, Urbana-Champaign, has so much to offer anyone who is willing to make the effort to be happy.

I was at the wine tasting yesterday at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.  This is a free event, you don’t have to spend anything if you don’t want. There were two young

children running around playing while the parents, tried the wine and listened to the music. 

I was happy to see that these parents brought the kids along to be around a variety of people, to hear some good guitar music and to just have the chance to experience something other than the pop culture icons the children of today are bombarded with.

University towns have so much to offer everyone that is fortunate enough to live in them, especially families .

My children are grown, we always lived in university towns, and loved them all. My children were given as many opportunities and experiences we could give them. We did not rely soley on the current pop culture children’s tv and video of the day, or on just play dates. We brought our girls to just about every event we went to and let them have people of all ages to talk to and be around.

So for anyone coming to Urbana-Champaign, welcome and seek to find the best we have to offer.

Falling

"The existing phrasebooks are inadequate. They are well enough as far as they go, but when you fall down and skin your leg they don't tell you what to say."  Mark Twain




Lately I seem to be even more clumsy than normal.  I have now fallen down twice in the last two weeks!
It has been quite awhile since my last fall, which was on the street in Chicago, but twice in two weeks is just crazy!


I know I have been preoccupied, but both times that I have fallen, I was in a pretty good mood, happy even, at least on the conscious level, and those falls seem to have come out of nowhere.


The first fall, i caught my shoe in a crack in the sidewalk going in to work. I went face first, down on the ground, splat. Bruised and slightly embarrassed, okay really.


Yesterday, I worked all day, went to the gym and did cardio for 45 minutes, then lifted weights for about 35 minutes. Feeling energized, and sweaty,  I proceeded to pull the extremely long blades of grass that were hiding my zinnias ( I mean you could probably make a thatched roof out of that grass).  Tired and even more sweaty, I went in and fed the dogs and let them out.   I proceeded to shower. It felt great, washed my hair and everything.   I through on a big tee shirt, hair in towel and started down the now empty hallway to let the dogs in.   When out of nowhere, my still wet foot slipped on the wood floor and down I went, with my knee bent and my lower leg behind, as if I was actually doing quadricep exercises!
Well I lay there in astonishment, for about 10 seconds, that I was actually on the ground again.  I then began to laugh and cry at the same time. Finally, I got up let the dogs in, combed my hair, fixed some nachos and got in bed with an ice pack on my knee!


Did that get me down? No way.  I got up dressed and went to the movies with my dear friend at 9:15pm!


I think maybe I had better keep my mind on just walking and try to actually stay upright for a while.

Advice

No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work 

Mother Teresa

The other day I came across this absolutely marvelous quotation from Mother Teresa.  Now I think Mother Teresa is one of the true heroes of our times. She was totally amazing and helped so many people.

This simple little statement made me smile. I guess I have been a person who listens to what people say, but I seem to always do things the way I want them done.  I am quite sure I am different than a lot of other people.

Take my gardens for instance, I love the patch of Queen Ann's Lace that started growning in my front yard. One year I sprinkled some wild flower seeds in a small patch of dirt in the front of the house. For a year nothing came up, then a few Queen Ann's Lace appeared.  Now there is a fine bit of wild flowers just growing.  I will have to thin them out next year if they come back, but I find them totally beautiful!

My other flower gardens are sort of haphazard, and right now are overcome with grasses, which are just too persistent,  which I haven't had time to remove because I have been totally consumed with getting Regena ready for her move to LA  and spending a lot of quality time with her doing fun things.

Now I will have time to attack those grasses.  

So thanks Mother Teresa for such words of wisdom and for all the help you gave people for your life.