Happy Birthday Barry

Tomorrow the 28th is Barry's birthday so I thought I'd post some pictures of him.  He's nearly 40 ya know.  :)

At the Seattle Aquarium on our honeymoon.

On our Alaskan cruise on our honeymoon.

Freezing our badonkadonks off while whale watching in Alaska.

Coming this February

Barry and I have been keeping quiet on this, but now since we've entered the "less dangerous period," we're telling everyone.  Well, I'll just show you.

That's a little teeny baby there.  Due on February 6, 2012.  He/she had the hiccups yesterday when we had the first scan.

Now, if I could just find something I want to eat, I'd be rocking!  Everything makes me want to gag and the only thing I actually want to eat is Taco Bell and as you know...there are no Taco Bells here in Ireland.

Drivey McDriverson

With a couple of sunny days (for a change) headed our way here, Barry and I decided to take a little road trip down to Newcastle.  It's a small seaside town, but it was crammed full of tourists.  We arrived after a two hours car ride where I got to drive for the first time here since we rented an automatic car for the journey.  Trying to find an automatic here to rent is a challenge to say the least, but we did it.

Barry was a mean wee driving teacher.  After yelling at me several times, he calmed down.  But, he was still scared shitless, so he looked like this most of the time ( Dunno why...I was quite good.):

Since our trip was so last minute, we didn't have a wonderful choice of hotels to stay at. Plus we wanted something cheapy cheap...which we definitely got.  Here is our hotel...Hotel de Shit Hole (that's not really the name of it):

Even though it wasn't the Four Seasons, it had a phenomenal view (these were taken from our window).:

Here is where we took in the view.:

To get to our room with a view, we had to navigate the old hotel's maze of a layout where we had to go through a section directly above the kitchen where they "cooked" the "food."   I use the quotations because we're still not convinced what they were cooking was food.  It smelled like hot garbage as you can see from my delightful expression.:

Then, we took a walk where we spotted things like this:

Then, we watched this little fella (a Black Guillemot):

That is all.

Washing machine woes

I don't know why it seems the majority of blog posts are about laundry or the washing machine.  Post like this one where I shamelessly begged for someone to come and do my laundry, or this one where I told the tale of Barry's help with laundry or this one, where I mentioned the first time I used a washing machine here in Ireland (they're different than U.S. ones).  Well, I don't know why that is, but I'm gonna do it again.

Our washer.

Here goes.  The first time doing laundry here in our apartment, I had to ask Barry what compartment to put the laundry detergent in.  It is a front load washer so you don't really just dump the powder or liquid inside like you would for a top load (and that's what I'm used to).  There is a drawer on the top of the machine that pulls out and has three compartments.  There are no instructions on the drawers that tell you where to put the detergent.  I studied it very hard.  So, way back in March, I ask Barry, "What compartment do you put the detergent in?"  Naturally, I just figured he would be the appropriate person to ask since, well, it was his apartment and his washer and he'd been using it for years.  "In the first compartment," he says confidently.  Alrighty, first compartment it is.  I load it up with detergent, turn it on and there ya have it.

After several washes, we notice the clothes aren't really smelling fresh, or clean so we assume it's the detergent we're using.  We change detergents.  Still, even with the new detergent,  the clothes just don't smell right.  We change detergents again.  Same result.  We repeat this cycle about four times and with each new detergent, we're still getting stale smelling clothes.

We finally look deeper into the issue today(yes, it took us 3 1/2 months.  Don't judge.) and with the help of the internet, we downloaded the manual for our washing machine.  Turns out, the drawer I was so confidently told to put the detergent in was incorrect.  Instead, it should have been put in drawer 2! So, alas, the mystery behind the smelly, "clean" clothes appears to be caused by bad advice from the washing machine OWNER and because the detergent wasn't even getting to the clothes to start with.  We'll see how this goes.  We have a load going now.  Hopefully, this time the detergent is in the right drawer and they finally smell fresh!

Catheters are great

Barry was in the hospital this week for surgery.  He had to share his room with three other men.  They were older gentlemen all in for different things, but the one thing they had in common was a catheter.  Barry was actually the only one in the room that didn't have to have a catheter.  What follows is a catheter tale.

The night before surgery, Barry was lying in his bed.  One of the roommates (we'll call him Theo) had just returned from surgery.  They were chatting and then suddenly Theo starting making noises.  Something along the lines of "ummmm...errrrrrr."  Barry asked what was wrong.  Theo then asked each man in the room if they had in catheters.  Two of them responded that they did and Barry said no.  They asked him why.  Theo said, "Oh, I thought I had one.  I just wet the bed."  Poor guy.  Although they had a nice laugh over it, I suppose the hospital staff should always tell you when you are catheter free.

The conversation remained on catheters.  Another man in the room (we'll call him Duke), starting talking about catheters.  "Catheters are great.  You don't have to get up to use the toilet," he says.  If you ask me, I'd say I'd prefer to get up to use the bathroom, but whatever you say Duke.  But, Duke didn't stop there...oh no.  He continues, "The only problem with him is that you can't get an erection and you can't go to the beach when you have a catheter."  Um, whaaaaaa?  Because the two go so perfectly together...erections and beaches?  And, do you normally get erections at the beach?  Totally confused by that one.  I'm hoping he meant because you can't go the beach with a pee bag (that's the medical terminology for it, too) attached to you, but hey, you never know.  Maybe he's like this guy:

Google Image Search (Yes, I searched for the term "beach erections.")

So there you go.  Catheters are great except when it comes to those pesky beach erections.

Airline rudeness

I'm baaaaaack.  I just returned from my visit to America...with an expanded waistline thanks to the culinary delights of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, TCBY, Olive Garden, Cracker Barrel and Quaker Steak and Lube (and that's just to name a few!)

Anyway, I'm not going to go in to exactly how much weight I put on, instead, I'm going to talk about the general rudeness of airport employees.  Now, I'm not new to airline travel, but I've never really had incredibly rude people to deal with before when I've traveled...until this past time and especially in Newark. I hate that airport, always have and even more so now.

When I arrived in Newark last week, I filled out my little landing card/customs form that all international passengers have to fill out and I waited patiently in line for the next customs agent (Yes, I know that they are not technically airline employees but he was working in an airport, so I group him in to this bitch fest).  Once I get up to the counter.  The guy goes through the standard questions like what were you doing in Ireland...blah blah blah, etc.  Since I don't know the customs agent's name, we will call him Too Much Power, actually just TMP for short.  Here is our conversation:

TMP: So, what were you doing in Ireland?
Me:  I live there.
TMP: (Looks at me funny.)You live there?  Well, on your landing card you say your country of residence in the United States.
Me: (Yes, I know I put that as my country of residence but technically I don't have a residence card in Ireland, just a Family Permit, so I figured I was correct.)  Yes, I did.  That's because I don't have a residence card there, only a Family Permit (I flip my passport to show him the permit).
TMP:  Doesn't matter.  Your country of residence is where most of your stuff is.
Me:  (Um, WTF?  That makes no sense. He's clearly picking this out of his ass now.)  Well, I'm in the process of moving, so actually most of my stuff is here in the U.S. (Even though I technically am done moving, the rest of this is actually correct if you'd see the amount of my crap stored in my mom's building so most of my stuff is in the U.S., and this guy just gave me a loophole and I'm not going to be wrong, dammit.)
TMP: Mmm hmmm.  Well, for next time you need to put your country of residence as Ireland on the card.
Me:  Well, I don't see what next time has to do with this time and once I'm done moving I will.
TMP: (Trying to be nice.) So, what made you move to Ireland?
Me:  (Not in the mood to be nice after all that, so I just remain silent as he stamps my passport.  Luckily he only asked once.)

After my stimulating conversation with TMP, I searched for my gate to my connecting flight.  Once I located the screen, my flight was the ONLY flight that didn't have the gate number.  So, I had to rely on the gate number that was printed on my airline confirmation sheet even though those rarely stay the same and it wasn't printed on my boarding pass either.  So, here I go. I locate the gate and start to go through security.  A mean 'ol lady stopped me (she worked there).  "What's your gate number?" she barked.   "I'm not sure.  It isn't on my boarding pass and it isn't on the screen," I say. "Hmm mmm.  You need to know your gate number.  Go over there," she snarls, with major attitude dripping down her body.  "Over where?" I ask since she only waved a general direction and the only thing I could see was a Jamba Juice.  Unless, I was boarding a Mango smoothy, I didn't think the Jamba Juice was the correct place to be.  "You need to go to the United gate security, not here," she mocked.  I was pissed at this point at how rude she was being.  I mean, come on.  I didn't work at the airport, how was I to know that United had there very own special gate with security?  I'd never seen it anywhere else.  So, anyway, unable to control my anger (I get like that sometimes) I said (or yelled depending on how hard of hearing you are), "What's with your attitude.  Just because you know where everything is around here doesn't mean everyone else does!  You need to calm down!"  Then, I turned on my heel and walked away in the direction of Jamba Juice.  I didn't dare make eye contact with anyone as I was certain they were staring at me...hopefully I entertained them.  Anyway, I did finally figure out where the gate was, but no thanks to anyone that worked there.

Since I've rambled on quite a bit, I won't go in to the lady working the counter in Charleston who wanted to charge me $200 for a bag that was six pounds overweight.  I freaked out on her, too.  And, thanks to the handiness of an extra Wal-Mart bag doubling as a carry-on, I didn't pay $200.