My latest attempt to keep the Euro from kicking my tail; inspired by a billboard I saw while waiting for the bus the other day.
No, it doesn’t work.
My friend Sean’s grandfather is a hale and hearty 80 years old. He talks politics, walks upright, drives at night, and makes his own jam from the fruits and berries in his garden. He serves that homemade jam with his homemade bread when he sits us down for tea. What an absolutely lovely man. We saw him recently when we went down to Cork a few weeks ago for Sean’s brother’s college graduation. Sean’s great aunt – also in her 80s – arrived to dinner; stooped and pushing a walker. Sean’s grandad carried the walker for her while someone else helped her down the stairs.
It must feel great, I think, to be 80 and helping out other folks your own age.
“Ah,” says Sean. “But he keeps himself well. He never drinks. He eats fish all the time.”
And, Sean adds, his Grandad eats Flahavan’s porridge every morning.
“Hold on,” I said. “Porridge?” I imagined Sean’s grandfather woken up by a cruel schoolmaster’s whip at 5 every morning, before being flung into a dining hall full of screaming street urchins for a breakfast of pale, watery slop.
“Of course,” Sean says. “Porridge. Don’t ye have it in America?”
“No. We’re a first world country.”
“Backwards, the lot of ye.”
Later, we’re shopping for groceries and we’re in the grain aisle.
“Look,” Sean says. He points to a square bag emblazoned with the words Flahavan’s and a picture of a bowl of what looks like nice, healthy oatmeal. “That’s what my grandad eats.”
Porridge is oatmeal?
Well, more or less – the former (popular in the UK and Ireland) is made from steel cut oats whereas the latter (traditional in America and Canada) is made from rolled oats but the end result of both oat treatments is hot cereal. Two words for hot oaten cereal, such powerfully different connotations … at least for me; an American who’d mostly heard the word “porridge” linked with Dickensian urchins. There was that Goldielocks kid, I suppose, but I always figured the moral of that story was that greediness = bad, especially if you’re so greedy you meet your end because you can’t even resist orphan food.
Often, British-English words seem fancy to Americans – a cookie is something we cram in our mouths by handfuls after a break up but a biscuit is something we’d have with high tea … if biscuits weren’t delicious handfuls of buttery fluff eaten with fried chicken, that is. You’d buy garbage bags at a store and artisan candy at a shop. But when it comes to those British-English words that sound so fine to us, porridge is one notable exception.
Oatmeal:
- Heart-smart
- Healthy
- Filling
- Satisfying
- Hearty
- Pioneer
- Quaker
- Traditional
- Plain
It’s warm, it’s cozy, it’s a fuel rocket in the stomach. A 19th century Fishermen might eat it on a cold, blustery morning before whaling. Thar she be, lads – sup ye hearty afore the sky be red. Quakers brewed it after long days quilting and fluffing oatstalks with a pitch fork. That be good, sister Prudence. Thank thee, brother Essence. That’s nutrition. That’s oatmeal.
Porridge:
- Industrial Revolution
- Coal
- Soot
- Tuberculosis
- Starving orphans
- Hair selling
- Orphanages
- Cruel headmasters
- Cruel cooks
- Cold, London rain
Porridge is what you eat when you’re poor, when the nuns have given you to the foundry. You’ll see he has a bit of cheek in him, Mr. S____. And his parents – poor as church mice and dead of the consumption. See that he minds you; feel free to give him the strap or box his ears if he doesn’t. The Quaker versus the Urchin – for me, oatmeal wins every time.
“You should eat more porridge,” says Sean. “It’s good for you. Just look at my grandad.”
He’s right. I should eat more oatmeal, even if I always want it to taste like grits so I can put Tabasco on it. High cholesterol runs in my family and it wouldn’t hurt me to have oats instead of cake once in a while.
“I’ll buy us a bag, so,” he says. “We’ll have it for breakfast.”
Sean is making some for us right now. He’s brewing it on the stove, thick with low-fat milk. I’ve got my little bowl in hand and hope he’ll give me seconds.
We live in an old Victorian home. The home’s old bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, etc have been quartered off to form apartments. The entrance of the home is as it was back in its hey day – a carpeted foyer leading to a long, winding up staircase with sturdy white banisters. In front of the staircase is a wooden drawing table, under a gilt-framed mirror. There is a basket on the table. That is where all of the residents of the building receive their mail.
I’ve been rifling through this basket for the past two weeks, looking for anything sent to me. In doing so, I can’t help but learn the names of my neighbors. There are about 10 of us as far as I can tell; a mix of Polish, me, and Irish. Such lovely, lyrical Irish names there are, the surnames starting with “O”s, the given names sprinkled with double consonants, strings of vowels, and unfamiliar dipthongs like”mh” and “bh”. I want to say them out loud – names like poetry themselves – but worry that if I do, I’ll pronounce them badly and be laughed at by Sean or, worse, be caught mumbling them like a prayer just as someone else comes to get their mail.
“Hi, is it Aoife at Number 10?” they might say. “I’m Seoirse at Number 11. I’ve been meaning to tell you that I like your morning music mix.”
The morning music coming from Number 10 would have been Celine Dion and James Blunt so there was no way I could possibly pretend to be Aoife. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. I’m not her.”
“But you’re holding her ESB bill.”
“Oh, that. Ha ha. I thought it was mine. Darn dim lighting! Can’t see a thing.”
“Ah. Is it Aine at Number 8, then?”
“Er, no, I’m not.”
“Oh. Which one is it, then?”
“I’m Liv at Number 15.”
“Liv at Number 15?”
“Yes.”
“And you thought Aoife’s ESB bill was yours?”
“Yes.”
I’m Liv – nice to meet you. But you can call me Snoopy.
Only a couple of weeks in our new neighborhood and already I’m making friends.
Patch was my first neighborhood buddy. I met him outside his apartment building, where he was relaxing on the steps. He made the first move, leaping up from his roost to snuggle himself against my legs. Purr, purr, purr. Nuzzle, nuzzle, nuzzle. I call him Patch ’cause he only got one eye, like a pirate. Every time I pass his house, he ambles over to say meow do you do? Sometimes, he walks home with me to give us a little more time to catch up. We always part ways happily, knowing that we will soon see each other again.
Sean does not like Patch.
“Don’t you go getting attached to these dirty street cats!” he warns. “They’ll bite you.”
“Not Patch! He never would. We’re friends. And he’s not dirty; he lives at Number 15.”
“How do you know that?”
“He’s always there and he has a collar with a bell on it.”
“He could still bite you.”
“Not Patch!”
Personally, I think Sean’s just jealous that there’s a new man in my life. He also happens to be jealous of Patch’s friends who haven’t quite accepted me yet. I see them convening on the steps of Patch’s house with him, Jellicle Cats come out tonight. Every once in a while one of them eyes me with interest, only to streak into a backyard as I approach. I am, however, making some good headway with a beautiful gray kitten I see lounging outside of Number 25. She sniffs my hand and appears playful. Just the other day, she crossed her yard to say hello to me, just as Patch does. I call her Cleo.
Sean and I walk down our street and I wave to my friends.
“Hey, Patch,” I say. “Hi there, Cleo. What’s going on?”
“Stop getting attached to these cats,” says Sean. “It’ll only make it harder on you when you leave.”
He just doesn’t understand.
Q: How do you make a Grafton Street living statue move?
a) Tickle him
b) Stick a pin in him
c) Shout into his ear
d) Attempt to film the pigeon who has roosted on his shoulder and begun eating out of his pipe
A: “d”
I’m sorry, statue man. I wasn’t trying to make you ruin the effects of your performance; I just thought the pigeon on your shoulder was really cool and didn’t think you’d mind.
It’s an exciting time to be in Ireland – native, tourist, or foreigner. It’s a time of debate, a time of political discontent; it’s the second time the Lisbon Treaty has been offered to the Irish public. I’d read a bit about it in various blogs before arriving, but once I stepped out of the airport, the multitudes of Vote Yes! Vote Nil! signs threatened to block out the emerald green foliage. The same smug, black-and-white man and woman on the Yes! posters follow me home from City Centre every day, and I can’t help but overhear bits of arguments about it over dinners. Some are angry that it’s the same thing brought to the table again as though the “No” decision meant nothing. Some say, “Europe – why not?”
As a non-Irishperson, whether to vote Yes or Nil is none of my business: I’m more fascinated in the sociopolitical climate that sets the scene for my early days in Ireland. I’m interested in the movie preview ads stating just what the EU does for Ireland. I’m gazing at the fascinating crop of graffiti on the posters plastered all over town. Sean’s relatives – who he’s told me are non-political – discuss it freely over graduation dinners and I cock an ear, nosy to hear who thinks what.
It’s not my business, but I suppose I’m allowed to say that there seems to be a lot of hype and propaganda on both sides; buzz phrases aimed at the emotional but uninformed. Just when I thought the American political parties had the monopoly on that kind of thing.
Today is finally Voting Day. Sean has gone down to Cork to vote – his first time. I, a non-Irishperson, am very interested in knowing what happens.
Amid the whirl of graduate school applications, international moves, apartment hunting and just plain ol’ adjusting to my third international move in as many years, it has failed to hit me until just recently that I am going to be a student again. As such, I must register at school and pose for a Student ID card. My student ID card affords me loads of glorious, glorious discounts – meals, bank accounts, internet service, bus tickets, even haicuts. All discounted, all for me with a magic wave of my card. After 7 years in the “real world,” I’m really and truly a student again. It’s an odd realization, but not an unpleasant one.
There are surprises around every turn, and I haven’t even begun school yet. For example, I walked through the leaf-shaded campus the other day and stumbled into a student society fair. A band played, jugglers juggled, and a variety of free goodies were being offered at the maze of booths: a bottle of free dishsoap to pay dues for the Drama Club, a somewhat fresh brownie with each Hurling Club membership. Yet another thing I’d forgotten about student life: clubs. One more? Spastic teenagers bursting free from home for the first time. The things you forget in 7 years of letting your brain turn to cheese. Yoga was the group I wanted to join, but in trying to find that booth, I wound up joining the Literary Society as well as the Japanese Club. Apparently, I can get a semester’s worth of classes for 15 euro – unimaginable in Japan. And, yes, I would love a free cup of ocha with that. Mochiron ya.
There are professors, department heads, and fellow students to meet. Soon, I will sit in lectures and bare my vulnerable soul in 3-hour long writing workshops. I’ll wear blazers, lounge in places where I don’t belong, and kick leaves out of my path as I cross campus on my way to class. My first official day of school is tomorrow but instead of worrying about the aforementioned potentially soul-gutting workshops, I wonder if everyone will take notes on a laptop, if I’ll be the only American there. I also wonder if graduate students are supposed to care about what they wear on the first day. I certainly never cared when I was an undergrad – far bigger a concern was actually getting out of bed in the morning. But things are different this time around.
Sean has gone down home to Cork today which means I’m free – free! – for the next 24 hours to window shop and snap photos like a tourist. I can troll the Rimmel section at Boots, try on hats at Topshop, browse issues of Glamour UK at Waterstones, and pose next to Molly Malone all I like!! Yippee!! Sorry, Sean, but there are just some things you can’t do with a man around.
The drugstores sell Maybelline and L’Oreal, but not Cover Girl. There is a Boots brand of cosmetics. Spray-on deodorants appear to be very popular for women as well as for men. I can’t afford any of the lovely clothes or shoes I’m seeing until I find a way to get paid in Euro and it is almost impossible to get a clear picture of Molly Malone since so many people pass by her on the street or plunk themselves at her feet. And all the poor girl wants to do is sell her cockles and mussles, alive alive-o. Give a working girl a chance! ‘Tis a busy life, sweet Molly Malone. Ah, that it is.
We moved in to our new apartment last night. After Sean left for the train station, I began the day by coordinating maintenance men as they fixed and re-fixed the toilet, then plastered up a hole in the wall.
“Welcome to Ireland,” said Sean last night as we discovered the non-flushing toilet and the hole. “Typical Irish standards. Cowboys, the lot of them!”
Regardless, it is a lovely apartment in a lovely brick Victorian Dublin house with white spiral staircases – flooded with light, cozy, and beautifully furnished. A lovely apartment in a lovely house on a lovely street.
Street signs are always written in both English and Irish. Cars are always cute.
There are trees lining the street and gardens inside the wire fences.
After a day of trolling the college campus and searching for a Mac store – unless any of you know how to reset the password on my computer so I can install broadband – I’m in an internet cafe on Grafton Street. Grafton Street is lined with red bricks, forming a pedestrianized gallery of shops and restaurants stretching from the famous Molly Malone statue to the lush St. Stephen’s Green. When I first arrived in Dublin, the luxurious foliage in St. Stephen’s was all bright Irish green. It has become increasingly blanketed by yellow and red leaves as fall begins.
There is a busker playing Thin Lizzy’s “Whiskey in the Jar” down on the street as I type – a far more welcome companion to my money guzzling internet cafe hour than cigarette smoke and pervy teenage boys reading manga porn. It’s a song I’d never heard until a week ago, when Sean played it for me on his uncle’s stereo. He couldn’t believe I’d never heard it before and neither could I.
Hunched over, my shoulders hurt after a day of dragging my laptop in search of Dublin’s Mac store but I’m happy dreaming of dinner and Rimmel lipstick and the brick houses on the street where I live.
Sean is a karate MASTER which means that his biceps are big and fat. This makes them very nice to punch during a spontaneous game of Punch Buggy when a Volkswagen Beetle passes us outside of The National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology.
Sean: Hey! Why did you hit me?
Liv: Punch buggy black – no punch backs!
Sean: It’s not fair that you hit me for no reason.
Liv: There was a reason – punch buggy!
Sean: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Liv: Punch Buggy! Punch Buggy! Don’t you know the game?
Sean: No. I can’t believe you hit me.
Liv: But … Punch Buggy! Every time a Volkswagen Beetle passes you’re allowed to hit the person next to you as long as you call it first and say what color the car was. It’s like jinx, but with punching!
Sean: If you hit me, I can hit you back, so!
Liv: You can’t! That’s why I said “no punch backs!” It’s part of the game’s sheer brilliance.
Sean: You’re so mean to me.
When someone says these words:
Silence in the courtyard, silence in the street
The biggest fool in Ireland is just about to speak
Speak, fool, speak!
… you say nothing, because the “Silence in the Courtyard” game has begun. You are to stay perfectly quiet and if you speak, you are “out.”
Tonight, the biggest fool in Ireland is an American and that American fool is me. When Sean’s little cousin Connor spoke those words at dinner, I thought he was reciting a lovely poem. Before I could figure out why a 5 year-old would have any kind of poetry memorized, I was “out.” Fool me once, Connor.
