Friday, December 29, 2006

Crash Course in Israeli Holidays

There hasn't been much time to blog due to all of the fun I've been having. Here are some highlights:

1. Brekhat Ha-Meshushim (Hexagon Pool)



We took a little break in the Golan Heights over Christmas. The Hexagon Pool is on the Jordan River where it meets the Sea of Galilee, and it's this amazing pool of water surrounded by long hexagonal columns of rock and it looks amazing. Any Israeli will tell you about how it's the only place on earth like this. Very special. You like it.

2. The Original Israeli Pancake House. Super Fantastic!

3. Trick! I've been getting plenty of cuddles from my doggie nephew. He winks.



4. The Hevre: in Hebrew, a "hevre" is a group of close friends with names like "Yair" or "Yossi." By definition, they are dependable, funny, and like to drink. Many dinners and poker nights. The fun is non stop!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Holy Matrimony, Batman!

Congratulations on the nuptuals of my good pals Alene and Jim! Now that you are no longer living in sin, your cats can go to school with the other cats without feeling so sinfully ashamed. Mazel tov!

Greetings from the Holy Land

Howdy from Israel, y'all! We're having a terrific time visiting Max's family, eating hummous and generally lazing about. And get this--I've worn my sunglasses for 5 straight days in a row. Can't say that in Dublin.

I promise I'll get some pictures up here soon--Max's mom's roof garden is truly something to behold. Like a little desert oasis, high in the sky.

Next week we'll spend a night at a B&B in the Galilee, and we'll also spend a few days in Jerusalem with some of Max's childhood friends. It's a lovely country, and it's great to have a good chunk of time to spend here. There is much talk of the wedding, especially when it comes to dresses and shoes, and a fair amount discussion involving our plans for the future. This is one place where everyone has an opinion and they consider it their duty to share it with you. Not that I'm complaining--I love it when the conversation is focused on me. Or my dogs and how cute and cuddly they are. On that note, check out LDB's new blog, and scroll down to the last picture in the sidebar. Ultimate cute on all fronts!

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Lomo Yes!

Success! The test roll came out just fine.



I couldn't be happier. It's been months since this bugger worked correctly, and while I'm eternally grateful for the few pictures it's taken here and there, I'm thrilled to have a little consistency back with my artsy camera.

That's the unexplained mound in Merrion Square, by the way. If it ever snows here, even just a little bit, I am so sliding down that thing on a garbage bag. It will be a thrilling .75 seconds, and a testament to the lack of snowy hills in my childhood. Even a mound--not a hill, but a mound--makes for good sledding when you're from a place with no snow.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Lomo Maybe

Don't hold your breath, but I think I fixed my LC-A (again). Big thanks to Kristy who encouraged me to fiddle with the advance wheel and the shutter when she was here in November. I finally got around to some serious fiddling, and the first test-roll is at the photo store down the road being developed as I type. Just in time for our trip to Israel this Friday, too. After all, what's a trip to the Holy Land without jaw-droppingly vibrant photos with vignetted corners to show for it? Really.

(If you're not familiar with the LC-A and my continuing Lomo obsession, click here.)

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

My Car, My Friend

I miss my car. Sigh.

(I would have linked back to that one post about my car, the one where I complain about getting rear-ended constantly, and there's a picture of my license plate cleverly photo-shopped to demonstrate the frequency of the rear-endings, but I'm still dealing with that pesky missing-pictures-on-all-posts-before-April-2006 thing. So it just wouldn't be the same.)

It's not that I miss owning a car, paying for gas, or getting it serviced. I don't even miss driving really, and I certainly don't miss sitting in traffic. I don't miss looking for parking or maneuvering the car into my inhumanely narrow SF driveway.

I miss the freedom that having a car brings. Knowing I can get in the car and just go; if I'm bored, lonely, feeling wanderlustly but not airport wanderlusty, I can drive. Even more, it's that I don't like feeling trapped as I do without a car. I know how far my feet can carry me in any given direction here in Dublin, and that's pretty much the extent of my universe. Taking the bus or the DART helps alleviate the trapped feeling, but it just isn't the same.

I also miss the home-away-from-home part of having a car. The closet on wheels where you can keep many different coats and shoes on hand in case of sudden changes in weather. The mobile office where you can fill out forms and pack up gifts before you go into the post office. Especially when it's raining. Ahem.

In honor of car owners everywhere, especially those of us who are temporarily separated from our beloved automobiles, I give you Belle & Sebastian.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Cranium Insanium

So we had some friends over last night for delicious delicious lasagna and a rousing game of Cranium. My team kicked Max's team's ass. Yeah.

But wait! There's more!

We had purchased the Cranium game in Ireland, see, so the questions were all weird and Irish (and English--to be fair, I think it was actually a UK version of the game). I had to act out things like "bubble and squeak"--muh??--which is apparently some kind of food involving mashed potatoes and coleslaw--I repeat, muh??? The questions were all about premiership football and Irish horse racing and where Mick Jagger went to college. Talk about feeling like a stranger in a strange land. Take something that I'm really good at and feel comfortable with--Cranium, for example--and change it just enough so that I feel like I'm playing Cranium but in some weird Taco Bell-induced dream.

Did I mention that my team won? Kicked ass over Max's loser team. Yeah.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Red-headed Step Blog

It started like this: I was looking at yesterday's blog post (Jim and Pam!!) and I noticed that almost all of the women in my list of warm fuzzy TV couples have red hair. I decided that was interesting and blog worthy, especially considering that I had red hair last year (It was the only time I had other-than-brown hair that required maintenance and upkeep and looked decent. Other than that, it was brief love affairs with green in high school and bleached/orange in college. Both with minimal success.) and I had recently seen a picture of that red hair which made me consider--for half of a split second--doing it again. Perfect for a Tuesday blog when not much is going on (thankfully) in my life, I thought to myself, and I can link to a previous post from last year with pictures of the locks in question. Brilliant! (That's Irish for awesome.)

That's when I discovered "the problem." Apparently, when I switched over to my own website (before I switched over to blogspot), I lost my pictures, or something equally as fishy. I don't know how I didn't notice it before, but I'm going to fix it. Something must be done. My vast and demanding audience deserves a pictorial history to go along with my past blog entries. I know how much time you all spend reading through back posts, searching desperately for some clue into the blinding ultra-coolness of Me. It's OK, everyone does it. It can't be helped. Well rest assured, I'll find the problem ad figure it out. And when I do, the world will once again have access to pictures of my red hair! Muhahahahahaha!

Monday, December 04, 2006

Baby, you and me got a TV kind of love

Surprise! It rained this weekend! To be fair, even if it hadn't rained, we still would have spent the whole weekend indoors catching up on Tivo. It's been a long couple of weeks for both of us, and we sorely needed some downtime. All that Tivo led to the following compilation:

My favorite TV couples of all times, in the sense that they make me feel warm and fuzzy all over




1. Jim and Pam from The Office. Jim and Pam! I know I am hardly alone on this one.



2. Willow and Oz from Buffy. They may be a fleeting favorite, but I just love them right now.



3. The whole cast of How I Met Your Mother (second appearance for Allyson Hannigan on this list). It's not just Lilly and Marshall or just Ted and Robin, and it's definitely not without Barney. It's the whole group that makes me feel warm and fuzzy.



4. Eric and Donna from That 70's Show. I want to be friends with them.



5. Joey and Dawson from Dawson's Creek, but only when they're not actually a couple.



6. CJ and Danny on The West Wing. Smart, sophisticated warm fuzziness.

You may say to yourself, "But wait! Surely a DeGrassi TNG couple made the illusive list. Paige and Spinner? Paige and Alex? Liberty and JT?" Well, as much as I love the Canadian teenaged dramas--and you know I do--I haven't found the warm fuzzy coupleness from the Great White North that I have from American network TV. And DeGrassi provides so much more than just hormones. After all, they go there.

Friday, December 01, 2006

It's official

I've blogged every day this week. Even if it was only a lame two-sentence post like this one. It still counts! Oh wait, that's three sentences. I mean four! Wait! Dang it.