America's Got Talent: Abroad

Hey People,

We went to the pub last night to see our friend play a little traditional Irish music, like we always do almost every Wednesday, but it turned into a late night staying up chatting with friends etc etc. Met a few gentlemen from the area who have been living in New York for a couple decades. It was nice to swap stories. But the night was a long one and we were awoken this morning early, as the truck delivered 96 cinder blocks that needed unloading into our driveway. That's one way to wake and not worry about how freakin freezing it is. Got the blood pumping anyway. And so, I'm quite tired at this point even after a morning coffee and pannini. We are looking at another gloriously clear day (are we the luckiest or what?) and another full full full day of work (someone's gotta do something with all those blocks!) We hope to finish up the walls today and get the wooden frame of the new roof up tomorrow. Thus leaving Saturday open to travel down to Dublin and visit our fellow ex-pats. Sweet. We also need to visit the visa people in the capital. Double fun. After that Brian's parents arrive and we'll be caught up in a flurry of activity, trying to pull this house together before the modern messiah arrives at the end of October. Score!

I've also procured the understanding of many of the people around here for leaving around Christmas and coming back in the summer to finish up. It's an extremely enticing plan. As my lips are starting to chap and my skin go quite dry, I'm dreaming of the lush Los Angeles area. Sigh. Brian and I also took showers in the yard last night at about 10 30pm. We are seeing how late into the year we can take outside showers, we're nearing our end I believe because, it was really flippin cold. like really. wow. cold water, cold air, cold everything. But the full moon last night was great. Star gazing out on our land, is oh, let's say, probably almost the best anywhere. We are pretty far north it turns out...

We got to show An Inconvenient Truth to one of our friends here and it was great to watch that movie again. It just dawned on me watching, why it was so cloudy/windy here and why the weather seemed to move so quickly. Turns out that big ocean conveyor turbine in the North Atlantic is RIGHT off our coast, and since that's where all the evaporation that provides Europe with precipitation and moisture occurs, it would make sense...right? But by the time it hits Scandinavia it's frozen into snow...learning things all the time.

Let's see...anything new? Tired. yeah tired, but happy. So much to do, so much to do always, but so so so appreciative of the weather being clear. It's somewhat of a double edged sword, because clear weather equals much colder weather, whereas overcast keeps some of the heat in but also means rain more often, so it's warmer and wet or drier and cold. I'll take drier and cold. Cannot wait, for this house to get further along, we are actually at the point where we can legitimately start looking for bits and pieces of furniture. Awesome, goodbye air mattress and sleeping bag, using sweatshirts as a pillow! Hello, blankets and sheets and pillows and, gasp, mattress! Well not yet...

I think our relations with the town are beginning now, to turn more intimate at an exponential rate. I think the longer we stay in the cold, the more respect and esteem we're accruing. We are truly making friends here that we'll keep in contact with forever, and god are we begging them to visit us when we're in LA. I actually had a dream the other night that I had a ridiculous awesome beachfront pad in either Santa Monica, Malibu area and had a lot of my friends from over here out, and had them picked up from LAX in a limo and the works...sometimes I think shows like Entourage, and celebrity gossip, and all that fascination with gaudy displays of wealth is really detrimental and distracting. I'm sure I wouldn't be dreaming of all that crap, if it wasn't so forefront in the list of desired things. Well whatever, I had a great dream getting to show my friends here all around the things I love about LA. I also am desperately trying to align the stars in my favor of producing a place in the Tahoe area...dang. So many many things, it makes me recall that wonderful Boston ditty, "I understand about indecision..." you know the one. We need a gigantic stereo. and the power to run it. It's tough to rock out to our little radio. But believe me, Brian and I give it our best shot. I must admit I would've been more than a little embarrassed had anyone come calling on us at around 9pm last night...as they approached the house they would've heard coming out of the kitchen, two horribly off-key belted out renditions of Jesus Christ Superstar etc. By the way, Brian has an uncanny Sebastian voice (a la the Little Mermaid) It sounds more Sebastian than Sebastian, you know the CRAB (not lobster, Ruchi, or Audrey, or whomever that was...). It takes all of my independent energy to resist Brian's crooning, "Kiss the Girl". We're going a bit mad, but then again. I like it that way. Between JCS, Disney, and Total Eclipse of the Heart on repeat, we make quite the sight. And don't forget our favorite, Take My Breathe Away by Berlin, off the Top Gun soundtrack (best soundtrack ever).

Anyway, this has devolved into a lot of silliness. To sober this post up, have you all been keeping track of the escalating tension in Burma? Two monks and a civilian were killed by the military junta yesterday I believe. This is a pretty big deal. But although many of our Political Leaders may make feel good statements about how the age of crimes against humanity will not longer be overlooked, rest assured that there isn't an ounce of truth in it. There are plenty of places not the same, but similar to Burma all over that we happen to not pay attention to at all. So Gordon Brown, save it, and Condoleeza, come on.

On a similar note (because the problems are connected, even if they seem unrelated), it was pretty comical me, slightly intoxicated trying to explain to these Irish New Yorkers why the automobile was going to disappear...ah well. If you haven't heard me rant about this already, it's probably best saved for a better time. To spare all those who already know, or have already heard.

PS. People from Chicago, how do you feel about the plans for the Chicago Spire? Seems ridiculous to me, especially when there are much better plans being developed in places like New York, Taiwan, and I think one other major city, I can't remember (no I'm not confusing Taiwan with a city), where the skyscrapers are going to be self-sufficient as far as energy and water consumption goes and will actually provide their city grids with additional energy, etc etc... I mean, 1193 apt building 2000-ft high? Does Chicago really need this? Richard Daly is backing it up eagerly as well...your thoughts?

Please forgive these news bouts, it makes me feel connected, since most of the US News escapes us entirely here, we're too busy caught up in the drama of Missing Maddy, what the soap opera stars are doing next, and how somebody tackled somebody else too hard in rugby...