Sláinte!

 

On the day everyone is Irish --

Hoist a few for the Old Sod. 

 

Sláinte chuig na fir agus go maire na mná go deo!  

 

Health to the men and may the women live forever!

Erin go bragh

In honor of the day everybody's Irish, here are some views of the Old Sod.

Off the coast near Dublin.

Kilmainham Gaol

You can still see the bullet holes at the Post Office.

It is good for you.

The Cathedral at Kildare. The pagan fire pit is still there.

Brigid's Holy Well.

Across the Irish Sea to England.

May your troubles be less, 

And your blessings be more. 

And nothing but happiness come through your door.

Slainte.

Tripping at Mickey D's

I had a FALLING DOWN moment at McDonalds today.

FALLING DOWN is the 1993 Michael Douglas film about a laid-off tech worker who, frustrated by his life, goes on an armed rampage across LA. Called DEFENS from his personalized license plate, he’s tracked across the city by Robert Duvall’s character to a one on one confrontation at the Santa Monica pier.

In one significant scene, DEFENS stops at the local Whammy Burger and orders breakfast. Alas, it’s three minutes past breakfast time. He must order lunch.

He doesn’t want lunch. He wants breakfast.

His pleas about the customer always being right and three minutes, c’mon, fall on deaf ears until he pulls out a stolen TEC 9 and puts a few rounds in the ceiling.

Dude.

This morning after some shopping I felt the need for comfort food. I pulled into the drive through at McDonalds. It was three minutes to 11.

Ordered a Big Mac.

I’m sorry, a disembodied voice said over the speaker. I can’t take a lunch order until 11. I know it’s silly, but you can’t have lunch for three minutes. 

I’m trapped in the drive through. What am I supposed to do?

Can you back out?

There are two cars behind me and three in front of me. I’m trapped in the drive through and unarmed.

You’ll just have to pull through.

By the time I reach the window, I say, it will be 11. Can I order at the window?

Radio silence.

Or I could just sit here for three minutes. I think but don't say.

I’m going to say yes. I’m at the first window.

Well now. Not Independence Day but a little common sense coping is almost as big a surprise.

When I reached the first window, it was 11:02.

The young lady within seemed harried, taking orders through two speakers and one window. She apologized for making me wait. I told her, no problem, and that I appreciated her accommodating me.

In Dublin, we got in trouble at the Guinness brewery for not following the designated tour order, skipping one floor then wandering back to see what we missed. The young lady there was astonished at us but adamant we needed to move along. Mostly because she couldn’t drop the con that we had paid $46 for a free beer.

It was almost enough to put me off the black stuff.

Almost.


Back in America, Guinness is $4 and a person can be surprised by kindness and creative thinking in unexpected places.

Céad míle fáilte

After nearly a year, I think I'm probably over my our trip to Ireland psychosis.

Probably.

Once we made it home, I reacted to the mention of anything Irish like I'd been through a course of aversion therapy.

Twitch and duck.

But I'm over that now. Yeah.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

Advice for the Unwary Traveler

Always take direct flights.

Never sit in Seat 13.

Don't travel on the anniversary of the Titanic disaster.

If you have to fly KLM, stay home.

Gone to Erin

We are going to Ireland in four days, and so far, all I have packed are the Poppets coming along for the ride.

The camera bag is half-packed. The suitcase has a pile of socks next to it. Batteries are nearly charged. Clothes, not selected.

Passport, tickets, extra ID, secreted in special passport case which I have already misplaced three times between two rooms. Imagine the possibilities when I have all of Europe beneath me.

I can barely believe this trip is happening after so many years of wishing, hoping, longing to go.

Poppets are ready.

An Ri Ra

Took in the An Ri Ra Festival in Butte. It was nice, albeit over-priced.

Since it is August, I took a sweater, raincoat and hat. Although rain, the night before, pounded one of the concerts, the weather Saturday was perfect.

Since I began my Irish Studies, I've developed an affection for Butte.

It's like a rowdy cousin who makes every outing more fun, but you wouldn't want to live with him.

An Bhfuil Gaeilge Agat?

Heritage Plays

My new script is about the difference between an American of Irish descent and and actual Irish person. Here's one take on the subject.

Guinness Is Good For You

Éire Go Brách

I've seen cartloads of Hibernians brought to sobbing tears by this song,* so I just gotta say, who knew Beaker was Irish?






*which formed the basis of my Star Trek Theory of Obsession.

Sláinte

Éire go brách

Sláinte

On the day everyone is Irish --

Hoist a few for the Old Sod.

Sláinte chuig na fir agus go maire na mná go deo!

Health to the men and may the women live forever!

Ireland Forever

Just because.

The oft-heard Americanized form is spelled wrong and grammatically incorrect.

Please feel free to copy this image if you'd like the correct version.

Rent This

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang out yesterday on DVD.

Shane Black is a peach.

Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr are actors who always deliver.

I'd watched so many bad movies in a row I thought I might be suffering the tinseltown curse. And remember -- I'm the one who always loves the movies.

Tonight, I'm watching The World's Fastest Indian. Two good ones in a row. The curse is lifted.

P.S. Behold the interesting miscellany one stumbles across on the Net. A list of Irish Curses.

Cats and Kittens

This is a picture of kittens my husband saved from a forest fire. They have nothing to do with the following essay except I was thinking about cats and who doesn’t love a kitten picture? I especially like the WTF look on the kitten on the right.

I recently finished the first script I’ve written following the advice in Blake Snyder’s SAVE THE CAT. The STC method is to get all the beats and scenes down before beginning to write, thus saving yourself the agony of staring into a blank screen wondering, what’s happens now.

It usually takes me six weeks to write a script. Six weeks of butt in the chair, fingers to the keyboard, writing. I may think about the script forever, research for a year, goof off for months, but in six weeks, I can write a screenplay. Every one I’ve written has taken six weeks.

I wrote this script in 25 days. Boy, was I surprised.

I had been thinking about the story for a while, so I didn’t keep track of how long it took to do the prep work. And, of course, I don’t know how it will fare once I send it out into the world. The point is the prep work dramatically decreased the endgame workload.

Put me down as amazed. I am such a dork. I have a learning curve that looks like this.

My next project is a Romantic Comedy even though I wonder if I’m romantic or funny enough to accomplish either. This time I’m keeping track of the prep work too – which you can follow along with in the sidebar because:

1. HTML is so much fun.
   
2. Procrastination makes us all look busy.

This next one is also the project I learned Gaelic for, God help me, so if you come back next year and the status bar still looks like this –

You’ll know it’s because I’ve taken up deep sea diving to learn why the ocean is wet.

Sláinte.

Tá Gaeilga agam

I got the Irish on me, all right.

Actually, that means I speak Gaelic. A more accurate account of my ability might be: Nil moran Gaeilge agam or Tá cupla focail Gaeilge agam.

Either way, I have some Irish.

I began studying Gaelic in my drive to be the most obsessive researcher in the history of writing.

I had an idea for a story set in Ireland and while I was reading old Irish literature for background, I came across a snarky comment by some ancient translator along the lines of -- you can’t believe anything in Gaelic because they’re all a bunch of liars. I thought, to better understand Ireland, maybe I should learn Gaelic.

Which is kind of like thinking, I wonder what’s the name of that star; maybe I should fly to the moon.

I signed up for a night class at the local college and for one semester had conjugated prepositions and simple conversations pounded into my head by a Native Son of the Old Sod. By semester’s end, Tá cupla focail Gaeilge agam.

But when that teacher moved away for a better position at a bigger college, my Gaelic education was reduced to finding phrases and translations on the Net. Which can be interesting, but the phrases were never the ones I thought might come in handy.

Like –

Do you have Guinness on tap?

Then I decided I’d read something originally written in Gaelic, and learn by reading which is how I learned everything else. For this little project I chose, An Béal Bocht by Flann O’Brien. He’s hysterical in both languages and I’m insane. I needed something at the level of See Spot Run and ended up with great Irish satire. Lucky for me and the rest of the non-Gaelic speaking world, all of O’Brien’s work is available in English. (One reviewer commented that An Béal Bocht was written in Gaelic just to be contrary.)

Last weekend, I attended an Irish language immersion weekend with teachers supplied by these folks sponsored by the Montana Gaelic Society. I learned some grammar rules, more phrases (still, alas, not Do you have Guinness on tap) and traveled back in time.

The workshop was held in a Catholic elementary school. As I walked into the Girl’s Room, I felt the strangest sensation. Not déjà vu exactly or fragment of memory but – I was there. I am here. I’m still there. There is still with me.

The good Sisters of my earliest education seemed to brush by me. I could almost hear the swish of habits. The clunk of those thick shoes. Their gentle but dogmatic insistence I learn my prayers. How much of me formed then? What they taught, what I decided, my earliest rebellion rushed back to me in the moment I stood transfixed in the doorway of the fifth grade girl’s bathroom. Time is a funny old concept.

Not all of the Gaelic students last weekend were Catholic, but enough were that there existed the camaraderie of shared experience. We went to different schools together. Each person’s unique story, bound with common experiences, made for an interesting and comforting community.

Which is what language does in the first place.

Or, as anthropologists believe, we didn’t get together until one of us said, “Hey you!”

In the meantime,

Ar mhaith leat beori.

Conas a déarfá Do you have Guinness on tap as Gaeilge?

Slainte.


Foclóir -- Vocabulary

Nil moran Gaeilge agam – I don’t have much Irish.
Tá cupla focail Gaeilge agam – I have a couple of words of Irish.
An Béal Bocht – The Poor Mouth.
Ar mhaith leat beori – I want a beer.
Conas a déarfá -- as Gaeilge? – How do you say - in Irish?
Slainte – health.