flat-line-ing

hello people-

glad to see that my mom and derrick are having IM converstations over the blog, even if they have nothing to do with me! (jkjk)

so not much has been happening this week i went and saw the new Richard Linklater film, A Scanner Darkly with Keanu Reeves, it was quite beautiful it was loosely based on a Philip K. Dick book as well as the current drug culture in the US (meth and marijuana and the like). i made some vegan puffed spelt bars (like rice kripie bars) and thumbs up from flatmates and coworkers.

tonight is another film, but i can't remember what it's a special film that we bought tickets in advance.

saturday, i plan to have an allergy test with the crazy allergy doctor, i hope it's like getting my tarot cards read!

i had a chai latte today ( i haven't had one in like 4 or 5 months so to find a chai latte with soymilk for under 3 euro is exciting, i can't imagine what it must be at starbucks in dublin).

and that's about it for now i have nothing new to report except those things.

xoxo,
christie

oh yes the festival of WORLD cultures.

well hello out there in virtual world. christie here to let you know about the festival of world cultures. first of all i have to say i am already becoming an old granny as my knees hurt so much from all the dancing. so here's the website for those who want to consider going next year to the festival:

http://www.festivalofworldcultures.com/

Enzo Avitabile & Bottari
Mr. Whippy Soundsystem
Children of Soweto Gospel Choir
The North Strand Klezmer Band
Trans-Global Underground & Trio Bulgarka
Eoin Dillon
Prison Love

This is a list of all the groups i could find that i saw there were a few more that were not listed on the website. All of them were great. Enzo Avitabile & Bottari is a group from southern Italy, around Naples and Francesca just loved them and she said, "i just lover there Napalnese accent!" you can check them out on the website if you like. So basically every Wed. night from now on i will be at the Palace bar listening to Eoin Dillon and every Sunday after the Crepes or Pancakes i will be at the Cobblestone listening to Prison Love (the irish call it bluegrass, i call it cajun, i'm sure i will be purchasing a CD so we can all discuss the CD in the future) who wouldn't love a group with an accordian and a washboard!

i didn't see a lot of the markets because i was too busy at the concerts. since francesca and i didn't waste our money at the festival we feel we need to waste our money on something else in town so we will see, i have been slowly gathering things from shops to send to folks back home.

it was hard at this festival as there was so much to do and not necessarily enough time to do everything or see everything i wanted to see and seeing as it would be beautiful then downpouring every other minute it was hard to want to go and be outside for extedned periods of time seeing as you could be sweating or you could be soaked do to rain!

did i mention i am going to be on TV? to finish out the festival fran and i went to a taping of the Children of Soweto Gospel Choir we were disappointed at how little music we got to hear at the taping but the women of south africa were beautiful and they sang and danced a tradtional song, it was gorgeous.

on sunday we had a crepe day! and one of francesca's friends who works with her at the wine bar (she calls him a cooker which just sounds funny) and he made crepes for us. francesca was really excited because she was saying to me, "hey babe, i invited 2 men over for breakfast for us". but by the end of the day francesca no longer cares for italian men! they are just like a bunch of old men and sit in their circle and bull shit each other all day! a pretty face but that's it! i find it funny that they came to dublin to work on their english but they wouldn't speak english to me so how are you practicing english? thanks for playing. i tried to talk to one of them when francesca was putting stuff in her bag but he knew so little english and i had to rephrase things as simple as possible and speak in broken english, which i am willing to do but they just get frustrated and prefer to speak to each other and francesca in italian.

after the festival and the crepes on our way home we stopped for a slice of pizza and a beer at a place in Temple Bar, I bought the pizza Fran bought the beers and when she found out it was 4 euros for a glass (1/2 of a pint) she was mad so she said "we take the glasses with us for 8 euros!" sometimes she can be so cheeky!

so all and all a successful festival with no one getting hurt or something bummerish happening. i will leave it up to you to look at the website as it is a great website and layed out well. so peace out peeps, i'm going to make a tofurkey today for dinner!

xoxo,
christie

don't ask her...she doesn't know anything!

well my dears...christie here and after a long uneventful couple of days i have a few silly incidents to report. sunday...banana pancakes with maple syrup...in fact that's the only thing i really had all day pancakes...for brunch and dinner. i also went to Howth and walked around the whole summit, by myself and down to the light house and then out to the other lighthouse where you catch the boat to the Eye of Ireland, looks neat but i don't know if i care enough to go there, maybe somewhere else instead. then home again home again jiggedy jog for some reading.

monday i did not have off as i told my boss a lie and managed to get saturday off dun dun dun...so i worked monday and have known what day it is this entire week. I made cream of wild rice soup, and i know your jaws are all dropping becames i made wild rice soup in august, oh yes folks it is definately cool enough here for the cheezy creamy delectible soup.

tuesday movie night. francesca picked me up from work and we walked to the IFI for INNOCENT VOICES it was a pretty spectacular film about the gurreilla warfare in El Salvador and the US involvement and how the 11year old boys got shipped off to join the military or were forced to join the gurrillas out of desperation or opposition to the Salvadorian government. i felt like craptastic to be an american after watching it and was a bit poutty after that film. but francesca made dinner and she got Paul to eat with us as well! we're breaking down the irish berlin wall in our house!

the most exciting news is that Marco, Francesca's brother is coming to Dublin the 16 of September and staying for a week before starting at the University! hooray for Marco leaving the nest by himself for a week, hopefully he will have a good time in the good old Eire Isle, but no promises.

Wednesday was filled with not much besides not much. I went to work blah bli blah blah and went to a pub this evening to listen to a piper by the name of Eoin Dilion play, but alas someone in his family was in the hospital so he sent an F+ team to take his place, so we were a bit upset with the lack of their skills, but it was nice to go to a pub that wasn't super loud so i could actually talk to Fran.

Thursday was just where the title of this blog came from, this was just such a ridiculous story and i am so glad to be done in 6 weeks at my job because this is a typical story of my coworkers. So today someone came into the shop looking for something that Eileen was going to check on. The woman came in and asked Jane "Did you get this (i can't remember what it was called something)"?
Jane: "No you'll have to go and ask Eileen".
The woman turns to me as I am towards the back of the shop where Eileen is and the woman starts asking me for whatever it was she had wanted last week and before the woman finishes Jane is shouting from the front of the shop..."Don't ask her...she doesn't know anything."crickets...at the pure shock of being said to know nothing. I didn't say anything to Jane but i went home for lunch and when i came back i asked Eileen if i should have said something. not only is it not very nice to say about someone but then doesn't your shop look kind of bad that only one person knows anything...Eileen? so that was basically the only thing kind of funny/mean that happened today, i made a lovely vegetable stir fry and some grilled corgettes for dinner tomorrow after the gallery exhibition opening i am going to.

Saturday and Sunday should be more eventful as there is the Festival of World Cultures so hopefully i will have some more fun stories then what i got.

xoxo,
christie

six weeks left?

i can't believe it myself but my 4 months in ireland are almost done and i will be moving on to the UK shortly. i don't know where i will be but somewhere, the winds of change are shaking the trees literally and i am getting a bit anxious. i will have to leave my stable enviroment with Paul and Fran and move to another location with a bunch of strangers once again. it's amazing how change can be so sad and scary and i am a sad to think about leaving but also quite glad, as i am tired of dublin and how everyone is like an ant just marching on and on and not knowing doing saying changing morphing thinking outwardly. the superficiality of pub life really doesn't suit me so i am glad to be moving on.

i am especially sad to be leaving a sister soul i could cry about it right now just thinking about it. i find it so amazing and spectacular that i gained someone in my life so important to me that i love so much pretty much immediately following my grandmother's death. life works in mysterious ways. ramble ramble ramble...and no i have not been drinking. so a little too halmarky?

so the work week finished with a bang, i was catty and was talking back to my boss and questioning him about the irish culture and their lack of care for the beautiful island they live on. the times need to be a changin' but the irish can't quite do it. but next weekend is the festival of world cultures and i got saturday and sunday off so that i could go (woo hoo) so i wil be enjoying some things that i might never experience in the United States.

and tomorrow we are having pancakes, yipee with authentic maple syrup from cananda that i paid dearly for, but in the grand scheme of things what are pancakes without authentic maple syrup? i am hoping for no rain tomorrow so i can take the train somewhere to hike, but after last night and today i wouldn't be surprised if i needed an arc! usually it drizzles in dublin but this was a downpour, i told fran it was raining cats and dogs and she didn't get it.

sandwhich walks into a bar, asks the barman for a guinness.
the barman said, "sorry we don't serve food."

so like that, on and on i'm sure there is some sort of event tomorrow but i can't gurantee anything but after going to the pub last night and only getting 4 hours of sleep and a full days work...do you hear that? do you hear that? it's my bed calling me.

xoxo,
christie

what is in puh'er tea?

what is puh'er tea? well i don't know i just work here. just like in books, the latest diet crazes hit the health food store as well. Puh'er tea is a tea that is a natural weight loss tea; it was feature in the tabloids that david beckham's wife drinks it and know people are mad for the puh'er tea, we just got it in it's pure form, we only had it as a combination Yogi tea(we have this brand in the US).

i picked up the book Scar Tissue today from the old library where there was a talk/art exhibition about the Palestinian's in Lebanon. It's sad because we should by now all know the horrors of this but for some reason, no some of us still don't and some were amazed to hear about the bombs with little steel pellets inside that when shot into something release on impact. and no there isn't peace in the middle east and i have no idea about how to change it and i don't think that anyone else in the world knows either. we all have ideas but there aren't many feasible ones out there.

next item on the agenda Apartment 2 got a new electric kettle. ding ding ding. finally i don't have to worry about an electrical fire with the kettle and the toaster. it was a little touch and go but for 3 euro a piece i'm pretty sure this will be a great for the next tennants of this apartment. so the great thing about buying new electronics in good old Eire, is you can bring your old one back to the place where you bought it. so we bought the kettle on tuesday and today thursday i brought it back the old one to Tesco, and they recycle it for you, well they give it to the city and the city probably sends it to a 3rd world country to dismantle. but who knows.

not much else going on, we are waiting for the new Richard Linklater film to come out with Keanu Reeves, it comes out on the 18th of Aug. so we will see when or if it comes here. if you've seen Waking Life you will probably love the new one, The Scanning Darkness. by the way i can't wait to quit my job i'm just sick of it and my umpteen bosses.

xoxo,
christie

welcome to the crepe party!!!

Hiya. So here's whats been happening so far, the highlight of the weekend was the Crepe party. I made signs on saturday after work. I can tell that i really need to work on an art project, i have been kind of floating at this point and know that my energies need to go towards something specific becuase the crepe party signage just isn't going to cut it. so i made up two great games for the party which included pin the topping on the crepe using tape and a piece of glass between the poster and the toppings. the other game was guess how many crepes the batter makes. fran and i both guessed in the 20s and Anka, a friend of Fran's, guessed 15, the actual number: 9 crepes, i don't know if that is enough crepes to count as a crepe party. i also crated a sign that said VIC very important crepes this way, which Fran proceeded to hang on our door. i also made a sign that you could flip over that said welcome crepes on one side and on the other it said "sorry no crepes allowed, full house". as well there was a sign "Crepes vs. Pancakes" with origin, number eaten in one sitting, number burned, fun facts about each and favorite toppings. and as always there were disclaimers on every poster (may not be actual size, artist rendition, may contain:eggs, dairy, gluten, nuts, suitable for vegetarian). and you ask what is the obsession with crepes well for one, when fran says the word it sounds like craps. for another we were sick of having pancakes every sunday. and why all the signs? well, i need to start some sort of art project and channel the creative tendencies towards something a little more challenging and artistic, so we will see.

i also went and saw the film Atomized, wow. this is a great german film with the two actors from Run Lola Run, challenging the ideas of sexual attratiction and reproduction and whether you need the first in order from reproduction, essentially heading towards a society in aldous huxley's "brave new world". i have been feeling kind of non relatable to humans the last few days so this was an important film to see, and then when i got home from the film what was waiting for me on the cable, non other than the Bollywood Film, "Monsoon Wedding" so an evening of films, the colors of the bollywood film were just gorgeous, and made me want to visit india vs. ireland. so we will see where the life leads us.

as for monday, not much happening today, i bought a sweater at a second hand shop and then i will make bbq seitan and beans for dinner and some apple scones, a quiet day, perhaps next weekend will be more interesting, but it is nice to rest, i hope to finish my scarf soon or more book, but we will see. talk to you all later.

xoxo,
christie

i assume you work here...

Hello readers so not too much going on this side of the Atlantic. wed. was old lady day, Fra-Fra and myself made soup ate some apple crisp with apples from Alex's shop that we saved from impending dumpster doom. Alex owns an italian grocery store and he sells fruit from italy, the fruit that has bruises he gives to fran or myself, who ever stops by first, so we are assured free apples every friday for scones, cakes, crisps, salads, etc. we read our books and went to bed at about 11:30pm, which is early for us. Today was a full moon so i we tried to stay away from the crazies and not be one of the crazies, unfortunately we couldn't even see the moon it was cloudy (sADFACE)

thursday was slightly more eventful i went to an asian resturant with Ruth and Eileen and had some great tofu and had some great homemade black sesame seed ice cream and the first great dessert i have had yet in ireland, turtle cheesecake, it was delicious and little did i know neither Eileen or Ruth knew why it was called turtle cheesecake, they had never seen or heard of a turtle in the chocolate deliciousness. the irish don't eat sweets over here they use butter as a flavorant in everything. i was disappointed to find out that the cream that came with the cheesecake was not sweetened, typical american nothing is sweet or sugary enough! afterwards i went with Eileen to the pub she was going to, to hear her friend Mark play in a band. She said it was at the VooDoo lounge which i was sure was east of my house, but we started walking west of my house and Eileen got to the pub she thought the gig was at but alas that pub was called the Viper Room. so she called her brother and sure enough the VooDoo lounge was in the direction i thought it was. traveling travel 1: life long resident of dublin 0! so once we found the place and found out that the band was supposed to play at 9pm and still hadn't i abondoned Eileen with some of the groupies that she knew and headed to call my mom. everyone will be happy to know my mom is fine!:) I ALMOST FORGOT TO TELL EVERYONE ABOUT CRAZY SOCK LADY: so there was this woman on thursday that came in looking for a pair of white socks in a size 6. She had a Boots Pharmacy bag full of folded up paper towels and emerged moments later after digging through the bag with one of her socks. she held it up to the size 7 and asked "is this a size 6?" and i said "no it's a size 7, we don't have a size 6 in this color".
"so you'll be getting it in a size 6 shortly?"
"no we don't carry that size in that color."
"don't you have a chair or something for me to sit down in?"
christie proceeds to go and get the woman a chair. woman places bag on chair and then proceeds to try and sit down so christie attempts to move the bag so the woman can sit down in the chair. woman proceeds to get really angry and snatch the bag back from christie. at this point christie just wants to walk away and the woman continues holding the size 7 sock up to her sock "so when will this color be in stock again?" christie expains one more time we will put it on the next order, Eileen concurs the old woman starts asking me what the colored corn pasta is colored with, christie slowly wanders to the other side of the store.
cuck-coo...i found out at thursday evening dinner that this woman comes in about once or twice a month asking for the socks which we have ordered for her and she never comes and picks them up so we just tell her whatever she wants to hear and then don't order them or hold them for here. absolutely mad.

the other funny thing that i tried to get francesca to say was for her to ask Paul if he had been "rollin' with his hommies". i had mistakenly also said to her in the same conversation that we never see paul anymore because he is out joy riding in his new(temporary) car. so instead she asked him while i was out if he was "joy ridin' with his hommies" does this remind you of a certain line from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation "Let's burn my shorts and eat Rubber". oh clark grizzwald.

friday: well today i moved some shelves around put up some new flax seed, washed some dishes, swept the floor, brought out some garbage and cardboard. some things i have noticed about my coworkers, and flatmate paul: for one at work when the garbage is full rather then ask me to empty it, empty it themselves or throw garbage in a different wastebasket they continue to throw garbage in the general vacinity of the garbage can, hello someone has to pick that up...the other thing i have noticed is the not caring about piling dishes or crumbs all over the table or counter, how can you make yourself food, or have the desire to eat, it's like eating on a piece of toast! One thing i have learned about myself is that i am not very good at tiding up, or keeping the shop clean, i constantly get told to clean this or dust that because frankly i just overlook the gunk on the floor or the flour dust over here or whatever so i guess that is an important thing to know about myself if i ever sign up for a dating service "well i like to have things clean but i would get an F+ in cleaning if i was getting graded." i also got a card from Leta, thank you so much Leta, i love the greetings from MN on the front, i am going to hang it up in my room:) well folks that's what is exciting here i am going to check the cultural paper tonight and see what is on tap for the weekend, and look in my guide book for somewhere to go one weekend. i started the "confederacy of dunces" so far pretty satirical.

xoxo,
christie

is there an elevator to the big lake this way?

Ah Glendalough, we finally made it to the Wicklow Mountains. And not a moment too soon. Fran has been trying to get to Glendalough for the past 5 months, and myself for the last month. and it was meant to be because when we left Dublin, it was gray and had rained the previous day so we were afraid it was going to be crap weather and that it would be miserable but as we drove away from the city and toward the mountains we came into sunshine and had too many clothes! we hiked for about 4.5 hours then stopped for lunch and a nap then back to the bus. we were supposed to leave on sunday but it was raining and miserable so we scrapped that idea. instead i went and saw the african art, it was art from Nigeria and it was gorgeous, wood carvings, paintings and weavings of the Queen Mother, a very important figure in the tribes. Brightly colored and abstract, and all i could think of what skilled sculptors there were in Nigeria.

then i went to the Photography institute where someone had done a personal project documenting how dublin and ireland had changed since he left back in the early 80s. Apparently there were no jobs here in the country so people were going to london to work and outside of the country to work and always had plans of returning, some did and some didn't but this gentleman went to school for photography in London and then ended up staying in London as a freelance photographer for several years and then came back about 15 years later and did not see the same ireland he knew. There are many irish people who feel this way and can't relate totally to the changing cultural diversions within the city and the country. And right outside in Meeting House Squre was tada an African Market with tribal clothing, dancing singing, again beautiful very similar to some of the things i experienced in elementary school growing up with the Native American culture. Then it started to rain. So Fran went and picked up a Mihizaki movie "Kiki's Delivery Service" not so impressive like Spirited Away but still a nice cartoon to watch on a rainy. Then we decided to go to The Celt for some traditional Irish music sung by 2 woman, who hypothesize are mother and daughter. The Celt was packed and sweaty and smelled horrible but the music was great, and i am so glad there is no smoking allowed inside the pub. So after 2.5 hours of music listening and singing Fran walked me half way home and she went to find her friend Selana who went back to Italy on Monday.

So after going to bed at 2am I found that Fran came home with a friend of her's but did not go to bed until 5am. and we got up the next moring at 10am to go to Glendalough. We still hiked up the mountainside, we saw both of the lakes, including a lake that was in a photograph from the photo series i had seen on Sunday. We also saw a waterfall, and did some tresspassing to an early christian ruin, it was gorgeous and you could see some of the celtic knot chisilings on the stones. This is where i insert a funny story about the title. so we rain into several sets of people who said to us, is this the way to the lake? and it was like did you see the sign that said Lower Lake not this direction? then there was an irish gentleman who asked if the elevator to the Upper Lake was this way, and i told him he's just walking up the mountain at this point and he should turn around if he wants to go to the lake. "Did you not find purchase your 50 cent hiking map?" The mountain side, is what you imagine when you think of ireland. so green and lush with valleys and lakes in the valleys, goats, sheep and my cousins the cows!
The funny thing is we almost missed the bus to leave dublin and we almost missed the bus to get back to dublin, i told fran she is not in charge of time keeping once i get a watch! so we had a contest to see who would fall asleep first on the bus and i won! so we napped the entire time into town, but as we were leaving Glendalough we saw an antique shop that had this strange manequin with a flag wrapped around it holding a pole and we looked at each other like what the hell is that? Once we made it to Dublin we got off the bus and were practically carrying each other down Grafton St. and Wicklow St. where we decided to stop in to Cornicopia for an oat bar! We got a mixed berry oat bar with soy yougurt and a Gluten Free piece of Cake with cream. Both were great and we just managed to get in before they closed. oh just what we needed after a day of hiking. We then headed to the DVD shop where we promptly decided to rent another Mihizaki movie "My Friend Totoro" when we went to exchange the DVDs we found that we had not put "Kiki's Delivery Service" back in the case, so we carried an empty case with us all day (no this is where i introduce Fran's word for her air headedness that i will use from now on it is Spindadta which is what we say when we do something silly) so we walked home and then i volunteered to go back to exchange the DVDs. We defrosted our freezer this day as well, and found a hamburger frozen in the ice (big chuckles here) it was like uncovering a mammoth in the arctic circle, only it was a hamburger in aluminum foil! so she dealt with that and disinfected the hell out of the freezer, perhaps Grandma's cleansing bar recipe would have been helpful at this point! So we both took our showers and sat down at 10pm for our movie and by 11pm i was like i can't keep my eyes open anymore so we turned it off and had to go to bed.

Tuesday Day 3 of being off from work: woohoo! so i did some lame thing around the house like trasfer our food from Paul's fridge to our own and then i went to the library where i picked up a book called Vive le Vegan! what a great cook book. i also found a design competition that i think i am going to work on and enter to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the European Union, looks fun and i checked the rules, it just said i had to be living in one of the EU states, i didn't have to be a citizen of the EU, woo hoo loop holes! i also dropped more stuff off at the homeless shelter, shampoos, deoderant, face soaps etc. Then i headed to the National Gallery for the Caravaggio. Finally a Caravaggio, the taking of christ in which Caravaggion inserted himself as a bystanndered in the back right corner holding a lantern, oh it was great finally a Caravaggio in real life, not a slide a printed image the real oil pained thing. it's amazing that something pained over 400 years ago can still be in such great shape today, i'm sure it has been touched up but what a master of oil paint the man was. absolutely have to appreciate an artist like that. so that was the weekend here in dublin, i'm christie culliton, good night.

xoxo,
christie

sloop or sailboat? not a Paul.

Hello all my blog readers, it's been some time since i have last written, busy week and not much energy left for the old blogger.

Tuesday: i don't remember. there was lots of post this day, a packing peanut fight, free food from work and some exhaustion. i got a tube mailer from derrick, i love the i have no eyeballs button or as the irish call it a badge. and the charms are on the bracelet. i also got a letter from my claire bear. oh claire i love the drawing of the big fork on my letter!

Wed: fran came and picked me up from work and we went to a french film at the IFI called "cockles and muscles". absolutely fabulous. i highly recommend you pick it up from your local video store. we laughed the whole time and the song and dance number at the end is great. then after that we went to as fran said, the best pizza place in dublin for real italian pizza, i had a wonderful vegetable pizza with peppers, mushrooms and corgettes as well as an in date Tiger beer! we both had our own pizzas and beers and then walked home. where i made a vegan chocolate for our dinner party thursday at Fran's friend Erik's house.

Thursday: the dinner party, while after not knowing which bus to take we finally caught the LUAS out to Rathmines, a suburb of Dublin. Erik is one of the cofounders of Cultivate, the sustainable living program/building that Fran used to work at. he has a great garden with all sorts of orchids and lillies, gladiolas, air plants, lettuce, basil, etc etc etc. gorgeous and ruralesque right in the city. we had a delicious vegetable stir fry and the vegan chocolate cake (which after i made it i found out that Erik is diabetic!) so oops on the cake. so he could only have a small piece and we left the rest for his roommates and hopefully i will get together with him later on in the coming months to volunteer for the conference of sustainable industrial design, and could lead to a job in the UK woo hoo! then we walked home from Rathmines, an hour long trek through the southern part of the city. and we had another house guest(P2 has come and gone from the living room) another one of Paul's friends from Cork, but not a Paul, an Allen.

Friday: worked...and no Ruth or Eileen just my 2 bosses and me (sadface) but i made it through with lots of phone messages for the ladies. made some pasta, am getting psyched for the hour long bus ride to Glandoulough on Sunday. this sunday and monday is bank holiday weekend so everyone has the days off and i was bummed because man i don't get bank holiday weekend because i already have those days off! then i found out oh but i do have tuesday off as well, so 3 day weekend woo! and there's a new exhibit at the photography institute, so more art for me and i also saw there was an exhibit of African art at a hotel on my block so i will stop by after work tomorrow yipee!

so that's all i have to report to you for the week i was invited to a party tonight but i just can't do it, too tired. tonight we have another new house guest, matt from cork, and possibly a P2. so that's the word on the street here in Dublin. I am making scones to take with on our trek to Glandalough so hopefully new good news from that adventure.

xoxo,
christie

sorry i have sucked at the email, i have been so lazy this week. hopefully i will get to bed early tonight.