Yesterday, Today, and Later This Month

So, yesterday began with me sprinting after the bus in the rain (good thing I spent the extra 10 seconds looking for my umbrella instead of walking to the bus stop where I missed the bus by 10 seconds) followed by me standing in the rain for 15 minutes trying to hail a cab. Not a good way to start a day, especially when I have a headache for the 2nd day in a row. Running gets your heart pumping, which sends blood coursing thru your veins, which are constricted in your head, making it pound even more than it was before the damn bus took off. The day got better when co-worker Mark gave me aspirin (bless him) and then took me to lunch at a delightful little pub nearby that I didn’t know existed. He regaled me with tales of his recent trip to Machu Picchu, a place I’ve wanted to visit since I was 11, thank you Mrs. Bentley. After work, it was time for the worst experience shopping in a long time. I need a chocolate brown cardigan for a dress that I’m planning on wearing to our Christmas Party tonight. Fairly simple request I felt; I looked for 3 days with no luck. Evidently, I’m asking the impossible. After 3 hours of “shopping” I trudged home, tired, hungry, and, let’s face it, feeling like a loser. What normal woman can go shopping, fully intending to part with her money, actually says to the sales clerk ‘I don’t care what it costs at this point’ and comes home empty handed?! I’m a failure, which is what I was reflecting on when I hit my closet. (Not literally, obviously. It'd topple over on me.) As I was realizing that I packed all my nice dresses in the box that now resides in Arkansas with my sister, Flatmate Suzie chose to discuss the eventuality of me moving out, not in April as we had discussed, but in February, as she had decided. It’s her house, so really, nothing I can do about it. Had I known, however, I’d have concentrated my job search in DL and just relocated altogether. So now my Christmas will be spent searching for a new place to live instead of hanging out in Spain drinking myself silly and auditioning cabana boys.

Today I got to work fairly on time considering I no longer care, the bus showed up a mere 5 minutes after I’d arrived at the bus station and I had the odd sensation of sitting there knowing I won’t have to do this any more. It was quite nice, truth be told. I decided to treat myself to one last Barnie’s coffee (I wonder if they’ll go out of business now?) and managed to get another free cup because I know that the literal translation of karaoke is “empty orchestra”. I’m a Cowan and we specialize in this sort of stupid information. I can’t tell you what my phone number is or what my cross streets are but I know I read once a couple of years ago the meaning of the word karaoke. So now I’m at work, my last day in the office, trying to make it thru until 4pm when we’ll have a little office gathering with wine and munchies and bad speeches about how they’ll miss me and I should keep in touch. I will, with a few of them anyway. Then we’ll go change clothes and have dinner in a very chic restaurant here in Dublin where the engineers will complain that it’s too fancy and they would have rather had the money for drinks instead and the architects will talk about, well, probably architecture and their jobs. It’s a very hip profession until you meet a group of us and realize that very few have any social skills or hobbies outside of overtime. Maybe it’s just this office. I plan on eating everything in site, the menu looks amazing. And really? It's about time I got some decent food in this town.

I’ve got 15 minutes before lunch. I plan on heading into town and picking up those last minute party items every girl needs: a pair of nylons without a run in them and a bottle of champagne. I’m having a quiet glass of bubbly with Joe and Susan (remember her? Boss Girl not Bossy Girl) before we head out to the party. With luck her husband will be there in time to partake as well. If not, I guess we could leave him a glass… it is Christmas, a fact I’m having trouble grasping. It’s not the lack of snow,12 years in Texas and LA have cured me of that, it’s the Christmas decorations. Unless you hit a retail area, there isn’t a sign of them anywhere. Maybe it’s too early for the house lights to go up. They are a rather energy conscious nation. And I was told that the rich houses feel lights are too crass so they buy a huge tree for the front yard and string lights on that. Whatever. We’ll see how it goes as we get closer to the date.

The stores however are decked out. Brown Thomas, the Irish equivalent to Nieman Marcus, always has the best windows, holiday or not, but they’ve really put the rest of them to shame this time. Their theme is Fairy Tales and each set of windows is, well, a fairy tale. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, and they play the Disney/Broadway songs of those movies. What sets them apart from all the other windows is not the theme or the music; it’s the amount of crap in the window. I can’t even begin to describe it. It’s like the window version of a Victorian Drawing Room, where every square inch (centimetre!) is packed with stuff. Fake snow, trees, birds, leaves, snow, woodland creatures, fairy tale creatures… it must have taken a team of 40 people to do them overnight. I’ll see if we can swing by tonight with the cameras. It’s really too amazing for me to even try to describe it for you.

Alright, lunch. I’ll be back in 2 hours. Hey! It’s my last day…