Jazz Fest!

Today was the first day of Jazz Fest. I worked in the morning and got off around three-thirty in the afternoon. One entrance is a few blocks from work, so I grabbed the free ticket that someone was nice enough to give me and went to meet Sally, my Associate Team Leader at work. Sally knows a lot of people that work for the Fest, so she had passes for the guest areas at the front of the stage, which was fantastic! I've never been that close to the front for any kind of major talent.

The huge Acura Stage area was packed for the last two performances, but we were comfortably situated for both acts. The first was Emmylou Harris, who I have been wanting to see for a long time, and she was great!






The flags, icons and banners that you see are carried around by the really hard core Jazz Fest people. The various groups go together year after year and use the things on the tall poles so that they can find each other in the crowds.



Sally and I took a walk around in between sets to look around and get something to eat, and we found this tent that featured South Africa with a lot of crafts and exhibits. I looked for a picture of Bok, but there didn't seem to be one!




We got back in time for the final performance of the afternoon; my all time favorite Jazz Fest performer, Bonnie Raitt. She loves Jazz Fest and was at the top of her form, she just seems to keep getting better every time I see her!






It was a great afternoon. Jazz Fest is always a fantastic time; another thing New Orleans does better than anyone. I stopped back at the store to check on things, (we get hit big time as the Fest closes down for the night) and as everything was fine, I zipped on home through the heavy traffic on my scooter.


Karen and Chris get here Tuesday night for a weeks stay, so I'll be going to the Fest again with them next week, and of course, there will be more pictures...



durlx

Since I got back from Ireland...

...I've been ferociously busy! Lot's of work related things; we rebuilt the wine area and my new associate Team Leader had had only a week to get into the swing before I left for Ireland. Fortunately, we had worked together before, and well, at the other store; she handled everything while I was I as gone. Still, it took us all awhile to catch up. And besides the time I spent on the journal here, I was also working on a story for our national newsletter; the text is ready for final editing, I'll be picking the pics tonight that will go with the story. I've also done a bit of work on the more technical presentation of the facts of my visit to the farmstead cheesemakers for the regional people.

Each time I go to work on one of these projects, I have this intense desire to go back to Ireland, so I have to give it a rest for a bit every now and again.

In the midst of all this, a very wonderful thing happened! I became Uncle Bunny for the second time!




Lil' Evan!

I think he's only a few hours old in this pic... One thing that's most amazing, and you can't really see it here, is that he has red hair. It's not exactly the same color as my niece's hair, but it's most definately red. My brother has blond hair and his wife has very dark hair; for them to have two red-headed children is a rare thing, not impossible in our families, just very rare and special. (Uncle Bunny loves red hair... my beard used to be red until a few years ago, something that came from my mother's genetic heritage. She was a red head, her father had a red beard, but that doesn't explain this entirely. For Evan to have red hair, the other gene had to come from his mother, and there's definitely some strong Celtic influence on her side... still rare for it to have popped up.)



Look at Emma holding her brother!

Emma is just a bit over four years old and has been the center of the universe up untill now...

But she seems to have taken it in stride; she's intelligent and strong for her age, and sometimes she can be a bit much to put up with, but you always have to love her. She didn't care for the way that the nurse was holding Evan in the hospital and told the nurse as much! It's fortunate that her grandma is a nurse there... and of course, Emma often gets a break not just because she is gorgeous, but because she manages to convince everyone around her that she deserves it. She's a wonder. Also, her Uncle Bunny taught her how to work the camera. hehe.




There they are. I have tears in my eyes. I couldn't be happier looking at his picture.

I can't wait until July, when we all will get together and I get to meet my nephew for the first time!


durlx aka Uncle Bunny

Day Ten. Thursday.

...from the travel journal...




Joan drove Jared, Belinda and I into the town of Kilkenny, which was, as was most all of the towns we visited, a lovely place with brightly painted shop fronts. These towns all support a butcher shop or two or three and an entire host of other shops catering to individual tastes and categories. No big mall here, the center of town is where it�s at, and that�s a very good thing I think. It�s all very scenic and quaint to the American eye, but it�s all real. It�s the way they do it in Ireland.



We took a look at the big castle in town, where the lords who used to own the lands where the cottage is located once lived and ruled.



Next to the castle was the stables area with a dozen large buildings, (the pic above just one of them, that Joan said I should tell you was "her house in town, hehe)!, now containing a great number of craft shops and a caf� where we had coffees and a mid morning snack. I decided to have the sausage roll, something that I wouldn�t have confidently ordered anywhere else. But in Ireland, it seems that you can�t get a bad sausage. The little pork rashers in puff pastry were lovely, as was the young man who heated them up for us, probably the nelly-est young man that I had yet seen in all of Ireland.



We walked back to the car, stopping on the way at an open air market to buy some home made breads for lunch. I looked in a second hand shop for some religious icon things for Robert, but the stuff there was scary, even for Robert�s tastes!

Saw this Guinness sign, (very common to see Guinness signs everywhere), but this one all in Gaelic.




We got back to the cottage and had another delightful lunch and then Jared and I fired up the rental car...


Jared and Darryl ready to go...



...and Meave, the dog thinking she was going with...





...and headed to Dublin with sister Deirdre as navigator and guide. We passed through another half dozen absolutely charming towns on the way. I mean it was beginning to get monotonous! This constant profusion of beautiful countryside and quaint towns! You know, I am red/green color blind, (as is Jared, btw), but even I could see how green was this land!

We got back into Dublin. Parked the car at Belinda�s and Jared and I took the bus to Dublin City Centre. We did some last minute shopping and got back on the bus to Belinda�s, but totally missed the stop and went waaaaay to the end of the line, where the driver took pity on us, (poor lost Americans) and let us ride back to Belinda�s for no extra charge. We felt a little dumb, but no shame.

We went from there to Joan and Uli�s house in Dublin, where we had a Guinness and some very delightful crispy thin crust pizzas that Uli made, one of them with Cashel Blue cheese.! Got back to Belinda�s house, talked for a bit and then hit the hay, as we had to get packed and on the road to the airport for our return flight to the U.S in the morning.

You know, ten days was just not enough� this country had begun to seep into my consciousness. I didn�t want to leave. I�m certain that I will return.//

�end of travel journal�



The people that I met were wonderful; the famed �Irish hospitality� is a real thing! And the countryside is beautiful, absolutely beautiful! It was hard to take a bad picture. It was easy to have a very good time.

The Trip Home.

We got up, we got ready and after breakfast with Belinda, we said our goodbyes.

I can�t say enough nice things about Belinda, our hostess in Dublin! She not only let us stay in her lovely house, but gave us breakfast, tips, directions and guidance and took time out to show us around Dublin. She�s a total treasure and I have no doubt that most of my regular readers would find her delightful! Her sister Deirdre and her sister Joan and her husband Uli were also fantastic, having us over for meals, letting us stay at the cottage, (a place so incredibly charming�) and just generally making us feel like welcome friends at every minute of the day! I have to say that for me, meeting them really made our stay in Ireland special. I�m looking forward to seeing them again someday soon.

Our drive to return the rental car was mostly un-eventful, a wrong turn or two, but we found the place in good time. As we were completing the return process and waiting for the shuttle bus to the terminal, these two guys from Wisconsin that we had met the day we picked up the car pulled into the parking lot! They had been in the north and we had been in the south and we were all returning to the U.S. on the same day. They reported a good time as well.

We got to the terminal, got checked in and walked to the shopping area, where we picked up a lot of duty free stuff, good prices and a remarkably good selection. I also discovered that we could bring food into the U.S., especially cheese! I picked up a Gubbeen, and a smoked Gubbeen, (which is not available in the U.S. so far, well at least until a few weeks from now, when I will be the first to offer it for sale in the U.S.!)

We went through the various checkpoints and got on the plane. There was a delay, (someone didn�t clear and their luggage had to be taken off), but we finally took off. We had better seats than on the way over and it was the middle of the afternoon, so it was quite pleasant. After a rather dreadful little airline meal, (we had gotten so spoiled!), we settled in for the remainder of the flight. The in-flight movie was �Something�s Got To Give� with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton. I don�t usually watch the in-flight stuff, but I did this time, and I am glad I did. At one point, I realized that the background noise that I heard over the soundtrack in the headphones was laughter, people on the plane laughing out loud at an in-flight movie! Amazing! Nicholson was great and Keaton was fabulously funny! Even Keanu Reeves did a bit more than look good. Just brilliant!

We arrived at Logan airport in Boston over an hour late, and the baggage thing was a mess, as it most often is at Logan. I was expecting a bit of delay with customs� but we were just waved through! The guy hardly looked at us!

My brother and my niece were there to meet us, which was sweet. Jared and I hugged goodbye and headed our separate ways; he to his car in Jamaica Plain and I with my brother and niece to Pembroke, on the south shore, where I spent a quiet day and a half before returning to New Orleans Sunday morning.

I went into work Sunday afternoon for the evening shift and by nine P.M. I was a stupefied mess! (It was two A.M. Dublin time!) It was pretty dumb to schedule an evening shift for myself that soon after my return, but fortunately, the team member I was working with was very sweet and understanding. And what�s a lil� jet lag after such an amazing trip, eh?

To close this, I must say that Jared, �Massy�, was a really great traveling companion! (He did all the driving, an amazing feat in itself!) But he was also fun to travel with; his sense of adventure was true, his enjoyment of what we encountered matched mine in so many ways, and where our interests differed, we seemed to be able to comfortably accommodate both views.

It was great, Jared, and thank you!

durlx

Day Nine. Wednesday, St Patrick's Day.

...more from the journal...





After a good night's sleep in the old cottage, we all awoke and had some tea and toast and cheese, (of course). We took a shower in the very nicely remodeled bathroom in the small addition to the original cottage and shortly after that, Belinda and Joan, and her husband Ulrich, (the owners of the lovely old farm house, arrived from Dublin). They proceeded to whip up another morning meal, which was greatly enjoyed.




Then, Jared, Joan, Belinda and I took a walk down the lane to the old quarry nearby where stones from the house may have been quarried, accompanied by the dogs, Queen Meave and Grunnie. The setting was pastoral in the extreme. Rolling countryside, sheep in the fields, hedgerows and old farmhouses where ever you might look. We met one of the local farmers on his tractor as we walked and stopped to talk. There was some question if Jules, an English artist neighbor a bit further down the road was awake or not as it was only eleven ayem or so; being an artist, his hours were irregular. The local farmer on the tractor turned out to be a local historian as well.

As we got to his house on the lane, we saw that Jules was indeed awake and standing at his gate. We were invited in for tea in the tiny kitchen; once again the conversation was lively and amusing. We also walked around the yard, visited the sheep and saw the ruins of a little cottage nearby. The people who had lived there walked out one-day decades ago and headed for America.

Sheep! They were everywhere we went, btw!




We walked back down the lane and back to the cottage.



Uli was sitting in the suntrap playing Scrabble with sister Deirdre. Jared joined the game, Belinda and Joan went inside for a bit and I decided to read a book by Feargal Quinn, the guy who started the modern supermarket in Ireland. (O.K., I know. I was on vacation. But I think I get extra points for reading the book in Ireland, hehe.) Oh, also, the dogs, Grunnie and Queen Meave... luvely mutts, they were!

A note here about the cottage:

It's over two hundred years old and almost magic in the way it feels when you're there. The old hearth...



...was discovered behind a plaster wall, after an old woman, who had lived there for much of her life remembered that "there was a fireplace" behind the wall when she was a child. There are the two places on either side of the fire box for two people, a husband and wife, to sit on long cold evenings after a day of toil together, and two small compartments, one maybe for keeping smoked meats, the other a place to keep your salt supply dry in the humid air. Sitting there at the table as we ate, I often thought of those people that once lived in the cottage and worked the land over the centuries, and felt something very strong about what history really means. The blackened stones at the back of the hearth a sign that people had lived in this place for generations... a good feeling came from that hearth.



Above the hearth on the upper right side, they left a bit of the old framework for the original thatch roof showing. (The cottage has a slate roof now, done years ago.)


I can't tell you how much this place moved me. The work that Joan and Uli, (and Belinda and Deirdre) had done on the place was a mixture of both practical and almost reverent restoration. The room Jared stayed in, pictured below, might give you an idea of thier very good taste and feeling for the place.






So, after a bit, Deirdre, Jared, Joan and Uli played boules for a while and I watched. Then we all went in and worked on the evening meal, which eventually arrived at the table in the main room with the old hearth, which was lit by candles. Jules, the guy from down the lane showed up and we proceeded to dine with lots of good food, wine and conversation, warm and friendly. Occasionally, Jules and I went out into the yard to smoke and look at the brilliant country star lit sky, which was stunning, and talk.

We all finished off the night with Irish Coffees, but with real Irish whiskey, and in Ireland!

And then to bed and sweet dreams, it was a perfect day. And a perfect St. Patrick's day! I couldn't have imagined a better one.