The Ideal Mother's Day

I had a very nice Mother's Day weekend this past weekend, but it was definitely tailor-made to my liking!

I don't like the idea of having an "Old Wives Club" or an "Old Mothers' Club", but I do think there is something fun that could be achieved by a "Mother's Day Club"--getting a group of women together on Mother's Day! We could all go out and do things that we enjoy without husbands and kids in tow! Ofcourse, the husbands and older kids (who could afford to pitch in financially) would have to foot the bill/pay all the expenses for Mom to get away! First we would sleep in as late as we like with no interruptions. Next, we would drive to Bob Evans or I-Hop and have a fruit covered crepe breakfast with mimosas. I think Mother's Day should be on a day when the day spas are open then we, moms, could all walk around the place in those white terry cloth robes and slippers sipping apple martinis and having our manicures and pedicures done while listening to comedy CD's. We could have massages in the afternoon. We could then treat ourselves to a very nice dinner in the restaurant of our choosing topped off with dessert! We would then go out to sing Karaoke somewhere with a rousing chorus of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" being sung on stage as a group--a must on the requested songlist along with other girlie songs like "Vacation" by the Go-Go's! To end our Karaoke evening the best singer in our group would get up and sing us out with the song, "Dreams" by the Cranberries as we danced our way to the door vowing to come back next year to do the same thing! Next, we would go home to our husbands who would already have candles lit in our bedrooms with soft music playing to finish off the day! As I see it everybody wins here! Am I wrong, ladies??

My weekend wasn't quite like that, but it was very nice just the same. A friend from high school e-mailed and said he would be calling later on Friday evening. The years melted away from me that night. It was like going to a spa and being made to feel and look young again. I went from 52-years of age back to 16 as I anticipated getting the call. No matter how much you pay at a day spa very few women can go from 52 to 16 in the matter of a few hours like I did! We had a very nice talk as I remembered the old Girl Scout song I had learned so many years ago--"Make new friends, but keep the old". "One is silver, but the other's gold"!

I stayed up on Saturday night alone out on the couch watching old movies while everyone in the house was asleep or in various stages of sleep attempts. On Sunday I slept in until almost 12 P.M.! It was wonderful! I went out to work on my flower-beds and planted some Moon Glory seeds in a flower pot outside on our deck. I felt reconnected to Mother Earth somehow when I planted those seeds. At the age of 52 and one hysterectomy later I am long done giving birth, but I can still plant seeds and make something grow in the soil with God's help! All the joys of childbirth and seeing something grow without the pain and strech marks, ey ladies!

I went to Mass in the evening. One can't help but go to a Catholic Church and think of the best mother of all, Mary!

Next, I took myself to a nice restaurant in town called "Encore" which reminded me that "one more time" I have been given the privilege by God to be a mom and enjoy yet another Mother's Day! I had a delicious dinner starting with a salad consisting of mixed greens, almonds, balsamic vinegar, and what I thought were sun dried tomatoes! I told the waitress, "These red things taste just like raisins, don't you think". She replied, "I wouldn't know, I am allergic to cherries"! I was eating sun dried cherries and didn't know it! I also enjoyed pasta with artichokes and a nice sauce with cheese on top. The bread dipped in oil was delicious on the side.

Afterwards, I wanted to try something I had never had before but heard alot about--an apple martini! The bartender did me one better. He made me a caramel apple martini. It was delicious. Eve (the original bad mom) gave Adam a taste of the apple, but if she had given him a couple of apple martinis they could have just fallen asleep in the Garden of Eden afterwards then we women could all have been spared alot of problems!

Hope I have given you some ideas of how to celebrate your next Mother's Day! Something to think about next year, ladies! Happy Mother's Day!

Our Trip to Ireland - Chapter 11

At 9 A.M. the next morning the tour bus came after us for the final time. We would be taken to the Dublin Airport. When we went through Customs I was stopped as I was going through. The little Waterford Crystal harp I purchased set off the security signal. The lady who worked at the airport asked me if I was carrying a “Mother Mary statue” out in my bag. I told her, “No”. I showed her what I bought at the Waterford Factory. I told her that was all I could afford. She looked at the harp and smiled then waved me through. We would get to ride Aer Lingus from Dublin to Shannon then on to Boston, MA. I loved flying on Aer Lingus because everyone was made to feel as if we were all in First Class! We each had our own little personal TV set in the back of the seat in front of us. We could watch movies, news, or keep track of where our airplane was. I watched an old movie called, “Easy Money” starring Paul Newman while Greg watched “Blood Diamonds”. I also watched most of the movie about Beatrix Potter which was very good. We had a nice meal while onboard. We landed in Boston. That airport was nice. Next, we landed in Chicago which I don’t care for because I find this airport too big and confusing. We finally touched down in Dayton around midnight. Bob was there to pick us up to take us home. Ireland was wonderful, but there really is “no place like home”!

Our Trip to Ireland - Chapter 9

Greg went downstairs and brought up a couple of Cokes for us. He got really tickled trying to watch cartoons as the characters were usually talking in a different language, i.e. Russian or Polish?? Every place where we stayed had a TV but could only get 5 stations! (We found out that there are a lot of Lithuanians, Latvians, Polish, and Vietnamese who work in the service industry at these hotels. Many of them don’t speak English.) We watched the Irish equivalent of the show, “Jackass” from back home. The Irish version is called, “Brainiacs”. It was funny to watch. Pretty soon we couldn’t stay up any longer and fell asleep.

The next morning we got up and had a delicious breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We boarded our tour bus and stopped to pick up our guide who talked briefly to us about the city and the various sites that we would be seeing that day. The Guinness Factory was closed that day as it was Good Friday. Tony explained that all establishments that sold alcohol would be closed that day as it is a holy day and very well respected by the Irish people. We did get to take a tour of St. Patrick’s Cathedral which was fascinating indeed. We saw so many things in there and learned so much.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral at one time belonged to Irish Catholics. Under British rule this cathedral was taken away from the Catholics and became the Church of Ireland. Today the Cathedral is considered an Episcopalian Church. This all came about because Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife, Anne Boleyn! We saw so many fascinating things inside this beautiful old church. Status quo was the rule of the day at one time. You could tell this by looking at the small wooden seats that resembled school desks that were closer towards the entrances as opposed to the nicer pews closer to the altar areas. There was one section that had 2 red velvet chairs. These are reserved for Mary McAleese, the President of Ireland and other dignitaries who come to the Cathedral for State funerals.

The Guinness family has donated a lot of money to the church. The Boyle family had a huge wooden monument inside that depicted Mr. and Mrs. Boyle and their daughters from the 1600 era. Descendants of the Boyle family offered to restore the monument that goes from the floor to the ceiling on one wall, but they stipulated that they would only do this if the entire monument was moved up next to the altar where they felt it rightly belonged! The Dean of the Cathedral refused! I kept thinking about Peter Boyle being there in spirit and saying something like, “Stinkin’ lousy humps”!

Jonathan Swift was buried beneath the floor of the Cathedral as well as his lady friend whom he cherished but would not marry. It seems Mr. Swift had a terrible memory for things and worried that he might pass this trait on to his children, therefore, he refused to marry Esther! Their graves are marked with gold letters in the floor. A death mask impression was taken of his face as well as a clay impression of his skull. These things are on display in a bookcase at the Cathedral for all to see before they go into the sanctuary.

One of the original prayer doors was on display as well. There were many statues of men of importance. There were real knights’ helmets sitting on poles in back of each chair in the choir loft. These were left over from a time when people were knighted at the Cathedral.

We didn’t get to take a tour of Guinness, but we drove by the factory which takes up several blocks in downtown Dublin. The factory is very much alive every other day but was closed in observance of Good Friday. Tony, our driver, told us stories about how wealthy the Guinness family is and their charitable contributions. Mr. Guinness fathered 21 children! None of the children live in Dublin anymore, however. Tony joked by saying, “There’s a baby in every can of Guinness”! He also told us that Guinness was considered a healthy drink for women as it contains iron!

Next we drove through Phoenix Park which is one of the largest public parks in the world! The park is has walls all around it. There are 1,752 acres of land inside. The President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, and the United States Ambassador to Ireland, Thomas Foley have residences in Phoenix Park. We got to see the fronts of their houses. These residences are in gated with walls around them, but you can see the house through the gates. The President’s residence has an Irish flag flying out in front while Ambassador Foley’s residence has an American flag flying outside of it. We saw a circle of trees with countless Fallow deer wandering around in the morning hours. These deer have thrived in this park since 1662! There is a bird sanctuary. There Dublin Zoo located inside the park has live animals. There is also a zoo with stuffed animals in it which the locals call the “dead zoo”! When my penfriend, Fridolin, took us through the park later in the day she showed us the statue erected on the site where the altar was set up during Pope John Paul’s visit several years ago. There were also choral groups performing later in the afternoon. The park was alive with activity all day with people laying on blankets and children playing. There were fountains which come on during the summer months for the children to play in. There were beautiful flowers everywhere!

About this time our tour bus went to Trinity College. We had hoped to get inside to see the Book of Kells and all the other neat things we had heard about that are inside of this college, but we couldn’t get in until 12 P.M. on Good Friday. This was the end of our tour, so we either had to ride back to the hotel or walk around on our own.

We were fascinated to learn that students who have earned so many points in high school can go to college for free! Ireland cares very much about it’s young people never being denied an education like the Catholics were so many years ago by the British. Every effort is made to educate Ireland’s young and try to convince them then to stay in Ireland. During the 1800’s immigrants left Ireland in droves due to the famine and religious persecution by the British. Today every effort is being made to correct the damage done so many years ago by the British. The Irish are a very strong, hard working, and proud people today.

Greg and I walked back to the hotel as the time was drawing closer that I would finally get to meet my penfriend, Fridolin, whom I had been corresponding with for several years but never met face to face! Finally she walked into the hotel lobby, and I got to meet her! She looked wonderful. We hugged each other. She is a very nice lady. She lives in Clondalkin which is like a suburb of Dublin. She has a very small house (a ½ double is what we would call her home back here). She has two cats and a dog named Sasha. She had written to me about them for years.

Fridolin walked with us back out the door of the hotel and showed us the stores and sites she is familiar with in Dublin. We went to a little church in the middle of a bunch of little shoppes. We went inside to pray. I finally got to thank God in an official atmosphere for bringing us to Ireland safely! We saw the “tinkers” that Tony had warned us about. He refered to them as his cousins! When I called them gysies he corrected me and said, “Gypsies have honor”! He warned us not to give them any money. A young girl came up to Greg on the street, though, and asked him for money in exchange for a magazine written about homeless people. Fridolin said some of the tinkers like to have something they can sell instead of just begging people for money. This way they feel they have something to give back for the money they are given. Fridolin said that the magazine is a nice one, but when she saw the young girl approach Greg she intervened and told the woman Greg didn’t want the magazine. Fridolin took us to Carroll’s Gift Shoppe where Greg could go in and shop for more reasonably priced souvenirs than any other places we had stopped in before. He was grateful to be able to find some nice gifts for his friends back home.

Fridolin took the scenic route back to her house and showed us Phoenix Park again. There were a lot more people in there by then. Fridolin said that this much activity in the park was unusual for a Good Friday as in years gone by concerts in the park on such a holy day would not have been considered appropriate.

Fridolin drove us in her car to her house in Clondalkin. We sat in her sun room and chatted as she went to work preparing a lovely dinner for us. She served poached salmon, julienne carrots (a very popular way to fix carrots in Ireland), colcannon, white wine, and finished with a raspberry cake dessert topped with vanilla ice cream. It was all so delicious!

I finally got to meet her dog, Sasha! The cats were confined to the bedroom during our visit as Greg and I are allergic to them. I felt bad about that.

I helped Fridolin clear the table then we got back into her car to go back to Dublin. She had purchased tickets for the three of us on the Ghostbus Tour! We boarded a double-decker bus and drove around the streets of Dublin over around Christ Church while the host (a man dressed in a black suit and a black hat). He was a terrific entertainer and historian all in one! When we least expected it he would come up next to someone sitting on the bus and break up his sentence by yelling in their face! At one point he turned out all the lights in the upper deck and told a ghost story about being buried alive. When he got to one point of the story he shot everyone with a squirt gun. We all screamed as we couldn’t see what he was squiriting at us. The bus made two stops, and we got out both times to walk through a graveyard first then through the gates of an old church. Our tour guide told us another true ghost story involving two nuns, a lepper, and a bloody finger! He showed all of us how the body snatchers dug up the dead in the first graveyard and the tool they used. The “graveyard shift” term came from families who stood guard in cemeteries to guard over their relatives against grave robbers and body snatchers. The latter took the corpses to medical schools and were paid for the fresh ones! He took us past a real medical college and told us yet another ghost story about a body snatcher who tried to sneak himself into the morgue in a bag hoping to get out later while his friends were paid for his as well the real dead bodies. Something went terribly wrong and panic ensued resulting in fatal injuries and abuse of a corpse in the end! Boo-oo-oo!

After the Ghostbus Tour came to an end, we walked back to the lot where Fridolin had parked her car. She drove us back to our hotel for our last night in Ireland! We said our good-byes to Fridolin then headed up to our room. Greg and I enjoyed some delicious spirits (his last for awhile as 18 is not the legal drinking age back home) and watched TV. We laughed and laughed at the TV show called, “Brainiacs” which is similar to “Jackass” back home. We also watched “Cold Case” which seems to be popular in Ireland. We fell asleep in anticipation of our big day to come when we would fly on three different airplanes landing first in Boston then Chicago then Dayton!

Our Trip to Ireland - Chapter 8

We got back onto the bus and drove through Kilkenny. Tony talked a lot about the town. He explained some more Gaelic words to us. Everything seemed to be picking up in speed. We knew that we only had a couple more days left on our tour then we would be heading home.

We were all getting pretty tired of riding around at that point. We arrived at our hotel. We grabbed our bags this time and headed to the hotel desk to get our keys. The room was nice, but I could tell the hotel had been there for quite awhile. The town was full of people and cars. Fortunately, there was a lane just for busses. We saw a lot of things before we got to the hotel, but it was hard to take pictures as everything was going by so fast. Greg went out for awhile to do some exploring. He had hoped to find another swimming pool, but this hotel didn’t have one. I got restless, so when he came back up. I went back down to the lobby with him. We went out on the street which was super-crowded with people running around everywhere. I felt completely out of my element. I didn’t like the fast pace of the city. I didn’t like not knowing where I was going. We passed Jessica and John on the street who told us they had just been to the Hard Rock Café. I knew Greg and Terra would want t-shirts from yet another Hard Rock Café, so Greg and I ran through town trying to get to this place. I was starting to get out of breath trying to keep up with Greg. We found the Café then the lady behind the counter told us their Visa machine was down. We would have to use up some more Euros, and t-shirts aren’t cheap in Ireland! We were running low on Euros now. I knew that the next day was Good Friday, and banks would be closed. I didn’t stop to think that the ATM’s would be open just the same. When we got back to our hotel we found that the ATM was out of order. I panicked wondering if we would have enough Euros for the next two days knowing we still had lunches to buy and other things we might want to get. Greg went back out and found another ATM the hotel clerk had told him about. When he got back he was all out of breath. I felt bad about letting him go. He really needed his inhaler by the time he got back, and we didn’t pack it. He has gone without it for months at a time, but now he had a cold and needed it. I was concerned about taking it in the suitcase due to security rules. He does very well without the inhaler unless he gets a cold. I didn’t know he was going to get a sore throat and worse cold symptoms until we had already left home. When he was able to catch his breath again we boarded the bus. He was still having a hard time, but he managed to get relaxed. Being able to get another good night’s sleep helped him again later that night. Tony picked us up in front of the hotel, and we made our way to the Abbey Tavern for dinner, drinks, and a show. We listened to more traditional Irish music and enjoyed a delicious dinner. I had cream of leek & potato soup, Silverside corned beef with cabbage & baked potatoes, a baked apple tart w/cream, and an Irish coffee. It was a superb meal. My friend, Fridolin, had told me earlier not to expect large portions of food when I arrived in Ireland. Fridolin was wrong!

A young man and two young women danced Riverdance-type dances for us on the stage located at the end of our dining tables. We joined in the chorus on the songs, “I’ll Tell Me Ma”, “Whiskey in the Jar”, “Wild Rover”, and “Molly Malone”. A young girl sitting in the audience was invited to come up and dance with the band. The girl said she was from North Carolina. She did pretty well dancing to the songs she knew the steps for.

North Carolina was mentioned a couple times during our trip. A couple joining us on our tour was from North Carolina. After leaving our tour at the end, they were going on to visit Scotland and stay there a week! Tony also told us earlier when we were out on the road that the potato and cigarettes were brought over to Ireland by visitors like Sir Walter Raleigh which reminded us about the potato famine and further deaths caused by cigarettes! That was humbling!

We had a wonderful time at the Abbey Tavern then we headed off back to the Jury’s Inn Hotel located across the street from the Christ Church Cathedral. We were very close to the Temple Bar area and visited there the next day with Fridolin. First, a good night’s sleep in our hotel!