Go Ducky Go

I love this story, I think it's so cute.
Lots of rubber duckies helping science - who'da thunk it.

Speaking of cute things, I saw more of the cows from the Cow Parade. There are two in Jervis Centre and Jamie tells me there is a very cute one in the GPO.

Seperation Imminent
Thursday is the day. I go into hospital. Friday morning I will be knocked out and have my tonsils removed.

I'm extremely nervous, but I'm my own wrost enemy. I read all those horror stories about peoples stays in hospital - you know the one-in-a-million-chance-it'll-happen or it-could-never-happen type story. Like the one where the muscle relaxant works but the aneasthetic doesn't so you feel the whole thing but can't do anything to stop it from happening cos your muscles don't work. That's the freakiest one. BUt I'm sure it won't happen to me.

Actually the scariest bit about the while thing is that I may find it difficult to talk for a few days - that's just cruel to someone like me. I imagine that my new friends will be a notebook and pen ;-)

Anyway, I'll be away for a while - like it'd be noticed.

The weekend...
This was a pretty good weekend all in all. Friday was the usual veg-in-front-of-the-couch sort of evening. Until about 11:30 that was, when I realised Mike was coming up and the place needed to be tidy. So an uneventful Friday - but we've got a very clean bathroom.

On Saturday, myself, Mike and Jamie headed to the Bloggers meet in the Davenport and were there for about 3. There was a good turnout and lots of faces that didn't make it to the last meeting. The Davenport is a good venue, especially if you just want to sit and chat, and we did. The group had pretty much gone by 6, except for the 3 noisy beer louts in one corner. Yes the terrible threesome couldn't bring themselves to leave the quiet, relaxing atmosphere of the Davenport lounge (and the pints were relatively cheap too). But we managed to drag ourselves away by 9.
On the way home we stopped at an offy where copious quantities of alcohol were purchased, all of us too drunk at this stage to realise this might be a bad idea.
At home Jamie attempted to make salsa and guacamole (yes, we also thought it would be a good idea to cook dinner when any self-respecting drunk would get take out). Dinner turned out quite good all things considered. We sat and chatted and drank combinations of Vodka, Peach Schnapps and orange juice until around 2 in the morning.

Sunday wasn't the write-off one would have expected. OUt of bed in time for brunch at our favourite place - Gotham Cafe. On the way it was necessary to take pictures of the Cows. Yes, the Cow Parade has come to Dublin. The cow on the left there is beside Christchurch Cathedral. The Cow Parade is 100 or so, fibre glass cows which have been painted by Irish artists and are on display around the city. I think they're gonna be here for about a month and then will be auctioned off for charity. If we have a bigger apartment I'd buy one - probably this blue one titled Absolutely Freisan , cos he's got isobars.. ha ha!

There's even this really cute one wearing an aran jumper. Ah!
But the sad story of the morning is that the silver cow with wings on Westmoreland Street was vandalised over the weekend. A cow hospital is being set up to deal with the various injuries. It's sad that this will be needed. I had seen the cow parade in Brussels a couple of weeks back and I think it's lovely.

Later on Sunday we headed to Lil and Bendy's, where we had tea and biccies and went for a walk on Dun Laoghaire pier. All in all it was very lovely.

PS. there are new photos in the photo gallery.The bleary-eyed people are the ones who stayed in the Davenport Lounge until 9 on Saturday night.

New Shrine...
To Jamie (on the right). Cos really he's the original, the only one and he's VERY lovely.
I love you, Jamie :-)

I've been keeping a secret...
Well actually, most of the people who read this blog probably know this already but for the very few of you who don't here it is: I'm going to Australia and New Zealand for 4 months. Leaving in September, going with Jamie and hoping to have loads of fun.

Last night we confirmed (and paid for) our tickets. It's amazing to think that one person can spend so much money on plane tickets. Well, not just plane tickets, we got insurance too. All from those nice people at Trailfinders. They do provide a good service, and they're all really friendly. It seems though, that every member of staff has been to almost every part of the world. Their advice is usually of the form "well, when I was there..." I suppose that's why we trust them with sorting out our trip.

As part of our planning Jamie and I bought Footprint guides on Oz and NZ. We are splitting the work; he's reading about Oz and me NZ. I thought that was a fair deal except the books are about the same size and I have to read all of the NZ book and Jamie only have to read a part of his. But it's interesting, lots of activities. I'm especially looking forward to snorkelling and abseiling.
I learned to swim at the end of last year for the express purpose of someday being able to snorkel. Up until then I had been terrified of water and I got over all that. I'm not a very good swimmer, not much stamina, but I'm not afraid any more.
Abseiling is important because I seem to have a mental block on "getting down". Now, I'm not talking about partying - that sorta getttin' down I can do. I mean like, when you climb up something and then you need to get down. I can get up, but can not get down. Jamie just leaves me there - he can be so unhelpful sometimes. Anyway I reckon a bit of abseiling will help me get over all of that.

When I am away I intend to blog my experiences as I go (and of course there'll be photos). So this blog might actually get a damn site more interesting ;-) (Of course the whole tonsil saga is going to be documented....)

A whole new fad...
Vincent D'Onofrio is the new fad. I was watching Law & Order: Criminal Intent last night. Vincent is a cop - he's very good. I really like him in it. I was convinced I had never seen him in anything before, as tends to be the case with actors in Law & Order shows, with the obvious exception of Ice-T - that boy gets around.
I digress, I decided last night Vincent was lovely enough to deserve a mention here. So in order to have something to say about him I turned to IMDB and lo and behold our Vincent has been a very busy boy. His most famous part being that guy in Full Metal Jacket but the only one I recognised him from was Men In Black. Vincent was that nasty, hick, farmer type that was taken over by the giant cockroach - attractive.
But that's it, Vincent's lovely and present here for a limited time only for you all to admire.

PS. Picture him without the goatee - much nicer ;-)