Tuesday, October 23, 2012

IRELAND: A Love Story (my abuse of the comma, dashes, & run-on sentences)






Let's just be clear. I love Ireland — the Dingle, the ring, the tip, the whole wet bastard.
We visit the pubs of Dublin and encounter The Irish Sobriety Test —the step up urinal. 


It's how you know when it's time to stop drinking. Approach the urinal and step up fourteen inches onto a narrow ledge, sway forward and you're in the pisser, backwards the floor, right or left and your into the bloke next to you.
     We leave Dublin and drive our tiny, standard, stick-shift-and-steering-wheel-on-the-wrong-side car down a narrow, one-lane-supposedly-big enough-for-two-cars goat path deep into the Dingle. The Dingle— it sounds wrong, but there isn't a berry in sight, only breathtaking seascapes.


                                         (Yes, that's for two way traffic)


     From there, on to Doolin, a surf town with a great local beer — the Dooliner.  A cross between Guinness and Smithwicks, the Dooliner is like gravy diluted with a shot of seltzer, delicious. I've only been away from it 36 hours, but long for it like a missing limb, if my missing limb were a dark, rich, delicious brew (which it is not, the pale, unpalatable, gangly bastard).  




     Next stop Galway, where Moira, our B&B hostess in her nice woolen skirt, apron, and expensive-appearing high-heeled shoes (not trashy-hooker-high-heels, just an inch-and-a-half,the proper height in which one would  serve "brekky") had prepared a feast for us. Thus far, we'd had pretty standard fare at our breakfast-included hotels — box cereal, mini-croissants, instant coffee, eggs-cooked-hours-earlier-and-left-to-rubberize-in-tepid-water. 
    Moira would have none of that. She was stickler for detail, like Mommie Dearest, only she hadn't beat us with a wire hanger. (I'm sure if we'd asked, she would've glady obliged. There's always next time.) After the freshly-squeezed orange juice, French-press coffee, homemade granola, free ranged eggs (not two-feet-tied-to-a-stake-free-range, "proper free range," the-chickens-need-ear-tags-so-the-farmer-can-find-them free range {and ears on which to place the tags}), I begin to grow suspicious of Moira's cheery disposition and perfect smile. Mid-way through the third course and I'm certain Moira is fattening us up for the slaughter.  I give her my best I'm-gristly-and-unsavory look, yet am unable to stop eating. Hansel and Gretel were pushed in to a hot oven. Dan and I were to be led to the basement, pushed in to a meat grinder, and made into sausages for the next guests.

Cheers.



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