My neighbour from up the road just texted to see whether she could drop into me about something. Mysterious, what could it be? Anyway, she’s coming at 8 during time set aside for blogging so tonight’s entry is well, entry level. Am I phoning it in? It is possible. Stay tuned for an update tomorrow on what she could have wanted.
Dublin
Is There Snow in the Mountains?
For the first time this year, the weather is cold and there is, in fact, a light dusting of snow in the mountains which are visible from most places in Dublin.
Everywhere looks lovely in the bright frosty weather we are having at the moment. However, I worked from home today and will be working from home tomorrow (normally I tend not to for a range of dull reasons). I can tell you that the dining room where I live and have my being when working from home is baltic, central heating at full blast notwithstanding. I spent the day with a hot water bottle at my feet. My poor aloe vera plant (my companion when working from the dining room) looks like it’s having a nervous breakdown.
I am just about to leave the house for dinner with friends and I believe it may be somewhat warmer outside than in.
More exciting content tomorrow.
Weekend Round Up
Saturday
Mr. Waffle and I went out for breakfast together and then he went into the office and worked all day. Sigh. I did various underwhelming things: I went to the dry cleaner, the library, the cobbler and the greengrocer. I attempted to get through some part of the mountain of newsprint which I brought into the house.
Sunday
I went to mass and we had a reading that I always enjoy. I’m really not seeing that turn the other cheek spin which emanates from the New Testament.
Since Mr. Waffle was not working for the afternoon we had a mild outing to the Botanic Gardens. It lashed rain.
We ran from greenhouse to greenhouse and looked at the plants.
I imagine Wittgenstein had a similarly gloomy experience in November 1948.
There was an AI exhibition in the space upstairs from the cafe which was mildly interesting. I mean, I’ve had worse outings but I’ve had better also.
And then home to the fire to make a determined effort to finish off the papers. And how was your own weekend?
A New Dispensation
I think I have said before that I’m finding it a bit logistically challenging to be the parent of three adults.
While I was really glad to have them all on the summer holidays with us this year; the organisation of this was complex.
For day to day matters, herself is in England so this is not really an issue. For her Dublin based sibings, however, logistics are a daily pain. When I was in college, my memory is that my mother cooked dinner every evening (always my mother, sign of the times) and if I was in, I had dinner and if not, I skipped it. But it just seems wasteful to cook for four when only two of us are going to be there. Whatsapp is full of “Who is home for dinner tonight?” messages.
Often the house is empty when I leave for work and when I come home which is not entirely unwelcome but just different. We’re a bit more atomised, I guess.
As you know, Mr. Waffle is Lord of Laundry but one morning he had to go to a meeting and asked me to put out the clothes. I went out to the back garden. Mr. Waffle was gone to his meeting, Daniel was already in a lecture and I was unsure of Michael’s whereabouts. I became surer when I tried to get back into the house after completing my labour of love and found the back door dutifully locked by Michael before he had left for college. Fortunately I had my phone and I rang him, “Where are you?”. “On the bus,” said he. He had to get off the bus, come home and let me in again. He was very apologetic but as he pointed out, he knew his father had gone out and who would have thought that I would be out putting out the washing? I can’t feel this would ever have happened back when they were all at school. Sometimes it’s more like four adults living together. Other times definitely not, I suppose.
Unrelated: I saw a giant chameleon on the street.
6,073 Tweets
I deleted my Twitter account a while back. For the past number of years I have really only been using it to push out blog posts. There were a couple of readers who came across from Twitter and believe me every reader is precious. But yet, this blog is a hobby not a job and the idea of sharing my content (such as it is) regularly on Twitter was becoming increasingly unappealing.
I am an early adopter and started my time on Twitter in 2007. Early tweets had sadly disappeared by the time I deleted my account so 6,073 is a very conservative estimate of the number of beautifully crafted tweets I put out into the world; my 200 or so followers were doubtless grateful. I did enjoy Twitter for a while but ultimately, it just made me a bit cross and it took up so much time. Overall, I am glad to be gone.
I see the Guardian has given up on Twitter as well. Two big beasts going at once, Elon Musk must be terrified.
Just in under the wire tonight as I was out for dinner with a school friend in Skerries in North Dublin. Apparently the best place in the world to live but quite the drive from the city, I can tell you.
An Evening of Contrasts
When the children were small, the parish priest asked me to be on the baptism preparation group. I was extremely reluctant (do you think I’m a fool?) but agreed in the end and 15 years later here I am with my children all grown up and still on the baptism preparation group. One of the other members is a grandmother so I am basically doomed to stay there for all time.
It’s quite straightforward there’s a rota and we are sent out in pairs (biblical). We meet in one of the rooms behind the church. The parents who are getting their children baptised that month come in and we go through the service and also talk about the practicalities (when to arrive on the day of the baptism, who does readings etc.) and make sure they have their paperwork (church bureaucracy is surprisingly efficient). We also do some very light proselyting (you might think that this would be unnecessary with people who are bringing their children for baptism but you might be surprised) and try not to scare them.
I had baptism group last night and we had 6 families with first babies for baptism. Mostly people don’t tend to bring the babies but one couple did and she was adorable. They were all lovely and agreeable and the whole thing was grand and as speedy as we could make it.
The speediness was necessary as Mr. Waffle and I were going to the cinema (booked when I had forgotten that I was on the rota for the baptism prep for November and did not know that he would spend the day driving to and from Limerick for a funeral). We saw Anora which has got rave reviews. It’s about an escort who has a relationship with a young rich Russian guy. The first part is very graphic (thank God I hadn’t gone with the children) and I found myself frequently wondering what you have to do to get an 18s cert in this country (it was 16s). Then the middle part when the Armenian henchmen become involved is played for laughs (and is very funny). When the Russian’s parents (who are excellent) fly in on their private jet towards the end it’s still funny but it’s also a bit sad.
Overall, it just seemed sad to me and I could have done without a lot of the graphic detail; I found it a bit exploitative and did not love it. I thought that the cast were outstanding though. In fairness, it was laugh out loud funny in parts and it definitely did not drag. There was lots of Russian which I enjoyed (coming as it did with subtitles). Many, perhaps most, of the actors were Russian and I wonder how this works with the sanctions on Russia at the moment. It’s set in 2019; is that supposed to be a solution to this particular problem?
