Langer Loksh

The Witch, The Army Guy, and The O-Dog

 

Day Six: Galway in the Rain

The Weather Gods seem displeased with us. Such wetness and coldness. We head for the city. See the cathedral. Eat lunch in the cozy King's Head and catch an amusing puppet show.

The swans in the Claddagh pose obligingly.

The traffic coming out of Galway was totally nuts. Back in Oughterard, we tucked into our tea and whiskey and Jaffa Cakes and smoked salmon etc. at Betty's house. Betty's brother Joe stopped by and told us that the traffic was the worst he has ever seen, and he has been commuting to Galway since 1967.

Day Five: Monks n Nuns n Such

We decided to drive around the southern end of the lake, which we've never done before. We pulled out our trusty guidebooks and mapped out the highlights. First stop: Ross Errilly, a hauntingly beautiful ruined Franciscan friary. A Langer Loksh fave! Just like with movies and books, if I have never heard of something I am wont to be bowled over by its fabulousness, but if 8700 people tell me that I must see "Knocked Up" or read "Twighlight," I succumb, and it then sucks. So, pretend I didn't say anything about Ross Errilly at all. Ross Errilly? Never heard of it. Go see for yourself. It might suck.

(But it doesn't.)

 
A little further up the lakeshore: Annaghdown Priory. Nunnery ruin. Historically significant as place St. Brendan came to die in the care of his sister, for whom he'd founded nunnery. Classic Ireland here. Run out of room for your plastic-wrapped hay bales in your concrete shed? Stack 'em up against the side of that thar fifteenth-century cloister thingy!

 

On the way home, meandered around seeking attractive viewpoints on lake. Too lazy to photograph. Trust me; attractive.

Nearly collided with bunch o cows.

Countdown to Surgery

Got a call from a nurse re: Charlie's surgery. No vaccines or aspirin or Ibuprofen for two weeks prior; no eating after midnight; clear liquids until two hours prior. She told me the surgery is scheduled to last FIVE HOURS. Meanwhile, guess what, the angry bulge has appeared for a farewell performance. Charlie's on antibiotics.

P.E. Teacher not ENTIRELY Evil

Had a lovely chat with the gym teacher today. Her explanation: When kids forget their sneakers she has them write a note "to remind themselves" (ahem) to wear sneakers on gym day. This takes place during the warm-up exercises in the gym, where kids really can't play in street shoes. So that's what Summer was doing. Then, they all went outside, where they were going to play on the grass, which should have been fine in Summer's shoes. But the sixth graders were having some sort of cider press demonstration on the grass, so Summer's class had to do P.E. on the blacktop.

Not sure why they couldn't use some other patch of grass on the multi-acre school grounds.

Anyway, Summer did fine, and at the very end, the teacher said "Stop," and everyone stopped, including Summer, but then apparently Summer lost her balance and fell on her knee. 

A semi satisfactory conclusion.

Thank yous go out to my friends for helping me work out what to say and how to say it, particularly Dr. Allison, whose magic words, should you ever need them, are:

"Help me understand."

As in, "Help me understand, Ms. Gym Teacher, how my kid got hurt in gym if she was not allowed to participate in gym per the nasty little note in her backpack."

But we're moving on. We're letting it go. This was Summer's advice from the beginning. I had asked her if she thought I should talk to Ms. Gym Teacher, and she said, "Mom, sometimes you just have to let things go." Then she told me the following story:

Summer: "In our math journal there was a problem about a made-up class of kids who voted on their favorite season, and summer got the most votes. So I said "Hey my name got the most votes!" and then Frank said--"

Me: "Frank?"

Summer: "Yes, Frank. Frank said 'That's kind of bragging, and anyway, Summer isn't a very nice name. And then Julia said 'I think Summer is a very nice name' and then Veronika said 'Yes, I think so too.' So I just decided to let it go with Frank."

Me: "First of all, I probably should not be saying this, because I am a grownup, but FRANK made fun of your name? Second of all, it's nice that you have friends that stick up for you."

Summer: "Yes. Anyway, sometimes you've just got to let things go."

I'm beginning to think that Summer is going to turn out alright.

Dropped the Ball

Had phone appt. this p.m. with gym teacher to discuss nutty no-sneaker punishment slash sudden confusing change of rules due to uneven sides in game. Forgot to call! Was frantically cleaning house and then speeding to grocery store at time of appt. Will try again another day.

We Moved 15 Months Ago. My Brain Just Caught Up.

I'm cleaning out the linen closet (at midnight,  natch). I have removed all the towels and sheets. I am Pledging the shelves when I notice a secret door in the back wall that I have never seen before. I feel a shivery thrill.

Maybe this house was a stop on the Underground Railroad!

Er... this house was built in 1962.

Day Four: I Could Tell You, But I'd Have to Kill You. With Strep.

By this time I'm pretty sure I have strep throat. Betty got me an appointment with the village doc, a Dr. O'Connell. I stuck out my tongue and said "ah." He gave me a prescription for five days of amoxicillin. EXCELLENT! Just enough to make the little buggers resistant! I wondered why he didn't even swab me. Is it because he knew I was paying out of pocket, and probably it was strep since Charlie had it, so why bother? Or is it because that's just how chill they are in Ireland? I paid him 40 euro, which is like 60 dollars, and went on my merry.

First we went to the nursing home to see Padraig. I stayed in the car because I wanted to wait until I was not contagious. It wouldn't be very nice to bring a disease from America to all the immunosuppressed nursing home folkios. Jeff took the three kids in and started the process of reminding Padraig, now 93 years old, of who we all are. A few of the oldsters in the TV room asked Charlie what happened to his ear. "I can't tell you right now," he said. "It's a secret."

Then we hit all the local hot spots: Aughnanure Castle, where Oscar made a friend.

 
 
Brigid's Garden, with its wish trees.

 

 
 

 

Good luck to you, buddy. Then we hit Glengowla Mines just before closing time. 

There's a level of detail missing this time around. I can't remember how we did it in 2007. Did we write down where we ate dinner every night? I mean, don't you really want to know whether Summer had chicken "goujons," fish "goujons," hamburger or pasta? (The concept of the kids menu has, unfortunately, made its way to Ireland.)

This time, I was sure I would take fewer photos because the weather was bad and my arms were full of squirmy Oscar, but in fact I took more photos. Go figure.

The Knife What Cuts

Speech therapy is entirely different this year. The therapist tells me how great Charlie is doing--how "mature" he is. Last year she complained every week that he wasn't mature. Shocker. He was THREE YEARS OLD. Anyway, I've got a different attitude too. I think it's good that we're  making him say "look" instead of "wook" and "thief" instead of "feef." I think that because Charlie has hearing loss, we have to make sure that when he gets to kindergarten his speech is as clear as possible, that he's accustomed to enunciating everything and to hanging onto his teacher's every lip movement. We're sorry to see "breakshist" and "gollilla" go, but it's probably for the best. (I can't quite bring myself to correct him when he says things like "the toy what I need" or "the tool what we would use" yet though. He's just so darn cute.)

In other Charlie news: surgery. Coming up soon. For the extra ear canal. Pre-op appointment at such an ungodly hour--7:00 a.m. in Boston on a weekday--that I will need, like, a three-person tag team to care for the other children. Whenever I think about Charlie going under the knife I have to sit down. So I'm kind of blocking it out. La la la la la!

Passive-Aggressive AND Hypocritical!

Last week I forgot to send Summer to school in sneakers on gym day. She came downstairs in a sweater dress with white tights and black Mary Janes. I packed her onto the bus with her snack money. She came home with no tights on and a huge band-aid on her knee. The following letter, painstakingly printed, was in her folder:

10/8/09
Dear Mom I need help remebering to bring or wear my sneakers for p.e. class. I forgot my sneakers today, and I am not participating in today's physical activities. Could yo please help me remember to wear mu sneakers for Thrsday.

The letter is not signed because in the middle of administering this draconian little task, so obviously designed to make the parent feel like shit, Summer's gym teacher realized that the sides were not even for whatever game they were playing. So she called Summer off the bench and had her participate in the physical activities after all. Which resulted in Summer wiping out on the blacktop, tearing her tights, and mauling her knee.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to handle this. Cheery email? Handwritten note on non-threatening floral paper? Casual conversation next time I see her in the school hallway? BRICK THROUGH WINDOW?