“The trip was filled with wonderful people, odd sychronicities, and good Craic. (Craic is the Irish term for good conversation, good times, hanging with friends, etc. Not Crack Cocaine.

“One story sums it up best for me. It occurred during the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin. We had been invited to participate, rather than spectate, and found ourselves dressed in tie dye, faces painted, pushing a 400 pound sound system up and down the hills of Dublin. (I know, Dublin SEEMS flat. It’s not.) As a set of grandstands approached, I noticed I was having a little trouble walking. My stride seemed clipped. We were halted in front of the grandstand and I found out why I was having trouble walking. My costume pants had worked their way down past my hips, and just at that moment, they dropped to my ankles. Quickly grabbing my pants and frantically pulling them up, I noticed not 5 feet to my left, a seated chap in a green robe, with a very impressive gold necklace around his shoulders, a woman seated next to him, and a police officer with an ornate gold mace staring directly at me.

“Yes, my pants had fallen to my ankles 5 feet directly in front of the
Lord Mayor of Dublin.

“After this I had no trouble smiling for the crowd as I giggled the rest of the parade route. It was only at the end when I told our host what had happened that he informed me that the woman seated next to the Lord Mayor, was in fact, THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND.

“So that was my St Patrick’s Day. How was yours?

“Sliante!”

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I was hooked.

The writer’s name was Margaret, and she lived in the Bay Area from sometime in the ’20s through the ’60s, if not later. Most of the entries were quite brief, and many concerned the weather. “Fine today,” she wrote. “Clear by 10 AM.” But in between the weather reports, there were these fascinating glimpses of a doubtlessly fashionable woman who traveled a great deal and valued her family and friends. “Took ship for Vancouver yesterday. Had a two-hour stop in Victoria.” And she loved to entertain. “Had the office girls to dinner. My color scheme was yellow and green, even to the refreshments.”

Yellow and green.

I wish I knew what she’d served.

At the back of the book, where space was helpfully provided for “Cash Accounts,” she’d recorded her daily expenditures. She spent more on clothing than food. Her income was there, too, but I didn’t notice whether she’d said how she made her money.

In a box nearby, there were more diaries, all in the same handwriting. Some had come from gas stations, or been bonus gifts with other purchases. One, marked “1950″ on the cover in gold, she’d used from 1962 to 1964, carefully labeling the multiple entries under each pre-printed date with the year she’d written each one. More weather observations, more notes of trips she’d taken, and in one, the intriguing entry, “Spoke to Aunt Mary. She has decided she would rather undertake her European excursion alone.”

A bold woman, Aunt Mary. Or maybe she’d just rather not travel with someone who matches her canapes to her tablecloths.

In the end, though, I imagined that stack of diaries collecting even more dust on one of my already-overflowing shelves and I walked away. Mikl-Em bought some Mission bookends (not Mission-style, as I initially thought – miniature porcelain missions with little paths leading up to them), NovySan picked up a great yellow-velvet hat with matching veil for his daughter, and I held on to a vivid image of a yellow and green refreshments table and an Aunt who’d rather tour Europe alone.

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Saturday, March 15: We landed at 10 AM, picked up our rental car (which Novy did an excellent job of driving, on the wrong side of the road and with the stick shift on the opposite side) and plunged into midday Dublin traffic. After a few (did I say a few? Okay, it was more than a few) wrong turns, we made our way to our hosts’ flat, in Rathmines, and got ready to go to PaddyCon – an all day pub crawl with a group of Irish, Canadian, American and Czech leprechauns of which I, unfortunately, have no pictures – but if those who do would like to post links in the comments, we’d much appreciate it. (Update: There are a few pics posted here and here.) Along the way, we met Brigid in the Post Office (a lovely old lady who told us she’d been there in 1816) and saw giant French puppets in the rain.

Sunday, March 16: We staggered out of Ian and Gina’s flat and headed north, on our way to the National Museum of Ireland, to see the bog bodies. On the way, we passed Trinity College – I would have liked to see the Book of Kells, but didn’t feel like standing in line, so we admired the grounds and moved on to the museum, after which we wandered through St. Stephen’s Green, one of the most beautiful parks I’ve ever seen, and watched the sun set over the canal.

St. Patrick’s Day: Thanks to Gina, who’d been working on the project for weeks, we marched in the parade, wearing tie-dye and pushing a sound system topped with a seahorse. Here’s a brief clip of our section of the parade:

And as if that weren’t enough, once we’d wiped off the greasepaint and had a few pints, it was time for the Kila concert at the Olympia Theatre (followed by a few more pints, complete with spilled drinks and dancing, and excellent burgers at Rick’s American.)

Tuesday the 18th found us in Galway, on the other side of the country, and the single night we spent there wasn’t nearly enough time. Our host, Niall, treated us to a brief tour of the medieval city, excellent vegetarian shepherd’s pie, and a great bit of trad (traditional music) at a pub called The Crane.

Wednesday, March 19: Possibly the only thing that could have pulled us away from Galway so soon was a Christy Moore concert in Enniscorthy – our second trip across the island in as many days. And, oh yes, it was worth the drive. Enniscorthy’s a lively little town – lots of boutiques to let you know there’s some money around somewhere, and a neo-Gothic cathedral that was swarming with TV crews. (It’d been chosen to host RTE’s four-day Holy Week broadcast.) Across the river is Vinegar Hill, site of one of the last major battles of the 1798 Rebellion.

Thursday, March 20: We left Enniscorthy and drove out toward Dunkerrin, deep in the boggy Midlands, where Dan’s family emigrated (or were transported) from. There’s not much there, even 150 years later, but we saw the church some of them may have attended (though it’s Anglican now – the Catholic church was built in the 1970s and still displays a picture of John Paul II), went through the cemeteries there and in nearby Moneygall. On the way, we stopped in at Leap Castle, whose owner kindly allowed us up into the tower, though he was about to go out. (It may have helped that our Galway host, Niall, once lived in the gatehouse.) Leap’s supposed to be haunted by a small, smelly elemental, but all we saw was a black-and-white border collie guarding the door.

Friday, March 21 through Sunday, March 23: We left Port Laoise, where Brian (who we’d met at PaddyCon, kindly put us for the night) and headed east to Wicklow, where we spent Easter weekend with Randy, Mel and Captain Allen TurboButt, hiking the hills and recuperating from the preceding week. They live in Glendalough, just across the road from the Monastery of St. Kevin (though they’re moving soon, to nearby Rathdrum). Leaving Galway was hard, but leaving Wicklow was even harder. Still, leave we did, and drove back to Dublin Sunday, to spend one last night with Ian and find our way to the airport Monday morning.

Monday, March 24: Our flight left Ireland Monday morning, and landed in LA Monday afternoon. We said hi to the cat, had a drink under the lemon tree, took ourselves out for margaritas and calamari steaks at Casablanca, and went to bed around 8 o’clock. We’re already planning the next trip.

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It’s been a strange, sad, joyful year for me, and while some things, I hope never to repeat, other things (one thing in particular) made it one of the best years of my life.

In March, NovySan and I went to London and Stratford-Upon-Avon, where we visited old friends, met new friends, saw F. Murray Abraham in The Merchant of Venice and Ian McKellen in King Lear, drank at the Dirty Duck, ate at Lee Ho Fook’s, wandered Hyde Park, visited the Tower, Tower Bridge and the Temple, and picked up a signed copy of Donald Rumbelow’s Jack the Ripper book at the end of his Jack the Ripper tour. I could go on for days about this trip. Definitely one of the high points.

And then, in April, I got sick. High fever, sore throat, hacking cough… Your basic horrible plague. And I stayed sick for about six weeks, through three rounds of antibiotics, chest x-rays, prescription inhalers… I think it’s the sickest I’ve ever been, and I very much hope that it’s the sickest I ever am.

July, though! Oh, July made the entire year worth it. On July 7, NovySan and I got married. I knew the day I met him that I wanted him in my life. It didn’t take me much longer to know I wanted him in my life for the rest of my life. I love you, baby.

In August, Lindsay Holichek died, of undiagnosed, and apparently asymptomatic, ovarian cancer. I always thought of Lindsay as my parents’ friend, but she was mine, too. She called herself my surrogate mother – I was more her surrogate daughter. Just a few weeks before she died, I was looking at one of the (many) books she’d given me and thinking that I should write to her. I didn’t, and of course it’s too late now. It wasn’t until after she died that I realized how strongly she’d influenced me. She was my mentor before I understood what that meant. She gave me my first copy of Tatterhood and Other Tales, which nurtured my love of fantastic literature and helped spark my feminism. (There’s a reason it’s the first book I ever gave Novy’s daughter.) She loved food and music and she had a beautiful mind and an amazing talent for gift-giving. She always chose just the right thing. It’s something I’ve tried to emulate (with, I flatter myself, some small degree of success). I’ll miss her, but as my mother (ever wise) said, Lindsay enjoyed her life, and she died quickly, painlessly, and doing something she loved. It’s a sad thing, but not a tragedy.

The end of August brought Burning Man. Our third year, and the first we’ve camped with other people. It was a good year. The early Burn didn’t affect us – I called the event post-Paul Addis “Christmas in Whoville.” I loved the wind and the dust. Something about that harsh environment speaks to me, at least one week out of the year. (Of course, I know that without Novy’s engineering skills, I’d be a miserable huddled wreck underneath someone’s car, instead of laughing at the storms from the safety of our shade structure). The Temple Burn was magical for me – life-changing, I think. There are things I could complain about, but I won’t. I think the beauty of the event is that almost everyone can find an experience there that’s right for them, and I don’t choose to have an experience in which the crowds and the bad behavior overwhelm the generosity, artistic expression and communal feeling I’m there for. I don’t know that I’ll want to keep going every year, but I cherish the years I have been.

On November 30, my friend Shawn died. I’ve written about this before. Novy and I went to Portland in December for his memorial – met his friend Linda and his partner John. I’m glad we went. Meeting them, and talking to them, helped answer some questions for me, though it raised new ones, as well. There’s so much about his death that I still don’t understand, and of course he’s not here for me to ask. This was one of the low points. Shawn suffered terribly – not just at the end, but his entire life. So many people loved him, but it wasn’t enough. He’d been so damaged, I don’t know what any of us could have done to save him.

And that brings us, roughly, to the turn of the year, which Novy and I spent with Amara and friends. I’ve got more to say about 2008, but I’ll leave it now with a wish, a hope, a prayer – I’m almost afraid to call it a certainty – that this is going to be a very good year.

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