waider

Your parents phone to ask if they can crash in your place for the weekend.

I spent the day at Punchestown with Dad. Both of us made a gross loss, but minor gains that made it fun. I bet on a horse named "For $exgrilfname" and it came in nowhere, but this is not intended to be an allegory or metaphor or that sort of thing. When we got back to Dalkey we had most excellent food in Benito's before heading home to watch an episode of "Scrubs" and most of "Get Shorty". In keeping with long-standing tradition, Mom phoned during "Scrubs" thus ensuring that Dad got to miss the second half of the show.

Talking to my bro in Boston over the weekend. Apparently Mom said to him that since I'm disinclined to visit the US while Dubya's in the White House, I should go over there in June when the Shrub plants himself on our shores.

Through the magic of BitlBee I can pretend my mom is talking to me on IRC when she's using Yahoo Messenger. This amuses me no end, aside from the practical implications. Which, in case you're wondering, essentially amounts to me having but a single "chat" client on my desktop, and, since said client is X-Chat, my Perl hacks to tell people my screen is locked, etc. all work the same.

...actually, it happened in the bar. Late on Christmas Eve, my mother suggested that the three of us (her, Dad, me) go to town for a few drinks. So we went to a bar that's owned by my secondary-school maths teacher, not least because it's where I usually drink in Youghal. As I wandered to the bar to order drink, a guy with a ponytail and a vaguely familiar face nodded at me and said hi. I nodded back, unsure who he was, but willing to be polite if nothing else. Got my drinks, sat in the corner with the folks.

Shortly afterward, Ponytail Guy sat at the next table with another guy, and both of them produced guitars, at which point I recognised Ponytail Guy as being Bobby, an extremely talented local guitarist and part of the local music scene for as long as I've known him (in fact, I first met him through playing in a band with a friend of his). Bobby and Derek (the other guitarist) proceeded to play a few songs, some their own and some popular guitar stuff. No amps or mikes, just steel-strung acoustics and good voices. All present were merrily tapping feet and nodding heads, the older folks included. Kinda amusing to see your parents bobbing along to REM or Radiohead...
After they'd played a few songs, Bobby turned to me and said, "so, will you play a song?" Whee!

So I played "Wish You Were Here" and "Wonderwall" and just as I hit the last note on the latter, the G string let go. Which was as good a way as any to finish, I guess. I returned the guitar to Bobby, who set about replacing the string, and returned to being an audience member for the rest of the evening.

Two moments: one was glancing over at my folks while playing the first song and being needlessly amused at the thought of them nodding along to a Pink Floyd track (released the year my sister was born, coincidentally), and the other was related to me later; one of my mother's friends, sitting at the next table on the other side from the music, leaned over to my mother and said in all innocence, "I didn't know there was three in the band".

After that, it didn't matter what Christmas threw at me. I got my ten minutes of public attention and that was Just Great.

Just as I was leaving for the bar, Dad phoned. It was already 23:05. So I locked myself out of the house, told Dad I'd call him back, woke up the landlady, got the spare keys, let myself back in, got my own keys, then headed out. Phoned Dad back. Talked to Dad as I walked to the late-night gas station, talked to Dad as I operated the ATM one-handed, talked to Dad as I entered the bar.

YAY BAR.

Jamie saw me coming in, waved. The other barman - newish, don't know his name yet - took a mouthed order for a Guinness. I sat down, wrestling one-handed with my coat as Dad filled me in on the latest from "home" - mercifully, noone appears to have died since I last talked to the folks - and waited for my pint to show up. Heather waved hello. Jamie shows up with the pint, shakes hands with me lefthanded, and I'm still talking on the phone to Dad. Sup sup sup. Slurp. Quaff. Sup sup. Damn, this pint is emptying out and it's gone past last orders, and I can't get Jamie's attention cos I'm still talking to Dad. Sup sup. Down to the last quarter-inch, and Jamie reappears with another pint. Served 15 minutes after closing. A guy comes in the door 30 seconds later and is told, "sorry, we're finished".

Damn I like my bar.

Jamie's got his papers sorted for another year here, after an unfeasibly long wait at the immigration office. Phew, I won't lose ANOTHER barman just yet.

Heather touches my shoulder on the way out. "G'night Ronan!". It's nice to belong.

My parents invariably manage to call me (a) when I'm watching a movie on TV and (b) when the cellphone they're using is short of power.

just got a call from my folks; the VCR they've had since, er, well, since I was living at home can't cope with dates beyond 2002. The manual says 1988 to 2002. So I told 'em to set it to 1997 to get the day/date correlation working.

I'm an uncle again. My eldest brother and his wife are the proud parents of Ellen Waide (I'm guessing that I got the spelling right), the latest addition to the clan. Whee!