Eight Dumb Things I've Said, Thought or Done

Thanks to my pal Dave, I've been tagged to list 8 random things about me. Sorry to disappoint Dave, but not surprise him - I'm sure, since he knows me in Real Life (TM) - I'm only going to play half his game. I'm not real keen on tagging others. (Amen't I such a blogging killjoy?) Plus, I've already done a similar seven random things about me. So I don't want to bore you all with random things about me, me, me.

Instead, I hope to entertain you by reporting eight dumb things I've said, done, or thought. Because, as we all know, I'm not exactly always a Mensa candidate.

1. Peter got a GPS unit for the car at the end of April. Very nifty gadget and quite useful for a landscape photographer. In the middle of May, we went to Killarney for a weekend to celebrate his birthday. At one point, as Peter was flawlessly navigating us through the warren of streets in Killarney, I remarked to him that he must really know his way around the town, seeing as how he was able to get us places so easily. He looked at me like I was taking the piss and then tapped the GPS unit, saying "I've got an automatically updating map."

2. We've been watching The Deadliest Catch. In the opening credits, they show pictures of guys and names like "Northwestern" and "Billiken" and "Fierce Allegience" and "Lucky Lady". It wasn't until the the second time that I watched the show that I realised the guys were the captains and the names were their ships. I thought the names were their nicknames and I'd hoped someone would explain how a big strapping fisherman gets called "Lucky Lady."

3. When I was a kid in Catholic school, I thought that nuns were the priests' wives. (I was never quite able to work out the numbers - 4 parish priests, at least 12 nuns.)

4. Again, when I was a kid, I thought that all kids were born white and then some grew up to be black. It made sense to me - I lived in an all-white suburb and the only black people I ever saw were nurses at the place my mom worked.

5. Peter took me driving in the Wicklow Mountains on our first joing trip back here after he emigrated to Chicago. We decided to get out of the car and hike up one of the hills. He struck off first, shouting back to me "Be careful, it's boggy." I had no idea what he meant, but said cheerfully "Okay!" Two minutes later, I was up to my knees in a cold, wet bog-hole.

6. My parents were very strict about what shows we watched and what movies we saw, but I'd won the privilege to watch The Dukes of Hazzard after a very vigorous advocacy campaign. In the summer when I was 9, we went to New Jersey to visit my grandparents. I was looking forward to Friday night, to get my fix of Bo Duke. When I looked at the TV Guide, I was crestfallen to see (R) after the program name. I became convinced that the episode was rated R and I would not be able to see it.

7. For Peter's birthday, we had dinner in a nice seafood restaurant in Killarney. This was shortly after I'd written my post about my big baby-induced Mother's Day meltdown. We were talking about the post and he was telling me that he felt bad that I was so uncomfortable in posh restaurants. He asked me how I was feeling where we were. I told him it wasn't that bad. Then I asked him if I was using the right knife to butter my bread. He informed me I was using the fish knife. I really thought it looked like a fancy butter knife.

8. For awhile in Chicago, Peter and I worked in buildings that were in the same area in the Loop. Sometimes, we'd get takeaway lunches and meet in this concrete garden in front of my building. He was very fond of a sushi place called Tokyo Lunchbox. I think it was the first time I'd ever seen sushi and the green stuff on the plate caught my eye. I thought it was avocado and popped a wodge of it my mouth. I'm sure I looked exactly like a cartoon character after that - sputtering, smoke pouring from my ears, teary eyes bulging out. How was I supposed to know about wasabai?

Still Not a Mensa Candidate

So, this probably isn't as bad as washing my hair with conditioner, but I had another fantatstic duh-moment today.

As part of a renewed campaign to lose the stone I've put on in the last 2 years, I decided to change my breakfast/lunch habits. I've been having sandwiches, which isn't bad in and of itself, but I know I'm not getting the protein that I need. As a result, I'm not building muscle mass as quickly and I get hungry and binge-y more often than I should.

So I dug up a fairly easy recipe on CookingLight.com for chicken pasta salad. I knew I was going to be SOL when it came to getting spelt pasta over here, but I figured I might be able to get some gluten-free pasta that would be marginally better for my purposes than plain old enriched-white-flour pasta. I made my little list, I went to the store, I followed my little list. I even remembered to get tupperware containers, which were not even on my little list.

I was fairly Pleased with Self, until just now, when I started to write down the ingredients and instructions so I could make the pasta salad. Guess what I forgot? Guess what I forgot so thoroughly, I didn't even put it on my helpful little list.

Yep - Item #3, the eponymous chicken in Confetti Pasta Salad with Chicken. And it's back to the Tesco for me.

Not a Mensa Candidate

I have very long hair that is, well, difficult in certain respects. It’s as though the personality comes out of my brain, up through the hair roots and down through the strands. My hair likes things how it likes it and it doesn’t like any changes in the routine. I used to fight with my hair, trying to perm it into submission and blow dry it into compliance, but in the end, it was always I who had to cede to the hair. (Making someone look like a French poodle is remarkably persuasive – maybe the army could develop bombs that just gave everyone really bad hair days.)

One of my hair’s first commandments is “Thou shalt wash me no more than four times a week and never, ever, ever two days in a row.” The penalty for over-washing is brittle, cranky hair that splits at every end and then taunts me throughout the day. So yes, in the interests of peace in the hair community, I abide by that commandment.

Yesterday, after running around on the hurling pitch for an hour, practicing my roll-lifts, solo-runs and scoring points by whacking the sliotar over the bar, I was ready for a shower and the hair was ready for washing. When I opened the shampoo bottle, I thought to myself “Hey, they changed the way it opens. This used to open from the top and now it opens from the bottom.” And didn’t think much more of it.

This morning, when I woke up, my hair felt absolutely disgusting. Like I’d styled it with Crisco. Ewww. I was confused, since I’d just washed my hair the day before and, for all its evil punishments, excessive grease production is not something the hair usually goes for.

I resigned myself to the idea that I was going to have to break the hair’s first commandment, but I really had no choice. In the shower, I grabbed the shampoo bottle, squeezed out some shampoo, thinking this time that it’s weird they would change the design of the bottle without trumpeting a rebranding campaign all over it. That’s when I realised that the shampoo was rather viscous and not at all shampoo-like.

Yes, I’d washed my hair the day before with conditioner. Tell me what the freaking sense is in making two bottles look nearly EXACTLY the same, except that they open from different end and in 10-point font on the front says “Intensive Care Conditioner” instead of “Intensive Care Shampoo.”

The sad thing is, of course, this is not the first time I’ve done this. I use entirely different brands of shampoo and conditioner, so when I grab the blue bottle, I fully expect it to contain shampoo. I don’t condition the hair too often because of conditioner’s spoiling effects – the hair become fat and limp and lazy. It lounges on my head in a flat fashion, issuing orders like an over-indulged emperor.

The hair has berated me for my stupidity and mocked me mercilessly. I swear I remember standing in the supermarket aisle, carefully looking for the shampoo brand and style and then making SURE the bottle said “Shampoo” and not “Conditioner”. I either failed or the fairies are out to get me again. When in doubt, blame the fairies. Those evil bitches, with their perfectly coiffed fairy hair. I hope they had a good laugh.

Shampoo is now on the shopping list and I used Peter’s shampoo for the day. The hair is offended by the change but so far so good on the retaliation front. I shouldn’t take risks like this – the hair is powerful enough to strangle me while I sleep, but desperate times call for desperate measures. At least I don’t feel like I’m wearing a hat made out of cooking oil.

Not a Mensa Candidate, Part 2

In what I fear will become part of an ongoing series, I bring you the full and accurate report of another one of those "duh" moments in my life. Hey, I bet it will make you feel better about yourself and I am happy to provide such a public service at personal expense.

I had to run out to the chemist today to get plasters for my disfigured thumb. After a minor camogie incident about a month ago, my thumbnail is black, dead, and now only attached at one corner. It has to stay on though because the new nail isn't ready yet. One of the women at work told me that Boots has the best selection of plasters, so I ventured out to Baggot Street.

Now, I've been living here for over year. I can find my way around the places I need to go, but my mental map is still a bit blurry and incomplete. Plus, there's some places I only know how to walk to because that's all I ever do and the traffic patterns in town are a bit mad. (When I rented a car last year, I ended up circling Stephen's Green 3 times because I couldn't figure out how to escape it.) Even so, I am more than capable of finding Boots, especially since I've been there before.

For some reason, I didn't go the way I meant to go and I ended up on a street I'd never been on before, without a great idea of which way I was headed. I didn't panic though, I just kept walking and then when I came to the next street, I made a guess about where to go. I was right and I ended up on Baggot Street, about 2 minutes from where I wanted to be. I realised it was actually a short-cut as compared to my regular route and I congratulated myself on being so clever.

I made my purchases and then set out back for work. It was just coming up on 1.30 and I had a meeting at 2.00, so I figured it would take me about 10 minutes to walk back to work. I turned off Baggot Street and walked along, sure that this new short-cut would give me time to have a quick lunch before my meeting. I walked. And I walked. And I walked. And then I started to think that perhaps something was not quite right.

It's one of those judgement calls - fish or cut bait. Have I gone too far to turn back or should I cut my losses and get back to a road I know? I had an idea that I was going to end up in Donnybrook, which would be a short jaunt through Herbert Park back to work. So I decided to press on toward the light at the end of the tunnel (or, in this case, the traffic at the end of the T-junction).

Only, when I got to the T-junction, I wasn't quite in Donnybrook. I knew enough to know that I was a good bit north of Donnybrook. So, another judgement call - walk into Donnybrook and then through the park to work (a known-quantity), retrace my steps (a fairly-known quantity, at least when I got back to Baggot Street), or try to find a road that looked like it was going to go in the direction I wanted to go (a completely unknown quantity and a bit risky given that there are only about 3 perfectly straight roads in the whole city).

But what's life without a little risk? I took the next left I could find and at each subsequent intersection, took the path that would keep me as close as possible on my chosen course. I was afraid though - roads can angle without your ever knowing it. I am used to the nice parrallel grid of Chicago - a place where you could never really get lost and you didn't even really need to know street names as long as you had grid co-ordinates. In Dublin, without a map (mental or otherwise) and the full name of the street (Pearse Lane is different than Pearse Avenue which is different again from Pearse Terrace), you could quite easily end up hopelessly lost.

Plus, I was working against the clock. So I picked up my pace and continued my adventure through the leafy Embassy belt of Ballsbridge. You have to admit, as places to get lost, Ballsbridge is a pretty good one. I chose wisely or perhaps luck was with me because I ended up getting back to exactly where I needed to be, a full 5 minutes before my meeting started.

I know exactly where I went wrong on my walk back - I turned right off of Baggot Street way too soon. But I hadn't been paying attention really, either when I was walking to Boots or when I was leaving. But hey, I now know where the Egyptian and the Turkish embassies are, so it's not like the experience was a total waste of time. I bet I might even be able to give directions.