Gripe for the Day & Rundown of the Ireland Trip

Gripe for the Day: we have those ridiculous photo radar vans everywhere. On the way to work this morning, on a part of the freeway system that never hits the posted speed limit from 6a-9a, there was a van sitting under an underpass.

Now, you just can’t tell me that it’s there for public safety – everyone’s bumper to bumper, going maybe 30 mph.

Think about it: some schmuck is sitting in that van for X dollars an hour. This schmuck isn’t going to garner a single photo radar ticket in the next three hours, and probably not for the entire time he’ll be camping there since it’s a 65 zone. So, right off the bat, it’s a venture that loses money: running vehicle burning gas that is suddenly $2.50 a gallon, the poor sod making some minimal amount per hour, with no income.

Just remember who pays for it. We do.

Public safety, my fat ass.

~~

Now, finally, I can get around to posting on Ireland.

Ireland was picturesque and wonderful. I had the pull to never, ever leave; if there weren’t a certain man here in town I was really partial to, I might have just found myself a job.

SIL really outdid herself in the planning, from the circuit we took in the southwest of Ireland (Counties Clare, Cork, Tipperary, Kerry, Limerick, etc) to the choice of chauffeur who drove us around (I’d be happy to recommend him). Great job, and perfection.

And there were places – like the Rock of Cashel – and times – like when I was listening to the uilleann pipes (as opposed to the ones in Scotland  more commonly seen) at a small concert – where I had this odd internal hum, this pull, memories of places and scenes that I know damn well I’ve never been to, and I’m thinking that perhaps it’s a racial or genetic memory?

I’m not one for rebirth, previous lives, or parapsychology; I’m no Shirley McLaine. I’m too much of a cynical realist for that. But this was weird: internal sensations, images of places, people, and things long destroyed by Ireland’s destructive and violent history.

I guess I’m just a freak.

~~

The downside to the Ireland trip  – and the possibilityof it which made me pause in accepting the offer to go in the first place - was the rotten, deliberate behavior of MIL.

She already has the awful tendency of taking over conversations and turning them to monologues full of me-I-me-me-I-my. I tuned her out for most of the flight there.

She started at our first stop by constantly baiting PE (remember, my niece, Princess Entitlement) about certain dietary choices she’s made (who cares? nobody’s business). They were the same chains she yanked back at Christmas time. It wasn’t funny then, and it was even less funny on the trip because it was just constant and repetitive. MIL just thought she was so witty and funny, when she just gave the impression of not being all there, boring the hell out of everyone.

Once SIL jumped on her to leave PE alone, she tried baiting me. In fact, she again tried to corner me for lunch (meaning she has an agenda). I ignored her. I’m not rewarding that behavior.

On the first day at our first stop, we were at a pub (where else? haha) for lunch. Not only did she dig into PE, but she went on this ridiculous rant of ignorance about the swine flu. She was loud, strident, and shocking; think of it in a loud New Jersey accent. PE and I contradicted her and inadvertently wound up feeding her frenzy. DH’s cousin who met us there looked as if she wanted to sink under the table, it was so embarrassing. Other tables, full of locals and tourists, gave her weird looks. I stared out of the high windows most of the time.

Then, twice in one night, the day after the pub incident but less than 36 hours after landing in Ireland, I watched her kill two conversations. The first was at dinner – everyone was in a light mood and the conversation was nice; DH’s cousin was there trying to catch a little dinner before catching her flight (the whole time she was there, MIL monopolized her; I have yet to have more than a 5 minute conversation with her in all these years before MIL horns in). Then MIL walked in and started with her storytelling and egocentric crap and killed the dinner conversation. She started dozing off toward the end of dinner, and I know I was thinking, oh, maybe we can have a conversation after she heads off to bed. It’s not a nice thought to have, but she really was getting on some nerves, and not just mine, 36 hours in.

Why I thought this was because we started a habit of retiring to the pub portion of the hotel that first night after the dinner at the castle, and have some after dinner drinks, a pick your poison kind of thing – Guinness, Jameson’s, Bailey’s & Coffee, what have you – and some nice chats. And, initially, it seemed as if it would turn out that way: Honorary Aunt, SIL and I started together (P.E. was upstairs on her computer, MIL perhaps went to bed I hoped), I bought drinks, and you know what? We were having a great time. I had a chance to talk to SIL without the effects that MIL has on her. HA had a chance to talk to her without MIL around. HA and SIL were bandying about the merits of different whiskeys (while I enjoyed my wuss Bailey’s & coffee), and the difference between whiskey and scotch, which drew the commentary of a sweet local girl and her S.O., who chimed in and gave us the rundown on the differences. We were having a great and fun time with some locals! Wow!

Then MIL walked in. And, oblivious to the conversation and the atmosphere, barged in and started in on the ego-centric monologues once more. Since I had bought the others their drinks, naturally I offered to buy hers. What followed was the annoying, ditzy, ridiculous, pain in the ass, high maintenance crap she started with the bartender. In the end, her tea (five and some Euro) and her shot of Irish Mist (about the same price, because he couldn’t charge for the half-shot she wanted) cost more than the two fingers of whiskey I’d bought for HA and SIL. And, of course, once we got back to our table, she started in again with the I-Me Express. Everyone finished their drinks and wandered off to bed, bummed about the murder of the fun night.

This is how the trip started, and it clouded the rest of it. At one point, we were trapped in the van for essentially nine hours – and you better bet that nerves were frayed and people were short with her. It’s the reason why I split off from the group by myself at further stops. I didn’t want to make a scene, but she tried everyone’s patience. SIL had to take her aside at one point and tell her to stop baiting PE (and I assume me) and not be so unpleasant. Not to worry, MIL found other ways.

Besides, I really do prefer to wander off on my own and poke around. I like to find little coffee shops and journal and be by my lonesome, ruminating and people watching.

~~

My roomie was HA, and we had a blast. She has been friends with MIL for 50 years, and you couldn’t find someone more opposite than she and MIL. I think I found a soulmate – we both like discussing what I call Blood-Guts-and-Gore-Talk: HA is a surgical assistant and we like discussing the various procedures and her experiences, which I pepper with my reference as a former EMT. We hit it off when I met her at my wedding, and in the years following, every time she’s been in town, we gravitate towards one another and yammer non-stop. DH adores her and always has.

It was a fortuitous thing, SIL asking her to come along, because I can’t imagine what it would be like to room with MIL (who is a night owl and stays up to all hours of the morning and who I know with certainly would make me have hard feelings by the end of the trip).

HA and I had a blast. On our second stop, after so many hours of ego-centric yammering and being trapped in a vehicle for those many hours, she pretty much beckoned me to follow her to snoop around. We had so much fun. At another stop, I told her where I’d camped out while she was out traipsing along with the rest of the group; she wanted to know where it was, invited me along, and we had another nice long talk.

And I will tell you, it was nice to have my frustrations with MIL validated by someone who has know MIL for 3/4 of her life. Turns out the MIL, about six months before, went off on HA – irrationally and selfishly – about something so trivial, and it nearly resulted in HA not joining us for the trip (Oh no!). And HA went on to tell me some of her observations. She said that because of these quirks and rudenesses that she probably wouldn’t be visiting for a couple of years, if ever. It’s sad, because DH and I get punished for MIL’s behavior, although I understand it completely. And she can’t stay with us if she comes to visit because MIL would have a complete meltdown. “I can’t wait for you to move to NC either,” HA said when I was talking about that, “because then I can visit you two whenever you like.” I love her.

It was nice to know I wasn’t crazy or overreactive. In years past, I was wondering if it was a personality conflict, or even perhaps an overreaction on my part – nope. She does this shit to everyone. And, HA said, it’s gotten worse.

She had advice for me re dealing with MIL for this trip, but I replied that I still have to deal with her when we get home. So instead of me pulling some sort of tough love stuff on her, HA shielded me from MIL when she could to buy me some space.

I owe that wonderful woman, big time.

There’s more, LOTS more, including MIL being caught out in complete ignorance of a topic where she had a hissy fit and stormed upstairs (instead of going “oh, I didn’t know that,” as normal people do) because she always has to be right. But you get the idea of what overshadowed what was truly a lovely trip, and why I don’t even want to see her for a very long time.

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One day, I’m going to go back, and see the “real” Ireland. I saw the façade of Ireland – the front put on for the tourists – but one day I’m going to poke around in the little towns and more obscure places. By then, I should have those sides of my family researched – both of my grandmothers are pure Irish – so I can find where my people really came from.

I’m grateful I got to see Ireland. I was sorry to leave. I will go back, one day.