Not Enough Salt in the World

Things have settled down a bit (knock wood) but when we were first moving into this house, it felt like the place was cursed and that there wasn't enough salt in the world to cleanse it.  I'm basically recounting this to have a record, even though the worst of things seems to have passed (wood knocking intensifies).

Our official move-in date was July 11 - one of the hottest days of the year.  It was near 80 degrees.  While I realize that doesn't sound terrible, you have to understand that the heat here is different.  And that houses are built to retain heat.  And that houses don't have air conditioning.  And that some houses - like ours - don't have a ventilation system to help move air around.  And that the blinds on our five southern-facing windows block the sun but seem to magnify the heat, so it feels like a blast furnace when you're standing two feet away.

It was 95 degrees inside the house when we moved in.  We had no fans because up until this point, we hadn't needed them.  Our apartment had constant air movement and was on the north side of the building, protected from the sun.

Eli and the cats stayed at the house that night; I, however, knew I wouldn't be able to sleep so I headed back to the apartment, which we had under lease until July 31.

I came back over on Saturday morning (July 12), and it wasn't long before I was headed back to the apartment with cats in tow.  It was just too hot, and we were fearful it would impact the cats' health.  Eli took a long, hot slog around trying to find some fans but, with the heat wave, there were none to be found.

For the most part, Eli stayed at the house while I was at the apartment with the kitties.  There was at least one night where he went back over to the apartment to escape the heat and have access to internet, since we didn't have that set up yet in the house (more on that later).

We moved the cats back on Sunday, July 20.  They seemed a bit more comfortable, not as skittish upon arrival, since they'd already spent some time at the house.  Norris started panting a bit but otherwise he was acting normally; eventually, his breathing normalized.

Patrick somehow got on top of the kitchen cabinets AND he got up on the banister overlooking a drop onto the stairs.  And at some point, Norris got up on the banister.  Because I wasn't stressed enough without worrying that they were going to plunge off the side and fall onto the stairs.

I went back over to the apartment to get some of my things.  I started up the dishwasher to clean up the dishes from the morning and cried a bit as I was feeling overwhelmed.

The house windows in the dining area and living room face the sidewalk, and Patrick especially enjoys sitting on the sill.  More than one person walked by and smiled when they saw him.

I felt quite uneasy being at the house by myself.  I think I felt the same when we were first at the apartment.  Part of my issue at the house was that there's no air handler here making a constant white noise.  With that missing, I felt very edgy and anxious.

Now I'm going to launch into the nightmare we endured while trying to get internet connected.

At the start of July, Eli called Virgin Media and signed up for their internet/TV package.  They shipped the necessary equipment, but said someone needed to come out and do something so things would work.  Our tech appointment was scheduled for Tuesday, July 22 between noon and four p.m.

At 5:30 p.m. on that date, it became clear that no one was going to show up.  I called Virgin Media to ask where in the hell the tech was since no one showed up and we received no email/text/call stating they weren't coming. Wait time to speak with someone was 30 minutes, and they shut down at 6 p.m. I tried to do a chat, and that sent me into an endless loop of nothing.

Gunning for bear, I called them Wednesday morning at 9 a.m., planning to ask what the hell happened and when I could expect someone to come out THAT DAY to get this hooked up. But since I'm not the account holder (Eli is), they wouldn't talk to me.

So Eli called (keep in mind, reader, that this particular week was his busiest week of the month at work).  Virgin Media uses a third-party tech service for their installs and according to the person Eli spoke with at this third-party company, Virgin screwed up while placing the order so the tech service never got it.

Eli then called Virgin Media (because, again, no one was going to talk with me as I wasn't the account holder).  The representative he talked to refused to take responsibility for fucking things up and refused to make things right by getting someone out to us ASAP - she said their next tech appointment was August 5.

Furious with their disregard, we canceled our TV/internet order, not wanting to give them one more cent.

You would think this would be the end of the tale, wouldn't you?  That we'd go to another provider and get things set up, no problem.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  You poor sweet summer child.

I contacted Sky Media to get TV/internet service and placed an order for these services.  However, the Sky rep told me that Virgin still had an active line to our address and until that was released, they couldn't hook us up to their internet service.  The rep asked if we could provide our Virgin Media account number so they could try to do a transfer.

Eli had to talk to Virgin Media a thousand times, trying to get our account number and trying to see when they were actually going to release the line.  Allegedly that was going to happen within 24-48 hours of cancellation, and 48 hours was end of day on Friday.  They said they'd send Eli an email confirmation of the cancellation - to date, we are still waiting for that email.

Friday (July 25), I got a text from Sky Media telling me there was an issue with the internet order.  I contacted Sky and they said the internet portion of our order had been canceled because the account number Virgin provided wasn't working.  Rep put the order in again to see what would happen, and it was rejected again.

Monday (July 28), I got another call from Sky and the rep asked me to contact Virgin to ask for more information (which, of course, would've meant that ELI would've had to have contacted Virgin to ask for more information).

Reader, I was done at that point.  Simply done.

I told the Sky rep to cancel the internet order (which was moot since it had been rejected and wasn't really in play anyway).  I said I was tired of being in between Virgin and Sky, and Virgin wasn't doing what we needed them to do, no matter how many times we called them.  So I was done.

I placed an order with Vodafone to get a mobile broadband device.  Those, you just plug into an electrical outlet and nobody needs to come out to our house to do a damned thing.  I received emails that the order was successful, saw that Vodafone put an authorization to take money out of my bank account....and then I got an email that my order was cancelled because my order "didn't meet the online ordering criteria" while never explaining exactly WHAT the problem was.

I did an online chat with a Vodafone rep.  He said he could see that the order had been cancelled but he couldn't tell me what the problem had been - gave me a list of things it MIGHT be but said since that part is automated, they had no clue what the actual issue was that caused the rejection.

It's a wonder that I still had hair left on my head at this point.

Eli stopped by a company called Three on the way home from work, as they also have mobile broadband devices.  No one really came over to help him, so he was attempting to place an order himself.  A staff member finally came over to tell him they were closing soon (it was nearing 7 p.m. - and the store website said they were open until 9 p.m.)  So he went over to the apartment (which had internet) to finish the Three order...and it went under review so we didn't know if it would be approved or not.

Thankfully, it went through and he was able to stop again at the store to pick up the device.  We got it connected, and it was glorious....until about 3:45 a.m. the next morning, when it stopped working.  I did some of the troubleshooting things and finally, I did a hard reset and that seemed to have fixed it.  We had kept the Sky TV package, so we've had internet and TV service for a couple weeks.

In the midst of all that, we had a cleaning company scheduled to go to the apartment on July 28 at 10 a.m. to do an end-of tenancy deep-clean.  I was at the house, planning to head over to the apartment around 9 a.m. to wait for them to arrive.  At 8:30, I got a text that they were there - even though every confirmation email or text I'd gotten said we were scheduled for 10 a.m.  I texted that I wasn't at the apartment and someone needed to call me.  I didn't hear anything for a few minutes, so I threw on some clothes.  I'd just locked the door when my phone rang.  The office manager apologized up and down, stating a new employee had apparently messed something up - my information all said 10 a.m. but the cleaners were told 8 a.m.  They weren't able to return at 10 a.m. on July 28, but they could come on July 29 at 10 a.m.  I actually spent the night at the apartment on the evening of July 28 because with the way everything was going, I half expected them to show up at 8 a.m. again.  Happily, they arrived at 10:05 a.m. and were gone around noon.

Also in the midst of all that, I had tried to access my US bank account (we still have one, in case we have to pay something on the US side) and got a verification notice that they wanted to send a code....to my US cell number that I don't have anymore. I sent an email asking what I needed to do, and of course, I needed to call them. 

So after the cable/internet debacle where I was already stressed, my phone call kept refusing to go through. Or it went through, to the point I had someone answer the phone, and then I got the recorded message stating my call couldn't be completed. And I was like IT WAS JUST FUCKING COMPLETED ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS?! Eventually, I was able to get through to talk to customer service – nice gal named Jenny.

At this time, we still didn't have internet and I had been using my cell phone's hotspot to be able to connect to the internet. It had been working fine all day – except when I was dealing with the bank, and they were sending verification emails that I couldn't see because my damned hotspot was throttling or something stupid. Jenny took all the phone numbers off my account, and she suggested I download an authenticator app so I could sign into my bank account more easily. We'd already been on the phone for 20 minutes by this time, so I told her that I'd try downloading the app and see what happened. Of course, after I hung up with her, my hotspot got over itself and started actually pulling up sites again. I downloaded the authenticator app, and when I went to sign back into my bank account, it gave me a QR code to scan. That triggered the authenticator app to spit up a code, which I entered into the bank website, and I was able to get in.

I know I'm forgetting some details, but that was the gist of what happened during the span of a couple weeks.

For the most part, I'm now dealing with nearly constant construction noise.  Remember that nice field we had right out the front door?  Yeah, a couple weeks after we got here, they basically ripped all of it up, including tearing down some trees (I may or may not've muttered "I hope it falls on you bastards" while I was watching that carnage).  I knew it would happen eventually but it would've been nice to have had more than two weeks of seeing wildflowers and bunnies and birds.  They've since put up a corrugated steel fence so it looks like we're living inside a dumpster.

I think once we've been here for a while, I'll enjoy being here.  It's just been rough getting to that mindset with all the fuckery that's happened.

Endings and Beginnings

There's a lot to tell about our move to this house, and I'll get to that post soon.  But for today, I'm going to talk about an ending.

I just got back from the final walk-through at the apartment.  Scott, the manager, took all of about five minutes to scoot through the space.  He said it looked spotless and that we'd be getting our security deposit refunded.  (Knock me over with a feather - that doesn't tend to happen.)

After he was gone, I sat and looked around the apartment, feeling my eyes well up with tears.  I don't do well with endings and separation - never have - even when the separation is because of something good.

I thanked the apartment for giving us a home.  The place always felt transitory.  It's difficult but not impossible to decorate a rented space, but I never bothered because I knew we probably wouldn't be there long.

Even so, this apartment gave us a safe landing space.  When everything else in our lives was so chaotic and uncertain during the move to Ireland, we knew we'd have a spot waiting for us.  That feeling of security and safety was worth its weight in platinum to me, and I told the apartment of my gratitude.

Another chapter closed, and I turn my attention to the next:  getting used to the rhythms of the new house and working on making it feel like home.

W.T.F.

Eli is back to work today, so I was at the house to take care of things.  When I arrived, the temp inside the house was 30C (86F).  I opened up the front door as well as one of the south-facing windows and a north-facing window.  It had started off cloudy today so with no sun beating through the window and a nice, cool breeze coming in, the living room was fairly comfortable.  It dropped to around 27C as I was sitting there waiting for the ventilation repair guy to show up.

He ambled up the sidewalk around 7:55 a.m.  Our appointment was for 8 a.m. so this was a promising sign.

I showed him to the utility room, where there are two large cylinders.  We thought that one of them was the heat pump.  Nope!  He figured it was probably in the attic, so he went back out to get a ladder.

He pulled himself up into the attic.  I heard him walk across the floor and flip a switch off and on.  The extractor vent in the bathroom had been active; it shut off and eventually came back on again.  He put a piece of toilet paper over the round vent to ensure it was pulling air out.

There are small boxes on the wall in each room.  I assumed they were some kind of air handling system. He got up on the kitchen counter and was messing with one.

His verdict?  The system is working just fine, and the reason it's so hot in the house is because it's so hot and sunny outside.

What the actual fuck?

While it's true that Ireland is typically not this hot, there ARE times when the weather gets stupid like this, and you're telling me you've installed a system that doesn't actually do much to move hot air to the outside?

After I left, I went down the row of houses that looked like they had occupants and knocked on the door.  I didn't want to bother folks, but I wanted to ask what their house had been like over the stifling weekend.  If their experience were like ours, we'll know our system is "working" and that's just the way it is.

No one answered my summoning.  Everyone was out, didn't hear me, or didn't feel like opening the door to a stranger.  The only response I got was from the cute Sphynx cat in the house right next to ours.  S/he was lying in a cat bed on the windowsill and looked out at me, then came to look out the narrow window in the door.

I had planned to stop at Express on the way back to the apartment to pick up a few things.  Express is one tram stop down from the new house, and it's one tram stop further to the apartment.  However, Eli had asked if I could go instead of Leopardstown and pick up some prescriptions for him.  There's a Dunne's grocery store in the same mall, so I'd be able to accomplish both tasks at once.

I had been carrying around some bird-safe shelled peanuts for the crows and as I stepped off the platform at Leopardstown, I saw a handful of crows in a grassy area near the parking lot.  I tossed one handful of peanuts toward them and suddenly, there were about 30 crows descending on the space.  I threw another handful, and the gulls started showing up.

I got Eli's medications, completed my shopping, and headed back to the LUAS platform to await a tram back to the apartment.  I'd gotten about halfway to the platform when the tram going in the right direction for my purposes was just pulling out.  But it's a coolish day (outside, anyway) with a decent breeze, and the next tram was due in 10 minutes, so that was fine.

The tram said it was due in 6 minutes....still said 6 minutes....still said 6 minutes....then it said 11 minutes....

And then - get this - a message scrolled across the electronic schedule screen that there was no tram service between Sandyford and Bride's Glen because of an issue.  And Leopardstown is between Sandyford and Bride's Glen.  And I JUST MISSED the last tram that would've taken me to Bride's Glen.  [Sidenote:  The fact that I had missed this last tram by about 30 seconds just suddenly dawned on me while I was writing this.  SON OF A BITCH!]

Again, and I cannot say this vehemently enough:   What the actual fuck?  As Eli said WHY DOES IRELAND SUDDENLY HATE US??!

I texted Eli the latest development while also checking alternative ways home, hoping the ice cream bars I bought weren't melting into oblivion by this point.  The bus routes weren't optimal, so Eli suggested getting a taxi home.

Here I go, puling up the Uber app again.  I was able to reserve a driver named Ervin in a red Prius who was scheduled to be there in about 7 minutes.  The pick-up location was showing the parking lot of the shopping centre; as I was standing at the LUAS stop, I sent him a message, letting him know I wasn't in the parking lot, I was at the LUAS stop.

A few minutes later, I see a red Prius with a taxi sign....and he goes right past me and turns on the road that will take him to the shopping centre parking lot.  Since I wasn't sure if he saw my message, I sent another message and said I was on my way to meet him in the parking lot.

So I hustled over and saw a red Prius with the taxi sign starting to pull out of a space, and I'm like "Please don't leave without me!"  But it swung toward me, and I gratefully piled into the backseat.

I apologized if I had misunderstood the meeting point.  He said he had seen me standing near the street by the LUAS stop, but he actually needed to off-load someone at the shopping centre first.  I think he was probably going to come back for me, but this precluded any of that.

I told him he was a life saver and that the LUAS was down.  He said the gal he'd just delivered had mentioned it wasn't working.  He said the LUAS is great but when it goes down, that's a problem, and I heartily agreed.

After an uneventful trip, he pulled up next to the apartment building.  I told him again he was a lifesaver and that I wished him all of the blessings.  He said he hoped I had a great day.

Eli is working from the apartment today.  I had asked him yesterday if he'd be able to do this just in case something went sideways today - it would've been much easier for him to ride a few minutes to the new house (if he were needed there) than to have returned from his office which is around 40 minutes away.

He wasn't sure if the lady or the tiger were going to walk through the door.  🙂  With all of the stress of the weekend and then this weird transportation glitch this morning, he thought I might be all kinds of bent out of shape.  But honestly, the whole thing nearly made me laugh.  I'm not dumb enough to ask "What next?" because that's just a bad idea.  I just kinda shrugged because this is par for the course lately.

Our current plan is for me and the cats to stay at the apartment for the time being.  Eli will go back to the house after work tonight, get it opened up to see if that will help cool it off.  I think he's also going to see if he can catch any of the neighbors to ask about the temp in their homes.  The day has been pleasant enough, and cloudy at times, but it's a killer when the sun comes out and started pounding through the windows.

I ordered some fans (it was extremely difficult to find fans even online - or find fans that wouldn't take two weeks to arrive).  They're supposed to arrive in a couple of days, but we'll see if that actually happens.

We're also going to write to the management company to ask what types of interventions we'd be allowed to do - what types of heat-blockers we can add to the windows and whatnot.  Because I think if we can reflect the heat away from the inside of the house and have some fans running, we might be fine.

Moving In?

As you read this tale, you may believe that I am exaggerating for effect.  I assure you, gentle reader, I am not.

Moving day started bright and early on Friday - emphasis on "early."  We had planned to take the cats over to the house and let them wander around for a good hour prior to the movers' arrival, hoping to relieve some of the stress of the day.  Eli had scheduled a taxi for 7 a.m.  When he checked his trip info around 6:40 a.m., it said our driver William was going to arrive in about 5 minutes.  We scrambled to get the cats loaded into their carriers.  Norris hasn't been in his carrier since we moved here, so it's nearly been a year for him, and he wasn't happy about it.  He cried all the way there - fortunately, the trip was only about 10 minutes.

The cats did some exploring of the new digs.  Patrick was more brave, moving around all the rooms and upstairs.  Norris cried for a while and hid beneath the sofa.  Since he found a safe place to be, we left him alone.

Eli stayed for a bit, and then he went back to the apartment to await the movers.  They were scheduled to arrive at 8:30 a.m.  They called Eli and asked if they could come at 8:15 a.m., which was fine.

After Eli texted me to let me know the movers were on their way after loading the truck, I put the cats into the bedroom with their litter box and went back downstairs.

Eli took the tram back to the house, and he got there before they did.  At some point, I went up to be with the cats so they wouldn't be so upset.  Norris was unhappy that there wasn't anywhere to hide in the room.  I opened up the two doors of the closet, and he slunk in there.  I shut one of the doors to give him a sense of safety.

At one point when I was back downstairs, I asked Eli if they'd gotten the stuff from one of our closets.  His face fell, he swore, and he said he'd forgotten to open the closet and let them know there were more things.  He let the movers know the situation, and they were glad to go back and get the forgotten items.  They bill by the hour, rather than the job, so it just added a few more minutes/euros.

Eli took the tram back to the apartment, the movers did their thing, and then everyone reversed gears again.  Eventually, all of the things we'd packed were at the house.

Generally, the homes in Ireland do not have air conditioning because it's not typically needed.  However, Friday was probably one of the hottest days of the summer (28C, which is around 82F).  We have no fans because - again - they aren't typically needed.  And the heat pump in the house, which should've been extracting hot inside air and throwing it outside and circulating the air, was not working.

It was 32C INSIDE THE HOUSE - this is 90 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT.  INSIDE THE HOUSE.

I contacted the management company and explained the situation.  The gal I talked with said she'd email some information about the heat pump and that if that wasn't helpful, we should call back.

It wasn't helpful; the instructions she sent weren't relevant to our equipment.  Eli called back.  The person I had talked with was on lunch, so this other person left a message for her to give us a call back.  We didn't get a call back but eventually, I got an email which stated that a work order was entered for our issue - but in the same email, it said the order was cancelled due to being resolved or being a duplicate.  I forwarded the email to Eli.  Eli replied to this email and logged a new ticket - because after he replied to the email, he saw it said "Don't reply to this email."

At this point, he received an email from Emily (the gal I had spoken with) who said there was a glitch in the system and that our work order was still active and had been referred to a third party to address the problem.

Eli got a call from the third party - the guy was calling from the right company, but he was calling regarding a different property, not ours.  He called back a few minutes later - he told Eli he felt bad about calling and not addressing our issue (even though he didn't have our work order in front of him).  He gave Eli some high-level/generic troubleshooting, which didn't help.  While Eli was talking to this guy, the guy who actually DID have our work order called and of course Eli didn't get his call because he was talking to this other guy.

Still following me?

The second guy texted Eli, and they texted back and forth.  He said they couldn't come out until Monday morning.  WTF.  It's supposed to be HOT all weekend.  Monday is too late.

But there was nothing to be done about it.  We opened a window a sliver on the north side of the house in an attempt to provide some cooling.  The windows here don't have screens and with the cats, we can't open the windows wide because they'll get out.

During the afternoon, we needed to keep the shades down on the southern-facing windows because it was like a blast furnace.  Even with the shades blocking the sun, I could feel heat radiating from the shades while I was standing a couple feet from the window.

I had a meltdown at some point during the day because I was miserably hot and Patrick wouldn't stop crying.  I don't think he was uncomfortable with the heat, he was just being Patrick.

We needed some food, so I placed a delivery order with Tesco.  My delivery window was between 4-6 p.m.  It got to be 5:59 p.m. and still no order.  The online information where I could track the delivery wasn't working.  I was feeing faint from not eating and from being so damned hot.  At approximately 6:01 p.m., the delivery man showed up.

Once the sun swung around, we were able to raise the shades on the windows facing the field.  The cats LOVED it!

I had planned to return to the apartment after the Tesco delivery to collect clothing and toiletries and such.  Instead, I came back to the apartment to sleep.  With the heat, I knew I wouldn't be able to get any rest.  If we didn't have the cats, we would've both come back to sleep at the apartment.  But with their litter box being at the house, it would've been too difficult to bring them back, and of course we wouldn't leave them alone in the house on their first night there.

Eli, wonderful man that he is, took one for the team and stayed overnight at the house.  We were texting back and forth, and he was telling me how much the kitties were enjoying looking out into the field.  I said I hoped that maybe some deer or bunnies would show up.  Not more than a few minutes after I sent that text, a bunny showed up!

It took me a while to both cool off and to fall asleep, but eventually I conked out and slept through most of the night.  Amazingly, Eli said he'd slept most of the night as well, even in the awful heat.

Saturday morning, I packed up all my remaining clothes, my bathroom stuff, my food that was still here and got over to the house.  It was around 9 a.m. and the house was already showing an inside temperature of 31C (87F).

Eli went to a bunch of stores, trying to find a fan.  We thought maybe if the air were moving, it wouldn't be so oppressive.  But since it's been over 80 degrees here, there were none to be found.  We planned to at least get some spray bottles and ice cubes, thinking to spray ourselves with ice water to cool off because that was better than doing nothing.

When he was on his way home after an exhausting, disappointing trip, I noticed that Norris was breathing more heavily than normal.  I texted Eli, and he texted the ventilation contractor guy that he'd been talking with on Friday afternoon, telling him it was 33.6C (92F) inside the house and one of our cats was starting to have issues with the heat.  While waiting for him to respond, Eli called the emergency number for the rental management company.  While the person he spoke with was sympathetic, we were told there was nothing to be done about it until Monday.  After that, Eli heard back from the contractor guy who said he couldn't come out unless it were authorized by the management company, which it wasn't going to be.

We tried a couple more interventions on the heat pump, hoping it would start up, and it never did.

With Norris having issues, I was done.  We decided to bring the cats back to the apartment and completely abandon the house for now.  Eli contacted FreeNow (taxi service) but with it being Saturday, there weren't any drivers available.  I had the Uber app on my phone, and I was able to schedule a taxi to come within a few minutes.

I was stressed, I'd already had a couple of crying jags, and I just wanted to get out of that house and back into a cooler environment so I didn't include a note to the driver that we had cats.

Our driver Lalit showed up, and he popped the trunk open because he saw us carrying the cats, thinking we had luggage.  We got in (I whacked the back of my head hard on the door jamb), and I said we didn't need the trunk because we had cats, not luggage.  He asked if I'd put in a message for the driver about the cats.  I apologized and said I was sorry, I hadn't put in that message, that our ventilation system wasn't working and we were in a hurry.  He wasn't impressed by this and said "You need to put in a message because some drivers won't take pets."  (I assume this meant that HE didn't want to take pets, but he was there and we were in the car, so what do you do?)

I understand his point but, as I said to Eli later, "Don't fucking scold me right now, Lalit, or I will rip all of your fucking hair out."

We got the cats settled in the apartment.  Fortunately, we're moving in stages so we still had cat food and bowls here.  They've got a makeshift litter box, made from a cardboard box with a completely new brand of litter Eli picked up at the grocery store on his way home after the failed fan expedition.

We went back to the house to get some clothes for the next day or two, food we'd brought to the house, toiletries, etc.  So I'm dragging stuff back to the apartment that I'd just dragged to the house earlier in the day.

The tram was due in about 15 minutes, so we left the house and went down the shaded path toward the platform, planning to stand in the shade until closer to the time the tram was supposed to arrive.  Between the shade and the breeze, it was more comfortable outside than in the house.  With about 5 minutes until arrival, we went over to the platform. The electronic board at the platform said the next tram was due in 10 minutes....and then 6 minutes...and then 18 minutes.  OH MY FUCKING GODS.  It showed up a couple of minutes after the scheduled time that we saw on the app and we were headed for the apartment again.

I was so excited about being able to move to this new place.  But with this inauspicious start, the excitement ship has burst into flames and sank to the bottom of the damned ocean.  I am frustrated, sad, disappointed, and angry.  This is not a good beginning to our partnership with the new management company, and it had damned well better improve.

The Day in Bray

There's a new bus route - L14 bus - that goes directly to the Bray Promenade which is right alongside the beach.  And happily for us, there's a stop for this bus very close to our new home.

Eli has this week off, and I had wanted to spend a day in Dublin City Centre, just wandering around looking at the shops and such.  However, I did a pivot and said that I'd rather go visit the sea.

There's a stop for this route a couple of blocks from the apartment - or so we thought.  We hiked up there, only to be confronted by a sign stating that this stop wasn't in service at the moment.  Fortunately, there was another stop a couple more blocks away, and we'd left the apartment early enough that the shift in location wasn't an issue.

It was a fairly quick trip to Bray.  As it was mid-morning on a weekday, the bus was pretty empty and we didn't have to make too many stops, either to let someone off or pick someone up.

The beach was mostly unpopulated when we arrived, just a couple pockets of people scattered here and there.  We walked across the rocks and settled in near the water.

Eli took off his shoes and went to stand in the water for a few minutes.  I'm planning to get some beach/shower shoes so I can comfortably experience the water - and walking on the rocky beach - during one of our trips here.

Sound on to hear the sea:

There were a lot of rocks with holes like this.

As I sat there watching the waves, I felt tears starting to slide down my cheeks.  Eli came to sit down next to me, and I said "Lissa should be here."  He said, "Yeah.  It's not fair that she isn't."

We saw many puppers with their humans.  One little dog - it may've been a Jack Russell but I'm not sure - was very excited to be there.  He kept running toward the water and then back, barking at his people to get a move on.  In the next video I post, I think that's him in the background barking up a storm.  One dog drew a little near us, and his owner called him back and said that he knew some people weren't comfortable around dogs; we assured him that we loved doggos.  Another lady had a dalmatian and a black lab - the lab was all about jumping into the water to chase his ball, the dalmatian not so much.  

We got up and moved a little farther down the beach before settling in again.  The first photo is a tangled clump of seaweed.  In the second photo, all of those little white spots sparkled like diamonds in the sun.

We left the beach and went back onto the promenade.  Lots of people were out enjoying a stroll, eating ice cream (there were three ice cream shops right next to each other, as well as a little ice cream kiosk closer to the water), walking their dogs, and just drinking in the day.

I was beginning to tire, and we were both hungry, so we walked a few blocks to get to our bus stop.  On the beach, I was scouring the thousands of rocks, looking for a purple heart-shaped stone.  Purple was Lissa's favorite color, and I've taken to looking for heart-shaped rocks when I go to the beach.  If you squint a bit, the one rock looks a little heart-ish and is a bit of a lavender color.  The larger stone has all kinds of sparkles in it.

I was a bit disappointed that I didn't find a definitive purple heart-shaped rock.  However, on the walk to the bus, we passed many houses that had names (I had mentioned in a previous post that many folks here name their home and usually put a sign up that displays the name).  One of the houses we passed was named "Lissadell."

Once on the bus, it didn't take long to reach our lunch destination - a tiny diner called Shake Dog.  As with many shops here, it was quite narrow - a hole in the wall.  There were only two other diners when we arrived, which seemed strange because it was around noon.  Perhaps things are simply more quiet in the middle of the week.

I had chicken tenders and fries - not pictured is the chocolate shake which was sooo good.  Eli had a Kit-Kat shake, along with some onion rings, fried mushrooms, and the smoked veggie burger.

When I was looking at the map to find somewhere to eat, I noticed a place called Chipped which was only a couple blocks from Shake Dog.  Even though we'd just eaten, there was no way we were going to pass up the chance to have more fries.  I had a small cone of fries smothered in cheese sauce; Eli had the peri peri fries.  We sat at a small bistro table in the shade, enjoying the breeze while we ate our treats.  And they were SO FREAKIN' GOOD, y'all.  We'll definitely need to go there again.

Then it was off to find the bus stop for the ride home.  We had a timely arrival as the bus was scheduled to be there in about a minute when we walked up.

After another short trip, we were at the apartment again.  The cats greeted us at the door, wondering why we'd been gone ALL DAY (3 hours) and why no one had been around to feed them.

All in all, I'm glad we went to the beach rather than City Centre.  I think I needed the quiet steadiness of the sea rather than the hustle and bustle of Dublin.

Home Sweet Home

We went over to the new house today so we could get some photos, put together an inventory list of furnishings, and clean the flat surfaces.

We'll have a bit of a walk from the tram to our place.  Happily, much of the walk is through this wonderful canopy of trees and plants.  There's an old stone wall along a portion of the path - I'm assuming from a farm or something that used to be on the land.

This is a photo of our front door, as well as the view from the front door.  There's construction happening in the distance so they've dumped some dirt in the field.  But most of this space is flowers and wild grasses.  Windows in the living room and dining area look out in this direction, so the cats will probably enjoy this view.

This is the view from the front door.  There's part of the staircase.  Behind the door is a powder room.

Here's the living room.  This area is HUGE.  As I told the letting agent, this room itself is nearly as big as our combined living room/dining area/kitchen in the apartment.

Here is the dining area and the kitchen.  It'll be so nice to be able to move around in the kitchen while the other person is sitting at the table.  Currently, the dining table is about two feet from the kitchen space so when you want to use the microwave or get into the fridge, you either have to work around the other person or the other person needs to move.

Here's part of the back garden.  The grass is artificial turf so there won't be too much maintenance.  To the left of this area, there's a bricked patio slab so we'll be able to put a small bistro table and a couple chairs out there.  I don't know if they allow bird feeders that might attract pests, but I hope to put out a birdbath and maybe some potted plants.

Here's the other half of the staircase and the view from the top of the steps.  I hope the cats don't get any ideas about jumping up on that half wall because it's a bad drop onto the stairs.  You can see the main bathroom at the top of the steps.  It has a tub but it's so narrow that, unless I lose a lot of weight, I won't be able to take a bath because I won't fit.

We have three bedrooms, all looking out over the field.  The middle photo is of the smallest bedroom, and we're thinking that will be the cats' room.  We'll probably put the litter box and cat tree in here.

This is the ensuite bathroom in the larger bedroom.   It has a rainfall shower head as well as a handheld so that'll be pretty cool.

This is a second path from the house.  This leads to a sidewalk that goes down to the tram platform.  There's some vagrant in that second photo.  Not sure how he got in there.  🤣

 

Glimmers in the Darkness

I was at Tesco Express, which is the small market in our sister building one stop up the tram line.  In Ireland, there's a small fee added when you buy a bottled drink - usually 25 or 50 cents - but you can get this refunded if you take the bottles to be recycled at any store that has a recycling kiosk.

I had a big bag full of empties....and the machine said it wasn't accepting bottles at the moment.  Grrrr....

So I went about my shopping and noticed that someone was using the machine.  I waited my turn and when I got up there, the machine again said it was out of order.  The kiosk is right next to the customer service desk/checkout.  The clerk was ringing up a customer but said he'd reset the machine for me, which he did.

I was wearing my "Meow Wars" T-shirt, and he commented that he liked my shirt.  I thanked him and said it amuses me to wear it.  He then said, "What part of the States are you from?"

Gee, how did he know I wasn't from Ireland?  😀

I said I was from Minnesota.  He got a smile on his face and said, "My all-time celebrity hero is from Minnesota."  I asked who it was, and he said Prince.  I said, "Prince was the best, and he was gone too soon."

He said, "My mum got the 'Purple Rain' album.  Her mum let her stay home from school so she could go get it.  When you go to her house, it's the first thing you see because she's got it up on the wall."

In my head, I was like "Crap, if this guy's mom was young enough to be in school when the album came out, how young is this kid??"

Express has self checkout machines, so I rolled my cart over there and got my stuff scanned.  When you recycle bottles, you get a receipt printed that you can scan at checkout to get the discount and for whatever reason, the machine never thinks you put the receipt into its slot so you have to hit the button for assistance.

The same young man came over to assist, and I said I hated that the machines never recognized when you gave it the coupon.  We commiserated about AI making more work for people because he said they have to run over to the checkouts all day to clear them when people use a coupon.

He asked how long I'd been in Ireland, and I told him  since August.  He asked if I liked it here, and I said I was grateful to be here because the US is a wreck at the moment.  He said he'd been in Texas once and was amazed that people just walked around carrying weapons.  He was asking a guy about his gun, and the guy was just like "Here" and handed it to him.  That completely flabbergasted this young man.  I said I'd lived in Texas for about eight years so I knew the mentality that inhabits much of the population there.  I said, "I can't understand taking an AR-15 to the grocery store.  It's like, what are you afraid of at the grocery store?"

He mentioned the gun culture, and I said it was one of the problems screwing up the country.  I said it was nice to be in Ireland where people seemed sane because there are a lot of stupid, crazy people in the US at the moment.

Things have been very dark lately.  Being in Ireland has insulated me a little from the horrors going on in the US but I've still been affected by it.  It was so nice to have this small glimmer of comfort in the midst of it all.