Steven Harper's Blog, page 76
August 31, 2017
Iron Axe and Weltanspalter
IRON AXE is now available in German translation! WELTENSPALTER ("world splitter") is now available at Amazon.de and in bookstores everywhere.
I've been paging through the book. A few observations:
1. They translated Trollboy's name to Trolljunge! Cool! When David Eddings sold THE BELGARIAD to a German publisher, the translator kept all the names in English, including the characters Silk and Velvet, instead of translating them into Seide and Samt, and it came across as silly in the German. This translator is way better!
2. Although I loosely used Danish and German culture as the basis for the land of Balsia, I wasn't thinking when I created the death god Vik, whose name in the book is also used as a swear word. Looking at the name surrounded by German words has made me realize that a German reader would naturally pronounce that name "fick," which is the German word for "fuck." Oops! Or . . . did I do that on purpose? Yeah! That's it!
3. They also translated the map names! "Alfhame" became "Alfheim." "Skyford" became "Himmelsfurth." I love it!
4. I still love the cover!

August 29, 2017
Ireland: Thursday and Friday
THURSDAY
We slept in again, and took considerable time to get going in the morning. Finally we headed off for more sight-seeing--Navan and the Hill of Slane. Navan was a dumpy, nasty town when I was there eight years ago, but it's improved now. Darwin liked it, but I still didn't. Crowded, difficult to navigate, boring shops. We did some window shopping and got stuck around a truly stupid shopping mall, and had lunch at a burger place before finally heading to Slane.
The Hill of Slane is an anti-pilgrimage for me, since it's the place where Saint Patrick lit a forbidden bonfire on Beltaine and got away with it, introducing Christianity to Ireland. This was the beginning of the end of paganism there.
There's also a ruined monastery, a small ruined castle, a graveyard (still working), and a bell tower up there. We went to have a look.
The monastery and castle were great fun to explore. Darwin and I always enjoy trying to figure out what used to be what. The monastery's living quarters--there were two sets--had many, many fireplaces in them on three floors, so the place must have been cozy even in winter. (Since the place has a relationship with fire, this makes sense.) We were puzzled by one area that seemed to be a great hall, but also clearly couldn't have been. And Darwin found a dragon carved into the wall in one place, which was really cool. We climbed around spiral stairs and under vaulted roofs and had a splendid time.
The graveyard wasn't a graveyard originally. It was the monastery grounds, and it got turned into a cemetery after the building became a ruin. People are still buried there today, and gravestones now sit where people used to eat, sleep, and work. People with higher status are buried in places like the original hall or near the statue of St. Patrick that greets you at the entrance. People with lower status are buried around the edges. This is still true today.
At last we left, and I spat on the Patrick statue when Darwin wasn't looking.
On the way home, we passed an unexpected ruin and impulsively turned down a side lane to see if we could explore it better. It was a tall house-like castle surrounded by an expansive cow pasture and a high stone wall. We explored a bit, and I found another stile for climbing over. Darwin, who is a nervous trespasser, reluctantly followed.
When we got closer, we discovered a second wall around a semi-abandoned graveyard. I climbed over that wall for a better look. Here, Darwin refused to follow. Some of the graves were from the late 1700s, many were from the 1800s, and a few were less than 10 years old. But the whole place had gone to ruin. No one had mowed it, or kept up the stones. In the corner, I found a pile of wrecked, ivy-covered stone, and after a moment I realized it must have been a small church or chapel. (Later, when I looked the place up, I found out I was right.)
The main building, a total wreck, was huge three stories tall and one story down and falling down. No roof. Ireland went through a period of taxing the roof, meaning if your building had a roof on it, you paid a tax on it, even if it was a church. (This was one way to get rid of a church the government didn't like.) To avoid the tax, people took the roof off a building and let it go to ruin. We wondered if this had happened here. The building showed remains of old fireplaces, staircases, rooms, and windows. Darwin found a huge, HUGE tree that had come down during a storm and been sawed in half by someone. The tree was several hundred years old, and the roots brought up an enormous ball of earth.
Later, we did some research and discovered the place is called Fennor Castle. It was built just before the reign of Elizabeth I and modified during her reign. There wasn't anything much else about it. It has a wrecked chapel and a graveyard. We couldn't find anything about who used to live there, or who owns it now, or why it was abandoned. But it was great fun to explore!
FRIDAY
Friday we had to get up early to pack up and leave for Dublin again. We swiftly packed our things and bade Sinead a fond good-bye. We had to return the rental car by noon, and it was an hour's drive to Dublin, so we had to get moving.
We gave ourselves an extra hour in case we got turned around again, but things went much more smoothly, and we arrived at the car rental place at the airport with no trouble at all. I have to say I was relieved to give the car up. It's stressful and nerve-wracking to drive in Ireland, and I felt like a great burden had lifted when I handed over the keys.
It was a long, long, loooooooooooooong wait for the shuttle bus into town, for some reason. The line for the bus grew longer and longer and longer and more and more pissed off. After more than 45 minutes' wait for a bus that was supposed to run every 10 minutes, one finally arrived, and we made the slow drive into town.
Our next accommodations were at Trinity College, which rents out its student dorms and apartments in the summer very reasonably. Because the wait for the bus was so damned long, we arrived at Trinity at 1:30, only a little before the 2 PM check-in, and the college was already checking guests in. I had booked us a double room/apartment, and the check-in went fine, but the apartment itself was so far across campus, it was almost off the map. I suggested waiting for a ride--the clerk had said we could get if we waited a moment--but Darwin had been put off by the bus wait and said he wanted to walk. So we set out.
It took us more than half an hour.
This was partly because we got lost several times. The paper map they gave us was completely unhelpful--we couldn't tell where anything was on it. My phone gave us directions, but it kept switching from walking directions to driving directions, for some reason. We finally FINALLY found the place. It's a modern building on the outside corner of the campus. It's quite Spartan, as we knew it would be, though I didn't know it was a shared bathroom situation. (We share with four other rooms.) But it worked out--there was only one other couple staying there. The main trouble was the noise. Our window (second story) opened right onto the street, and it was NOISY. Heavy traffic roared by 24/7, tour buses trundle past and you heard the guides barking through their loudspeakers, people talked and laughed and shouted as they passed, and you smelled their cigarette smoke. The rooms on the other side of the hall faced the courtyard and were silent. This was a bad luck room!
We had supper at Kennedy's, a pub frequented by Oscar Wilde (well, he worked there when he was young), Yeats, and Joyce, which was pretty neat. I had steak-and-Guinness pie, and Darwin had a tasty lamb shank.

August 28, 2017
Violence Against Nazis
Those who know me may be surprised to hear that I think it's foolish to avoid violence. Violence works.
Violence is sometimes the best way to end a conflict, and the threat of violence can stop a conflict from beginning. I know as a teacher I'm required to say that school children should avoid hitting bullies, but you know what? Sometimes the fastest way to stop a bully is to punch one in the face.
When we first moved to Wherever with Aran, no one in school knew him. He was a six-foot tall seventh grader who had odd mannerisms and speech patterns. A kid on Aran's bus took it on himself to bully Aran about it. (Why the hell anyone would bully someone who's more than a foot taller than they are, I don't know.) The kid bugged Aran and bugged him and bugged him. Nothing Aran said would stop him. Finally, Aran hit his break point and smashed him in the face in full view of a bunch of other kids. The kids stared. The bully scrambled away. No one ever bullied Aran again for the rest of his school career in Wherever.
This is the way bullies operate. They go after people they think are smaller, weaker, or otherwise less powerful than they are. They go after such people because they figure such people won't hurt them. I can hit you all I want, and you won't do a damn thing.
Nazis and white supremacists are extreme bullies. They go after minority groups they perceive as weak or ineffective.
You'll notice that under the Obama administration, Nazis and supremacists didn't say much. They didn't march much. But under bully Trump, they've become bolder. They figure no one will hurt them. They've started their shouting and demonstrating and the GOP in charge isn't saying anything against them, which makes them bolder. This is how the Nazi party got going in Germany.
Words don't stop these people. Words do nothing at all. They see people who use words as weak, wimpy, and soft, people they can bulldoze right over. And they have. Trump has helped them. Words won't get these people to change their minds, either. By the time they're so hyped up that they're out on the street demonstrating, they're past the point of persuasion.
There's only one way to stop them.
The police use it. When a demonstration gets out of hand, the police have no compunctions about breaking out the hoses, night sticks, and pepper spray. Violence. Though this didn't help poor Heather Meyer.
The kid who bullied Aran stopped because he knew if he continued, he'd get physical pain. It was the only language he understood. It's sad, but true. Nazis and supremacists are exactly the same. They understand violence. They understand pain. They want to dish it out, but when it comes to taking it, they'll flee. Why? Because, just like Aran's bully, Nazis and supremacists only pick on people they perceive as weak. And for them, "weak" means "non-violent." If they know a group will hit them, punch them, smash them, they'll slink away--or not even show up in the first place. This is why the anti-Nazis and anti-supremacists should be perfectly willing to use their own methods against them. It's a powerful method that works.
The anti-violencers have said that using violence only gives the alt-right protesters a grievance. The alt-right will claim they've been unjustly hurt by those awful left-wingers and antifa people.
This is a ridiculous argument. The Nazis and supremacists ALREADY believe they're victims of the left. They ALREADY think the left has been hitting them. Just listen to Fox "News" for ten minutes. The victim mentality of the right becomes apparent within seconds. America has become anti-Christian, anti-white, anti-man, they moan. We're going to disappear! They're hurting us! They're crushing us! There's nothing the left, including the antifa, can do that will change this mentality. Look at the scenarios this way:
1. NO VIOLENCE FROM THE LEFT: The right continue to bitch and moan about how they've been victimized by the left, and Nazis demonstrate in the street, unmolested.
2. VIOLENCE FROM THE LEFT: The right continue to bitch and moan about how they've been victimized by the left, and Nazis think twice before demonstrating.
Which one is better? The right will bitch no matter what. At least with #2, we shut up the Nazis.
The anti-violencers like to say that violence drives the Nazis and supremacists underground. We need to keep them out in the open, where we can see them and know who they are.
No.
Nazis who are out in the open, demonstrating in the streets, are automatically granted a certain legitimacy. They're recognized as a movement. People who are on the fence or who might keep quiet about their Nazi views are encouraged to open up about them, perhaps demonstrate themselves, swell the ranks. The Nazis become BOLD. They ACT instead of just demonstrate, as Heather Meyer tragically discovered. An open movement receives support. It expands and grows more easily. How would Hitler and his new Nazis have taken over Germany if they had remained a small underground movement? Answer: they would not have done it. They would have faded away and died.
An underground movement is harder to find. People who have vague feelings of sympathy for it don't know where to get to it or find like-minded people. They have hunt for it, take risks to find it, rather than just walk down the street or turn on the news. An underground group remains smaller, less powerful. If you don't believe it, ask yourself how much you knew about American Nazis until two months ago. The fact that you're reading this blog says quite a lot.
The gay community has benefited from coming out of the underground. LGBT people demonstrated in the streets, held parades, gave interviews on the news as neighbors, family, and co-workers, and started showing up as characters in movies, television, and in books. It happened more and more and more, and LGBT people have become more accepted as a result. LGBT people who were in the closet felt more comfortable about coming out and swelling the public ranks. Straight people discovered they had friends, family, and co-workers who were LGBT, and more of them supported the LGBT movement. We have a long ways to go, but we've made enormous strides forward in the last 20 years. And it all happened because of VISIBILITY.
This is a positive. However, Nazis and white supremacists are now trying to use the same strategy. Become more visible, swell the ranks, become more accepted.
How different would world history be if anti-Nazi supporters had used a little violence against Hitler and his ilk back when they were small and just getting started? How different would the world be if a town had smacked up Mussolini back when he only had 100 supporters? Gandhi may have gotten the British out of India--eventually--but his methods wouldn't have been able to stop World War II.
If Nazis and supremacists know they run the risk of having their signs shoved up their asses the moment they starting heiling Trump, they'll back off. They'll stay underground.
If the bullies know their target isn't weak, they'll slink away. Aran's bully knew this. And so do we.

Max and Wisdom Teeth
In the interim, as I noted on my blog before, Aran was abruptly given clearance to move into an apartment on the same day as Max's surgery.
We couldn't reschedule the apartment. I didn't want to reschedule the surgery. Chances were, we'd have to do it after school started, and that would be more complicated and difficult for everyone. I called Kala and said she could either help Aran move or take Max to surgery. Mysteriously, she chose the latter. :)
Max was nervous about it all, but went in just fine. Kala kept me updated with texts. When we got back from Aran's apartment, he was already recovered from anesthesia and on pain meds. He wouldn't keep ice on his face, though, and I predicted more swelling.
He got it. The next day, his face was markedly rounder, though if you didn't know him, you wouldn't know. You'd just think he had a round face. The swelling has been steadily going away, and he takes the pain meds. He seems to be doing just fine.
And now he doesn't have to have this done later!

Aran Moves
Whoa.
Aran had applied for an apartment at this place--the same complex Sasha lives in--several weeks ago, and was told he had to go on the waiting list. There were three people ahead of him, and the complex couldn't--wouldn't--estimate when they might have an opening. I figured it would be months or even a year. It turned out to be weeks.
This spot is ideal, really. It's near Darwin's office and in the same complex as Sasha, so we have a clump of family all in the same area. There's a Kroger Aran can transfer to so he can keep his job. Aran already knows Ypsilanti, so he won't have to learn a new city. Cool!
This touched off a flurry of . . . everything. When we got home from Ireland, we had to prep. Aran needed a number of things, of course. Kala took Aran out to hunt for garage sale finds, and since Darwin and I had combined households, we had a bunch of stuff already that he could have. Some stuff we'd have to buy, but we didn't want to buy very much, since anything we bought would have to be moved down to Ypsilanti. Easier to move him in, and buy stuff down there.
Moving Day was complicated by the fact that Max was long scheduled to have his wisdom teeth removed the same day. It was further complicated by the fact the Darwin and I both got bad colds and we felt awful. Everything was happening at once! Kala came up to take Max to the surgeon while I went with Aran to Ypsilanti. We loaded up both our cars with a lot of his stuff and drove down.
At the complex, Aran signed a barrage of paperwork, handed over a check, and was pleased to get his keys. Ta da! It turned out his apartment was two floors directly above Sasha's! Sasha came down, and we all hauled stuff into Aran's place. Then Aran and I went furniture shopping at Ikea. We found him an inexpensive (if small) couch and a bedstead. Aran and I put the couch together, and by now it was 4:30. I was exhausted and sick, and I decided we needed to go back home. Aran was also tired, so we did.
Back home, Max was recovering from the surgery (more on that later) and Darwin came home from work, feeling as crappy as I did. Kala decided to spend the night at our place to help the next day.
Saturday, we loaded the rest of Aran's things into our cars. This was tricky--he had a dresser and a desk--but the desk's legs telescoped, making it much shorter, and we had a furniture dolly for the dresser. Everything finally got loaded and we headed down again.
It turned out we were missing a section of the bed, so Darwin and I popped up to Ikea to get it. We also got a mattress for it. Meanwhile, Kala helped Aran unpack most of his apartment. (Max was well enough to stay home by himself.) The bedstead, like most of these things from Ikea, was insanely complicated to assemble, and the thought of doing so made me shake, but Kala and Darwin, who are much better at these things than I am, volunteered to do it while I took Aran shopping for the final things he needed. Win-win!
I took Aran to Target for a few more apartment things and then to Kroger for groceries. This latter considerable time, since he needed =everything.= But eventually we got it done and hauled many, many bags to his apartment, arriving just as Kala and Darwin were finishing the bedstead. We all spent more time putting everything away. In the end, there was nothing left but assembling electronics and ordering the strange odds and ends that really only the owner of the apartment can deal with. It was time to go.
Kala and I were stalling. We both knew it. We didn't want to leave Aran there. We're both worried about him. Can he handle everything? Will he be okay? Even though I knew I'd be back to deal with various issues, including his job, I was worried and unhappy. I know it's normal for parents to think about such things, but autism throws another dimension into them.
But we said good-bye. Aran, as usual, was perfunctory about it. We left, and both Kala and I were teary-eyed as we walked toward the elevator. Darwin stayed silent about it.
Moments after we left, we learned, Aran ran a Facebook Live session on his phone. Like young people everywhere, he was happy to be in his own space and not the least bit bothered.

August 27, 2017
Ireland: Tuesday and Wednesday
TUESDAY
The weather was, amazingly, bright and sunny, with only a few wispy clouds. I said on such a day we should visit Loughcrew and Castle Trim, since they're completely outdoors. So off we went.
Darwin realized that he had disliked Dublin--too crowded, the history was too hidden or too changed to notice easily. That was why he was so quiet there. But he adored the Irish countryside. The ancient stone walls with trees growing out of the tops, the herds of cows, the old stone cottages, the little towns, the unexpected churches and graveyards, all of it. He fell hard for Ireland.
We got to Loughcrew (and the first syllable is pronounced "loch" with a guttural "ch"), which is a set of hills with 5,000 year old passage tombs at the top. The tombs started out as rings of stone with earth and rock piled in a mound in the middle, and a single passage threading up the middle, in which cremains were usually deposited. Loughcrew's are older than the pyramids, older than Newgrange, older than everything! You park the car at the bottom of the hill, go through a cow gate, and climb, climb, climb through a sheep pasture to the top of relentlessly windy hill, from which it feels like you can see all of Ireland. At the top are mound tombs so ancient that all the earth and rock have washed away. Only the largest mound survives. It's aligned with the rising sun of the equinox, and the sun strikes sun carvings on the back wall for 12 minutes twice a year. The big mystery is how (and why) stone age people transported the stones from a quarry 40 miles away and hauled them to the top of the hill before animals were domesticated. Darwin explored them to his heart's content. A great kerb stone is carved something like a chair, and it's called the Hag's Chair. If you sit on it, you get a wish. We both sat and wished. :)
Last time I was here, I jumped down inside one of the washed-away tombs and made a video of myself playing music, but when I got back to the cottage, the video was gone. The other videos I made that day were there, but not that one. (!) Since the empty tombs are also called fairy rings, this made for an eerie evening. Today, I played in a tomb again with Darwin behind the camera, and the video survived properly. Ha!
On our way back, I found a small rock at the base of the big tomb that had a small well worn into it, like a bowl. It was full of water. I drank from it, and it was the sweetest, most delicious water I had ever tasted. I drank twice more--three times in all--and was greatly refreshed. It was a powerful witch's moment.
We also explored a lane that led down to a new visitors center at Lough Crew that hadn't been there the last time. It turned out to be in the house of a family who has lived in the area for generations. The grandpa, Martin Shortt, had written a memoir about his life in the area, and I bought a copy. It made for fascinating reading--life in rural Ireland in the 50s. The part that stuck with me most was how the author's uncle Patrick used to snare rabbits on Lough Crew, tie the dozen-odd carcasses to the handlebars of his bike, and ride into town every morning. By the time he got to town, he'd always sold every one. The family depended on the cash. One day, Mr. Naper, who owned all the land around Lough Crew, caught him, took all the rabbits, and angrily threw them to his dogs to teach Patrick not to trespass. It was a disastrous day for the family, and after that, Patrick had to be more cautious about his trespassing.
Next up, we went to Trim. Trim is mostly famous these days as the castle where BRAVEHEART was partly filmed. This was Darwin's first castle, and he loved this, too. We took the tour of the main keep. The place was originally built in the 1100s and added on to, then eventually fell into ruin. Spiral staircases, old stone walls, ruined rooms, everything an ancient castle should be. We also explored the grounds and the area outside it. It was a fine day!
WEDNESDAY
We slept in a little later than we intended, then had breakfast (Shreddies! the Irish cereal of champions!) and headed off for Kells.
Kells is the town that originated the Book of Kells, and they weren't happy when Dublin took it away from them for "safekeeping." It's also famous for a number of Celtic artifacts, including four Celtic stone crosses scattered about the town. I'd never been to Kells. so this was a new trip for me. We both found the town a delight. Our first stop was the visitor's bureau, which turned out to be the town hall as well, and Darwin asked about the local government, as he likes to do whenever we go to a new place. The lady we talked to was thrilled to get so much interest about things like local population and how the government is run and such, and she gave Darwin a personal tour of the town hall, which is quite modern.
We wandered about Kells, enjoying the town's old-and-new mix. We found all four Celtic crosses throughout the course of the day, including the Broken Cross and the Unfinished Cross. We thoroughly explored the church and graveyard and the stone tower. The latter was built more than a thousand years ago and is over seven stories tall, made of rough fieldstone (though it was probably done over in white plaster back in its day). It's famous for being the site where a man declared himself High King of Ireland, and was murdered for his trouble a few days later.
The graveyard was fascinating. We love to look for the oldest legible gravestone. Irish graveyards, oddly, rarely have anything earlier than the 1700s, possibly because any earlier stones were worn away, removed/stolen for houses, or broken. They're dashedly hard to read sometimes, but they do get verbose: THIS STONE ERECTED BY WILLIAM MCHARRIS IN THE MEMORY OF HIS FATHER RICHARD MCHARRIS WHO DEPARTED THIS EARTH ON YE 22ND OF MAY, 1843 AT THE AGE OF 79. ALSO HIS WIFE MARY WHO DIED ON YE 4TH OF APRILL, 1845 AT THE AGE OF 82. ALSO THE ABOVE WILLIAM, WHO DIED ON...
A common tactic was to have a single, table-sized grave marker with everyone buried beneath it, and the marker lay atop it all like a giant table. The trouble here is that the engravings were exposed to the elements and quickly wore away.
The oldest marker we found was also what I called the world's saddest gravestone. It's a chunk of slate, lopped off raggedly and inexpertly. The inscription, done in an uneven hand, says simply BOB DEC. YE 25TH 1750 IHS with a cross arising from the H. (IHS is a Latin abbreviation for "Jesus saves mankind.")
I think Bob was a baby born to a poor family, and he died at birth. "What are we going to do?" wept the mother. "We can't afford a stone, and he doesn't even have a name." "We'll call him Bob," said the father, and he dug a piece of slate out of the field, sadly chiseled BOB on it (perhaps even because the name was short and easy to spell), and erected it in the graveyard himself.
We tried to get into Saint Colmcille's ("collum-killah") house. It's a tall stone house with a peaked roof and a gated stone wall all the way around it. A sign tells you to go get the key from Mrs. Carpenter, who lives just up the road, but when we found her house, we discovered she wasn't in, so we had to content ourselves with looking at the place from the road. I don't know about you, but I find it charming beyond charm that to get into a major historical site, you have to get the key from Mrs. Carpenter, who might have popped out to do her shopping or have tea with a friend, but once you get it, she'll trust you to return it presently.
Along the way, we came across a half-ruined stone cottage with a surprisingly generous garden (yard) around it. Darwin declared it our retirement home. It would certainly be cheap to buy, but expensive to renovate! I wouldn't mind living in Kells, though.
We had a late supper at home. The weather was a little sprinkly, but I suggested we pop down to Girley Bog for a look. Darwin agreed to this, so off we went.
Along the way, we passed through Fordstown, which has its own graveyard. We stopped to have a look. The graveyard is surrounded by yet another stone wall and a gate held shut with a chain. I pointed out to Darwin the stones sticking out of the wall beside the gate that form a little ladder. It's called a stile, and you're supposed to climb over them. A matching set of stones on the other side get you down. I don't know why the stile is there, though I suspect it has something to do with allowing people to visit the yard after it's closed, or with a superstition that the gate only opens for funerals--the dead go through the gate, and the living go over the wall.
Darwin and I explored the graveyard for a while, then proceeded to Girley Bog. I parked the car beside a little lane that leads past a cow pasture into the bog, and we tromped inward. Darwin wasn't impressed at first--it was just a stroll through some scrubby-looking brushland. A large group of hikers burst out of nowhere around a curve and passed as. We let them by, and I caught the last one to ask who they were. He said they were a fitness group and we were welcome to join them. I declined on the grounds that we were strolling, not on a serious walk. He recognized our accents and asked where in America we were from. I always say "Detroit" because no one knows where Wherever is. He nodded and then said jokingly, "So you're responsible for Donald Trump, are you?"
We both backed away in horror. "Donald Trump is the biggest embarrassment America has ever produced," I said.
This wasn't the first time we've run across this. More than one Irish person has brought up Donald Trump to us, and all of them hate him. We say we hate him right back. A taxi driver laughingly said he's driven dozens of Americans and never once found one who admitted to voting for Trump. I said it's probably because people who travel are more broad-minded and aren't likely to vote for a person like him.
Anyway, the hiking group went cheerily on their way. The bog path was paved--it wasn't the last time I was there--and at one point, I took Darwin's arm and dived sideways into the pine trees. He was a little surprised, but came along. NOW he was impressed. This was the tree part of the bog. Giant trees reached up to the sky, creating a cathedral-like area beneath. The ground was soft and spongy, but not wet. Owls twittered in the silence. The path was clear, but easy to lose. "Don't get lost in here," I warned. "Even with GPS, it'll be a trick to find our way out."
We explored the bog for a considerable time, and Darwin enjoyed it very much. Then darkness chased us back home.

August 24, 2017
Ireland: Monday
MONDAY
On Monday, we headed back to the airport to pick up THE RENTAL CAR. This was a scary prospect because of the stupid Irish custom of driving on the wrong damn side of the road. The entire world uses the right, but the Irish use the left, and it's truly awful. Darwin flatly refused to consider driving, so it was all me behind the wheel.
One bonus was the GPS. I downloaded UK maps to my portable GPS and installed it in the car for us. This made navigation a thousand times easier! Last time, I spent a great deal of time pulling over and using a map to figure out where I was and still making wrong turns and getting lost. The GPS solved all that in a heartbeat, allowing me to concentrate on driving the stupid way. It was nerve-wracking. When you switch to the wrong side of the road, your instincts shout at you YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG! YOU'RE GOING TO CRASH! And when cars come around a curve at you, it looks like they're coming at you in your lane because YOU'RE ON THE WRONG SIDE and you want to swerve over to the correct side, something you mustn't ever do. You spend the entire time fighting deeply-bred instincts, and it's intensely stressful and awful.
There were some bobbles along the line to our cottage in the Irish countryside. Despite the GPS, the confusing highways around the airport got us a little lost, and Darwin kept yelping at me. He had a hard time with the idea that there's a learning curve to Irish driving, but neither would he take the wheel himself, which gave me a more tense and difficult time as a driver. It doesn't help that Irish country roads have no shoulders and are closely bordered by high hedges, so you can't see and you have no escape route if something goes wrong. We had no incidents or accidents, though, and I told Darwin it was his job to ensure I stayed in the correct lane, since American drivers want to drift over to the right instead of staying on the left. Eventually Darwin calmed down and learned not to yip or howl, and he instead concentrated more on navigation assist and saying things like, "You'll need to be in that lane so we can turn," which made things better.
Finally we made it to Clonleason Cottage.
Clonleason is the cottage where I stayed at last time. It sits at the front of the driveway and just behind the retaining wall of a Georgian estate house that was built in 1773, though the gatehouse (now a guest house and cottage) was expanded in the 30s to include a living room. The acres and acres of Irish garden grounds are immaculately kept, complete with herb and vegetable gardens, centuries-old trees, shaded walks, rose arbors, and a 500-year-old stone bridge that arcs across the river that borders the estate. The cottage itself is beautiful inside. The door opens into the cozy, slate-floored kitchen, which has a little table and two chairs, a china shelf, and a sink-and-cupboard area. To the left is a living room filled with bookshelves and comfortable furniture gathered around a little fireplace. French doors open into a gorgeous flower garden. To the right is a generous bedroom and bathroom. Everything is done in green and yellow, and it's all light and air. Darwin fell instantly in love. Sinead, our landlady, and her dog met us with a friendly greeting, along with carrot cake and some vegetable soup--much appreciated!
We unpacked and explored. The grove with the 1000-year-old beech tree in the center that I remembered from last time absolutely enchanted Darwin. He decided we would never leave!
We had to go into Athboy, the nearby small town, for groceries and things. The drive was still nerve-wracking but uneventful, and Darwin discovered the Irish rule that you can park facing any direction you like also unnerving. Like Dublin, Athboy was a LOT busier than I remembered. The main street was a constant drone of traffic. How things change!
We grocery shopped and explored the town. Here, I was able to take Darwin to his first stone church and graveyard in Ireland. As a cemetery and old church afficionado, he loved them both.

August 23, 2017
Ireland, Baby!
SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 2017
Darwin and I landed at Dublin airport Saturday morning after a boring flight, went through a loooooonnngg line at customs, gathered our luggage without incident, and boarded a shuttle bus that took us to downtown Dublin. Yay!
First, we shall point out that the weather was stunningly cooperative all week. As you know, Bob, Ireland is notoriously rainy, and the weather forecasts on my phone kept calling for rain, rain, and more rain. But all week, the worst we got was a passing shower that didn't last more than a few minutes. The temperature stayed in the 50s at night and the 60s during the day with a surprising amount of sunshine. Double yay!
We ended up at one of the tourist centers across the street from Trinity College, where Oscar Wilde attended university. They have a luggage check, which was important because we couldn't get into our flat until 2:00, and it wasn't even noon. We dropped off our luggage and got some breakfast at a pub. I had a full Irish breakfast, and Darwin had some lighter fare. When I ordered tea to drink, I got an actual teapot filled with properly brewed tea, not a cup of lukewarm water and a tea bag like you do in America. The Irish know proper tea.
Dublin was way, WAY more crowded than it was when I visited eight years ago. The streets outside the tourist center were so packed, you could scarcely move. Later, when Darwin and I popped into Trinity for a look, the crowds were equally immense. I couldn't understand it until Darwin pointed out that eight years ago, we were deep in a recession, which hits tourism badly. This would explain it.
Anyway, we hopped on board a bus to tour Dublin while we waited for our flat. Darwin didn't seem very happy or impressed, for all that he'd been looking forward to this trip so much, but I put it down to jet lag and fatigue--we'd been up all night and were now moving into morning, and we had leaped ahead five hours. I pointed out some areas we might want to come back later to visit, and Darwin nodded.
We stopped by the Molly Malone statue, which was near the tourist center, and got several pictures, then reclaimed our luggage and grabbed a taxi to the flat.
The flat was . . . well, awful. It was clean, I'll say that. But it was so very tiny. The bathroom was so minuscule, you couldn't function in it. The lighting was poor. The mattress was lumpy. And even though the listing said it was "convenient" for city center, you had to take a taxi or be prepared to walk for half an hour or longer. At least it was relatively inexpensive. Never, ever will we stay there again, though, and we were glad that we were getting out quickly. It certainly wasn't worth 100 Euros per night.
For two days, we wandered about Dublin. Christchurch Cathedral--always impressive. Darwin found it awe-inspiring. That took most of an afternoon, and we picnicked on the grounds outside for lunch. We visited Trinity College and discovered stampedes of crowds everywhere. We wanted to see the Book of Kells and the long room, but the line to get in was two or three blocks long. I couldn't get over it! When I was here last, I breezed right in. Later, we bought tickets on-line for it, with a reserved time in the morning, and showed up at 9 AM. A separate line for e-tickets rushed us right in past the already-forming regular line, but when we left an hour later, the e-ticket line was also a block long.
Book of Kells was, as always, stunning, even if you only get to see the two pages the curators have set up for the day. Really, the BoK stands up to world-class works of art like the Mona Lisa or the Pieta. The Long Room library, 2/3ds the length of a soccer pitch, was also wonderful, with Brian Boru's harp on display and books that are older than any other in Ireland. We spent considerable time there.
That evening we went on a ghost tour, which was pushed as a tour of haunted places in Dublin. We climbed aboard a black bus with curtained-over windows, and an actor in ghostly makeup told stories about the Black Plague and other awful ways to die in 19th century Dublin while we drove around town for a look-see at various sites. It was long on the plague and short on ghosts, but it was kind of fun overall.

August 10, 2017
Alcohol and Us
https://qz.com/…/giving-up-alcohol-opened-my-eyes-to-the-i…/
1 American in 8, everyone. 1 in 8.

August 9, 2017
Dublin Prep
