10 Questions About…

Again the girls were out of school. Patrick decided we should go to the Georgian House Museum. He has a great interest in Georgian Houses; the girls and I don’t. We got to the museum and Patrick had to leave to tutor a class. So, the girls and I went through the house. They don’t allow pictures but we did take one outside.

Here’s what we remember about the house:

• The house was built in 1794
• They had 3 servants and they couldn’t read or write
• The people sat in bed instead of lying down (as we do) because of the prevalence on asthma – also they were afraid that people would think they were dead.
• The governances were young – so often once they ages they would be stuck for work or a home. They built two homes for former governances in Dublin.
• The wives didn’t go downstairs in the morning; they spent most of their day upstairs in their own parlor.
• They had bells to ring for the servants – each room had a different tone.
• The boys wore dresses – to disguise themselves as girls and lessen the threat of being kidnapped.
• Near the fireplaces women put boards in front of their faces o keep their faces/makeup from melting.

So I guess we remembered more than I thought. After the Georgian House we went to the National Gallery for lunch. At the Gallery, we ran into two friends – Robert Tynan and Eunan O’Donnell from Excaliburprima, Dublin’s top event planners.

We got the great kids’ packs and toured some of the art. Eventually Patrick met up with us. He noticed that Gabriel Byrne was in the coffee shop so we went back and sat near him. He is as hot in person as he is on screen. We chickened out and didn’t get a picture of him. I’m still mad at us for not snapping us.

Eventually we went home and had a pretty quiet night in.

On Monday Kate made her first confession. I offered to help compile her list of sins – but she decided to go solo. The service was nice. Confession services are always a little funny to me with the “I am sorry” banners and the songs aimed at 7 year olds about being sorry.

Aine enjoyed the ceremony – mostly she enjoyed singing with the fifth class choir. She didn’t sit with them or know the words or anything. She just belted it out from our pew. Kate was not impressed. She kind of reminded me of one of the Bay City Rollers singing with her new hair cut. (I’ll post a picture proving the point below.)

Tuesday was Kate’s birthday. She is 8 years old now. She got a bunch of great presents – a Pixel Chix, Webkinz, clothes, markers and stuff. The present from Grandma and Grandpa arrived on her birthday. She requested carbonara for dinner and we all got to eat chocolate cake despite the fact that it’s Lent because Lent is not a good reason to cheat someone out of a full birthday celebration.

We might go to the Leisureplex in Bray to celebrate some more.

We woke up today to great fog. The big girls and I took a picture. Aine is slow to get up so she was running behind us. She kind of misunderstood was sad not to see a hog on the way to Montessori.

Finally our big news is that we finally tracked down a copy of the Dun Laoghaire Gazette – Lily and Kate were on the cover and the picture gallery from the winter event at the People’s Park. (The Dun Laoghaire event is a weekly neighborhood newspaper.)

Sunday we went to Dundrum Shopping Center with Patrick’s mom and Uncle Fearghal. We had lunch at MAO, which is a restaurant that we usually like. I don’t know that Irish Grandma will be their best new customer – it’s Asian food.

Then we trekked about the Dundrum mall. It’s new and nice. We got a few things.

Today has been a long but good day. I’m tempted to put it in order of highlights lowlights, as it’s been one of those days.

Lowlights:

• Aine cut her hair. It’s not quite as bad as the time Lily cut her hair when she was three and a half – but she did more than trim.
• Aine left her jacket in town. (Special thanks to Patrick who walked back into town to get the jacket from the place we thought it might be while the rest of us caught a bus home.)
• The fruit and veg market Patrick wanted to visit was closed.
• It’s Lent so all of us would kill or die for a treat.
• My boots are cute but not very comfortable – especially after a day walking in town.

Highlights

• We went to the Chinese New Years celebration in Smithfield today. (Smithfield is in town – but on the North side of the Liffey.) It wasn’t as big as I thought it would be but it was fun. We saw some martial arts demonstrations, ate some spring rolls and drank Chinese drinks. (Well the girls were adventurous; I has a Diet Coke.)
• Lily was asked to pose for a picture with two police officers and a girl who was possibly Chinese. The photographer is a freelancer who will try to sell the picture to the local papers. So, we’ll keep an eye out.
• We saw the old Jameson Distillery (outside, not in). We walked around the shops on Henry Street.
• We found a cheap place for haircuts and had Aine fixed up and got Lily’s bangs/fringe cut. The young, helpful Turkish women in the barbers suggested that we keep Aine away from the scissors.
• Spring has sprung and there were fun. Good buskers in Grafton Street again.
• Eddie Rockets serves Diet Coke in a big glass!

The videos below do not include us – that may be a bonus! One is from the Chinese New Year event; the other is from Grafton Street.

Thursday night we went back to our new favorite place, the Science Gallery at Trinity. There was a panel discussion on innovation called Bright Ideas.

Here’s the description from the program:

David Edwards, Terry McGuire & John Herlihy
What are the factors and conditions that contribute to innovation? How are important problems found and solved? How can insights from the arts, science and creative industries be leveraged by business to develop an innovation environment?

The Science Gallery presents a unique opportunity to discuss the next generation of idea-environments with
David Edwards, founder of Paris’s Le Laboratoire and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Harvard University, John Herlihy, European Director of Online Sales & Operations at Google and leading Irish American venture capitalist Terry Maguire and facilitated by Irish Times technology columnist, Karlin Lillington. The talk coincides with the launch of David Edwards’ new book ArtScience: Creativity and the post-Google Generation (Harvard University Press 2008). The talk will be followed by a book signing.

I found it so interesting that I thought I’d write up my notes for the interested minority: Continue reading →