Murphy's Law

"i hate morphine” says alan
“you what?” says i
“i hate morphine” says alan again. “the man of the law. he always say the lane you are not in moves faster. Morphie is such a jerk for being right.”

traffic was moving very slow as our trek back to Cork began early that morning. We were set to be in Dublin by noon, however the que for the motorway was out to prove our scheduling wrong. nevertheless we were kept occupied with discussions of the difficulties of learning new languages and being misunderstood when using words like fork, sheet and beach.

“i have to write this down”
“why? are you writing a book?”
“not that i know of. and i am just writing it down because i think it is funny. do you mind if i write it down?”
“i don't give two sheets. do what you like”
“i won't be able to write that down though.”
“sure you can. only do not tell your maman it was me.”

we got back into cork about half an hour late for my shift at the Shel (by the way i am back working at the Shel part time) which wasn't a problem. As Alan sped along the motorway I said there wasn't any sense in getting a ticket he wasn't going to pay because "it wasn't like i was late for a wedding or an exam, it was only work and work would be there regardless of how many cars we passed". The patrons had much to raz me for when i got there, but a few cleverly passed quips about cutting them off had them in stitches and moved the conversation quickly to an overview of my road trip and finnaly settle on the weather.

brother bear

it was a week or two ago. we were all on a patio. it was the day i reached a check point. the clay oven was burning rather quickly through the supply of wood on hand and it soon became apparent that more wood be needed if we wear to bee kept warm.

later i would have a dream about tearing down the shel, scavenging the place for bits of wood the owner, gilivan, wouldn't miss. roy was there, and a regular named a-min-d and a few of the other staff as well. soon the whole floor was ripped up the the bar was floating on the few remaining joist. with that job done i went back to the fire, which meant waking in a room full of smoky clothes.

roy's appartment is having work done, shelves removed and toilets added, and it was producing a great deal of, what turned out to be, unburnable bits of wood that, also, turned out to be too big for the clay fire. matty and i went to investigate the situtation and learned a long time after the facts described above. we had been gone a while and finn et al had some bits of stone to get rid of. they climbed on her brothers roof, just off the patio, and tossed pebbles. finn's brother had a few pebbles too, and tossed them her way. [get off d x'ng ruf] came the txt. the three of us, roy, matty and myself, returned bearing gifts of gold trim, wayne scotting and vanities, which needed to be made smaller.

luckly matty and i are ninja's.

my turn came after matt's and just before the arrival of a big angry brother ^[1]. i propped my bit of wood against the wall and would have split it in two, honest, had i not have been distracted.

before me was a bear wearing people clothes standing in the landing in front of me, guarding the only exit. it was speaking but i couldn't hear it over the sound of me pooping my pants for the second time ^[poop]. the bear, brother o'finn, inquired into the delivery of his text earlier.

Brother O'Finn told us he had to work in the morning, which was now an hour ago, and that he would appreciate if we would keep our noise to a non-existance in a tone that suggested his patience for shenanigans ^[2] had expired sometime around the mid 90's.

matty decided to leave when roy convinced himself that since Brother was up already we might as well continue on the same route to destruction we were on. i agreed because my smell was starting to discust myself.

but i don't mind because it gives me character.

my syst'r heheher

there is a girl at work. her name is Fionnula ... or something, but no one calls her that. so Finn is a girl at work who is a blast to work with, even more so after i learned that the pissed off look she wears on her face is not anger but more of a focusing on how much she doesn't want to be there. as it turns out it's not how i work while at the pub that makes her angry, but simply the fact that she has to be there at all. once we all get laughing the day goes much smoother and people frown less.

we write the orders on dockets ... paper bits that get handed to the chef so that she can make something entirely different and cause the customer to frown at me when i explain to them, to their uncaring eyes, that it wasn't my fault and i'd be happy to pee in a free cup of coffee for them. the never take it. we post these dockets above a toaster which has an interesting habit of biting our four arms when we reach over it. i did this on the first day with my first docket, cursed a little and said to myself, and to anyone listening who turned out to be more than the no one i had assumed, this must be the tattoo that everyone gets. since at the time i figured no one had heard me, i went about the rest of my shift fumbling over new menu items and general way of doing things while all the while smiling to myself at how incredibly clever i was.

two weeks later, while she was explaining to me that it wasn't me she hated at work but work itself, Finn told me that she had heard me curse and be clever but didn't have the time to respond because she was too focused on hating work and making wrong sandwiches. we laughed and laughed and reminisced about that day, today at work, nearly four months later. she showed me her scar from getting burned by the toaster. a scar, can you believe it? i hadn't burnt myself since that first day, but she had burned herself often enough for it to leave a scar.

Steven had been taking the piss* out of Finn all lunch hour because she had mispronounced pajama and was unable to pronounce it correctly again. we all laughed and laughed except Finn who just laughed. then i told a story about achee achee achee are and her summer job and her struggles with snanisnics. everyone laughed a bit and it took the pressure off Finn the same bit. what then took another moment off Finn was when, only moments after getting the laugh from H's story, i reached and posted my docket above the toaster and curse a bit and said to myself, and everyone around, that maybe i would get that scar after all.

Finn laughed the hardest.

interview

first night in cork

barman: you all right?
me: yeah fine. you?
??? ... what can i get you?
oh, a beamish please
where're you from?
canada. here working, traveling, and whatever. hoping to find work in a pub if i can
you've any experience?
sure, about a year's worth at home.
come see me tomorrow.
wow. sure. what's your name?
steve.

second day in cork

bargirl: youl right der?
me: sure, fine. is the manager in?
ya, ina meeting doh. come back at af'four, maybe?
sure. thanks. what's your name?
finn.
thanks. and what's his name again?
steve.
great. thanks.

16:28, second day in cork
steve is running circles

steve: you all right der?
me: fine. you.
fine. fine. you want something? a coffee? tea? coke? you're brad, right?
coffee. thanks. yes.
so you've experience at home, have you? it's different here. very different. y'no wat i mean like. think you can learn?
i'm sure i ...
good. good. c'meer, here, drink up. you'll be called a yank too, no one will know the difference and frankly no one will care. you can handle that?
yea..
good. fine. great. that's frank, he's a regular. that's john to your left, he's a regular. i might have a spot clearing up in a week or so so i'll call you then if something comes up you've a seevee?
yea..
numberonit?
yes
good. good. well, this has probably been the easiest interview you've ever had. isn't it.
yes. i think i can honestly say ..
well yank, thanks for coming in. interview's over and i'll call you in a few days. if i don't, drop in.
thanks. what do i owe for the coffee?
nothing, it's on me. besides i've already drank it on you. see you again in a few days, yank.
sure. thank you.

it's the jazz baby!

was what roy kept saying for weeks before this past weekend. it's the jazz baby, everything changes.

well, what the biggest build up to a weekend i've experienced since i was eight and watching the 1990 new years countdown on City TV, turned out to be somewhat overrated. i can remember telling my dad how i was SO excited to watch the countdown and how devastated i was to find out that the biggest event on television was nothing more than a series of crappy, lying television ads. he smiled in a way that only a father can, and the only way that a son can recognize years later, he realized that his son was just as observant as he wished and could hope.

this is my blog and i'll be as nostalgic if i want to. as far as i am concerned i am unbiased. in fact, i am the most unbiased, so there.

in effect the jazz was another excuse for the staff to get overly stressed, pissed at each other (which at the time felt not so much like each other as it did me) and, at times, reduced to tears immediately following brad having stacked the empty kegs in such a way that:

it pissed me off - so says steve the manager.

and then as i went back upstairs to the bar with a case of corona he tossed at me he cried and threw kegs around the cellar. at the end of the night he looked at me over his pint of gin and tonic and looked at him over my cup of carlsberg and we stared each other down. i said steve. he said yank. i said are we still friends. he said no no we aren't, i am not friends with yanks.

it was then i knew that we were still friends and that we would always be friends. at least until the next jazz, or until the next time we worked together.

at the end of it all the cork jazz couldn't hold a candle to the Toronto jazz festival. that is a bit too harsh. the jazz fest wasn't what i expected it to be because it wasn't to much a jazz fest as it was an excuse for Guinness to monopolize beer sales and for the population of Cork to expand ten fold for the duration of 72 hrs and for everyone to get so drunk that they get sick everywhere in their new bathroom.

what i mean to say, is that the weekend wasn't really about jazz. sure the bands played jazz, a bit of jazz anyways, but it was more about being out in mass amounts and doing mass amounts of drinking. but it's the jazz baby, and apparently the jazz baby is all about working ridicules hours for little pay and tricking yourself into thinking that it is all worth it.

what i did learn is that this trip is not about work, i'd rather be traveling and the first chance i get i'm getting out of Cork and going to galway for a few days. and maybe to france after that.

i named my rash

life has been rather quiet the past few days. i have been taking it easy because of an unfortunate run in I had with a rash. i am not sure where i had this run in, but the evidence of this run in is unavoidable. so unavoidable that i've given him a name: Decision. Decision has moved off my face but is holding ground on my neck and chest. and BOY is Decision making his presence known; visually and .. itch-illy (?). fem doc from emerg put me on some meds and cremes, very masculine to be applying this twice daily, and hopes that i'll be on the mend in a few days. the "good news" she had for me was that it wasn't to be worried about; bad news being that she wasn't too sure what it was that i wasn't supposed to be worried about.

hmmm... perhaps try another semester at school and then get back to me on this. as soon as possible would be nice. i'd rather not come back if this treatment isn't working.

my first lunch shift went off quite well today (pause in typing to scratch my chest), allegedly it wasn't as busy as it usually gets and i had it easy today .. which is nice to know since i was running my a** off. for a first day with it i hope i did well.

i met the owner, or as he was introduced to me the man-who-pays-me. i said hello to Phil twice, the second being more enthusiastic because it followed the whopaysme remark. Phil was grand as owners usually are the first time you meet them and before the first time you severely screw something up. i'll let you know if Phil and I still get on in a month or so after i've spoiled a lunch dumped a pint in his lap.

all is well. take care of yourselves.