Swimming

We took Liam swimming tonight. It was great, i felt like a dad more than i ever had up to now. As we walked in after paying, i took Liam to the left, to the mens changing rooms and Angie went to the right, to the womens. In that fleeting moment a strange new feeling came over me, a mixture of pride and nostalgia. Pride at “the men” going into the hallowed male sanctum of a public changing room and the nostalgia brought on with memories of my dad taking me swimming as a nipper. When i was young, my parents brought us kids swimming everwhere. The public pools (St. Enda’s, Bawnmore, Plassey <UL&gt the Clare Glens, Castleconnell, Killaloe, Kilkee (The Pollock holes, Byrne’s cove, the beach), Lahinch, Spanish Point……..and probably a few more i can’t even remember.

Ah, the mens room, where you can relax and saunter around in public with your lad out and people still smile and say hello. Y’know what ? Next time i’m gonna bring some Old Spice and some Talcum powder to polish off “the dad image”. I might just go crazy entirely and get one of them shaving lather brushes and an old style razor to complete the ensemble.

It felt good to do something with my son that i have memories of as a kid. Living in the states, it can seem like his childhood, as an American, is, and will be, so much different to mine . But now that i think about it, in writing this, it maybe is not so different after all. This afternoon we spent a good bit of time playing with his little cars, and i used to do that too.

The whole thing’s got me caught up in a bout of nostalgia and missing my family tonight. I really need to make an effort to keep in touch better with them all. I’ve always been pretty lax in that department since i left the auld sod.

I ‘ve still got “Blogger’s Block” . This post here was wanting to scatter off in all sorts of directions but i haven’t got the will to write anything of length (or substance, you say !)

Still very happy to be in Albuquerque.

Post Lethargy

I honestly hadn’t realised that it’s been a week since posting here. Since neither Angie or I are working at the moment, we’ve been doing tons of stuff together, taking Liam all over Albuquerque, and still generally settling in to life in a new place. There’s so much to do here compared to where we came from (i refuse to mention the “M” word) and i still have not seen and done a lot of things i planned on before we ever got here.

I felt old the other night. I was looking for something to do with Liam and then i read that there’s this big skate park just 10 mins away from us. So myself and himself motor on down, and all i’m thinkng is “yeah, cool, something different, the young fella will get a kick out of it ” . As soon as we walked in i felt like an imposter, probably how the Drug squad used feel when they’d try and infiltrate “the rave scene” years ago.

Teenagers man, what a shower of scowly, emo-haired, no-bellied, black t-shirt-wearing, too-cool-for-school bunch of fuckin’ muppets, i swear. They have no fuckin’ clue, at all, do they ? No. They don’t.

Some of ‘em were fair good on the BMX’s though, in fairness to the little scuts. I didn’t hang around too long though, in case their spots would all start popping at once and myself and the sprog would be showered in a sea of yellow pus.

I’m mad to go walking up the mountains around here, but a 2 yr old doesn’t walk too far so we’ve been limited to little walks around the foothills near the apartment for now. Maybe i’ll get a day to myself next week and take off wandering for the day. That’d be grand.

I meant to have plenty of pictures of the place, but when you’re a lazy bollocks like me, things don’t always go to plan, ah well…………..

Bah…

I just noticed that this page displays differently in Microshite Internet Exploder. I use Firefox all the time so hadn’t noticed until now. All the links and blogroll are way down the page. I’ll look into it when i’m not trying to entertain this 2 yr old.

Oh, and Albuquerque is great so far. Not a very big city but it is spread out quite a bit. Tried to drive up a mountain today but couldn’t find the right road.

Alright, gotta go, Liam is reprogramming the Hotel room TV with his mad skillz on the remote.

G’luck.

The Lint Killer

Ha !

So, i decided to leave Memphis last night around 7pm, just to get going and eat up a few hours of the long drive ahead. I didn’t get tired until around 11pm or so, which is when i decided to pull off the highway and stopped to check the map to see where would be a good spot to get a motel. I parked on a quiet side street and wasn’t even there 2 minutes when out of nowhere this Arkansas cop rolls up behind me with the blues flashing and the spotlight blinding me in the mirrors. Pissed me off coz he sat there for a full 3 minutes with the spotlight on before he made his way up beside me. Bear in mind i looked like a homeless knacker in my ‘96 Isuzu with the back full of all sorts of shite half covered over with the sheets from our bed (Angie and Liam are flying out, wednesday). I hadn’t shaved in 3 days and was wearing an old ratty looking t-shirt coz i hadn’t bothered changing after packing and doing the final clean-up on the apartment, i was so eager to get on with it and get going. The fact that the car was stinking of burnt oil just completed the meth-head picture for our good friend on law enforcement (i had no funnel when i was topping up the oil, so some of it spilled on the engine block).

When he got up beside me , more blinding ensued with his flashlight fixed on my face in confrontation mode. He informed me that my engine was burning up and could i not see the vapor rising. I informed him that i couldn’t see anything due to various 1,000,000 Lumen bulbs trained directly on my face and proceeded to tell him the oil top-up tale. He asked a few more questions and looked like he didn’t believe a word i told him. At one point i asked him if it was ok if i got out to double check the engine and when i did get out he patted me down for weapons (luckily enough i left me shillelagh in the suitcase). I got casual, coz i’d nothing to hide and hadn’t broken any laws, so i was answering some other question when i casually put my hand in my pocket out of habit. Well, he stepped back, his eyes got as big as saucers and he ordered me to take my hand out of my pocket ( for fear i’d batter him with some lint and a dollar bill, i suppose ).

It really didn’t bother me at the time, i could see how i might be viewed as a suspicious looking git, lurking around some Arkansas backwater late at night, but now that i think about it i wonder…………………………

Was that a legal search he did ?

and……..

There’s no law against putting your hand in your pocket when talking to an officer, is there? I mean, he had already patted me down so i’ll scratch me bollocks if i want, right ?

Aside from that, i did tell him a white lie though. He asked me had i ever been arrested for anything, to which i answered no. Good thing he doesn’t have a direct line to the Garda Shickoloni, that’s all i’ll say on that.

Today’s drive ( 9 hrs across Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas) was uneventful in comparison. Finally made it to New Mexico around 5 this evening. I took some pics

::here::

I am currently blogger in residence at the Holiday Inn near Tucumcari, NM.

I can see a mountain out my window.

I’m happy.

move on there now lads

Well, moving day is here, our life is packed into boxes, the movers are coming this morning (i love relocation reimbursement) and we’re ready to get the flock outta here.

Angie’s graduation ceremony was on Saturday (Bachelors in Nursing, Magna Cum Laude, no less !) and i swear these people know how to beef up any occasion. The graduation was at the Fed-Ex Forum, in downtown Memphis, it’s where the NBA team plays all their games, so picture a huge indoor arena type deal. They put on a fair good spread all the same, fair dues to them. At the start of the whole deal there was military looking types parading in, bedecked in full regalia, with all sorts of academic types taking their places, looking very academic an’ all, like. They fire up the tunes and on comes God save my Bush or whatever and i’m standing there very proud of herself, thinking back to when she decided to go back to school and how i wasn’t sure that she was going to follow thru on this studying lark ( i’ll never doubt her again……now she’s talking about getting her masters degree & being a Nurse Practitioner). I even wore a shirt & tie for jaysus sake ! That right there should tell you how serious i was about making sure herself had a great day .

So anyway, we should be cleared out of the apartment today and then i’m going to start driving towards Albuquerque. It’s a 14 1/2 hour drive so Angie has wisely decided to fly with Liam and meet me there (never travel more than 2 hours with a 2 year old in the car…….. just don’t, ok) Now, seeing as i always have to have something to worry about, my big worry is that the car is going to die on me, halfway across the country. We’ve got an old ‘96 Isuzu Trooper that has seen better days and has some Mechanical quirks but for the most part has been a reliable vehicle for the past year or so. The other day it started coughing and wheezing a little, nothing serious, just kind of hesitant taking off from the light but then it was fine again. I’ve checked everything i know to check, oil, water, Air filter, and it’s run fine since then, but now when i think about the drive i picture myself stuck at the side of the road, a cloud of smoke rising from the engine, stranded in 80 degree heat, sweating like a priest at an altar boy convention, and the prospect of a nice big bill for a tow-truck to the nearest town. It’s likely i’ll make it to Albuquerque without a hitch so i’ll stop worrying about it and if i do breakdown, fuck it, it’s all part of the adventure i suppose.

Liam

It’s funny, it seems like when i still had a job i had more time to think about what i was going to post here, but now that i’m a man of leisure i’ve not much to say for myself. So in the same spirit as Kav and Hangar i’m going to enter Liam in the cute baby stakes…………………