Another week, another Friday. I wake up super early, around 5am, and stay in bed tossing and turning to try and get more sleep. This is a fairly typical pattern, which I attribute the bed’s inadequate support… I think my body just gets too uncomfortable after a few hours, I become restless and then I wake up. When people ask what I miss the most since moving to Ireland, my answer is a good mattress.
At about 8:30am I get the usual courtesy call from SuperValu checking on a few substitutions for my weekly grocery order. The youngish sounding woman who calls is always the same person, pleasant and polite. At the end of the call, she says “mind yourself,” which is a common parting expression in Ireland. The delivery arrives when I’m up and doing my usual morning routine, on the earlier side of 11:00am. It’s one of the repeat delivery persons, who sounds Polish or Eastern European; it’s been awhile since I’ve seen Ciaran, who used to be my regular delivery guy. As I’m tying up the plastic bags to haul them upstairs, some neighbours from other floors enter through the front door. I steps out of the way, excusing myself, but they don’t really say anything in response. Other than my immediate next door neighbour Irene, and the nerdy young heavyset guy at the end of my floor, I can’t say I’ve met many other friendly folks at Spranger’s Yard. At any rate, I manage to carry all the bags up in one go. It’s not a particularly large order but for some reason I get especially winded this time. Maybe it’s from the poor sleep and/or warmer weather?
As I’m putting the frozen food away, a bag of mixed vegetables splits open, spilling about half of its contents. Peas, corn and baby carrots roll across the kitchen floor. I sweep up the mess with a handy broom and long-handled dust pan I had obtained soon after moving in and discard the wasted food into the rubbish bin. I manage to fit the rest of the frozen items in the two freezer drawers, but when I shut the door it doesn’t close all the way. The freezer has always been very frosty, from the first day of my arrival… even the landlord noticed it when showing me around the apartment. The seal around the door is probably not tight in some places. I remove both drawers and see that there’s considerable frost and ice built up along the sides and in the back of the freezer. I use a wooden spatula to scrape out as much as I can, then I replace the drawers and am able to shut the freezer door successfully. Now there’s another mess of melting ice on the floor to clean up… sigh. It’s not turning out to be the best morning. Once I finish putting the rest of the groceries away, I settle back down to finish my coffee, catch my breath, and recover from the whole ordeal.
I’ve finished my CMA reading and videos for the week, and the next assignment is to take some practice tests. I decide to put this off until sometime over the weekend when hopefully I’ll be in a better mood and can devote a few hours to it. Another task I’ve been working on this week is to get another 3 months supply of my prescription meds approved and filled. It’s taking some back-and-forth with my pharmacy and doctor’s offices to get the refills processed. I wait until later in the afternoon to place a couple of calls during business hours in California. Everything seems to be set, and then just now I check the CVS website to see that the last med I need to be refilled is now “out of stock.” Argh! At this point, I decide the best thing I can do is to take a nap.
The good weather over the past few days continues thanks to a high pressure system that is lingering over Ireland. I finally get out for a walk in the late afternoon as the sun begins to set over the Liffey.
I walk along the decks hanging off the sides of the north quays. There’s a mix of people mostly spread out — small groups of dark featured men chatting away in foreign languages, young couples and friends eating takeout, a few smokers standing around socialising, others convening an improvised happy hour with take away pints of beer in plastic cups, and the occasional runner in exercise clothes weaving through everyone else. Most of the benches are fairly full, but I find a spot between the Millenium and Grattan bridges that is reasonably distant from other folks. Not long after I’ve sat down, a stumbling derelict looking man sits down a few feet away from me, not wearing a mask and clearly intoxicated and/or high. I ask him a few times to sit further at more of a distance or find another spot, and he finally gets up and shambles away almost falling over. He seems to have a woman companion, also disheveled and also somewhat out of it, who steers him along. It’s a reminder that Dublin has a rough side with a fair amount of homeless people and others with substance abuse issues on its streets. Despite this minor incident, it’s still nice to get out for some fresh air and enjoy the vibrant colours at this time of day.
Once the sun has dipped down behind the buildings and the riverside decks fall into shadow, I head back towards home. Curiously, the pubs in Temple Bar have remained completely closed without opting to offer takeaway pints. I wonder if the proprietors don’t want to encourage people to gather during lockdown, or if their motivations to remain completely closed are based more on economical or logistical factors. There are a few folks gathered at the far end of Crow Street outside of the corner cafe that serves coffee as well as some alcoholic beverages to-go, but thankfully it’s a relatively mellow crowd. As much as it would be nice for the pubs to be open again, I’m enjoying the peace and quiet in the neighbourhood for the time being.
Until next time…
