The Homecoming - Part Two

I WAS awoken from my slumber in the basement early on the Saturday morning in Washington DC by the most unusual sound of children whose accents were an amalgamation of American and Irish.

It was a little after 7am and I had gone to sleep only four hours later, due to still being on Vancouver time. Nonetheless I was happy to have been woken so early as it would afford me a few hours to take in the American capital before going to the airport. The children in question were the daughter and son of my gracious hosts. Two more charming kids you won't find, already on their way to being trilingual due to their Spanish language school and Gaelgoir mother.

They were kind enough to lend me a bike and a map of all the attractions worth visiting in Washington for someone with an extremely limited amount of time. Their home was only a few minutes cycle from all of the Washington landmarks which are for the most part within close proximity to each other.

First stop was the imposing but beautiful US Capitol which forms the centrepiece of a group of similarly grandiose buildings that included the US Supreme Court, Library of Congress and Congressional Office buildings. Sadly, I could only cycle past lines of visitors waiting to go on a tour of the magnificent building.

From there, I proceeded down along the National Mall towards the Washington monument. Along the way I ran into crowds of tens of thousands, all on their way to the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' organised by political satirists and faux ideological opponents, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Part comedy event but also a gathering of those in favour of reasoned discussion, as opposed to the extreme and highly vocal stereotypes so often associated with American politics, this was something for which I wish I could have hung around.

As I cycled past on my bike, Cheryl Crow was singing to the huge crowd - later estimated to be over 200,00 people - and while she wouldn't be my cup of tea, the idea of the event and the fun that was being had was certainly up my alley. Many carried signs indicating whether they were members of 'Team Sanity' or 'Team Fear', some were dressed up in ridiculous outfits. True to the event's ethos, everywhere you turned, calm and reasoned conversations seemed to be taking place regarding how the US was being run and where it was headed. And in keeping with the rushed nature of my morning, I had to move on all too soon.

In contrast to the celebratory feel of the rally, the memorials to America's many wartime efforts were very sombre but beautiful in their own way. Most chilling among the memorials was the one dedicated to those who fought in the Vietnam war which consisted of a long black wall bearing the names of soldiers lost in the conflict.

Even though America has entered and is still partaking in another futile war in much more recent times, for many the memory of Vietnam is still very fresh. Evidence of this could be found in visitors tracing names from the wall on to pieces of paper while others placed newspaper clippings carrying news of their former loved ones underneath their name.

For me, the Lincoln Memorial was the most impressive feature of my bike tour around DC. The walk up to the majestic building along the long, iconic reflecting pool brought back TV memories of Obama's inauguration celebrations, Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech, and of course Forest Gump jumping in the water after recognising Jenny at the peace rally.

I am sure I have seen the Lincoln Memorial many times on the big and small screen but as I stood in front of the statue itself the only previous occasion on which I could recall seeing it was while watching The Simpsons. Unlike Lisa I didn't go up and ask Lincoln for advice on anything (there were too many tourists around) but I was transfixed by the workmanship of the statue and the temple in which it sits. Alongside Lincoln are two of his best known speeches, The Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address, which are chiseled into the inner walls.

Now for the part where I truly expose myself for the idiot that I am. As I was cycling back past the Washington Monument towards a few of the city's museums, I noticed a bunch of lads around my age playing a game of soccer. I took stock of their ability while rolling slowly past, and conceded to myself that even though they were American they were still probably all better than myself at the game.

Then I pulled on the breaks. While watching the kick-around, I had caught sight of something big and white in the background, a house, a white house, The White House if you want to get into specifics. Shockingly for someone who still loosely describes themselves as a journalist, I had almost cycled past one of the most famous political landmarks in the world.

Well, wouldn't you know it, I've been struck down by laziness again. This two-parter is becoming a three parter folks. Hear my tale of an encounter with Barack in a few days time. So long.

The Homecoming - Part One

I'VE let too long pass since I last posted and now I don't know where to start when detailing the last month of my life which entailed six North American cities, a painful goodbye, a joyful hello, civil war ammunition, Barack Obama, the most beautiful baby the world has ever seen, the most annoying baby ever to board a plane, full body scans and a foul-mouthed but well-meaning delivery man. I suppose the best place to begin would be the beginning.

As you all know from my last post, a month to the day ago, I had decided to go home. What I didn't realise at that time however was that a letter was winging its way to me with the news that I had been called for an job interview in Dublin with an employer who should probably remain nameless for now. At the last time of writing, my intention had been to come home at some point in the new year or maybe even Christmas at the very earliest but seen as job interviews seem to be as common as a natural tan in Ireland at the moment, I thought it best to expedite my return.

Although I didn't have that many loose ends to tie up in Canada, my girlfriend unfortunately does and we therefore had to make the hard decision to spend a few months apart. It's the last thing we wanted to do but both of us know that it's necessary and will hopefully mean that the first thing she sees of Limerick won't be me in a dole queue. I'm counting the days 'til she arrives here which should hopefully be some time early in the new year. Until then Skype will have to do us.

Seen as I didn't expect the trip home to come this soon, funds for the flight weren't too plentiful so cost-saving layovers along the way home were unavoidable. One layover would be longer and far more welcome than the other two however, as I would break up my journey home with a trip to Virginia to meet my sister and new nephew who just turned five months old and had yet to meet his uncle.

Before I reached Virginia though, we had to drive to Seattle from Vancouver. This entailed a bit of a nerve-wracking visit to American customs who as it turned out didn't give a toss that I had technically overstayed my welcome in Canada by a few months. With heavy hearts, myself and the lady parted ways for a few months at Seattle Tacoma Airport.

From Seattle I flew to San Francisco where I had a four hour layover during which I didn't even venture outside the terminal as I didn't want to face the long security queues again. Dulles Airport near Washington DC was the next destination and along the way we were treated to a stunning view of the snow-capped Rockies as well as the dusty, flat plains of the American interior.

Upon arriving in Dulles I still had an hour and a half long drive to my sisters home in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The town was the site of four major battles in the American Civil War as evidenced by every second store selling what they claim are Civil War bullets or rounds. What really tickled me was that the ammunition was categorised into Confederate and Union and for the most part, the Confederates demanded a higher price.

In stark contrast to the torturous farewell that morning, meeting my nephew for the first time was a delight. At only five months, he's quite strong and long and I don't want to get ahead of myself but I think it's a dead cert that he'll be a ladykiller and an international rugby legend if his uncle has anything to say about it. Not having seen my sister in18 months, I found it strange to see her act so maternal but I was delighted to see what a good mother she had become. Three days with them wasn't close to enough and before I knew it I was boarding a Greyhound to Washington DC and saying my second reluctant goodbye of the week.

My arrival in Washington DC coincided with that of thousands of attendees at the John Stewart/Stephen Colbert- organised "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" which seemed to have caught the imagination of the entire city going by the media coverage and the numbers in attendance. I stayed with friends of our family whose home was near the rally site and all of the famous political landmarks on Capitol Hill.

The couple, who moved to the States from Ireland 15 years ago both make documentaries for National Geographic so I stayed up late with them, drinking wine and discussing my recent realisation of the genius of Werner Herzog. Only a few hours after going to sleep I forced myself out of bed in order to take in what I could of DC before making my second trip to Dulles Airport that afternoon.

You'll have to wait a few days (that's all, I promise) to hear about and even see a few pictures from my whirlwind tour of the American capital though. I've decided this is going to be a two-parter. Until then folks....

The Imbecilic Pioneer

I COULD try to stake a claim for being someone that likes to go against the grain, a pioneer who refuses to conform with the masses and instead blaze his own trail. It would be just as easy though to make the argument that I am an imbecile who decides upon his path by merely going against conventional wisdom.

One year and four months ago I left my decent, safe job as a journalist in order to travel to Canada with a bunch of my buddies. Several people tried to convince me not to do it, one lady actually went so far as to promise me that I would never again have such a good job and I would regret the decision for the rest of my life.

My mother, although not quite so doomsdayish in her predictions, did also warn me of the dangers of leaving a good job with the country in its current state but she knew as well as I did that I couldn't be swayed. I realised the risk involved in being one of the only people in the country to leave a decent-paying job just for the hell of it but I could never have forgiven myself if I hadn't done it.

Had I stayed in Limerick I would have developed a lot more as a writer in the last 16 months and would no doubt have widened my network of contacts which is now mostly defunct. At the same time though, if I had remained at home for safety's sake, my mind would have been eaten away with thoughts of what I could have been doing in Canada with my friends every time I got pissed off with work or the everyday routine. I could not have lived with the "What if?"s.

Also, it's not as if I have nothing to show from my time in Vancouver thus far with the most rewarding prize being my very own Canadian. If I had known that a lady like her was within my grasp over here, I wouldn't have spared a thought on the merits of remaining in my job in Ireland but would have jumped on a plane with my first pay cheque.

Romantic endeavours aside however, I have also learned how to do manly things such as landscape, service machinery and frame a house this year. In varying degrees, I have enjoyed the work I have done and I am certainly glad of the new skills, experiences and friends made. What I am most grateful for from my various careers in Canada though, is the strengthening of my conviction that I want to write for a living.

In all honesty, I was able to keep up with the hardest grafters over here and I impressed all those who took a chance on employing me, but I also learned that labouring is not the life for me and therein lies the benefit of leaving the comfy job at home. Because I stepped right into working as a reporter after University I did not appreciate it, as is the case with all things for which you don't have to fight.

But having experienced some of the alternatives, I now know that I loved the work of meeting and talking with people, of searching for stories and creating something that occasionally might have made others think, chuckle or just pass the time. It took over a year for me to realise it but this is an epiphany I may never have had were it not for the decision to pack my bags and leave in May of 2009.

Unfortunately the kind of work I now realise that I love is hard to come by over here, especially if you are technically an illegal immigrant. Out of all my friends that came over here in 2009 I am the only one remaining and although I'd get a slagging for admitting it, I miss them and all the other friends I've left at home.

Canadians are as nice a people as you could ever find, I've no problem saying that as a nation they are more welcoming and obliging than the Irish. The one thing lacking though at times, is the "craic". It's not at all that they're boring or not fun in any regard, it's just that the mentality and the humour is different.

That Irish element of underlying lunacy and the appreciation of unpolished roguery just doesn't feature here for the most part. Even though both elements can be as much a curse as a blessing, I feel as though I need them around me. It has occurred to me that my homesickness may only have been brought on by viewing home through rose-tinted glasses but just as I had to know if my hopes for Canada would be realised, I now need to know if my recollections of home are accurate.

With that and my predilection for going against conventional wisdom (the wisdom being that Ireland is the last place you should be going right now) in mind, I have decided to come home. It won't be for a while yet but it will be sooner rather than later. And just like I did over a year ago, my girlfriend will be leaving her home to see if Ireland lives up to the most likely unrealistic expectations I have created for her.

All job offers appreciated!

Octogenarians from the Planet Castratus

QUESTION Time folks. See this lady here? Attractive, right? Dressed like she's about to hit the town, wouldn't you say? None of those are the actual important question here, they were more hypothetical ones just to establish some important points.

The main question for you today is, how do you think a dressing room full of men from any sport of your choosing would react were this lady to walk in looking like this directly after a game?

Would they greet her as though she were just another member of the coaching staff? Or perhaps would they engage in some whooping and maybe even some hollering?

If you're answer is the former then I can only presume that the dressing room full of men you were thinking of is the octogenarian bowls team from the Planet Castratus.

You see this little lady's name is Ines Sainz. She is a sports reporter for a Mexican TV station in the States and she's caused quite a stir on this side of the Atlantic in recent weeks. While awaiting an interview on the sidelines prior to kick-off in a New York Jets football game, Ines grabbed the attention of warming up players who consistently "overthrew" the ball in her direction so they had to run by her in order to retrieve it.

Horrific isn't it? Imagine men in their 20s and 30s - professional athletes no less - acting goofy in order to run past a hot lady in a pair of arse-suffocating pants and a top that provides worse coverage than an umbrella made from nets.

Poor old Ines' nightmare didn't end there however. As is standard practice over here she, along with some other reporters, went into the Jets dressing room after the game and was subjected, nay tortured, to the aforementioned whooping and hollering.

Predictably, a variety of different groups who have self-appointed themselves to the position of spokespersons for all of womankind were up in arms over this. The most vocal amongst these mostly hysterical and radical groups were the Association of Women in Sports Media whose moaning prompted the NFL to conduct sensitivity training with all of its 32 teams. The bill for this training will be footed by the Jets.

Not being accustomed to sports coverage North-American style, the first question that crossed my mind upon hearing this story was, what the hell was she doing in the dressing room afterwards as players got undressed and had showers?

You could argue that TV rights payments have made these players all millionaires but does that mean that they have to lose the right to wash themselves without having the ogling eyes of the press also present? Should they also be allowed follow them home?

I've been informed though that it's standard practice for the media to be allowed a few minutes of coverage inside the dressing room after games. Although I don't understand why they can't just wait until the post-match press conference, as in European sports, if sports fans and players can tolerate it here then so can I.

What I really can't comprehend though, and I'm about to get soap boxy and perhaps a little controversial here, is why they would allow female reporters to carry out this coverage.

Of course it's all in the name of equality and - unlike some people have claimed in arguments regarding this issue - the same standard applies to male reporters going into female locker rooms after major sports events in North America. I can't understand why that is allowed either but in this age of political correctness, common sense is all too often sacrificed in the name of equality.

Again though, if that's how it has been done over here for decades, even though I don't agree with it I can let it slide without getting too rowdy.

What does get my dander up though is how an apparently professional journalist, yes the one in the skintight jeans and boob-friendly shirt, can walk into a room of young adult men dressed as she was and complain when they react like a room of young adult men. If she is a sports reporter then she should know that the dressing room is a place where a lot of farting, belching, cursing and yes, un-PC chatter about girls takes place. If she can't take it then for the sake of all concerned she should stay away because those kind of activities are as essential an element to many sports as the bloody ball.

Many of the aforementioned womens groups have also claimed that Ms Sainz is suffering for her good looks. Once again they are about as on target as a blind drunk wino taking pot shots at cans on a fence 200 yards away. The "suffering" she endured was as a result of the unprofessional way in which she dressed.

I've worked as a journalist and never once did I come to the office wearing a tight pair of crotch-hugging trousers, no matter how badly I wanted to, because it would have been deemed unprofessional. If you wear clothes that show off your arse and considerable cleavage then don't be shocked when people react to them. It's akin to a stripper getting indignant for a customer staring at her rack.

You know the way in the Dail you can't libel yourself regardless of what you say? Well a dressing room - regardless of whether or not it's for professional sports - is a similar kind of haven. For some men, it's the only place where they can actually speak freely without fear of offending the ears of the easily-offended.

If those sensitive souls can't take boys being boys in their last remaining refuge then they shouldn't let the door hit the behind of their skintight jeans on the way out.

Becoming Dad

I have noticed many signs over the last couple of months that indicate I am slowly but surely morphing into my father.

On three occasions this week alone I have fallen asleep on my couch about five minutes after sitting down to watch some TV. It only took 25 years for me to start working a job somewhere near as hard as himself - who has never once stayed awake for the closing credits on the Late Late show - and the effects on my evening time energy appear to be the same.

Like my father, my head tends to tilt back at almost 90 degrees when I'm couch sleeping, giving all and sundry a delightful view right up both nostrils. It was sleeping at this angle that gave my lady reason to notice that I'm cultivating a veritable forest of nose hairs that, if allowed a few more weeks of unimpeded growth, will soon be a Hitler-style moustache. Guess who else in my family has a pair of bristly nostrils.

Strike three is a tendency I have developed really only in the last couple of months but one which Dad has had for as long as I've known him. The other day, my aforementioned lady was making us dinner but was short one ingredient so I offered to go to the shop on what should have been a ten minute excursion but one which took over half an hour.

I can't really explain why it took me so long other than there just happened to be a wide variety of worthwhile distractions along the way. You know the sort of thing; interesting newspaper headlines, a new brand of cereal that had to be investigated, a couple arguing that I felt the need to eavesdrop on for just a while. All the usual things.

The reprimand I received upon finally returning home prompted a real sense of nostalgia as memories came flooding back of my father returning from short errands that turned into epic journeys. His distractions tended to be more in the line of car dealerships, which he could rarely pass without going in for a look, and car magazines both of which could render him MIA for lengths of time that would drive my waiting mother cuckoo.

In a way, it's oddly comforting to develop habits that my father probably embedded in my psyche at a very early age, even if some of them drive those around us a little barmy now and again. I don't reckon I'll ever be quite the man he is, but if I do end up adopting most of the quirks and foibles of someone, there's nobody else I'd choose.

Boyfriends, girlfriends, cowboys and lawyers

PARTNER, in my opinion, is a term that should be reserved for the head honchos at legal firms and the acquaintances of cowboys. It should not be used to describe your significant other.

At what point did it stop being alright to call someone your boyfriend or girlfriend? It seems that once certain people hit a certain age, somewhere around the mid-30s by my reckoning, they think it's childish to use those terms and instead revert to the far more clinical 'partner'.

It's not that I don't understand the reasoning behind the reluctance to use 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend' once you are a certain number of years or failed marriages into life. I'm sure there is a section of society that thinks 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' is the reserve of teenagers and 'partner' is for middle-aged divorcees.

What I don't understand is why the latter demographic are so afraid to use youthful terms to describe their 'partner'. Chances are this is the one aspect of their life in which it's still appropriate to use teenager terminology because as one grows older, and every element of their life becomes dominated by reason, a romantic relationship is the one constant that continues to defy logic.

It's my experience that a girlfriend can excite, inspire, frustrate, infuriate and delight in ways that nothing else can once you're out of childhood. I can't speak for having a boyfriend but my lady reliably informs me that I can at the very least frustrate and infuriate to beat the band.

A relationship, by it's very nature, is illogical in that it requires us to go against our most primal urges by being monogamous. But therein lies the beauty of the whole logic-free situation, it doesn't really make sense to shack up with one other individual, especially these days when the chances are greater than ever that it will end in acrimony.

Yet all over the globe people of all ages continue to pursue these wondrously illogical relationships, displaying the kind of abandon normally reserved for teenagers. Surely then when labeling the other participant in this foolhardy arrangement they should stick with the lighter, more youthful names, rather than a term as sanitized and safe as 'partner'.