Keeping Up With the O'Connells

FMM: 2 mi

Hi de ho, Ex-Neighbors and everyone else,

I don't exactly know what "hi de ho" means, but it must mean something. I'm waiting for Ned Flanders to e-mail me back...If you read yesterday's comments, you'll know that the excitement is building. Tiztalk (aka "The Blog from the Bog", pmandell, creator) is the buzz at Shakespeare's (a fitting venue) Pizza in Columbia..strangers are laughing about it on the ski slopes of Idaho...old sorority sisters are encouraging me to continue my blabfest (well, some things never change; that's probably how I got this way in the first place)....So, you know you are where you should be at the moment....Fulbright scholars, including Bob, have been invited to the U.S. Embassy tonight to be in the audience for a panel discussion on Obama's first year that is being hosted by Ryan Tubridy, a popular late night Irish talk show host. U.S. Ambassador Dan Rooney (owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, for you lowbrows) will be there. I'm not sure when/if it will be on TV, but I do know how to DVR now thanks to Tim who told me I just have to push "record" on the black thingie...We started watching the first season of _The Tudors_. I'm reminded of the song "Who's Zooming Who?" Anyway, we are trying to keep the treachery and shenanigans straight...Today I am off to an American Women in Dublin book club. I haven't read the book - _The Story of Edgar Sawtelle_, but I'll surely think of something to say. And I am longing for coffee and conversation...

Wandering and pondering,

I remain

Tizzie/Tiz/Tizmom/Mom/Liz/Elizabeth

The Embassy

Hi, Blogites,

FMM: 1.5 mi

I think I OD'd on social interaction yesterday. I am out of the practice of talking to anyone but myself. However, I hit my stride by mid-morning. We met all of the other Fulbrighters in Ireland yesterday...It is quite an interesting group of people and projects which include such things a creating traditional Irish music score for cellos (evidently they have never been used before in traditional Irish music), creating abstract art which incorporates the Irish landscape, studying the rise in obesity among Irish men over 80...well, you get the picture? It was fun to hear about the projects and meet the people... The American Embassy is a modernistic building - it looks like a flying saucer - set among Georgian buildings. When we stepped inside (now don't laugh at this) it looked just like an Embassy Suites Hotel:> Really. The reception room is round and surrounded by three floors of rooms which overlook it. The ambassador was not available, but his deputy greeted us. He had just gotten off the phone with Hillary Clinton's office and he let us in on a secret: she is coming here next weekend. Now you know the secret, too...We went to the Abbey Theatre and enjoyed the world premiere of a play called "Tales From Ballycumber" by a well-known Irish author named Sebastion Barry...You know I can't wait for today's main Fulbrighter activity: a WALKING tour of Dublin! You know I need one of those...not only that but I am PAYING to take this tour.....more later..

Your stand-in here in Ireland (pronounces "R Land" by most people I meet),

Tizzie/Tiz/Tizmom/Mom/Liz/Elizabeth

P.S. Nora, if you're reading this, they pronounce your name "LEE HEE" over here.