Coleraine Chronicles: "Saint Stephen with a rose, In and out of the garden he goes"

My excursion to Coleraine was bookended by two nights in Dublin: one before and one after. And each has its own story to tell. (You'll be in the next chapter, Devlin!)

(Furthermore, the whole of the time in Ireland was bookended by two business trips: one to Chichester and one to San Diego. Six planes; four hotels; five breakfasts--two English/three American; two different travel and expense reports; four dress shops on North and South Street; one Friday morning Farmers Market at the Market Cross; and countless cups of tea, dry sugar biscuits and a Mad Men Season One marathon on the Aer Lingus in-flight entertainment. Fields of sheep and rabbits and crumbling walls of the Howard family castle rolling past the Southern Rail window. The Pacific ocean sunset marina filled with yachts and schooners and power boats and Mexico beyond. Ben of the Ship breaking my heart by inquiring after Joe Shuman. Suzy Howell of the Thunderbird International Business Review working with me at the Wiley booth. The black flocked wallpaper in the Ship's bar. Catching Band of Brothers on the History Channel when trans-Atlantic insomnia hit at the Sheraton. But perhaps I'll write on all this another time.)

So it's back to the first Saturday—beloved suitcase now in tow—and I'm curbside at the Dublin International taxi queue. The world is bright and sparkling and filled with possibilities again. My only objective is to get to the Wynne Hotel and to run a few errands in the afternoon. In the evening, I will meet with Horslips lyricist and drummer Eamon Carr and be his guest for dinner at the legendary Trocadero.

I've been to this wonderful after-hours Dublin nightspot twice before and each has been marred by a particularly uncouth, but always unintentional, social gaffe on my part. The first time – in 2005 when returning from a sales conference in Athens – I fell into that immobilizing shyness which always reads as frost and disdain when a distinguished visitor to our table tried to strike up a conversation. I later learned he was Tom Hickey, famed actor in Irish television with credits that included The Riordans and My Left Foot.

My second Troc scandal was a little more recent, last October after the book launch for Origami Crow, and I could have used some of that immobilizing shyness when, instead, (after much drink and some of it plum sake) I said "Isn't she the woman who told her ex to 'Zip up your Mickey?'" loud enough for the very woman herself to hear. To make matters worse on that night, my companion for the evening became embroiled in a heated partisan discussion over iPhones (Or was it just iPods? Macs? Something from the Apple family tree at least) if I remember correctly.

All in the past. This time, I was determined to behave like the lady of propriety that I considered myself to be. I had a beautiful Dark Garden skirt and a slightly naughty Grafton Street top trimmed in lace and velvet. And Eamon had invited along his colleague Ulick O'Connor, who had expressed mild interest in meeting me. It would be a night to remember. I just wish I could.

I had first 'met' Ulick O'Connor through copy of Celtic Dawn: a Portrait of the Irish Literary Renaissance. Published in 1984, it is O'Connor’s informed and personable history of a time and place when Ireland (which had already quite a number of 'to-do' items on the list at the moment) decided it needed to add "become the epicenter of modern literature, theatre and poetry" to that agenda. The resulting era gave the world so many literary titans (many now with their own industries of scholarly conferences, papers and rites of appreciation trailing after them well into the new centuries) that one of O'Connor's triumphs in the book is his ability to orchestrate it all into a succinct ensemble production of the stage without losing focus to any one of its formidable characters.

I had devoured this book at another Wiley-Blackwell sales conference, this one in Barcelona, Spain in 2007, and so I was probably the ONLY corporate attendee in a position to thrill at the hotel's proud cocktail menu boast of Hornimann's Tea as the house tea of choice. Here was evidence of Ann Hornimann, "the rather plain-looking daughter of a Manchester tea merchant" rival of Lady Gregory. A would-be patron of W.B. Yeats and the Abbey that O'Connor pitilessly dissected as something of a proto-groupie; the sort you might find floating around backstage with the musicians at the Avalon Ballroom or Fillmore West:

The determination and eccentricity she had shown as a young woman when she had cycled, worn bloomers, smoked and crossed the Alps alone were now at their height. She dressed in gowns of heavy tapestry material and always wore a piece of jewellery made in oxidized silver, carved in the shape of a dragon. She liked to begin her letters to Yeats with 'Dear Demon'.

(Ah, poor ridiculed Annie! And for all her financial generosity, Yeats compared the red cloaks she designed for On Baile's Strand to 'fire extinguishers' and told the cast members that they looked like 'Father Christmases.' And the things Lady Gregory had to say about her! But, as I do for P.L. Travers and her similar forlorn orbit through this brilliant constellation of personalities, I always give Annie's comet a nod of commiseration when I see her tail streaking through the others' biographies and memoirs.)

I 'met' Ulick again in December 2008, when another friend brought his poem "The Kiss" with its honeybee imagery to my attention:

She said to me
"Kiss me specially",
And with her lips on mine
Traced a design
To show the way
Bees on a drowsy day
Suck honey from fuchsia.
How could I be so sure
That the artificer who spun
The golden honeycomb
For her at Erice,
The goddess in exile,
Could ever have gleaned
What I found
When I leaned
To that command.

Mercy!

So when Eamon dropped a note to me in mid-June that he was inviting Ulick along to our planned Saturday dinner, I quickly ran to Google to prepare myself for the night. Second result on the search was a 2001 article from the Sunday Independent—announcing the publication of The Ulick O'Connor Diaries 1970-1981—and it offered an even more teasing glimpse of the length and breadth of the man's life:

Ulick enraged the entire Behan clan by publishing a biography of the great playwright Brendan that outed him for the first time as a bisexual; Brendan's brother Dominic recorded in The Sunday Times his intention "to take Mr O'Connor by the scruff of the neck and sock him halfway round London". Staying in Stockholm, he incurred the lifelong froideur of Edna O'Brien by hoaxing her into believing that the local newspaper wanted to photograph her naked and hoisted aloft by the Swedish boxer, Ingmar Johansen.

He had a furious row with Yeats's cousin, Monk Gibbon, about whether or not Proust was sexually promiscuous. His Diaries record a startlingly mouvementé life, shuttling between grand addresses – Leixlip Castle, Mount Stewart, Tara Hall, Castletown – and grand names, the Dublin County haut monde of Guinnesses, Gowries, Beits, Londonderrys and assorted literary folk. And through the pages reverberates the voice of the literary flâneur, by turns languid and energised, wry and excitable, endlessly alert to the details and debris of other people's lives, constantly ransacking the Rolodex he keeps in his head, full of other people's reputations and family connections.

"Good Lord!" I thought. "His Christmas card list must read like a syllabus to a modern literature course! What have I gotten into now?" But I couldn't back out. It's onward to the Trocadero!

As you can imagine, it's an evening of sparkling conversation. Irish literature, New Orleans landmarks, American history (the trans-continental railroad! I do remember we talked about the railroad! Built to get Uncle Sam's hands on California's gold, that railroad…), current Irish politics; we dance over a number of interesting and arcane topics. The bottle of wine on the table—a red—is seemingly endless. Our party of four includes Paddy Goodwin, one of Ireland's leading criminal attorneys and, more recently, the producer of former Wings guitarist Henry McCullough's latest album Poor Man's Moon. Eamon and Paddy on one side of the table. Ulick and myself on the other. Dinner, dessert, and talk. Glorious, learned talk. With annotations and citations and allusions and quips at every turn. The sort of conversation that propels plots in novels or quickens the pace of autobiographies but rarely—yeah, let's just say 'never,' shall we?—happens to real people in real life.

And it does take me time to realize that the endless rounds of wine may, perhaps, be coming from more than the one bottle. And the various plates of dinner and dessert have long disappeared and Eamon and Paddy across the table there are quietly engaged in their own private conversation and over on my side of the table with Ulick, below the linen and above the small space of the leather banquette seat separating us but still warm with our bodies' proximity, I slowly realize that I appear to be behaving in a fashion that can only be interpreted as 'throwing myself' at my dinner partner on the right.

(Later, at another dinner in Cookstown, I replay what details I can remember of the night to friends Joseph O'Neill and Francis Quinn. Foolishly, I look to them for a vindication of the rights of Yankee women, but instead the Cookstown code of morality delivers a swift verdict via Joe: "Oh, you led him on, you did!" But did I? Nothing survives in remembrance beyond the moment itself. We do have the earlier rush of carnal excitement at the Dublin Airport on record; however, so who knows what random wanton thoughts were running through my mind. Poor old Dicey Reilly indeed…)

But back to the Trocadero! Time, in my memory, starts behaving strangely at this point but it does seem sequentially sound that shortly after I process this first interesting bit of business and begin pondering what to do about it, I'm surprised and delighted by the evening's next turn of events: the late arrival of a fifth dinner guest by the name of Robbie Foy. It's suddenly all black t-shirts and leather and steel rockabilly jewelry and "Robbie!" I exclaim with open arms, scooting over to the left side of the banquette to make him welcome.

Because, of course, I had met him before. Had lunch at the Ferry Building with him and Greg McQuaid of KFOG, FM so the imprint of "San Francisco" and "home" is indelibly with him.

And just like San Francisco and the home office and after settling in to our greetings, Robbie performs an action so common to my daily life that I join him without a second thought: he pulls out a mobile phone to check for messages.

Ah friends, my iPhone! It was last year's model by the release of the next generation as of that night actually. (And, o, the buzz about that online! My friends in Stornoway already had theirs on pre-order and people are still waiting in line in San Francisco as of the morning of this essay's writing!) But still a thing of daily delight and support in home, business and pleasure. The excitement I feel when it vibrates in my hand with an incoming email or text message! The joy of having neighborhood photos of garden and bees and stock quotes and grocery lists at a touch away. The pitifully thin solace, during those three days of lost luggage, that it held a complete inventory of all items of the suitcase thanks to the "I Heart Travel" app.

And, believe it or not, it's the first cellphone I've ever truly owned. (A Parrot Cingular purchase was quickly returned within 24 hours when it was learned that no international calls would be possible—as originally promised at point of sale!) Until 2008, I was such a Luddite that friends considered my purchase of a mobile phone last October as one of the undocumented signs of the End Times.

I was flicking quickly through the Twitter feed—always my last stop in the virtual rounds and exceedingly tedious. Whatever do people see in that platform? It’s nothing but marketers telling other marketers about their markets. Bit of a closed loop if you ask me, but I continue to make the effort for the Company—when I realize that someone is shouting very, very loudly in real time. I look up from the small screen in my hand. It’s Ulick. He seems to be pointing and shaking his finger at me.

"…like her!" he's roaring. "They're the ones killing the conversation of Dublin! With their mobile phones and their internet and all of it!!!"

Profuse apologies from everyone at the table on our behalf. Robbie is immediately contrite with honest apology and his mobile vanishes in the wink of an eye. I’m not quite so quick to pick up my cues. I do realize, of course, that some explanation is required and I run with that.

"You don't understand," I say patiently. "My company expects me to stay connected at all times. To be involved in social media…"

It's a match to gasoline. Ulick bellows with renewed rage and the others redouble their efforts to placate as he gathers his things to go. A table over, other Dubliners join in the spectacle. "You tell 'em, Ulick!" one of them shouts in encouragement.Again, there's a sense of having missed my cue. Did I even have the right script? I look across the scattered plates and glasses of wine—my God are they filled again?—and, yes indeed, everyone at the table is looking at me. So I offer another truth and this time move closer to an apology:

"I think I have to admit that I have had quite a bit to drink, Ulick. I'm sorry…" but he roars on, waving a hand at me in dismissal. Robbie weighs in with a beautifully phrased explanation of how he as only met "this woman" once before. "Wait," I want to ask. "'This woman?' How did this get to be about me? I thought this was about the phones. And we've met twice, I’ll have you know." But, realizing my first two attempts were failures, I pull the rags of my dignity around me and put away the iPhone and apologize again.

The conversation soothes down to the topic of current Irish politics, but with a definite 'boys only' air to it. In my exiled corner of the banquette, I sulk and brood over my transgressions. "Killing the conversation of Dublin…" Well, who else could do it but a Yank? And they're lucky it wasn’t a BlackBerry. They should see the people in my office with their BlackBerries! Brandishing them about the place and thumbing smugly through their keypad shortcuts like they singlehandedly engineered Obama's victory on the damn things.

I know I should feel shame at embarrassing my kind friends with this scene, and I do: a little. I know I should feel shock at being the center of a public spectacle, and I do: a little. But, God help me, uppermost in my thoughts at the moment is what an excellent Facebook status update this is going to make. I clasp both hands firmly on the table in front of me to keep my thumbs from twitching. Maybe if I excused myself to go to the Ladies?

It's the next overcast, leaden morning when I'm hauling the suitcase—which is losing some of its prodigal luster because I've overpacked as always and the Marks and Sparks purchases aren't helping and the thing weighs a ton—through Dublin's deserted Sunday streets, that true remorse hits. I sit in the Connolly Station latte café, waiting for the pub next door to open at 11:00 and count my many sins. And in the pub, I console myself with (what else?) the photo album on the iPhone. Where I'm surprised to find photos of myself and Ulick, Eamon and Paddy, and even Ulick his very handsome solo self; all posing and smiling for the little pixelated camera. Wonderful! Although I have absolutely no memory of taking any of these, they're clearly a case for the defense of social media. They may be the last photos I'll ever be able to take in Dublin, but they do prove that, at one point in the evening's festivities, the iPhone wasn't such a bad bastard after all.

Later that evening, settling into the dorms of University of Ulster Coleraine and realizing that my Sunday's entertainment was going to be limited to whatever I brought with me, I pulled out the copies of The Kiss: New and Selected Poems and Translations and The Ulick O'Connor Diaries, gifts given to me before the now infamous dinner so I could ask for autographs. And even they filled me with reproach, for I imagined that obtaining Ulick's autograph—or, indeed, any further acknowledgement from him of my existence—was something that would never happen now.

So, a bit of a shock to find "For Lora, From Ulick. After a Special Evening. 2009 June" on the first page of the collection of poetry. A similar salutation on the Diaries. How marvelous! But…how? What made this possible? And that crafty fox! "A Special Evening?" How was I supposed to explain that to the husband? At least the Diaries mentioned Paddy and Eamon's company.

I was able to later inquire about this and was told that the evening progressed a bit further on from my memory and that, at one point, I was asked to read a Douglas Hyde poem that Ulick had written about in that day's Herald and I apparently did so with some success. "That's how we knew you were back in his good graces," I was assured. Well, how wonderful then! All good.

Now, if I could only just find out how the petticoat of my Dark Garden skirt got so badly ripped.

Coleraine Chronicles "Lately it occurs to me What a long strange trip it's been"

Thursday's 12:30 Enterprise for Dublin Connolly ready to roll away from Belfast Central, I'm now on the other side of my wild journey to the Third International Conference on the Ulster Cycle. There's none of the Sunday crowds today and the few other passengers sit solitary at their tables.

In the last four days I have managed to make my way around the University of Coleraine campus; comport myself well in conversation with the senior scholars of the Celtic Studies world; deliver a paper that at least entertained (if not enlightened); attended other papers; knocked back a G&T on the sun deck of the Port Royal Hotel while the sky turned a brilliant red; made a day trip to Tullyhogue Fort, St. Patrick's Cathedral and the mounds of Navan, and had dinner with the legendary Joe Floorboard and his companion in mischief Francie Quinn. Back to Dublin now with the hopes of meeting up with a few more friends during a pleasant afternoon before my flight home on Friday.

Highlights of the journey include a spirited scholarly debate that began when a young German scholar at Jesus College, Oxford outlined a basic Maeve-as-goddess theory on a grid that plotted out the attributes she held in common with the Ishtar and Bast ilk. (Paper was titled Some Thoughts on Medb, the typology of warlike goddesses, and Pausanias l.xiv.7) He was quickly taken to task by an older woman up in the higher rows of the seats: "Young man, if any woman at this conference—especially at this conference—offers you the 'friendship of her thighs,’' you would do well to not call her a prostitute!" And our flustered scholar (Matthius Egeler was his name) responding with that time-honored equivocation of the international traveler: "Perhaps my English is not so good. Perhaps it is 'strumpet?'"

As you can guess, this went down equally as well with the crowd—which was disproportionately female. (And it was hard for me not to think back on the scene from In Bruges "'Alcoves?' Is this how you say it 'alcoves?'") Or to not raise my hand and bring up Ann Dooley's point that the goddess motif restricts Maeve's character into 20th century scholarship which, however revolutionary it once was back in the day, still privileges a male interpretation of her role. But I'd already delivered my own paper by then, and instinctively knew that Matthius was in no mood to hear from me. Even if I was proxying a well-regarded North American scholar in his field.

Ancient history is bread and butter to the medievalists, but what slowly emerged as a conference meme is that ancient history isn't only the mythic world where Cúchulainn and Maeve battled over that famous piece of mobile agricultural real estate, but is also the more recent world within the living memories of some of the scholars present. In this world dwells their fellow scholars in the field who have gone ("to the land of eternal youth" as they are honored during one of the opening speeches); the annual journals for their papers (now published sporadically); and the primacy of place for Thomas Kinsella’s 1969 translation of the core myth. It's a world where vinyl sound recordings and the Gaelic Revival are both pop culture phenomenons of technological artifacts and reputations in decline or rehabilitation or both.

Andrew Shanafelt, the young kid from Seattle who followed my presentation with his own compare/contrast of Kinsella and Carson, was the one who delivered a competent, close reading of the two recent translations. He hit all the expected points: Kinsella/Dublin/1969; Carson/Belfast/2008. And then, as he delves into the text, he throws up a PowerPoint slide of two translations of the same rosc passage side by side. Andrew took us through Kinsella's modernist style, with its near rhymes and measured rhythm. In contrast, he points out, Carson utilized two breaks in each line and delivers three short and enigmatic phrases that simultaneously seem to connect and then break apart from each other in kinetic energy. On the slide in front of us they crackle with power, like incantations or the random fragments of prophesy of a drugged Sybil. And at that moment Kinsella's verse, so close for comparison in proximity on the same slide, suddenly had the sunlit dust-motes of a museum gallery’s shaft of window-light slowly drifting around it.

(In the dinner the night before, the Kinsella/Carson discussion swerved away from partisan debate and became agreement when Gregory Toner, the University's representative and key organizer of the conference, said that the Tain should be re-translated for each generation.)

The session with Andrew and I ("let's throw the two unknown Yanks together on the first day" you can almost imagine the Conference people saying) was headed off with a young, self-contained woman and her paper The Ulster Cycle and the Gaelic Revival. In my opinion, it was great. A survey of the sudden upsurge of translations of the myth during the thirty or so year period around the turn of the last century. Here we met a number of names I'd become familiar with as I researched: Eleanor Hull, Joseph Dunn, Synge, Padraig Pearse, and our old toothbrush-wielding girl Lady Gregory. A swift deconstruction of some of the ways the myth was modified so that it could provide models of the sort of morally pure, chivalrous, brave and Celtic national character they were encouraging each other to become once again. (Modifications summarized here: Those thighs of Maeve's? Less friendly.) What made the paper for me was her concentration on para-text: that is the pieces of the translation that were the bits and business of the work being a commercial product. The term covered end notes, introductions, illustrations, cover art, advertising in the back of editions, font-styles chosen. "Para-text, eh?" I said to myself, making a note. "That's a pretty fancy term for marketing. But I like it!" So it was a paper that had some street hustle. Which gave me my opening lines.

(There had been some tentative overtures as to how I wanted to be introduced. My presenter was Jacqueline Borsje, a researcher from the Netherlands. Her earlier paper A spell called éle had truly impressed me and so I didn’t want to be difficult. We flirted with 'independent scholar' and finally she said "I will just say that you are from San Francisco." And why not? It does say it all…)

Here are my opening lines:

"Hello all. My paper is about the myth as it exists out in the world, working for a living. Before I begin, I need to say that it contains sex, filthy language, rock-n-roll and Americans. I apologize in advance for any offense that any one of these four might cause…"

Huge, appreciative laugh. Ladies and Gentleman, Lady Gregory has left the building.

And into it. Reading at times, talking through it at others. Using the PowerPoint of album art and band photos cobbled together on my lunchbreak. (Shaz had said it was well-known in academia that you'd be writing the paper right up to the night before the conference. Well, I decided I needed a PowerPoint after all at 10:00 am on the day of my presentation, started crafting the main template at the 1:00 pm lunch break and was putting the finishing touches on the arrangement of text and images shortly before 2:00 p.m. session started. Because that's how I roll…)

Laughs for all the right things: Phil Chevron's quote about the Christian Brothers frowning on Kinsella; Andy Smetanka's quote about the falcatas and his 'slipshod research,' even an unintended bit of improv from me about Dearg Doom as a song of slaughter and warfare and taunting "which is very popular at weddings, I understand." They were with me on More Than You Can Chew working as both plot point in story and standard Jagger-esque rock trope on 'uppity women.'

Also gratifying was a quick nod of recognition when I mentioned Gerald Murphy’s "Saga and Myth in Ancient Ireland" as one of Eamon Carr's influences. (It now occurs to me that some of these people may have known Murphy and, certainly, he'd be waiting for them as they joined him and the others in that world eternally young.) The Rosc '67 paragraph demonstrated that I had made it my business to know my business. And it did feel like the laughter stopped about the right place in the paper as I turned the story over into the inevitable ends of "Time to Kill" and the fifth, nameless song of a battle's aftermath on the Decemberists album.

Wrapped up at two minutes over the clock (with me sacrificing the whole section on Ferdia, sadly, but wanting to get to the final quotes from Smetanka and rock critic Metivier) and only received one question: "Is this music available online?" To which yes I said yes it is yes. And I have all the albums with me besides. But in the moment of silence, I did think it had failed. "Your little curiosity was novel," the steep seats of the lecture hall seemed to say, "But now the real scholars have some business to do. Be along now…"

A spatter of applause died off and I crept back to my seat in a silence that could suck the joy out of sunshine. But then, stepping up to begin his presentation, Andrew (whom we've met above) turned it all around: "I have to say, my interest in The Tain is a direct result of the Decemberists. And I have my ticket to see them in Seattle next month."

Later Andrew's mom said to me "You were a tough act to follow!" I replied "Andrew was a perfect double-bill. Really appreciated what he had to say."

Back here on the train, I'm overhearing a phone conversation from someone in the theatre who is conferring with a colleague. We've made several stops that I haven’t recorded, but my battery is below 10% so I imagine that we're nearing Drogheda.

To be continued

Coleraine Chronicles: "This old engine makes it on time Leaves Central Station at a quarter to nine"

With Dublin's Northside thinning to suburbia outside my window, I'm on the 1 o'clock to Belfast. Dublin was a blur of airport, taxi, Internet cafe, Eason's, the Post Office (where I mailed off the postcards I purchased at Eason's and a CD I’d promised to a friend) and the lounge at Wynne's Hotel. A little more than 24 hours ago, I was on the 5:19 out of Chichester to Gatwick. It’s been a great trip for trains and me. On this trip, however, I'm accompanied by:

MY SUITCASE!

Yes. Found. Not even lost really. Just went on the Friday flight. The flight I was originally scheduled to take. And, it must be admitted, it was certainly convenient to not have to haul it around southern England. Had I begged for this service, Aer Lingus would have probably said "no."

On Thursday morning, after watching every suitcase but mine tumble onto the belt, I slowly came to grips with the realization that I might ever see it again. Filing the claim at Aer Lingus's counter, I was given assurances and a website address to mylostbag.com. The cheery Aer Lingus claims clerk promised that the bags would be found and delivered to me—possibly within 24 hours—even after I took him through the complex itinerary of Chichester, Dublin and Coleraine. Thursday evening I spent most of the night toggling back and forth between the site and my email account. Friday morning I forced myself to only check it every hour. Friday evening, racked with insomnia, I didn't check it all. A catalog of lost items that were irreplaceable kept running through my thoughts. The worst was the hand-knitted poncho and cap made for me by my mother-in-law and the two jars of honey meant as a gift made by my bees. It was the sense of that work and love and effort out there in the world and drifting away from me. Or worse: destroyed as unattended luggage. Or stolen. And I could live with stolen. Stolen was better than destroyed. But how it would suck to be the thief who picked up the autographed Horslips album jacket, only to find it held no vinyl. I figured I'd start cruising eBay and see if a Horslips and Decemberists CD showed up in the same seller's shop. The one who also happened to have a copy of a Horslips DVD and a hand-knitted poncho. And I would buy them back.

"But you know," I said with false, calm confidence to my coworkers. "I'm here safe and sound. That's what's really important." Maybe if I kept saying it, I'd start to move on. On Friday night—well, Saturday morning at 3:00 am when I did doze—I had a vivid dream of being back home and in my closet. And there was my lost Dark Garden skirt and the Grafton Street top. In the dream, I said "Am I dreaming?" and clutched at the skirt, rubbing the velvet trim and feeling the prickle of the lace. "It's not a dream then," I said in the dream (nearly sobbing with it I'm embarrassed to say). "I wouldn't be able to feel this material if I was dreaming."

At least I did get some sleep.

(Drogheda now.)

Of all the possible scenarios running through my mind, the one that NEVER occurred to me is the one that actually made the most sense. My original trip had been booked for a Friday departure and had been adjusted to the Wednesday fairly late in the game. For whatever reason, my suitcase stayed on plan. Arriving back in Dublin on Saturday morning, I went to the same Aer Lingus lost luggage desk where I had filed my claim two days before. I noticed a large plastic bin with a sign saying "Books" on the counter. Inside a jumble of paperback romances, business titles and thrillers: all obviously left behind by travelers as slipshod as me.

Another cheery clerk at the counter. I brought out the claim form and watched him as he entered the claim number into the screen. I rehearsed the moment when he would say "No, I'm sorry. Nothing's been found" in my mind, so I could keep my expression steady when he did. Instead he said "We've just had a flight in from San Francisco." "My flight," I thought bitterly. That had been another train of thought: cursing the change of plans that lined up whatever circumstances ate my luggage. The clerk continuing: "But we haven't processed the remaining luggage. Let's just go have a look."

And he came out from behind the counter and started walking. Motioned for me to join him. And I started rehearsing that moment when we'd look at a random bunch of suitcases and bags and none of them mine so I could keep my expression steady when we actually did. Instead, from a good fifty paces away, the parrot-hued flash of my Hawaiian print luggage tag and the world righted in its orbit again.

"It's there! It's there!" I trilled like a mediocre B-movie actress, running over to it. The clerk laughed "Don't get excited now."

Buddy, you don’t know excited. That was your moment. If you had said "You and me. Right now on the conveyor belt," I would have been shucking Marks and Sparks clothes like a pro. Seriously. I'll have to explore this discovery later, but it would seem that my reaction to a sudden release from the grip of stress and self-criticism is lust.

But speaking of clothes! Even as I was realizing I no longer had to fill out the complex claim form downloaded from the Aer Lingus site, I was also coming to grips with the fact that my purchases in Chichester were not going to be reimbursed either. (Aer Lingus reimburses any emergency purchases made on the outbound--but not homeward bound--journey as a result of luggage loss.) And I now had enough clothes with me to set up a flea-market stall on Moore Street.

"You know," I said to the clerk, batting bedroom eyelashes. "This actually worked out pretty well. I wasn't looking forward to hauling this thing around Chichester for the short trip. And I got to go shopping!"

"That's grand, isn't it?" he said. "We did you a favor so."

Maybe. But would it have killed you to get the news to mylostbag.com at some point?

(Dundalk and fifty percent of the battery remaining)

After checking into the Wynne's Hotel, I went for my errands on '’Connell. The room wasn't ready for me, so I turned the luggage over to the clerks for temporary storage and sashayed forth in my lovely oatmeal-colored Italian wide ruffle collar sweater, sea green short-sleeved blouse and flippy, bias-cut brown skirt. Brown stocking and flats with a satin ribbon trim. Good enough for any shopfront on North Street! Perhaps just a bit casual as the skirt was a Bon Marche knock-off, but still: by Chichester standards I was fine.

But by O'Connell Street standards, I was ridiculously overdressed. The tourist world of blue jeans and backpacks swirled around me and the only other women wearing skirts of any sort were all over sixty. And they favored sensible A-line or discreetly pleated affairs that clearly hinted at stern morals and a clean house.

Newry now. There were at least TWO hen parties on this train, with the bride-to-be still wearing Temple Bar Saturday night's net veil. One has departed at this stop. The other is a large group, at least fifteen, and they all had t-shirts saying "The HEN-derson Party," so I’m guessing that the family name is Henderson. The back of the t-shirt had a screened image of a childhood photo of the bride (or so I presume) her face and hands smeared with ice cream and cake and a caption that says "You Won’t Want to Miss the Fun." Across the aisle from me is a woman and a little girl who seems about four or five. The girl is besotted by the brides and joins in when their bursts of laughter fill the car. She says to her mother "They're laughing!" "It's a laughing train," the mother replies. They have American accents.

At my table, a young couple listening to their matching iPods. As we pull out of Newry, the girl flips open her phone and calls a friend. The boy is reading Do Polar Bears Get Lonely. Across the aisle, sharing the table with the mother and daughter, is an older woman in sensible blue shoes, slacks and a brilliant red coat. A tartan patterned umbrella on the table. Morals and a clean house there too, I'd bet. She's reading the Sunday magazine from a paper.

At Belfast, I'll have to transfer to another train (I hope. Could also be a bus.) and continue on to Coleraine. Only yesterday, did I finally put Coleraine into the iPhone GPS map to get a sense of exactly where it was. I was surprised to find that it was on the coast. I'll have to check to be sure, but I believe this is the farthest north I've ever been. On the iPhone, there were edges of islands even further up the latitudes. And scrolling upward still and there's Stornoway.

Portadown Station and 25% of the battery on the laptop.

At Coleraine, I will take for a taxi to get to the University. There's not been the type of pre-conference communication I normally get from a Wiley event. (On Friday, I teleconferenced into Exhibit Services in Hoboken and went over the forms and procedures for next week's Academy of International Business do in San Diego. The email for this meeting had nine attached documents.) Tonight there's supposed to be an informal reception, so I'm hoping that someone is at least on campus to process in arriving conference attendees. Also interested to see what my dorm-room accommodations will offer.

Beverage Plastics plant out the window now. I'm thinking the battery is going to give out before Belfast. In my paper, I describe the Decemberists minimalist album cover (contrasting to the larger canvas Horslips had at their disposal.) I wonder now, if Carson Ellis (Colin's wife and the band's artist) intended this, but the sky outside my window here is indeed the same watery gray of indistinct clouds and wide spaces she used in her picture.

Well. One percent of the battery and we are actually slowing down for Belfast.

Cuchulain of Muirthemne at the Doggie Diner

The Patrick J. Dowling Library, out on 45th and Sloat, is open from 1:30 to 4:30 three days a week: Thursday, Friday and Saturday. In an exchange of emails late last month with Wendy King, the head librarian, I was told that it was a good idea to call before making any trip out to this local, volunteer-run resource of Irish literature and reference material.

So a couple of Thursdays ago, after a petty business teleconference call, I was sitting at my desk with a scratchy throat irritated by April blooming allergens and nursing a less than enthusiastic attitude toward my Outlook in-box. Easter weekend was two items on a task list away.

And that's when I had a sudden flash of intuition, picked up the phone and called. Wendy answered.

I introduced myself as the person who wrote to the Library with a wish list of reference books for a summer project and that she was the one who kindly researched these for me and found some of them in her collection. Per her suggestion, I asked her if the Library was open at the moment, adding that I guessed it probably wouldn’t be on the following day of Good Friday.

"Oh yes," she agreed. "We're here today. Not tomorrow. But we're here today. We should be open...Oh!...right now."

Was that a guilty glance at a wristwatch on the other end of the line? A hurrying step to unlock cashboxes and swing open the front doors?

"No worries," I said, "It's going to take me a while to get there. But I think I'll stop by today."

Ten minutes later, I was signed out for the afternoon with a ½ day sick day and standing on the Muni underground waiting for the L Taraval train. Playing Bejeweled on the iPhone and calculating the afternoon time I had to find and copy the material I was looking for before I needed to travel back along the same line for the 4:25 ferry home.

Here is the list of titles I was interested in that I sent to Wendy:

• Celtic Heritage - Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales - Alwyn Rees
• and Brinley Rees (Thames & Hudson 1961)
• The Celts - The Thomas Davis Lectures - edited by Dr. Joseph Raftery
• (Mercier Press 1964)
• Irish Sagas - The Thomas Davis Lectures - Edited by Myles Dillon
• (Mercier Press 1968)
• Irish Myths and Legends - Eoin Neeson (Mercier Press 1965)
• Saga and Myth in Ancient Ireland - Gerard Murphy (Government Publications/Mercier Press 1961)
• Cuchulain Of Muirthemne - Lady Gregory (Colin Smythe 1970)
• Ancient Legends of Ireland - Lady Wilde (Speranza) (O'Gorman Ltd)
• The Middle Kingdom - The Faerie World of Ireland - Dermot Mac Manus
• (Colin Smythe 1973)
• Celtic Mythology - Prionsias MacCana (Hamlyn 1970)

And here is Wendy's almost immediate response to me:

Hi Lora Lee,

I've checked out catalogs and see that the library has 6 of the 8 books on your list. I included their call numbers:

• Celtic Heritage - Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales - Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees (Thames & Hudson 1961) - 398.2 REE
• The Celts - The Thomas Davis Lectures - edited by Dr. Joseph Raftery (Mercier Press 1964) – 914.06 RAFT
• Irish Sagas - The Thomas Davis Lectures - Edited by Myles Dillon (Mercier Press 1968) - 398 DIL
• Irish Myths and Legends - Eoin Neeson (Mercier Press 1965) – 398 NEE
• We have both The First Book of Irish Myths and Legends and The Second Book of Irish Myths and Legends
• Saga and Myth in Ancient Ireland - Gerard Murphy (Government Publications/Mercier Press 1961) – 398 MUR
• Cuchulain Of Muirthemne - Lady Gregory (Colin Smythe 1970) – Cuchulain of Muirtherne: Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster - 398.22 GREG
• Ancient Legends of Ireland - Lady Wilde (Speranza) (O'Gorman Ltd) – Don’t have
• The Middle Kingdom - The Faerie World of Ireland - Dermot Mac Manus (Colin Smythe 1973) – Don’t have

The library is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday 1:30-4:30. It's a non-circulating library; books are not loaned out. We do have a photocopy machine -- copies are 15 cents each.

And then the part about how I should call before visiting to ensure that the library was open that I mentioned before.

Confession time now: A week before writing Wendy, I managed to bag copies of Irish Sagas and Irish Myths and Legends over at Alibris.com. Had received and read them both already on a recent trip back East. I was instantly charmed by the whole franchise, described here in the Irish Sagas intro: "Every autumn, winter, and spring since September 1953, Radio Éireann has been broadcasting half-hour lectures named in honour of Thomas Davis….to provide in popular form what is best in Irish scholarship and the sciences."

The little books themselves are nothing more than printed transcripts of those lectures. Published by Mercier Press, Cork and Ireland. And they’re classic paperbacks too; perfectly sized for purse or pocket with that spare, modern abstract graphic style that instantly says “coffee house” and “college dorm” circa sometime in the sixties.

More confession time: Earlier in the month, a lunch-hour walk to the main branch of the San Francisco library, an art-techno opulent palace for the homeless that's a block over from my office, almost delivered a chance at the Neeson and Mac Manus. Neeson even showing up on the online catalog as 'on the shelf' at that very branch! But after gliding up the Buck Rogers meets Noel Coward elevators to the third floor and walking along the long row of folklore and fairy tale in the 390s, all I found was a misfiled volume of Native American ghost myths taking Neeson’s place in the stacks. (Mac Manus showed as 'sorting' which means I'll be heading back over sometime this next week.)

Last part of confession time: I also had a remaindered copy of Cuchulain Of Muirthemne already in the house. It's even available as an iPhone app download, so how hard is that? Just pure laziness on my part to send Wendy the whole list, which was just a cut-n-paste of another email. It was only Rees, Raftery, and Neeson that I needed now.

And what am I up to with all this hunting around for set of books on Irish myth; all of which were published before 1973?

Well. I am so totally stoked you asked! Thanks!

With lunchbreak minutes from my office day and scant hour or two in the weekend free-time, I am currently attempting to write a scholarly paper for presentation this June at the Third Annual International Conference on the Ulster Cycle. The Conference will be held in late June at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Medievalists specializing in Irish literature and history will be gathering from around the world to discuss the many facets of one of the oldest pieces of literature in Irish history which is an epic-length collection of stories that exists primarily through two manuscripts – both almost nothing more than glosses and summaries of older sources – transcribed by Christian monks in the 12th century. Rooted in an older oral tradition of almost unknown origins.

And somehow in the middle of all this: me. With my as-yet unwritten paper with no journal publication offers. Furthermore, I’m listed somewhere in the conference system as an 'independent scholar' because I'm not now, nor likely to be, affiliated with any literary department of any university.

The whole enterprise is a project so out of character for my time and place in life that I rarely mention it to anyone who knows me nine to five. I have requested the needed vacation days and I'm trying to fit the trip in with business commitments in either Berlin or San Diego. To grow a travel fund, I'm giving up morning lattes and sit-down weekday lunches and regularly eye Safeway's $5 Friday night specials and weekend coupon ads in the local paper.

The L Taraval breaches the earth's crust at West Portal Station to become a slow moving streetcar travelling past tidy garden-proud Victorians along Ulloa Street. Then it swerves at 15th over to Taraval to climb up the avenues and down to the oceanfront through a variety of mid-20th century stucco storefronts of the Sunset District.

It's all along Taraval that I'm admiring classic shop signs in Chinese and neon decorating the storefronts. A near perfect mix of neighborhood restaurants, bars, travel agencies, hair salons, dry-cleaners, liquor stores and the occasional Spanish language formalwear store with the bridal dresses and Quince Primavera ball gowns. These are the classic after-work conveniences of a local neighborhood and there’s not a major chain in sight. I love it.

One block up, I see the citrus-hued awning of Rick's and wonder if this is that great restaurant in this neighborhood where I've met up with friends and had dinner at a couple of years back. In online reviews, Rick's stands out from the rest by combining the ambience of an English pub—admittedly: as interpreted by a Californian—with a monthly full-on Hawaiian luau feast. The usual brass rail and wood trim and fern-plant of a mid-eighties urban jungle lounge, if it is indeed the place I remember. You wonder how many women were tempted away from the live music and the crowded bar of Rick's to a nearby waterbed or futon or car backseat by the promise of a chance to listen to the new Donald Fagen album. How many relationships – from one-night stand to lifetime – got their start here on a Saturday night?

But then, as the train passes, I see blank windows under the awning and dead shrubs in the planters. Brown paper across one of the glass plates. "After 29 years" and "closing its doors" are all I can read before I pass on to the next block and the next set of storefronts. And now I'm seriously bummed because this is one more gone. Three decades of small talk and singles mating dances and liquor swimming in and out of fashion papered over with a handwritten sign. Damn.

The L Taraval had been crowded with young professionals when it was underground running along Market. But now thinning out as the streets climbed into the 30s. By the time it swung left on 47th for the last leg of the journey, I'm the last remaining passenger and I can feel the chill, salt air seeping in through the window cracks, turning the promise of an early spring afternoon into a leaden grey landscape. The ocean, two blocks away, visible at every cross-street intersection.

And this isn't a placid bayside wharf of tourist traps and ferry crossings either, but the real, raw deal. The full, unfettered force of the Pacific eating away at shoreline. Wolf Larson country. Magnificent, impervious waves of white foam curl invitingly, but I even know about the rocks underneath that make them off-limits for surfing. And for those few brave souls who might be tempted to paddle out beyond the rocks: sharks – maybe even Pacific Great Whites – is what you get for your efforts.

The whole neighborhood deserted in early afternoon. Anyone who lives in these homes and is still working was finishing up their workday somewhere else down the peninsula. And the local economy was just the classic, faded signs of a beach town out of season. A few older, two-story motor court hotels in oceanliner-deco style stucco and Easter Egg blues and pinks and greens. Midcentury semi-detached houses, stucco again but brave with faintly Spanish flourishes of grillwork and arabesque, offer up their little courtyards and backyards and balconies to the cold, damp weather. Topiary, sculpted into smoothed mounds by endless ocean winds, permanently humping against walls for warmth. Over on Sloat, a bar and grill with outdoor café style seating but no takers. And, finally, the city's Zoo.

And a block over from the Zoo: The United Irish Cultural Center of San Francisco. Built in 1973 but designed with the aesthetics in an earlier decade. A mostly windowless structure covered with big, smooth boulder stone masonry on the ground floor and nondescript wood and paint on the second; both capped with a huge too-seventies Miracle Mile mansard roof for the third. This last sporting two lonely dormer windows decorated with Book of Kells style heraldry. The main door to the place covered with that sort of awning you find for the older urban restaurants with the big upholstered booths and stuffed leather covered menus with the silk tassel bookmarks. And I can personally vouch for this: one of the features of the place is a main dining room and restaurant that could do for an episode of Mad Men if the scriptwriters ever decide that Don Draper needs to visit Frisco.

There's a separate entrance on the boulder-strewn ground floor that gets me to my destination. Shivering along past Sloat Nursery (a local chain that apparently takes its name from this very street), I see the door is open and there’s a small rack of books for sale outside. Yes! Open for business!

Inside are three people: two women and one morose man who is hunched over the main desk's computer. Although he'll be there for most of my visit, he never says one word to me or to the other two women the whole time. So this is the last I'll be mentioning him.

One of the women is clearly someone's grandmother, with fluffy white hair and a pastel pearl-button cardigan. She's bent over a P-Touch labeler, working her way through a pile of books next to her, but she looks up at me with polite curiosity as I enter. The other woman, younger, is standing over her. Assisting with the P-Touch process with energetic assurance. I make the guess that she's Wendy King and she is. She's happy to see me.

"Did you bring the printout of the books you're interested in?" she asks. Right down to business!

But I have already discovered, on the L-Taraval, that I have not. I printed it out after my call and then left it on the desk in my cube. I share this.

"But it's okay. I have my iPhone!" I say and hold it up for display.

With a slight hint of disapproval at my slovenly carelessness, Wendy reminds me how she'd gone through some effort to look up the call numbers of my books in her reply email.

"Yes, but that's okay. I'll just use the iPhone to pull up your email." I say.
Wendy moves over to the desk. "I could look up the email here on the computer, if Gerald is finished..."

Whereupon Gerald (okay, so, apparently he will be part of my story) hunches protectively over the keyboard, baring his upper teeth at us. I detect a territorial issue here. Now I'm trying to assure both Wendy and him.

"No really, that's okay. I've got my own laptop too. I'll just set up the laptop and plug in the iPhone and pull up the email and we're good."

Wendy moves from disapproval to concern. Gerald has dropped out again, presumably to go back to the horse-racing stats site he's browsing. Wendy continues, laying the groundwork for my eventual disappointment.

"But we don't have Wi-Fi here," she says.

"Okay, that's fine. I have the iPhone." I hold it up again for the home audience. "It's got its own...3G thing. I just need to run power to it through the laptop."

I'm hoping I won't need to get into the explanation of why the iPhone batteries are dead, but they punked out on me right as I was reaching the West Portal station and Level 9 in Bejeweled Classic. Once again: just carelessness on my part.

"So I'll just set up now." That's me again, looking along the baseboards now for a power outlet. And it's here Wendy plays her final card.

"I'm so sorry. We only have the one working power outlet. We blew the other two out last month at the block party."

She looks back at Gerald. Obviously, that would be the one working power outlet under his feet. The one serving the desk computer he's at and the small home-use copier behind him. He doesn't even look up. The sweet old lady at the P-Touch tucks her head down into her own private Idaho, concentrating on her own concerns.

Standing there at this impasse, I realize that the transition from my office life to here has perhaps been a little too quick. Frenzied corporate energy must be snapping off me in sparks and I'm overloading what should have been a nice, quiet afternoon of compatible solitude for these three people. Maybe I should just go next door to the bar, plug in the laptop somewhere and grab a quick bite. I can even get coinage for the copier from the bar – another thing I forgot to do downtown.

But the bar is closed.

"So what I'll actually do," I explain to Wendy and the gang as I bustle back in to the place. "Is just set up the laptop to run on batteries here and then the rest of it like I said and I should be fine." Whereupon P-Touch slides her own work in close to her, courteously offering me the majority of her table's space for my work.

Waiting for laptop to power up, I look around. I realize I've only been to this place once before. Killing time waiting for another event to start next door. It's roughly the size of the first floor of my 850 square foot condo. So: approximately 420 feet? Mostly square with one little alcove off to the left of the door and another alcove behind our garrulous Gerald. From the front door to the front corner, we have the main desk and a set of file cabinets and the aforementioned alcove. Then shelving along the wall to the back in a length that allows two aisles of freestanding shelves; one of them endcapped with a genuine wooden drawer library card catalog. No power outlet required! Then the long back wall covered in shelves running its length into the alcove where they U-turn back on us and finish off the fourth wall with a periodicals rack and a small reception table. A central space for a round working table with chairs and another longer table, stunningly beautiful, with a representation of the island of Ireland in inlayed wood decorating the surface. There was a card on the table mentioning the artist and donor and I should have made an effort to write that information down. But just trust me that it was a gorgeous table. Settling into it, I thought that the place looked a lot less disorganized than I remembered from before.

Then my eyes narrow as I see some empty bookshelves.

"You aren't thinning the collection are you?" It's a little more abrupt than I meant it to be, but I have suddenly flashed on the secondhand book sale I attended out here last year. And I make the connection: where did that stock come from? I move pretty quickly from suspicion to conviction. Bastards! And to think I once thought of leaving my own library to this place in my will!

Wendy had returned to assisting P-Touch and conferring quietly with Gerald. But now she looks up at my question and smiles with proprietorial pride.

"Oh no! We're just reorganizing. We've expand our shelving and we're moving things around. For instance, we've moved the Genealogy reference section to over there." She points to the alcove behind me. "And we're actually going through books that haven't had a chance to be displayed for a while and bringing them out into the collection. I've been going through boxes and boxes in storage. I'm amazed at some of the treasures we have here! Books signed by their authors. We have Maud Gonne's autobiography signed by Maud Gonne!"

Yeah fine, whatever, but what about the book sale? That's what I'm thinking. I know the temptation...I'm organizing a yard sale of my own next weekend and the stairway is already lined with volumes on their way out the door. It's the shelf space real estate that always gets you. The husband tripping over one too many piles of books and making a federal case out of it. But Wendy keeps up with the reassurance.

"When we find a duplicate, it will go to the book sale. But no, we're not reducing our collection."

Now it becomes her turn for the questions. She asks me about this project of mine. I explain. In general terms, I describe the Ulster Cycle conference and indicate that I'll be one of the scholars presenting a paper. She enthuses and then “Now are you a teacher yourself then? Will this article be published?”

So I have to confess that I'm not your average scholar. I explain that I work for a major publisher downtown, yes, but that this is all separate from that. I admit that most people who present papers usually have a journal that will publish that paper for them or are professors in that chosen field of study.

This is embarrassing but I'm glad to go there. Because the other direction is explaining that my paper is actually a study of two separate rock bands who both, thirty years apart and independently of each other, did concept albums of this story of Maeve and Cuchulain and Ferdia and that puissant brown bull of Cuailnge and all. Like maybe the only journal that might actually publish my paper is really Classic Rock magazine or Rolling Stone or some dweeb fansite (my own, perhaps), but probably not whatever leading journal of Celtic Studies is out there.

Indeed, the reading list that brought me here is actually the same list of titles that Eamon Carr, lyricist for one of the bands, had studied back in the day when he was writing the songs for his group Horslips. Essentially, these books are the source materials for the album's concept, lyrics, artwork notes and spirit. Colin Meloy, of the Decemberists, was inspired by a book as well: Thomas Kinsella's famed 1970 translation of the Cycle which, I've been told, Carr avoided to some degree. Reading his list has been tremendously exciting because they provide me with a glimpse of the actual tools an artist I admire used to create a work of great power and importance. Within the parameters of seventies glam- and prog-rock and popular culture and rock and roll and all, that is.

Fortunately, despite my lack of university affiliation, this explanation restores my cred with Wendy. She's very interested now and asks where the paper will be presented. I mention the University of Ulster at Coleraine with a pre-emptive wince in Gerald's direction, expecting him to pounce on my mispronunciation of that name. This is a legitimate fear. For instance, I'd only learned a week before, during a phone interview with Horslips bassist Barry Devlin (who has also been extremely helpful on this project) that I'd been stressing the wrong syllable in "Kinsella" all this time. I have been practicing a list of all unfamiliar terms I’ll need to know by June ever since.

The laptop is still running through startup scripts. Waiting for it, I run an eye along the nearest shelf and I spot the Neeson titles. There! How hard was that? Didn't even need the iPhone. A couple of shelves up: the Rees! Alright then!

Wendy had mentioned in the email that there are two Neeson volumes. Flipping through to the table of contents of one and then the other, I quickly realize my target is Volume One and the chapter marked “The Combat at the Ford.” It's about twenty pages, but I quickly calculate that I'll get two-per-coin in the copier. Ten total. Fifteen cents a go. Six for a dollar with change. And I got at least two dollars in quarters. I'm rolling now! Stacking my coins like Vegas chips, I head over to the copier. But it's Wendy again.

"You found something? Great! But let me know if the toner needs replacing. It's been running low." Then she's eyeing my coins. "Oh, just keep count and we'll charge for the final total. It's not a machine that takes coins."

That's even better! I can now rack up a high charge and pay with greenbacks. I skirt around Gerald to the copier and get ready to place the book face down on the glass. Rock and roll!

But when I open the little book to the aforementioned chapter start page, I feel its binding glue snap like a KitKat bar. And I suddenly realize that this pristine paperback has made a remarkable journey from Mercier Press (Dublin or Cork) in 1965 to someone's private shelf wherever to here now where it has sat, whole and cared-for, since possibly 1973 even. Only to finally have its spine carelessly broken in 2009 because I'm too compressed for time to sit down and quietly read it, make notes and return it to the shelves.

Guilt much?

Not for Wendy.

"You'll need to really press down on it if you want a good copy," she advises.

And she's right. On my first page, the type runs down the center of the copied page into illegibility, like water running off a table. I give that spread a second go, applying a little more pressure.

"You'll have to press down harder still," she says, critically surveying my efforts. But that poor book! I can't do this. I push back.

"No, no. It's good. I can read it. Look: 'So, messengers were sent to Ferdia to bring him to Maeve's tent, for she said that she would see him herself to persuade him. But Ferdia denied, declined and refused these messengers, and refused to go with them, for he knew very well what Maeve wanted of him.'" I rattle off the wavering, distorted text from the page. "See? I got it. I'm money."

She backs off at that, but by copy page eight we've got another problem.

"Say, Wendy? Did you say you were about to replace the toner here?"

She comes over. The most recent page is a shadow of the first few.

"Can you still read it?" she asks anxiously.

I admit I can, but then the next page is even fainter still. It's dropping out on the right side of the screen first. Fortunately, Neeson's little volume is orientated toward the left side of the plate so most of the image I'm copying appears over on the side that still comes through. Wendy and I are side by side now watching each impression as it comes out. And somehow on the last page, the toner rallies and I'm done with Neeson. Whew!

Pushing my luck (and taking advantage to check in with the iPhone who has now joined our regularly televised program already in progress) I come back to the copier with the Rees volume on Celtic Heritage. In my opinion, it's only four pages on the Tain that I need here. The copier, rested, gives me a great page one. But then a waffle weave pattern of legibility shows up by page two. I catch Wendy's eye.

"Yeah, I think we need to do that toner thing now." I say.

She comes over and looks at the page. She looks up at me, almost pleading.

"Can you read that one? Can you try one more?"

I admit I can and I do. The third page is even fainter still. I look over expectantly at Wendy. Where's the new toner cartridge, I want to ask. Just give it to me and I'll swap it out. Easy-peasy. Do it all the time at the office. But she stares me down.

"We really run everything we've got to the last possible moment of use around here," she finally admits.

Yeah okay.

I run the numbers through my mind, silently. The UICC was built in 1973 by a prosperous generation abandoning San Francisco's central urban core to BART and the Vietnamese. That particular crowd would now be conserving whatever's left of its energy for its own private needs. And we can guess that their children are paying off mortgages and car payments and building their own children's college funds somewhere down the Peninsula. And then generation after that is going to Daly City High School and downloading Flogging Molly songs off iTunes.

Membership-fund attrition is what I'm talking about at here. And as soon as this recession clears, some sharp-eyed developer (and there's always a sharp-eyed developer in this town) is going to come along and see an oceanfront neighborhood renaissance in the form of luxury condos where this place once stood. The mere fact it didn't become a Medieval Times theme restaurant sometime in the early 90s is already a triumph against the odds.

I close my eyes and add it to my personal litany: newsstands, newspapers, amusement arcades, tiki bars, San Jose psychedelic bands denied their place in rock history, independent record stores, Market Street bookshops, the unique character of longtime urban neighborhoods, honeybees, immigrant-founded community centers and now this: a small, volunteer-run library operating with a single power outlet and a failing printer cartridge and hanging off the edge of America.

Okay you know what, people? Someone's going to have to start meeting me halfway here, because I can't save you all.

I make the last page of Rees (which held only one upper left-handed side paragraph I truly needed because I can study up on the Ossianic cycle some other time) and back away from the copier. I look at Wendy and make my offer.

"If I wanted to help out, you know, with your Library here...I'm thinking it would be better for me to donate something like printer toner, right?" I just say it like that. "You know. Instead of donating books?"

"There are many ways to help out," Wendy responds. "By paying for these copies, you are contributing to our budget. By buying from our booksales, you help. And if you do donate books and they duplicate something in the collection, you help again by adding to the booksale."

So there's nothing for it now but to step outside into the cold to see what's on the secondhand cart that can qualify for a pity-buy. And that's when I spot one of the other icons in the neighborhood: the old Doggie Diner sign that the City of San Francisco has installed on a metal pole on Sloat.

There's a story here too:

The Doggie Diner sign is San Francisco's favorite beleaguered would-be landmark. In March 2000, the Board of Supervisors responded to a rally by members of the Ocean Beach Historical Society and others to save the kitschy sign after owner Sloat Garden Center went public with intentions to remove it from the spot it has occupied since the early '70s. The Board declined to make the fiberglass sign an official City landmark but agreed to assume ownership of it and to keep it in its original location outside the Carousel Restaurant until at least 2005. Barely more than a year under the care of City officials, the sign was knocked over during a gust of wind and fell onto Sloat Boulevard, mangling the pooch's nose. Horrified fans of the sign expressed disappointment that the city did not act sooner to repair the rusty 20-ft. pole on which the sign sat, despite their frequent requests and the availability of volunteer assistance from Painters Union Local 4. The Doggie Diner sign was repaired by the City and returned to its location on Sloat Boulevard on June 30, 2001. The sparkling refurbished sign is said to be very close to its original appearance. The huge head was one of many that once dotted the Bay Area at Doggie Diner fast food hot dog joints more than thirty years ago. For fans of the pup its appeal needs no explanation, rousing a sense of play and harking - or barking - back to carefree days of childhood.

I had so forgotten that Doggie Diner sign! He smirks down at me, like he's trying to catch my eye and tell me something.

Here's what he says.

Well just check out little Miss You with all your gloom and doom in a laptop carrying bag! This is nothing more than a foggy Thursday afternoon in Ocean Beach. Early Spring San Francisco with fog! Damn, maybe we'd better call KTVU with that breaking news story, huh?

And then there's this collapse of the authentic urban community kick you're on. Get over yourself! What do you know about the Cultural Center? You thought the Novato I.D.E.S. Hall was a boarded-up property headed for foreclosure until Chuck Graham invited you to that Festa of the Holy Spirit in 2006 and everyone in the world and their grandmother was there bidding on the auction before the disco dance and muscling in on a second helping of sopa. Yeah let me tell you, Miss Thing, you should see THIS place when the Rose of Tralee dinner happens in May. You think you can find street parking around here? Forget about it!

And finally, what's all this angst about things needing to last forever anyway? They don't! Here's another newsflash for you: forces of oblivion gather around us all. Believe it. But for those things that bring us joy or define our better selves or gather us as a community...when they're worth remembering, there's always someone working on a way to pass them along. You can just bet on that, sister! They write it down or put up a statue or make painting or a song or collect a bunch of it together or find whatever way they need to find to give it some other kind of chance at making it a little further along down the line. And, sure yeah, maybe those forces of oblivion claim more than we can all save, just like ocean waves eating away at a coastline, but it happens and it just makes the things we save all the more valued and loved. So buck up!

It's a lot of wisdom for a fiberglass doghead wearing a chef's hat to impart, but he manages it. I'm cheered.

Coming back inside to pay for my copies and my pick from the secondhand cart, (It's a collection of James Joyce’s poetry...it's not what he's best known for, but you know: another fifty cents for the effort here...) I find that Gerald has now fecked off to parts unknown. Maybe the bar next door has opened for business for the after work crowd. The sweet old lady is still hard at work at the P-Touch; however, and Wendy, now sitting at the main desk, takes my money and counts the change with bustling efficiency.

"I gotta say this has been a great help today," I tell her. "This is a great library. Are there others like this that you know of?"

Wendy tells me that there are at least two she's in contact with. "There's a big one in Chicago. They've bought an old school as their building. And there's one in New York City. The Irish-American Library. I'm not sure about Boston. But there's probably one in Boston. You would think."

I contribute my two cents. "Sure. That makes sense about Chicago. I know there's a huge trad music archive there. The Ward Music Archives. I'm on their fanpage on Facebook."

"Now where are you going to give this paper again?" Wendy is asking as I stuff the last of my things back into the laptop bag. I repeat the part about the University of Ulster at Coleraine. She hands me her business card.

"Will you tell them about us?" she asks. "That's how we can continue. When people know about us and support our efforts. Take as many business cards as you need. Just be sure to mention us to anyone interested if you can."

And I promised her that I would.

The Bognor Chronicles"When I first came to London, I was only 16"

(Originally written on October 30 describing October 10)

Halfway along the first wall of the first gallery is the Duke, deep in concentration, in front of a seventeenth-century oil. Eustache Le Sueur's Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and the Saints. It is expressive: mostly dark, yes, but glowing with the jewel-toned pigments of the post-Renaissance palette. I also notice that the feet are not crossed and fixed with a single nail. Instead they are side by side with one nail for each. Four nails. Wouldn't the Romans find that less cost-effective? Or is there a lost allegorical significance here? (Later I compare with household and online versions and it seems that this variation on the theme is common.)

Sir Fleming and I move along to the last painting before an exit to another wing. It's a Nativity with the usual cast and characters and I immediately focus on the donkey at stage left. He seems to be out of proportion to Mary. There's also a bit of unexplained drama here: one of the child angels and one of the shepherds are both throwing apprehensive glances over their left shoulders away from the main event to something lurking offstage.

"What could they be looking at?" I ask Sir Fleming, who doesn't know either. "And something's up with that donkey. He's not in scale with Mary at all."

We read the helpful description posted to the left and learn that, sure enough, Mary's original placement was at the picture's center and her shift to sidelines necessitated a reshuffling of fluffed angel wings and shepherd robes. Perhaps the background donkey was already in place and was too adorable to eradicate from the composition.

It certainly is a very adorable donkey. And I consider myself an expert on the adorability of donkeys.

Presiding over this random collection of French piety is Cardinal Richelieu. I'm more than familiar with this full-length portrait from history book plates and biographies, but no-one ever mentioned how big the actual thing was. It is easily three times larger than life. I imagine a harried court artist and a collection of step-ladders. Surprised to find it here, in England, I wonder how many of us Dumas fans who encounter it instantly think "By my order, and for the good of the State, the bearer hereof has done what he has done." Except, being the Californian, I'm thinking it in Charlton Heston's voice.

The three of us now -- we're in the National Gallery, an impulse stop on the way to Hyde Park. "Do they charge for the National Gallery?" asked the hopeful American. And they do not, she learned. O Europe! So we just had to go in for a quick turn around a handful of rooms. If only to get away from the press of October heat and crowd of a teaming Trafalgar Square.

"There's some sort of festival going on," the Duke comments earlier as we are making our way to St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

Looking across the intersections at the main pavilion, I read the event banner and say "It's 'The Festival of Ramadan.'" Music, food, booths, crowds everywhere.

"But that's over." The Duke here, genially puzzling through the scheduling. Is it?

Perhaps, just over, I think, and this is the closest weekend. Because, sure yeah, aren't they planning to air The Simpsons Halloween Special on November 2? Movable feasts and that?

"Maybe," I offer, "But I hear Roy Wood is releasing a remake of his seasonal song. 'I Wish It Could be Ramadan Everyday.'" It earns a half-smile from the room, but I've already marked the Duke and Sir Fleming as a tough crowd.

Earlier at the Crypt, we did finally have a chance to talk a bit more over food. Sir Fleming with a cup of soup; the Duke a latte and me laden with a preposterous plate of a showy salad and goat cheese tartlet. It was only the tartlet that I wanted and looking down an unoccupied counter with plates and utensils, I assumed a self-service venue. And so earned the tong-clattering wrath of a waiter who materialized to demand my order. He made a good deal of business in returning my plate to the stack, then a similar fuss over the selection of the tartlet (and not the one I was aiming for when he caught me) and its attendant court of greens, tomatoes, chutneys and garnishes. Later, I unsuccessfully tried to share this bounty with the Duke -- grabbed two sets of cutlery and napkins with that thought – but to no avail.

(I made a point of eating all the tomatoes at least, knowing the effort they made to be with us that day. They would have made a New Yorker weep with their freshness. What did it take to get these fresh, delicious things to this hardcore urban center? They must have had the carbon footprint of Sasquatch.)

And my gifts. I presented the jar of honey and my warehouse finds of a comprehensive architectural guide to London (Mondo) and a scholarly work on globalization (Fleming). Then, after another failed urging a portion of tartlet and supporting cast of organics, I made a rather rushed and clumsy pitch of my opinion on the quality of the Duke's writing (damn good) and my heartfelt offer to support it in whatever manner I could manage. (Meaning: Whatever I learn from watching my colleagues flog Pilates for Dummies is at your disposal, pal.)

But praise is very awkward in real-time, isn't it? Here's to the Internet and the ability to log off in those uncomfortable moments of silence. So I rely on that time-honored standby for floundering social situations.

"I need to visit the Ladies room," I say. "Will you keep an eye on my coat and the bags?" (It's a courtesy request. Damn that coat anyway. Where is that brisk weather this isle is famed for anyway? And my umbrella still unfurled for the whole of the week! It's been sunblock instead. I ask you!)

"No problem. We'll just sell them for drug money," says Fleming.

"We'll cut you in on the take," assures the Duke.

Well, that's okay then. Less to pack for the trip home.

Exiting the Crypt we find ourselves at the entrance of the main event and, wouldn't you guess, there's a rehearsal of the Academy in progress. (Fellow San Franciscans, please feel free to insert your imitation of the smooth, embalmed voice of the KDFC FM dee-jay with his "That was Mozart's Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major performed by the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner" here.)

Someone tuning a harpsichord as we enter, hitting the same note over and over. "It's Philip Glass!" says the Duke. Then cocking his head as an outside siren of a service vehicle (Ambulance? Police? Fire?) sets up a counterpoint wail. We move away from the front door and the internal acoustics of the place take over. The City is shut out.

The main window is a surprise. Guilelessly clear glass set in delicate panes shape out a recognizable cruciform pattern with the organic grace of Art Nouveau (I don't think it's from that period, but it had that same languid, modern style. A noticeable contrast to the tidy classicism elsewhere.). Its rippling lines resolve in the center into what is most recognizably -- most clearly and most undeniably -- an egg.



With brilliant sunlit sky behind it, this window is a solid stone-ass mandala trance-inducing trip. I've tried to learn more about it online since, but haven't found a clue. (Until now that is. Must always remember Image Search on Google.)

Other musicians come in and begin setting up. A girl with a French horn. A young man with an instrument case. Reed family, I'd guess. And there's a gathering in the pews as people settle in to listen to this music. I'd do the same myself, if I were in town for more than the afternoon. (So: a frugal treat for you students and nieces staying in this town!)

Outside we encounter a large sculpture of a smooth squared column that's broken off to form a rough cradle for a stone baby. "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" carved around the four sides of it. This also triggers an extended pause for the Duke's contemplation. While there, I try to recall what it was they were trying to tell me about 'logos' in the Humanities Colloquium in my freshman year. (The one that met at eight in the morning on Mondays, so it's a wonder that I remember anything at all beyond the fact that all us girls were wearing Apollonia style Purple Rain fashions..."So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills...") But it's gone. Instead, as I consider the metaphor of a solid block of stone transforming into human flesh, the whoops of excited apes and an exuberant Richard Strauss begin playing on the mental jukebox.

Back to the National Gallery now where we only managed a handful of the many rooms. And to be honest: Richelieu's crib was the best of the lot. Following that were several collections of Rembrandt portraits (phenomenal) and Dutch landscapes (copied too often by lesser artists to startle). One standout is a fantastical depiction of Two Followers of Cadmus devoured by a Dragon. An origin myth for the ancient city of Thebes, it's a gory scene with a particularly loathsome eel-necked dragon sinking hungry tooth and claw into its second victim. The head of the first foreground. By an artist clearly savoring his attentive renderings of naked male muscle and bestial talon and scale. With straining physical effort everywhere. It's just all totally Frazetta, and if I ever do an analysis of the roots of heavy metal album cover art, this baby is there.

In the last gallery there's a relaxed portrait of a woman so engaging that I know, even before reading the card next to it, that she and the artist (Rembrandt as it happens) had a thing going. It remains my favorite find of the tour.

Then it's back out into the festive sun with us and search of the elusive Hyde Park. But we find the welcoming shade of Green Park (once a burial ground for lepers!) first. This is where the conversation turns toward US presidential politics and the underrated cinematic genius that is Alex Cox's Straight to Hell. ("He hasn't seen Repo Man!?!" I exclaim of the Duke to Sir Fleming in genuine shock. Fleming throws up his hands in a gesture of patient resignation: "I know…I know. We've had The Talk many times.") We also peruse a sidewalk showing of the lavishly crafted and colorful currency of fallen empires; share a pint with PETA, and walk the streets of Mayfair on our way back to the train station. All stories to be kept

Til the next thrilling chapter

Miss "I went down to the 'Dilly to check out the scene" Templeton

Part Two of Three)

P.S. I also meant to say that Sir Fleming's suggestion that we walk along the Thames was another highlight of the early part of the day.

The Obama Chronicles"People Try to Put Us Down..."

(Correspondence from the ongoing era...)

And here we are! Full day two of the new America.

The BART subway station is plastered with the new Pepsi campaign whereby the look of the Pepsi logo comes as close to the red-rainbow-over-white-sky-and-blue-field Obama 'O' button of the campaign as it can get. Pepsi even has a great commercial taking us through its many generations enjoying one of its products: Gibson Girls, flappers, the sailor and his girl in Times Square, the girl with the drag racers ala Rebel, Woodstock, a streaker, a disco, rappers, grunge and then...now!

It's a mightily impressive campaign. "What did they have planned in the event of a McCain/Palin win?" I asked a dubious Roger as we walked back from the Powell Starbucks.

At the office, I let myself have five minutes to post to the friends on the news flashing across the screen that the President has ordered Guantanamo Prison closed. Then back to work.

The Bognor Chronicles"When I first came to London I was only 16"

(Originally written on October 22 on events on October 11)

The drowsy woman my age -- the one with the rumpled pink sweater and a soft-cloth workbasket of clipped coupons and knitting needles she's kept between us on the train coach's small table -- kindly loans me her cell phone. This after a fashionably dressed mother/daughter duo explain that both of theirs are low on batteries, only accept incoming calls, don't have working ones with them, etc. etc. Sure. Whatever.

I'm unsuccessful with my scribbled number – eyebrow pencil was all I had on hand at the moment the night before -- and think "Well, there's that. I'll just have to hope I somehow find the Duke de Mondo and Sir Fleming on my own. At something called The Oyster Cart."

(I misheard, naturally. But, always thinking Fisherman's Wharf, I did look around for seafood vendors as we walked through the throng later. Oyster chowder in a sourdough bowl! Try Mrs. Lovett's Fyne Oyster Pies! "'O Oysters, come and walk with us!' The Walrus did beseech…")

After all: how big can Victoria Station be?

My new friend helps by dialing the local number for me and the Duke answers. My train was delayed, I explain. Many apologies, but we're just pulling into the station now.

"What platform are you on?" he asks, altogether sensibly. I stare out the window as the scenery begins to slow down into recognizable pillars and platforms and people. I stall for time, hoping a platform number will roll into view. And it's a long, awkward pause between strangers on a borrowed cell phone before I can say "Seventeen! Platform Seventeen!"

Disembarkation becomes a study in dodging seasoned fellow-passengers who rush past with their tickets ready for the gate. I had assumed that showing it to the conductor on the train was its last required presence before the scrapbook, so my own ticket is either somewhere in the depths of the tapestry purse or hiding in the ever-serviceable "I 'Heart' Dublin" bag, which is now holding two Wiley warehouse finds and a jar of organic California honey. I squat behind a trashcan to block the ceaseless crowds and rummage for it.

Past the turnstile, the press of humanity intensifies as incoming joins outgoing. I'm pulled in several directions; clutching my bags close and scanning the widening spaces of commerce and convenience food stands for any clues to where I might find two people I've only conversed with through the benign anonymity of the Internet. There's a groundswell roar of activity all around. But over to the right side are the two young men who can only be the ones who've agreed to spend this weekend day in my company. I immediately register and approve of their stylish Haight-Ashbury retro clothing store suit jackets. And the Duke's dark, half-an-inch-shy of Emo fringe, coaxed back these last few months apparently, because the last time I saw him on You Tube, said fringe was gone.

"Yeats just went past," the Duke says by way of greeting. I politely scan streaming the crowd to show I'm as game as anyone and think "Wonder if he would have loaned me his cell phone?" And, who knows? He might have enjoyed traveling in my coach along with the day-tripping Chichester chapter of the Ladies who Lunch.

"He did," asserts Sir Fleming, deadpan. The day would be filled with moments like this. "Quite absorbed in something he was. I was surprised at how narrow his features were. All pulled together." His own hand makes a gesture of illustration in front of his face.

"And priests," continues the Duke. "There was a whole flock of priests going by. Convention in town, possibly."

At a loss for this one, I smile brightly at nothing in particular and start moving forward. Somewhere in this cacophony there must be an exit. And there, perhaps, a quiet space for proper introductions.

And what on earth was I doing here in London on a sunny Saturday afternoon? Meeting up with two complete strangers I'd only known through the Internet? Wasn't this the sort of set-up that Nick Cave outlined in one of his songs on the ever-excellent Murder Ballads album? For even though we met on Blogger, it was MySpace who played social secretary to the day's venture. MySpace!

Across the street, at the first intersection, I spot a small, triangulated park with the requisite statue, iron fences, benches and trees. It's a green oasis of stillness in this human whirlwind. We cross the street and pause there to consider what it is we're going to be about for the rest of our day together.

Sir Fleming (Aaron Fleming) is taller than I'd thought. (Did I even bother to really think on this? It's just he was so tall!) From Coleraine and now finishing up his studies in London, Sir Fleming has blogged extensively on his various fetishes, including William S. Burroughs, Jeff Fahey and my state's Governor. He was the more frequent visitor to my own disorganized blog and even mentioned his disappointment at its dormant state to me later in the day. (And, he's right, I should get back to that! But as I said, I'd like to broaden the focus beyond music now.)

The Duke de Mondo (Aaron McMullan), of Ballymoney County Antrim and now of London, is a blogger, a Kirsten Dunst admirer, a pre-MySpace low-fi net musician, an esteemed contributor to BlogCritics.com, a post-MySpace songwriter with 1488 adoring friends -- many of them young and female, and most recently and with whatever encouragement I can offer him, a novelist.

(It's the repetition of first names that prompts me to stay with their formal titles. Besides, that's how we always conversed on the Internet. I was Miss Templeton.)

There are just a handful of writers that I've fallen for hard from my first encounter with their words. Patrick McCabe was one. Molly Keane another. And the Duke makes a third. In his six-chapter travelogue of that most promiscuous muse of a City along the Liffey (Say, Kids! Strong language here, adult content, parental advisory, etc. etc.):

Crawlin out past the bouncers, gore-drenched warriors
reaching out the bunkers, coughin enemy fire out the
guts, but it's ok, Sinéad and Anna, they're talking bout
the Phil Lynott statue, I'll just listen for a time.

He's the spit of your Da, runs the chat, and then aye,
makes it all the more weird, what with me wantin for to
fuck Phil in five, if'n he wasn't dead an all.

But wait, where's Sir Fleming?

"He's inside wi' Ellen, said he was in no fit state of
mind for to think about letting go of the wall."

Pip, bass-playin fella, one of Sinéad's wonderful
acquaintances, he's offerin me a light, asking me how we
been spending our time here in this glorious city,
anyhow?

"Tell the truth", I say, "I been kinda on the look-out
for the, y'know, the Ladies Of The Night."

What I don't tell him is, in all honesty, I'd settle for
a Lad Of The Late-Afternoon.

Pip shrugs, he says "Well, you are in the city."

He's right, I am in the city, stood on Harry Street on a
Saturday night, or Sunday morning technically, and not a
drip of the sticky been dropped.

And so on.

Here, in this other City, the three of us take stock of the park. Two old, narrow structures – outhouses? sentry boxes? Caffé Nero kiosks abandoned in this bust economy? – flank the little park's central path. They are attractively decorated with split bivalve mollusk shells and a keystone conch above each door. ("'O Oysters,' said the Carpenter, 'You've had a pleasant run!'…") But no available clue to help us unlock the code of why someone would make this sailor's valentine of an effort for two outbuildings in a park within spitting distance of Victoria Station. We head for the statue, a nineteenth-ish century military officer on horseback, hoping for illumination.

On the pedestal we find one word carved into the granite: FOCH.

It's better, by far, than yesterday's pint of Bashful Beaver. Could it be a General Foch? Of the Rear Guard? But even a Major Foch deserves notice. (In my house it certainly does!) And I can't help but run through the old US Army slang. SNAFU, Situation Normal, All Foched Up. Or Fubar: Foched Up Beyond all Recognition. Still, as with the seashell buildings, there's not one clue to tell us what this Foch is doing here. I make a note to Wikipedia it all later...



It's Noon, we've had a chance to say 'hello' to each other as well as run through a brief history of the Conch Republic, and now I'm hungry. ("'A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said, 'Is what we chiefly need…'") I offer first choice of restaurant to my companions, who might know of nourishing and cheap student fare. But they are willing to let me make this call.

"I've got an idea!" I trill, remembering a find from an earlier visit. "Have you ever eaten at the Crypt?" It emerges that they have not done so. "We so totally need to eat at the Crypt then! St. Martin in the Fields. Crypt underneath. Bodies cleared out sometime back and now it's a café. Tombstones on the floor and all. It's brilliant! Is it within walking distance?"

It is, and quite a bit more besides, all of which needs to wait

Til the next thrilling chapter,

Miss "With a fiver in my pocket and my ole dancing bag" Templeton


(Part One of Three)