It’s freakin’ freezing here in DC. I’m wired from the grande peppermint mocha latte I just shotgunned like a Blatz King Kan. (It’s so nice that Starbucks now offers can openers on the Coffee Condiment Cart for punching that hole in the bottom, you know, for hardcore caffeine consumers. As a personal policy I eschew patronizing Starbucks and other chain coffee stores in favor of the Vietnamese immigrant downstairs that runs “The Roasting House.” His name is “Joe.” How can you not buy coffee from a guy named Joe? It’s not very good, but it’s cheap and hot and he knows what I want when I walk in the door. Say what you will about the blah blah industrial coffee complex blah blah but standing in line for 10 minutes for a $4.00 coffee, having some kid – sorry barista—yell ORDERING! at you only to end up with someone’s else’s drink, well, I’ll take Joe any day. Gosh, Xiobhan, so why did you go to Starbucks this morning? I’ll tell ya why. Because it’s freakin' freezing outside and they had this big festive sign in the window for peppermint mocha lattes and I was feeling all Christmasy and shit.
So we went to Ireland for Harry and Misha’s wedding. Harry, as you may have guessed is Jewish, and Misha is Catholic. They call themselves Cashews. Harry’s mother was a Shiksa as well, so I’m not sure what that is going to make Harry and Misha’s kids. Probably little nuts. HAHAHAHAHAHA. ..he..heh…ah…
I’m reserving judgment until Matt and Chris are married but this may be the coolest wedding I have ever been to.
First, the drama that was our departure.
I have a friend named Adair. I worked with her years ago at the National Trust and she was a spitfire. No, seriously, piss her off and she would spit fire. Flames of phlegm. We grew closer about four years ago when she was on holiday in Ireland with her mother and her Aunt and involved in a terrible car crash. Adair was injured badly and her mother and her aunt were killed. I had been meaning to call her for the past few weeks because I was heading over and staying at Adare, which I knew she would enjoy. It was one of those things you keep reminding yourself to do and never get around to. On Friday I was packing when I checked email. Adair was dead. She learned she had cancer two weeks ago and that was it. I hadn’t even heard about the cancer part. She was 52. She leaves a husband of four years and an Irish Water Spaniel named “Peat.”
There was too much to do, so I continued packing and sort of mumbled the news to myself. We got to the airport with about 2.5 hours to check in, which for United at Dulles wasn’t nearly enough. We spent most of the time standing in a fierce queue, not moving, with a melting child and a cart piled high with luggage, car seat all topped with a Pack-n-Play. As the minutes ticked by, and 6:00 – the time of our departure -- approached, we kept asking, are they going to pull us out? Will they hold the plane? How can any flight depart with hundreds of people standing in this line? We waited and waited making nervous eye contact with others, half-hearted smiles, listened to others vocally complaining – some to no one in particular – how they “would never fly United again.” They pulled out the Paris bound people with 10 minutes to spare. The folks bound for Frankfurt with 15 minutes. They were about to pull out London when we finally got to the desk, which was woefully understaffed with detached and unhelpful agents. We ran through security, to the shuttle, and then to the gate. Our plane was then delayed for more than an hour which was good news overall because it meant that all of our friends would make the flight as well.
I knew better than to complain to our friends Matt and Chris. That morning, Chris’s passport went missing. After a panicked and fruitless search, they decided to enact Plan B, which was to call someone they know, who works for someone important and powerful up on Capitol Hill, to make phone calls and pull strings to get Chris a new passport THE SAME DAY. Sometimes it’s good to be in DC. (Here we are at Heathrow. Note he is wearing same thing in the picture. I'm over to the left looking pretty beat.) 
It wasn’t until we were on the plane and the lights had gone down, my child had stopped screaming for his Bobby and passengers had stopped staring at me, that I let down and cried from all the sadness and stress.
It was all wonderful from there, but that’s next time.