Greyhounds going round and round

Time moves more humanly in the country. A sweet, Irish soon-to-be mum offers us homemade gingerbread people and I eat the one on top, whom she affectionately calls “The General”. She is Lorraine, and two happy dogs rolls around her feet, offering their bellies for a rub. She asks if the Irish curse more than any group of people I’ve met before. Ryan has some reservations, but I say yes, yes the Irish curse worse than any group of any language I somewhat speak or know the curse words of. She laughs and figures so. Visiting her friend in Seattle, she says, she scarcely ever heard a “Jesus Christ!” or “f***ing hell!” but that such a revealing trip still hadn’t changed her ways. We laugh, pet dogs, and eventually get around to talking about the trailer we’ve come to borrow. First, though, Rob – the husband – shows us novel bricks that he has formed out of horse manure from their stable. This is how they keep their house warm, and why one washes one’s hands every time the stove is filled.

Ben takes us to Lystmore Castle and we marvel at its hillside overlook of the river, which a few days ago had been a field. Further on, Ben shows us The Vee, a spot on the mountain road where the asphalt snake curls back on itself, near where a man asked to be buried standing up because he so admired the view. One can see seven counties of Ireland and forests and hundreds of square miles from a rocky perch of scrub brush.

That night, we go to the races with Phil and Chris. I win 3.70 Euro on 10 spent at one of the two biggest greyhound tracks in the country. The Dublin races are live-streamed between races at Cork, so one can always be watching, and betting on, six dogs in multicolored jackets chasing a mechanical hare as it bobs and wags and, after the race, buries itself in a metal box, the dogs gathering around, trying to scare it out.

In other news, I meet a young boy named Darragh. I'm pleased to note that it's pronounced the same way we USA Darraghs pronounce it and, though it's usually a girl's first name and he doesn't like it for that reason, I felt awesome meeting him while he challenged Ryan to MarioKart Wii.