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.

The billys

The billy goats stink with the smell of a hormonal middle school boy. It’s a terrible smell, that thick smell of musk and something pungent that I can’t name in the goat world; in the middle school boy world is Axe. The only difference between the two worlds is that when goats cast such a scent to the four winds, the lady-goats pay attention, but when the middle school boy coats his pits, arms, and shirts in Axe or Tag, the avalanche of ladies that the commercials promise do not come, though they may see a few while their camp counselor puts them outside while they apply the stuff.

Most of the billys are dear, though I try not to touch them (or anything they’ve touched), lest I smell like them. Mancha and Solomon, who are so small that Phil has to get a stepping-box for them in breeding season, are in the same pen and wait for me, their front legs dangling over their pen, like old friends who don’t mind being close. Monty is big and stands on his pen across from the goatshed braying with what can only be, “Lady! Give me a lady!” Standing where he is, he is framed picturesquely by the Irish countryside.

Major, on the other hand, is a miserable old cuss. He charges at me every time I come into his pen, just to see if he can make me flinch. Phil curses at him. I choose to act like a basketball player who has just ripped someone’s shot: “And what, Major?! And what?!” Major may not be, but I think Monty is impressed.

In other news, Cork city is flooded with the heaviest rain in decades, which caused the River Lee to burst its banks. Businesses and the hospital are flooded, but we are on a hill, and it reminds me of growing up in Florida and barely escaping flood after flood after flood, the backyard filling up with water, hermit crabs, and – if we’re lucky – the American alligator.