Week 25 - Laura - Barbecue

I know barbecuing is a slow process, but the time it takes to cook the food at Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas is nothing compared to the wait for it.

Austinites seem to be cool with (barbe)queuing for what I’ve been told is the best eatery of its kind in Texas, America or perhaps even the world. For five days I watched the line for the restaurant that opens from 11am until 2pm form from about 7.30am. Legendary it might be, but despite it having a reputation for the best brisket in the city, I just couldn’t make myself join that queue.

Franklin Barbecue is on East 11th Street in Austin, a seven minute walk from where I stayed on San Bernard Street.

Or a 15 minute round trip, with one minute in the middle spent marvelling at the hardliners happy to set up camp - even on workdays -  in the hope of being one of the lucky ones who actually get to eat, albeit a few hours down the line.

A two minute walk away we found Hillside Farmacy.

I was immediately drawn to its seating options, in that it had some available. Its decor (with some lovely original pharmacy cabinets - a nod to its past days as a neighbourhood pharmacy) was great. It had a variety of delicious mixed drinks, served in on trend jam jars, and a happy hour that lasted for two hours every day. It had what I like to think of as a Goldilocks menu - with neither too much nor too little on it, it was just right. Open from 9am until 10pm on some days, and 11pm on others, everything from breakfast to a late, lazy dinner was an option, and we ate there maybe three times during our five day stay in Austin.

I’m a big fan of restaurants. Once the food is good I’m happy with everything from a cheap Chinese to a Michelin star menu. The pleasant surroundings, the great food I’ve had nothing to do with preparing, the fact that the delicious food is brought to me after no more effort on my part than choosing it from the menu...what’s not to love?

Queuing for it, that’s what. Eating out for me is a treat. Queuing, on the other hand, is not. I queued for my school lunch. I’ve given up queuing to buy tickets. Lots of diners these days seem to be happy to accept, even embrace, queuing as part of the restaurant experience.

I might be missing out on some great food, but bringing a deck chair and snacks just to make it to the restaurant door? I'd sooner buy a smoker and give brisket a go myself.

Week 24 - Andy - Trains

Age 4: In one of my earliest memories, i am terrified of the noise from the diesel engines in Heuston Station.

Age 6: Santa brings me a clockwork Thomas the tank engine. The tracks are difficult to put together. When fully built, the track is an oval. This takes me forever to build, and the fun of running Thomas in an endless oval is limited.

Age 7: We move to Paris. I spend a summer carrying my brother’s buggy up and down the stairs of the Metro. I am expert at navigating the metro map. The smell of the metro in summer will stay with me for my life. Other children will associate the smell of the seaside, or of baking with their childhood. I will carry the smell of diesel, stale air and urine. The memories will be no less loving and pleasant.

Age 8: For Christmas, I receive an electric train set. This has junctions, and a road crossing. The barriers of the road crossing raise and lower automatically as the train passes. The train comes with a cargo load reflecting France’s active heavy manufacturing sector. There are no trains of this scale in Ireland.

Age 10: We have moved back to Ireland. There are no stations near us. The electric train set is broken.

Age 12: I am going to secondary school. I take the train from the recently opened Castleknock station to Connolly station in the morning. There is a sweetshop beside the ticket office. An 8 square bar of Dairy milk is 35p. I am a fat adult. I believe it is linked to the number of 35ps I was able to gather at this age.

Age 15: A friend and I take the Dart to the other side of the city. We are going out with two best friends. We travel to Dun Laoghaire, and watch Romeo and Juliet in one of their parents basements. I smoke John Player Blue cigarettes, and so do they.

Age 16: I am in a folk group. We take the train to Cork the day of the Omagh Bombings. We are travelling to a church-organised music camp. We are rowdy, and are sneaking warm cans of Budweiser. My friend is playing the Wolfe Tones, loud. A man tells us to shut up. We haven’t heard about the bombings, and we’re taken aback by his tone. We tell him to fuck off.

Age 18: I take the train to DCU on the first day of college. I spend the journey picking the CD I want to have in my Discman  in case someone asks. I settle on ‘Grace’ by Jeff Buckley. No one asks. It’s still a solid selection.

Age 20: At Clontarf Road dart station, I strike up a conversation with a colleague from my tech support job. We become very close friends, and remain so to this day. I cannot remember any of what we talked about that day, although I remember we waited there longer than it would have taken to walk to town.

Age 22: I am commuting daily by train to the centre of town, where I am doing a masters in DIT. It’s Christmas, and I have bought an iPod. I am financially independent, thanks to a stock grant. I am enjoying my masters. This is my first taste of adulthood.

Age 23: I travel around the world with friends. We spend 6 days on a train, travelling from Moscow to Beijing. Laura describes this in more detail. I have seen a lot of birch trees, and drank a lot of cheap vodka.

Age 24: I take a Dart to a recruitment event in Ballsbridge. This is for a large international management consultancy. On the train, I take out my tongue piercing. I will never replace it. I put it in my suit jacket pocket. This feels like crossing a threshold.

Age 28: My office is next to the train station. I drive to the train station. I walk less than 100 steps in a day. I get into my car at the end of the day, and spend five minutes visualising myself step-by-step leaving work. I am fat and unhappy.

Age 30: I am on the Caltrain, from Palo Alto to San Francisco. I am alone, and lost in the world. I hate the job that has brought me here, and I cannot go back. I will go back, and eventually my role will change.

Age 31: My wife lives three and a half minutes walk from Tooting Broadway tube station. When I stay with her, I leave her shared house at 7:50. I generally get a seat, and read my book, or stare at posters for Musicals we won’t go to.

Age 32: It takes me 15 minutes by train to get into town. Every morning, I walk across the Samuel Beckett bridge. The sun shines on the water, and reflects the start of each day. One morning, I have to write a Thing a Week about ‘something that annoys you’. I cannot think of anything.

Week 24 - Laura - Trains

If there’s one piece of advice I would've appreciated on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 27, 2005, it would have been this: ‘Just buy the Stolichnaya’.

If I could have had a second piece, maybe it could have been the gentle reminder: ‘Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.’ Or, perchance my vodka-addled brain wasn't up to figuring out how to apply that statement to my life for the next few days: ‘Drink the Stolichnaya slowly, and over time’.

If the advice Gods were on a roll, or had a three-for-the-price-of-two deal going, ‘Faraway hills are greener’ would have completed the line-up nicely. Or, translated to fit the occasion: ‘That carton of interesting-looking juice probably won’t be the best option on closer inspection. Just get orange juice.’.

The advice Gods weren't on duty that afternoon though.

Nope, it was just me, stocking up in a Moscow back-street equivalent of an off-licence for a four night journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway to Irkutsk.

My eventual purchases were: bags of Lay’s crisps in a variety of flavours, a couple of large cartons of the aforementioned interesting-looking juice and vodka that cost about 50c less than Stolichnaya in a bottle that looked not unlike Tesco’s own brand version.

The crisps were a solid buy.

The Trans-Siberian was one of the more exotic parts of the itinerary during my year of bumbling around the world. It’s also one of the more exotic places I've ever vomited.

We set off from Moscow on the evening of Tuesday, September 27, 2005, and arrived in Irkutsk at about 9.30am the following Saturday morning.

The in-between bit went a little like this:

Tuesday evening: Find assigned train cabin. Choose one of top two bunks in assigned cabin. (Who’s ever to know how sturdy bunk-beds are? Better to squash than be squashed if it comes to it.) Change into pyjamas (and remain in them until Irkutsk). Meet the pravodnitsa - a woman something akin to my boarding school matron or house person, who basically minds you while you’re on the train but who is also a little bit scary. Find out where you can access hot water on board. (In boarding school this was also very important. Mostly for cooking noodles late at night. Did I have noodles on the train? I don’t think so. Nonetheless, sourcing hot water was paramount as I remember.) Spend some time watching Russia fly by the train window. Have a drink with my three travel buddies to welcome ourselves on board the renowned Trans-Siberian. Have a drink with our cabin neighbours - Erik and Viggo from Sweden and Luuk and Lars from Holland* - to welcome them on board the renowned Trans-Siberian. Find out Viggo enjoys dressing up as a Smurf in his spare time. Each to his own. Have another drink. Indulge Erik by playing ‘Love Bomb’ so he can tell my travel buddy he fancies her, without saying so out straight. Have another drink. Listen while Luuk and Lars explain that they are actually pirates. Fair enough. Have another drink. Get told off for talking too loudly by the pravodnitsa. Have another drink. Say goodnight to Erik, Viggo, Luuk and Lars after the pravodnitsa insists on them going to their own cabin. Have another drink. Get told to go to sleep by the pravodnitsa. Doze off. Dream the train floor is actually made of slats, which rotate on hinges if needed to allow access to the train tracks below. Use this very useful feature to vomit onto train tracks, thanks to cheap vodka and weird juice mixer overload**. Wake up immediately. Notice that, contrary to expectations, the floor is in fact securely in place, and now has a puddle of vomit on it. Further notice that travel buddy sleeping on lower bunk has been hit by some, eh, friendly fire. Notice third travel buddy has managed to vomit exactly the capacity of his ceramic travel mug. Strip bed, using unaffected part of sheets to ineffectively mop up vomit puddle. Desperately try to find somewhere to clean/stash vomit-y sheets, without attracting the attention of pravodnitsa. Give up, put vomit-y sheets in corner at end of bed. Go to sleep.

Wednesday: Swear off vodka. Apologise to bunkmake. Brush teeth. Enjoy baby wipe shower. Watch Russia rush by out the window. Eat crisps. Nap. Get off train at stop in the middle of nowhere to stretch legs and buy bread rolls (for crisp sandwiches) from babushka. Play ‘Love Bomb’ again. Sleep.

Thursday: Same as Wednesday.

Friday: Same as Thursday.

Saturday: Change out of pyjamas. Arrive in Irkutsk at 9.30am local time, 4.30am Moscow time. Feel no surprise at having lost five hours of my life. Travel to Listvyanka, on the edge of Lake Baikal. Check into new, stationary, digs. Go to local pub for drink. Choose not to drink vodka. Or tropical juice.

*names have been changed to protect identities

** Ok, the juice probably had nothing to do with it.

Week 23 - Andy - Tea for two

Four years ago, almost to the day, I started my new job. I wore new shoes, a nice shirt, and my good jumper. I was hired as a manager, with nine direct reports. Caffeinated and ready, I strode across the marble floors, and through the gleaming offices. I was a member of the knowledge economy – an up and comer. Ireland's young and educated workforce. A leader at the very cutting edge of business and marketing.

Three years and nine months ago, I made endless pairs of cups of tea, steeling myself for the next hellish one-to-one meeting. Every morning, in the shower, I wrote the number of days until I could convincingly leave in the mist on the door. I girded myself to come in at each turn. I made a cup of tea before each meeting, holding onto the thin paper cup to feel the heat of the water.

Two years and six months ago, I sat in a taxi from one part of California to another. The journey took an hour and fifteen minutes. During this journey, I was absolutely confident that I would be fired within two weeks. I was unable to do this job. Daily, I went into work, and alternated between anger and heavy, tired sadness. My team were disenfranchised, and I dreaded talking to them. Next to me, a cheerful and relaxed German sipped coffee and did his own non-managerial job confidently and well.

Two years and one month ago, I sat in a pub in a foreign city with my boss, and we talked about what could change. I told him I wanted to be a cheerful and relaxed and German. He understood – I'll be forever grateful for this. Shortly afterwards, I took a holiday, and came back to a different role. I stopped managing my team, and joined them. Within three months, I was taking meetings in a foreign city, deliriously happy, and drunk on cheap wine.

One year ago exactly, I spent a month in California, learning a set of skills that are unique in my role. This year, I have found what it is like to enjoy my job. I work directly with people I admire, and I hope that sitting next to me, someone wants to be a cheerful and relaxed Irishman.

Week 23 - Laura - tea for two

If I see another bourbon cream I'm going to throw it at someone. Probably Myrtle. Not until I’ve dunked it in my milky, tepid tea though. There’ll be more mess that way.

It’s exactly 3.30pm, and, right on cue, here’s Myrtle, singing as she clip-clops down the hall of Mount Pleasant Home for the Elderly with our tea and biscuits. “Just tea for two, and two for tea, just me for you and you for me,” she’s warbling, tunelessly.

Myrtle is my designated do-gooder. That’s not her official title, of course. She volunteers with the local group of Friends of the Elderly. Last month they started coming in here for afternoon tea. “It’ll be nice to have a bit of company,” Lena, the nurse-in-charge said. For them, maybe. For us, or certainly for me, it’s about as enjoyable as the chiropody appointments we have arranged on our behalf every month.

Like Gay Byrne used to say, there’s one for everyone in the audience. In this case that means there’s one whole do-gooder for everyone here who’s up to having tea in the afternoon. I’m almost envious of the ones who can’t make it out of their rooms any more to be honest. I've been driven to praying for a bout of dysentery these past few days; it’d certainly make for a pleasant change.

Honest to God, if I’d known I was going to end my days in Mount Pleasant Home for the Elderly - an antonym if I ever heard one - I would've lived a lot faster and, if luck had it, died a lot younger.

‘Your home from home,’ it’s called in the brochures. The poor folk who work in marketing must come from some really woeful homes if that’s true. Mount Pleasant? I can think of at least half a dozen more suitable names for this kip. Mount Boring maybe. Mount Give Up on Life Here. Mount Counting the Days Until Death. Mount Give Me Strength (Because You’ll Need It). Mount You Don’t Have to Get Dressed If You Don’t Feel Up to It - Just Wear Your Smelly Dressing Gown and Slippers. Even just Mount Unpleasant, if only to keep the cost of changing the signs on the front gate and door down.

I used to like a bit of afternoon tea in the past. Mostly just to balance out the usual debauchery that was my life then though. If they let us get up to a bit of divilment in here and upped their tea game to a few eclairs and fancy sandwiches I’d probably still like it. But God, this daily ordeal with Myrtle...give me strength.

I can tell you already what we’ll talk about. Why is it younger people presume older people’s interests stretch as far as who’s dead and not much more? I’ll get the rundown on the latest obituaries. That’ll be followed by a little silence, to give Myrtle a chance to rustle up a list of other riveting conversation topics, before we press on to talk about the youth of today, how the evenings are really closing in and what the local Tidy Towns/Neighbourhood Watch/Parents Against Crime group are up to now.

“Elenora, my dear, how are you?” Myrtle asks now, echoing tens of others just like her as they begin their bland interrogation of their assigned oldies.

“Fine, thanks Myrtle,” I reply, giving in once more and playing along with this charade of being friends.

Let’s get this over with for another day. You never know, I might be so lucky as to die in my sleep tonight.

Week 22 - Laura - perfection

A piece to follow this one and this one.

“Perfection (5, 8, 6),” the clue we’d found in Noni’s precious sewing kit in the top drawer of the antique desk she kept her sewing machine on said.

I had to admit, I was a bit flummoxed. As long as I’d known her, Noni had championed imperfection and had made a dedicated effort to avoid perfection in everything she did. I remember her laughingly telling me that often that required almost no effort at all on her part. She used to defend any particularly shoddy results hilariously. Even though she wasn't sure she even believed in God, when a project turned out exceptionally badly she’d say God was the only one who created perfect things and that as a mark of respect humans shouldn't try to do the same. “Nobody argues with God,” she used to giggle. Other times she’d loosely paraphrase Aristotle, saying whatever she’d created had "attained its purpose" and was therefore perfect even though it didn't look it.

“I think I might know,” a strangely nervous-sounding Gina said quietly from the corner of the room. No longer brash, Noni’s sister seemed a little lost in a world of long-buried memories.

“Go on,” I encouraged. “I'm stumped, so any suggestions are welcome.”

“When we were girls, we both learned the basics of cooking and baking from our own mother,” Gina began, still looking off into the middle distance, like she was trying to focus on something just out of reach. “Noni was brilliant with the savoury recipes. She used to make the best quiche. And the brown bread she used to make to go with it, oh, it was bread the rest of us could only dream of making.

“I took more to the sweet stuff,” she continued. “You probably could have guessed that from looking at my figure though. I think I went up about two dress sizes once I discovered my love for baking, and I've kept them and added a few more since.

“Anyway, from when Noni was about 13 and I was about 11, we had this tradition. Any time there was a birthday in the house, Noni would make a special quiche for tea and I would make a Victoria sponge birthday cake for after. I can still hear her. ‘Gina, your Victoria sponge is perfection itself,’ she used to always say.

“I can’t believe I even remembered that,” Gina said, coming out of her world of memories somewhat. “It’s been so long since I even thought of when we were young, and I haven’t made a Victoria sponge or any other kind of cake in years.”

“'Gina’s Victoria Sponge' fits,” Birdie said, “and I’d bet my bingo book on you being right.”

“Just tell me if it’s a waste of time, but I’d like to try my hand at making a sponge right now,” Gina said, looking around the group for approval. “It really doesn't take long, and if you like I could tell you what Noni was like growing up while I'm doing it.”

“More Noni stories and cake besides,” Faye cackled. “I think the way forward is clear.”

Week 22 - Andrew - Perfection

In Laura’s tradition (see her developing ‘Noni’ stories), I’m going to flesh out a previous week’s story here. This week’s thing is in part, a follow on from this story.

Genevieve, my Thule Monitor, has gone missing before. Close to disastrous, but we managed to sidestep armageddon. During the cold war, the same thing happened the real Thule Monitor - a B52 bomber, circling Thule radar station and watching for the first shots of World War 3, crashed. A cabin heater caused a fire that spread throughout the aircraft. The crew ejected (one was killed while leaving the plane), and the airplane plowed into the ice.

Cait used to babysit, when she was in school. Mam was friends with a couple in Terenure, and they were Cait’s only customers. She would get the bus across, and stay with the child, while they went for a drink, dinner and a play. Typically, she would arrive at half five. The couple would be gone by six, to be back for eleven. Thinking back, this gave her a five hour head start.

That night, I arrived back to the house - I lived at home during college - at half nine. The answering machine on the dark hall table was blinking red. The message was from Mam’s friend - Had anyone heard from Cait? She had tried to ring her own house, but Cait wasn’t answering. There was no panic in her voice. She suggested herself that Cait may have gone for a walk around the neighbourhood. She said not to worry - They were just going into the play and still on schedule to be home for around midnight. They could drop Cait home.

Absentmindedly, while the message was playing, I stuck my head into Cait’s room. Genevieve was missing.

When it crashed, the Thule Monitor was carrying four hydrogen bombs. Some of the materials within these bombs exploded on impact, and spread radioactive debris over and through the sheet ice of Baffin Bay.

I had a car. After a summer working two jobs, I bought an unreasonably large, unaffordably old BMW. There’s no doubt that it should have been scrap, but it was my first car. I worked weekends to pay for parts, petrol and insurance.

Later, when I was going over this, I wondered why I acted so fast here. I tried to retrofit clues, to forensically recreate the synapses that fired, as I grabbed my car keys and ran for the driveway. I can’t explain why I knew immediately what happened.

The picture in my mind at that point was in sharp focus. Cait had waited until the parents had left the house, waved them off. She had undoubtedly given them a ten minute period to get away from the house. She had taken the child, put it in a buggy, and walked out the front door.

I was nearly certain she would have brought a bag of things - and explained it as homework. Cait was always practical in her deceptions.

I pulled out of the driveway, and crunched the gears in front of the house. Cait was limited to walking and public transport. It was Friday night. She couldn’t leave the country - She hadn’t a passport yet. Every year, we took the same holiday, to the same mobile home in Brittas bay.

The mobile home one mile from a bus stop.

I left the car skewed across the road as I ran back inside. The caravan keys (two silver keys, woolen tassel keyring) should have been on the owl hook in the kitchen.  The owl’s glass eyes just about picked up the glint of my headlights through the hall. The glint seemed to point to the empty hook, second from the left.

Again, thinking back, I’m almost sure I wasn’t the one driving. The same force (the driving force!) that planted the certainty of what Cait had done in my brain took the wheel while I was pre-occupied - frantic arithmetic - Terenure to Brittas and back before midnight. Would the petrol hold out? What if I was stopped? Am I mad, can we ever escape armageddon? The driving force held firm, skilful. It wasn’t me dropping gears into turns, blasting the heavy BMW around slower drivers and holding the car on a knife edge around wet Wicklow roads.

As I got closer to Brittas, the road surface became worse. When I passed the bus stop, the tarmac gave way to gravel. The back of the car skidded more. Closer to the caravan park, again - I don’t know why - I cut the lights.

I bounced the car quietly over the grass, down the row of mobile homes - all empty on a November Friday. All of them were dark. I was wrong. Cait had been out for a walk. The child had cried, and Cait had put it in the buggy for a few minutes. Me thinking that Genevieve held any significance was ridiculous. I’ll check the door to be sure, turn the car around, and get back on the road. I’ll drive back like a normal person.

I stopped the car beside the sixth home on the right, ours - handed down from a great-uncle. (Openly sorry for my widowed mother)  I got out, and walked over to the door - the wet grass seeped through my runners, and soaked the bottom of my jeans.

I tried the cold aluminium handle. The door opened. The mobile home smelt of damp mattresses and distant camping gas. I stepped in. Cait was sitting on the sofa bed in the dark, the baby in her arms. There was a bottle on the table. The only light was from the street light outside.

Cait was still wearing her anorak, and the baby was sleeping. Cait was sitting, staring into space, silent.

I sat down beside Cait, and didn’t say anything. I wish I could say ‘there were no words’, but the truth is, there was so much to say that it all became jumbled, so I said nothing.

After a minute, she looked up. ‘Will we go back?’ she asked. These were the only words we exchanged all evening.

We put the buggy in the boot, and started back on the road. The driving force took over again - Cait sat in the back, holding the sleeping baby in her lap. As we hammered up the Dublin road in the old BMW, I started to picture it as an old tin can. I thought about tyre treads, and wet roads - the car was too old to have gone through any safety checks. If we had a tip, at this speed, the three of us would be killed instantly.

The roads were clear - I can’t remember us passing another car. We were fast and accurate on empty roads. The BMW held a firm line.

We pulled into Mams’ friends’ street at half eleven by the soft orange light of the dashboard. I cut the lights again. We unfolded the buggy. Cait strapped the still sleeping baby in. I said I would wait for her.

The baby’s parents car passed me, as Cait walked towards their house. It flashed as it passed her, and swung into their driveway. In the split second that the car was invisible, Cait reached down and pinched the child. I could hear it wake up and start to scream and cry. Always practical in her deception.

I got out of the BMW, and walked over. Cait was in the garden, talking to the now-wailing baby’s parents. The mother was thanking Cait - Cait was explaining that she had been walking him around the block, and he had been screaming all night.

The father handed Cait an envelope, and rooted through his wallet for an extra tenner - ‘Since he’s been a nightmare’. Cait smiled - ‘No’, she said ‘He’s perfect’

I waved, and said hi - I had been passing, and knew that Cait might need a lift. There were smiles - how helpful! There were offers of tea, which we declined. Cait and I walked back to the car in silence.

Not all of the weapons could be located after the Thule Monitor crash. Large chunks of the contaminated ice shelf had to be shipped to North Carolina. Nuclear armageddon was avoided -  and as a direct result of the accident at Thule, the phoneline between Moscow and Washington was strengthened.