A phrase that really caught my attention this summer in Ireland was “as you do”. I first encountered it in a newspaper article in, I think, the Irish Independent. I wish I’d cut it out, but alas, I did not. The article was entitled something like, “Mystery Solved”. It described how the strange hairless animal corpse that had washed up somewhere on the east coast of America last summer had finally been identified. Turns out some young men admitted finding a dead raccoon, setting it on a rubber raft in the ocean and then setting it on fire. At this point, the author added the phrase, “as you do”. Really, who wouldn’t do the same when stumbling upon a dead raccoon! It made me laugh so hard and I told everyone about it. Was it a jab at Americans? Or just at idiots in general? It doesn’t matter; it was funny. Danielle was still teasing me about it last night in Dublin. When I said that Mark and I had driven from Killarney to Dublin in one day with a stop for lunch in Cork to meet my colleague Niall McCarthy, she quickly inserted “as you do”. Meaning, of course, that most people would not do that. On the clock-f ace of the island that would be driving from 7:00 to 3:00, more than a quarter of the way around.
Anyway, here I am in Chicago writing a blog post or two during my six hour layover, as you do. I was reviewing my pictures and came upon a few from a barbecue that our friends Mary and Frank threw for the SAI faculty and students. You would be hard pressed to find two more enjoyable people anywhere on the planet. Mary and Frank are a big part of the reason that we even have SAI. They are two of Barry Vaughan’s oldest and dearest friends from the University of Oklahoma where he completed hid PhD. He got the idea for the program when he was visiting them in 2002. The rest is history – or 'mystery' as I like to say.
Barry and I shuttled the students out to their place in the heart of the midlands of Ireland the Wednesday of the third week in June for the barbecue. We were celebrating a couple of birthdays so he and I had both made two batches of cupcakes. His were perfect and uniform, blue and pink with sprinkles. I had overfilled mine, as you do, and they overflowed their cups and I had to trim them before they could be frosted. They were lumpy and irregular, chocolate with the royal icing (Martha Stewart’s recipe) slowly sloughing off them. Despite the disparity in their appearance, both batches were delicious and devoured.
The students capered on Frank and Mary’s fairy hill. Evea Morrow found an audience for a story. Tommy and Ryan learned how to wield a hurl. We all ate lots and lots and visited and laughed.
As you do. When you are in Ireland, and lucky, and surrounded by friends and loved ones.
The picture at the top shows several of the young women of this year's program enjoying cupcakes, the second is of me and Barry. The third is Evea holding forth, and the fourth is Frank, Barry, and Mary.
Leave a Reply