Brain Rain

When it's like a desert out there, rain is sooooo refreshing. It turns dust into productive soil, and a dry hole into a pool.

And when cool things happen that stimulate your mind and your artistic muse, it is similarly rejuvenating.

I played a ceilidh last night with a great fiddle player who was driven'er as they say here, and that was musically great. Some of the best playing I've done in while, which was nice, cause I was wondering if I had lost it entirely. When you get a mojo going with another musician, I am amazed and what it pulls out of you that mightn't otherwise have been there. So fun.

So that was cool. And then I noticed against the wall, an older gentleman who had Is féidir liom JIG a dhéanamh written on his t-shirt. That's Irish, by the way, and I knew those shirts are only available in the Gaeltacht in Ireland, or online, but probably this guy had at least visited a Gaeltacht, so I had to meet him. He came up to me at the break and when asked, yes, he spoke Irish, and come to find he is from Conamara (a Gaeltacht), and is familiar with the area where I stayed, has worked near there etc. We had almost 15 minutes solid of Irish conversation which was super encouraging and fun for me: encouraging that I understood him, and he me. I press on in my goal! Then after playing a tune on the tin whistle he told the crowd that one of the reasons he had come to that town was to meet me, and how impressed he was that I sound like a native! Yay me! :)

This sounds egotistical I guess, but if you know me, you know I'm just excited for affirmation, since I have done soo very much of this as an auto-didact, I'm not super confident in my pronunciations etc. sometimes.

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I have a new game I play. It's called give-the-phone-to-Anna-when-a-telemarketer-calls. Anna likes the game too. I like hearing her responses to their requests for one of her parents, and her attempts at making conversation with them.

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some of Anna's English:
covereds = cupboards
tugga four = tug of war
their chuthers = each other
high hill shoes = high heel shoes

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One of the best rains on my brain of late has been that I have been somewhat frequenting

here...

*sigh* aaaahh yes, fresh beachy watery airy goodness how I love you.

Did I mention this is 5 minutes from my house?

That is Atlantic Ocean by the way.

Did I mention that I have lived here 6 years and it was 6 years ago when I first visited this beach, then didn't see it again til this summer when I have become a bit more vocal about my wants, and I've been half a dozen times in the last month nearly. And it is love...