My FIRST Ireland/Scotland post

I'm gonna post by subject, like, 1) tattoo, 2) Elf Meet, 3) Dublin and the rest of Ireland, and 4) Edinburgh and the rest of Scotland. I might think of other things as I go along...eponine119, whom I am defiantly shouting out to :P, wants to hear about how I fell in love, how and with whom and all the juicy details (omg, Irish men...!), but I dunno. Not if it'll bug the rest of ya. /:)

( OK, HERE GOES )

Yeah, I jumped into my adventure feet first!

Actually I couldn't get my tattoos done in Dublin, our first stop, as I'd wanted, or anywhere along the way (tats are POPULAR in Ireland and there's always a waiting list!) until the LAST stop - a place in an alley that the very prim and ladylike woman who ran the B&B had gone to town to inquire about, lol - she said she'd been running a B&B for 25 years and this was the first time anyone had inquired about a tattoo parlor, but it might be good to know in the future! This was in Killarney, which felt like home. I think the genes of my long-gone relatives recognized County Kerry and Killarney, since that's where they came from before they had to flee or starve during the famine, and wound up (via Ellis Island) in North Carolina - my Smoky Mountains! If you're ever near Asheville (beautiful, HAPPENIN' town) and meet someone with the last name Tweed, they're almost certainly a part of my clan. But I'll wager I'm the first clansman to get a tattoo. ;)

It was actually a nice experience. I made my mom go with me. My 72-year-old mom in a tattoo parlor, HEE! She was more nervous than I was and *I* was the one getting inked! They were booked up for a couple of months, but the owner called his artist and got him out of bed by asking him if he'd be willing to come in a couple of hours early, seeing as how I was a bit of a scheduling problem. The dude was so sweet he came right in - after he'd showered and brushed his teeth; I kinda sniffed to make sure 'cause that says a lot about a guy, and you don't want a dirty tattoo artist - and he turned out to be such a perfectionist it almost got on my nerves! (If it looks crooked in the pic it's because I have a blister on one foot so I was turning it sideways.) I told my mom I was fine and to go shopping, and Tattoo Guy (TG for now, but when I unpack I'll get his card and give him some free advertising to you guys, just in case you're ever in Killarney and feel the need of a tattoo) worked so gently I could hardly feel it. I almost went to sleep at one point, and at another I was reading a magazine and completely forgot I was being tattooed. That's kinda amazing, seeing as how I got a tattoo at the GFG in Vegas and it hurt the whole time, which was what I expected. Maybe TG was a leprechaun and his touch was Irish magic!

Other magic: the B&B lady found the place for us (talk about going above and beyond the call!), the owner was willing to work me in, TG was willing to come in 2 hours early, he got every word right and perfectly straight, I could understand him! (the further West we went in Ireland the harder the people were to understand), and MY MOTHER DIDN'T FAINT!.

I borrowed a bit of artistic license in interpreting "music" as art in general, to include writing (of course). What would the world be without all of our Irish writers and poets? Of course I had to cut a lot of it, and my LJ beta-ing helped me there because it's taught me to find the words that sum up the essence of a piece. Drabbles are a great tool, too. I hope the writer, Arthur O'Shaughnessy, won't mind! So here's what it says, and if you have a drop of Celtic blood in you, this poem refers to YOU, too!

We are the music-makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams

But we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.