Wednesday, December 26, 2007

St. Steven's Day American Style

So today I had to work and it felt really weird and sad to be in the office when all my family in Ireland were gathering in Lynwood to celebrate Christmas together.  St. Steven's Day in Ireland is a bank holiday and is another day to dress up in your new Christmas clothes and go visit friends and family, then go out to the pub or a house party to catch up with friends who are home from all over the world for Christmas.

I did bring my Mac to work with me so I could get Skype set up with my headset so I got a glimpse of EImear, my newest niece and Aoife and Aislinn who at one point they decided they would have a sleep over in the beds in the computer room. They then got to excited and decided to jump up and down on the beds - it looked like they had great fun. It reminded me of the days when I used to jump on the bed in the room I shared with Nan as we had the same type of twin beds. Eoin, Brian and I used to jump up and down the exact same way!

Just after Aoife and Aislinn said good night to me and they headed off to their cosy beds in Alderbrook, I went for a wander around the office to see who was in and David was in with his son Darina. I of course started to chat with Darina especially since he had a Spiderman t-shirt on. Spiderman is a favorite is our home also and maybe one of these days Larry and I will be fighting over the fact that Peter Parker McCann would not be a good name for a boy just the same as Joseph Montana McCann wouldn't work for me also!! lol lol. Darina was very responsive to me and I told him to come by my cube anytime he wanted a break from his Papa. David told me that this was the most that Darina ever spoke to an adult he just met and I felt very honored.

Darina and I struck a deal that he would draw me a picture and I would put it up on the wall of my cube! After about an hour I went back to see what the little artist has drawn me and asked him if he would visit my cube to hang it up. He looked at his Papa who gave him the go ahead to go with me. Here are the pictures of him putting up his wonderful drawing at my desk:





A few minutes later a very scary thing arrived in my cube, I thought it was a big spider but was soon corrected that it was a tarantula! Boy was I really scared at that point. It was a remote controlled one and very soon we were both outside my cube playing with it. I even got a co-worker, Ninoscka, to take some pictures of us:











Next Ninoscka and I was treated to playing with his dump truck. We set us some papers for the recycling day and then it was compost day when I had my teabag on the ground and my bowl of blueberries. Darnia knew what the blueberries were there as pretend but he could help himself if he wanted to eat some! This game went on for about an hour and a half.

The tarantula came back again for a while but this time I was not so scared. Quietness reigned for a about an hour and I went to look for my new friend and this is what I found under the cube next to his Papa:



I think I wore him out!! 

God brought me a little St. Steven's Day angel and his name was Darnia! The initial plan was for him to spend the week at a camp at the San Francisco Zoo but due to the unfortunate incident there the evening before, he had to come to work with his Papa instead. I am so glad he was at the office as he made my day brighter!!

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