It's Me, Sara Louise

… (besides my ceramic, miniature red Starbucks cup) is this Guinness t-shirt beermat and I’m going to tell you why… it commemorates one of my favorite weekends of all time.

It started on a Friday. I had taken a half day at work and as I left, I picked up some lunch and headed over to see The Husband. You see, back then, The Husband was only The Boyfriend and even though he lived in Dublin, he had just returned from six weeks in France. Being newly together you can only imagine how sucky those six weeks were.
Points of Greatness to note…. 1. half-days off on Friday are awesomesauce. 2. I had gotten my boyfriend back. Oh and 3. (which I failed to mention above) I had gotten my hair beautifully blow dried right after work but before picking up lunch, so I had perfect shiny, bouncy, swinging hair (helps to increase the fabulousity of any weekend).

Afternoon of cuddles and flirting by hair flipping over, I headed off to meet Bibbie for a drink at La Cave. Bibbie is my Scottish cousin who I had shared an apartment with for a couple of years. We also worked together, hung out together, and shared a brain because when you are together with someone as much as we were, that happens – I MISS YOU BIBBIE – . But she had moved back to Scotland leaving me a sad little half-brained person. On this weekend, the weekend of optimum greatness, she had returned for a visit and carafes of wine at our favorite French wine bar in Dublin.
Points of Greatness to note…1. My Bibbie was visiting and 2. we shared some wine at my absolute favorite place to drink wine. Enough said.

We pulled ourselves away from La Cave because we had to go and meet some people for dinner… including Disco Gayle. That’s right, you read that correctly, Disco Gayle from Texas was in Dublin too. (I told you, it was a pretty monumental weekend). Not only were we meeting Disco Gayle, The Husband and a bunch of other people (who I will not mention individually for the sake of brevity), but we were eating at Jade, my favorite/ the best Chinese food in Dublin.
Points of Greatness to note… 1. Disco Gayle was in Dublin (Disco Gayle’s motto is: Has Passport. Will Travel). 2. Disco Gayle, Bibbie, The Husband, and me all together in the same place at the same time and 3. eating at Jade, which has since closed… we can blame the economic downturn on that one or we can blame it on the fact that Bibbie and I stopped eating there five times a week. Who knows.

On Friday nights, dinner should always be followed by dancing, so naturally, that’s what we did. And we did it at Sin è. Sin è was the best place for dancing away Friday nights on the Northside. The best. But guess what… it’s also now closed. That damn recession.
Point of Greatness…1. Dancing at Sin è… may it now rest in peace.

And now to the crux of the weekend, the pinnacle, the pièce de résistance if you will; Saturday evening was Ireland’s final match in the 2009 Rugby Six Nations. It was against Wales and Ireland was one win away from winning the whole kit and kaboodle, the Grand Slam. All pubs in Dublin were packed, but there we were, me and three of my favorite people, in a pub, together, with prime seats in perfect viewing of the match on the television. Score.

And Ireland won (point of greatness obviously).

It was pandemonium.

I grabbed the beer mat and shoved it in my pocket.

bisou