This week I am digging Starburst jelly beans.  We are making a basket for our two year old son Jack, which means we are picking out candy we like since he can’t really have much of it.  I was happy to find my favorite Easter candy- the elusive Starburst jelly beans. The Holy Grail of beans made of hardened jelly.  Each year is different, sometimes you can’t find them, sometimes they seem to be raining from the sky. (At least in my dreams) The O’Connor house is on bag number three and they may be the reason I have had trouble sleeping lately.  

I watched the movie Big Fan this week. It stars Patton Oswalt as a way too intense fan of the New York Giants.  As a Philadelphia Eagles season ticket holder, that already makes me think the character is an asshole.  Worse off, he is 36, lives with his mother, and works as a toll collector.  After an encounter with his favorite player goes terribly awry – he gets severely beaten and is hospitalized. He then has the moral struggle of pressing charges and ending the star of his favorite team’s career.  It is pretty insane, and really sad, that there are fans out there like this.  But Patton Oswalt does a killer job in the role, which is not comedic at all.  I am rooting for Patton though, as a fellow short and pudgy guy.  I give the movie two thumbs up and all the New York Giants references two middle fingers up. 

I am currently digging my Ireland memories.  In the summer of 1997 I went to Northern Ireland as a volunteer to work at the Dungannon Youth Summer Scheme. It was three weeks working as a counselor at this daycamp for kids – my friend Mary did it as well, and there were other volunteers from all over Europe.  It was an opportunity I am forever glad I took advantage of and I think about it all the time. This week I broke out my memorabilia and photos from the trip. I kept a journal while there and now thirteen years later I am so glad I did. I read it last night and laughed at Marty O’Connor age 21. A direct quote from the first entry while on the plane, “I’m a bit nervous right now, partly because the wing looks taped on, and partly because the in-flight movie is Jungle 2 Jungle”. The majority of my ramblings are peppered with the attractiveness of Irish girls, what kind of beer I drank the night before, what pub I was at, and how much my friend Mary and I were pissing off the other foreigners that were working the camp with us. Even more hilarious is the rundown of the foreigners and others I worked with – Agniska is listed as “scary German girl”, Cheryln an American who was “very bossy”, David from Hungary who I described as “as foreign as you can get”.  Ahh, to be an obnoxious, drunk, 21 year old again!

 

This week I am ditching, or should I say I hope my son will be ditching his nasty cold.  This has been a long and very trying week.  My son Jack has been sick all week and I have averaged about two hours of sleep a night.  I am on the edge of delirium – so much so that I actually thought 17 Again was a pretty good movie. But really, I just want my little guy to feel better – he is not his normal running around, never sitting still, keep mommy and daddy busy self. So Jack, please get better!

 

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