And a very happy Labor Day to my mother.

It really is wrong that I am doing this. It's LABOR DAY. All I should be doing on Labor Day is lying on the couch being fanned by palm fronds, with strong handsome men that look strangely like James McAvoy feeding me grapes. No, not grapes. Too healthy. Bits of deep-fried cookie dough--Texas State Fair food. Barring that, I should be having some kind of barbeque with my family and friends and lying by a pool.

Well, I could go into all the reasons WHY I'm not doing anything like that, but I'll leave the weather and lack of deep-fried things out of it. The simplest explanation is, they have no Labor Day in Ireland. Although enough people are losing their jobs here, it could be misunderstood to mean that everyone just has the day off.

When it's 2 pm here, it's 8 am in Texas. My mother gets up for work a little before 6 am, so at 2 o'clock I picked up the phone to give her a buzz, since I am isolated in this foreign land without my family or friends or Taco Bell. It was one of those "I want my mommy" moments. There was a definite connection, someone had answered the phone, but instead of my mother's cheery "Hello?" on the other end, the sound I heard can only be reproduced in print by dragging my fingers all over the keyboard:

"MMMMMRRRRGRGKEJHFDGGGGGGRRBBBBWAAAAOOOLLLGH?'

Oh dear, I think. I've dialed the wrong country code and reached Bulgaria.

"Hello?" I say.

The noise came again, but this time I definitely thought I caught a familiar tone. "Mom?"

"Hrrrrmgh?"

It IS my mother! "Why aren't you up for work?" Disgraceful, I think. Must be the alcohol again.

She finally manages to put a sentence together. "Because it's Labor Day. Do you need something?" DO I NEED SOMETHING.
Not, "Oh, hello Daughter of Mine Who Moved 5,000 Miles Away Whom I Miss Dearly, so nice to hear your voice!" No.

Do I need something. Well I never. She would rather laze about than take a call from her estranged daughter. I guess I could pass the time until she feels like talking by writing a blog entry?

Dear Reader,
I would like to take this moment to state that my mother puts hemorrhoid cream under her eyes at night and that is not necessarily her natural hair color. Also, I cannot confirm or deny the existence of a picture of Daniel Craig under her pillow.

There. Enough work for the day.