Just 10 minutes sitting up in bed with my laptop and my arse has gone completely numb. I have got to get a new mattress!

My first business trip

Next Thursday I'm going on my first official trip for work. I was supposed to go to South Africa and Botswana when I worked at the Foreign Office, but disaster struck, and I can't say any more it's making me upset thinking about it.

So next Thursday and Friday I will be at the Washington DC office, meeting with all the Workforce Sciences team members based down there. I want them to give me work, so it will be good to introduce myself, hopefully inspire some confidence, make friends and, you know, show them what a brainy bunny I am. They have a lot of External Labour Market analysis projects based out of their office (locating pools of talent, helping companies decided where to recruit/relocate) which could be fun. I spent some time my first couple weeks reviewing French, Swiss and Italian websites looking for the top technology schools in those countries. I want to do more of that.

They're putting me up in a hotel near the office Thursday night, and then I will stay on for the weekend with Kelly. Two trips for the price of one. I'm really excited!

I love shopping for books. I'll spend hours stalking the shelves of a bookshop. I'm not very good at making my mind up, and there so many to choose from. I so much prefer the old fashioned sort of bookshop, the musty smell, the new and secondhand books all jumbled up together, the basements and little rooms tucked away at the back. In London those shops are dying off one by one, and in New York they barely exist at all.

So my new bookshop is online. I decided yesterday to buy some new books. I just finished a book about Audrey Hepburn (a gift from my lovely auntie Paddy) and need something to read. I have unread books on my shelves at home... but I just couldn't help myself. I spent two wonderful hours (it could have been longer) browsing books and finally settled on three:

"The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million" the story of an NY journalist who went in search of six relatives who were lost in the Holocaust, a sort of family history detective story of how he traced them and discovered who they were;
"Homemade Biography: How to Collect, Record and Tell the Life Story of Someone You Love" (yes Mum and Dad that's you!);
and "The Thirteenth Tale" about a woman who writes the biography of a mysterious author, part family history tale, part ghost story, it sounded intriguing.

I'm cheap so I went for the free shipping which takes forever. I think I'll read my Eric Clapton book in the meantime. Or The Master and Margherita. Or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows again. Or...

A baby of my own

I've promised myself, if I move back to England I'm finally getting a car, and not just any car. I want an Audi TT. It's a quiet day at the office, so I had a look on the interweb, and I found my dream car. For a second-hand motor, this is just heaven. They're affordable at 10k. And just look at her:

This is a real car, for sale right now. What an exquisite colour. I'm in love. Seriously.

My little sister Lucy and her bun in the oven are coming to visit over 4th of July weekend!

It's the year of Bovees in NYC. Mum and J came in February, Lucy's coming in July and Dad and Stephen will be visiting sometime in the summer. It's like buses... you wait four years, and then they all come at once!

Three generations

I took a day trip to Boston on Saturday to search old newspapers for obituaries and announcements relating to my Massachusetts relatives. I had five hours in the Microtext room and managed to find a few articles. Apart from their intrinsic value, they also provided a few clues for me to follow up. After the library, I rejoined my traveling companion Dave Almond, who had spent the afternoon sightseeing, and we went to the North End for a delicious Italian dinner, spaghetti alla vongole.

Skimming through microfilm (especially of old newspapers with their tiny, headache inducing print) can be laborious, but it’s exhilarating when you spot a familiar name and hungrily scan the surrounding words for anything new and unknown.

My search turned up obituaries for three generations of the Paul-O’Brien family, gt-gt-gt-grandfather Frank Paul, his daughter Mary Ann Paul O’Brien and her daughter Hester O’Brien Smith.

Frank Paul is an intriguing character, and my most exotic forebearer. I am very proud of my Azorean/Portuguese roots. According to the article, Frank was a founding member of the Monte Pio Society of New Bedford. The society was founded in 1882 and is still listed in the phonebook. Surely they have a commemorative photograph of their founders.

Mary Ann’s obituary provides no new information other than the church where her funeral took place, however, this is a very moving tribute to what sounds like a lovely lady. Now, I did think that perhaps all these obits contain the same patter about loving wife, devoted mother, sure friend, blah, blah, blah. But it also occurred to me that if she’d in reality been a miserable so and so, they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble and expense of having such a long write up in the paper. So I’ve decided to take it pretty much at face value.
My first thoughts on reading this were of how much these words reminded me of my own mother.

Mary Ann’s youngest daughter Hester, Alfred O’Briens littlest sister, had proved somewhat illusive, but when I was preparing last week for this trip, I had a brain wave and managed to find Hester under her married name in the social security death index, which pointed me to the Hyannis, MA newspaper, the Cape Cod Times.

I mentioned how important it is to find photographs and the best source is of course other living relatives. Finding them has become my newest quest. It says Hester left two nieces (this could be my grandmother and her sister Mary) although it seems more likely the two nieces and three nephews all come from those sisters and brothers listed, along with the next youngest sister Grace O’Brien Hamlin who had died just two years before.

So I have two projects to concentrate on. Tracking down Monte Pio Society and their archives (which they better have!) and finding the families of Paul, Lucy, Grace and Hester O’Brien. Wish me luck.

No more S.A.D. Genevieve

Wow, I had no idea I was suffering from (mind you, pretty mild) Seasonal Affective Disorder until I walked out into the sunshine during lunch today. It's like I'm a different person.

This has been a rocky weekend. I would have gone spare had it not been conference weekend.

I loved President Monson's traditional summing up speech at the end of the last session. It had such a wonderful ring of President Hinckley about it, and yet it was all him as well. There was humour and authority, it was personal and prophetic. No doubt about it, he is the prophet. It was great to hear a little about his family background, his wife and parents. I also needed to hear his comments in the earlier session about turning to the Saviour for help.

It was also great to see so much of Elder Uchtdorf. My mate Dave and I agree, he's totally our hero!

Here showers the bride

I threw my first bridal shower on Saturday. It was a classy do at a nice restaurant in Lincroft, New Jersey. Joanne is our bride and here she is looking rather fetching, along with her gorgeous groom Drew, in his and hers Irish hiking scarves, one of my presents to the couple who will be honeymooning in chilly Ireland.
We had a tasty lunch followed by the opening of gifts which was accompanied by my version of bridal bingo. I'm a first timer at this fancy wedding lark and hence made the game a bit overcomplicated, but everyone played along sportingly and had a jolly good time.

Joanne was radiant as every bride should be. And my hats off to her... she had sold one and essentially bought another house just the day before. That's no small feat and yet she was so composed. If it were me, I'd have looked like I'd just done the tango with Tropical Storm Felix.

The highlight of the afternoon was getting to meet all Joanne's friends and family. I've heard so much about them over the last nearly four years. Now I've met nearly the whole gang!