One upon a time...

I went to Bulgaria, but I had to write a thesis and go to class, and maintain a romantic relationship and friendships--- so I didn't have a ton of time to write about my adventures. Barely even time to show you pictures- It was a wonderful O'Neill Christmas in a far away land, and while we struggled to get there, we did get there eventually, and seeing my Hermanita made it worth all the strife of getting there.

D and I have very different feelings about the holidays. I love them, and he does not. This has been something that we have both adjusted to as a couple. He kind of let's me make a bigger deal out of things than he might like, and I try to restrain myself a bit in order to make him feel more comfortable.

For me, the holidays are about tradition and family, and they are pretty soft traditions in a lot of ways. Generally they meant piling into the car and driving for several hours to eat a large meal with my extended family. Sometimes we would all sit around the table to enjoy the meal and other times we would grab a place on a sofa with a tv tray. The setting that I remember most is my aunt tinas old house that had a basement where the kids could hang out. I don't know if it was a holiday or not, but I have been told that one time my sister fell down those long dark steps to the basement in her baby walker, and she survived...

For me the holidays are not about gifts. They are about loud people that I only get to laugh with a few times a year, and trying to sneak some of my grandmas cookies before dinner time. It's been years since I lived on the same coast as my extended family. I know that since then I have really not spent many thanksgivings with them. I spent a few with my sister out here, which was nice, and one in Chile....or I think maybe on a plane to Chile and that was a pretty surreal experience.

Last year david and I cooked more food than it was possible to eat and had leftovers for days. I think I remember it being a quiet relaxing day which is kind of a new one for me, but also a good thing.... I guess maybe we are starting our own traditions now, which is weird to think of... I think that whenever I get the chance to spend the holidays with my extended family, I will cherish their novelty, and when I am with anna and mommers I will usually feel the most at home. It's comforting to establish a new familiarity with david... and also because he is not super into the holidays I don't think he will be quite so sad when I chose to spend the time with my mom and sister. So cheers to new traditions, definitions of home, and in about a month, a very Bulgarian Christmas...

In Which I was in Spain and Then Fell off the Face of Planet

I

I blogged pretty consistently at the beginning of Spain, but then I just couldn't do that and skype everyone I needed to, and sleep for at least 6 hours a night, so I kind of got out of the habit. So I figured I'd recount some of the things that I did with mom after I left Spain.

Our trip consisted of Dublin--> Edinburgh--> Northern Ireland (Belfast)-->Dublin-->Republic of Ireland (Galway, Derry Coast, Blarney Castle)--> Dublin

Some highlights included:

- So I knew that the bus your I booked looked like it had the potential to be a party bus, but the website made me think that it was a bit more diverse. However as soon as we got onto the bus of 20 year old Aussies and Kiwis (mainly) and the flamboyantly gay (and really hot driver) started talking about what drink specials we were going to get that night, I knew that I might have been wrong. My mom was the only one on the bus over 30 or so, and there were definitely no families on this trip. I was a bit worried at first, but my mom totally took things in stride. I am not sure if she took a sip of the first bottle of alcohol that was getting passed around on the bus, but somewhere on the ride of the first day one of the blokes started calling her Old Mother Hubbard. We drank with the crew that night, and had a really good time- so despite the fact that it was a party tour and not really mother daughter family atmosphere we had a wonderful time, made good friends, and saw things in Ireland that you have to see such as the Blarney Castle/Stone, The Cliffs of Moher,and a few Leprechauns

(Here is mom and the tour guide on the first night out)

-I enjoyed my first class of Guinness at the Guinness factory- I am not sure if it just tastes better with the Irish Water or when you are on the top of a 10 story building that has a panoramic view. I haven't tried to drink any since I got home, and when I do so it will only be from the tap. I'd have to say that Ireland made me a believer when it came to Guinness, even though I think that there is some debate regarding how much Guinness the Irish themselves drink. I was told that if you went into the most non-toursity of bars you would find locals drinking Bud Light, which in my opinion is a damn shame.


-I actually thought that the Blarney Stone was pretty scary. And because there is a long as line of people beside you that are waiting in this really narrow and even more scary dark windy staircase, you have to go really fast when you kiss it, and I don't think we really got any good pictures because it went so fast, and I hated it anyway because I had to take off my glasses and I couldn't see anything. I thought that I would just be kissing a rock, not one that I had to lay down and do a back bend on te top of a castle to kiss, and honestly, I am not even sure if I needed to kiss it, because if you know me then you might agree that I already have the gift of gab, right?


- There was a domestic dispute in one of the rooms neighboring us on our last night in Dublin. There was a lot of slamming and screaming, and we called the front desk to tell them about it, and they already knew which room it was in, and I don't know if that was a good or a bad thing. I don't think we would have called the hotel a loss had we not been stuck in the elevator for 10 minutes the night before, only to ask the lady at the front desk if this happened frequently, and having her reply yes it does, don't ever take it. Nice one.

Anyway, those are just a few of the highlights of the trip with mom and I. I have so many more good stories and memories, and have been working hard to get all of my pictures from the trip centrally located here.

I hope to write more about it at some point.

My best friends in Ensenada

Preceded by lunch at a coffee shop, a no drug purchasing memorandum, and followed by a walk through the stinky fish market, contemplation over buying a dog, and best taco stand in baja. Good times.

Adventures Con Mi Familia

Formal night on the cruise ship. Hold on girls, its waiter time! This is much more significant when you have seen the sign that says Sacramento 3073 in Ocean City, MD. I have seen the MD sign countless times, and this one only once.

Best pizza and SD. (But really people go for the hot chicks.)

Oh, I haven't invited you to our park yet, have I ?

Mas aqui!

And still going...

I have beenon a cruise and then in San Fran for a few days (above), and tomorrow am headed down to Baja to see Jare at the Orphanage. This has been a long vacation and great time with my sister. I have to go to work right now, but more later.

St. Patty's Weekend

I suggested that we make Reuben Sandwiches in honor of the holiday and my Irish heritage. My name is Bonny O'Neill you know, and it doesn't get anymore Irish sounding that that. But since all my sister has been talking about for the last week is corned beef and cabbage, so I thought we'd try a veg version of that, and we did, and it was pretty yummy. Unfortunately the picture above is not my own, but it comes from the website where I got the recipe..It seems like it could be good with real beef too...


Thankfully this year good Catholics will not have to worry about all the discrepancy that comes when St. Patty's day is on a Friday during Lent, and they are not supposed to eat meat. I believe that although that article only talks about the archbishop of Atlanta saying it was okay to eat corned beef on the holiday, I think I have heard something about the Pope himself saying it was okay to eat... I am not Catholic, so I don't have that problem...

One of my favorite things about the holiday and this dish in particular is that it was the last thing that my mom ate before she went into labor with my little sister who was born March, 18th 1987...

I hope that you all particularly green Tuesdays and have some Irish stout to celebrate.

My internet addiction is not porn...

I realize it's been several weeks of not blogging. I have been busy people.

Last few weeks included

• Waiting for my sister to arrive
• Finishing up every assignment that I have for school besides the ones that have to wait until finals week
• Trying to figure out how to pay for school next year, and getting some good feedback
• Seeing a friend I haven't gotten to see regularly for years on an almost daily basis
• Doing a "homeless ministry", witnessing a fake seizure, and buying hand sanitizer after holding hands with a man who insisted on praying for us
• Having a bed made up with fresh rose petals
• Working at a citizenship fair and helping 40 people complete their applications
• Dreaming in Spanish
• Planning a cruise for that I am going on with my family in two weeks from tomorrow
• Buying my plane ticket from LA to Spain to Dublin and back
• Feeling really good because I have so much free time on my hands (if only I had free money as well)
• Becoming totally addicted to shopping for travel on the Internet

Yep. I am completely addicted to expedia, priceline, kayak, cheaptickets, carnival, you name it, and I have probably spent a few hours on it. If only I had the motivation to research school funding as much as I did trips that I might never get the chance to take....

So the next few weeks include a cruise to Mexico, a trip to San Fran, and a trip to Baja Mexico to a much anticipated orphanage where Jare is, and eventually I will be spending my third Easter weekend in Julian with David, and you know what that means? Apple pie, delicious food, lots of birds (including turkeys), and Friends. Wooohhoooo.

Looking forward to breezing through the rest of the quarter and enjoy mi hermanita mucho.

Trip Pics

David and I took a trip back to my mother land this Christmas (by plane) but we traveled back to the left coast via car... It took me sometime to post all the pictures online, but they are all up on my webshots now and you can see them all if you care about us that much... You can see them all here.

These are some highlights This is David with his foot on top of a Cypress knee in Pocomoke, MD. The knees of the trees will shoot up out of the water (because when it is not winter and it's wet, this is swampy) and I believe it helps them to take in enough C02.This is my sister and D at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, MD. Francis Scott Key wrote the star-spangled banner about the flag that "was still there" which was housed at the fort.

This is when I became a prisoner at Fort McHenry, but the prison experience wasn't that bad because I was only sentenced to 30 seconds in the jail cell due to the fact that it was overcrowded and other people wanted to take pictures.



Here is D honoring the life of Edgar Allen Poe. We went to the house that he lived in, which seemed to be very much in proximity with some serious corner drug activity that was happening on this chilly Baltimore day. I felt like I was in The Wire for a minute.



Here I am trying to figure out how well I would fit in the sleeping quarters of a replica boat at Jamestown, VA.



I don't even know what state this is, but I was tired of driving so thought I would stop at this authentic Indian Trading post that advertised it's live buffalo for many is billboard... It was actually something I would like to call PETA about because this poor tourist attractions were pretty much living in their own feces and it was really gross and sad...


Here we are at the full size replica at the Parthenon. I know it was inTennessee. I think it was Nashville, but am not completely sure. We couldn't go in because it was closed, and it was really cold and early in the morning.

And here we are trying not to get frostbite at the grand canyon. I might have posted this before, but I don't remember. It was cold enough to warrant posting twice.

Three hot mamas...

Well, actually only one of them is a mama and we hope to keep it that way for at least a few more years.

We all matched on XMAS this year, which I think was sort of planned/unplanned- I don't know, but it made for a fun photo shoot.

I thought that these pictures would be especially appropriate to compare to the first picture on my Birthday post. We are three strong women . I love my family dynamics and growing up in a house with so much estrogen was so empowering. And sometimes a little emotional.

This rest of this fun photo shoot (with the goofier pictures) are here.

by catbonny

Celebrating 25 Years of Pure Bonny O'Neill

I am a proud big sister.

I was cute.

I have had that crazy look/laugh from a young age.

I was cute when I was little, huh?

I was always a performer.

I will not smile for a photo shoot if you wake me up from my nap in the car.

Thanks to my mom for sending me all of these wonderful photos from my childhood to remind me just how awesome it was. They are pictures of pictures so the quality isn't the best,but I think that they give a good sense of the 25 year old later Bonny.

Eastern Europe better be ready...

Because my hermanita is going to Bulgaria in May.

How exciting is that? Maybe that means that my May 2010 graduation gift to myself will be a nice little trip to this post- Soviet country. (Is that correct history?)

Anyway, I am thankful that prior to her two year departure for the Peace Corp she will be coming here in March (and I will try to make her stay as long as possible, and not let Jare steal he away from too long while at her Mexican orphanage)

My momma sent me a picture of my sitting in the hospital bed with her and my newly born little sister. I cannot believe that she will be 22 in month, or that I will be 25 in less than two days.

I guess we are grown-ups. Whatever that means. = )

Adventures In Real Life

I have been lazy about posting, but am proud that was able to accomplish my first quarter of grad school with all A's. Woohoo me.

Then David and I went on a long adventure which included this snowy, butt-freezing-off, cold toes trip to the icy grand canyon. I will be less lazy and post more pictures from our adventures to meet my family and then to traverse the country conquering the challenges of vegetarianism in the South. = )

I am not ready to be starting a new quarter, but here we go...

Because endings are hard...

My sister is graduating. I just listened to her last radio show, and she sounded emotional, which made me cry for some reason. I looked up an old blog entry from around the time I graduated, and it makes me realize that I have forgotten the overwhelming feeling of leaving my college life behind. I have forgotten how much I valued my college experience and my friends and how hard it was to leave them. (It was so hard that I moved back 4 months later)
So I guess this post is dedicated to my sister with both congratulations for finishing, more of a communication that I understand where you are right now and I think you should embrace your last days with your friends as much I tried to when I realized it was all about it be over and that I had to move one.
I know my sister will go on to great things and that there will continue to be endings in life that are difficult. It's good to look back and think about how things felt at certain times in life, because remembering them is powerful.

Sunday, May 01, 2005
i stared at her image in the side view mirror. the wind blowing and knew that we must be living in a different realm. and i kept looking at the face. hair blowing. sheer beauty. and i just wanted her to smile and be happy and know that she was loved. i wanted to know that the beauty in her heart and soul just shines. shines. shines. and i wanted to say that everything was okay and that whatever was going on in that mind would be resolved. but i couldn't. so i just looked in the mirror and took in the beauty of the experience. and though i saw her face it was almost as if i could read her heart. and i almost cried. so i shut my eyes and let the music language that carried me. and i knew that this was eternity in the back seat.
can i put you in my pocket and keep you with me always? i don't care if none of us grow, so long as we don't grow together. i don't care what happens as long as you promise that we can be friends forever. FORVEVER. that nothing will ever change and that you will always love me. always.
i cried so hard today. i felt out of control. i still do. no one seems to understand. its weird and it is hard and i am not sure if i am going to make it.
my friends. my friends. my friends.
my heart is breaking. breaking. shine forth sweet sun and melt all these cares away. i promise i will not falter. i will love.

The Value of Time with Friends (Thoughts on the Holiday Season)

This picture was taken by John, who is linked on my sidebar at Mind on Fire. It was taken during a post-Thankgiving Anti-Consumer Party, which makes a point of spending time with friends playing games, eating good food, and enjoying each others company instead of waking up at 5am to hit those huge black Friday sales.

As Christmas is just around the corner, I have been thinking about how most of the gifts I purchase for people will ultimately be bought with student loan money, which isn't the most comforting thought. A friend of mine called me yesterday and asked if rather thank buying gifts for her and her husband, D and I would want to get together with them and make dinner and have a game night. I liked her proactive approach to this and the fact that her idea took the emphasis off purchasing something for each other and put it on spending time with each other, which is really the point of the holidays.

So I am thinking of extending this offer to some other friends because to cook dinner and hang out just sounds so much better than shopping for junk and worrying about money. Perhaps nearer to the holiday and when my finals are finished I will get a creative spark in me, but recently during the holidays I have kind of lacked the energy for that, so I guess we will see.

My Christmas present this year is going to be all about spending time with loved ones, and will include a trip back east with D to meet my family, and take a road trip cross country in the new/used car that my mom has to kindly decided to gift me. So yeah I am getting a big gift, which is really great, but I will honestly be more excited to spend the time with my family then to have a new car.

I value the time I get with friends and family so much and parties like the one in the picture are just a reminder or how much fun that time can be. = )

I am thankful for...

- canned cranberry sauce. Whenever people gush over the homemade stuff I tell them that I grew up eating in the can, and love it that way. My sister and I used to open up a can and eat it with a spoon. The first thanksgiving I spent away from my family they had homemade stuff and I felt like there was just something missing.

D and I were invited to several places to have Thanksgiving this year but have opted to stay at home and cook a huge meal only for ourselves. The goal is to relax, roll with the punches, and not have any stress over this holiday. In fact, right now he is making me lunch (which I am also thankful for) so that we can relax a bit more before we start cooking the fake turkey log and dressing in a few hours. Other dishes include creamed corn, mashed sweet potatoes, and a pumpkin cheesecake. I know it's a lot of food for two people but I think leftovers are the best part of Thanksgiving, so I am willing to suffer for the excess of food.

I am thankful for many other things.
I am thankful for Christmas I will be able to spend the holiday with my family and David.
I am thankful that I will spend tomorrow playing games and eating more yummy food with good friends.
I am thankful that the quarter has almost come to a close, and I have a manageable amount of work to get done in the next few weeks.
I am thankful that I got to spend time with Jare on her way to Portland.
I am so thankful for this relaxation right now. It feels nice.

Friday Night- Fighing with Myself

I think that the major beast I am fighting tonight is exhaustion, and I should just go to bed, but I am sitting up here looking at my best friend's stuff that is all over the living room, and I am thinking about how starting tomorrow she will no longer be my roommate, and how it's a very sad thing for me.

I have most certainly taken for granted the fact that I had such a wonderful living situation living with my best friend. I have two other roommate besides my current roommates, and although they both remain friends neither one of them was my best friend, like Jare is.

We wait for each other to get home and catch up with each other at home almost everyday. We have gone to Portland together twice and San Francisco together once. We have never had any major drama in our relationship, and I think that we have always been very honest and open with each other. Although we sometimes have really insightful wisdom to offer to each other, we mainly just listen to, empathize with, and share with each other.

I didn't even meet Jare until I was a senior in high school, but when I moved out here she helped me move into my house, and basically put my bed together for me. She is awesome, strong, smart, and has an amazing heart, and I am so happy that she is going somewhere that she needs to be, but at the same time I might be crying a little bit because it's hard to realize how much you take people for granted until they are leaving.

So I am really sad, but happy at the same time. I know we will email and keep in touch, and really she is only about an hour (I think) across the Mexican border, so it's not like she moved that my farther away than David did. I need to get over my fear of driving across the border and just do it.

So maybe I am not going to sleep because I am sad, and wishing that she would walk up the steps to hang out for a little bit on the last night that she lives here, but I think it's late and she probably spent the night at her home in Riverside.

I'm pretty sad, but very thankful that I have been so blessed by amazing friends (who feel like family) like Jare.

Also if you are interested in donating to her or just learning about what she is going to be doing in Mexico there is a link to her blog here. Again, she has an amazing heart and will impact so many people in the future. The kids at this orphanage are going to love her so much, but I don't know if they will love her as much as me.

Big Sister

Besides being a HIGHly emotional person in the first place, I always have trouble when I leave or my family members leave me to go back on a plane somewhere far away. I kind of have this policy now that family members do not get walked into the airport. They have to be dropped off at the curb because this ensures a swift departure and no crying at the airport security checkpoint line. It's hard to drive anywhere after or get on a plane when you are crying, so I try to avoid this now- even though it's difficult.

I have to say that one of the most alone times was when I watched my mom get on the shuttle and go home from Chile and knew my sister was in Brazil, and I was in this huge city all by myself. It wasn't the city itself that made me feel alone- it's just the act of putting someone on a plane and knowing how far anyone with your bloodlines is from you.

The last time my little sister left California she got home really late the night before she was leaving. I think I left to work and she took a super shuttle home, and when I got home there was a note on my bed that still floats around my room and makes me cry every now and then.

That night in bed with David I asked him to hold me as I cried- explaining that I just missed my sister. I felt desperate and sad not knowing when I would see her next (although I knew it would be in Chile)...

It's hard to describe my relationship with my sister- although I sometimes feel like she is kind of the same person as me, and yet so different. I think we would agree that as we have both grown up we have grown apart in terms of our interests and maybe not our personalities so much as the things we do for fun. I am not sure how to explain it other than to say that we are growing into our own persons as we grow up, but we still have this really amazing strong bond. We still look and talk like sisters. We still have all the same memories from when we were little. We are still us, just bigger/older versions, with much stronger opinions.

I like the person my sister has become. She is strong, smart, independent, funny, and well aware of the world around here (and that which is not so close.) I am proud of her. I love and hold her so close my heart.

I think maybe it's harder for me to think about my sister as a peer rather than a younger sibling I need to be an example for or more than that- I think I have always wanted to impress her and to have her think I was really cool. I wanted her to want to be like me for a long time. I don't think it was as much being self-centered as just knowing that I was an important example for her, and that meant a lot.

This weekend I keep reminding her that she is my 'my little babers' and then I tell her that I remember when she had just eaten lunch and I decided to dance with her and shake her up, which caused her to barf on me. We were just sitting on the floor, but I definitely screamed and let go of her. She was old enough to sit up and crawl so she recovered much faster than myself, myself who was upset about the throw up on my pretty clothes.

We are adults now, but she'll always be my baby sister, and those are two things that I struggle to reconcile, although I am getting the hang of it more and more.

Sister's on a 'Booze Cruise'

We only call is that because of The Office.

Black and White Friends