First a little about the name "Black Jack Monologue."  Thirty years ago as a young married couple, Alan and I picked up and moved from Washington, DC to Wisconsin.  We didn't know anyone there but wanted to leave DC and searched the USA for the best spot for us.  We wanted to buy some land and be organic farmers, a prospect that was encouraged in several books and movies current the the eighties; 25 Acres and Self Sufficiency was one I remember, as well as a Diane Keaton movie in which she adopted a baby, moved from a high powered job in NYC to Vermont and became hugely successful.  Anyway, we did move to Wisconsin, bought a small farm outside Milwaukee, called it Black Jack after a beloved cat and the gamble we were taking, and began our 13 year sojourn down on the farm.  We never were self-sufficient or hugely successful but Black Jack Farm was a fun adventure.

We returned to DC in 2004 where I spent seven and a half years working for the association of associations and dreaming of moving to Ireland "someday."  Well, on April 3, 2012 that someday was here.  After a year of planning that we thought was iron clad we made the move.  Owing to my father's birth in Co. Westmeath in 1912, I was able to claim Irish citizenship so I thought the transition would be, well not easy but, easier.  Leaving full-time work before being Medicaid eligible in particular, since Ireland offers health benefits to citizens that are woefully lacking in the USA.  We were disabused of that early on.  Ireland figured out before we arrived that people might do just what we did and made it almost impossible to use their health care system, even if they do call people like me "citizen".  Still, my employment made it possible to pay heavily and keep health insurance until the time when Medicare will kick in.

Anyway, enough of the background.  We are in Ireland, it's Friday the Thirteenth and we have passed ten eventful, stressful, challenging, confusing and amazing days so far.  This blog will be about our adventure.