K8 the GR8

Desensitise yourself because
Graffiti’s always there.
You walk past it everyday
Blinkered in ignorance
Until you dream about it
And wake in panic.

You’ll meet someone perhaps
Boldly balancing on rubble,
Unsure of how he got there.
Lost for words;
Scared of misplaced phrases.
You try to wash away the dust
To find it only makes things worse.

Face your wall
Look for beauty in concrete.
See that it defines your space.
For when it crumbles
And you miss its stains,
You’ll come to see that
Graffiti doesn’t have to rhyme.

Dario Sanchez is having hair issues. 

So is our Sean.  For the past week or so, he has resembled a Shetland pony looking over a wall.  He was also forming dreadlocks and severe fuzziness ’round back.  I tried to commission my sister-in-law’s american niece to cut it at the weekend but she was pissed so didn’t want to risk it.

I can now confirm that a pissed american hairdresser can cut hair better than I can.

I conferred with the Accidental Terrorist before putting Sean under the scissors…. 

“I’ll do a nice job on him wi’ me shaver… a nice blade 8 ’round the sides and a snip up top to even it off”… he said absentmindedly while storming a building in Sicily on the Playstation.

This sounds good, but Sean would look like Bob Marley before said terrorist ever put his playstation remote down and got around to this promise.  So, I gathered my scissors and comb, water sprayer and towel, and started hacking away. 

I’ve seen it done enough times to know how it’s done… roughly, anyway.  You grab a chunk of hair, hold it perpendicular to the scalp, and cut required length.  As long as you maintain equal length all around, you should be home dry.  Sean, however,  was feeling particularily skittish, probably well aware of what was happening, and complicated issues by wagging his head around like a mad thing.  This buggers up consistency a lot.  

Despite all odds, by the time I’d worked away around his scalp and stepped back, I found with some jubilance that he looked pretty damn fine!  I interrupted World War II long enough for a second opinion and got a vaguely impressed ‘yih’ sound to reward my efforts.  So that was nice.

This morning, when I entered Sean’s room to get him ready for school, I found to my dismay that hair appears to ’settle’ after a cut.  It had not settled well.  It looked like I had held the child upside down over a paper-shredder.  Sean now has a dodgy haircut.  I rubbed some baby lotion into it to style it a bit, which resulted in a greasy looking dodgy haircut.  Mind you, some celebrities have started hairstyle frenzies with their badly-cut barnets, so perhaps there is some hope for my kid.  You never know.

You know what?  I give up on weather forecasts.   What you REALLY need is a weather forecast for outdoor jobs.  Whether you’re a window cleaner, a golf course mower, a fence painter or a landscape gardener, it’s a real pain in the behind trying to base your earnings on pot-luck.  It’s late May, and ten minutes ago the sound of hailstones bouncing off the roof of the car was deafening.  The sky is now clear with an innocent sort of ‘don’t ask me’ appearance to it. 

 I have developed an alternative to Met Eireann which is infinately more accurate.  This information is thanks to accurate wive’s tales, and an excellent book I have called ‘The SAS survival handbook’ by John Wiseman.

• If the smoke from a chimney rises steadily, it’ll be fine.  If it rises a little, then beats downwards, you’re pretty much guaranteed there’s a storm brewing.

• Curly haired animals and people find their hair becomes tighter and less manageable when bad weather approaches.  If my dog’s ears suddenly develop a crimped appearance, for example, there’s no work tomorrow.

• Older people, or those with arthritis will tell you their bones ache when bad weather is on its way. 

• A moisture-laden atmosphere carries sound very well, acting like an amplifier.  If distant noises become clear, rain’s brewing.

• The smell of trees and plants becomes more obvious before rain comes, as their vegetation opens to receive it.  (Ask a pine cone if you’re not sure.)

• Red sky at night, shephard’s delight… etc.  Apparently the sky appears red because of the lack of moisture in the atmosphere.

• A grey morning can indicate the start of a dry day.  The dull colour is the result of dry air above the haze formed by the collection of dew on the dust particles suspended in the lower atmosphere.  Don’t put all your eggs in THAT basket, though… especially where Ireland is concerned.

• A clear sky one night, followed by one with only a few stars visible, indicates a change of weather.

• An enlarging corona around the sun or moon is a sign of good weather, a shrinking corona indicates rain.

• Green light emitting from an afternoon sun indicates fair weather for at least 24 hours. 

• A rainbow in late afternoon is another sign of fair weather ahead.

• Swallows flying high are catching bugs who are wise to good weather.  If swallows fly low, you know said bugs are skeptical.

• A spiders web which spans a large area tells you the spider isn’t expecting wind any time soon.

• If you see a bunch of cows huddled together in the corner of a field, bring your umbrella.

I was walking on a beach today and found a plastic bottle with paper in it.  I was so excited I wet myself a little bit.  I opened it, fished out the rolled upA4 sheet and saw that it was….

 Somebody’s lousy exam paper.   The only hand-written message of peace and human-kind was ‘example, quote, summary.’  It was scrawled below an insipid english question based on ’some novel you’ve read or whatever’, so I guessed it wasn’t supposed to be the result of some random soul hoping to inspire a stranger like me.  There was no indication whatsoever of where it came from.  I’d say Arklow, but I don’t think they have schools there.   Whoever it was, I hope they failed.  Serves them right for getting my hopes up like that.  Ok, maybe not a fail.  Maybe just a C minus.

The following ‘A+’ english exam answers are probably urban myths, but Kudos to the students if they’re not…

Question:  Give an example of bravery under pressure?

Answer:  This is.

Question: Write a short story which must include the following three things: 1. Religion  2. Sexuality  3. Mystery

Answer: ‘Good God, I’m pregnant.  I wonder who did it?’

There is a pretty fine line between bravery and stupidity y’know?

…So anyway, the following has been on my mind for quite a long time now.

Do you remember the Jim Carrey film ‘The Trumann Show?’

Do you ever wonder if maybe YOU are in the same situation?  You are going through your life performing your basic functions, talking to friends, working your jobs, travelling to and from your daily haunts… but is everything you see real?  Are your friends actors?  Are there cameras stuck in many crevices and button holes in your home and workplace?  When you pass a supermarket with no intentions of darkening its doors, who’s to say said supermarket isn’t empty?  Do places like Timbuctu, or even the Grand Canyon really exist?

Yes!  You might say… I went there last year, it was lovely!  But perhaps you were told to say that.  Maybe YOU are an actor, from my point of view.

You might think I’m writing complete bollocks here, but how do you really know?  Anybody you ask could be an actor.  Any research you do could be set up.  There’s no real way of disproving the fact that life could be one big elaborate set up, created for you, so that others may watch and learn your basic human behaviour.

Perhaps the media sets up stories to provide you with hints or information.  For example, and I’m not being flippant or making light of the situation, but the Madeline McCann story popped up just as I was having a moral crisis about leaving my own children in the car while I nip into Tescos for milk and bread.  Taking both children is a major task, especially if it means you have to wake them up after a sleepy drive.  I also let my toddler fart about in the cul-de-sac of our road unguarded.  I check on her regularly, but who’s to say she won’t get ‘napped?  Some would say that I’m being irresponsible.  Others wouldn’t.  The story made me think long and hard, as did the comments and blogs that have been written on the subject.  I’m sure you’ll all be disgusted by the suggestion that it’s all a set-up, but it doesn’t stop me from wondering.

I know that paranoia is a symptom of mental decline.  This means I could be crazy.  Fair enough.  But if I know I’m crazy, then that means I’m not crazy, therefore my theory above is true.

QED.

All’s I’m saying is, be careful what you say, your friends might be watching you.  (Consider this theory also before you next decide to excavate the contents of your nose.  You could be providing millions with gratuitous entertainment.)

Remember they invented the geep of ‘84?  There’s such a thing now as a Labradoodle.  Not as mind boggling of course, because you’re breeding animals of the same species, but still a great invention.  Great to own and to say!  Don’t believe me?

I know that mucking about with genetics is a touchy subject, but you’ve got to admit, the consequences can be mighty amusing…

CADDUCK

DOCOW

PITBURD

DORAFFE

SQUIRROG

GABBIT

I went to a protest march in Dublin today.  Being indirectly involved with the cause, I felt it a pretty reasonable way to spend a day.  Besides, Keith Duffy was there and I loved him in Coronation Street. 

The protest began outside the Four Courts, and progressed to the Department of Education and Science on Marlborough Street.  I and my family posse (I’m deeply indebted to Jeff, my Accidental Terrorist lover for helping me out with said posse) travelled from Wicklow to Bray by car, from Bray to O’Connell Street by Dart, then from O’Connell Street to the Fourcourts by the Daniel Day.  Fcuk me, how ironically simple it sounds when you write it out like that!

As in typical fashion, we were late, and said protesters were nowhere to be seen.  We trundled back to O’Connell street in a mini march of our own, Jeff driving Sean, me with toddler on shoulders in the most changeable weather I’ve ever witnessed. (The weather report for today read: ‘God only knows’)

We finally reached the protesters in an overheated, damp and hungry state with much relief.  We heard the animated speeches, shouted and applauded as loud as we could.  The protest was short, but its point was made.  So many families were there, their apperance to us humbled our presence and made us feel glad that we could be a part of such a force.  These families were there to stand for the rights and needs of the special needs child, to stand for the fact that mainstream school and crappy teacher resources is not good enough for the autistic child.  I so hope that we were heard, that this protest made a difference.  It is a crime that the Barnacoyle school here in Wicklow will be shut down, and that the needs of these kids will be ignored.

On a lighter note, there were the nice parts of today.

Jeff had never ridden the Daniel Day until today, and had never seen Bertie’s prick up close.  So that was nice.  On our travels, we discovered that lifts in train stations rarely work, but that there is always a sound and sympathetic skobie (yes!  Of COURSE there is such a thing!) to help you out with a wheelchair plight.  And we got to buy shoes to make our trip into the big shmoke even more worthwhile.  I’m the anti-shopper.  I hate crowds, I hate trying things on, and I hate browsing.  But, between stolen puffs of smoke outside shops and crying toddlers, we managed to find stuff for each other without rolling eyes or even arguing once.  We even got to have a good laugh at the posh kids on the DART on the way home;

Loike.. AYW MY GOWD, Sneachta, yoo were roish aboush Fiachra, he’s loike soooo feckin poor, his dod hosn’t even gosh an oh-seven redge cor yesh!

It was a genuinely excellent adventure we had today.

In a P.S. sort of way, I don’t want to use this blog as a political tool, but I would seriously appreciate any readers out there to visit this page, and possibly sign the petition if you have time.  These people really need numbers.

Why is it that when a customer knows their window cleaners are due around, they set their house alarms to ‘extra-sensitive’, and bolt their side-gates?

I spent my day yesterday window cleaning with Dazz, in a housing estate where every house is identical.  They all have side-gates about 6ft high, all decorated with sharp spikes.  You have to nimbly pitch one foot on a precarious foot hold just above the bolt, swing your leg onto a jagged wooden (extremely slippery) fence, place your credentials within a half and inch of a sharp gate-spike, and hope for the best as you pivot around and take a leap of faith onto the other side.  Does liablitly insurance cover a spike up the bum? 

Cleaning each window is a slow task.  Each has pressure sensitive pads on their frame, and if you lean too heavily on a pane, you get twenty minutes of ‘PEE-OOO-EEE-OOO-EEE-OOO-EEE-OOO!’ in your ear along with filthy looks from neighbours.  House alarms frey the nerves.  I can deal with rottweilers and dobermen, but the sound of a high-pitched burglar alarm can stay ringing in your ears for days.

It is apparently spider season, too.  The mummy spiders have buggered off, leaving teams of fledgeling spider-babies finding their independance.  Boy are those feckers nimble.  I spent most of the time disentangling myself from tiny spiders yo-yoing from my sleeve, and every time I scratched my forehead, another spider would bungee from my fringe.  They seem to think it’s hilarious.  You can’t flick them because they’re attatched with magic invisible thread, and they’re too fast and small to squish.   I think one got into my eye and crawled inside my inner-eyelid.  I have a severely bloodshot and itchy eye and am forced to wear my horrible glasses instead of contacts, trying not to think about what this spider child is occupying himself with in there.  It feels like he’s scratching ‘Boris waz ere 16/05/07′.

I have to go now.  My toddler has just opened a 2 litre bottle of milk and decorated my sitting-room with it.  

It’s a slow day in K8 world.

A friend of mine from school had a father in the advertising business.  She told me that if a product label shows a photograph of something, then the ingredients of that product MUST contain that something in its pure form.  For example, a bottle of orange squash with a photo of oranges on its label, means you’re getting a product with real oranges in it somewhere.

The cheapie washing powder I use has a photo of a baby on its label.  If washing powder is made from lye, and lye is a bi-product of human fat… I’m adding two and two and starting to feel sick.

On a different note, if you’re finding yourself with some yukky brown overripe bananas and you’re unsure what to do with them (hold that dirty tongue of yours, ma), here is the most delicious, cheap, and easy to make banana bread I’ve ever tasted.  I found myself trapsing in a zombie state into my kitchen at 3am this morning for a quick taster (just to make sure it hadn’t gone off).

I’ve just noticed that my last few posts have been very long.  I agolopise for that, I’ll make the next few posts a lot easier to read now that the lengthy stuff is out of my system.

 One thing I’ve been wondering about for the last ten years or so but keep forgetting to ask the wandering Wikipedia that is my daddyo:

If the moon revolves around earth, and earth revolves around the sun, why is it that you always see just one side of the moon?  Is there a dark side of the moon, or is it just a coin with two heads?