Caption competition!
Roll up, ladies and gints… find me a caption for this dodgy snapshot!
The winner gets a pair of TAT’s lucky pulling boxers with bonus arse cork for those special evenings out.
Birkenstocks and Cardigans
So you know the way I keep prattling on about Karma? For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. I’m just back from a brief holiday in Wales (I love Wales… it’s so clean with gorgeous little clusters of village dotted around haphazardly, not to mention the fact that their language is still alive and well – it would put an Irish person to shame!).
What was I doing in Wales? Well, remember I spent a few hours cleaning the beach at Brittas Bay earlier this year? Well, a group called Keep Wales Tidy, partnered with An Taisce suddenly decided that I was a bonifide volunteer for the greater good, and paid for me to travel to their turf to hear what they had to say about environmental issues! It wasn’t just me either… about 20 of us were shipped over from all sorts of associations and causes for this wonderful hippie convention, with nothing to pay for except our dinners.
Appropriately enough, our group of birkenstock wearing nature enthusiasts ended up in a place called Cardigan in North Wales, not in a hostel as I’d imagined, but in a well plush hotel which sat majestically on a cliff overlooking this amazing bay. Double bed all to meself, for free. Access to pools and saunas, for free. Chill out nature walks, all for free!! In fact, the experience was so lovely, I’m thinking now that I owe a little overflow karma in return.
I’m not going to bore you with all the information that was crammed into my brain about pollution and the fight for progress, you’re either an eco-freak or you’re not. While some of the facts would make your knickers twist in knots, there’s still the underlying dissapointing feeling that it’s increadibly difficult to make a dent in all this destruction and wastefulness. That feeling, however, tends to melt away when you’re with people like this. As I gazed over the sea of heads on the bus, I realised that these people were all fighting against the odds with absolutely no politics involved. They break their backs and empty their pockets so that the rest of us can have a bit of pride in our world, and ask nothing in return but respect.
Respect is what they shall have.
I might even start picking up my dog’s humongous turds on our rambles from now on, something that before this trip I would not be caught dead doing. Maybe that’s the karma overflow!
Shoo fly
Had another of those mad conversations today with Mr. P, who is great fun to work with because he always thinks sideways, not to mention the fact that he’s a musical genius so when he’s not talking, he’s singing something interesting.
Mr. P: “So.. like, what’s the craic with flies, the way they can see everything all sped up? You try swatting them but you can’t, because you’re moving really slowly to them – how does that work?”
Me: “Ummm… *thinkage* well, time is relative.”
Mr. P: “What?”
Me: “No?”
Mr. P: “No.” (Looks confused)
Me: “Well, it’s like… time is a man-made invention, right? We created it to suit us, based on the sun and the planet’s rotation and stuff. Flies don’t know this so they have their own rules for time, based on their needs.” I racked my brain for a few seconds for an example of space-time relativity, and came up blank. “I just don’t know how these two time ratios can co-incide with each other. I haven’t a shaggin’ clue, really.”
We both fell quiet and continued flicking spider webs.
Mr. P: “Say… why don’t you post it on your blog?”
Me: “Good thinking, batman. Tell you what. I’ll throw it on tonight and see what happens, then I’ll let you know tomorrow. Okay?”
Mr. P: “Sooouuund.”
So I did. And I will.
Any ideas?
De-feminised!
Being a window-cleaner is a curse on my feminininity!
I went to a charity fund raiser masquerade ball on Saturday night. It was to raise funds for a bunch of secondary school kids to travel to Gambia to assess their education facilities. It was great craic altogether, even if it was in Arklow.
What better excuse to buy an expensive Jenny Vander dress?! What better excuse to buy very expensive shoes and get a kick-ass hair doo? I went, dolled up to the nines in my war paint and costume jewellery, but had forgotten to do one very important thing.
That one very important thing hadn’t even crossed my mind, and by the time it did, it was too late.
I forgot to re-feminise myself.
A reiki healer once told me that I had a perfect balance of male and female. She warned me that it would be quite easy to slip over the line into either category, and that I was to re-balance myself regularly. I totally forgot about this advice on Saturday. I might have looked like a lady on the outside, but on the inside, I was a burly bloke with arse-cleavage. I made several very noticable social mistakes to this effect.
Social mistake #1: I was asked a few times by other girls if I thought they looked okay. I replied with; “Uhh, I d’know… there’s a mirror in the bog, why don’tya go check yourself out? Pft!”
Social mistake #2: I’ve become a little too accustomed to my Converse high-tops. When I donned my expensive killer heels, I forgot to practice walking around in them. Whilst walking to the bar (very soberly I might add as it was the first round), I skidded on the waxed dancefloor, and fell hard. Everybody was sitting at their tables waiting for their first course, so my faux-pas was witnessed by 150 pairs of eyes. I stood up instantly and grabbed a knife, then waved it about yelling ‘Nobody saw that. RIGHT?!” at the nearest table.
Social mistake #3: I challenged the head-mistress of the local convent school to a shot-drinking standoff.
Social mistake #4: I forgot all the words to ‘It’s raining men’ and refused to dance to it.
Social mistake #5: Not only did I forget to muffle my burps, but towards the end of the night, I started giving them scores out of ten.
Social mistake #6: Once or twice I caught myself referring to my friends using their surname, adding an ‘o’ at the end.
Social mistake #7: I was introduced to my best friend’s work collegue. When my friend complimented her beautiful dress, I blurted “I’d do her!” before I could do anything about it. You’d think that she’d take it as a compliment, but she got scared and ran away back to her table to tell her friends about the lesbian girl in the corner.
Social mistake #8: I told a girl in the taxi on the way home that she smelled like a whore’s handbag. Luckily she knew me, so took it the way it was intended, replying that I looked like an extra from the Rocky Horror Show.
I think this week I shall have to work on re-balancing my feminine side whilst cleaning windows. I’ll pimp out the work-van by lining it with pink fur and ‘Hello Kitty’ stickers, and sing Shania Twain’s ‘Man, I feel like a woman!’ at every available opportunity. That should do it.
Barf
This is what Communion is coming to…
Sod that and the horse it came in on!
Is this child abuse? Do these kids look happy to you?
Do they?
At least when people do start throwing up on sight, they can roll the kid around in it and soak it up nicely…
(Thanks Juicy Loucie)
Meep and Deaningful
So there we were, me and TAT, roasting marshmallows and supping wine from plastic cups. The river babbled loudly beside us and time became obsolete. Conversation turned to those topics that we normally would never have room for in usual life. A lot of shite was talked, and it was good.
We began to talk about the world, about disaster and miracle, ying and yang, religion and sacrifice. We spoke at length about whether or not it would be hypocrital of us to christen our children and marry in a church, when neither of us would hold any belief in the questions the priest might ask us in the process of the ceremonies. We both know and love our God, but found that ironically, it was the religion we had no faith in.
The conversation ended in mid-air, on one question.
Let’s take it as a given that the Catholic Church is probably the most affluent entity that ever existed.
“The Vatican has large investments with the Rothschilds of Britain, France and America, with the Hambros Bank, with the Credit Suisse in London and Zurich. In the United States it has large investments with the Morgan Bank, the Chase-Manhattan Bank, the First National Bank of New York, the Bankers Trust Company, and others. The Vatican has billions of shares in the most powerful international corporations such as Gulf Oil, Shell, General Motors, Bethlehem Steel, General Electric, International Business Machines, T.W.A., etc. At a conservative estimate, these amount to more than 500 million dollars in the U.S.A. alone.” (THE VATICAN BILLIONS by Avro Manhattan.)
Every nun or priest that gives up their life to the church, must also give up their wealth and worldly goods. Yet, if this poor servant of God decides to retire, they don’t get a pension, all they get is a bus fare and a handshake with which to start their new chapter.
I was educated in a convent, and found it hilarious to see 78 year old sister Consumpta walking laps of the hockey pitch in her brand-new state of the art Nike Air-Macs. She’d stop now and then to pump herself up, then carry on. Her peers drove in the latest models of zippy cars, and the priest himself lived in a mansion, alone.
In fact, in almost every diocese I’ve ever lived in, the priest lived alone in a huge mansion. Wouldn’t it make more sense to house this man in basic housing to suit his basic needs, and donate the mansion to charity… say turn it into a clinic, or a home for orphaned kids?
Think of all the little old ladies around the world who, every day, decide to leave their fortunes to their local parish!
Think of the collection plates that are passed around in mass every day… a congregation of 70 people on average, say… all feeling obliged to throw their silver and gold into this basket of cash. If you should turn up with empty pockets, the people in the pews around you will glare, and you might even find yourself scorned publicly in the local paper for such a sin. Being stingy in church is not the done thing.
Think of the gold and expensive jewels which adorn the chalices and religious icons. Think of the expensive cloths used in the ceremonies, the stocks, the gold, the paintings, the sculptures, the helicopters, the cars, the priceless artifacts… worldwide, these individual cells are generating cash at an alarming rate, all feeding Vatican City, and the entity that is the religion itself.
Wouldn’t it be safe to say that the net worth of the Catholic Church must run into billions?
Wouldn’t it, therefore, be quite rational to say that the Catholic Church could make – if they chose to – an enormous dent in the national debt of Africa?
So could Bill Gates, probably. But then again, he would have no reason to. The church, however, and it’s literary works, tell us that the meek will inherit the earth. They tell us to include charity into our lives wherever possible, and to love our neighbours. Every page of the bible provides a good reason for the church to donate this cash, but instead, it is apparently being stashed somewhere for a rainy day. It is being sat on, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out how this is logical.
I must be missing something here… some vital piece of information, that will explain the answer to this question.
I also have to stress that I don’t wish to insult anybody with these words. I have the greatest respect for those who keep the faith without question. I can see the wonderful things that the Church has done for developing countries through their missionaries, I just can’t see why local parishes with crumbling roofs are begging for money, when the mothership holds all the dubloons. I have a deep respect for God, and I can see that God would have a sense of humour. This is why films like ‘Dogma‘, and ‘The Life of Brian‘ came to be, perhaps. Why so, does it feel like God has absolutely nothing to do with this mess? Why does it feel entirely man-made?
If a prophet were to appear, and declare him or herself to be the second coming… would they be locked up in an insane asylum for disturbing the flow?
The conversation, as I say, ended here. We then began to try to define the word ‘Epic.’ This is not easy in the dark in the woods with no dictionary.
A eulogy for Smudge…
… won’t be needed just yet.
She’s ALLIIVE!!!
I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning when I flung open our front door. There she was, standing proud, though somewhat thin and tired looking. As we gushed over her and smothered her with hugs, we began to wonder just where on earth she’d been for the last two weeks. We will have to give her time to compose her story, but in the meantime, I’d like to think that unbeknownst to us, there was a giant meteor headed right for earth that would have completely obliterated life as we know it, but was happily thwarted by Smudge and her team of supercats just in the nick of time.
Have you ever had a day when absolutely everything does what it’s supposed to do and karma finally sits evenly in your favour? I’ve just had a day like that.
I’m the happiest little camper there ever was.
Don't pull the lynch pin yet.
I really have to ajolopise from the heart of my bottom for my quietness lately. I’m not being antisocial, I promise!
TAT has a sciatic nerve thing going on and he keeps complaining about pains in his arse. I presumed he meant having to go out and clean windows with a dodgy leg, so I stupidly offered to work one or two days for him. As it turns out, this gig is pretty much full time, and by God, if there ever was a physically demanding job, it’s gotta be window cleaning. I’ve discovered that peanuts are the best path to physical endurance, not coffee, and that spiders are no longer a threat. A moment of clarity occured when I found one negotiating it’s way around my cleavage leading to my briefly flashing the lads in order to evict it. After that incident, my phobia was cured. So that was nice.
I’m also getting quite nifty in the big yellow LDV window cleaning van, and have discovered that pulling hand-brake turns in a vehicle with a low center of gravity is great craic altogether.
The upside to all this is that window cleaning, although very monotonous, enables a girl to zone out and think about all the stuff she could be blogging about. So if I can remember it all, there’ll be plenty of reading on this ‘ere site to come! Hold tight, my pretties, I’ll be back in the normal flow of things within a week or two.
(Still no Smudge. RIP cat.)
Has anyone seen my pussy?
Blessed be the good old days when a person could shamelessly post these words in the newsagent’s window.
Something really strange happened a few weeks ago, something you might read in a Stephen King novel, that has led to the dissapearance of my cat. She’s out there somewhere, disgruntled and lost, because I created a monster.
There comes a time every year when my dog must be brushed. As the days grow longer and warmer, so does his coat. Bundles of loose greying fluff appear on his haunches and mane and begin to drop on the carpet, creating a warm and fuzzy though untolerably smelly new rug for us to walk on. Eventually when I can take it no more, I groom him. Wouldye is a very large dog, however, and one grooming session can produce up to two full plastic bag’s worth of fluff.
Having filled such a bag recently, I carelessly left it hanging around on the top of my composter in the garden of an evening, only to find the next morning that it had dissappeared. This very same day, to my horror, I saw that it had grown four legs, two pointy ears and two very large bright green eyes. It was sitting on my windowsill and staring at me intently. Frankenstein’s kitten was born.
This kitten was ‘aquired’ somehow by my neighbour, though conveniently, she won’t say how. By some stroke of imaginative genius this new animal was named ‘Fluffy’. It has haunted my house ever since. It hangs around my budgie cage, terrorizing them at every available opportunity. Unfortunately there is no such thing as budgie prozac, so the window beside the cage needs to remain shut most of the time to stop Fluffy breaking and entering. This means our house is hot and airless. Now and then, this abomination can be found upstairs, roaming, marking and inspecting it’s new territory. I’ve kicked out this kitten about 50 times since it arrived. (Is it because I is black?!)
Now ordinarily, I would be proud of such a creation. Being a girl, I would ordinarily gush over such a tiny cute little black bundle of kitten fluff, but unfortunately its arrival seems to have put my own cat’s nose severely out of joint, for my Smudge is A.W.O.L. I pass her food bowl every morning, its contents growing staler by the hour, but I will not remove it.
Smudge is one of those cats who is extremely independant. She will not show you much affection at all unless she’s looking for something, much like a grown child treats their parents. She has mastered the art of the ultimate distainful glare, and speaks volumes with one simple flick of her tail.
My relationship with Smudge is a sad one. When she was of the kitten-bearing age herself, she began to behave very oddly. She would stick her arse in the air and make a very creepy sounding ‘Rrraarrwl’ sound whenever a tom was around. When I described this behaviour to my vet, he strongly advised me to bring her to surgery sharpish for the operation to end all operations. I called the surgery the next day to enquire after her, only to have a horrible conversation with the receptionist.
“You do know she was pregnant, don’t you?” She said in icy cold tones. “We aborted six kittens. She has recovered well though.”
This broke my heart. I would never have gone ahead with this if I’d known. Sure enough, when poor Smudge returned, our relationship was bitter, like she knew what I’d done. I felt awful for her, and would do anything for her to get her kittens back. Being that such a thing couldn’t be arranged, we settled back into normal life, Smudge the barren spinster, I the cruel kitten aborter. Life went on.
Until now. The fluffy abomination was the last straw, a final slap in the whiskers for Smudge. Her house is no longer her territory, Fluffy the Nermal to Smudge’s Garfield. So, it appears that she has left.
I am so worried about my cat, I’m frought. I remember my old cat Misty, who left at a ripe old age to die on her own, but then re-considered and came home for one last goodbye. Misty was a genius cat, the sort who knew that walking up and down the piano keyboard was enough to wake someone upstairs in order to be let out for a pee. When the piano lid was closed, he then figured out how to unlatch the window himself every night. He is the cat with whom all other cats are compared, and the reason that I’m not entirely just a doggy person.
I hope Smudge is just on one of her ‘littlest hobo’ adventures… that she has met with a puppy and a duck and they are off saving a farm somewhere. Realistically though, I know this is unlikely, and that she’s probably off contimplating suicide somewhere, or at best, has found herself some new kitten-free owners.
Either way, I feel there is only one ending to this travesty.
Fluffy must die.
