I put a spell on you…
One of the biggest things I missed about my next door neighbour when she moved away were the snippets of eyebrow-raising advice she used to dole out. Given that witches never really speak about being witches, especially to relative strangers, I felt honoured that she’d envelop me into her circle of trust and tell me of her voodoo shenanigans. After all, there’s a fine line between an open-minded person and someone who’s all too willing to go behind your back and bitch about what a weirdo you are, especially in Ireland.
She loaned me books about rituals. She taught me how to make altars so that I’d have my own personal space to meditate in, a space that meant something only to me. I learned amazing things.
How to get rid of an unwanted live-in houseguest:
Place a witch’s broomstick in the hallway beside the door, and stick a fork into the bristles. Within two weeks, the unwanted guest should be a thing of the past. I may be rough on specifics… maybe the fork needs to be made of a certain type of metal, maybe the broom should be upside-down – it’s not really something I’d try, but her story amused me. A friend of hers did this trick, and within two weeks was separated from her husband. Turns out that she herself was the disruptive influence in the house and her leaving was the best thing that happened for everyone involved. Eerie.
How to nab the house of your dreams:
Whether you’re bidding for a house, or hoping to inherit and battling with siblings, or maybe you just fancy the look of someone else’s gaff (I keep thinking of The War of the Roses for some reason), apparently there’s a fail-safe trick you can do to assure that pile of bricks will someday be yours.
Once a month, given obviously that you’re a female, you need to sneak onto the property, squat, and leak a few droplets of your own menstrual blood onto the soil surrounding the house. I’m not sure what your alternatives are if you’re post menopausal, perhaps crones in covens stockpile menstrual blood in their freezers? It’s an awfully personal question to ask.
I would seriously love to know if this actually works. There’s a beautiful house nearby, a stone-walled three-storey haven surrounded by mysterious woody hinterland with an elaborate tree house just about visible to plebs like me who gaze wistfully from behind a steeringwheel as I pass by every day. If I was caught mid-squat, I’d be scarleh, it’s not like I could pretend I had dropped a contact lens or something. If anything I’d be looking at a two-to-five stretch inside.
It would be kind of worth it if not for scientific experimentation though. Any takers?
Time to put what where our mouth is?!?
I love the way Thai folk get straight to the point. There’s no lying around waiting for others to do the dirty work for them, if you annoy them somehow, they’ll tell you unapologetically. We Irish could do with taking a leaf out of their book.
They’re pissed off with their government too.
“We will curse them, the aristocrats, the powerful people,” screamed Nattawut Saikua, a leader of a That anti-establishment street faction known as the Red Shirts.
“We will curse them with our own blood!”
And that’s just what they did. Thousands of supporters all donated a tablespoon of their own blood towards the cause, which was collected in gallon bottles, then slooshed in a dramatic gore-fest all over government buildings in Bangkok. That’s stylish protesting, that is.
All right, so there’s the dubious question of AIDS – how to test the donators, if tested at all? The Thai Red Cross objected strongly, citing the protest as a waste of much needed blood. Fair enough.
I can’t help but wonder if protesters in this country could do something like this, instead of gathering en-masse in Airports and hiding in buildings in sulky protest to the massive disgruntlement of the general public; would something grotesquely perverse work instead? If not blood, then there’s always the other option…
After all, it could be said that our country’s leaders are for the most part taking the piss.
Why don’t we give some to them for free?
In a world where sanity is a commodity
This is a blog post which probably should go without being written, but given the cathartic nature of blogging, fuck it.
Echinacea failed me last week for a change. I found myself standing in Laughingboy’s bedroom in dismay as our family doctor spoke on the phone to the ambulance crew in the background and my little boy fought to squeeze oxygen into his clogged up little lungs. Auto-pilot took a while to take over, but next thing I knew, the bag had been packed and I was riding in the back of the ambulance with the sirens blaring. “Hey dude, they’re playing that for you! How cool is that?!” The irony hit me that ambulance sirens are only cool when you’re not on the stretcher, so I shut up to the quiet amusement of the paramedic.
He’s home now, fully oxygenated and saturated with antibiotics. I was getting used to his hospital room, it was peaceful in there, apart from the odd 3am emergency helicopter landing outside our window.
I had a rough night last night… I dreamed of wading through rubbish-dumps full of rotting corpses, and trying to hawk two black bags full of household un-want at a car boot sale, also full of dead people. It’s strange, but Puppychild losing her blanket has affected me far more than her.
One of the people who babysat her during our wee trip to the hospital took it upon herself to decide that now was the time my five-year-old must grow out of her comfort blanket, see. So, it went in the bin. I thought it would have been a proverbial bin, but it wasn’t. By the time I had phoned to retrieve it (to stash in the attic until Puppychild reaches twenty one), the bin-men had come and gone, apparently. Gutted doesn’t even come close. It’s amazing how like a pet a raggedy smelly old blanket becomes.
I’m thinking that some people actually deserve to have their toilet-seat superglued.
Earlier today a woman behind the counter in Avoca Handweavers smiled at my swelling belly and asked me how long I had left. I hear that question a lot, and the answers are getting frighteningly short so today I changed tack, because I was in the mood. I gasped in indignance and retorted at the top of my voice; ‘ARE YOU SAYING I’M FAT?!?’, and stormed off with a big smile on my face. It felt good. I think I might leave that as my standard answer from now on.
Human milk rules
When I had Laughingboy eight years ago and came face-to-boob with a myriad of problems caused by his developmental delay, I had no idea where to turn. The nurses in the maternity hospital were less helpful than they were physically violent… it’s a weird thing entirely having your delicate lady lumps viciously man-handled by a bearded nurse, and being woken every two hours to ‘try again’ when I was severely sleep deprived wasn’t very nice. They put me off the whole idea to be honest.
There are various local groups and enterprises that are there to help in this situation, but the vast range of opinions can be confusing, so I’m delighted to see this new parent-orientated version ‘Friends Of Breastfeeding‘ evolving.
“Friends of Breastfeeding was formed by a group of mothers who met on online parenting forums. Many of these mothers found the internet to be the only place they could access true support and reliable information and advice about breastfeeding. The need for two things was clear to everyone involved – better understanding of breastfeeding across the general public, and improved access to good breastfeeding support in Ireland for women who want to breastfeed their babies.”
—
Feeding Puppychild was an entirely different, easier and much more lovely experience. She and I would retreat to a quiet place and she would make the back of my neck tingle as the flow commenced… we would sit there for as long as she needed until her eyelids drooped. I can’t describe what an addictive feeling that is, it’s a maternal opiate. They told me when I had tonsillitis that I had to cease breastfeeding while taking antibiotics. Turns out this was complete bullshit, and the horrendous rip through the sacred bond that followed was totally unnecessary. I wish parental support and advice could have been around back then.
Now I have a new problem. Puppychild now realises that this new baby won’t be fed by magic glittery bottle like her doll babies are, rather he or she will get milk from mummy’s boobs.
Puppychild is fine with this. Her curiosity is encouraging, in fact. A little too encouraging.
She asks me every now and then if she can have a go, and is perfectly accepting of my reply that there simply isn’t any milk yet, until the baby actually appears. But, there will be a day when she will be entirely more insistent that she have a go of my boob, straight from the tap as it were.
I’ve never heard of anyone else dealing with that problem before. I don’t want her to sense my revulsion at the idea, and I definitely don’t want the relationship between Puppychild and her new sibling to be founded on jealousy… it’s a horribly awkward position to be in, and yet it must be breezed through like a hot knife through butter.
I suppose the problem lies in society. The YouTube clip below creeps the hell out of me, it makes me gag and retch that a child so old still breastfeeds, but Puppychild wouldn’t flinch. She’d see it for the natural act that it is. So – is this my problem or her problem? I’ve no idea.
The Birds
When I first saw the Hitchcock version I was nonplussed. What’s the big problem with rake loads of crows hanging around? Around here, they do it all the time. Okay so they don’t do it all the time, just at certain hours at random times of year… I’d do a proper study on it if I could be arsed – maybe some day. It would remind you of a Westlife concert – thousands of people all flocked together – it makes you wonder… what’s the attraction?
One thing I have noticed though, is that they like bin day. I’m impressed that they’ve figured out what day that is, most of my neighbours haven’t even managed that yet. Rubbish mysteriously appears everywhere robbed from slightly overflowing bins, and neighbourhood kids get dirty looks from their elders even though they had nothing to do with it.
Rancid pineapples and small milk cartons are carefully placed on the road by un-seen forces, and when squished by cars, are devoured within minutes. How clever is that?
I made a quick, very boring video of it with my phone recently as the murder flocked in the field next door. From there, they move on to the trees overlooking our houses, and stay there for a while, just watching and learning. What’s really creepy is that if you were to go outside and throw bread for them, they don’t come over to eat it, they just remain. Staring. Plotting. Then they just… bugger off.
Thus ends my highly scientific wildlife observation. Look out David Attenborough.
I.B.A Happy Bunny
I never did thank you for nominating this mess for an Irish Blog Award, did I? Considering its content is a bit on the confused side and reflects the fact that the author has no idea whether she’s coming or going, and the sidebar doesn’t really seem to know what it’s doing, and the blogroll’s a complete mess, it was seriously sweet of you to see past that and give it an aul’ vote .
Then me aul’ one points out to me that it’s made it to the Personal Blog shortlist, too! This means that some poor sap(s) have had to wade through these pages when they most likely had something much better to be getting on with at the time, and gave it their thumbs up despite its misgivings. That was seriously sweet too.
Shucks.
Thanks lads :)
If the due-date for this kid wasn’t so close, and if the lengthy journey to Galway didn’t pose a threat for serious arse-cramps, I would be there with bells on. Instead though, I’ll be stalking the event via live blogging and (sigh) Twitter from a safe distance and crossing my oedema’d fingers for the rest of yiz.
Fair play to Microsoft Ireland’s Developer and Platform Group for sponsoring the category!
Insecure
He dropped her name into conversation a little too casually and made my ears prick up. He told me about how beautiful she was, how sound, sitting in his taxi surrounded by shopping bags. I gave out to him for not finishing his sentences properly.
“She’s really funny though…”
“But not as funny as -” I prompted.
“But not as funny as you, of course. She has lovely hair, too.”
“FINISH THE DAMN SENTENCE!!!”
I got given out to for being touchy. Now on Sunday nights during ‘The All Ireland Talent Show’, TAT locks himself into the bedroom with the television wearing only a dressing-gown, and won’t let me in. I hover with my swollen body trying to think of a good looking Irish male television presenter I can glean revenge with. I fail miserably.
I don’t know whether I’m insecure because of Miss Perfection, or because The Accidental Terrorist’s viewing standards have slipped so low.
The Happy Ending
I walked into the room and sat on the one remaining padded chair, the one beside the window with the cracked white frames. An old man sat on my right, staring at the ceiling, breathing slowly and laboriously. He smelled of Mothballs and sweated whiskey. A lady sat four chairs to my left, totally engrossed in a blue matt of wool which she worked dilligently with a crochet hook. I removed my book from my shoulder bag and flicked towards the bookmark.
We sat that way for a while, breathing, stitching, reading. A low muffled male voice boomed from the Doctor’s surgery in the room next door, and rain patted the windowpane behind me rhythmically. The door opened.
A little girl peeped nervously into the room and cowered as her cover was blown blatantly by her mother behind her who swept the door open in a mess of wet umbrella and exasperated sighs. She chose the hard wooden seat opposite me, an old church pew rescued from furniture auction limbo, and lifted the small girl onto her knee. A children’s book lay on top of a bundle of magazines at the corner of the pew, and after a moment or two of dripping, she picked it up and opened it.
“Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Sarah…” she began.
I earwigged for a minute or two, then stopped pretending to read and concentrated on my paragraph for the eighth time. My brain fused two worlds together as I read and listened and turned pages. The lady carried on crocheting, the old man began to doze.
A story unravelled from the church pew about a fallen star which was injured and rescued by a little girl named Sarah, fixed with a sticky plaster from a first aid box and minded back to health. The little girl on her mother’s knee listened intently as she heard about the star’s decline in brighness and glitter, empathised deeply with the Sarah in the story, and sucked the knuckle of her left thumb. The mother’s voice, quiet and soothing, stopped suddenly as the waiting room door opened and a paediatrician’s face poked through the gap.
The book was closed, upended by the premature summons, and the memory of her voice was left to ring in the air. She made her exit, child in arms.
The room went back to its original state of crocheting, pattering, breathing and reading for a few moments, but a new energy resounded and flittered around the room like an invisible moth. Eventually, the old man got up and approached the church bench slowly, shuffling via the center table full of National Geographic magazines but leaving them untouched. He picked up the children’s book, leafed slowly to the second-last page, and buried his myopic eyes into its print. His breathing grew inaudible. I watched intently from the corner of my eye.
After an eternity, the old man still standing, turned the page and read the final few words of text… then he looked up. He let a small chortle escape his throat, smiled, and left the room with a slightly peppier step. I wondered if he was senile, or maybe by either twist of miracle or flipped state of mind, had just found a cure for his illness.
I never found out what happened to Sarah in the end, but then again I’m not sure I want to.
