To tax, or not to tax. That is the question.
So this first-born of mine… Laughingboy, you all know him by now maybe, but if you don’t, let me fill you in.
He was diagnosed with Otahara Syndrome at the tender age of three months. It’s a seizure condition that affects wee small babies but given that he’s now ten years old, his diagnosis has morphed into a very vague ‘Controlled Seizure Disorder with Global Developmental Delay’. We’re entirely lucky to still have him. He lights us up. He’s my dude, and my God.
He can’t do stuff for himself. He needs a wheelchair. He can’t sit on the couch with us and watch The Simpsons because he has no head-support and would fall over. He’s a whopping 33.5kg child who hasn’t progressed beyond the development of a three-month-old baby, but he is his own person who loves Drum and Bass and who is slowly appreciating a love for R&B against all my wishes.
So he needs a mode of transport, right?
We had one, but he grew out of it. We bought it for €13,000. We had means, at the time.
Our panic to find a new vehicle was sincere more recently, being a family of now fewer means. I earn Carer’s Allowance which isn’t much considering I’m doing the Government a huge favour by personally looking after a disabled kid (It feels weird saying that, seeing as not a hundred years ago, said kid would’ve been hidden away or smothered with a pillow for fear of being a burden on society. Is a disabled kid worthy of society? That’s a can of worms and a half). My husband has a severely debilitating condition too… he has Degenerative Disk Disorder, a condition that means that he is on constant opiates, is in constant pain, and most definitely cannot work. That too, is a can of worms and a half.
My point is, is that we have a minimal amount of incoming money.
This is why it seemed like a blessing when a friend of means of ours chose to sell/lease us a vehicle, a beautiful vehicle at that; one that could not only carry Laughingboy, but any one of his other wheelchair-bound friends at a time. It has six gears. It guzzles the diesel, but it’s worth it. And it’s almost paid-off.
But guess what! Because we didn’t buy the vehicle from an ‘approved dealer’, it means we don’t get to avail of the wonderful Tax-Free Grant that usual vehicles of disablement would ordinarily possess. To avail of free annual motor tax, we must buy a new vehicle at a cost of €23,000 or more, but hey, at least we’d get the VRT back, worth €3,000 or so, in said case. Ooooo. ‘Yay’. I would be less sarcastic, if I had that much money just lying around.
It means that we now have to pay a vehicle tax on our vehicle of comparatively ill-gotten means by roughly €1,100 a year. That much money would heat our house for well over a year and a half, plus change.
So, it seems we should sell our vehicle to a registered dealer, then buy it right back off them again, just to avail of free vehicle tax that should normally be entitled to us.
Does that not seem like fraud to you?
Or should we just sell said vehicle to pay for said house-heating and limit Laughingboy’s travel to public services… an hourly shuttle-bus that doesn’t facilitate wheelchairs?
What the fuck is going on with this system???
The therapeutic post
Why is it so hard to ask for help?
Is it just an Irish thing, where you feel you owe someone a good deed just because they did something nice for you? The mafia would have theories about this and as yet, I’m not sure that I’m with that idea, or against it. Some people like doing nice things for other people. I get that. Do they secretly keep a mental note of how many times I’ve repaid them? That’s the thinker.
This wrecks my head. As a mammy of a ten year old kid trapped in the body of a baby, a hypersensitive yet outgoing seven year old and a toddler with a head-banging/electric socket fixation, how can I not accept help? This is probably that karma thing that people harp on about, helpful neighbours repaying me for the good things I’ve done, but still it leaves me guilty. I didn’t have kids so that I could be weak, I had them because I knew I could handle everything on my own! It just seems so stupid that I should need anyone else. Selfish, even.
But then, life is more complicated than that.
She and I, we went to a Rattle and Hum gig last weekend. I had a ball. I danced the Streets have no Name till the Elevation came home, but that’s whiskey for you. I dragged her back to my place for a Bailey’s Coffee because I knew she was a complicated lady that needed to talk. And talk she did! But amongst it all, she told me that there was something between us that she couldn’t see, that made her uncomfortable. She knew we could never be friends, but she didn’t know why. I had no idea what she was talking about but the fact that she’d minded wee Fartsalot A LOT in the last few weeks was playing on my mind so now I’m confused.
Like Christmas cards for instance. You’ve just received one from Uncle Mohammed and there’s plenty of time to return the postal festivities, do you rush off a quickie for tomorrow’s post, or do you send a half-assed poke on Facebook? It’s up to whatever you can do in the moment. Or what you can push extra hard to do, maybe.
Do your actions really define you though? People tell me that ‘as long as I don’t take the piss, I’ll be okay’, but I don’t believe them. I don’t believe that a million thanks are enough.
What is a girl to do?
Craven
I’m at a turning point in my life, I think. Not in a Robert Frost sort of way, but imagine his yellow wood had been bulldozed one morning and replaced with a four-lane motorway full of spaghetti junctions… that sort of way.
I was getting so good at hiding from things on my comfy couch surrounded by my lovely little K8lings and thoroughly enjoyed my last three years of shitehawkism beneath the radar, but it seems I’ve been found out by some Greater Power who is suddenly gunning for my blood.
They saw me coming. I’m a big fan of Puppychild’s school you see, it’s an ancient old thing in the middle of nowhere filled with nobles and countryfolk and eccentrics so I used to attend the parent meetings out of curiosity. Then I began to attend them purely because nobody else seemed to want to go so it was sort of obvious when I didn’t. Now I have to go because I got spuriously voted into the position of Chairperson of the Parents Association.
“Sorry? I’m a what now?” I says. They just smiled and handed me their coffee bill.
We have the menial task of raising between ten and twelve thousand quid to cover the money flop this year it seems. One does not just pull a handy grand out of one’s bum, you know. This requires work! A LOT of work. We threw a film night at the school and raked in €400 straight away, it was a great buzz. The flyer for this Friday’s gig looks like this:
Aww, Chwismassy!
My family, however, also demands that I get up off my arse and try some hard graft but I’ve no clue as to how to work that one into an already jammers schedule. Need creativity. And a time machine.
And! Worst of all! Potty training has begun.
Save me.
Snacking between meals
A public health nurse dropped by recently, it wasn’t an official appointment, just an old friend. Just as well, in hindsight. She admired Sir Fartsalot’s struts as he toddled with his funky nappy walk (you know the way they do) around the porch as we chatted on the doorstep, and commented that he had something in his mouth. I leaned down to him, gave the innards of his little mouth a sweep with my pinky finger and evicted a well chewed cigarette butt. Impressed with my mothering skills I think this lady was not, but she didn’t show it. She laughed it off, fair play to her.
He’s down to seven butts a day now, thank God.
Half a job
Story of my life, innit? This blog’s looking like my teenage diary, large gaps filled with absent memories, a half-assed diary of mystery. Still, I’m glad I still have them both, as haphazard as they are.
I’ve learned exactly half of Xtreme’s song ‘More Than Words’ on the guitar. I spent half the time in college that I was supposed to. My house is semi-clean, semi-cluttered. I’m a half a job, a quitter, a loser even.
But that’s good, right? If there were no losers, there’d be no winners. You can’t have night without day, hey.
If I’d been more commited, I would’ve told you about Laughingboy’s brush with botox last month. Not just for those with more money than sense, the stuff happens to be quite useful it seems. I was only too happy to have them inject poison into my kid, in fact.
He mutated earlier this year, you see, from a little boy into a strapping young man. His schoolteachers panicked and swiftly ordered larger equipment to handle him, I rushed out to buy big-boy clothes and meanwhile Laughingboy suffered. Nature would have it that a child’s bones grow first, but their surrounding supportive tendons can take up to a year to catch up. Cruel, isn’t it? Seems Mother Nature’s a bit of a half-a-job, too.
That’s what the botox was for, to relax those muscles, to make them sleep and stop hurting while his cells multiply. You should see the difference it’s made! No longer frog-legged, no longer squirming in his wheelchair, he’s his old Laughingboy self again, but taller.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again… I’m so glad he lives in the 21st century.
Turfism
I do agolopize for the brief promise of more regular postings, it’s just that this weird wave of cyberphobia has kicked in again. I’m sure it’ll go away soon. In the meantime, here is a random photograph of my dear ole dad and some slapper I used to know as a kid. You should see the state of her now.
The monkey’s off my back, but the circus is still in town.
Breakfast this morning consisted of a strong coffee, two cigarettes and another strong coffee. The kids weetabixed, I then woke TAT with strong coffee and joined him for a cigarette. Then I began the process of sorting laundry into colourful piles before having another fag. The washing machine on, I cleaned the kitchen and answered the door to neighbourhood children and watched them scrawl pictures on the driveway with chalk while I had a cigarette.
Then I felt tired. I ate a slice of toast and had a cigarette. Deciding that I had to sit down, I began to sort visa receipts by date and study bank statements but this turned out to be a boring task so I had to have another cigarette before going any further. The job was never finished, of course, before long it was time to cook lunch and fix the next load of laundry but not before doing my nappy rounds and having a cigarette.
It occured to me that the floor needed sweeping, so I went outside to fetch the broom and decided to have a cigarette out there to save time later. I swept. I swept really well even if I do say so myself, lifting furniture out of the way and everything, and found that I deserved a cigarette before mopping. That too went extremely well and was again deserved of a nice relaxing fag and a cuppa tea.
Time for picture cards with Sir Fartsalot and cuddle time with Laughingboy then, the children pulled grimaces when I breathed in their faces and giggled as I squitched their chubby knees.
A large pan heating to boiling point for pasta took too long to wait for, so I went outside for two cigarettes. Onions chopped and garlic mashed, carrots peeled and butter melting, I grabed the chance for a quick smoke. Almost ready to serve up dinner… I took it out of the oven to cool while I had a cigarette,
and another to reward myself for stacking the dishwasher so quickly.
The lads will appear shortly for a game of poker or two, so I’ll probably chain smoke a bit and hang around with them until three am or so.
Tomorrow I’ll wake with a chesty cough and brown fingertips with a headache and a smelly sittingroom.
Tomorrow I’ll wake with an extra tenner in my pocket, regardless of whether I win a poker game or not.
Fickle Picky Ickle Friend
It happens occasionally that Puppychild gets to have a friend for dinner at our house (with some fava beans and a nice chianti) and from experience I’ve learned that the simplest foods go down the best where five year olds are concerned.
So, I served wholemeal spaghetti with tuna and sweetcorn flavoured with a wee blob of butter and a squitch of olive oil, a pinch of salt, pepper, a squeeze of lemon and a dash of fresh cream. Then I made a mistake. I added a sprig of well chopped parsley.
Puppychild’s friend pulled a grimace when I placed her little pink bowl of food in front of her. She poked a finger into the depths of her spaghetti and withdrew a teeny speck of green… she looked as though she were about to vomit.
“Wha is dis?” she waved her green speck at me.
“It’s parsley” I explained, “It tastes lovely and it’s very good for you, there’s only a tiny bit in there though.”
“I don’ like ih.” she folded her arms in a huff and shoved the bowl away with her elbow.
“But how do you know you don’t like it, if you’ve never tried it?” I implored.
“I just don’ like ih.” She began to tweeze bits of sweetcorn from the food, but only the sweetcorn that had in no way come within any distance or association whatsoever with the horrible, terrible parsley.
“So what’s your favourite food at home?” I asked.
“Kebabs” she replied.
“Your mummy makes kebabs?”
“No from de chipparse” she replied.
“You like kebabs from the chip shop?
“Yeh s’yummy.” She assumed a hangdog pose, lower lip thrust forward… it was that look that small children make when they’re trying to convey to you that they’re so cruelly starved they’d happily eat a leper’s arse through a hedge (as long as it didn’t have parsley on it).
“But kebabs are full of all sorts of artificial crap, spurious stuff out of cans opened by men with hairy fingers and sweaty arse cracks, you big pink freak!!”
That’s what I didn’t say to her. I just made her a ham sandwich instead which she ate happily and when the children had finished eating, they rushed gaily outside to eat grass soaked in dog pee and to dig up worms and slugs.
Children are so weird.
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(img found spuriously via Public School)
Almost happily ever after
I’ve been trying to fill out this questionnaire for what seems like years now, and again here I am having become distracted by the lure of the internet… it just seems so silly, is all. It’s asking me questions about a good buddy of mine, I’ve known her since secondary school and they’re asking me intimate details about her life, her habits, her weaknesses, and any racial opinions she might have. So silly.
She’s been unlucky in love in the past, this girl. She has a herd of children by different fathers who diddled her over in their various ways but finally, finally she found an amazing fella who not only fell in love with her, but with her children too and that’s something that isn’t exactly easy to do. She married him, and is living her happily ever after with their dogs and their white picket fences and the future is finally rosy.
Except there’s one thing darkening her horizon, the fact that she now has to adopt her own children.
How bizarre is that?
This is what the questionnaire is in aid of. She’s declared me as an unrelated friend of the family and it’s now my job to let the Health Board know that she’s fit to raise her own children. It’s making me feel really uncomfortable. I mean, I know that her husband likes a few cans after a hard day working, but should I mention this? Should I keep it strictly corny and gush about her well adjusted children and not mention that her toddler eats out of the dog’s bowl occasionally?
It just seems so silly. I could write whatever I want and it might not necessarily be true… they know we’re friends, I’m not about to dump her in it am I? Perhaps they have someone tailing me to see if I’m a stand-up citizen, perhaps there’s someone else out there filling in a dumbass questionnaire about me.
Questionnaires, red tape, paperwork… I don’t know why I’m even worrying about it. It’s not like anyone will end up actually reading it, in all probability. I just feel sorry for their family. All they want to do is live, and love each other under the one surname, but they have to parade themselves and confess their weaknesses to do so.
At the same time you have crack head parents smacked up on gear on trains with sweet little children in decrepit buggies who have no ounce of security in the future, totally escaping the radar. Where’s the sense in it all, at all at all?
Why nobody had a sense of humour before 1960
Rain has been pelting on damp soil, the fire has wanted to be lit, a dreary week in July such as this would have been very boring if it hadn’t been so much fun.
It started last week on the bus to Galway with friends and a hip-flask and several spurious games of dirty 20-questions. It travelled through a night of drinking and dancing and marshmallow fighting and on into the next evening for several sober games of cards and deep thought and soulful talking… old wounds were unexpectedly torn apart and spilled upon the kitchen table, our agonies seemed less agonizing once their funny sides were pointed out. It was like drinking champagne after a long walk through a desert, only it wasn’t champagne, it was peppermint tea.
The following night, I returned home and received the welcome of a queen. I was quite pleased to see that my pretty flower hadn’t been eaten by slugs too.
Say hello to my pretty flower!
Of course, a dampner can be placed on such an idyllic weekend upon close examination of snapshots stolen by an inebriated trigger finger… embarrassment is bound to ooze at the state of one, and the drunken poses one can pull when suitably excited. It made me think of old photographs, and the restriction that was imposed on their subjects.
“Stay fucking still, you little shit.”
Before daguerrotype photographs were replaced by better photographic equipment in the ’60′s, there was no barstool posing, no sneaky bathroom shots or arms-length group photography. They had to sit with as fixed an expression as possible, and a serious face is the easiest to hold for the hundred seconds it took to expose their images. It’s a sad thing missed, all those instances of happiness that happened back then, it’s as though they never happened.
It’s only eighty years later, and my one-year-old is taking his own photographs, albeit very spurious ones. How times have changed.
