Valentine musings from the overworked and underpaid
Valentine’s day has always annoyed me a bit. As a late-blooming teenager I had always hoped that an anonymous card would find its way through my letterbox intented for my spotty four-eyed face, but it never did. One year an anonymous card did appear, but it was addressed to Billy Burn who lived at the other end of my road. A set up most likely… possibly by Billy himself, more likely by somebody else who wanted a cheap laugh. I can’t remember whether I delivered it or not, I hope in hindsight that I stuffed it into the exhaust-pipe of his dad’s car, but that’s unlikely.
Since starting on the sordid path of dating, it’s just gone from one extreme to the other… lavender-filled balloons and cheesy teddybears with crappy slogans like ‘You to me are like a spanner; every time I see you, my nuts tighten‘ were given to my by fellas who wanted to know what colour my knickers were, and when I finally hooked up with TAT, I got little or nothing. I prefer little or nothing by far.
This year, Laughingboy showed his love for me by producing a hefty dump in his nappy in the small hours of the morning. When I checked his schoolbag for baby-wipes, I found a sweet glitterish heart-shaped card with painty fingerprints all over it, and a wee bag of homemade chocolates. I let Puppychild show her love for her daddy by jumping on him violently at 5pm to wake him up for his night-time shift. TAT showed his love for me by reading me excerpts from Bill Bryson’s ‘The Lost Continent’ while I scraped eggy gunge from lunchtime kitchen saucepans, and I showed him my love for him by buying him an extremely violent Xbox game – ‘Army of Two, the 40th day’ – a shoot-em-up game that can only be played by in co-op with another. (What could be more romantic than annihalating things together over a glass of wine?)
I will be celebrating my love for myself tonight by lying on the wooden floor and listening to John Coltrane surrounded by candles for an hour or two before digging into a can of Guinness and a game of Assassin’s Creed.
Hallmark didn’t get a brass cent. Ha.
Back of the hand
“Fuck off, you stupid fat bitch!”
I love watching Supernanny. Okay, so she’s a tad twee and parents cry way too bloody often for their own good, but it’s wonderful to watch other parents fail. It reminds me that even if I’m failing in some ways too, that nobody’s perfect. Is there any such thing as a non-dysfunctional family? Would The Simpsons be such a success if there were?
The above quote comes from a five-year old boy, spoken to his mother. You can tell he’s potentially a good kid, his diction and pronounciation regarding curse-words are second to none, even with missing teeth interrupting his fricatives. An intelligent kid, whose problem is that he’s just simply loved too much. His mother takes it, every soiled little last word of it, and dies a little bit inside.
Isn’t that madness? The running theme throughout most families of tearaway kids on the show, is that the parents can’t stand to chastise their children because they love them so much, they don’t want to hurt them. That is a seriously cruel thing about nature, the necessity for tough love. I don’t know how many times I’ve retreated to the bathroom in distress after I’ve had to dent Puppychild’s wee fairylike spirit with a firmly spoken NO. Watching her features drop into a look of pure hurt like that – having her tell me that she hates me- she always forgets later about the extremes of her revolt, but I never do. They should just extract the sympathy nerve from a mother during the birth of her first kid… that would soften the world’s problems entirely.
I don’t know why they don’t send Jo Frost to prisons, it’s never too late for tough love. Anyone who looks at her sideways would have to sit on the bold-chair for as many minutes as years they’re alive… listening to Celine Dion, maybe. That would set anyone on the right path.
Conduit for Kismet
I thought it was all about me yesterday, but it wasn’t. I thought the mysterious turn of events that held me in its favour was payback for a good deed I had done, but it wasn’t. I was just a conductor for a greater power.
This is how it happened.
I got into the car to go shopping for a few bits… the dodgy CD player in the car worked first time, which never happens, normally it would quite literally drive me to distraction. Every single one of the fifteen traffic lights I encountered on the way into the town turned green, just as I approached them. When I got to the supermarket, there was one basket left with my name on it. There was one jar of coffee left on the shelves which happened to be the brand I love, in the size I would normally buy it. The queues for the tills were at least five people long when I finally got to them, but just as I went to join the nearest one, a new till opened up and beckoned me forward… I went through during the supermarket’s busiest hour in less than three minutes.
Then, happiest of all happinesses, while purchasing an eight-pack of Guinness cans at the off-licence, I got carded.
Ask any thirty-year-old female out there… to be mistaken for an eighteen-year-old in an off-license is an unbelievably good thing. They almost didn’t sell me the alcohol because I couldn’t produce identification, but I wouldn’t have minded at all. I was grinning from ear to ear as I left the premises, which is when I got ambushed by a bloke with a sponsor card on the street. Apparently he was an ex-heroin addict who had kicked the habit, and was cycling to Cork to raise funds for Drugs Awareness. I was so happy, I gave him twenty euros which was slighly more than I could afford, as I discovered shortly afterwards when it came to paying for my parking ticket. I stood for a while wondering what to do, then I saw the wallet lying on the parking machine. An ID card lay inside.
“LINDA!!!” I shouted into empty space. A lady turned around from the other side of the parking lot, caught luckily by the accoustics, and returned to reclaim her wallet very thankfully indeed. She gave me three euros… more than enough to pay for the ticket. Strange.
Later on, I won a game of poker at home against The Accidental Terrorist, and Billy the Stoner. I won because my good day had given me the confidence to bluff well, and wound up with twenty euros in my back pocket.
So… effectively, Billy the Stoner paid for an ex-heroin addict to cycle to Cork, and THAT, boys and girls, is Kismet.
“It’s only a little prick”
K8 the Gr8. K8 the host of a 16 week old foetus, K8 the mother of a disabled child with a tendancy towards chronic chest-infections, K8 the mother of a school-aged child… K8 the skeptic.
I am at risk thrice over from this swine flu (H1N1) pandemic, and I’m forced to make a very bloody difficult decision indeed.
To vaccinate, or not to vaccinate?
The death of a pregnant woman earlier this week touched the hearts of the nation, she had contracted the virus and was unable to fight it. She is me, I is she… I couldn’t help but bite my nails when I heard the news. The vaccine was rolled out in Laughingboy’s school a week or so ago, but I refused permission for my son to have it. After all, the last time I allowed him a flu-shot it knocked his immune system so badly, he ended up with pneumonia. Santa at Christmas Eve in a ward full of sick children is a very sad sight indeed, a sight I’d rather avoid in the future.
I consider the facts as far as I can delve… this current vaccine seems to be the same vaccine that has been used for the same flu virus for the last twenty-odd years. Call me naive, but I figure that this H1N1 virus is slightly more intelligent than Mary Harney… I figure it has the ability to evolve, to mutate into a sickness that may, in all probability, flip the birdie at a vaccine that’s nearly older than myself.
“It is generally agreed both nationally and internationally that potential complications associated with H1N1 in pregnancy far outweigh any possible risks associated with vaccination in pregnancy.” www.rcpi.ie
The problem is, they don’t really know to the full extent, what those complications are, because it hasn’t been tested that thoroughly yet. My mother summed it up in one very highly intelligent (if not slightly scary) word; ‘Thalidomide‘. She’s right – there is always that possibility, no matter how remote. I am being asked to allow a toxin into my system… a system that is already slightly more volatile than it normally would be. Who is to say that my child won’t develop leukaemia or cancer or some other sort of miasm as a result of this foreign toxin? Nobody, it would seem.
From a truly sceptical point of view, there’s a chemical company somewhere with an enormous wadge of cash in its kitty as a result of this scare… whether this is a coincidence or not, I’d rather not guess. Is it a coincidence that companies in this financial climate need money now more than ever? I’m just saying, is all.
This whole thing smacks a little of a Stephen King novel – the media pulls no punches when it comes to scaring the bollix out of people like me.
To quote today’s Evening Herald:
“The vaccine is currently the best defence we have against the pandemic – and that message needs to sound loud and clear.”
I beg to differ, and I have the advice of not one, but two doctors behind my theory.
I wasn’t met with shock when I announced my decision not to be vaccinated, instead I got a warm smile. I was assured that viruses of all shapes and sizes are common in winter months, and they don’t all make the headlines. Ever heard of Clostridium Difficile? This is another bug making its rounds. Then there’s the famous Vomiting virus… that seems to have conveniently disappeared into oblivion, but I’ll bet my left boob it’s still hanging around.
No, the best defence against H1N1 for a duffed-up woman like me according to these doctors, is just to take care of myself. I am to eat proper food… raw fruit and vegetables, well cooked meat, three eggs per week, wholemeal bread and rice. I am to take a nap whenever the fancy takes me, and I am to think happy thoughts. There is no need for Pregnacare, or extra vitamins (bar the inevitable Folic Acid during the first month) or any of these prettily packaged gimmicks with happy pregnant bumps on the front, aimed at mothers who just want to do their best… they’re completely unnecessary as long as you follow the pyramid. I can do that!
I am happily considering the fact that the Health Service can keep their little prick.
So marks the famous last words of K8 the Gr8.
Canis Castratum
It’s a horrible fact of life that you often don’t realise you’re in love until it’s too late.
Maybe that’s the definition of love. When suddenly a soppy film which you ardently took the Mick out of before, makes total sense, enough to make you cry because now you know what it might feel like to lose your husband, or your child, or even your dog. Your empathy forces the point home.
101 Dalmatians did it for me. I watched Mr. Whatsit celebrate the birth of Pongo’s puppies with pride and glee and suddenly I cried and had to switch it off. I gazed at Wouldye lying on his blanket, once a dog as black as tar, now tinted with silvery shades of white and grey. It hit home that there would be a day when he would find it hard to get off that blanket… a day when he would no longer have the enthusiasm to leap off a ten foot boulder into a river to retrieve his stick, and would no longer have the energy to switch to vicious alert on hearing a strange noise outside. Someday I’ll lose my best friend and now I shed tears because of the day I gave the command; “Off with his balls!”
I should have thought twice about exactly how much of a pain in the ass his testosterone was when he was a puppy. It would have been entirely worth it if I had just put up with that infuriating enthusiasm, and waited for a batch of puppies or two to appear (which makes me wonder… exactly how difficult would it be to pimp out your dog?) I doubt Grandad would have put poor Sandy through the ordeal, though how amazing those puppies would be – it just doesn’t bear thinking about!
Poor Wouldye. I’m so sorry, dude. I should have given you at least one romantic fling before I condemned you to solitary. There’ll never be another one like you.
P.S. Good dog.
Tit for TAT
Gerry Ryan actually stopped talking about himself for long enough to let a very interesting subject through on his radio show this morning. That subject was male breastfeeding. Yes, that’s male lactation.
A young man named Ragnar Bengtsson, a Swedish father of a two year old boy has decided to conduct an experiment on himself to see if he can produce breastmilk in order to supply his future children. His theory is that if he stimulates his moobs on a three-hourly basis (playing havoc with his image at college), by December he should have stimulated enough hormones to produce milk.
This has been done before, apparently. In some cultures where powdered milk is unavailable, the death at birth of a baby’s mother has led its father to suckle the infant successfully to weaning stage. This fact amazes me… that throughout history, and in some parts of the world today, men are breastfeeding babies.
Three things are needed for boob-juice. Mammary glands, a Pituitary gland, and a hormone called Prolactin, normally produced by the Pituitary gland in the later stages of pregnancy. Men have (potentially) all of the above, given that they are born with the first two, the third requirement can in theory be stimulated into action without the help of artificial hormones.
I wish this guy the best of luck, without any fear of this idea taking off in Ireland whatsoever. Sweden’s male to female roles in the workplace are quite the reverse of what’s happening here, with 90% of women in the workforce and 16 months of paid maternity/paternity leave in most, if not all jobs in the country. This means that the concept of the ’stay at home dad’ is far more liberal there. Children therefore bond with both male and female role models which can only be a healthy thing.
In Ireland however, men hold on to their well ‘ard image tightly while still wishing they were curled up in somebody’s womb. Most would happily pass a law against public breastfeeding, seeing it as an abomination, the destruction of the true purpose of breasts – the titty wank. It’s probably an unhealthy mindset, but I’m a sucker (sucker, gettit?) for butch. If I caught TAT suckling our future new-born child I fear I would grab that child and run as far away as possible from the beardy freak. But then, I’m not Swedish.
Having a child suckle a hairy boob, that’s an entirely eerie concept. Yes it produces skin-to-skin contact which is excellent for a baby’s psychological growth, but it somewhat blurs the idea of a nurturing mother, doesn’t it?
Then again, there are many women out there who don’t like the idea of breastfeeding for the fear it will saggify their breasts and muck up their nipple alignment which is devastatingly entirely true. Some don’t do it because they don’t have time, others are completely horrified with the idea. Isn’t it the right thing to do for the father of the baby to give breastfeeding a go if this is the case? Far healthier for the child, and daddy gets a taste of that wonderful bonding feeling that is a totally unique experience. It’s win-win, isn’t it?
Isn’t it?!?!?
PS… I’ve discovered via a link on the article’s web-page, that breast cancer among Swedish women has DOUBLED since the 1960’s. Coincidence or Kismet? I wonder…
Sheepish
I love sheep. There, I said it.
A slight complex may have formed as an impressionable five-year-old as I gazed out the window of our family Datsun Cherry while passing a lush field, and my father replied to my innocent cry of ‘Oh! Look at the baby lambs!’ with; ‘You ate one of those for dinner last night you know. One of their legs, to be more accurate.’
Since then, pictures of sheep have populated my bathroom and kitchen, a fridge-magnet or two hang around, despite having been dropped and rendered legless, they still cling and hold onto coupons for dear life. I even had a handcuffed sheep hanging from my rear-view mirror as a trainee driver. His name was Randy Lamb, and he failed me my first driving test, right from the offset. Driving testers don’t have a sense of humour apparently.
I’m not a vegetarian though, don’t get me wrong. When I can afford it, lamb is one of my favourite things to eat. I’m not a hypocrite either… if a farmer gave me a knife and told me to kill a lamb for my family’s consumption, I would do it, albeit through a wall of tears. It’s lower in the food chain, no matter what way you look at it, and it goes too well with mint sauce. Sorry Randy Lamb.
This is a point I worried about, regarding Puppychild. She likes to talk about her food. Pizza is Pizza. Sausages and rashers have obscure names and don’t prompt questions. Chicken, however, gets a raised eyebrow. Puppychild has heard all about chickens on Old Mc Donald’s farm and is dubious, and to this end, she won’t eat meat unless I lie through my teeth (or chewed food as it were) about what her dinner actually contains.
(robbed from Magneto Bold Too)
Last spring, I saw how the other half lives.
A fellow pre-schooler’s mommy brought Puppychild and me to a farm during lambing season, much gushing and cuddling of leggy awkward fluffiness followed, not to mention congratulations to tired and bedraggled looking ewes… the children were in their element. Upon cramming said kids into the car afterwards, fellow mommy rolled down her window and, in full ear-shot of the children, asked a few questions.
“When will they be weaned do you think?”
(assumed answer from farmer)
“And how much would it cost to buy a lamb?”
(random figure from top of farmer’s head)
“And how much would it cost to have it chopped up into pieces?”
(head-scratch from farmer)
“And if I was to buy two lambs, chopped into really small pieces so that I can squish them into my 40 Litre freezer leaving out things like their little heads and feet and tails and things… could you do me a deal?”
… The conversation continued along this way, with this kind motherly lady mentally butchering small fluffy animals in a pensive but very vocal sort of way. I turned around to view the children’s expressions, to find them gazing nonchalantly staring either out the window, or at their colouring books. They were hardened children, used to the life-cycle of farmyard happenings. Puppychild, however, had turned a whiter shade of pale. Her eyebrows were no longer visible, now buried high in her fringe. I watched as she clamped her hands over her ears and went to her happy place.
At least she can’t blame me for that. I had it easy, in retrospect.
(robbed from Early Recovery Blog)
Wartime
Oh, sometimes skies are cloudy
And sometimes skies are blue
And sometimes they say that you eat the bear
But sometimes the bear eats you
And sometimes I feel like I should go
Far far away and hide
‘Cause I keep a waitin’ for my ship to come in
And all that ever comes is the tide-Hard Time Losin’ Man, Jim Croce
I spent most of today with my hand clamped firmly over Laughingboy’s mouth. He’s been suffering from… something… for a few weeks now. Could be teething problems, could be growing pains, could be gas, could be that the planet under the control of his amazing brain power somewhere is suffering from the turmoils of wartime. Everybody offers opinions, but it’s anybody’s guess. Either way, he spends most of his time red faced and screaming, his limbs clenched tight like rusty vice-grips, his eyes wild with anxiety. There’s only so much pain killer a kid can take before he either becomes immune, or suffers from liver malfunction so it’s a case of trying one thing after another until he eventually falls asleep.
Problem is, most of the day must be spent quietly while TAT sleeps off his night-shift, so I must stay glued to Laughingboy’s bedside, gagging his yells with the cupped palm of my hand, stopping briefly every now and then to scream profanities into a soft cottony Spongebob pillow. I caught myself yelling at Puppychild for singing ‘ring a ring o’ roses’ in her sweet little voice over the calamity caused by Cryingboy in the same room. Hers was the voice of peace, but I only saw that once I had shattered it and she looked at me with big eyes brimming with tears, confused at what she had done wrong. It killed me.
When silence briefly reigns, I must spend it washing or cooking or sweeping, or simply staring into an open fridge for two hours. I miss the good parts, the quiet smiles, the interludes.
It grinds a girl down, it makes her want to sleep, to find her reflection in the bottom of a bottle, to forget about sending wedding thank-you-cards and emptying spare-rooms and sunbathing in rare Irish tarmac softening heat. I wonder when things will start to perk up again.
Then something silly happens… in this case, while I was setting up Laughingboy’s feeding bag tonight, and I stood on an up-turned plug. My reaction sounded something like a birthing hyena and it sent both children into hysterics. All three of us, collapsed on a bed, ripped into shreds of giggles and forgetting the bad times. It was right then that I figured it isn’t Laughingboy who has special needs, but me. It’s a need to know that giggles are no good without tears, quiet smiles are accentuated by loud frowns, stress breeds peace.
Whatever it is that Laughingboy is suffering from, it will be but a distant memory someday. I should take this opportunity to teach Puppychild how to deal with stress by example, and to remind Laughingboy what my heartbeat sounds like, instead of having him taste the salty bitterness of my sweaty hand. Nothing comes from nothing, everything comes from understanding.
Like Grannymar once said on her blog; “Be thankful for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need fixing because it means you have a home.”
How not to have an affair
Whoever said that the Leaving Cert is the most difficult exam of your life – they’re lying. I did alright(ish) in that test, but have had no need for it since, in fact its details were soon forgotten. The biggest test of your life is monogamy. It is, by far, too cruel a rule. I speak in terms of Darwinism and biology, the fact that a person’s hormones are destined to rage when in some people’s presence, and remain flaccid in other’s. This of course fluctuates from month to month, all in the name of stupid pro-creation. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your husband, wife, or otherwise intended. Isn’t that cruel? It’s a simple mathematic equation… two random people equals one healthy baby. Who wants a baby? Nature, that’s who.
I hold my hand up. I’m guilty of the roving eye, and use the elastic band wrist trick. A vicious snap is often good enough to keep me grounded, but I can’t help wondering about my betrothed. Although he’s the most loyal man there ever was, he can only be human… a fact that stays with me whenever he leaves me for a night of taxi driving. You should see some of the slappers in Bray. They have no shame, they have no morals, they will wear nothing, they will screw anything, and will make this fact known. For a man to deny this takes serious armour.
I found a receipt once in his pocket for flowers and chocolates but I had none to show for it. That fuelled my curiosity for weeks.
I find long blonde hairs on my husband’s coat and I analyse his behaviour quietly because of them.
But why? Why the constant suspicion? Am I looking for clues? Why do we as fully comprehensible humans spring traps and accusations from thin air? If we browse the menus of our opposite sex, why shouldn’t our beloveds do so to?
A drunken moment on honeymoon soon found out. We had sweated out a Black Moon party and were back at the ranch in high spirits, so I asked. Hell, why not? That’s what being married is all about… asking dangerous questions. After all, there’s no point in hiding stuff now, is there?
‘Surely there’s been somebody you’ve been tempted by?’
He was surprised by the question, and evaded it. He changed the subject many times until I oozed it out. His reply left me reeling. He admitted that yes, there had been one or two times when temptation was more than torture itself, but that he had a fail-safe way to deal with it. What works for him, may not work for me, but that’s for me to deal with, however difficult that may be.
So what’s the moral?
I suppose that’s the secret to marriage. Even if I’m glibly stating this after a week or so of the dirty deed, eight full years of partnership have taught me that admittance is most definitely a way through. Stating your inner thoughts and worries opens doors. Marriage is about being faulty, about being impure, about being human.
People ask me what it’s like to be married. I tell them that I can feel nothing different, but that’s not true. Now I know that it’s more than a piece of paper. It’s about suffering the same things together, about holding hands through crowded concerts… it’s like holding a rope. We’re holding our partners over the edge of a cliff and it’s up to them to trust us. With marriage though, it’s like everybody can see us… everybody can see us dangling from that cliff and they’re waiting for us to fall. All we have to do is talk it through.
‘Are you still holding on?’
‘Yes. You’re heavy, but yes I’m holding on.’
The real torture is that we’re always dangling, never to be pulled up to safety. The only thing denying us all from safety is temptation, a frayed rope. The temptation of an affair is to plummet into the unknown, and that, dude, is too far to reckon with.
I desperately want to ask others about the state of their ropes, but it’s too personal a question, they need to be fully inebriated before a satisfactory answer is given. Here though, here is different. Here people have time to think.
How do you not have an affair?
Long time no see
Irish weather is a gift. It has rare qualities that are hard to see, but for all the complaining we do about it, I really don’t think we fully appreciate its element of surprise.
Take yesterday for example. I had a million and one things to do, each task seemed longer and longer and was slowed by my increasing tiredness and lethargy. It felt like a bad day that would never end. I drove for miles with cloud overhead, shopped in cold supermarkets, carried heavy boxes and appeased complaints from cranky children who didn’t seem to want to make room for my foul mood. Even dog-walking, a usually exciting task for both parties, didn’t provide its usual buzz, this time even the passing foliage looked bored.
Then, driving back from the forest, it happened. As overhead branches became fewer and the sky crept into view, the blueness leapt out and suddenly the sun in her rarity beamed in full volume. Its power permeated everything inside the car… the Goo Goo Doll’s ‘Iris’ was playing through the stereo at the time and suddenly the notes became truer, the song became as beautiful as the first time I’d heard it. The heat hit my face and made me gasp and rose the tiny hairs on my arms and made my heart beat faster and suddenly it was no longer a bad day. The moment etched itself on my memory, leaving the rest behind, drudgery dissolved.
See, people in Spain or Florida or Thailand… places we so keenly wish to visit… they can’t appreciate that because the sun is constant and there are no surprises. We covet UV light so desperately, yet on holiday most of us complain that it’s too hot. Irish weather is perfect, it has the ability to shock the most miserable person into pure awe… they suddenly see that if it weren’t for all the Goddamn rain, the pure lush crisp green that now surrounds them would not be made possible.
I know you’ve felt it.
