K8 the GR8

Ok so I kind of monged out there for a while.  A whole load of lovely people linked me and I’m only getting round to saying spank you now, so I’m sorry about that!  I’m all buzzed out on broadband for three weeks so maybe will hopefully make up for it.  I absolutely adore downloading useless crap.

Might even waste a whole day on Roy’s games, because that is what life is for, occassionally.

Hey look what I got!!!  Waxi Maxi gave me this a few days back:

I’m… like… well chuffed, me.  Such a pretty design, it reminds me of the wallpaper my strange friend had once in her bedroom.  Many a strange night was spent in there, so it feels right.  Thank you soundly Quarefella Cane you daft minx you.

So in the proper spirit and stuff, here’s a link to the ultimate creator, Mamma Dawg.  Here’s her idea:

Do you know any bloggers that kick ass?

Maybe they’ve got incredible, original content. Or they’re overflowing with creativity. Is it someone that helps you become a better blogger? Or a bloggy friend you know you can count on? Or maybe it’s someone who simply inspires you to be a better person… or someone else who sends you to the floor, laughing your ass off.

Whatever the reason may be, I’m sure you know at least a couple of bloggers that kick ass. Well… why not tell ‘em so?

OK!!!

First there is Le Craic, who is responsible for this:

… as well as much other kick-ass stuff, like getting a mention in the rags!  About time, I reckon.

Then there’s Well Done Fillet.  A guaranteed crack-me-up.  This blog helps me release a lot of resentfulness for the general public.

Wait ’till you get your specs around Magneto Bold Too, though.  Girl is definately on my wave length and most definately kicks ass.

On a different note, I’d like to note an observation.  I’m sitting in my dad’s throne while he’s away, and I think I may have absorbed some of his ways already.  I just caught myself screaming at SKYtv’s music listings because there’s no classical stuff on there.  Not even in Music Choice.  What bollocks.  I’ve resorted to classic rock and I’m very fucking worried indeed.  This chair isn’t letting me enjoy anything else, not even the alternative stuff.  I’m hearing myself yelling all my dad’s slogans which is pretty disturbing.

I wonder does he have cameras in here?  I’m so paranoid it’s not even funny.

J.R.R. Tolkien was a very religious man, though this isn’t a well known fact. I read a biography of his lately entitled ‘The Secret Fire’ which describes Tolkien’s inspiration for his many amazing stories, and how he believed that God speaks to us not through prayer and sacrifice, but through music and nature… secret zephyrs and sun rays for your eyes only. When we feel inspired by these things, or feel raised goosebumps on our skin as a result of something beautiful, this is God speaking to us. I would love to go into more detail because it really is an excellent read, but I won’t, instead I urge you to add it to your reading lists.

~o0o~

A very strange and wonderful thing happened last night.

The Cologne New Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra performed in Wicklow Town’s Parish Church. The Chinese would tell you that anything set at 8:00pm on 08/08/08 would be a very auspicious event indeed so it felt right. It felt right, in fact, from the very first moment I laid eyes on the advertisement several weeks ago, but I don’t know why. I just knew that I had to go, and that I had to bring Laughingboy with me.

We sat on an empty pew right at the back of the church beside an open side-door. Cool air flowed past us, smelling of wood and stone and Wicklow harbour, and the crowded temple shuffled in anticipation. It all began with ‘Summer’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. (Listen to it here)

I was so delighted they started with this… it’s one of my favourites.  As you might know, the first movement is very quiet, with awe-inspiring violinny bits intertwinkling with the theme. Laughingboy’s ears pricked up and his eyes brightened the instant it started… the high pitches of the violins spread huge grins across his face and he began to move his arms about conductor-style, his heels tapping against the footrest of his wheelchair as he kicked and jigged.

The second movement ended and deafening silence ensued, broken by a sudden long and loud giggle from the happiest child in the world. This sound blasted its way up to the rafters and then bounced around the stone walls for a bit.   A sea of heads turned, and I gave them the thumbs up and a big grin. I was happy too, just watching the impact of this beautiful classical music on my son.

The third movement began suddenly with an excited torrent of harmony, and Laughingboy jumped. His arms and legs froze and his eyes grew wide, I thought he was going to cry from the shock but he didn’t, he just stayed frozen. I lifted him out of his chair and cuddled him on my lap so that I could tap the beat on his knees, and then it happened.

He leaned backwards and locked his gaze with mine, his eyes dark and intense (his pupils alarmingly dilated), but his face wore an expression of pure love. He then began to pour God into me undiluted. I felt my soul fill up faster and faster and I thought I was going to explode - tears brimmed in my eyes and my heart raced, every tiny hair on my body danced as I accepted this pure love… no, it was more than love, I can’t explain what it was, but when I looked up from Laughingboy’s gaze, I saw colours shine through the stained glass window that I’ve never seen before. The music became so clear, like it was as natural as a breeze rustling through long grass in the summertime - I could sense the pain and the happiness in the people around us and I loved them all just for being alive.

Instead of exploding however, I felt as it all began to slowly soak through me and radiate from us both as we sat, bathing in the energy, cuddling and bopping for two hours, floating out of the church when it was all finished. I pushed Laughingboy really fast… running all the way up the hill back to the car like a madwoman. We laughed belly-laughs as on-lookers stared and smiled.

~o0o~

When I got home, I found that I was interrupting a Wii night in with the Lads, but the Wiimotes were suddenly forgotten as they flocked to Laughingboy like moths to a flame. One of the lads - a regular visitor of Medjugoria and follower of all things God - stood beside Laughingboy for a long time, watching as he flapped his arms and legs and contorted his face into all sorts of grins and smiles. We spoke about autistic children having extra sensory abilities and put a heavy bet that Laughingboy was a definate contender for the theory, and agreed that there was something new about the kid, a fresh energy, knowledge… who knows what. It was certainly something amazing and I felt it, it’s still there, topping me up every now and then… it’s so hard to explain.

I finally found a way to communicate with my son and I’m the happiest mother alive. That’s all I know.

Did you hear about the Bray Summerfest Airshow today?

Did you hear about the big planes swooping low over the rooftops and the pretty fighter jets doing loop-de-loops in the clear blue sky and the army with their big trucks and tanks and uniformed men? I bet if you did, you thought ‘Let’s get our asses down there, quick!’ or, ‘Awww, innit a shame we can’t go to see all that great stuff?’ because it all sounded so great, but in reality, it wasn’t.

In reality it sucked.

I started my shift in Bray at lunchtime and drove in first gear to the seafront to see what I could see. Everybody I passed was staring up into the sky like morons - but not me, I kept my eyes on the road and battled onwards and Lo! Just as I was approaching my target I got called upon to pick up Mrs. Boring from Stupidville, without seeing diddly-squat.

When I was finished with Mrs. Boring from Stupidville I got sent up to the Ritz (in best behaviour mode though I can’t see why…) for Mr. Bad-Timing and had to drive all the way out to the airport and back.

When I returned, Bray was one big massive car-park. Cars were everywhere… parked on top of each other, under sleeping dogs, one or two were even parked in little old ladies’ handbags. It was mental. The gardee were everywhere, waving traffic back and forth and making rude gestures at passers by (I gotta say though, they seriously did an excellent job of clearing away every last smear of traffic sludge) so taxi-fares suddenly became extremely awqward.

Throngs of people kept hurling themselves at my car and jumping in regardless of existing passengers and shouting ‘TAKE ME TO THE SEAFRONT PRONTO!!!’, at which point I would take out my BB gun and ask them to make my day and they would slowly get out again.

I was then sent to Tescos to collect two people who had been waiting for over an hour for a cab.  A gentleman and his ladyfriend loaded up their groceries and jumped into the back seat.

“Didya see the airshow?!” the gentleman said excitedly - “It was deadly, wasn’t it?!”

“No I had to go to the airport.” I was grumpy. Very grumpy.

“They had this huuuge carrier jet and it swooped right down over our heads and it was deadly!!!!”

“So you said.”

“Do you not like ‘planes?” He was dissapointed at my lack of enthusiasm.

“I bloody love ‘planes, so can you shut up about it now?”

“Right, subject changed. Did ya see the big army tank?!”

“NO!!!!!”

45 minutes later thanks to aforementioned sludge, we arrived at his house and the meter read €27.40. This was a tad cruel seeing we had only travelled the length of a football field, so I waived it and charged him a tenner instead.

“Wow, that’s really kind of you, thanks!” the gentleman’s missus said. Then, as an afterthought as she was leaving the car she added;

“Sorry your job sucks. You should try to arrange to get time off next year!”

Yeah. Some tip. Thanks wench.

Puppychild likes to watch DVDs as she falls alseep, it’s a wicked habit, I know that.  I plan to put a stop to it as soon as I can figure out how…

…anyway normally she’d ask for Cinderella or the Care Bears or some Godawful crud like that but tonight she impressed me no end;

“Mommy?” (shouted from the top of the stairs)

“Yes-see?”

“Wanna watch?”

“What you wanna watch?”

“King Arthur.  King of the Brittins!”

Now you’d expect a child of three years of age to produce many clear words relating to stuff she knows through endless practice, but these knocked me for six altogether - turns out she watches this film sometimes with her dad while I’m at work and is well impressed with the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog.   I went to the bookshelf and found it - Monty Python’s The Holy Grail. 

She loves this film a little bit too much.

I’m waiting for that day though… that day when I find myself having to man-handle her in the supermarket for wanting to trolleyseat-surf, and for her to shout for all to hear…

“Help! Help! I’m being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!”

Ahh.  It’s good to see the apple hasn’t fallen far from the nnNi.

I get these Phoebe moments from time to time… like discovering that the expression isn’t ‘for all intensive purposes’ but actually ‘for all intents and purposes’.  It’s vital that if you want to show off your big lexicon you at least spell it right, so that was a swing and a miss for me for many years.

The latest boo-boo I discovered relates to Bryan Adams.

You know that song ‘Summer of ‘69′?  Of course you do.  I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this song but I have only just discovered that I was drastically wrong about the lyrics.

I always thought it was a very kinky song with pretty shocking lyrics… I wondered how he got away with it, but hey, there’s plenty of stuff out there that’s worse.  It was only when I picked up a kid and his dad in my taxi yesterday that I realised my mistake.  Turns out this kid loves Bryan Adams, and sang me the first few lines of the song which was highly inappropriate I thought, given that he was singing it in front of his dad… that was, until his dad applauded the effort.  I was disgusted.

Here’s how I thought the lyrics went:

“Got my first real sex-dream, boy I had a fine old time.  Played until my fingers bled… etc.”

Apparently I was wrong.  Very, very wrong.

I don’t like the circus.

Apart from the fact that they let clowns run around willy-nilly all un-restrained like that and the whipped animals that look like they could use a year’s timeout in St. John o’ Gods, it’s the lack of eye contact, the feeling that you’ve been robbed of something - part of your soul perhaps - as you walk out of the tent at the end.

So, thusfar in my kid’ses life, the circus is the Accidental Terrorist’s department.  I got a text earlier on today while I was skulking on the streets of Bray;

“We’re at d fossett circus rathnew.  Ringside for free!  Lovin it”

I called him up to find out what the craic was with the word ‘free’, and learned that TAT had tried to pay entrance for himself and the kids, only to be ushered through straight to the ring-side seats without any payment at all!  They spoiled my family rotten.  They dragged TAT into the ring with some other unsuspecting audience folk and performed a levitation trick that left Puppychild in awe of her daddy, and had excellent escapades with motorbikes in cages, apparently. 

Best of all?  Not an animal in sight, apart from one or two Shetland Ponies (which are only mythical creatures anyway…) so no animals harmed here then.

I was so impressed with the sound of it all. 

Fossett’s circus is run by an Irish family, who are now the proud recipients of a grant from the National Lottery and Arts or something like that, being that they’ve recently been bumped to the bonafide ‘artists’ category, so they’re the real deal and stuff.

They’re in Rathnew for a bit.  Might even pop in meself which would be a berry big deal for me.

Here’s a happy picture of some crazy people.  Please ignore the weird colouring, photoshop hates me.  Also please ignore the VPL.

Raining cats and dogs as usual, business tends to be quiet on days like this. 

I pulled up at a taxi rank just after lunchtime and noticed that all the other cars were deserted, bar one - a people-carrier into which was crammed at least eight taxi drivers.  I knocked on the window and was let into the secret smoky underworld that is cabby conversation.  I sparked up a schmergel and listened.

They had the newspaper out and were reading about this rape incidence in Dublin, yet another excuse to be paranoid about foreigners.  I learned many interesting things (and heard much racial hatred which I won’t be repeating here) which blew my mind, to give examples…

Apparently forgeign nationals only need to get 30% of the Public Service Vehicle test correct, as opposed to the 70% us nationals need.  Also, foreign-nationals aren’t asked for a back-ground check before they enter the taxi-driving business, yet we Irish need full Gardee clearance.

They say that this is to give foreign nationals a hand-up, an easier way to score employment.  That’s all very nice and stuff, but these people aren’t thick… with a bit of practice and a year or two living in this country they’d have it down no problem.  It’s only the rules of the road and a rough knowledge of city layout… hardly astrophysics! 

Besides, isn’t this sort of stuff important?  I would have thought a knowledge of roadsigns would be rather helpful for driving?  And as for the back-ground check… are they kidding?  They’re asking the people of Ireland to just ‘trust’ their taxi driver?

Is it really true that complete foreigners can land in the country and just dive straight into the taxi-driving business, winging it the whole way?!?  I can’t imagine having the guts to go to say… Nigeria and start charging poor unsuspecting punters for trips to places I can’t even pronounce, let alone find.

Pure madness.

I feel so sorry for foreign national taxi drivers today.  Nobody’s going to want to use them now as they’ve all been tarred with the same pidgeon.  They’ve busted their chops trying to learn the ins and outs of the cabbying business so that they can feed their families in this God-forsaken economy of ours, and now they are to us what the Al Quaeda are to the Americans, just because of a stupid head-line and the usual short-comings of our Irish Big Brother.

I’m laughing though.  Who’d suspect an innocent looking female taxi driver of evil intent?  Nobody, that’s who. 

I could have fun with that…

“Hey - has anyone seen my sense of humour?”

The words bounce around inside on the cold stone walls and sink with a ‘ploop’ into a still pool below.  I hear no reply.

“Hey!  Is anyone there?  I need my sense of humour!  *silence*  What about guilt?  Come on, I know you’re here somewhere, I’ve never known you not to lurk in some dark corner somewhere.  Hello?  Pride?  Motivation?  Is anybody here?  Answer me!!!”  This last part is shouted but without much enthusiasm.

A malevolent snickering is heard from way down below me.

“Who’s that?”  I peer down into the darkness.  “Have you seen my sense of humour?”

“Yeah.”  More snickering follows.

“Who are you?  What have you done with all my stuff?”

Something small and grabby twists my stomach and makes it cramp.  I start to feel sick and wonder if I shouldn’t just go about my business and try to ignore it.

“Yeah you’d like that wouldn’t you?” the voice sneers.  “You keep doing that and I’ll keep minding all your lovely posessions in my bottle here and keep ‘em warm.  Somebody will open it someday when you least expect it and we’ll have a right laugh at you, won’t we?!?”

“Hey!!” I shout.  “That’s hardly fair!  I gave you a chance last night and you blew it.  I booked an appointment for the Big Cry and it never showed up.  I was ready, it’s not fair!”

“Heh.  You can’t force it out, cop on t’yerself!  You know what you have to do, but you’re too chicken-shit to do it.  It’s yer own fault!”

Evil cackling starts up and I feel something knaw on my solar plexus.

“Stop!!!  You’re making me feel sick and I don’t like it… I feel sick all the time now, open the damn bottle, get it over with already!”

“You have to talk to her.”

“Not a chance, matey.”

“She wants to talk to you.”

I feel bile rise in my throat and I twitch. 

“Not today.”

I light a cigarette and miss the guilt, but only a little bit.  I blow smoke-rings and wonder if being a sociopath really is such a bad thing.

I went shopping yesterday for Father’s day gifts (The Accidental Terrorist has been bugging me for Wiiks about his present, so I caved and he is now a happy Wii bunnii :), and found a copy of Twenty’s buke in Easons.

Delighted, I bought it and stashed it in the overhead compartment in my car, intending to use it as light entertainment for when I’m in between taxi-jobs.  Unfortunately it was so busy at work today that I didn’t even get a chance to read the blurb.

Then it hit me.

Overhead compartments really should only hold two books at a time, but mine holds 7 CDs, a newspaper, a coin-bag and two books so when I say it hit me… I don’t mean metaphoricalizzy.

The book slipped out of its cubby and jabbed me with its pointy corner on the crown of my head just as I was negotiating a narrow country road.  ‘GAH!’ I said, and ducked - I was appalled for a nano-second that my passenger had assaulted me, but then I spotted Twenty’s smug mug laughing at me from my lap, and I felt foolish. 

In the second it took for me to re-gain my composure, a pheasant had walked out in front of me and I hit it with a curdling thump that sounded louder than it should have.  ‘FUH!’ says I, as the bird struts back out onto the road.  Mrs. Passenger wasn’t too pleased when she saw that her eggs had broken and didn’t appreciate my sarcasm much as I pointed at the injured bird and suggested she take it home.  The bird himself mooned me, then fucked off back into the ditch presumably to a pub to tell his mates what’d happened. 

I had to take a half-hour break after Mrs. Passenger was ever-so safely disposed of to nurse me bumped noggin and recover from my poultry-abuse.

I reckon I should sue Twenty Major for loss of earnings, or at least get him to autograph it with his own blood.  His book has tested the limits of both my sanity and my overhead compartment and I’m not happy. 

This book better be damn good is all.

My tit:

This boob ashtray was given to TAT by his sister many years ago.  There is no argument or conversation serious enough not to be grounded by the words “Pass me your tit there…”

My bush:

I’ve had this miniature rose bush since I was 17.  It grew to over 50cm tall and was starting to behave oddly, so I pruned it to half it’s size.  It’s been flowering like crazy ever since, but last Spring it got attacked un-mercifully by a little gross army of greenfly.  They say you shouldn’t spray a plant with bug-killer while it’s flowering, but I sprayed it anyway because the little beasties were everywhere and as a result, the plant almost met it’s maker.  I give it warm showers every other day to wash the straggler beasties away and then keep it in the sunniest spot there is.  This TLC seems to have worked - there are a few tiny fresh green leaves now.

Here’s the thing; Even in it’s darkest hours, it persisted with that flower.  The bud was being eaten alive but it carried on, and flowered the prettiest darn flower it’s ever made against all odds.

That is some inspirational shit right there.  Was that God’s work or mine?