Eastery Artistry
Easter Holidays. A time to reflect about how much fun school actually is. A time to figure out ways to entertain one’s children without involving the television or the outside world because it’s feckin’ snowing out there for some reason.
I thought about making something chocolaty but given that I’m pregnant, it turns out there isn’t an ounce of the stuff left in the whole house. I thought about glueing eggshells back together but eggshells are flaky things and refuse to stay in tact under the pressure of a five-year-old’s grasp. I’d hard-boil them, but hey, we’re in a recession.
It was Puppychild who suggested an Art Attack. It’s one of her most favourite TV shows, bar Supernanny and Spongebob Squarepants. I showed her the website and guided her through its archives, asking her to pick an art project to do. I expected her to choose something involving fairies or fashion or something pink at least, but no.
She chose the severed hand.
I’m so delighted she’s inherited my sense of the macabre. TAT objected that this art project isn’t exactly Easter related but I disagreed… it does have loose connections to the theme of resurrection, if you think about it.
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?
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.”
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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.
Ten things they don’t warn you about before you get pregnant… #5
The Nesting Instinct
You may or may not have heard references to this phenomenon before. It’s described as an instinct that kicks in at some point during pregnancy, most commonly when birth is imminent.
There are whimsical references to it in books and in films, down the pub and during Ann Summers parties… this urge to clean obscure and bizarre places. But! It should never be underestimated. It is a very serious thing indeed.
I’m not talking about getting on your hands and knees to scrub yellowed pee and crusty puke from the dark corners of the no-man’s land behind the toilet, I’m not talking about risking life and limb to reach the waterproof covering on the bulb in the porch to extract the countless dead bodies of flies that have accumulated over the years (how the hell did they get in there in the first place?!?)
I’m talking about demon possession here.
One morning, you might wake up and decide that every floor surface in the entire house must be bleached to within an inch of its varnished life. Superhuman strength makes you lift the couch and drag heavy oak tables outside, even though you’re tired and hungry, you will not rest until it’s done. You’ll happily risk your life, your back, and your growing belly for the cause. It’s a very strange thing.
Today it happened to me, but I’m nowhere near my due date. At least I hope I’m not.
This is what it looked like at 9am this morning:
Twelve hours later, it looks like this:
I’m not sure how it happened, nor where all the junk went to – I blacked out for a while and may have eaten it all. All I know is that if somebody called to the door with a de-fibrillator right now, I’d happily have a go of it. Even blinking hurts.
So, if you have a room that needs de-cluttering, forget Kim and Aggie, all you have to do is get yourself up the duff. Most of the time, it works every time.
Cheese before bedtime
Last night, as I drifted off to sleep I was visited by a tall Greek Adonis with four tongues and two penises. He had an imagination that had no limits, and was as flexible as an Olympic gold medalist.
Somewhere deep in the night, I was roused from sleep by my cat, who was sitting on the doorstep and rowring through the letterbox loudly. Rather than get out of my bed, I asked the Adonis to let the cat in seeing as he was closer. Unfortunately, being that he was a figment of imagination, he lacked the opposing thumbs necessary to un-do a deadbolt… so I had to do it myself.
When you spend the night nagging your sexual fantasies about how bloody useless they are… that’s when you know your hormones are in serious jeopardy.
Bend over and show me your dark side
I just love to have the shit scared out of me. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I was never allowed to watch ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ as a kid – perhaps the curiosity became addictive in some way? Or it could be some genetic throwback from a previous life as a cave-dude, constantly looking for challenges. Fuck knows. I’m warped, with a curious fascination for oddities and the macarbe. It will be written on my tombstone.
Like this Thing in a Jar, for instance. When I found this website it gave me an itch to make a Thing in a Jar all for myself to store in the fridge and keep family members and Social Workers on their toes. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
So, after a tough day’s bleaching and marinading and entertaining small people, I want to sit down and watch something intensely creepy and mindlessly horrific on TV to relax – that’s not so much to ask, is it? It just doesn’t happen though. Yeah, sure, there might be some horror flick on or other, but bar ‘The Host‘, they’re all pretty same-ish. There is a television show called ‘Scariest Places on Earth’ which would be right up my alley, if it wasn’t so shite. They pick a family full of whiners and handbag clutchers and ship them off to haunted castles and make them stay there with cameras strapped to their faces for the night. They move them from room to room and scare the bejeebus out of them with obviously rigged booby-traps. It’s painful.
They got it right once. The first time I stumbled across the show, they were running a documentary-type story about the crypts of Paris’ underground. They made a big deal out of a video-tape they’d allegedly found in a camcorder five levels down, owned by a person who’d obviously gotten lost. I watched in abject sympathy as this poor fucker almost soiled himself when he realised he was probably stuck in the bowels of Paris with occult symbols, powdered bones and tortured souls for the rest of his short life. The tape ended as a dark shadow appeared from one end of tunnel, attacked the film-maker and left the camera lying in a puddle recording hair-raising screams receeding into the darkness.
That episode fed my imagination for weeks. I told every living soul about this amazing TV programme and when I finally got to see it again, it was about the Knobend family and their amazing ability to scare easy. It’s amazing how many people piss their pants when a wee gizmo they’re holding suddenly starts flashing red lights, though I would absolutely love to be the person that operates that remote control. Why can’t they just give us the creepy facts, throw in a dodgy ham video and a Thing in a Jar? Now that would be entertaining.
Ten things they don’t warn you about before you get pregnant… #4
PAIN
It’s the one question that everyone asks; when the subject of babies crops up, the look of fear on their faces is unmistakable. They wonder why I’d willingly offer up my body to excruciating hell like that, and tell me they’d go the ‘too posh to push’ way if it came down to them. I can see why they’d say that, but I can also see how vastly misled they are. It’s the film industry… they love the gushing bloodiness, the portrayal of the sweaty monster screaming and cursing at its husband… they make the whole ordeal seem so vulgar and hellish, it’s no wonder so many women opt for the cesarean section.
THE MYTH
In truth, childbirth is not the most painful thing that can happen to a body. Childbirth is about endurance, not about pain. Pain is what happens when you break your leg, or suffer from an abscess. It’s something that involves destruction or infection, something that happens to let your brain know that there’s something wrong. Childbirth is entirely different, so it’s really not fair to taint it with the same brush.
Childbirth is all about creation, and as such it feels different. Yes, the pressure hurts a lot, but it comes and goes, that’s the beauty of it. You get a two-minute rest in between contractions, even in the thick of it, and these two minutes are pure bliss because the void is so beautifully apparent. And, what’s even more amazing, is that once the whole ordeal is over, the pain is over, completely forgotten in the blink of an eye. There are no splints, no metal plates to be inserted, no antibiotics (unless there are complications of course), the pain just… goes away.
One woman I spoke to even told me that she had a pretty amazing orgasm while giving birth once. She has four children with another on the way, and there’s not a chance you’d entice her into a cesarean section if she had a choice. Nor is she particularly masochistic I might add, as I noticed once when she caught her finger in the car door. A bigger whiner you wouldn’t find – yet the concept of labour excites her no end! Go figure.
Of course, there’s the part where one is required to squeeze something the size of a large bag of spuds out of an opening the size of a postage-stamp… surely that’s got to hurt just a tad? It does, no kidding, but here’s where Mother Nature shows her infinite kindness. When… um… things are stretched beyond a certain point, the nerve endings in the area shut down so that in reality, you only have about ten seconds worth of screaming agony. Okay, so it’s a pretty long ten seconds, but it’s not the five hours they portray on television, not by a long shot.
Me? I’ve never had an orgasm while giving birth, I chose the way of the epidural, the drug that is so amazing, you really don’t care that it takes a syringe the size of the Empire State Building to administer it. I would have happily stabbed my spinal cord repetitively with the syringe myself, if there hadn’t been an anaesthesiologist around to do it for me. It makes you want to vomit, it makes your thighs itch uncontrollably, but it gives you a clear enough brain to enjoy the experience. I too was a woman who swore she’d be able to give birth without pain relief, but as a midwife once asked me in the throes of things; “Do you think you’re getting a feckin’ medal for this or something?” She was right. There are no medals for martyrs, that’s the whole point.
THE TRUTH
Pethidine is the Devil’s drug. It hurts. It doesn’t stop labour from hurting. It leaves a numb-spot on your ass for months afterwards and leaves your baby more stoned than Woody Harrelson. Don’t be fooled.
Nitrous Oxide is great craic, especially when the midwife leaves the room and your birth partner gets to have a go and the midwife returns to find everyone gasping in hysterics because there’s a crack in one of the ceiling tiles. It’s that much fun, it should be illegal. Its only downfall is that after a while it feels like you’re swimming in mercury and you end up in the horrors, so less is most definitely more, but very very very funny with it.
Tens machines are only good for the people who get to watch you jump every ten seconds from the electric jolt. They find it hilarious, but you won’t. Yes, it distracts you from the pain a little bit, but frankly what is far more entertaining, is placing one charge on each one of the testicles of your loved one, and then zapping him while he sleeps. Laughter is an excellent pain reliever, especially the evil type.
Last but not least; Yes, you will most likely crap yourself while in labour. As foul as that sounds, it’s the last thing that’ll be on your mind at the time, so why give a shit*?
Bizarro jewellery… you know you want it.
*Did you come all the way down here to see if that was an intended pun? Don’t you know me by now!?!?
I’ll have a virgin scotch on the rocks, please.
“I love you like my left ovary.”
This, coming from a chick you’ve only just met, is a pretty high compliment in my book.
I’d never have heard this if I hadn’t been struck by ‘Yes Man’ – Jim Carrey’s latest film. An invitation into town for a young wan’s birthday party on a frosty winter’s night while up the duff and unable to drink would normally have me gushing excuses; let alone the comfort-zone thing, there’s the fact that I’ve nothing pretty that doesn’t involve elastic to wear. No energy or cash either, but hey… sometimes when you say ‘Yes’ to things, you get led to situations that can be pretty damn interesting.
She was a corset-dealer from Connemara with long black-is-the-colour hair, she wore a candy necklace and drank red wine from the bottle with a straw, and I’d never have met her if I’d been sitting around on my arse at home.
Don’t you just love films like that?
HAPPY NEW YEAR T’YIZ ALL!!
