Barefoot bandits
They say that when you get what you want, you don’t want it anymore. But what if it wasn’t yours to begin with? What if you took it as your own and used it to its full potential, then discarded it like a used condom… bound on its path of decomposition with no regard to how long that may take? Some people call that rape.
This is an arial view of the area of Knockree, Co. Wicklow. I can’t describe this place because no english word would fit properly. Past the prettiest Youth Hostel in the world lies a parking spot marked by a horizontal barrier. Once you’ve debarked yourself from your wheels you’ll find yourself on a path lined by mysterious darkened faerie paths and wild honeysuckle and you follow this for ten minutes or so until you come upon a bit of wood with an arrow painted onto its top. Follow this arrow, lep over the turnstile and then…
The wee hours of morning time are the best. A haze floats below your view and hugs the river like a firstborn so that you feel like you’re either flying, or are standing on the tallest mountain in the world. It is the start of one of those downward slopes that beckons you and casts a spell on you to make you forget the fact that you’ll someday have to climb back up again on the homeward stretch.
At the bottom of this path lies a river which shimmies through goblin groves and tree-filled troll hideouts. On the banks of this river are various camping spots and tiny beaches for your freed sock-smothered toes to dangle from, with ropes hanging from branches (possibly put there by aforementioned trolls), so that you can swing into the centre of the river on a hot day and let go, to plunge into the guinness-coloured water below.
I walked there today with Puppychild and Sir Fartsalot and found this:
Heaven raped. Small children denied from splashy footplay because of broken glass. Human shit wrapped shamelessly in skidmarked bogroll and empty crisp packet carcasses gathering algae where fish should leap. Shit from shit.
How can a nation can gather arms and unite as a proud nation against some random French fucker on a football team, yet at the same time vomit all over this same nation’s natural wonders and rape it of its purity?
Shame on whoever partied here. Shame on you assholes. You don’t deserve this country.
You’re gonna die
Sometimes when I’m walking around and talking to myself, as you do, I like to rehearse possibly awkward conversations I’ll hopefully be having with my kids someday. The facts of life mainly… it’s important to practice these things so that when the time comes I’ll be cool and nonchalant and not a giggle-suppressing wreck when explaining what a vas deferens is.
Then there’s the question of life, death, and that whole afterlife thing, which Puppychild blindsided me with last night.
Out of the blue, she asked me why my grandparents were dead. Then she asked me when her own grandparents would die and asked if they wouldn’t rather stay alive forever instead.
“Everybody dies.” I explained, in a roundabout way.
The information sank in slowly and I watched as she bonded with the rest of humanity and the millions who have gone before us, fearful enormity plopped onto her shoulders like a big bag of spuds and I felt sad for her. Her teddybear’s lip began to quiver. I explained to her that she must try to stay happy, to love every minute she has with her Grandad and Granny instead of worrying about their demise. The information was absorbed and absolved.
“But what happens to you when you die?”
I told her that we dissolve and turn into skeletons and get chewed into dust and soil. There seemed no point in mincing words, I figured it was better for her to learn it from me, rather than learn it from maggotty dead roadkill at some point in the future. I softened the blow by telling her that flowers and trees grow from soil, life from life, life from death, that sort of thing. It seemed to work.
Then I explained about Buddhist theories of re-incarnation and she chose that she should return in the next life as a puppy. No surprise there then.
I didn’t get to explain about heaven, for she had fallen asleep by then. I’m not sure whether this is a pity or not, she didn’t mention the subject again until lunchtime when I mentioned we’d be visiting Grandad.
“Grandad’s gonna die!” she said cheerfully.
This means she’s now either a psychopath, or she’s figured out the meaning of life. Either way I become famous, which is nice.
Nerds in pieces
I’m one of those rare people who has the patience for jigsaws. They’re a brilliant invention, perfect for manual dexterity and logic exercises in kids, great for distraction from addictions, a box full of tiny bits of cardboard. Individual quiet ‘yippee!’s for when each slots into its impossibly detailed place.
I got a 500 piece jigsaw of a bunch of Alsatian puppies for Puppychild recently. Who am I kidding… it’s really for me. She watches with mild amusement at the torture I seem to love so much but soon goes back to her kennel to thread beads. She’ll be there for that final twenty pieces, we have an understanding.
One of TAT’s spurious friends was visiting last week and asked if I was going to glue it to a frame, a lot of people do that. They don’t understand the point of jigsaws.
Jigsaws are one of the few things you can make which are designed to be smashed up again. Yeah you can leave it on the dining room table for months but people eventually get pissed off that they’re not allowed within five feet of it, so all those long hours piecing the whole thing together will have to be undone, destroyed and wept upon, preferably during a seance. That’s the whole fun of it!
Here for your amusement is a cat-in-the-box just in case you’ve mentally diverted from all the nerdy jigsaw talk:
Frankenboy
This rather complicated picture is of Laughingboy in his new stander, on loan to us during the school holidays. It arrived with a fanfare and took several grown men to manoeuvre into the house, coming to rest in the sacred junk spot in his room. I had moved the sacred junk into a parallel dimension the evening before, which was lucky.
With more straps than a Jimmy Choo and more velcro than a truck load of nappies, the stander needed a demonstration which was provided by Laughingboy’s physiotherapist shortly after its arrival. As she and I battled with limbs and folds and hoists and elbows and gaiters, The Accidental Terrorist walked into the room.
“Jesus.” he said. “Frankenstein’s monster’s after moving in!”
Laughingboy’s physiotherapist raised her left eyebrow subtly, and began to turn the winch that moves the table into its upright position from flat.
“It’s alliiiiive!!!!” shouted TAT, as Laughingboy flapped in delight at the shift in gravity.
Laughingboy’s physio scowled. Was she scowling at the inappropriate joke? Was she concerned over Laughingboy’s potentially hurt feelings? Maybe it was a scowl of jealousy because she has been itching to crack the same joke for the last five years of working with these standers but couldn’t.
All I know is that Laughingboy is going to have thebest Halloween costume ever this year. Now where did I leave that Hannibal the Cannibal face mask?
The day after tomorrow
I secretly believe that some day the world will change.
Some day we won’t sue our best mates because we slipped and popped a ligament on their decking, maybe we’ll even be able to get together with a few neighbours to build a skateboard ramp for the kids for the long summer weeks without fear of being so sueable. What a bunch of whingers we’ve become! Is it so much to ask just to be a kid once in a while? We need to evolve a bit more… I can’t wait to find out what my great-great-grand children experience in the future because I will be haunting them.
I know everyone is paranoid about our big brother and is convinced that things can only get worse, but someday I know our neighbours will be re-found and doors will be left unlocked again. Where is the bottom of the barrel where evolution cries on the staircase with its bottle of gin and wonders where it all went wrong? Maybe fifty years from now? Two hundred years maybe?
Someday we will degrade plastic (BAD plastic! You call yourself HDPE?! Pathetic. THIS is HDPE!!) to such a degree that we will power our tellies with the same gunge we roast our spuds and life will be good and they will laugh at the Noughties and point fingers at our hair and our paranoid misgivings and they’ll smoke their spliffs and they’ll love again.
And so I slither back into now and I can only smirk and try not to take pictures of my hair.
In the meantime, being that we cannot grow a playground out of nothingness, I need memories. Basic games that please the most gregarious of kids. I feel sorry for their boredom, but I feel sorrier for the pretty purple flowers I’ve planted which are bound to be desecrated by young f’las this summer. If we all as parents group together to buy a supply of stuffs for our chisellers, what would they be?
So far I have:
-Chalk
-Ropes for skipping
-Basketball Hoop
-Swingball
-Goalposts
-Various lengths of donated wood (you didn’t get them from me)
-Softballs
Any more ideas? I’m desperate, lads.
(Image robbed from http://www.justanotherartblog.com/)
Xtreme Space Hopping – a spectator’s sport
The Events Upcoming section of My Facebook page, otherwise known as the ‘wishful thinking’ section, is best left alone for those who have a life. I ignore most of the invitations, or tick ‘maybe’ just to feel the kick of potential, but every now and then, one event sticks out.
When I heard that a bunch of weirdos were gathering in town to attempt a world record at SpaceHopping I felt I had to be there, if not for the good of humanity alone. Somebody had to be there to point and laugh otherwise our civilization would surely collapse under such a weight of silliness.
I attached my children to my person and marched in from the wrong end, to meet barriers and folk who didn’t understand the plight of a sweaty lady with a baby and a five-year old stuck to her. So, I snapped photos and buggered off to lie around in Merrion Square for a while with my homies where I scored a big red SpaceHopper and a bag of Meanies. Puppychild’s puppy eyes do come in handy when I’m on the scrounge.
I’m sure a big red SpaceHopper will come in handy for something some day!!
While my blog gently weeps
Sir Fartsalot, at the tender age of seven weeks has already surpassed his nine-year-old brother in terms of physical ability.
I wrote that sentence a week ago and got stuck, couldn’t find the right thing to say after that. One child is a novelty and eclipses the other where adoration is concerned and that’s hardly fair. Writing about it, even thinking about it is unfair to Laughingboy, but I can’t help it. It’s frustrating that he hasn’t progressed, hasn’t passed a single developmental milestone since he was a year old.
One has tiny nappies that make my boobs hurt with the cuteness of them, the other has giant nappies, the type they don’t bother to print pictures of Pooh bear on. One child stares into space at vague impressions of shapes but cannot make any sense of them, while the other has already learned to fix eye contact and goo toothless pleasantries at his admirer.
They both flail their hands wildly in an effort to suck a thumb and gauge mild surprise when they accidentally whack themselves in the face, but one has learned that a set of knuckles is just as nice to suck on, while the other is content to grind, grind, grind his teeth instead.
They both scream for my attention. One is screaming because of short term mammory loss, the other because he has a whole array of possible annoyances and is quickly becoming dependant, if not immune to pain killers because he can’t voice his woes.
They both have a sister who is slowly learning to live without my attention, but who will soon have the adoration of a younger brother who will hang on her every word and will leave his older brother behind on his hopeless island of developmental delay.
It’s pointless moping about it all, and stating that usual bullshit about Laughingboy being the light, an angel sent from above with smiling eyes just doesn’t cut it, it just makes me sad when I hear other mothers of disabled kids say it. We have broken children, I feel like telling them. Let’s just say it. Broken children with no future.
Except that’s wrong too. Laughingboy has a purpose, a glorious purpose that will enlighten somebody or something in time to come. Just because I can’t figure it out doesn’t make it not true.
People goo over my youngest son and tell me how lucky I am, and I agree. They jokingly ask me if I wouldn’t like him to stay at this adorable age for ever, but to this I don’t react at all.
Storm in a G cup
I need scaffolding, badly. My boobs were starting to clap with every footstep, it’s not the sort of applause I’m used to. Plus, one morning while getting out of the shower I actually drop-kicked one. I knew it was time for professional help.
Puppychild held Sir Fartsalot for dear life while the boutique assistant rummaged through cabinets full of bra boxes. I shuffled cotton like an Amsterdam pro and called out letters of the alphabet while Puppychild watched in awe, I worried if she’d be asking her schoolteacher some time in the future what words begin with double D.
Anything above a cup size E must officially be classed as industrial when it comes to nursing bras. I watched with dismay as the pretty lacy black numbered drawer was shut and the plain white Fs were dragged out, but even they were no use. She tucked me into a G and sighed with relief. Her work here was done, bar a quick attempt to sell me two of them which was fruitless as I found out how much each bra cost.
€52?!? Is there a milking pump built in? Do I get a slave that’ll follow me around and prop them up for me? No! Oh well. At least I’ve somewhere to put my spare change now.
It could always be worse I suppose.
The one that got away
People get really disturbed when I curse in front of my n00b kid. I mean, it’s not like I’m corrupting his innocence… babies have a perpetual orb of purity around them until they’re old enough to understand their first episode of Tom and Jerry and besides! curse words are very beautiful phonetically speaking.
Fuck. It’s lovely the way the f slides so neatly into the k like that, like the sound a golf ball connecting with a perfect 9 Iron swing would make, or the noise made by the bonnet of a very expensive car when you try to slam it shut. I reckon I’m doing the kid a favour by including as many sounds and words as possible while his brain’s developing as it is. That’s why my standard reply to scorning parents is ‘Ask me bollix’. It’s in the name of education.
Here be photos of d’holliers. No animal was harmed in their making.
TAT got very excited when Barney arrived on the scene. He wanted a photograph of him decking the big purple freak right on the jaw, but Barney caught wind of this and ran like fuck. It’s impressive how fast that dinosaur can run what with all that stuffing and stuff.
Holy Shucking Fit
Where has time disappeared to?! Who stole last week?!?
This lapse in my time/space continuum might have something to do with Sir Fartsalot. He also drinksalot as it turns out. This means school homework, cuddle time with Laughingboy and basic sanity is on hold until the child sorts out his boob routine. It’s amazing how, from birth, men are obsessed with breasts.
As stressful as babies may seem however, mother nature has her gifts… I’d forgotten about that buzz, that amazing release of oxytocin breastfeeding gives both boober and boobee. A plane could crash right outside the window, but all I would muster would be a roll of my eyes and a “Meh… I’ll clean it up later.” Poor house. Poor family. Poor blog. I’ll get ’round to you all eventually.
In the meantime, we’re going on holidays next week just to throw some gratuitous action into the mix.
Cork is about to be very, very sorry it was ever born.
