down with mingebags!

Do you always have your money in your hand as you approach the counter? Do you expect this of others? I'm not saying I have mine secreted in a security belt or anything. Beneath my petticoat.

Take today, and tell me what you think. I went into the newsagent adjoining Tesco to get my paper. I had a relatively heavy bag of shopping in one hand and my handbag. There were two people at one till, I grabbed a paper and headed for the other one. The shop was empty.

I got to the counter, gave the girl who was doing a scratchcard my paper, reached into my bag for my wallet, opened it, apologised to her for not being quicker, took out a fiver and handed it over. No real fumbling, just the time it took to do that.

But as she was handing me change and I was taking the paper, a cold, pinched, bitchy voice from behind me said, 'You'd think people would have their money ready before they get to the till, wouldn't you?' and an arm reached across me and handed over money. As I was taking my paper and putting my wallet back. I looked up to see a middle aged woman with the Irish Mammy haircut handing over her money.

Startled, I said 'I'm sorry for keeping you', but she ignored me completely, not making eye contact, or saying anything else. Instantly it occurred to me I wasn't sorry I'd kept her, I was sorry I hadn't tripped her up and made her drop her paper in a puddle.

It takes so much effort to be bitchy and hostile and unfriendly and cold to strangers. And the person on the receiving end expends so much wasted, negative energy Even by the time I came home I still had that anxious pressure in my heart. More fool me, maybe. But what do you gain in doing that to someone? What do you gain from meanness, impatience, antagonism.

Axle, in his time in convenience stores, said he saw it every day, customers in line, huffing and puffing. Throwing the €2 coin at him, barking 'Paper!' When he asked them for it to scan, they'd look affronted, cough out 'No!' and rush off. We're all that important. That we can put other people out, chivvy them, make them anxious, make them focus on our irritation.

I say no to this behaviour that comes down to poor manners and poverty of living. Smile at the people around you, help them out. Be assertive if they're being assholes, protect children. Say No to Being a MingeBag. Down With MingeBags!

DISCLAIMER: now you all know that when I say minge bag, I refer to a nasty, mean spirited, stingy, bitter, pursed-lipped, joyless, more than likely older person, don't you? It's got nothing to do with vulvas, it's a far better use of the word. But just in case you like your minge bags more literal, feel free to browse around here:

stymied

I had a weekend song picked out. I usually do one potentially unpopular choice - Golden Green by The Wonderstuff. Yeah, I know, they were hated by many.

But popularity is not the point of retro music Saturday, it's point is to give you a glimpse of the soundtrack that plays in my brain.

However, I was thwarted. No video on YouTube! What? Malfunction. So I found last.fm which gives you free music to listen to, but sadly the video doesn't play in my area for some reason (no jokes about my area please). And I've so far wasted way too much time trying to find a way to just post the song itself.

And due to my Taurean nature, I can't adapt and post something else - that was the one for this week.

So instead here's a favourite poem of mine, with golden and green in it. And in fairness, it is far better than The Wonderstuff.

summer evening

A sunny day, a sunny evening, can be such a blessing. I was going to bring the kids to the park this evening, but it took the cheesecakes longer than anticipated to bake (and it took me longer than anticipated to get off the computer and in to the kitchen, so we left it pretty late, and I was worrying about dinner, and exchanging the wrong eggs I got in Tesco, and traffic on the way home. So when Olivia suggested going to the beach, where we've been about twice this rainy summer, it was perfect.

I didn't bring swimming things, unfortunately. I popped the trousies off Bodhi and he made a speedy beeline for the water. When he tried to sit down in it, I took his nappy off, and then he crawled straight for the waves and got his tshirt wet, so that was that. He was so happy! Loved it - his first time in the sea proper, as he was so chesty all this year.

Olivia went in in her pants and made a friend, as she does. A 7 year old girl and her four year old brother, who was an angelic, curly haired kid, with big blue eyes and dark hair. He kept coming up and delightedly, excitedly telling the woman with him how lovely it all was, how much fun. I felt the same. I chatted to their minder, who was laughing at Bodhi's waterbaby antics.

She told me she had looked after them since he was born - premature, and their mother died giving birth to him. So tragic. He's alright, but the little girl still gets sad and misses her mother.
The woman minding them was sweet - she said she'd been there since he was a baby. I wondered how she could ever leave, and instantly found myself having Jack and Sarah type fantasies about her marrying the rich, heartbroken father. My brain always struggles to try and make it alright, I suppose. I want the pain to not be true.

I felt motivated to set up a playdate, make friends, but then I hesitated - was it some sort of trite pity for the motherless babes, or the minder who was raising them that made me want to do it? But on the way home Olivia asked if we could go see them again, and as their minder told me their address when I asked where they lived, I think I might send a card seeing if they'd care to meet.

That poor family.

Still, I was meant to be talking about my blissful seaside evening. They lent us a towel, I had a jumper for my shivering babe, we got an icecream - I had to go get the car, and parked it in front of the ice cream shack. Bodhi sucked his thumb while Olivia and I got our respective icecreams (malteser/lemon sorbet) and a mini vanilla for Bodhi. When I came to his window carrying it, his finger shot out and pointed at it and he made an almost cartoon surprised face. Punctuation mark eyebrows and mouth, so cute!

I was reminded of being on the beach in Frances and getting glaces from the sellers on the beach with their little carts. Chocolat and citron for me every time.

I hope we get a few more weeks of an Indian summer. We deserve it! And Bodhi's only one once...

doings at the homestead

I haven't been letting Bodhi play in the sandpit for the last while - it's been too wet, but worse than that, the tree above the pit has been been oozing sap, which I can only assume is sugary, as it's been crawling with flies and wasps for the last couple weeks. Boo, the sun finally comes out and the garden's not really safe. Last night Axle was out having a smoke and noticed that it was covered in slugs. Ugh. Tree of evil. He described it as oozing pus (pronounced puss), which was going a bit far, though.

So it was a cool, grey evening, no wasps in site, and as the babe was clad in a nappy and shirt he'd dribbled soup all over, I let him climb in. I ran a bath and came back to get him. While I was brushing all the sand off, I noticed he had something that resembled a spider leg on his chin. And that he was chewing something.

Having once removed a (hopefully) dead beetle from his lips, when he wouldn't let me take whatever it was out, I had to just look the other way. Gah!

memo: admin: family names

Memo

To: readers
From: me

Re: admin

It occurred to me tonight that anonymity, such as it is, is irritating. I'm always writing down my family's names and then having to delete, or worried that I've missed one. Worse still, I hate saying 'my husband' all the time, it's cringy. It feels both unconvincing and, I don't know, sort of trophy-wifey somehow. My daughter never leant herself to nicknames, and while my son does (though Smarshmallow never stuck - my daughter's insisted on name for the unborn baby, if it was a boy, or a girl), it's all too time consuming.

So I've taken a decision. A derivative one. In the form of better bloggers than I, I think that my family deserve fictive names.


Henceforth, my son shall be known by one of the names I wanted to call him by, Bodhi. If we were Californian I would have gone for it, dammit. For Wicklow, we accepted that it was a little much.


My daughter refused to indulge me in this matter, insisting that she would be called NOTHING, EVER, so I think I'll just call her Olivia. Pronounced O-livia.


And the rock-star husband may as well be known as Axle. Feck it, why not?


This is fun, maybe I should write a novel.


Finally the dogs better get their second in the sun too, though I don't mention them much - two Jack Russells, a mother and son, 12 and 13, shall henceforth be known as Twinkie and Winkie.


That is all.

Rumspringa

I was reading in the paper yesterday, that the Amish population is doubling, due to bigger family size - they're spreading out incredibly successfully.

I can see the appeal of living an Amish life - the simplicity, the honest work, the farming, the baking, not so much the constricting and repressive religious aspect, but the spirituality, yes.

Michael Longley's poem An Amish Rug is one of my favourites.

As if a one-room schoolhouse were all we knew

And our clothes were black, our underclothes black,

Marriage a horse and buggy going to church

And the children silhouettes in a snowy field,

I bring you this patchwork like a smallholding

Where I served as the hired boy behind a harrow,

Its threads the colour of cantaloupe and cherry

Securing hay bales, corn cobs, tobacco leaves.

You may hang it on the wall, a cathedral window,

Or lay it out on the floor beside our bed

So that whenever we undress for sleep or love

We shall step over it as over a flowerbed.

He says about it:

When I was in Lancaster County in the 1980's, I bought an Amish rug as a gift for my wife. I wrote a poem about it some time later, a love poem which is in a way almost religious. There is something devout about making anything well. The Amish rug maker who pieced together our rug out of rags all those years ago now lights up our lives every day. He really has created for us a cathedral window.

And if you'll excuse the further digression, I love how Longley empathises with the rug maker, blends his experience with his own, and the sanctity of the Amish marriage with his own love for his wife. Such romance in this marriage poem. The rug becomes a flower bed, a symbol of fertility, the continued blossoming of their relationship. His insistence on the speaker as human, humorous, as real rather than caricature or stereotype is masterful as well.

But! Back to my point. The article discussed the concept of 'Rumspringa', which I think basically means room to run - and also refers to adolescence, and how one explanation for the growth of the population is that teens who decide they don't want to adopt the lifestyle and faith of the group are cut off from the community and their families. So they stay.

I'd like to talk about this a little more. I saw a programme on Rumspringa a few years ago. Initially I thought, great. The Amish don't baptise their babies - they let their teenagers have this period where they go out of their communities and live as any modern teens do -they drink, they do drugs, they listen to modern music, they get to drive cars and doubtless sleep around. Then they get to come home and decide whether they want to stay Amish or go out in to the world, having seen it for real.

I thought, how balanced. An informed choice. Except, it's not that clear cut. If they do decide to go out into the world, they can't come back. They can come home, but no one will talk to them, they're dead to the community. Fair enough, you might say, how else would the the Amish ways survive - you can't really live that lifestyle if your 19 year old's in college, and is bringing girls home to listen to rock and have a shag in their bedroom, while you're getting up at four to bake bread or milk cows or pray.

But when I looked at it closer, I saw one major flaw. The teenagers are sent out into the world, after their cloistered childhood, without any familial support. They're thrown out there, without protection - it's not a realistic view of a modern teenager's life. I think that adolescence is a time for experiment and testing of boundaries, but for me, what's important about it is that there's a safety net. You find your feet, but you have parents, family, a support network behind you, to reign you back in. Role models. The Amish kids are thrown out there into a wonderland of pointlessness they have no preparation for - sure the drink and drugs and partying and driving are fun, but it's a pretty nihilistic experience all on your own, and so far removed from everything you grew up with. Some of the kids on the programme got pretty messed up, dealing, getting in trouble, struggling terribly with their choice of stay or go.

And I felt the attitude of the Amish community was 'see, see what happens, our way is so much better'. But it wasn't a balanced view, it wasn't the experience of the average teen who balances dating and partying with household chores and exams, with their parents leading the way, being a safe target to rebel against. Of course it's going to be negative if you're just thrown out there - so the kid who got in trouble had a lot of issues giving up his life in the world, but felt like he had to come home, he needed the guidance. Less clear cut was the girl who loved her family, but wanted to go to college, she wanted to be a social worker. So she had to choose between that and her family and community. It was really sad.

I think there's a message here about how we need to treat our teenagers and keep them safe and coming home to us. Enough freedom, but always with unconditional strength and support from us in the background so they don't freefall. We are the bungee chord!

parenthood saps the youth from our souls

My husband woke up half an hour before he was meant to be in work today - our little boy was so pleased to see him - cuddled right up and wouldn't let go. His dad was holding him in his arms while brushing his teeth. He looked at him and said 'I look at you and I see myself, and then I look in the mirror and see an old, tired face I don't recognise'. It's so sad this aging. Aging without growing or achieving, it feels like.

In fairness, it's more crappy work and bad lifestyle management that does it though, I know. Long days in work, late night gigs, not enough proper nutrition. Man cannot live by cheese sandwiches alone. And all the bits that should be good are really just riddled with stress.

I need to work a lot more this year, I really want to be able to take the opportunity to make some money. Childcare... childcare... and the prospect of working every hour I can in between feeding and entertaining children is daunting. I need to find some time to swim and walk, and (yeah, right) work on story illustrations, work on doing something with my stories.

The problem is, my being here is taken for granted by my husband, who will say yes to any gig first, then tell me about it. No consultation. I can book a night out, but if a gig comes up he'll take it anyway, and then it's up to me to make other arrangements, or find a babysitter.

So we're all losing our youth, but at least he's got a creative outlet.

memory

I was watching tv last night and I saw this video. I was delighted, because in the States, when I was on the way to the airport my uncle drove us through the suburbs of L.A, and it was strange as I kept trying to take in the fact that I was in L.A, I couldn't get a handle on the reality of it. If you know what I mean. I was seeing buildings and streets and people but it didn't quite click that I was really in this famous city.

But there was a guy by the side of the road, a sign holder, whatever they're called, the modern equivalent of a sandwich board, who was flipping and spinning and catching his board, in constant motion. I'd forgotten about him til I saw this. I wonder if it's the same guy?

blog births

pop pop pop... little baby blogs, bursting to life all over the place. I loved how Holemaster's started, and you might have witnessed me being the midwife to Boggle's blog last night - well, you probably didn't because it was friday, and you were off living your fabulous lives (ngrgnrng). He wrote a Haiku! I'm down with that!

Two good opening posts. I looked back at my first post to see if I'd done anything special, and ... I really didn't. Just jumped right in there. God, if you look back, I was soooo pregnant.

sugar hangover

Groo. I do not feel well. Partly due to late nights and broken sleep, but mostly due to my unfeasibly high sugar intake over the last couple days. My gums are going spongy and sore, my muscles are hurting, I'm puffy, I'm waking up with a blocked nose and and generally feel like crap. Looking at cakes on the internet is not particularly wholesome, but eating them is far worse: I must detox! Though they warn against it when you're breastfeeding as fat stores toxins, so if I detoxed too much all the crap I've been collecting will whoosh out through the breast milk and into the baby. It's a point in favour of buying organic milk and butter...

I had great resolutions about doing something creative last night - I was going to get on with some knitting, write something proper, maybe even turn off the computer! But I didn't...

Still, I had some nice chats - gchat is great for lonely me on the weekend. It doesn't involve the commitment or effort of a phone call - you don't have to have anything to say. But it's nice to see little green lights on, and maybe swap a word or two across the airwaves. Or whatever they are. I've just realised it's Saturday, so there won't be any posts to read :( I suppose normal people go buy the paper. Hi Ho.

heh heh heh

from this comic, it's great, though too techie sometimes.

So I found this through Damien Mulley (I understand nothing I read at Damien's site, all the technobusinessbloggery stuff makes me feel like an ignoramus of below average intelligence, so I can only appreciate his light relief links). Here is the original site, a cake commentary site. I've been looking at lots of cakes recently, sugar work is unbelieveable! Cake art... Reminds me of my favourite Homer quote: Mmm, erotic cakes!

But coming back to the case in point, in the CakeWreck blog, the writer is appalled at the suggestion that women give birth naked, and also that anyone would want this cake for their baby shower, as was intended. She was planning a water birth, hence the waves. The writer censored the terribly offensive genitals with a black bar.

WTF? Now, plenty of people commented and said hey, I gave birth naked, everyone does, you get hot, it's the natural thing to do (If nothing else then skin to skin contact is necessary for getting the baby moving, working, sucking etc). A fair few laughed at the cake too and said they'd loved it, but plenty were repulsed, disgusted, affronted at the terribly bad taste.

What do you think? I think it's hilarious. I don't think the fondant genitals are explicit or offensive. One woman said something like 'Who's eat a cake someone had given birth on!?' Eh, hello, it's a fondant birth, no-one had a baby on the cake for god's sake.

I think this post possible reveals the best and worst of America all in one!

For some seriously amazing cake work, check out socake's flickr site. A talented lady! Here's my favourite thing of hers.

ranty rant

It is 9.29 or thereabouts. I should be cleaning. So of course...



I've been at the boot sales a good bit this summer, getting aquainted with car booters and their little ways. I haven't bought much, because I'm afraid if I start, I won't stop, so I limit myself to the stalls in my immediate eye line when I'm selling my wares. My house is already packed floor to ceiling with crap, you see, I don't want to add to it.



Some car booters are friendly, some are grumpy and suspicious, and some are odd. It amazes me that people will get up in the rain, at 8 am on a Sunday, so they can come stick their noses into your boot before you've set up, so they can ferret out the good stuff. I can't get used to that one. It's only cakes! I say in alarm, meaning get the fuck out of it!

Cakes! And they back away in confusion. No prize designer wear or tea sets we can get off you with change from a fiver? I've really started to get, what?, get the hump with the attitude boot sale buyers have though. They refuse to recognise the intrinsic value of the things at the sale. It doesn't matter what the seller paid for them, or how good they are, because they're being sold in a field or car park instead of a shop, they refuse to pay more than a few quid for them. I could be selling a Monet, for god's sake, and they're still be trying to bargain me down to a fiver. And this goes for the cakes too - people try to bargain! I know I'm selling at a boot sale, but they're not second hand cakes, people, I didn't get them out of the attic! The ingredients cost a certain amount, as did the fuel to heat the oven, and my time is worth something too.


But my heart goes out to people who are selling these lovely things, in good condition, but can only get, literally, a few euros for them. People know they're meant to bargain, so they insist on lower prices, no matter what. For instance, one day my five year old daughter set out a few little things on the ground - a woman came along and wanted her little flowery barbie wellies, in good condition. She asked me how much, and I shrugged and said €2? She asked if I'd give her them for €1. And I did but I regret it. They're worth so much more new, they were in good condition, little used, my daughter would have been delighted to have a couple euros after, noting else sold... how stingy and mingy is it to refuse to pay €2 for something? The same day, a nice lady beside me was having a serious clear out, fresh meat! People were flocking to her - but she was selling off all these great toys for a euro each. Same with a friend of mine, she sells everything for one or two euros, nothing over a fiver. I've a good few baby things I'd love to sell, and get rid of in one fell swoop, but I've things that cost a lot of money, no way will I give them away for under ten quid - I'd rather save them for a friend who needs them, to be honest.


I don't know where it comes from, this refusal to value things, in a culture where I've seen a child's bed on sale for FOUR GRAND (in a shop which has now closed down, surprise surprise), or where every one's driving jeeps that cost what a house should. But no one will pay any money for something nice in a boot sale. Meh! People beside me in Dun Laoighre had these plastic, spiral bound presentation folders, new, nice, and were selling them for €4 or three for €10. Everyone was interested but no one was buying. This grey faced, white haired old man with a sour, mingy expression came along and asked. He sucked his teeth when he heard the price, and said 'That's very dear for a boot sale'. The woman told him they were €8 in Eason's. 'Still very dear for a booot saaale' he pronounced, in disgusted, bleating, condemnatory tones. Well, I'm sorry, but the mingy old fuck! I"m so disgusted myself, at that stingy, picky, ungenerous attitude.


People have the right to sell things, and make a bit of money at it. Fine, if it's old tat you want rid of, charge a few cent or a euro for it, but if it's brand new, why not be able to charge what it's worth? I'm sickened to think of people scouting for real antiques or items of value, while self righteously offering a pittance and mentally rubbing their hands.

what the fuck is wrong with people?

I mean, really? I wasn't going to put this up because I didn't want to look at it or inflict it on you. and then I thought, well, if it would stop just one parent making their kid do something stupid and/or scary and taking a photo of it while they cry, then it's worth it.

Stupid bastards. I bet they laughed.

grumble grumble tagged grumble grumble

I am in no mood to talk about happiness this morning, it's a miserable morning, everyone in my house is angry and sad and being mean to each other and I really just need to lock myself in a sound proof closet and scream for a bit and then get a divorce and moveto a different country.


So I don't feel like doing memes about happiness.

I might cheat and link to my 100 favourite things hundredth post post. Though when I did that I realised that a lot of the things that are on there aren't in my life any more. In an effort to be positive then -

• Snow - if only there was more! It makes me feel like I'm on drugs, happy, light and floaty. Watching it fall, playing in it. Please can we have more snow?


• Babies laughing. Gurgly little baby belly-laughs. Enough said.


• Stationary. I love stationary. I could cruise round good stationary and art supply shops all day. Paints, card, paper, I love it. The fancy kind, mind you, €2 shops don't do it for me.


• When my baking works out.

How cute are these cupcakes? And the strawberry ones are a new recipe, and they taste DIVINE.

• Swimming. The only sport I love/can do. I have swimmer's shoulders, and apparently my back is two inches wider than my front, if you know what I mean. Not great for looking lovely and ladylike, but I can swim. Before and after my daughter was born I swam a lot but I had more time and money then. Fingers crossed the new pool up the road wil open soon after all these years of poollessness. And I'll be able to make time to go. I went the other day for the first time since the baby was born (!) and I got time to do 4 lengths. And it killed me. I felt like I was 82.
  

Some beautiful illustrations from an old tale in one of its permutations. I love the title, I love the story behind it.

Check out the rest and tell me which three you like best. Morgor guessed mine effortlessly - the ones with gazing women... he's right, but not for the gazing, for the moon and the birch trees. Birch trees are my favourite trees. I love how these are half Chinese, half Klimt. And for the women and the moon like the moon passage in Jane Eyre, when she's leaving before her wedding, to maintain her own integrity - she's going out alone into the dangerous world, without friend, family, or means, and she looks at the moon, to me a symbol of the mother within her, the female power and strength - and she goes, she doesn't stay and marry the man with the crazed wife in the attic, who will marry her anyway. She follows the moon. Being the fraidy-cat that I am, I find that very inspirational.

Anyway, a hard copy of this story goes on my wishlist - not an early edition, something affordable, in good condition it's alright to handle. I could browse and buy children's books all day - I think if I had to choose between them and adult fiction I'd stick with children's. Maybe if adult fiction were illustrated, that would be different. But there's a purity and artistry to the child's story I find perfect. Any illustrators out there looking for someone to work with? I'm sitting on all this material and never getting the wings under me to do any drawing. I'm wasting time.

another oldschool weekend music post

Tomorrow I will be baking a coffee cake for my mother in law's 70th birthday. She's happy to have Claire come do the photo, now the only problem is getting my husband and his inlaws off work on the same day.

Despite the fact that it's her seventieth, neither of her sons managed to get off work on the day itself, so she's having it Sunday, which she's not best pleased about. And my husband won't be there til 6.20 or so. She's quietly well browned off about that, and the fact she doesn't get to have her party on her birthday. She didn't want any more than close family, and just a quiet dinner. And the photo, which we haven't been able to manage to produce.

So I went out to Dundrum today and got cake ingredients, birthday candles in the shape of Champagne bottles, sparkling wine, cards of various sorts (she favours the ones with schmaltzy rhymes in,), wrapping paper, a lovely bottle of Weleda Rose shower gel, photo frames (I've been trying to make my printer and computer liaise on the simple task of scanning and printing a photo for over an hour and a half now, with slight to moderate success, fuck it, fuck it, why can these things not just do what they're made to do arg grr and Captain Haddock style cursing).

What's my point? I dunno, I don't seem to have one.

I have my own schmaltzy preference, and it is for sweepingly romantic, epic songs - not so much Renee and Renato, more like this lovely thing, which I think is a precursor to BellX1's Eve, which I also heart.

who am I? I miss me.

I mentioned that I'd done the Wesley Car Boot sale the other day. That I'd gone into the chapel hall and its smell reminded me completely of the Protestant school I'd gone to. It was sort of born out of Wesley, in a way, as our mad headmaster came from teaching there. Amusingly, when I mentioned Wesley to my grandmother, she spat, 'I wouldn't send a dog to Wesley!' I don't know why, she didn't elaborate :)

Anyway, I have taught in a Catholic girls' school, and noticed a musty, Catholic smell in the old part of the building - walking under the cruxifix over the door and smelling that institutional smell was a very sensory experience. Though evocative of nothing familiar to me.
But the Protestant smell was evocative of my old school. Familiar too was the white bearded gent with the cultured and educated voice, with the name-tag saying 'Fraser'.

I was there with a girl my husband worked with, a lovely girl from Churchtown, who thinks I'm totally eccentric. Her associations with Wesley are of knacker drinking with her friends and abusing the Wesley boarders on their way to the shop - 'Haaa, no-one loves you, you've got no-one, that's why you're in a boarding school!'

Shit. That would never have occurred to me.

And it suddenly struck me, with an immense feeling of sadness. My mother's gone, we are drawing a veil over my relationship with my father, his extended family aren't so pro-active about socialising. And my husband's family and lots of friends - I'm not going to be able to explain this without sounding snobby. Despite the fact that there are lots of people that I love and esteem, they're not like me. When I talk to them I necessarily operate on a polite and more surface level. I edit my opinions and interests and responses, I'm not operating on default. That's the point. What's your default status?

I'm never on home ground. And to be honest, I'm not sure what that is anymore. I've been out of the loop so long that I now feel unsure of myself back in with the people I'm talking about. I've started feeling stupid around them, like I can't keep up. So I'm in a sort of no man's land. I hadn't really noticed til the smell and the Frazer guy sort of pushed a button of ... not belonging. Of likeness, I suppose.

This left me feeling depressed, a little lost, and hopeless. Like I've lost something and I'm not sure how to get it back. The fake Bray accent my daughter has adopted and can't get rid of is driving me nuts, and I miss theoretical conversation.

Perhaps I just miss my mother. She's the person I really identify with, to be honest. Jo versus the world.

I don't feel like writing. I can't muster the muster. Should I anyway? Mmmmm....no!

Come back tomorrow. I might rant about stinginess on the neglected PiosaCake. Also I need to write about eggs and birthday cakes.

olympic chinese meanies

I've just been watching the news. For some reason the Chinese are coming clean about their various Olympic fakeries - most notably, the picture perfect pigtailed seven year old singing angelically wasn't actually singing - she was miming to the voice of the not pretty enough child she replaced. You can harshly compare them here. I would have been happy to see her sing.

Why do this in the first place, only to reveal it? Bizarre - surely doing that's worse press that having a less that perfect child sing for the opening ceremony?

I feel for that little talented girl - she didn't get her moment in the limelight. I'd hate to have to be her mother, explaining why she didn't get to go out and sing. Ugh. Worst job ever.

shades of green and weepy

Another gushing link (in a minute, now) to bring you all to the church of Black Hockey Jesus - an intro interview, and a shit kicking extracted post. Read the post if not the interview.

Because I recently found the script for a video I made the first (and only!) time I left the country after my daughter was born. She was three, and I am the sort of person who is not so much anxious about dying in a plane crash as the sort of person who thinks about it a lot. I wrote:

If you're watching this it means Mamma's plane has had an accident, and I'm gone, like my mamma, and that is very sad.
But I want you to know this: even though I said I would come back and I didn't, I didn't leave you. Sometimes people have accidents and they can't come back, even though they want to. But even though you can't see me now, I believe that I can see you and love you and my love is all around you. So you can talk to me all the time. And say goodnight every night and my love will kiss you goodnight every night. And one day, far far away when you are a mamma and a granny and it's time to go, I will be there, to bring you to me.

And that's enough of that, there's a little more but there's too much heartstring tugging.

So I found that, and then today I found this. And ok, so I was writing to a toddler. But still... sheesh. Imagine being able to say exactly what you wanted in a way that spoke to anyone who read it?

small boy

New developments - He's been sitting in his car seat, which was in the hall, with one strap over his shoulder, all happy with himself. I gave him a small puppy dog, one of those nice German plastic animals. He's been standing on the chair, walking the dog up and down the edge while saying 'Gog gog gog gog gog!' And now he's sitting on the hearth blowing peeps on a red whistle.

It's bizarre, in the last week or two, and it really happened over a period of about three days, he just seemed to sprout, like Mario getting embiggened. He's so heavy, and big, and clever.

Last night he was sitting at the table, talking on a pretend phone. Then he picked up his hummus ricecake and talked on that. Calling Daddy on the Hummus Phone! I asked if he was talking to his daddy, and he looked wildly towards the door, shouted 'Daddy Daddy!' and waved frantically (oops!).

The best thing is his dancing. He's been doing it since he was small, but now he's standing up and wiggling his bum, which is the cutest thing, I could watch him all day.

One thing I'm really aware of is that the understanding he's now able to communicate had been there for some time, right from the start, really. It's just the ability to respond to things takes longer to develop. I think it's important to be aware of this about your children. I've been with too many mothers who talk about their one year olds being accidents, or mistakes, or unwanted in front of them. Something tells me it's just not a good idea.

The Rise and Rise of the Daddy Blogger

We all know how mothers took to blogging like Renee to Renato. It made sense, you're home all day, you don't get to talk to adults or go out much, you don't have enough of a creative outlet - communication is the prize.

Mommy Bloggers got super popular in the States but now Daddy Bloggers are stealing the limelight. metrodad and BlackHockeyJesus rock not only my world but a legion of other readers too. And they have blogger friends who are great too, so check their links.

Closer to home, I was moved and a bit discomfited by this post from Sniffle&Cry. Here is a concerned post about responses to addiction by chrisppancake. Nick writes about his responses to his son Jake, and documents his happy experience of having a son with Down's Syndrome. His blog is both outlet and resource and today's post is political. How does our casually negative use of language disparage and set back the cause of people with special needs? I'm a little shocked at people's willingness to brand him a 'pc nazi' because he wants to defend the group his son belongs to, and for him to grow up in a world where is valued and respected rather than ridiculed in everyday slang. Let's just say, if you have a son called Jonah, as a friend of mine does, you don't encourage use of the name to describe unlucky people.

Of course you don't have tobe a dad yet, to be a daddy-blogger. Xbox4Nappyrash is moving everyone with his frank descriptions of trying to conceive (see, that's what's going wrong, you're not supposed to be doing it with Frank). Holemaster is a long time commenter, first time blogger, and I love this post already. It hasn't been updated in a while, but I adore Conformist No.1's writing at the conforming monkey.
And of course, there's Darren, who will wow you with his social life, but also writes posts like this. And I'm sorry dearloverblog ended the way it did because I so wanted there to be a happy ending. Blogging makes you consider how you confront the world and lets others see the process.

Of course, it's not like men haven't had a monopoly on great writing (at least according to John Waters) for some time. I know it's nothing new. But I like the great big little intimacies of the blog, of reading men's responses to the daily grind, of the male experience. I think women often have a impulse to identify, and it frustrates us and leaves us grasping in the dark when men won't throw us a bone. Perhaps that's what I like about the men's personal blogs, bones thrown all over the place.

Some men seem to feel that feminism is obsolete, and any mention of it, or women's issues, is over the top harping, worthy of mockery and a hostile response. But I think men's issues are equally part of the package. Men have been as hampered and suppressed by traditional roles as women have in some regards.

A friend lived with his wife's parents after their daughter was born, and his one interaction with his daughter on the weekday was to get to bathe her - his mother in law (to be!) would be knocking on the door after 15 minutes, checking if she was alright, ready to snatch her from his arms.

I was recently at a kids' party where a little boy was freaked out and crying by the whole thing, and his dad was totally embarrassed and refused to comfort him, just kept putting him down, with all the usual boys don't cry type cliches. Or I was at the beach the other day and a little boy fell over in the waves and got that awful cold, wet shock you get and was miserable and crying, but his father wouldn't pick him up, or comfort him, he pretty much ignored the whole thing. I don't know if he was embarrassed or just didn't want to get his clothes wet.

I think it is especially relevant now to fathers and men generally, to be inventing new roles and responses, and blogs seem to be a good place to test them out. Hey! I wonder if Robert Smith has a blog!



Phew. I'm exhausted from all the linktastic linkage. If I've missed anyone out who feels like they should be in here, send your link in!

incoming

Can't find a good picture. Have one to scan in but haven't the energy to lift a finger.

God, I haven't been this tired since a long time. I'm so tired I just want to cry from tiredness. Everything feels so awful. Don't. think. about. anything.

To bed last night at 12.30 after making some (gratifyingly successful) strawberry cupcakes and all the rest. Soon to be featured on piosacake.

As soon as I got to bed the baby woke up and slept fitfully but basically didn't settle. Husband came in at 3.20 - baby still unsettled. Alarm clock went at 4.30 am (even when I'm going to the airport for a nice holiday, I still wake to the alarm at 4.30 am wishing I was able to just go back to sleep) so I could get up to be at the Wesley car boot for 5.40. 5.40 A.M.

And then because it was pissing rain and windy there weren't many people there - we could have fucking sauntered in at 10. AAAGH!

Still, did ok in the end, but got very wet in the interim.

A vent soon to come about the miserable mingey stinginess of the common punter at bootsales and their refusal to recognise the value of anything, because it's at a bootsale. Feh.

I've never been in Wesley before, but I went to East Glendalough, Wicklow's first Protestant Secondary school - strong similarities. More to come about my ostracisation from the human race.

And finally, a post is in the offing about the Rise and Rise of the Daddy Blogger.

Hopefully tomorrow. The husband was exhausted after a gig on Thursday in his old place of work, Baker's Corner, went very well, home at half one, after working from 9-9. Then last night, after working to 7, a gig in town, in the new Purty Kitchen, where Bad Bobs used to be in Temple Bar. Very successful, lots of new people. Then up early with the cranky baby, til I came home at 2.30. He went to bed from 3.30, ostensible for an hour. We were meant to be going to a friend's party but while he slept, I made dinner, cleaned up in the kitchen, fed the baby, woke the daughter from her nap and fed her, starting pumping milk (for the nervous grandmother to come put the baby to bed so we could go out early) while contemplating hoovering the kitchen, thought about crap relationship in a presumably pre-menstrual way (if maggot is correct, he appears to be checking dates for some reason). Realised that all this was too much and I wouldn't have a good night if I went out, I'd just sleep in a corner. Tried to suggest the same to the husband, and that he'd be good for nothing tomorrow but he ignored the suggestion and went out.

So now it's a grown up, child free hot bath for me, once my daughter falls asleep, and bed, so I can get up with the kids tomorrow while he has a hungover lie in.

I think I'll check my lotto now. If you never hear from me again it'll be because I won the 8 million and will be living in a tree top mansion with monkey butlers to write millionaire blog posts for me under assumed names.

weekend retro music

Oh yes. The time has come.

Pantomime they may be, but I don't care, it still hooks me in the guts.

Stompin.

I thought of the Sisters of Mercy because Holemaster asked me what my laptop was called when I got it. And I suspect, I really rather think, her name just might be Lucretia.


I hear the roar of a big machine...

a speedy response

Dear Jo,
Thank you for your email regarding The Dark Knight.
I fully understand the points you have made. Our 15A rating means that webelieve this film to be suitable for persons over 15. A person under thatage may be brought into the cinema if they are accompanied by an adult,whom we would assume to be a parent. Most parents take their responsibilityvery seriously, but, unfortunately some do not, such as anyone bringing afour or five year old in. As a very experienced classifier colleague ofmine here says about that: 'Which number do they not understand, the one orthe fifteen!'.
Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about irresponsible parents,except to try and publicise the issue.
You may not be aware of the consumer advice we put on our website for TheDark Knight, which went as follows:
'Strong weapons and physical violence, brutal but not graphically depicted.Strong air of menace throughout. Some references to physicalviolence/cruelty may disturb some younger viewers.
Thanks again for contacting us.
Regards
John KelleherDirector, IFCO
Irish Film Classification Office16 Harcourt Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland
tel: +353 1 799 6100 fax: +353 1 676 1898email: johnkelleher@ifco.gov.iewebsite: http://www.ifco.ie/

Post Scipt - in response to this I suggested a rethink was necessary as it meant that small children were in effect unprotected by the censor. He replied (immediately!) that rethinks are ongoing, but he couldn't see the cinemas being able to carry out my suggestion of a cap on children being brought in to 15s films, saying that some people find their guidelines unnecessarily strict already.

A nice man!

horrified

Well, I went to see Batman. I'm not writing a review, other than to say, it was Heath Ledger's film, god bless him wherever he is. And it was about an hour too long. I can't understand why everyone's going again. It was good, sure. Could have been seriously edited though. Long, drawn out yaaaawn.

And the other problem I had was that I knew of two little kids who'd been taken to see it - and with each new violent bit, I couldn't help but see it from a five year old's perspective. I mean, I found it hard to watch as it was, a good few close eyes, fingers in the ears moments.

I am appalled to find out that there's a 15A cert, that gives parents free reign to bring any age of child to any kind of film under 18 cert. You may bitch about the Nanny State, but the people who've brought their small children to this are not responsible, and do not know how to safeguard their children's best interests. I told Darren I shouldn't say shame on anyone - well, I've changed my mind. If you're a parent who knowingly brought your six year old to see this film, shame on you!

I've had to write this letter to the IFCO, or there's no way I'd sleep tonight. If you agree with me, maybe you'd write too. info@ifco.gov.ie

Dear Sir/Madam,
I have just been to see Batman. From the first ten minutes of the film, my enjoyment of it was seriously tempered by the fact that I knew of someone, a mother who is not a responsible carer, who took her two young sons to see this film. The youngest is perhaps four or five.
I have since been told that this is not unusual, and the matinees have been full of kids, being brought by their parents.

I have a five year old, and would not let her anywhere near this film. To be quite honest, I found a lot of it hard to watch myself, and knowing small children are seeing it makes it far harder to stomach. The small boy who saw it said it was ok, because he was a 'brave boy'. A brave boy? Films should be fun for kids, not ordeals.

In watching that two and a half hour, dark film, a five year old will see numerous shootings, hear a psychotic and terrifyingly made up man hold a knife to someones mouth while telling a story of seeing his mother killed and having his face slashed by his drunken father. They will see people tied, beaten, tortures, slashed, dropped from buildings, attacked by ferocious dogs, see a man with a nightmare face threaten to shoot another child. They will see a terrified man writhing on the ground with a huge scar on his abdomen and a phone inside him.

The list goes on, and on, and on, just like the film does, with relentless image after image. In addition to this, the scenery and moral and psychological content of the the film is dark and affecting. It is emotionally manipulative, effectively so. This is not Adam West's Batman, or even Michael Keaton's; this was NEVER intended for small children, yet for some reason, the IFCO deems it so?

Whoever made this film should sleep as badly as I will tonight, knowing that small children are being subjected to this film.

I presume the 15A rating protects 12 - 14 year olds from seeing the film alone. But 5 year olds with irresponsible parents are left unprotected one way or the other. It makes no sense to me.

playdough recipe

Rainy day. Bored children. Playdough!

1 cup flour

1 cup water

1 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 cup salt

dessert spoon sunflower oil (or similar)

food colouring

Mix 'em all together on a low heat. Stir til it goes solid, then take it out and knead it a little to toughen it up. I recommend adding the food colouring during cooking, it's less messy, but if you want two colours, do seperate batches - the alternative is to poke holes in the finished playdough, pour in the colouring and gingerly knead - but you get stained hands and possibly surfaces.

It keeps well in a plastic bag in the fridge.

I love playdough.

resolution

When I was in school, my art teacher was the quite religious wife of a vicar. She I had occasionally hung out with her daughter, and in a moment of fondness she once told me that she included me in her prayers every day. At the time, I was quite freaked out by the idea of someone praying for me, I did not appreciate it - maybe just because it was her, with her halitosis and ostentatiously awful clothing she thought made her look 'the mad artist'.

But I've made a little resolution. I'm going to try sending positive pictures and intentions to people before I go to sleep each night. I suppose it's a prayer of sorts. I would think of it as a little extra energy, or focus devoted outside of myself. It helps me get to sleep too, that effort of concentration - better than thinking of bad things. You have to work to hold on to it.

Not wanting to be prayed for by Mrs.Vicar aside, the minister we hoped would marry us got kidney cancer just before our wedding and was unable to - we assumed he must have died as the general prognosis of the disease is so bad and few respond well to chemo. It took us a while to go back to the church, as it was so connected to my mother's death and I'd had more than I could take of cancer and death - but when we did go back, he was there, and healthy.

Similarly, a friend's husband has recently had a brain tumour operated operated on. He was diagnosed shortly after their baby was born. They're a very religious couple and have a huge amount of people praying with conviction for them, as did the minister. While the brain tumour is not completely sorted, the operation and results went as well as they possibly could have.

Basically I believe in the power of positive thinking. I once met a friend for dinner, and was woefully late. At the time she'd been seeing someone, and it looked like it might turn into something more. But he hadn't called since the last time he'd stayed over, and the whole way to the restaurant she fantasised about finding him there with someone else. And she did. And she said she totally made it happen - and what could she achieve if she used her powers for good instead of evil?

Well exactly. And the best thing about it is, if it doesn't work, what is there to lose? All you've done is sent a few good thoughts towards someone you care about or wish well.

I'm a big believer in pictures. White light around the airplane or car, or child. Drawing pictures of the state you want to realise.

So if you could all envision me with a winning lotto ticket in my hand, please... a money miracle happens to me today, a money miracle happens to me today

The Silva mind method is worth checking out - it's in a new incarnation since I heard of in the eighties, but I think it's pretty effective.

My mother in law wants a family photo for her 70th . We have two one year olds and a stroppy and uncooperative five year old who hates having her photo taken. And she wants to go for a simple studio portrait.

I've talked to Gingerpixel about this, but I'd sort of shelved the idea due to financial constraints, but now the birthday is upon us! And I haven't done anything about it... so my sister in law who checked out Gp's website was into it, thought I was setting it up (well, I started!) but when she told my MIL the plan, that we'd go out, get nice natural photos somewhere scenic, not all stand in a grinning line trying to reign in children, she was not enamoured of the idea. 'I just want to go somewhere and get a photo taken'.

Right. It'll be that easy. It won't. It's going to be fucking horrible. It's going to be just like the clip!

invisible parents

How do people who have children feel about people who are trying to conceive without success? So many people are in that position that there's a board for it on Rollercoaster.ie - trying to conceive is a valid part of the parenting experience, whether it's successful or not. There are secret parents, parents in plan, in dream, in yearning, just not yet in actuality.

I just found Xbox's site, and reading backwards through the struggles they've had was even worse because you see the hope but you know it was not to be realised.

I feel... so sad. Guilty, that things were easier for me - and guilty that I'm not doing a better parenting job having got what I wanted. And I desperately want to wave a wand and share my fertility round, make wishes come true. It is such a cruel irony, that pregnancy happens so inopportunely for some while it is so desperately yearned for by others.

One thing I maintained, from my broody teenage years up, was that if I was unable to have children I wouldn't go the IVF route. But that was before I tried to have children and perhaps it carried no weight then. And now I have children, so it still carries no weight... perhaps if I was not such a user of alternative therapies I wouldn't be so ready to reject the hormones and probings and the way the language and personalities of the fertility clinics reduce people to no more than failed body parts.

Eavan Boland described that well:
The Famine Road
“Idle as trout in light Colonel Jones
these Irish, give them no coins at all; their bones
need toil, their characters no less.” Trevelyan’s
seal blooded the deal table. The Relief
Committee deliberated: “Might it be safe,
Colonel, to give them roads, roads to force
From nowhere, going nowhere of course?”

one out of every ten and then
another third of those again
women – in a case like yours.

Sick, directionless they worked. Fork, stick
were iron years away; after all could
they not blood their knuckles on rock, suck
April hailstones for water and for food?
Why for that, cunning as housewives, each eyed
–as if at a corner butcher – the other’s buttock.

anything may have caused it, spores
a childhood accident; one sees
day after day these mysteries.

Dusk: they will work tomorrow without him.
They know it and walk clear.
He has become
a typhoid pariah, his blood tainted, although
he shares it with some there. No more than snow
attends its own flakes where they settle
and melt, will they pray by his death rattle.

You never will, never you know
but take it well woman, grow
your garden, keep house, good-bye.

“It has gone better than we expected, Lord
Trevelyan, sedition, idleness, cured
in one. From parish to parish, field to field;
the wretches work till they are quite worn,
then fester by their work. We march the corn
to the ships in peace. This Tuesday I saw bones
out of my carriage window. Your servant Jones.”

Barren, never to know the load
of his child in you, what is your body
now if not a famine road?
--Eavan Boland
So things have changed a bit since that was all the comfort women were offered - God knows fertility is now a multi billion dollar business, ruining lives and bankrupting people, as well as bringing miracles and joy... a hard choice to make. A soul destroying route to go down too. I would not have dealt well with long term ttc, I know.

ce n'est pas un post

I wrote half a post last night, but it turned into a whinge, not what I meant to do. So I'm sitting on it, til I actually feel more whingey.

And I was going to do something else, but it just sort of happened. So here's the bank holiday weekend nostalgia video, installment three of my cassette tape collection :)

The sound's not great for some reason, so turn it up! I have two Carter memories: one is seeing them in the SFX with a group of really great people, among them Steve Cruise, who was bursting for a wee but refused to do it on the street - increasingly desperate, 'It's different for girls!! It's right down the end! in the end he made friends with a vagrant type with a bag of cans, they wandered into a public venue with a toilet which turned out to be an AA meeting.

Despite the naggin-of-vodka-in-a-can-of-coke special, I failed to get drunk that night. But the next day in school, running laps in PE, all the alcohol reactivated in my the systems of my friend and I, making it the best PE class we'd ever participated in. Ah, those were the days.

The second is seeing them at Feile, making friends with a little punk boy with a sink chain round his neck - he'd lost he key to the padlock and his neck was turning green with verdigris. He helped me find and replace my fairly new nose stud when it fell out, and when Jimbo said 'Turn around and kiss the person beside you', we did, and then had a little snog. I wish there were more moments like that in adult life. I miss snogging strangers...

So in honour of that sentiment - turn it up!