a messy couple days

Yesterday I brought the kids into town after school, as I had to buy shoes for Olivia. She has wide feet - an H fitting this time round it seems. So we went in, found nothing in Grahams, walked to Henry Street, it seems Clarks offer two pairs of runners in an H fitting (gah! What's the fucking point!!? ) and of COURSE she refused to try either. So she's still in her sandals. Tick tock.

But on the walk over, Bodhi wanted to walk on the board walk - pretty along the river but with dodgy junkie potential. And , joy of joys, there were a few young men messing - a girl and two guys of the be-tracksuited variety, in their late teens or early twenties. And as we approached, on of the guys sneaked up behind his friend, and pulled down his tracksuit bottoms.

So that Olivia got the glorious view of his hairy arse and scrotum right in her eyeline.

I didn't have a chance to quite work out what I was dealing with, but I saw the shaven head and tracksuit and the total disregard fo the presence of the small people right beside them, so I didn't do the teacher bit, just in case. I made light of it and herded my ducklings swiftly past.

She was very quiet about it. We got back to Temple Bar (safe on the Southside! - or so we thought) and I brought Bodhi to the toilet in Gourmet Burger. Olivia insisted on going in to clean her shoe, and caught two fingers in the door coming out. Bleeding and wailing. So I swallowed my panic and rushed to the chemist - arnica infusion, and the  crying stopped, but I bought some Calpol  to chase it with, just in case, and a plaster, and by the time we left, all was well, and the fingers didn't hurt her again. I am so glad nothing got broken - they were looking bruised and swollen and bloody, but they seem fine now. Gah.

So. Mc Donald's and no one spilled a drink (and she sighed over her injury - 'sigh. If only it had happened to Axel), then Murphy's ice cream shop on Wicklow St, and they loved loved their ice creams, and Olivia even approached (was it Kevin?) off her own bat and told him thank you and it was the nicest ice cream she'd ever had! Rare praise from the girl.

And on the way back, she proclaimed it had been a perfect day. I expressed surprise, and she said, well, it would have been better if I had got shoes - and if I hadn't hurt my fingers - but she was keen to get home and horrify her father with the Story of the Arse.

I think she liked the bullet holes in the GPO, though, and my cobbled together history lesson. And crossing the Hapenny bridge a couple times, and the green adn red houses that are  floating in the water - does anyone know what that's about? Flood protests? Boat people protests? Or just floating house shapes?

We got home so late they were barely in bed before my girls came for girls night (my brother's 24 year old girlfriend is in no rush to be a woman, she says). I had great plans, but there was so much to do and I didn't feed them til about 10 pm, which is really poor form. Sorry Nicola!

But it was fun. And I got to know things about the said gf which were interesting in the extreme and makes me hope more than ever that she might be my sister one day.

But ugh. Today. Another tough one. In short:

Tequila-heavy margaritas plus chilli and tortillas plus too much rubarb crumble and cream do not a happy state make. I didn't get a headache, I just couldn't cope with life today.

So, wrong day to try and get the kids to cooperate in  the photo shoot I promised them for, which got rescheduled to today, unfortunately, and which we had to abort. Kids not into it, Me not up to that - and I've no inclination to be a showbix mom who makes them when they're freaking out about it. Waste of time and petrol and energy and emotion when I could have stayed in bed and had the safety and comfort of my own bathroom.

And then a playdate for Bodhi with his friend whose parents are Christian types. I like the mum a lot, she's sweet and great company - but when it comes to the crunch I feel more comfortable swapping revealtions about sexual predilictions (preledictions?) with my sister in law than trying to be on my best behaviour with church going folk.

For example - she told me her mother had bought her an electronic stirrer, because she knows how busy she is with the two small kids. It's a vibrating three speeded doodit that stands in your pot and ... stirs it. But apparently the vibes are so strong that it moves the pot half off the heat :)

It was funny, she showed me, we laughed over it, and I took a deep breath and suggested she could use it as a ... head massager.
But, agh, it hurt me to do so.

Then home to endless, screaming sibling mayhem and ... and an ongoing sadness that's suddenly getting worse, that I wish so hard I could soothe, or fix, or wave a magic wand over.

Weird days for me. Dark days for someone else. Nothing to do but sleep, for now.

I was going to post a hairy arse so you could share in the shock of its sudden arsiness, but google image isn't really helping me. If only the brain took photos, so I could share the image stamped onto my and my children's retinas. I told Olivia there was nothing wrong with a naked bottom per se - you just want to be able to choose when and where you see one. 'I looked away', she said delicately.

Grr. I really hope the little fucker who pantsed his friend in front of two small children gets his just karmic desserts.

Apologies for the length of this post! Did you manage to get here? Congrats! A copy of  (Br)Ass Rubbings of Dublin for you!