foodsexual - this recipe arouses me

It really does. I think I must never actually make it. Looking is enough! And less insanely calorific.

http://thefrostedcupcakes.blogspot.com/2010/09/chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-cupcakes.html

all around the world

love the chorus... love this whole album. Take your shoes off... dance a little... ooo-oo-oo, oo-ooo-oo, oo-ooo-oo, oo-oh-I...

Smallie small talk

Bodhi to Window Guy: Sometimes I'm scared at night.
Window Guy: well, you shouldn't be, really. There's no need. You're safe in your house.

pause

Bodhi:  ... If people are evil, I kill them.

Bodhi, Demon Hunter.

A little bit later:

Bodhi: Sometimes I do farts ...
Window Guys... tactful silence.

observation

I think I've only had two unsolicited personal emails in the last week. That can't signify anything good, can it?

umpty

Woah. That's a purple video, against the blue in the last post. Turn your brightness down. Or stand up and have a little whirl around. It's very sweeping music.

I think it's one of my favourites. Up there with all the other favourites. The ones I never bought and listened to over and over but I love them anyway.

I don't really feel like that tonight though. Mostly I do, but not right now. The idea of needing anything seems far away because so does the idea of needs ever being met. So what's the point in pinpointing what it is you need but won't get?

I'll fixate on the lottery instead.

And retreat into this prickly absence of light.

I should make my bedroom nice. I should clean and shine and create prettiness. I should do an evening course and learn a language and open a small bakery business and start a budding romance with some earnest young customer and pay off my debts and get fit and turn my children into happy, well adjusted high achievers who I devote attention to in between gym visits and footrubs and work. If only I had a chick lit writer to write my life and show me how to care, and get the ball started rolling.

Irritatingly bitter and stubbornly negative? Yeah. Just today. I'm sure I'll start all that in the morning.

Part one


Part two

If I could fall.. into the sky...

Once again... still a favourite

Disconnected

Ms Moon is in a Movie! Along with Jessie Moon and a fine cast of others, directed by Freddie C Rabbath, who is blowing up Youtube with his indie shorts - and indeed his movies :)

Have a lookie! Make them famous! It's very good and super creepy. And Ms Moon and Jessie are in it! As is the beautiful North Florida.

punus

When I told Bodhi the real word for his willy was penis, he seemed discomfited. He mulled it over with a slightly worried face on, and then announced that he liked 'willy', not penis.

Ok.

Then this morning he looked at me with that grin, and announced, 'I am touching my punus (pyoo-nus)'. He found this fairly amusing. Me too.

I just went and waited 40 mins for the library to open, only to go back and realise it's not open til 1 today. Not 10.

Fuck.

I have to start wearing my glasses again.

you'd think in a recession there'd be more need for the library, not less, wouldn't you? Bastards and their unhelpful opening hours.

respite

Some proofing work, out of the blue - Thank you Lord, and my friend Nora.

oh yes

I always thought I didn't like green curry very much. I don't know why. The lemon grass? I dunno.

But after Danielle was waxing happy about his yesterday, I bought a jar of curry paste and a tin of coconut milk and some sweet potatoes and sugarpeas and mushrooms and a yellow pepper and onions. Well. Some of that I had already.

And oh my god. The rice isn't cooked yet, but there might not be any curry left by the time it's ready. So good! I had to check the label to make sure there's no msg in it. So nice. So very, very nice, on this grey, rainy day.

And tomorrow I'm going to make lentil moussaka.

Thank you for the inspiration, D.

playschool of doom

♪ 'It's very sad
    It's very sad
    The old people die in the end...
    The old people die in end...
     Everybody dies in the end.' ♪

Sung with sweet matter of fact cheer in the kitchen this morning. I've misremembered it slightly. I asked him if he'd made it up and he said they sang it in playschool.

I think I prefer his punk version of 'I love you Mum' better.

** Amusing Edit! It's not what I thought - it's not old people - it's 'in the old days everyone dies in the end' - I told him something about The Old Days and how people used to die and we agreed that it was sad - but I can't remember what it was! Hygeine? Before anti biotics? I think it was something to do with that - we were in the car - that's all I remember. Hmm. Perhaps I tell my kids too much when they're three...

sweet jesus on a bicycle

There are some days when I can't get up without making an old person groaning noise.

And yet, look what the human body is capable of. I am awed and shamed when I see people like this. So beautiful.

*yoinked from Tatty's Facebook

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!

blank

I have no urge to write anything. Not even this post about the fact that I've no urge to write anything.

So what am I doing here? Just  little anxious waiting, I guess that's what.

See you all tomorrow.

nice bits of today

• Bodhi slept late, so when I got downstairs it was twenty past NINE!
• The birthday blog tour made its recipient happy and full of love for his birthday, which is an excellent outcome. I love it when a plan comes together.
• I made crepes, and they worked out well. Danielle told me I just needed a hot pan, no oil, which I didn't know and am delighted to discover works. I made leek and spinach and cheese ones and they were delicious. I always think, I should do this more often, when I make them. They're so tasty and fun to make too. Crepe it up, people. That's my advice.
• My brother and his girlfriend came over for lunch, which was lovely, as they hadn't been here in ages, and the kids love them. Rowan sent me a text telling me his gf had had a hissy fit and said that he could go by himself on the bus, she was off to buy shoes. But he called me and said he was coming before the text arrived. I don't know what was going on there, but it seems they sorted it. Heh.
• I bought some wine for the veg, and we drank the rest. Didn't notice it was 13.5% - I was going to go for a walk thisevening, but I had to go fall asleep for a bit first. Full of carbs and alcohol!
• I had a really nice walk up Bray Head - saw a hawk hovering like wingéd death over the craggy rocks and fields and was glad I was not a small rodent. It was pretty to watch, though, and then it glided off into the late evening sun - shining on the mountains and the haze sitting on the hills and turning it golden. Very Lord of the Rings. It was so pretty. And there were horses in the field beside me. I must bring the camera up there next time.

Happy Birthday, Danielle

This time last year I met a man I didn't know at all and now I have a friend like nobody else I know, for the rest of my life.

You don't like your birthday, but like I said with this picture once before, I'm so glad you're here, I'm so grateful you're in my life and it's a day to celebrate because of it.

For your beauty
For your humour
For your sweetness
For your bitchiness
For your concern
For your care
For your taste
For your intelligence
For your understanding
For your sight
For the love you draw to you
For your words
And so much more.


It is my fairy wish that this decade be the first untroubled one, no matter how storm tossed its beginnings are. That the tree grows strong and straight from here. Happy Birthday, my hero.

Stops on the Blog Crawl

Sommer

Demure Lemur

Jeremy
Emerald
Craig
Neve
Marina St Clare
Ms Moon
Alison
Nikki
Janine
Erobintica

pretty

Television has changed so much.

I used to watch a lot of things as a kid that Olivia would never look at now. Laurel and Hardy. Random black and white romances. Carry On films (god help us). Murder She Wrote (which, as an adult, I can attest to being the most boring thing I've ever seen).

But there was good stuff too. Tarzan films. What a score they were, when they came on. As guaranteed entertainment as the opening notes of the Looney Tunes cartoons.

I just came across this, and am entranced by its beauty. Remember Johnny Weismuller and his Olympic Swimmer skills? This is so lovely. Erotic, really. Well, ok, not the bit with the chimp.

things your mother should tell you. And pay for.

Pages and pages and pages of boots on Amazon, and they just don't make the ones I want at the moment. Or for the last three years.

If I'd known, all those years ago, when I was buying the perfect Vagabond biker boots, that I'd never get them again, I would have bought four pairs.

But who has the foresight, or the cash? Still. It would have been a good idea.

one of those ones that should stay in Drafts

It's raining biblically. Animals two by two to be seen boarding a big fuck off wooden boat any minute. Floods are starting already, and I am so grateful I live where I do, we never seem to get them.

The darkness and wetness is wearing on me a bit, it's been something of a difficult week, hormonally, emotionally. Dark and wet is the order of the day, alright. The weepy kind of wet, not the good kind.

But I saw my homeopath briefly today, to get receipts, and she told me to take an Ignatia, the grief remedy that saved me a lot after my mother died. It stopped that crazy, out of control feeling of being unable to cope that felt like it would never end. And it's done the same again today, I'm happ(ier) to say.

deletedeletedelte. Ack. I can't say what I want to say, but I don't even know what the point in saying it would be anyway. So. Deletedeletedelete.

Do you all have people you can cry with? Someone you can go to? I was looking through my contacts in my phone last night, as I sat in a wet carpark in the gloom trying to find somewhere I could go for a couple hours. In the end I went to the sea in Greystones(and given the wind and the grey and the waves and rain, I'm not sure that it was any less pathetic than crying in a deserted car park, sadly, but what can you do?), and my friend came and met me and we sat in the car and wondered what to do about our respective lots. She gave me a hug and she was warm and soft and wooly and nice smelling but sympathy undoes me, and you can't get snot and tears all over your friends, can you? Can you? I don't know. It doesn't seem right for me to do that. We watched two teenage girls in leggings and little hoodies and nothing much more walk by, in the pouring rain and wind and dark, and remembered how it was to need to get out of the house that much that you'd rather go out unprotected into the storm than stay in. And there we were, in exactly the same place, just with cars now. Thank god for small mercies.

Oh No! Disaster!

Once again, Bodhi is in need of a haircut. His hair is growing onto his back again, but more critically, he can't see out. He's a little Shetland pony.

'I want short pointy hair, growing!' he says, patting his head and grinning at me, mischieviously.

Noooooooo!!!

What am I going to do!? I can't force him to have long hair, can I? But ... the horror!

The poor kid is having a little bit of a tough period at the moment. He's quite uncertain about his new Montessori school, which I'm sad about, as he loved his other playschool so instantly and thoroughly.

He's getting at everyone all the time, and also throwing huge emotional tantrums and insults when he doesn't get his way. His mother has just had a week of pms hell, and has been shouting a lot and he's waking a lot at night.

Last night, just after I was almost asleep at 2am, he woke up calling me, and when I went in, he said, 'Do I have to put my willy in a jar?' all upset.

So he's clearly having some sort of awful Freudian nightmares as well. It's not easy being three. It's not easy being any age, is it?

I just really hope he lets the head shaving concept go.

Today as I waited (and waited, and waited) to get across the road out of Superquinn, I sang a little 'it's taking a long time to cross the road' song.

Olivia: that's the Hotdog Song.

Me: what hotdog song?

Bodhi: the one from Mickey Mouse.

Me: sings hotdog song and realises they're right. I do love the hotdog song. Blush* Bodhi hasn't seen that programme in ages.

We're having our usual, beautiful Indian Summer, but the mornings and evenings are growing darker and more chill. I don't have a farm to work or anything like that, but I'm feeling a fear of winter at the moment.

I'm cringing at the thought of getting dressed all goosebumps, of not wanting to leave the warm covers and go into the dark morning. Of finding the money for the bottled gas that heats the radiators and is not cost effective in the least. Of ice, and cold, and wet, and trying to make my daughter wear a coat or hat. Of darkness.

It migh all feel better if I can find nice everyday boots this year.

Magheramór (Ma-her-a-more)

Wicklow has some gorgeous beaches. This one has a huge car park but thanks to some wank bag illegal dumpers, they had to close it. So now you have to park on the road and walk up the little lane for ten mins or so. It's not so bad (apart from the silage gauntlet at the start ... farming... ) but it's a hassle for anyone with small children. Especially as the steps down are long, steep, and precarious. But, worth it when you get  there.

What I was seeing through my sunglasses. La vie en purple.

I met a friend there today - I love how you can recognise the shape of people you know from afar - one of her friends was saying she does sea swims all year round... I revere people who do that here!

bad cake karma

I feel bleak today. Mired in endless pms and the sadness of it all. My cake conned me into thinking it was done (tester came out clean!) but then fell into a gooey pool in the middle. I knew it! I never trust my own judgement! Someone has my clear round cake box. Where is it?? I'm baking a friend a birthday cake: she's going out with her Lady Friends but she hasn't told them it's her birthday. It WILL come out in the course of the evening, and they WILL feel bad she didn't tell them. But she's happy to bring a cake - and wanted it pretty, but disguised - it must NOT look like a birthday cake.

And now I feel worried that I've baked in sadness. I might have to do it agian, but that just makes me sadder.

Heavy sigh.

Don't worry. I'll post pictures of the beach last night later, and you will be cheered by its prettiness.

sunny thursday

Well. At least, it is here. It's incredibly lovely and has been all day long. Enabling Bodhi and myself to sit outside the cafe where I had an appointment and feed a pigeon. Thereby collecting more pigeons, two starlings and a crow. Go Bodhi.

Then we walked Dun Laoghaire (say leery) Pier and saw people catching fish. Blood on the ground... Bodhi was intrigued, Momma was mildly squinked. But the sun was warm, as was the breeze, the water was still, reflecting the blue blue sky. A parent gull flash passed and dropped a wee silver fish for her grown up baby gull waiting on the side of the pier. Why do I find that less bothersome? Just the absence of fishhooks, maybe. And gutting.

BUT! That is not the point of this momentous post. No. Something unprecedented happened. Well. Not unprecedented. But unprecedented within a long time frame.

I ate a banana.

I don't know if I blogged the banana story. Most likely I did. But those who know me will know that as a one year old, I once pilfered and ate the guts of 14 bananas in one sitting. I have no memory of this even (feat/banana marathon) , all I know is that bananas are anathema to me - the smell, the texture of them, the taste, and god forbid, the sound of someone else eating one in my ear. I like banana flavoured things, and banana bread and icecream etc, but not the fruit.

Then today, I bought some for Bodhi: firm, yellow, still green at the top ones. And I tasted a bit of his as I gave it to him. Just to see.

And it was so nice, I had one too. A banana.

I'm cured.

It's quite exciting.