Tag Archives: People

Random

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On a railway platform somewhere between Boston and Philadelphia, the shoulders of a young woman droop in defeat as the train pulls away from her. All her belongings shrink inside as it rounds the corner out of sight. She aims the string of curses away from herself towards a train she can no longer see. The mutherf*ckin’ train.

An aggressive window-knock commands her eyes from across the tracks. From the stationary carriage she can make out a smiling stranger pointing enthusiastically to the seat opposite him. Except it is not a stranger but the bloke she had been flirting poorly with on the train that just pulled away. Except it wasn’t the train; she turned left onto the opposite platform on her return from the bathroom.

Her belongings are exactly the same size as before; her complexion a little more flushed as she composes herself.

*****

“Did you enjoy your day then?”, he asks, holding the prosecco bottle up to the light to read the x-ray of its emptiness.

“Sure. It was very relaxed”, she replies, sniffing the glass twice to make sure it’s hers. It is the only one on the table.

By relaxed, they both mean the successful suspension of mutual hostilities. And the absence of political ‘debate’.

“Courtesy and civility assured at all times, as Mary used to say”

“There was plenty of food to go round, too”

“And what about the speech?”

She arches a brow before looking away.

“Ah”

“For a moment I thought of interrupting him to ask if I was dead. And you seemed a bit emotional”

The accusatory tone is a reliable indicator that the thick wall of the garage succeeded in concealing the cracks in sibling civility; his crimson face chalked up to investment in the moment. The moment his father’s rehearsed words tumbled out feet first masking the sincerity of thanks for the sacrifices she made down the decades.

Not the moment his twelve year old self suddenly lost it with his ten year old sister minutes before he handed toasting duties over to him. When he rashly pulled her pride until it hurt as much as it once did her hair. He instantly regretted it but, like cranberry sauce, sorry isn’t something ever known to be brought into the house. Like all regressive juvenile combat, it will lie forgotten until next time a land-mine is unwittingly trodden on.

“Aye. I guess so. I’d just never heard him talk that way before”

His overriding memory from today will tumble out in correct incorrect order. He will always be glad to have been of third party service: to have enabled one of them to say things to the other the soundproofing of a long marriage prevents them from hearing when alone.

*****

“What’s the best piece of advice you were ever given?”

“There is not always an answer to every question”

“No, I mean –“

“No, that’s the best piece of advice I was ever given”

*****

A prayer to St. Valentine

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“The relics of St. Valentine, some of his bones and a vial tinged with his blood – are in a small casket under a shrine in Whitefriar Street Church – a beautiful old church full of echoes and candles, just off a busy Dublin city street. On the shrine lies a simple, soft cover notebook, where locals and tourists write their prayers to Valentine.

People write to Valentine about what they long for, asking him to help, telling him their secret hopes or fears – all there within the pages. It’s an incredibly compelling document, discovering it is almost like finding someone’s diary – except it’s public.

st. valentine

Writer and comedian Maeve Higgins has been visiting the church and the notebook for over ten years. In 2012, she decided to make a radio show about the people who write in the book – who they are, what they ask for and, of course, whether or not they find what they are looking for. Finding people willing to talk on air about their own private matters of the heart proves difficult – in short, nobody wants to.

So Maeve speaks with Fr.Brian Mckay – one of the Carmelite priests based in Whitefriars Church, who allows a notice to be placed on the altar, asking people who use the book to contact her, and talk to her about their relationship with the book. She waits, and hopes, and has almost given up, until one day, her phone rings…

This radio show is a portrait of quiet Catholic church that is – fleetingly- filled with the most romantic and dramatic, and hopeful and private moments of peoples lives.”

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/2013/1018/647545-documentary-podcast-valentines-bones-maeve-higgins-whitefriar-church/

A real heart-warming listen.

Aftermath

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It’s a long way from Louth to Afghanistan. Bring together one person from each and they might find themselves with something more in common than struggling to decipher the language of the other.

As the air-waves become further congested with demands for the Irish government to expand on its commitment to accommodate Syrian refugees, it’s worth remembering that over one hundred Syrians have been resettled in the country in the past year. This is noteworthy for a number of reasons:

  • Among the competing concerns is the worry that Ireland is ill-equipped to deal with the selection and administration required to facilitate sizeable numbers of refugees. Ireland has been a member of the UNHCR resettlement programme since 2000 and proven itself a reasonably competent member despite selection missions drying up in recent years. The system of Direct Provision is not the only mechanism for obtaining asylum or refugee status. The state already participates in an internationally standardised framework for fast-tracking with all the necessary checks and balances. Consequently, it adheres to corresponding local reception and integration protocols. These include advance medical screening, reception accommodation for large groups of families, and coordinated partnership with local authorities, health services, education services, and welfare supports. As part of the resettlement process, a worker is traditionally recruited to coordinate a programme of support in their host community for 18 months to two years. Recent cuts in funding dramatically curtailed this support, but a cohort of experienced staff is available throughout the country, as well as many potential peer groups to offer support as only those who can empathise with their plight can.
  • In the last ten years, Ireland’s UNHCR’s resettlement programmes have partnered with the following local authorities and associated core services: Monaghan, Carlow, Kilkenny, Cavan, Laois, Sligo, and Westmeath. Programmes have been evaluated, and lessons learned that contribute towards improving the process. There are many examples of good practice and case studies of empowering methodologies to build on.
  • Those resettled to date include groups of families from Sudan, Kurdistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Rohingya community resettled from Burma. The challenge of resettling a diversity of people with corresponding languages, cultures and faith, has already been tested. That diversity is ultimately healthy for any society, and integration a two-way process, apparently needs repeating.
  • Among the indisputable successes of the process has been involvement of volunteers; local people in the host towns who extend the hand of welcome, friendship and the offer of practical support to newly arrived families as they embark on their resettlement. These locals are as diverse as any random group of Irish citizens driven by a range of impulses that unite to meet the challenges of integration. Among them are returned and retired Aid workers, young people, those in search of their own meaning, and those with little to their own name. Ireland has the necessary human capital and good-will in spades.
  • Most refugees settled before 2011 have been granted Irish citizenship. They are now part of the skilled, resilient and knowledgeable labour-ready force of human nature; firmly in solidarity with their fellow citizens burdened with the task of pulling the country back up from its hunkers. Those who cannot work are no less grateful to be alive, and hang on to higher hopes for their children, with the same determination they had in holding on to them this side of the grave.
  • Prior to participating in the UNHCR Programme, Ireland had a long history of resettling refugees; a practice that goes back as far as the 1950s, however mixed in terms of number and success. The legitimacy of domestic concerns doesn’t come under attack when aligned next to the cost of humanitarian intervention. They correspond to different points on the wedge of inequality and economic terrorism. Stacked next to financial bail-outs, the cost of resettlement is negligible but the dividends innumerable and ethical gain measurable beyond compare. To start, they are real, not virtual. Inequalities in domestic healthcare, income and access to services for Irish people didn’t coincide with the recession. They have always existed. Resettled refugees will generally not be in a position to avail of private healthcare, nor will they ever have sufficient disposable income to afford it. Many subsumed into the country’s underclass. It is always preferable to death.

The exodus of Irish refugees culminates in famine coffin ships setting sail in the sea of national memory. But we don’t have to peer farther than 1969 to dig up images of homes burning across cities with families fleeing for the border dispossessed and under threat, only the border was internal to the island of Ireland where the displaced peoples sounded like the reset of us and blended in with more ease. Wilful blindness to the plight of others is not a recent phenomenon. So, perhaps surprisingly, it’s this experience of displacement that informs a peculiar resonance among a diversity of people currently living in Ireland. They, and others further along rehabilitation, have proved the critical role the arts and story-telling plays in recovery from trauma and displacement. Ireland regards itself as somewhat of a leader in such disciplines. The universal need for artistic expression and story-telling is essential for those whose cultural fabric holds little or no space for western medication and psychotherapy. We are not alone in believing in miracles and cures and healing wells.

None of us have the capacity to act as UN superstars. The refugee crisis is not uppermost in all of our minds all of the time. That’s impossible; we’re not built to manage the world that way. But winning the minds as well as the hearts of people to create a groundswell of public resistance has power, and it is enough for people contending with busy and difficult lives. We don’t need to know the geopolitical complexities to challenge some assumptions about Ireland’s ability to manage refugee resettlement. An exercise in balancing pressure with purpose.

belfast refugees

Refugees from New Barnsley, Belfast, 1969

(Source: Belfast Telegraph)

*

For more on the experiences of those Louth residents see

http://aftermath-ireland.com/about/project/

Hail Mary

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They don’t make Marys anymore. The word on the birth certificates is that the traditional name has been cast aside in favour of fancier imports. Not wishing to let a good lament go to waste, it got me thinking about the Marys in my life. The memorable ones, the influential ones.

Mary C – bucktoothed teacher in 6th class. Sprang up from the hearth of the Gaeltacht with a swagger in her stride to ply her trade with fire and brimstone. The only woman in our area brave enough to wear sun glasses over her head and indulge in the commonly frowned upon practice of draping her jacket over her shoulder thus leaving the sleeves to fend for themselves in the breeze. This was viewed as an indicator of immodesty by some but recognised as an important status marker among fellow bridge players. She was also the first teacher to give the thumbs up to letting our imaginations roam free, even if that meant some questionable dream sequences being reported under ‘my summer holidays’. In possession of a distinctive voice, I enjoyed mimicking her from behind corners to scare the bejaysis outta the comrades. And I was always grateful for her unfashionable discretion when a gang of us were busted for robbing emblems of the biggest blessed Mary of them all on a school trip to Knock. You got the feeling that if only she were 20 years younger, she might’ve kept watch. One more time for the road *clears throat* ‘Bígí ciúin!’

Mary G – Mary has never really been a fully signed-up, card-carrying member of my gang as such but since around the age of 12 till the present day, she and I have been colliding on and off across the mountainous terrain of life. Last time I saw Mary was a few years back as she rounded the corner at the bottom of our road out of view having quietly sneaked out of my folks’ house after retreating to my old bedroom, digging out all the packed up 45s and 33s (vinyl, brethren. Ask your parents), divorcing the sleeve notes from their covers and leaving them strewn across the floor, while the rest of us clinked glasses in the kitchen. Bouncing in well after midnight, with her half-mile radius of wine bottle opener curls in the door in front of her, she handed me a plastic bag containing a dog-eared copy of a Dan Brown book, knowing full well I hate Dan Brown, and knowing full well that I know that she hates Dan Brown. But sure that’s the kind of her. Her literature studies were steered off course by the arrival of her son, and there’s a whole other world she dreams of when she stares out that window of the sandwich bar she works in. I must give her a ring so we can meet up and dine out on our unfulfilled fantasies for an evening.

Mary M – Mary would generally be known by the English version of her surname but god pity the fool that addresses her by anything other than in Irish. This is the woman who protested at a temporary road-works sign painted in English on the road outside her house by painting over it and insisting (successfully) the local authority lay down the ‘correct’ version. A language fascist, in short. Mary and I started work together on the same day. She the administrator, me trying to administer some self-confidence and belief that I knew what I was supposed to be doing (not a notion). We went on to spend four years trading banter, ideas, fighting over the radio dial and the actions of cute hoor politicians. We only ever had one serious disagreement; it concerned money and was instigated by me. I’ve regretted it ever since but to her credit she never let it corrode her affection. In many ways, she reminded me of my mother, teaching me the unteachables of operating in the workplace and the value of correct formalities you can’t put a value on. Her other enduring lesson was to surrender the universal obsession with seeking an answer to every woe that comes our way. Sometimes you have to let things be. Sometimes there just isn’t an answer. “I know you’re not the biggest believee, a stór”, she grimaced to me on the phone at Christmas, “but would you for God sake say a prayer this illness doesn’t develop any further. There’s an overseas coming up in work and I’ve no intention missing out on a freebie”. Can’t keep an indomitable woman down.

Mary Coughlan – Mary’s been singing the blues to me for years with the conviction that she’s lived every word. More an interpreter of songs, but you only have to listen to ‘Doublecross’ for proof she knows full well what its writer meant. First time I saw Mary was in the ’90s in the famous Rotterdam Bar in Belfast, encased in her own world, yawning them out of her with all the fragile force of a woman on the brink. Turns out she was but thankfully sobriety has modified her rage in to something just as humorous and informed.

I could say Mary Robinson at this point; McAleese never did it for me, but I’m going to go with the singer Mary Margaret O’Hara for her unrivalled whooping and hollering. She only managed to stump up one album in the last thirty odd years but she came in to this world with a bunch of polaroid pictures of emotions to pass round. Perfect for when none of your own internal lenses can adequately capture them.

maryfromdungloe

The 348th Mary From Dungloe (Real name: Niamh. Probably)

Join in and raise a cup to your Marys, tell us about yers…

Big swinging mickey

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“I’m Global Operations Coordinating Manager for the Intergalactic Pan Baltic Subterranean Overland Operations Division of our North-Eastern Southern European Office”

“It’s supposed to be getting hotter for the weekend”

“If I’m busy in the evening, I might pick her up from the crèche. We have an au pair as well”

“It’s supposed to be getting cool again before getting hot again”

“I’ve only 25 days leave left”

“Corporate sponsored research piece links drop in workplace efficiency among females to absence of children. Again.”

“It’s supposed to get hotter then cooler then hot again”

“Next time on Fair City…”

“Hiya”

“I had the weirdest dream last night”

“I’m Project Manager for the Sub-sub-sub Confederate of Inter-global Constituents of the Pan-National Sectorial Division”

“You’re from where? Oh I went to college with someone from there”

“Only six weeks to the hen party!!!”

“There’s plenty of salad in the fridge”

“Your account has insufficient funds for this transaction”

“Jean Byrne just levitated in front of Longford, did an impersonation of Enya doing an impersonation of Zorro then landed back on her feet near Valencia”

“I’m MHBSAIJ Manager for the Inter-Cosmic Planetary Divisional Unit of the External Internal External Office”

Laughter and forgetting

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Last time I saw Joseph, he was cradling his new-born in one hand, and nursing the TV remote in the other. Hurling championship season was in full-swing and, despite landing in the middle of the game uninvited, he didn’t let his irritation show. The remaining smallies were shooed from the sofa where I was beckoned to take a seat by the slap of a cushion. We traded reassurances on how well the other was looking, making brief pit-stops along the general welfare of our common acquaintances before abandoning the small-talk that never suited either of us.

With his homeland victorious in securing independence, there was much to rejoice about but still too much to fear. The Chinese would continue their aggressive advance from afar through ill-gotten seizure of oil rights; and political instability and residue from civil war will see to it that the country will be characterised by chaos for years to come. But it was a good day, he reminded himself. Even The Mayor hosted a reception for him and his compatriots. He joked they had risen to status of local celebrity though conceded it wasn’t quite in the same league as the County team. It didn’t take him long to get hooked on the game, and he proudly explained two of his sons were showing an impressive flair for it. With that one of them floated in with a hurley and a greeting in an accent flatter than the more mountainous song he had on arrival.

Lately, Joseph had become increasingly pre-occupied with other family members left behind. The phone-calls he is making now are less concerned with chasing up delayed social welfare payments than getting help to start the arduous procedure of family reunification. With little guarantee of it leading anywhere. He interpreted and reinterpreted my silent nodding until he had sculpted an answer that made the best sense to himself. “I have no choice but to try. It is my responsibility”. His speech slowed down as it always did when it came to matters grave; the lilting distinctive roll on his Rs serving as italics for the key word. I wrapped my mind in the branches of his voice and stayed there for as long as I could. Its roots run seven hundred miles down into his soul.

Scratching his scarred head with his remaining fingers, he tried to remember what it was he was going to say. Within minutes we had both forgotten how we got on to the subject of goats. I sunned myself in the rays of his laugh and smiled on hearing the sound I never fail to recollect in the silence of my memories. I noted a new fireguard surrounding the entire fireplace. For at least two agencies, this will be ticked as an indicator of the family’s successful resettlement. I could almost hear the heave of relief from the same bureaucrats on spotting all the curtains were opened at the front of the house. A sure sign they were fast becoming one of us.

For others, their resettlement was measured by their English language proficiency; their orientation of the welfare system; their ability to pay bills on time; dress neatly; keep their houses respectable; their meat in the fridge, their windows regularly opened; their bins out in the right order; their appointments on time, their clock on the wall forward or back an hour as required; their hand willingly clasped in that of another wringing at the injustice of it all or how wonderful they are. Aren’t they just wonderful? All around them, paternalism jives with charity, which in turn arm-wrestles empowerment for the determinants of doing OK.

It took taking my leave for him to mention the talking he’s being doing; in Dublin, in confidence. The flashbacks have not deserted him but there are ways to make them hurt less. I was instructed to stay safe, to not leave it so long till next time, and bring that man of mine back to meet his brother. And with that came one last laugh as I waved my way backwards down the path passing the bin left out as I departed.

This being International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, I think of Joseph. Survivor against all odds. A man who made it through unspeakable experiences who went on to impress the natives with his ability to get the bus to Dublin unaccompanied. A journey to the only available specialist services in the country that remain at the mercy of further cuts. Some curtains remain firmly shut to the reality of life for others.

Out of practice

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The closer we got to the church, the further away from the right one we were going. A solitary car drew up behind us. A lone driver looked over quizzically before emerging to unlock the gate. At ten past one, I knew this wasn’t a place where being late is fashionable for anyone; be it one of the spectators, or either one of those taking up vows in full view of them. A rolled-down windowed query and ten-point turn later, we were headed in the right direction.

I should’ve read the invitation properly but took the location of her birthplace for granted. The rest of it, I studied with a smile after it took a moment to register her name. Ah. Of course it would arrive late. She was still living life by the seat of her pants. There they were pictured, he with his hands in his pockets, she beaming out of over-sized glasses, hand on hip, the other looped through his arm. Above their heads, individual letters erected across the cinema board with the aid of a ladder spelled out the date of their wedding. No wonder he couldn’t contain his grin.

It went up on the fridge with the other reminders as I immediately composed a regret in my head. Her face now covered by a green and black magnet revealing a blotchy Che Guevara to the trained eye.

woderfullife (2)

If imperfect

A heave of relief broke five miles further up the road. The vintage bus took up half the street halving the number of lanes available. This would only matter when the children were flushed from school at 3pm. By then, our hosts had traded promises and we pocketed the birdseed not thrown on them due to hostile weather that forced everyone to run in an undignified manner onto the bus for the stone’s throw journey to the pub for chicken and chips and elbow room only.

By the time the empty paper cones were collected and the bar counter strewn with half-eaten cup-cakes, I had congratulated the bride eleven times, and her cousin double that on the birth of her baby boy following a rocky road to getting her fertility on side. I caught myself almost doing it again and blushed with embarrassment. There was even less customary repartee on offer from my companion. She had gone on charm strike for the afternoon, resolute in her concern that we had deserted the sweet cart prematurely. We circulated the room; I struggling to remember the names of half-colleagues I avoided in a bygone era, she picking her nose and checking out her reflection wherever there was a chance of catching it. We made it to the car intact where I threw my eyes up at my reflection in the rear-view, my rosey cheeks burning a hole in my relief.

A week later on the station forecourt, I studied the same mirror hoping to catch sight of someone half approachable to help re-start the damn car. The battery had also expired along with my energy. My companion lay asleep in the back, her Grandmother texted to check the estimated time of arrival. My response was to recline with my nose in the problem page while thinking over the next move in mine. A woman wrote of her husband’s porn addiction. With a new-born baby, she feared for their future now he had started to repulse her with his relentless habit. Not for the first time I wondered what Patricia Redlich would say. She was one of the few voices of perceptiveness and wisdom ever to adorn the pages of the Sunday Independent. Agony Aunt too lowly a title for the woman whose finger deftly wagged folk towards the right direction. This usually commenced with an invitation to correspondents to square up to themselves.

What would she make of a 40-something cursing the need to pull-up on the hillside like she was walking naked through her hometown? The man with the jeep cheerfully latched on the jump-leads, warning of the need to park it so in preparation for jump-starting the next day when the garages re-opened. With an appreciative beep of the horn, we pulled out and parked up in front of my folks’. Conveniently, they bicker away their days at very top of a hill. The rain runs down it at enough speed to hypnotise the occupant of the rocking chair gazing out the corner window. As a main arterial route to town, the traffic rarely abates, and even then cars and lorries will try to put up a good fight against snow and ice. Few make it undefeated.

The cursing was vindicated by the beep of the phone. “Is that your car? Are you home? Let’s meet up!” I half-smiled at her thoughtfulness, then deleted the message as I composed an excuse in my head. Two more messages from other spontaneous visitors followed. We couldn’t engineer this if we tried.

The Cork reg in the car park confirmed we were late. Second-hand batteries aren’t so easy to come by. My companion hesitantly stepped away to join the other two on the slides while I overpowered their mother’s cash with my card to pay for the coffees.

Two hours later I waved them off in the rear-view before they turned the other way; imploring my backseat companion to agree with me on how good it was as I was struck by a fleeting thought. I didn’t really take in the other parents dotted and hunkered about the place, and was unable to recall seeing any sitting on their own hiding behind a Sunday supplement. So this is what it’s like.

So what do you think of the situation in Chechnya?

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I couldn’t give a fuck, Jones.

Admit it, we all have occasions where we’re compelled to gag our inner Daniel Cleaver by mimicking the other person’s disgust and flexing our impressive empathy muscles. This is best achieved through a slo-mo head-nod and a momentary gaze into the middle distance to figure out how to change the subject without getting busted. A delicate manoeuvre that takes years of practice.

Some recent examples…

Friend: That Iona Institute crowd are just mental. Aren’t they?

Me: Absolutely. Bonkers. Madder than two mad things stuck together with Vatican-endorsed adhesive.

[I mean this sincerely, but am unable to sustain the outrage without getting hungry, or have conversations about them through outbursts of 140 characters or less from a person sitting right next to me; especially when 60 of those characters tend to be hogged by exclamation marks]

*momentary gaze*

Fancy sharing a slice of lemon meringue?

Friend: G’wan then

[So weak]

*************************************************************

Dad: I see Topaz has a sale on petrol. You’d be better getting it this side of the border. It’s far cheaper. How much is it in the North these days?

Me: Ermm

*momentary gaze*

[My Da is gearing up for a full-on rant on the price of fuel. These are occasionally subtitles for ‘I love you’ in Father-of-a-certain-generation Irish. So is ‘how’s the job going?’, and ‘how’s the car going?’. Chances are though, he will quickly veer off into the realm of the “scandalous” way the energy companies have been slow in reducing the cost of domestic oil. We’ve been here before. Speckles of red mist are already forming on the horizon. I do sympathise. But having been raised in a house where this obsessional interest in ‘the price of oil’ was considered a conversational piece and something reflected on during that five second window the priest gives mass-goers for their own special intentions, central heating was relegated to the basics in my hierarchy of needs early on. Consequently, I can’t get worked up about it to quite the same psychotic extent.]

Hmm. Not sure. My car is diesel and sure that’s always cheaper anyway.

Dad: I’m going for a walk.

[A cruel move of me, I know]

*******************************************************

Colleague: You…like…you’ve never ever even tasted tea? Like, ever?

Me: Never

*momentary gaze*

[For some inexplicable reason, there is a cohort of Irish people who deem this an unpatriotic act and recoil in horror at the casual way I cause the architects of the Easter Rising to twirl in their graves. Was this what they fought for? Our freedom to show outrageous indifference to the national tipple? That’s me in the dodgy photo-fit flashed on the screen on Crime Call last night by the ever radiant Gráinne. I am the one. Kill me.]

I have tickled a pig under my arm though, and had a wank with a shillelagh.

Colleague: Seriously?

*******************************************************

Friend: You’re from an Irish-speaking county, do you not think it’s absolutely ridiculous how few gael scoil places there are?

Me: Absolutely!

*momentary gaze*

[No offence, Peig, but I couldn’t give a shite. But this is not the time to challenge the middle-class aspirations of my nearest and dearest. I’d probably risk leaving myself open to charges of hypocrisy down the line when I start protesting about Electric Picnic taking place before the new school year starts. Sigh. Besides, I got hit by shrapnel from a stray ‘absolutely’ at an open evening at a pre-school the other week. Nasty.]

Have you watched Catastrophe yet? Hilarious

********************************************************

Mum: Would you look at that amadan *points to Enda Kenny* He’s a liar…

Me: *momentary gaze*

[Uh oh.]

*leaves room*

Mum: …would you look at the state of him. Like someone who wandered out of the ploughing championships…

Me: *gets into car*

Mum:…and they give out about Fianna Fail, but sure they’re just as bad…

Me: *drives away*

Mum:..I can’t STAND him….

Me: *arrives home*

Mum:..sitting there in the Dail for the last umpteen years and what did he ever do?…

Me: *turns off bed-side light*

Mum:..keeping the farmers sweet and nevermind the rest of us…

outrage

Sheryl was outraged to discover she had only 3 characters left

When thought bubbles attack

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There we were, casually wheeling the trolley by the baked goods display when, suddenly (in keeping with cliches), my coveting was interrupted by..

“Mummy, I need to do pee pee”

“Your Father put you up to this, didn’t he? You are in on this keep-Mum-away-from-the-carbs-at-all-cost ploy together”

“Pee peeeeeee”

“Sure. Let me just find somewhere to park this”

The pregnancy test shelf. Perfect. Oh no, wait, not a good idea if we’re going straight from there to the toilet. The dog-food aisle. We don’t even have a dog, but I’m half-way through negotiations to wrangle a gold-fish as a compromise deal and potential gate-way pet to bigger beasts. “But…but..[pleadingly]..she’s an only child”. Heavy duty lash batting etc.. I see a pattern emerging. Men. *eyerolls* (Don’t worry. I’ll be complaining about women who belittle men by doing this in my next post. Probably).

Two toilets; one in abysmal shape. How the fuck do people manage to do that?, I wonder in my sideways head. It is a truth universally unacknowledged, that on finding all available toilets in a public premises are filthy, there is a panicked fear that the next person in will suspect you’re the culprit. Few moments between strangers are more tense than that when one is washing their hands while looking ahead in the mirror only to catch the other sticking their head rapidly back out of the cubicle from which they just emerged. “It won’t flush” doesn’t cover all bases. And, if you’re already under the hand-drier, it’s just not worth shouting over it. It’ll sound like “I’ve got thrush” and will inevitably lead to a pile-up of tumbleweeds.

The sweet relief of parting those scenes. Grossly underestimated. Along with managing to pack the shopping before the healthier goods from the customer behind slides over the conveyor belt and narrowly avoids a collision with yours. Is it any wonder anxiety levels are on the rise.

The other cubicle is grand. In we go.

Ten minutes later…(she chose the occasion to request a run-through of her genealogical chart. Relaxes the bowels.)

Out we come.

“Careful. Mind the lady”

The lady smiles. Early..mid-twenties, tops. Bit much calling her a lady.

thought bubble

Ignore this advice

“Maybe you don’t like being called a lady. It’s one of those potentially dodgy words, isn’t it? Like girl. Girl..woman..lady. It’s hard to know. Lady. Suggests you should be posh or have a blue rinse.”

“It’s grand! But I hate being called ‘Mrs’. You know, when someone says “Can I help you there, Mrs?”

“It’s hazardous alright”

I better let her get on with the task she came in for. She remarks on the ban diet garda’s cuteness.

“Say goodbye to the er..bye now”. She disappears into the clean cubicle.

We finish washing our hands as another female comes in. She’s headed for the other one. Oh no. Will I?

“I really wouldn’t go in there if I were you”.

We’re out the door when I panic slightly about that sounding too close to.. “I’d give it a minute”.

UPDATE: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=735311

Own goal

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It’s that time of year again. The annual pilgrimage to the sold-out Springsteen shows. Relax. It’s just the sun giving me jip and having me mix up my religious rituals as the summers fade into one another. I mean graveyard mass, of course. Then there’s the monster raving Ulsterman cracking open the apoplexy, as is tradition. Or Joe Brolly, for short. Bruce and Joe. Imagine them trading birth places, if you will. Joey and Wee Brucie.

Not a porch door for any of Brucie’s average-looking women to slam. Maybe a broken lift to curse, or the person who was born in a hospital with swinging doors who left one wide open. Meanwhile, Joey’s giving it Red Sox knocking himself out commentating on the baseball league with Patty Spillane. Awesome.

There’s really not a whole lot that separates these two men from their traded places in terms of the people that inspire and drive them. It’s just that Jersey skylines go better with the universal theme of disenchantment and broken blue collar dreams than Tesco car-parks and doughnut tracks from twin-cams. Baseball is the unifying game that helps them forget about life for a while. Sort of like The GAA. Or the Grab All Association. Or the what’s-the-point and the anachronistic eye-rolls scornfully mocking the parochial game. Or its failure to compare with the beautiful game. Delete as you see appropriate.

It’s that time of year again. When the city/rural divisions rear their jerseys online, and the self-regarding antipathy breaks out on messageboards like a prickly heat rash. I’m no devotee, or apologist for The GAA. No sport has claimed to be the panacea for all societal ills, except maybe democracy. But it takes a certain blinkered snobbery to wilfully ignore the unifying power the GAA has in carrying communities through good and bad.

One of the more heartening developments in recent years has been the emergence of rugby as a more reachable sport for all the nation. Men and women getting stuck in on the great debate throughout the country (“O’Gara’s better looking” “No BO’D is”).

Plenty of sporting enthusiasts love both, some play both. Even so, it’s past time the minority of whingers paused the eyeroll and threw out the stale sweat smelling questions on the point of it all. Go listen to Badlands. It’s about living in Leitrim. Except it’s not, but it is. And Carlow. And Donegal. And Armagh. And Louth. And Tipperary. And even Dublin. Where the game breathes energy into connections between folk, and helps them forget about life for a while.