Its been a while. Yes, we're still alive. Only just. Mammy2 is fighting a bad attack of the bould depression and the child is battling with a throat infection. They never get ill seperately. Perhaps its to test my will power and stamina. I've been doing well, I'm just tired now. The awards ceremony was great, Mammy2 got emotional, I think mainly because nearly a year ago to the day was when she had her A&E incident and now look at her. She got the award for art we think, there's nothing written on it to indicate what its for. Just her name and something about her contribution to the school. What a difference a year makes. Of course I was all set with the digital camera to take pics when some big oaf stood in front of me? I was raging. I think there are offical pics so we should be grand. In all fairness , what did he think I was standing there with a camera for? The muppet.
Only a few days to go to christmas day and this year is so much more relaxed then last year. Its all to do with her outlook on life. She's excited about christmas and hence by default so are we. Well, I lie, I love it! Poor Mammy2 living with us christmas bunnies. Ah sure it will keep her grounded. With all this media attention, it might go to her head. So far, she's been doing radio interviews, Sky News again, The mirror at some stage next week and a photo byline for the Indo yesterday. I'm impressed. Although all the attention could be what brought on the depression again, you never know.
The other sister flies in on Friday with her boyf. It will be great to see her again. All the titches together. I think the brother is dropping up on christmas day, after dinner. That's what I gathered from the brief phone conversation I had with him yesterday. He's hard to understand with his mad culchiee voice. I know I sound like a bogger but I'd like to think most people can understand me.
She's off school on Thursday and can't wait apparently. Although I reckon she'll be bored within a few days and will be expecting us to entertain her. She can feck of. I suppose she won't be travelling down home with us to visit the grave and relatives. At least we will feel better leaving her behind
us. There's no worry about her doing anything mad. I hope. D , the best mate is spending christmas eve and day with us. Supposedly, the mother is not celebrating christmas. I never know who to believe. I mean, they live in a world of their own when it comes to stuff and half the time they make a lot of stuff up. D was around the other evening to bleach the kid's hair. The kid was under the impression that this time it would work. She has lovely mulitcoloured hair now. Needless to say she
was none too happy about it. She thought we had nothing better to do then make an emergency appointment with the hairdresser and get her hair sorted.
I explained that it was close to christmas and there were other things we would be spending our money on, like food shopping. There was some serious poutage before she calmed down and realised that it wasn't the end of the world because her hair was in glorious technicolor. Tonight we are doing the infamous grocery shopping, tesco will be greeting us with open arms. Tomorrow evening is titch drinkies with our mates, a few of them are dropping around to the apartment. She's delighted as she's probably aiming for pressies from most people. Subtle as ever, she is.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
A partridge in a pear tree!
Its been a mad few days and my body is starting to complain about the socialising. I hate to say it but my age is starting to show! I feel like I just want to crawl into bed and not get out until next week. Although chances are the pillows will want to partee.. Feckers.
Weekend was good, went too fast. Friday night was sister's night as Mammy2 had her christmas party. I was dying of period pain and refusing to talk to my ovaries, who were called all the names under the sun. Mammy2 informed me of the good news, which states that its a good thing that I'm in such pain once a month as it means the ovaries are reacting to the sperm. Reacting how is what I want to know? Reacting as in " Oh there you are, watch him ladies, his intentions are anything but honourable" or reacting as in "Good lord, you are not putting that anywhere near me". Or "How you doin?" said in a Joey(Friends) voice.
The kid then decided to have an 'interesting' discussion on how techniclly, this appears to be her word du jour at the moment, the sperm rapes the ovary? I asked her where she got such an idea from and wait for it. "In Look who's talking" she started and I had to stop her there. She was basing theories on a movie. She continued despite my incredulous look. The ovary wants nothing to do with the sperm yet it contines to chase the egg around the place. I had a visual of musical chairs going on in and around the vacinity of my womb and then thought that it would cause a lot of pain having
body parts doing that. Although I am in pain anyway, so 'technically' it could be happening.
In the midst of a texting marathon on Sunday, she threw the follwing out:
"How come I don't get christmas clothes. EVERYONE else does"
Silence from us. This is the first I've heard of it to be honest and I won't mention our poor background where Mam had to draw shoes on our feet. Mammy2 had heard of it and she had christmas clothes bought for her every year. Don't say the word middle class around her family though, they suffer from Middle Class guilt. There's a lot of it going around apparently. I told the kid that it was too late this year for us to get her clothes, whilst under my breath the words "not in this lifetime" were being muttered. I mentioned that she could get some next year if she wanted, depending on how the finances are. I think she thinks our bank account is a bottomless pit and that we work all these hours to buy her christmas clothes and pay for her tatoo. She wants to get a tatoo for her birthday and so she went into the tatoo place and asked how much it would cost. She had an idea of what she wants done etc.
In and around 300 euros, so she'd pay half, obviously with her large button collection, and we'd pay the rest. Because we were going to spend 150 euros on her birthday. Again the words in this lifetime came to mind. As she climbed on the bus this morning, she shouted back that she might be getting into trouble with the art teacher because she didn't do her essay, I asked why and she
muttered something about me not being around. I'm sure Mammy2 would have loved to waffle about art given half the chance, but I get the feeling she doesn't want to do the essay. The holidays can't come soon enough for all concerned!
Weekend was good, went too fast. Friday night was sister's night as Mammy2 had her christmas party. I was dying of period pain and refusing to talk to my ovaries, who were called all the names under the sun. Mammy2 informed me of the good news, which states that its a good thing that I'm in such pain once a month as it means the ovaries are reacting to the sperm. Reacting how is what I want to know? Reacting as in " Oh there you are, watch him ladies, his intentions are anything but honourable" or reacting as in "Good lord, you are not putting that anywhere near me". Or "How you doin?" said in a Joey(Friends) voice.
The kid then decided to have an 'interesting' discussion on how techniclly, this appears to be her word du jour at the moment, the sperm rapes the ovary? I asked her where she got such an idea from and wait for it. "In Look who's talking" she started and I had to stop her there. She was basing theories on a movie. She continued despite my incredulous look. The ovary wants nothing to do with the sperm yet it contines to chase the egg around the place. I had a visual of musical chairs going on in and around the vacinity of my womb and then thought that it would cause a lot of pain having
body parts doing that. Although I am in pain anyway, so 'technically' it could be happening.
In the midst of a texting marathon on Sunday, she threw the follwing out:
"How come I don't get christmas clothes. EVERYONE else does"
Silence from us. This is the first I've heard of it to be honest and I won't mention our poor background where Mam had to draw shoes on our feet. Mammy2 had heard of it and she had christmas clothes bought for her every year. Don't say the word middle class around her family though, they suffer from Middle Class guilt. There's a lot of it going around apparently. I told the kid that it was too late this year for us to get her clothes, whilst under my breath the words "not in this lifetime" were being muttered. I mentioned that she could get some next year if she wanted, depending on how the finances are. I think she thinks our bank account is a bottomless pit and that we work all these hours to buy her christmas clothes and pay for her tatoo. She wants to get a tatoo for her birthday and so she went into the tatoo place and asked how much it would cost. She had an idea of what she wants done etc.
In and around 300 euros, so she'd pay half, obviously with her large button collection, and we'd pay the rest. Because we were going to spend 150 euros on her birthday. Again the words in this lifetime came to mind. As she climbed on the bus this morning, she shouted back that she might be getting into trouble with the art teacher because she didn't do her essay, I asked why and she
muttered something about me not being around. I'm sure Mammy2 would have loved to waffle about art given half the chance, but I get the feeling she doesn't want to do the essay. The holidays can't come soon enough for all concerned!
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
A teenage crisis.
The best friend D was on the phone for most of the night or vice versa with the kid because it was an emergency, apparently. She found a text on her boyf's phone from his ex telling him that she loved him etc, etc. D got paranoid later on that night, tried ringing him to ask him what was going on, he got annoyed and hung up. Long story short, and believe me when you've heard it for most of last night and this morning, it is long, she's convinced that he's cheating on her. She's been seeing him for a year. I made the mistake of asking what she was going to do about things. The kid stated and I tried not to laugh out loud:
"If she finds out she's cheating, she's going to dump him. She reckons the grieving process could take 6 months as she was with him for nearly a year" It seems she has already dumped him in her head and is moving on.
Teenagers, I ask you. They don't need to watch the soaps, their lives are soap operas! She was wrecked this morning again, as are we all. Mammy2 has come down from cloud media and is back to being a mere phleb. I don't think she likes the attention it brings though. The work crowd in here only found out about her appearences when my boss arrived in yesterday morning and said he had seen Mammy2 on Sky News. There is talk now of civil partnerships being brought in here by McDowell, but he makes annoucements like this every week so I wouldn't pass any heed on that. When we actually see a bill and the content of it, maybe then it will start to become a reality.
The socialising continues, tomorrow night is my christmas party. Friday night is Mammy2's xmas party. Sure its all go. She has cancelled Solas again. There's nothing we can do about it at this stage I suppose. If she doesn't want to go, we can't force her. She is of the opinion she doesn't need it. The only we can do is get in touch with her therapist and see what she has to say about it. I don't know whether its a good idea to stop the therapy as her counseller seems to think she should continue going but I guess only she can make that descision.
"If she finds out she's cheating, she's going to dump him. She reckons the grieving process could take 6 months as she was with him for nearly a year" It seems she has already dumped him in her head and is moving on.
Teenagers, I ask you. They don't need to watch the soaps, their lives are soap operas! She was wrecked this morning again, as are we all. Mammy2 has come down from cloud media and is back to being a mere phleb. I don't think she likes the attention it brings though. The work crowd in here only found out about her appearences when my boss arrived in yesterday morning and said he had seen Mammy2 on Sky News. There is talk now of civil partnerships being brought in here by McDowell, but he makes annoucements like this every week so I wouldn't pass any heed on that. When we actually see a bill and the content of it, maybe then it will start to become a reality.
The socialising continues, tomorrow night is my christmas party. Friday night is Mammy2's xmas party. Sure its all go. She has cancelled Solas again. There's nothing we can do about it at this stage I suppose. If she doesn't want to go, we can't force her. She is of the opinion she doesn't need it. The only we can do is get in touch with her therapist and see what she has to say about it. I don't know whether its a good idea to stop the therapy as her counseller seems to think she should continue going but I guess only she can make that descision.
Monday, December 05, 2005
All things gay...
As I type this, poor Mammy2 is on the phone every few minutes, saying the same thing over and over. Yes, we'd love to get married, no I don't see it coming in anytime soon. For the same reasons everyone else wants to get married.
She is the only gay in the village as far as the press are concerned.
The Spiders were good fun. Such fun in fact that I was in no fit state to update the blog on Friday. I was just about able to upload all the pics I took from the night and remove the red eye. Shame there is no cure for Pink Eye. Thankfully, I was not the only one suffering. One of the guys didn't make it in, he was dying. Friday passed in a blur as I envisioned crawling home to my bed. She got all of her christmas shopping out of the way on Friday evening with the best mate. Well, most of the shopping. I was rudely awoken from an early night by her pounding the door down and showing me the pressies she got for Mammy2. If she lasts until christmas without telling her I'll be amazed. The photographer from the Irish Times was around on Saturday to take our pic for today's paper. She spent the best part of an hour taking pics and used what I think was the cheesiest one!
The guy rang Mammy2 last night to do the interview, its only a small piece but its important. We tried our best to get some other couple to do it, whilst we don't mind doing it, sometimes we feel that the generic public must be out there going "For god's sake just let them get married, it might keep them off the telly" etc. The way I feel about it is if I'm out then what else is there for people to know about me, or what should I be afriad of people finding out. When I was younger, there were no regular gay people in the media and so before I even came out, I was petrified as to what gay
people were like. This shouldn't be the case, we should be out there showing everyone that we're not sexual deviants, well some of us, I can't speak for everyone ;). We fall in love, we bring up children, we want the same rights as everyone else. So what? We should be putting
ourselves out there and forcing people to see that we are no different to anyone else. As one famous campaign a few years ago phrased it, we're sons and daughters, nieces ,nephews, grandchildren, gay, lesbian, bisexual. Its just another term to add to the list. We're people just like everyone else.
What annoys me even more is the people who think that its alright to 'give' us we equal rights as long as the children are protected. From what? Grrrrrrrrr.. Give us the same rights as everyone else but when it comes to children, leave this to the professionals, the hetrosexual couples. If we're not abusing them, we'll want them as homosexual mascots.
Anyhow, I shall get off my soapbox now.
Saturday was spent doing some clothes shopping with Mammy2 and then spending some time with Mammy2's family, her brother and his family were up from Mayo for the weekend. Sisters night was very succesful this week. I am only now regaining the power in my arm, she has a nasty habit of holding tight to my left arm and squeezing. Obviously this helps when you are watching a scary film? She was petriefied. The film was the Exorcism of Emily Rose and whilst it had some jumpy moments, I wouldn't say it was terrifying. She actually screamed out loud at one stage and no-one else did. A few people looked around at her and smiled, not that she noticed, she buried under her jacket.
On the way home was the usual discussion of when she moves out and gets her own place. She really has no concept of money, trying to explain to her that you'd need a full time job to have your own place in Dublin was not getting through. I told her she can get a student loan once she starts college. She then thought she could get enough of a loan to buy a nice 2 bed-roomed apartment on the south side. Explaining mortgages at around 12.30 of a Sunday night was not something I was looking forward to. So, I told her Mammy2 was good at all that financial stuff and that she might run through it with her. I'm sure Mammy2 will kill me, but I managed to stop the conversation for a while at least.
This week is looking equally hectic. My christmas party, meeting up with a friend from my college days, she recently got engaged and celebrated her 30th and I still have to give her her card and pressie and then Mammy2's christmas party which is on the Friday. I asked the kid to swap sisters night to the Friday night so she seemed happy enough with that. She's in grand form now that her period finally arrived, although I felt sorry for J the boyf on Saturday. She got it into her head that some girl at the gig he was playing at fancied him and wanted to be with him, there was tears and everything. I don't know how the poor boy manages.
She is the only gay in the village as far as the press are concerned.
The Spiders were good fun. Such fun in fact that I was in no fit state to update the blog on Friday. I was just about able to upload all the pics I took from the night and remove the red eye. Shame there is no cure for Pink Eye. Thankfully, I was not the only one suffering. One of the guys didn't make it in, he was dying. Friday passed in a blur as I envisioned crawling home to my bed. She got all of her christmas shopping out of the way on Friday evening with the best mate. Well, most of the shopping. I was rudely awoken from an early night by her pounding the door down and showing me the pressies she got for Mammy2. If she lasts until christmas without telling her I'll be amazed. The photographer from the Irish Times was around on Saturday to take our pic for today's paper. She spent the best part of an hour taking pics and used what I think was the cheesiest one!
The guy rang Mammy2 last night to do the interview, its only a small piece but its important. We tried our best to get some other couple to do it, whilst we don't mind doing it, sometimes we feel that the generic public must be out there going "For god's sake just let them get married, it might keep them off the telly" etc. The way I feel about it is if I'm out then what else is there for people to know about me, or what should I be afriad of people finding out. When I was younger, there were no regular gay people in the media and so before I even came out, I was petrified as to what gay
people were like. This shouldn't be the case, we should be out there showing everyone that we're not sexual deviants, well some of us, I can't speak for everyone ;). We fall in love, we bring up children, we want the same rights as everyone else. So what? We should be putting
ourselves out there and forcing people to see that we are no different to anyone else. As one famous campaign a few years ago phrased it, we're sons and daughters, nieces ,nephews, grandchildren, gay, lesbian, bisexual. Its just another term to add to the list. We're people just like everyone else.
What annoys me even more is the people who think that its alright to 'give' us we equal rights as long as the children are protected. From what? Grrrrrrrrr.. Give us the same rights as everyone else but when it comes to children, leave this to the professionals, the hetrosexual couples. If we're not abusing them, we'll want them as homosexual mascots.
Anyhow, I shall get off my soapbox now.
Saturday was spent doing some clothes shopping with Mammy2 and then spending some time with Mammy2's family, her brother and his family were up from Mayo for the weekend. Sisters night was very succesful this week. I am only now regaining the power in my arm, she has a nasty habit of holding tight to my left arm and squeezing. Obviously this helps when you are watching a scary film? She was petriefied. The film was the Exorcism of Emily Rose and whilst it had some jumpy moments, I wouldn't say it was terrifying. She actually screamed out loud at one stage and no-one else did. A few people looked around at her and smiled, not that she noticed, she buried under her jacket.
On the way home was the usual discussion of when she moves out and gets her own place. She really has no concept of money, trying to explain to her that you'd need a full time job to have your own place in Dublin was not getting through. I told her she can get a student loan once she starts college. She then thought she could get enough of a loan to buy a nice 2 bed-roomed apartment on the south side. Explaining mortgages at around 12.30 of a Sunday night was not something I was looking forward to. So, I told her Mammy2 was good at all that financial stuff and that she might run through it with her. I'm sure Mammy2 will kill me, but I managed to stop the conversation for a while at least.
This week is looking equally hectic. My christmas party, meeting up with a friend from my college days, she recently got engaged and celebrated her 30th and I still have to give her her card and pressie and then Mammy2's christmas party which is on the Friday. I asked the kid to swap sisters night to the Friday night so she seemed happy enough with that. She's in grand form now that her period finally arrived, although I felt sorry for J the boyf on Saturday. She got it into her head that some girl at the gig he was playing at fancied him and wanted to be with him, there was tears and everything. I don't know how the poor boy manages.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Getting 'nearly' suspended..
Yesterday a letter arrived in the post address to her. Normally these kind of letters put the heart crossways in us, but what's worse is the ones addressed to the guardians of the kid. That puts the heebie jeebies up us. Anyhew, the reason we were panicked was because I had rang her when she was on her way home from school to see how she got on. We had a meeting to go to so we wouldn't be home until later. She was yabbering away about how she nearly got suspended and stuff.
I paused at this, I love the way she just pops this into a conversation? There was some trouble in art class with people throwing the modelling clay around and the year-head, Miss The only joy I get out of life is making kids lives a misery tackled all of the girls who were doing art rather then trying to find out who was behind it. Whilst I know the kid is no saint, far from it, she said she wasn't involved and this is something she would own up to, in an attempt to look cool, god bless her.
So the letter, it was inviting her to an awards ceremony in DCU, she's been nominated for something or other. She wasn't too impressed but we were. Well, when all you ever get is letters giving out about her, its a nice change. So, its on the 15th of December in the Helix. She reckons she won't win, but we said we're dragging her along anyway. Cue rolling of eyes.
She's at NCAD today for their open day. She has mentioned a few times how college is crap and only posh people go there, so hopefully this might change her mind. Their art teacher is bringing them and the teacher said that once they had finished in the college, there was no point in coming back to the school and she's bringing them to the National Gallery for the rest of the day. Of course they're all delighted they're getting off school. The uniform was thrown aside this morning as she got her stuff together and headed off.
Tonight, I've got the Golden Spiders awards, they're internet awards for different websites. We, as in the content team in here, are expected to attend. It should be a good laugh, apart from it being Black Tie. I have to go shopping for a fancy top tonight, I have a few picked out. Yes , the awards
ceremony is tonight and I am shopping tonight. You read it correctly. How life on the edge am I! Thank god its nearly the weekend, I'm not sure whether its the weather or what, but these days I am exhausted. Anyone mentions age gets shot. At the moment, its as if someone is throwing buckets
of water out of the sky, its madness. Where is the snow? The frost, the crisp mornings? This current government has a lot to answer for.
I paused at this, I love the way she just pops this into a conversation? There was some trouble in art class with people throwing the modelling clay around and the year-head, Miss The only joy I get out of life is making kids lives a misery tackled all of the girls who were doing art rather then trying to find out who was behind it. Whilst I know the kid is no saint, far from it, she said she wasn't involved and this is something she would own up to, in an attempt to look cool, god bless her.
So the letter, it was inviting her to an awards ceremony in DCU, she's been nominated for something or other. She wasn't too impressed but we were. Well, when all you ever get is letters giving out about her, its a nice change. So, its on the 15th of December in the Helix. She reckons she won't win, but we said we're dragging her along anyway. Cue rolling of eyes.
She's at NCAD today for their open day. She has mentioned a few times how college is crap and only posh people go there, so hopefully this might change her mind. Their art teacher is bringing them and the teacher said that once they had finished in the college, there was no point in coming back to the school and she's bringing them to the National Gallery for the rest of the day. Of course they're all delighted they're getting off school. The uniform was thrown aside this morning as she got her stuff together and headed off.
Tonight, I've got the Golden Spiders awards, they're internet awards for different websites. We, as in the content team in here, are expected to attend. It should be a good laugh, apart from it being Black Tie. I have to go shopping for a fancy top tonight, I have a few picked out. Yes , the awards
ceremony is tonight and I am shopping tonight. You read it correctly. How life on the edge am I! Thank god its nearly the weekend, I'm not sure whether its the weather or what, but these days I am exhausted. Anyone mentions age gets shot. At the moment, its as if someone is throwing buckets
of water out of the sky, its madness. Where is the snow? The frost, the crisp mornings? This current government has a lot to answer for.
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