Smoothies

The kid has decided to start making smoothies. At around 11 o'clock of an average night, the poor bananas and kiwis are clinging to the side of the fruit bowl. She shows them no mercy as she kick starts the blender and its mayhem in the living room. Oranges try to pretend their candles, apples start whimpering and the kiwis just play it cool. Until she picks them up and then they turn into
quivering masses. She's at home today, a rough night emotionally is her reason. I blame it on the smoothies. Poor Mammy2 was drinking loads of them last night. Thankfully, because I don't like them, I didn't have to drink any.

Met up with a friend from my old work place yesterday for a glass of wine, the conversation over ran and I was late for meeting the mate R. To say she was unimpressed was putting it mildly. The frost cleared somewhat later in the night, I think the Long Island Teas and the food helped. She was pouted for a while, but living with a teenager who's premenstrul most of the time, I can handle a stroppy 21 year old.
Finishing up today for a long weekend, myself and Mammy2 are away for the Friday and Saturday night. Well not really away, we're staying elsewhere then at home. A mate is going to hang with the child for the weekend. The weather is looking good so we are probably going to do all the touristy things, like the tour bus trip and perhaps the Guinness Storehouse tour as well. Mammy2 likes her Guinness.

Les Update

Felt like crap for the last week, the antibiotics the doc put me on for some feickless infection made me feel worse the infection. The mate A, who's all into alternative medicine explained something about the antibiotic killing all bacteria both good and bad and how I should take pro-biotic youghurt.
I had to stop taking the meds altogether, couldn't concentrate in work for fear of throwing up on keyboard. We shall see if the infection gets wind of it and pays a return visit.

The kid returned to school on Monday with new hairdo. It had been a while since she got her hair done, so a mate of Mammy2's sister is a hairdresser and drops around to the customers house. He called around on Saturday and did a great job. She's got streaks of red through her hair and loves it.
Lots of looking in the mirror and flicking the hair. The teachers were all commenting on it yesterday and Monday, in a good way obviously. A heart stopping moment yesterday when I received a txt along the lines of "I hate school". I tried to be flippant and txted back saying I'd be worried about her as a teenager if she liked it. She was getting some hassle from those evil teenage girls again. She seems to be holding her own.

If it gets any worse, we'll be straight into the school. We had to fill in her registration form for returning to the school next year, I sometimes feel like an adult when I'm filling in these forms and signing it the kids's guardian. Only sometimes do I feel like an adult though. She's been getting
headaches the last few days. Mammy2 reckons its her internalising stress. She's been worried about me because I was sick. Not that she told me, she chatted it to Mammy2 about it. Because I was having similar pains in a similar area to what Mam suffered , she thought I might die. Bless her cottens. Mammy2 explained everything to her and she seems to have calmed down a bit. She is back to asking me to make tea for her constantly! The stress from returning to school might also have caused the headaches. We're bringing her to the doctor anyway for the long awaited STI check.
I hope the doctor scares her so much, she wants to becomg a nun. That's the plan anyways.

We're less then 2 months away from her 17th bday. We're nearly decided what we're getting her, its been a tough one, because you don't want to go bad with her 17th as her 18th is next and she'll be expecting something big for that. We just have to shop around for it. She filled out an application form for Pennies at the weekend. Thankfully she asked for our input. For the question, "Why do you want to work for us?" she was going to fill in her honest answer "Cause I need the money". Thankfully Mammy2 has a more diplomactic way of phrasing things and helped her fill it out. Can't you just see her in Pennies? Because I can't.

Psychotherapy is the new pseudoscience

According to the kid. Its quite an inventive excuse to get out of therpy. Mammy2 did not laugh in her face whilst she uttered these words , but responded with something along the lines of "It works for some people" No response from the teenager. She managed to avoid it this week anyway because she was so late in replying to her therapists email so it will be on Friday when she is going to tell her that she wants to finish it. Good luck with that .

Westlife were great, they sang all the songs I love and did 2 encores. 2 hours of it, excellent stuff. Granted Mammy2 didn't love it as much as I did, but did admit to having a crush on Shane the lead singer. I think it was because I kept going on about Kian so much. Hormones are all over the place at the mo, they are evil things I tell you. They control our reaction to everything. From email to google.

Thank god its Thursday, I am going to rest over the weekend and may not even do any work. Shock!
Its the mates 30th do and I have to get something decent to wear to her party. I might go
shopping on Saturday, retail therapy is always good. The kid is back to school on Monday, we received a letter last week that put the heart crossways in us. Address to the parents or guardians of the kid. This usually means bad news. Thankfully, it was just a letter regarding re-registration for next year and that we need to pay 100 euros for administration and what not. Whoever says
education is free should think again.The boyf won't be around for the next few days, he's gotten a cold or something that she's not believeing for a second.

She asked if we could all 'hang' on Saturday? I informed her we are adults, we don't know how to
'hang'. It is a talent exclusive to teenagers. I feel. I tried 'hanging' once, but I realised that I didn't have that flexibility in my shoulders, you know the way it appears as if they have no backbone. They flop here , there and everyone. I tried that and to no avail. I just ended up sliding off the couch into a boneless heap on the floor. Not a good look for me.

Riverdancing Sperm

A nice long weekend, filled with fun and frolics , easter eggs and ovaries. Another attempt and another waiting game. I found out our man isn't into the Eurovision. I realise it is a bit late in the arrangment to be re-thinking the situation but seriously, how can he not be interested in the Eurovision. His musical taste is akin to mine somewhat, but this was a big surprise. I fear when we did up the questionaire, Mammy 2 may have removed the whole section on musical taste and this was where I overlooked the situation.

Good Friday was spent baby making , cooking dinner and watching Brokeback Mountain. Yes, we were already going to hell for our lifestyle, might as well do it in style. Brokeback Mountain is an amazing film. Although it brings out different reactions in people. Mammy2 and the kid were crying by the end of it and our man was looking a few more baby attempts. Waste not, want not, and so on. My body was not impressed. The ovaries had hung a do not disturb sign on the fallopian whilst they
decided the best course of action for all this shenaigans. They were not happy to find out that our man's swimmers are persistent beggars and that they hang around for ages, pretending to be Jevohah's Witnesses and once the door is opened to them, they swoop in. To pass the time, they like to Riverdane. Apparently.

In the meantime, to keep themselves entertained, they have karoke competitions. I kid you not, our man's words not mine. The kid is dealing quite well with the situation, I suppose she has no other choice really. The poor thing was horrifed on Saturday morning. Our man had done his thing and left the bathroom and she flew past to use the bathroom next. Its a battle in an apartment with 3 women. Mammy2 knocked on the door, explaining that she had to get something from the bathroom. The door opened to reveal a disgusted teenager who uttered the words:
"Mother of god" as Mammy2 collected our 'stuff' and left. I'm sure years of therapy will help her overcome this.
Saturday, met the mate R for bravas and her sister and her sister's love sick friend. At one stage, I was sure frost had settled on the table, such was the atmosphere over lunch. The sister appeared uneasy, whilst the love sick friend, went from whispering behind his hand to gazing lovingly at her. Luckily I wasn't too hungry, else the lunch would have made a re-appearence. I felt sorry for the poor mate, R. She wanted to hang with her sister and instead she got the deleted scenes from Romeo and Juilet.

Got the kid her easter egg on the way home and myself and Mammy2 had a relaxing evening as the kid was in Kill hanging with the boyf's family. She really likes them, I think its because the Mam dotes on her. And cooks for her. And does other mammy things. Sunday we headed to watch the easter parade. There was no trouble thank god, and so many female guards. It was like all my christmases had come at once. Champage and strawberries followed , back at the apartment, it was S's 30th bday celebrations, she's making them last long enough! A good friend, A was up from Athlone and we hadn't seen her since christmas so it was good to catch up. We headed to Cactus Jack's for dinner, where S was unimpressed with the margheritas. Mammy2 was more then happy with S's leftovers. The food was great, the service mediocre.

The kid spent most of Monday throwing the boyf around her bedroom whilst we sat in the living room waiting for one of them to come flying through the wall. We left a cushion on the floor to lessen the injuries. They rented out movies and spent most of the day hanging and watching them. And acting like teenagers. Mammy2 had an ephiany on Thursday night, whilst talking about the kid she realised that she often calls the kid Lisle, after the one in the Sound of Music. As it turns out, the kid is 16 going on 17. Guess what's being song every second day now. The kid told the boyf, who knows the song off by heart. All his female relatives love the film and so he had to learn to play it. I can see the kid's 17th bday bash already, J on electric guitar with Mammy2 singing her little heart out and the kid applying for adoption.

She was unimpressed with us re-primanding her for not playing the playstation enough. We bought the playstation 2 for her months ago and the only thing she uses it for is watching dvds in her room. When we asked why she wasn't playing, she said she had a lot of school work to do, we told her to stop concentrating on school work and play computer games more. She said we were mad.

Going to see Westlife tonight. So excited. I hope Kian remembers me.

Easter eggs and Inseminations

Long weekend ahead and I'm really looking forward to it. Doing nothing and relaxing for a while. I mentioned to the kid that I was thinking of starting back into painting. Needless to say she was unimpressed. A raised eyebrow was the comment that it warrented. She's been 'hangin' with the boyf for most of this week, thank god. Else it would be "I'm bored" for most of the evenings when we return home.

Its bizzare, this worrying gene. I think Mam must have passed it onto me before she left this place. I mean, I worry. Constantly about the kid. When she's in the apartment, its fine. Because I can hear her and am possibly plotting her demise as she speaks, but if she's gone for a long period of time with no contact from her, even though I know where she is, dangerous scenarios starting appearing in my head. She's fallen in front of the Luas. She's been mugged. She's been beaten up. She's been kidnapped by people who like people who wear black make-up. Not, oh she's hanging with the boyf and will be home later. Not, oh we have the place to ourselves, isn't it great. Nope. Its panic. She was gone for most of Monday evening and for a while I enjoyed it. I relaxed. But the later it got, the more agitated I got.

What I want to know is when does this feeling go away. What if she decides to travel. To somewhere other then Holland. Am I going to have to hide in the suitcase and make sure she's alright? When will I stop worrying and fretting about her? She got her pic take on Tuesday for the magazine, still not sure when its appearing. They said they'd let us know. She was very nervous about it but I'd say she loved it. I'm looking forward to seeing the pic. Lots of interesting arty poses no doubt.

Its ovulation time again, time to throw so much sperm at those ovaries, they won't know what hit them. It'll be like, there's someone at the door, 2 minutes later, you've got a punctured ovary and a jubliant sperm. Happy days. That is the plan. Of course things don't work that way. We are
trying to be non-chalent about it. As non-chalent as one can be when being inseminated.

The weekend is a busy one, the brother is up on Sunday as he's taking part in the parade. I get to watch him march. Should be fun, he takes the FCA thingy very seriously. I also am looking forward to the rest of the parade but I shall refrain from mentioning the guards, espeically the female ones.

One of the good mates turned 30 yesterday, so we went out for dinner with her. She's having a big party next Saturday, a joint 30th with another mate of hers. It was good to catch up with her, we see her less and less lately, she's a hard worker and works long hours so it leaves little time for socialising. We had a great old chat and I ranted about having a bloke for your best friend. Myself and the mate C are having some problems at the moment, or should I say I am having the problems and he doesn't even notice. It was good to get someone else's perspective. I think I shall be having a chat with him when he returns from the wilds of Amsterdam. Himself and the gf are over there for a long weekend.

I must pick up an easter egg for the kid this evening or my life won't be worth living. Can you imagine her face? Lets not joke about it, shall we not.

Teenage Girls, brothers and christen types..

Last week was a tad rough on the kid. Unfortunately, some of her values, while to be lauded are not really suited to the teenage friendships she has going on. I'm not exagterating when I say she is a lot older then her 16 years of age. In some ways. In other ways, she's 12! She found out that one of her mates, a girl was cheating on another one of her mates, Slurp or whatever nickname he's going by these days. He's in the boyf's band. She told him. He confronted J the girlf and all hell broke loose. J and the kids's best mate D turned on the kid, as teenage girls are prone to do. The group dynamic kicks in.

Hence most of last week was spent fielding txts from the kid begging us to let her go home as she couldn't handle it. The girls were making comments, and generally making her life hell. I don't think it was an overstatement when I recently heard someone describe teenage girls as the devil incarnate. They have an amazing ability to make peoples lives a misery. Two days of this and we were praying for the Easter holidays in the hopes that things would blow over. Thursday last I had off and I got a number of txts begging me to let her go home. I passed them onto Mammy2. She does the talking bit really well. I do the wanting to kill anyone who hurts the kid well. I need to fix things otherwise I feel useless. So my day off was spent fretting about her. The joys of being a parent.

Friday night was interesting. We were out. In Temple Bar. On a Friday night. For those of you unfamilar with the joys of Temple Bar of an average weekend, I won't shatter your illusions. Its fab. Ahem. We were in The Quays bar. I shall try and describe it in as few words as possible. The 'band' were belting out Summer of 69. There were more hen nights then customers. The stag crew all looked like they went to the exact same shirt shop. I mean the exact same. Except for different patterns and/or colours. Going to the toilet was 'interesting'. I managed to avoid getting beer spilled on me and the sweaty blokes were were arm in arm singing along to Oasis or whatever cover the band were doing now.

Its not my cup of tea but everyone else appeared to be enjoying themselves. Perhaps I am of a different breed and prefer the couch of an average Friday night or maybe a quiet bar. Even when I was in college, I avoided the main college bars for places you'd be more likely to find the older generation. Perhaps I was subconsciously looking for an older woman ;) Who knows. By the weekend, the kid had spoken with D the best mate and sorted things out. The drama of being a teenager eh. It was herself and the boyf's 6 month anniversary and bodily harm was threatened if he didn't make an effort to get it off. They spend the day hanging. We spent the day shopping. I had gotten paid finally for one of my website jobs and so clothes shopping beckoned. 2 hours later, exhausted, we headed for lunch and to catch the Grand National. Yesterday was spent travelling to Athlone to visit Mam. We hadn't made it down for Mother's day. The kid came along. She hasn't been to the grave since the burial. She also wanted to go down to the house and pick up some of her old stuff.
The brother picked her up in Glasson and brought her down whilst we got a bite to eat. I still can't face the house. I doubt I ever will. Everything about it is Mam and with the brother doing loads of work on it, I don't think I want to see it. I can do without getting annoyed at him.

We had sisters night when we got back home. After grocery shopping. With the kid. Mammy2 luckily had brought her shopping trolley with the trapdoor. As the kid put stuff in that she NEEDED, as soon as she turned into another isle, the trapdoor was opened and the offending product removed.
Sisters night last night, we rented out In Her Shoes. Dreadful film, one might assume with the likes of Toni Colette and Shirley Maclaine that it might have had some redeemed features. I'm all for chick flicks but this was just meh. Nothing going for it. Most of the recipes of good girlie films were missing. Not even a terminal illness. The 2 main characters were very unlikeable. And that is saying something for Cameron Diaz, who looked fab as always, even in hospital scrubs. Who knew they could look so sexy.

The kid, whilst chatting over the film as she is prone to do, was worried about the boyf. She had txted him a number of times and didn't get a response and so assumed the worst. She then logged on to send a txt to his mate to see if he was hanging with her. She's not paranoid . At all. She was grumbling about some girl who wanted to add him as a friend to her myspace profile. Seeing as I am a novice to this myspace phenoemem, I asked her how she knew this person was trying to add him. She casually mentioned she had his password and logged onto his account. When I asked how she got his password, she said she had his email details from ages ago and he had forgotten about it. Then she logged onto MySpace, entered in the email address pretending to forget her password and the password was emailed out to her. How cunning and yet evil is that. I mean, levels of trust.
I expressed my horror at this and asked her if it was a bit unfair to be logging on to his profile. She shrugged her shoulders and went back to ignoring me and watching the film through the eyes located in the back of her head. I do love these bonding nights we have.

I was browsing a website looking for some GLBT books and found what looked like a nice story. The majorty of lesbian books are dreadful and usually about lesbian copsdetectives who ride bigger motorcycles and call people Doll Face. Yuck. Or arty farty ones. What I want is a straightforward, girl meets girl, girl falls for girl, after a small bit of angst they live happily ever
after. I found this book(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374404143/104-4061325-4504704?v=glance&n=283155) which looks really cute and I did a search for reviews

I came across this and you know, I should be used to these sort of people by now. Every now and then I remember that I'm different, not the norm , against god's wishes etc.
Most of the time, myself and Mammy2 go about our business , paying bills as opposed to shagging them, shopping, doing homework with the kid and just being regular people.
I even work a 9-5 job. Programming. I am of course working on a way to re-program all the straight people, because what they do is so wrong. Or some other propaganda shite
the christian people would have you believe.

Here is an extract of part of the book review:

Any therapist who has ever helped an unhappy homosexual reorient his or her life . . . any former homosexual that has been disillusioned by gay life and transcended the painful process of change . . . would be able to tell Ms. Garden what is wrong. Homosexuality does not work because it contradicts one of the basic conditions for the survival of humanity, and thwarts the potential of profound happiness that heterosexual love carries: namely, that men and women were made for each other---physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

I mean, where do you start? We don't harm anyone, contratry to the statistics made up by these sort of people. We fall in love, we commit to each other and sometimes we raise a family, this is of course in between working on the HOMOSEXUAL agenda. Grrr.. These sort of people make me mad and upset. Why don't they just feic off. And do something more worthwhile, like concentrate on using the other brain cell God gave them. Muppets.

Vegetarianism? Not the kid

We were treated to 30+ minutes of a video the boyj and his band playing in the Battle of the Bands comp which they came second in last week. All I could hear was the singer roaring, I couldn't make out any lyrics. We were dragged from the kitchen at various stages during the video to hear a riff that the boy wrote. It sounded the exact same as all the other music, but we tried to appear like we knew what they were talking about. Even thoug we hadn't a clue. I admired his guitar and head banging abilities and went back to cooking the dinner and chatting to Mammy2 about her day was. Yes I am that old.

It was great to have the boyf around to hang as she hadn't seen him all weekend and hence most of the weekend was spent hanging with us. She arrived in on Saturday morning at 9 wanting to know what we had planned to do for the day. The choir of small boys stood 2 steps behind her. I explained as best I could that weekends we liked to relax and chill out and perhaps do some housework. I looked back to where she had been sitting and there was an empty spot. Obviously the word housework worked like a charm.

She's been doing great in school. She had her DAT's I think they are called, their name changes every few days and she got high marks in all of them. Highest in literacy and science, strangely enough. I would have thought art. So now her plan is to do 4 years studying science, find a cure for cancer, then take a year out and go on and study art for 4 years. Big change from the girl who wasn't going onto college a year ago. She's going to be a perennial student by the looks of things!

Vegetarianism is gone out the window. I think its as a result of 2 things. She's been getting lots of tummy cramps from not eating properly. Mainly because she can't wait until we get home from work to get dinner, so she'll get something quick like soup or noodles and its not really a hearty meal. She woke us up on Saturday night , worried that she was going to pass away like Mam because she keeps getting the same pains and stuff. The poor thing. I got up with her, tucked her in and told her that she needs to start feeding herself properly and eating more dinners and stuff. This seemed to calm her down a bit. I also explained that Mam was a lot older then 16 and that her doctor was a muppet and that's why the tumour went un-diagnosed for so long. She dozed off shortly afterwards.

We went and did a small shop in the nearby market and she was starving so the basket was full before we got past the veg section. She was picking up picnic ham and I casually informed her vegetarians are not big fans of picnic ham. She said she was thinking of going back on meat. I hear a Hallejulah chorus behind me, but I ignored it. We purchased the ham, then she wanted black and white puddings and wanted me to cook her a grill. Some vegetarians take adjusting to live back on meat. This one is pratically standing beside the cow as its killed with 2 slices of bread. I can't complain, she's easier to feed when she's eating meat.

The weekend was a strange one. I still wasn't back to full health so was taking it easy. The weather went from sunshine to showers. And when I say showers, it was as if God was playing golf and dropped 365436 balls from the sky at one stage, such was the hailstones that fell. All very dramatic. And very much Irish.
I was knocked for six on Saturday by a simple thing such as cut grass. Its getting to that stage where the grass needs cutting and the meadows are starting to grow down the country. Soon the turf will need to be brought home. I miss the country. The smell of grass always reminds me of Mam.
She was obessed with her lawns. Even when she was in hospital, after on of her many operations, she'd always ask about the lawns. We always had them done though, you never know when she'd take a figary and hop into an ambulance and demand they swing by her house to make sure
we weren't lying. I got a wee bit upset, although this could also have to do with PMT. I pulled myself together and met the mate R, for some shopping.

I had images of being dragged from shop to shop, with stuff being held up for my approval or dis-approval. Thankfully, she's much more practical then that. The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning, watching the final few episodes of the L word and watching the kid throw vegetarianism to the side with great gutso. Its like she was never one.