twangypearl the elastic girl

It's 12 months

since KDid died, that quiet, good-hearted man.

When I was young I thought when you grew up somehow you'd be invested with powers that would make you strong. You'd be able to cope, you'd be adult, capable. Sure, things might make you sad, but not too much, you'd manage. You'd put on your suit and good shoes and go to the funeral. You wouldn't cry. You'd know things that would comfort you. You'd know that lives were long, fair, logical. You'd have made a leap, somewhere along the way, and become life-confident. You'd be in control.

Now I realise that was mostly the work of my protective parents and that living is a continuum, rather than a series of separate experiences. This isn't a rehearsal, I have painfully realised, there will not be a montage sequence, there are no shortcuts, you do have to learn the hard way, and it can indeed be too late. It is later than you think. Success is a matter of luck and privilege, not just working hard and making good decisions. Life will crack you open. You can only hope this makes you a better person, more alive, more present. More appreciative, more understanding.

Now I understand that the big whopper of a lesson of my middle years is that joy can co-exist with sadness, and this finally really does have the truthful ring of adulthood. For the good times are painfully precious. Any moment you have to sit in the sun with your friends, or banter with a stranger on the bus, any chance to watch a vast golden moon rise, sing rousing South African anthems in a choir or have the cat on your knee vibrating with purrs, is achingly beautiful.

So we remember him, and try to enjoy our many good memories of him.

Kindly readers, I hope you're well, and to have happier things to talk about soon.
I have missed this. More soon.
xx
T

 

Mr Blue Sky

Most improbably, I have finished my cone project in plenty of time for hand-off this evening, an event which will require me to walk for 10 mins, take a bus, walk for another 20mins, (or MAYBE, I'll just take a taxi, though that kind of thing makes me as nervous as W4I. Apparently I believe a taxi is the thin end of the wedge that will inevitably lead to a online gambling addiction, thousands of euros of debt and end with my living under a bridge) knock on a door I have never seen before, go: Martin? in hopeful tones if a man answers or: Hi! Is Martin there? if a woman answers. Then I will dump deliver the Big Black Portfolio and SKIP SKIP SKIP away feeling OH-SO-LIGHT and who even cares what it looks like anymore? I've got rid, as they say on Corrie.

I've been having a bit of a time of it. Do you remember this, kindly readers?

This is what it's been like, for months, but with extra juggling and exhaustion-induced despair/irrational thoughts. I am so burned out I am actually a Walkers crisp, and those illustrations still need to be done by end of month. (Those fecking things - it's like trying to outrun your own shadow. It's getting mystical, as this point.) While this is just feasible, I am reminded of that saying about people who have been made partner in a law practice: It's like winning a pie-eating contest. And your prize is more pie.

Next week, my students have exams, an event that involves a vast amount of forms called (things like) Learner's Assessment F11-R456. On the other hand, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Only! 6! weeks! to! the! end! of term! Holiers needed URGENTLY.

Other things I have noticed of late:

• The JB has been away for the last week, at a conference. In his absence I have been shocked to discover my breakfast dishes are still there, lying around in grey water, when I get home after school. Proof he does do dishes. Huh! I thought I did Everything Around Here. That's the thing about housework, isn't it? It's only noticed if it's not done.
  
  
• Also. Yes. What was the other thing.
  
  
• Ah. Our floor in The Hotel Tallafornia now hosts a weekly vist from Slimming World. A whole world of slimming - imagine! Continents of svelteness and seas of self-confidence! I am reassured by its logo every morning: Slimming World: Because [I am] amazing. Huh, ta, Slimming World.
  
  
• I think, anyway.
  
  
• It seems that the Authority may be sorting something out with regard to India opening - soon-ish. Also hopeful signs float over Florida. Too tired to be excited, but I presume I am, really.
  
  
• Alrighty then. I am going to go and do the drop-off, I reckon.

Be well, friends.

xx

T

 

 

 

learning

IS IT JUST ME, I WONDER

A couple of weekends ago:

TWANGY, seeing an opportunity to bond with DAZZLE, (the three-year-old niece) while the rest of the family are engaged in an interminable game of Capitalist Market Forces Monopoly, extends 'claws' and roars, experimentally:
Rrrrrar! I'm a tiger.

DAZZLE smiles indulgently.

TWANGY: What are you?

DAZZLE: I'm a people.

How deflating.

---

Further conversation, this time with a student:
ALEX(not real name!): So, in relation to.. I just want to understand. My head is wrecked here. When you copy a file, where is that?
TWANGY: Emmm. Well. What? It goes on to the clipboard.
ALEX :  But.. where is the clipboard?
TWANGY (not feeling terribly patient at this point): It's just out there, Alex. In virtual space.
In your computer's RAM or something, Alex.
ALEX: But. It's  just these notes don't talk about the clipboard. I think these notes are a bit...
TWANGY considers a rapid exit out of the window.

Speaking of the Hotel Tallafornia, and the "learning" that takes place therein with my unemployed would-be designers, it should come as no surprise that we are dealing, per usual, with the Usual Suspects. The same ould cast of characters. There's the one with the attitude, there are the moaners, there are the gigglers, there are those afflicted with shyness, those encumbered with laziness. The sickly, the smart, the motivated, the dense. 'Twas ever thus, was it not, teachers, educators, librarians? The moaners were moaning at me last week, and I had this lightbulb revelation: these people (whispered The Little Voice of Obviousness) are not my friends. In this relationship, here,  it's my job to hold the thing together, and be respected.

This is stunningly self-evident, I do realise. Maybe it's the chronic informality of the Irish, but up to now, I have always assumed that friendliness, a general enthusiasm for the subject, respect for their efforts and a pretence at a flat hierarchy would see me through this teaching gig. Now, I realise that to act as if there is no difference between us, except that I just happen to be standing at the other side of the table is just not going to work. After all, I am in charge of time-keeping, and there is money involved in that, this being a state-sponsored training course. So, how to play it? Shall I become (gets carefully into American character) a 'hardass'? Would this be better for all concerned? Thoughts on this welcome. What is your style?

I've told you about the hotel as venue of higher education in this brave new world, haven't I?
We are in the one heated room on the fifth floor of a mostly empty office block, (itself mysteriously part of the hotel), surrounded by empty offices like this:



It's so fantastically creepy, like some weird art installation. The other morning, the previously abandoned and chilly reception area had leaflets scattered around and a big poster over it:
THE PENTECOSTALS
Presumably they checked-in-but-can-never-leave the night before? Yet no sign of them since.
And then, odder yet, and, to use  The Young People's favourite word, 'totally random':


Bridge tables sprang up overnight. Bridge tables. 

What next, friends? The Annual Trapeze Artists' Convention? The League of Capuchin Monkey Handlers? YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE.

Rest assured, I will keep you posted.

T

you will comfort me

Back again, my friends. Life has been full on. It used to be that feast and famine was the rule, but now, I am always dementedly busy, and yet persist in not being any more solvent. What is this strange new world? I don't know if I like it.

I joined a choir, did I say? It's been absorbing to be a part of something bigger than me, something I know so little about. Humbling. I keep having these light bulb moments: OH! That's a chord! That's a quaver! Seriously, I am that - what would it be? Immusicate?

We performed, in a kind of flash-mob way, in a busy lunch venue earlier in the week, wearing, per instructions, "black trousers and a top in a solid colour". I didn't think I possessed any black trousers, (an extraordinary factoid, I know) but lo! A pair dated circa 2000 skulked in the back of the wardrobe, made of a millenial fabric that seems to be .. vinyl?

Vinyl, I swear. Maybe it's recycled records. If only I still had a turntable, I could listen to them. I wonder what they'd sound like. Pants? (Groan. Stopping now.)

It was satisfying to hear all our voices turn into one. I could see the familiar figure of the JB, my only only, on the other side of the atrium, and my very stalwarty friend, Sister2. (Stalwarty doesn't sound as flattering as I intend it to be. I am going to trust you know what I mean.)

You are with me, [we sang], you will comfort me.

I think the JB is going through some stuff. He's sleeping much more than usual, and though he has not abandoned his papers, (that would surely be a sign of impending death) he is not his usual ebullient self. He's one of those people that is always on, you know? Even if you wake him up in the middle of the night, he's like a good photograph of himself. Not so now.

Really, I do think All This has been harder for him than for me. Not that it's a quantifiable thing, or a race to be the most hurt, indeed, but he's such a hard worker, he's used to barriers giving way under the weight of his effort, and he is baffled and deeply offended that those rules don't apply here. Of course, it's true that he is also grieving for his father, but somehow the frustration he feels about our efforts to have/be a family has become the focus of that pain too. It comes and goes, of course. Any progress - any tick on our adoption list - rallies the spirits. Any delay or problem brings on the feelings of disappointment and aggrievement.

Lest anyone think the IF shitstorm spares the partners.

So that is where I am. Wearing recycled LPs, and being very busy having no money coming in.
How about you? What's in the back of your wardrobe?

T

Actual news I can actually report

I am half-daunted, half-thrilled. (Is there a single word for that? There should be.) On Tuesday I received a phone call from the by now much-beloved Detective, our social worker, to tell us that we have passed the board, and are deemed suitable to be adoptive parents.

(!!!)

It is big and somewhat odd to be declared (apparently) sane by your government. Something to celebrate! I feel all government-sanctioned! All I need is an APPROVED stamp on my forehead to complete the look.

Then on Wednesday, more life-changing events: we took the train to another town for a meeting in The Hotel of the Swirly Carpet. It was extraordinarily informative, dispelling many myths, and covering all sorts of important stuff on Bulgaria and India, as sending countries. India probably has over 10 million children without families. OVER TEN MILLION. There are any amount of impromptu and unlicensed orphanages that spring up to care for them, but many of the children inevitably do not even have that much luck. It is utterly heart-breaking and overwhelming, isn't it? Words fail. We fail. All those children, all their needs, all their talents, in need of so much nurturing, of so many hours of hugs and stories, so much encouragement, so many peeled potatoes, and slices of toast, so many pairs of pyjamas, so much effort, patience, understanding and love.

So walking back to the train station, the next morning, the JB and I, down the steep steps, with the fog lifting, we made up our minds that India is it.

It seems this is how you make decisions that change your life, while you hurry to catch a train. You've arrived at a fork in the road, and you've run out of time, standing still is not possible, you just have to move one way or the other. So you just take your life in your hands, and go, and try not to be haunted by the ghost of other path, the way unchosen.

So we sent an email to the detective to ask her to change our country to India. The USA was our previous choice, but it seems that there is an uncompatibility between the Irish interpretation of Hague and the American one, which means that private adoption is looking rather uncertain for the time being. We could adopt out of the state system, however. Frustratingly, the JB does continue to waver on this. Yesterday he sent me the link to an (of course) utterly adorable one-year-old on a state website. Now, I do understand that as a purely pragmatic tool, these sites do work in placing children, but it makes me oh-so-uncomfortable to look at the children's profiles. I mean, apart from the awful, awful heart-rending God-is-that-my-kid? That-could-be-my-kid! confusion, it just feels wrong to me. I do believe that it is getting the cart before the horse. There is a reason for the agency being the one that matches parents with children, and doing the referral. They know things.
(What do you think? Maybe it is simply that we are not ready for that yet.)

So.

That was the news from Dublin.

[Insert single word that conveys both the excitement and fear of this moment.]

Yaaaay! Eeek!
T

question

I have an important question for people who know these things:

Are three-year-olds mad?

I am a dried husk after yesterday's task,  the minding of my neice for four hours while her mother was at a funeral, and her father, my dear, dear brother, was being fed grapes by a servant in a gold lame (can you just imagine the accent on the e, I am feeling delicate) tunic, or whatever it is you do at a "rugby match".

All started fairly well. She's three and a half, after all, you can talk to her. Can't you? Brother, before he left to swill mead out of a tusk, did express a few misgivings. And I:
She's a child, not a wild animal! HAHA HA!

Ha.

We played for a couple of hours cheerfully enough. Playdough, ponies, drawings of Scooby - the whole gamut of my child entertainment repetoire was run. And then, I don't know why, exactly, but the mood suddenly went south, and despite my best and warmest reassurances that Mummy would be back soon, (OH PLEASE, GOD) and poor Dazzle wouldn't be stuck with her mean aunt for all eternity, there were many, many tears and quite an impressive tantrum. At this point, she wasn't able to speak, and trying to comfort her just resulted in renewed wailing, like she was suddenly petrified of me. So I retreated for a minute and she, seeing her escape route open at last, bolted from the room to fall asleep finally in front of Dora.

At his point, her mother came in and I thought how much I'd always liked adults. Aren't adults lovely?
 
This is Scooby. Or maybe Daphne. Hard to know - small children are MAD.

So now, I am beset with doubts. Up to now, I assumed that kids liked me, but now I see that was based on just one child, Spike, (brother of Dazzle) with whom I have a long-standing rapport based on drawing monsters and games where we pretend the bed is a boat, surrounded by sharks. WHAT IF, dear readers, WHAT IF Spike is actually the only kid in the world who sees the point of Bobbie, as he calls me? What about our poor adopted kid?

Sigh.

T

And rather more urgently, be safe, all those who are in the way of Irene.

moral dilemma

Will you look at that? I got the nellies as predicted and deleted this post. However, I have placed it behind the magic curtain at this address:

http://twangypearl.typepad.com/sssshhhhhh/

If you'd like to read along, please email me, and I will send the username and password along to you.

 

lost and found

Many thanks as ever to Mel for her kind mention of KDiddy. I love that KDiddy's presence was known all over the world through our network. I think he'd be all embarrassed and secretly tickled.

   The JB. I was asked to "give me more hair". So, yeah.

The JB is - I suppose - how you'd expect. One minute he is brittle and cheery, the next morose and lost. I don't know what it is to lose both your parents - I distantly imagine feeling unmoored and unsafe, but what would I know? My parents are alive and (well, not exactly) hale and hearty. If anyone has any words of wisdom, I'd love to hear. As it stands, I am trying to provide a semblance of normality. I say trying: the other day we were chatting idly about why the Dutch football team wear orange. I piped up, feeling a bit clever:
Because of William the Orange, is it?

Gales of laughter. Gales. Of/the. Pfft, a perfectly understandable mistake.

In the background, life continues. I almost enjoyed the second of my teaching sessions. Those people, they were listening to me! To me! And doing what I asked them to do! THE POWER. It could go to my head. Please, readers, I implore you: shoot a tranquillising dart in my neck and haul me off the stage if I start wearing wrap around shades like Bono and pontificating randomly into the microphone. I'M BEGGING YOU, HERE.

Also, suggestions welcome on this: I have to go for a medical next week as part of our adoption assessments. To this I say: Oh, crap. On two counts:

A. There may have been some comfort eating of late. The road to the future seemed paved with Cadbury's digestives, and I trod that road willingly. And I'll have to be weighed, a thing I Never Do.

B. I dread telling the doctor, whom I haven't seen since, about the miscarriage of last year. Shouldn't they just sort of KNOW? I know this is lily-livered and neurotic of me, but I just don't want to say the words to her.
(Do you know, just writing that down made it seem possible? Hurray for blogs.)

I hope to post again later in the week, which is forecast to be nice and quiet. (FINGERS CROSSED, OBVIOUSLY.) P-kitty, parts two and three, for sure. The megalomaniac continues to lurk, providing inspiration.

Till then,
Your historically imaginative,
T

a good man

And so it goes, indeed.

Saturday morning at 3.30am the good, honest heart of KDiddy finally ceased beating. Even now, after all the rigmarole of the funeral and attendant rituals, there is an air of unreality about this fact. In the end, they think he got a hospital bug that he simply could not fight because of his other health problems. Such a sad, regretful thing. If only, if only.

I was proud of how gracious and quietly humorous JB was at the wake, wearing his Dad's nice tweed sportscoat, shaking the many mourners' hands. All the townspeople came. KDid had lived in that small town on the edge of the world for all his long - almost 80 - years, and those many friends and acquaintances, some of whom had known him all his life, or all theirs, were drawn to the wake, mobilised by the local radio station, many with a lifelong history with KDid. We must have shaken over a 100 hands at the wake, so many that patterns would emerge in the faces leaning in to say they were sorry - so many that you'd start to think that hey, haven't you already been around?

All sorts of people came, young and old. Of course other people loved him too - I don't know why this hadn't occurred to me. He had this pure child-like presence, this kind of innocence and modesty that appealed to everyone. He was funny. He was handsome. I remember whenever we'd go to visit him, he'd be in the kitchen with his tie and jacket on, always beautifully shaved and smelling of Imperial Leather. He was cool. He'd wear dark glasses in the summer and keep a straightface for the camera. He was scrupulous. Humble, tolerant. He had a map of the world on the kitchen wall, and that was what he wanted for his boys, the world - he was a great friend to them. He taught them everything they needed to know.
 
Ha. The JB hasn't lost his sense of humour. We had an hour to buy some funeral-appropriate clothes in the small town where the county hospital was - we had nothing with us. I hastily bought a desperate black mac that has a weird smell in Penneys and Johnny grabbed some trousers. He didn't have time to try them on so when we were getting ready for the funeral, we had this hysterical moment where he tried to pour himself into them - they were painted on, I don't know how he ever knelt down in them. So there we were all scruffy and thrown together, him in his drainpipes and a tie of his father's and me in my malodorous coat and office trousers with the wrong sort of shoes, and JB's brother and his girlfriend were all decked out in sunglasses and immaculate black suits, like Hollywood stars. Oh dear.
Ah well.

After the funeral, there was a few hang sangwiches and soup in a local hotel, more stories with friends. Some people came all the way from Dublin, including Brother, and Sister1 and Sister2, a collection of colleagues, all of whom had to leave home at 5am to be there. People were so good. They showed us what to do, ushering us in at the burial, like substitute parents. 

And now, I am back in the big smoke, and with the bad timing of which the universe seems to be so inordinately fond, tomorrow we have our home visit with the social worker. The JB is determined to push ahead with it.

So I better go and make the house look like sane people live in it.

T


Next parish, America.

[Btw, it appears I really do have a cat. P-kitty. She wore me down! I've been buying proper cat food and I made arrangements for Sister1 to feed her while we were away. It's a done deal, isn't it? I do, I have a cat. Drawings soon.]

realities

Ah! A few minutes free to post, at last:

• KDiddy has taken another turn for the worse. Deep, deep sigh. He was moved from Regional Hospital to County Hospital yesterday and was pronounced to be very poorly when he arrived, dehydrated with low blood pressure. He was categorised as critical last night, and upgraded to serious this morning. County thinks Regional should never have moved him. However, County is less busy and is able to give him more attention, so now he's there, it's probably good.
  All these vertiginous ups and downs are making me rethink some things. The reality is sinking in that the care of a chronically ill older patient like KDid is about management of symptoms, about balancing one symptom against another, about diminishing returns. It's sad. Then (not that it's to do with what I think. Heh.) I wonder about quality of life issues - and how long a man with congestive heart failure can live, and I realise all we can do is try to be present with him, and accept that it's a matter of time. It's the best we can do.
  I think the JB was there before me. He is very close to his father, but he has gone through this fire with his mother, who died in 2001, and he has understood something about life that I just haven't had to. He's sad, but calm. He has been preparing himself for this for years, after all.
  On the other hand, KDid might be one of those creaking door people who just keep going. And if that is the case, all we can do is make sure he is as well looked after as possible, and make the most of the time we have.

• Psychokitty is a fecking despot. She just summarily murdered a bird in the garden. I hope she disembowells the poor thing somewhere else. Is there anything I can do, does anyone know, to prevent her turning the garden into an impromptu bird cemetry? (Btw, how much are they meant to eat, these felines? She is always, always begging for food.)

• I got the place on the Child Art Psych*therapy course. I don't think I'll take it, this year, anyway. It's very expensive and there doesn't exactly seem to bring a plethora of work opportunities with it. I am looking at some other related ones, which might give me more of a string to my bow as far as work is concerned.

• We survived the third of our interviews with the detective. Poor her, for cringe cringe cringe, I have a horrible, sneaking suspicion that we came off as the smugest couple in the history of the universe. When you're being assessed, it doesn't seem the moment for total honesty, I suppose. You present a sanitised, saintly view of yourself.
  Huh. We weathered the How Is Your Sex Life, too. I had a horrible moment when the Zany Monkey, feeling left out, lept on my back wanting to tell the detective how lucky we were to be compatible in That Way and how it hadn't been So with previous partners and oh shut up, can someone tape up my lips PLEASE.

I feel a bit robotic and like my adrenaline has run out. Not so bad, really. Like I've finally understood there's no point worrying. HFF and Adele have been over some mighty peaks recently, and I am thrilled to say that bunny is standing on the top of her mountain.

So it goes, eh. Just have to keep pedalling until you can freewheel for a while.

T