Copper

I went down town to post a letter
then went on to talk to my friend in the art shop
and we had a laugh about my boiler
nearly blowing me to smithereens
as I was passing the Angel shop
my phone rang, It was my aunt
Copper had died.
I would hope my godmother
is with God now.

Always a smiling face
and never complained
she once apologised
for not being a very good godmother,
I answered with I wasn't a very good goddaughter
we hugged and we knew we'd never see each other again
that was on my father's seventy fifth birthday.
We were good friends.

I wish she could have read this.

RIP Copper
with love
Fiona

The cause of all the chocolate and hearts revealed.

I promised no one in particular that I would reveal a few little known facts, about St Valentine himself.
And once again I will prove that Ireland is the center of the universe.

(Photo not taken by me.)  This is a likeness of the man himself. Though, I am not sure how like him it actually is, and I guess that is one thing we will never know. That is, unless somebody clones him by using some of  his alleged blood which sits in a vial under the shrine in a church in Whitefriar Street in Dublin. Ok, perish that last thought, stomp on at and wash the squashed remnants into the gutter where it rightfully belongs.

I look at the statue and I think of the commercialism by which my mind has been raped. I am not going to further assault your senses with more pictures of giant red love hearts and the same shaped chocolates. There are plenty of others out there doing that already. Each to their own. Really, I don't begrudge anyone their right to be in love. It's just the paraphernalia surrounding it that is grating on me. Perhaps there is also a little of, 'what's it got to do with a cynical romantic like me anyway', involved too. I don't need an excuse to eat chocolate, and if I want a big red heart I can always paint one on my wall, or something...(nah). Anyway roses grow in my garden all year round. So I still don't get it.

So enough about all that and onwards into the past we go to see what else can be dug up, I mean, discovered about our (safe to say) old, yet barely known friend, St Val.

To answer the question: "Why is he associated with love and lovers?", I discovered that there is a semi-true, semi-legend, that he went against the laws of Rome and married young men (I am assuming with young women, since that wasn't stated), who were heading off to war. For this he was put to death, and subsequently martyred. Hardly something a person wants to think about while gazing lovingly into their chosen one's bounteous eyes on a romantic evening under the starlit sky (or while chuggin beer watching a game while the good-woman opens you another pack of pretzels, guys). I guess it all depends on who you are.

That is one theory but I prefer the pagan festival one about fertility and youngsters dancing around with flowers in their hair, possibly even naked, choosing their partners.

Maybe something like this Matisse painting except prettier and with flowers.

So I have travelled from a statue of a saint to an impressionist artist, to try and discover the origins of love- day. All I can say is it is silly because it should be love day every day - but it isn't. 

And with that I shall love you and leave you with the best I can do for a poem.

I am not trying to win your heart with a love song

what would i do with it anyway?

I need to write it to ease the longing welling in my chest

I've tried to walk away to turn my back

but when I turn around as I must

the fragments all became magnets 

and the birds make kissing noises in the trees

beside the heart shaped leaves

and I can trace the wind back to cupid's lips.

and my head says please don't do this to me 

not again, not after the last insanity.

the little things

Coincidence or synchronance

makes little difference

it's the feeling they give

these little miracles.

and even though I hardly ever heed them

the angels feed them anyway 

just when I think I need them

indiscriminately

least expectedly, timely

or are they imps,

teasing me with a glimpse

to raise the consciousness

but why?

Am I so ungodly, so shy, 

that I would not even try

to make something of it? 

Has my mind been deceived

eyes opened in disbelief

lids tightened in grief?

Doesn't matter, when I deal it,

synchronicity or coincidence

are left sitting on the fence.

Day 5 or some time..

I think probably the most difficult thing about giving up smoking, are the fears. The fear that you are going to morph into someone unrecognisible. The fear that you have been defined as a smoker for almost ever, and that you will lose your identity, or at least a large part of it. There is the fear of judging others by your own new standards of behaviour. The fear of losing the cool unexpectedly, in a situation where otherwise you would stand back to ponder while lighting a cigarette. The idea that smoking is a crutch used to get through situations, that other people would face head on, using some other more healthy psychological tool to work it through.
These are things I want to be aware of as I go through this withdrawal. It is not as simple as physically withdrawing from nicotine. There are the psychological aspects and how long a person has been smoking also has to be taken into account. For me it is a long time, and I admit to being scared of being a non-smoker. It is a different world for sure. But I need to do this. For me.

Joe the Plumber Part three.

I am beginning to think Joe's ears are burning with all this talk about him, but then if you are an entertainer I think it goes with the territory.

The elevating story of the raisins which could raise machines.

Joe's mother used to cook rice -pudding and put a few raisins in it to sweeten it up. As all children like to do he then ate the rest of the raisins from the bag. Not long after, the cooker began rising up into the air and nearly fell on top of him.
Later in life he went to work in London.
One day he was outside on the street and he had a similar experience with a car. Another time he was in a house fixing a washing machine and it began rising up and again he thought it was going to fall on him. He didn't feel well at all, so he went to the doctor. After some questioning about what he had been eating it turned out that the connection was raisins. I couldn't figure out how a simple thing like raisins could cause hallucinations, as they are meant to be a healthy snack. My children used to bring them to school as part of their packed lunch. So it turned out that it wasn't the raisins themselves that were causing the machines to rise up. You know that they can last months, even years in storage. Well, it is no accident. There is a preservative put into them to make them last, and Joe was having a reaction to it every time he ate anything containing raisins. I found it hilarious that the hallucinations came in the form of menacing machines, considering that he is a plumber.

A joke as he was walking out the door with his tool bag.

Two Kerry men were talking over the phone.
"My business isn't going well at all. I haven't sold a thing in over three months."
"Is that so?"
"T'is man. I am thinking of giving it up and opening a brothel."
"Is that so? How are you going to be able to sell soup, if you can't even run your old business properly?"

How someone could cram all these stories plus some, into an hour and simultaneously fix on some new taps is beyond me. Next time I lave a leak, I will get out my dictaphone, because he told them way better than I ever could. He even used props as illustration. Kitchen paper, junk mail, the pepper pot and other items were all introduced at selected moments when words were starting to fail him. At one point he did a kind of shuffle across the floor in his boots to illustrate how he had to walk when going through the woods in the dark at night. This was the story about the heron which he thought was a banshee. And how you had to be careful not to have your ankles bitten by the badgers who live a night-life on the forest floor. I remember my 'nanny' telling me a similar story about badgers, and how you should carry a stick and snap it in half if they sunk their teeth into your leg. They would hear the snap and let go, thinking they had broken your leg. Which obviously was their main aim. True or not, I always used to carry a stick if I found myself alone in the woods in the dark. This wasn't very often, let it be said. Although there is nothing nicer that a walk in the woods at night in the remote country-side of Ireland, especially if there is a lake nearby. We don't have to contend with snakes or bears. Badgers are the only real danger. But then if you are sure to carry a stick for snapping, all you have to worry about after that is the banshees. That is another story.