What a rollercoaster of 5 days its been. The title of the post is coined by Mammy2 describing her Monday. The poor thing arrived into work, after being refused the day off after pride because they were down staff, shattered and she gets the following news.

- one of her work colleagues is in intensive care after collapsing after a football game. They had to use a defibrillator on him to resussitate him.
- her boss totalled her car but walked away with whiplash
- her sister got dumped by her gf

and I guess the worst of the lot of them, the good mate C passed away after her 8 month struggle with cancer. I think I may have mentioned it in a previous post but she took sick after returning from the states with a bad flu she couldn’t shake. Turns out she had lymphatic cancer and after nearly 11 rounds of chemo her body obviously gave up. Mammy2 is all over the place. I guess she has spent so long avoiding it its not like a slap in the face for this to happen. We got the news on Monday that she only had a few hours left and then she passed away at around 10.30. Mammy2 couldn’t take any time off work so she threw herself into it literally. After little or no sleep on Monday night, the poor thing is shattered. I’m going what I can but sometimes there’s nothing you can do. The removal is this evening at 5 and the funeral tomorrow. She’s hoping to get the full day off for it. Her workplace are very ’supportive’ as you can tell.

To add to the stress of all of this , the clinic rings me to tell me I have to get my blood tests done again as they are due to expire. The ethics committee meeting was cancelled. Again. So now I get more blood tests, my blood group done in case we have to use their donors and then wait again. Its incredibly frustrating but at least its movement. I’m trying to be positive.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 8:16 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Not sure if it’s any good, plus it’s early so I get confused and stupid really easily!

http://www.ucd.ie/vetnursing/

Also, just tell the [brother] to give me money to buy a dress or clothes,
I found out Retro in George’s Arcade have LOADS of 50’s dresses and such! If ya can get me a link for that place, because I can’t bloody well find one, please send on!!

Che-aws

From art to veterinary medicine, its a big jump. Previous to the email I had a phone conversation with her. It went something along the lines of
“Call me back wil ya”
A return phone call
“Right, here’s the thing, I’ve been looking up veterinary medicine and I want you to find out about this course..”
“Veterinary medicine? (insert tone of disbelief and amusment here) As in studying to be a vet?”
sigh on the other end of the phone
“Yes Shelly, so look it up..”
“But you need like a gazillion points for that..” Okay so not necessarily a gazillion but you need a lot. I’m prone to the odd bout of exaggertaion. And I wonder where she gets it from.
“I just want to keep my options open”
“Okay then, oh about your birthday, we can get your hair done if you like..and I asked about a voucher from that website you sent us..”
“Oh yeah about that, leave the hair, I can cut if myself…” I didn’t drop the phone as such. It merely slipped from my hand to my other hand which
caught it.
“Yourself” trying to keep the squeak from my voice
“Don’t panic, just a trim so you can get me something else for my birthday AND a surprise”
“Right, thanks for that..”
“BYE”

She’s gone. Veterinary medicine. I can just about picture her, standing behind a cow looking at the farmer with one perfectly manicured raised eyebrow, hands on hips asking
“You want ME to put my hand WHERE exactly?”

Not sure if it will work. But at least she’s researching even if she is reaching for the stars.

After yesterday’s head inducing stress fit, things are considerably calmer today. I legged it home in the pissing rain yesterday to get t-shirts and caps from the sister-in-law who was kind enough to pick them up for me. She is involved in pride this year so was heading onto steward training. I asked her to keep an eye out for my 2 stewards. She dropped in afterwards to pick up her car and said they were both there, looking very sheepish. So yay! Our stewards are trained, the fridge is stocked and the sun is back out Its looking good!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 9:39 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

You should realise that when things are going smoothly, far too smoothly that something is bound to feck it up. Relying on other people is always like a game of Risk. Or some other game that involves less hair and nerves. Pride is just around the corner and I have been going through the list of things to ensure a fun day for all

- Drummers contacted and made aware of time, route and payment
- Merchandise ordered for drummers including hats and t-shirts.
- Flags printed, on flag poles
- Pride brekkie stuff purchased
- Stewards

You would think wouldn’t you that the last one would be the most straightforward because at a glance at the team of people who take care of my website, there’s 10, we’d find 2 stewards? We did, they volunteered but now there seems to be an issue with double bookings and not being able to attend training etc..I understand that people have other things on and I appreciate that not everyone can be as 150% committed as I am to my website. But if we plan this 3 months ago and you volunteer then, you should be well aware of the committments involved. If we don’t have our stewards we can’t
march. Simple as. Which makes it all the more infuriating. I admit to being a control freak but this year I decided to take a step back and not be checking in every day or so to see how things are progressing. I only hope that on the day it all goes well. And oh look its raining. Fab-u-lous.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 12:23 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

I couldn’t resist a dolly quote Been listening to her latest album on the way in and its fab! Some excellent songs in there. Two posts in one day?! I must have little to do. Well, actually am taking a break from my big project. Just finished writing the last of my 7, yes, 7 processors. Check me out. All in java. Reading xml and using Stax. Did I impress you or scare you with those techy terms In conjunction with pride we have the kid’s bday, not that pride takes priority , I was just putting them in that order because Pride comes first date wise, obviously. Whew. Well since the kid handed in her notice, she’s been broke but happy. The plan , at the moment and this as always is subject to change is to move back to ours, god help us Start a portfolio course and get a professional approact to her portfolio and then apply to art college next year. Like I said, subject to change This week she signed on so hopefully she’ll have some money. I had to pick up her head pills and pregger pills yesterday. I really think the doc should look at getting her off the anti-depressants soon to be honest. She’s been on them since she was 16 and it can’t be good for someone her age to be taking them all the time. Seeing as she is much happier in herself and no sign of any self harm, thank god I might ask her to have a chat to our lovely GP and see what she has to say. No doubt we’ll have to foot the bill for that.

The weekend was great! Lots of sleep and the highlight was between Miriam and a swimming pool. Let me explain. We got tickets to the Miriam O’Callaghan show on Saturday night and even though Mammy2 was not feeling the best, she insisted we didn’t miss it so we travelled out there. Got a guided tour of the place courtest of one of the girls from my website. That was a bit surreal seeing where all the different radio people work and what their studio is like. Of course Mammy2 managed to snag a freebie the minute my back was turned. The show itself was good fun, with interesting guests enough to keep Mammy2 from falling asleep. From Jack Charlton to Eddie Hobbs, the time flew past. Suddenly we were waving goodbye forlornly as Miriam disappeared behind the screens. I never got the chance to declare my undying love for her. One of the guys in here asked if I would get within a 10 yard radius of her what with my stalking her on a regular basis. I told him I wouldn’t be stupid enough to wear my ‘costume’ to the show.

Sunday we had planned to go to Mammy2’s gym. She has a guest pass and I’ve been going on and on about learning to swim. I have signed up for the next beginners course when it happens at her gym but I wanted to familarise myself with the place and the water. I’ve never been in a swimming pool before. Sounds strange but its true. Now rivers and lakes and paddling naked, yeah of course. When I was a toddler let me clarify before you ring the guards and send them down torward Lough Ree to arrest a naked adult padding in the water with 2 rubber ducks. The water in the swimming pool is so different and so clean and there was no need to constantly check the ground for slippy stones that you fall
on or for sharks. You may not know this but Westmeath is know as the shark centre of Ireland*. So Mammy2 had great patience as she convinced me of the slight impossibility of me drowning whilst she was holding me up in a 5ft swimming pool. So there was some splashing around, trying to float and getting annoyed with myself because I couldn’t. The joys of being a perfectionist. Overall I was very happy when we got out.

Well I wasn’t happy with my exit. The water can be quite forceful and when you pull yourself up out of it, the water pushes you up. Most people look quite graceful getting out. I looked like something that was just thrown up onto a ship. I hadn’t realised the water was so powerul and so when I whoosed up, the water decided it was having none of it and threw me unceremoniously to the ground in a heap. I’m convinced I heard a snigger from the waves and the words Mullah and bogholes floating towards me but Mammy2 said she heard no such thing. That said she was a good distence from me, obviously hoping none of the other swimmers would assume we were together. Also she had suddenly changed into a t-shirt that read “I don’t know Flipper” with an arrow pointing to me. My partner is soo supportive.

The swimming pool and dojo were the best part of the gym, the rest of the machines I could do without. I don’t like the whole regimented layout. There’s something about gyms I never liked and as such have never really taken to them. Kick boxing keeps me going. I went last night and our instructor had returned from Spain looking like a mahogany cabinet, with the brown colour on him. This time I actually had a partner. Even on Saturday when I went and there wasn’t as many of the usual girls there, I still had no partner. Its fine until the instructor, who was taking the class in the absence of our usual sensei, asked me was I okay without the bag and how she could alternate someone else with me. I told her I was fine with the bag. Not sure what it is. Perhaps I don’t look eager enough, perhaps the minute my back is turned to put on the gloves, they all get into a circle really quickly and suddenly I’m partnerless. Thankfully, I’m not 10 any more and we’re not in school so I just grab a bag and work that instead.

This week looks quiet, we’re saving our energy for the weekend. I have gotten Monday off Chuffed! I don’t think I’ll be going mad on the Saturday but I’d rather be lying in on Monday anyway, just to calm the old body down. We have the pride table quiz on Thursday and typical of my schedule the Firefox 3 launch party is happening the same night. I mean, what are the odds? I, of, course am going attending the table quiz, its important to support pride but the firefox party sounds like such a laugh. Well for me anyways

* Indicates a made up fact

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 12:03 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

The flag has been printed and picked up and it looks fab. The other flag from last year got a new flag pole. The pride flags are washed, the t-shirts and hats ready to be picked up on Friday and the champers is chilling in the fridge. We are all systems go for Pride. Getting so excited now that everything has been organised. It was quite stressful up until last week when everything was finally sorted. Cost a bit more then expected, the usual but as I reckon it will be our last year, then what the hell! For various reasons I am thinking of not doing, the main one being the workload. Its a huge task and even with some of team spud helping out with various aspects of it, its still a lot of work for one day. That said I can’t imagine the parade without the spudders so perhaps when next year swings around again I could have changed my mind who knows.

The pride breakfast finally looks ready for go, I got some replies via email once I told them there would be no sausages or brekkie. Suddenly people were plying. For us the pride breakfast kick starts pride. A full irish for the non veggies and a glass of champers or orange juice depending on how you feel Then
we all head up to the Garden of Rememberence with more rainbow colours then a packet of skittles! Myself and another member of the team don’t march, we stand on the sidelines trying to avoid the weirdos. Last year, we got some guy who seemed like a nice fellow, who was there to meet his ‘niece’ who was a lesbian and he was very okay with it. The more he talked, the further we tried to distence ourselves from him. Hopefully there won’t be any of that sort of crap this year.

That said the crowd in recent times compared to when I started attending pride has changed so much. From the negative stares and shours and jeers to the clapping and whistling and genuine interested in our march, it has been a journey. Which is why I love the sidelines, guaging the reaction of the
crowd, applauding the various floats that past, waving at people that you know. Such a great day out. I can’t wait!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 11:34 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.