Mean Girls II: Bitchiness is Back in XS

[Edit: my aunt PhD, pointed out that I should have the pluralised from of dramatis persona therefor the person- is rocking a nifty diphthong (æ)]
Dramatis personæ:
Molly as Molly
Deirdre as Mother


A couple came to meet Mother regarding work. They had a girl with them slightly younger than Molly (reminder, my sister is only 4). So they played together while the grownups talked. After they left...

Deirdre: Did you enjoy playing with the girl?

Molly: She's not my type.

Deirdre: What do you mean?

Molly: Did you see her clothes?

[End scene/fade to black]
---------------------
Notes and comments:

• This is, to the best of my knowledge what happened, as unbelievable as it sounds.
• My mother told me this by text. I responded with: "fantastic." She responded with: "cruel." I responded that she was being realistic. She responded with: "She's some yoke."¹ Not being able to help myself, I responded with: "She uses a yoke, she could never be one."
• I think I will be patting myself on the back for the double-meaning subtitle of my post for the weekend at the very least.

----------------

Doing this tomorrow. I am hoping to recount my tangle with the obstacle course on steroids (the obstacle course is figuratively on steroids not me literally on them) thereafter.

****

¹In Ireland the word is used to describe a person that causes consternation, vexation or exasperation, etc.

I'm walking on eggshells [wooah, it don't feel good]

SWMNBN is going nuts.¹

15 minutes from home...

She asked motherdearest to put down her window. It wasn't down far enough so she communicated this to us with pepperings of "f*cking hell", "you are all f*ckers", and kicking her inactive window switch. From here, She smoothly segued into how she hates us all, especially me.

7 minutes from home...

She began talking about how her and I can have the house to ourselves, sit on the couch, cuddle and watch a scary movie ["but only a ittle bit scary"], while Deirdre collects her sowing kit.

3 minutes from home...

She is asleep.


Mythbusters had a look at Chinese Water Torture and the found that it was not the dripping water in-and-of-itself, but the regularity of the dripping  that made the experience torture.² It reminds me of and is possibly related to this interesting little ditty from Cornell U. The idea being we look for patterns to make things simpler for ourselves, so we reduce the amount of information we have to handle. Generally speaking it has made us pretty awesome, but accidentally or intentionally complicated/irregular/non-sensical information makes us its bitch.³

****

¹Well, she is growing more apparently nuts...


²I know I paint her in a pretty bad light at times, but she is hilarious, shockingly adroit, and generally
very niceⁱ. I don't think we much cared for each other at the beginning of my time in the country, but we've gradually won each other over, like some kind of mutual Stockholm Syndrome.



³In Neal Stephenson's book Anathem, the punishment within the Maths was to copy from and memorize "the Book." It is rife with errors, which grow more insidious chapter-by-chapter, the feared result being a corruption of the mind.

++++

ⁱI'm hardly going to relate the dull bits; it's kind of like war- lots of waiting around interspersed with moments of terror.

Not a boy, not yet a man

Yet another interlude before the last of the McNamyver posts.

It's Diorraing's first day of secondary school tomorrow.

Deirdre insisted on making a cake for him; she asked him what kind of cake he wanted; he said that he did not want one; she kept at him; insisting.

Eventually he told her to guess. She went with a sponge cake with orange icing- he hated it. She was annoyed.

Based on this mother–son dynamic: he is officially a teenager!

[There would have been party poppers and balloons, but he grunted about us not knowing him.]

A scatological rambling and a scatological dosing

[Editors note: An interlude before the conclusion of the much anticipated McNamyver Trilogy]

Two amusing and telling Facebook exchanges in the last 24 hours:

First was from Eimhin, being his usual uncouth and irreverent self.¹

I think his crowning moment in the exchange was:

"I'm no dissonant churnings of voices, I am phalanx of united manchoir"

It is up there with his fem-eimhin 1, 2, 3 line, in my opinion. It is note worthy that he uses the plural of churning. It is hard to tell if it is a joke within a joke or a mistake. I'll wager he'll claim it a joke regardless.

As to the intimations that herself is like Lois from Malcolm in the Middle. Not 12 hours after that thread wound down, she wrote two damning comments on my wall:

I think we can all agree that this is exactly the kind of stuff that Lois pulled... If Malcolm in the Middle was after watershed.

Exactly.

Also, I checked out the cake and biscuits and there was no evidence of tampering, so I ate them.²

Bluff. Called.

***

¹Word of the day toilet paper for the win!

²It was just sitting there in front of me! If I didn't eat it, I would have become everything I hate.

False Idols

[Blogger's note, once again this is one that has been gathering dust for a couple of months]

Previously on The Trouble With Máirtín - Motherdearest came to Dublin to bring back the most of the books, suits and bulky items I have gathered in the last 8 years.

As we approached home, I broached the subject of She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.^–1 Often has she voiced her love of Eimhin, it being stronger than her feelings for her own father or mother. I asked Deirdre why this was the case. She figured it was because Eimhin brings her toys and gifts when he returns from far away lands. So she suggested that I bring her one of the pair of shoes that were bought for her in Dublin as an offering. I was all for smoothing over the weekend. It didn't seem of consequence at the time, but Diorraing had bought himself two pairs of sunglasses and Cárthach another pair.^–0.5

We arrived in Lisdoon, and I gave Molly her shoes, and she gushed over them and thanked me sweetly. Then she spotted Diorraing's glasses. He told her that he got them in Dublin. Molly said, rather accusingly,"Máirtín got me shoes in Dublin, why didn't he get me sunglasses as well?"⁰

Molly begged Diorraing to wear the sunglasses for a while, so he let her. Since "she got snot on 'em" he refused to give them to her again. Eager/desperate to get into her good graces, I chased Diorraing down and pried the sunglasses from his grasp. He took them off of her, and again I chased him down. This time we took it outside, where there was much wrestling and capering. In all the excitement, Molly forgot whose side she was on and starting kicking me and running away with her other brothers as I lay prone.

Inevitably, Molly broke the glasses by trying to snatch them off of Diorraing and put an end to this episode of our lives. [Fade to black]

[The lead-in: To make room for visiting cousins, I slept in Molly's bed, which goes unused.¹]

As closing credits roll underneath:

The next morning she came in to me. Asked me what I was doing in [Directed by] her room. I told her that she never slept here. She repeated [Written by] herself and added that the bed was too small for me [Key grip], that I was too big and it was perfect for her [Cinematography]. She even went as far as to suggest that I sleep in Eimhin's [Best boy] bed.

–I flashbacked to a morning a year back, where she [Continuity] woke me and disapprovingly asked Deirdre,"Why Máirtín was sleeping [Filmed on location] in Eimhin's room?"–

While she stalked out of her pink, pink room, she made the universal gesture for I-Have-My-Eyes-On-You²; and I pulled the covers up to my nose. [Ballyconnoe Productions, Logo: image of a half bald doll with a dodgy eye holding a mace]

***

^–1SWMNBN to her friendsⁱ

^-–0.5They were of Russian design I think, Chekov or something like that.

⁰My reaction was:"..."ⁱⁱ

¹She sleeps in the master bedroom with her parents. I think it is because she is used to immediate service. Since she drinks copious amounts during the night, when she finds her cup empty, she'll reach over and whack the parent closest declaring:"More!"

²Index and middle finger of the person's hand point at their eyes and then turn and point at you; This really did happen. I found out later that Diorraing had been doing it to her and as a result she picked it up.

***

ⁱThink Lovecraft.

ⁱⁱIt was how I didn't say it that said it all.

The forgotten Mac

A few weeks back, I started moving my stuff out of Dublin. Cárthach and Diorraing came up with Deirdre to get some shopping in in Dundrum before getting me and my things. Shortly after we left the the house, Diorraing started teasing Cárthach. I told him to stop it. He countered that Eimhin and I teased Cillian. I told him that we didn't do that any more. He began the sentence "Is it because he has a job now-"

"- and you don't." finished Cárthach.⁰

I reeled.

He didn't even lift his head from his game. He just rattled the 3 syllables off as he tapped the buttons on his DS. He kept his head down even when Diorraing related the incident with malicious to Deirdre. On reflection, I reckon the little tike was oblivious to Diorraing's jibes, hunched over his Nintendo™ as he was; My interdiction was for naught. Heck, I don't even know if he is aware that he said anything...

Previously, I described Cárthach as a "computer savvy sweetheart." Those of a more immediate acquaintance also know him for his astonishing skill in cards:

• In cribbage,¹ he has beaten all of us far more than he has lost, even when he started playing it and needed help counting his score.
• Once, I played him in poker and he got three kings in his hand twice in a row. I smelled a rat, but Cárthach smiled his dimpled smile, unaware and uncaring of the tall odds he beat.²

He has memorized phone numbers so that he can call Deirdre and Jacko to make demands wherever they are. More recently he was able to recall 6 playing cards in a row after seeing them once; Granted it was only the first 6 out of 15 cards, but it impressed me. [Edit: yesterday he learned between 10 and 15 cards in sequence]

When he was playing a game of 21 on the basketball ring at home, he caught the ball, but was too far away for a good chance of shooting. After a moment's calculation, he chucked the ball farther away, for the next person to get.

I digress.

After he tired of his Nintendo, Cárthach asked if I wanted to play "I Spy" with him. My mother leaned over and cautioned me that what he says "mightn't be spelt correctly, or actually exist."

Cárthach:"I spy with my little eye something beginning with…. 'D'… no. 'D and K'… No.. I spy with my little eye something beginning with 'D' and "C/Kl'."

[This turned out to be Dark Clouds. Since no one guessed correctly, he continued.]

Cárthach:"I spy with my little eye something that begins with 'W'"

"Wall?"

"No"

"Window?"

"No"

"Wheel?"

"No"

It continued like this... we gave up and he told us:

"White, the white on the lines on the road."

How could I explain to a 6 year old that adjectives are not things to be spied up on? Even asking the question, I don't know if I could explain it to a 26 year old.

After this, motherdearest asked Cárthach to give me a go:

Mairtin:"I spy with my little eye something beginning with 'C'"

[A brief silence, no more than 5 seconds]

Cártach:"Crane."

Máirtín:"… yes."

I begged another turn, he let me have it. This time I picked something beginning with 'W.' It was "wire" and he got it in 5 guesses.

Motherdearest got the next go, she picked something beginning with 'S.' Within 10 guesses Cárthach got it. Sunglasses, as in the sunglasses Deirdre was wearing and hence looking through. At this point I was getting freaked out by how good he was at this game. What followed was himself choosing objects or qualities of objects again and again, it all blurs together really. One thing that does stick out is when Diorraing was in the hot seat. Deirdre gave up on it, I gave up on it, so Diorraing told us what it was. Cárthach declared he hadn't given up and repeated the word. It was the first, but not the last time that he pulled that fast one.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, as was most of the weekend thereafter, but Cárthach came out with a stellar put-down for Diorraing:

"Diorraing, you're stupid. You're not smart, Diorraing."

In my youngest brother, there is a triple threat: a disarming cherubic smile, an unorthodox mind, and a Machiavellian streak; I am somewhat reminded of the titular character in I, Claudius.

***

⁰ Technically the sentence is a question; Cárthach's tone implied an emphatic assertion.^i
1This is a card game our grandfather brought back from the Uranium mines of Canada. A two-man game, each is dealt 6 cards. Two of each set are combined to make a third hand that the dealer gets to use after the two primary hands are dealt with. where you win by scoring more points than your opponent based on pairs, three of a kind, 4 of a kind, 3 to 5 card runs, flushes, etc. Apparently it is one of the most popular popular games in the English-speaking world.^ii
2There is a devoted wikipedia page to poker card probabilities. According to it the odds of Cárthach/someone drawing a three of a kind is roughly 0.021. For him to draw a second one it is the 0.021 squared, ~0.0004; choosing the specific cards is slightly lower again. Probability not being my strong suit, I'll leave that for my betters to ponder.

***

ⁱAn interesting aside: Evidence to universality of sentence cadence with respect to question and non-question.
ⁱⁱThe reference is from a text published in 1898... given the lack of Cribbage After Dark, I think it is somewhat dated.

The one in England

Many of my readers have voiced a liking for a character that appears often in my tales of Bog¹: "The Mother." Unusually tech savvy for a mother of 6, often is the time she put me and my siblings in our places on-line; unfortunately, she has to contend with Molly now, who is some kind of cunning pod person in the guise of a sweet little girl.^1.5

Since I am somewhat occupied writing my thesis, I am happy to bang out a work-light piece of fluff to throw to the masses.²

The following takes place between the hours of 8 p.m. and 10 a.m.:

I got the scroll box html code from here, no longer am I at the mercy of blogger not showing things legibly!

*****

¹ I originally come from Bog Road... I never saw issue with it until I went to Irish College at the tender age of 12 and the dang city folk mocked me for it; Also it is an allusion to Tales of Yore.

^1.5Case in point:

²Maybe more accurate to say mass of readers; I think I have just enough for a single pile of people.

I am man, hear me whimper

I was at home last week, for Easter. As expected Molly and I exchanged words and significant looks.

She hasn't been going to crèche recently. Every morning, she gives a few coughs for appearances sake and declares she is sick. Once this has been accepted, she retires to her room¹ and watches "TeeeeVTeeees," which is what she calls television.²

I took to asking her when she was going back to crèche. At first she would cough and repeat she was sick; I rebutted with,"Oh... sounds like you need to go to the doctor." She knew she was rumbled so didn't use that line of defence again.

Instead she out-and-out ignored me. Her blanking of me was impressive, she gave absolutely no indication that she even heard me, not a dismissive shake of the head, not a turn of the shoulder; I may as well have been an imaginary friend that she had out-grown. I was so appalled that I took my tale of being-ignored-by-my-3-year-old-sister to Facebook... More the fool was I:

You read it right there, folks; My mother pwned me, pwned me royally. The irony of it all! I discovered just that weekend that my mother had unfriended me on Facebook because of a harmless comment I put on my page.³ Scant days before the above flaming, I had added her again as a friend. Surely it is ironic?

To cap it off, Molly asked her father if he could kill me; She said it so sweetly.

I have noted her cunning in the past, compared to the two youngest brothers even now her guile is otherworldly. Mr Kipling doesn't just make exceedingly good cakes, he makes exceedingly good points too:

...But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.

For the female of the species is more deadly than the male...⁴

When the blanking seemed to have no effect on me, ["never let them see you bleed!"], she took to giving me the coldest, flintiest stare I have seen on any one, including Jon Hamm and Ian McShane! In the event of my [un-]timely demise by her machinations,^4.5 I would that this be my epitaph:

Us men,

We never have a chance.

Here we are;

Harmless dreamers;

Happy to play our games,

While the women,

The women plot and maneuver.

Sure, they call it "playing house";

I don't buy it.

Not for a second.⁵

****

¹It isn't technically her room; It's the sitting room; Supposedly a common area.

²Eimhin and I call Cárthach "DVDs." When he was younger, the thing he rattled off most often was: "We play Playstation, watch deeeevdeeeeeees [the "v" is supposed to be barely perceptible, like a caught breath] on Máirtin's laptop. It be OK" - It should be noted that Cárthach (now 6) is a computer savvy sweetheart, he has the shortcut keys down for opening movies, going to fullscreen on them and he can google online games pertaining to cartoons he likes and gets the trailers for films he wants to see; I played him in a turn based game, while I was at home, and he told me that he had my strategy figured out. Bless.ⁱ

³

I edited the image to protect the identities of those involved.

⁴From Rudyard Kipling's The Female of the Species.

^4.5The inclusion of "un-" will very much decide on who you are talking to... on reflection it probably won't come up.

⁵We'll say this is from my pink period..

***

ⁱHe only thought he did; I just about beat him.

Time with the family

Last weekend, the family unit gathered in Blanchardstown. The youngers⁰ and Deirdre swept in from Belfast, and Cillian was competing in a weight-lifting competition,¹ while Jin Xi, Eimhin and I were a-spectatin'.

Molly arrived sporting the latest in pink heeled-shoes from Monsoon. I was aghast, but having been threatened, verbally pummelled and generally bested in past clashes, I didn't comment [to her].²

We met up with one of our aunts and one of her daughters at TGI Fridays. The food was pretty good, the chocolate malt fudge cake being a the highlight.

On the way back to the car, Diorrraing told me that some other poor soul, a friend of his, told Molly that her hair looked terrible, to which she replied:

"Shut up, you f*cking hippie."

Shortly after we parted ways, I got a text from Deirdre, informing me that Molly had disowned them all and Jacko was the only one she loved.

Often in my musings, I wonder whether she learned to wield her love like a weapon herself or from following someone's example; When she was between 1 and 2, recalcitrant even then, she got into an argument with Deirdre. To exact vengeance, Molly went to sleep on the floor in the certainty that it would cut Dee to the quick.

Non-sequitor time:
I had to forgo training to meet the family. So that night I decided to go for a proper run for the first time in 3 years- the last time being when I did the Bupa 10 km run in Phoenix Park. I took ran "around the block" and it added to 2.4 miles or there abouts. I did it in 16 minutes;I was pretty happy with it, since it is the best pace I did back when I was running regularly. Additionally, it was snowing when I did it. So it is, like, manly squared or something. All in a days work me, this paragon, this zenith, this apogee... this, this paragon of the masculine form.

* * * * *

⁰This allusion to the others from Lost is as close as I will get to jumping on that band-wagon. Other than that, I do like it as a phrase; Henceforth the last three of my siblings shall be thus name. [And it was so].
¹He got a new "P.B." in the snatch- 80kg.
²I did tell any of the older one's present that they were that genus of shoe that one would expect to find on the feet of someone recently squashed by a house from Kansas- smugly secure that the reference would be lost on herself.

Some sons do have them

Here be Dragons*

Background (In which events are set into motion)

Some weeks ago friends visited from Estonia. Myself, Barry and Mike took them around a large portion of the Irish coast.** We stayed at my grandparents house in Waterford on the first night of our trip. Since the girls are quite the talented singers, I mentioned Jimmy would love to hear them sing. The girls were undecided. They claimed since they only really sing in their choir***, a duet wouldn't be up to scratch.

When mother-dearest heard these demurings, she immediately called to Jimmy that the girls were going to sing a song for him.

- That decided that.

So the song was sung and the song was recorded. Shortly thereafter my mother uploaded it to Facebook.

Maili, one of the Estonian girls, commented on the video how lovely Molly was in the video, wondering if she spelt the name correctly, which she had.

My brother noted how Molly had the most normal name among us [Máirtín, Eimhin, Cillian, Diorraing, Carthach being the others].

The Trialogue (through which said events move; our erstwhile hero suffers a defining slight)

Máirtín quiped: her uniqueness shines through her "normal" name, our name[s] try to drag us out mediocrity, at this rate I'll have to change my name to Joey-Joe Joe Shabadoo Cringing the ith (where i is a suitably large irrational number greater than pi)

Eimhin's rejoined: You're an unsuitably large irrational number greater than pi
QED

[...]

Deirdre 批评ed: when ye have your own children ye can call them what ye want we loved each of your names , which are special cos ye are so get over it.... molly called after a special molly too

[...]

Eimhin declared: My children will all be named Eimhin 1 2 and 3, or alternatively Fem-Eimhin 1 2 and 3

Mairtin returned: if the kids torment me, they'll get [some] of this mwa ha ha ha[!] http://www.fmylife.com/kids/3837360

Deirdre mystified: fmyl? cad é?

Dúirt Máirtín: féach air. Tá an dad ar amhas.

D'inis sí dom: chonaic me é ....táim ag gáire an slí go léir go dtí mo leaba....not

Cheap Máirtín: bhainfeadh Ollie taithneamh as táim ag ceapadh

Deirdre theorised: you have memories of him going into your cot when you wouldn't get out of our bed still don't you? more therapy required.......

Mairtin despaired or denied: more? I never got any...

Deirdre surmised: you've supressed it

[...]

Quoth the Mairtin: Eimhin "Wait did we just troll our own mother? We iz 1337! "

Deirdre expleted: f**king riddles again

Eimhin mocked: What a n00b!

Mother commanded: go to bed both of you turn out the lights and go to sleep...and don't forget to wash your teeth

Mother emphasised: i'm f**king serious boys

She scried: and don't twitter about me either eimhin i will get you boy. now go to bed or i'll bate ya with a hurley a swear

Mairtin asided: I may have to moderate this for the profanity... this is [a] children friendly area

[...]

Deirdre decried: the urban dictionary definition of trolling is 'being a prick on the internet just because you can' i would sooner be trolled than be a troller any day of the week...:-P

Mairtin yielded: pwned by my own mother

Epilogue
There it is. Not only does she have the gall to be active on Facebookv in the first place;**** but she knows Twitter***** and is able to use essential online services such as Urbandictionary. [And she gave us a woeful trouncing in hitherto youth dominant Internet******]

No where is safe.

I am reminded of the matrix, except it is not the operatives we should 'ware.

I am not long for this world, for when she sees this my dignity will be forfeit. Nonetheless, I have a duty to spread word of this threat:

The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.*******

*Pronounced mater ex savvius ex nova-media in the faux Latin
**Well Barry drove them 700-800km, around. I mainly sat, failed at taking photos, read when I could and accepted blame where appropriate.
***A choir that tours all over Europe :/
**** She is stealing my friends!
*****My supervisor does not know what Twitter is.
******My grandmother has a gmail account now... this forward thinking has not skipped a generation anywhere.
******* Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955), The Return of the King, The Lord of the Rings

Mairtin Vs the Toddler

I went to Waterford to meet the younger siblings, grandparents and my mother this weekend past.
I was collected by Deirdre* and Molly.** I had not visited since Christmas, about 20% of Molly's life... I suppose I could forgive her for her dubious glances. However, I am less inclined to forgive her for, "Where's Eimhin,*** is [he] on [the] bus?"... as if I was not good enough for her! After a few minutes of threatening to take her fingers out of her mouth and eating them, she warmed to me.

On the way home, we stopped to get groceries and pretties [hair slides, for people that speak correctly]. When she is dressed in the morning, Deirdre tells her she looks pretty. Naturally, she now calls her hair slides her pretties- it smacks of Gollum, if you ask me. I spent some time on the way home telling her that her hair was a mess, she disagreed of course... I learned that she can shed tears at will. :X

Deirdre is in the habit of declaring the son of the moment her "best boy," Molly picked up on this and calls herself the "best boy" whenever she gets the chance, while also being the self-proclaimed "best girl." Sitting down to my breakfast a on Saturday, I was asking Molly if she was best boy. Not liking my tone she pointed at me calling me a "fat bitch." Winnie**** stepped in and told her to go outside because of her cursing. She looked suitably contrite and shuffled out... of course she got Carthach and Diorraing***** to follow her and play because punishment is so boring without company.

On our way home, after seeing Wolverine, Molly imagined another slight and enquired as to when I was getting the bus, clearly she learned that indirect curses and dismissals are more defensible.

Since I am on the train now, I guess she won this round...

*my mother, it is what I call her, I don't care if it is simpler for others if I call her "Mammy" or some such
**baby sister
***lanky artisan brother
****My grandmother
*****youngest brothers

For No Mere Mortal Can Resist The Evil of The Thriller

In honour of the forthcoming holiest of holy nights, I list my favourite scares:

3 'Twas a dark, misty autumn evening. The year: 2006 Anno Domini. I was quitting the Engineering building in UCD, and a lab partner of old catches mine eye. I sped towards her, bellowing "Boooooo!", my arms aflailing. She jumped mightily high and raised her hands to ward off this man cloaked in night. When she came to her senses, she called me bad names and hit me about the arms.

[Shortly after we parted ways, she banged on the windows of a car, in which her boyfriend reposed, oblivious to her approach. The dastardly act elicited a satisfying shock from him. The next day, she excitedly told me about the incident; A convert.]

2 One would think there is nothing to fear in the stark light of day. Wrong.

'Twas a chilly afternoon. I was strolling along the mall in UCD, when I spied friends in the distance. Without a thought to how stupid it looked, I hid behind a pillar of the shelter stretched from restaurant to library. When I heard their approach, I jumped in front of them bellowing "Boooooo!". Anne Marie was so startled she shrieked, and hopped backwards, not once, but twice! Oh, how I laughed and fell about the place [sighs and looks to the middle distance watery-eyed]. The rest certainly enjoyed the experience, but Anne-Marie cast aspersions on my mother and the circumstances of my birth.

1 Granted, scaring Anne-Marie had many qualities of a good scare [A shriek, public area, hiding and spontaneous], but scaring an acquaintance rarely, if ever, matches giving a family member a fright...

My brother Eimhin and I had our rooms in a part of the house separate to Cillian, Diorraing and our parents. I needed T.P. for my ensuite so I went down to the other side of the house to procure some.

'Twas late at night, nary a mouse was stirring. I stole my way through the house like, like... something scary. I crept up the stairs, raised my fist to the bathroom door, and stopped. I could hear the distinct noises of Cillian brushing his teeth. I took stock of my surroundings... the lights were off in the landing and everyone else was asleep; it was unlikely Cillian would be expecting someone to be waiting on the otherside of the door. I rubbed my hands malevolently,a cunning plan came to mind.^A

I did not have much time. He was finished brushing his teeth and spitting.
I opted for the silent method. He had turned on the tap and was rinsing his mouth.
Standing in front of the door, I raised my hands, fingers curled and contorted my face into a grimace, and froze. He opened the door.
I could see his shoulder. He turned back to switch off the light.
I saw his eyes spring wide in shock. He leaped backwards.
I laughed. He threw a punch at my face.

Luckily he had jumped backwards and our protagonist^B [i.e. me] was just out of range. Curses and body punches followed shortly, my laughter was unabated. The curses woke-up our mother, and she asked,"What the f*ck is going on out there?!" Cillian replied,"Mairtin scared me!" Her final words on the matter were: "Shut the f*ck up and go to bed!"

As I write down this august portion of my memoir, other scares come to mind, but my top three still stand. If it is called for, my defense for scaring people is that it is lots and lots of fun. It is my advice that someone should take a moment in their day to give a friend a fright.

^AI don't recall rubbing my hands in this manner, but if there was ever a moment for it to do so, that was it.
^BI am willing to concede that the phrase "our hero" would be somewhat off the mark...

The Chinese Wedding

My brother got married in China at the beginning of August. Here's an account of the trip

Dramatis Personae

Mairtin: Me
Eimhin: The artist (His animated short has been selected for a film festival in LA), 195cm tall. at least 20cm greater than what is usually seen in China.
Diorraing: The kid. Does not really like chinese food...
Cillian: The Groom. A mathematician.
Jin Xi: The Bride. Generally our interpreter.
David: The Best Man. Astrophysicist. 199cm, 100Kg, can dead lift double body weight; a monster.
Jin Xi's Mother: Encourages Diorraing to eat, giving us a battery of medicines at the slightest indication of a cold, rumour has it prices drop by 20% when she walks into a shop.
Jin Xi's Grandmother: The family matriarch. The Hardy Old Lady. Master haggler.
Jin Xi's Grandfather: Happy man. Missing a middle finger. Delights in telling us stories when we won't understand (always). Looks like he he should be a movie star/celebrity, reminds me of Beat Takeshi.


T-minus 12 days
Went to zoo with younguns.
Molly was particularly taken with the apes and monkeys.

The flight leaving before us at our gate was full of annoying teenagers returning from a language course, I slept on the ground for a while..
In Amsterdam, Eimhin caused his usual delays going through security for our connecting flight to Chengdu, too many pockets and too many things in his bag don't you know...

T-minus 11 days
Arrived in Cheng Du without further incident.
Got a lift from a friend of Jin Xi's family from Cheng Du to Pengzhou not as hair raising as the car trips in Quanzhou in 2005.
Went for a walk around the town, were stared at and had people roar "Hello" at us- as it happens few tourists come by this part of China, well except to see the Panda Reserve... I'll get to that later.

T-minus 10 days
We went to the local park for a stroll.
The crickets/cicads were extremely loud, I'd wager pretty close to the threshold limits for exposure to sound in an industrial setting... Fed some coy/goldfish/carp, beasts of fish! Most were at least a foot long, dropping food into their pond led to the bubbling feeding frenzy generally reserved for piranhas in cartoons.
Jin Xi brought Diorraing skating on the outdoor Roller Disco, here we were subject to more staring, surreptitious camera phone snap shots, ultimately leading to posing for pictures like sideshow attractions... demeaning? Of course not! They were particularly awed when we told them that Eimhin's shoe size is Wŭ Shi (50 European).

T-minus 9 days
Got up early, went to see the Pandas (Xiun Mao). Giant ones and Red ones.
Giant Pandas give birth to twins 45% of the time in captivity. They are shockingly cute and useless, I mean really; Black and White, feed solely on Bamboo (only 27 of the 60 species that they could eat), kids are not independent of their mothers for the first 18 months, take another 3-4 years to reach sexual maturity, stacked odds...
The red ones look like foxes and actually move, I even saw a couple of them scrapping... "Skidoosh"
Continuing with a tradition of large-scale eating, Eimhin and I finished off ten courses at a family dinner, the locals were shocked.

T-minus 8 days
Made my first wantons and jaoza today, jaoza should look like fans or some such- of course mine looked like tied sacks. We made 100s of them though!
Stomach took a beating from the previous night, so I did not have much for lunch... I'm getting too old for this shit.
Learned how to play Mahjong, of the two variations they mentioned I'm not sure which one I know.
Bought 2 bottles of orange juice, 2 of grape drink, 1 of peach drink, 1 of pepsi, 2 of water [all 1.5L volumes], plus some snacks for less than 100RMB, less than a tenner... wow-wee

T-minus 7 days
Played Mahjong for a bit. Lost. Went to see a man about a suit. My disproportionately long arms were remarked upon. In the end, got a suit, shirt and tie for less than 60Euro... Hot diggity. Went shopping again, Eimhin bought imported raisins that cost a quarter of the total shopping bill, a shockingly high ratio considering it was such relatively small amount of it. The bitterest irony of it was that the raisins were shipped from Dublin 15. If he had gone domestic then the price would have been at the most a tenth of it.

T-minus 6 days
Got up early. Took train from Cheng Du to Cha ning, strangely the train is less comfortable and takes two hours longer than the 5 hour bus journey... Went for the first of many hosted 15 course meals.

T-minus 5 days
Went shopping in Chaning, well browsing at least. More open gawking and staring to be had by the locals. Another big fancy meal. Went to Karaoke, all the chinese people were shockingly good at it, at least three of them were classically trained in singing. I thought it best not to partake...

T-minus 4 days
David arrived. Had dinner. A snippet of the conversation during dinnger:
Jin Xi's Grandmother: [unintelligible Chinese]
Jin Xi: [Unintelligible reply]
Cillian: Did she just call me "that foreigner" again? Remind her my name is Cillian!

Oh! How we laughed and fell about the place, the offspring of "Meet the Parents" and "Lost in Translation"

T-minus 3 days
Got up early, went up... and up... to the Bamboo Forest. It was amazing... the first day going outdoors that I was not slick with sweat... I mean the sights were great. All along the cliff faces in the bamboo forest there are carvings from the Three Kingdoms era. People stared as much at Eimhin and David as they did the statues in the area... One asked for a photo with them [Eimhin and David, I mean. They weren't asking statues for photos]

T-minus 2 days
We found out that the locals have been calling us "Wei Go Ren" ["Foreigner" or some such]. Thought it fair to start saying "Zhong Gua Ren" in response.
Went to the local gym. Taekwando and Wushu is taught by a guy named Qibo. Cillian introduced me to him. We did a tiny amount of pushing hands, then light sparring. fast little bugger. He kept kicking me in the stomach, I have 20Kg and half a foot in height on him, so he kept bouncing off of me
I obliged Qibo in a gloved bout of fisticuffs. He got me with a delightful hook that made a good contact on my jaw, it clicked for the rest of the day. I kept stepping on his lead foot, by accident, I assure.
Went for another multi-course meal and then some more karaoke. There were no uber talented singers so I brought the thunder, did some renditions of Britney Spears [her golden age stuff of course].

T-minus 1 day
Went back to the gym again. Played around with a Jian this time, tried butterfly kicks, failed. Did sanzhan for Qibo, realises why he was so out of breath during sparring yesterday, while i was hale and hearty. Got to palm one of his round house kicks.

W-Day

Kidnapping and Making Away with a Brother's Prospective Bride

Aside: Context aside, the wedding day is representative of the The Siquan trip, flying blind with last minute instruction or miming.

Got up early, had a shave. Put on a my "Sunday Best", Spirit Level cuff-links are a must.
The wedding started at 0830Hrs. Irish contingent, with compulsory interpreter [xi-xi, the bridesmaid] were talked through the in-and-outs of chinese wedding traditions accrued over the course of centuries.

1. We have to push open the door of the Bride's home a crack.* 
2. Once opened, we throw in red packets of money, to buy admission for Cillian. 
3. He promised to wash the dishes and love her, etc.** 
4.  Jin Xi was won over by the promises and left the home, with red silken veils hiding her face.
5. Cillian piggy-backed her down the the four flights of stairs as far as her palanquin awaiting in the apartment block courtyard.
6. The groom's family and friends stand around the palanquin ensuring that Jin Xi does not pull a runner before we can get the wedding started.
7. Cillian mounts a mighty steed.***
8. We paraded a circuit of the town, a marching band in tow.

The only point of note was that the horse fell under Cillian's weight about halfway through the parade, david and I had been staring at its kinking rear right in fascination for quite a while.

*At a combined weight 350Kg we had to take care not splat the troupe of slight Chinese women against a wall.
**Well we assume so, since he was parroting phrases from Xi Xi
***a horse not that much heavier than he.

Receiving The Guests
Once we arrived at the hotel for the wedding actual, the palanquin was jigged for a while so that the palanquin bearers could get more money*. The impendingly happily married couple went up to their suite. The Irish milled around outside aimlessly, forgotten. Within, Cillian removed the silk veils** with his teeth. They were left to change from traditional Chinese red robes to a Western white ensemble. Only just remembered, Eimhin and I were left at the mercy of the Women Relatives, subjects of the size of our family, marital status, tastes in [Chinese] women and Eimhin's height were discussed.
The couple and their righthand-people stopped the guests at the hotel door, forcing sweets and cigarrettes onto them- seeing as they seemed to miss the 2m tall white guy with a tray.

*Probably a tradition based in mercenaries extorting additional money for the acquisition of a nubile woman
**Representing the Red Sack of Pillaging of yore, I reckon

Two Become One
After about 2 hours of stopping guests the ceremony began. They had a 9 tier wedding cake.* The two walked up the middle of the dinner hall, showered in sprays and streamers, Cillian's carefully styled hair was devastated. A cabaret singer was mistress of ceremonies. David gave a brief speech. The crowd went wild when he opened with "Ni Hao", like a rock concert. Some candles were lit and rings were exchanged. Jin Xi's grandmother [her father's mother] gave a lengthy speech. The richest women in town gave a speech too. JIn Xi's mother gave a speech. The two drank tea at her feet, presumably as an induction into her family. Next there was food. Here the Hardline Mrs Doylian Philosophies took a monstrous turn, Eimhin and I were forced at glass point my pushy Chinese person after pushy Chinese person to drink, one old chap made us have some kind of rice liqueur which burned my throat.

*"9 is forever!", Jin Xi informed us

T-Plus 1
Were woken up early for a trip to the "Siquan Karstic Geopark". Being from the "Gateway to the Burren" I thought I knew Karst regions, this was pretty cool though. There were some limestone structures that looked like pigs and bunnies. The cliff faces have holes in them where coffins were placed, sometimes they were hung on the cliff face. Then, the heavenly cavern. A gigantic cave that you can take a slide down to its lower level. Steps lead you to a very fancy looking stalactite/stalacmite area called the heavenly fairies [or some such]. Some more anthropomorphized rock formations, with a 2mx8m skylight 80m or so overhead. We went into a really really really dark cave, armed with flash-lights; no mole-men or morlocks to be found. The final stage in the heavenly cavern is traversed by a paddle boat across an under ground pond, I saw an eel in it. My local pride was injured by a little known attraction in China being orders of magnitude more entertaining than the tiny Burren equivalent, the Allwee Caves. Had one last dinner and did some shopping. Haggle master #1 stepped in and got us knock down prices, although I was worried that Cillian and her would come to blows over who was going to pay, Doylian to the core.

T-Plus 2
Got a surprisingly comfortable bus back to Cheng Du followed by a cramped van ride back to Peng Zou. On the bus, Jin Xi's Mother's Mother gave me a measuring look an eventually decided I was worth waving good bye to, Ice cold!

T-Plus 3
Got a comfortable trip into Cheng Du airport. Paid 10Euros for a banana split, with 3 standard sized ice-cream scoops, not even particularly tastey. Unimpressed.
On Plane: watched Kung Fu Panda [fantastic!] & Iron Man [Yay for Robert Downey Jr!] & Batman Begins [Ready for the dark knight]
Got back to Ireland. Tired.