Kung Fu Fighting

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting

Marrying a Shanghai girl brought many changes to my life. The sound of chickens clucking for one, Chinese really does sound like chickens in a hen house, if you listen to the wife talk to her friends over the Internet or on the phone or when a few are around the house.Chickens, chickens,chickens. The Mandarin for it is "quock quock quar" or something like that. Just ask ask your own Chinese friends and they will agree. They'll also tell you that Panzi my own Chinese nickname means FAT FAT BOY, not a fat boy, but FAT FAT BOY. I finally get married and have a family and I get called Panzi. Weighing 3 times as much as the wife or mother in law, has nothing to do with it, honest I'm a priest you can believe me.

Films brought us together and we still enjoy watching films on tv. If I could afford Sky Films I'd love to have it, and a Sky+ HD box. Our Sky+ box is always filled  with films for all the family, Over the Hedge, Bride and Prejudice and all manner of stuff. Occasionally we have to cull the films to make room for more. Sky+ really is a godsend for any family. I was just watching Kung Fu Hussle  which had Steven Chow in it. It really was great fun. Lots of Kung Fu action and lots of fun , and I do mean fun.It was in Chinese with the bottom of the screen cut off for the sub titles. I was really laughing, it was on Film4. Chinese Kung Fu films are like ballet and yes beyond belief but great great fun. If you don't normally watch subtitled films then please take a chance on my review skills. Do watch and laugh along. I won't tell you anything else about it I don't want to spoil it. Previously there was another film on the tv, it was called Red Flowers, again in Chinese with subtitles. This was about a nursery and how a child was dumped there, it had no Kung Fu in it, but it was really charming. How they got all the small children to act in it I'll never know but it was well worth a watch. I was asking my kids just how much Mandarin they each understood, one was busy reading the subtitles while the other seemed to understand a great deal of it. Having 2 languages I hope will pay dividends for my kids. In the future they can bring Crunchies and Dr Pepper to me when I'm retired, they should be able to afford them if them keep their language skills up. Their heart they get from me and their beauty from my wife.

I'll leave it there for tonight, lets hope England can win the football tomorrow.

 

Singing Songs

To sing is to doubly praise, Saint Cecilia said that. My sister says it too on occasion. Singing makes us all happy, it lightens the load, it helps pass the time, if we are happy we'll whistle or hum or sing. Just ask any workman, though workmen still like to whistle, or should I say wolf whistle when they see a pretty girl. "Hello Darling"  rings out from high up an unfinished building, followed by laughter when the girl turns around and the girl is in fact a boy with a girlish haircut.

But I was talking about singing. My girls were singing "A sailor went to sea, sea sea, to see what he could see see see." so obviously I jointed in. My youngest was amazed that I knew it,so I told them that that rhyme must be at least 50 years old. So on they sang, doing the hand clapping that accompanies it. It took me back, where have all the years gone, I really hope I can last till 100 then I'd have more time with my girls and any grandchildren or even on great great grandchild. But that's up to God, the girls Great Grandpa is alive and kicking into his 90s, he's on his 3rd wife now having worn out the 1st 2, Shanghai diet in a warm China may explain it.

Grandma does sing Jesus songs with the girls over the Internet from Shanghai, and my big daughter has just joined the choir at Saint Hilda's down road from the woods. Google tells me Hilda  was very wise and lived a monastic life. My daughter did an audition and was let into the choir.  They even pay a small stipend. My own sister has been singing over 45 years, despite us telling her to shut up.  Me and my brothers were altar boys, none of us getting any reward for this church work. Perhaps we should have stopped being Catholics and moonlighted for the Protestants. I was also a reader for 7 years, so I can remember passages from the Bible, as well as hearing them all my life these past 50 years.

Singing songs is very very touching, a song will touch the heart and my sister is right, to sing is to doubly praise. Songs at funerals which open the floodgate, Angels by Robbie Williams is very popular now, it was played at my cousin's funeral; songs at the last night of the Proms which make you proud and happy. As I talk to you I listening to music, Hotel California from the Eagles, 34 years ago that was out. I never guessed I'd spend 3 years in an hotel. Hotels have music to kill the deadness of an empty foyer/reception area, as do bars. Songs that you can sing too give a place a good vibe. Gay bars play lots of Abba I'm told, again because its great happy music, it helps the fun on a cold Tuesday evening. I'm listening to an old Elton John album now, Made in England, its worth digging out, its from 1995. Classical music and opera touch us too, even when we cannot understand a word. Pavorotti, and that blind Italian singer Andrei Bocelli, both can touch us. I remember in 1966  when the whole family went to Lourdes, we were singing Ave Maria in the darkness, holding up our lighted candles, perhaps 40,000 people singing in the dark. Now that is really touching and uplifting. I suppose other Faiths do things their way which are no doubt just as powerful.

As you have all no doubt gathered through these blogs, I do like my music, a pocket DAB is always close to me, in fact after 5 years its a bit battered, so I have to save up for a replacement. When you're happy and you know it clap your hands, is a song we sing when we are kids, we are all so free. We sing when we are in the shower, we sing when we are in love.

Song is the Spirit that cannot be broken, we sing  to babies in the crib, babies can hear before they are born, its singing that creates love.

So sing, sing, sing. For we are alive.

Attachment: Padre Pio and Me.doc

As these tears fall

As these tears fall, we remember we have been here before.

As these tears fall, the love we feel hurts so much more.

As these tears fall, we are stunned and don't know what to say.

As these tears fall, we must remember them all.

As these tears fall, we think of the smiles.

As these tears fall, we remember the laughter.

As these tears fall, we remember the kisses.

As these tears fall, we touch their things that will never be used again.

As these tears fall, we finish ironing the shirt or the trousers that will never be worn again.

As these tears fall, we feel a hole in our heart that aches so much.

As these tears fall, we remember their touch, comforting and more.

As these tears fall, we are heartbroken for our lost futures.

As these tears fall, we give thanks for what we did have.

As these tears fall, love carries on, we will meet again.

Having a Heat Wave

Well the sun has shone on Birmingham, my wife took the kids to a fancy pool with slides and so forth. I had said just go down the road, 200 yards to the local swimming baths. The kids wanted slides so off she drove. Only the Stourbridge centre was closed. So she soothed the kids with magazines. I just laughed when they got back, the kids didn't want to try the local baths as they now had something to read. So the back garden was now the beach, a pink umbrella was now a sun shade, pink hats were worn and sun tan cream was spread everywhere. The plastic kids chairs were also dragged out into the garden, the bedspread from one of the beds upstairs was also dragged into service. The fish radio would also have been pressed into service only the batteries have fallen out. As for me I went out shopping when the edge had gone off the heat. It was a DIY Subway brought into the home, so we had wraps that we filled with mayonaise and ham and spicy stuff. Washed down with fizzy pop and coffee. Ice cream and cones were ready in the fridge. We had a pudding if thats the right word of ice cold pineapple and its juice. If you've never had pineapple and its juice chilled right down, then do try it. It was family affair then we settled down for Dr Who on tv, we cannot decide on the new Dr Who, he just seems silly, we want him to be great but he isn't.

A kind neighbour knocked the door to tell us the car window was still open, the kids had left it that way when they were out searching for a pool. So at least the car will still be outside in the morning. My girls are off to join a choir in the morning, so you can imagine what that'll lead too. I can remember my sister singing and 45 years ago and more "shut up"was how us Casey boys responded, she's still in that church choir. So If I reach 100 my own girls could be singing in the Warley Woods choir. So that's our day today, tomorrow is Pentecost which is when the Holy Spirit came to the disciples, its a kind of birthday, the birth day of the Church. It was a beginning and Pentecost can be a beginning for each and everyone of us, we don't have to speak in tongues or do miracles. Just saying hello to somebody on the bus or in the street, a simple smile can be a beginning, breaking down barriers with love.  

                                         thats us in florida in 2006

As I Look Out My Window

As I look out my window the breeze gently rocks the rose bush in my front garden. Loony Chick the teddy bear or should I say the teddy chick big and bright yellow sits in the front window. He or is it she, came all the way from Shanghai last Summer now Loony Chick sits in the window of our Birmingham home. But at least Loony Chick can still hear some Chinese every day and still smell Chinese food. So Life is normal for him or is it her? So what is normal? Having your own bed to sleep in and not some hotel far far away, not grandma's house in Shanghai, not an uncles house in Shanghai. Just normal, ordinary Birmingham. The clouds are so bright, the white white candy floss with all its funny shapes. The grey clouds are trying to group together to form rain clouds and then in the middle is the blue blue sky. This is Nature and is a Free Show, just as  the breeze can be like a kiss on the cheek, the flowers beginning to bloom, the buds on the buds on my neighbours apple tree next door, the golden chain at the bottom of my own garden. Transplanted 20 years ago and more from  my own mum's garden. The technicolour green grass in the garden, the bluebells in the flower bed and a few stray ones in the lawn itself. Grandpa's flower too, as we call one lone tulip which holds such memories for us. There are a few weeds too and some wild shamrock that survived  this harsh Winter just gone, scattered chalks in the yard, or should I say patio, which has drawings all over it, thanks to my artistic girls. Then there is the view of the washing line with small small clothes on it, untill  you see my "flags" giant items blowing in the wind, my clothes  are so big compared to my girls things. When I was in Shanghai the 1st time, now over 10years ago, we could locate Ma's house by my flags hanging from bamboo poles from the window ledge 4 stories up.

And the point of all my musings? Today everybody wants to talk about the new PM and the New Politics, and there will be much noise made. So instead of worrying about that, why not just sit sit back and have a nice cup of coffee and a Cadburys Crunchy Bar too. Look outside in the garden and see the bumble bees bumbling, see the magpies dance about, they may even steal your Crunchy Bar wrapper. Watch the clouds amble through the sky, listen to that ticking clock on the shelf besides the hugh Chinese/English dictionary, bound in red of course. The Tick Tock is soothing compared to the whine of the PC  processor at my feet, I can hear the back door close as my wife brings in the washing. All these are ordinary things BUT usually they go unobserved, take time out, if I dare mention a rival chocolate bar, take time out just to enjoy life. None of this costs any money nor takes any effort, BUT will be good for your Spirit, failing that just reach for the Johny Walker Red Label, or in my case the Dr Pepper.

This is Me - This is You

This is me, that's what all these these blogs are. Though I'd prefer you'd read the attachments, they are longer and have more depth to them. I'd also hope you'd read the 500page novel The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker. Or maybe my play Shoplife.

Though there is more to me and to you than that. I took my watch off last night and it set me thinking. Our possessions define us, what we own shows what kind of person we are. My current watch is a cheap Russian one, but its an automatic one. I've fallen in love with automatic watches these past 7 years since my Chinese dad sent one to me. I also like paintings, real ones because there was an Italian art gallery near my house, if I look out my window I can see it, the artist is still there but he's moved on, now he does photos printed on canvas, his son's face beams out from the shop window. I also like Kebabs but I hardly eat them at all now. But I still love fizzy pop, 100 times more than I like beer. So does this make me a big kid? Or should I be all grown up and tell lies and pretend to be this and pretend to be that? I also love music, for years I saw bands in an upper room, a very smoke filled upper room. As well as listening to lots of music on the radio and buying CDs. Now I've moved on, I've downloaded my CDs to my PC so while I'm writing I can listen to my favourite groups.

 So there you have it, a picture of me. If you heard this on the radio instead of reading it here would you like what you hear? Or the more of the picture you get do you hate it more and more? Its like the Election 2010 the more we hear from the different politicians the less or more we hate them. But what about you? What would you reveal, what would you hide.? Its like the makeup a woman puts on. If its done right it highlights her best features, but if its done wrong, it can be as bad as a child putting its mom's makeup on. Its your tone of voice which has to connect with or sooth the listener. Just as a mum sooths a sick child, or just as a dad scolds a naught child. Warmth can be heard in a voice, anger and violence can be heard in a voice, a voice can be as bad as chalk screeching on a blackboard. Thats why songs and music is so sweet because instantly it connnects with our souls. If I'm very lucky it takes 20seconds for my words to reach your heart, music is so fast and so powerful, thats why I admire and am jealous of music makers.

This is Me and This is You, you are the reader I hope you like what I write, I DO write so that people hear my voice, I'm not clever enough to write long literary passages. I hope I write as the average reader would write if they had the time to do so. Somebody was very kind the other day and she said she liked my stuff. So I can say that a little encouragement does go a long way. So when your son or daughter won't put the light out because they have not quite finished their diary, just be pacient, just as you have been with me.

                                                   my girls at breakfast

May is a month of memories - something from a few years ago

May is a month full of memories. Tomorrow my wife is 33, so its happy birthday to her.

Next Friday , one week after her Birthday its the 10th anniversary since my mum died

2 months after that ,my dad died, my brother did CPR and saved him long enough for the doctor to come 

injection straight to the heart.Dad had died , but was revived. He was given a week to live. I sat in my sisters house a few hundred yards from mine and we picked hymns for dads funeral.

But he came back, read Padre Pio and Me for details www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com  

Later in May just 2 years ago my wife's dad was killed in an accident in Shanghai. I rushed home from the

hotel, my eyes full of tears. Only he agreed with me and said I'd been right to send JJ back to China with he message to tell her parents all my bad points. Now still young he was dead. He died a few days before his

granddaughter's 3rd birthday, his 2nd granddaughter was still only 7 months old.

Two deaths and 2 Birthdays that’s what May brings. Every May brings the promise of Spring and Happiness that Birthdays bring. But it is balanced by 2 deaths. Death of a mum for me, and death of a dad for my wife.

Eternal balance and equilibrium .I remember my mum standing by the fridge in her blue and white smock, that was the last time I saw her, apart from in her coffin when I kissed her ice cold cheek. So much warmth now it was all gone. My sister went back to her house one day a few weeks after the funeral. There were flowers growing everywhere, white daisies growing everywhere. Our mum had sneaked up to my sister’s house on the 82 bus, then she'd planted seeds. Their scent was her memorial. Always loving her children, her 6 children, now the flowers were her smile goodbye. 

I had put my wife on the first flight to Shanghai, I rung the hotel and said I'd be back in 2 weeks, I was left holding the babies, while my wife dashed off. Her dad was not quiet dead when she arrived in Shanghai, he was on support and still warm, JJ had time to kiss him goodbye. Then she had to arrange the funeral.

Now I wear my Chinese dad's best watch on my wrist, I have always loved watches , now I have a good one , all because somebody had died. May is a time of celebration in China and the East , the Spring Festival and so forth. For me May reminds me of my blessings, a mom who gave me such a deep Faith, as deep as I need it, and we all know that can be very deep indeed especially in time of need. My dad survived because of a miracle and I am not abusing the word. My prayers were heard and now I have 2 daughters too when then I had no clue what the future would do.

May moves me and I hope it moves you all, none of us can predict the future, no matter how hard we try but I know my ma and a are looking down from up there in the sky.

Attachment: Padre Pio and Me.doc