Dreams 2014

Dreams 2014 ©

By

Michael Casey

I had a very vivid dream last night,  it may have been two dreams even. Dreams are the mind’s way of sorting out all our daytime activity, they can also amuse and/or   frighten.  They say that without REM sleep our bodies suffer. Well worth a google or two.

We can dream of our dream house, my small daughter sometimes dreams of a big house and a cat and a dog. I’ve told them if ever I sell any books we’ll have that house plus a pet. My daughter draws pictures of the dream house and a cat on the roof. Perhaps I’ve brain washed her.

You can have nightmares too, which are so much more than bad dreams, you can wake up screaming. Too much feta cheese or Greek cheese can make your mind go into overdrive. So if you watch that late night horror movie, when you go to bed you will be IN that horror movie.

Inside a dream you cannot escape, it’s like being in a prison cell with no way out, so what happens? You rock and roll and the killer with the gun is chasing you. You start to moan in your sleep, your REM is in overdrive, like a ping pong ball being hit and returned by the Chinese world champions.

You sit up in bed suddenly, and lash out with your hands, trying to knock the gun from your attacker’s hand. Only you send your mug of cocoa flying off the bedside table. You look around like a tortoise poking its head out after the Winter hibernation.  You  yarn then fall back into the comfort of the pillows.

You return to your slumbers, the gunman has evaporated into the mists of sleep. You cuddle your pillows, and wallow like a hippo in the comfort of your bed. The gunman is dead for tonight, though your blood or rather your cocoa is all over the bedroom carpet.

photo is my pretentious writer's pose

Clothing Clearout

Clothing Clearout ©

By

Michael Casey

Well the Cotton Traders magazine came through the letter box the other day. I promised myself I would not spend any money, but a magazine is a break from my hausfrau life.

So I flicked through the magazine and saw a few things I liked. The thing about Cotton Traders is that it has up to 5XL sizes and down to the small sizes too, all for the same price. Check the website for yourself, I don’t want to misinform you.

I don’t know about you but if I buy something just for myself I feel a bit guilty. So to lessen my guilt I asked my daughter did she want a quilted jacket in red. She said that red was not her colour, it was mum’s obviously, but not hers.

So my daughter flicked through the magazine and spotted a jacket, which was twice the price of what I was offering. It was not in the sale. So we compromised and I said she could have it as she’d be a teenager on her next birthday. I tried to persuade her not to be taller than me, as she is 5feet 3 or 3 already, as a sidebar to our deal.

So we went online and found the jacket, only they did not have her size. I did have to find my extending metal tape measure so she could measure herself, but this was to no avail because they did not have her size.

So I laughed, then she flicked through the magazine and found a sparkly jumper. The fashion is for big and baggy sparkly jumpers, so we checked and a size 10 was available. So she got her jumper and I got a soft rugger kind of thing. And my guilt was assuaged.

My small daughter looked on and said she needed a jumper too, so I promised to take her to Peacocks and get her one. Balance is a big thing when you have two pretty daughters.

Today after school dad was banished, small daughter wanted to go with big sister to buy a jumper. So I gave them the money and away they went. Only to return 30 mins  later empty handed. They were 50p short of the only thing small daughter liked.

My wife was let into the secret and said I was stupid as small daughter still had a few jumpers that grannie in Shanghai had knitted. So the girls went upstairs to check all the nooks and crannies in our wardrobes.

An hour later 3 jumpers, really nice ones had been found. Plus a clear out had produced a load of clothes now too small or too unfashionable for the small daughter to wear. With kids there is no wear in clothes as they grow so much. What does this mean? Some lucky child tomorrow will have several really nice additions to their wardrobe. As I left the cast-offs at a charity shop.

I also got in on the act and had a look at some of my less fashionable but 2XL  sized clothes. I filled a carrier bag and my old cast-offs were left beside the children’s clothes.

So this meant that I’d saved a few quid, which was a good enough reason to celebrate. So on the way back from the charity shop I dropped in at the Polish deli and bought a kilo of nice sausages for 3 quid, and some of their fizzy pop to share with my daughter.

All in all a good day, apart from Arthur, my arthritis. I’m listening to Eye of the Tiger the theme from Rocky Three now, perhaps I should take up boxing. I’d box Arthur’s ears first, that’s for sure.

Pets

Pets ©

By

Michael Casey

Pets come in all shapes and sizes, small and fluffy or big and rough. There are all kinds of everything, as Dana used to sing, but she was not talking about pets. Girls like cats because they are soft and fluffy and can be stroked.

On the school run me and my small daughter see a few cats so we stop to admire them and make a noise to see if we can get them to miaow back. Coming home from school we have more time to talk to the cats, and sometimes they talk back to us.

Our neighbours have a cat or two so it’s always a mad dash to the garden so my girls cat talk to the cats. Max is a black and white cat from two gardens away, he stops to talk and allows himself to be stroked. This makes my girls’ day.

Children like gerbils, they like watching them run round and around in their little wheel. My girls have begged for a gerbil, but gerbils only last 2 years and you live with their smell. They also get lost under the floorboards, and when they do die you have to bury them in the garden in an old shoebox.

Dogs are great, boys love dogs the best. You can play ball with a dog, the dog will fetch a ball for you. You can go walking in the woods with a dog, dogs can splash and paddle.

I remember when we got Coffee, Coffee was a puppy, the runt of the litter, my brother brought him back from University, 1970 maybe. Coffee was called Coffee because of his colour. He could run and jump and catch a ball. He loved golf balls too.

Coffee was a Christian, we took him on holiday with us, he went to Mass. We met a blind boy on the beach, Coffee said hello by licking his face, it made the  blind boy’s day.

Animals bring out all our tactile feelings, stroking a dog or a cat for that matter, makes us feel happy. Bringing an animal to an old people’s home really does cheer up the residents. There will be a cat and a dog living in the old people’s home featured in Tears for a Butcher, once I get around to finishing it.

Just as a hug does console somebody so time with an animal is comforting, is life enhancing. The old English reserve does disappear when an animal appears, it would be better though if we hugged each other without sight of animals. I should add though I’m not English.   

Pets make us children again, we’ll talk to strangers while out walking the dog, barriers are broken and words are spoken. Pets are like hairy chocolate, they relax and please us just as chocolate does.

Japanese people have electronic pets that have to be fed and watered, they have a life inside the cage of the game. It is some innate thing that makes us love animals, our pets, even if we don’t love each other. So my final thought is, why can’t we love each other as much as we love our pets.

Give Pets and Peace a chance. 

Naked Attire

Naked Attire ©

By

Michael Casey

We are born naked, then we get our bum slapped, we are weighed and washed and then parcelled and given to our mum. Wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger is the most famous birth.

Pink for a girl and blue for a boy, this is the tradition. Though some liberals like to do the opposite, just to prove they are liberal, I even heard one man called his son Sue, or was that Johnny Cash?

In China they have the trap door for children, same as the old long-johns in Westerns. We all dress our kids up to look like this or too look like that. Little caps on their heads too, as posh as Posh Spice’s kids. But she IS a fashion designer, so why should we “punish” our kids by copying those we read about in OK magazine, our little mites must copy the latest reality tv star.

I believe in Victorian times boys were dressed up as girls till a certain age, you can google that for yourselves. Though I do understand the concept of hand me downs, I do have 3 elder brothers. So my first pair of long trousers was in the summer of 1970, an almost worn out pair of puke coloured cords.

My mother sat on an old barn chair in the garden and took them up for my short legs. Then ever so proud I ran up and down the garden with my hands in the pockets, I was so proud and happy.  Prior to that it was shorts and long socks with elastic to hold them up. 

At school is when we all have to dress up the first time. School uniform, though I’m old enough to remember we didn’t really have a uniform in primary school. I cannot remember any particular coloured jumper and so on, though it’s a long time ago so I could be wrong.

At grammar school you have the school tie, and a blazer too, this was a big deal. I know because my one wore out at the cuffs and my mum demanded a replacement. Only they refused to give a bigger size, out of spite. I can just remember a man asking me about the Scouts, I made a very derogatory reply. He asked did I know what this badge meant on his lapel. I did not know, I think later my brother said he was a scout master.

So dress code enters your life, even in summer there was a dress code, as it was hot we could remove the school tie. However shirt collars  had to be splayed open a la Saturday Night Fever, though the film had yet to be produced.

When you leave school you can dress to please yourself. I had always loved ties and worn one in primary school, I had an Aston Villa one, as one of the lodgers gave it to me. Now a “grown-up” I dressed in jeans and a shirt and tie. I could have been a member of Status Que. I do remember Caroline  and so on.

So on to work, and I ended up in a computer room, market research into alcohol sales. There I wore my shirt and tie plus jeans. That was my uniform and brown shoes. I wore brown shoes as they were cheaper than black ones. As we did a lot of paper handling we weren’t forced to wear trousers, our excuse was they would split as we were always moving about and bending to load and unload paper,A3 sized standard continuous listing paper.

When I started to work at a hotel I had to wear a uniform, but thankfully I didn’t in the end. This was due to the fact of having a big aspidistra, if you know what I mean. So I ended up wearing my own trousers, and an old suit jacket I had. Because I was nearly 20 years older than the front desk staff and my white hair everybody assumed I was the manager, until I offered to carry their bags.

Later they found a jacket to fit my chest size, and I had an almost uniform jacket, but my own pants. The thing about working in a hotel for 3 years is that thanks to all the exercise, up to 20 miles a week of walking alone. My chest size went up 2 inches, and as I talked a lot too my neck size went up an inch. So I am 18.5 inch neck size and 46 inch chest. Then there is the 4 star deluxe food, so my belly also went up 2 inches. But in black you can hardly tell.

Finally with regret I left, they messed my shifts, so I left, seeing my toddler children was important to me, more than any job. So I left. Just as I was leaving we were all fitted for a really nice blue suit, I was so pleased with it, we all were. Though I never got to wear it, as I had gone.

For my print room days at a law firm it was business professional, I couldn’t look like a tramp as very important business was being done at the law firm, image was so important. Lawyers wore very expensively nice suits, and the girls wore the female equivalent. I was allowed one concession I could take the tie off while inside the confines of the print room. It was 30degrees in there once all the industrial sized copiers were in use. And we stood all day too. If I left the print room I had to put a tie on. They were a really great company they really looked after their staff.

In my Esol teaching days I wore shirt and tie with trousers, business professional they call it, though I still wore my brown shoes. It’s not too much of an imposition. So that was my teacher look.

Now as you can see from my websites and LinkedIn I wear rugby shirts, very bright rugby shirts. Polos some of them, they are like my like my writing colourful and interesting. Though some may say my writing is like my dress sense, questionable.

So on it goes, attire, how we dress for this and who we dress for that. I did go to a friend’s wedding once, the evening bit, dressed in a black leather jacket. Dave said I looked like Marlon Brando, but I didn’t make him an offer he couldn’t refuse. I did write a poem for his wedding, I later published in Japan but that’s another story.

How we dress makes us feel happy, some may even be Nudists, free to the elements and the wind. I could of course never be a Nudist, I’d fail the physical, and I’d need hair dye all over my body, but not on my head as I’m happy with the colour there.

If you think of fashion the closer you are to being a Nudist, the more fashionable it is. Less is more, as they say, the less material used, the more expensive it is. So if you think of the Emperor’s New Clothes, that really was so so very expensive.

As for Miley Cyrus, she is such a great singer, and I mean that most sincerely as Hughie Green might say, and as she’s so pretty too, so she must know a thing or two about fashion. But she knows nothing about economics or her manager is stealing all her money, cos she can never afford enough clothes.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Shamrock in my garden.

Adventures in Reproofing

Adventures in Reproofing©

By Michael Casey

Well as I said on LinkedIN earlier in the day I’ll write about reproofing. I’ve got a couple of old coats, one is very warm but soaks water up like a sponge, though I do stay dry.

The zip broke and they wanted 30quid for a new zip, so I thought it was not worth fixing. Then I had an idea, velcro, so I’ve had it velcroed  for 8 quid. The other coat I got cheap thanks to Shaz, he worked in the shop so I got a great discount. However after 5 years the water resistance has gone.

So I was thinking about reproofing, so I looked on Amazon and read the reviews, then I picked the cheapest offer. You get a sachet of reproofing liquid for 5quid, enough for one coat, or garment if you like the posh word.

It did not come for a couple of days, and today the postman walked right past the house, so I thought I’d have to wait a day more. Then the postman doubled back and I got my treasure.

Now I wanted to do a proper job and not waste the fiver I’d paid on the reproofing liquid. I had to wait for a load of washing to finish first before I could requisition the washing machine.

So the load finished and I hung out the washing. Then I prepared the washing machine, I took out the tray dispenser, this we had not done in 10 years. We knew it was 10 years as Ma, was over from Shanghai for the birth or her 2^nd grandchild, when we last messed with the washing machine.

So following the instructions I cleaned all the washing powder off the tray, spilling water all over the kitchen floor as I did so. I took the dispensing tray into the bathroom and power washed it with the shower.

Too much force in the shower meant the water bounced back all over me and my jumper. But at least the dispensing tray was really clean.  My wife joined in and cleaned out washing powder from inside the washing machine, where the tray normally sat.

So then I wriggled the try back into position. Next you have to zip up or rather velcro up the coat. The other coat still had a working zip, so I zipped that up, and left both hoods hanging out. This is rather like a cake recipe, you have to do everything slowly and deliberately.

I had decided to use the delicate setting on the washing machine, I had never ever used that setting before. So I switched it on to test where the water came in, it had to come into the correct compartment on the dispensing tray, or all would be lost.

Having verified where the water would come in on that setting I poured the reproofer into the right compartment. Some men may not even know there are 3 compartments. So this was like setting up dominoes ready for a world record, everything had to be pin point accurate.

Then I started the machine on no.14 on the scale. I then went back to my computer, though I did look out the window and notice that my wife had rearranged the way I had hung out the washing. I never can please her with my use of clothes pegs.

A hour later still the machine was not finished, then 2 hours later the machine would not release my two coats from the water torture of reproofing. I was tempted to say Chinese water torture, but my Shanghai wife would throw a cushion at me if I said that. I just double checked with her, she has not yet heard of that expression.

So I thought I’d release my two coats from reproofing, just turn the knob and then the water will drain away and I can hang out my coats. Only as I put the bowl out to carry the coats into the garden, as I opened the door I got a flood all over the kitchen floor. “Paper,” I screamed to the wife so then we had to hunt for paper, only the recycling bin was emptied this very morning.

As I tried to catch the excess water, and lay paper at the same time my wife just laughed, I am her clever and stupid husband after all. Then I emptied my bowl of water before removing my 2 coats and carrying them into the garden in the plastic bowl. I left a sea of water on the kitchen floor.

As I hung my coats on the washing line my neighbour was carrying newspaper to her recycling bin. God was laughing at me too, his clever and stupid creation. If you touch the coats it’s like wax had been deposited on them, making them waterproof. That’s when they dry out, but for now they are like sponges.

I squeezed here and squeezed there, rather like milking a cow, though my cousin does have a dairy farm. And another cousin works for the dairy in Kerry.

Anyway my coats could enjoy the March sunshine. I told my neighbour if she heard me scream I was probably being electrocuted, so she must just hit me with a stick, the wooden linepost would do. You do of course have your entire life flash before you when that happens, a friend was electrocuted 30 years ago and he told us that fact.

Back in the kitchen I switched the washing machine on, to a different setting, to drain the last of the water out. Then I finished mopping the floor with towels, and put them in the washing machine, where else would they go. But I won’t be using any exotic settings on the washing machine any more.

Now it’s night time and my coats are both still wet, I’ve brought them in as fog is expected over night. In the morning I’ll hang them out again to dry, and then finally I’ll have reproofed coats.

Though the proof of it will be when it’s wet, and I’m not talking about the kitchen floor, nor the bathroom floor, or even me. I mean when it’s raining again. We have had the rainiest Winter in 250 years and I must be the only person who wants it to rain again, just to test my two reproofed coats.

Transferable Skills

Transferable Skills©

By

Michael Casey

Transferable Skills, it’s a fancy buzz word that HR people love. So what do they really mean? Or is it just hot air? It’s both. HR people do like to blind with science, to make them-selves more important. Yet they do have a point as well.

So if I’m writing my CV should I put down the fact that I’ve produced 7 books and have 3 or 4 web sites. I’ll tell you from bitter experience that folks don’t want a “writer” if you are applying for a regular job. One sarcastic, and it was not wit, HR lady actually sent me a “NO” email with a flowery font.   So you can imagine what I think of her and her ilk. I only had written one book then.

There are transferable skills, such as if you run a soccer club, or cricket club. This proves you are community minded, and have an organisational mind. I know somebody who mentioned those facts and did indeed get a job. They forgot later and they were caught out. So if you are going to lie then you need a good memory. They did not lose the job over it but, in some spheres you will be out on your ear.

Language skills are very useful, if you are going to be a tour guide or work at a public information post, such as in the Bull Ring here in Birmingham. If you switch back and forth in multiple languages this is a great skill. Me I can do a bit of French and Spanish, which I did use in my hotel days, I started in hotels 12 years ago.

Being manual dexterous is a great skill, if you’ve played a lot of ball games, you can flip and flop and smack down. If you work in a print room as I did for 3 years, not counting all the printing I did in computer rooms, then paper handling is a good skill.

 You have to load and unload paper, then sort and collate it. I’ve gone through tens of thousands of sheets of paper.  Binding, heat or wire binding is another skill. If you are quick with your hands then you are a great print room person. I know two girls who would amaze you.

Then there is paper folding. Take a piece of paper, a map for example that is as big as your front door, I’m looking at our door right now. Then imagine folding that down to A4 size, Origami at its purest.

Mothers are of course the busiest of people, and they have the best multitasking skills. My own mother had to keep an eye on not just us children, plus the cat and the dog, as well as all the lodgers, but feed the 5000 everyday, by which I mean her large family. Her best multitasking was watching Dallas, with one hand in her piny, after her long day, her hand jumped in the pocket. She was still saying the Rosary.