Glasses a new Vision

Glasses a new Vision ©

By Michael Casey

Yesterday my big daughter had her eyes tested, and it would have been easy to take that as a theme, or even sing a song about it. I decided not to then but today I’ll see what’s in the soup on that topic. As you know all Life started in the Soup, so all our experiences are a soup, it’s what makes us, and that’s where my stories come from.

So what do I know about glasses? Well my eldest brother used to have gold framed octagonal glasses and a kind of afro with flared trousers or maybe jeans. It was the end of the 1960s and he was a queen, sorry I mean at Queens, Oxford. Yes, there is even a photo of him somewhere, maybe it’ll come to light when his kids marry, here’s the father of the brides etc.

Then when I started to read, out of fear of Mr Gallagher, who was a fierce man and used to drink with my father, I was discovered to have a lazy eye, at first they waited and then finally I had to have glasses. I can remember my mother mentioned the Queen, or rather Queens and Oxford to the optician while I was having my eyes tested in Newhall Street in Birmingham city centre. This was before optical stores as they call themselves littered the high street, it was 50 years ago after all.

There was a thing called the Miracle Dot, a plastic circle, like a wheel clamp with cleaning lotion inside, you put the lens, and nobody used that word back then, in the centre and squeezed from both sides. Then you used your handkerchief to clean your glasses, and everybody called them glasses, only an optician said spectacles.

A few years later I upgraded to gold framed glasses, but not octagonal, I was not a hippy after all, I was a grammar school boy, Casey Minimus, though my size was maximus. God Bless Mr Hanney our Latin and Spanish teacher, he could really roll his Rs.  5 feet tall and always in his gown, just like Little Caesar, which was his nickname.

Girls wear glasses too, but they must be nice, or removed if any decent boy is within 100yards. Then you have long sighted and short sighted. So if we are looking at something my sister or daughter will hold it against their nose whereas I will hold it at arms’ length at the end of a selfie stick. So it is funny to watch if you are a casual observer.

Which brings me back to story-telling it’s all about observation and seeing things close up and far away, and telling the difference and mixing and matching too. You must have seen that metaphor coming, or have you forgotten to put your contacts in? People are generally switched off, or only have eyes for you, the you being their mobile or tablet. You have to lift your eyes from the gutter and aim for the stars, if I can misquote Oscar Wilde.

Seeing is more than looking in the direction of, or looking without listening, Listening is part of seeing, though Seeing without Listening makes for lack of clarity if I can try your patience. It’s all about being switched on, and really turned on. I’ll disappoint you by not following the path of the metaphor you now have in your head. But I have got your attention, and that’s what seeing is all about. 

So I’ll finish now leaving you begging for more, as any writer or exotic dancer would. 

An Ordinary day in the Casey Household

An Ordinary Day in the Casey Household ©

By Michael Casey

I was having some Green Tea at 5am, no I’m not an early riser, more like pain was annoying me, so I decided I may as well get up. I was enjoying my ta in the kitchen when I caught a blur of white in my peripheral vision, a bit frightening at first. It was just Totoro our cat, she had slunk out at Midnight and was now returning at 5am, the dirty dirty bitch, though I may be misjudging her morals. But a pretty girl who cannot get pregnant may be tempted to be a cat on a hot tin roof.

So I let Totoro in an went on the computer to read Press, then after an hour with the pain lessening I went to bed, though I did get the wife up first, I am an alarm clock. Writing stories and being an alarm clock is my role now.

My small daughter got some new clothes in the post, our street must be the biggest supporter of White Van Man in Birmingham, the amount of transits dropping off parcels and so on is very high. Its less boring for dads too, you just look at a screen and together you pick what you want, then you ring in your order. Clothes Takeaway, the modern way to shop.

My other daughter managed to break the family laptop so I spent hours trying to fit it. My conclusion was that Totoro the cat had walked or sat on the keyboard and managed to delete something, no wonder she goes out at night to drown her sorrows. I get blamed for everything, calling me a dirty bitch, I’m a cat a cat with a Japanese name what do those humans think I should do? 

Totoro then curses in Chinese, just so I cannot understand her. She comes in the door and then lets herself out of an open window. She’s just like a teenager.

The girls eat all the Italian pasta I got them especially, I don’t even get the slops. So I have scrambled eggs made in the microwave, they are Polish eggs with toast made from Polish bread. The yolk is so yellow in Polish eggs, just like a yellow from a Yellow Submarine.

I’m getting tired now, in the story and now 3 hours later, 2 days of pain has worn me out, but the end must be near, Q a fat ugly woman to say The End is Nigh just like in Up Pompeii. My daughter reminds me she has an eye test, so we have to go up the road for her to have her eyes tested. Why can’t a courier take her eyes up to the Optician for her, or why can’t we do it over the Internet?

I sit and wait while the eyes are tested, I resist the temptation to eat the Chocolate Easter Bunny in the corner of the shop. 

Finally my big daughter returns, she has to change her lens, why can’t she borrow the cat’s eyes instead? Then I have to watch as my 15year old tries on all manner of frames, some are just too horrid to mention. Some designer frames only have one design, fleecing you and taking your money. Others are not so bad. Finally to much relief the frames she likes are the lower price range. So I get her to say, Hello I’m Dr. Annie as she tries her new frames. If all goes to plan that’s what she’ll be in less than 10 years’ time.

I pay for 2 new frames, wear and spare as they say. Her current frames are black, just like Michael Caine in Harry Palmer mode, or Joe 90 if you can remember that show. Luckily my bladder has survived the wait so now the highlight of my day, a trip to Aldi. I tell the staff she is my Carer, and obviously they believe me, due to my silver hair and because the Arthritis is making me limp today, I hadn’t shaved either. Then as a treat we go to the Coop as well, that’s where the donuts are, why do girls love donuts?

Once home 4 donuts sink faster than the Titanic, the other 4 I manage to make them save till after Choir Practice. Meanwhile the wife returns laughing, a new employee turns out to be the mother of one of my big daughter’s best friend. Small World as they say. People deny me 3 times, as they order another round of drinks, no cocks crowing. Which reminds me once home I am bursting for the toilet, we have been out an hour.

Now as the gentle rain falls I ring my sister to touch base, she says our brother has had another small win, I laugh and say if I won the lottery I would buy that house around the corner from the one we should have bought. Me too says my sister, we laugh and say our goodbyes.

So this is my ordinary life, today no surreal moments, but it’s not yet 7pm and I do have an imagination, so you better watch out wherever you are. And Mexico I see you reading, if you are Carlos Slim, read more of my words and you will soon get fat. In 1920s Ireland the Priest Banned the song Down Mexico Way for being Immoral. But welcome to you anyway, I do know a little Spanish, so I’ll finish in Spanish, yo hablo espagnol como un burro hablando frances.

Hasta Luego.  Michael

What ya gonna Do, I don't know What ya gonna do, I'dont know what ya gonna do?

What ya gonna Do, I don't know What ya gonna do, I'dont know what ya gonna do?

and so it goes on and on in The Jungle Book with the Vultures sitting there waiting for dinner to arrive and die.

I can remember Frank Brown giving me an orange and the colour brochure for The Jungle Book back in maybe 1968. It was at the Gaumont which had teh biggest single screen in Europe a curved one if I member rightly I saw Alien there too with my brother, and I think I was at one of the last screenings ever before it was closed and demolished. It became the building where Pinsent Masons Law firm now lives. And was where I worked for 3 years, the very same site. So life really is a circle, or a curved cinema screen.

Frank Brown was also the man that gave us his Bush radio, with the saucer dial and domino sized buttons, the real mccoy not the retro shrunk version, it was really heavy with a huge battery inside about half the size of a bag of sugar. And that radio led to me listening to BBC Radio4 for 20 years, before I took up the pen.

My interest in News also began about that time, This is the World Tonight with Douglas Stewart reporting. And all because of an orange.
So what do the White House reporters do while they are waiting for Sean Spicer? Do they bet on the colour of his tie? Or do the randomly try and find something good to read on the Internet.

So has that led them to me, and the past week of pulse reads of my stuff,  just as radar goes around and around, so I've spotted a regular pulse of reads. Not unless its the Polish readers on holiday in USA, Or has CIA or MFI spotted me, sorry MFI is a furniture retailer here in UK, not unless the are going to provide a big chair for my fat arse,

So I can try and speculate on why the USA is interested in me again, something similar happen a  while ago as well. I hope its a publisher, or is it James Corden cannot believing anybody is bigger than him, in the hips department that is.

Its probably  the KKK, the Keep Kleaning Korrectly hotel housekeeping crew, who have discovered a fellow hotel worker, who's spelling is as suspect as theirs. But I do know how to clean a hotel bedroom in under 20 mins. Ask Vicky at Crowne Plaza Birmingham NEC she's in the Hacienda now I believe.

It would be nicer if it is the White House Press Corps, John Sopal recommended me to them, he has a wicked sense of humour after all, he was being facetious, but nobody noticed. Major Garrot, said he'd lend him some dumb bells and teach him how to speak nicely to the Secret Service. So JS gave him my web address. The Fox crew got in on the act when somebody overheard somebody in the men's room say that Michael Casey has cold knees, they thought it was an English joke but they ran with it.

Knees knocking together, actually I do have a cold spot between my legs, where my inner knees meet. I think its because where my veins were removed for my heart surgery there is less blood circulation hence the cold spot between my legs. Not a lot of people know that, as another Michael, Michael Caine might say when in Harry Palmer mode.

And what has this got to do with waiting for  Sean Spicer? Nothing but it does pass the time while Sean runs spell checker on his script. Sean does of course have the full set of my books, when he's not in Apple buying stuff he reads Michael Casey the fat silver haired guy from Birmingham England. Posers carry French books or Proust, Sean is a real Man, not some woman dressed in drag chewing gum on a Saturday night, he has a Kindle in his trouser pocket, and yes he's always glad to read me, ask Maye West his landlady.

What the? Should be your reaction by now, lets see if I can get that syndicated column in the Press, I don't have to do anything, they could just use all my back list and get CNN to deliver the money to my home, they do know how to travel after all.

And who is John Sopal? The BBC North America Editor, if I make Donald laugh, maybe he'll get an exclusive with Donald. Or am I just Quackers, they were the  first People to come to the USA after all, Donald Duck and Pluto on the MayFlower.

You have been listening to, Spike Milligan , I told you I was unwell, as it states in Gaelic on his tombstone.

Michael Casey

 

Tajemny Modlitwa © Przez Michael Casey

Tajemny Modlitwa ©

Przez Michael Casey

Czasami modlitwa jest tajemnicą, której nie możemy ujawnić odbiorcy, nie zgodzili się na modlitwę, nie chcieliby otrzymać modlitwy, stracili twarz, nie chcieli otrzymać łaski, ale modlitwy Jest łaska, od mnie do ciebie, a raczej pytam, a ty otrzymujesz, więc dlaczego zwodzi?

Właśnie robimy uzdrowienie, tak będziemy kontynuować modlitwę i błagać o uzdrowienie, nasze oczy skierowane ku sufitu.

Jasne, że będziemy się modlić za każdego, a szeptamy imię: "Zdrowaś Maryjo pełna łaski, Ojcze nasz, który jest w niebie" Tak, będziemy się tego modlić, wykopimy te różańce i błagamy i modlimy się Wszystko, co jest nam warte, proszę, proszę, trzymaj tę damę na tej ziemi, nie pozwól jej umrzeć, a jej drugie dziecko pozostanie samotne, nie proszę Panie, że cię błagam, tak MOJE modlitwy są bezwartościowe, ale muszą Być kimś, kto czyta ten, którego modlitwy są złote, których miłość jest warta.

Proszę więc, proszę, udawaj, że jestem kogoś innego, modląc się i błagając, abyś ocalił to życie, z wyjątkiem tej żony innej żony, z wyjątkiem tej mamusie kogoś innego. Proszę, Panie, wszystko to mogę się modlić, niech ta pani żyje wiele wiele dni dziennie AMEN

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Dziś miałem długi dzień bólu / ostatniej nocy, 24 godziny, ale teraz blednie. Patrzyłem na rightmove.co.uk na próżno nadzieję, że dostrzegłbym coś wystarczająco dużego dla nas wszystkich i że nas wszystkich 4 i kot, a może przyszły pies chciałby. Potem dostrzegłem, dosłownie za rogiem, od tego, który powinniśmy kupić sześć miesięcy temu.

Tylko Podwoiła nasz budżet, a potem pomyślałem, że tylko ktoś się modlił, aby wygrać loterię, albo czytelnicy wreszcie zaczną kupować wszystkie moje e-książki ... Pamiętam ten kawałek, który napisałem za fajną damą, którą poznałem na FB Zanim opuszczę wszystkie media społecznościowe.

Wiem, że przyciąga zbyt wielu dziwnych ludzi, patrząc w lustro. Więc znalazłem to od 6 lat temu, a kiedy ją przeczytałem, przelałem łzę, jak pamiętam tę miłą damę.

I przypomniałem sobie, jak prawdziwa jest ta część, więc powiedz swoj własna tajna modlitwa dzisiaj wieczorem wszystkim tym, którzy naprawdę tego potrzebują.