Toiletries

Toiletries ©

By

Michael Casey

Well I was in need of toiletries this morning, disheveled and a trifle whiffy when my wife’s friend arrived on our front door step, they were off on a shopping trip together with my daughter too. But they needed the toilet, people always do so they had to navigate my circumference, just like Sir Harry, and then with a sniff leave in disgust they left wondered exactly was the chemical reaction that brought me and my wife together 20 years ago. Ok I did not reek but I hadn’t yet brushed my teeth or shaved and I was wearing house PJs with toothpaste all down the front. I have tidied myself up since then and I have shaved and taken 10 years off my age, not the 3 from last night’s film.

I also had a bad night with my pain, but that’s the norm. Anyway I wouldn’t have written the opening paragraph at all, but I have but it is a good intro for my story. What is the difference between men and woman and their toiletries’ habits. Yes I chose my words to make you think and stop, before I stink and stop. For Toiletries are all about smells after all.

The wife, asked me to get some hand wash and shower gel, why can’t women just use carbolic soap just like men? The answer is that they don’t want my carbolics with stray hairs in, to wash their pure bodies. Your soap is only safe and clean if it comes out a bottle. A bar of soap was all we had when I grew up, ok when I grew sideways. But now married life and daughters mean I have to buy body wash and hand wash. For goodness sake what a load of carbolics, reddish pinkish carbolic soap. Nurses used to smell of it, now we have a million varieties of soap. My old aunty made her own from fat and perfume, I remember telling me this 40 years ago,so it must be true.

So naturally I buy the cheapest from our closest cheap shop, I don’t ask advice on FaceBook about the best soap, and I don’t look for reviews of soap and body wash. By the way I’ve inserted the FaceBook reference because I am NOT ON FACEBOOK. I still get junk fake FB messages that get deleted unopened and unread. I met too many mad people on it years ago, this Mark Zuckerberg guy kept on asking about how to handle Chinese wives, so if you want madness just click on my sites. I wash my hands of it, it’s a load of carbolics.

Up the road the nice girl gave me discount on one body wash, so I bought two, I came home triumphant, holding it aloft like an Olympic torch. Only my girls, my 3 girls said it was cheap rubbish, only fit to wash the cat it when she comes home smelly. The cat glows as they always use my anti-dandruff shampoo to wash her in, its as if she is wearing a brand new fur coat like Zsa Zsa Gabor, but Totoro our cat does always wear fur.

So crestfallen I have to resume my search for the perfect body wash, the next day. And what becomes of my cheapest of the cheap body wash. Well we’ll save that for the next time the cat needs a wash, I just hope her dandruff does not return as mine has.

I tried a different cheap shop, they had nice stuff, but at feet level was the cheapest stuff, a cheap sporting boy’s body wash. So I bought that, it was double the price I paid the previous day, a bargain. And still half the price of what they would prefer, but if they don’t like it they can just use my carbolic soap instead. The body wash does smell stronger and nicer, but not nice enough for their noses, but at least the anti bacterial hand wash was acceptable.

They say that this generation gets diseases because they wash too often and have no immunity, if you dig out Steptoe and Son on UTube there is an episode where they are immune to dysentery. Well that’s about it for today, my computer is back together again, perhaps I need to use more soap on its carbolics to keep it clean and healthy. In the beginning I worked on DEC PDP 1170, google image that and you will be amazed, it will feel as if you have soap in your eyes.    

  

Dissatisfaction

Dissatisfaction ©

By

Michael Casey

I was wondering what to write today, what to talk to you about when I thought our house hunting and my own health. When you are after a house you have a tick list of all the things you want in a new place, and you can be very disappointed and that can even turn to despair. You have to hunt high and low and stick within your budget, not unless you want to live in an empty house with no furniture as the budget is bust.

Health is same, you remember when you had no aches and pains but now they seem to be there all the time. You are being mugged by your own body’s failings. Its 4 years since my own health first started to go on a pain quest. But I’ll not bore you about it today. My point in both cases is that you get dissatisfied, you play the Stones’ I can’t get no satisfaction all the time, even the postman hums it as he goes past your house.

Dissatisfaction is a dangerous thing because you bitch about what was ok before, before you opened your eyes to a wider world. We’ve seen 100s of houses online and in actual viewing now, so we know in seconds when we enter a house does it work for us. Then we look around our home and we feel, if only we lived there and not here.

Though structurally our house is better than 90% of those we have seen. Today’s house I actually missed as I was in the grip of pain, Arthur came and and squeezed me, so my wife went on her own. I had seen the place online and via Google maps, but when she came back we both agreed that was the target area we should be aiming for. So looking at our home turf it was not as good as where we really want to be. If only we won the lottery and could get a nice place in the target area, instead of a doer upper in a good area, but as we all know location is king.

So am I dissatisfied? Yes and no, I’d rather have an end to my 4 years of random pain, which sadly I know I’m stuck with, but God is good. One property we put an offer in 4 months ago and they turned us down, then they came back to us and we rose our bid. Then finally I told my wife to tell them that if they didn’t sell it in three months time we’d lower our bid to the original bid. Now its 4 months later and its still not sold,and they have lowered the price to just above our original offer. Maybe next month they’ll come back to us and accept our original lower offer, after trying to sell the property for 5 months. Who is dissatisfied now?

Having looked at nicer properties in nicer areas, they may come back to us and we might just say no thank you. Everything has its time, its season after all. As I mentioned yesterday one daughter has got her exam results, they were great, so we need to stay near her school so that her younger sister can finish her schooling there. Then the world is our oyster, property further out is nicer and cheaper. But we are not dissatisfied because Education trumps everything.

Now it’s late on Saturday night s I write this, as I talk to you, so some of you may be thinking about love,once the curry or the Chinese is finished,and your 17 pints of Stella Artois. The thing with love is that people want more and better love. The magazines down the hairdressers tell them that it is possible and the Daily Mail has features on it, so it must be true. Otherwise they are dissatisfied.

Your husband giving you an hour and 2, well 2 whatever is the polite word for it, well 2 whatevers and a full hour is no good. So wives and girlfriends are not satisfied. This leads to eruptions in the marriage or relationship. People are expecting too much, when really its the talking in the dark afterwards which is the most important bit. When you are older and tired due to the 17 kids you have, its the talking in the dark which is most important.

Moving on, when people never had holidays they were happy enough with an occasional trip to the sea side, now the whole world is not good enough, so the stupid rich want to go into space. Consumerism creates dissatisfaction so it can be filled with the next version of the exact same thing. People travel the world looking for new experiences and new adventures, then they return home dissatisfied. Fish out of water, they left home for Education but return home despising the very people they hoped to help if they visited the big wide world.

As an observer of life, back in 1974 my brother told me to join in an not be aloof, I watch things, I am a vacuum cleaner and I save and remember things. I’ve seen the curve of life, and the many stumbles and disasters in my own life. And what do I think about dissatisfaction? Keep it simple and keep it small,and you won’t have too many broken hearts and broken dreams. Humility in everything, as Donald Trump used to say, but on a Saturday night, aim for 1 full hour and 2 starbursts.

Horrible night

Yes the pain monster came a calling. I got up for 2 hours 2.30 for pain killers.
Went back to bed as I was falling over cos I was so tired
Awoke an our ago, screaming in pain.
Could not get back to sleep
So got up for breakfast
Will take morning meds  soon
Its 7.45am now

So this is what you don't see when I'm strutting my stuff on my way to the shops.
Thought I've  been limping these past couple of days.
Its like the leg/hipjoin is popping in and out.

And when I'm not bitching about pain

I write comedy.

ha ha ha

Pain Relief will be my life's work if I last, but all I can offer is writing stories.
I could be a male model when George Clooney is not available

To Touch a Beating Heart something from 6 years ago

To Touch a Beating Heart  ©

By

Michael Casey

I was watching Jools Holland’s show and later on I watched Glee, its just finished in fact, Music has such an effect on me, I hope on everybody else too. Music DOES Touch a Beating Heart. Music is like a heart beat, it offers rhythm to our lives, it goes fast and it goes slow, and when it ends we are dead.

Obama is in Ireland and now on his way here, he will have no doubt heard some music just as the Queen did, I imagine that as he has tea with the Queen they’ll both remark on their Irish trips, and I’d guarantee that Music will be part of that conversation.

My dad discovered Elvis in his 60s, he watched all of Elvis’s movies over a Christmas break, my dad was impressed. Musicians do touch our beating hearts, their power is so great, within 2 seconds a piece of music can get to you. If I’m very lucky within 30seconds I’ve touched somebody with my words, but music is still at least 15 times faster. I am of course so very very jealous, I can hear music on the Phoenix Chinese TV station and even though I know no Mandarin the music and the Chinese words still can touch my beating heart. I am lucky that a window has been opened into another kind of music, I wasn’t expecting that when I found my Shanghai wife.

So what is it with Music,  when the first cave man made love and heard the beat of his mate’s heart, did it fill him with wonder and then did he copy the beat with bones banging on the skull of his enemy who’d he recently eaten?  Whatever the reason I am so so jealous, a beat a rhythm a song or just the roar of the sea or even of the wind itself, all of this is music.

I’d love to be able to write songs, I have produced a few good poems, and some say my writing is poetic, but really the way I write is the way I write, I’m not clever enough to analyse my style, it is what it is. I  am lucky though if I get a few good reports, but I’d rather touch a few beating hearts.

Explaining Yourself

Explaining Yourself ©

By

Michael Casey

Believe it or not sometimes I am inarticulate, relatively speaking that is. I am much more fluid on paper than in real life. The process of writing refines my words so they are so much better than if I’m sitting on a garden wall gassing away, and sometimes I can be very gassy. You think 4 times faster than you speak, so if you are sharing your thoughts on paper then that ratio is 6 to one, or 8 to one, depending on your typing speed. So you can imagine if I’ve already got all the story in my head the putting on paper process is like being constipated, very frustrating. As I just want to download it all in a second. Jackson Pollock school of writing, and yes I never rewrite, I am not clever enough to do that, so that is my curse. If you like I am Caesar  What is Writ is Writ.

So if I am sat on the garden wall:- preaching, boring, annoying, gassing or whatever you may decide to call a visitation with Michael, sometime my explanations are lost in my babel. I really do hate trying to explain a story, you lose the spirit of the story by explaining it. As I’ve said elsewhere Eric Morcambe used to say if it works it works. Do not analyse it. So having a writer on a show explaining everything ruins it.I just want to eat the cake, I don’t care which field the wheat came from, over analysis ,like English Literature KILLS LOVE OF WORDS.

I think its enough to get the writer to read his stuff, and let the bores to bitch about it. It should just be a reading, no explanations required, just as no jacket was required by Phil Collins. I was trying to explain something to a friend today and I knew I was stumbling by trying to explain it. It’s like showing a trailer for a new film, so you in effect ruin the film before the fan sees the film at the cinema. So I just said go to michaelgcasey on Google, then hit my Blogger link and it’s under the butcherbakerundertaker and its posted there. In today’s case I was talking about Giving Advice. So I was giving advice about finding the post giving advice, so that I could give advice, otherwise I was ruining my advice about giving advice.

Tongue twisters like I’ve just given are fun for the writer, but they serve a purpose, as well as showing off. They make you smile and they make you laugh, and I hope think. If I get you to think, then you’ll have more sympathy for the writer. He’s not just a boring old fart, or a burnt out has been as I was called many a year ago. This was before my heart and arthritis problems came to the fore. If you know that the words are not all made up, he has experienced a bit of life, there is pathos and pain behind his armour of stupidity and the veneer of being a male model, well in my imagination anyway.

So I’ve poked my head out of my shell and shown you too much, like the tortoise who stretched too far and got bit by the cat. Which could be a metaphor for anything you like, or dislike. It’s easier to speak this way in a missive as it has more structure and form, like my body-builder’s body, I must give it back to him, he wants it returned for the Bank Holiday. Yes an obvious radio 4 joke, but Nick Robinson can’t use all the best jokes with Alec on their holidays together to the Vatican. Where else do politicos go?

I’ve given you an inkling into my mind and the land-mines which are my words, another cartoon made from words, I hope that the joy my words bring me is shared by your ears. If you want joy to any other parts of your body then it is a Friday night so go ask your lover. I have to go to bed now, so you should do the same while your lover is still in the mood, I’ve warmed up the ears for you, the rest is up to the two of you. Have a good night, I hope!   

Porady (c) Przez Michael Casey

Porady (c)
Przez
Michael Casey

Rozmawiałem dziś z przyjacielem, a oni się ze mną uwierzyli, więc aby im dać radę, musiałem się z nimi obdarzyć. W ten sposób doradztwo działa na najlepszym poziomie. Nikt z nas nie lubi być opowiadany, co robić, ale jeśli podzielimy się doświadczeniami, bardziej prawdopodobne jest, aby nas słuchać. Życie jest takie, jak idziesz, nie ma żadnych zasad, podobnie jak miłość nie ma żadnych zasad. Jeśli oboje lubisz to, zrób to.

Jeśli się czegoś boisz, unikniesz sytuacji i ograniczysz siebie i swoje życie z powodu strachu. Jak powiedział Churchill, nie musimy się obawiać, ale się boją. Więc jeśli boisz się pająków, nigdy nie będziesz już w starym składzie, więc przyjdź znajomego, żeby tam pojechał. Ale co się dzieje, gdy twój przyjaciel nie ma tam i potrzebujesz dodatkowych krzeseł przechowywanych tam w kawiarni? Więc posłuchaj ich porady, jakiego pająka użyć, lub nauczysz kota, aby jeść pająki, których tak się boisz. Wtedy możesz mieć pełniejsze życie, które wyciąga krzesła.

Jest to oczywiście prosty przykład komunikacji i sposobów zmagania się z obawami. Obawą jest, że muszą się zmierzyć. Być może maszerowałeś tę ciemną aleję, ale to twoja droga do domu, więc co robisz? Możesz znaleźć drogę samotną, jak to uniknąć, albo wrócić do domu w grupie, po kolei z lokalnym facetem sztuk walki prowadzącym cię do domu. Jeszcze jedno proste rozwiązanie.

Rzecz o tym, jak doradzić, słuchasz więcej, jeśli istnieje związek z osobą udzielającą porad. Ludzie mniej słuchają swojego księdza, ponieważ nie wiedzą o pijanemu w piątkową noc i zobaczenia tej dziewczyny lub chłopca, jakiego masz ochotę. Zna mniej na temat pokus, ponieważ jest bezpieczny w łóżku ze swoim kakao, podczas gdy tańczysz i śpiewa.

Więc katastrofa uderza, a ty jesteś w ciąży z dzieckiem. Więc jeśli jesteś dziewczyną szkolną, którą posłuchasz księdza, lub dziewczynę, która się nauczył ciężko. Dziewczyna ma doświadczenie i ból po swojej stronie, więc miejmy nadzieję, że w szkole średniej dziewczyny słuchały jej rad. Nie pij, nie używaj antykoncepcji, bądź trzeźwym przyjacielem, który będzie cię pilnował. Różnica między seksem i miłością. Czy teraz posłuchasz dziewczyny, kapłana, czy siostry Agnes, czy ona mówi o moralności? Myślę, że głos doświadczenia zawsze wygrywa. Ale zawsze lepiej, jeśli masz własne zdrowy rozsądek.

Czasami masz presję rówieśniczą i odpowiedź na presję rówieśniczką, jest zawsze --- lub innym takim językiem. Musisz być wystarczająco silny, by powiedzieć NIE, niezależnie od tego, co jest. Czasem jego emocjonalny szantaż od członków rodziny, powinieneś opiekować się babcią, kotem czy farmą, czy cokolwiek innego. JEŚLI to coś cię skrzywdziłoby w jakikolwiek sposób emocjonalnie lub fizycznie lub duchowo. Wtedy musisz zbudować mur wokół ciebie i powiedzieć NIE. Musisz najpierw się zabezpieczyć, zanim będzie można z kimkolwiek współpracować. Kiedy jesteś szczęśliwy i pewny siebie, możesz pomyśleć o innych. Wszystko zaczyna się od jaźń, a następnie promieniuje na zewnątrz, ja jest fundamentem, a jeśli fundament jest słaby, wówczas ściany mieszczą się. Nie możesz pomóc nikomu, jeśli nie jesteś silny w sobie. A jeśli jesteś silny i nadal nie chcesz opiekować się Twoim psem z niani lub byłym mężem siostry, czuje się winna. NIE NALEŻY ZROBIĆ.

Kiedy jesteś silny i zdrowy w sobie, możesz pomyśleć o nauczaniu albańskich mnichów Trappistów lub cokolwiek masz na myśli. Ale jeśli jesteś za słaby, nie osłabiaj się nawet z powodu niewłaściwego poczucia obowiązku lub winy. Robisz wszystko, bo jesteś wystarczająco silny, aby to zrobić, a ponieważ chcesz. Jak wspomniano wcześniej w piątek wieczorem, kochałeś tego chłopca, ponieważ był miły i myślisz, że go kochałeś, a nie dlatego, że możesz. Świeże Kremowe Ciasta są niegrzeczne, ale ładne, jak Salmon Rushdie napisał w swoich słowackich dniach, ale musimy nauczyć się kontrolować nasze pragnienia lub będziemy na zawsze 聽 tłuszczu.

Kochaj się pierwszy, potem możesz kochać innych, ale jesteśmy tylko jednym, a potem z miłością stajemy się dwoma i dwa razem mogą tworzyć rodziny. Ale wszystko powinno być zrobione miłością, a nie strachem, a jeśli pamiętasz, to wtedy nie pójdziesz źle.聽 Jak ktoś kiedyś powiedział w All Things Love. Nigdy nie przyjmuj innych prośb.

Giving Advice

Giving Advice (c)
By
Michael Casey

I was talking to a friend today and they confided in me, so in order to give them some advice I in turn had to confided in them. This is how advice works at the best level. None of us like to be told what to do, but if we share experiences then we are more likely to listen.Life is make it up as you go along, there are no rules, same as love has no rules. If you both like it then do it.

If you are afraid of something you will avoid situations and so limit yourself and your life, because of fear. As Churchill said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. So if you are afraid of spiders you may never go in the old storeroom again, so you get your friend to go in there for you. But what happens when your friend is not there and you need the extra chairs stored there for your cafe? So will listen to their advice about which spider spray to use, or you'll train the cat to eat the spiders that you are so afraid of. Then you can have a fuller life fetching chairs.

This is obviously a simple example about communication and how to face your fears. The thing bout fears is that they do have to be faced. You may have been mugged up that dark alley but it is your route home, so what do you do? You may find a longer route how to avoid it, or go home in a group, take turns with your local martial arts guy guiding you part the way home. Again another simple solution.

The thing about getting advice you listen more if there is a connection with the person giving you the advice. People listen less to their priest because he doesn't know about getting drunk on a Friday night and seeing this girl or boy you fancy. He knows less about temptation because he is safe in bed with his cocoa while you are out dancing and prancing.

So disaster strikes, and you are left pregnant with a baby. So if you are a school girl who would you listen to the priest,or the girl who learnt the hard way. The girl has experience and pain on her side, so hopefully in secondary school the girls would listen to her advice. Don't drink, do use contraception, have a sober friend to watch over you. There is a difference between sex and love. Now would you listen to the girl or the priest, or sister Agnes is she was giving that week's morality talk? I think the voice of experience always wins. But it is always far better if you have your own common sense.

Sometimes you have peer pressure, and the answer to peer pressure, is always____ --- or other such language. You have to be strong enough to say NO to whatever it is. Sometimes its emotional blackmail from your own family members, you should look after granny or the cat or the farm, or whatever. IF this thing would hurt you in any way, emotionally or physically or spiritually. Then you have to build a wall around you and say NO. You have to protect yourself first before you can interact with anybody and anything. When you are happy and secure in yourself then you can think about helping others. Everything starts with self then radiates outwards, self is the foundation, and if the foundation is weak then the walls of self fall over. You cannot help anybody if you are not strong in yourself. And if you are strong and you still don't want to look after your nan's dog or your sister's ex-husband she feels guilty about. THEN JUST DO NOT DO IT.

Once you are strong and healthy in yourself then you can think about teaching Albanian to Trappist monks or whatever your speciality is. But if you are too weak don't weaken yourself even more just out of some misplaced sense of duty or guilt. You do things because you a re strong enough to do them and because YOU WANT TO. Same as mentioned earlier on a Friday night, you made love to that boy because he was nice and you think you loved him, not because you could. Fresh Cream Cakes are Naughty but Nice as Salmon Rushdie  wrote in his copyrighter's days BUT we have to learn to control our urges or we will be forever  fat.

Love yourself first, then you can love others, but we are only one, then with love we become two and together two can create families. But everything should be done with love not fear, and if you remember that then you will not go far wrong.  As somebody once said in All Things Love. And never accept any other request.