Sick Room Boredom: Where're me Comics, then?

I'm facing into my third week of being a temporary invalid due to my wee troubles, and the boredom factor is affecting me. Well, boredom isn't quite the thing -- there's plenty of Internet to look at and television and cat antics -- it's more frustration, I suppose, at having no stamina to get anything done.

There's a back garden could do with some attention, but I'm tired out on about the fifth or sixth clip of the secateurs. As for wheeling in sand to do a bit more of the patio, forget it. I couldn't lift the shovel if I tried. We have a mosaic or three to put together for the garden walls, but I'm short on materials (most especially mosaic mesh) and in no position to go hunt some down.

So, it's mostly sitting at the window looking at the world go by. I'm lucky in that there is a large green with another part of the housing estate beyond that, then the sudden uplift of green hills (we call them mountains, but my American friends think that's hugely funny) before a huge and interesting sky.

When I was a kid, the Kearns boys would drag a trolley of vegetables up from their mother's roadside shop at the bottom of Edmondstown, delivering cabbage or turnip, potatoes and pot herbs for my mother's kitchen. The trolley would be an old crate married to some pram wheels. In the bottom would be a big pile of second hand comics (there were several boys and girls in their family) and I'd swap whatever I had to hand, a number of Warlords, the Dandy, or Beano, for ones I didn't usually get otherwise. I usually got the better deal, at least in my mind, because the sheer quantity they'd hand over would keep me amused for weeks. Mrs Kearns got rid of a heap of waste paper and the boys got some free issues they'd not seen. They were a Godsend when I was laid up with some childhood ailment...

Anyhow, while musing on comics, the doctor interrupted by phoning me and upsetting me over the lack of Potassium in my latest blood sample. It was as low as "one point something" while I was in hospital. They gave me five days worth of pills to boost it and instructions to eat bananas and potato chips like there's no tomorrow (and there might indeed be no tomorrow if the levels don't rise, as it aids in muscle ativity, not least of which includes the ticker). My GP added orange juice to the equation, saying in his phone call that the result was now at the "two point someting" mark. It should be between "three point something and five" to be in the safe range, as far as I understand things.

I'm ascribing the loss to my blood pressure medicine. I'm beginning to swing from light fittings from the amount of bananas I'm taking. I'm eating chicken, beef, salmon, downing packets of crisps, gulping orange juice, the while increasing my body weight, which leads to higher blood pressure, which the blood pressure medication counteracts, which depletes my potassium... I wonder am I in trouble here, or will it swing around to e better level?

Next blood samples in nine or ten days.

Recipe for Saving Willie's Life

Take one letter from the GP, signed with a discouraging comment: "God love you, now."

Select one large dose of panic as the swelling of the tongue is beginning to obstruct the roof of the mouth and will eventually cut off the airway. Set aside and do not inform Herself just yet of exactly how bad things are.

Proceed at 50 miles per hour to the Accident & Emergency Department walking calmly into the hospital as Herself parks the car.

Patiently explain your change of address details to the clerk at the desk for the official record as the seconds tick by. Repeat the details she can't quite make out. Ignore her complaints of hard to read doctor's handwriting.

Rest quietly, adding the coldest water you can find.

Greet Triage Nurse and explain problem. Return to resting quietly. Add more cold water.

Shake hands with A&E doctor. Explain problem. Understand the Ear Nose & Throat specialist on duty is based at another hospital and has to travel. Worry for 15 minutes.

Shake hands with ENT doctor. Agree with absolutely no reluctance that he should begin using a sharp blade to incise a foothold for a probe in the bottom of your open mouth. Weep slightly from right eye as syringe begins extracting fluid from behind the blockage.

Feel relief while A&E doctor asks if anaesthetic was used. (It wasn't). Grin wanly as A&E doctor looks into open mouth and says "You're a brave man."

Spend three days and two nights in hospital, spitting out stones through your unblocked salivary gland duct as antibiotic drips steadily through a tube into your arm.

Argue with pharmacist that yes, this strength antibiotic tablet *is* appropriate.

Return home.

Rest.

The Daily Grind

So, as you know, this little old geezer accosted me back in February '08 with an announcement that I was looking at him and that he didn't like people looking at him.

I hadn't been looking at him on the bus that morning, but I sure as eggs look at him every morning ever since! He uses the same bus stop as me in the morning and I always know at what point and at what distance he is from me.

Some research has provided a few details into who this fellah is. It seems he once sold charity gaming cards door to door in the area and was plagued by the attentions of children who (being children) used to get a rise out of him for the sake of being chased. I think he isn't the full shilling to begin with, but the story of the kids pestering him explains some of the more peculiar behaviour I've observed in him recently.

One morning as I hauled myself up the road on the way to another blessed day of being told by the telephoning public how useless I am, I spied yer man shuffling across the green area to my left. He dresses in a kind of shabby brown canvas jacket and is continually blowing his nose into a great white handkerchief, peering over it suspiciously through his black rimmed spectacles at anyone who might be about. He increased his pace on seeing me and walked ahead, shoulders in their customary hunch, his face down. Instead of turning left at the top of the road for the bus stop, he went right disappearing into the next line of semi-dees. He turned up about five minutes later at the stop. I figured he must have been calling into someone's house on the other road.

Then a few days after, I was a little later in leaving the house and saw him ahead of me, hunching along with his hands in his coat pockets. He stopped suddenly and stared straight ahead where a car on a school run had reversed out of a driveway a couple of houses up. He took two steps to the right and hid for a moment behind a hedge. The car paused halfway across the road as seatbelts and schoolbags and the usual morning chaos were sorted. He stepped out and seeing it was still there, stepped quickly back in again. When it pulled away he resumed his shuffle up the road, head lowered, handkerchief dabbing at his nose.

I saw him from afar another morning walking by the shop units in the local centre, heading for the bus. A schoolboy about twelve or thirteen years of age was coming in the opposite direction, not heeding him at all. Our fellow did a quick turn to the left to face into a shop front until the youngster passed by.

When the bus pulled in, he did his usual morning barge past everyone in the loose queue, flashed a pass at the driver and went up the bus slamming windows closed, keeping the outside world at bay.

Crocks

"Arrrgh!" I say.
"What wrong with you? " Herself asks.
"My feckin' sciatica is playing up."
I clutch at the right cheek of my arse and hobble about. The pain shoots down to my ankle and back up again.
"I think my uterus is pressing into my sciatic nerve. I read that on Wikipedia."
Herself would normally laugh at this, but her knee is giving her trouble today.
"Are we still on for lunch at Captain America's?" I say.
"Oh yes. It's our anniversary, after all."
Sixteen years. We've been together sixteen years for about the past five years, because we lost count and have to keep asking Herself's daughter what year she moved out so we can count it up again. This year in 2008 we're absolutely certain we're together sixteen years, although that leaves the age of the cat a little doubtful. She's been sixteen for about the past five years as well, we think.
We get in the car with many moans and groans and head up to The Square, park up and then head across the new civic plaza (still under construction) to Captain America's.
Herself limps along with her wonky knee. I stick my beer belly out and try to lean backwards without having to grab a piece of my buttock.
"You know something?" I say.
"What?"
"People will think we're real mountainy people walking like this. Each with one leg shorter than the other for walking across hills."
Captain A's was good, but the tables were smaller than I remember. We ate and limped back to the car with our various bits draggling along behind us.

Why the cat smells marmalade on my leg

I've a head-cold.
Herself has a dicky shoulder.
The weather has been Arctic cold.
This morning Herself knocked over one of our small, cheap, glass salt cellars and broke it into pieces. Bad luck was definitely supposed to follow.
As I'd been promising Herself we'd get one, we bought a small, flat-screen telly for the kitchen today and I couldn't get the thing to tune in until I disconnected all the cables from the grown-up telly and DVD and video player and the digital box and the PC and possibly the service for the whole road. But it tuned in, eventually.
In the meantime, Herself did everything possible to find jobs that would aggravate her sore shoulder.
"Aaargh!" She shouted from upstairs.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm washing the bathroom floor."
I watched the snow on the screen and pressed another button.
"Use the other arm," I said.
There were barely audible murmurings from somewhere upstairs.
There was a twanging, crashing noise from the landing.
"What was that?" I shouted up, as a fuzzy Irish rugby team made heavy work of defeating burly, blurry-blue Italians.
"Clothes horse," came the reply. "I'm putting clothes on the bannisters to dry."
"Use the other arm," I said. "By the way... Did you tell the doctor about that shoulder?"
"No."
"I see."
I fiddled with coaxial cable and started tacking staples into the side of the door saddle. The vacuum cleaner started up somewhere behind me.
"Aaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaa-aargh!"
I stopped tapping, momentarily.
"What is it?"
"My shoulder! I can't finish the hoovering! It hurts!"
"Leave the hoovering then!"
"I can't!"
"Why not?"
"Because it's Saturday. I have to have the house clean on Saturday."
"Okay, I'll finish the hoovering later."
I tapped in some more staples, crawling about on the tiled floor, backing into the dining room and bumping against chairs and one hot radiator.
I hear another "Aaaargh!"
"What....?"
"I'm mopping the living room floor. The bucket is heavy and hurts my shoulder when I pick it up!"
"Use the other hand to pick it up then."
Sweat is dripping onto the floor as I pull cable along behind the radiator, twist it in behind the computer desk and twiddle it under the dining room door into the living room and the TV signal outlet box.
I say:
"Have you taken any anti-inflammatories?"
"No."
I plug in the plug and the picture tunes in on Herself's new early-morning putting-on-makeup-in-the-kitchen piece of telly technology.
I say:
"It's working."
Herself meets me in the kitchen and reaching for a glass of lemonade with her right hand -- the one that is attached to the arm that is swinging on the dodgy shoulder -- she knocks it all over the counter. She says something nasty and starts mopping up the spill.
I pass her the rolling pin. She's going to make a meat pie for dinner if it kills us both.
Opening a cupboard (with her right hand, the one that has the dodgy shoulder) she ducks as a half pot of marmalade sails out and falls to its death on the floor tiles below. Apart from the bits of glass glued together by the marmalade, the rest of it goes into a hundred little pieces that scatter all over the place. A large wodge of peel sticks to the side of my leg. We stand looking at it as it slowly slides down the cuff of my trousers, slithers down my boot and finally comes to rest.
"You know," I say. "It's been that kind of day, hasn't it?"
"Yes," she says, through gritted teeth.
Pastry gets a pounding with the occasional accompaniment of a loud
"Aaargh!"

Back to work...

...and my back is playing silly buggers. My workmates diagnose Sciatica. As someone is always suffering some ailment, I don't doubt their collective opinion and it's saved me €60 at the doctor's anyhow. I spent last evening with a heat pack strapped to my arse and walked everywhere like Elvis in his 68 comeback special, but without the leather gear. The pain is gradually easing, thank you for asking.

Good things: I forgot that my Christmas pressie from my chums was stashed under my desk and when I found it again today and looked closely, it turned out to be a box full of beer.

As I said, the pain is now gradually easing.

I shall not hazard the chilli flavoured peanuts that accompanied the beer in case the lack of bowel control that I read on the Internet can be associated with severe Sciatica should kick in.

There is only so much speed I can muster with one good leg and the other trailing a half-step behind and I should not like to shite circles around myself on the way to the loo.

Herself is making small prayers in the hallway, taking down Christmas decorations. The place is starting to look bare.

If it is fine tomorrow, I may attempt to paint the doorsteps, which need a blackening. Thus far, we have not yet found suitable tiles for the floor of the new porch. I suggested a temporary linoleum and two days of ice and snow resulted.

Heat...! At last...!

I received a very welcome text today from Herself, saying that the plumber had rung her at work and said that the heating system had finally been hooked up and was working.

It's been quite cold over the past couple of days with the wind direction swung around to the north-east. So the weekend was promising to be a chilly one, which our stop-gap electric heaters probably wouldn't have suited.

A blast of heat greeted me as I stumbled in the door. It was WONDERFUL!

Now we're heating every room to drive out the cold from the fabric of the building, which has aided the mould growth I've referred to in a previous post. The two "outdoor" cats have been most impressed; the indoor pussycat has fallen in love with the notion of continuous heat.

We'll ease off on the burning of the gas after the weekend. For now we're enjoying the luxury.

Long Hard Day doin' nothing

My two eyes feel like someone is in the back of my head squeezing them by hand to produce something vinegary.

Herself and I sailed off into the lofty heights of a private hospital today to pick up some test results (and almost sailed off into some even higher heights when I suddenly directed her into a change of course in front of an oncoming van... Apologies to the driver who needed a change of underwear before ever having set foot in work!) and as the appointment was for the ungodly hour of 8.00am, we have been out of bed for too many hours already today.

The test results were fine, and weren't for me. The pain behind my eyes is just from the tension of (ironically) a day of not being at work.

Gas company arrived to put in the big yellow fuse. Their jackhammers and JCB with rockbreaker and the ever-popular mole going Thump! Thump! Thump! for hours has set my teeth on edge.

So I'm grumpy.

But you knew that already.

I mean I am noticeably more grumpy than usual.

But I have just found a €5 voucher for Woodies, so that is good. And I managed to load the dishwasher (the labour of it all...!) and get it started. And brought in washing. And mixed a little sand and cement and filled some holes in the side of the house. So maybe all is not as bad as it seems.

Plumbers promise to connect the heating system to the big yellow fuse next week.

Doubtless, I shall improve my humour as the ambient room temperature rises.

Hovering to the shop

I hear this from the end of the driveway as I'm about to walk up and put my key in the door:

Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaa-rp!

The only thing I can think of is that the new hoover has done something diresome. When I open the door, Herself is sitting crosslegged like a yogi, hovering about two feet off the floor.

"What's going on?" I ask, throwing my bag under the stairs and my cap onto the hook.

"Medicine," she says. "Have to have the camera job from the doctor tomorrow. He gave me this stuff to drink the day before. Want to try some?"

"Why not?" sez I, sniffing the contents of the proffered beaker. It tastes slightly minty and of horseshoes. In five minutes time, I too am slightly levitating.

Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaa-aaa-a-rp!

I hover as far as the counter of SuperValu where a woman is asking for sausages for her childrens' school lunch rolls.

"Oh they won't be ready for a while yet," says the assistant, as if the notion of cooking the hot food before the people want to buy it is ridiculous.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asks, as I bob into and out of sight on the other side of the counter.

"Ham, please," I say, throwing a doughy torpedo over the counter at her. I don't much like ham, but I like cheese and the other miscellaneous cold meats less. Then, when she has put the butter and the ham in, I see roast beef. Feck. Too late.

Paaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaa-rp!

I hover over to the top shelf of the display of tissues and take down some packets of designer snot rags. The run of the mill ones are sold out. I resent paying money too much money for tissue paper.

I hover against the wind back down the Avenue and into the Lawn and back home. Herself is no-where to be found.

"Are you about?" I ask the empty air.

"In the bathroom," she says from upstairs. "That stuff is beginning to work properly."

"Oh dear," I say, unwrapping my sandwich. "It's going to be a busy day on the stairs."

Sick Leave

Bored
BORED
BORED
BORED
BORED!

Think I'll put the kettle on.

So, this man goes to the doctor....

Amazing how quickly your six-month duration prescription runs out, especially when you dodged the hard questions about weight and blood pressure the last time because a Locum doctor was on duty.

I gave up drinking alcohol about four or five weeks ago, following my stomach upset, and have lost around a stone and a half (21 pounds, for our American friends; 9.55 Kilos for our Euro pals) since going off the liquid bread. My face has only two chins now instead of three. And bones in it. And I appear to have only one back now.

I know what my doctor is like, though, so I didn't put much faith in making an impression on him with this news.

"Hmmm," he said. I think doctors say that to make a nice noise in their own heads when the ear pieces of the stethoscope are in. "Your blood pressure is kind of okay in that arm anyway."

"I've lost a stone and a half to come here," I said, half-heartedly. "And I've given up booze."

"It's a good idea to cut down," he mumbled, looking at my computerised record.

"Given up entirely," I said. In a moment I would be giving him the paw for a Scooby snack.

"What weight are you now then?" he asked, absently.

I told him.

"How much is that in Kilos?"

"Ah. I don't know. Knew I meant to convert something to something else before I came out.."

We looked at the cheapo model weighing scales under the examination couch. On the dial the maximum it went to was about a stone less than I weigh.

"But I have lost a stone and a half," I tried, one last time.

"Have I ever given you diet pills?"

"What?"

"To lose weight. Have I ever tried you on something?"

"No... I'm losing weight... No beer... Walking..."

He "Hmmmm-ed" again and printed out a prescription for appetite suppressants.

"I'm not likely to use these...."

"Well, if you feel like you want to, you'll have them."

I was so caught on the back foot by all this I paid my €55 to the doctor's receptionist and next door I just handed the prescriptions to the pharmacist. While he filled them he started asking about whether or not I had a rebate card. Then he got me to fill in a form. Then he got me to sign something. Then the fucker asked me for eighty Euro.

"In the name of Jaysus the-most-fucking-merciful!"

I had to use my Laser card to pay for my usual medicine, a pill for my chesty cough, and a rub for my scabby leg. And for those bloody diet pills I now hear give you the droop and make you lick rusty nails.

I'm still not drinking and I'm still losing about four pounds in weight a week.

Bastard doctors.

My health appears to be someone else's wealth.

The Black Cat met a Purple Person

"Four years," the taxi driver says to me, holding up four Sri Lankan fingers. "Four years I worked for Domino's Pizza. I was top driver. I know all the local places."

I had mildly wondered to myself when he was going to ask me where exactly he was bringing me. I had told him the address when we started out.... about ten Euro ago.... and he had repeated it before setting off in the right direction. I supposed that like other taxi drivers he would know where Firhouse was, then ask me where the destination was nearer to home. But no. He knew it already.

"I have friends in all the stations," he said. "Stations"appeared to mean Domino's Pizza shops. I didn't know whether this was the official Domino's term or the Sri Lankan equivalent. My African neighbour complimented me once on tidying up my compound, which I found out meant my garden. Perhaps there was something of this going on.

"I got a fare once," my driver remarked. "He sat right there in the front..." He slapped the front passenger seat, in case I thought the passenger had been sitting on the driver's lap. "And he was amazed that I knew where Cill Cais was. Four years in Domino's Pizza."

He held up the same four fingers and peered at me over his shoulder and a pair of small, square-rimmed glasses. We were stuck in the same immobile traffic I would be stuck in had I not missed the bus by a whisker. With the tip, it cost me the best part of €20 to get home from The Square.

"I'm walking," I announced the next afternoon in work. "There is no way I'm spending another hour and a quarter on a bus journey, or paying €20 for a taxi."

So I found myself in a lather of sweat on the Old Bawn Road at half-past five -- empty buses passing by in the scant traffic (of course!) -- yesterday evening, marching determinedly home. At Killakee I took a shortcut that added ten minutes to the journey. I ended up crossing through the field opposite the house, knuckles dragging through the freshly cut grass, thankful that the front door wasn't another ten yards away because I probably wouldn't have made it.

"Hello, Black Cat," I gasped at himself, and he sitting upright on the garden wall.

Black Cat looked at me in terror. Who was this brow-drenched, purple faced person shambling ominously towards him from this unexpected direction? How did the terrible monster speak with the food monkey's voice? How did the monster's tongue loll out of its mouth so far? Black Cat flattened himself on the wall so only his ears and ever-widening eyes looked over the gate. Then as the stranger showed no signs of turning from his vaguely zig-zagging course towards the front door, Black Cat's nerve went entirely and he fled.

I sat for twenty minutes in an armchair without saying a word. Eventually, the red mist before my eyes lifted. In time -- a long time -- I could move one of my feet.

I hate commuting.

Tonight, I announced I may buy a bicycle.

The cat will only love that one...

At least I have my health

Following on from cheesy dreams and toothache, I found myself on Monday suffering with stomach ache. And when a stomach the size of mine aches, that's a BIG ache!

There's a gastro- bug going around at the moment and I seem to have got a version. It seemed in my case to only exhibit cramps rather than resolving into anything messier. All the same, I was in bed shivering like a jelly by 9.30 and though I went to work yesterday feeling only a little sore, I decided to take today off to chase off the very last of the bug.

Update on the seagulls: Three of us were looking out the window at the puzzling seagulls on Monday when a small brown blob of fluff on webbed feet scuttled across the roof tiles! The pair evidently have at least one chick, possibly two. Yesterday the parents spent quite a long time away but came back in the late afternoon. I suppose they were out shopping.

Early rising 4.00am

Toothache woke me up this morning at 4.00am and I lay there in bed trying to find a comfortable place to put myself until five.

I tried covering my head with a duvet to keep the side of my face warm that was trying to thump on out through my cheek. I fluffed up a pillow and lay my puss on it. I even went to the last resort of draping the soft, cotton fabric of my housecoat -- a sure-fire cure for everything insomniac -- across my head without success.

I have three stumps of teeth that need to be uprooted. Two quite happily attack me from time to time but have been soundly whipped through the careful application of antibiotic treatments and horsepills. The third has, until last night, rested rottenly in peace in my upper mandible somewhere beneath my right eye with only an occasionally inconvenient habit of catching a piece of food in its gory depths. Then this weekend came the feast of sugary drinks, wines, spirits, beers, cakes, buns, biscuits, ice creams, syrups, chocolates and puddings that obviously had it throw in the proverbial towel and start throbbing like a good thing.

This evening, though feeling sleep deprived, I am somewhat more comfortable, back as I am on the pills diet and nicely swaddled in codeine.

If I come by money I shall ask the dentist to apply a gallon of stump killer. Until then, I am not looking forward to my bed.

Home baking

"Have you ever eaten one of my sponge cakes?" Herself asks me, the other evening, as we are watching television.
"Nope," I say, swigging my beer.
"Didn't you know me when I used to bake sponge cakes and butterfly buns and flans and maringues?"
"Er... no."
"I shall make us a sponge cake at the weekend."

Come the weekend there was a crisis of ounces verses grams. I was entertaining my father in the other room and so I couldn't help much.

"Look it up on the Internet," I said.

An hour later I was eating.... something.... sponge-like....

"Do you like it?"
"Er... yes...."

I chewed at the lump of fruit-topped, cream-filled yellowish stuff. Having to chew or gnaw at a sponge cake is probably an indication that it hasn't come out right.

"I think I didn't get the measurements right," she said. "And I think there was something about folding the mixture rather than beating it."

I seprated my upper teeth from my lower ones with an effort, long enough to say:

"No, babe. It's fine, really."

There was a definite clunk when a piece of leftover spong hit the bottom of the kitchen bin. I could feel strange protestations starting up in my gut.

Herself Googled for sponge cake recipes.

"I know what went wrong!" she shouted in to the other room. "I'll make you a proper one tomorrow!"

So, today, I'm eating a wafer-thin sponge-cake that hasn't turned out either. But it is lighter than yesterday's.

"I know where I went wrong. I'll make another one tomorrow that will be right this time. I promise."

My gut is thanking Heaven that we're back at work on Tuesday. It might not have survived an extra day of sponge making.

"You can write about it," Herself said. "On condition you write a sequel when it turns out...."

Watch this space.

I didn't know a nose got indigestion

Fellah on the bus in front of me with long legs looks at the generous amount of space for the legs between the seat in front of me and the seat in front of him, decides, like me, that the back of the seat in front of me is obviously broken which is why it is leaning back on me, sits down and squashes my patient leg.

A patient leg, by the way, is the leg you have to have when you know you are too lazy to move to another seat and you have only started your journey, so its better to stay patient when a long-legged fellah is inadvertantly pushing the back of his seat into your kneecap. Eventually, I managed to crab the leg sideways into a kind of deformed Elvis on stage position which meant *no-one* was likely to sit beside me, although, to be fair, a kind of scarecrow female person (an I.T. student) did sit down briefly on my outside before she figured out a window seat was available elsewhere and moved.

So Daddly Long Legs turns out to have a hair treatment on which, when combined with the fumes from the open window, smells exactly like raw hamburger. A very raw hamburger, bloody and fresh. My nostrils sucked it all up as I sat in my contorted state on my seat.

(Lately, I am beginning to think that the part of my brain which deals with my sense of smell has been entirely overcome with alcohol. I have strange tastes and smells at different times of the day which to me is a reasonable indication of some kind of brain damage.)

To get back to the tale, I actually *like* the smell of raw hamburger, although I would not choose it as a variety of cologne, worn in the hair or otherwise.

It was no surprise to find four Dunnes stores hamburgers defrosting in a microwave oven when I got home then.

But, alas, one at least is trying to make its way back up my neck as I type this. Perhaps it was the association with the bus and the scarecrow person and the hair treatment, because I enjoyed the cooking and eating of my share this evening. Dunnes Stores hamburgers tend not to lodge in my throat, so this is something of a surprise.

I may revisit said burgers later in the night. I hope not.

In any case, I think I may have some colourful dreams because of them. On Sunday night last I ate some cheese before bed and dreamt I (and many people I work with) was called up to serve in an army unit in some kind of national emergency. I liked the camouflage gear and the hand-held electronic device that didn't seem to do anything. I had no idea who the enemy was and when I woke up I found I still don't. Not so much a dream as a general observation then.

I'm off to see what state my sleeping mind is in in the circumstances.

Malodorous passengers make for blue-faced bus journeys

I was on the 49 bus one Saturday morning heading into town and sitting behind a chap who, unfortunately, stank to high Heaven. This wasn't just the sweat of a long night's work, either. It was the stench of maybe weeks, possibly months, of not washing. Bad enough, but there were no other seats on the bus vacant (except for one beside him). My eyes started to tear with the smell and I was thinking about whether or not to get off the bus and catch another one when this girl in her early twenties sat down beside him. I was fascinated, because she busied herself getting a few small items sorted in her handbag, then sat back to enjoy the view through the upper deck windscreen without apparently realising that she was becoming harder to see in the cloud emanating from her fellow passenger. Even worse (I still shudder when I think of it), when yer man got up in Terenure to leave the bus (a cloud of noxious fumes making everyone he passed cough wretchedly), the girl stood up and flopped gratefully into the window seat he had just vacated.

Maybe she had an appointment with an ear nose and throat doctor.

On the 76 the other evening a small family of husband, wife and daughter got on board. The husband, God be good to him, smelled like a cross between a rotten potato and a dead mouse. I swear I held my breath for 40 minutes. I never prayed as much in the past ten years as I did over that journey, asking the Lord to make the next bus stop the one this guy was going to. Finally, in Firhouse, three stops before I was going to bale out, they all departed. I doubt it was to take a bath.

What struck me about these two men was that they were both reasonably, if casually well-dressed. Their hair was shorn very short. From upwind, one would imagine they were quite careful in their hygiene habits.

Obversely (and quite amusing to me) a heavy metal fan got on the bus one afternoon when I was travelling. He had the obligatory black gear on and the long hair and a beard, and you could tell that despite the carefully-fostered "dirty" rebellious look that he had Timoteied and Lynxed most carefully before setting out. His beard was shaggy but clean. His hair was sun-lightened and silky.

Not everyone has heard of the uses of a bar of soap, it seems. Or are there medical conditions out there I've not heard of which reproduce the spud-mouse rot odour? If there's a fund for research I'll send them money.

Dogs don't talk.

Are you alive?

Yes.

Then prove it. Stand up.

Okay. See? I'm standing.

Proves nothing. Can you walk?

I think so. Yes. I'm walking. See?

I can change that.

Oh, fuck off! It's my birthday. Or it was when I started out this morning...

Bet you can't make it to bed in one piece.

Bet I can. And do you know what else?

What?

I'm not going to go to sleep just yet. That'd be just what you want me to do, little doggy. Sleep and dream and worry about things. I think I'll write a bit in my blog and tell the world about you.

So?

So nothing. It isn't all about you, Matey. I may even listen to some music and then go to sleep.

You're a fucking rebel, alright. But I'll still be here in the morning, won't I?

So will I.

Happy Birthday.

Same to you, pal.

Contacting your inner pigeon

When the slightly eccentric looking Blond Woman of a Certain Age sat down and started rooting in her handbag I was already ten minutes into the bus journey and was at the very end of the outer limits of my nerves. I had spent the day in my least favourite work activity -- trying to balance accounts -- and all I wanted to do was get home, get fed, and get sat in my favourite armchair in front of my favourite television programmes.

The scent of Vicks chest rub wafted over the bus passengers from someone down the back.

Blond Lady of a Certain Age lifted a bottle of Benecol to her lips and took a giant swig. Then she opened up a bank letter (Balance more than €5,000 I noted, over her shoulder) before stuffing it back in her purse. Then, unexpectedly, she started eating the segments of an orange out of a tupperware lunchbox.

It was a slightly spoiled orange of the type that lets off a faintly acrid odour but is nonetheless edible.

Then the coughing started from somewhere behind me. A man, with a cough like the call of a wood pigeon:

"Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!"

Oh bugger.

"Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!"

Me nerves.

"Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-HOOOOO!"

Silence.

Thank God.

"Whoo...!"

We all waited for the next "Hoo!" Nothing. There was a palpable sense of relief from those of us not listening through headphones to scritch-scritch-scritching music.

"WHOO-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOOOOO!"

Only forty more minutes to my bus stop.

Next time I see that Blond Woman of a Certain Age I'm going to tell her to keep her oranges to herself. I'll probably get thrown off the bus.

My turn to get the dread Lurgy, or its cousin

Was quite happy to get back to the day job yesterday, until, as it wore on the pressure in my lower jawbone and around my left eye hinted at the return of a seasonal tooth-and-synus problem. Possibly the notion of being in the office led to some involuntary jaw clenching, but as I went through the emails that had accumulated over my prolonged Christmas holiday, I was comfortable enough with what I found there. My colleagues had looked after my mails and the procedures necessary to keep work moving forward admirably.

"Do you suffer with synus?" my boss said when I complained in passing that I was starting to feel bunged up. "Have you any Sinutab? People who suffer with synus swear by Sinutab."

"Well, I have some problems with my teeth that are adding to it," I replied. "Possibly the start of an abcess."

That was enough.

"There's nothing worse than an abcess. You know, the only solution I could find to one was to hold my head under a cold tap for hours at a time?"

I nodded. My boss is prone to migraine, sweet tooth, and other maladies as a result of stress the same as I am. His solutions and stories are always entertaining though.

"I went to the doctor," he said, "And he gave me an injection for the pain. Well, Jesus Christ! I don't know what the drug was, but if someone had two of them you'd have a serious drugs problem in a minute!

"You see that building over there? Well I got home and I was as high as it! Floating!"

He then proceeded to tell me how the dentist had to drill his tooth (without an injection, which, he said, might help spread infection. I didn't quite see that logic, but however.) to relieve the abcess. I was glad I'd already had my dinner.

I got home last night and the pain started up properly. I had a night of half hours -- half an hour covering my face with a blanket. Half an hour sitting on the side of the bed. Half an hour holding my head up. Half an hour lying down. Each new movement relieved some problem or caused another one.

So, no work today. Antibiotics, pain killers, lots of fluids instead. I hope to get back to the office tomorrow.