Monday, February 28, 2011

Ice, Ireland and Illness

Was off to Ireland on  Monday. Tickets purchased 6 months ago. The day finally arrived to fly away to my favorite place to see friends' new babies and grandbabies and to tap my toes to the Miko Russell music fest craic.  The morning was covered by three inches of ice. Airport closed. Couldn't get out for a week and well, had to be back before then. Got all my money back, or most of it, after haggling for nearly said week.

The day my trip was cancelled, I learned my father has a terminal kidney disease...at 10 that night. Strangely I had a dream the night before about being in a hospital, seeing cancer cells that were these strange black bugs eating away at cells under a microscope. So I knew...somehow. I always have these kinds of visions before these things happen. Wrote a poem about my brother's death a month before he died. First line, I wish it was someone I didn't know outside of a newspaper report. Last line: But it's my brother.

So, will be going to see my dad. I won't have much time with him because of well, better not even go there.

But I will be able to hug him and maybe play our favorite claw game where you try to pick up stuffed toys from a rigged machine. I have the top game, having picked up three toys in one lift once. it's just something my dad and I do. And we also play Backgammon and use the doubling cube and gamble. I taught him to play and even if he only has a million to one chance of winning, he will accept the cube. Thus, I usually win some big extra cash and get a lot of giggles out of it.  He calls me a lucky shit. I am. I have my dad still.

It's been a bit of a tough go. But I did get a DVD of He Died with a Felafel in his Hand and will watch it soon on my first 43 inch flatscreen TV purchased with saved money from canceled trip. And I will laugh, I am certain. It's a big flippin tv, I'll say that. Go big and then go home!

Anyways, i was a bit down about not getting to go to Ireland and then I was reminded about what really, really matters. The people you love most....

4 comments:

  1. That movie is... odd. Probably from having lived through that stuff, then seen the book (and contributed stories) and so forth.

    The grunge and the weirdness onscreen is actually a little smaller than life. They left out the really sticky, horrid stuff. On the other hand, the narrative arc is much neater than reality. And yet the thematic lessons and the underlying morals are very close to the ones that John and myself and many others took away from those difficult years.

    It's strange to see the funhouse mirrors turned on your life, and then offered up to the world as truth or entertainment, or both.

    I'll keep trying to find the book over here. Much as I like John, that Amazon price you quoted is fearsome!

    ReplyDelete
  2. yes, it IS odd but the one liners at times rival Princess Bride. it is indeed a bit dark and sardonic and sometimes discombobulated...

    Great for a depressing rainy day tho..

    Laughed audibly several times.

    But yeah, youth is all a bit one or two off, eh?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Themes are the best part of the film, delivered in humorous ways...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tough subject, but so well written.

    All my best,

    Pearl

    ReplyDelete