Celebs

My new tenant is due to move in today. I think I went a bit overboard with the bleach in his shower room in a bid to hasten the pristine effect. A chambermaid I’m not and I’m retiring from cleaning duties now, it’s been far too vigorous a morning for someone who’s been out late. Midnight on a Wednesday is the new late; I think some of you might agree.

At least it was a sort of cerebral-oriented evening with a modicum of drinking and a lot of thinking. My friend from Virginia, whom we’ll call Annie as in Get Your Gun, because she shoots, invited me to The Picture of Dorian Gray at the Stephen’s Green Club. Only it was cancelled last minute due to poor booking, now that’s a shame for the actors. I was in my LBD ready for town when I got the message, followed by another message from Blonde Racquel asking if I could take a spare table at a fundraising Quiz in the Four Seasons. Trivia Heaven, Annie and her husband joined me. She and I pooled our American and European trivia and managed to finish ahead of some tech companies, while the big law firms topped the polls most of the evening, until finally the bragging rights went to Racquel’s table, with a trophy and an incomprehensible smart phone each. She’d been hoping to come 2^nd for the Brown Thomas vouchers, suffice to say the modicum of wine transmuted into celebratory drinks.

Back in landladyland, I’ve just shown the bedroom to the acupuncturist/cranial sacral therapist, and I am mighty intrigued about his work. Whatever about him moving in if friend moves back to city life soon, I think I’d book in for a treatment, though I don’t think I was delivered  by forceps (you can have cranial issues if you had a traumatic birth), it’s all about getting your body back in line, your organs in balance, that sort of thing. He was very convincing.

My Queen of Hearts Cake by Clarice (not her real name!)

I need to plan a lunch for tomorrow afternoon. The sodden weather we’re having has put me right off doing any actual shopping for it today and I‘m hoping for a Nigella moment tomorrow. It’s an early birthday lunch, there are two birthdays in the house in March and then there’s Mother’s Day, we’re going to have to assess the hierarchical options. Chronologically, Mother’s Day and mine come first; cost centre #2 was due on my birthday. Gratifyingly, he did me the favour of arriving nine days late and has taken his leisure with everything since, waiting until his leaving cert before becoming remotely punctual and communicable.

I have to admit to being a birthday diva, as many of my friends will testify. It is one day when you can be cheered up unconditionally. Mine is a bit of a non-event this year, not ending in a zero or a five, but still I want to see friends for lunch and not put any of us to a restaurant expense.

I thought I might have dinner with Absentee BF on the day. The permutations of flights and effort didn’t do it for me. Instead, I’m going to go out next week with the girls who can’t get play dates for tomorrow. Yes, most of my friends have small children, while mine are like bodyguards. Thankfully, those coming only need play-dates for themselves.

So cost centre #2 will be twenty-one on the 21^st. Another cause for celebration, and being the stoic philosopher he is, wants nothing to do with it. Mother still has to celebrate the day she gave birth to him. You may have guessed by now that I live alone with my sons. And that is for the last fifteen years. Their dad has been living abroad all that time. So, better get my own out of the way and plan the big one.

Let the Skyfall

Oh the temptation, my latest enquiry is from an acupuncturist with some other esoteric speciality like cranial sacral therapy and he's studying Chinese medicine,  imagine having that on hand, in your actual house.  It's only just dawned on me, what I need to advertise for is a tenant who's a personal trainer, facialist, hairdresser and wardrobe stylist, with a car and we can share driving each other (not mad). I'd actually cut the rent in half for all that. Whereas what I really need is a damn publisher and concentrate on writing the next book. You see this is a bit of a dream world, in which a blog becomes a vehicle for all your wishes and you can try that whole visualising thing, where dreams are made real.

So, I should begin the letter from an Irish mother to her second son.... ‘I'm sorry pet but reinstatement to your room might have to wait. And because you're such an understanding, insightful philosophical student with a sharp grasp of economics you'll get this and thank me for it one day. It will give you the hunger to strive, to achieve, to buy that brownstone in New York with the granny flat.’

Ironically, first son much prefers his new arrangement in the penthouse/attic, he has a much bigger space, a TV his brother has to request use of and, worst of all, with no spare room for his visiting girlfriend she has nowhere else to stay other than his room. And I don’t think he’s sleeping on the sofa.

Lodger No.2 is excited about a house he's just seen in Ranelagh, sharing with a photographer, very cool place he says, I think it's the right move, for all of us. And he wants us to stay friends, it was a short reasonably pleasant lesson for both of us. And the boiler miraculously started working again today before the engineer came, bringing all the relief I needed that both lodgers will be warm and, hopefully, happy.

So, while the chicken lickens run amok telling us the sky will fall in, we will admire the horizon where the sea that separates us from the rest of the world meets the sky that hovers over all of us and only look at the blue bits.