Careers advice for vampires...

My two sons have decided on vampirism as a career path.
Up until last week my oldest was keen on becoming a rock star. My middle lad had his eye on a job within the ranks of Translink as a part time train driver with a spot of superhero work at the weekends. I had hoped they’d become an accountant and a bank manager, but what can you do?
This week, after getting all dolled up as the undead for a school Halloween party the pair have had their heads turned by the thought of a career within the blood sucking community.
I suppose it was the whole immortality, being a creature of the night, morphing into a bat, looking fierce while wearing a fancy black cape that attracted them to the particular profession. If I’m honest I’d say being an accountant would be boring in comparison.
I, of course, will support them in any way I can. I even went online to inquire as to how one actually becomes a vampire. Oddly I couldn’t find any courses available at our local tech. The only thing similar was a 10-week online course entitled ‘Vampires, Werewolves, Ghosts and Witches Legend and Reality’ available on the government’s careers advice website.
Now I don’t think the course has any practical elements. It probably involves a lot of chatting about vampires instead of actually tutoring people on how to properly and professional extract blood for consumption. My boys would really need to know the ins and outs of steering clear of wooden stakes, avoiding garlic cloves, holy water and sunlight and also how to see adequately in the dark.
I’d say they’re on the right road with regards primary training at the moment – frequently moping around during the day looking miserable, wanting to stay up all night and randomly hissing at people. And they have been honing their scare tactics by jumping out of cupboards roaring “ARGGHHHH!!!” at Granny.
I haven’t told them that one of the main elements on the vampire job description form is that they have to drink actual blood – no more lasagne, chips or pizza for them. It’ll save me a fortune in grocery bills.
However, if they do decide to give up on the vampire career they could always use their training elsewhere.
They might think of following another career which requires a stony cold heart and blood sucking abilities and become traffic wardens. (I kid, some of my best friends are traffic wardens)

The budster

So I am severely allergic to our dog. That's him there looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.
I honestly thought that the wheezing, itching and sneezing was a natural reaction when faced with an animal who chews up your soft furnishings and clothes. I asked the doctor if contempt can manifest itself into an allergic reaction for I’ve been feeling kind of funny since the dog dragged my beautiful, brand new winter boots into the garden and chewed off their gloriously high heels.
I’m allergic to a lot of things it turns out – pollen, dust, getting out of bed, annoyingly cheery people. Ironically I think I’m allergic to Periton, the allergy cure. I usually take the tablets but one morning last week I couldn’t find them so I took a few big gulps from the bottle of the kid’s version that’s been in our bathroom cabinet since 2005. Then I drove to a meeting. A proper grown up meeting that required all present be reasonably alert, of rational mind and at the very least awake. I fell down on the last two categories, and almost fell down in reality.
I may have overdosed, it may well have been past if use by date but I think the last time I felt that jolly, that nicely drunk, was when an old friend of mine made poteen in his father’s shed in Carnhill, circa 1994. There was a bit of double vision, a bit of gentle swaying when standing upright, there were a few jibberish rantings, a bit of dramatic wincing when going outdoors and a lot of hiding behind sunglasses muttering stuff about going home to sleep this off.
Thank God the people I met where long-time clients of they may well have thought I was off my head.
I’ve told the husband that it’s either me or the dog, one of us has to be kept permanently outside. He says he’ll paint the kennel interior a nice lilac colour and stick up a few pictures to make it more homely for me….

AWOL Teddy

I’m reporting from CSI Foyle this week where I’ve had to file an APB for our beloved Teddy who has been mysteriously missing since Monday last.
I had thought about calling the police, after reading of an Australian girl who had a crack team of cops hunting for the teddy she lost at a railway station in Melbourne. But then I thought that me having to spend the night in Strand Road barracks on a charge of wasting police time might only serve to add to the obvious trauma my 4-year-old was already facing.
Teddy is a standard issue brown ted with one eye missing, floppy limbs and a scraggy disposition. He was last seen on the roof of our car outside granny’s house – the husband thinks he put him there while he belted the boys in. When the car arrived at our house, rather surprisingly, Teddy had apparently not survived the journey and disappeared.
This left us with a distance of around four miles to cover in our bear hunt – not the easiest of tasks to complete at bedtime with a car full of inconsolable children on a cold, dark, rainy night.
After a restless night where Caolan woke every 15 minutes shouting ‘TEDDY!!!’ in what I felt was an overly dramatic fashion we checked all the usual places Teddy has been found previously – next door neighbour’s trees, the roof of the house, the bin, under the muck heap in the garden, the fridge, the dog’s kennel, under the wheels of the car – but he was nowhere to be seen. We even checked the dog’s teeth for telltale bits of fluff and chewed fur.
Granny put the neighbours on level seven alert, describing teddy to one as, and I quote, “this old moth-eating looking thing with only one eye,” as Caolan sobbed beside her reeling in shock at her blatant disrespect.
As we contemplated fashioning some missing posters I recalled a story I read a few years back about a young couple, their little boy and a teddy who was thrown over the side of a safety rail on a steep embankment during a tantrum.
The mum climbed over the safety rail to rescue said Ted and tumbled down a steep 300ft hillside. The da, seeing the missus unconscious at the bottom of the decline, also climbed over the rail, slid down in the same fashion and knocked himself out. A passer-by had to call the emergency services who airlifted the crazy injured parents to hospital, saved the teddy bear and took the little boy to safety.
It’s amazing the lengths parents will go to to save their kid’s furry friends.
If anyone has seen teddy let me know.

I spend an unhealthy amount of time in a state of bewilderment at why boys do what they do.
Being a girl and all I can’t for the life of me see the big attraction in digging holes, smashing stuff, karate kicks, jumping off things or hitting stuff with sticks. For me hanging upside down from trees or throwing stones does not a good time make. Maybe I have just forgotten what it’s like to be a kid.
Mum and I were clearing a wardrobe in my younger brother’s room last week when we found a photo album. The album was full of the usual cutesy photos of my kid brother in which there was a bit of a recurring theme. As a boy he seemed to always accessorise his outfits with some sort of plaster cast or bandages. Broken legs, broken arms, staved fingers, concussions, bruised heads, broken noses. My poor mother spent so much time in the casualty department that they were actually going to start charging her rent.
I’m not saying it was all of his own doing. There was one incident when I thought it would be a great idea to create our own indoor adventure centre using a baby bath, a belt and a set of stairs. I felt he would be better suited for the dummy run so I strapped him in and sent him hurtling down the stairs at high speed. A concussion followed. Surprisingly my mother was not even remotely impressed at my innovative play ideas or my creative construction of the bath/slide and more concerned that my brother was still breathing.
Had she stopped screaming for just one minute, looked at the bigger picture and maybe tried a little praise I may well have be the chief engineer at Disneyland today. It’s their loss.
And the injured party was fine. He has gone on to become a famous concert pianist. In fact I could probably take the credit for knocking some sense into him. Before the bath incident the boy had strong aspirations of becoming a snooker player.
My own middle child has obviously inherited the clumsy genes from his uncle.
The child is incapable of finishing a week at school without some sort of physical injury. Last week he jumped off a wall and when I arrived to pick him up a scene reminiscent of Rambo greeted me. The boy was up on the counter trying to be brave while a teacher dabbed his busted knee. There were bloody paper towels strewn everywhere. This week the boy fell flat on his face in the playground and has a purple bump the size of an egg on his forehead. He spent his lunch hour with a family-size bag of frozen Rancho-style chips attached to the injury.
I fear the school might have to draft in a crack team of security personnel to protect the boy from himself.
Unlike his uncle he’s not quite a level seven injury magnet yet, Cathal’s calamity crown is safe – in the past few years he has slept through the Madrid bomb when it smashed all the windows at the front of his house, wrote off his SUV in a snowstorm the US and managed to escape injury when the steering wheel of his car actually came off in his hands while driving to Donegal. Those are some big shoes to fill.

Paper plate mate

Caolan has a new friend called‘Joe’. Caolan is a human child. Joe is a paper plate.
How the two became such firm acquaintances I do not know. The kids made them in nursery, stuck fluff on for hair, plastic eyes and smiley mouth. Now Joe is one of the most important people in Caolan’s life.
They have very little in common. Caolan lives, breathes, has a wonderful character and a sparking personality, Joe is a paper plate. He’s not even one of those fancy paper plates with the grooves around the edges, he’s just plain.
They don’t converse. Caolan talks to Joe about his day, his toys and asks his opinion on things. Joe just sits there being a paper plate, he never answers back.
We are now taken to task by Caolan about Joe’s human or perhaps paper plate rights. “His NAME is JOE!” he shouts when we disrespect him by referring to him as a paper plate man, or ‘that plate’
Caolan is now so attached he can’t go anywhere without Joe. We have to take it into town, to people’s houses, on car rides. Yesterday Granny mistook Joe for a regular paper plate and threw him in the bin. Caolan almost went crazy and fished poor Joe from the murky depths of the bin. He now has an air of eggs, teabags and bananas about him.
I fear Caolan and Joe’s relationship might not last the distance. Paper plates have a limited life expectancy and it’s only a matter of time before the dog eats it, especially now since Joe smells of rotting food.
Our boy may have to learn some tough life lessons – humans make better mates than paper plates…