Day 30- You aren't really into sweets are you?

I feel a bit old fashion walking on the street in my costume so I quickly grab a taxi, although when I arrive to the party my clean face granny chic look (Coco Chanel), is totally 'un-embarrassing' compared to the king in tights and make up, the Dude (a.k.a big Leboswki) in his bathrobe sipping white Russians, Amy Winehouse with her tattoos and huge hair gulping wine, Mary Poppins who couldn’t open her umbrella, Steve Jobs who ate his apple at the end of the night, Russell Brand surrounded by ladies and oh, Dolly Parton doing a line dance. Among the guests who took the dress code seriously (famous icons) there were also Cleopatra, a Pharaoh, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, the White Swan, the Phantom of the opera, prisoners in their stripy suits, Zorro and Audrey Hepburn who was insisting on breakfast at Tiffany’s at 3 am when we said goodbye.          

I order Mulled wine but then realise that sugar was added so I proceed with regular wine and a glass of whiskey at the end of the night- responsible drinking guaranteed and always intercalate with a pint of water (secret to survive parties).

At the time of the cake I skip my piece, Audrey Hepburn who certainly hasn't been reading my blog says: ‘You aren't really into sweets are you? Haven’t seen you eating any of them over the last month’

When our private venue bartender temporarily disappears I walk to the bar upstairs to grab a drink, the bartender asks: ‘Can I see your ID please?’

‘What? Me? ‘Oh come on you can’t be serious.’

‘I need to be certain you can drink whiskey.’

You actually think I am under 21 or you just don’t like my face?’ I ask jokingly

‘I like your face that is why I need to make sure you are 21’

As I search inside my mini purse I say: ‘I don’t any ID on me.’

‘What do you have?’

‘Business cards, credit card.’

‘Can I see the business card?’

I pass it over, he reads: ‘Mindbodychanges, interesting name, I’ll check it out.’  

A few seconds after he hands me the drink.

'Was this an unusual way to ask for my contact?' I might have to go back to my notes on dating..(http://30daysforonlinemenshopping.blogspot.ie/) 

Now, where are those Hungarian cookies? yummmmm

Day 29- Men would definitely end up in a cul du sac, the sea or jumping off cliffs

The sun is shining and I try to soak in as much as I can of its rays in the balcony, breakfast is fresh beetroot, carrot and apple juice and a few slices of sourdough toast with butter washed down with green tea.

Shortly after that I do a little meditation and a yoga session, what a great start of the weekend, sunny days give me energy!

I open the UPC box and see 3 booklets of instructions, a CD, a few cables and a black box. Here’s me thinking I could just plug the box and the wireless world would be at my fingertips..Well no. I still don’t get it how I can have free minutes of international calls when I don’t even have a landline. It’s easy they said, just read the instructions. ‘Read the instructions, does anyone actually do that?’

Some people say that life should come with an instructions manual, but in fairness who would read it? I think most people would be in highly disadvantage towards the ones who would really follow the instructions. What if it was a map? Men would definitely end up in a cul du sac, the sea or jumping off cliffs before touching a map.  

I lay the contents of the box on the ground and unplug the Wimax. ‘Farewell you lazy worker, you are fired and here’s your replacement, would you be so kind to explain it the basics of how this works and get it connected?!’   

My mum calls and I explain her I am in the middle of a hideous task. ‘But you loved puzzles when you were a kid, you could stay hours putting the pieces together’  

‘Sure, I used to play with dolls too and until two years ago I hated whiskey, we grow up and our likes change. Still feel the same dislike towards brussel spouts and cooked carrots though, iac!

Hm my brain cells clutch themselves and pass the word to the surrounding ones but not even one of them is capable of making it work at this moment and I am getting a headache so I plug the Wimax back. This is a task for a Sunday afternoon, may even consider reading the manual.  

Day 28 A shining lady in a hat

At home today to receive my new UPC box. Wimax is a great name for an internet provider but over the last few months it hasn’t been performing.

Txt says: Your package should be with you between 12 and 14:30. Not surprised, 14:30 and still nothing, starving I prepare a quick lunch and as I am about to sit down to eat, he rings: ‘I’ll be at your door in a few minutes.’ I run downstairs and wait for what it seemed like forever, 10 minutes at least, until the courier arrives and I return to my cold lunch.

Later on I drop by the derma saloon to get a quick facial, she leaves me mildly red and shinning plus 100% make up free and with a bad hair day due to the hairband and probably residues of cream in my hair. I feel a bit naked and as I walk across town I beg: ‘I hope I won’t meet anyone I know’. A few meters ahead I bump into M. and his boyfriend A. who is a fashion designer. Nice, from all the people I could have met it needed to be exactly the fashion, extra groomed and always impeccable couple. I have the impression of being under scrutiny and try to hide beyond my hair layers. Now I know what a celebrity must feel when is caught off garde.

My brother, who has a great memory, asks: ‘So what’s the plan for tonight, have you already dressed up as Coco channel?’

‘No, the party is tomorrow; I am in the shops searching for a key item for my costume but I want something nice so that I can wear it again.’

He suggests: ‘What about a mask?’

Ah, he certainly says the right things at the right time.

I buy a really nice hat, put it on straight away and walk home. As i am about to open the front door I notice plenty of activity in the terrace, just beside mine. Suddenly I feel that my garden plants must be thirsty, I open the balcony door and step outside. Cameras, microphones and a film crew seem to be recording a scene pointing at the Jameson distillery tower. The protagonist is a cute tall guy, he smiles on my direction as I water the cacti, the camera man turns my way and then I remember I have no makeup on, in the movie you may see a shining lady in a hat running inside and closing the curtains.  

Day 27- One only comes knocking at the wolf’s door when he is hungry

I am at home making popcorn and roasted chestnuts to bring to the cinema when someone knocks at the door. One only comes knocking at the wolf’s door when he is hungry!   

The neighbour’s kid asks in the softest candid but fake voice: ‘would you like to sponsor me?’

‘Sponsor you to what?’ I ask. ‘Moving out? I've sponsored you last year and you said you would come back with the raffle tickets but you never did and you took my money.’

The kid blushed and left..

I didn't want to sound mean but there are kids and kids and these ones are an absolute nightmare, they respect no one, knock down my plants in the yard and their ball constantly hits the walls and windows even if they have been advised a million times by the management company that they shouldn't be playing in the communal areas. They disturb my group meditations by shouting insults and constantly scream in the corridors. Yes, they are this bad!   

That made me think about my own childhood and how things were so different, the memories of running in the fields, playing with the cats and dogs and the other neighbours kids. There was never an accident as the cars would drive slowing in a street were kids played. With hardly any vigilance we had fun for hours and when it came the time to return home our mums would call. One by one, the kids would be called back home shortly before dinner time to wash up. My neighbour had a parrot that perfectly reproduced the sound of her mum’s voice so she would always be home before us. We respected authority; anyone older than us would make an authoritarian figure to be respected. 

It no longer works like this today. The kids and adolescents I see around Dublin behave like arrogant pricks and have become quite threatening to adults when in groups.
In a way I feel sorry for them as childhood seems to have lost time, space, innocence and safety, not to mention how increasingly fat and unhealthy a large percentage of them has become. Is this real progress?




     

Day 26- what will grow from those seeds?

Half asleep, in the middle of the night I am alerted by a noise in the house, I elbow my boyfriend to say that someone is in. It is a big house with a garden where the bathroom door leads to the private grounds. We both get up and check the area to soon realise that the back door is open. It is pitch dark outside and we can’t see anyone. Walking back in, we lock the door, leave the bathroom light on and return to the room. Soon after, as we both discuss that I must have dreamt,  the shadow moves through the bathroom light and finally appears in the room, passing through the door. He looks a bit like an African witch doctor, in his 50’s, black, tall and thin. His body is covered in white mud and he is wearing brown shorts, his face is painted with black, white and red stripes. He appears to be a really strong spirit who can read into my thoughts. He is mumbling something that sounds like a black magic mantra and as he stares into my eyes he realises that I was expecting him. 

As he launches himself towards me like a ray of light, I immediately punch him and he transforms into a small wooden vase with a lid. I open it and inside there’s a transparent bag, I throw it against the walls of the room in a circular movement, almost like a ritual, always holding the bag and rotating around with it. Then I ask my boyfriend if he can bury that little pot in the garden but mark the spot as from those seeds a spell will grow and I might need to follow up on that.

I wake up on the couch feeling a little confused, ‘wow. That was a crazy hallucination’. A dream within a dream, very odd to fall into such a deep slumber after dinner without even realising that I was falling asleep.

‘Who’s that man? Who’s the boyfriend as I don’t own one’ what will grow from those seeds?’   

While I am writing this entry in the living room, I hear a noise in the corridor of something breaking.  My heart starts beating fast and it takes me a minute to react. Eventually I stand up and in the corridor lies a flower pot that fell from the shelf. I stare at it for a moment and finally lift it up and clean the soil from the carpet. 

I must have put it too close to the edge when I watered it, that is the only reasonable explanation I can find. 

Day 25- I kind of like clouds, they look like fluffy marshmallows

Whoever said that money doesn't buy you happiness obviously didn't like travelling, buying books, snorkelling in crystal clear waters or the taste of organic apples.

When people learn that I am originally from Portugal they ask surprised: ‘What are you doing in cold, raining Ireland?’  That is a good question, I reply.

Coming to Ireland was a mistake; the European Union messed up my application for a pos-graduation programme to study gipsy communities in Hungary and instead sent me to Ireland to work with emigrants. This was over 12 years ago, I've left three times to live in different countries but the spell always finds a way to bring me back (suggestions on how to break spells genuinely accepted).  

I long for warm summers, mild springs and autumns and the sense of seasons that lasts longer than a few hours and preferably not all in one day.

Can I live in a nice cottage by the beach in Portugal and still have enough money to travel and buy everything I want or the cottage comes with a chain to the sun and not enough money to buy books (the country is quite bankrupt at the moment).

Regular doses of sun and a life short of cash or enough cash but no sun, that’s the question? I am not good at choosing and I challenge whoever said you can’t have it all; I don’t want to abdicate one for the other.

After today’s promotion it appears that I've sold my soul to the grey skies for another season but if I use it wisely to save some cash, grow the business, write books and expand, in the near future that may buy me a residential area at the sun.

How willing are you to sacrifice instant gratification for a long term goal? 

Are you ready for your marshmallow test? Walter Mischel is an American psychologist best known for his ground-breaking study on delayed gratification known as “the marshmallow test.”

Walter seated preschool-age children at a table with a marshmallow and, before exiting the room, presented them with a choice: either (1) to ring a bell to call the researcher back and, upon his return, consume the single marshmallow or (2) to wait until the researcher’s voluntary return and be rewarded with two marshmallows. While some children were unable to wait a full minute (“low delayers”), others were able to wait up to 20 (“high delayers”) by employing various distraction techniques (e.g., covering their eyes with their hands, singing, and turning around in their chairs) to avoid looking at the tempting object.

Upon repeating the test, Mischel advised the children to think of the treats as something inedible (e.g., cotton balls), which dramatically improved impulse control. Follow-up studies, conducted later in life via self-report, further showed that high delayers achieved greater academic success better health and more-positive relationships. His research demonstrated not only that willpower can be learned but also that it seems to be “a protective buffer against the development of all kinds of vulnerabilities later in life,” as Mischel concluded, thereby implying that self-control is key to both academic and personal success.

  

For now I realise that I kind of like clouds, they look like fluffy marshmallows and make beautiful skies.   

Day 24 There is always one

Whenever I go, whether it is a concert, a talk, the tram trip or the airport, there’s always one disturbing element that tries and sometimes achieves to ruin it all for the ones around.

At times there is pivotal entity of power that puts an end to our misery, normally the bouncer or the driver but in numerous other circumstances there is none.

When someone shouts during a mellow gig or constantly interrupts with absurd interventions during a talk I really want to take the lead and ask them to stop, but I also realise that I am of small built and not too intimidating so I grid my teeth and hope someone bigger will persuade the disturbing element to hold their horses and behave. (without recurring to violence).   

In situations when no one intervenes, I feel the anger creeping in, and then a voice whispers ‘you are a spiritual person, you shouldn't let it upset you.’ ‘The hell with you’ I reply, ‘I am spiritual but I am not deaf, this is just pure rudeness and disrespect and it needs to stop’.  

There is a believe that if you are a pacifist and follow a spiritual path you should disregard these ‘minor’ inconveniences but I don’t bite this theory, at least not in all circumstances but don’t get me wrong I am not the Hitler of silence here.

I value self expression but also respect, there’s a difficult balance between both sometimes, as my neighbour’s 3 am self expression in terms of loud music doesn't really agree with my need to be deeply asleep at that time in the morning. 

Now the strategy is to use persuasion techniques to make it stop. I've read a book called ‘Flipnosis, the art of split-second persuasion’, by Kevin Dutton, in it Kevin provides some interesting examples of smart thinking.

Air Hostess: ‘Please fasten your seatbelt before take-off’

Muhammad Ali: ‘I am superman, superman doesn't need a seatbelt’

Air Hostess: ‘Superman doesn't need to travel by plane’

Sipping double valerian tea and eating some raw cocoa and berries bombs my heart starts beating to the music, tum tum tum tum tum tum tum oh god, I’ll give him half an hour and then will go over to ask him to lower the volume, in my Snoopy pyjama, teddy bear under my arm and sleepy eyes (that is as far as persuasive as can be in this situation).  

  

If it doesn't work, I’ll resign to wearing two pairs of earplugs but might feel like making a smoothie at 7 am (my juicer sounds like an earthquake).