Identified flying objects

What is it about my third-floor balcony that objects both animate and inanimate appear to have this irresistible urge to hurl themselves off it and into the void below?

One such apparent suicide featured our large, green parasol, which lifted itself clean out of the middle of the table and over the balustrade mid-meal as we and our lunch guests looked on, our mouths agape. It then floated down Mary Poppins-like to the garden below in a somewhat surreal slow motion, surviving its unexpected flight with just a broken rib.

Of course, I then had to go and ring on our ground floor neighbours’ door and ask for it back, trying to look nonchalant as I first walked through their flat and then took the lift upstairs holding a slightly muddy and bent seven-foot parasol.

All This Positive Thinking And Affirmations Are All Mumbo Jumbo

My world, the little bubble that envelops me, is one where to allow my mind to frequent the negative currents of thought only leads me to a place where illness and unhappiness prevail . . . this is not a place I delight being in. I have seen spatterings of similar thinkings pasted all over social media akin to Banky’s work. You either get it, or you don’t.

You need what?!

The new school year here in France somehow wouldn’t be the same without a long list of back-to-school supplies.

When I was at school, shortly after the invention of the printing press, the only thing my parents had to fork out at the start of the year was a roll of adhesive film to cover my textbooks. Since I went to a comprehensive school, I sometimes had to make do with present-wrapping paper. Or, one memorable time shortly after their divorce, leftover wallpaper.

It somehow brings Monty Python’s ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch to mind: “We was so poor we had to chop down trees ourselves using just our siblings, chew the wood down to pulp between what were left of our teeth, then press it into paper with our bare hands to make our own exercise books. And still teacher would cane us ‘cause the cover were green, not red.”

Yeah, right, Dad

I don’t mind admitting that I’m a bit of an old fuddy-duddy. I’m 50, after all.

Despite my complete lack of understanding of modern youth culture, I do like listening to pop music. It probably doesn’t help that I can’t remember names, although French radio stations rarely bother telling you who or what they are playing. But listening to pop helps relieve the monotony of some of my more mind-numbing chores and makes a refreshing change from the news channels I usually tune into.

Now and again, a song will stick in my head. Or rather, part of it. The lyrics, that is, not my mind.

Such was the case with a song I heard repeatedly this summer, a catchy little number about a woman getting ready to go out for the evening. Her telling of the story would be interspersed with a kind of shouted aside from a backing vocalist; the aforementioned only snippet of the lyrics that lodged itself in my brain: “I don’t take pills!”

The Idiot (thinks) It Is In Charge

You speak your words. 

Yet don’t use your mind. 

You take the lead. 

Yet no-one follows behind. 

You think for others, 

Who are far more capable 

to think for themselves. 

You show them your heaven. 

They see it as their own personal hell. 

You offer your guidance. 

. . . Too close to the cliffs. 

You ask for their hearts. 

So they can be ripped. 

We have all stopped listening 

To your empty promises, your words. 

We have seen through your guise, 

Your falsehoods through your demented verse.

We have cut our strings and set our own course.

 

You have hurt too many. 

And helped to few. 

Now the only one left in your world

....Is

... YOU!

Mornings.

Most mornings, when he first comes out of his room, my 8 year old son finds me wherever I may be in the house. Rubbing his eyes, still clutching the bear blanket lovey he has had since he was born, he only grunts a response to my quiet "good morning."

Then, as is our routine, I sit down and he folds himself into my lap, all angles and bones, and rests there for a few moments, his head resting on my chest. And in that moment, he is as familiar to me as if he were part of me.

The rest of our day, we exist as almost strangers. He's intelligent and curious and prickly and engaging; all boy, full of sports and science experiments. His heroes are Adam and Jamie of Mythbusters. He knows how much TNT is needed to cause a big enough explosion to blow up a cement mixer, what a RPG is. Mom, are you okay if I talk about guns right now? he'll ask me, then proceed to tell me about how a person could save their lives if they just shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand. He knows the numbers of most every football player in the NFL and what position they play. He hates to read stories, but loves nonfiction.

Bro-Science . . You Really Can Make This Shit Up!!

THE ABULATOR BY US FOR YOU!!!!!!

Let us cut to the chase.  I have a fantastic invention that hit the market last week and is selling like hot cakes . . .healthy ones of course.

How would you like to have 6 pack abs in 2 weeks?

Well here at Ab-U-Like we are now able to buy the latest Abulator II.

The Abulator II actually increases the body's ability to build solid muscle in 28.7 minutes.  It does this by hightening crentallin mesaphotyte production from the adipose tissue, which dissolves fat like soap killing bubbles in your bubble bath (we don't know how that works, I mean bubbles are made of soap so how does soap do it?  Witchcraft is what our scientist believe).