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Michelle Dooley Mahon

@shellakeypookey

6 Feb

1. Here's my 90yo Da Tom, on the squeezebox of a Saturday evening - wondering when he'll get his #vaccine
I just got him peg paste and rosin to tune up his fiddles to keep him busy
And brought fish & chips
Then found 9 accordions in a press looking for biscuits
9
I know, right?

2. I was stunned
It also explains why he built the press in the first place
With random pieces of wood he has finagled from gatchin with lads on building sites & from a quiet #Leitrim man who is his son in law
"Christ he's gone with the new lengths - he sighs
"Fuck it anyway"

The wood, beams, laths & beading are stored in the downstairs Jacks. He demolished and rebuilt his kitchen at 89. And now he's raging. So he keeps re-building then dismantling the units. He has a white box with acres of light and a raised step. You built your own stage says I.

Read 11 tweets

Michelle Dooley Mahon

@shellakeypookey

18 Jan

My Da Tom (90) is coping with #Lockdown3 by consuming ribs & cabbage, marmalade & soda bread, fancy cakes & tay, drawing, painting, playing his fiddle, reading papers, watching snooker, scrolling through Facebook & Insta, playing with dogs & strong whiskey every night.
#Legend

Here is his fridge.
The dude with the fag is called "Lucas Batteries"
He has been drawing him for his whole life.
On school copy books, hotel napkins, and the backs of envelopes.
And on one memorable occasion with a blue marker on a glass door.
"I always give him a #smoke!"
✒️

I bought him a canvas and lent him his late brothers painting set. Filled with colours and brushes, rulers and the nub of a little yellow pencil.
He did this with a sharpie and wax crayons I also brought
And stuck those elves on with Superglue
He tells me it's done an hour later.

Read 10 tweets

Michelle Dooley Mahon

@shellakeypookey

17 Jan

@KathyBurke

@KathyBurke So I hear rustling in the press under the sink.
And say to Val - there's that mouse.
I bang hard on the door and open it. I gingerly extract the Hunky Dorys (assorted) from where I've hidden them on my sedated self. Christ, I announce. The 2 bags of cheese and onion are empty! 🧀

@KathyBurke

@KathyBurke 2. And Val (Professor Clouseau) announces it could be a fault in the factory & bag wasn't filled
Ahem
Well, how do you explain this then? & present the arse of a Ryan's Sliced pan from the cooker I use as a shelf
The corner is gone and there are 2 tiny circles of bread missing.

@KathyBurke

@KathyBurke @valerievaleraaa 3. She examines the packet minutely for minutes. Ah, says she. This isn't chewed, it's been burnt on the ring while you made coffee. Dear reader, I believed her. Until I found mouse shit on top of the microwave. There's a mouse in this house I announce to Imogen who tells me to

Read 7 tweets

Michelle Dooley Mahon

@shellakeypookey

20 Oct 20

Pre-set in the wardrobe while the audience is seated.
The rustle of coats and coughs.
Listening to the front row was like being at my own wake
"Oh, she's ALWAYS been a divil, she got me thrun out of the school choir!"
This is the face of fear as I try to remember the opening line

It's "Jazus Siobhàn I've a jaw on me like a shovel and the woman who knew the recipe for ice must have died"
My head says jazussiobhanjazussiobhanjazussiobhan endlessly like a mantra. The house lights go down. The coughing stops. The music cue. My stomach turns. Adrenaline rush.

I think I'm having a hypo. Christ, I can hear the sea roaring in my ears. Karen Dalton is wailing like a feral child, singing - Something on your mind - "so you turned all your days into nighttime" Muscle memory on nighttime, touch Siobhan's photo and push open the door smiling.

Read 9 tweets

Michelle Dooley Mahon

@shellakeypookey

23 Aug 20

Some child with a hipster beard moved into the terrace of houses behind me. He has a girl with him. They are completely impervious to the idea of shared space. He wasn't in a wet day when he arrived at my door to ask me to desist feeding birds His beard was visible above the mask

I wondered why throwing bread to a few starving thrushes concerned this lad I have tights older than. I explained it was installed in my muscle memory and to listen to my podcast if he didn't believe me. I was polite and friendly as befits a menopausal dowager with purple hair.

I heard his gf in the yard giving it loads to a dog. Judging by the amount of times she shouted no I ascertained he was in fact named MO. They left him outside to howl all night which started my 2, the 2 next door, the 2 across the road and the one up the street. It was Bedlam.

Read 13 tweets

Michelle Dooley Mahon

@shellakeypookey

6 Aug 20

1. First they were double Dutch. Then I got into the rabbit warren of his head. Then I was actually #addicted #DerekCrozier compiled #Crosaire for 67 years. I stopped doing it the day his last one printed. Tonight I found an envelope in the Attic. rte.ie/archives/2018/…

2. I might mention it took hours of hauling bags, bedlinen, dolls & a succession of Mannequins heads & wigs up a tiny flight of attic steps with murderous beams on bad knees. Working on the mantra "do it like you mean it" I tipped out a handbag I have not seen for a decade and

3. this was in a procession of receipts, tickets, old lipsticks and coins. "What in the name of Jazus is a bit of old newspaper doin here?" says I in a flop sweat lifting a tangle of purple hair off my hot neck in the breeze from the velux. 6 days a week for 67 years is 20,971

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