No two days are the same, and if one day is really really good, you kind of can guess that the next day won’t be like that. I know someone who would not go to the same place twice, a place where it was really nice, just in case the second time might not be as good as the first time, which would take away the good memories. Personally, I would take the risk – and, there is a chance that the second time might be even better. On the other hand, since you know this one is good, there’s no need to try again – you’d be better off trying something different, it’s more fun, more adventurous, more exciting. Repeating what is good becomes routine: it’s safe and predictable, but, essentially, boring.

Pádraig has been and is anything but boring. He’d go for something new, exciting, unknown, adventurous. (But then again, someone wrote saying he was playing the same two songs for one full year again, and again, and again, NONSTOP. And he had witnesses! – at least that is what he said.) So, today was not like yesterday – no surprising and encouraging hand movements today. (We all knew this was not going to happen again today, right?) But I showed RTE and German TV news to him, and, for whatever reason, I felt he was following the pictures with his ‘good’ left eye. He even opened the right eye for a good while. I could have been just the light coming out of the iPad shining into his eyes, but even a reaction to just the changing light from the small monitor would be brilliant.

And then, when I turned around, there they were. They looked really odd. Strange. But hand made and fitted. If you were in Beaumont when Pádraig got the ‘mitten’ to protect his hands, and compare these to the high-tech, hand-fitted, tailor-made Terminator-style arm and wrist protectors, you wonder (or maybe not).

I wrote the other day about the three ‘projects’ I was going to work on over the coming weeks (J1 insurance, open season on cyclists on Cape Cod, and lack of rehab facilities in Ireland). Today, I added a fourth ‘strand’ to the mix: I am going to plot a revolution in Ireland. From abroad, as any decent revolution is. If you think about it and look back in history, it is also what any self-respecting-forced-into-exile-patriot used to do.

There were two items in the Irish news, which broke the camel’s back: one was a new study finding that “US firms ‘paid effective tax rate of 2.2% in 2011’”, prepared by comrade Prof James Stewart of the British-protestant Trinity College, and as published by the equally Brit-dominated and Ireland-hating tabloid The Irish Times yesterday. The study even suggested parallels between Ireland and Bermuda – which went a bit to far I thought. Ireland and Iceland – maybe (the only difference between these two is the ‘c’) . But, come on, Ireland and Bermuda??? Hello???

Never mind the people trying to convince you that the tax is “much higher” , or that it was next to impossible to establish what it effectively is; it’s not that difficult to establish, and it is quite well known. The other bit of news was that more than 2,500 children are waiting for HSE mental health services, 413 for more than a year – more than a year.  Sounds so familiar. It’s time to stop complaining and to do something positive.

Are you in?

In the meantime, and just in case you’d be looking for a nice coffee on Sunday, in even nicer company (you could spread the word there):

16 February Coffee Morning for Pádraig Schäler
Aideen Cassidy
12h00 – 15h00
26 Iona Drive
Dublin 9

Today’s German Music Tip
Christina Stürmer, Engel fliegen einsam (Lebe Lauter Live Tour 2007).

What’s hot
craft
What’s cold
machines
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Na, wenn es sein muss…!

Twitter: @forPadraig
#caringforPadraig
http://www.caringforPadraig.org
Upcoming events: http://www.caringforPadraig.org/events