(no subject)
It was my niece's birthday yesterday. It was sad though because my sister couldn't be there because she was taking care of a friend of hers who turned up the other day. This is a girl my sister lived with for two years in London, and is now going through a psychotic episode. I'm not even talking figuratively here, she's not coming out of a bad relationship or having issues with anyone, there's something wrong with her brain and she's trapped in a horrific dreamworld with no way of distinguishing reality from delusion. My sister was keeping her calm yesterday while my dad drove them around going through the eight hours of sitting around to fill in paperwork to go wait for another couple of hours to get checked into a psychiatric hospital. The friend's apparently OK as long as she's taking her medication, but has broken a couple of times before because she's figured she's ok and stopped taking her medication. It's pretty nasty business.
Silvie's birthday party went ahead though, and it had been explained to her that her Mum's friend was sick and Aoife had to take her to the hospital to look after her, so the child got the scenario and didn't have to be bullshitted to. She did come up with her own little premise though. She thought Aoife's friend had hurt her foot. This isn't out of nowhere, it's an inductive fallacy: Silvie has a guinea pig, and it hurt its leg a while back and had to be taken to the vet, which Aoife described as the Hospital so that Silvie would understand the concept in human terms. A friend of Aoife's also broke his leg earlier in the year, so Silvie has inferred that the hospital is where you go when you've hurt your foot. It's a more comforting thought than psychosis, which even frightens me somewhat. Anyway, I went along to that after work (another six-day week) and hung around occasionally doing things to amuse the kids. Aoife turned up around ten in the evening, and while the cake had been cut by then, the presents from Aoife to Silvie were still wrapped, so my niece is now a four year old girl with a Barbie scooter and a little guitar. And someone else got her Play Doh stuff, so that's going into every fibre or porous surface in the house.
On an unrelated note: I got a DS Lite today. I traded in my old DS at GameStop and paid €80 for a black DS Lite. Don't know how much of an upgrade it is really, but the stylus is more comfortable and the screen does seem a bit better, although that might just be because it's not scratched up (I put a screen protector thing on, but that still gets scratched and affects visibility). They also had a deal there where you can get a preowned PS2, any new game, and a wireless controller for €99, so I got Shadow of the Collossus. Also picked up We Love Katamari. Oh, and I called in to Suzie at her work and dropped off a Hughes (from Full Metal Alchemist) keyring I got her when I was in Chicago. Chatted with her for a while and hit on one of her colleagues, so that was nice.
Silvie's birthday party went ahead though, and it had been explained to her that her Mum's friend was sick and Aoife had to take her to the hospital to look after her, so the child got the scenario and didn't have to be bullshitted to. She did come up with her own little premise though. She thought Aoife's friend had hurt her foot. This isn't out of nowhere, it's an inductive fallacy: Silvie has a guinea pig, and it hurt its leg a while back and had to be taken to the vet, which Aoife described as the Hospital so that Silvie would understand the concept in human terms. A friend of Aoife's also broke his leg earlier in the year, so Silvie has inferred that the hospital is where you go when you've hurt your foot. It's a more comforting thought than psychosis, which even frightens me somewhat. Anyway, I went along to that after work (another six-day week) and hung around occasionally doing things to amuse the kids. Aoife turned up around ten in the evening, and while the cake had been cut by then, the presents from Aoife to Silvie were still wrapped, so my niece is now a four year old girl with a Barbie scooter and a little guitar. And someone else got her Play Doh stuff, so that's going into every fibre or porous surface in the house.
On an unrelated note: I got a DS Lite today. I traded in my old DS at GameStop and paid €80 for a black DS Lite. Don't know how much of an upgrade it is really, but the stylus is more comfortable and the screen does seem a bit better, although that might just be because it's not scratched up (I put a screen protector thing on, but that still gets scratched and affects visibility). They also had a deal there where you can get a preowned PS2, any new game, and a wireless controller for €99, so I got Shadow of the Collossus. Also picked up We Love Katamari. Oh, and I called in to Suzie at her work and dropped off a Hughes (from Full Metal Alchemist) keyring I got her when I was in Chicago. Chatted with her for a while and hit on one of her colleagues, so that was nice.