Patriots drop the ball in conference final; woman in Dublin is annoyed

I am more than disappointed, yet less than angry about the Patriots' loss to the Ravens last night.  I am annoyed.  I am annoyed that the team that looked unusually vulnerable and not so quite put together at the beginning of the season fooled me into believing they were the powerhouse of yesteryears.  I am annoyed that I did not even think of the possibility of them not going to the Super Bowl again, especially one without a Manning on the other team, and not winning.  I am annoyed at myself for believing all the hype about Tom Brady, but also annoyed at Tom Brady for being as good as they say, just not when you really, really need him to be.  Also, Vince Wilfork, where were you?  And Gronk, we missed you, but I don't think you could have helped, especially when the thug that took you out of the game was trying to kill Stevan Ridley.  Yes, I mean you Bernard Pollard!  Someone tell me how an unconscious man can fumble the football?  Mostly I'm annoyed at myself for letting my guard down and thinking the Patriots were unbeatable.  I'm from Boston for God's sake.  I should never expect any team I support to win; be surprised and grateful when they do and not be disappointed or annoyed when they don't.  Go 49ers.

CC at night

I know my cat can take care of herself.  When she first came into our lives she was just past kittenhood (catolescence?) and was hanging around with a clowder of other feral cats somewhere in this neighborhood.  (I got the term clowder from the Big Bang Theory and if you haven't seen the episode with Sheldon's cats, watch this - its zazzy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWhAeI7sGzI)  The cat started coming in our garden for goodness knows what reason - we didn't encourage or feed her and the others at first.  Maybe it was getting crowded in the clowder and she decided 'hey, its a big old neighborhood - let's expand.'  Anyway, she's been with us ever since that April in 2009 when she first showed up and that same June when I came back from holiday and my husband said, 'she just followed me inside, so  I let her sleep here.'

Since then, CC, (crazy cat because of her predeliction for climbing to the very top of trees and trying to catch birds, whom she still hasn't figured out can fly), well, she has become like the child we've never had.  We argue about her like you would a child crying in the night, 'you let her out,'  'no its your turn.'  We talk to her in baby talk (well, really just my husband does that) and I worry about her like you would a child on her first day of kindergaraten or a teenager on her first date.

CC is an indoor/outdoor cat.  Since we don't own our house we can't put an animal flap in the door, so we have to let her in and  out manually.  I have never seen our cat go to the bathroom.  She goes  outside and not in our garden.  She  loves our garden, but being a nocturnal creature, loves it most at night.  So either she goes out when we go to sleep or sleeps with us til 3 or 4 when she starts scratching the box spring, poking one of us in the back with her paw or claw, or as a  last resort, starts running across our pillows and on top of our heads until one of us gets up and lets her out.

When I wake up at 4 or 5 am and my husband has somehow sleptwalked through the process of letting her out without waking me, I begin to worry.  What if it's too wet or cold? What if she's in danger, hungry, being tormented by the rotten children of the neighborhood?  I have heard nightmarish stories about what Irish kids do to cats around Halloween, so now that holiday is destroyed for me because I spend it trying to keep my cat indoors and terrified of what will happen if she goes out. Or, the worst case scenario, what if she has another family she goes to at night? 

There can be reason to worry, though.  Our friends' cat Smokey (whose family's last name is Robinsion - I know Smokey Robinson and CC Gardner - they should form a cat band) -  is like our cat, indoor/outdoor, but comes home every night.  About a month ago, she didn't come home for four days and when she did she was injured and hadn't eaten in days.  Who knows if she got in a fight,  got hit by a car (unlikely, because I think most of these type of cats know to stick to back yards to get around) or something else.  She has recovered from her ordeal and continues to go out.

So I am going to insist that we build her a little warm/dry/safe shelter she can stay in at night during the winter (which has already started here - its 30 degrees right now).  I'd love to get one of those cat cameras to see what she gets up to at night - meeting a secret boyfriend? a kitty coffee klatch? staring at the bushes and trees for six hours until she spots a bird/shrew or bee?  Who knows?  But she has never had a collar so I wouldn't want to put her through that.

I know I worry too much about her.  I worry needlessly about her.  She's a cat.  But cat lovers everywhere will know what I mean.  While my husband doesn't worry about her like I  do, he dotes on her like crazy as do most of his  male friends, especially ones with cats themselves.  I've discovered this demographic of men between the ages  of 23-60, who are addicted t o icanhascheezburger and send cat videos all day and just love cats.  They come over and call her pet names like 'meowzer' and tell my husband 'that's a good-looking cat' or ask, as any woman would about another's child 'is she gettinig bigger?'  Yet, like with most things, the men don't worry so much, especially if they are Irish  - 'ah sure, she'll be fine.  She spent a year in the wild without us. '   Yeah, when she was with her clan - and since when is Donnycarney the wild?

So, of course, he's infuriatingly right. I've been sitting here since 430am for an hour and a half, really worried because its so cold, waiting for her to come  home.  She finally does at 530 and does not feel as cold as one would think she would be.  (She does NOT have a second family!)  I feed her, she eats and immediately wants to go out again!  Ungrateful beast!  Can you imagine what a basket case I would be if I had children? Ugh, the sun is up in an hour - I'm going back to bed.


A few pics of our cat

Spring, Part II

Its 540am and the birds just started singing.  What I think they are saying is 'We should have stayed in Boca for another few weeks; they're not ready for us here.'  After a glorious week of near-summer weather declined into the gray cloudy soup that is present most of the year, the weather hit bottom yesterday afternoon when the temperature plummeted and sheets of icy rain and snow, of all things, came pouring out of the sky. Its April! in Ireland!

Its like watching a re-run of show that you didn't really like the first time around.  You've moved on and you'd rather forget it, but there isn't anything else on tv.  I haven't slept a wink because the neighbors left their burgler light on and it made my bedroom bright and the wind was howling like we're living at the North Pole.  Then, of course, the flights from America starting flying over my house, the alternate route when the weather is bad, at 455am.  Now the cat is bugging me to go out.  I see a wet grumpy cat and a long afternoon nap in my immediate future.


Note:  The wind has died down, the cat stayed in and I got a few hours of sleep.  All is (mostly) back to normal,

Spring

I can only imagine Scandanavia and maybe Alaska and its environs being more depressing  than Dublin in the winter.  The weather doesn't greatly change, it just gets greyer, colder and more oppressive.  So imagine my shock when, in mid-March, the sun started shining and the temperatures hovered in the mid-60's for 6 or 7 days  in a row!  Dublin in the sunshine, for me, is a completely different place - different energy, a different look and its more interesting.  As I usually do when spring is upon us, I have more energy, wanderlust and somewhat more focus - I am getting things done.

I started thinking, and, what probably is obvious to all of you is, I need more sun and more Vitamin D in my life.  Its not Dublin's fault I chose to live here.  Its not Dublin's fault I got sick here and its not Dublins fault that I get depressed here - it doesn't make me get depressed.

Hey look at me being all less negative (positive would really pushing it)!  I quit smoking for 4 months last year and after hacking my way through the last 5 months, I've decided this has to be it.  I quit 5 days ago.  I've been smoking for half of my life, like an idiot, and I'd rather die from Parkinson's stuff than cancer or a heart attack.  So my approach is in reverse this time.  Rather than moan 'oh, the cigs help with the PD and if I dont have them....etc. , I'm looking at it like this:  I stop smoking, I can breathe better, exercise more, lose weight and manage the PD easier.  Wish me luck, my natural state of mind is not positive (thanks, Dad).

Productivity arrived with the robins and while I'm still as slow  as  molassas getting things done, at least I'm trying.  I got a converter that changes your cassette tapes to MP3's.  I dragged out 3 boxes of tapes and a load of memories.  I'm starting to convert them (not all, a lot were replaced by cd) and when I'm done I'll post a list and whoever wants them can have them.  I've started a Pintrest page.  My sister got me hooked. Its kind of like scrapbooking, but I like it anyway (no offence to anyone who scrapbooks).  Although its probably just another diversion from what I really should be doing.  ('Should' coming from my own self-recrimination and not my perceived judgement by others.) Anyway, if you are curious, my page is at http://pinterest.com/cynaeg/.

Television, as always, has taken up a lot of my time.  Right now The Book Show is on.  I don't know if something like this exists in the US, but its a bibliophile's dream show.  You can check it out at http://skyarts.sky.com/the-book-show.  My inner geek came out in full force when I started watching The Big Bang Theory last autumn.  I love Sheldon and I get all of the science fiction  references, but lose the thread a bit when they're talking physics.  I was never any good at physics.  For my science requirement for university, I chose astronomy, which was, in retrospect, kind of stupid, because a) its all math and physics and b) you can't see very much of the sky in NYC  at night. I'm also thrilled that Game of Thrones started again last night.

Well, spring has decided to go away for a while.  Me and the cat are going stir crazy.  Hopefully the gray days will turn back to blue and it won't be another six months before I post again.