Sad news

This morning, it was announced that George Carlin has died of heart failure. I used an older photo of him, since he has had influence over our lives for such a long time. Even if you weren't a fan, did you know that his work led to a major Supreme Court case on the limits of free speech? Those of us who suffered through law school remember the Pacifica case.

Aside from that, he was a smart, funny and, I think, kind man. No, I didn't know him, but from every interview I saw with him and every time I saw him perform, it struck me that real kindness was underlying everything he said.

Also, he brought some real moments of humor and insight to my life and the lives of so many others. Anyone who can bring real humor--and not at the expense of others--makes the world a better place. On a personal level, I remember laughing so hard with him, including the time that my Mom took Marc and me to see him live. Yes, my Mom was a cool person, and she took us to a George Carlin performance. That actually had a few uncomfortable moments for us (although my Mom wasn't phased at all); some jokes just make you squirm when you're sitting next to your mother! Still, we had a great time, and it's a great memory!

We all leave this earth the same way, but it remains sad when we lose one of the good ones. Today we lost one of the good ones. Rest in peace, Mr. Carlin.

A couple of photos

We're home now. Exhausted but home, and we can't even relax this weekend. Our niece's Bat Mitzvah is tomorrow morning, and we have our cousins from France staying with us, so we will be running around all weekend.

So about that little jaunt to Ireland. Between the weather and not finding the scenes I hoped for, I didn't take a huge amount of photos. Still, I took some, and I will share some here and there. (This doesn't count rugby photos--I'll have plenty of those to share!)

So here are two shots from the Cliffs of Moher...





The weather didn't cooperate, but I think I salvaged decent shots.

It's a Long Way to Tipperary (Crystal)

Another long day of driving. BTW, does anyone know if diesel cars normally get a lot more miles per gallon than gasoline-powered cars? This one sure seems to be! It got about 36 miles per gallon (yes, I did the math to convert km to miles and liters to gallons) in mixed driving, and was in the mid-40s in pure highway driving!

It's not a small car, so I'm wondering if that's normal for diesel vehicles. Now, that doesn't mean driving is cheap. A full tank of diesel, after the euro-dollar exchange rate, is well over one hundred dollars. But I'm amazed at the mileage.

Today, we drove to County Tipperary to visit Tipperary Crystal and also went back to Waterford, too, before heading back this way for some nice Asian food at a local place. BTW, Arthur Frommer needs to update his Ireland book. It's supposed to be a new edition, but it says the Tipperary Crystal factory is on N24 in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. The people at the Tipperary Crystal store advised us that it moved away at least six years ago! We still found some nice crystal at good prices, but no free factory tour as promised in the book!

I'm sure I could write a lot more, but we have to catch a flight home in the morning, so I should head back to the room to pack! Next time you see a post, it most likely will be from New York. Bye for now!

Day Six

We drove everywhere. If it's a town in Ireland, we drove through it today.

Okay, maybe it just feels that way.

The major stop du jour was the Waterford Crystal Factory in, by amazing coincidence, Waterford. First of all, I'm not paying to go see a factory so I can then buy your stuff. Ain't happening (and remember, kids, ain't ain't a word!). :)

We checked out some of the stuff for sale. Neat, but no bargains to be had there, no matter what the tags said. So we took some photos, and one of us will post them eventually.

The driving was hideous. Did I mention that?

One last note, not from today. I meant to post this over the weekend. The River Liffey runs right through Dublin. Along its banks are flagpoles. Decorations there are high profile. Think of it like Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

This weekend, there were quite a number of large rainbow flags and banners announcing the Bingham Cup, or, as was said many times on mainstream radio stations this weekend, "The Gay World Cup of Rugby." It was so nice to see all of those flags. The Bingham Cup was in New York two years ago, and I didn't see any mention of it anywhere in the mainstream media. There sure weren't rainbow flags on Fifth Avenue, but I'd pay good money to see one flying across from St. Patrick's Cathedral!

On that note, my husband seems to be feeling frisky. So I will end things here. After all, if I'm ever going to get him pregnant, I have to keep trying! ;)

Days Four & Five, Moher or less

Let's see. Yesterday, we went to Galway, the Cliffs of Moher and through Limerick on the way back. I wish the reverse were true, since Limerick looked lovely. The Cliffs of Moher? Eh. They're big and have lovely green grass on the tops, so that looks nice. But we really weren't all that impressed. As for Galway, I suppose it would be good for a pub crawl, but that wasn't all that spiffy, either. Now Limerick looked great, but it was very late by then, and nothing was open. Besides, it was after 11pm, and we still had a long drive to complete, so we couldn't stop.

We grabbed dinner at an out of the way little place that our guidebook recommended. The drive was a challenge, since much of it was through farms with roads barely big enough to fit our car, and occasionally we had to find ways to work with another car coming at us, so we both could get through!

Lots of cows and sheep in this country. Their economic boom of recent years may have been driven by technology and such, but there's clearly still a gigantic agricultural component to life here.

I had heard that the rate of fatal and/or serious car accidents here is very high. Some had said that it was due to crazy drivers and too much drinking, but I don't think that's it. The drivers seem no worse than most places and better than those we encountered in some other countries, like France and Italy. Rather, I think it's the road system. The roads are beyond their capacity in many places. Even where they're not, we've encountered narrow roads with high speed limits (100 kph, which is 62mph) that are one lane each way with no shoulder and no divider. Last night's drive back from the west coast had several terrifying moments! The whole driving-on-the-left thing hasn't been as tough as I feared; I just have to be very conscious of lane choices at turns and such. But the drive home was scary. These roads need a major redesign!

Speaking of driving, we rented a BMW 5-series. The lower priced rentals were terrible choices for us, and the other cars were higher. Anyhow, this thing is expensive, but I have to admit that it rides and handles very well. I still prefer my Volvo S80, but this thing is nice. I don't think I could buy one (the whole German thing--wipe out a couple dozen of my family members, and we tend to hold a grudge), but it's a good car.

Today, we went into Dublin to visit the Blarney Woolen Mills store. Overrated, IMHO. Then we headed south and drove along the east coast, going south for a good distance. Nice. It reminds me of parts of the California coast, only colder! :)

One other nice thing. There are a lot of hot men around here! Very few redheads, interestingly enough, but there are plenty of guys around here who are very easy on the eyes.

One thing I almost forgot! I tried a pint of Guinness today. It doesn't suck quite as much as normal beer, but I still didn't like it. I gave Marc a sip, and he hated it. Not wanting to risk my own murder by others in the pub, I finished the pint. I think it's a capital crime to waste Guinness in this country. Still, I don't think I'll be ordering more! On the other hand, the pub where we stopped for lunch (and the aforementioned pint) had nice, inexpensive food. Considering what many of our meals have cost so far, that was a nice thing!

On that note, I will call it a night.

Day Three

I hadn't planned on posting every day, and I'm not sure if this will continue. So far, however, there has been a computer free in the hotel's business center when I've had the energy to blog, so why not?

Today saw the end of the tournament. Sadly, our Gotham Knights didn't win. On a positive note, they did make it to the semi-finals, losing to the Sydney Convicts. They took third place overall, and they were the most successful American team.

Since our guys were done by 1pm, we decided to see if we could get some sightseeing done. We went back to the hotel to "freshen up" and then pointed our car south. We drove about 45 minutes to visit Powerscourt Gardens. It's an unusual place. It's part old estate, part shopping mall (in the main house) and part hotel/resort. For some of the history of the place, go here.

We were there to visit the gardens behind the main house. Of course, there will be photos at a later date, but I can't offer any now.

It's an impressive place, but we are visiting too late in the year to see many of the flowering shrubs in bloom. Too bad, since many are so huge that they must have been quite a sight when they were flowering.

So now we just have to plan out the next few days. I'm sure we'll get an early start tomorrow. I'm not 100% sure where we're headed yet, but all of our likely destinations are a good distance away. Actually, I should get done blogging, so I can work on the plan for tomorrow!

Day Two

Our first full day in Ireland, and things went much better. I called Byrne last night, and he gave me some guidance on how to find the sports fields, so that made things easier. When we got there, the guys guarding the entrance were turning away non-players from the parking lot, due to limited space. I explained that I was the team photographer for the Gotham Knights, and he let us in.

We were there for about 6 hours. You've never seen so many gay hotties in one place. Wow! Yes, I took some shots, but I tried to concentrate on rugby, rather than acting like an SLR-wielding sideline-stalker! :) Still, I'm sure I'll have plenty to share after we're back home. Not too many, since I am trying not to take so many that I'm editing photos for weeks. Even so, plenty for sharing and blogging purposes.

We did a bit of sightseeing late today (after rugby), driving past a few Dublin sights. Eh. Tomorrow is the last day of rugby, and then the sightseeing begins in earnest on Monday.

Between hours of marching up and down rugby pitch sidelines and the effects of jet lag, we're exhausted. Even so, it's natural to feel tired at this point, and this was a good day.

One other thing: the weather here is ridiculous! Was it sunny? Yes. Was it cloudy? Yes. Was it completely overcast? Yes. Was it too warm for a jacket? Yes. Was it so cold you couldn't stand out without a jacket? Yes. And did all of this happen in the space of an hour? Yes.

I've known places with weather that changes fast. A number of places even have a local joke about waiting briefly if you don't like the weather, because it will change (and I think the locals of the cities where I've heard this always think it's a locally grown witticism). But this is the first place where I've seen weather that can completely change character in a matter of minutes! I don't know how people plan for any activities here. I would need to take a jacket and umbrella everywhere I went!

Off to a less-than-perfect start

Aer Lingus can kiss my ass. We called in advance (since they wouldn't let us check in online) to reconfirm our flight before leaving for the airport. Their automated system ("Agent Aiden") said everything was set.

When we got to the airport, we were told that our 9:40pm departure was cancelled. Instead, they were putting us on a charter flight with an outfit called Omni Air. That flight would be departing at 1:15am!!! In the end, even that flight didn't leave on time, and we were "Number one for takeoff" (like there's any competition for takeoff slots at that hour!). But no, why be on time when you can further fuck up our schedule and help us miss the first day of the rugby tournament that was our initial motivation for this trip?

When we finally got to Dublin, we found that insurance for our rental car was going to cost more than we usually pay for the entire rental of a car on trips in the States! Now normally I let my Amex card cover rental car insurance, but I vaguely remember being told that such a move is unwise overseas. That may be wrong, but I just didn't want to take any chances.

It took us until the end of the day to find our hotel. That's another joy. It's a gorgeous new hotel (the room is lovely & the bed is very comfy!), and it's much cheaper than staying in the city center, but it was a major bitch to find. This was after giving up on finding the rugby pitch (we had hoped to at least catch the end of the day's matches). We found Dublin City University, but not the fields. We will try again in the morning.

So, being exhausted and in really pissy moods by the time we checked in, Marc and I decided that a nap was in order. "Nap" is hardly the word, since I didn't get up for well over two hours, but I needed it! The seats on that DC-10 were torture devices!

Post-nap, we decided to just try to hotel restaurant, Maya-Ché, for dinner. That was the high point of the day. The food was fabulous, from the duck spring rolls to my salmon and Marc's Thai green curry to our Bailey's coffee and the lemongrass-chocolate mousse I had for dessert (plus a fabulous pecan brownie with ice cream that Marc had). It wasn't cheap by any means, but it was excellent, and we needed a nice ending to this day.

So now we're sitting in the business center, doing some blogging. Marc is at the next computer, and I suspect we'll cover some of the same ground. Oh well! It beats missing any of the lovely details. :)

We're going to try to get a good night's sleep and a relatively early start tomorrow. I just hope we can find parking near the DCU sports fields!

Heading out soon

You can check out Marc's blog for some of the fun with our central air conditioning. The bottom line is that we went through the heatwave without air conditioning! In good news, the needed part is in, and the service guys are supposed to have it fixed today.

In other good news, tonight we get on a flight to Dublin. Jeff is here to take care of the kids while we're away. They're always excited to have Uncle Jeff around.

So tonight we go to Ireland. We're going for a rugby tournament and then some sightseeing. I don't know if there will be any blogging for the week that we're there, but I'm hoping to bring back at least a few photos to share!

Marc & his Moose

We've gotten a lot done today: errands, chores and so on. One thing Marc wanted me to do was photograph some of his plants while they were blooming. I expect him to post a few of the photos on his blog sometime soon.

After I was done with the flower photos, I headed into the house. Bernice and Dodger came with me, but Mandy didn't. She apparently stayed out with Marc.

After a little while, I opened the door and called, "Mandy! Mandy Moosedog, where are you?" I figured she should come in for a drink, since she had been out for a while, but I got no response. "Moose!" Still nothing. (BTW, the Moose nickname is explained here.)

So, with the camera still in hand, I wandered back out. Rounding the back corner of the house, I could hear Marc talking. And then I saw this...


Mandy, hanging out with her Daddy Marc

No shot of Marc, but he was there, chatting with the neighbor, as Mandy wagged away next to him.

Later, Mandy, with a nice, big, grassy yard to use, decided to bask on a hard slab of concrete. Hoping for a nice photo, I called to her and got this over-the-shoulder shot...



Isn't she pretty?

The power of "thank you"

At work, I'm in charge of employee relations. It's a broad job that encompasses hiring, firing and a lot in between. One of my main goals is to make our managers even better all the time, so they make our employees better and happier. One of the things I've tried to teach managers is that sincere recognition means more to most people than anything we can give them. Yes, they are there to make a living, but that's expected. This goes beyond that, so we can show our staff that we really appreciate them.

Interestingly, I was able to utilize the simplest of these skills on the way home from work. I had stopped at a supermarket to buy food to make dinner. I used one of the self-checkout lines, and there was a young man at the end of these lines. He was bagging groceries as they reached the end of the conveyor, so all customers had to do after they finished checking out was pick up their bags and go.

He was a nice looking young man whose name tag said, "Ryan." (And no, I wasn't nice to him because he was nice looking. He was all of about 17 or 18, so it wasn't like that!) By the time I got to the end to pick up my bags, he had moved to the next line.

I put my bags in my cart, and, having noticed his name earlier, said, "Hey, Ryan." He turned and looked at me. "Thank you." And with that, his face lit up with a big smile. "You're welcome, sir."

With that, the world got a little happier and friendlier. So simple.

True Colors Tour concert

Last night, Marc and I went to the theater at Jones Beach for the True Colors Tour. We got our tickets as part of a charity auction, and they included a "meet and greet" with Cyndi Lauper. We have a photo from that, but it hasn't been transferred to a computer yet, so it will have to wait. Perhaps Marc will put it on his blog.

While the multi-artist concert--all five hours of it!--was going on, I made some notes in my cell phone. With minimal editing, here they are:

Artist #1
Mary McBride
Her fourth song: got married this year and "I'm sending this out to my wife." Nice.

Last song: Amazing Grace to the music from Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Woman" Different. A little weird, but not bad.

Artist #2
Kat DeLuna--two lame dancers & bad karoake over her own soundtrack.

Second song very loud. Very dancy song, which seems to have inspired the dancers. Much better now. Not great. Just not terrible anymore.

Artist #3
The Cliks. Never heard of them, but no matter. Time to go to the rendezvous point for our special meet-and-greet with Cyndi Lauper. While there, I'm noticing the captive audience pricing of the refreshments: $4 for candy, $5 for a 20 ounce bottle of soda, and $6 for a pretzel!

Met Cyndi. Very nice, but they had her overwhelmed and confused, not knowing who was coming up next, what group they were with, etc.

On way out, ran into James from LIGALY. A sweetie. I asked if he had gotten in to see any of the acts. "Yes. I went in for about 10 minutes of angry lesbian music." Asked him to narrow that down. He laughed and said "Indigo Girls."

Artist #4
Indigo Girls still playing when we went back in. After a couple of songs, they introduced a "special guest." "Julie Wolfe on keyboards" in a tone that said we should know who she is. No idea. Maybe if I were a lesbian I would know.

They do like their naughty words, don't they? And James is right: these lesbians are angry!

Two hours in, and they're taking intermission! Jeebus, this thing really will be 5 hours. There's nothing I want to do for 5 hours! Well, maybe one thing! ;-) No, on second thought, not even that! (Oh, I forgot sleep. Okay, that is worth five hours and more.)

Artist #5
Cyndi Lauper came out first and gave a great talk on involvement and voting. Then she introduced Rosie O'Donnell.

Rosie O'Donnell is not very happy. Some mild chuckles, but not laugh out loud funny (although the lesbian audience members seemed charitable).

A little later, and Rosie is getting a little funnier. She says guys know from the get-go if they're gay. "You gay guys are in the womb, like, get me out of here and I'll never come in again!"

Okay, is this a gay thing? What is with the guys not only not turning off the ringers on their cell phones but actually taking calls during a concert?

In the end, Rosie was pretty touching.

Artist #6
The B-52s sound damn good. They were big when I was in college which is a good 2 or 3 years ago now (shut up!), and they still sound like they did back then. With that said, they should have stuck to their hits. A band like this shouldn't have to say "this next song is called..." or "this song is about..." Maybe one or two of those, but not the majority of the songs!

Damn, I'm being eaten alive by bugs!

Fred is just so strange.

I feel more in need of hearing protection here than at a pistol range. Jeebus, they're loud! Even for a rock concert, this is ridiculous!

Artist #7
Cyndi sounds great, and Rosie is joining in. Interesting. :-)

Into the 5th hour of the concert, and even the mosquitoes have called it a night.

But Cyndi sure can rock. She's doing some new stuff, and it's pretty catchy!

She's a riot. Between songs: "You know what they say. I've suffered for my art; now it's your turn!" (Now that's funny!)

They reworked She-Bop a little. I usually don't like that kind of thing (reworking hit songs), but this was pretty good!

Now doing something new. My seat is shaking from all the bass.

Rosie on the drums for Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Fun, indeed! (And the lesbians in the audience are losing it. The SWAT Team may need to rescue us!)

Lights down, and Cyndi and her band have gone off stage. Clearly, she is coming back for an encore. She still needs to sing the signature song, True Colors. With that, Marc and I are hitting the road. Otherwise, the traffic to get out will be hideous. Besides, it's almost 11pm on a "school night." Time to head home.

Overall, it was a fun night. Cyndi Lauper was very nice, and I'm glad we went. Five hours is a bit much, but still it was fun. And the location was great, except for all the bug bites.

RIP Shirley?

Yes, I'm afraid she's gone, and this may be the end of a very long line of cats living here. As I mentioned before, this all started with a pregnant cat, way back when I was just a boy. Shirley and Junior were the last of the line, having been spayed and neutered, respectively, several years ago. (That would have happened to prior generations, but no one was ever able to catch those cats and get the work done!)

As I noted a little over a week ago, Shirley has been MIA. Then, several days ago, Junior went missing. I would worry that my blog post had upset him, but Junior wasn't even smart for a cat, let alone... so no, he probably doesn't read blogs. ;)

Seriously, he went missing, and I started to wonder if maybe they had both been taken in by someone. Sadly, today brought a sign that one of them has died. When she first went missing, I reminded Marc of one sign that indicated a cat death over the years.

This is rather disgusting, but it's a fact. The cats have made their home for at least 20-25 years in a tiny crawlspace under the end of our living room/library. The furnace room runs under part of that room. The close proximity of the end of the furnace room and the crawlspace in question allows some air to pass through, and, as we learned when other cats came home to die, the repulsive smell of decomposition carries through to the furnace room.

Today, Marc went into the furnace room for something and immediately yelled up the stairs to me. I ran down there, entered to furnace room and ran smack into that smell.

At least she got to die at home in her bed. There's something to be said for that. Given the timing, I would guess the smell is her, not Junior. As for Junior, I can only imagine he didn't like the smell and so he left. His complaining to Marc was probably a request that he remove the body. Of course, no human can fit under there (it's really just a space for pipes, not a true crawlspace), so we couldn't do anything if we wanted to.

Soon enough, the smell will pass and she will rest there with ancestors of hers whose skeletons are there. She had a very good life for a feral cat, and I suppose this is as good an end as we could have hoped for. We guesstimate her age around 13 years. Not a bad run, given the circumstances.

Whether Junior will return, who can say? He's around somewhere, I'm sure, and I have no doubt that someone else is feeding him (he always looked quite well fed, and I always thought he had other sources). If he comes back, he will be welcome. If not, I wish him the best.

In the meantime, rest in peace, Shirley.

Memorial Day Weekend recapitulation

Here's a review of our weekend in photos (as always, click on them for bigger versions)...

Saturday
The U.S. Marines put on a show in our local park. Eisenhower Park, part of our county park system, is bigger than NYC's Central Park. So it was easy to find room for this show.


Those helicopters are BIG!




A helicopter gunship flies over




The helicopters landed, and people were allowed to look inside them

We didn't tour the helicopters. Instead, we said hello to the Marines, shaking hands with this handsome young man...



Then we decided to walk around the park and visit some of the permanent memorials there. First, our county's 9-11 memorial. Our county lost over 340 people in the attacks, and I think this memorial was nicely done...


The Nassau County 9-11 Memorial


A piece of steel from the World Trade Center towers




Names of our neighbors who were lost that day. We looked for one name in particular. Nearby, another man cried as he touched his fingers to a few names grouped together.


This is a good one to click for the larger version, so you can read it (the same goes for the other plaques).




I think this rendering of the shells of the towers is a classy way to remember the loss.




One more look at the Memorial

We went on to visit other memorials in the park, dedicated to those lost in wars going back through American history. But I think we'll now move on to happier things.

Sunday
Patrick came out to visit. That's always a fun thing, in and of itself. But we wanted to have fun with him, so we pointed the car east, first stopping at Flo's Luncheonette in Blue Point, then heading to Pindar Vineyards for some wine tasting, and finally stopping at Robert Moses State Park, so we could walk on the beach and Patrick could wet his feet in the ocean.


The boys in Pindar's tasting room


The tasting menu


They go through so much glassware that they have to have dishwashers right there and going constantly

Monday
Today was a day of relaxation here at the house. Some outdoor time, some indoor, lots of good food and good company (Patrick really is a pleasure to have around!)...


Mandy basks in the sun in our back yard


Marc spent a little time tending to his Earthboxes


See how he likes when I sneak up on him with the camera? :)


One of the bits of beauty Marc has planted and tended in our yard


Suddenly, Mandy's attention is drawn to something important


So she goes off to investigate

And what was she investigating?


Runoff from the watering! At least we know Mandy will keep us safe from it!

Back inside, Patrick did his stretches. The man is VERY flexible! I always liked men who could bend so well! ;) And his being on the floor thrilled the kids...




Bernice had to go share some love


After that, Bernice took a break on the couch, with her blankie as a pillow

That's it. We had a fun time this weekend, and I hope you all did the same!

A few more rugby photos

I have some Memorial Day Weekend shots (nothing too special or Americana-ish), but before that, a few more from last week's rugby (as always, click on the photos to see larger versions)...













Poor Simmy. Injured again. If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you may remember Simmy being rather spectacularly injured in the past...


This was at a North Jersey match in October 2006. And no, I didn't mess with the colors in Photoshop. That's real blood, and it was that intense looking!

Okay, back to last week...













Okay, that's enough of that. :) If you want to see the full set from last week, they're here.

I love little things like this

I'm the kind of person who loves walking where great (or even not-so-great) people walked long ago. I love standing where George Washington was first sworn in as President (in New York City, then the capital of the United States). By the way, did you know that there's an argument to be made that he wasn't the first President of the United States?

There were Presidents under the Articles of Confederation. John Hancock, President of the Second Continental Congress, best known for his overly large signature, taunting the British, on the Declaration of Independence, saw the following salutation on correspondence from General George Washington:

To the President of the United States,

But I digress. I do love these little historical connections. In fact, the old village part of the town in which my hospital is located is over 300 years old. George Washington did, in fact, spend time there, and there are structures dating back to the 1600s.

So what was the impetus for this post? This was. I get daily book reviews from Powell's Books, and they get them from a variety of publications. I liked the review, but what I found really great was this line: The "Marseillaise" of that crusade ("The Battle Hymn of the Republic," which first appeared, as did many other important documents of the Brown-Emerson alliance, in the pages of this magazine) was an adaptation of the foot soldiers' song about Old Osawatomie Brown.

I was reading a review printed in a magazine that first printed The Battle Hymn of the Republic during the American Civil War. For me, that's a "wow" moment. Of course, the newspaper I read was around before the Civil War. Still, it feels like a connection to those days. Not that I would want to live through it, but it's still fascinating to me.

Is Shirley gone?

You may recall that we have two cats who have lived their lives in the back yard, with living quarters under the back of the house. In fact, Marc recently blogged about the mess they make around the house.

If you search this blog, you'll see cat references now and then. You can see a photo of Shirley here.

Thing is, we haven't Shirley in a week or so. She has disappeared for several days in the past, but she's getting rather old and seemed to be staying closer to home lately. She would wander a few blocks, but the disappearances seemed less frequent to me. Plus--and this is the really worrying thing--it never seemed to phase the other cat, her son (we call him Junior), in the past. But this time it's different. He has been much more vocal than usual, has seemed very upset and has been very receptive to being scratched and rubbing on our legs (unusual for him). We're trying not to anthropomorphize, but he seems like he's in mourning.

With all of this, and considering that Shirley still did some wandering of the streets, despite being half blind and almost completely deaf, we fear she may be dead. Junior may know something. I feel sorry for him. If she's dead, he may have seen her that way. I can relate to that. Seeing my parents dead is something I wish I could forget. Also, Junior and his mother have lived together for his entire life. Now he's alone, except for us (and our three dogs, two of whom make no bones about wanting him dead).

I know, I know. These are feral cats. For feral cats, they've had a good life. We can only guesstimate Shirley's age, but we know she is (or was) in double digits. We think she's somewhere around 13 years old. For a feral cat, that's a pretty good run.

Anyhow, it all makes me really sad. I guess part of it stems from Shirley having been around when both of my parents were alive, one of a line of cats with roots here back to when I was a kid; my Mom fed her every day for years. So she feels like a connection to those days. On top of it, we're the kind of people who try to catch moths and other bugs that get in the house, putting them back outside rather than killing them, if we can manage it, and I ache any time I see some animal (squirrel, raccoon, etc.) dead on the road. In other words, we're animal lovers. So this familiar little cat possibly having died really makes me sad. If she is gone, I hope the end was quick and painless. If you're gone, Shirley, rest in peace.

No time for photos tonight

No time to post rugby photos! I'll get more up soon.

Too many things to do before bed, including trying to finalize provisions for our new wills. We've talked about rewriting them for ages. With our trip to Dublin coming up soon, we suddenly feel an urge to get them done. Funny how a trip across the ocean motivates us to do such things!

About those rugby photos...

As I mentioned in my last post, we had a rugby match in Danbury. Since I know you all really love the photos of the pretty boys, I'll start with that...


Isn't he pretty?




Good hit. The guy is clean off his feet!






Eric took quite a hit. I couldn't get a shot of him before he was cleaned up a bit, but he was covered in blood. His nose wasn't broken, but it was bleeding a lot!

Of course, his teammates couldn't resist. There were comments along the lines of, "you're supposed to leave the string hanging out!"










The end of the first match

Okay, we'll hold it there for now.