Everyone is Irish Today!

March 17: Holidays and observances

Birthday of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (Bangladesh)

Children's Day (Bangladesh)

Christian feast days:

Alexius of Rome (Eastern Church)

Gertrude of Nivelles

John Sarkander

Joseph of Arimathea (Western Church)

Patrick of Ireland

March 17 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

Evacuation Day (Suffolk County, Massachusetts)

Saint Patrick's Day, a public holiday in Ireland, Montserrat and the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, widely celebrated in the English-speaking world and to a lesser degree in other parts of the world.

The above from Wikipedia.

 🍀 Enjoy the day! 🍀

P.S. March 17, 2020 was the date that we brought Celestial Sweetie inside.

She'd been an outside cat since we'd TNR'd her in 2009, and she really enjoyed her inside retirement with a heated bed, soft blankets, and no other cats to bother her in Sweetie's Apartment (now Henryville).

Miss you, Celestial Miss Growly-pants!

❤️

Let's Hop!

Reversal of Mercury

Do you feel that things are wonky right now?

Today:

Mercury is in retrograde

Saturn is in retrograde

Neptune is in retrograde

Pluto is in retrograde

My calendar once had the moon phases, the planet retrogrades, plus the equinoxes and solstices.

Am rebuilding all of that data, and maybe I would have chosen a different time to vacation in New York, as Mercury Retrogrades often mess up travel and communication.

Am still not recovered from that La Guardia Airport multi-hour overnight, yet there was a peace to being solo for a stretch of hours.

HOWEVER, I'll check the cosmos before my next trip!

😹

Delayed

 Am typing this while still in New York; my flight to Detroit has been delayed for over two hours due to storms.

Therefore, here are a few pics of my cat companions during my trip:

Eevee

Magoo

Leyla, housepanther and Maui, tortoiseshell

Magoo and Eevee own my niece.

Leyla and Maui own my nephew and SO.

We visited:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum of Modern Art

The Frick Collection

The Whitney Museum of American Art

The High Line

Chelsea Market

The Comedy Cellar

Saks Fifth Avenue

Nordstrom

Washington Square Park

Central Park

Schooner Adirondack tour on The Hudson to see Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and views of the New York Skyline

Hoping to get out of here before midnight; The Hubby will be waiting at the airport for me, no matter what time I finally arrive.

He says I'll have to buy him breakfast.

✈️⛈️✈️

Forward

The effects of Mercury Retrograde started July 16, and will finally drift away on September 10. 

In astrology, Mercury is the planet of communication, so when in retrograde, expect mishaps, miscommunications, and misunderstandings across communication, news, travel, and technology.

Retrograde is when a celestial body appears to be standing still then moving backward from it's usual direction.

The deepest bit occured from August 4 to August 27.

And don't worry if somehow this recent Mercury Retrograde passed you by (lucky you!), as there is another beginning November 7 to January 1, 2025!  

WHEEEEE!!!!!

🙀🙀🙀 

Backward

Mercury Retrograde 1/4/24 to 24/4/24

Three or four times a year, Mercury appears to be traveling backward through space, and astrologers have deemed these retrograde times as causing difficulties with the communication, information, and travel spheres in our lives.

The best idea is to slow down and reflect.

However, popular opinion about the doom and gloom of Mercury Retrograde events have meme's and cartoons everywhere, so let's enjoy a few!

Or, fasten your seatbelts; it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Maybe hide UTB, with your cats...

🙀 🌎 🙀

OH, and I've discovered why my photos weren't loading in Blogger; my browser cache was full.

If anyone is having troubles with getting our post emails, or issues with opening the link when you do, please let me know.

Solving

29 January is National Puzzle Day

And here's an online jigsaw puzzle of artified Sweetie for your entertainment; click on the image.

I adore online jigsaw puzzles, as well as sudoku (at which I'm only fair), and crossword puzzles.

Life goal: visit hedge mazes to puzzle out, hopefully in countries across the water.

✈️ 🧩 ✈️

Birthday Card Collection

These are birthday cards that I received via snail mail!

Does my family and friends know me or what?

Thank you all for the good wishes; next year's birthday number is a BIG ONE, so I was happy to enjoy this year's smaller digits with a quiet staycation, and a bit of travel with a good friend...where we did cat stuff!  I'll post about those adventures soon.

😸*😸

Book Review: Strays

Image from the interwebs

Strays: A Lost Cat, a Homeless Man, and Their Journey Across America
by Britt Collins
Hardcover, 272 pages
Published July 18th 2017 by Atria Books
ISBN 1501122592 (ISBN13: 9781501122590)

Synopsis:
Homeless, alcoholic, and depressed, Michael King discovers an injured but friendly cat while in Portland, Oregon.  After finding no 'lost cat' flyers, Mike and his friends venture around the Western United States as drifters and panhandlers, with the cat Tabor riding on Mike's shoulder.  When visiting his foster father in Montana, the veterinarian discovers that Tabor HAS a family, back in Portland, via microchip.  After almost two years of being soul-mates, Mike struggles to do the right thing.

Opinion:
This story is not only about Mike and Tabor, it's about Ron Buss, who lost his beloved cat Mata Hari, and how he fought the deep pain of that void.  Both men fight prejudice, depression, the loss of love, and the struggle to define themselves in an overwhelming world.  Mata/Tabor bridges that gap, and it's a powerful story.

Recommendation:
Without a doubt, I recommend this book to all!  There are a few HBO words, so perhaps it's not for young children.  The author weaves together the separate stories of Mike and Russ between chapters, and we, as readers, live the reality of both men as the book progresses.  And you'll fall in love with the cat!

***

Thank you all!

Thank you all for the kind Gotchaversary comments

for Manny and Chili Bruce!

💕💞💕

Instead of staying home and celebrating with them, however, my mother, sister, and I traveled to visit another sister (and I have one more...and two brothers...) in a far northern suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio.  My niece and two nephews visited for some family hilarity, and major chin wagging.

I'll post more about this mini-vacation later, but I HAD to show off this adorable statue that I found in a terrific shop in Lebanon, Ohio.  

IT'S MANNY AND CHILI BRUCE!

Close up on the cat heads; one is licking the other!

Seriously, do you see why I couldn't pass it up?!?

My two housepanthers could have been the statue models!

So, it's a Happy Gotchaversary gift for ME!

Trip Recap: The Travel

Trip Recap Posts:

I'm Back!!!

What I Brought

The flight from Detroit Metro Airport, Michigan USA to Heathrow UK is just under seven hours, plus one must arrive three hours before for international flights.  The time change is five hours, so on the way there we gained time; losing it again coming back.  Jet lag is no fun, my friends, but we all did okay with naps.

This was a couple across the aisle from us,
on the way there

We took the bus, rode The Underground, and were ferried on boats.  But most of all, we walked...

Doubledecker bus ride!
I'm in the hat, sis Max in front,
sis Marian in back, with her daughter Dana!

St. Paul's Cathedral in background,
notice all of the people walking...

 And we walked some more...

Walking bridge over The Thames

The Cutty Sark in Greenwich,
remembering the days before trains, planes & automobiles

View of London from the observatory at Greenwich;
the climb up was crazy hard!

 And climbed up hills, and walked up and down stairs...

On the Prime Meridian!

Tower Bridge

Paddington Station

 Sat on more trains...

The River Avon, flowing through Bath

Bath Abbey

And walked some more!

Our hotel in London was just a block from a bus stop, and a few blocks from The Underground.  However, there was always a need to hoof it to get to any place we wanted to see.  Seriously, we did between seven and nine miles A DAY in London!  Less walking in Bath, but we climbed steep slopes, and never used cabs or buses while there.

Happy St. Patrick's Day Part 2

Happy St. Patrick's Day Part 1

In the summer of 1980, I traveled to Ireland for a 33-day excursion as credit-earning class, which helped earn my bachelor's degree.  If everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day...or St. Gertrude's Day, who is the Patron Saint of Cats...then anyone who has traveled to Ireland is an honorary Irishman or woman forever.  Having breathed the Irish air, put my toes into dark Irish rivers, eaten Irish-caught wild salmon and butter fresh from Irish cows, and tasted a few *wink* pints of cellar-temperature Guinness Stout while chatting with the locals at a pub...I figure I'm as Irish as anyone else!

Looking through crummy photos taken on that trip, I cannot remember a great chunk of what we did, other than: traveled for seven days by bus, sight-seeing monuments, natural and historic sites; spent two weeks at Trinity College, Dublin, attending classes on Irish history, arts, archaeology, literature, and current events; ten days of bike-riding and bed-and-breakfasts around The Dingle Peninsula (where they still spoke Gaelic); and learning to enjoy 'soft' days (misty rain), roads covered in cow pies, astronomical gasoline/petrol prices, and visiting abandoned monasteries, church yards, cemeteries, ancient Irish mounds, and 'leapin'-the-bogs' and sheep trails.

Poulnabrone Portal Tomb, County Clare and
nearby rock formations

The Cliffs of Moher, in County Clare
and ancient fort

Castle and monastery ruins

And did I mention, that drinking Guinness was a fairly LARGE part of my travels in Ireland?  When it comes 'straight from the cow', Guinness is smooth, delicious, and quietly inebriating.  Best enjoyed when in the company of acquaintances, while you converse, tell jokes, and pass the time. 

 

So, I know of what I speak when I say that Patrick O'Malley's fur is the color of Guinness, and his eyes are Irish green!

Slainte'!

(Traditional Irish drinking toast, for 'health')