Monthly Archives: November 2014

Out of Touch, Maybe Out of My Mind, But Not Dead or in a Rocking Chair.

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It all started with email from Hulu.

I get emails from Hulu because I subscribe to it, having cut the cord a couple of months ago.  Usually I ignore them.  But this one had a link to a clip from Jimmy Fallon’s show, where he and Rashida Jones did a parody of popular songs using Christmas-type lyrics…or was it a parody of Christmas songs using popular lyrics/music?

I don’t know, gimme a break, I’m old.

So I watched it, and some of the songs sounded vaguely familiar, but most didn’t.  To the audience, ALL the songs were familiar and so I thought, depressingly, I am so out of touch with music now.  Me and my Seattle 90s music.  Me and…Tool, who haven’t put out a new CD since “10,000 Days” in 2006!!

(By the way, for a funny and oh-so-true article on Tool and their fans, read this on Cracked.com)

Ok, anyway…feeling really out of touch with pop culture, as I have since, oh, forever, I had to first look up Rashida Jones, because who is she? A singer?  An actress? A stand-up comic?  Jimmy Fallon’s sister/wife/best friend?

Turns out, she is an actress on a TV show called “Parks and Recreation”, which I have actually watched.  Not a lot, but I have seen it.  It’s an ok show, I guess.

Oh and she is also the daughter of Peggy Lipton (“One Black, One White, One Blonde”) and Quincy Jones (if you don’t know who he is, I can’t help you – even I know who he is).

And if you recognise the “Mod Squad” reference, you’re old.  Like me.  You’re welcome.

Right, so………….anyway…………..I decided to look up the popular songs on which the parody was based.   “Top pop hits!” shouted the article from Today.com.

First up? “All About the Bass”, by Meghan Trainor. On to YouTube.  Nice song, I guess.  Lovely girl, very young, hope her success continues  and she doesn’t spiral downward into a life of drugs and..oh, sorry.   Moving along.

“Stay With Me” by Sam Smith.  Heartfelt video and song.  But the song sounds a lot like “I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty (1989).  Go play both videos and see.  I’ll wait.

Lalalalala….see?  They do sound alike, don’t they?

Tossing aside the urge to Google “Tom Petty Lawsuit”, I looked up the next song/video.  “Bang Bang”, by someone called Jessie J (never heard of her), Ariana Grande (never heard of her either), and Nicky Minaj (now her, I have heard of).

The song is catchy, and apparently written by Jessie J because, being an old fart and not understanding the lyrics (“booty like a Cadillac”?  huh?), I looked them up.  I am kind of sorry I did.

Some of the lyrics were funny.  I hope that was the intention.  Some of them were of the “put-your-hands-over-your-grandson’s-ears” kind (or, when my kids were little, the equivalent of sprinting to the TV whenever Madonna was on MTV).  I know, a losing battle.  I don’t think my grandson listens to this music but if he does, he probably knows the lyrics and doesn’t think twice about them.

These girls are beautiful (though they wear more makeup in one day than I would wear, well, all my life), and they can sing.   They can dance in heels!  In short, they are amazing and I wish them all well.  My take on it, as a whole, is that pop music is incredibly sexist, still, but I guess having women be in control of the sexism is better…isn’t it?

I see where they’re coming from, and I don’t condemn them one bit.  Feminism has evolved in some strange ways, and I refuse to condemn what I do not understand, especially when it concerns women who appear to have gained some power in the music industry.

Oh, yeah, I did turn Madonna off the TV so my young kids couldn’t watch her crawl through a video that was set on a porn show stage (“Open Your Heart”, 1986).  But I never badmouthed her, because I don’t crap on other women who are trying to get a foothold in a male-dominated business on their own terms, even if that isn’t how I would have done it.

Hey, she’s a gazillionaire, and I am one of the ELIs (Extremely Low Income people), so whose way is more successful?   Can’t argue with success.

Right, so, on to the next pop song.  I will bypass the passing reference Jimmy and Rashida made to Sir Mix-a-Lot, because I got that.  “Baby Got Back” was in 1992, which is a musical decade I am familiar with.

DJ Snake’s and Lil Jon’s “Turn Down For What”.

“Oh my goodness,” she thought, all grandma-like and such.  I didn’t understand the video at all.  I think it was meant to be funny.  I did think it was funny, kind of.  Funny, and a bit scary.  I am going to pass on that because I just. didn’t. get. it.

Finally, “Fireball” by Pitbull (feat. John Ryan). I actually know who Pitbull is, sort of.  I know he was one of the writers of the 2014 World Cup Song “Ole Ola”, which I loved.  I don’t know who John Ryan is.  So I pulled up “Fireball” on YouTube.

Wow. Yes, the lyrics are sexist, kind of.  But the lyrics are also funny.  Either I am just seeing humour in nearly every pop song I hear, or these artists do a fantastic job of making fun of either themselves, or everyone else, or both.  And wow, because Pitbull is…

…very, VERY sexy.  Oh yes he is.  Sorry, he is.  Sorry if this grosses out my younger readers but I ain’t dead, honey.  This guy is hot.  And he can sing.  And dance.  And smirk in a way that would make me fan myself if I were an old Southern bat from the 1800s (no, I am NOT that old).

Lyrics be damned, I am out to buy all this man’s music.  Oh I did see another video called “Rain Over Me (feat. Marc Anthony)”…why MA was in it, I have no idea, though he can sing.  Great song, loved it.

I watched a few more Pitbull videos.  I am still overheated.  So I decided to write this blog entry…um…not sure why, as I am sure most people on the planet are familiar with all this music.  Oh yeah, I remember now…

Maybe just to prove that, eventually my dears, YOU will be where I am.  Out of touch, wanting to see what the world has to offer since your kids grew up and have lives of their own..to see if you can still relate, if not participate.  You will recall how you used to cringe when your parents listened to “your” music.  And how they didn’t get it, but pretended to.  Or, even worse, DID get it, and your friends thought your dorky parents were cool.

Hey, my dad went on tour with Led Zeppelin in 1970 (he did security for them), and I thought that was cool until he decided my older sister and I had to wear dresses to meet the band (“jeans are for groupies”, he said)…MATCHING dresses.  I wanted to die.  I was 13.

I thought my parents were out to embarrass me, just by their very existence.  So yeah, I get it.

I get that no one – not my kids, not my grandson, not anyone under the age of 30 – wants me to show up at a Pitbull concert.  No worries, I am not that deluded.  I promise I won’t even hang up a poster of him in my apartment, join his fan club, or even play his music in your presence if you don’t like him.

My ringtones?  Now that’s a completely different matter…

Which is better for Grandma to have as a generic ringtone?  “Aenima”, with its liberal use of the “f” word, or Pitbull, with his sexually-suggestive lyrics?

If you say “neither”, or “Grateful Dead” (who I love, by the way), I am going to reach through this computer screen and…

Staying current = staying alive and happy, in my book.  I never want to become one of those people who are always talking about ‘back in the day’.  Because, in my opinion, ‘back in the day’ is never as good as ‘right now’.  Or even ‘the future’.  Which I hope to see a lot of in the coming years.

Pitbull, you say?  Download Pitbull ringtones?  Already on it.

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Just Stop It. Really.

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Short rant today.  It’s cold and I am freezing here in my apt, and my fingers need to stay warm.

I have been finishing up my Christmas shopping – online (none of that ridiculous Black Friday standing in line crap for me).  It’s not bad shopping online this time of year, as a lot of retailers offer free shipping and what-not.

So, I was Googling “heated mittens” because this is something I am thinking of getting someone this year, someone who has Raynaud’s.  That’s the syndrome where your fingers/toes turn colors when it gets cold, and it’s really uncomfortable (I know, because I have it too).  Anyway, something to warm your fingers in the winter is helpful for people like us.

I learnt 2 things during my search: One, those kinds of products are really expensive.  Two, some people with Raynaud’s call each other “Frosties”.

Stop it.  Stop it RIGHT NOW.

I am really sick of people using cute, diminuitive words when talking about serious things like diseases and such.  In the “autoimmune community” (rolls eyes), they constantly refer to rheumatologists as “rheumies”.  “Rheumy”, in case you didn’t know, is an actual adjective that means “watery”, as in a kind of mucous-like discharge from eyes or nose.  It is a word you will find to describe, say, creepy old guys’ eyes in a horror novel or something.

What, are you too lazy to type out the word “rheumatologist”?  “Rheumy” is a disgusting word.  It is NOT cute.  What is the matter with you people, that you have to hijack an already-existing word, and a gross one at that?  What on earth does your rheumatologist think when you refer to him/her in that way?  I am guessing they shudder.  Or gag.

So now, people with Raynaud’s are “Frosties”?  Oh how cute…NOT.  Apparently this is because we have cold fingers, and not because we somehow resemble the cereal (I had been thinking that when our fingers turn white, as they do, this reminded some idiot of the cereal because…it’s white?).

Again I ask, “What is wrong with you??”

Having Raynaud’s is not cute.  It is not fun.  It is painful and can actually result in loss of fingers/toes.

Do you call people with leprosy, “lepsies”?  “Leprechauns” (that’s even cuter, isn’t it?)?  That disease can result in the loss of digits, too.

Why do you not understand that this minimizes people with diseases?  Most people with autoimmune diseases are women.  According to the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, “Of the 50 million Americans living and coping with autoimmune disease (AD), more than 75 percent of them are women” (“The Facts”, American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association website, no date given).

I cite that because it is hard enough for someone to take you seriously when it seems like the disorder is experienced mostly by females – even in this modern day and age.  The words “hysterical female” are still bandied about, and many times women are accused of being hypochondriacs when they have too many, or too vague, symptoms.

People with autoimmune disorders often display too many, and too vague, symptoms – at least it seems like that to the medical profession.  And that’s really difficult for someone – patient and doctor alike – to not get discouraged and sometimes think it’s “all in her head”.

So…you want to keep making light of something that’s so hard for many of us to get doctors to take seriously already, by giving sufferers a “cute” name?  Don’t you realize you are hampering the quest for better diagnoses, treatments, and/or cures?

You do now.  So…stop it.

Manic Medicos, Nitwit Nurses, and Fernando

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Oh, and a van driver who looked kind of like Boromir from LOTR.  But wasn’t nearly as charming.

I finally went to my much-anticipated doctor visit in State College.  Maybe I was going to get a hint about what ails me, or at least more tests.

I got neither.

You know, for a pagan I really do not pay attention to ‘signs’.  Maybe I should.  The day didn’t exactly start out on a good note.  Let’s start with the 40 mile ride to State College…

On the ride over, the van driver regaled me with a somewhat graphic description of falconry.  He really enjoys it.  I wanted to throw up.  This chick’s a vegetarian not just for her health.  I won’t even describe it because it is pretty disgusting, except to say, “Poor bunnies!  Poor squirrels!”

Now look, if he really were Boromir and we really were in some mythical land where, for some bizarre reason, the only modern convenience was a medical transport van AND we had no other way to eat…ok I still wouldn’t do what he does but I might be able to understand why he would do it.  Kind of.

Actually, I don’t think there is any justification for falconry, and his only explanation was that all the falcons in the US would die if it were not for people like him to capture birds, hold them as prisoners, and make them hunt.  Because, you know, falcons wouldn’t hunt on their own? They just sit in trees thinking in their little birdy heads, “Gosh, if only a human would come along and capture me and take me to where all the prey are, because I can’t work out how to find something to eat!” ??

So…….then the conversation turned, for some reason, to cat-calling.  Maybe thinking of birds made him think of cats (who, by the way, he doesn’t believe have the ability to think, but that “God just programmed them to survive” – clearly this man does not have pets besides falcons). And then for some reason, “cats” made him think of cat-calling, because he said, inexplicably:

“You know what I don’t understand about this whole ‘talk to women’ thing?”

(“Why they won’t talk to you?” I am thinking)

“They wear these sexy clothes and then get mad when a guy looks at them!”

I wanted to jump out of the van.  Or push him out.

Instead, I said something like, “It’s the fact that we can’t walk down the street without men demanding we respond to them speaking to us, is all.  We are not on this earth to be at y’all’s beck and call.”

Turns out, as I found out on the ride home, he is a Christian and, indeed, does believe that women were put here to be at men’s beck and call.  But to this remark of mine, he said nothing.

Fortunately, we had arrived.  At a destination in State College.  Unfortunately, it was not MY destination.

The van company gave him the wrong address.

I had written down the right one, though, but it was all the way back about 10 miles the way we had just come.  I assured him I would not get him in trouble, as it was his first day, or so he said.  Wasn’t his fault anyway.

So I was late for my appointment.

Upon arrival, I was impressed by the doctor’s waiting room – quiet, well-lit, small but cozy, with a really nice receptionist.  The nurse who called me back was nice, too, until….

(You expected conflict, didn’t you? Admit it!)

…we got to the question about allergies.

Nurse Nitwit (not her real name!): Allergies?

Me: Yes, blah blah blah sulfa drugs blah blah…

Nitwit: Wait! You can’t be allergic to sulfa, you take ___________ (a sulfate drug).

Me: Sulfate and sulfonamides are not the same.  I am allergic to sulfonamides.

Nitwit: But they both contain sulfur!

Me: Yes, but….sulfur is everywhere, even in our bodies.  “Sulfa” allergy just refers to sulfonamides, not sulfates or sulfites.

Nitwit: (blank stare)

Me: Look, if you give me a sulfonamide antibiotic or diuretic, I am going to break out in hives.  I took ___________(sulfate drug) today, and have been taking it for 2 years.  Do you see any hives?

Nitwit: I don’t believe that.  I think you should see an allergist.

Me: Please put this in my chart and we’ll let the doctor figure it out, ok?  I mean, you wouldn’t want to be responsible for an anaphylactic incident if she prescribes something I am allergic to, would you?

Nitiwit: (sighing) No…Ok.

The rest of the intake was uneventful, but I was fuming.  Why should a patient have to argue with a nurse over drug allergies?  What about other patients this nurse may have put in danger because she is an idiot?  No, nurses should not be completely versed in pharmacology but they should at least be aware of common drug allergies and cross-sensitivity.  Because those things can result in death.

She left, and then the doctor came in.  Or, I should say, “jogged in” because that is precisely how she entered the room.  And would not shake my extended hand.  I don’t know why, but I always take the ‘not shake your hand’ thing as a bad indication.  And I am always right, the interaction will go downhill from the get-go.  As it did this time, too.

“Hi, how are you? Why did you come to see me today? Let’s pull up your medical records,” she said all this as one huge run-on sentence, not giving me any time to reply.

In my profession, we call this “pressured speech”.  It is one of the clear symptoms of:

Stimulant abuse, bipolar disorder, or too much coffee (yes I know coffee is a stimulant, but, unlike the geniuses who wrote the DSM-V, I differentiate between too much coffee and, oh say, cocaine abuse).

So now I am caught off-guard.

Side note for all you cognitive psychology fans: There is something called “schema theory”, which is the idea that we all have ‘scripts’ for situations like “going to the doctor’s office”.  If we are asked to imagine that, most of us will usually say, “go to an office, sit and wait, go to exam room, get bp and temp taken…” and so on. 

Nowhere in my “going to the doctor” schema does it include rapid, pressured speech.  So already I am a bit thrown because this interaction doesn’t fit.  It fits the “working-as-a-therapist-in-a-psych- hospital-and-interviewing-a-bipolar-patient-who-is-having-a-manic-episode” schema.

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It’s NOT Funny!

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Ok, probably sometime in the future, I will find it amusing.  Today, not so much.

There are a lot of things I don’t understand about life, but what I find strange about today’s topic is that no one has mentioned it, as far as I know.

I’m talking about the lack of information in smartphone manuals.

Let’s see, the last time I wrote about my smartphone, it was sitting on my dresser, waiting to be activated.  I finally did that yesterday.

With a lot of tears and profanity.

Also, I managed to change some wifi settings in the vain hope that my phone would connect to my home wifi.

With a lot of tears and profanity.

Additionally, I managed to input contacts, set 2 appointments on my calendar, and put a clock on my home screen.

No tears or profanity, but I had to use YouTube to learn how to do these things, and somehow during the ‘adding contacts’ phase I accidentally called my older son…

And couldn’t find the red phone icon in order to disconnect.  Probably because I panicked and felt so dumb.  So I left a message:

“Um sorry this is mom…I accidentally called you…I am gonna try to hang up now…love you.”

And I actually turned off the phone because I still couldn’t work out how to hang up!

“Why didn’t you read the manual?” perhaps some of you are shaking your heads and talking to the computer screen right about now.

Well, duh, I did.  The manual that has 1 page with a picture in order to point out what the buttons are, 1 page devoted to ‘how to charge your phone’ (which I actually figured out all by myself), half a page on how to activate your phone (I used the website, thanks), 1 page showing me that my phone has apps, 1 page about voicemail, and a page on how to manage my account from the phone…which gets me an error message when I try to use that feature.

There are a few more pages about Motorola Migrate – which I can’t use because this is my first Android phone, how to take photos & videos (oh hell it will be weeks before I even tackle that), how to send a message (but not how to read it or reply to one), picture & video messaging (no!), international services, and VZ Navigator, which also gets me an error message when I try to use it.

That’s it.  No “how to make a call”, “how to add contacts”, “how to fix it once you messed up adding contacts” (which I did), or “how to send call to vm/block call/answer the damn phone”.

YouTube to the rescue, and, in particular, FuriousTechnology (thanks, guys!) and “Pat, from Consumer Cellular”.  No, Consumer Cellular is not my phone company, but Pat is very helpful in terms of “how to teach dummies over 50 to use a Moto G without losing their minds”.

To backtrack….regarding the activation…I used the website to activate my phone, and wanted to set up autopay so I could just have them take money out of my account each month.  So I did that but then discovered they hadn’t taken out the monthly charge so I could use my phone right away, so back to unenrolling from that and adding money.

Then it told me my balance was 0.  What?? Well, I thought, maybe that just means I paid (it did).  But I wanted to make sure so made a note in my head to email Verizon to ask them.

No way am I calling India to find out.  I was already upset and didn’t want to compound it by talking to “Quentin” (who is really Ramesh), who will be nice I’m sure but will infuriate me by being unable to understand what I need.  Partly, I admit, because I will probably be shouting.

Next task: to connect Moto to wifi so I won’t use data for…whatever (Tool ringtones, probably).  I went to the options and it asked me for the router password.  Confidently, I located the password and…huh?

Where in hell is the keyboard on this thing??

I couldn’t find it.  And, being one of those “don’t touch anything or you’ll break it” types from the early days of computers, I didn’t want to just start swiping etc.

So I got back online and had a chat with Verizon’s customer service rep, figuring at least if it was an online chat she couldn’t hear me yelling.  She helped me find the keyboard and all was well (just go to the bottom of your phone).  She also assured me I had put money on my phone.  I thanked her and logged off.

But… after I input my password, the phone wouldn’t connect.  It just kept saying it was looking for the network, though occasionally it would quickly flash that it had connected…then go back to looking.  And looking.  And LOOKING!!

So I figured, while my phone was looking for the wifi network, I would go into settings.  I wanted to turn off Google Play updates because I read that the phone will use up data that way (see? I actually had learnt something at some point).

But, of course, that’s not in settings.  You have to go to Google Play for that, and log in.  Log in, using the 3G network I am trying so desperately NOT to use.  Because…

Using data = BAD.  This got drilled into my head during my research into smartphones (ie, which phone to get).   Because, I guess, you don’t want to run out of data and then either have to pay for more, or rely on a wifi network somewhere.  Oh no!  What would you do then???

After numerous attempts to find the correct setting to turn off updates, and in the process stumbling on the ‘data used’ thing in my phone, I watched as the data just kept, well, being used….mb by mb.  9.75mb just by having Google on my phone??

I felt helpless.  I knew Moto was using data somehow by continually connecting to Google Play and doing what-I-don’t-know (passing the time of day with some kind of computer-talk that only devices understand?), and I didn’t know how to stop it.

What if I connected to Google and it downloaded all my email to my phone?!  Clearly I would hate that, as I have no idea what I would do then.

Emails are for laptops.  Not for phones.  Not for me, with only 500 mb of data.  I think.  I don’t even know what a “mb” is, let alone how many it will use for email – all I know is I don’t have enough of them to, say, watch General Hospital while I am waiting at one of the many doctor’s offices I go to each month.

Yes, they have TV, but for some reason, in every doctor’s office I go to, they are all set to CBS, not ABC.  So I got hooked on the Young and the Restless, too.  Thanks a bunch, all of you who control waiting room televisions.

Anyway, I was helplessly watching the data just drain away, while frantically looking up anything on the internet that might help me (Pat was of no use, unfortunately)…and there was nothing.  I can usually find anything I want using an internet search, but for this?

Nada, zip, zilch. “We all know how to do this already so we won’t bother to post about it,” the internet seemed to scream. Or maybe the screaming was just in my head.

So…I lost it.  I started to cry.  I didn’t know how to do anything on this phone, the manual just assumes you know about Androids and technology, and I was about to just give up and go back to the hated basic phone I have!  Which isn’t even on Verizon, it’s on Virgin which is a zillion times worse!

Why was everything on this phone so hard?  Why is it intuitive for everyone except me?

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Happy Samhain!

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We had our Trick-or-Treat night here last night, and got 40 trick-or-treaters.  Not bad, though we usually get a few more.  It was cold and windy, though, so that’s probably why.  All the kids were polite, and I would say about 40% of them were teenagers!  Nice to see them out having some innocent fun.

No weirdness last night, but tonight is actually the night when the veil is thinnest…I will be thinking about and honoring my ancestors, and all those I care about who have passed.  I don’t expect any trouble from whatever-it-is, but if it starts making noise and throwing things, I am gonna be right pissed-off.

I have always just stumbled my way along, in terms of any rituals etc as per my beliefs, but recently I came across a website that really resonated with me: Celtic Reconstructionism.  According to the website, celtic reconstructionist paganism is “a polytheistic, animistic, religious and cultural movement.  It is an effort to reconstruct, within a modern Celtic cultural context, the aspects of ancient Celtic religions that were lost or subsumed by Christianity” (“What is Celtic Reconstructionism (CR)?”   Paganachd/Paganacht – A Celtic Reconstructionist Gateway, 2006).

There is a lot to absorb in this website and I am still reading and pondering.  I do have Irish Celtic roots, although I can’t trace them back farther than my great-grandfather (who was born, I believe, in County Cork).  I lived in Dublin for 2 years, and, I guess like many Americans, felt really comfortable there.

I hesitate when I write about Ireland, because I don’t want to sound like a ‘typical Irish-American’, someone who is all the time blathering about “Irish roots” and all that.  I had often heard my Irish friends make fun of Americans like that, you know, the “my great-great-great-grandmother’s cousin came from Ireland…somewhere…so that makes me Irish!” tourist that the Irish encounter on a regular basis.

My friends used to ask me, “Why aren’t Americans just proud to be Americans?  Why do they always have to hyphenate it with something else?”

And I guess the answer to that is, we are a young country.  None of us have ancestors who are native to this land, unless we are a part of one of the indigenous tribes here.  Look at our “culture” – on the face of it, it’s McDonald’s, guns, drugs, insular attitudes (as one of my Northern Irish friends so aptly put it), and it can be somewhat artificial/materialistic/superficial in nature.

A lot of us do have traditions passed down within our families, but often those are from other countries.  Most of my family recipes – the ones I could find, anyway – are Irish or English (my great-grandmother was born in England).  I think that’s true for most Americans.

Let’s face it – just being American can be boring!  Or so many people seem to believe.  So they might say, “I’m Irish”, when what they really mean is, “I think I have Irish ancestors somewhere in my family”.  This usually annoyed my Irish friends.

So I don’t want to come off like that.

Having said that, however, I was deeply saddened when it was time for me to come back to America from the island where I lived.  Of course I missed my family, so that was the happy part, but I really grieved what I felt was the loss of my home, for a very long time.  I still cannot watch certain movies or read certain books without feeling very sad and very disconnected to the life I live now.

It may sound stupid, or cliche-ish, but I felt at home in the Republic, and in Northern Ireland too.  I’m not going to get into the politics, except to say that, unless you have lived there, you really cannot understand.  So I am going to leave that completely alone.

When I lived over there, I felt as if I belonged.  In fact, I experienced none of the issues I have had with people in my own country.  Oh, I was still seen as an American, of course, but I was never felt to be unwelcome, or even as an outsider.   It’s really hard for me to explain how comfortable I was living there.  As homogeneous as Irish culture can be at times, I was never felt to be any less of a person because I wasn’t Irish.

I have never felt as comfortable in the U.S.  Never.  I have, many times, felt to be less than a person in my own country.

When I returned in 2003, I immediately started looking into emigrating back.  I can’t claim citizenship, because my grandmother was born in Chicago and her birth was never registered in Ireland.  Had it been, it’s possible my mother could have made a claim.   But, as it is, that’s not possible.

And while I do have a university degree, it’s not in a field where Ireland needs workers (psychology).  So applying for worker visa status would most likely be fruitless.

I’m stuck.  I haven’t even been back for a holiday, and I miss it so much.  I miss my friends too.

Anyway, I have wandered way off-topic.  I was writing about celtic reconstuctionist paganism.

In my belief system, I have many gods and goddesses.  The ones I connect with are Irish.  It has always been so with me.  But I have never had a good handle on the ancient beliefs, and I think that would be a good fit for me.  Or my deities think it is a good fit for me.  At any rate, I am drawn to this and I will continue to study and pursue it.

I hope you find the links interesting.

And I hope, however you celebrate it, you all have a very good Halloween!