Friday night, Saturday morning

I'm up marking. Or not marking as it happens. Honestly, marking exam papers is as much a psychological struggle as it is intellectual one.

Anyway, taking 'a break' to read my Twitter timeline I saw that Matt has made another video! This is exciting and made me 'extend my break' into blogging about it.

Matt is the guy who made a video of himself dancing around the world. Then he made another of him and lots of people dancing around the world. The third one is like the second one, except the dance moves have, by his own admission, improved.

I've used his videos in Citizenship classes and funny enough, the person who tweeted the link I saw said he uses them in Global Studies classes (he teaches in America). But, if you've never seen one, they're not educational in the traditional sense of the word.

Take a look, you'll be hard pressed not to raise a smile and feel slightly better about the world.



I want a job like that.

So...travelling to Emma's was fun

We've started planning Soul Mates 2013 already. I mention it because Soul Mates 2012 was that long ago and that's when I flew to America for a wonderful couple of weeks with some of my favourite people in the world. I never blogged about it and I don't really know why. But here at Princess no trip is too long ago to be celebrated. In fact, I kind of feel like it's the elephant in the room, or the blog not  blogged about.

As I so often have, I flew through Newark. It's my traditional route and comes from it being a hub for Continental, or United as it's now known. Hence air miles, hence this trip. I didn't have long in the airport, once you go through customs and immigration. Well long enough in the airport, but not long enough for a scoot into NYC as I've done before. I did get to see it from the window though.

Wow. You can really see that Manhattan is on a hill in this photo. Or I didn't straighten the photo in post-production. (I put that in deliberately. Long-time visitors will know there is no post-production on here.)

And there was time to grab lunch. And dinner. What?! I missed meals in the air.

The 1950s diner does a fantastic milkshake should you ever find yourself there.

Of course no trip to Newark is complete without getting a slice of my favourite broccoli pizza. It really is Newark's best kept secret. That, or it impresses no one else but me.

Fantastic!

Actually I had a fight on my hands to get into the right terminal (and by that I mean the pizza terminal) because my plane to Nashville left from a different terminal. But I was smart enough to realise that there was a United bus that left from one gate in the Pizza Terminal to the actual terminal. Ha! You will not deprive me of broccoli pizza.

At the gate I was all set. I reviewed my directions to get to Emma's house. And I waited. And I waited some more. And some more. And then my flight was delayed. And then it was moved. And then it was delayed some more. It was a fun time at the gate.

I amused myself by telling myself this was a Rascal Flatt sitting opposite me. But then I realised Rascal Flatts probably don't wear Phillies visors. Let's just pretend though.

Once the flight was moved gates I got talking to a lovely lady from Des Moines who was on her way back there from Florida after taking a continuing education class for her job. She was a masseuse and funnily enough, although likes her job, said it was stressful at times because clients would come in and offload all their problems on to her. Ha! She owned her own business and wants to set up acupuncture as well (actually she might have already - it's June and I can't remember!) I learned lots of interesting things from her about Des Moines, continuing education credits and masseusing in general. And she was happy to talk to me because I was from Ireland and have an accent. She told me that she was able to afford her classes because she'd done a Groupon deal and so had money in the bank from that. So that's better than a lot of the small business experiences of Groupon you hear in the media.

On the flight I was able to move to two seats that were free and slept for a while. With the delay I didn't arrive into about 10pm, which was about 4am my time. And this was after Soul Mates, the busiest weekend of my year. I was shattered. Nashville Airport was pretty quiet when we landed and I was the only person at the car rental place. The guy was from the UK and we had the oddest conversation because we kept on correcting our Americanisms back to the British which we didn't need to do but did kind of out of embarrassment.

He offered me the chance to upgrade. I declined. He offered me the sat nav. I declined. He asked again about the upgrade. I declined. You see, I had my skis with me and he really was quite concerned about getting them fitted in the car. That was nice of him, to be be concerned about me. That or it could be that he was on commission.

Eventually he sent me on my way, not before I asked him where the restrooms, eh bathrooms, eh toilets were. It was a long walk out to the parking structure, eh parking lot, eh car park and by the time I got there I was delighted to see the car rental man because he carried my stuff on down the line of parking spots.

You see, there weren't many cars parked in the lot. And then it came. My new friend offered me a free upgrade to any car I chose in the parking lot. Bingo!

To help me decide he asked me what was important to me in cars. This was a good question and one that I had no hesitation in answering: cupholders. Oh come on?! Isn't that important to everyone?! The other thing that was important to me was how close the car with the best cupholders was to me when we stopped to assess the options. On that basis I was happy to choose the nearby 6 cupholdered Hyundai Sonata. He fitted my skis in and I was on my way to Emma's.

Like I said, it was late and I was tired but with the power of Google Maps and some revision in Newark I made it out to Emma's without much trouble. There was only one sticky point when I couldn't find her exact house on the road, but it turned out I was right outside it: Emma flashed the porch lights and I was there!

Chalk another win up to the Interstate Queen!

Bye Bear

I don't have fond memories of the launch night of Big Brother in 2004. I don't have particularly fond memories of any Big Brother launch night I suppose, but 2004 was particularly bad because that's the night my cat died. Tigger had been part of our family for 18 years. Yes, that's right she was old enough to vote so she'd had a good innings (not that I ever saw her with a cricket bat, or a voter registration form for that matter).

Little five year old Tina came home from church with her brother and dad and watched through the window of the conservatory as Dusty gave birth to one of the last of litter.

We already had a dog, Bruno, and along with Dusty we were allowed to keep one of the kittens.

Tigger won my mum over by sitting on her foot instead of the cold conservatory floor. She soon became my cat; I was her favourite and she was mine.

We're all so little!

The night she died I came home from being out and, after watching the opening night of Big Brother 5, I found her in the first throes. I wish I had looked for Tigger right when I came home like I normally did instead of being lured into a crap hyped-up television show.

Blurry shot of her, but digital photography was in its infancy when Tigger was around.

Tonight is the England - Ukraine game and no matter what the score is I won't have fond memories of it either because today Sox died.

We didn't get a cat after Tigger died. It was a deliberate decision and one that lasted a solid two years. I was in North Carolina when news reached me that my parents had befriended a stray cat that had been appearing in the garden for a while. By the time I was home a few months later Sox was well set up.

Sox didn't eat too many more meals outside after he arrived with my parents.

I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time with him until after I was back from Singapore. We were originally just acquaintances in the same shared space, but he soon won me over too. After the coal incident it took a while, but we got there. He was even allowed to sleep at the foot of my bed, a place that Tigger had also been allowed.

For a while after I was back I called him Soxopher. I like to think of it as his full name. Soon enough he became Soxybear or The Bear, or just Bear. This name came from the bear outfit my nephew wore when he was a newborn baby. Just a few months ago Johnny pointed out to me that Soxybear wasn't a bear at all and I had to tell him the why he was called this, lest he think his Cool Aunt Tina was a complete idiot when it comes to animal recognition.

There is no doubt that Soxybear was my mum's cat. I used to tease her that "My Tigger - God rest her soul" never had the same number of cat accoutrements that Soxybear had. Honest-a-patience, that cat had more things to sleep on than I do. No really. 

The Bear in his igloo.

Soxybear was a very sweet cat, with a nice personality. Our theory is that he had been abused before he arrived with my parents because he really didn't like big noises like shouting or hoovering and practically no one could touch his back legs and expect to get away with it. (Probably why he was scared of me for a while after that unfortunate coal episode.) He seemed to trust us though and I think we gave him a really good home for six years. He gave just the right amount of head butts to tell you he wanted something and purred loudly when he was pleased with life.

I'm glad my parents are the sort of people that like animals and look after them well. And I'm glad that their hearts can be melted by a stray cat because as much as right now I feel like the end of Marley and Me, I wouldn't want to be without the Soxybear in the Soxybear Years.

Tweets from celebrities

Let me first of all say: no I don't know if I'll ever blog about Tennessee and Colorado either. I really should get on it. Especially since Emma is now back. (Well she would be if her flights hadn't got delayed, rerouted and delayed some more. Reminded me somewhat of this experience of mine.)

Anyway, back to tonight. I try not to blog on Friday or Saturday nights, you know, because I have far more important things to be doing. Like watching The Voice. But tonight I got a tweet from a celebrity! And I was out so it's not like I stayed in on a Friday night so I could tweet celebrities.

I was out with Karen Photographer in town. Neither of us drove so as to open up the possibility of a cheeky glass of wine. In fact, it opened up the reality of a cheeky glass of Pimm's and wine.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I'll get the salmon when I'm out. Tonight was one of the ninety-nine.

On the train on the way home, once Karen got off I listened to a podcast (a Five Live one if you must know) on my phone. I just caught one station announcement and it hit me who it was: the PR4L! If you listen to Radio 1 you'll probably be familiar with her work. If not she's the Posh Radio 4 Lady and reads Dear Scott. In her actual job she reads the news on the Today programme. Hence, the Posh Radio 4 Lady!

I wasn't sure but I knew I'd seen her on Twitter, so I wrote a tweet and mentioned her:

Am I wrong or is the automatic station announcer on Translink trains the PR4L? @Kathyclugston

But it's Friday night and she's the PR4L and has much better things to be doing than looking at her tweets, let alone replying. But she did! In a matter of minutes. She said, and I quote:

@tinaarena22 you are RIGHT!

So I did what anyone would do in that situation. I retweeted it. Well, I looked on it like a public service announcement for my followers who might have wondered the same thing on a Translink train. 

It's moments like this that make me love Twitter! And the PR4L! RT @kathyclugston: @tinaarena22 you are RIGHT!

But then I had a moment of mind panic; I had mentioned her but not actually thanked her for replying or said anything directly back to her. What's the Twitter etiquette about that, the twetiqutte if you will? So I wrote back to her:

@kathyclugston Thank you! I don't often get the train but tonight it just hit me that it was you so had to check! Have a nice weekend!

I thought that was nice, polite end befitting an encounter with the PR4L. But this is the PR4L we're talking about; of course she wrote back.

@tinaarena22 you too!

Being so encouraged by the PR4L I will now do my very best to have a nice weekend. 

I will draw the line at tweeting her about it come Sunday (or Tuesday). You know, in case she thinks I'm weird or something.