Well. I’ve gone quiet for a bit. I have things to post, oh yes. I can’t seem to make myself want to interact much. I’m a bit sad about missing the responses, you see. I post late at night, Irish time, and all the comments come in when I’m asleep – I love responding in ‘real time.’ Even if I set this doowhazizz to post at a later time, I’d be at work when my friends visit. All blogs are blocked at work, too. I can use the WP app to respond but I really like seeing a comment in situ when I reply – okay, that’s a bit odd perhaps. It’s a visual thing. I also enjoy sitting here, writing my heart out, and hitting ‘publish.’ I’d miss that just a bit too much.
Today, Margaret Thatcher finally died. I didn’t know much about her when I was living in the USA – I do recall the Falklands War, but I wasn’t interested in the politics of it. I never heard about the coal miners, or her support of apartheid, or how she let Irish men starve to death in prison rather than concede that the UK and Ireland were at war. Now that I’m married to an Irishman I’ve heard about these things, and I’ve heard again every time her face was on telly: will she just hurry up and die already?!? So, iDJ is happy, if you can say that. You know what? I can say that, and I just did. He’s glad she’s dead, and I’m happy he’s glad. I expect there will be a Thatcher-themed radio show this Thursday. So there. They should put her in a locked, gated mausoleum to keep away all the people who want to dance (or worse) on her grave. That said, a total stranger just called it ‘utterly pathetic’ that I said we’d opened some sparkling wine tonight for the occasion. Now I’m just a little bit pissed off.
Actually, a bit more than pissed off. If I say something stupid, I expect to be informed of it in a reasonable manner. Not called utterly pathetic. That is the type of interaction I never get here, and thank you all so very much for being reasonable people, or at least ignoring me when I’m irritating.
I couldn’t spell mausoleum to save my life, by the way. I don’t trust that it’s right even now, despite Google saying it is. That’s for you, Tom!
What else… Ah. My life feels like it is on hold. The relief I felt two weeks ago is dissipating and now I’m coming up with new things to worry about.
Ugh, now I’ve gone and made myself even crankier than usual. I’ve lost interest in my own bitching, so here’s a beautiful photo of Lokii.
Zoom in. Yes, do. He’s drooling just because he has sunshine. Now, doesn’t that make it all better?
heretherebespiders 
Your cat is beautiful! Also…everyone is entitled to their opinion. It pisses me off that some people won’t let that just be! I feel a little guilty that I literally don’t care that she is dead. It is better to toast to someones death than follow the approach of thousands of others by writing crude jokes on Twitter. But y’know, different things for different people…
I would be totally willing to listen to why I was wrong – if that had been offered 🙂
Thanks for the kitty-comment, I’ll tell him you said so!
They always let the Irish starve, right?
But Loki makes is all better – now that’s one beautiful cat.
Dance on.
Well, she did for sure. I’m guessing you’ve seen the Bobby Sands movie, or know the history?
the wheels at work grind slowly I hope–that is such a specific statement they made to you about your job, kid! so excited for you–I know it’s hard to wait because it’s pretty darned important that you make a change….
pretty drooly kitty in the sun!
Boss told me today she might have some time to come work with me tomorrow… I need another hope-infusion. Lokii is pretty awesome, ain’t he 🙂
hope-infusion = necessary! keep us posted. it’s always gratifying when our abilities are recognized and then used!
yes, he’s a lovely kitty–I could see the drool even before the enlarging.
Ha! I’ve never caught him drooling before, so that sunshine was a big, big deal for him!
My supposed new role will be well BELOW my abilities, and I’m screaming in impatience for it. I need time to do rather mindless work and let my brain concentrate on important things, like art!
that’s the kind of job I want when I go back to work… not take up brain room! yaaaay for you! just because we’re smart doesn’t mean we have to work at a job that demands our abilities–took me YEARS to figure that out–you’re way ahead o’ me! <:-D
Perhaps, my dear – we will see if it even happens! And I’m closer to retirement age than not – pensionless of course – so who knows how smaaaat I’ve ever been.
pension? foreign word to me! Life’s a bitch, then you die. So why shouldn’t we try to live for now? agggh, don’t want to get started….
Yeah… That inspires another rant! You’ll be proud of me for not reacting when called pathetic AGAIN by the twat over on FB. After a sleep everyone else shouted him down and that was good enough 🙂 Ahhhhhh. And I didn’t even care in my sleep! Yes, I take shit personally, especially as I’m NOT A DICK. usually. Ooo, another rant! Sorry my dear 🙂
well geez, what good is it to have a special place where people call names?! may as well just have a fistfight–just as useful but it shuts up because the face is all swollen…. who on earth would be such a fool as to resort to name-calling because you expressed your opinion?!
good on you–walking away is better than engaging even tho’ it sometimes doesn’t feel great. and good on those others who told the twat to shut the eff up. gotta have folks watching our backs from time to time…. feels good!
rant away!
The more I work with humans , the more I like my pets.
Sympathetic drooling. Helps, yes indeedy. Gorgeous kitty.
PS: I lived in England during the Ted Heath years. Sort of Thatcher-in-training. Miner’s strike, segueing into the beginning of the ’70’s Troubles, the hunger strike, the death or was it deaths, seems like there was that going on even before Thatcher. It was hell — except that it was cold. No lights, no heat, November (I think, but anyway, to continue the “no” theme — ) 3x a week. Utterly bad. And that was before Thatcher. After, I believe there were riots. iDJ could confirm. Bad memories. Dark, dark times.
I think I was drooling in the back garden about the same time he was ensconced in blankets upstairs!
Forgive my ignorance – the strikes started before MT and caused the blackouts? It seems nothing was done, then, until she stepped in with her iron handbag. If that’s the case, she got the result for the people using the power but at the expense of the people creating it, it seems. Am I off-base?
I think you nailed it. A horrible chain of events. And now I recall, possibly, the name of the guy who died of starvation in prison, in this earlier era — Kevin Sands? iDJ knows?
Bobby Sands – a few years ago, there was a brutal movie about him.
Sent from my iPad
Did you watch Meryl Streep playing her? Worth watching, I thought. And here’s the question – was she really any worse than many of the blander more middle of the road politicians we’ve had since who roll their opinions and spin the stories to maximise the votes? I’m nearly sure I’d prefer someone on the ballot card (though not necessarily in the seat of power) who firmly believed in their policies than some snivelling shite who smarmed and greased his way up the pole.
Nooooo, hubby hates her so much, watching that would have been an experience of listening to him shout at the telly.
I can’t answer your question properly, not having lived through any of it myself. But someone who shows no regret and vociferously sticks to the plan is clearly going to garner this sort of reaction, whereas the namby-pamby usual sort of politician just gets sneered at and quickly forgotten. If GW Bush had been less smarmy, he might also be on the celebratory death-watch. Yes, she got things done – even Carter managed that. But there’s a lot of lingering pain and the fingers can be easily pointed, it seems.
What do you think of our lad Ming the Merciless, out of curiosity? He also speaks his mind, perhaps from a more, ahem, mellow perspective…
Ming? Que?
Ha! I thought he’d be more famous: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_'Ming'_Flanagan
The synopsis: Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan (born 22 January 1972) is an Irish independent politician.[2] He was elected as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Roscommon–South Leitrim constituency at the 2011 general election. He was previously a county councillor and Mayor of County Roscommon. He is a social campaigner, best known for his long-running campaign to legalise cannabis.[3]
Ahhhh…. I am mostly a news free zone. I mean, I like to keep up with the latest earthquakes and volcanoes etc, but mini-men I don’t bother with 🙂
I watched it and learned a lot. Streep was amazing, too!
I get the feeling that if ye had watched it with iDJ you’d have learned a bit more…with lots of pauses while he ranted about inaccuracies and ‘spin.’
probably so–I didn’t live through her years…. and can’t really understand those years or her legacy…
Ah, but you did – she was prime minister from 1983 to 1990! I didn’t realise she was in that long. Sort of like Blair luvs Bush, Reagan luvs Thatcher. I just can’t get behind a government that believes the government itself should be a sucess, at the expense of the people it governs.
I missed most of that time because I was busy playing outdoor games in Alaska–didn’t listen to the news, didn’t care…. Also, living in so remote a place in the US made much news simply irrelevant. Alaska’s economy was its own boom and bust… etc and so forth! <:-D
I was doing a lot of crazy shite myself those years, to be honest. Did I ever tell you one of my ‘meatspace’ friends lives in Alaska? She comments now and again on here 🙂 Also my dad’s second wife spent a lot of time there, built her house herself as I recall! Why is it some spaces call to certain types of people? (Dad was there in the Air Force, too)
Sent from my iPad
“meatspace”??!! hahahahaha!
Having been called to, hard, by Alaska’s voice, I understand completely that some people belong in certain places. Or *don’t* belong, as it is with me, living here. If I didn’t have Big Mister, I’d be gone.
This says it all for me:
From the BBC quotes on the death of MT: “This woman is headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated.” ICI personnel department assessment, rejecting job application from the then Margaret Roberts in 1948
Gratuitous drooling cat shot is gorgeous 😀
Interesting. There’s another goal in my life – never, ever, be in a position where someone can look up all the jobs I applied for and failed to get!
I like headstrong and obstinate, myself – it’s the dangerously self-opinionated that is worrisome.
Thanks from Lokes – he loves attention from afar!
Nothing wrong with drooling kitties! We got one here too!
Never heear of Thatcher — oops!
Apparently she screwed around with Dutch politics back then too, maybe ask your parents what they thought, if they pay attention to these things? My parents surely did, but from an insulated American perspective, which I’m sure is the same perspective most (even the educated) Americans have, still.
If i don’t forget, I’ll ask!
No matter how bad things are a picture of a cat can make it better.
It’s always irritated me that the woman most known for her grit in politics is someone who seemed unable to take a position that wasn’t abhorrent.
I have noticed, that aside from the name calling of bitch or cunt, no one has really focused on her gender – just the shitty things she supported.
Ah! Looks like I’m 9 days late on your posts. So I’m sorry there will be several comments of mine waiting for you as you wake up in the morning, since I’m about to read all the posts I’ve missed. (Yah my problems, which I told you about, aren’t yet solved — I’m quite stressed and I’m doing absolutely nothing these days.)
Your comment about the word “mausoleum” made me laugh. Not only I know that word very well, I can spell it with both eyes shut. It happens that I have played the games of the series Civilization for like a decade now, if not more, and there always was a mausoleum in the game as one of the wonders, though it was not the same one in each iterations of the series.
The only reason I can think of as to why you have a problem with the word is because of the compound vowels “au”, not common in English. You could almost think it comes from French, but it is not the case. The word originates from Mausolus, a Persian king which has been the first person (though I doubt this part) for whom a Mausoleum was built.
Did you mention because they are building one for Margaret Thatcher?