Then in 1871, the most famous sighting occurred … several ladies and gentlemen staying in Kilkee were out walking around the Diamond Rocks, when a monster rose from the surface of the water. What struck me about this account is most sightings are either by an individual or a couple of people, where this sighting occurred in front of a larger group. The news of the sighting traveled from Ireland to London’s illustrated paper the Day’s Doings and posted this description along with the image shown here.

“It had an enormous head, shaped somewhat like a horse, while behind the head and on the neck was a huge mane of seaweed-looking water; the eyes were large and glaring, and, by the appearance of the water behind, a vast body seemed to be beneath the waves.”

Ahhh, now that sounds more like a description of a water kelpie, but as kelpies are reputed to be shape shifters, they can take any form, including human. So the question arises, for those debunkers out there: Was this a mass hysteria sighting or another instance of a really big fish? Or is it possible that there are creatures of the deep that we have no idea about?

Anyway, I happened to run across this little nugget of information. In 1881, in County Clare, John Philip Holland was the first person to successfully launch a submarine. It makes me wonder whether John Philip Holland had a secret desire to be a monster hunter. After the sighting in 1871, did he throw himself into the job of creating a vessel that would allow him to chase the Irish Nessie underwater? His first submarine designs weren’t submitted until 1875 … it is fun to speculate.

Speculation, wonder, dreaming, and nightmares are all fuel to the writer’s fire.

The post Does Nessie Have An Irish Cousin? appeared first on Be the Cat.

Does that mean I never have an off day? Far from it. I have had those days where either current circumstances or memory attacks take me to a bad place and I feel depleted of all energy, creativity, and I’m sure I’ll never smile again.

With a background in system technology, it is natural for me to address these bad moments/days with Conditional Analysis using If-Then statements. I’ll even use an acronym for one of the “result” responses — SIUB (Suck It Up Buttercup). When I reach a point where my emotions are overwhelming me, I do tend to get “clinical” in my approach to getting myself out of feeling the way I do. So … it runs something like this:

• Conditional Analysis – Section I — Is the situation something you have control over?
• If yes, then move to conditional analysis section 2
• If no, then go straight to SIUB (do not pass go, do not collect $200)
• Conditional Analysis – Section II — Do you know what will rectify the situation?
• If yes, then why haven’t you done it. Go directly to get off your butt and get it done. No one is going to do that for you, so take a deep breath and get ‘r done. Because once you fix what you have control over, your mood will shift.
• If no, then you need to figure it out. Go directly to SIUB.
• SIUB — The following are some methods that will help you deal with things over which you have no control as well as things where you know you have the control to help fix, but have no idea what to do.
• Call your bestie — This may rather sound like a cop out, but hear me out …
• From the jar of smiles I pulled this saying out:
  

  A best friend will make you laugh when you think you will never smile again.

  You should never underestimate the power of having a best friend. And if yours doesn’t do that for you, then get another one. Mine knows, sometimes before I do, that I’m getting my tail tied into a knot over something, when the thing I’m getting worked up about isn’t truly driving my anger — it is usually something I have no control over.

• Also, who better to reach out to when you know you can’t think straight? A bestie can offer the perspective you lack.
• And with my bestie, it doesn’t matter which one of us is upset, or how big their grievance is, at some point during that call one of us will get the other to laugh … and once laughter has been achieved, we both feel better.
• Pros and Cons List — Groan all you want, a pros and cons list helps you see the positives and negatives of the actions you are thinking about taking.

I love pictures that bring a story to mind immediately, and this picture is one. In my head, the story goes … The girl on the left was upset over some mean things some boys said to her as she paraded down the street in her costume. She found a corner to hide in so she could cry without anyone calling her a baby. But before she got a good sobfest going, little witchy-poo found her and listened to her friend drawing the story out of her when she’d stop. As soon as the story of what had happened has been told, Witchy-Poo stands, stomps her foot on the ground, says, “Well, see about that,” and holds her hand out to the friend. They then stride toward the troublemakers, the girl on the left a little apprehensive, but definitely feeling much better that her bestie has her back. And little Witchy-Poo? She means business, you see it in the grip she’s got on her friends hands. It’s the little ones who roar like a lion you need to be afraid of. (To all my LONG time friends, we KNOW I’m the girl in the witch hat who will make those boys rue the day they messed with her friend.)

Even though this post is a little on the long side already, I’m going to hope you’re still with me because this is the most important part. While I am thankful that when I have lost my smile due to a situation/circumstance — usually out of my control — I do have a fantastic network of friends who help me find my smile, it makes me even more emphatic about being the friend who gives the smile back. THAT is the kind of friend I strive to be. And not in a superficial way, but in some meaningful way to help the person in pain. What kind of friend are you?

PS I love the featured pic of the macaque because just looking at that would cheer me up on a bad day. The goofy grin is everything.

The post Jar Full of Smiles: The Lost Smile appeared first on Be the Cat.

I had actually been researching information for a post that is formulating about the increase of Middle School anxiety and why, when my attention was caught by a post on Facebook exhibiting some of the exact reasons why anxiety has been increased over the past few years. The original post was an image highlighting the inconsistency of media reporting these days. Which is true. I don’t care which side of the political spectrum you support, the media coverage of any and everything has a schizophrenic quality to it, and extreme bias is shown when the media is supposed to be impartial purveyors of facts. And on that post was an escalating exchange between a father and daughter (both adults).

Mom and Dad

Let me be clear … my parents raised me to have my own opinions and to be fiercely independent — which was definitely NOT an easy task for either one of them. And I’ll be candid … my dad and I butted heads — regularly. But that head-butting always took place privately and never in a public forum. The major reason for that is that along with teaching me to form my own opinions, and to be independent, I was also raised to respect others — even when whole-heartedly disagreeing with them and the things they believed.

Unfortunately, all you have to do is pull up social media these days to find it dripping with peremptory dogma, malice, and often hatred. And what we don’t realize is the major impact that malice and hatred are having … not on the people who we are expressing it against, but to ourselves. I have established a routine of being on social media as little as possible simply because the seething anger is damaging to me and causes me stress, which I need to avoid for my own health benefit. I cannot imagine what it must be like walking around with all that hatred boiling all the time — we are killing ourselves.

Back to my point. Whenever I see families, in particular, taking such sides and expressing feelings that are ultimately damaging to the relationship, it brings my dad to mind and how much animosity I carried at some points in my life toward him. And every single time I have that thought, it is followed by how THANKFUL I am that we had resolved those issues prior to his passing. Had he died when my last memories of him would be the anger I held? I shudder to think of it. My mental health would have taken a huge nose dive and who knows when or IF I would have pulled out of it. Grieving for him was hard enough, without extra heapings of guilt for not having resolved our issues.

Those issues were not resolved by agreeing with every word he uttered. Again, that’s not how I was raised, but by letting go of the animosity, by letting go of the emotional intensity surrounding the issues, and understanding that while we may not agree, he always thought things through and probably had good reasons for holding his opinions as I did for holding mine.

Why didn’t I jump into the thread and say these things, instead of coming to my blog to express it? There are none so blind as those who refuse to see; and none so deaf as those who refuse to hear … a quote probably stemming from the 1713 ‘Works of Thomas Chalkley’ which have roots back to the Bible.

What I would like to say is “How will you feel if your dad was gone tomorrow? Will you have a clear conscience with which to grieve for him?” However, that is extremely personal, and I recognize how close that would have cut to the bone.

We are coming up on 28 years since my father passed, and while somethings are easier with time, others are not. For example, the big things that hit me are the things that never can be. Like winning an award for writing — something my dad never understood because he wanted me to have financial safety and security on my own. And right there is one of the points of contention I had with him. He wanted me to have a safe existence and the ability to support myself.

He couldn’t see writing novels as a potential life career because he wanted what was best for me. He didn’t see that writing for me is an essential part of my life, even if I were not to ever sell a single word, and at that time, I saw his lack of support as thinking I couldn’t do it, and didn’t recognize his fear of my being rejected (which is part of the publishing industry). I saw his attitude as a lack of support, a lack of love (something he had an extremely difficult time expressing), but fortunately figured out his reasoning prior to his death. I know, without any doubt whatsoever, that were he living today, he’d be bursting with pride over my accomplishments, and would be bragging about me more than I would like. I get emotionally overwrought because he isn’t here and I can’t share my successes with him. He may not have understood how important writing was to me, but he would have been one of my biggest supporters.

So in this long, rambling post, my point is to always treat (at the very least) family and friends with respect, realizing they are far more important than any political agenda, and it is not worth carrying around the animosity — because you never know when you’ll be facing the memory of them instead of the person. Will you be able to do so without guilt clouding your sorrow that they are gone?

The post In Memory of Dad appeared first on Be the Cat.

In my mind, the term rubber stamp conjures up an ink pad, with your choice of ink color, a stamp with a wooden handle, and when it gets worn, the edges of the stamp hitting the paper and blurring the message. But most of the time that didn’t matter because all the stamp said was, “PAID” or “CENSORED” … a single word or at most a return address stamp that became illegible from blurred ink when the ink pad was over inked.

And no, that isn’t the kind of stamp I bought — I bought signature stamps — both pre-inked and self-inking. There are some writers who write every book long hand. There is a change in how your thoughts function when writing long hand vs. tapping away on a keyboard.

And I do happen to love what happens mentally when I do write long hand … but the arthritis I have in my hands makes it impossible to do more than a paragraph or two before the pen is flying across the room because I can no longer grip it. For whatever reason, I am affected more severely trying to hold a pen than I am when typing.

So when looking ahead at the need to sign multiple books in one sitting, I needed to minimize the impact to my hands. Enter the rubber stamp … only fancier than they used to be. I am not only thrilled with the stamp’s design, but also how it looks when used.

Why am I bothering to blog about the stamps at all? Well, first off, I think they look great, but secondly they coincide with my message of Be the Cat! because for me signing a lot of books in one go, or even spread out over time, would be difficult — an obstacle to overcome. No amount of hand strengthening therapies are going to enable me to hold a pen for long periods of time, but rather than allow that to affect me negatively, I have found a way to improve the situation.

From the time I was a child, my fine motor skills have been lacking, although my large motor skills were well-developed. And some days even lightly touching my fingertips to my palms (of the same hand) involves pain … and a book signing should be a wonderful experience rather than painful one, so getting stamps will allow me to enjoy the moment instead of trying to drive past the pain. With every stamped signature, there will also be a reminder of my Be the Cat message — a message near to my heart.

And that alone makes me smile.

PS — to any naysayers who think my stamp isn’t a legitimate signed copy … the signature IS mine, painstakingly captured for reproduction, and I will be the person putting it in every single book.

BE THE CAT!

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The post My Signature Stamp appeared first on Be the Cat.