September 12, 2007

Although it is football season, maybe you thought I was just oblivious to the UM football happenings. I wish I was- I'm still in shock. :) Anyway being football season, my nephew has started his first year in flag football! He's 7, and in 2nd grade this year, and my dad sent me some pictures of his game that I'm putting up here. I can't decide whether the boys seem small in their uniforms, or big- they seem awfully big for 7 year olds! Pretty soon American is going to be a land of giants at this rate- I'm already the shortest in my family by 6-9 inches, the last thing I need is everyone in the US to be 6 foot tall. :) G doesn't have nearly so many tall relatives as I do, but someday maybe we'll end up with really tall kids anyway. :)

It's hard for me to believe that 6 years ago today we were still reeling from the 9/11 attacks. The time goes by so fast, and it's easy to forget. 6 years ago G's contract with the Marine Reserves was up just before the attacks, and he decided to extend it since it seemed likely that his unit would be deployed, although that would have meant just about starting over on his research for his PhD. As most of you know he did not in fact go to Iraq- he kept extending and extending his contract, and finally when it seemed like his unit was not going to be sent he got out as he had planned. Several months later his unit was sent, and fortunately none of his group was killed in that deployment. Just after we got married we had a wonderful dinner with his staff sargeant and his wife, and he showed us his pictures from his Iraq deployment. Funny how the soldiers on the ground have such a different account of events than our news and politicians. I grew up looking at soldier pictures- I always loved seeing my dad's pictures when he got back from "playing army" (that's what my mom always called it) in the field for weeks on end. And of course hearing the stories that go with the pictures. Anyway it's good to think back on events like this and be thankful for our lives now.

On a less somber note, it's a beautiful warm sunny day here in Swavesey. The weather here seems to be improving, even though it is fall almost and many trees are turning brown or yellow. Alas no sugar maples with their beautiful green to red, no lovely golden quaking aspens. The horse chestnuts have been the first to have their leaves turn brown and shrivel up, and the lindens (which they call Limes) are next, with their leaves turning dingy yellow and dropping off. There really is no where like Michigan for a stunning fall, and an equally stunning spring.

Nelly has gotten over her little cat cold- I noticed that she was acting a bit strange last Monday, and decided to keep an eye on her. She didn't want to go outside, or play with anything, and she just stayed on our bed most of the time. And she sneezed cute little cat sneezes. :) But she's gradually gotten better- I guess here she's exposed to more cats and more likely to catch things from them than she was in Ann Arbor. Anyway she gradually improved and yesterday she was back to her normal self, sleeping in the sun in the garden, chasing away "cat fiend," and going outside and playing at night. About "cat fiend," who has not featured in a blog as yet. :D At least I'm not sure. Anyway about 2 or 3 weeks ago we started having visits from a strange neighborhood cat who appeared to be always famished, and was eating Nelly's food. But of course at night. I suspected it was the neighbor's cat, and they were on holiday and had been for some weeks, so I started shutting the cat flap at night and putting food outside until they got back. Anyway, Nelly didn't seem to care about this cat, so we had been calling him or her "cat friend" which is my normal monacher for an unknown but friendly cat. G saw the cat and it wasn't Miu Miu, the neighbor's cat, after all. After I read Cat Confidential, especially her section about how cat flaps can allow foreign cats in which disturbs the peace of your own cat, and after Nelly snuck down stairs one night and attacked said cat with much hissing and yowling, we determined that a better name for the cat intruder from Nelly's perspective was "cat fiend." So now that's what we call this unknown cat. Cat fiend occasionally comes and tries to mark our garden as his/her territory by going in my flower beds, which Nelly always counters by going there too, and diligently watching to be sure he/she doesn't come into her area. Well now you know the story of cat fiend. :) Cat fiend hasn't been around much recently though so I think he or she got the message. But we do still shut the flap at night, which Nelly hasn't complained about.

Yesterday I heard the most awful commercial on the radio. I honestly can't believe they put this on the air, especially on a radio station which has mostly "conservative" listeners. But you don't need to be politically conservative to be offended by this ad- here I'm using conservative in a much wider meaning. This ad is for a text message service of some type, which is perfectly innocent in and of itself. But the ad is made to sound like 2 men talking about a prostitute. If you text to the name Maureen you can get whatever service, the weather or whatever it was, texted back to you for 10p. However the ad blatantly sounded like a conversation where one man is discussing the "cheapness" of said "Maureen," who is made to sound like a prostitute with various "services." Their ad tag line is "Maureen, she's so cheap." It's horrible. I'm going to email the radio station to ask them to take it off the air. Perhaps they think it's funny, and I know British humor differs from ours, but this is beyond the bounds of that and is into the "highly improper" realm now. This is a classical radio station and they don't normally have many ads at all, none that have ever been like this one.