Friday with Business Cat (10)

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone!

I hope your day has been off to a good start and that the superstition bug hasn’t bitten any of you. I for one am going to seek out the little black kitty who lives in our apartment complex (not knowing his name, I’m torn between dubbing him either ‘Blackie’ or ‘Shadow’) and give him plenty of affection.

And since it is Friday and I feel you need to get a dose of some black cat feel good vibes on this the 13th, Business Cat has graciously agreed to help kick off the weekend by putting a smile on your faces. (Is it working?)

Well, there’s that, plus the fact that I’ve had some requests for more Business Cat pics – seems like his presence has been sorely missed 😉

Have a wonderful workday and weekend, everyone!

Things that made me happy this week

Happy Fried-day, blog readers!

It’s cold and rainy over here, so I’m obviously over the proverbial moon about it. No need to match my mood to the glum weather – especially now that the weekend is but a few hours away… and my first wedding anniversary just around the corner… *eek*

There have been a lot of developments during the last week: finding out that the books I worked on have been provisionally approved, dealing with (big) changes to said books, working with a difficult person who sort of thinks I’m her slave, doing freelance work, finding out the time of my interview next week… in a word: LIFE.

But besides all that, there were a few things that truly made me happy/smile, and I thought that I’d share them with you via photos. The smallest things can make you happy (a smile, a mug of tea, a fluffy cat) – it’s just how you decide to view life & the situations you find yourself in.

Okay, enough of waxing sentimental. Here are (a few of) the things that made me happy this last week:

A book on origami my mum bought me

Taking this photo of Smudgy at the perfect moment – it looks like she’s laughing!

Buying myself a copy of the new Stephen King novel

Raindrops on the sunroof as we drove to work yesterday

A lot of attention/affection from Smudgy. Here she’s keeping me from my freelance work

The prospect of baking more yummy goodies – glad I bought this magazine 🙂

Happy (or should that be lucky?) Friday the 13th!

Morning, readers

And happy Friday the 13th! *cue eerie music*

But don’t worry, there’s no reason to hide under the covers and lay trembling in fear until the Day of Bad Luck is finally over.

It’s not like a psychotic serial killer is going to spontaneously appear out of nowhere at the exact location you find yourself and start picking you & those around you off one-by-one until someone miraculously comes up with a ‘plan’ to save the day… with said person  being the sole survivor… and all of this only happening at night (I’d argue that the last man standing was the killer to begin with, but oh well…) See – nothing to worry about! *shifts uncomfortably in seat*

Have you ever taken the time to think about how utterly silly superstitions are?

Many superstitions we hear or read about today are rooted in mythology or came into existence because something bad happened to someone and they needed to find an explanation/scape-goat/excuse for it – no matter how ridiculous it might sound. The word ‘superstition’ means stand(ing) over, perhaps in awe of or as the survivor/witness of something. It is “a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary” (not everyone who comes across a black cat, cuts their nails/hair, walks under a ladder, etc.  on Friday the 13th has bad luck…and what is luck anyway but another sort of superstition?); “a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation.”

So sure, let’s all blame our problems on Friday the 13th. Anything unfortunate that happens to you before then can be explained as a build-up to the actual day… and then, depending on the amount of misfortune, you could argue that you had suffered enough and that’s why you were ‘spared’ any misfortune on the day itself *roll eyes*

Anyone else hearing how ridiculous this sounds?

 

 

Okay, another example: If there are thirteen letters in your name, you will have ‘the devil’s luck’. Really? Isn’t this just people/society trying to find a reason why some people do terrible things? Like Jack the Ripper (not even a real name), Charles Manson & Theodore Bundy? [Notice how all of them are men? And even if the same applies to women, would that be with their maiden name or does your married name, i.e. surname change, count?] Why can’t people accept that there are truly horrible people in the world who make their own sick decisions and that they cannot blame an invisible force (like the devil, who not everyone believes in) so that they at least feel better about mankind?

Anyway, let’s not get into the whole ‘God needs the Devil to prove that he is good’ PARADISE LOST discussion. The fact of the matter is, anything can be bad if you make a point of believing that it really is. Watch THE NUMBER 23. Or start believing that not colour-coordinating your wardrobe and organizing your drawers will lead to unspeakable things *cue eerie music again*

Enough rambling for one morning. Let’s all go hug a black cat, not care about stepping on cracks in the sidewalk, and only feel anxious about the long, nearly impossible to pronounce names for the fear of Friday the 13th: friggatriskaidekaphobia and paraskevidekatriaphobia.

And if you stillwant to go ahead and feel superstitious, I can only quote THE HUNGER GAMES and say: “May the odds be ever in your favour.”