Coincidence? Or shared consciousness?

I overheard a conversation between some of my colleagues this morning, in which they were discussing George Clooney. It was nothing new: the same tired argument - the men were saying he is gay, the women were arguing. In my personal opinion the only reason men say this is that they are all horribly jealous of M. Clooney - and why wouldn't they be?!
But that is not the point here.

The point is the weirdness, and that is that this conversation pinged something in my head and I suddenly remembered that I dreamt about the man himself last night. Yep, George Clooney, large as life, was in my dreams. It wasn't one of those dreams either (unfortunately); it was far more realistic. I was in jeans and a T-shirt, he was in a group of people obviously pandering to his every need (secretaries, publicists and the like) but for some reason we started a conversation and he ignored all of them for a few minutes. It was then that I told him I'd always known we would meet each other, which he found very amusing. We got along really well, and then he had to go, which was a little sad but sure, I have a husband you know and I have no desire to be part of the whole Hollywood scene. Far too many fake people there for my liking!

Yeah, kind of boring, I know.
Makes you wish it WAS one of those dreams, doesn't it.

The thing is, though, it's not as if dear George is a regular topic of conversation in our office. Nor do I dream of him every night (more's the pity...!) So what's up with the timing?
It's like when you think of someone, out of the blue, who hasn't entered your mind in ages and then the next day you bump into them on the street. That happened to me a LOT, with one particular person, actually - the ex-boyfriend of one of my sisters. If it had happened once, OK I can put it down to coincidence. Twice, maybe. But we're talking about maybe up to 10 times, spanning a period of something silly like a decade.
(And then one day we moved into a new house only to discover a few months later that this guy was one of our neighbours!)

There comes a point where I have to start wondering: Is there such a thing as coincidence? Or is there something going on in our subconscious that creates these things. Some might even play the 'psychic' card.

I figured I would put my own theory in here, but when I tried I realised I don't have one. At least not one that is a fully formed idea.

So what do you think? Psychic? Shared consciousness? Or just plain coincidence..?

Top o' da mornin' to ye..!

Ireland is a mass hangover today courtesy of that ancient serpent exterminator, Saint Patrick.
It's quite funny to look around the office; pretty much everyone has an ever-so-slightly gray pallor and the drone of voices is a little huskier than normal. It's a funny aul' place, this. Every year on March 17th traffic across the country grinds to a halt around midday as St Patrick's Day parades take to the streets not only in Dublin but in pretty much most towns. Even the little town I live in had a parade; apparently about 1000 people turned out to watch which is actually pretty good (you haven't seen the size of the village I live in!)

In my 8 1/2 years in Ireland I have only bothered watching the parade in Dublin twice. The first time it was bitterly cold and lashing rain outside, but being our first year in the country we kind of had to go, really. The second time we went because it wasn't lashing rain and we wanted to see if the parade was any better. It wasn't. This seems something of a tradition here: Mobs of people watching a mediocre parade that has been advertised as the best thing since they discovered the Bog Man.
Only, you don't get to see anything except the back of the head in front of you and to do this you have to be trained in the Art of Fighting for your Space in a Crowd, else you get elbowed and pushed and shoved until you pop out of the back of the crowd like a champagne cork. So most people forego going into Dublin for the parade - the onlookers on the streets are mostly tourists. The locals are all in the pub, eating and drinking waaaay too much and perhaps watching the Parade as it is broadcast on the small out-of-focus TV mounted in a dark corner above the bar.

This was the tradition we followed yesterday, Hubby and I (after going for a breakfast run on our bikes in the morning because it was one of those rare St Patrick's Days when the sun was shining on the Emerald Isle). For the rest of the afternoon pub grub and too much beer was the order of the day, in an old country pub filled with locals from the area thirsty for a pint after the parade.

'Twas a grand day indeed :-)

The cavemanperson in me is alive and well

A good friend of mine is due to give birth within the next few weeks and I have become aware of a very strong need to be with her around about the time the baby comes. It's not the first time I have felt this way since moving away - it happened when my niece was born, in Cape Town, as well as when two of my other friends had their babies, also in South Africa, while I was over here in Ireland.
And this one is even further away, in New Zealand.

Don't get me wrong, I pretty much always miss my friends. I think we make the strongest friendships in our younger years and these are the people I'm talking about; the ones with whom we have grown from girls into women. We have seen each other through falling in love and heartbreak, through marriages, births, divorces and the deaths of loved ones.

It is in these milestone times that women draw strength and support from each other as much as sharing happiness. The term "I'm happy for you" isn't just a pleasantry, we feel genuine joy when a friend finds true happiness.

Childbirth, however, is a time when I feel a much stronger pull than simply missing my friend. It is an instinct, almost primal, to gather around her, make tea, boil water (for the tea, perhaps?)... whatever, just make sure mum and baby are nurtured.
(And husbands, too, I suppose, although they should be well able to feed themselves if they have reached a point where they feel they are able to become fathers!)
But, no offense, this is about a woman and her new offspring.

Perhaps it stems from centuries ago, when communities lived in closer quarters, when men went out hunting for ages at a time and women were left to take care of... pretty much everything else, really. In fact I have a very clear picture in my mind of me, with my closest friends, my mother and my sisters, all hovering around a woman with her newborn child, in our cave wearing clothes made from animal skins, cooking meals over an open fire. It seems to fit in with how I am feeling now.

Unfortunately, I will have to make do with emails and phone calls and digital photographs and SMS messages again. It's a poor substitute, but then again, it's better than nothing, and I know that my friend knows I am with her in spirit.

Say, I am kind of liking that picture of being a cave-dweller; civilization is sooo overrated sometimes!

When is it time to shoot the horse?

I am not really asking advice on horse murder here, it was a metaphor. What I really want to know is how does one know when the time has come to delete one's blog.
Is it when one only gets round to posting something new once a month... at the most?
Is it when the comments on one's infrequent posts become even less frequent than the posts themselves?
Or is it when one no longer has the thought, "I'm gonna blog about this!" half a dozen times a day; in fact one battles to find anything at all that seems blog-worthy in one's life.
Ponderous questions, indeed.

But then what if one doesn't want to delete one's blog and lose all the hours of work that have gone into it in the sum of all those posts. One can't help but think of the time spent writing, rewriting and agonising over the wording, not to mention finding and editing pictures and photographs. A blog is a creative thing, something born of one's own inventiveness. Hitting the "Delete Blog" button is quite a big deal, when the blog in question has been a work-in-progress for around 5 years.

Perhaps I'll ponder the question a bit more. After all, no-one ever accused me of making decisions quickly.