One of those days

Well, I had what I thought was a fabulous post on what it means to be an American descendant of an Irish ancestor. It was about how my family sold out, gave up their Catholicism, the Gaelic language, even sold their tartan and became Anglicans to please the English colonizers, to preserve some personal or real property that is no longer in our family's possession (we don't even know what it was they were trying to protect), and how all of this knowledge shaped my year of study abroad in Belfast, NI. BUT, there was some stupid glitch in my computer and the post, which was impossibly long, was wiped out. Not even the automatic "save" feature saved it.

I spent hours working on that post. It was beautiful. It was going to be the first in a series of posts centering on my study abroad trip to Northern Ireland, both as a belated tribute to St. Patrick's day and as a tribute to the dear friends I made in Belfast. I hope to see you all soon in Charleston!

I was going to try to rewrite it, but today is one of those days. I am laying here in bed, typing all of this when I promised Elisha I would be resting. I am trying to fight off a nasty cold by tomorrow, the first day of my new job (Yay!!). I don't have enough energy for a do-over post and yet, I worked so long today that to post nothing would be to accept utter defeat.

So, here goes, I'm going to post every thing I know about starfish (first thing that came to mind):

- starfish digest their prey outside of their body by dropping their stomachs out of their mouths and enveloping their prey. Stomach acids then dissolve prey and the stomach is pulled back into the body.

-starfish can regenerate lost limbs

-starfish have no natural predators. (I'm pretty sure, anyway)

-there are 1,800 different species of starfish.

-starfish are echinoderms, not fish.

- starfish have tiny eyes at the end of each of "arm", the eye allows them to see movement and distinguish between light and dark

- starfish are never found in fresh water.

-starfish use their suction cup-like tube feet to pry open the shells of clams and oysters, its main prey.


Okay, so I looked some of those up on a website for elementary school kids. That's all for now.


I suppose I'll just have to start my Belfast blog series tomorrow. Right now, I am in desperate need of a shower, and some sleep.