Thank Goodness For Distractions

Given that things have been difficult to cope with this past couple of weeks, I have tried to distract myself by taking part in some interesting pasttimes and events. One of the things I chose to work on was a code that the FBI made public, asking people to take a look at it and see if they could help figure it out. It has flumoxed some of the very best in the code-breaking world and they seem to hope new eyes on the problem might gain them some new insight or a possible solution. Anyway, it did seem to help distract me from the loss of our sweet, old kitty - which was the point - and I'm hoping my theories, etc., which I emailed in to the FBI via the page they set up for that specific purpose, might be of some small help, or at least on a par with those who are finally able to solve the riddle of the code. It would be nice to find out I was good at something, anyway!

Another thing I decided to do, more to get myself up and out of the house, was to attend a dinner and lecture being sponsored by my alma mater's alumni association. The event was this evening and was a lecture given by a young man who has been the advisor on issues of security and counterterrorism to two past presidents. It was a very interesting evening but left me a little frustrated and with a lot of questions I would have loved to been able to ask - darn the time limits on busy individuals who know so much interesting stuff!

Anyway, I guess my main question/thought right now is whether or not the nations of earth will be able to maintain their own unique national autonomy and character while the United Nations maintains accountability of nations to/for one another and within and for themselves. I do not feel the world would be a better place if the UN ended up as the single, ruling/governing international entity - too many squabbles and too much corruption on an international level and not enough idealistic fervor on an individual level - and would, ultimately, threaten or destroy one of the two things that make nations strong, the first being unity, the second diversity.

Of the three cats we still have left (the "girls" are still with us) one of them is snoring softly on the footstool beside me under the desk. We had to keep the two pairs seperate due to negative interactions we could not seem to get around, but there seems to be more possibility that we will be able to fully integrate the remaining three given a little more time. So life goes on, a little emptier and definitely more forlorn for the time being, but moving inexorably forward.

Blessings and Peace,
Izzlebug