Cat girl

This is the third consecutive day I find myself walking around the village at the crack of dawn — pushing the baby trike with Baby Girl on it. She’s been waking up early morning, before six, and there’s just no stopping her. She just wants to go out and look for cats and dogs (but hands down cats are her favorite). Just say “cat” and she says “meow.”

So here I am, with four hours of sleep (since she’s been restless at night lately), I can’t go back to bed, and still woozy from our early morning “safari.” By now, I know exactly where the congregation of cats are — along Roxas Street. And yup, there are bonus points along the way: she’ll get to see at least a couple of dogs and — here’s the clincher — four roosters sounding the alarm clock.

Baby Girl gets a kick seeing all these animals. She especially likes cats (and I and Mommy Princess happen to hate cats, or at least dislike them). She checks under the car (there’s usually one or two hanging out in our garage) but the main tourist spot for cats is really along Roxas Street. There are probably 5 to 7 cats just chilling out, surprisingly unafraid of humans. Baby Girl says a sweet “hi” with a friendly wave of her hand and a big smile on her face. The cats are often aloof (as is their nature) and sometimes suspicious, but my daughter is just the Ms. Congeniality of Cats.

Men zone out, women share feelings

I know we’ve heard this before. After a long, hard day’s work, the husband come home and mindlessly channel surf. The wife, on the other hand, will start talking about her day, friends at work, their nasty boss, some customers, a funny incident at the pantry, the new shoes of her best friend, the new boyfriend of her best friend, and all the most exciting details of her day and those in her circle. And not just her day, she goes on with “a litany of things she had and has to do.” Meanwhile, the husband just grunts.

This “retreating to the cave” versus “nurturing and sharing” conflict is generally true. As this article points out:

While men focus on a problem and use their logic, women tend to use both left and right brain. That means they also consider their feelings.  While men tend to look for the more linear point, women tend to see things as interconnected and therefore talk about the connections of points.

Apparently, Dr. John Gray, author of all the Mars & Venus book series, was in Manila (how come nobody seems to know about it?) and talked about gender differences when it comes to stress.