Birthday blues and the Cooper Stalker

Walking Cooper in the morning, we have encountered many cats, most with their backs up, some ignoring us and a couple who want to be friends. Cooper fancies that he could chase one down and ..... do what?  Eat it? Lecture it? I am not sure.  But a few days ago Cooper stopped and sniffed under a bristly bush and a cat popped out, very suddenly and surprisingly! A black and white cat, medium size, and jumped right into Cooper's face.  Coop screeched like a 3 year old and backed up as far as he could go on the leash.  I said something like "oh, my, look at that cat....." but before I could speak another word the cat jumped three feet straight out, towards Cooper.  Coop danced around on the end of the leash, making little scream noises and so we walked on.  However, the cat had other ideas.  The cat acted in a rather bold, uncat-like manner, following about six feet behind us, whisking its paws at Cooper as it walked. Needless to say, Cooper was in a big hurry to move swiftly down the street.  But the cat kept it up, that cat followed us for two blocks, making rude comments about Cooper's butt (and probably mine, too) and his general fear of felines. It was the most aggressively stalker cat I have ever seen!  Now Cooper refuses to walk down the street where the cat appeared from under the prickly bush.  Cooper has seen the devil and does not want to anger it again.  Wise.

Every year for the past five or six years, since I have turned 60, I have a great time on my birthday, see my kids, laugh and am happy.  But then a day or two after my birthday I fall into this funk, sort of pissed off, sort of disappointed and very uncertain about everything.  I now recognize this mental, emotional and psychological state of mind for what it is and just wait for it to play itself out.  In the meantime, I feel down in the dumps and stressed out and pissy.  This feeling will vanish, it always does, but for the moment I am carrying it around like a spider bite. Can't do much about it but watch it swell and then abate.

More to follow in the next days.