Managing

I am trying--somewhat desperately, I admit--to live my normal life while incorporating "my cat is dying" into my days. Yesterday afternoon and most of today have been generally good; he's still breathing easily, even if he has rather crazy sneezy/coughy fits every 90 minutes or so. His nictitating mebranes are back to being nearly invisible--where they should be, 'cause GROSS--and he eats a bit of disgusting canned food every few hours.

Oh, and those who read The Color Purple might remember a whole scene involving perking up appetites with ham. It works on cats, too--he totally hoovered bits of Easter leftovers. (By the way, world--is there some kind of relation to the whole "jews killed jesus" meme with eating forbidden meat to celebrate his return?) Whatever: Ham is now the Meat of Miracles. Praise the All-Mighty Ham!

Vaguely on the topic of ham and miracles and jesus: I am attempting to read bits of the bible, since most of what I know about it is from indirect sources (in most cases, highly irreverant sources). I thought I knew the deal with Noah and his ark and the whole two-by-two animal pairs, but it turns out that he was actually directed to bring seven pairs of "clean" animals and a single pair of the "unclean" animals. If you have kids, I bet you have an ark-themed puzzle or book around the house. I also bet that all the pictures show a single pair of each species. My first experience of the ark was the poem-turned-song The Unicorn (minus the  "new lyrics" at the end of the link. I'm used to the ark not being a happy ending, since my idea of it was "only the really boring animals got to come, stupid Noah". But the whole clean/unclean thing? Huh?

A fun bible game: any time you encounter a number higher than three (seven pairs, 40 days/nights, 33 years of age, seventh angel), just sub in the number four. Math in those days went something like "1, 2, 3, lots' or, if you were a heretic, "0, 1, 2, 3, lots". So it rained more than three days. Having seen this happen in Seattle, I sympathize with wanting to go live in a boat, as long as there's only one pair of each fish without scales, and one pair of weasels, but seven pairs of giraffes and water buffaloes.

Comments

[Rob Lightner]

Don't forget the lullaby that warned that if the wee baby wasn't asleep by the time the bars closed, "you'll get a belt from your da!" Good times, people.

[Nerd Queen]

The Irish Rovers are where I learned the song! Very little known fact: I went to their Seattle Center concert in either 4th or 5th grade, for my birthday present. That awful song about the dead little boy's toys is probably why I went all goth later in life.

[D]

Totally late and off-topic, but the parents had (have?) an album by the Irish Rovers featuring the The Unicorn song.

If I can find it, I'm so going to xfer to disk and bring it over some day...

You didn't know I was Irish, didya?

[math nerdier than you know]

According to the bits I read in Zero: the Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Egypt had a semi-sophisticated system--one that involved 10 and 100, but not 0 by itself. The Jews did swipe it to a certain extent--both counting and their lunar calendar--but from the theological stuff I've read, the readers/writers among them cared far more for the woo-woo symbology behind the number than the actual accurate number.

Few historians I've read--and lord knows it's more than three--seem agree on much from that early in the world--conflicting accounts, lots of guessing, poorly understood records, or new evidence that changes what was previously believed. Your math nerd book and mine probably have some of that, and then also have the "what rob l squirrels remembers" and "what his sister remembers" problem of all events. Plus, of course, I read all about the beginning of 0 but couldn't force myself to pay attention to anything after the start of the Renaissance. I'm pretty sure the book had more than three chapters, though. If it had seven, it would mean that Jesus loved 0 after all; if it had 40, it would mean jesus loved 0 so much he smote it with his hard, hard claw.

Oh wait, I'm mixing up kabbalah, xianity and Just So stories again.

[mildred township]

ok. yes. rob lightner does, in fact, know everything.

[Rob Lightner]

Well said in all regards (here's hoping for Tucker's ham-inspired recovery), except for the math stuff. The ancient Jews - those who wrote the Torah - had sophisticated math they swiped from the Egyptians and Sumerians. No agricultural society is possible without at least basic accounting concepts - hunter-gatherers don't need much math, and they're the ones you're probably thinking of. I have an awesome book called The Universal History of Numbers that might be just what it takes to turn you into a math nerd. Or at least a math-history nerd. It should djust take you a few hours to read.