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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Zeborah's LiveJournal:

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    Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
    6:36 pm
    A woman in Thebez
    A rather nasty chap called Abimelech (the son of his father's slave girl) has come to power and is embroiling the country in civil war. He captures the city of Thebez, but everyone in the city has locked themselves into a tower. As he goes up to set the tower on fire, a nameless woman (Judges 9:53-54) drops a millstone on his head. Abimelech's dying thought is that he doesn't want people to say a woman killed him, so he gets his armor-bearer to run him through with his sword. Personally I don't know if that really counts...
    Saturday, May 10th, 2008
    8:08 pm
    Sisera's mother and her ladies
    (It's been almost a year since I started these, and an awfully long time since I last posted one. Let's see how long this new resolution to keep up with them lasts.)

    I suspect Sisera's mother (Judges 5:28-30) is just a rhetorical device, a character invented by Deborah and Barak to add a bit more gloating material to their song of victory over Sisera. She is depicted as peering through the window latice, wondering why her son is taking so long to get home. She and her ladies try to convince her that he's just taking his time over the spoils of war -- girls, pretty clothes, etc. It'd be a pitiful image, if it weren't in such a gleeful tone; though a mother herself, Deborah doesn't seem to sympathise with this woman's plight, but only to mock it.
    Sunday, May 4th, 2008
    2:44 pm
    In which she waxes political
    There is a school of thought that women (and presumably other minorities) shouldn't sweat the small stuff when there are bigger problems to confront; that if we complain about a trivial matter, it will give men an excuse to call us oversensitive ("oversensitive" is the new "hysterical") and to ignore us when we complain about the bigger problems as well.

    It is true that when a woman complains about a small thing, she is told "You're just imagining it. You're being oversensitive. It's not important. Don't make a fuss." She is told it so often that she begins believing it and she learns to shut up.

    I was in a crowded train in Korea when a man started getting rather close. There was this lump pressing against me. I thought to myself, "I'm just imagining it. I'm being oversensitive. It's probably just his hand in his pocket. He's not doing it on purpose." I shifted away. He shifted to follow me. My theory on which portion of his anatomy was rubbing against me became untenable. I thought to myself, "It's not important. Don't make a fuss." And I walked away to another car of the train (in retrospect, leaving him free to molest another woman).

    I wish now that I had looked him in the eye and told him in a calm voice for everyone around us to hear, "Please stop that."

    But I wasn't then capable of doing that. I didn't have the confidence. I didn't know how to do it. I hadn't had the practice.

    And that is why I think it's important for me to sweat the small stuff. Because it gives me the confidence, the skill, and the practice that if/when it becomes necessary to sweat the big stuff, I'll be able to do it. And if, when I sweat the small stuff, a man takes the excuse to dismiss me, too bad. It's not about him; it's about me.

    On a happier note, a year later when I was in a ger camp in Mongolia and a drunken man came into my ger, checked out and moved on from each of the three empty beds, hid the light cord in the rafters, and sat on my bed, I did have something in me to get out of the bed, shove him off me, find my torch, tell him off in a mixture of bad Mongolian and incomprehensible-to-him English, shove him out the door, and even push home the bolt that until that moment of adrenaline had been hopelessly stuck. Of course for months afterwards -- even with that clear evidence of his premeditation! -- I thought, "I was just imagining it. I was being oversensitive. He just made a mistake." But in the moment I acted just as I needed to.


    Random addendum:
    And if my hysterical oversensitive demands make life difficult for those poor beleagured men? Well, recently I was looking up male and female life expectancy differentials. One 'theory' about why women live longer than men postulated that the adversity women experience makes us stronger. So really, if I make life difficult for men, I'm actually doing them a favour by increasing their life expectancy. No need to thank me, men. I'm happy to help.
    Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
    9:28 pm
    From his Annoyed Mistress
    Lived I, sir, in another time,
    Your constant hounding were a crime
    Restraining orders might abate.
    Go elsewhere if you will not wait.


    (from a post to rasfc, ganked out here so I don't lose it)
    Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
    10:32 pm
    In which Boots gets a new toy
    It is small and grey and furry and has a long tail, and at some point it used to be alive. Boots is having tremendous fun batting it around the kitchen and growls if she thinks I'm going to take it off her. If she doesn't eat it before bedtime I'll confiscate it anyway, lest she bring it into some carpeted area of the house.

    ETA: Oddly, mice sound juicier being eaten than kibble does. Nomnom.
    Monday, April 28th, 2008
    8:58 pm
    Rose and Thorn
    Once upon a time there lived a merchant, his wife, and their only daughter who they loved more than anything in the world. One day their daughter fell ill, and the next day she was worse, and on the third day the merchant and his wife began to fear for her life.

    Now the merchant had fallen on hard times, and couldn't afford the medicine they needed to cure his daughter. But when he had been prosperous he had made many friends, and so he went to three of them now to ask for their help.

    The first man said, "If your daughter is as ill as you say she is, surely no medicine can help her. But I've heard of a rose whose petals are yellow and gold like the sunrise, and whose scent has the power to heal all ills. If you can bring that rose to your daughter then she will surely live."

    The second man said, "Such a rosebush grows in the woods against an old brick wall, and its flowers are so beautiful that I'm sure just one of them will bring your daughter back to full health again."

    The third man said, "The rosebush is just as they say, but if you do not go carefully, its thorny branches will catch you and tear you and rend you to pieces. Therefore you must go at night and wait silently behind the brick wall; and you must wear leather gloves and carry a steel knife; and when the first ray of dawn steals over the horizon you must reach over the wall and cut the nearest flower you see and come straight away without lingering. And if you do this and your daughter breathes the scent of the rose, she is sure to be healthier and more beautiful than ever before."

    ( continued... )
    Thursday, April 24th, 2008
    8:25 pm
    In which she does nothing illegal whatsoever oh no
    It is interesting to compare (on a purely hypothetical note) the experiences, watching a DVD, of two classes of people:

    a) the law-abiding folk, who are forced to endure "DVD piracy aids terrorists and makes the Baby Jesus cry" segments before they can get to the main feature; and

    b) the pirates, who get to skip the punishment by using evil evil terrorist-aiding technology.

    (This technology is also useful in allowing one to watch a region 1 DVD borrowed from the library when one's DVD player is locked to region 4 and one's laptop is locked to region 2; and it would also be useful in the exercise of one's fair use rights; but using the technology in these ways may still be illegal in one's jurisdiction even when the Copyright (New Technologies) Act comes into force, because while TPTB want to bring the law into line with modern technologies, they don't mean *really* modern technologies like video.)

    While I'm here, random movie reviews:
    • Tristram Shandy: Different from what I'd first hoped, much better than what I next feared, and has actually made me want to read the book which I put down after a few pages some years ago. I admit I got briefly distracted by a) that guy from Black Books and b) that woman who... argh, I've seen her before... she did that husky whisper thing then too... I know it, I know it... oh! the BBC modernisation of Taming of the Shrew. (Which, incidentally, was brilliant and I think I've seen actual legal versions of it on sale somewhere, must remember to investigate.)
    • The best version of Robin Hood ever is "Men in Tights". At least the second half of it; I failed to record the first half (time-shifting is legal even if format-shifting isn't) but ISTR from my childhood that the first half was more or less of the same cracktastic quality.
    • The Other Boleyn Girl (2003): When casting for Anne Boleyn, consider hiring someone with more charisma than a goldfish. I quite liked the dialogue, though.
    Thursday, March 27th, 2008
    6:35 pm
    Poll!
    (Not having a paid account, I'm opting for a do-it-yourself kind of poll: just comment...)

    So, early 16th century Denmark, on the cutting edge of the Reformation. Noble maidens are getting married in their late teens or so; noble men in their 30s. My question: during their hormonal teens and twenties, are these "noble and wellborn knights":

    a) living like proverbial monks(1)
    b) sublimating their frustrations into politics and war
    c) visiting those women about town who by law have to wear red hoods
    d) visiting other lower class women(2)
    e) visiting other lower class men
    f) visiting their unmarried female friends and promising to be really really careful(3)
    g) visiting their married female friends(4)
    h) visiting their male friends
    i) other ____________

    Yes, obviously, "all of the above"; but I'm wondering about percentages here. If Alfred Kinsey had a time machine and a good working knowledge of late medieval Danish, what book would he be writing?

    (On the plus side, it's also the start of the Little Ice Age, so there's a plentiful supply of cold water.)

    (1) I have my suspicions about literal monks.
    (2) King Christian I and Dyveke. Søren Norby and his long-term not-wife, IIRC. And come to think of it, Lady Inger of Austratt's husband had an illegitimate son, mother unknown to me.
    (3) I know of at least two cases of this one: in one they desperately wanted to marry but fell within the proscribed bounds of consanguinity, leading to scandal and his execution... accidental death... murder... well, he ended up dead; in the other he offered to marry her but her outraged father refused, leading to scandal, his exile, and her immuration. The 16th century has the best scandals; see also (4).
    (4) Bishop Stygge Krumpen in Børglum lived openly with the married Elsebeth Gyldenstjerne at the monastery in Børglum. See also (1).
    Monday, March 24th, 2008
    5:26 pm
    Belated Easter Eggs
    I dyed these on Sunday afternoon and was too lazy to keep them in the dye long enough to make them properly red, but some of them came out quite nicely:

    ( Easter Eggs! )
    Monday, March 17th, 2008
    10:02 pm
    In which she attempts to negotiate a treaty
    [21:54] • zeborah battles with Boots for possession of the arrow keys

    [Interlude in which I explain to one unfamiliar with Boots' peculiar predilections: They're like buttons and tacks and such like. You can get your little cat teeth around them, so they must be edible. She also likes to chew on power cords.]

    [21:57] zeborah: Boots, the return key is also mine. In fact, I have dominion over the entire keyboard.
    [21:57] zeborah: Nor may you eat the screen.
    [21:58] • zeborah concedes
    [21:59] zeborah: Oy!
    [21:59] • zeborah concedes scritches only!
    [21:59] zeborah: Stop with your cunning use of the return key!
    Friday, March 14th, 2008
    5:46 pm
    In which she ponders the problem of housework
    I hate housework. You make the beds, you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again. -- Joan Rivers

    Dear Martha Stewart,

    I desperately need your advice. As a single homeowner, full-time employed, and amateur procrastinator, there are limits to the amount of housework I can do in a day. But today I noticed my cat take a break from miaowing piteously for her dinner to nibble a tidbit of something from the carpet, which I hadn't vacuumed for several weeks. I immediately realised that my routine has to change, so please tell me: what's the best use of the 30 seconds each morning and evening I'll be saving from feeding my cat now that she can forage for herself?

    Signed,
    Efficient bachelorette
    Thursday, March 13th, 2008
    7:35 pm
    In which she smiles gamely
    Dear Boots,

    Thank you for helping me play Bugs, but actually I'd quite like to see what score I could get if you didn't hold down the mouse button for me.

    I remain,

    Yr humble servant,

    Zeborah

    PS: In addition to which and moreover, I can also post to LiveJournal without your help too.
    Friday, March 7th, 2008
    7:52 pm
    In which she plays with the shiny
    On Sunday I finally reconciled my inner magpie and my inner miser and ordered myself an iPod. (It's useful! It will help me endure mowing lawns and doing dishes!) It's a silver 4GB nano, and I got free shipping and engraving (I put my email address on the back, so if I lose it the person who finds it will know who to be grateful to). It arrived at work this afternoon and I spent half an hour alternating "Ooh shiny!" with customer service and "Pamela*, where did you hide my shiny?" because my colleagues are like that. Then I had my tea break, during which I figured out how the scrolling worked and undid my accidental setting of the language to Dutch. (Thank goodness it was an Indo-European language I accidentally set it to or I'd never have worked it out.)

    Aside from the mowing of laws and doing of dishes, I must admit that the games were an attraction, but the contacts/calendar/alarm functions are also pretty nifty. And I can read txt files! That's got to come in useful. What would have been really cool would be built-in note-taking ability using the scroll-through-the-alphabet function that's already used in at least one of the games: it's amazing how quickly one can scroll through even without practice.

    * Not her real name.
    Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
    6:13 pm
    In which she rebuts the insinuations of a mystery commenter(1)
    Said mystery commenter, seeing the photo of Boots on a piano stool, commented thusly:
    Boots is a poser.

    Not so! Inspired by a YouTube video someone showed me not long before I finally got the piano here, I have begun teaching her how to play. I began by sitting her down and plonking her paws on the keys then promptly rewarding her with food. After a week or so of this she finally got the idea to make a noise herself. One or two notes. I kept up the rewards. I began ignoring the shorter snatches of notes, ignoring when she merely walks across the keyboard instead of sitting in a proper cat-pianist pose, and hissing when she tries to lift the keys up with her claws, thereby pulling chips in them.

    Fortunately it's an old piano.

    Last Thursday I reached the stage where she was playing long stretches of notes at high volume while I was attempting to watch a particularly tense episode of Criminal Minds. I now keep the lid closed when it's not dinner time.

    I have video proof (which I may even some day be motivated to make pretty and upload to YouTube or summat): okay, maybe I haven't yet taught her how to play the piano, but I've certainly taught her to play, and I'm confident that in time she will be playing every tune possible for a cat with a limited paw-span.

    (1) Yes, after long and assiduous research (viz, looking at their user profile) I worked out who they are, and their icon does indeed rock.
    Monday, February 11th, 2008
    8:34 pm
    In which she gets a piano
    About a year ago my mother promised I could have her old piano (it's a semi-tone flat and has some sticky keys so she bought a new one years ago) if I paid for it to be moved; and I finally got around to organising that.

    I'm now trying to teach Boots how to play...

    ( Cute picture behind the cut )
    Friday, February 8th, 2008
    9:49 pm
    In which she feels warm and fuzzy inside
    The other day our boss gave us mini bottles of Lindauer sparkling white wine (the stuff the French refuse to let us call champagne) as a thank you for hard work this summer, which was really nice. I drink alcoholic drinks for the taste, not the alcohol, so I quite easily made 1.9 standard drinks last three nights. The third night was tonight and how it happened was like this:

    Last night I had a spider. Not an arachnid (the arachnid was the night before, and Boots stood guard over it while I fetched a jar and card to capture it and release it outside. Boots then spent a long time trying to figure out where it had suddenly gone) but French vanilla icecream (I haven't yet heard of them trying to sue us for that name) in a tall skinny glass with Coke (or other coloured fizzy drink) poured over. This is what Wikipedia calls an ice cream soda and Kiwis call a spider. Wikipedia doesn't mention it, but the vital thing is ice cream first, fizzy drink second: this gets you foam up to the roof, which is the whole point of putting them in the same glass.

    So as I was putting the Coke back in the fridge last night my eye fell on the last third of a bottle of sparkling wine. It's fizzy, right?

    And tonight as I was trying to decide whether it'd be a waste of good ice cream, a waste of good wine, or just really good, Irina shamelessly egged me on (incidentally pointing me to Wikipedia's entry for spoom) and sure enough, it was really good. <slides slowly and happily off beanbag>

    Boots meanwhile enjoyed batting the lid from the bottle around the room.
    Sunday, January 20th, 2008
    12:53 pm
    Open letters after a church service
    Dear Hymn-meddlers:
    I have no objection to hymn-meddling ("Brother, sister, let me serve you" is a nice inclusive rephrasing of "Brother, let me be your servant") but I do ask that you find out what the words mean before you start meddling. An example from December 2006: "Pleased as us with us to dwell" does not mean the same thing as the original "Pleased as Man with man to dwell"; in fact it doesn't mean anything much. An example from today: "Be thou all else but naught to me" does not mean the same as "Naught be all else to me", and what it does mean is a rather weak sentiment. Also, like many of the other results of your meddling, it doesn't scan, leaving the congregation in confusion.

    Dear Minister:
    I promise not to giggle uncontrollably during your otherwise entertaining sermon if you promise not to talk about Jesus being baptised with the dribble of the Holy Spirit.
    Friday, January 18th, 2008
    2:02 pm
    Progress for my lunch hour
    Deleted 62 pages. The story now consists of "Shards of Truth. Chapter One".
    Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
    12:28 am
    The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light
    Christmas is traditionally a winter thing, but here in New Zealand it comes in summer. In the north the days are dark; in the south the days are long. And when our winter comes, it will be the north's turn for the long days. The earth keeps turning, and no matter how dark it is in one place, there is always light somewhere.

    93 years ago, in the midst of the trenches of World War I, both German and British set down their guns and joined to celebrate Christmas together, singing carols, eating dinner, and playing football.

    Even in the summer (unless one lives much farther south than I) night comes. Tonight at 11:30 my mother and I went up to a beautiful church on the hill, where all the lights had been turned off and we sang by the light of the candles we were each given. A couple of minutes before midnight we began singing "Silent Night" and as we sang "Shepherds quake at the sight / Glories stream from heaven afar" the minister lit the Christ candle in the wreath. "Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!" And when the carol was finished, we blew out our candles as the lights were turned on again.

    The closing prayer reminded us that there is yet misery in the world. That is never to be forgotten or denied. But it would be just as wrong to forget or deny that there is also joy. There is war; and there is peace. There is hatred, and there is love.

    There is darkness; and here, today, is a great light.

    Merry Christmas.
    Thursday, December 6th, 2007
    7:41 pm
    Psalm 116 modibus "Gaudete"
    Just remembered I'd done this one too. Last Christmas Irina taught me the song "Gaudete", and when I wanted a short tune to put this psalm to, this is what sprang to mind. For these purposes I've gone and mutilated it: in the second verse, the tune of the fourth line repeats for the fifth. Squish the syllables in the third line to suit; I say "-dia" as one syllable and tack "et" on where one might normally otherwise take a breath. (Lyrics; music (midi).)

    Laudate Dominum,
    O-omnes gentes!
    Laudate eum, omnes
    Populi!

    Quoniam confirmata est
    Su-upe-er no-os
    Misericordia eium, et
    Veritas Domini
    Manet in saeculum.
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