daf bit: Shabbat 113

The g'mara is talking about eating earth, which, Rashi speculates (according to a footnote), might have been considered medicinal. R. Ammi said: he who eats earth of Babylon is as though he ate the flesh of his ancestors, and some say it is as though he ate of abominations and creeping things. Why? Because it is written (Gen 7:23) "and he dissolved every living thing", and Reish Lakish said that all the dead of the flood were deposited in Babylon. According to him this is why it is called Shinar (nin'aru lesham), but R. Yochanan said it is called Mezulah (sunk). (113b)

(The JPS translation of Gen 7:23 says "blotted out", not "dissolved", but I guess the blotting-out residue has to go somewhere.)

cats, and LJ experiment

The experiment: I'm not really interested in increasing my use of LJ for photo hosting, so let's see if I can make Google+/Picasa do that for me without too much hassle. ( photos )

We've been to the vet for some followup stuff. In the two months that I've had them Giovanni has gained two pounds and Orlando has gained a pound and a half. My vet would not object if they gained a little more, but obviously this rate of change is not sustainable. I could tell that Giovanni was filling out some (though my estimate was low), but Orlando doesn't seem much different. You can't tell in this picture, but he's pretty scrawny.

Giovanni may have a food allergy (whee!), so we're currently transitioning to a hypo-allergenic diet to see if that helps. So far they're eating the mix of old and new food, though a little less enthusiastically.

And we hit a new milestone last night. Orlando has, for a few weeks, been sleeping at my feet for a couple hours a night and then running off. Last night Giovanni joined us for the first time, Orlando followed a bit later, and both of them stayed all night. Time will tell if this is affection or a desire for more warmth in these cold winter nights.