Elaby's LiveJournal - 57 Academics

So this is probably the most charming thing in the history of ever:

Picture of an old manuscript on Nimbuspub's book Tumblr

Medieval book historian Erik Kwakkel tweeted this photo of a 15th century book, and it's been making the rounds on Twitter. Obviously cats have always had the same propensity for jumping right up on their friends' desks, regardless of whatever work they may be doing at the time XD

The icing on the cake is Geoffrey Chaucer's tweet yesterday:

Whatte do ye calle a scriptorium policye that doth keepe cattes awaye from manuscriptes to prevent paw printes? A Pangur Ban.

— Chaucer Doth Tweet (@LeVostreGC) February 18, 2013

SPORFLE.

For those of you who aren't experts in early Irish literature*, here's the Wikipedia article on Pangur Ban.

Rachel ran downstairs this morning to tell me the joke while I was in the shower, and it absolutely made my day XD

*I am very far from an expert in early Irish literature. I have, however, watched The Secret of Kells approximately eight billion times.

Our date yesterday was successful ^_^ We found nice seats at Panera's (they NEED to install outlets in the booths, sheesh) and stayed there for about four hours, having various parts of lunch and goodies. I did no actual plot planning, per se, but now I have names for all of my characters (first and last, even the marginal ones!) and I know how they're all related to each other (complete with family trees!), which is important for a succession story.

We went and walked around downtown a little bit afterwards, and went to a couple of toy stores n_n But it was windy, so we hurried back home after an hour or so.

We had enchiladas for dinner and then we turned off all the lights and all of the appliances we could intelligently turn off (like, not the refrigerator ^_^) and lighted several candles. Caitirin wrote for a little while and I worked with my Brian Froud Faerie Oracle deck, both with a plateful of tea lights. Of course since I was sitting on the floor, Freija couldn't keep away, and we think she singed some of her whiskers o.o She's been walking a tad loopily. We noticed it when we had her harness on so we could try taking her out into the hallway (of COURSE she wanted nothing to do with it! Only when we actually want to leave!) but after we took it off she was still a bit unsteady, and we've read that cats whose whiskers get shortened somehow can be a bit off-kilter. *quiet snerk*

Haha, and we went to the supermarket this morning and Radio Disney was there, and the Disney people were singing along and dancing to all the songs XD It totally made our day.

Well, as caitirin mentioned, our car's breaks went kaput and they're going to have to replace the whole break line from back to front, so it'll cost us just shy of $800 -_- We're going to see about getting a new car (new to us, at least) when we get our tax refunds.

But... we had the dishwasher repair guy over today, because THAT seems to have broken too (we thought it was the soap door neglecting to pop open and let the soap out)... and they've decided to just install a new one XD Since it's so ancient that if we were to move out, they'd replace it anyway. We'll be washing dishes by hand for about a week and then we'll have a brand spanking new dishwasher!

In the meantime, we've been using coastal_spirit's lovely shiny car, which rides so smooth. We went to LL Beans today and I got some shoes :3 My clogs were wearing out so that the fabric in the heels is pretty much gone, so I got some new ones in a different style. I got them from the men's department *giggles* I tried on a black pair in the women's department, and they felt great, but I asked for brown and the attendant brought out the wrong color. So when she brought out the brown, they felt too small O_o We went and exchanged Caitirin's boots and were going to go to lunch before deciding on whether I wanted shoes or not, and I saw they had the same ones in the men's department and I tried those and they fit great. For future reference, I am a 7 1/2 men's Beans shoe.

We're going to have baked tofu and apple-feta-walnut salads for dinner.

I started FFXII last night! It's preeetty. I'm kind of worried, though, because I just got to a part where they were all "This next part is long! You may want to create an additional save file!" and I was like "Er, whatever" and didn't. So I hope I'm not stuck forever in the palace at Rabanastre with no potions or something. *shrugs* Oh well, if I have to start the game over, I've only played a couple of hours.

Time to put away laundry. Woo.

Oh, and! You know how Freija is a total escape artist kitty and always tries to slip out the door at any chance she gets? Well, Caitirin bought a little kitty harness and leash thing the last time she was at the vet's so we could bring Freija out into the hallway like she wanted so badly. And yesterday, we let her get used to the harness a while and then tried to take her out into the hallway and she was like "For the love of all that's holy, LET ME BACK IN!!" *rolls eyes*

I got this e-mail from her this evening:

Notes: Mushikiri
Nekosai - a play on Hitokiri Battousai, the title of the main character
in Rurouni Kenshin. Hitokiri means "mancutter (slayer)" and Battousai
means one who is a master of battoujutsu. Mushi means "bug" and neko
means "cat", so it's really like "bugcutter master cat" only most
likely grammatically horrible.

Nee-san means "older sister".

Onto the e-mail.

"At
approximately 2:30 pm this afternoon, Nekosai was flying about the
house with godlike speed, puzzling all those who saw him, including his
Nee-san, who was perched atop a chair in the livingroom at the time. At
last, his mother realized that he was chasing some sort of a bug, which
he finally cornered and ate with great relish. He is now off in pursuit
of more bugs; whether someone handed him another black envelope, or
whether he's just doing it in pursuit of the bloodsport, we'll never
know. At any rate, he's still flying about the house ...

That is all."

*giggles*