Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Mr. Ralls was not informed that he was going to wake up and not have a penis" -- Mr. Ralls' attorney.

I was headed for bed around 1:00. That didn't work. At 5:15 I took my bedtime drugs and went to bed. That didn't work either, doggone it.

Here are some snippets that have been bubbling through my brain lately.

Perrine figured out the laser pointer, starting with the sound of the switch, apparently. It's a cheap little keychain unit, with a switch that makes a distinctive sound (and is audible to feline ears at a greater distance than to human ones). I noticed that if I picked it up to fidget with it, even if it was pointed in directions where Perrine couldn't possibly see anything, she'd come and start looking around to find the dot. She comes from another room to look for the dot. So I knew that she'd learned to associate the sound with the dot, but I didn't know whether she'd figured out exactly what the connection to the device was, until I caught her looking at my hand to figure out where to look for the dot when she lost track of it. She still enjoys chasing it, but sometimes she gets lazy and just wants to sit and watch it. Putting the spot on her paw usually gets her moving again though.

Perrine seems much more likely to actually pounce on the laser dot when it's on a wall than when it's on the floor. She seems to like to leap for it. I wonder, despite her mousing, whether she's one of the minority of cats who learned to successfully hunt birds before she came here. (Cats are pretty finely tuned for hunting four-footed prey that stays on the ground. Their visual systems and reflexes aren't as good for things that move vertically. Note that "not as good" is still pretty good -- they are, after all, God's adorable little killing machines. But birds are much more difficult prey for cats than small mammals are, and one book I read on the subject said that most cats who learn to hunt birds wind up specializing in birds.) Or maybe she was going after squirrels or something. Or maybe I'm way off and she just likes to jump. I have noticed that she's much better at seeing things that move than things that stay still. She sometimes appeared to be unable to find that last mouse she played with when it held still, but homed in immediately as soon as it moved. I think I read something about cat eyes and brains being tuned that way, but I was surprised at how pronounced the effect was. I should experiment to see how much difference the amount of light in the room makes.

When I tried to go to bed, there was a HUGE, not-quite-dead beetle on its back near the edge of the bed. I'm guessing that it was either a gift from Perrine, or that she simply got bored with it while playing there and forgot to kill it.

At Pennsic, I got some groans by pointing out that I've been seeing kosher food specifically marketed to Middle Eastern musicians. After all, it clearly says on the label, O-U-D. ( If I have to explain it, it's not funny; but here's the explanation anyhow if you didn't get it and are wondering )

I also got a dirty look for observing that if the jumbo raisins anniemal brought were any larger, we'd have to call them raisones. I don't know what the other language involved in that pun is -- I think it's Italian but I'm not sure. I just know that sometimes a larger version of a musical instrument will have a name similar to its smaller cousin but with "-one" tacked on. So I'm really not quite sure what I said, but the folks present knew what I meant.

griffen

I've seen a bunch of insightful and/or creative entries in various folks' journals in the past few days, as well as discovering some real gems when reading back in journals of people I discovered because they left comments in friends' journals. I may have to do an extra "link sausage" entry consisting of nothing but other LiveJournal entries.

Henceforth, I shall be known as Exalted Transverse Gazebo Mock-Sequoia Oblong Thingy-Dingy-Flingy dglenn (the Ninth), since that's my ( "Ozy and Millie" formal title )

I'd write more, but I have to go ( beta-test the anterior microcode to frequently retrocalibrate the hyperpulse on the pseudotransmission )

I used to use the term "Judeo-Christian" casually, because it was a phrase I heard other people use, it reflected the fact that Christianity began as an offshoot of Judaism, and I didn't know there was anything wrong with it.

Later, after having it politely pointed out to me that many Jews don't like the term because it's often used more out of "see, I'm being inclusive" spin than precision, and because it sometimes (often?) comes across as if the speaker were trying to paint Judaism as a subset of Christianity ... I started being more careful when and how I used "Judeo-Christian". I've restricted it to those times when I am specifically talking about those elements which Jews and Christians do have in common.

But I'm becoming even less comfortable with it. Both because I worry that even though I'm careful to only use it when it's what I really mean, readers may react to it as though I'd used it carelessly; and because when I'm talking about the things Christians and Jews have in common, I should usually (always?) be reminding myself that Moslems share the same things.

So I'm looking for a word or phrase that basically means "People of the Book" but is as uncumbersome -- as convenient in speech and writing -- as "Judeo-Christian". (Besides, "People of the Book" is a noun phrase, and "Judeo-Christian" functions as an adjective. I want an adjective.)

Anybody got a word or phrase that means what I mean, concisely?