Frosty Days

The past few days have seen clear days and nights and as a result, the temperature has dropped considerably. Daytime highs are only in the mid to upper 30's with nighttime lows in the low 30's. The upshot is that the north-facing yards have been frosty and icy all day. The photo to the left was taken late this afternoon. On casual glance it looks almost like snow. The forecast says we should be warming up a few degrees later this week as another front moves in with the clouds. But we may see our first snow and rain mix down here as early as this week.

There was a total of eight of us at church yesterday. Elise couldn't make it because the semi-annual CPR class was being held during the same time. So Shelley was asked to lead the songs at the start of Sabbath School. I think this is the first time she's ever done that all by herself.

During our adult Sabbath School class, we never got past the first text -- Genesis 3:15. It's the one that reads (KJV):

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

There were four of us that spent an hour discussing what this verse is supposed to be saying. All of us know what we were taught it is supposed to mean -- that it's a prophetic promise to the Messiah -- but that's only because we understand it with the benefit of the entire historical record that we have.

I think the other problem is that the text is often quoted by itself, so that we don't really think about who it was spoken to. And so when we begin to analyze the words, we can get confused by the object of the thee/thy/thou (you/your). I think that we sometimes come to assume that this was spoken to Adam and Eve, when in reality it was spoken to the serpent with the man and woman simply listening in.

And what is enmity and how is it a good thing as given in this text? What does seed really mean? When Jesus was crucified, he died. So wasn't it more than just a bruise on the heel? In the KJV the word bruise is used in both instances, so wouldn't both eventually recover?

The result was that we explored multitudes of different ways of approaching an understanding of this text and discovered how to make it meaningful for us, today. I wonder how much we simply assume to be true without truly understanding it? I wonder how much we rely on simply being told, rather than working through it ourselves? I wonder how much we miss by being afraid to open up our assumptions to discussion? I wonder how much we lose when we shut down honest questions because we already "know" the "correct" answer?

On to a completely different topic, I spent about 3 hours in the kitchen on Friday preparing my first Indian yellow curry from scratch, together with some Naan. I used tofu instead of chicken in the curry. Overall I was pleased with the result.

Sometime Saturday morning (I think it was early, early morning), our cat, Vivvy, scared herself. We had just gotten a new feather teaser cat toy in a package from Petco. She loves these feather toys. I had stuck it into one of the boots up on our shoe rack before going to bed Friday. My guess is that in the middle of the night, Vivvy tried to grab the feather and with it the boot came tumbling down onto her. I found the boot and the toy on the floor in the morning.

The poor kitty was scared out of her fur. After returning from church, I brought the toy into her presence, and immediately, she dived underneath the bed and would not come out. That was when I made the connection between the toy, the boot, the floor, and guessed at what probably had happened.

Vivvy was even terrified of a length of green yarn. She would have nothing to do with it. I placed her on top of some boxes and immediately she climbed all the way to the top. When I brough the feather toy near her again, she backed up, hissed, and went even further back into a corner.

So it was time to put on my kitty-psychologist hat and work on some desensitization. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening working on desensitizing her. I brought out the old feather toy and used that to help her get adjusted to the whole concept of feather toys being a good thing. From there we slowly worked onto the toy that caused her fright. At the end of the evening she still wasn't too sure about the toy. She was also terrified of the living room and kitchen areas. When I brought her out, I would have to clutch her tightly, and when I let her go, she would bolt back to the bedroom and make her way high on the boxes.

Before our move, Elise bought some synthetic cat hormones that are supposed to give them "happy feelings" and calm them down. So I sprayed much of the house with it. And then we went to bed. Vivvy moved down to our bed in the middle of the night.

In the morning I tried the toys and bringing her out of the bedroom again. She was again unsure about all this. But progress was being made. After a couple of hours and multiple sessions with the toys and bringing her out of the bedroom, she finally got comfortable enough to voluntarily wander out of the bedroom.

This evening, I think Vivvy has mostly returned to her usual self. I saw her approaching the "evil" cat toy and sniffing it (instead of running from it), she has snuck nibbles from the grated cheese in the kitchen, and she is simply acting more like the Vivvy we know.

So that's been our adventure the last few days. With daylight savings now ended, our sunrise is about 7 a.m. and sunset is just past 4 p.m. Here is a bit of the sunset that we can see. This was taken yesterday.