Frozen Pipes and Cramping Feet, More Ancient Love Poems and Charlie Hebdo

So, as part of the Daybook Project, I finally got my hands on the 2015 Egyptian Calendar, created by Amente Nofre, a group of religious reconstructionists.  Now, the ancient Egyptian calendar was based entirely on agricultural events, i.e., the Nile inundation, the planting, the harvest.  Their months were lunar cycles.  In any event, the group has managed to align that ancient religious calendar with the common era calendar – and thank goodness for that! – as I’d found it very difficult to figure out which festival was celebrated at which time of the year as I knew the year.  And the best part of this work is that they cite their ancient sources! – such a novelty, as so few writers seem to know how to do that.

Nothing like waking up at 2 am to discover you have no water.  OHNO!  Pipes froze!!!  (Not surprising considering last time we looked it was -19 with the wind chill.)  But I do have a heat tape turned on, so ... WTF?  Next, I went to the storage shed to take my garbage bins out to the road to be picked up.  Lock is frozen.  This cold snap is insane.  Have a call in to two possible sources of help  - both of whom said they’d return calls within 20 minutes, and neither of whom have called back at all.  And those calls went to their “Emergency Help Line”, naturally.

Thanks to neither one of them – my favorite professional handyman, Dana, came over with a heater, and I had running water after about 45 minutes ... and no cracks in the pipes, thank goodness.

One thing the intense cold did do was freeze up my lower legs – well, not literally, but the cold did trigger a series of mega-lower leg cramps in the middle of the night.  48 hours later and I’m still limping, one of them was so bad.  The other thing those leg cramps did was pull my right knee muscle (the one on the outside of the kneecap) so suddenly and forcefully that it’s still burning like a son-of-a-whatever every time I bend it.  Looked it up.  Typically caused by a sports injury.  Nope, in this case caused by a sudden tendon and muscle spasm that yanked my entire right leg and foot to the left – my right foot was darn near facing the left leg and foot, that’s how violent it was.  I never thought a cramp could be so powerful it could actually stretch or tear a muscle, but it looks like it can.  Anybody have any good homeopathic remedies for muscle tears?  Because ... damn.

On a more cheerful note, I found another awesome ancient Egyptian poem I just loved, written from a female point of view, which I find so refreshing:

I just chanced to be happening by
in the neighborhood where he lives;
His door, as I hoped, was open –
and I spied on my secret love.
How tall he stood by his mother,
brothers and sisters little about him;
Love steals the heart of a poor thing like me
pointing her toes down his street.
And how gentle my young love looked
(there’s none like him),
Character spotless they say ...
out of the edge of my eye...
I caught him look at me as I passed.

Alone by myself at last,
I could almost cry with delight!
Now, just a word with you, love,
that’s what I’ve wanted since I first saw you.
If only Mother knew of my longing
(and let it occur to her soon) –
O Golden Lady, descend for me.
plant him square in her heart!
Then I’d run to my love, kiss him hard
right in front of his crew,
I’d drip no tears of shame or shyness
just because people were there,
But proud I’d be at their taking it in
(let them drown their eyes in my loving you)
If you only acknowledge you know me
(Oh, tell all Egypt you love me!)
Then I’d make solemn announcement;
every day holy to Hathor!
And we two, love, would worship together,
kneel, a matched pair, to the Goddess.

Oh, how my heart pounds
(try to be circumspect!)
eager to get myself out!
Let me drink in the shape of my love
tall in the shuddering night!
Love Songs of the New Kingdom, 1974, University of Texas Press, Austin, translated by John L. Foster, pgs. 56-57

I especially liked the last line: “tall in the shuddering night” – are we SURE this was based on the original Egyptian?  I do have a hieroglyphics dictionary set ... I would love to know where “shuddering” came from.

I realize I don’t often touch on Current Events, but the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris (combined with the other horrific crimes those guys committed) has left me stunned.  It did accomplish one thing, though – everyone is having intense, passionate, heated discussions about it, from all points of view, which at times is very enlightening to read.  It’s obvious to anyone who reads this blog that I am not a huge fan of the Big 3 Abrahamic religions:  Christianity, Islam, Judaism  - so, lest any one think I am perpetuating a specifically anti-Islamic point of view on this, think again.

The fundamentalists and extremists of all three of them are fully capable of hideous amounts of violence, bloodshed and hatred towards anyone who doesn’t agree with them – look at George Bush’s “God told me to bomb the Iraqis!” ugliness for a recent example that many people seem to have forgotten in their urgency to blame all Muslims for this - and the discussions I see are peppered with the usual “Us Against Them” idiocy from all three of those groups.  Other opinions are well-thought out and presented, even if I don’t necessarily agree with them.  But at least there is discussion, which may be a good thing.  Will it change anything?  Who knows?