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Month: January 2011

My Namesake Bunny

As I was browsing various sites for research purposes, I came across a Russian site for crochet lovers. And guess what I found? A Bunny Julia! The beautiful toy was crocheted by Svetlana from the Russian city of Tyumen, using acrylic and mohair yarn, and toned with acrylic paint and cosmetics. It was described by visitors as “pensive”, “blue”, “clever”, “moving”, and “with character”. All of which, apart from “blue” I guess, describe me, too. Many thanks to Svetlana!

The photo is courtesy of Kru4ok.ru.

The Most Obligatory Duty

3rd of January is Marcus Tullius Cicero 2117’s birthday anniversary, and one of his aphorisms is partly quoted in the post’s title:

There is no duty more obligatory than the repayment of kindness. 

Strangely enough, I discussed this topic the other day with a friend. In friend’s opinion, one should do things when people ask them about it, otherwise we should care for ourselves. The explanation is such that people cannot be grateful, and they will rather find something negative in your kindness or take it for granted than return it.

On a similar note, Cicero also said that

The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends. 

Films like Secret and many self-help guides instruct us in gratitude, which, again in the famous Roman’s words, “is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others“. But I feel that we have gone too far from Cicero’s times, for feeling grateful sometimes feeds one’s conceit more than any praise. We’re grateful for our families, friends, possessions, work, health, you name it, and even naming all those beautiful things makes one feel exceedingly special. Using humility as a disguise doesn’t really work, and if you ask me, I better prefer open, if proud, acknowledgment, than humble diminution.

I guess it is the inability to find the middle ground between pride and humility that makes the repayment of kindness the most obligatory and not a particularly coveted duty. True kindness consists of not asking for anything in return, and yet it would be improper to not return kindness, for one should be grateful. In other words, it would be improper (wrong, impolite, etc.) to not express gratitude.

Here is a piece of advice the grandfather of the hotelier Olga Polizzi gave her:

Never lend someone money – they’ll always hate you for it. 

The morale of the above is probably that people don’t like being obliged, and when you make them obliged, even if they needed it, before long they begin to hate the situation. This is why, perhaps, there is less kindness today – not because we cannot express it, but because we don’t want, or cannot, be grateful.

Of Sweets and Saints

2nd of January was the feast day of St Macarius who is the patron saint of confectioners. I found the explanation on Nicholas V’s blog, so I quote:

The reason St Macarius is the patron saint of cooks, confectioners and pastry chefs is because he was a successful merchant in fruits, candies and pastries in Alexandria, Egypt. He was born in the 4th century in Alexandria and died about 401 BC. When he converted to Christianity he gave up his business to be a monk and lived as a hermit. After several years, he was ordained among other monks practicing severe austerities. 

Nicholas also published a recipe for panforte di Siena, so if you have a sweet tooth and a soft spot for Italy, head over to his blog and try to cook this Italian sweetmeat.

There is a website dedicated to each day of the year, so it tells more stories about St Macarius.

Of Cats and Hares (Another Happy New Year Post)

A friend of mine has shared this video with a group of us, and I wanted to pass this good on. Undoubtedly, one of the questions is why we celebrate the year of both Rabbit AND Cat. Well, the answer is that Cat is the animal in the Vietnamese calendar, while Rabbit rules the respective year in the Chinese zodiac. There is a linguistic explanation to this; and there is also a legend, according to which Rat loved playing tricks on the Cat, and made sure the poor animal was left out of the calendar. The video needs no introduction, however, as both Rabbit and Cat are known for their love for lazy afternoon retreats…

http://vkontakte.ru/video_ext.php?oid=15568&id=158760040&hash=d23c72ca6cbfa7ef

How to Buy a Cat in the Bag

For a start, there is a blog called Cat in the Bag that I love for its witty observations and funny captions to the photos.

Then, here is a very detailed instruction on how to find a missing pet. The website is called Cats in the Bag, and one of the advice is particularly sound: “think like your pet”. So, next time your pet is missing, put yourself in his skin and ask, where you would hide out while your owner was hoovering the room.

The rest of the post, however, is about the actual saying “cat in the bag” and its diverse and sundry equivalents. The phrase “cat in the bag” refers to the times of food scarcity when smart market sellers tried to fool the buyers by offering them a cat or a puppy in the bag instead of meat. The majority of languages, as we can see, share this experience.

Bulgarian да купиш котка в торба to buy a cat in a bag
Catalan fer passar gat per llebre to give a cat instead of a hare
Croatian kupiti mačka u vreći to buy a cat in a sack
Czech koupit zajíce v pytli to buy a hare in a sack
Danish at købe katten i sækken to buy the cat in the sack
Dutch een kat in de zak kopen to buy a cat in the sack
English to buy a pig in a poke
Estonian ostma põrsast kotis to buy a piglet in a sack
French acheter un chat dans un sac to buy a cat in a bag
Finnish ostaa sika säkissä to buy a pig in a sack
German die Katze im Sack kaufen to buy the cat in the sack
Greek αγοράζω γουρούνι στο σακκί to buy a pig in a sack
Hebrew חתול בשק cat in a sack
Hungarian zsákbamacska cat in a sack
Icelandic að kaupa köttinn í sekknum to buy the cat in the sack
Indonesian kucing dalam karung cat in a sack
Irish ceannaigh muc i mala buying a pig in a bag
Latvian pirkt kaķi maisā to buy a cat in a sack
Lithuanian pirkti katę maiše to buy a cat in a sack
Luxembourgish d’Kaz am Sak kafen to buy the cat in a sack
Macedonian да купиш мачка во вреќа to buy the cat in the sack
Norwegian kjøpe katta i sekken to buy the cat in the sack
Polish kupić kota w worku to buy a cat in a sack
Portuguese comprar gato por lebre to buy a cat instead of a hare
Romanian a cumpăra cu ochii închiși to buy with closed eyes
Russian купить кота в мешке to buy a cat in a sack
Spanish dar gato por liebre to give a cat instead of a hare
Spanish hay gato encerrado there is a cat shut inside
Serbian купити мачку у џаку to buy a cat in a sack
Slovak kúpiť mačku vo vreci to buy a cat in a sack
Slovene kupiti mačka v žaklju to buy a cat in a sack
Swedish köpa grisen i säcken to buy the pig in the sack

Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese buyers could mistake a cat for a hare, hence respective idioms reflect that. In Czech, however, it is a hare that was sold instead of meat in the bag; I suspect, though, that some buyers wouldn’t mind cooking a rabbit.

And a few geographically close countries also share the variant of “pig in a poke” (poke – a bag). English and Irish, Estonian, Finnish, and Swedish, all have experienced buying something without prior knowledge.

Even Greeks occasionally were sold a pig in a sack, and I wondered, why. Greece is surrounded by countries where it were cats that were put in the bags. A possible answer may be that piglets that were usually sold in a bag, thanks to their small size, were considered polluted. Susan Cole, Associate Professor at the Buffalo University, explained in 2000:

Polluted objects were not only not eaten, but avoided for fear of contamination, except when their ‘foulness’ could be ritually controlled. Ritual sacrifice then, could accommodate a piglet’s nastier qualities, whereas the dining room could not.

Still, I’d prefer to end of a positive note, by sharing this wonderful image of a very smart cat in the sack (that may also remind you of the Cheshire Cat) and referring you to a short story by O’Henry, The Green Door. For every pig or cat in the sack there may surely be something worthwhile, beautiful and meaningful. Perhaps, it pays sometimes to be happy about whatever you find in the bag.

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