Sometimes, Willi (aka Stinky Bee) thinks I'm dirty and require a bath. Kitty style. Just a few minutes ago, I was sitting at my desk, checking my email, when I decided to give her chin a tickle. She clearly felt my fingers were filthy and started to lick them.

Unfortunately, this stimulated her mothering needs and within only a few seconds, she had climbed up onto my shoulder and started licking my ear and hair. She hunkered down and held on when I tried to remove her from my back. Getting quite whipped up by all this (unwanted, on my part) bathing, she started to lick my face and when I pulled my head away, she swivelled around and bit my chin. Yes, she BIT me on my CHIN.

And it hurt. I have rosacea and a while back, a flare-up on my chin got infected. It's finally healing after more than a month (it looks kind of like a cold sore - eeeww), but it is slow going because it splits when I smile, yawn, or laugh. And now, her tooth just cut through it. Yuck and ouch !

Her removal from my back was immediate and involved her flying through the air and me running in the opposite direction to break out the rubbing alcohol. I'm pretty sure Willi thought she was just acting like a mother cat with a disobedient kitten, but holy crap it hurt. And it bled.

Yes, I know that dog-people will simply add this to their fodder as to why cats are 'bad' but I say to them: "Yeah, at times like this, sometimes even I wonder why I like them."

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In other news (you know, I write that quite regularly in my weblog), I had a very good day at the ROM today. I love working as an Eternal Egypt educator and I think I do a darn good job. Today I was in a room I'd never done before but have wanted to do since the very beginning. It was a little rough for the first two groups, as I hadn't settled on a spiel, yet, but my excuse to them was that I had a sore throat and wasn't feeling too good. This is not, in fact, a lie. I do have a sore throat and it was worse this morning.

Most of the school groups were quite easy to engage, even the highschool kids. I had one teacher of an art class, probably in her 40s, but quite hip and enthusiastic, totally re-evaluate the way she had been teaching the Egyptian period to her kids, in part because of the stuff I talked about. She said to me afterward, "I had always thought that Egyptian art progressed from the beginning through to the end in a linnear fashion. Now I see that this is not actually the case." This little bit of question and answer made me feel not only smart and cool, but gave me one of those rare moments when I realised that my degree was not entirely a waste and I really DID learn something at school.

Our conversation went like this (Warning: Art-nerd alert):

"Unfortunately, Egyptian art is anything but linear. Sure, the tools improved, which allowed for more risk-taking and, yes there was a standardised 'look' that was developed over time, but they spent a lot of time looking back at what came before."

"So I really need to take another look at how to teach this."

"Well, the idea that all things progressed in a straight line is more and more out-dated. If anything, this exhibit proves it."

"How often did they archaise [use older styles]?"

"A lot. During this period, the 12th Dynasty, the headdress of the Old Kingdom came back into vogue, at least in art, as did the figural style, but at the same time they were experimenting with portrait styles and studies from life. You'll see this sort archaism again in the Late Period when Egypt was ruled by foreign kings and they were looking to reclaim their strength through the visual identity of the much earlier past."

"What about the period of naturalising that took place in the New Kingdom?"

"The Amarna period?"

"Yes, Amarna, didn't that change their art?"

"Well, you'll see that later in the exhibition, and I can't take much more time now 'cause the next group is here, but you'll see that for all it's changes, and apparent progressiveness, it was so identified with the negative aspects of the king that by 100 years later, you would never know it had existed. You'll see the remarkable shift back to static sculpture that comes with Rameses the Great."

"I had no idea how complicated their art really was. It was never my specialty, but it is really fascinating and I think I'll take a closer look at it over the summer."