Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:40 PM

Two months ago today, my grandfather died.

Tomorrow, we would've celebrated his birthday.

While this is something I feel I should blog about, I just haven't had the words to write about it.

So, instead, I'm going to reprint the eulogy I delivered at his funeral.

"Survivor" is a word that you hear a lot as people talk about Zayde. And it's a good word for him. But perhaps an even better word would be "fighter". For Zayde, "survival" wasn't sufficient. He needed to win, to triumph.

And he raised his family to be fighters, too.

As you can imagine, this didn't always make things easy or smooth. But it's who we are.

Everything could be a battle to Zayde. And he had no intention of losing battles. If the rules of the game were against him, he'd just go and change the rules. He had an amazing ability to seek out and find advantage, even if there was no apparent way to win. This is one of the great lessons I've taken from him, and one my husband has sought to emulate, too.

He saw Zayde's combination of guts and chutzpah, Zayde's refusal to believe in unwinnable scenarios, Zayde's ability to see a route to not only survival, but victory, in the most impossible situations.

I do, too. When I'm at work, or in a negotiation, or dealing with unhelpful people, I often ask myself what Zayde would do. It helps. If you don't accept the possibility of failure, and if you don't accept the limitations that everyone else assumes exist, sometimes you find a way to win.

The most important thing in the world to Zayde was us, his family. Not only because we are a group of people he loved, although we are. But also because we are, each of us, symbols of his survival, and of his victory. Each child, grandchild, and especially, great-grandchild is a triumph over those that tried to destroy him. Those that killed his family. Those that burned his world to ashes.

We're here. They're not. He won.

His overwhelming joy when the family got together was not only at being with the people he loved, although it was that, but also a celebration of survival, and a mark of victory. Every phone call from a grandchild was a simple reminder that his victory had a purpose - to allow all of us to exist, and to live well, able to go to college, and have good lives in a country where we could grow up free from fear.

He often gave me a hard time over not phoning him enough. But one reason I didn't was because he was never far from my thoughts. Zayde shaped who I am. I am his granddaughter. I am a Riba, of the family that he created.

Zayde was stubborn, creative, charismatic, passionate, dramatic, infuriating, and loving. It's a cliché, but he was a force of nature, that couldn't be ignored. He raised a family of passionate, stubborn, loving, creative people. There is no greater legacy.

PS: If you want to read more about my grandfather's remarkable life, The St. Petersburg Times printed an extended obituary.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:05 AM

As you may have noticed, I finally resolved the technical problems that had prevented me from posting for the past few months.

Unfortunately, other barriers -- lack of time, lack of energy, lack of... words -- are more difficult to overcome. [Which is among the reasons I hadn't worked too strenuously to address the technical issues.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:54 PM

tap-tap-tap

Is this thing on?

Hello?

Can anyone hear me? (Is anybody still listening?)

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:45 PM

According to today's New York Times, the newest historical character in the American Doll franchise will be Jewish.

Rebecca Rubin "is a 9-year-old girl living on the Lower East Side in 1914 with her Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, siblings and a grandmother known only as Bubbie."

"The goal is that no one be offended and that Jewish and non-Jewish little girls alike will want to play tenement house with their new toy, which costs $95 — plus more for accessories like a sideboard with a challah resting on it." Not to mention the usual series of books. Furthermore, American Dolls has hired Joseph Jacob Advertising specifically "to help market Rebecca through Jewish publications and direct mailings to Jewish households."

So, expect to be hearing a lot more of her in the weeks and months (and years?) to come.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:21 PM

Results for The Social Persona Test... The Librarian (QTBF) Quirky Traditional Beta Female You know the story--The quiet, smart girl who emerges from her shell to become the new queen bee. Nothing wrong with nerdy girls, in fact there aren't enough of you. Your best match is The Late Bloomer, as he once was the male version of you.

I answered honestly, leaving a few questions blank, as none of the answers applied.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:36 PM

You know, I am really sick and tired of science fiction stories set in the far-off future which still portray childbirth as a sweaty woman screaming in pain.

In all this time, at the very least somebody will have invented better analgesics which won't risk the newborn.

This is a universe which has transporter technology, for frink's sake! Given it's ability to lock onto individual lifeforms, the applications seem obvious once a fetus is viable.

It's sloppy worldbuilding, and feels like the guys in charge couldn't be bothered to expend the slightest effort in extrapolating about girly stuff.

[I seem to recall a similar point made regarding the attitudes towards artificial uteri in David Weber's Honorverse as compared with Lois Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:45 PM

A few weeks ago, NPR brought a credit-card expert in for some Q&A.

And I learned something new, worth knowing by anybody planning a trip to Canada:

Credit card companies have almost universally charged 3 percent on transactions that were made outside the United States in another currency.

They've recently changed their policy so that any transaction made in another country -- even if it's made in dollars -- also incurs that same charge.

Capital One is actually the only major credit card company that doesn't have a surcharge, and most of the credit unions only charge a 1 percent fee.

More on this from Consumerist.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:35 AM

Given all the talk of writing requirements in the form of user stories, I started wondering about other narrative forms.

How about limericks, or haiku, or even zen koans?

So I tried writing a few of my requirements as limericks.

Not sure I can share them, since they are about ongoing projects, but they worked disturbingly well, and the rhyme makes them more memorable than prose.

Maybe I can write this technique up and get it published for next April 1st...

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:15 PM

This morning, I successfully put my hair up into a French twist, and it stayed up the entire workday.

For me, that's a major triumph.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:11 PM

According to BoingBoing, mom-sourcing.co.in "actually hired call-center workers in India to place Mother's Day calls for people who sign up."

It seems like a great lark, except I don't see any way to indicate what time to call.

Maybe next year...

Instead, I'll let SomeEcards say it for me: