Summer

I spoke to a close friend yesterday who just came back from the States. She is finding it difficult to find a job in Jerusalem. It's either Jerusalem for her or back to Chicago. So she's aiming for "back to Chicago" and I'm feeling rather sad about it. I'm trying to look at the good points about it like having yet another friend to visit in Chicago. I've never been there, but hey - if everyone I'm friends with ends up there, it's a good enough reason to visit. But losing this friend to Chicago will be sad. Because we're social buddies. She calls me her "social sponsor". I call her up with the week's events - like macrobiotic pot lucks, Interfaith weekends, Gypsy bazaars, Native Americans visiting, concerts, new restaurants, etc. and together we pick and choose what we're going to be doing together. We ate at lots of restaurants together - one restaurant we liked in particular because it was this funky coffee shop with all the neighborhood eccentrics and artists showing up, including some filmmakers and tourists, last time we were there. We spoke to every interesting person that passed our table. We laughed and said we could just sit here every day from the morning to the night without moving and said one day we'll do just that. We've had this yearly date for the Jerusalem Film Festival, usually held in July. It didn't matter what movie they showed. It was just so nice to be at Sultan's Pool, this magnificent natural amphitheatre where temporary stages and seats would go up for events like this and it would seem like you were seeing a movie at a drive-in only you're outside in the cool Jerusalem evening breeze. We saw Pedro Almovodar's movie - All About my Mother and someone just handed us tickets to the "after-party" at a nearby hotel, where we ate sushi until we were stuffed - not giving a damn about the politicians and assorted VIPs invited to the soiree. The next year we saw Shrek and shrieked with laughter. Last year it was the film Hero and before the movie they had about 50 drummers all dressed in white, not with regular drums, but African drums, or middle eastern Darbukas. I couldn't sit still in my seat. The festival began with fireworks. We heard Arabic spoken behind us while we were seated, and were happy that this event was open and comfortable enough for everyone who was able to spend $6 for these tickets.