Our Chassidic friends

They came to visit for 10 days. Talk about the Odd Couple. I love them both to pieces. She loves jewellery with a passion, anything that glitters and is expensive. Her husband complains bitterly to mine about her spending sprees. The more he makes, the more it goes - on her hands, around her neck, on her fingers, and wherever diamonds drip. She complained to me about her Orthodox hippie-style daughter. "She has a belly ring and wanted to know whether she could wear her belly ring in the mikvah (ritual bath). So she called up her rabbi - talk about stump the rabbi - who had no idea what a belly ring is. He asked his wife what is it? His wife waved her hand at him - it's just some meshugas (crazy thing)." I don't know what the verdict was, but I could just imagine what a ruckus it must have caused in the rabbi's household. At last a question he could not answer easily.

We went out on Friday and she took me out for breakfast. I showed her the New Age shop and thought we'd be looking at crystals and candles. But she immediately spotted something glistening in the locked glass showcase. "That's termoline! I can't believe it! I've been looking for this for YEARS!" She's found her treasure at last. I was horrified. The price tag was over 1,000 dollars US!! "Your husband will KILL you", I warned. "Put it back" I said. She didn't listen. She took it out, wore it around her neck, walked around the store with it and decided to buy it. Shit. All I wanted her to do was look at candles for 10 friggin' dollars and she finds the most expensive thing in the house. I had no idea the store even sold jewellery.

Saturday night we went out as a couple. They came over to see our rather modest home and she perused through my photo albums. "WHAT IS THIS??!" she screamed at a page in my album. "Oh, that's the gay pride day in Jerusalem last year. Isn't it colorful." She turned grey. "You put these pictures in your FAMILY album?" I put everything in my family album.

We went out for coffee and cake and I told her about my Feng Shui consultation. "Everything is in the Torah, even that" she told me. Her husband elaborated further "The Torah even tells you where you should build bathrooms in your home, he stated. You are not allowed to pee facing the Temple Mount." OH? Hubby and I tried to figure out in which direction our bathroom faced. "I think I pee towards Mecca" I said, not feeling too good about that either. I glared at Hubby -"But YOU, my man, are peeing towards the Temple Mount!!" The restaurant patrons began to look in our direction for the more enlightening conversation coming from our table. "Shit. Looks like I will have to pee sideways from now on." Yes, do that. Please pee in the direction of New York City only. I feel a bathroom renovation coming on!