Some New Year Resolutions

Hubby and I were up this morning at 5:00 am and watched the sunset from our front porch.

"Let's have coffee outside, watch the sunset and wake the neighbors, okay?"

Hubby likes those kind of invites so he joined me outside. He was just about to cup his hand over my breast when in bounds the Complainer from partying all night.

"Want to meet some Arabs who drove us home from a party?"

"Sure." I'm saying "sure" to everything my kids want this New Year. Nothing like entertaining guests at 6:00 am. Absolutely nothing like it.

"He's shy. He's not gonna come up. But look at his car."

I peeled myself over the railing to glance at this guy's car. A fire red sports car with a convertible roof. Nice car. Nice looking kid. I thanked him for bringing my daughter home and he waved to me and wished me a good holiday.

My daughter explained how they met. "He's half Greek and half Christian Arab. At first when we first met him about a month ago he said he was born in Greece. But last week he said he didn't want to lie and said his dad was Greek and his mother is a Christian Arab. They live in Beit Hanina (an upscale Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem). He would rather hang out with Israelis than his Moslem peers."

"Yes, it's more difficult to be a Chrisitian Arab here. You don't exactly fit it with your Moslem neighbors and the Jews don't accept you either glumping all Arabs together" I added.

While twisting and turning in bed this morning, I felt pity for the girls at my daughter's reformatory - especially the one whose mother knocked out her teeth among other things, and who hadn't been out in 1 1/2 years for a weekend when the girls usually get out every 3 weeks - she spends some holidays with cousins. I invited her to our home for our next holiday. There are others whose parents don't want them home for whatever reason, but they don't seem like bad kids at all. In fact, it seems that their home life is way more dysfunctional than ours and they are the victims. I imagined myself being shit-rich and paying for this girl's caps, so she can have a beautiful smile. I felt if I had more time on my hands I would have volunteered to take some of the girls out for a coffee/breakfast as I do with my own daughter. Our outings were becoming so frequent that the counselor explained we can't do it all the time because other girls don't get that special treatment. I think one of my new year's resolutions is to find volunteers who will give the girls some good "mothering".