Every picture tells a story

"There was lots of music around town." a friend told me yesterday about the holiday's entertainment in Jerusalem.

"Really?"

"You usually know what's going on." She seemed surprised at my ignorance. "What happened?"

I don't know what happened this year. Maybe my entertainment radar had gone on the blink. Maybe it was a combination of not having a succah built. Maybe it was having to grovel for money owing my husband from his clients so that I can buy a bus ticket into town. Maybe it was my kids getting angry at me for borrowing food money from them. Maybe it was the frustrated tone in my daughter's voice when I asked her to borrow the car for a local trip in the neighborhood, which would have taken me 1 1/2 hours round trip, had I taken two buses or had I walked.

I went to the parade, I went to a friend's home for coffee, I went to a debtors anonymous meeting that was long overdue for me. But nothing else. I cooked and shopped and cooked and shopped. It was getting tedious.

I had 100 things listed on my To Do list, because I'd have the time on my 8 days off for the holiday. Only one item got done.

I managed to organize all the loose photographs lying unorganizedly around and put them into those tiny photo albums that the photo shops give away to customers who bother printing out photos these days. Almost all are neatly stored away in albums now. Labeled albums. It took me one full day to do it. And these photographs prompted so many memories of a seemingly easier life in Canada. It's all in my head, this easier life, of course. I have pictures of lakes, streams, rivers and beaches and beautiful grassy backyards of Toronto suburbs. I remind myself that we couldn't afford a house or summer away in cottage country or even to buy ourselves a home of our own in Thornhill. Hubby tells me average mortgages are $4,000 these days. It makes my own mortgage of $1,250 much easier to fathom. But life in Canada did seem easier and less anxiety ridden. We seemed to have everything we needed back then.

I sift through the photos and linger on the memory of a particular one.

I looked at photos of me pregnant with my first child, some hideous "frummy" (ultra-orthodox) 'uniforms' of wide skirts and baggy tops that I can't believe I allowed myself to wear, and of a recent photo of me dozing off while holding my sleeping grandson. I grimace at another photo of me and a newly formed double chin. And I was thankful that not all photographs of me show me with this ridiculous looking turkey chin.

I have photos of my daughters' ex-boyfriends. My soldier daughter tells me to throw out the now-embarrassing-to-her photos of her ex-boyfriend. I just throw out the ones of him alone. I keep the ones with him and her together. I made the mistake of throwing out photos of ex-boyfriends when I got engaged and never forgave myself for the missed memories. I told her I'll keep them just for her, if she ever wants a glance 20 years down the road of her life's history and on days like this, with more time on your hands than is necessary, this would be a good memory jolter for her - and she could daydream the day away of the easier life she once had.

The Big Fright

I had planned to go to Abed's wedding for a few months, and the time kept getting closer and closer. On Tuesday he called to officially invite me. On Friday, I found out that a close female friend of mine was invited too. I was thrilled because Abed had told me that this was going to be a very traditional Arab wedding. The men and women would be separate. I would not know anyone in the women's section and was happy to have a friend with me.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, the look on my husband's face got drabber and drabber. We discussed this over dinner last night. He was adamant that I should not go. The wedding was going to be in Abu Dis, a Palestinian neighborhood east of Jerusalem, behind the big wall. He told me again over coffee with friends this morning. Our friends told me they'd be frightened to go too.

The fear is so great here of the other that everyone is afraid for their lives. It's unfair. But I can't go by the "talk" of others. Is it true that Arab neighborhoods are dangerous for Jews? Hubby was telling me horrific things that could happen to me over there...I was starting to feel nervous myself.

This is supposed to be a wedding celebration of a close peace associate of mine. I told my husband and children and friends that if it were so dangerous, he'd warn me to stay away because of tensions in the area. This is what had been done in the past when we were supposed to go to Bethlehem one year and there were tensions between our peoples. There are always tensions between our peoples - look at the tension in Acco. But this tension between peoples who more and more I feel are the same is, to me, artificial. It can be zapped away. It's not easy, but I know it can be done.

I was starting to get flutters in my stomach as the time got closer to the wedding because of my family's concerns. It was starting in a couple of hours.

Logistics. How do we get there? Is it safe for Israelis to take their car to Abu Dis? I wrote a few emails to Palestinian friends who live in the area, and my friend wrote some of her friends.

Yes, it's safe to take a car with Israeli license plates. It's Area B in our sectioned-off land which has A,B,C as its sections.

The Israeli man who came with us decided to leave his car in my neighborhood and we took a Palestinian car service recommended by a friend. He said he'll pick us up in 10 minutes. That's 20 minutes in Palestinian time.

We drove up and down a couple of hills until we got to Abu Dis, a large Palestinian university town. We were immediately greeted with smiles, and separated from our male colleague, shown to the women's section. Again. More smiles. We were greeted by Abed's relatives who had never met us before. We were led up to the dancing area by his mother to dance with her. My friend and I seemed to be the only Jewish women there. We noticed Abed's mother could pass for one of our aunts. She looked more Jewish than Arab, we thought, and imagined her cooking up a vat of kreplach soup.

Sitting with all these women, I wondered where does all this fear of the other come from? As different parts of the wedding ceremony were happening, the woman sitting next to me, who treated us like VIPs as soon as we walked in, gave me a running commentary in Arabic, which I understood only a few words. I picked up a couple of new Arabic words from her which I believed were - aris (bride) and aroos (groom). I was quite pleased with myself to have guessed what those words meant.

When the men came in, the women who weren't covered up to begin with, covered up their bare arms and hair. The men lined up to greet the groom and many gave him money. There were necklaces of dollar bills put around the groom and bride. Then the bride and groom cut the many tiered wedding cake with what looked like an antique ceremonial dagger.

My friend commented that this wasn't an Arabic cake. Yeah, it's more Jewish than Arabic, I told her. It was sponge cake with coconut frosting. Kiddush cake. Two wine glasses were filled with Coca Cola for the bride and groom to give a toast to each other.

It could have very well been a Jewish wedding in an ultra-orthodox wedding hall. They also have separate rooms for men and women for dancing.

And I wondered again, where the fear of the other comes from. Are our respective societies feeding each other lies about one another so that we can't become close?

And I thanked God for taking fear out of my heart and so being able to have an opportunity to see a traditional Arab wedding in a Palestinian village and to mingle and dance together with the women guests.

Grateful

OK - it's time to feel grateful. Of course I may feel differently tomorrow, but I downloaded some photos from September and October's stuff I did/saw, and it wasn't all that terrible. So I look at these pics and feel grateful to see what I did.






Over 7,000 Christian pilgrims came to Israel for the Feast of Tabernacles - Sukkot holiday. They gave candy to the little kids. My son and daughter came with me, hoping to get a loot bag full of sweets, but the marchers seemed to only give to the little ones. My son felt first-hand how painful it is to grow up. I mean, he's growing a beard for frig's sake!! He's no longer at the "cutie" stage. People will no longer pinch his cheeks and give him sweets. Except for his mother.

But luckily we saw an abandoned pile of candies left by an Ultra Orthodox kid who probably left it because the candies weren't kosher. Wouldn't you know it. We piled the stuff into my purse quicker than ice melting in 1,000 degree heat.




Babysitting the grandkid.



Interfaith Iftar celebration in Jerusalem







Jaffa beachfront



Work trip to the Galilee and at the end of the day we had a kosher Druze meal at Usifiya. Unusual and wonderful food.

Welcome to My Pity Party

It's a new year. I know I'm supposed to be grateful and all that shit. But it's hard. Tonight is the first night of Sukkot. No Sukkah. Well, no money, no sukkah. We tried to sell our old one - the one that doesn't fit - a bit too late. Like yesterday. Of course, there were no takers. Well, there was one potential one, but he couldn't get a car in to take the thing, so now the money we thought we'd get from the sale is gone.

I try to see the good in my life, and there are lots of gifts I am privileged to see. I did get to see Paul McCartney in concert because Hubby was working that month and tickets were affordable then. And I knew I would have regretted not going if I had a chance and didn't take it. But that now seems like so long ago.

One such gift came on Saturday when my daughter and future son-in-law decided to take me for an impromptu ride to Tel Aviv and Jaffa and I swished my feet in the warm water up to my knees, marveling at the still peaceful mixed Arab/Jewish city of Jaffa. Later that evening friends of mine from England, a couple, one Jewish, one not, took Hubby and I out for dinner. Two treats in a row. I laughed as we passed by the edge of Meah Shearim and the non-Jewish guy took triple takes at the striped coats and fur hats of the Hassidim. My husband shouted at them.

"He likes what you're wearing."

I was like - "Are you crazy??? Want them to throw rocks at you??"

I thought being taken out twice that day was a sign of good things to come. I really did. Earlier that morning a white dove landed on our porch. It didn't want to fly away. I thought it was injured. I fed it and gave it water. I was told they bring good luck. It did fly away a few hours later. I thought it was more than a coincidence when the calls came in for restless me to go to Tel Aviv and meet up with good friends later that evening. Just when I needed it.

But Hubby is in renovations and Jews don't renovate or paint during the month-long holiday season. Just when you need cash the most. Every three days or so there's another festive meal, and I'm weary of writing post-dated checks to the supermarket, not knowing if my bank will honor them. It's totally frightening.

I wonder how on earth do people "make it" here?? How is it that people have what they need? And some don't. Is it soup kitchen time for us, I thought as I looked at my 1,000 NIS ($300) electric bill that just came in?

My co-workers were joking with me telling me I must be thrilled that I have no savings or investments because I didn't lose any money in the financial crisis that seems to be happening all over the place. My boss told me it's the poor's turn to laugh at the rich. But I'd love to have had $10 million and if I'd lost half, I'd still have $5 million or so. It's not worth hanging yourself over that, is it?

Sunday I got a call from the dentist. Hubby had work done over a year ago and the 2,000 NIS bill is still outstanding. This wasn't the first call made to us either. And the calls from that office began to increase to every other day since the beginning of the new year. I put a stop to it by going into their office and writing 4 more post-dated checks.

"Can't I write 12 checks?" I asked.

"No more than 4, please. It's been outstanding for over a year" she reminded me, though she didn't have to.

"How will I cover them?" I asked her. She was a young ultra-orthdox receptionist.

"With God's help" she smiled at me.

Yup. With God's help. I mused that mantra over and over again as I rode home on the bus with an acquaintance, telling her a bit of how stressed I am, but not telling her the entire story. I told her how I saw in the newspaper that studio apartments in Manhattan are renting for $3,500 a month. I once had a one-bedroom apartment in a brownstone in Manhattan's upper west side, just off Central Park West.

"Had I just had some foresight, I would have just sublet the place forever." I thought of the $6,000 monthly easy money I could have gotten, easing our financial burden. But I had given up the place in 1983 when I decided, foolishly, to move to Toronto because Toronto seemed a less scary place to raise children. Had I looked into my crystal ball, I would have seen Giuliani making a safe place in New York to raise children, plus making people who already owned apartments there, quite happy.

My friend pointed out the window of the bus "But look. Now you're HERE and look what you got instead!" I looked out the window at Bar Ilan Street. It was pre-holiday madness, with crowds of Ultra-Orthodox Jews all wearing the same thing and boxes and paper littering the streets.

"Yeah, blue plaid skirts" I commented, looking at the "uniform" the women seemed to all be wearing.

The friend laughed.

I went shopping again for the holiday and wrote another post-dated check. My heart is in my stomach by now. I'll cover it with God's help. Right? I'll need to go again on Friday. Never mind all the stuff going on during the holiday. It depresses me to read the paper and see all the sukkot events. I can't do any of it. I can get into town twice. I have a bus card with a few more "clicks" left. But that's about it. Maybe I'll go to the Jerusalem parade with my son so the Christian Zionists can ply us with the candies they bring to give to the Jewish children that line the parade route. Maybe I'll go to the interfaith Sukkah party on Tuesday night. Maybe I'll go with my messianic friends to their picnic next week - they said they'll drive us. These things are all free.



And then I saw that dove again today. I shook my head at it sadly and told it "You're supposed to bring good luck. Where is it?" and I closed the porch door because I didn't want to see the bird of false promises and hopes.

a funny

someone just sent me this joke about the weather---



In deference to The Archbishop of Canterbury and The Royal Commission for Political Correctness, it was announced today that the local climate in the UK should no longer be referred to as ''English Weather.' Rather than offend a sizeable portion of the population, it will now be referred to as 'Muslim Weather.' In other words - partly Sunni, but mostly Shi'ite.

Jews to Blame

fucking hilarious

Look who's moving into the neighborhood

On the eve of Rosh Hashana I walked around the neighborhood, doing last minute things like hand-picking flowers from the florist for my daughter's fiancee's family. On the way I met someone who was sympathetic to all the negative emails I had received about my interfaith encounters.

"I got some real nasty emails" she told me. This was because she told the list that the person who started the whole tirade against my meetings was inciteful. I told her that it's not like I'm inviting car thieves to the meeting.

She then told me her personal story:

"I used to live in Silwan (City of David) years ago. I rented a place from an Arab landlord and everyone was real friendly and warm towards me. I just gave birth prematurely and I walked into my apartment to see bloody handprints all over my door. Of course I freaked out totally thinking 'they're GOING TO KILL ME!'. My landlord explained that it's tradition that when a baby might be in danger, they slaughter a sheep and put the blood of the sheep around the doorpost of the house to save/heal the baby. But I didn't know at first until they spoke to me about it."

I agreed with her that I would have freaked out too at the sight of bloody handprints all over my door. WTF? But I tried to look it up on the internet and the closest thing I can find about this custom was
this:

Meanwhile, hubby wanted to irritate our community a bit more.

"Let's announce that we're having a nudist party" he told me this morning joyfully. Now THIS is a person that should be going to shul today, no? But I'm stuck with him in the house. This is my atonement. I found it quite funny actually and added

"OK - next time I announce an interfaith meeting, I'll tell them it'll be a nudist interfaith encounter, and then we can have fun with all the responses."

But I was thinking, there are scarier things than me inviting 5 Palestinians to my home to talk about religion.

For example, on Sunday I walked around Givat Shaul after I had my yearly boob smooshing examination at Machon Halla. There are a lot of wonderful stores in that neighborhood that borders on the ultra-orthodox Har Nof neighborhood. The customers are mostly ultra-orthodox, meaning lots of toy stores, electronics, clothing, food with reasonable prices. I wandered into one toy store to see this:



Shocking. Especially since I saw that the store owners weren't especially religious. They had kowtowed to the ultra-orthodox customers and had colored over the photo of the immodest mother and even her young female child in every swimming pool box. Except for one.

I called the owner over.

"You forgot to cover up this woman with black marker!" I showed him, pointing to the bare arms and worse of the photo of a woman in the swimming pool with her child.

He just looked at me.

And in the Maale Adumim local paper, the headline screamed how tens (or is it hundreds)of ultra-orthodox Jews are all registering locally at this one particular address so they can have a Maaleh Adumim address to be able to vote in an ultra-orthodox municipality or mayor or something in the forthcoming November 11th local elections. It's being looked into now because it's impossible for hundreds of people to be living in one apartment in the older section of the city. In fact, one of my friends said that "they" knocked on her door asking if she would like to sell her apartment. If they knock on mine, should I tell them apartments are half price in Abu Dis? Or should I just warn the local toy store that they'd better start coloring with black marker the immodest mothers that adorn the boxes of toys in their store?

Happy Holidays

Happy Rosh Hashana and Eid Mubarak. It's great to have the two holidays together. I'm so not a synagogue-goer. Reading from a prayer book just does not do it for me. I did my duty somewhat by hearing the call of the "shofar" from the synagogue across the street. Even on the 8th floor, the sound carried.

My more joyful moments, as usual, center around food.

We were invited to my daughter's fiancee's family on the first night of the holiday. I was happy to be invited out, avoiding the rush-to-get-things-done on the first night, the way most people are stressed out.

Their family insists that the mother of the groom is of Polish/ashkenazi descent. Looking at her and listening to her, there are no physical nor other traces of this ashkenazi lineage. It just can't be. My daughter and I were wondering if she was in fact a kidnapped Yemenite child from the late 1940s. Her personality is too warm and she served way too much food. Her sister looks like Israeli actress Gila Almagor. I ate a tablespoon of everything being served and still I was stuffed by the end of the meal.

Later that evening we laughed as we took a look at their older brother, a huge hulk of a handsome man, who resembled Christopher Reeve. My son said he was waiting for him to open up his shirt to reveal the big "S" sign.

And because of the amount of guests there, the groom's mother told me she hired her "Filipino" to wash the dishes during and after the meal. I expected to, in fact, see a person from the Philippines. Instead, some friendly short guy from Sri Lanka walked in.

"Is this your Filipino" I asked the groom's mother.

She nodded proudly. She loves her Filipino.

"But he's from Sri Lanka! Sri Lanka is nowhere close to the Philippines." I tried to explain to her.

I don't think she understood.

Trouble in the 'hood

I've been having interfaith meetings for months, quietly, at my home. It all started with a chanukah party and then grew into a full-fledged proper interfaith group.

The last time I announced on the local email group list that this week's meeting was going to be on Wednesday instead of Thursday (as seeing Paul McCartney took precedence), a very frightened woman emailed the 1,000 member group as follows:

"'Jerusalem Gypsy' is asking people to come to her house for an interfaith meeting with Arabs from Abu Dis. Meeting with Arabs will only encourage their
welcome to move to our city. We already have some Arabs living here, but
encouraging more to come by these welcome meetings, will change our city from being a safe neighborhood to a French Hill or Pizgat Ze'ev where the Arabs that moved there,(Piz'gat Ze'ev has 100 Arab familes and French Hill has a larger influx of Arab familes and growing daily. Jews won't buy there now.). This influx of Arabs
which started slowly and increased only brought terror. Terror with Arab gangs
fighting Jews in the streets, terror in car thefts etc. Do we need to encourage this
on the Chatline?"

I then received a whole slew of emails from frightened people asking me to stop my meetings and have them instead in Jerusalem or somewhere else.

I then wrote back to the entire group telling them that "many antagonizing and marginilizing attitudes are those that, in fact, encourage terror, while attitudes that build mutual respect (like ours) eliminate the roots of terror (you can not terrorize someone you do not hate and you think is human and you care for)." which only brought even more bizarre responses.

Some emails were totally retarded - people screaming at me in all caps that they had always felt safe in the city and now that I am inviting Arabs, all hell will break loose. Some were one sentences "Neville Chamberlain thought the same in 1939", one blamed me for causing strife among the Jewish people in our community, and some were totally against this but were willing to dialogue with me. One said I'll lose my friends, not knowing I have no friends to begin with - so it really doesn't matter :-)

My major point to them in individual emails was this: if our community allows in daily hundreds of arab workers for construction, gardening, garbage collection, municipal workers, house cleaners - every day from 6:00 - 3:00 pm, then WHY is a once-a-month meeting of 1 1/2hours with five educated professional men who happen to be Arab Moslems, who have the necessary permits to enter, causing such a ruckus?

paul mccartney in israel photos

paul mccartney in israel

I took my daughter's camera and therefore the sound on this video is shit. I may have put my hand over the microphone -who knows? But the concert was...great.

Paul's concert in Israel

got to the park around 9:30 am. There was no one at gate 6. September is still summer season in Israel (we have a rainy season from October - April - from May - October , it never rains). First my husband and I went inside the arena and took refuge in the shade where the food stands were being set up. Hot dogs (!), pretzels, popcorn, beer, ice coffee, ice cream and that's all the fast food I noticed. As opposed to European concerts where I've seen hundreds of cases of beer at the tailgate, Israelis are not a nation of beer guzzlers, as much as Europeans/Americans are - so I only saw a few people with a bottle or cup of beer. Also, beer dehydrates and it was extremely hot weather so even though I love a beer, I tried not to have drinks that would make me pee every hour I must have drunk 4 liters of water though. Most of us who waited from the early morning brought food and snacks which we shared with each other. There was instant camaraderie among us, which was lovely.

My two friends came in later on and I went to their gate to hang out with them. When I came back to my gate I saw Hubby sitting like a swami, engaged in a "lecture" about life,feng shui, marriage, clutter, etc. to about 10 young Israeli kids, sitting in a semi-circle, listening intently to him. They all looked like they just came out of an ashram in India. Hubby the Guru. Maharishi Mahesh Hubby.

The way we were positioned at the gate was completely unorganized and unfair, I thought. First we sat by the gate itself. Then security came and had us move 20 (?) meters back behind a plastic tarp leaving a large grassy area between us and the gate. There was hardly any shade and people made makeshift "tents" with sheets they brought. By the time 4:00 rolled around fans rushed to the gate (many getting ahead of me) and were told to move back to the tarp place. Finally around 4:30, we did end up in front of the gate somehow. Hubby gave the security guy who was going to check us one of his hats. He checked us before the rush so we were actually the first in our gate to get in. The woman next to me was like "in Israel, you give to somebody, you get back."

I just thought it should have been better organized at the gate with barriers set up so that first come first serve could be in place. They could have put barriers in several aisles and not have left the fans in an unruly "pile" meters from the gate. That and the heat were my only gripes.

This was NOT a day to be wearing Tom's Natural Deodorant, and by noon, I asked people for deodorant.

"I have men's deodorant" offered one girl who had come the same time we did.

At that point I didn't care if it were an elephant's deodorant. I needed something badly - FAST. And I was grateful for that.

5:30 the gate opened and hubby and I ran and ran and ran. We were about 3rd or 4th row from the stage, but it was terribly pushy, hot and crowded that my husband said he was at his limit and moved all the way to the back (!) of the stadium. He said he won't enjoy the concert being crammed like that. I also felt uncomfortable. I could hardly see the stage. I thought Israeli men were on the short side, in general, but somehow these 6 foot 5 giants were all in front of me. I couldn't see the stage. I called friends who were at the concert and my girlfriend had a pink long scarf that she waved in the air like a "flare" to show me where she was. She was back a bit and when I went to where my 2 friends were sitting comfortably in their chairs I noticed I could see the stage perfectly (around 12 "people rows" back from the stage in the center right). Hubby joined us thanks to the pink "flare" we had.

It didn't get any cooler as night fell. But the excitement was incredible.

My friends and I began singing Paul/Beatles songs loud, getting the people around us to join in. There was a man in his 50s with young children (10, 12) who knew all the words to the songs. I told him "You gave your children a good education" as they knew all the words. The guy did the harmony.

When Paul took the stage, it felt like a dream. It didn't seem real. I was tickled at the way he spoke in Hebrew. I only expected a word or two in the language, not full short sentences. I took several photos (most came out awful - but some came out real nice) and short videos of a minute or two which I'll post on YouTube and pass on the link - tomorrow. The interaction was great between Paul and the audience. He really connected with his fans.

I've been to many Stones concerts. Jagger does not connect with the fans. He prances around the stage, which McCartney doesn't, but there's no "feeling." I could only say that it was very spiritual for us. I sang and danced my ass off - although it was difficult to "shake" in my crowded spot (but I managed). Today I've lost my voice.

Hubby, who was not a McCartney fan and who just went to keep me company and I think for curiosity's sake and who wanted to have an historical experience, said it was the best concert he'd ever been to. So Mac's added yet another fan.

In the taxi the 4 of us took back to Jerusalem, we kept on thanking God for the opportunity to see Paul, for bringing Paul to Israel (despite the threats) and that it was a blessing for us. My friend was saying it was like a messianic experience for her. I told her if it were indeed messianic, we'd be seeing "tehiat hamaytim" (revival of the dead) and he'd be on stage with John. For THAT I think I'd take out a bank loan.

Today my legs are sore, my voice is gone, but I'm happy and feel very blessed.

The Shabbes Nigger

Hubby isn't particularly politically correct. I was thinking about even allowing him to go to the Paul McCartney concert this Thursday. Knowing that Paul is quite a gung-ho vegetarian, I promised myself no knockwurst sandwiches while waiting at Gate 6 for 12 hours. I'll take egg sandwiches for the morning, goat cheese and sprouts sandwiches for lunch, and humous sandwiches and salad for dinner. I feel I need to respect Paul's wishes and his wishes are that everyone on the planet will become vegetarian. So far, munching on a chicken leg doesn't bring me to guilt pangs yet, but if I go to a McCartney concert, I feel biting into a juicy hamburger at the venue would be offensive. I mean, you don't want to be eating a ham sandwich while face to face with the Prophet Mohammad or Moses, so this is like the same thing, isn't it.

Hubby, on the other hand, has no qualms about eating whatever it is he wants when he wants. If there are rules against bringing meat into Park Hayarkon, Hubby might get agitated as he does when there are any rules to begin with and break them in spite. Then he'd get into a heated argument with local vegetarians, telling them "it's all bullshit." Everything is bullshit to him. And he just loves pushing peoples' buttons.

He has dared me for weeks that if we were alone in the home one weekend, that we should prance around the house naked. I usually give this suggestion my usual 'blank stare' response as I usually do to his ridiculous proposals. But today, while my son was out playing soccer, he looks at me with one eyebrow raised and a sly smile appeared on his face.

"Well? We're alone."

"OK" I said and pulled my top off at the dining table and continued to read the papers as if reading the morning papers topless is a regular thing.

Hubby then got nervous. I dared his dare. He didn't expect this.

"Please don't go over to the window to do the dishes or anything."

"Shit darling. It's my day of rest. Whose doing dishes?"

Fast forward...Saturday is HIS day to clean. Even though it's just the three of us in the house this weekend, he wonders why every 5 seconds there's another dish or cup to wash.

He looks at me, shrugs and says

"What am I - the Shabbes (Sabbath) Nigger?"

I look back at him. It's no use. I can never politically-correct him.

Getting Ready for Paul

I'm listening to Galaatz radio this afternoon - the music Hubby was listening to on the television (MTV) was getting on my nerves. Every hour the same new thing, the same new thing, the same new thing. I switched stations and they were playing McCartney stuff. Good thing I live on the 8th floor. I was singing loud and dancing all over the kitchen/dining/living room while cooking.

The radio blasted out Oh Darling, I Will, Sgt. Pepper, and I didn't have a care in the world, as I looked out at the fantastic view of the Judean and Jordanian mountains out my window.

Then my son sneered at me,

"That's McCartney?"

"Yes. Shhhh!!!" I hissed at him. I hate being interrupted while I'm singing along with Paul. I love knowing all the words too to his stuff.

He rudely continued, "For THAT you paid almost 1,000 shekels for two tickets?"

Baby You Can Drive My Car was playing in the background.

and this was my answer to him - Beep Beep um Beep Beep YEAH!~

filled with stupid people

That is what the world is filled with.

I don't know who was stupid. Me or the high school. They sent a notice about a parents' teachers evening with the date 17/9/08 on it. That was yesterday, which I had marked on my calendar. I was all set to go. I was happy, for a change, because my son is actually doing well this year. I hurry and do my shopping list, go to the getting-crowded supermarket, shop for the week, arrange for delivery, call a cab to first pick up Hubby who reluctantly decided to move from his couch/bed/tv to come with me and then the taxi rushes to the school and it's dark. The place is fucking dark.

"it doesn't look like there's any parents/teachers evening tonight." says the wise cab driver who is of course gonna charge me a fortune for a round-trip trip.

I plow through my bag full of stuff trying to find the paper that tells the date.

"Here it is" I show the cab driver and Hubby, who is getting totally irritated. "The date is the 17/9/08."

"But it says 'Sunday' says the wise old cab driver.

So should I have ignored the date, and read the entire thing in Hebrew? The numbers were easier for me because anyone can understand numbers. The school put the wrong date on and the right day. How was I to know?

But my son of course was like "How should I know?" when I came home furious that I wasted time, effort and cab fare for this. He kind-of-knew that there was something going on on Sunday but wasn't sure it was for his class.

Then he told me his teacher tried to call us all day.

"But darling, I had my phone with me the entire day. I would have known if she was calling. She didn't call."

"Yes. She tried all day on our house phone."

"WHAT HOUSE PHONE?" said Hubby and I in unison (for a change)

We hadn't had a house phone since June 2007.

"I gave her your cell phone. I told her we don't have a house phone."

Yup, the house phone she was trying to call us on, which is still listed in the phone book. I'm not gonna even bother trying to tell the phone company to unlist that ghost number.

This afternoon my daughter calls me.

"Someone called from Maariv L'noar (a teen magazine) and said they had been sending us a gift subscription for a year and would we be interested in renewing. I told them 'What gift subscription?' We never got any magazine. And then they told me where they sent it to. I told them 'we haven't lived there for 10 years already.'"

I vaguely recall filling out a form - with my correct address - a year ago when my son began his orthodontic treatment. But somehow, these fools managed to dig up my very old address. I once called them to tell them we weren't receiving it and then they said 'ok, ok' and I never heard from them again, and never had the patience to pursue a free gift.

putting out fiyah

I spent a good few moments in the morning on the McCartney website trying to convince the Israelis posting about next week's concert not to voice their fears about that Bakri guy up in Lebanon trying to scare the wits out of his fans.

I wrote furiously to one -

"What if Paul's management reads these posts telling him to cancel the concert next week? If he gives in to these terrorists, it's a sign of weakness. It's great that so far, he's sticking to his word and isn't showing any fear about these threats. And, the security here is the best in the world, blah, blah, blah"

Thankfully,they listened and pulled those wimpy posts off the site.

And as for Bakri trying to fuck up my fun next week, all I have to say to him is

"Cus Ukhtak"

Like a Chicken Without a Head

It's been nuts around here, so much so, that I woke up this morning already really physically dizzy and nauseous. I need another vacation but this time a real vacation from my To Do lists and family and work.

My blue book is filled with things to do and places to go to and people to see from now until mid-October. My home computer zonked out on me last week, and I just had it fixed and brought to my work. I can't lug the heavy thing, so my daughter said she would pick me up from work and take the computer in her car, as long as Hubby can pick up the grandkid at 4:30. Turns out my boss wanted me to work overtime for 1/2 hour, which had this whole chain reaction. My daughter, before coming to get me, bashed into another car's tail end and she nearly destroyed the front of their new used car. She came to my work a bit shaken with her hand sprained and I had to tell her we need to leave in 1/2 hour. Meanwhile, Hubby was 10 minutes late picking up the kid, my daughter's hand was hurting, my neck was aching, my son is calling to tell me his teacher wants to make a house visit next week, my other daughter is telling me about looking for wedding halls, my daughter who is in the army is telling me about the deodorant she needs me to buy for her immediately - today, and Hubby calls me urgently and I thought 'hope everything is alright with the kid.' He tells me...

"I want you to stop at a gas station on your way home. Remember. Stop at any gas station. You must do this. And buy me a pack of cigarettes."

As we were driving home, I was worried about his cigarettes. There was no gas station on the way. But my daughter's hand was hurting and she decided to wait for her husband, who had just finished work, to meet us on a side street and take over the driving. God loves me. Because of this delay, I finally found 10 minutes until daughter's hubby arrives, to run to the nearest gas station 2 blocks away and buy the Old Man his ciggies. Because if I don't, he'll never forgive me. Last time I forgot, it was as if his entire world had caved in. I really think he measures how much I love him on whether I remember to buy him cigarettes or not. And when I do remember, he is over the moon.

Family Photo

Not my family. Certainly not. Hilarious.

Gift giving

My daughter's boyfriend's parents went to Morocco during the summer and brought back what she said were "tons of leather bags" and necklaces, from which they asked her to pick. She picked a brown beaded and silver necklace and orange bag with a lovely Moroccan-style stitching design. For me. I promptly felt I "had" to wear the necklace the next day at work. It was lovely, even if I have 100 brown stone necklaces. The bag is beautiful, and large enough for me to fit in all my junk. The only problem is that it stinks like camel urine or something similar - some leather smells great, and some stinks horribly. This has a stench. Enough to put me off leather goods for a while. But I put all my stuff in it and took it to work. I met my daughter yesterday and she remarked, "Oh you're wearing it?" which I'm sure made her feel grateful that I don't shun her gifts.

I don't shun any gifts. Gifts are gifts.

Hubby, on the other hand, doesn't think like I do. If he doesn't like a gift, even from a loved one, he will discard it like a two-bit whore.

Same daughter brought us a house plant for inside our home. The wooden strangely-shaped thing it was in, wasn't my style or color, but it was a gift, and I proudly displayed it in the living room. On Friday my daughter's future in-laws were meeting us for the first time. Hubby put the plant in the bathroom, well out of view of guests.

This produced an argument.

"Why is this in the bathroom?" I asked

"Because it's a piece of shit."

That makes sense. Pieces of shit certainly belong in the bathroom, but this "piece" was from my daughter. It didn't.

After some loud words were exchanged, I won (YAY!) and the plant remained in the livingroom but on the other side, on the side of the couch, where it wouldn't show so prominently.


He did the same thing with this hideous brown metal clock my son-in-law got for us before he became our son-in-law. After a few months Hubby took it out of our living room and placed it in the storage room. I argued with him about it, but not as vehemently as I would had he been my own son.

When my daughter's future in-laws arrived at our home Friday night, we felt like royalty as each one beared some sort of gift in their hands - the father held a bottle of champagne, the mother - a dozen long-stemmed roses, the husband-to-be - a giant caramel cake and the brother - a giant basket filled to the brim with assorted high-quality chocolates and wine.

I snickered to Hubby - "Bet you're not taking THAT into the storage room.."

Tali-Jews

It's been driving me up a wall - the news with "our" crazy rabbinate putting "kosher labels" now on music which I read about here to the modesty patrols beating up women in their own apartments!

Bach and Beethoven are "ok" but the "goyishe" African beats aren't? Smacks of simple racism to me. Handel's Messiah is tolerated but not Reggae? Do they not listen to the lyrics in Matisyahu's songs and hear his love of God and of Judaism there?

It is scary in the religious sector, folks. Is this really where religion is supposed to be? Is this the religion that God gave to the Jews in Sinai? What is frightening is these people totally believe they are right! Fuck! These people are far from the Source.

These are Taliban Jews and they have no place in the Holy Land! Ship 'em to Afghanistan I say.

But - I had a good laugh the other day on the bus. An Orthodox man asked an older Morroccan woman sitting to the side of me but across the aisle to get up and move (!). She looked at him disbelievingly and then moved to sit next to me. She shook her head at me, her long earrings dangling, and then proceeded to pinch me near my rear end - twice.

I jumped.

"Excuse me?"

She laughed and told me,

"THIS is what I would have done to him, if I sat next to him."

Did we both have a good and loud laugh.