Men

My son called me frantically yesterday morning from school.

"MOM! I'm sick!!! Please hurry and pick me up from school NOW!"

Of course, just then, some real estate people rang the doorbell and wanted me to show them the house we are renting. Fortunately, these people had seen the house on their own already and were haggling with the agent about it. I excused myself meanwhile and then a second call came in.

"MOMMMM! Are you coming? PLEASE HURRY, I'M SICK."

"What's wrong"

"I don't know"

This is such a guy thing, lemme tell you. I'd have these exact conversations with Hubby. He'd tell me over the phone he's sick and not know what's wrong. I mean what the fuck? Is it your throat? Your head? Fever? Legs? Arms? Brains? Teeth?

They don't know.

I got to the school gate and my son was clearly very uncomfortable. He seemed to have something stuck in his throat which he was trying to cough out. I took him to the emergency clinic. The doctor thought it was some kind of allergic reaction after taking a chest x-ray and seeing nothing. He was on sn inhaler for 10 minutes. I took him home afterwards and then went to the pharmacy to get him inhalers. He calls me after I've already bought them.

"Don't buy me medicine. I'm ok now - hear?"

"Yeah, alright. Are you sure?" And I go back to the pharmacist who gives me a credit on my purchase.

Later on my daughter found a bee sitting on the kitchen floor.

"There's a bee here, Mom! Can you get rid of it?"

"No honey, that's what men are for. HONEY!!!" I screamed at Hubby who was glued to the couch. "Please get up and do that Manly thing of yours and get rid of this bug - please!"

He gave me a look that Al Bundy of Married with Children gives his wife when she asks for sex - and forced himself off the couch. To do that manly thing.

And now for the weekend update

It was a harrowing weekend. We have to move on Wednesday into a temporary house for a few months and then God-knows-where-to, which has put everyone in our household in a funk. One nice thing was that we were invited to a dinner at our Messianic Jewish friends' home and I overlooked the fact that Mrs. Messianic Jew is a super-duper housekeeper. Daughter and I glanced at each other while she was cooking and something or other from the pot fell on the floor. It was immediately scooped up and thrown in the trash.

"If that happened in our house, we'd just leave it on the floor."

We giggled like female versions of Beavis and Butthead.

Her place was spotless even though she was cooking for 20 people with nary a dirty pot in sight, and the counters gleaming. I should hate her but I cannot hate anyone that feeds me and lets me take home tupperware-full of leftovers.

But the rest of the weekend should have gone in the trash together with the chicken bones.

Hubby went on and on how "this country fucks you up" and the kids were at war with one another the way teens do.

The 20 year old told on her 18 year old sister -
"MOM! She's using the dryer for only ONE SHIRT!!"

I was livid. It costs a fortune here to use the clothes drier and it is only used when it rains for 3 days straight and the indoor drying rack isn't fast enough.

18 year old took revenge by rushing down to the family computer and deleting everything in the 20-year old's file which included her resume and reference letters.

I was upstairs trying to watch Desperate Housewives and she was downstairs screaming and crying. They don't stop at 20 years of age. I yelled at the 18 year old to get out of the house immediately because an act of damage/destruction to another person's property is the most taboo you can get with me. Of course, she didn't listen and trudged up to her room only to come down later that evening in an outfit that made her look like a cheap hooker. And I really dislike my daughters looking cheap - at least look like an expensive one, dammit. But I knew she put on that outfit just to piss me off because she came down, smirked at me and admired herself in the mirror while I shook my head.

Pills for Life

I think I have the writer's block. I haven't been inspired to write. My family's getting on my nerves. All of them.

"Oprah said you don't just give kids an allowance. They have to work for it" said my 20 year old as I gave my 17 year old 30 NIS ($7) for her weekly Thursday night outings.

I should have thrown out the TV. It's no good for kids. They were right. They'll only learn how normal families work and it'll make us look even more dysfunctional. And the kids are right. She gets money for doing shit around the house. I ask her to do stuff like put on a tablecloth and she puts in on halfway and runs out of the house. I give her the cash to keep her quiet. I don't want her bugging me or stealing from her sisters or borrowing from her friends. I do everything the books (and Oprah) say I shouldn't be doing.

Hubby was threatening not to buy any apartment, which will leave us pretty much stranded. At dinner same daughter said - "You know, if you get mad at him these days, you can always wash his teeth in the toilet" - and we all laughed like madwomen.

My neck is killing me and it's from stress. The only thing I can do is try and listen to Johnny Cash or the soundtrack from Walk The Line to calm me down.

Emails and SMS's are coming in - help needed with olive picking in Palestinian territories, house demolitions going on and people needed for support, and interfaith stuff going on left and right and I'm not joining in on anything - just deleting the messages, as I would for something I see for sale and cannot afford. I'm restless and we've overstayed our lease. I'm nervous. And it's catchy. My married kid had excrutiating stomach pains and went to emergency this week, just when I had wanted to begin packing. They perscribed antacids, after checking her thoroughly. A nervous stomach they tell her. I gave her the number of a homeopath, feelig that I just about had it with the conventional medical profession. Shame that's it's a fortune here. Seems the homeopath did the trick. He seemed to have "felt her pain" and gave her tiny homeopathic pills which calmed her tummy right down. Maybe I should go see him - perhaps he has a few little homeopathic pills for my psycho life.