It's all relative

First of all, thanks to the anonymous person who tipped me off about the bug on my blog. It was unreadable and it seems the problem stemmed from Photobucket. So I erased all my photobucket images and have a new, but plain blog without the bells and whistles or beads and camels. For now anyways.

Getting back to what I wanted to say --- my sister and neice and nephew came in from Canada this past week and we got together at my brother's house. They are all uber ultra-orthodox and so I donned my only dress - but no headcovering - and headed over to my big brother. My niece was having the freakies. Seems she is nervous about taking buses still, even though there haven't been any bus attacks for years now (thank you good God). But much to her horror:

"I took this taxi and then I looked at the seat next to the driver and saw an Arabic newspaper. I was so scared!!!"

I looked at her and laughed. Cab drivers? They're just scraping by to make a living. They may not all love Jews, because not all Jews love them either - but they're quite safe. I can assure you.

My sister in law put her mind at ease with:

"Oh, don't worry about that. If you have any problems with Arabs, just call her" she said tossing her head towards me. "She's friends with ALL of them."

"What??"

I explained to them (for the 100th time) my interfaith work and my sister was like:

"You know you can't trust them. They're all terrorists." She used the dreaded "all" word. I was calm. I was cool. I was collected. I looked at her and asked -

"Did you EVER in your life sit down and speak with any Arab? Ever?"

Sis lowers her head down slightly.

"no"

"So you can't tell me they're "all" like that."

Certainly we don't want to hear that ALL Jews are Madoffs or shysters or rich as shit. Why do I have to hear the "all" word?

Next day I was at the family wedding. This time I had to act the Ultra Orthodox part. If I didn't come dressed appropriately - meaning head covering too - it would have been an embarrassment for my sister and niece. And it's a grave sin to embarrass people in public. I actually felt more mature donning the elegant headscarf to cover my hair, and noted that when I nearly slipped in my shoes, it wasn't becoming of me to shout out "FUCK" when I looked the way I did.

The relatives were pleased to see my hair tucked in wearing a long-sleeved dress. They even introduced me to their friends. But I sat at their table and found I had nothing much to say to them. The conversation was strained if there even was a conversation. But when it was time to leave, I hugged them and told them I loved them and I felt they loved me back, even though we don't speak much to each other.

I come home to the person I'm related to by marriage - Hubby. He's in a foul mood today and tells me:

"All I want is for people to go on buses and cough and sneeze on each other. And get sick. That's all I want. That's the person you married."

Whatever.

Then this morning I see a bill he got from income tax for 43,000 shekels. After all, why shouldn't they run after our money? Aren't we all brothers?

The back of me

I was at the bank Friday morning. Try never going to a bank when it's closed the day before, which it was for the Tisha B'av fast day. The line stretched out of the bank and didn't move for at least 1/2 hour. The people in the line were getting irritated. Especially the man in back of me. I remembered his face. He flirted with me at the bus stop across the street a couple of months ago. He was from South America and then moved to an English speaking country and is divorced. He asked me if I was married and I always think that's nice of men to ask right away. Yes, yes, I'm married, I told him. He seemed funny, interesting and friendly while we were waiting at the bus stop. But at the bank he was a different person.

"I'm in back of you, ok?" he said to me in English after hearing me argue with Hubby for the 100th time that morning on my cellphone. He went somewhere inside the bank and I tried to tell him that there was a woman who had arrived before him who told me that SHE was in back of me - so he's really in back of her.

He comes back 10 minutes later and a young tall man is telling Mr. South American that HE actually was in back of me. So they're arguing. Mr. S.A. is telling me - "didn't I tell you I was in back of you?"

"Yes, but there was a woman before you who said the same thing." He looked furious and then told me in his Ricky Ricardo voice "Next tiiime, I'll tell sohmbody else I'm in back of them."

Yeah, whatever. I shrugged and turned to look in front of me.

About a half hour later I was two people away from the tellers. A little boy runs up to me:

"My mother is in back of you!"

The Spanish guy is livid. "I'M in back of you!!" he tells me.

"Don't you remember I told you there was a woman in back of me before you? Well that's her!" I pointed to the kid's mother, who was yelling at the man.

He puts his fingers in his ears, mutters curses in Spanish, English and Hebrew. It's my turn at the teller. I don't dare look back.

On the Last Day of Passover my true love gave to me...

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Jewish men are supposed to buy their wives gifts for this major holiday, preferably jewellery. But my soul-mate hasn't a fucking clue about shopping for his wife - not even after 26 years. His contribution is plain, ol' simple income so that I don't get stressed out because of the cost of inviting dozens of guests for each meal. And this year, Thank the Good Lord, I did not get stressed. I spent 3,000 NIS for the entire holiday, which is about $750, if I did the math right. And he had the money this year, which is as good a gift as I can expect from him. May the $$ continue to come in.

Now my future son-in-law has set up camp inside my home with my daughter for about a month or so until he's out of the army. I asked whether any of his relatives speak English, because if not, Hubby will not be able to communicate when they meet us in two weeks. He said his mother's native language is French and it is very similar to English. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that. I tried to tell him gently that only the alphabet is the same, but even a four letter word like "shit" bears no resemblance to the French equivalent, "merde". It won't work. There will be a communications barrier between his folks and Hubs.

My married daughter offered to host his brood when they come in two weeks.
Not a chance. You see, this girl's got not one, but TWO LCD's in her salon and bedroom, and her place is fully furnished. They'll think we're comfortable financially. I explained to my daughter that at least if they come to us, they'll see that we don't even have shower doors and we watch a stinking old 21" television, and see that there's a shabby, barely working computer in my son's room. "It'll be better that way." I told her. "This way, maybe they'll feel sorry for us, and won't make demands on us like we have to buy the couple an apartment or furnish it, or something horrible like that."

And tonight is the last night of the holiday, and man am I glad. I'm cooking slowly because my neck is stiff and I'm probably dehydrated, even though I have a bottle of water handy which I drink from during short breaks in the cooking. My newly married daughter and engaged one were very relieved to be invited to my oldest daughter's home for dinner tonight. You see, I invited two very nice couples, our age or a bit older, who live in the neighborhood, for dinner tonight. Together, we're a bunch of nostalgic ex-New Yorkers and the conversation hits everything from the Tappan Zee bridge, to Yankee Stadium, to Shea, to restaurants on the Lower East Side. They're normal people. They really are. But my kids shy away from an evening with my friends as if I've invited the plague into my home.

The Moroccans are Coming

HELP!!!! My newly engaged couple arrived last night, just as I'm recuperating from my other daughter's wedding and had some requests/questions.

1. When can his relatives come and meet us?

2. My daughter will need to have a "henna" ceremony - done by Jewish women whose families originate from Arab/Middle Eastern countries (I understand Arab women also have this done the night before the wedding).

I insisted that my very blonde, blue eyed daughter is not of North African extraction but because she's marrying into a family of Moroccans, this should be done. My daughter wanted something relatively extravagant so that she could get money out of this too. I told the very young couple that my friends will not dish out moolah for two events so close to each other. If they want a henna ceremony, it'll have to be at my house, with her friends, and she's lucky if she gets sexy lingerie out of the deal - and if the future mother-in-law wants to come, she'll have to come with her pastries because I sure as hell can't bake/cook those goodies that drip with honey and look like all sorts of twirly tube things.

What about the in-laws meeting us? I had intended to celebrate Israel Independence Day with both Jews and Palestinians in an intimate setting where Jews would celebrate their Independence and Palestinians would mourn their loss of land/homes, etc. in their Nakba. We would celebrate and mourn each other's wins and losses.

But this is the only day I'd be able to meet my daughter's fiancee's family, so the gathering of Jews/Palestinians will have to wait another year. I told my daughter's fiancee, to invite his family for an Independence Day barbecue at our home in two weeks. I said that I'm off work that day and I'll be only too happy to host them.

He called his folks to invite them. After that phone conversation he told me "everybody's coming". All his siblings. I had no idea what that meant. Two brothers, sister? Two sisters, 1 brother? Not a chance. They're seven kids altogether + parents + the families of the two married sibs. They will all drive down from Tiberias to meet us.

So - what's an overworked granny like me to do?? Retract the invite? I really wanted to. I sure did. I panicked but tried not to let it show.

Today, after doing my last-of-the-Passover-holiday shopping I sulked in the kitchen and complained to Hubby. I'm thinking of all the barbecue meat I'll have to buy for our "meet the soon-to-be-relatives" of ours and the cost of it all.

"Looks like we'll NEVER get this apartment furnished! We still don't have shower doors and I'm tired of watching movies on our ancient 2nd-hand 21" tv. When will we ever get anything?"

Hubby looked at me incredulously. He seemed more the voice of reason today.

"What's more important? Marrying off kids or buying furniture?"

I glared at him.

"Buying furniture - dammit!"

From Bondage to Freedom

Well, there were some interesting seders I missed this year - The Forward had an article about a New York Kinky Jews' seder with emphasis on the "bondage" rather than freedom - this would have been fun for me and hubby to attend as strictly voyeurs. We'll have to put this down on our "interesting seder wish list".

This year we decided to invite the newest members of our clan. The "distinguished" family of my new son-in-law. With our lovely heirloom Noritake from 1938 and my mother-in-law's silver plated setting, our table looked pretty distinguished, if I might say so myself. Being the secular family that they are, they pretty much ran through the story until the food part,which ended their part of the seder. After they left my daughter and hubby finished the rest of the seder.

Our guests came with two cases of soda, a big basket full of chocolates, a big basket full of soaps and lotions from Sheinkin. My daughter came with a bag full sample lotions and creams and stuff she didn't want after she cleaned up their room for Passover. And my daughter's mother-in-law had noticed that we didn't have a microwave, which we only use for popcorn and food warming. I told her it wasn't necessary. I had planned to buy one next month - an expensive one with a grill, since I was planning to use the grill more than the microwave. But they walked in with one anyways....

The next day Hubby opens it up and it's non-digital and white. Not black or aluminum. It had a slanted window, which made it look like a retro mini washing machine rather than a microwave. He put it back in the box.

"I'm not keeping anything that makes me angry. This makes me angry." I laughed instead of getting angry at him for being ungrateful for our gifts. We're stashing the thing in our storage room - maybe one day, one of our kids with no taste will want it.

In the evening, my son had Pesach-itis. He was doubled up with stomach pain. Trying to loosen his blockage, I did some reflexology on his feet and soon after he was running to the bathroom. While I feel asleep, he missed on the way to the toilet and hurled in the hallway. Hubby was screaming for someone to clean it up - that someone being me, of course, as there was no one else in the house. This is my vacation, I thought to myself, as I had to clean up the mess, getting out of bed in the midst of a lovely slumber. Please God, don't let anyone get deathly ill in the middle of the night at our home, because Hubby and I are the Kings and Queens of Bitches when we are woken up and we'll just let that person rot until morning.

But my THIRD eldest daughter, the one I call the Complainer, called me from Tiberias last night. She told me in an unusually tiny voice rather than her regular raspy one, that she and her boyfriend got engaged. She has a ring. It's official. And if we thought that we had just gotten over one wedding, we now have to plan another. It's happiness and this is truly a season of Freedom for us. But the silly little girl really believes that she is on a journey from Bondage to Freedom. She has no idea, at the tender age of 21, that a married woman's journey is just the opposite.

Just waiting and waiting...and waiting

I'm waiting for a whole shitload of things.

1. Like the messiah. I spent most of last week feeling terribly depressed over the terrorist murders of the Holtzberg couple in Mumbai, India, leaving their two-year-old son orphaned. I even took a look at a video of the memorial service where the kid was screaming for his mother, and I burst into tears at work. What kind of revenge did their family want? Not a revenge with weapons. But that there should be MORE light in this world. And I cried again at the wonderful-ness that is Chabad. What Jewish-affiliated person doesn't look for a Chabad house when they are traveling anywhere in the world? Entering a Chabad house is like coming home to familiar surroundings and sitting in a warm living room, lit up with a beautiful fireplace, while the snow is raging down outside. I remember going to Florida with my husband once and we needed a babysitter. We called up the local Chabad, who got us in touch with a family of 12 daughters, the eldest of whom would be our babysitter. Needless to say, she was great with our daughter. I almost stayed with Chabad in New Delhi on Friday night, but decided instead to see the authentic local synagogue and see how real Jewish Indians bring in the Sabbath. But I knew that I can always rely on Chabad, if need be, anywhere in the world.

2. For the rain - The country is desperately in need of a washing up. There hasn't been any rain in weeks. Although I don't have shoes/boots for the rain, I'll risk having soaked socks for the health of the land. But it's cloudy out now and I think the rain will come today.

3. For hubby to start work - Those days/weeks in-between jobs are agonizing for him, as they are for me. That usually means lack of money for things like...food and other sundry items. Fortunately, I'm doing after-hours work so we can manage for food, but it means me coming home at 9:00 pm or even later. Only then do I start cooking and only at 10:00 pm do we eat. I try to imagine that we're not in Israel and that I'm in Spain or some other place, where it's the norm to eat supper so late. And those inbetween days brings out the worst in hubby's moods. Last weekend we were invited to a bar mitzvah at a synagogue about a 40-minute walk from our home. I don't remember the last time Hubs stepped foot into a shul - he hadn't even for the high holy days. But he sat around while I stuffed my mouth full of the delicacies laid out on several tables after the service, and muttered things to me like "there's nothing here in this synagogue..." and was about to hurl more insults at the synagogue and its congregants when I noticed the rabbi's wife standing near us. I shushed him loudly and he got insulted and walked away. As we were walking home, he continues his tirade against everything in and not in his life. I hear footsteps in back of me. Someone was walking behind me, but I didn't really care, I had just HAD it with that complaining man and I said something like "You are just such a FUCKING MISERABLE MAN, AND I HATE BEING WITH YOU WHEN YOU'RE LIKE THIS." And the person whose footsteps I heard, walked passed us. It was our friendly bank manager. I smiled sweetly at her, wished her a good Sabbath and wondered if she heard our spat.

Forgiveness

Before Yom Kippur I attended an interfaith seminar on Forgiveness in Islam and Judaism. The room was packed mostly with Pardes students. I heard for the first time a story about the Prophet Mohammad who lived next to a Jewish man who refused to believe the Prophet's words and prophecy. The Jewish neighbor believed that prophecy comes from the Jews alone. He began to antagonize the prophet, throwing garbage in front of the prophet's home (I somehow think the same behavior happens today in some Jerusalem neighborhoods when you have a neighborly spat). Then the prophet noticed that for a few days there was no garbage in front of his home. He wondered what happened and was told that the Jewish man was ill. The prophet visited him and said "you're my neighbor, and I must forgive you, and visit you always." Touching, no?

Now to take this story down a few notches, I'll ask you if I need to forgive Egged buses for making our daily trips into Jerusalem and back somewhat of a nighmare. They already injured me once by spraining my elbow area so bad, I couldn't move my arm for about a week.

Last week the bus driver "forgot" that there was a speed bump in front of him, and sped over it, causing me to be thrown to the floor while attempting to take my seat, banging my knee and thigh on the step up to my seat. Bus driver attempted to hold me down so I wouldn't fly through the front window. At least he was successful in doing that.

After a week, this is the lovely two-and-a-half-inch bruise on my leg. It's now green and yellow, not purple and blue. I guess you can call it an improvement. But the next time, Egged. Watch out. I got a lawyer in the family now. I may not forgive so easily. At least not as easily as the Prophet.

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?

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.

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.."

Those @$%&# Israelis

Many immigrants to Israel have said or thought the very same thing. The culture shock.

We were invited to a party Thursday evening by a old school chum of mine. The party was called for 8:00 pm, but we wanted to get there when everything was already in full swing.

I went shopping when I got home from work. The groceries were delivered to me at 8:00, and the delivery guy looked at me sadly.

"We left your refrigerated stuff by mistake; we'll come back in 1/2 hour to bring it to you."

I thought how nice of them to let me know instead of me discovering this myself, after they've already gone. I had bought quite a lot of meat and dairy.

Well, according to simple math, 1/2 hour after 8:00 = 8:30 pm. Am I correct? I gave them "Israeli time" leeway, which is another 1/2 hour. If an Israeli tell you 5 minutes, they mean 10 minutes; if they tell you a job will take 3 weeks to complete, know that it'll be 6 weeks; if they say they'll delivery that fridge to you in 10 days, think 20.

But I'm not happy when people go over their Israeli time limit. So by 9:15 I was antsy. I call up the store.

"Where is my food that YOU left in the store?"

Store manager - "The driver is on his way to you."

"Right, I know that, but when?"

"As soon as possible."

Fine. I hung up. Hubby was getting highly agitated. It is now 9:25 pm.
We were supposed to be at the party an hour late, not 2 hours late. He calls the store:

"Where's our fucking food?"

Manager hangs up on him.

I call back. "Look, if the guy can't come in 5 minutes, we have to leave. Why don't you take it back, and put it back in the fridge and bring it to us in the morning."

"OK, I'll call the driver."


In the elevator, my very frustrated Hubby is swearing left, right and center about "those fucking Israelis," as a woman from the 4th floor gets onto the elevator just as he's saying "fucking Israelis." He smiles at her, and I turn my face to the back of the elevator, highly embarrassed. Wonder what she thinks of him.

9:50 pm the driver calls me.

"We just came to your house. No one is in."

Obviously the manager didn't call the driver.

"Duh! You guys were supposed to take it back and deliver it tomorrow morning."

"We're very sorry, but we're already out of the building. We've left it in front of your door."

"The food will go bad," I tell him. He apologizes.

We are in the middle of a terrible heatwave. I'm furious.

Thankfully, the party was a respite from all the chaos; the hostess had a music party, 3 musicians were playing Beatles tunes and the entire Rubber Soul album front to back - while me, the hostess and another guest sang until it hurt. We three all have tickets to see Sir Paul McCartney the end of the month.

Hostess tells me, "We gotta do this again in September, before the concert. We have to 'practice!'"

"what practice? We need to save our voices for the concert because we'll be singing our lungs out."

The party was still going on at midnight, and I called my daughter, whose car we borrowed to tell her I'd like to stay at the party longer, and could I return the car to her early in the morning. Talk about role reversal.

So my fucking Israeli daughter growls into the telephone...."You get that fucking car to me in 1/2 hour. We're waiting up for you."

Next morning I hear same daughter swearing about these other "fucking Israelis." Seems she is paying $10 a month for something that was advertised on her Visa bill that promises a free gift every month- just pay for delivery and it's yours! What a deal, right? But during the past two months she got a delivery of an Mp3 gift without the Mp3 in the box, and the vegetable cutter was missing several parts. She continues to swear and tells me "I'm starting to sound like dad, aren't I?"

The grocery store accepted our returned refrigerated foodstuffs graciously, I filled up my cart with whatever I returned, while the manager had me bypass the cashier and trusted that I took exactly what I had bought the night before. He even threw in a free newspaper and a package of chocolates. And with that gift of chocolate, he redeemed himself completely.

how do they know???

My daughter, who has too much time on her hands, has decided we are good fodder for Israeli TV. She called me up and tried expaining to me that one of the producers for Israeli reality shows called her and wanted to interview us for the "wife swap" or "mother swap" program - whatever it's called. When I told my other kids, they were hysterical.

"Those ratings will go sky high with this dysfunctional family."

"Yeah, we don't even have to act."

I was thinking that perhaps someone told somebody I was making disgusting healthy food like brown rice and tempeh and tofu, and they probably thought, "Hey! Let's put her with some Moroccan family who are used to eating heavy meat meals each and every day with 15 courses for each meal and see what it'll be like for that family to eat wholesome yucky food - one course per meal."

I imagine they'd also want me to do homework with their bratty kids. Right. I can help with English homework but that's about it.

And cleaning? That's another horror story that will cause whichever family I would be swapped to - to cry out in grief (and appreciate their own mother).

Like when I notice Hubby staring out the window at the neighbor across from us. She's always cleaning and it makes him sick. I don't know why, but he's always complaining that she's always cleaning and yelling at the kids. He loves a neat house. So why complain? Is it because he's jealous because I barely clean and he has to do all the cruddy work? I honestly don't know.

Meanwhile, I haven't given my daughter an answer whether we are gonna do this show or not.

But it sure is giving me the laughs just thinking about it.

Are the Times a-changin'?

I could feel myself glowing when a person living in my "settlement" stopped me at the local mall and remarked, "You seem to be doing such interesting things!" And she was smiling, and I gathered she really didn't mind what I was doing.

So what am I doing?

I am trying to gather together a group of local people from my community, which is over the green line, and taboo for those that are politically correct (I'm not, obviously) together with Palestinians. We had a first meeting in February and I advertised the second meeting on our local e-mail list. I didn't get one hate mail.

Instead, I met another woman waiting at the bus stop who told me "I'm doing such wonderful things." She looks like the typical settler woman, wearing a long skirt and head-covering. I didn't expect such a wide smile from her either!

True, they haven't yet come to our interfaith meetings, but if I keep on pushing, maybe they will. It certainly is attracting a lot of interest on the outside.

A BBC reporter is doing a radio show about it. A researcher from one of Israel's top universities is also attending. I know she will discover in her research that attitude change after encounters such as these do occur. Perhaps educators will begin implementing "encounters" in elementary schools and so on, as part of curriculum. Who knows where this can lead to? I'm hopeful.

And somehow, even Saudi's King Abdullah got into the picture by saying he believes in interfaith dialogue, and that he includes Jews in it as well. Well, I'll be danged, if that little bit in the paper didn't surprise the ass off me. It sure did. And it made our meeting delightful, while our group of about 13 people said they would surely welcome the King as a guest at our next meeting.

The Loco Locals

I was sitting on the bus, minding my own business, which I do very well, thank you. My weekly local newspaper in Hebrew is on my lap, and I'm about to doze off. I hear a voice coming from the woman sitting next to me.

"your paper" she says.

I look at her, wide awake now.

"Your paper, please"

I wonder is this a stick-up? Is this woman gonna rob me of my newspaper. I give it to her hoping I will remember to ask for it back if I see her getting off the bus. She's glancing through and after 15 minutes hands it back to me. I'm grateful.

Yesterday, I went to our apartment committee meeting. I hadn't gone to any of the meetings and I thought I'd go see what it's all about. After figuring out who will volunteer to be the keeper of the keys to the tiny children's play room and what to do when teens come in and stay for hours, or can we let children play unsupervised by an adult, should we be responsible for other people's children when their parents fuck off somewhere....blah blah blah, the conversation turned interesting. It was about stuff thrown onto their balconies from higher apartments. It seems everyone but me has that problem. I'm on the top floor so I'm lucky. No one can throw stuff up eight flights. The woman next to me talks loudly.

"You wouldn't believe what I find on my balcony. Hair."

"What color" I ask her.

She looks at me funny. "Black" she tells me.

Phew. I'm relieved. It's not from any of my kids.

"I'm gonna collect it in a bag and throw it back to my neighbors. I know who it is. You know what I'll do? I'll play loud Arabic music on Saturday."

"Arabic music?" said someone else. "Everyone likes that music! It won't help you with your neighbors."

I started to talk Arabic music with the guy who brought it up.

I tell him "I listen to Fairouz"

"Fairouz? Don't listen to her. She hates Israel."

"Oh, who do you listen to."

"Om Kulthoum."

"She's from Egypt" I say, wondering if she hates Israel too but he just doesn't know it.

Other people complained about stuff thrown on their balcony from the higher apartments - cigarette butts, diapers, and a green plastic table leg.

The meeting continued. Other people started talking.

"Then there was a dog that peed in the elevator."

"I know who that was"

"No - they gave away their puppy."

"No - I saw that dog after I saw the pee in the elevator."

"Someone took a big shit in the stairwell."

Everyone laughs.

"It wasn't a dog. It was more like a gorilla."

Everyone is hysterical.

It's after 10:00 pm. The meeting is over.

designer racks

My birthday passed uneventfully yesterday. My daughter, the one who does absolutely nothing (I asked her ONCE to take out the newspapers to the garbage outside and she dutifully took them outside our apartment and dumped them in the stairwell!), took me out for breakfast and made fish. She actually cut up some veggies and made Nile Perch for Friday night dinner. Breakfast was lovely at the Mizrachi restaurant in the shuk, which was decorated with balloons for someone else's birthday and Rolling Stones' music played in the background. I didn't want to leave. But how much breakfast can one eat?

Then I got assorted FaceBook messages and overseas phone calls from my sister and Hubby wishing me a happy one.

Bored out of my mind with staying home with nowhere to go since Tuesday evening, two cute salesmen from the Yes Satellite company convinced me to switch loyalties from Hot Cable Television. I had been with Hot for 12 years, and never faced any major problems with them at all, but I needed some excitement in my life right now and, unfortunately for me, switching from cable to satellite might do it.

Then with 100 or so extra shekels in my pocket after shopping in the shuk, I bought what every Israeli has in their home because mine was shattered.

The shattered rack:


A clothes drying rack. No one here uses an electric dryer. We all have one, of course, but we don't use them. Not unless it rains for 3 weeks straight and there is no way the clothes will dry indoors on these racks. But with the luxury of central heating, clothes did manage to dry indoors on those racks.

I went into the Iranian store where I got my Breville, praying I won't get ripped off. I saw the cheap drying racks that I had bought before and chose one over double the price. He wanted 175 NIS at first for it telling me that "it's Italian".

"It's plastic!!" I protested. "I don't need Italian designer clothes drying racks. I really don't. I don't care where they make the damn thing, I just want something strong that won't break!!"

"OK, for you, I'll make it 135 NIS"

It was 10 NIS less than where I saw it at another place. I had the cash. OK I'll take it.

In the end, I bought my Italian "designer" clothes drying rack, and made my daughter carry it home for me.

The Italian designer rack: