It's Raining in July

Just letting everybody know that we have arrived safe and sound in the US....where it rains during the summer.

Just one of the many things that we'll have to adjust to.

Goodbye Couch

Well...this is it. As I sit here at gate B7 of Ben Gurion airport in Israel there can be no question how much time we have before we leave Israel. Mostly because the annoying Al Italia employee at the gate is continually announcing it.

Michelle and I haven't had much time to post recently as we have been feverishly preparing to begin the next chapter of our lives in the US. Our last few weeks have been pretty much filled with tearful goodbyes, packing, and wrapping up our affairs in Israel.

It's hard to believe that Michelle and I have spent four years in Israel. In that regard, our time here is as much of an "era" as high school or college.

Here is to all of the good times we have shared with our wonderful friends. And here is to all of the new experiences and friends that we will meet in the upcoming months.

Tonight's Activities

This evening, Adam and I went to Tel Aviv to see my step-dad's father, Mayer, and his partner, Sandy, who are visiting Israel for Sandy's grandson's bar mitzvah. We had a lovely dinner at a Yemenite restaurant called Maganda. It's good to see family in Israel.

A strange thing happened as we were trying to get a cab from the bus station to Mayer and Sandy's hotel, though. I approached a cab driver and told him where we wanted to go. "100 shekels," he said. Offering a set price is a common way for Israeli cab drivers to 1) get an unrecorded fare that they won't have to declare to the tax authorities and 2) fleece unsuspecting tourists. "No, we want it on the meter," I replied. "Fine, 90 shekels," said the driver. "No, we want it on the meter," I replied again. So he passed us off to the next cab driver in line. The next driver asked why we were being passed along, and the first driver said by way of explanation, "Ashkenazim."

What on earth does that mean? What does ethnic background have to do with anything? Was this a reference to a cultural stereotype of some kind, that Ashkenazi Jews are...I don't know...pedantic? If so, I would like to point out that the cab fare on the meter turned out to be less than 50 shekels. I was right to be suspicious and insist on the meter. Why does that make me Ashkenazi?

When we got home, we found a pile of four kittens in our garden. Here are two that didn't run away after we stopped to look at them.

Shout Out

I'm not one for superstitions. When Adam and I decided to throw stuffed bride and groom bears at our wedding in lieu of a bouquet and a garter, I didn't really expect the guy who caught the groom bear to be the next to get married. And, technically, he won't be -- Noah and Tovah got married last August, and Adam and Danielle got married in April. But, still, it's pretty cool that Eitan and Michal are now engaged!

Here's Eitan, catching the bear. (Be impressed with my PhotoShop skills -- I put him in color so that you could find him.) Mazal tov!

Mystery Solved

Spoiler alert! Read this post first.

Good job Elana, Lex and Richard, who correctly identified the mystery key chain as an eyeglasses cleaner, and to Suzanne, whose guess of CD or DVD cleaner was mighty close.

You are all smarter than Adam, me and a good number of our Jerusalem friends.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

I just got home from Israel Musicals' production of The Sound of Music. I wasn't sure what to expect from an amateur, English-language production in Israel, but I enjoyed it! The women who played Maria and the Mother Abbess were amazing, as was the 14-year-old who played Liesl. (Sadly, the men in the cast couldn't quite keep up with the women, but the men are much less important in this show, anyway.) For three hours, I was transported to Austria in 1938.

Except for a few touches that reminded me that I'm in Jerusalem. First, the actors playing Nazis wore red arm bands without swastikas. I thought that was a wise choice; you never know who might be in the audience. Second, none of the actresses playing nuns wore crosses or rosary beads. Third, the girl who played Liesl is shomeret negiah, and the blocking took that into account. It was actually quite well done, and I might not have noticed if I hadn't known from the start. There was also a woman who had her hair covered both onstage and in her picture in the program, and I assume her costuming was making allowances for her religious preferences, although again, I probably wouldn't have noticed had I not been sensitive to the issue from the start.

I was actually really touched by all of these small details. Where else in the world can a young girl who's shomeret negiah (and, presumably, shomeret Shabbat) play Liesl? Some days, I really love this country.

What Is This?

As Adam and I were cleaning our apartment and making piles of things to ship, sell and give away, we came across a strange key chain. It looked like these:


The key chain had clearly been some sort of corporate giveaway, because it said "McCabe & Associates" on the side, but we had no idea what its function was. So we started asking everyone who came to our apartment if they knew, but among Shabbat dinner guests, my book club and a few random friends, no one had any idea. Was it meant to clip onto a belt? Was it some sort of grooming device? We were stumped, and it was driving us crazy!

Finally, Adam went to the McCabe & Associates website and emailed them about the keychain. To my surprise, they emailed back! Before I reveal the secret, do any blog readers want to venture a guess?

Happy 4th!

This year, Adam and I were too busy to attend the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel's 4th of July/Canada Day event, as we've done in past years. And my American flags (yes, I have American flags, and Israeli ones, too) are already back in Boston, sitting in boxes in my in-laws' living room. However, I did manage to find the time to bake an apple pie for Shabbat dinner, and Adam bought red, white and blue(-ish purple) flowers to grace the table.

In an ironic twist of fate, all of our dinner guests on this 4th of July will be British.

Flashback

This morning, Adam borrowed an old computer monitor from his boss and connected it to my hard drive. It's one of those old CRT monitors, with the glare-prone, convex screen. The resolution is 800 by 600 pixels. Seriously.

I'm grateful that we'll be able to use two computers during this, the home stretch of my Master's degree. But I feel a like I should be playing Oregon Trail on this monitor, not writing a thesis in Word 2007!

You Won't Like Me When I'm Angry

Apparently Israel has an evil sense of humor, or at the very least a little vindictive streak.

Our preparations (mine to sell our belongings, and Michelle's to complete her school work) were interrupted last night when our entire building and several others lost power. The electricity came on relatively quickly, and though the outage was not super convenient, we didn't think much more of it.

Until today when Michelle's computer monitor stopped working. This wouldn't be so bad except that its apparently hard to do research and write papers with no monitor. It also makes it hard to watch our slingbox. Broken monitors also don't have quite the resale value of working ones.

I guess you know how the old Yiddish saying goes..."Man plans and God laughs, and Israel laughs, points, and gives you a wedgie."

We're Fine

A few hours ago a bulldozer plowed into a passenger bus and several cars in a potentially politically motivated attack.

You can read more about the attack here

We just wanted to let everybody know that we're safe and sound.