Happy 2005

I am afraid this might be a boring post, because reading whiny or ranty or snarky ones seems to be more fun (provided they're well-written) (just what does "snarky" mean anyhow?). So the reason it will be boring is because I am so contented (tfu tfu tfu). Maybe my reach no longer exceeds my grasp, but I just hope 2005 is not worse than 2004: I was blessed with good health, a new granddaughter, and...ta da....I learned how to blog!

Happy 2005 to all of you! Let the fireworks begin!

A Whiff of the Med

A Whiff of the Med is a brand-new blog by my dear Tel Aviv fairy godmother. Baruch HaBa, dear "Nominally Challenged!" Please send some cheery comments to welcome him (!) to the Blogosphere. I guarantee you will be rewarded with entertaining descriptions of his adventures and ideas, as I have been for the last several years.

Sighs of Relief

Last night, after several frustrating days of worry about my niece IN INDONESIA, I finally had the brilliant idea of calling my niece's home in the USA, even though I know she and her husband and sons are visiting her in-laws in Bandung this week. It was brilliant because I applied some Sherlock Holmes thinking: I know they have a dog and I know they wouldn't have taken the dog with them to INDONESIA, and therefore the chances are 50-50 that they have a dogsitter, and the chances are 50-50 that the dogsitter listens to their voicemail in addition to feeding and walking the dog, so all I risk is a phone call and in exchange I get a 25% chance of getting some info back. So I call and leave a very clear, slow message (who knows how old the dogsitter is?), including my e-mail address spelled v-e-r-y c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y and...it worked! This morning I received the following message:

"This is H the Doggie/House sitter. [Niece], [Niece's hubby], [#1 son] and [#2 son] are all doing well. I spoke with [Niece's hubby]'s family members this evening and they confirmed that everyone is safe and sound. On behalf of their family, thank you so much for your concern. I will be sure to save your phone message on the machine for them to hear when they return on the 4th of January. Have a happy and safe New Year.
Sincerely,
H the Housesitter and P the Pup"

Don't we all want that very same Doggie/House sitter for our trip anywhere? Send me your city and house/pet details and I'll ask her if she wants to sit there!

"...You'll Never Draw Alone"(?)

If anybody out there in the blogosphere can help me overcome my artist's block, I would be most grateful; just asking for this help gives me a bit of the queasies. About 13 years ago I decided to take a break from the frustration of learning Hebrew and do something non-verbal. I found a great art teacher and starting to learn to draw. Even though she was rather terrifying, I attended her studio classes once a week for about three years, and got better.



But after one or two attempts to draw at home alone, I got so scared that I never did it again. Now the teacher has retired and I'm ready to examine this unreasonable fear of drawing alone. I feel sure I will disappear into my drawing and never emerge without someone there to pull me out. Do you know what I'm talking about?

A Moving Story

My mother (z''l)* told me that when she was an immigrant girl in the early 20th century, living with her widowed mother and four older brothers and sisters, they used to move every year. They lived on or around West 10th Street in Greenwich Village, and it was a renter's market! Landlords offered one month's free rent on one-year leases to new tenants, and because they had so few possessions, it was cheaper to move around the corner or down the block than to stay put. One year they even tried Hoboken (there was a ferry), and the cat they'd lost on moving day followed them there on his own, several days later.

I often thought of that as the movers loaded up my enormous container of clothing, furniture, appliances and other household effects to make the move alone to Tel Aviv.

Now I think of it when I read tales of real estate prices in Manhattan.

*"May her memory be for a blessing"

Talking to Strangers

About two weeks ago on Shabbat I was walking my dog at the top of Rothschild Boulevard, just in front of the Habima theater, when I came across two women standing at the corner studying a map and a Bauhaus Tel Aviv tour book in English. I boldly ignored my longtime New Yorker training and volunteered, "Are you lost?" One of them countered, with equal boldness and a soft Scottish bur, "No, but we do have a question. Where is xxx Rothschild Blvd.?" I pointed out that they were directly opposite the building in question.

One thing led to another, and an hour later we three were sitting in my kitchen, drinking three different varieties of tea (camomile, mint, and Wissotzky regular) and summarizing our life histories. Even in summary, this required the better part of an hour because none of us was on the innocent side of 50. One was a Glasgow-born Beersheva resident for 10 years, and the other a Westchester county matron on a volunteer mission to Israel for two weeks.

Last night I hosted the Beersheva woman again, this time for an overnight: she had to give her English lit students an exam this morning in Tel Aviv (they are external students at Ben Gurion U., where she teaches), too early to commute, and her usual Tel Aviv hostess had houseguests from abroad.

She brought me an interesting book as a hostess gift. Survey Question: have I now accumulated enough credits in the Favor Bank for a free weekend in Beersheva, even though I don't want to go there?

Old New Land*

I decided to take the train from Tel Aviv to the brand-new airport this afternoon, to say "good-bye" to a friend, and to see if the shops there had a fleece hat I decided I need, and to see where to tell my next visitors to look for me if they can't find me at the general-outspewing-of-passengers Arrivals area.

Silly me. I forgot that all 8 days of Chanuka are school holidays, and today being day 8 and warm and sunny, a good part of Israel decided to bring the kids to Tel Aviv and let them drive all of us urbanites crazy rather than keep them cooped up on the kibbutz/farm.

So I buy my "pensioner" ticket for the equivalent of US$1.50 and the information lady informs me that the next train to the airport leaves in TWO MINUTES, at 14:29 (that's 2:29 PM to you 12-hour-clock folks). While marvelling that the information lady actually gave me some information without argument or scolding, I walk rapidly to the down escalator and discover that there is no down escalator, only an up escalator. Blood pressure slightly elevated, ignoring the gibberish coming out of the PA system announcing the imminent departure of my train, I try to walk rapidly down the stairs, and find my way blocked by a very gentle dad ushering three toddlers slowly and deliberately down the two-person-wide stairs. Toddlers concentrating on their newly-acquired stairway skills are not ready for Slow Traffic Keep To The Right rules, and neither was their dad. Not wanting to be responsible for the downfall of said toddlers (the dad was attached by two hands, so I couldn't bash into him either), I wormed my way as rapidly as I could past the blockage only to encounter a few people just hanging out on the stairs. I was wondering why they were doing that, when I reached the platform, just in time to see the caboose of my train pulling out of the station, and encountered hordes of people crowding the platform. Aha! I haven't seen so many people on a train platform since my rush-hour subway commutes in NYC. The next PA announcement was a warning to parents to keep their children away from the edge of the platform, which most of them ignored, further raising my blood pressure. I cheer up when I realize I've just understood a PA announcement in Hebrew: a major triumph!

I tried to find a quiet place to wait the 20 minutes until the next train. Silly me! Luckily, another train heading southward came soon and whisked away the majority of the very raucous children and their keepers (they were on day trips, not airport-bound).

The train ride took about 15 minutes, and when I arrived I felt I had taken a train ride to the Phoenix airport (where I've never been). It was so BIG, efficient, sleek, modern, and so not-Israeli, my eyes filled up with tears. My little baby's all grown up and globalized.

The Arrivals area is symmetric so I couldn't find a unique kiosk, ATM, money change window; you will all just have to look for me at Exit 01 if you don't see me when you emerge from Customs.

Oh, and the sports-outfit shop didn't have any fleece hats.

*In his Zionist novel, Altneuland (Old New Land, 1902), [Theodore] Herzl pictured the future Jewish state as a socialist utopia. He envisioned a new society that was to rise in the Land of Israel on a cooperative basis utilizing science and technology in the development of the Land.

Gone Native

You know you've become more Israeli than American (Canadian, Australian, South African, ...you fill in your land of former residence) when you:

- wear jeans to a wedding, and the majority of other guests are also wearing jeans
- start getting dressed for a party at the exact time that the invitation said the party would start, even though it's an hour's travel from your home
- have serious business meetings in cafes
- go shopping at the mall with your dog (Tel Aviv only)
- don't bat an eye when your waiter serves your order while he talks on his cellphone
- debate with gusto the efficacy of directions given by strangers at the bus stop to other strangers at the bus stop
- breathe a sigh of relief when you hear only one solitary ambulance siren going by
- call up your Long Distance/Cable TV/Cellular/Internet Phone Service Provider every six months and say you don't want to pay them so much any more, and smile as they offer you a cheaper "dil" (deal)
- leave your stuff at a repair shop without expecting a receipt, or, if you do get a receipt, lose it or not, but get your stuff back anyhow, at least 3 business days later than promised.
- sit in the front passenger seat, next to your taxi driver
- miss being bumped into when you walk down the street while you're on vacation in any other country

Land of a Thousand Latkes

When I visited my niece in Minneapolis a few years ago, I noticed her car's license plate had a Minnesota state motto: "Land of a Thousand Lakes." My Jewish/Israeli-tinted glasses immediately read this motto as "Land of a Thousand Latkes" which registered instant cognitive dissonance: how could Garrison Kieler's A Prairie Home Companion have missed devoting a program to this cultural attribute? My niece kindly and gently pointed out my perception disorder, which I prefer to that of normal people.

So I had a Chanuka party Thursday night, and proceeded to fry what seemed to be a thousand latkes (but who's counting?) They all disappeared by the end of the evening, although the aroma of fried latkes lingers in my kitchen as a mostly happy memory (and many leftover sufganiot as a mostly unhappy one). Those (two? three?) among you who remember the reason for this party will be relieved to learn that although the Relatives From Outer Space attended, their raucous presence was successfully diluted by the other guests (the 13-year-old even brought her own guest, and they amused each other happily in another room, with one of the 7-year-olds serving them food and drinks in repeated, and repeatedly vain, attempts to attract their attention).

Your clever (and humble) hostess had the last-minute inspiration to reconfigure the party as a combination Chanuka and Book Publishing party for the senior visiting relative, a professional academic, who held his audience enthralled on the subject of his book Language in Jewish Society: Towards a New Understanding. Anyone with an extra $50 and insatiable curiousity can purchase said book from Amazon (I get no commission). It must be added that your buying, reading, and/or critiquing his book will have absolutely no effect on the motivation of its author to continue writing; as his sister (noble wife of Prowesslessnesslessness) has noted, he is "alarmingly prolific," and could serve as a writing role model for all bloggers, barrelling forward in the face of mostly imaginary foes, a master of scholarly literary pre-emptive defense.

The party was a success, and/therefore/because the hostess lived to tell the tale.

Kvelling

I had a day full of kvelling: I attended a ceremony where many many scholarships were awarded to relatively new immigrant university students, by an organization I volunteer for. The majority of winners were from the former Soviet Union, a significant minority were Ethiopians, and a smattering from various South American countries and France. They were studying everything: law, literature, special education, sociology, math, physiology, medicine, biochemistry, music. They come from most of the 60+ accredited institutions of higher education in Israel (lucky it's a small country, so it's a day trip to Tel Aviv for all of them).

As part of the proceedings, we were treated to a short piece written and performed by a beautiful acting student with a brilliant flashing smile, dramatizing her childhood in Ethiopia, the long, long hike to Addis Ababa with her family, the magical flight to Israel, seeing white people for the first time in her life, the insults and disappointments she experienced. It was a familiar story to many of the other students, but we were all weeping with joy at the triumph of her telling it today, December 8, 2004, my own mother's birthday. (If she were alive, she would be 108 years old today. Happy Birthday, Mom, wherever you are!)

Listen up, all you moms

"My Mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim." Paula Poundstone

Control, intermittent loss and recovery of

1. Whenever I had a temper tantrum (when I was 3 years old they weren't called "meltdowns"), my mother would send me to my room with an angry directive: "Stay there until you can control yourself." I knew I was being sent to my room as a punishment, but I had no idea what to do to control myself. I'm still learning how, as exemplified in items 2. and 3. below.

2. When I was about 12, my brothers were away at college, so my father took me on his day-trip fishing expeditions instead. We used to go on a "party boat" (which had as much to do with a party as a telephone party line had: both were shared with strangers), out in the Great South Bay of Long Island. I enjoyed the briney smells, the water, the rocking boat, and was not squeamish about baiting the hooks. But the revelation, and it really astonished me, was having to do nothing but remain alert to tugs on the line, for hours at a time. [If there were not enough tugs on the line, we would head out for the ocean and my Dad would get seasick, but that's not germane to the topic of this post.]

3. While I was in my early stages of klita (the unending process of absorption into Israeli culture), a Wise Person gave me some (paid) advice: "go up to Netanya and do some para-sailing or hang-gliding." WP wanted me to get used to the idea of partnering with forces beyond my control [which seem to be growing as I get older], and to learn to consider it fun, even beautiful, especially when you notice the scenery. I didn't actually go to Netanya for that purpose, but the image and the metaphor stay with me.

TFU, TFU, TFU

"Tfu, tfu, tfu" is what we say to ward off the "evil eye." Please say "tfu, tfu, tfu" immediately after you read this post.

I feel a rumble of optimism deep in my bowels. No, I do not have a digestive ailment: I just have my own visceral way of reading the world's signals. Here are three sample messages I have been receiving that make me suspect Something Good is in the Works (tfu, tfu, tfu):

1. After fifteen years of living (legally) in a Bauhaus treasure building that nobody owns outright, I was thrilled to learn that the General Guardian of Abandoned Property in Israel has decided to start making the repairs ordered two years ago (!) by the Office of the Engineer of the City of Tel Aviv. The scaffolding went up this week! Of course, residents are expected to pay 1/2, proportional to the size of their apartments, but the contractor chosen by the "..Guardian..." has done good work on many buildings in the neighborhood. (tfu, tfu, tfu)

2. The Ukrainians are acting really serious about democracy, and the overturning of their fraudulent election should be studied by wannabe democracies all over the world (including the US of A). I hope their candidate lives long enough to win the runoff and become the Ukrainian Vaclav Havel. (tfu, tfu, tfu)

3. This week's news from Egyptian president Mubarak and published comments from the various Palestinian political factions is so good it makes me nervous: is peace on the horizon? (tfu, tfu, tfu)