Meme from Yael

OK, so Yael tagged me. But I've decided to restrict myself to non-fiction. If you've never heard of some of these books, please just Google them or read the Amazon reviews...I'm too lazy/melted by the relentless hot weather.

1. Name one book that changed your life
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

2. One book you've read more than once
Change by Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch

3. One book you'd want on a desert island:
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

4. One book that made you laugh [smile actually, but a very deep and long-lasting smile]:
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards

5. One book that made you cry:
The Grammar of Modern Hebrew by Lewis Glinert

6. One book you wish you'd written:
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman

7. One book you wish had never been written:
Mein Kampf by A. Hitler

8. One book you're currently reading:
nonfiction: Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
fiction: Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz (thanks Noorster!)

9. One book you've been meaning to read:
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared M. Diamond

No tagging. Can't do it.

Celebration Blues

Mermaid Girl was six years old yesterday. I asked her a question during our phone conversation, and she answered, "I have no idea," in such a grownup voice. How I wanted to be there!

Today is my 18th aliyah anniversary. I can't believe the variety of experiences since my move. How I had hoped the world would be better by now!

Tomorrow is my daughter elswhere's and Renaissance Woman's 8th and 3rd wedding anniversary (in 1998 a commitment ceremony in the USA, in 2003 a legal marriage in Vancouver, BC). What a sweet family they have made. How I wish I could babysit and send the couple out to celebrate!

Roseanne Roseannadanna: Return! *UPDATED*

It has been many years since we last heard from my idol, Roseanne Roseannadanna, and we are all worse off for it. Savtadotty (that's me) has decided to take up the torch, to wit:

I've heard the astronomers are reclassifying Pluto. I say, "Let sleeping dogs lie."

Now, turning to more serious matters, the Federal Reserve Bank of the U.S. Since when is Alan Greenpeace no longer in charge? What does this mean for the World Ecology?

Because I have been struggling with the Hebrew language for 18 years as of next Tuesday, I have also made some serious contributions to the Hebrew lexicon of malaproprisms, but have until now hestitated to share them with such a wide non-Hebrew-speaking audience. My most recent masterpiece is confusing the word for "hearts" (lavavot) with the word for "potato pancakes" (levivot) In many cases, my version works better.

*UPDATE*
I must be a true Israeli after all. Look what's reportedly #3 on our radio hit song list: Pancakes!

Thanks, Israellycool!

At Last: Cartoons for Bloggers

For example, there's this one, especially good for MommyBloggers.

This Woman Needs Help

My best friend in the world, Garbogarbo, is an experienced and highly trained social worker in New Jersey. She has great intuition and is exceptionally gifted in her sense of timing. She has been nurturing one of her cases, whose name I don't know but will call Evelyn, for EIGHT YEARS, out of alcoholism and out of a bad marriage. Garbogarbo turned to me because her toolbag is empty. She is skeptical of the value of the blogosphere and has offered me a challenge to use it to find help. Don't let me down!

Here's the story:

Evelyn has a job and an eight-year-old daughter with whom she shares legal custody with her ex-husband, Trouble. Garbogarbo drove Evelyn to her first AA meeting eight years ago and she hasn't missed a meeting since. Thanks to her devotion to recovery, Evelyn was awarded shared custody and was able to get a job. Trouble has not abided by the custody agreement for many years, bad-mouthing Evelyn to their daughter, placing her in after school activities that require Evelyn to do impossible multi-hour pickups and dropoffs, and Evelyn has spent much money, time and energy with lawyers, the Police and Family Court system, but to no avail: they now ignore her. The reason? According to Garbogarbo (I implore you to believe her), it's because Evelyn has run out of money for lawyers, and the police and the Family Court favor men. (Note: Garbogarbo has been married to the same lovely man for 47 years and is definitely not a man-hater. Her son is a lawyer in California, so she's not a knee-jerk lawyer-hater either. Neither am I.)

Evelyn needs a women's advocate preferably in New Jersey who will not exploit her or ignore her. As a single working mother her time is very limited. She does not need a women's support group. She does not need a within-the-system lawyer. It sounds to me like she needs a hit man, but she does not want to lose the respect of her growing daughter, and therefore tries to protect her from the unbearable ongoing conflict with the father.

If you have any useful information for Evelyn, please email savtadotty [at] gmail [dot] com or write a comment and I will make sure it gets to her. I will also tell you what happens next.

Take Me Under Your Wings* (UPDATED)

Hachnisayni Tachat Knafayich (Hebrew)
by Chaim Nachman Bialik (translation by Richard Silverstein)

Take me under your wings,
Be mother and sister to me.
May your lap be a shelter for my head,
A nest for my desolate prayers.

At twilight, the time of compassion
Lean down and I will reveal to you a secret of my sorrows;
‘They say there is youth in the world…
Where is my Youth?’

Another mystery I will confess to you:
My soul is singed by flame;
‘They say there is love in the world–
Where is Love?’

The stars lied to me,
There was a dream–but it too is past;
Now I have nothing in the world–
Not a thing.

Take me under your wings,
Be mother and sister to me,
Be your lap a shelter for my head,
A nest for my desolate prayers.

This may just be the saddest poem I ever read, but it has been set to music and is an exceptionally beautiful Hebrew song - a classic. Most Israeli singers have recorded a version. If someone out there has a link to a clip, please let us know. My computer operator doesn't know how to do bilingual searches.

*UPDATE
Thanks to Tamar's comment, I remembered that I own a CD by Rita. And sure enough, there is a track with her singing this song. I managed to get the file into my computer (in .M4A format), but now I am stuck: how can I share a "fair use" clip of it with all of you? Any technical advice?

Authors Not Exempt

Author David Grossman's son Uri, 21, has been killed in Lebanon.
http://imshin.net/wp-trackback.php?p=407

How Silly It Seems Now

I was going through the pile of mail that arrived during my absence, and there it was: my driver's license! And it's good for two years!

I'm so encouraged, I think I'll move my bank account to a new bank. That should keep me busy (and blogging) for a while.

Nothing Good to Say

One of my favorite songs from a musical is "Dont Nobody Bring Me No Bad News" from The Wiz. It represents my own personal bubble-philosophy of keeping going through thick and thin, although not to the point of complete, utter, and total self-delusion and self-involvement. Unless I can do something about the badness, which includes sympathetic listening when a friend or relative is having personal problems and needs to talk about them, I try to focus my energies on keeping out of trouble. That may seem like a puny goal, but you don't know me - it really is a fulltime job!

So when my country is in the midst of a war, my whole coping mechanism needs readjustment. You already know what I'm doing about it: packing my emergency kit and drinking Hezbollitas, but is there any way for me to come up with an informed opinion (uninformed opinions being available already-made in the mainstream media and most political blogs)? Even with my "Vas You Dere Charlie?" approach, I'm not going to Lebanon myself to see what's going on there and if I did, how could I possibly interpret what I saw? With so much disinformation, mixed messages, it's really hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Even trained journalists are failing me.

All of this induced such a helpless feeling that I caved and started listening to the Israel Broadcasting News English edition, because at least it is short. A small dose of depressing news - funeral announcements of our soldiers, delivered by a sad and tired-sounding reader - followed by several hours of busywork is the order of my day.

First I think I'll listen to some other songs from The Wiz.

Being my own mother

My mom was a practical, calming type. Her oldest son (my brother, Pablofisherman) went off to WWII at age 17, and I remember her baking and knitting stuff to send him. So after reading that Yael is training her five cats to evacuate their apt chik chak, I thought I'd better imagine Mom's voice inside my head, saying things like it doesn't matter where my building's bomb shelter is because I won't make it out of the stairwell in one minute. My dog just needs to hear the words "Treat" to rouse instantly, so I don't need to do any animal training. But still, suppose the sirens do go off in Tel Aviv and a bomb hits my neighborhood?

My friend's 70-something-year-old neighbor survived WWII in a hole in the ground in Poland, having been handed over at age 4 to a farmer, wearing one dress, carrying nothing. Her first-hand advice is most credible, according to which, while still hearing my Mom's voice inside my head (isn't it amazing how someone dead for 25 years can talk so much?), I started to pack my little emergency back-pack: one bottle of water, one small plastic bowl for the dog to drink from, one change of underwear, one clean shirt, a key to my apartment ("don't lock your door!"), my PalmPilot (fully charged), a flattened 1/4 roll of toilet paper. I put the packed bag on the hook where I keep the dog's leash. It's almost ready: must buy batteries for the flashlight. And I wonder what kind of non-perishable food gives the most nourishment per ounce? Energy bars? I want to be able to run as fast as my dog, so the pack has to be light.

Mom, how'm I doin'?

Getty Museum in L.A.

Getty
Originally uploaded by savtadotty.

It was a really great architecture and landscaping. The exhibit of Rubens and his printmaking teamwork was quite interesting, but otherwise the outside way outdid the inside. I've got some more Getty and L.A. photos up at flickr.

Sorry, Udge, but I didn't make it to Sea Ranch after all.

War Shmore

Hezbollitas
Originally uploaded by savtadotty.

So it seems the Hezbollita is made up of 2 parts tequila to one part Sabra. Add lemon or lime juice to taste. I didn't use the salt at all, but it made the whole thing look more authentic. After one of these, sugar and salt become interchangeable.

Life at the Front*

For a first-hand well-written description of life under fire, read Leah Guren's new blog. She created it for her American family and friends so they would stop calling continuously! (Now they only call a few times a day.)

*UPDATE My friend's daughter, Erika Galili, is interviewed in a podcast from a shelter in Rosh Pina. It is about 17 minutes long, but the last five minutes are worth it.

First Day Home

Thanks to several naps on the near-empty plane, I woke up all perky at 7AM local time, and set forth by train to Binyamina to reclaim my doggie from her Summer Home. First impressions: many many soldiers walking purposefully hither and yon, not so many on the train itself.

The Kana/Qana bombing story unfolds. There is a viable possibility, now being more thoroughly investigated, that the event was staged. I don't know which is more horrifying: that Israelis mistakenly killed many women and children, or that Hezbollah dragged disabled or even dead children to the site to increase the number of dead at what was supposed to be an empty building. The line between image and reality is being erased. I think another viewing of King of Hearts is in order.

Map of the Internet

Map of the Internet (1)
Originally uploaded by savtadotty.

This map is on the wall of the Stanford University Computer Science building in Palo Alto, California. The explanation says:

This map depicts the shortest outgoing routes from a test computer at Lumeta headquarters in Somerset, New Jersey, to each of over 320,000 registered or announced nets on the Internet. Each end node can represent a handful of computers on a small network or perhaps a large company with hundreds of thousands of hosts. Each intermediate node is a router.

More info, fascinating if you're a geek like me, can be found at http://research.lumeta.com/ches/map/

Out of the Box

Q: What do you do when you've got your granddaughter's birthday present all wrapped, packed, and addressed, ready-to-mail but not stamped? Take it to the Post Office of course. But it's Friday night and the Post Office doesn't open until Monday morning, after you get to the airport to return your Budget rental car?

A: Forget the package on the back seat of the car, call and give the nice Budget Lost and Found lady (who is also the nice Avis Lost and Found lady) your credit card number so she can send it directly, by UPS.

I'll let you know when/whether it arrives.

P.S. I'm home...yay!