Out to Lunch

My blog is going to the spa for a makeover, and I'm taking the opportunity to have a little break from blogging. I'll be back in a week or so.

Mon Petit Grand Chouxfleur

Tomorrow's soup will be cauliflower. I bought this baby at the shuk today, and she weighed in at 2.2 kilos! For you who are metrically-
challenged, that's almost 5 pounds, heavy enough to bring home from the hospital if it were a real, full term baby.

I have a feeling that nutmeg is the spice of choice for cauliflower, but I don't like nutmeg, so my guests will have to add their own after cooking is done. That's toughhostesslove.

Vested Interest

Finally completed, the improvised design-as-you-go vest with the big-enough pockets. Here's how it looked six weeks ago. I broke the M & M code of knitting design: Measure and Multiply. 

Devant moi, le déluge

At sea. Not literally, although almost. Had the recent spate of rain downpours deluge continued, the laughable drainage system of Tel Aviv would have collapsed completely and we would all be under water. I knew an Israeli who had been a water engineer since the 1950's, and he told me that the drainage system was so bad because the Water Works Department didn't want to invest in upgrading it to accommodate "only a few floods a year." Given the latest corruption scandals at the Tax Authority, I suspect the Water Works executives have been using our fairly high property taxes to upgrade their home swimming pools and invest in rubber hip-boot factories.

But that's not why I'm at sea. After being happily self-unemployed for some time, I have received an offer to do some paid consulting by someone I've worked for in the early 2000's. And I don't know whether to do it or not. The up side is the money and the noble purpose of the project. The down side is everything else: the work itself (technology that I mastered once but found boring), the people involved, the stress, the frustration, and, possibly, the failure, because a lot of it this time involves being able to read more Hebrew than I am comfortable with (road signs, vegetable prices, passport application forms).

In earlier times I wouldn't have though twice: take the money and run to learn, master. But that attitude didn't get me fame or fortune, it just kept me busy. And what would I do with the money, which wouldn't amount to all that much after I bought taxi rides, dog walkers, restaurant meals, and working-lady clothes, things I don't need to buy when I just hang around reading and knitting most of the time. What has become of my work ethic? Do I need one?

It's a fine dilemma. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to do. Thanks for listening.