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So I didn't think anything of it when I found my eight-year-old daughter yesterday watching the updated version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on television.
That was a mistake. She ended up in our bedroom with nightmares twice during the night and ended up camped out on the floor.
This afternoon I decided to talk about it with her in a sympathetic motherly way. So I sat her down and said I understood about not liking scary movies. "Honey, I didn't like being frightened either and I got nightmares, too, at your age. In fact, I still do, and that's why, unlike a lot of my friends, I avoid horror movies that are scary and bloody."
She paused and looked at me like I was an idiot. "MOM, there was no blood in that movie. There was chocolate."
So it turned out to be a blessing in disguise when I was woken up in the middle of the night for the radio show.
Because there I was, lying in bed, trying to be pithy and clever, when in the background I could hear a distinct knocking sound inside my house. Now I knew it was raining, but these noises were suspiciously louder than the patter of raindrops.
Since I'd rather be robbed than miss a chance at publicity, I waited till the interview was over to investigate. Turned out the noise was Niagara Falls.
My house has a flat roof with a door onto it, and the drain had been clogged up. Hence water had been pouring underneath the door, flowing down two flights of stairs, covering both the first and second with puddles.
So there I was, between three and four in the morning, squeegeeing puddles out my front door, throwing down towels to soak up the water. Now I could have been miserably cursing my fate, no problem.
That's where my global perspective comes in. In my duties for Pajamas Media, I put together this piece, with links to reports and blog posts on the horrible flooding in Indonesia which is leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. Which had, of course, reminded me of Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami.
In this context, a centimeter of water, easily soaked up or pushed out the door, really didn't seem like a big deal at all, especially when I've got the good old standard Israeli marble floors, no soaked carpetting or damaged parquet to worry about.
Plus, in the Middle East, you're never allowed to complain about the much-needed rain, even when it screws up your life and costs you a night's sleep....
Not to mention that it beats snow-shovelling and ice-scraping like the folks are doing back in my other homeland.
My poor Mom.
I did this once during the Iraq War, too. I hit below the belt.
I was on the phone with my mother in the States last night and we were having an argument about a family matter regarding something that will happen with me and the kids in the fall, around the Jewish holidays.
Exasperated at her, I said, "Well, we don't have to worry about that anyway, because by that time Hezbollah will have blown us all up."
My Mom is the nicest person in the world, and she is obviously worried about me and my family. Why would I say that?
So I'm apologizing publicly. Sorry, Mom. It was really late. I was tired.
Maybe if you all tell me how terrible I am, that will make her feel better. Go for it.
(but regarding the argument, I still think I was right...)
I've got a lot of women friends with my profile -- Americans married to Israelis with kids on summer vacation (no school to disrupt) who are stay-at-home Moms or who work online and are geographically flexible -- and we're all getting the same well-intended invitations to take an extended family visit to the U.S. right now. And we're all discussing whether it's more stressful to be in the comfort of our own homes, routines, and surroundings in a time of war and threat of attack, or to be in the U.S. for what remains of July and August with the kids in our parent's houses and all of the family politics and stress that this would entail.
Guess which situation most of us decided is more stressful and less tolerable for weeks on end?????
Some morbid black-humored Mommy chat at the pool yesterday -- one of my friends lives in a smallish house that doesn't really have a shelter/bunker and there are no inner rooms -- all of the rooms have windows. So she and her husband are talking about what they would do if there is a missile warning siren and she says "well, I guess we all gather in one room so we can be together." And he says, "why would we do that? Better to keep them in their individual rooms. Then if the house gets hit, we've spread out our odds, we haven't put our eggs all in one basket, and some of us will definitely stay alive."
So I joked that she should put the best-behaved kids in the southernmost rooms because the missile would come from the north.
There's no talk in the media today about the Tel Aviv area having to "be alert." I doubt we're any safer, it's just that too many people were freaking out on Sunday and Monday when they were saying that publicly.
It's nice not to have to be alert. I can go take Valium or shoot heroin or whatever.
So I thought I had it all figured out.
I had a baby who slept through the night, I had the luxury of a six-month maternity leave, my transition back to work would be smooth sailing.
But as Murphy and his Law would have it, Perfect Baby Tamar came down with a cold my first week back at work, and the coughing and congestion have got her waking up at those nasty hours that kill your night's sleep.
The doctor informs me that at about six months of age, Mom's antibodies start to wear off, and babies are more susceptible to illness. Now he tells me.
Luckily, I work from home, so no one can see I'm typing with my eyes closed.
A jet-lagged baby can be a hard nut to crack. Unlike adults and older kids, they are totally not influenced by the concept of day and night. You can't explain to them why it's worth making the effort to kick the jet lag, nor can you bribe or threaten them.
Baby Tamar's jet lag isn't so terrible. But I did ruin a fairly good thing -- I had a baby who slept through the night and now she's waking up to party between 1-3 AM. She's so cute and smiley and ready to play, I feel terrible abandoning her in her crib, but it's the only way to send her the message: "go back to sleep."
Luckily, she's so good natured, that she entertains herself examining her fingers and toes, whines a bit, then chugs a bottle and goes back to sleep. No screaming protests, thank goodness.
I'm jetlagged and fuzzy-headed, but I'm back home. Looking forward to a little nice boring routine. The return flight was far less painful than the flight to the U.S. -- NY-Tel Aviv in less than ten hours! And the kids were a million times easier because they actually slept this time around, and the movies on the plane were better (you laugh, but the first flight only had "Mickey's Christmas Carol" which my daughter would not watch. The return flight had both "Snow White" and "Shark Tales" which both kids were up for watching repeatedly. The difference in their demand on me were significant.)
I got really sick of hearing the same comment from people about making this trip alone with the three kids: "You're so BRAVE!" But the comment is always made with the tone of voice the person would have if they were saying, "You're such an IDIOT!"
I love how people's faces fall on airplanes when you and your two kids and baby arrive at your seats. I can't really say it, but I'm silently sympathizing with them, "Yeah, if I were you, I wouldn't want to sit next to me either."
If you are an independent web designer in Israel who does small sites, or know of a good one, please shoot me an E-mail. I'm in charge of a web design project for a volunteer effort I'm involved with and I'm collecting bids. (In Israel because it needs to be in English and Hebrew)
I'm back in Israel, but no time to blog. I miss hanging out in the blogosphere.
Will write all about my trip once things settle back into a routine....
I thought I could never turn into the kind of person who craved a routine. But Israel will do that to a person. The rollercoaster ride of Passover and the other spring holidays, straight into summer-vacation, and then ten seconds until the Jewish High Holidays means that for half of the year, there is no such thing as a normal, standard week. And that's not counting the number of security crises, wars and near wars, etc.
My mantra: "Well, at least it's never boring."
I don't just love New York, I LOVE New York.
Arrived today, staying through Sunday night, having a fabulous time, thank you very much.
I really wish my life was organized enough to have arranged a real blogger meet-up, because there are so many bloggers around here I would have liked to have seen. But the plans only came together late because of child-care factors, and the visit is so short, I'm barely squeezing in meeting all of my non-virtual friends. And the timing is bad, what with all of the Jewish holidays, I would have hated to arrange something that bloggers who observe Shabbat and holidays couldn't attend...
Happy F------g F----th Birthday to me.
Everyone send your condolences.
This is my plan...I turn f____y in the United States, and when I go back to Israel in a week and a half, I can pretend it never happened.
I realize that putting this on the Internet is a huge mistake. I'll never be able to lie about my age and get away with it.
Not like one of my friends, who has decided that she's 35. Permanently. She says, "That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."
Funny how the concept of being the mom of three kids makes me feel older than being f----y.
Even though technically, you can be 25 and have three kids. I guess because the kiddos age you faster than the calendar.
Well, here I am in the USA. Landed just in time for Yom Kippur. The combination of jetlag, fasting, and taking care of two kids and an infant was certainly a challenge mentally and physically - but thank goodness for grandparents....
More later...
Also -- if anyone knows an extremely responsible, nice, fun person in New York City who is good with kids, has time available next week, and would like to earn some money -- I would love to find a temporary nanny so we could take the kids to NYC for a few days and still be able to do some adult things without them (like meet fellow bloggers?) Excellent references would be crucial. I'd leave the baby with mom, so we're talking two kids.
Today was going to be packing day. Usually I do the suitcases the day before the flight, and on the day of the flight, I deal with the carry-ons and the diaper bag, etc.
I can't tell if packing reflects positive thinking, and makes the trip more likely to happen, or if it's more of an Evil Eye/Murphy's Law situation, and if I pack, I'm jinxing things and we won't go.
Verdict: I'm packing. I've got enough stress -- I don't need to hear at the last minute that the strike is over, that we're flying, and not be packed.
Here's the secret to packing for a visit from Israel to the U.S. You take a big suitcase. You stick a smaller suitcase inside of it and pack. You close both suitcases. That is because you ALWAYS come home with twice the amount of stuff you brought.
UPDATE: It's looking bad...
The Histadrut labor federation on Tuesday afternoon canceled a negotiating session with representatives of the Finance Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the Union of Local Authorities planned to find a solution to the crisis in the local authorities and bring about an end to the general strike that started Tuesday morning.
The National Labor Court is set to meet at 6 P.M. to discuss appeals filed by the Manufacturers Association and the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce asking for an injunction against the strike.Histadrut representative Leon Morozovsky said the reason for the meeting's postponement was technical and noted there is no reason for the sides to meet prior to the labor court's deliberations.
On Rosh Hashana, we eat an apple with honey for a sweet New Year.
There sat my kids, Eitan, who is eight, and Naomi, who is almost six, with their slices of apple, and my husband drizzling honey on them from a honey dispenser.
Eitan says, "Daddy, put more honey on mine so I can have a sweeter year than Naomi."
I'm continuing my annual tradition of having the happiest September 11th blog post on the Internet.
As I said last year, I refuse to write about doom and gloom on my first-born child's birthday.
Certainly, I have feelings about the tragic attacks. But I think and write about them on other days.
For me, September 11 will always be a day to celebrate. That's my vow and I'm sticking to it.
Today my sweet boy is eight years old. How did that happen?
Well, I was so busy with back to school preparations, and having the kids in the car all day (I don't put on the news when they are in the car) -- I found out about the Beersheva attack very late in the game, late in the evening.
It came as a shock -- we've gone so long without attacks -- and it gave me a massive dose of perspective. I was at the end of my rope after a day of whiny late summer children and the last-minute errands, and the news that my son probably needs tubes in his ears, because he's got fluid buildup and isn't hearing -- which is common, but still, it's minor surgery and interferes with swimming, which he loves.
So I was truly grumpy and irritable -- then I heard the news and I realized how miniscule and ridiculous my problems actually were....
I know it's not supposed to be a day to celebrate but the KIDS ARE IN SCHOOL!
YAY!
Ra'anana was unaffected by the strikes.
He can't control himself, he's so excited, running around the house, cheering for Gal Friedman as he windsurfs. I think he wants the gold medal more than Friedman does.
An hour assembling documents at home, half an hour driving to Tel Aviv, five dollars to park the car, then TWO AND A HALF HOURS with an unhappy infant in the waiting room of the American Citizen's Services section of the American Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Plus $135.
That's what it took to register baby Tamar as an American citizen and apply for her American passport. Which will arrive in 2-3 weeks. Back in the good old pre 9-11 days, you could breeze into the embassy, show them a few documents, pay around $50, and they would print your passport while you wait.
The only advantage of these days is that you can print out the forms on the web and fill them out at home instead of the waiting room -- though, obviously, there's plenty of time to do so while you are waiting.
Other things you can do while waiting in the American embassy -- read the bulletin boards and find out every country that is supposed to be too dangerous to travel to, check out the ten most wanted men by the FBI, fill out an absentee ballot for the November elections.
Or you can just eavesdrop, and listen to other people fighting with the clerks, because the guy on the phone told them that they didn't need a certain document and it turns out they need it to get their passport or their kid's passport issued.
I had the opposite problem -- I brought everything I was told to bring on the Embassy website, which took a lot of time and trouble. And they didn't ask me to produce half of it. I don't care though -- I am just so grateful that I didn't forget something and have to go back.
The whole experience totally wore out baby Tamar. She's slept for five hours since we got back from the embassy, waking up just long enough to chug a bottle and then go back to sleep. I took a nap, too.
Next week, my husband has his interview at the embassy to get his visa to the U.S. extended -- lots of Israelis have been running into trouble with this, though the fact that he is married with kids, has a decent income, and has many legal pathways to moving to the U.S. if he so chose, eliminates him from the groups that have had problems.
Still, you never know. I'm more worried than he is. If the embassy denies him a visa, I'm the one who would be punished. It would force me to fly to the U.S. alone with two young kids and an infant to visit my family. He'd just have to stay at home in the peace and quiet instead of spending two weeks with his in-laws.
I'd better not give him any ideas or he'll sabotage his interview by inventing a hobby of bomb-making or something.
Yeah, I know I've been scarce. I've debated taking an official blog break, but I know that Murphy's Law will apply, and as soon as I announce my break something incredibly blogworthy will happen to me.
Right now, I'm doing too much intensive childcare to have an interesting life, aside from a glittery party I got to attend because of my husband's job. (the link is to a Hebrew paper, but the cleavage in the photos speaks an international language...
Here's a great anecdote from my sister-in-law, Liz. She lives in Brookline, Mass, and a friend of mine, Gitta just moved there from Israel after her husband got a job in Boston. They both have young kids.
According to my sister-in-law, my spirited seven-year-old niece, Juliana
was taking her role as an ambassador of Brookline very seriously. She told Gitta's boys that Brookline is a great place to live because people are friendly, "even when it isn't a holiday" and then she said, "do you know what the best part of living in Massachusetts is? Do you want to know????" The boys nod and Juliana yells, "SAME SEX MARRIAGE!!!!!!
My poor friend Gitta probably had a lot of explaining to do that night to her sheltered sons from the conservative Israeli suburbs....
I feel like I need to do the blog equivalent of breathing into the phone. Yes, I'm still out here. It's just busy what with juggling the big kids on summer vacation and the new baby. And when I'm not busy doing stuff, I'm lying down trying to catch up on missed hours of sleep.
Thank goodness for high school girls with nothing to do in August but work for me.
Can't blog on current events because I have no time to follow the news (a painful confession for the journalist who is supposed to be on top of things.)
Baby Tamar is totally delicious, though, and worth it.
Behind on reading blogs, behind on blogging, behind on getting errands done...just behind.
But such is the life of the sleep deprived parent of an infant.
Luckily, by the time you have your third kid, you know it's a temporary state, so be patient; like the Terminator says, I'll be back.
All I can say is that if major political conventions seemed surreal before, watching them at 3 AM while feeding the baby make them look like the Twilight Zone.
The highlight of yesterday was a visit from Imshin! We spoke once more about the idea of a long-overdue Israeli English language blogger get-together...who wants to organize?
This is how -- you give birth to a baby, then four days later, you attend a party, at which most of the people are aware of this fact.
All you have to do is appear like a normal human being and be able to stand up and walk, and everybody falls all over you. "Oh my GOODNESS. You look WONDERFUL." (At that point, every single female looks at your waistline and stomach to check out the damage.)
Indeed, last night, my husband and I stopped by two parties that we had committed to attending when we thought I would still be pregnant. The baby was sleeping, my mom was here, I'm not breastfeeding -- as I've written, I got a decent night's sleep, and I decided it would be nice to get out of the house for a few hours.
It was worth it -- a very entertaining night. The first party was a media elite event -- it was the 40th birthday party of Israel's top political reporter Yaron Dekel who is now a correspondent in Washington. He's an old friend of my husband's. Security was tight -- guests were screened as they walked in and I found out later why -- because Omri Sharon was in attendance.
Yaron sang a great satiric song about getting to be an old washed-up reporter, and how he used to get scoops but now all of his contacts are out of power -- Arye Deri, Ehud Barak, and now Paritsky. (Which, of course, is baloney, he's just as well-connected as he ever was -- Omri Sharon's attendance was a sign of that...)
In the speeches, there were lots of jokes about how top politicians were trying to bribe Israel Television to keep him in Washington as long as possible, in order to delay him coming back to Israel to dig up their dirty laundry.
And the party's host, another television newsman/talk show host/producer made an hysterically funny satiric film about Yaron's life in Washington. Washington has the reputation of being a place for Israeli journalists who have proved themselves working hard in the trenches at home, to get some rest and relaxation for a few years.
The film has Yaron arriving in Washington, and asking his predecessor for the secret to success there. He was handed 2 large wrapped pieces of carton board and told that his mantra should be: "Just remember the carton. Don't forget the carton."
What was the carton? They were two big poster boards, one with a background photo of the White House and one of the Capitol. So that when the correspondent is grocery shopping at Safeway or swimming in the pool, he can quickly pull on a suit and tie, put the poster in the background, fire up the camera and report "live" from the Rose Garden.
There was also a very funny bit where the Israeli ambassador (the real one, playing himself) was begging all of the Washington correspondents to cover his meeting with Condoleeza Rice, and they were all too busy shopping and hanging out at Starbucks.
The film had everyone laughing hysterically (so I knew it wasn't just all striking me as funny because I was having my first real drinks in nine months)
But in fact, I know I did laugh more than others -- I was one of the few people at the party who has actually worked as part of the Israeli press corps in Washington -- so I knew how close the film was to the truth....
The second party was more low-key. A going-away party for an academic colleague who is leaving on sabbatical. But it was a barbecue and the food was fabulous. All in all, a worthwhile four hours away from the baby.
Since I survived, I did it again today. Took the kids to the pool with my mom and left Tamar to bond with her father.
That's when you know it's your third child. I don't think I left my first kid with anybody else for a month or so.....
Why the name Tamar? Well, the real reason is that it was one of the very short list of names my husband and I both liked that fit within the restrictions.
What restrictions? Well, it had to be a name that is recognizable and pronouncable in Hebrew and in English, without any consonants that don't exist in the other language. True, that in Hebrew the "r" at the end will be gutteral or rolled and in English it won't, but that's no big deal.
Besides, Gwyneth Paltrow isn't the only one who can name her daughter after fruit.
I thought I would put this up for your entertainment. Picture this: it's early morning, I'm woken up by some strong contractions, but they are pretty far apart. It's not worth waking up the household and throwing them into panic mode, but I'm too uncomfortable to go to sleep.
So I sit down at the computer, send a few E-mails, and hook up on Instant Messenger with a virtual friend in Texas -- Susie. She's on of my oldest Internet friends -- we belong to a mailing list that we joined eight years ago with a group of women who were all due with kids in September '96. The list is still going strong.
I take advantage of the time difference to shmooze with Susie until we hit a decent hour of the morning.
And she ends up coaching me through labor on the computer.
Susie: You there?
allison: yup
Susie: Just sent an email.
Susie: My step daughter delivered this morning. Is there a full moon?
allison: looking at Mollee's site to see when you are supposed to go to the hospital....?
Susie: When you feel you need to! LOL How far apart are the contractions?
allison: around 15 minutes
Susie: I know people who have put in a full day of work while in labor. And others who went as soon as they were regular despite to time apart
Susie: How long til camp starts?
allison: It's 5:18. I can probably drop them at 7-7:30 AM
Susie: Would you have to drive?
allison: No, my husband can
Susie: How far away is MIL?
allison: An hour in non-rush hour. But rush hour is going to start soon.
allison: The day camp is run by a friendly woman, so I know if I'm stuck I could drop them earlier.
Susie: What would SHE prefer? Being there too early, or being left alone til the last min?
allison: She'd prefer to have them in camp and have her day. It's sort of a shame to make her shlepp over and then sit around here all day.
Susie: Then I'd wait. Maybe call the day camp in a little while and alert THEM that you might need them early! But only you know what's right for you.
allison: I'm such a disorganized loser. In the last half hour, I've packed the kids bag for camp and started one for me at the hospital.
allison: Nothing was prepared before.
Susie: Do I need to smack you???? You ARE NOT a loser! YOu were just in denile!
Susie: I can't spell - talk about loser! LOL
Susie McGee: What's the worst that can happen if you don't have what you think you need in your hospital bag????
allison: De Nile is more than a river in Egypt. Oops, here comes another contraction, maybe
Susie: breathe
Susie: breathe
allison: Instant Message Lamaze
Susie: LOL!!!!!!!!!! Ain't technology grand?
allison: Ok, it was a little one not a real one
Susie : Had meditation at church today - breathe in I'm Sorry - breathe out "Thank you"
allison: Distract me. Tell me how you are.
Susie: Doing pretty well. Trying to work on the house. Made window treatments today with M's niece. They turned out pretty well
Susie: Friday we went to a festival downtown. Then to a rotating restaurant. Got some kewl pix.
allison: Is she staying with you?
Susie: Wanna see pix of my grandson?
allison: OWWWWWW
Susie: Yeah - been here 10 weeks (ed. note -- a student from Holland)
Susie: She leaves the 25th, and I don't want her to! She's WONDERFUL!!!!! She needed 12 weeks in an English speaking country for school.
allisonsommer: Ok, done
Susie: That was long!
Susie: YOu doing OK? Guess I should have kept talking, eh?
Susie: Is DH there?
allison: Asleep. No point in waking him until I want to do something.
Susie: Agreed.
Well, it's 7:30 AM, and I've been feeling contractions since about 3:30 AM and they are getting PAINFUL. So now that the kids are getting dropped at day camp, we're off to the hospital....
More news later, I presume.
Mom, if you're reading this, don't freak out.
So supposedly there was an earthquake this afternoon.
I was at the pool with the kids, actually in the pool for a long time, which must have been when it happened, because I didn't feel a thing.
Happy Birthday to my Yankee Doodle brother Adam, born on the Fourth of July in Providence, Rhode Island.
Click here for fireworks.
Pretty ironic -- I grew up with a brother born on such a celebratory date....and now my firstborn child is stuck with September 11th as his birthday. Not as bad as if we lived in the U.S., but still....
So I played faculty wife last night.
My husband, a law professor, invited the whole law faculty over last night, everyone from the Dean (former Justice Minister and longtime Member of Knesset Amnon Rubinstein) on down to junior faculty and doctoral candidates for an "end-of-the academic-year" bash.
When hubby proposed doing this during my ninth month, at a time when he is very busy with client work and bogged down with publishing deadlines, I said fine, as long as we contract out much more of the party preparation than we usually do.
The whole thing went really smoothly, thanks to the international coalition of the willing that I assembled.
-- I hired my friend Mercedes who is a caterer, to prepare all of the food. Mercedes is an amazing cook of Spanish-Moroccan origin, who moved to Israel 10 years ago from Montreal, Canada.
-- I hired my friend Kerri to take charge of arranging the food, drinks the set-up and the clean-up during the party. Kerri moved here from Johannesburg, South Africa a year ago.
-- I hired my strong teenager young babysitter, Lydia, to move the furniture around and to watch the kids during the party. Lydia moved here seven years ago. She's from Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and after fleeing bombing twice -- once to Romania and once to Budapest, a charismatic Jewish Agency rep convinced her and her mom to move to Israel (seeking peace and tranquillity???)
My cleaning person, Dalia -- who cleaned up before and after -- was the only native-born Israeli coalition member.
Like I said, there was a wide age range of guests at the party. It was interesting how the differing preferences/tolerances for heat seem to have changed over a generations. It was a fairly hot and muggy night. Nearly all of the guests who were over 50 chose to sit outside on the porch in the minimal night air and breeze that existed. The whole younger generation stayed indoors with the air conditioner.
I did the least amount of work I've ever done for a gathering at my house. My husband did much more than me -- he did all the grocery shopping and poached the salmon -- the one dish that Mercedes didn't make. It felt funny to accept compliments on my good food, lovely home, and well-behaved kids and how brave I was to do this when I was so pregnant -- when I wasn't directly responsible for any of it.
My kids got to come down and make a guest appearance when dessert was served. They liked the cake, but were disappointed in the grown-up party -- nothing like the year-end celebrations at their school. "There's no music or dancing!" exclaimed my son. "Everyone's just standing around talking."
Welcome to academia, kid.
Isn't my college friend Ayelet glamorous?
The caption only identifies her more-famous husband, who contributed to the "Spiderman 2" script. But that's my pal Ayelet Waldman. I'm proud of her. When we met, we were 18 years old, and crazy college freshmen intoxicated with living away from home for the first time. Now she's got a Harvard law degree, a brilliant husband, four beautiful kids, she's published six books, and like me, is going to be crossing the threshold of 40 in the near future. AND she looks FABULOUS. An overacheiver who leaves the rest of us jealously in the dust, but I love her anyway.
Here's her husband, Michael Chabon, on Spiderman's possible Jewish angle in the Newsweek coverage of Spidey 2:
"Revenge is a typical motivation, like with Batman," says Chabon. "With Superman, there's a general sense of just wanting to do what's right. With the X-Men, there's fighting for one's own kind. But I don't think there's another comic-book superhero that's as completely driven by trying to pay some debt, a debt that can't be paid, as Spider-Man is." All that guilt has led to an amusing theory about Peter. "For years people have speculated that Peter was sort of crypto-Jewish," Chabon says. "You know, living with his uncle Ben and aunt May in Queens."
Columbia Studio's Amy Pascal doesn't seem to embrace that theory.
"I don't know," says Columbia's Pascal. "Maybe he's Catholic."
This baby is BIG and fond of weird and pain-inducing positions. Right now it feels like she's got her foot stuck in my kidney or something.
Do the pro-lifers consider it prenatal child abuse when I push around on the side of my stomach and try to get her to MOVE?
I've figured out how to answer a tricky question without lying or whining.
When people ask me, as they do these days, "Allison, how ARE you? How are you FEELING?" I just look at them and answer, "I'm nine months pregnant. It's summertime."
That gets my point across without having to launch into a litany of specifics.
I grow big babies, and this one is no exception. As of yesterday's ultrasound, estimated fetal weight is already six pounds. (2.75 kilo)
And there's still more than a month to go -- and to grow.
My son weighed eight pounds at birth (3.75 kilo), and my daughter weighed nine pounds (4.25 kilo)
My due date is July 25 -- and I tend to go right up till my due date. Then, if history is repeated, I have labor induced so that I don't have an overdue monster baby (Israeli health law requires C-section once a baby reaches a certain size)
I can't believe I'm going to be hauling this sucker around for another month....and a HOT month at that. Can't someone just put me in the fridge till it's time for delivery?
My 7-year-old son asked me at first if he could be at the delivery. I subsequently explained to him that childbirth was kind of painful, and that I'd been known to yell and scream a bit, downplaying the truly abusive language I'd hurled at his father during his own birth.
After careful consideration he updated me that he'd "like to come to the hospital a half an hour after the baby is born because I don't want to hear the yelling part."
We took the kids to see the chalk cliffs and grottos of Rosh HaNikra, which is right along the border of Lebanon on the coast. Actually, I was taking myself to see it, too -- it's one of the sightseeing trips I never really got around to.
To get to the grottoes, you need to take a cable car. I noted that somehow, every time we take the kids out to see a sight, we end up hanging from a little car on a wire....last time was Masada.
We went to the zoo, which is right in the middle of a residential neighborhood in the Carmel Mountains. There are people who have apartments with "zoo views." It must be rather unusual to be able to look out your living room window and check out the tiger cage.
Enjoyed the beautiful beach that our hotel overlooked, and its pool (trying not to feel guilty for staying there -- I think that the hotel is a monstrosity that trashed the Haifa shoreline and should have never been built. But my husband convinced me that its built already and the damage is done....) We had a great view of the beach from the window of our room and could watch surfers all day. The surf must have been officially up -- the surfing areas were busy.
Ate delicious shwarma. Expert carnivores can attest that Haifa has the best shwarma in Israel, and Shwarma Hazan is the best shwarma in Haifa. (You've got to love the Internet. I searched for a shwarma photo just now, and got a picture of shwarma being served in Japan....by a guy from Haifa!)
Breathed. Haifa has the most amazing air -- clear, cool -- both on the beach and up on top of the mountains. I was only an hour north of home and it felt like a completely different environment. Back here, it feels like an oven.
Didn't follow the news and took a vacation from current events. Not on television, radio, or internet. Read one newspaper in five days. The only time I really thought about current events was when I passed the Maxim Restaurant which was right near the hotel.
It looks like a pretty safe place to eat now -- a security guard seated outside, checking everyone out before they enter the restaurant. I thought about going there for lunch just to tell my parents about it and freak them out, but decided not to. I thought about security twice very briefly -- once at a crowded beachside cafe at Dado Beach, which was out in the open, and I noticed so many police patrols and security guards patrolling the boardwalk, I began to wonder if it was a wise choice of location.
The other was at the shwarma place, which had no security guard and was wide open -- but it was pretty sparsely populated, and we were seated at a "safe table" -- in the back, surrounded by empty tables.
There's nothing like that first day of a silent, empty house when the kids go back to school after a fun but really intense five days of family time.
And the feeling that someone else is temporarily responsible for helping them get through the day.
I love it.
Guess I'll never be a homeschooler, eh?
Well, the promised sporadic blogging turned into non-existent blogging. Has anyone else discovered that when you call a hotel and ask the staff there if they have high-speed internet, they say yes, often without having a clue as to what that actually is?
So I decided to forgo blogging entirely instead of subjecting myself to high-priced slow dial-up.
My Mom says that this proves I'm not a true blogging addict. She says that's a good thing.
Our house was broken into while we were away -- nothing valuable was taken -- the burglar alarm seems to have scared them away rather quickly. For a few minutes, I thought that maybe it was stupid of me to post in my blog that I was travelling. But then, I thought better of it. I mean, even if, theoretically, somebody in Israel was trolling through blogs to find people on vacation in order to rip off, what are the odds that they would be looking at blogs in ENGLISH? That would have to be one well-educated burglar.
And somehow, I just can't picture someone who reads this blog on a regular basis dabbling in burglary as a hobby. Though maybe I overestimate my readers....
Anyway, I guess in these days of being wired, we should all be more careful.
UPDATE: Oops, it looks like they may have taken my U.S. passport as well as the kids'. Not a huge financial loss, but a huge pain in the neck to get replaced.
So we had practically a month of school vacation for the kids over Passover -- and it feels like they've been back at school for about three seconds, not including the time off for Independence Day.
Naturally, it's time to give them three days off for the holiday of Shavuot. They must have the day before Shavuot off -- even though the holiday doesn't begin till around 7 PM.
Then there's the holiday itself...and then, they just gotta give the teachers the day AFTER the holiday off to recover. Hence, a one-day holiday becomes a three-day vacation.
But for some reason, they decide to have school on FRIDAY, the ridiculous short abbreviated day, in which I get up early and haul my kids to school so they can receive a big 3.5 hours of education.
We're forgoing the mini-dose of education and taking off for Northern Israel for the whole stretch through the weekend -- till Saturday night. We figure that with baby #3 due in July, it's going to be the last trip where we can travel light -- no diapers, bottles, or baby gear.
I'll have some Internet access, but its unclear how much or how often. If I don't post till then, I wish a wonderful holiday to everyone who's celebrating.
I'm not going to look at the Nick Berg beheading video, just as I won't looked at the recent gore from Gaza.
I don't do well with images -- they stick in my head -- I don't even do gory movies.
I don't need to see it to understand how horrific it all is.
Here's Steven in the Forward reporting on Berg's recently intensified interest in his Jewishness.
I hate the fact that this will probably somehow make his murderers feel more justified in their actions.
Danny Pearl and Nick Berg. Hanging out in the Arab world isn't good for a nice Jewish boy.
Be careful, Jeffrey.
It's hot, hot, hot. Crazy hot, all of a sudden.
100 degrees.
Wonderful weather for late pregnancy. Not.
But it is Mother's Day in America. And my mom, Marilyn Kaplan, is in America.
So let me just state, straight out, for the record, that she is the best mother in the entire world.
That's not a Hallmark statement, it's a fact. If I could change one single thing about her, I wouldn't. She's perfect. Well, maybe she has one flaw. She does drive herself too crazy trying to make everyone else happy. That can get annoying sometimes. But that's just about all she does wrong.
I'm not the most confident person in the world. I am often insecure and doubt my abilities in just about every area -- except one. I never, ever worry that I am a bad mother. Because I learned from the best.
Anyone reading this blog who actually has met my mom knows that I'm not blowing smoke. She is truly a wonderful person and an amazing mother. It would be a lot easier to live far away from her if she wasn't.
I love you, Mom, and I miss you.
I'd also like to give a shout-out on Mother's Day to some of my favorite blogging moms. There are lots of moms on the blogroll, but here are the ones that focus on motherhood in a very special way.
The first isDawn who has just adopted a child, and has been taking readers of her blog through an amazing journey.
The second is a potential mom who really deserves to be one: her screen name is Getup Grrrl and her blog is Chez Miscarriage. Her blog is just brilliant and funny and heartbreaking, and my greatest wish for her is that she gets to be a mother by next Mother's Day.
A special Mother's Day wish to Aidel Maidel, who just gave birth, Mazel Tov.
To Laura who enlightens us about the politics of parenting on a daily basis and Tamar who writes so beautifully about her son Damian and his development.
And thank you to Dawn and the unnamed author of My Bitchy Pregnancy (giving birth in three days) who have told it like it is about pregnancy and childbirth and have given me license to bitch now and again as well.
These blogs don't get the kind of press that the more male, more mainstream, political blogging world does, but they are revolutionary in their own way. You get an unvarnished view of motherhood through reading blogs -- the blood, sweat and tears that don't always make it into the nice sanitized "What to Expect" or "Dealing with Infertility" or "How to Adopt" books.
My kids, age five and seven, are relating to their yet-to-be-born sibling in classically adorable ways -- kissing and caressing my tummy, etc.
They also like to whisper secret messages to her into my belly button.
My five-year-old daughter was in the middle of doing so, when she looked up at me with a confused expression. "Mommy, how do I know if she speaks English or Hebrew?"
On a semi-related topic, here's Saul Singer contemplating the meaning of being an Anglo in Israel, after attending the Jacob's Ladder folk festival.
I've never been to it. The reasons?
1. I like folk music just fine, but am not of the generation that it defines.
2. I'm married to an Israeli, who has no interest, so I'd have to be extra-interested to go on my own.
3. We're a family that is allergic to camping. Me, because my parents never believed in sleeping on the ground and I never saw the charm. My husband, because he took one too many B'nai Akiva camping trip while growing up and felt that he's been there and done that. He feels about camping the way that President Bush #1 felt about broccoli: that when he was young, it was forced upon him because it was "good for him" -- and now he's grown up, dammit, he doesn't want to do it, he works hard, and he's earned the right to stay at the Hilton.
I suppose my previous post implied that I would be posting from the States.
Rest assured, that was my full intention. But like most good intentions....
Anyone who lives overseas knows how it is. You have just a few weeks annually in which to try to maintain your relationships with your friends and family and every second is precious. Blogging just isn't a luxury that fits into the schedule, especially when you are travelling with young kids.
Add to that the fact that we were very mobile -- New Jersey, Long Island, Manhattan, Rhode Island and Greater Boston.
In short, it was a great trip, and I even got to meet two bloggers in the flesh -- though I missed out on two others that I'd hoped to meet. Details to follow (really, this time, I PROMISE)
I'm sure a lot of people gave up on me (I often do when a blogger evaporates for that long.) To those of you who haven't -- thanks!
This blog is about to fly overseas for Passover vacation.
So, do I feel...
A. Nervous about flying?
B. Relieved that I'm not around here worrying about Yassin revenge?
C. Nervous about being alone and pregnant with two kids in New York?
D. Too tired from last minute tasks to be nervous about anything and just deciding not to think about it too much?
If you picked D. you were right.
Regarding answer B: my friend, the charming and always-articulate Calev Ben-David-- who is heading to Disney for his Passover vacation -- wrote a great piece in the Jpost that reflected my conflicted feelings precisely:
Isn't the very notion of one's being grateful at leaving the country at such a time, handing a victory of sorts to terrorists like Yassin, whose declared goal is to permanently drive all Jews from this land? Wouldn't the nobler response be just to stay put to say "Next year in Jerusalem" on Pessah eve in Jerusalem, rather than with relatives in Florida?
Or maybe I have it backwards: Since the very goal of terror is to disrupt and distress our normal lives, perhaps changing my pre-scheduled vacation plans is what really constitutes a victory for terror. Although I doubt Hamas has a particular vested interest in whether my family makes it to Disney World next week, clearly there's a bigger principle at stake here – namely, how do we know which of our actions constitutes a victory for terror?
And the answer is: we don't know. So we come back to my usual solution for dealing with this stuff. Live your life the best way you know how -- do what you want as safely as you can. Close your eyes, cross your fingers, and hope for the best.
See y'all in North America.
The thrill is gone.
There is none of the deep interest in your bodily fluctuations that you had the first time around, when you continuously checked month-by-month pregnancy books to see if the fetus was the size of a peanut or the size of a peach.
No combing the internet or joining mailing lists to find women in your stage of pregnancy to compare notes and commiserate with.
Unlike the second time, there is no breathless anticipation to see if you will get a baby of a different gender (unless you have two of the same, which I don't.)
There's no wondering how #1 will react to their sibling and wondering how you will deal with sibling relations.
In short, you've been there and done that.
Obviously, you are interested in the destination -- you want another CHILD. (hopefully, anyway...)
You are just utterly unenraptured with the journey that involves getting fat, exhausted and nauseous, not neccessarily in that order.
And you are utterly realistic about what lies ahead, which makes it difficult to work up any form of pregnancy "glow."
On one hand, you are totally getting into your children's enjoyment of the holiday. After all, they are aged five and seven, the ideal ages for getting dressed up and thrilled about Purim. You help your son transform himself into Spiderman and ease your daughter the queen into her fluffy pink cotton-candy tulle gown and hand her a shiny chrome crown and scepter. She declares that Purim is her favorite holiday. Your son says that every holiday is his favorite.
They are so happy and excited about their class Purim parties and the town Purim parade, and it's infectious. You thank the higher powers that the dire predictions of rain by the weather forecasters have not come to pass -- maybe later in the afternoon it will rain, but not in the morning.
As you drive them to school, they ooh and ahh as they see other children decked out.
You don't look at the costumes: instead, you notice that Main Street looks like it's preparing for a military operation as much as for a parade. Five or six town workers on each block are wearing Day-Glo yellow vests reading "security" -- they are inspecting every corner and cordoning off the sidewalks. You feel mingled relief that things look well taken care of, and regret that you live in a worls where such measures are necessary.
You drop off the big kid at elementary school, having signed a permission slip to allow him to go watch the town parade with his class. You remind him that if he takes off his mask, he should put it in his backpack. You tell him to stick close to the teacher and the accompanying parents. You wish you could have volunteered to accompany the class to make sure he's safe, but your smaller kid has to be picked up in the middle of parade time.
You drop off your daughter at kindergarten, where she joins the other girls, who are gathered at the entrance to the school in order to watch each other as they arrive so they can admire each other's gowns in what looks like a preschool parody of the Oscar night red carpet ritual. You still haven't decided whether you are going to take her to the parade after school lets out early. You know you should, but....
The kids now out of the way, you let your mind wander where it shouldn't. You remember when you lived in Tel Aviv in 1997, on a pre-Purim Friday like today, when suddenly you heard a big "BOOM." You were on maternity leave from the Jerusalem Post after the birth of your first child, but reporter's instinct took over, you left the baby with a sitter and went and covered the terror attack for the paper anyway. It had only been four blocks from your house and you knew that you could just as easily have been one of the moms sitting in that cafe with her baby carriage. One of those moms -- who was killed -- came from Ra'anana, where you live now -- there are memorial signs for her around town every year at Purim.
You come home and go to the computer. You read this and pray that the security around the parade in Ra'anana is as good as it looks, and that the army and police catch whoever is presumably heading into Israel looking for trouble. You know that you should probably feeling a certain degree of guilt that there is a total closure on the territories, and that many lives are being disrupted so that your kids can have a safe holiday celebration, but you find that guilt very hard to work up in view of the fact that there have been 56 separate alerts to possible attempts at terrorist attacks.
Yes, you have always been on the left. But children change the way that you think. Disrupting the Palestinian economy and making more Palestinians frustrated and angry vs. your kids' LIVES? Is there really any question for you? It's your inner debate about the Fence all over again. Right or wrong, moral or immoral, the protective maternal instinct tends to trump all. Back in the days of Oslo, you were willing to take big risks for the hope, the chance of peace. But so much has happened since then. And now you have kids.
You look at your watch. Only three hours until your children will be safely back home. You can't wait. You write all of this in your blog, hoping that it will help the time pass more quickly...
UPDATE: Everyone's home safe and sound, of course. And now I feel silly for worrying at all. The biggest danger my kids face at the moment is an overdose of sugar from all the candy and other Purim junk. It's Halloween syndrome.
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Purim to all -- we're off to the south till Sunday night-- a family weekend organized by the kids' schools at a kibbutz hotel, and then on Purim we're visiting our family in Yerucham. I'm going crazy trying to figure out what to pack. It has been HOT HOT HOT. Now the heat is breaking and its cooler and windy. And they're predicting rain for tommorow. Ack! Well, I must admit, it's good when your biggest concerns involve the weather...
Possible Reasons Why I’m Pregnant With My Third Kid
-- I’ve just been getting too much sleep lately – got to cut down those hours. And I really, really miss changing diapers.
-- Flying 12-hour transatlantic flights to the U.S. to visit my family with two kids in tow is just so much fun, I figure that doing it with three kids will really be a thrill.
-- I’m a soldier in the demographic war for Israel’s survival: It's us vs. the Palestinian woman -- uterus vs. uterus. After this one, I’m planning ten more.
-- Dawn Olsen simply made pregnancy and childbirth look so lovely and attractive. As does this blogger.
-- Celeb envy. With my first kid, I was pregnant at the same time as Madonna. This time, I thought I’d have a baby this summer along with Courtney Cox and Gwyneth Paltrow. I'll never share their dress size, so at least we'll have something in common...
-- MORE LINKS AND HITS. I mean, why do we bloggers do ANYTHING? I figured that all of the congratulations and comments are good for a few notches on the Ecosystem. And nothing I write seems to merit an Instalanche. Maybe procreating will do the trick.
But seriously, folks. I still haven’t really figured out why I've let this happen. Total, utter, and complete insanity is the only possible explanation. Either that or mid-life crisis --pushing 40 and all. Or my deep-seated fears of something happening to one of my children in this crazy country.
Whatever the reason, it's certainly not rational.
I’ve got two fabulous kids – a boy and a girl. There was no reason to screw up that lovely symmetry. And they were getting bigger – more time to myself, to work, to see friends, and to blog. And now…back to the pregnancy-baby-toddler routine. Two steps forward, ten steps back.
So now it’s out. The pregnancy has been my big secret from blog readers for the past several months. I didn’t want to publicize until all of those nasty tests were run and everything appears to be in working order. Ptoo, ptoo, ptoo (spitting in order to ward off the Evil Eye.)
Following major major technical difficulties. My computer went kablooey while I was in England, and I was offline for nearly FIVE WHOLE DAYS. Can you imagine the withdrawal symptoms?
On the bright side, I read two whole books during that time and paid a lot more attention to my kids.....
It was sort of healthy.
Anyway, I'm happy to be back....Did anyone miss me? (Besides you, Mom)
So here I am in lovely London, celebrating my anniversary, and getting some much-needed breathing room from events in the Middle East.
Getting overall distance from the Middle East in London, however, isn't as easy as it sounds.
It's not just that every time I come to London, there are more and more Middle Eastern faces and Arabic spoken on the streets and more and more women in hijab -- including the all-black ensembles with only the eyes peeking out.
No, it's a food thing. Once there was an Indian curry house every block, filling in the vacuum known as British cuisine. Now it's a Lebanese or Turkish kebab schwarma or falafel place. The Middle East is conquering the British palate.
When I got in late in the evening last week, the only restaurant near my hotel that was still open for dinner was a Turkish place -- so my first English meal was hummus and kebab. After-theater dinner the other night -- Moroccan couscous. (All of the proprietors of these restaurants are so lovely, hospitable, sweet and polite, I find myself thinking, "Damn, no wonder they like Arabs better than us...")
What absolutely finished my husband and I off in this matter was breakfast at the hotel. The very classy, very British hotel offers, of course, a "full English breakfast." But what was out there on the buffet alongside the eggs and toast and beans and sausage and black pudding?
There it was -- stuffed grape leaves, hummus, ful (fava beans) lebana, and... SHAKSHUKA. Shakshuka is the quintessential Middle Eastern egg dish made with tomato sauce. Eggs and tomatoes. Most of the people at the buffet eyed it suspiciously. We couldn't stop laughing.
On the anniversary front (yes, yes, we got married on Valentine's Day) everything has just been wonderful. How much more cliche can you get than spending such a day strolling the market on Portobello Road in Notting Hill, including stopping into the bookshop that was the model for Hugh Grant's in the famous film?
Frankly, at this point in time, we don't need lots of hearts and roses, all we need to do is get away for a few days from the stresses of work and home and raising small kids, so we can relax a a bit, remember that we're husband and wife, not just parents, and manage to have conversations that are about more than just the logistics of everyday life -- whether the insurance has been paid or whether there's milk in the fridge. Now that's romance.
Tonight, we're going to avoid the overpriced, overcrowded Valentine's evening restaurant scene and are dining at our friends' house. They are Israelis, and I hope they don't decide to do Middle Eastern food.
On the cultural front, we saw the most hilariously irreverant show I think I've ever seen: Jerry Springer: The Opera. Hysterical. The only opera you've ever seen where every other word has four-letters. I seriously wonder if they are going to be able to move this to New York. It's not only completely potty-mouthed, it's extremely sacreligious (Jerry hosts God, Satan, Jesus Christ and Mary on his show and they duke it out.)
Michael Brandon is amazing as Springer, a dead-on impersonation.
I even got to spot a celebrity in the audience and a cute actor, too, Julian Sands.
Like most movie actors, he looks taller on-screen.
So yes, in case you couldn't tell, I'm have a wonderful time...
I'm not doing a whole lot of shopping however, which is very un-Israeli of me. The pound is so strong against the shekel and the dollar, that everything is way expensive. My British friends tell me that everybody is hopping planes to the U.S. for 3-4 day shopping sprees over there, because even with the plane tickets, it works out cheaper than shopping in London....
To keep up my good mood, I've been on an Israeli news blackout, except for what appears on Sky News or BBC. Speaking of which, our hotel is right across the street from the Beeb and you can see straight inside the offices -- I keep wondering what they're saying...
I just got an E-mail from my Mom. She was worried about me because I hadn't written in my blog for five whole days.
Can you believe it? Talk about a ridiculously low worry threshold...
So I had to post in case anyone else out there is worried. Yes, I've been meaning to blog about my trip to the Dead Sea ever since I've come back, but real life interferes -- another sick kid at home and a need to catch up and get ahead a bit at work, because on Thursday....(drumroll).....I am leaving for five fun-filled days in London, with spouse and sans offspring, for my annual (more often if I'm lucky) Vacation From Being Mom. We're going to be celebrating our 11th anniversary.
I chose London for the theater and the bookstores and so I could meet some good friends who live there. Any theater or restaurant recommendations are welcome.
So in addition to work, I have to write up my micromanaged detailed memo for the person I am entrusting with the care of my kids....
Well, we're off to another long weekend at the Dead Sea.
No, I'm not addicted to salty minerals -- hubby is invited to give a talk at a conference there, and who are we to spurn a free hotel room at a nice hotel with a spa?
We're taking the kids, however, so it's not exactly rest and relaxation (the term "family vacation" is a contradiction in terms, is it not?) But it's not exactly suffering either.
In any case, I probably won't be getting online through the weekend, so see y'all on Sunday...
Today I've got work to do, two doctor's appointments. For the past 48 hours, I've been running a fever, with an extremely sore throat, swollen glands and (channeling Kelley) awful hives all over my body. Hardly left the bed.
All I can say is THANK THE LORD that my kids' school district is among those NOT on strike today.
UPDATE (for worried family members in the U.S. waking up and reading this...) Went to the doctor, got antihistamine for the hives and penicillin for the sore throat. Feeling better though not yet 100 percent.)
All different forms of virus seem to be converging at my house today. Not only am I getting bombarded with these ridiculous worm-ridden E-mails, but both I and my 7-year-old are down with some kind of stomach flu....
This is the first day he's been home sick all year. It's amazing how you can be wonderful Mom-Florence Nightingale to a kid who is rarely sick. On the days that they are, you really want to spoil them and help them get better. But should the illness drag on...or recur....patience begins to wear thin.
As I type, I've got "Blues Clues" in one ear -- that's what he's watching -- and Fox News in the other ear -- I'm monitoring to hear what's going on in New Hampshire, and more importantly, so I can hear the Oscar nominees announced.
The weather is weird today, as Imshin noted in her blog.
Extremly windy, with some sand blowing around, and the occasional downpour. It's dirty car weather -- everyone's vehicle is covered with this layer of grit.
The wind is wreaking havoc with our satellite dish: the kids are watching cartoons and the TV keeps hiccuping.
I called my friend Faye near Beersheba, knowing that if it's like this up here, it's got to be extreme in the south. "It looks like the end of the world," she said, reporting that there was so much sand blowing that the sky was orange.
Reminiscent of the first few weeks of the Iraq war: remember those sandstorms. Which reminds me: we're coming up on the one-year anniversary of that adventure, which inspired the name of this blog -- about to turn one year old. Time flies....
And reportedly it is snowing like crazy up on the Golan -- so much so, they've had to temporarily close down the ski resort.
It ain't me.
The evidence: this New York Times article, just up on the website, most likely in tommorow's hard copy. It's the New York Times report of today's breaking news -- an Israeli court has indicted businessman David Appel on charges of attempting to bribe Prime Minister Sharon. And here's the quote:
Hillel Sommer, a constitutional law scholar at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, said that the case would probably take years to play out.
Even if the prime minister was indicted at a later stage, he would not be required to step down while legal proceedings were under way, Mr. Sommer said.
"The filing of charges may have political significance, but there is certainly no legal requirement for the prime minister to resign," Mr. Sommer said. "The law sets the procedure of terminating the prime minister's tenure, and specifically puts it after a conviction."
What can I say? I'm kvelling. To think that I knew him when...
I'd say that where I live right now, the weather right now feels something like November or March in New England. Like you can actually walk around with a sweater on and a leather jacket.
This is considered considered cold in Israeli terms. What a joke. To any native Israeli who dares comment on the "cold" I immediately respond-- "Ha! You don't have a clue what cold is..."
How do I know it's cold in the Northeast U.S? Well, first of all, because my brother didn't go to the New England Patriots Game this weekend because it was four degrees out.
For Adam to skip a game, it's gotta be COLD. This is the same brother, you all may recall, who went to a recent Patriots game in a BLIZZARD.
Second of all, because it sounds like poor Sheila sounds like she's turning into a freaking popsicle !?!
I'm getting worried about here. Can't one of you tristate bloggers with good heating please invite her over? Or this sounds like the perfect opportunity for any of her male fans to offer to keep her warm....
Oh, since I mentioned die-hard football fans, here's an article in Ha'aretz about the expat American flag football team in Jerusalem in which "the defensive lineman is a plumber, the quarterback is a political consultant to Benjamin Netanyahu, and the safety is a day trader who doubles as a student in the ultra-Orthodox Mir yeshiva."
There are apparently 54 teams in the league -- who knew? Here in Ra'anana, where I live, football doesn't seem to be as big as baseball among the American emigres. There's this guy, Joe Gitler, who keeps trying to organize the locals together for a game and can't get enough to show up....
It's almost 2 AM in Israel. I fell asleep around 10:15 PM, right after the Jay Leno monologue, but was awakened abruptly a short while ago by a five year old "who can't sleee-eeeep...." and took her to the bathroom for a pee-pee.
An ubiquitious start to 2004. I figure it can only get better....Party on.
I neglected to write my usual "I'm still alive" post after the recent suicide bombing, but I guess those of you who were worried have checked the casualties list and figured out by now that I am probably still breathing.
I've just been busy and out of touch with current events with my parents visit and, as I mentioned, doing the Jewish Martha Stewart thing -- having family over for Hannukah last Thursday, on Sunday, I'm throwing a 5th birthday bash for my daughter.
This is the first time my parents were here during Hannukah, and they had that "Hey, where's Christmas?" shock that you get being in Israel for the first time during the Hannukah season. They thought it was really cool that when they went to a chamber music concert, the conductor lit the menorah before picking up his baton, and that when we went out to dinner, the waiters stopped everything to light candles.
The kids were in holiday heaven -- they are the perfect ages for this stuff -- 5 and 7. And in the "advantages of raising kids in Israel" category, it's very relaxing not to have to compete with the powerful seductive forces of Christmas -- for them, Hannukah is "it," despite the fact that they have a vague awareness of Christmas via imported Nick Jr. videos.
Funny moment: my daughter asked my son, "How do you say "sufganiyot" in English?"
His answer: "Dunkin' Donuts!"
Today is my daughter's birthday party in school, my son's Hannukah party in school, my husband's actual birthday, and the first night of Hannukah overall. And my parents are here visiting from the U.S. And starting today, my kids are on vacation for a week.
Overwhelmed? Me?
Anyway, if I don't get to post later on, a Happy Hannukah to everyone.
That's my brother, Adam. Who could ask for anything more? Sorry girls, he's married.
You all may recall, Adam is the nut who went to the Patriots game in a blizzard.
I had to chuckle at the article's description of him as an "Israeli entrepreneur."
He was born on July 4 in Providence, RI, after all.
Technically, it's accurate -- like me, he married an Israeli (family disease) moved to Israel, and made aliya and thereby became a dual citizen, but then the Israeli company he worked for sent him back to the States, and he's been there ever since, with a brief foray to the Far East.
In about two hours, I'm going to pick our mutual parents up at the airport for a two-day visit. If blogging is lighter in the next two weeks, it's because I'm busy trying to show them a good time, or as my husband puts it, "turning into Julie the cruise director."
Happy, happy birthday to a truly wonderful and special person, who I am lucky enough to have as a brother, and who the people of New England are lucky enough to have defending their clean air and water.
He's smart and articulate and the coolest tree-hugger I know.
Temporary insanity is the only explanation I can think of for an otherwise normal adult husband and father of two to risk his life and get into his car in the middle of a major snowstorm when there are already 28 inches of snow on the ground, and drive from Boston to Foxboro in order to sit outside in snow and freezing temperatures, to watch a bunch of equally insane New England Patriot and Miami Dolphin football players smash into each other on a slippery snowy field.
At least the football players are getting PAID for it!
I'll bet my crazy brother thinks it was worth it, because the Patriots won 12-0, and took the AFC East title. (the Dolphins were probably thinking, "OK, fine, you won, but you have to stay in this mess and we get to go home to Miami.")
When the winning touchdown took place
Many of the 45,738 fans who braved the cold clutched fistfuls of powdery snow and flung them into the wind, giving the stadium a festive and frosty air.
Yippee. At least my brother wasn't the only frostbitten nut there. I think all these New England sports fans are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder following the baseball season and their Red Sox disappointment, and are therefore not in their right minds.
All I can say is that my sister-in-law is a very tolerant woman. I would have locked my brother in the closet.
In priniciple, I think it's really cool that a lot of American Jews continue to cook up a storm and celebrate Thanksgiving after they move to Israel. I even did it for the first few years that I was here. I am also more than happy to go when I am invited to a feast.
BUT.... laziness has taken its toll. When Thanksgiving is a regular workday, when there is no cultural pressure around to order, stuff, and cook a turkey and trimmings, when there is no Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix handy, and being as that I am no great fan of cooking to begin with....this fine tradition of Thanksgiving dinner has fallen by the wayside in my home.
Also, the vast majority of Israelis I know are generally not fans of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes. The food is too bland and not spicy enough for their palates, and they tend to stare at the cranberry sauce and say with disgust, "Why are you putting JAM on your MEAT???"
I may be too lazy to cook, but I'm not too lazy to give thanks: for everything I have, for my health, for my friends and family...and for America. In fact, I probably appreciate America much more from the outside looking in than I did when I lived there.
And of course, thanks to everyone who reads this blog!
Now, go enjoy your turkey. Maybe I'll go get some shwarma and add some cranberry sauce and yams.
My kids are at the perfect age for family day trips -- they are old enough to understand what they are seeing and be interested in seeing new places (not to mention the fact that they are able to walk under their own steam -- no more strollers.)
And yet they are young enough to be thrilled to spend time with their parents. It's a golden window between bratty toddlerhood and bratty adolescence, and we're taking full advantage of that golden window of opportunity. The weather is also a golden window at the moment -- no longer hot and sweaty, and not yet cold and rainy. Crisp and perfect.
So today we took them to Nahal Alexander -- a little river (well, a tiny stream by U.S. standards) which is only about 20 minutes north of where we live. It used to be completely polluted and not much to see, but there's been a big effort to clean it up and restore it. It's now a beautiful park and was full of families enjoying the walking and biking path alongside it.
The part my kids liked the best is called "The Bridge of the Turtles." Right under one of the bridges, are, indeed large turtles swimming around, who poke up and make themselves visible to those tossing bread crusts into the water for them. As we walked, we saw tangerine trees, avocado groves and a pumpkin patch around us.
Afterwards, we had lunch on the beach at a seafood restaurant in Beit Yannai, one of the widest sandiest stretches of Mediterranean coastline in Israel. Paella by the Mediterranean -- and I didn't even have to travel to Spain.
Next to the restaurant there was beach playground, and the kids went on the slide and swings between courses. We sat back, watched the sun set over the sea and watched the crazy parasurfers leap among the waves.
It's very nice to be raising kids far from where I grew up -- I get to discover the country along with them. For my husband, it's more on the order of taking the kids to the places he enjoyed when he was young. For me, nearly everything is brand new.
It has sadly become part of our Saturday ritual, that on the drive home, we flip on the radio and hear bad news -- stories of this or that terror attack. This time it was Istanbul....
Sounds like Margaret Cho has discovered the answer.... The "Fuck It" Diet...
Actually, her whole blog is pretty hilarious.
It was really a magical event, my nephew's Bar Mitzvah in the desert....
Picture three Bedouin tents -- set up by real Bedouins, in the middle of the desert, on the edge of the Makhtesh HaGadol (the Great Crater) between the towns of Yeroham and Dimona, decorated by flowers and desert plants. On the walls of the tent are photographs of desert landscapes, taken by the Bar Mitzvah boy. Rugs and pillows are strewn about for the children to sit on, in addition to chairs and tables for the adults. There are art activities for the kids -- the older kids all work together to put together a giant mosaic in honor of the Bar Mitzvah boy. The smaller children are provided with Q-tips, egg cartons with different shades of henna, and water, so they can make henna pictures in desert colors, the landscapes traced out for them on pieces of paper.
A special tent for the kids has a fire set up by the Bedouins, in which they can cook their own hot dogs and baked potatoes and roast marshmallows.
All of the music is provided by the guests on accordions and guitars. The guests are a mix of religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sephardi. The Bedouins who were hired to set up the whole event, also participate as guests, mingling and joking with everybody else, and diving into the impressive buffet.
Following the speech by Nitzan, the Bar Mitzvah boy, the guest watch a slide show of him growing up. Every photo of is in another desert landscape, another part of the Negev. Here he is at age two, toddling in the Ramon Crater, there he is as an older boy swimming in a desert spring near Sde Boker. You are standing in the desert watching this child grow up in the desert.
After the guests disperse and the Bedouin pack up the tents, the Bar Mitzvah boy and five of his friends pitch their own tent, and spend the night sleeping in the desert under the stars.
Pretty special, eh?
To understand how my nephew's Bar Mitzvah came about, you have to understand his parents.
My sister-in-law and her husband, Yael and Yochanan, their close circle of friends and the community that they live in, have lives and values that contradict everything that you'll read about Israelis today.
They aren't materialistic urban or suburban yuppies, they aren't religious or nationalist fanatics -- they truly believe and live all of the old-fashioned idealogy about living in and treasuring the land of Israel.
They grew up among the middle class Modern Orthodox Ashkenazi elite of Jerusalem, were members of Bnai Akiva youth movements, and truly loved to know and learn the land -- constantly hiking, constantly camping. Most of all, they loved the desert, and wanted to live there. Their politics were such that they wanted to put their ideals to work inside the Green Line -- they weren't going to become settlers, when there were plenty of places in Israel proper that need settling. So their "garin" -- the members of their youth movement, all moved together to the remote development town of Yeroham, to the "forgotten" Israel, where immigrants from Morocco and other Middle Eastern countries were sent when they came to Israel.
Living there, as part of the community, many of them working in the caring professions as doctors, teachers, social workers, they have made an amazing contribution.
They are raising their children in the desert they love, teaching them to love it as they do. They have friendly, neighborly relations with the Bedouins who live around the town, who they hired to set up the Bar Mitzvah. They are still Orthodox -- keep Shabbat and kashrut -- but are accepting and tolerant of those who do not.
Their salaries are laughable compared to what they could earn in the center of the country -- but their cost of living is low as well. They live in a cluster of small white houses on the outskirts of Yeroham -- built originally for Russian immigrants -- none of whom wanted to live there. Their furniture is basic, their living room floors dusty with sand as their children run in and out of the house -- nearly all of them have at least four kids.
Their parents -- many immigrants to Israel from France and the United States -- were all a bit shocked at the simple yet meaningful life their kids have chosen, but they are also incredibly proud.
Decadant American Jewish girl/greater Tel Aviv resident that I am -- I would be hard pressed to give up my proximity to espresso bars, sushi restaurants, health clubs, and Blockbuster video outlets -- not to mention lush green landscapes and the Mediterranean Sea. I couldn't, in a million years, live the desert life my sister-in-law's family and their friends have chosen. But I'm incredibly proud of them, and I love visiting them and getting to be part of their lives.
And I wish, somehow, probably in vain, that the world could see this Israel, could know and understand these people.
Digital technology is such a cool thing, especially when the movie is animated.
I just put a DVD on for my kids -- first I ask them whether they want to watch "Jungle Book 2" or "Lion King." Then I ask them whether they want to watch it in English or in Hebrew.
So I can sing "The Bear Neccessities" in Hebrew now.
Imshin waxes philosophical on pain and happiness. All I can say on the subject is that when I was young, I thought that the intelligent and strong people were the cynical, edgy, downbeat ones. The whole collegiate- wear-black-existential-angst thing.
The older I get, the more I realize that the strong people are the ones who manage to find the joyful side of life despite it all, and are happy -- without denying the terrible things going on in the world or that may have happened to them personally.
My daughter Naomi -- who is almost five years old -- was discussing her future plans with me.
"I want to be a teacher," she said.
"Great," I replied.
"What else can I be?" she asked.
"Well, you could be a teacher AND a mommy," I suggested.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "I don't want to be a mommy. I don't like to yell."
That's a bad joke that my husband made today when we were stopping in an Arab section of the town of Ramle to go to an Arab-owned restaurant with a reputation for fabulous food. I, of course, commented, that the whole scenario --stopping for lunch on a Saturday at an Arab place -- was a bit too reminscent of "Maxim" in Haifa. And he said that like Maxim, the hummus was to die for.
I relented and said, "OK, it'll be a blast."
Today was another day trip with the kids. We tend to day-trip a lot during the from late March-May and then again from late October-December -- the windows of weather when it's neither boiling hot and sunny nor cool and rainy.
We went to show them the fabulous stalactite cave just outside Beit Shemesh, midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The cave was discovered in 1968 by some miners who were sandblasting the limestone Judean Hills. My husband recalls that when they were first developed for tourists in the early '70's, there were months-long waiting lists to get in. I'd never been there before.
The kids loved the cave -- it was truly impressive and beautiful by any standard. I've seen stalactite caves before, but none so large and cavernous.
I've got to tell you folks, it's a lot more fun to be in Israel than just sit around blogging about it -- there is such a great variety of things to see within convenient travelling distance. (OK, I'll quit with the Tourism Bureau commercials.)
So, as I mentioned, we stopped in Ramle on the way back for lunch. That's us, living on the edge.
I guess I could say there was security at the restaurant, but that would be pushing it. There was a guy who looked like he was pushing 70, seated on a chair about two feet inside the restaurant from the door. He didn't check bags or anything, and seemed to get up and leave a lot for coffee and bathroom breaks.
But, like us, few seemed to be deterred. The place was packed. We were there from around 3-4, and when we were leaving people were still coming in. And yes, yes, the food was great....
(I realize at this point that I shouldn't have given my mom the URL to my blog. Her blood pressure just went up reading this post.)
The kids were exploring in the kitchen and pantry and they went behind both rooms into our storage area/bomb shelter. We had the shelter sealed and outfitted with mattresses, television and video, and plenty of snacks and treats back in February and March when we were fearing Scud attacks.
The children were kinda psyched to get sealed into it at the time.
Now Naomi, age four, surveys the room and says in a disgusted, disappointed voice, "Why do we have this stupid shelter anyway? There was supposed to have been an explosion, and there was never any explosion!"
It's clear she feels cheated.
Eitan, age seven, explains calmly. "No, you see Naomi, there was GOING to be an explosion but the Americans took all the missiles away from the Iraqis so there wasn't."
Damn cogent explanation for a first-grader.
Sitting around and outlining a novel to piece together for NaNoWriMo was really a valuable exercise.
It was valuable in that it made me realize that it's not what I want to do right now. If I'm going to sit down and outline and write, it's going to be for the non-fiction book that's been percolating in my brain for a long time now .... and not a novel.
So I'm going to follow NaNoWriMo, and try to match the motivation and productivity I see around me -- but channel it into my project. I've written newspaper pieces and magazine pieces -- now is the time to move ahead on a book.
It's something about Israel, of course. And in Israel, truth is always stranger than fiction.
Tell me they're not cute!
They're sitting with my mother-in-law playing a board game while my father-in-law takes the picture, while their lazy mother takes a nap in the next room. This was shortly after we returned from our trip to the U.S. and I was still jet-lagged.
Pardon my absence, I was in Miami. Well, actually, it only FELT like Miami. In fact, I was in Eilat. Although technically in Israel, it didn't feel like I was actually still in the State of Israel. I was utterly and completely in the State of Being on Vacation.
When you are staying at a place like this, and taking the kids to attractions like this, the pain and strife of the conflict feel very far away. You do feel much more as if you are in Florida, for better and for worse.
It is always quite an experience to go down to the beach in front of the hotel, swim a ways into the Red Sea, and look at Jordan's Aqaba less than a mile away on your left, and the mountains of the Sinai on your right. And on a clear day, you can see Saudi Arabia.
Over the Succot holiday this weekend, I will be in the Negev development town of Yeruham with my sister-in-law's family, and Imshin will be in Amsterdam.
The twisted thing is that SHE would probably rather be in Yeruham! She hates travelling abroad and loves the Negev. Wanna trade, Imshin?
From Yeruham, where we will be borrowing her next-door neighbor's home, we'll continue down to Eilat for the rest of the kid's Succot vacation. From a home in Yeruham to a fancy hotel in Eilat -- that's called a leap across the gap between rich and poor in Israel...
My holiday was very quiet and very peaceful -- in other words, utterly unlike the state of the country in general. I went to synagogue with the kids Yom Kippur Eve. I have an ambivalent relationship with the local Reform synagogue, but they've got a great children's program during services that my son loves, so I go.
How many kids love synagogue? I think he's got a potential for religious leanings: he even got into fasting -- he started with us last night and made it until 2 PM. Pretty good for seven years old.
We adults of the house lay around in a coma-like state most of the day, finally getting around to reading all of the excellent book by my dear friend Sue Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch . Highly, highly recommended to all my fellow bloggers interested in Jewish topics. After reading it, you can never think of Chabad in simplistic terms again.
The kids got to watch Nick Jr. and Disney videos and play on the computer to their hearts content, unlike regular days -- the basic rule was, "If it doesn't bug Mom and Dad, it's permitted." Just about everything short of playing with matches was fine.
Finally, I went for the closing Yom Kippur service to hear the shofar and so my son could attend his program: my husband stayed home with my daughter and prepared dinner for breaking the fast -- how's that for gender role reversal?
As usual, I felt OK while fasting, but now that I've eaten (too much) I feel tired and full and a bit dizzy.
Now is when I usually call my parents in the U.S. and gloat that my fast is over but they still have several hours to go. I guess I can gloat to all of you in the States who are religious enough to fast, but not religious enough to refrain from blogging....my fast is over! I atoned for whatever I did wrong -- but with all due modesty, I think I behaved pretty damn well this year.
For a slightly less traditional an
