What a way to start the year

I usually like to laze around on a fast day, but somehow today didn't quite work out as planned.

• I had my exercise class, since there wasn't an alternative day, even though I was fasting. We did suitable exercises. I felt ok afterwards.
• Then I tutored, since the student couldn't make it on our usual Friday morning because of Rosh Hashannah...
• Then, finally, I began to relax, and then the beeper went off...

We have an emergency beeper. Usually there's nothing special things like:

Puppet Show starting in five minutes in Shvut
Rachel-- Don't miss it!

But, as usual, I jumped up anyway to read it. It was an announcement that my neighbor's father passed away. The ceremony and cemetery were in Haifa, but since I really had nothing of value to do, I decided to go. Correct: we don't have a car. How was I supposed to get there?

I called one neighbor, but the line was busy. so I tried another neighbor, who almost didn't answer. I gave him the news, and he said that he'd think about it. I waited. About 15 minutes later, he called back that we were going, but needed a few minutes to get ready. Ditto, so did I.

We found the cemetery, and we even found the funeral. It was good that we went. We even took some elderly relatives back to their apartment in Tel Aviv, because doing one mitzvah brings you to more. Baruch Hashem.