Controlling the Panic, Thank G-d

Today is the first Friday in Israel post-Daylight Savings Time.  I have to keep reminding myself that I have much less time to do all the Friday, pre-Shabbat chores.

Usually when I work on a Thursday I take out my yoman, little pocket diary/calendar, and write down next week's schedule. I had been about it a couple of times during my shift, but I was always distracted, and then my boss told me that she still had to go over it and finalize it.

Recently, I've been keeping the yoman,  in a little bag with my equally small and pocketable T'hillim (Psalms) and Mincha Siddur (Afternoon Prayer book.)  I used to wear a second "fanny pack," wearable pocketbook which had them and meant that I always had those little books with me.  By wearing two "pouches" or "fanny packs" I was able to keep my cellphone and ravkav (public transportation ticket) separate. There are those who say that the phone can erase the pre-bought rides.  But recently to take pressure off of my back and pelvis, I started wearing only one.  And being a female, whose clothes don't have pockets most of the time, I need my phone, wallet, keys and camera in the pouch on me all the time when out of the house. And to make things more complicated, now I have to move the little bag around to make sure it's always "with me."  I have my Matan day backpack, in which my Bible studies books "live," and my work backpack which houses things I just need for work and is big enough to hold most of the shopping I do at Rami Levy each time I go to work in Yafiz.

Yesterday I had morning shift.  Now that we're no longer on Daylight Savings Time, I find myself in a rush to find the time to say my T'hillim (part of a group in which we commit to say certain chapters daily) and doven mincha pray the afternoon prayer before the sun begins to go down.  I've been working an hour or more after the end of morning shift recently.  That means that sometimes I have to use my "break time" for those things.  Yesterday I signed out first and then sat down near the exit to start.  But, you guessed it, I couldn't find the bag with those three little books.  I had no way of knowing if I had just left them at home or the bag had gotten lost.  There wasn't enough time to just say "so I'll doven and say T'hillim at home.  I needed to do it immediately.  I had no idea who would have those books, but I did know where I could possibly find them.

There's a small synagogue in the Rami Levy Supermarket.  I ran there, turned on the lights, found some books and quickly began T'hillim. I was planning on staying there until I had finished everything, but suddenly there was an announcement on the loudspeaker for Mincha.  Since there's no Ezrat Nashim, women's section, I took the siddur outside and finished dovening where I had attempted to start, near the exit/entrance.  I then reentered the store and asked a man near the shul to return the siddur for me, did my shopping and went home.

I kept telling myself that I had heard that you can go to the "citypass" Ravkav office and they can reproduce the card if it's lost, because all of my ticket purchases and travel are computerized in their humongous data base.  But, Baruch Hashem, thank G-d I found the small bag on the table.  So I was right. There was no need to panic.