B"H, Blue Sky Has Returned!

actual color, not sepia
photo taken early in the dust-storm 

Israel generally has the most boring summer (from April to October, sometimes interrupted in May-June by a couple of short desert sandstorms) weather which varies between hot and hotter, and the sky stays sky blue for months on end, but this year was different. For the last week or two we've been suffering from a long, almost never-ending unseasonable and unprecedented sandstorm.

For those with all sorts of health problems, especially connected to lungs, like asthma, this has been very trying times and dangerous, too. The only thing to do was to stay in air-conditioned buildings and keep all windows closed. Even awful housekeepers like myself have been continuously dusting. The fine sand has even snuck into closets and no doubt lungs, too. And for those of us who hang our laundry outside to dry, this has been a time of minimal clothes-washing, because wet clothes particularly attract the dust and sand.

I was going to do a lot of wash yesterday, as I usually do on Tzom Gedalia while fasting and staying home, but the air was still pretty dirty, although the forecasters had been predicting that it would end for days if not longer. I had decided that dust, sand or not, I had no choice but to launder today, even if it meant hanging laundry to dry all over the house.

But miracle of miracle, finally this morning the sky is clear and blue!! Thank Gd!!!!