New Playground in Shiloh

The playground is in the back of our house, behind the shul, synagogue.  It's convenient for children to play, near the door to the downstairs women's section.  It has a special flooring to make it safe.  I hear kids playing there a lot.  I can no longer see everything going on from my merpeset, terrace, but I don't have kids that age, and my grandkids don't come often. 

It was built as a project by David Rubin's Shiloh Children's Fund.

Only In Israel, Seen At An IFL Football Game

I go to Kraft Stadium

• to see my son play football and
• pray that he survive the game healthy and whole
• and take some "only in Israel" pictures

These are from the recent game when they, the Jerusalem Big Blue Lions, defeated the Gush Etzion Rebels.  And yes, the guy with the dog is my husband.

Kissing The Door Post....

... on the way to the bus.

Yes, even in the bus station, each platform has a door and each door has a mezzuzah.

Best Part of Watching Football

Victory!



Yes, Big Blue Jerusalem Lions won the game, defeated the Gush Etzion Rebels

Celebrating

There's nothing like a wedding, and each wedding is so different.

I always enjoy the variety of clothes we see at weddings.  A recent one was very different in a sense.  The "other side" had little girls dressed in styles I felt were "too old" for me.  But maybe I'm the problem.  Maybe I dress "too young." 

When my daughter got married I wore an outfit based of royal blue.  It wasn't your typical "mother of the bride," but I think it worked.  Here in Israel there rarely are "color themes."  Friends whose kids have married in the states sometimes go crazy trying to please the bride and her strict color demands.  I'm glad things are easier here.

Drip Drop, Was That A Leak Waking Me Up?

This morning, before the sun could be seen, at least the room was still totally dark, I woke up hearing drip drop.  Did one of us not quite close the faucet in the middle of the night?  Anything's possible.  It hasn't been cold enough to have to leave a faucet dripping to prevent pipes and whatever from freezing.  The plumbing here is the only really sub-standard thing about this house.

I tried to check the time.  There was no reason to get up too early on Shabbat.  On regular days (and remember that Sunday here is Day One of the Week) I turn on the computer at 5am, sometimes even earlier.  On Shabbat, it's not on the menu.

It sort of looked like 6am on my watch.  Of course, if the watch says 6am, it's really 5:48 or even a minute earlier.  I'm one of those...  Our clocks are always kept a bit fast, ahead of real time.

So I got up; six is a good time on Shabbat to get up.  That way I can get my water and coffee drinking done and "eliminated," so I won't have to use the shul's WC or 00 during prayers.

Oh, yes, about that drip... it wasn't from the en suite 00, it was from the outside drain pipe.  It had rained last night, thank G-d.  This has been not only a too dry winter, but according to local agriculturalists, it hasn't been cold enough.  Many plants, including some grown-for-export flowers need the cold, ditto for some fruit.  I know that in many other parts of the world, it was colder and wetter than usual, but here it hasn't been.

Shabbat, In Just A Few Hours!

I don't know how much time I'll have to post or do anything on the computer today.  It is Friday, and yesterday was very busy.  I managd to cook the chicken and meatballs early in the morning.  Then I went to work in Yafiz.  After that I attended the most fantastic winning game, American tackle football in Israel, the Jerusalem Lions "Big Blue" slaughtered the Gush Etzion Rebels, B"H, in Jerusalem's Kraft Stadium, 40-16.

The atmosphere at the game was unbelievable.  So much cheering and love.  The team ran to the fans as tribute after the game.

Here's the legendary Diaspora Yeshiva Band for some of their great music to get you/me in the mood for Shabbat and energize me for all the work I have to do today.  Shabbat Shalom

Where's Our Winter?

Yesterday it rained a bit on the way home.  The media here has been predicting lots of rain for this week, but I don't see it.  I dump all the water I can in the garden and house plants.  We've been having gorgeous winter skies, but then they turn blue, as if it was summer.  This summer will be very tough, since we haven't had good rain for a long, long time.  We need double rains for the next few years; average rainfall isn't enough.

Let these gorgeous sky views bring us lots of rain.  This is a Jewish leap year with an extra month before summer.  G-d willing it'll be very wet and rainy.

And please remember that sunny days are awful and wet ones are gorgeous!

Thank G-d For Good People

My mind had been trying to figure out the muddle of how to get from Matan to the bus station and still make my bus.  Before buses had been banned from the main road, Jaffa Street, I had just enough time.  So the extra time it now takes makes it too long.  Of course I could catch the bus at a different stop...

Then my friend who lives well to the south east of us said that she'd be driving home after classes and could drop me off at Hizme, the exit/checkpoint.  So I got off, took one of those signs and waited for a ride, and waited and waited.  Finally someone said that she was going to Ofra, 2/3 of the way home.  I got in.  At Ofra, I waited just a bit and some guy said he was going to Shiloh.  It ended up that he was really going to one of the small communities east of Shvut Rachel.  He insisted on taking me all the way home, just to be nice.

Yes, people are nice and good and helpful... Thank G-d!

Praying at Tel Shiloh

I just publicized the women's Rosh Chodesh Prayers at Tel Shiloh.

You're also invited.  Read all about it!

My NS25 "Dinner"

The other night, I walked a lot, and I also had too much time and not enough money for a proper dinner.  I finally came in from the cold...

...for a...

... Yes for this sandwich.

I had this tuna-bagel sandwich at Cup 'O' Joe.  The simple tuna was with black olives and sun-dried tomatoes.  It cost me NS25 including the tip.  I read and relaxed.  It was comfortable there.  If the budget had allowed I would have happily had a "proper" meal.  I knew that I'd be able to have coffee at Matan, so it didn't pay to buy any.

And yes, even though I don't eat carbohydrates, like the bagel, there are times when it's best.  I walked a lot that night.  We must be flexible, but we shouldn't look for exuses to break the diet.

ps the sandwich was tasty, though it could have used some lettuce or cucumbers.

Pill Case Confusion

I was walking (or was it up) down Jerusalem's Rechov Strauss (Street) and noticed this pill case for those who need medications four times a day.  When my very elderly father was living with us, my daughter set up weekly medication boxes for him.  There were morning ones and after dinner ones.  When he needed at other times of the day, they were kept in other containers/bags or I'd have to remember which to pick out of the box.  Once I left the "pre-breakfast pills" in a bag in the kitchen and caught him eating one:

"This candy tastes awful."

Yes, he thought it was a bag of sweets.  So, the next morning I didn't give one to him.  He survived that, and I stayed calm knowing very well that there were many more medication foul-ups when he was living with my mother.  Some days he took twice and others not at all, and she would vary which meds to take for herself, too.  One of the basic services we (my sister and I) felt most necessary for them in the old age home was that they receive their meds.  The deal is that the "home" does the ordering and gives each the correct medicine and dosage at the right time.

Now, have you found what I consider very peculiar about the pill box?  Look carefully at the labels.  Nu...?

Jerusalem Bus Revolution

Nu?  Revolution it is, isn't it?  No more buses on most of Jerusalem's Rechov Yaffo, Jaffa Street.  Now they go behind the Jerusalem Municipality, then on Rechov Neviim, then up to Agrippas then .....

... to the bus station.  Yes, you can still find buses on that end of Rechov Yaffo.

For old-timers like me, it's funny, because we remember the hysteria when buses, cars, trucks, taxis etc were banned from Ben Yehuda Street.  This new change will make life very difficult for those who have problems walking, because there are long distances from stop to stop and no stops near the Zion Square part of downtown.  No doubt that it will just make more and more people shop in the malls and large shopping areas in other parts of Jerusalem.

... And I Walked...

Walking is the least expensive and probably the most convenient way of exercising. 

Yesterday I did an early shift at Yafiz and then went to Jerusalem.  I caught a bus at Sha'ar Binyamin, got off at the Shmuel Hanavi/Ramat Eshkol stop and walked to town.  It's really not far, no different from walking from the Central Bus Station, maybe a mile or even less.  If anyone has an accurate read on it, please let me know.

I was exhausted, so I popped over to HaGov and rested while the boss and workers got it ready to open for the night.  Then, since none of my kids were available to have dinner with me, I began walking to Matan.  There was another of our monthly Bible classes as part of Al HaPerek.  On the way I stopped off at the "Cup of Joe's" on the corner of Jabotinsky.  I ordered a tuna bagel sandwich.  Yes, I know that all that bread/carbohydrates isn't good for my weight, but the price was relatively good, and I had been walking...  I took my time and read while I ate, which one can do when dining alone.  Then I continued walking to Matan, which is a nice walk, much more than a mile or a couple of kilometers.

Once I got there, I sat in the Beit Medrash, library with a couple of friends and we prepared for the class/lecture.  Shani Taragin gave a fantastic summary plus of the first eight chapters in Shoftim, Judges.  It took me a few minutes to get used to her rapid-fire delivery.  What Shani said in an hour would have taken anyone else at least an hour and a half.  The shiur (class) was in Hebrew.  Previously I had only heard her in English.  I really enjoyed it.  Those who weren't there really missed a fantastic experience.

Afterwards I rushed to catch the #18 to the bus station.  Due to all the mess and reported delays I decided to wait on Sderot Eshkol (Blvd.) instead of braving the winding new route via behind the Jerusalem Municipality Complex, Neviim (Prophets) Street, Agrippas etc.  which easily doubles the trip.  So I got off someplace on Neviim, walked to Strauss and pretty much reversed my earlier route.  I ended up with over a half hour to wait for the 10:30pm bus home.  If I had been in a rush, I could have taken a bus on Strauss, but I knew I had time and felt like walking. And of course once I got to Shiloh, I had to walk all the way up the hill, another almost kilometer home.

ps I hope I burned all the bagel calories plus!

HH's Jack Saved The Day

Apparently Frume Sarah wasn't well enough to host this week's Havel Havelim, and Jack graciously hosted instead.  A weekly blog carnival doesn't offer too much posting flexibility.  If you're a couple of days late, you end up too close to the next one.

Check in and read all the posts Jack included.  Thanks Jack

Photobucket Woes

On the whole, I'm very pleased with photobucket as a free online photo-storing/sharing etc service.  But recently it sometimes, like this morning, keeps on fouling up the "big e," explorer, and I have to restart and then re-sign into everything all over again, a major annoying time-waster.

I can't use picasa anymore, since they demand money, claiming that I've blogged/stored/shared their maximum for the free deal.  I used to use flickr, but stopped for the same reason.  They had a ridiculously low maximum, and I haven't returned.

I understand that there are many more companies to try.  If I spend, it must be for one that has great deals for printing photobooks.  The time has probably come to start with those books instead of printing photos and then putting them in albums.  I'm sure my parents would enjoy cute albums rather than the photos.

Please send me (via comments) your recommendations, especially those which ship internationally for very reasonable fees, or even free.  My parents are in AZ, USA, and we're here in Israel.  I have absolutely no idea how these things  work, but since I've learned to blog, before most, I guess I can learn almost anything.

Thanks!!

Where Was Everybody? Maybe I Got the Time Wrong...

We had a guest for Shabbat, another stranger we had never met before.  It eneded up being a nice Shabbat; I hope she agrees.

Our regional council provides a free bus to Jerusalem about an hour after Shabbat is over.  That seemed to be the best way for our guest to travel from Shiloh.  So I walked her down the hill.  I've done this before and I always find the bus stop full.  This time it was totally empty.  No sign of anybody.  In our weekly newsletter it was written that the time had changed from 6:30pm to 7pm.  Where was everyone.  I was starting to panic.  OK, there is an Egged bus a bit later, but we had walked the more than half kilometer, at least a quarter of the mile down.  Did she want to walk up and then down again?

Suddenly, she called to me:

"Look!"

I turned around and saw a couple a dozen people, men, women and children trudging down the hill to the bus stop.  There were cars letting people off and suddenly there were people coming from where I had just been facing.

Yes, I guess we were early.  Better than late!

Maybe She Looked Better in Person. Michelle Obama is No Jackie Kennedy

A friend of mine was very upset with the outfit she got for one of her kid's weddings.

"The fabric was too shiny, so the pictures of me look awful."

That's what I though of when I saw that picture of Michelle Obama in her highly praised red dress.

Photographed, she looks monstrous.  I don't understand all the praise.  So maybe she looked better in person.  I don't think it's  a fabric that photographs well, especially with all the flounce and details.  She looks like a red and black Jackson Pollock canvas on which extra paint spilled.

There are other fabrics which can be problematic.  I once ran into a photographer friend who was in a panic.  Pictures from a wedding he had just photographed were shocking. The mother of the bride or groom wore an outfit from a fabric that became sheer when photographed with a flash.  You could see more than she would ever want to show.

Jackie Kennedy knew how to choose elegant clothes that photographed well.  What a difference...

Housework Routine Getting Harder

Routine is the keyword here.  I have no routine.  Each week I'll probably work on different days, different shifts.  The good news about this is the flexibility.  I no longer have to miss weddings etc because of work.  Teachers may have "long vacations," but we can't take them at our convenienc.  I found that very difficult at times.  When I took the job at Yafiz, because its a large store with many workers, I was told that I could have a different work schedule each week.  That is as long as it suits the store's needs.

The difficulty is that I no longer have a housework schedule.  I can't always cook the same day and time for Shabbat.  I can't count on doing laundry the same days of the week and know when I'll be home.  There will even be weeks when I have to work on a Friday.  I don't know how I'll manage, but I'll have to.  I'll pretend that I'm watching my son in a football final. 

And work isn't the only thing that varies from week to week.  We're invited to various events, and we have kids and grandkids and friends etc.  So I can get pretty busy and suddenly discover, like this week, that I should have done a few washes.  I'm low on some clothes etc.  We also have too much food leftover from this last week.  Some of that can be eaten today or "recycled."

Most important, I ought to admit to you that I've always hated housework.  I'm just not much of a baleboosteh.  Cooking's OK, creative, but the cleaning part is a drag.

I Can't Eat "Just One."

I was really good this year about TU B'Shvat fruit.  I really tried hard to avoid it.  I love all those dried fruit and nuts.  It doesn't matter that most really have nothing to do with TU b"Shvat.  Once I start eating them I can't stop.

Yesterday, my husband gave me a few dates from the staff party.  They filled me up and were so good, but that was it.  I didn't go to the party, nor did I have access to the serving dishes.

But then he brought home the "holiday gift," a glass jar filled with all sorts of dried fruit, nuts and sugared dried fruit, including that sugary sharp ginger.  I've already eaten much too much and I want more.  I shouldn't be hungry.  I had enough dinner and even had some pecans for dessert.

I didn't even take a walk today...  ....tomorrow...