the faded pink headscarf.

this has nothing to do with a faded pink headscarf. it's just something i couldn't write in my justly-fresh post because it didn't match. just like my dark yellow tanktop doesn't match my faded pink headscarf.

so i'm on the lower level of my bar all night tonight, no window to the outside world. and when i surface for air, at 3am, i'm met with a nasty image: fat blobs of rain, falling fast and furiously. it's the first real downpour of the winter. i look down at my 20 dollar "uggs." i look back at the rain. i slump. it'll only be a 10 minute walk home, but i might as well just throw myself in a puddle now.

i suit up, wrap my head in my scarf and venture out, wincing in anticipation.... and... it's actually not so bad. i covered my neck decently, and i'm pretty warm in my coat. i perk up a bit.

a bit too soon.

i quickly discover that the streets are rivers, and not just of water. it's rudge - rain/sludge. half-frozen, half gushing rivers of rudge. i live in a goddam desert, what the hell is this? but, i've walked about 100 feet and my tootsies are still dry in their fuzzy shoes, so i carry on with a little bit of hope.

which is quickly dashed.

trudging up a hill, i start to feel the familiar feel of autumn in toronto - a slight chill under my feet, followed by water seeping into my favourite plaid shoes with the torn sole because i'm too stubborn to admit that it's november and i shouldn't be wearing my favourite plaid shoes anymore. it starts in my big toes; i thank the oddly symmetrical holes in my boots. i think, probably outloud at that time of the morning, "this is alright. i can handle the big toes." but DUH, it doesn't stop there! how could i have fooled myself into thinking that it would?! i can feel the rudge creeping around my heel now, and it soon touches my arches - and just like that! my boots are swimming pools. i'm mad.

icy and squishy, it seems like my tired feet are slowly sinking into the road as i lose the feeling of wearing boots at all. i could've sworn i was walking through the rudge in my stocking feet. i'm a grumpy, huddled, shivering pile of grrrrrr and it seems like an eternity will pass before i make it home.

then this funny thing happened, when the stone in the road looked familiar or something, and then BAM! for a glorious instant - it's late october and i'm running through the rain in the alleyway between Gladstone and Dufferin on my way to the subway to catch a train to Bathurst where i'll go to work at the Listening Centre behind Honest Ed's and i'm in my rain boots with the yellow horses and maybe after work i'll go meet Alex for a coffee at Moonbean or maybe i'll jam with Ryan or maybe Hannah will be free for dinner at Nazareth -

and honestly, i was really happy for just a second, being out in the rain, no feeling in my toes.

eeek... (pull collar)...

so i know it's been a billion years since i posted - but i did that thing where you avoid something cause it's a huge task and then it gets bigger so you avoid it more and then it gets bigger so you feel nervous and a bit guilty every time you glance at your internet shortcut called "BlogHome" and then it grows to a task so daunting, so massive, that the anxiety when you just open the computer forces you into such a frantic seizure of "StumbleUpon"-ing that you can't remember why you sat down with the blasted machine in the first place.

yeah, that thing.

so i apologize to my tens of fans; it hath been a long while since addressing thee...s. (what's plural of thee, William?)

but don't get too excited, because this is just going to be a little update. and then i'll immediately write a new post altogether, because i have a different thought. (i'd put them both together but this one is slightly funny and the next one will be slightly poetic and i just can't mix and match like that. it's like wearing my dark yellow tank top with my faded pink headscarf. it's just... no.

dark yellow tank top material:
- i work at a bar now, called Mike's Place, started by a torontonian guy. new location in jerusalem, opened a few months ago, been there since the bottle-smashing. became the head server pretty soon which turned into a sort of low level management position which i don't really want because it makes it harder to quit which i eventually will do because i'm just not into smoking inside (yes i'm a spoiled canadian) and staying up til 5a.m to serve loud americans who came to watch football and who get so excited - "JETS JETS JETS!!!!!" - that they forget to tip on the way past their vomit and out the door. but i do get to make the schedule which is alright albeit time-consuming, and the people are awesome. 2nd-best friends i've made here, for sure. (elisa = #1.)

- i have a cat. he seduced me from the street and now he lives in my house with Leon the Dog. Leon doesn't mind really, even though Bulgar's favourite toy is Leon's tail. yes, the cat is named after a wheat product. can't explain how it happened.

- i'm in the throes of passionately writing the body of work known as my file, which is my music therapy thesis-y thing about my work at Sick Kids, for submission to the canadian professional music therapy association so i can become an accredited music therapy rock star in canada. applicable for when i come back. although, wouldn't hurt looking for music therapy jobs here, with those little letters beside my name that no one will understand - but there's a chance they'll be impressed when they ask for clarification.

- mmmmm, that's pretty much everything. OH! i went to cairo for a few days, and met up with Brother Dan who was there on business. if you're reading this blog, you might've already seen some photos on facebook. crazy times, ya'alla. (<--- "wow")

- i made an awesome vegan pecan fudge pie.

- mmmmm, now that's pretty much everything. i'm sure more will pop up soon.

most of you are covered in snow, from the head to the toe. which brings me to the pink headscarf material... which of course is in the next post, because otherwise it would be like putting thai peanut sauce AND sweet chili sauce in your stir-fry... and you can all probably guess how i'd feel about that.

When you wanna get some, what do you do? (Do "The Bird!")

i know it's been a while... (some sources say two weeks?)... but i've been a bit under the weather, and my internet hasn't been working cause breaker #17 got broke and nothing in our living room has power. so to get net, i go sit outside with my computer for, maximum, as long as it takes to run out of battery (about an hour) and steal signal from my neighbours. sometimes it's really hot and i can't sit out there very long, or sometimes the stone really hurts my butt and i can't sit out there very long, or sometimes it's chilly and i can't sit out there very long. so, apologies to the faithful followers who've been getting on my case about the recent absenteeism (laura and jess).

so as i said, i've been kinda blah and not too much has been going on... i wrote about the activism festival i think... there was an awesome art/photo/media/video hoo-hah in my neighbourhood and i saw some great bands play - including an awesome israeli/gypsy band called Oy Division, which was funny to nobody but me. Eyal has been busy at school - he's showing his latest work this very second - two enormous panoramas of Mamilla, the disgusting mall that was built over an old neighbourhood right next to the Old City (i think i've even ranted about this place before?). he explored some cool artistic/technical stuff, and also commented on the politics of the mall/neighbourhood. now he's going to try to sell the photos to some egomaniac over in Mamilla because there's no room for these in our apartment, or really any abode we are likely to inhabit over the next few years.

so, boring stuff out of the way. the REAL juice comes from a seemingly normal day on Chulda Haneviah St, when i saw a baby bird hopping about close to our front door that looked curiously unlike the pigeons that poop all over our front steps. this little guy couldn't fly yet, but still appears capable of consuming me. he hopped away and i went inside. but LATER, i went out with Leon to the courtyard close-by to engage in the aforementioned activity known as wireless theft, and came across one of the neighbourhood garbage cats (as i have affectionately titled them) hovering over this poor creature of the air! he was on his back and there was a stick in his eye and i didn't know what to do to help. so i phoned around frantically until i found someone to come pick him up, because this clearly was a bird of importance. so leon and i bird-sat for a few hours - i skyped with Jess and leon chased away cats who came close to the bird. one cat even spooked Cliff (i thought he looked like a Cliff) off his back and onto his feet, and he cuddled into a bush until what's-her-face came with a cat carrier to take him away. it turns out that he's a very endangered species of Kestrel, called the Lesser Kestrel (or Baz Adom in hebrew), and prospects are very dim for this bird of prey. and i saved him!! i was sad to see Cliff go, but then what's-her-face told me that i'd have to feed him mice if i wanted to keep him, so i gave the responsibility to the Jerusalem Zoo.

isn't he beautiful!?!??!!?!!??!

creep me, crawl me.

the insects that have inside my house/bedroom/bathroom/kitchen have been, until this point, as follows:

1. slugs, of all sizes
2. an incredibly long worm-like thing. thought it was a snake at first.
3. smaller green worms. those are actually kind of cute.
4. cockroaches. only 2, but still.
5. two spiders the size of my effin palm. one ambled in while i was in the shower. i kept my cool, kinda - if you can believe it.

photo happy

so for those of you who read my last post... i'm feeling more hopeful, mainly because of this: ACTIVISM FESTIVAL!!!
i'm volunteering there with a group called Bikurim, "an Israeli NGO that aims to strengthen the foundations of a pluralistic society in Israel through the use of socially aware children's literature." it's great, the book they are currently aiming to distribute is a lovely story with beuatiful art and i'm proud to peddle it. i love Micka, the one woman i met so far, and i'm sure it can only get better as i meet more people with the project. she's the one i mentioned in my last post... and it was successful. a kinda-friend!

(i realize now that i failed to mention Elisa, a nifty energetic lady with whom i've been spending a ton of time with since i got here. she's from Buffalo, has her degree in baking, likes my cooking, and we are each other's only friend here that we didn't meet through our men. she's been here a while, since doing birthright in august and staying to make Aliyah and hang out for a bit with her taglit-acquired boyfriend. we made tiramisu yesterday. damn, those things take a bitchin' long time to make!)

so i'm going to be at the festival all weekend... and housesitting this week at a friend's gorgeous place in the near-by German colony. it's Shavuot this week, a holiday where you eat dairy and drink wine, so we'll have a garden gathering while we're at this beautiful house. maybe i'll make a cheesefake. pumpkin, or chocolate-peanut butter? oh DAMMIT i need soft tofu and you can't get that anywhere here. :( well, i'm going to plant-based-cheese-making workshop tonight at Ginger, the vegetarian community center, so maybe i'll learn of something i can use. (ohhhhh how i used to devour cheese blintzes. if i could make a "cheese" blintz, i will worship at this workshopper's feet.)

oh here's pictures of our "garden" of tea mints and other herbs. and neighbours. :)

and old pics of our Purim brunch with friends. remember you dress up for Purim? :) we ate lunch then went on an avdenture to find floods from the rainstorms we'd been having, but just ended up goofing off in the desert mountains somewhere on the way to the dead sea. also,
there was a flood at his place so there are some ugly pictures of a wet ceiling.

xo


p.s i started reading the Foer, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." it's awesome. :)

thank goodness i'm literate

so i've been missing home hardcore lately. the past week and half or so have been particularly rough. i think it's faire (if you're Medieval, or if you're literate like i've claimed to be, fair) to say that i suppressed everything when i got here. i was kind of emotionally flat. i didn't realize it at the time, but i'm pretty sure this is an accurate description. i was a bit stunned, and thus took everything in really easily. i didn't realize that i wasn't really taking things in though... i was just letting them slide around me, like slippery fish in a barrel. (i'm reading Memoirs of a Geisha, so forgive the Eastern poetics.) and i think because i wasn't really taking it in, i wasn't fully grasping the enormity of my situation here.
and now i do.
and i'm kinda panicking, just a little. i know, it's against the number one rule if i'm going to be an intergalactic space traveler! but here i am!

i miss my friends. a lot. yes, i'm talking to YOU. i miss people understanding me. i don't know if you've ever had to make friends as an adult, but it's not fun. in fact, it's exhausting. and i'm too old for this crap. where's my camp crew, with whom i can be totally emo and totally ridiculous all in the span of 4.7 seconds? where are my jammin buddies that fulfil my creative and sonourous needs, no matter the hour? where are those special few, that don't even need to hear my voice when i call, and they're at my house in a jiffy making tea/cookies/music because they heard, in my silence, that i needed it? where's my mom? where are YOU??

i applied for a job last week. the position requires bilingualism, and unfortunately that second language is Hebrew, not my second language of Pig Latin (thanks for that, Mom). it seemed like a pretty cool job so i sent in a resume and a kick-ass cover letter, hoping to attract their attention. to my dismay, i attracted their attention. i got called for an interview. and i got called for a second interview, at which i needed to read two pages of hebrew. and on our way home, driving south from haifa the night before my interview, i got so overwhelmed that i wished i was applying for a job in electrical engineering or as a harvard math professor or a bee farmer or ANYTHING - as long as it was in English, because anything at all could've been easier to fake than knowing how to speak hebrew. and then i just kinda wigged out, shed a few buckets, and got into bed and read "Time Traveler's Wife" for the next two hours until i couldn't focus my eyes anymore. the thing is, i've read time traveler's wife, maybe 5 or 6 times. and i love it. but reading it was not because i love it... it became my home, my friends, what felt familiar to me.

To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it for a second time is to meet an old one. ~Chinese Saying

books are my friends right now. Memoirs of a Geisha = case in point. read that one a few times too. and just finished it for the fewtimes+1th time. gonna try and read a new book, then transition to a new friend. maybe one will come of Micka, the woman who volunteers with the publishing place. (write about that after... i'm meeting her tomorrow). we'll see - if she becomes a friend, and if i read White Oleander (again) or go onto Nick Hornby, or my first Jonathan Safran Foer. ("first??" i know - tragic, right?) I'm still in the middle of When You Are Engulfed in Flames, but you can go in and out of that one, it being essays and all.

ok. i feel better now. :)

and p.s, i kinda got offered that job. so i'm proud of myself, in the end, that at least i did something totally scary, and learned something from it too. i didn't take the job cause i would've had to start work at 630am some mornings... and i didn't even need to work backwards to when i'd have to wake up to blurt YAH RIGHT at them (in my head).

blogsnack

so i got back from Sinai, Egypt two days ago and have a pretty good framework saved in my draft blogs, so it's coming. just wanted to post this little snack of random tidbits. ready?

• Bloomie said "goodnight." melllllllllt much.
• i went to the dome of the rock maybe a month ago and never blogged about it, which is kinda weird cause it's a pretty big deal. plus we had to stand in line behind these soupy-eyed zionist christians who kept trying to tell us what a "happy peoples" the jews are and how generous we are to "allow" land to people other than other jews. hrm.
• i was sitting in a place called Mamilla yesterday, which is kinda like an outdoor Yorkdale. situated right beside the entrance into the jewish quarter of the old city, it's kind of an abominable place, filled with suggestive advertising and rich americans. if carrie bradshaw were jewish, this is where you'd find all the carrie bradshaw's of the world. this description of Mamilla is rather irrelevant. the point is that while Eyal was in the bathroom, i was sitting on the ground infront of Renaur Men, taking photos of kids playing on these odd bronze duck sculptures, and a journalist approached me to buy my photos for her newspaper. so i'm gonna be in the paper. probably the gossip page, but i never had lofty goals for my photography career, so i'm happy with it.
• i start up at ulpan again on wednesday, and i'm kinda ambivalent about it. it's good to learn, and it's not as though i'm doing elaborate essays that eat up all my time, but i don't like getting up at 730. that's pretty much my whole gripe. unless i'm waking up to the beautiful Gulf of Aqaba and cold guava juice, then it's 6 for me. (sigh.... Sinai...)
• half an hour ago, i found a slug on my soap bottle in the shower.
• i met Eyal's aunt, Ofra, yesterday. she's a self-proclaimed "cat lady, but not the crazy kind. [She's as] regular as anyone else!" this is slightly untrue. she's actually a pretty phenomenal lady. honest, kind face, ballsy, effervescent and stunning, particularly considering she's almost 70. her daughter is Tamara, the cousin of Eyal's whom i think i mentioned in a previous blog. they appear to be the people of the family with whom i will connect the most intensely. Eyal really connects with them, so i guess my comfort with them makes sense.
• today i got an amazing email from Dawna Coleman/Davis that made me smile so much that it hurt. i boasted to a few people about how i have one of the wisest, most interesting people on the planet as my friend. also really loved my chat with Sally. i miss you Sally.
• i'm tired.

"in my cloud of hot dry desert bliss, i can inaccurately say that i hate everything but Sinai."

- me, day after returning from Sinai, after sleeping under a damp blanket

with cold feet and waking to ringing cellphones

and screaming neighbours

so here was the general thing, during the week around and during Passover. i wrote this whole thing out in lovely prose, but it disappeared into cyberland before i could click the good ol' "publish" button so now the prose is gone forever, and here in its stead is its less verbose cousin: the point-form.

- to Haifa (top left yellow district, city on the south-west side of the bay) friday night!!

- slept out sunday night in the trees on this cliff thing, beautiful view of the city, became enveloped in fog the next morning - super nice.

- had Pesach at Eyal's G-ma's place: a really nice night, made yummy foods to bring, and Eyal's G-ma made little sweaters for Bloomie and Yismo - AAAAAAAADorable

- that very night, we set out around 1030 and picked up friends Yoav and Sasha in tel aviv, then drove practically straight through the night, besides an hour nap in a parking lot somewhere along the way. the car was stuffed to the gills, under my feet and in my arm pits. you'd think we were running from the government.

- got to Eilat around 7 am (j'slem is right above the dead sea there, and then Eilat is riiiiight at the bottom), we walked across the border into Egypt, took a taxi to our beach, called Al Mahash. the place is run by Chamdan and his brother, really nice Bedouin guys whom Eyal and his family have known for years because they've always come to this beach for vacation time.
- when we got there, we put down our bags, ate a crapton of food, and then passed out right there where we ate. it was pretty much like this for the next five days. although some extra activities included: morning swim (felt very brave since the water is very chilly at 630am), snorkel, water frisbee, guitar jam one night, and getting a delightful surprise visit from Marion Janet, the sister of a very old friend from Canada who happened to be staying on the same beach as me. go figure!!!
- the place (and i'll post pictures) consists of:

• a couple of half-walled structures (or some with just a roof) made of bamboo or straw or something, and huts made of the same stuff
• the main area (which was also where they made food - although they served it anywhere) has rugs covering the sand, pillows to sit on (which looked like lions had been told there were antelope inside but we slept on them anyway), and short tables
• the huts were rugs covering the sand, and two foam matresses. we brought a net for the nighttime mossies. note: mosquitos were the only thing not entirely pleasant about this trip
• oh, and we were situated right at the gorgeous waters along the Gulf of Aqaba (which made me think of Aladdin the whole time). you could saudi arabia across the water because we were at a narrow point in the gulf. neat.

so ok, we did that for five days and then had to go back....
- oops, didn't know my visa was only for one entry into the country. hehe. no worries, got it sorted out quickly.
- got a flat tire on the way home, and i timed how long it took between stopping and getting on the road again, cause i thought that's what David Sedaris would do. only 23 minutes and 19 seconds. go team.
- i was very shocked when i got back to jerusalem and there wasn't any water and everything was made of stone and everywhere there were (are) people in lots of clothing, not at all like the beach. and i felt like what i wrote at the top of this post.

starting Pesach break...

life is spinning pretty beautifully here...

we're on break from ulpan for two weeks because of Passover. so my first day off was on wednesday and was spent mostly at Amanda's...

as a birthday present with her hubby Chanan (her birthday was on wednesday), i slept over the night before and got up with kids so she could sleep until whenever she wanted. Chanan gave her little treats throughout the morning then made her brunch (french toast and fresh carrot/apple/ginger juice!), and i left around 2 - after which they went for a nice mountain drive and played in a river while the kids slept in the car. pretty awesome. :) and that night i went back to amanda's so we could bring and have cake. :) then eyal and i went to a 'school's out!/pesach' party at our friend Yoav's place.

DAY 2/thursday:

i spent some time at amanda's again, came home, fell asleep for a few hours, and was woken to the sweet whisperings of 'let's go on an adventure.'

OK!

so eyal and i ended up at the dead sea around 11pm with snacks and a blanket... we (let's be honest here - he) built a fire, and we (this 'we' is acurate) ate baguette and hummus and baba ganoush and cucumbers, then decided just to crash there. so we slept under the stars huddled under a big wooly shawl, woke a bunch of times to stare at the expanse of stars around me, got up around 530, and watched the sun rise over the sea while sitting in a hot spring pool up the way from the seashore. amazing. i got out when it was too hot to endure the sun AND the pool, then napped in the sun. amazing. i woke to find eyal grinning and covered with dead sea mud, looking like quite the creature. he washed off and i took another sit in the pool, then we packed up and drove toward home around 9.

when we stopped to refuel (the car and ourselves) at a gas station/cafe, there was a bus travelling south that had stopped for the same reason as us. and this guy walked from the cafe onto the parking lot and dropped his empty drink bottle on the ground, with the cafe ten feet behind him and a garbage can ten feet in front of him. so, for those of you who knew me well enough, you can only imagine how fuming i became. littering is something that makes NO SENSE to me. it's dirty, disrespectful, wasteful (if the thing is recyclable), and passive. i have no patience for it, so don't ever do it when you're around me. (or at all, really.) there are appropriate receptacles in most civilized areas. and if not, i'm the kind of person who will walk around with garbage and recycling in my bag/pocket/hand for hours/miles/days until finding such an appropriate receptacle. also, admittedly, i will take recyclable items out of the trash (as long as it looks decently non-diseased) and redeposit into - ba ching - an appropriate receptacle. so this guy clearly does none of these things. he stopped to smoke a cigarette before getting on the bus, and as he finished, i took his bottle over and gave it to him. unfortunately, i couldn't sweet talk him and help him to see his error in the friendliest way possible, cause i don't speak hebrew sweet-talk. also unfortunately, he was an a--hole. (i think some adults read this blog...) so i just smiled, offered him the bottle, and pointed to the garbage can. he cursed loudly in hebrew, waving me away, so i put the bottle in the bus on a ledge beside the stairs (it's like a greyhound bus) and started to walk away. the guy - you won't even believe this - started shouting and angrily kicked the bottle out of the bus, perhaps even at me. it didn't quite make it out of the bus, but landed loudly on one of the stairs, so he cursed again and kicked the bottle practically right at me. so i smiled at him (really tried not to laugh - what, are you FOUR or something?) and picked up the bottle and took it back to my picnic spot to put in our garbage bag. it was infuriating and hilarious. eyal said that he's the stereotypical immature macho piggish israeli man. some just turn out that way, i guess. i can understand that; we have that product in American-flavour too.

so now... we're up north in Haifa, at Eyal's dad's place. last night we slept outside again, this time in a little wooded area nicknamed 'the balcony' because it's very high up and looks over a valley and some the city. really beautiful. super windy last night, and today a huge cloud passed right into our area and made everything really eerie. very cool. and tonight is the seder at Savta's house (hebrew for grandmother - her name is Sarah), and ten driving down to Eilat to leave our car in a parking lot and walk across the border into Egypt. we're going to spend 5 days on a beach in Sinai, a favourite vacation spot for Israelis. apparently though, the beach we're going to is great because "there aren't a lot of israelis there." haha.

so updates on seder and Sinai in a week or so.

Chag sameach to all you out there who knows what that means!!

xo

in-between heavy stuff.

so i know i promised more decadent divulgings, like visiting Eyal's family and the insanity of Jerusalem and Israeli politics, but i just posted a juicy post so this is an inbetweeny light and fluffy cupcake, with apple sauce instead of oil.

the landlord won't do anything about the mold in the apartment, nor do we have any solutions for making it less damp in here. i've come to systematically hanging random piles of clothing outside on our line (can you do something systematically to something random?), just so that each piece of clothing can dry out every so often. it's kinda like doing the dishes even though you know you'll be eating off them again soon. plus my mom told me that sun kills mold so hopefully it'll help beyond just keeping things dry. ugh. how gross is mold? ugh.

i'm looking for a job, which in englishified hebrew is this: ani mechapesset avoda. as soon as my resume template lets me have more than 2 previous jobs (we've had a fight about it, he hasn't budged yet but i'll wear him down), i'll have a resume ready to submit to two interesting places, and some other places too. the interesting places are: BCVS, a residential treatment centre for Orthodox women 16-20 with an eating disorder, and this other place that i can't think of the name right now, but it's a centre for kids with special needs. day programs, respite, cool rec facilities and such. or maybe a vegetarian soup place.

as you can see from my brilliant hebrew above, ulpan is going well. i can say a variety of things, some of which are useful; i can use a variety of verbs in a mix of tenses, some of which only if i'm talking to male-identified person. i can say, for some reason, "No way!" and "There's no point" and "You and me, we will change the world." i've found myself sitting between Barrie, a guy in his early 50's i guess who is smiley and jokey and supportive of the Hebrew struggle and non-obnoxious like many other people in the class, and Jeremiah, a guy about my age with no neck and a mediumly-fierce Zionist attitude but he knows i'm against that so he keeps quiet about it. we hung out the park the other day and gossiped about the annoying people in our class, mainly this one British guy in his 30's named Pesach who is constantly seeking attention in a slightly passive way and who's English name is- no joke- Paul Simon. he says he's looking for a wife. i say GOOD LUCK BUDDY.

in vague emotional news, today i'm having a very hard time being here when i know one of my best friend's in the universe is going through a really tough time. it's painful. really really painful.

Randoms:

• I'm obsessed with this collection of blogs. Don't even go. Your friends will never see you again.
• My favourite line from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard): "Hamlet, in love with the old man's daughter, the old man thinks."
• I just started reading Bernice Chu's blog and i really like it!
• I made an awesome walnut "cream" sauce for pasta the other night. *gurgle* yum.
• This is awesome: http://www.orthodykes.org/
• For some reason I decided to use capital letters where appropriate in this section.
• Keep an eye out for my soon-to-come picasa album. :)
  

today i miss: dad, the Shanly house and all its inhabitants.
***Just in case this little section isn't clear, you are ALL in my heart at ALL times... but of course, sometimes people stick out one day, for one reason or another. these are those people.***

my toast is ready. gotta go.
xo

Israel's Hallowe'en

so i've been avoiding posting this entry only because i want to include links to pictures, but i haven't been able to figure out to get photos off my cell phone yet. i still haven't figured it out, but it's just time to post this already.

so as promised, the Purim extravaganza.

it's actually nothing like hallowe'en. people do dress up, but not to scare away evil demons. although, even satan's henchmen would have at least paused on their journey of ill-will to cock an eyebrow at the group of religious guys dressed as a marching band, full out gold lamé pants and hats and jackets, and knee socks and shiny shoes and leather chin straps with buttons I KID YOU NOT. it was amazing. and i saw these guys in one of the most religious neighbourhoods in jerusalem. me'ah she'arim ("one hundred gates"), it's right around the corner from where i live. it's a ghetto there... so grey, so dirty, very poor, built very exclusively upon generations of a few families, they don't really integrate with the rest of israel... there are signs instructing people to dress modestly and every shabbat there are protests against cars, with police and everything. it's quite the place. anyway, this is where i saw the marching band. so people let loose on Purim. (oh Purim, is a 3-day holiday celebrating the deliverance of the Jews from planned mass extermination by Haman, a high-ranking political minister of the Persian Empire, a really long time ago. like 6th century BCE.) it's mitzvot (a mitvah is like a good deed - 1 mitzvah, 2 or more mitzvot) to leave food out for people who live on the street, save money to give to less fortunate people, and prepare treat parcels for your friends. also, it's advised that you drink hard liquor, and public drunkenness is actually celebrated and seen as a display of joy during the holiday season. be boisterous, all! it's really awesome.

we stayed home and watched Weeds.

we're really obsessed. it's bad.

But i did participate a little bit! the week before, I made hamentaschen for treat baskets with Amanda at her place. I seriously hadn't eaten or even looked at those since I ate a strawberry one in preschool at Temple Har Zion with my cousin Ilana. How I remember that is completely unknown. They turned out awesome - I was very impressed with myself, especially since the fate of the dough was a bit unclear when it was first made. Amanda and I made a filling of apples, dates and some kind of nut... i forget which. maybe brazil? anyway, it was delicious. Eyal said it didn't taste anything like hamentaschen he'd ever had before, but he'd never had a homemade one, so i'll take it as a compliment that it doesn't taste store-bought. plus, i stacked them in a jew-friendly shape. [photo to come.] another proud moment for me. 'cause i like puzzles.

oh and also, we went to Beit Zayit again for brunch, Purim-themed (so Eyal and i just dressed up in whatever, some silly stuff), then went chasing floods in the desert but didn't really find any. but we took a bunch of pics... the first ones are Eran's ceiling caving in (you see all his drums under his homemade porch a little later in the set), then there's general craziness (including rocking out on air guitar to Queen - you will probably spot these), and visiting some awesome spots looking out into the abyss. Present are: Eran (short hair, big smile, usually wearing my poncho), Eli (longer hair, on Eyal's shoulders a lot), Eyal (looking geeky in the neon checked shirt), Leon (furry, tail, cute) and me (the girl of the bunch).

so that's it for that.

today i miss: Sally, Broo, mom, Lon

xo

p.s i made an awesome walnut "cream" sauce a few days ago. with garlic and fresh cherry tomatoes... *gurgle* it was "ta'im"! (which means tasty.)

rant

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhgggghhh i procraaaaaastinated and now there's toooo muuuuuch.

oy, i just let the cursor flash for like a minute before putting it work again. can't make brain work. but it wakes up quickly. so here i go.

i've been wanting to rant briefly about a variety of things, so lemme just release some babble on you and the i'll write some real posts later.

• my apartment is damp and i don't like it. clothes feel like i took them out of the dryer just five minutes too soon, my bed and slippers are cold and damp to get into, and bathroom towels won't dry without assistance from the clothesline outside. i found mould/mold (which one is British, which one American?) on some jeans i haven't worn in a while. i can do lots of gross things but mould/mold is NOT one of them. i don't know how to reconnect with my jeans yet.
• i got sick again and i think it's because my home is soggy. at least i didn't get the eye infections Eyal had. yuck.
• health food here is generally more expensive than at home, but the vegetables and fruits here are divine, way cheaper (even if organic!), and mostly local. WHO KNOWS HOW HAPPY I AM THAT I CAN GET LOCAL BANANAS AND AVOCADOS, RAISE YOUR HAND!
• i complain about my ulpan (hebrew school) teachers because they are training to speak monkey hebrew and not teaching us much vocabulary, but i'm complaining less lately. they're teaching us mostly structure, and using some boring verbs and very little other vocab, but Eyal is making me label everything in the house so i'm learning at home too. i think we might start a group here for people who want a social space in which to learn vocab, instead of the alternative, which is becoming very intimate with a hebrew-engish dictionary. i want to do units like we did learning french or spanish - a school unit, a shopping unit, an "all about me" unit - with relevant vocabulary, like 'to dance,' sister, 'i don't need a plastic bag', protractor, and fly-fishing. learning how to count above five might also be helpful. but recently (like this past week), i've actually begun to be excited about ulpan, and i find i know more thank i think i do. still hesitant to use it with eyal's friends, cause i kinda feel like i'm acting, but they always respond really positively when i use it so i should get over myself. :)

Coming soon: our trip to tel aviv/living in this insane city, the first weekend hanging out with Eyal's family up north, & Purim (it will a doozy).

Today, I especially miss, for various reasons: Lindsay Rothmar, the Montreal house, and Alex Duffy.

xoxox

BANANA BREAD

holy smokes.

so as i mentioned, we were at a friend's place for brunch 'n' good times, and there were these delicious-looking cakes that were in no way even close to resembling vegan but definitely resembled deliciousness, so needless to say, i've been yankering (is my english getting worse?) for cake since then. SO i got home and decided i was going to use the oven for the first time and make banana bread, to discover:

1. we have no measuring cups
2. we have no measuring spoons
3. the bloody oven is so old that it doesn't actually have numbers on it. (did people not used to bake things at specific temperatures?)

so i pulled up my socks and dug in to the flour jar with my hand and Vegan-A-Go-Go'd (shout out to Sarah Kramer - who will never read this), and created.... a masterpiece.



yes, i've already eaten a quarter of it. you would too if you could taste this.

shabbas in beit zayit

so it's coming to the end of the weekend... yes, the weekend here is friday and saturday. it's weird. i like my lazy sundays, but i guess now they'll have to be lazy saturdays.

today was in between lazy and not.

we went to visit our friends in Beit Zayit, a part of town about twenty minutes away but takes you really outside of the city. it's very beautiful. almond trees are in bloom now so the mountainsides are dotted with pink and while blossoms, and they smell amazing. so anyway, Eli and Eran live in Beit Zayit, next door to each other in these weird little houses with cool wood fireplaces and palm leaf-covered porches outside that appear to be homemade. we brought our compost because they have a garden in which to bury it.

on the way, we picked up Eran's ladyfriend, Amit (which turns out to be a unisex name. i thought it was a boy's name). we fell in love. she went to a school in Arava, a part of the desert in the south. it's a section of the Great Rift Valley, lying between the Dead Sea to the north and the Gulf of Aqaba to the south. it includes nearly half of the border between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east. (it's where the israel-jordan peace treaty was signed in '94. neat.) anyway the school is amazing. it's called the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and it's unique for being the most successful school at integrating Palestinian, Israeli and international students. there is a strong emphasis on social justice as well. Amit said it was the only one in Israel proper that allows Palestinian students, but i think it just might be the most famous and/or successful. anyhow, it's pretty awesome. look at the link. i sent you to the english site. :)

anyway, apart from her school, she's my kind of peeps. she lives in the desert so it won't be so easy to hang out, but we have plans to visit next time we go to egypt. she told me about a permaculture studies program she did, which is something i've been thinking about hardcore. i almost ditched ulpan to start a permaculture program at a kibbutz up north that starts next week - 3 months, spend the week living there and play on the weekends - but i decided perhaps it's best to not spend the week away from jerusalem seeing as i just got here. :) but an important thing going on in my head: i want to do an intensive permaculture course because i want to live like this one day. i don't know where, but i want to have a huge garden and mud buildings and goats and be surrounded by happy friends who want the same. i really think this is way i want to spend my days. so there you have it. :)

and as for breakfast... we made delicious salads, had delicious blueberry pecan toast and homemade olives that Eli made, and they had Amit's uncle's happy goat cheese, and i cracked a whole bunch of freshly picked macadamia nuts - WHICH is not an easy thing to do necessarily! i learned that it's easier to let them dry for about a month after you pick them BEFORE cracking them open, but we were eager so we just went for it. i got pretty good with that hammer and getting out the nut in one (or two... or three) pieces. *gurgle* so tasty. especially on that bread. we prepped food outside and ate outside, and spent the rest of the day outside, the sun scooting in and out from behind clouds... we had a pretty good dance party in the dirt there (some black eyed peas, michael jackson, beach boys...), talked about The Secret Life of Plants, and laughed hysterically while making strange noises with our faces. we drank lemon verbena tea (they call it Louisa) and piled on shawls as they day went on. Amit put almond blossoms in my hair and we talked about mud structures. i decided to make Eran a CD of Cat Empire (he's a great musician, plays the cora, going to give me a piano - we like Eran). we left around 530 when our toes were getting numb, and i was so happy.

i have a secret. i now like instant coffee. i'm drinking it right now with chocolate soymilk. don't judge me. i like real coffee too!

i'm going to relax with Eyal now... he has an eye infection, and is getting over the strep throat he caught from me. :S then we'll eat soup that we made yesterday... yum.

xo

and OH!!!!!!

i started ulpan today. met a friend named Elisa from Buffalo. she was the only non-religious girl in my corner. (apparently i'm a 'back corner' girl... do you know what YOU are??)

aaaand.....

i just finished my first page of Hebrew homework!!!!!!!

under the weather....

...which is actually pretty crapppy. yes, 3 'p'-level crapppy. for all y'all who think i plopped myself into the middle of desert and instantly get to enjoy 40 degrees, you'll be glad to know (and so will i) that youc an stop hating me for escaping winter. ok ok you're right, it's not snowing (where i am anyway - too bad for those suckers up north!), but it's raining and cold (kinda late fall in canada) so the cold gets into your bones... so now i'm really sick. :( but also, Sarah Blooma (aka Bloomie) has been sick and i've been babysitting, so i'm sure that didn't help build my defenses. or (ready for a tangent?) take away from how cute she is!

In addition to having a cute daughter, my sister Amanda and her husband Chanan (c'mon, really put a good chhhhhala at the beginning of that) have an adorable son, Yisroel (like Israel) Moshe. i started calling him Izzy Mo when he was first born (as opposed to second born? pfft), but Yismo has stuck. And he has long hair in the back and short in the front, which makes him look like Coach Fox (what was that actor's name? Craig something...?), so i now call him Coach. i hope it sticks.

[photos soon. uploading is being annoying right now.]

unfortunately, it here that i must reveal that i have deceived you. no, not about the kids; they're real. but it isn't cold today and i'm not as sick as i claimed above. this is because i wrote half this post last week and never finished because i got soooooo sick - i've sleeping, fevering, and groaning since tuesday, and haven't been able to sit at the computer for more than six seconds until last night really. so NOW there is much more to tell, but i'll save it for a separate post.

but i will leave you with this:

baking powder only comes in individual packets here??? ma ze chara a ze??? (something like, 'what the shit, man??')

Four days in

I'm sorry, but this post will probably be boring. But it'll be a decent standard details catch-up.

The flight was fine. Took off and landed rather promptly. I sat next to friendly, punky, air-sick youth pastor who kinda stole my window seat but I figured she needed it more than me. Made sleeping nearly impossible, so I've been tired since I got here. I guess jetlag has something to do with it too.

It was the first time I'd ever had someone waiting in the airport for me with my name on a sign. That was pretty cool. She nabbed me nearly as soon as I got off the plane, then took me to another person who had my name on a sign, all the while telling me about this crazy flood that had just happened in the south. The new sign lady let me bud the security line to get my passport stamped, and then took me upstairs to the absorption office (kinda freaky - i was absorbed...) where the lady told me that my necklace (the Celtic Goddess lady... you probably know the one) "is not good thing for Jew to put." Ah well. I put it anyway. I didn't give her a hard time about the comment because then she gave me cashmoney and introduced me to the man that was to get my bags for me and wheel them out. That was pretty awesome.

Eyal was waiting for me with Leon and a rose. We were happy. We were happy for so long that the guy who wheeled my bags out finally came over and was like, "Uh, ok well mazel tov and enjoy Israel," and kinda sauntered away. It was amusing.

The apartment is very cool - it needs heaters in every room. (YES I KNOW i'm Canadian but this doesn't mean I don't have the right to complain about the cold. Because it's SO cold at home, we need heaters and sweaters and slippers and duvets, and thus we don't acclimatize to the nippy weather. So there, Israelis.) Although most apartments are like this- the buildings here are constructed to be self-cooling because it's so damn hot in the summer. So it's a lot of tile and concrete and poor insulation. I know I'll appreciate it in the summer.
But in other definitions of the word, the apartment is very cool. I'll post pictures when Eyal gets home. It's kinda like a cave, with lots of archways and niches and slopes in the ceiling and walls... apparently this is old-style Israeli, but at the same time not very common, because our place is older than most - so unique even to Israelis! Neat. :) It's a half-basement, so we still get lots of natural light. Not direct sun, but not a typical basement, so it's fine. There's lots of space for storage, and Leon (the dog), and toys for when Yismo and Bloomie (the nephew and niece) come over. We have a decent kitchen, a washing machine in the bathroom, and large common area that we'll use often. Already have, in fact...

On Friday night (people call that Shabbat here), we had four friends over for dinner and wine. I made three Indian dishes from the Indian Vegan cookbook Lon gave me just before I left (it's AWESOME. i can't wait to make stretchy fried bread) and they were all well-received. Yeahhhhh. I really like Eyal's friends. His friend Tultul (which isn't his real name - "tul" means curl, and he has curly hair, so they call him Tulul. I don't actually know his real name...) lives close and he's super nice. Also, Omri's girlfriend Michal lives close-by, and Eyal 2's girlfriend (he's one of Eyal's best friends) named Liori goes to school in Jerusalem, so I have some lady friends near-by too. And soon I'll make my own friends. :)

In other news... tomorrow, I'm going to pop into the community centre (rather, center) that is right by my building because they have an ulpan there (an intensive Hebrew studies program) that I will hopefully start attending the first week of February. Other things on my to-do list:

1. get a cell phone
2. get a router so we can hook up our VOIP phone (which will let me call anywhere in Canada and the U.S for one low monthly price!!!)
3. sign up for a bank account
4. get my Israeli ID card (Teudat Zehut), which I actually need to do first.

To delve quickly into feelings... I think i was in shock a bit when i got here. I wasn't feeling nervous or excited or anxious or worried or anything really... kinda weird. Jess told me i shouldn't worry and that i'll start to settle and accept my new life and feel again. *lol* Well she didn't say it exactly like that... but i've actually started to wake up to all the new things in the past day or two, so things are moving along. More on feelings another time.

Love.