What a week! If I'd had to give odds at any point last week that I would still be alive today, it would only have been 50/50, chas vashalom. And I wouldn't have been sure about odds that high. In a nutshell: chills, fever of 103, cramps, (shhh - this is a whisper) diarrhea, unrelenting nausea, exhaustion. Nausea still. Get the picture? No details; enough said. Although - I wonder if I can keep those seven pounds off?

I missed so much last week! A writer's workshop with a well-known Jewish writer, a workshop on kashrut and hecsharim, a yishuv Chanukah party for all the English speakers, doctor's visits. Time to get back in the swing of things.

A friend I'd met at the dog park in St. Louis reconnected with me last week. She's originally from South America, moved to the US for awhile, and then moved to Toronto when David and I moved to Israel. What a mobile society we have! We actually met through a bit of inadvertent "bageling." One day when I had my dog, Anton, at the park and Deborah was there with her dog, Jake, we began talking (this was about three or four years ago). When I mentioned that Anton liked to pish all around the perimeter of the park, Deborah took the bait on the bagel and we established our Jewish connection. So, Deb - this blog's for you!

I just realized you have absolutely no idea what I meant when I said Deborah and I bageled each other. Please go to aish.com and search for an article called "The Bagel Theory." In a nutshell, the article explains how Jewish souls yearn to connect and so when we meet a fellow Jew and want them to know that we, too, are Jewish (or vice versa), we make a comment or use body language to convey that point. For instance: when I worked at Aish in St. Louis, the bathrooms for the building were upstairs. Once when I was in there, a woman from another office walked in with a dirty air conditioner vent and proceeded to wash it off at one of the faucets. She glanced at me, then looked down and said in a loud voice, "Oy! I don't know how I'll get all this shmutz off this thing. There's so much shmutz on here." That's bageling.

I thought I would get to take the car into Yerushalayim tomorrow for my ophthamologist appointment, but when David got home from work today he said there was a serious problem with the steering. I don't know if I can make that bus trip in if I'm still feeling nauseated tomorrow. And even though rain wasn't predicted (we haven't found any accurate forecasts here), it rained today. I HAVE TO GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE TOMORROW! I've been in this little house for the past ten days (four of them in pajamas...) and I'm beginning to think just being here is poisoning me. Rationally I know there's a squirmy bacteria eating its way through my intestines (I really gross myself out sometimes) (Is that really rational?) (Do I use too many parenthesis?). Maybe NOW you'll believe me when I say I need to get dressed and go somewhere tomorrow!