It's late afternoon on a Thursday, end of February. I've been doing a little cooking for Shabbat. Today was so beautiful, I actually hung my laundry outside to dry. It was sunny and in the 60's, with more to come for several days. I guess our oil heater broke at just the right time; it will take about ten days to get it fixed.

I went back to the doctor this afternoon. After a week of antibiotics, nose spray, cough medicine, and ear drops, my earache has gotten worse. I haven't been able to hear out of it for several days. It seems that the infection is now in my ears, so I'm back on (a different) antibiotic plus all the other stuff. The 11th was the first I realized I wasn't feeling well, and now it's February 28! It seems like everyone (both here and in chutz l'aretz) are sick with the same stuff. Enough is enough already!

I actually left the house for the first time in two weeks late Tuesday afternoon. Miryam and I hopped (perhaps stumbled would be a more apt description) onto the 5:05 bus into Yerushalayim and went to a taping of the Tuesday Nite Live in Jerusalem show. It was so enjoyable. First of all, I ran into two friends from Ramat Beit Shemesh that I hadn't seen in awhile. Also, my non-Jewish cleaning lady from St. Louis came to Israel at the beginning of the month to volunteer for six months at a humanitarian aid organization, and she was also there. Pam loves everything Jewish; she just believes in you-know-who.

The show itself was fabulous. The first half was dedicated to the people of Sderot (pronounced stay-rote). Sderot is a town down south within shooting distance from Gaza, and they've been under attack now for seven years. Qassam rockets fall daily there; the entire town (those who've stayed) are traumatized. When the siren sounds, they have no more than 15 seconds to get to a bomb shelter. Most of the schools and homes don't even have bomb shelters, so there isn't even a safe place to go. People can't sell their homes so most of them can't leave. Our government isn't doing anything to help them - private organizations and non-profits are the ones stepping up to bat. So the Palestinians can do anything they want, but Olmert is negotiating with them to give even MORE land back. They're shooting from the homes of the Jews who were ripped out of their homes over two years ago, and what has that accomplished? Certainly not peace! Now they can - and do - shoot at Israelis from a closer distance. And the government wants to give them part of our holy city of Jerusalem, and all of the west bank (where we are living, by the way). David and I read a very scary article saying that the government is contemplating just pulling the IDF out of the west bank and giving it to the Palestinians while leaving us all here for the terrorists. They (the government) intends to start a campaign to "show" that the Jews living across the green line are just a bunch of crazy religious nuts, so the world won't condemn them when the Palestinians start to murder us. They have no idea who lives here! We're just regular people living and working in our neighborhoods; there are tens of thousands of Jews that the government would rather leave to the terrorists than to have to protect us or pay us to move. There are very few (if any) "illegal outposts." Nearly all of these towns and cities and neighborhoods were all built with government approval. Sorry, I've gone off on a very long and passionate tangent. This blog was started as a light-hearted attempt to keep my family and friends posted about our lives here; it's sometimes hard to do that when the survival of our people and our land is at stake.

Anyway, the second half of Tuesday Night Live was also great. Rabbi David Aron of Isralight spoke. His message was interesting: G-d loves us. He said that most people think of that as a Christian concept and they think of the Jewish G-d as demanding and to be feared, but in reality Hashem really loves us and wants what's best for us. The show also had the musical guest Chaim Dovid and his band. I had never heard him before (and my plugged-up ear made it hard to hear him that night as well) and he was fantastic. He used to play with Shlomo Carlebach, and played a lot of his songs. After the show, he stayed and gave a short concert for whoever wanted to stay. Just so you know, all the Tuesday Nite Live shows can be watched at either http://www.landofisrael.com/ or http://www.israelnationalradio.com/. The Sderot prgram airs late tonight (Israel time) and the Rabbi Aron/Chaim Dovid show can be watched next Thursday night online.

Yesterday morning I had to go back into Yerushalayim for my Alexander Technique therapy; I've missed three appointments over the last couple weeks. It was such a beautiful day and I hadn't been out in so long that I walked from the Takanah Merkazit (central bus station) to my appointment at the very end of Jaffa. I have no idea how far that was. (Maybe two miles? Maybe less.) On the way back to the bus station I stopped at the Village Green, a vegetarian restaurant, and had a bowl of soup. Altogether I was gone about four hours, although when I got home Emma acted as if I'd been gone for a year!

It was so funny when I walked in the door - on our couch we have two comforters, five pillows and lots of sheets from our mahmad (sealed room) that have been cleaned and bleached. We're waiting for our landlord to paint the sealed room so the beds are up on end, and there's nowhere to put the linens. Emma has discovered that if she climbs to the top of this very soft pile, she can be high enough to look out the window and bask in the sunlight. Also, when I was in the kitchen making dinner, she had a perfect view to keep an eye on me (you know, in case something really good falls to the floor; sometimes she gets there so fast the food hasn't even landed yet!). I'll see if I can't post a picture of her on top of the heap.

Guess I'd better get some dinner together for the breadwinner of the family.

It's motzi Shabbat and David just finished moving my computer from the sealed room (aka guest room, aka my office) to the dining room table. We also took apart the two single beds that were in there and I'm washing all the bed linens. Yesterday I had actually opened the window for the first time in months since the weather was pretty warm and I wanted to get some light into the room. Just before Shabbat as I was closing them up, I found - to my horror - that the two walls on the outside part of the house were totally covered in black mold! It was all over the front end of the beds, the back of the filing cabinet, on the cords plugged into the outlet, and halfway up the walls. Now my being sick so often makes sense. I tested positive for mold allergies as a kid. Penina told me tonight that prolonged exposure to something you're allergic to lowers your immune system, and it seems that's what's happened. I've been sitting in that room at my computer for hours every day!

Okay, enough of the doom and gloom. As of this morning the antibiotics seemed to have started working. I still have the earache and a disgusting cough, but I can now breathe through my nose. We didn't have any guests for Shabbat, and David and I went to bed at 9:30 last night. I got up at 7:30 this morning, but David didn't stumble out of bed until 8:30. I'm sure my coughing has been keeping him up the last few nights, so we both needed the sleep.

Today was a gorgeous day. We opened up all the windows and after lunch the three of us (Emma was so excited!) took a leisurely walk. We didn't even wear jackets. It was with considerable reluctance that we closed the windows at Shalos Seudas. Darn! I just looked at the weather and it looks like it will be partly cloudy and 59 tomorrow, and then two days of rain. Oh well. I'm going into town Tuesday night (for Tuesday Night Live) and again Wednesday morning for my Alexander Technique appointment. Did I explain that already? I must have.

So let's go back in time, shall we? How about three weeks ago, February 1st? Emma got to stay with Choco and Vanil (Penina's dog and cat) while David and I went to Beit Shemesh for Shabbat. We left early in the morning that Friday and visited with Ellen and Kalmon, and the Turner family from St. Louis. Just before Shabbat we dropped our bags off at a friends' parents (what a house - it looked like it had been transplanted from the states), changed our clothes, and headed down the street.

David went to shul and I went to the home where we were having dinner - along with our friends from Connecticut, Peggy and Avi, who had come to Israel for Avi's son's wedding. They were staying with friends of Peggy's from college, and we had such a wonderful time the entire Shabbat. Being at shul the next morning for the auf ruf was the icing on the cake - I haven't been to shul since Simchat Torah and I miss it so much! (There just aren't any shuls that work for us where we live.)

That Tuesday I met Peggy in town and took her to Geula, Mea Shearim and Mahane Yehuda shuk. She's never been to Eretz Yisrael before, and because of the upcoming nuptials, no one had had a chance to show her anything yet. Thursday night was the wedding at the Great Synagogue in Yerushalayim. Whoo-ee! What an affair! It was definitely not an Israeli-type wedding. The kallah's family lives in Ramot and daddy started some kind of bio-tech company so they have money. The wedding had a smorgasbord kabalas panim with some weird colored liquors at the bar and a sit-down dinner for 400. The best part was - everyone spoke English! I loved it! Okay, sorry - the best part was really the very sweet choson and his beautiful kallah. The choson came to Israel a year ago on his own to fight in the IDF, and all his soldier friends were there. You can't imagine what it's like to watch these young people who are defending our country dancing with wild abandon out of love for their friend. We all felt extremely safe that night, actually, because it looked like an overwhelming majority of the men there were carrying firearms. David felt very left out.

We were invited to sheva brachot the following Sunday. Avi's brother-in-law and niece cooked up a delicious dairy meal and they had it at their shul (a very lovely shul in Baka, I must add. Baka is one of the neighborhoods in Yerushalayim). Unfortunately, the kallah didn't seem to be feeling well and we heard she woke up the next morning with a fever and they had to cancel the last sheva brachot (unless the choson went without her; I don't really know the outcome).

Peggy and Avi were leaving the next evening, but I met them (and Peggy's beautiful niece, Rivka, from St. Louis) for lunch and a little bit of shopping. It was wonderful to spend so much time with Peggy; they were actually our last stop on our "Farewell Tour" in July 2006 just before we hopped on our El Al flight to make aliyah. Could it already be 2008?

At the end of December 1999, I was vacationing in Boro Park with the then single Peggy, sharing the last night before Y2K hit. It was a Friday night, and we barely made it to midnight to watch some fireworks out the window and to make sure that the electricity and plumbing still worked before we went to sleep.

You know, before David and I got married in 1998, I had hardly gone ANYwhere. In the first few months after the wedding, we went to San Francisco and to Eretz Yisrael for the first time. Since that time I've been to Fargo, North Dakota; Moorhead and Minneapolis, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Washington, DC; Postville, Iowa; Atlanta, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland, New York City; and Fairfield, Connecticut. And now I live in Eretz Yisrael!

And what I wish so much, at times almost overwhelmingly, is that my parents were still alive to have shared it with. They both were niftar in 1996, breast cancer and congestive heart failure, and both in their 60's. I would say that my outlook for long life doesn't look so rosy, but my father's mother lived until 97 - plus we all know that Hashem's plans don't preclude anything. It's amazing sometimes how many of my father's mannerisms I see in my husband. Kind of gives me the chilly willies...

I haven't blogged even once this month?

The nutshell version is: spent a week and a half with my friend, Peggy, who was visiting from Connecticut, and have spent the last week and a half sick. Does that cover it? No? You want more? I'm always happy to supply every minute facet of my life in excruciating detail, but right now I have the mother of all earaches and a nose so stuffed that the simple act of swallowing makes me feel as if all my insides are being sucked up into my head. What? Too much information? You can't have it both ways, boys and girls - either you get the gruesome details or you get nothing. Since I'm shivering under my warm jammies covered by a robe covered by a huge, thick sweater and my fingers are like icicles on the keyboard, I think we're going to have to end here and hope that I have more energy and wit tomorrow; day 11 of this unfortunate malady (of which many people are currently suffering). So I bid you adieu, buenos noches, laila tov, dosvidanya (sp?) and good night until we speak again...

More snow pictures! Above is our street, with Telzion (apartments) in the distance.
Here's our house. Actually, we're the downstairs of the house; another family rents the upstairs. That's our car in the driveway with a bag of trash on the trunk. David walked it down to the dumpster at the end of the street.
We walked down to the end of the street this morning to get a good look. We could see that the highway was clear. Yea! We can go to Beit Shemesh for Shabbat tomorrow. It's in the 30's today and everything seems to be melting and slushy. We just don't know how the hill will be going down to highway 60. Hopefully the sun will stay out all day.
Emma LOVED the snow today. She practically runs on top of it because she's so light.
This is looking down our street from the very end. That's not our white car on the left, but you can see our house just behind it (the one with the stairs).
This is another view looking down at the rest of the yishuv from the end of our street. Remember, we're the highest street (of houses) in Kochav Yaakov. There are caravans (trailers) higher up on the hill.

Okay, now I can finish cleaning the house and packing. Hot mahj game in two hours!

It's later the same day - what a day! Emma wasn't sure what to do in the snow this morning. She walked around gingerly, shivering. Another dog had apparently been in our yard (huge paw prints everywhere) so Emma had check those out. Whenever she was standing still, she held one back paw up in the air so it wouldn't have to touch the snow. At around 11, Miryam called to see what we were doing. The electricity had been off for awhile by then. I was actually having a lot of fun reading about my 11th grade angst, but David said to invite them over. He actually went out and shoveled a path up our steps, across the street, and up Shaya and Miryam's steps to their front door. They were pretty surprised when they stepped out and had a clear path to our front door!

Their house doesn't get as much light as ours because it's an attached house (duplex), plus it seems to stay colder than ours. Baruch Hashem we could light our gas stove with matches, so we had hot tea. The four of us played mahj jongg for awhile, then I heated up the chili I had made yesterday - what a great lunch on a day like today! The sun actually came out for a little while and the electricity came back on around 1. After lunch we played Hearts, and the guys beat the girls pretty soundly. They left around 2:30, but we all agreed that it was a fun way to spend a cold, snowy afternoon.

David just read the news online and he said that highway 60, the road leading up to our yishuv (and many others, including Beit El) is closed to traffic because of the snow! Parts of it had up to 8 inches, and the road winds around a lot of hills. And we're only halfway through the snowstorm - they're predicting that by the end of tomorrow (Thursday) we're going to have twice as much as we have now. Our chances of getting to Beit Shemesh on Friday are looking more grim by the moment.

David's team leader at work just called to tell him not to come in again tomorrow. Sounds good except that he probably has to take two days of vacation for these snow days and he only gets ten for the whole year (which has to include chol hamoed). David really has needed this time off, though, so he's not unhappy. It's almost 5 and so far the electricity has stayed on, but I'm sure it will be off most of this evening. We're all bundled in layers of clothing, and Emma has burrowed under her blankie on the bed in the guest room (where my computer is). I sure hope it doesn't get too cold tonight!

We're living in a winter wonderland! Snow, snow, everywhere is snow. And it's still coming down!

What's so special about snow you may be asking? Because it's not a usual occurrence around these here parts. The weather forecasters here are much more accurate than in the states - the country's been preparing for this since Sunday and it really happened!

Yesterday (Tuesday) it poured all day, but more than that, the winds were unbelievable. By the middle of the afternoon the rain had slowed down to just drizzles here and there (badly needed in this country), but by 4:30 they started again. Thank G-d David got home from work about 5:30 p.m. According to the news, the snow started in Yerushalayim at about 9, but here in Kochav Yaakov the first flakes started around 10:30. Our electricity went out several times last night, so I did some reading by candle-light, and we had flashlights by our sides. When David's alarm went off this morning, I told him it had started snowing before he went to bed, so he just turned off the alarm and stayed in bed. There isn't any way to get off the hill where our yishuv is located - no way are any salt trucks coming around here; we're pretty much off the beaten track. I'm just wondering if the yishuv has some sort of truck to clear off the streets here in the yishuv.

It's supposed to continue snowing today AND tomorrow, which doesn't bode well for us going to Beit Shemesh for Shabbat. My friend, Peggy, is coming from Connecticut (landing today!) with her husband, Avi, for Avi's son's wedding. This weekend is the aufruf. Emma is staying here with Penina's family, and we're staying with a friend's parents in Beit Shemesh - if we can get there!

Last night I was reading my 10th grade diary by candle-light and reading some things out loud to David. It was so funny! For instance, I was so excited one night when I made $3.75 babysitting; I thought I was rich! I said such (secular) teen-aged things. Here's what I wrote for September 29, 1971:

Howdy. No school today - it's Yom Kippur. I fasted all day and all last night. I even lost two pounds! (But I probably gained it back at dinner.) It was hot today. Didn't seem like the end of September. We got up at 8:45 this morning and went to 10:00 services. We didn't get home till 12:30. The services were okay but I just didn't feel like atoning for my sins. I don't like "institutionalized religion." Religion means something different to everyone and I don't think everyone should pray from one prayerbook. I didn't agree with 3/4 of the stuff in the book. Bye!

My, how my outlook has changed! Or maybe I just didn't buy into the Reform outlook of Yiddishkeit even back then. Somewhere inside me I must have known that there was so much more to what our religion has to offer. Baruch Hashem I'm much more agreeable to atoning for my sins these days!

Here's some pictures I just uploaded. The first one is our sukkah from October. You can only see the top of it under the stairs; see the palm fronds? As you walk down the stairs to our front door, you get to the door of the sukkah. It really shielded us from the wind, as it was kind of "built-in".

The next picture was taken from the car driving from Yerushalayim towards our yishuv. You can see Sha'ar Binyamin, kind of the "county seat". It's an industrial center with the mishta'ar (police station), and Rami Levi, our grocery store. There's also a great hardware store there and spice store (among others), and they're building some mehadrin restaraunts that should be open in the next couple of months. If you look on the top left you can see our yishuv on the hill.

The next picture is of David with Emma. I've never owned a dog that got cold before, but Emma seems not to like the cold weather. She shivers a lot of the time. I myself wouldn't have picked out the green sweater (it definitely clashes with her coloring), but we didn't want to shell out more money for another one after we already got this one. She doesn't like it, but it keeps her warm.

The next picture is of the highway leading to our yishuv. It's a little blurry, but you can see that we live in a desert climate.

The next picture is the main street of the yishuv. It's really a very pleasant place to live!

Here's four pictures from the sheva brachot. The top one is Penina's salon. Aren't the tables gorgeous? The second one is the happy couple. The third one is me with my friends. On the bottom is Rachel on the left and Penina on the right, and Miryam is standing beside me (I'm on the right). In the bottom picture, starting from the left, is Shlomo, Shaya and David.

I've been telling myself for days to write in my blog, but I don't seem to listen to myself very well. It's the same problem when I say (actually, when I think) to myself, "Vickie, you need to exercise" or "Vickie, you need to dust." Sound familiar?

We keep a white board on the wall by the kitchen to write down things we need to buy or things we don't want to forget. Yes, it is a very large board. Anyway, there's been a list there for a week that reads Red Heifer, goats, guns. Those are three things that I didn't want to forget to blog about. (You may have noticed how the word "blog" is used as a noun in the first paragraph and a verb in the second. According to Wikipedia, both are correct. I thought it important to mention that in case either a teacher or an English major might happen to be reading this.) (It's also possible that you're in for a very long blog tonight.) (Or a weird one.)

There are more things that I plan to blog about than those three items; however those are three more "only in Israel' stories I want to relate. The first item concerns a couple, Tzivia Rivka and Shlomo Chizkiyahu, who got married on our yishuv last week after a 2 1/2 week engagement. Perhaps I already told you about this? Ah, yes, I just read my last blog. I ended up going to the girls' high school on the afternoon of the wedding to help set up instead of going to the kotel with the kallah (bride). The women who formed the committee that planned the entire wedding, from kabbalas panim to chupa to seuda to dancing to sheva brachot did a fabulous job; everything turned out perfect.

The night after the wedding the couple went out to dinner with the kallah's family who had come from America. They went to a very nice restaurant, the Red Heifer. (editor's note: This place has great ambiance and delicious steaks!) At the conclusion of the meal, the choson (groom) stood up and announced that he and his wife were newly married and could the men in the restaurant join in their bentching for the second sheva brachot? Shlomo and Tzivia (pronounced Tzvee-ah) Rivka told us that all the men and the waiters came to the table and enthusiastically joined in. After they bentched, all the men started singing Mazel tov usiman tov, and dancing all around the restaurant! Possibly this same scenario could have played out in Brooklyn or Lakewood or Monsey, but since I've never lived in any of those places, I would have to add it to my "Only in Israel" stories.

Penina and Pinchas hosted the third sheva brachot in their home. Penina did a fabulous job, not just with the food but also with the decor. It looked like we were at a fancy restaurant! And the fact that they'd had no water for six days (half of the "dudes" - hot water heaters that are located on the roofs of most houses - on our yishuv had frozen and burst the previous Shabbos - thank G-d ours was not one of them) didn't deter her from using her best china for the nineteen people who fit comfortably in her salon. I'll put some pictures in a separate blog because the pictures never go where they're supposed to when I add them.

Penina's family came for Shabbos lunch. Her oldest son, Daniel, is in the army. Hold on - here comes the second Only in Israel story. You know, I think we're going to shorten that - whenever I have one of these kind of stories, I'll label it an Oi (shortened from OiI. Then I can write, "Oi, do I have a story for you!").

Hmm. As I was saying, when Daniel walked in the door I was surprised to see him carrying his M-16. It seems (Oi, here it comes) that the gun has to be disassembled in order for the soldiers to be able to leave it at home. If they forget to do that , then even if it's Shabbos they have to keep the gun with them at all times. The funny thing was that my friend, Rachel's, son showed up later with his gun also slung over his shoulder. My only surprise was that they could carry them on Shabbos. It's commonplace to be anywhere in Israel - bus stops, walking down the street, in restaurants and stores, the central bus station - and see many young men and women in their army fatigues carrying guns that are sometimes longer than they are. Some of these kids don't look old enough or strong enough or even knowledgeable enough to have one, but in a country where war is a possibility twenty-four hours a day, the military is always in a state of readiness. When I think about the maturity level of the eighteen and nineteen year olds back in chutz l'aretz, I'm amazed at the difference. I guess it's all about what you're raised to believe and know what's expected of you.

Erev Shabbos last week (Friday afternoon) (Oi, here comes another one), I was driving up the hill to the yishuv when I had to slow down because there was a huge herd of goats about to cross the road in front of me. There were two young Arab boys holding them back so that my car and the one behind me could get by before they crossed. You know, that doesn't sound as exciting now as it was when it actually happened. Maybe YHTBT (you had to be there...)

The last week has been extremely interesting for me. I pulled three diaries of mine out of my file cabinet; diaries I don't think I've ever read since writing them thirty-seven years ago. Can I really be this old?! The diaries start January 1, 1971 when I was 15 1/2 years old in 10th grade, and I wrote one page every single night until December 31, 1973 when I was 18 1/2 in the middle of my freshman year of college. It's fascinating reading, although I suppose not for anyone other than me. The first diary is mostly about classes and school and friends and boys and fitting in and things I did with my family and all the fun I had in BBYO (B'nai B'rith Youth Organization), which was my whole life back then. I was a pretty secular teenager (I didn't become observant until I was 38). It's amazing how similar my writing style was back then to how I write now. My only connection to Yiddishkeit back then was BBYO and going to a reform Sunday School and getting confirmed in 10th grade. It sickens me to read how each week we went to a different church to learn "comparative religions." Why would they do that? Why not teach us about our OWN religion? I couldn't wait to get confirmed and have a party and get presents, and most of all - never have to go back to Sunday School again! There's so much to learn about Judaism; one can learn for hours every single day (and many do) and still not learn it all. And yet, people who don't know any better aren't engaging our young people to ask questions, to encourage them to keep learning, to teach them our traditions and laws. One day in my first diary I actually wrote (after reading Mila 18 by Leon Uris - my all-time favorite novelist - for the 5th time) that I wanted to be an orthodox Jew and move to Israel and fight for our country. It only took me 36 years to do it!

I've only read through August of the first diary and about half of the last one. I've actually started typing certain days and am thinking of writing a book with the theme something like How I Got Here From There or possibly How Did A Girl Like That End Up In A Place This This? G-d willing.

Did I tell you about our new hot water pot? For the past year and a half we've had a water urn plugged in 24 hours a day so we can have hot tea and coffee, but we never had an electric hot pot. It's so cool! You add water to it, turn it on, and in two minutes or less you have boiling water, much hotter than the urn which we'll now use just for Shabbos. You know, there are certain things I still miss from back "there", but there are definitely things here that are pretty useful and actually work well.

All right, time to end this blog and post some pictures.

Busy, busy, busy:

1) The writing seminar this past week was terrific. Oops - I can already see that I started off on the wrong foot. Instead of a boring sentence, "The writing seminar was terrific" (which doesn't tell you anything), I should have written, "There was a feeling of excitement as I walked into the room where the writing seminar was being held. Women were crowding around the registration desk, and another crowd by the coffee bar was also buzzing. Four dynamic speakers enchanted a group of about fifty women for the better part of a day, keeping our pens busy as we tried to capture every glimmer of knowledge the professionals imparted. The warmth in the room belied the chill of the insistent rain drumming against the windowpanes throughout the day." Much better, no?

2) Yesterday (erev Shabbat) I felt as if I was getting the flu again; as the day wore on I began to feel ache-y (is there a correct spelling for that word?) all over, and extremely fatigued; then I became so chilled that no amount of warm clothes could help. Miryam and Shaya left right after dinner instead of staying to play cards, which has been our usual Friday night minhag (custom) for the past few weeks. David and I both went to bed early and slept late this morning. Baruch Hashem, when I woke up the pain, chills and fatigue were gone. I walked down to Penina's a little after 1 for the Shabbat Kallah for Tzivi Rivka who's getting married on Tuesday - after a 2 1/2 week engagement. We only expected about eight to ten women, but twenty-two showed up, not including children. Beth, who seems to be Tzivi Rivka's closest friend, spoke first and then whoever wanted to gave a bracha (blessing) to the Kallah (bride). I loved looking around the room and realizing that I knew all but two of the women, and I made sure to introduce myself before they left. There really is a nice community of English-speakers here.

2) Tomorrow Miryam and I are going into town (yea! Bush is gone!). I have to get an ultrasound for possible kidney stones (do you think they're actually serious that I have to drink a glass of water every 15 minutes for an hour and half before the procedure and I can't go to the bathroom until after the test? Do they understand that I go every hour as it is, and that holding all the water in for that long after drinking that much will lead to an extremely humiliating disaster? I'm pretty sure they don't have a realistic opinion of my bodily abilities). After this little procedure, I'm going to help Miryam find a crafts store in Geula (I know of a couple), and then we're going to a florist shop in Ramat Eshkol. Miryam was a wedding planner in the states and is making some of the decorations for the simcha (happy event).

3) Monday - day off - a breather day.

4) Tuesday 1 PM; the kallah in her wedding dress and several of her friends will go to the Kotel to daven and say Tehillim for her, leading up to the kabbalos panim at 3:45 and chupa at 4:30 PM. Yikes! I don't know how we'll get back in time. David won't make it for the chupa, but there's dancing for the entire community from 8-10:30 that night at the moadan (community center).

5) Wednesday night in Beit Shemesh - one year anniversary dinner for everyone who made aliyah in 2006. It's supposed to be fancy and a really nice evening. We haven't signed up yet; David hasn't decided if he wants to go. Our friends from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Zvi and Tobi, will be there and I'd love to see them. Tobi's sister was diagnosed with lung cancer just after Yom Kippur, and Tobi's been in New York more than she's been in Israel since then.

6) Thursday night we're going to sheva brachot at Penina and Pinchas'.

Next Monday, 14 Shevat, is my father's 12th yartzeit. It just amazes me that so many years have gone by; it seems like yesterday. There are so many things my parents missed by being niftar (deceased) so young. They never met my husband, David, or my nephew, Daniel; they never saw me grow in Yiddishkeit or got to see their six grandchildren grow. I've been sitting here for some time trying to put more thoughts about my parents into some coherent way to share it, but it doesn't seem to be possible this late at night motzi Shabbat (Saturday night).

NEWS FLASH: There is a product in Israel that is better - yes, folks, I say BETTER - than coke slurpees. I know; hard to believe, huh? But I have found a place at the takanah merkazit that sells an amazing passion fruit slushy. It's little pricey at 10 shekels but well worth every argarot. When I head back home from town I take one on the bus with me; it makes the ride home pass by so much more pleasantly!