December 2005 Archives

So, what have we been doing lately?...

Well, we've been having married parties and going to Bahji. Really, that's it. The married parties have been a lot of fun to be honest. They're not anything more than dinner or desert, but it's me and Mendon, Mara and Mark, and then another married couple. This is all just a little too strange for me because we have no married friends in Oxford. NONE. This is because there is this unpassable rift between undergraduates and graduate students. Mendon and I are probably the only undergraduate students that are married and we are not "cool" (?) enough to hang out with the grad students... so, that's that. All of our friends are undergrads. So, now that we're in Haifa and hanging out with married couples, perhaps with kids, it creates a bit of an identity crisis within me. I'm married and I never think twice about it around Mendon and our families. But now that we're "in" with the married crowd, I fluctuate between feeling like I'm the kid at the party, brought along by mom, and feeling like the married woman, whose next big step in life (after our degrees) is momhood; eek! At the same time, the dinners and deserts are awesome. Besides having lots of fabulous food we also have the most amazing company. I love hanging out with these people. Their maturity, their spirituality, their intelligence, their humor, the good marriage/relationship role models, they've qualities that just make them awesome people, the likes of which I've never really met and socialized with before. (Not that I was never cool enough. I just never had exposure to people like this. To be honest, I didn't know that they existed. Or, maybe I did know people like that and it just took me years to appreciate and recognize those qualities). So, Mara and Mark, and Mara and Mark's friends, you're awesome! Ok... enough of that rant.

Actually, I'm not done. Catherine and Steven have the MOST ADORABLE baby I've ever seen. Ever. Her name is Layla, and she has curly red hair.

We've also been spending a lot of time at Bahji. Mendon and I, a few days ago, went on a Sherut expedition out to Acre. We had to walk down to the Hadar, which reminded me of India in the way the shops were arranged. There was the half block of bakeries, the half block of women's stores, the half block of stationary stores, etc, etc. Very much like India. So, Mendon and I found our way to the half block of pizza places and made a stop there. We weaved our way back to the Sherut street to flag down a driver. Once we got to Bahji, which we managed to do without too much trouble, we spent the evening in the Shrine of Baha'u'llah and then headed back. (Once we were off the shreut, we got pastries on the half block of bakeries). Again, we went there today... at SIX AM! Eesh, that was an early wake-up. But, I spent the morning reading and relaxing while Mendon started service for gardens, and then from 9-11, I had my first shift as a Holy Places Guide (the second was from 1-3). This meant that I spent the day (with my shoes off) sitting, and then standing, and reading, and praying, and sweeping, and sweeping, and sweeping. I had to sweep because there was a tree nearby with tiny, tiny leaves, which fell right in front of the Shrine. Well, when one goes into the Shrine, one takes one's shoes off, which leaves a bunch of socks to pick up all of these tiny leaves and walk them all over the inside of the Shrine of Baha'u'llah. I was vigilant, rest assured. : ) Overall, it was awesome. I had the priviledge of watching all of the pilgrims, visitors, and believers prepare for and walk away from a deeply spiritual experience. It was fabulous. Everyone was happy. There was even a baby that went in the Shrine, and it was amazingly calm and well-behaved.

Along those Bahji lines: I really love the door to the Shrine of Baha'u'llah. Outside of its beauty, there's something really comforting about it for me. I like the solidity of the door, the silence with which it shuts, the certainty that it is shut, the feeling of shutting myself into a holy place. I suppose the door has become symbolic for my own spritual preparation. Small little thought of my experiences. I've had quite a few others and I'm enjoying all of this thoroughly. I'm also enjoying the awesome food that we're about to eat/eating (pizza and Chinese from Giraffe). We've been eating so well here... Mara and Mark are taking such good care of us. Thank you!

Oh, yeah, and since everyone else is posting sock pictures:

Before I begin about my day yesterday, I would like to thoroughly guilt my family. I hope that they're reading my blog, but because they never comment, I have no clue whether or not they do. Guilt, guilt, guilt. ; ) Ok, family, I understand if you hesitate to comment on a blog that is in the uncertainty of in-law world, but I promise that it is not only safe to comment here, but also appreciated. : )

Back to yesterday being Christmas day and all...

I kind of forgot that it was Christmas. I was at the food center, volunteering, and after I woke from my morning haze, I realized that it was Sunday, the 25th, Christmas Day. Christmas Eve was given entirely to Mara's Birthday (and justly so), and Christmas day, because we're in Israel, was one of work for anyone who isn't an Arab Christian. So, here I was, not at home, stuck in work, and having a bit of a crisis. I've had Christmas for 21 years now, reliably. And 21 years of habit was threatened yesterday. I heeded the call for Christmas and told Mendon, once I saw him at lunch, that we needed a "holiday". I also explained my panic to Mara, and, to my pleasure, both she and Mendon lovingly humored me. Mara walked home with us, and she offered Mendon and I some ideas about what we could do for the afternoon. We had already agreed that we should find some Kinder Surprise, which are (ha!) more Easter than anything else, and that we should go out for some Japanese at Tatami for dinner. So, in quest of a celebratory afternoon, Mendon and I decided to go to the Christian church that Mara told us about, the Stella Maris Carmelite Monastary. On our way, we stopped at a local grocery store for 1. Kinder Surprise, 2. More Halva (see: my husband is a compulsive halva buyer), and 3. Grapefruit Juice. The church was lovely. We couldn't get in at first and tried to find Elijah's Cave for a while. By the time we gave up, the doors were open, and we were able to enter. It was small, but very decorated. In addition to the painted dome, the church also had a grotto beneath the raised altar, which was quite visible from where we sat. The church also had cell phones, angry visitors, and one man who was undeniably devout. Later that night, as said before, we went out to Tatami, where we had sushi, miso soup, fried tofu, etc. It was great. With stuffed bellies, we headed back to the flat to watch some more Firefly (our new favorite thing to do in Haifa : ) and remembered that earlier that day, Mendon and Mara had made some Philadelphia Cheesecake. Ah, what a Christmas. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we all opened and had our Kinder Surprises at Tatami. I'm pretty sure we just looked ridiculous.

Today's been a day of thorough loafing (no stone has been turned) and we are quite happy with that decision. Poor Mara and Mark are straining to keep their heads above the water. They're both bogged down with stress from the World Center and are both trying to fight colds. Regrettably, Mara's busy at work for all of today, but Mark stayed home so that Mendon and I could come back and we could all loaf together.

Three short thoughts to conclude:
1. I'm reading If on a winter's night a traveler, by Italo Calvino. I may or may not comment on it later, but I'm more likely to write something if I announce that I'm working on it.
2. Hayley, I'm amazed and proud that you actually googled Bahji. You rock.
3. Nathan, it really was raining, it had just considerably eased up by the time I took that picture of Mara. If you "Continue Reading," you can see what it was like when we arrived to lunch, but this picture doesn't include the roads, which is what was really ridiculous.

Yesterday.

We woke in the morning, and sat and waited for Mara and Mark to return from a wedding. Once they were back, we went to lunch with some of the Baha'is that are serving here (names forgotten). After we stuffed ourselves with good food, potato chips, ice cream, cake and tea, we went out to Bahji. Bahji for me was a trip to the Shrine of Baha'u'llah and the visitor's center. There's also a lovely mansion that I completely forgot about while I was there. Way to be a good Baha'i, Kristen. : ) For more info on Bahji, Google it. (By the way, I think it is really interesting that to google is an English verb). It was windy and chilly and the Shrine of Baha'u'llah, besides being a spiritual retreat, also convienantly provided some shelter from the elements. Again, it was an awesome experience, but I feel no real need to blog about it here. After, we went to the Visitor's Center, where I had hot chocolate and stamped my prayerbook with the Bahji stamp. : ) Later that night, we had dinner out at Fresco's. You may have guessed, we had pizza. The night before, I made pancakes for dinner. Those were awesome. We went to the talk that appeared on Mara's blog, and then we watched some more firefly.

Today, I woke up late. After loafing around, and reading Italo Calvino's novel, If on a winter's night a traveler, we went out to lunch. And boy, was that stupid. It started raining while we were on our way there, and by the time we arrived, we had all silmutaneously come to the same conclusion that we needed to just sit in the car. It was raining, REALLY raining. And then, shortly after our decision, it was hailing, too. And it was cold. So, we got out, managed to get our umbrellas out too, ALL of which were in the trunk, and we ran across the rather high puddles that were being perpetually thrown from the gutters of the street towards our knees. Lunch was great. Great enough that we decided not to go to Druze Village. Or, really, we were wet enough, and it was late enough, that we decided not to go. We returned here, and that was it. Here I am. Hm. More fun than that, though, is that today is Mara's birthday! Here she is:

At her birthday lunch:

This is the dog from downstairs. As seen, he's a bulldog. I think it's pretty ridiculous that there is such an animal that looks like his front end is so much heavier than his back end that he may topple forward at any given moment. I also think it's ridiculous that the dog is convinced that he is a cat. Whenever he charges us to nuzzle our legs, he "purrs."

On another note, I started another service job today (previously, I was compiling quotes from the Writings about subjects liek Baha'i Identity for the psychologist here). I am now volunteering at the Baha'i World Center's grocery store. I feel like I should be proud of this, for whatever reason. At any rate, I'm just doing chores for them. Updating their pricing system, doing random checks through the store, counting the mad amount of toilet products that they carry (???). The other thing I got to do today was make some fresh-squeezed orange juice for the other workers. I've not had that for so long. It made me think of being in Phoenix last winter and having lemonade (freshly squeezed) with Grandma (probably the last time I had that). So, I'm hard at work with the automatic juicer ; ) picking up the second half of the work, because the store manager had squeezed in the first half of the juice. Some of the oranges were so seedy, that was such a pain. And then, after 7 or 8 oranges, I got a special one, (ie. it had maggots/worms in it). Throw that one out. So, I finish a few more later and the store manager, Eric, serves it. I get my cup and had the first, glorious sip. And another. And then I looked down. (You did see this coming, didn't you?) And there they were. Worms. Waving at me from my orange juice. I had kept them out... someone else had not! Another worker noticed them right around that time, too, and she started the straining. So, I guess going abroad isn't complete without one of those experiences, is it? (I swear, one day, I'm going to go to Europe, and I'm going to pretend that they don't do anything gross there, either).

So,... yeah. That was my morning. No, wait, that wasn't all of my morning. My morning started when the alarm went off at 6 for Mendon. I didn't need to get up until 7/7:30. I'm usually good at sleeping through alarms if they're not for me, but I just cannot ignore Mendon when he's awake and talking to me like I should be as well. : ) This morning, he wanted to know what the plan for his day was. Like, do I need to call my ride for work, or will he call me? Do you think I should wear my watch today? I don't think so. I'm done at 12, right? So I can have lunch with you... Oi, Mendon, will ya cut that stuff out? It ought to look like I'm trying to get some sleep here! : )

As for my afternoon, I had lunch in the cafeteria, which has lots of good, healthy, western food. I tried some Israeli pudding today... gross. Way, way, way too sweet. And Mendon and I have been taking a break in the flat for a while now. We'll probably head up to the shrines in a bit and then we'll return for dinner. Who knows what we'll do tonight. Maybe watch a movie.

Last night, by the way, Mendon and I were busy bugs again. We slept to a talk about systematically studying the Writings, and after that we went to have dinner with Mara and Mark, which was great. I was so completely exhausted by the end of all of that. This is because we were at the bottom of the mountain for the talk and dinner, and Mara and Mark live closer to the top. This would be fine, except that we were even closer to the bay, to the bottom, earlier that night so that we could go to the "mall." We did a lot of walking up and down that mountain, and I was not pleased to think that I would be going up once again. More important than my lazy self, is a comment about the mall. Israel has some scary images. Really scary. Like, the one for TNT (clothing store) that had a young woman situated so that she could be seen through the legs of the man-model. Fine and all, until you see that she has her mouth open, her pierced tongue out, and she's smiling and staring intently at his crotch. Good God I did NOT need to see THAT. So much for being in the Holy Land.

Anyways, I don't have anything else to write, and I have no smooth way to wrap this up, so I'm done.

That's exactly what today was, just jetlag. I'm so tired. I can't stay awake. Mendon and I are both tired and cranky. It's 10:43, which means that I'm going to shower and go to bed. We also did our first day of service today, which involved a lot of walking and a lot of staring a a computer screen for many hours. We were researching a bunch of different topics for the psychologist here. I enjoyed exploring the topics, but I was burned out by 2. (To justify that, we were up at FOUR THIRTY this morning, thanks to Mendon, whose jet lag pulled him out of bed then.) So, then, we got lost in the gardens - good luck getting out! - and returned to the apt to sleep through the rest of the afternoon, have dinner, have Mara generously make us hot cocoa, and find myself given a few minutes at the computer to blog. Oh, yeah, and Mendon pulled me in to playing video games for 15 minutes or so. Although this may sound like an awful day, I promise that it is just a very unenthusiastic ending to it. I need to blog earlier in the day.

PS, I should have pictures tomorrow.

Now that Mendon has announced that we won't read each other's blogs and we'll be writing about what is salient to us, I feel pressured and obliged and a little bit peeved (because, seriously, I don't do well at keeping things in mind while blogging; I can only usually manage to get one thought or two out, at most). Plus, what was he thinking trying to keep me from his blog without consulting me first? He should know that he's breeding rebellion in me. : )

At any rate. Here's what I'm blogging about, salient, random, or whatever just happens to come to mind.

I am so self-conscious. I've written before about some of the things that I did in India to help me fit in (braiding my hair, doing the Indian bobble-doll head bob, picking up a slight accent). I'm doing those exact things here, and looking like a complete idiot. Mostly, I do the head bob and look like an idiot for it. No one notices the other things. Everyone notices that. So, at any rate, I look forward to having some other things that I can do when I'm feeling awkward that won't actually make me look MORE awkward.

What else?

I'm pretty content. Not too jet-lagged. (Mendon and I went to bed at 9 last night and slept for TWELVE hours until 9 this morning. It was bliss, and we both feel good after that). I'm enjoying being in the desert (deserty things remind me of AZ, which always brings good to mind). I'm also enjoying being right near the water, even though we're in enough of a city that the pollution keeps me from seeing the horizon of the bay and the sky clearly, which for whatever reason is disappointing. I like the city noise and the traffic. It feels like India, but really, really fast, and even if I'm being a total couch sloth, I can still feel busy because the rest of the world is zooming past our flat at 100 km/hr. I think Haifa smells good after the rain, but then again, I don't have high standards for that at this point. There was a point this summer where I craved the smell of cigarette smoke because it smelled good compared to my other options. Generally, I'm content to be in Haifa. We had some falafel for lunch, which we walked into the Wadi to buy. The weather is great. Warm (50's?) and mostly sunny/threateningly rainy. I'm with my new husband, on our honeymoon, so there's not too much that can ruin this.

So, the Baha'i end of things are also great. Last night, after taking a shower (which was essential!), Mara took Mendon and me down to the Shrine of the Bab (which also included the Shrine of Abdu'l-Baha. That was so, so wonderful. I don't know exactly what I can write about being in the Shrines. It was beautiful, calming, invigorating, exciting, overwhelming (probably the best word for my experience so far). It was also truly beautiful to watch Mendon enter and be in the Shrine of the Bab. This is a mystery about Mendon for me, his love of the Bab. So, to watch him in that holy place and have a vague idea of what it meant for him to be there, that was wonderful, in that full of wonder sense of the word. This was the icing on the cake of my experience. It was a well-rounded experience because in addition to the beauty of the evening, I also had a cool experience as we got nearer into the city. There's a point where we drove in where the Shrine of the Bab starts to peek out at you on the road. Well, I was the first one to catch it, and it sort of winked at me several times before Mendon was able to see it as well. Although it seems completely inappropriate, the best word that I have to describe that experience is sexy. Mendon agrees. And, to top it off, mendon and I took a stroll down through the terraces at 12 today, on our way to lunch. Paradise, truly. They smell good, the of course look good, everyone who stands at the gates has the coolest hoodies that I've ever seen (and I want one!), and it's blissfully quiet and peaceful. Very, very peaceful.

At any rate, Mendon is trying to lure me into the guest room so that we can snuggle (he turned the heater on for me; special treat), which is keeping me from wanting to blog too extravagantly long.

So, I was really hoping that no one would notice that I'd not been on the blogs, that I've not posted for weeks (a whole month?), that I've been completely silent since the wedding. Hm. Nathan called me out. Said that I've not been posting. He's right. So, here I am, finally getting to "blogs" which has been on my TO-DO list for days now. (This, by the way, is just ridiculous).

I've been "avoiding" the blogs for several reasons: finals week, I just got married and am a wee bit busy settling into our new flat, and I'm intimidated by our wedding as a blogging subject. So, I'm not going there yet. To everyone who helped us to get married and make it an amazing day: thank you so endlessly much. I am so grateful.

So, what to blog about if I'm not talking about my marriage. Well, I really have no clue. I feel a bit like my life has only been my brand new marriage. Mendon and I have been enjoying ourselves quite a bit often just because of our extreme burned out states.

How burned out are we? How ready are we for our honeymoon (which we leave for tomorrow!)? I hate to ruin the surprise, Nathan, but you win the all-amazing thank you note. Mendon and I were writing them, and you being his brother and all, he decided that he wanted to write you. So, he writes this note, and hands it off to me to read and sign. I look at it as he hands it to me and realize that it is upside down. Upside down, wrong side. Great. And do you know with what type of a stamp we attempted to send it to Scotland with? Oh yes, we did, we tried to use a 37 cent stamp! Awesome! And, Mendon is not the only one. I am burned out as well. How can we tell? Well, I was getting ready for bed, and as I was washing my face, I touched one of my ears and didn't feel an earring. I could feel the one on the other ear. So, I have one in, one out, and I can't remember how that happened. So, I tell Mendon, keep an eye out for it. I've no clue where it is, probably fell out somewhere in our flat. So, a whopping 30 seconds later, after I've washed my face, he comes into the bathroom, looks at me and looks back to the vanity shelf, picks up my earring that was sitting right in front of me the whole time, and hands it to me.

Maybe not the best stories, but, hey, I'm tired, burned out, and leaving for a 20 hr flight tomorrow. You'll have to wait to hear more stories about being abroad before I can include some good ones on here.

So, I'm back, and I'm sorry that I took so long to get back here. I promise, the next step is to be as good at commenting on the other Dornbrook blogs as I am about reading them (which, in my defense, I actually have been doing).