Everything, Nothing, and I'm a Middle Child

That's not a directive, just that right now I am travelling outside of Israel.

And it feels so good.

We didn't have the greatest flight from Tel-Aviv to Frankfurt (some of the most self-absorbed, bratty, catty women I have ever met were sitting in front of us), but then, who does have good flights? From Frankfurt to Edinburgh we flew with the 2004 Brandenburg Women's Soccer (sorry, 'football') team - that was pretty cool to see. (a lot of blond women!)

Anywho, we're in Edinburgh with Nathan now, and so, so, so happy to just be relaxing a bit. The pace of life at the Baha'i World Centre is hectic - on a slow day. Knowing I'm going out there and I won't hear any Hebrew for a few days .... mmm, scrumptious. (those bratty women kept shouting "slikha, slikha, slikha" [excuse me] and clapping three times - ugh, I don't think I ever want to hear that word again!) I can't even explain why - it's not the Hebrew bothers me all that much in Haifa - though it is bothersome to be illiterate for the first time in 25 years.

So, I am going to thoroughly enjoy the next few days of relaxation, fun ... and good old-fashioned coddling by my older brother :-) (as I assume Mendon is about to enjoy some of the same from his [younger] older sister :-)) So, I guess we're both going on a Lil' Sibs weekend - hahahaha!

Posted by Mara at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I keep going to other people's blogs and wondering why they haven't written in them lately... hmm... so I guess I better update mine!

In Israel, Memorial Day and Independence Day fall on consecutive days, and they just occurred. They were supposed to be on Sunday and Monday, but because Sunday is the day after sabbath/shabat ... they made them Monday and Tuesday. I don't quite understand that, but then I haven't exactly asked anyone about it either (see title of blog entry!). Anyway, that meant that the first holiday started on Sunday after sunset, which randomly coincided with me and Mark having no desire to cook or eat the food in our house ... the ONE day we want to order a pizza and nothing is open, hahahahaha! Back to spaghetti!

We did have front row seats (our great location and wonderful windows out to the bay) for a spectacular fireworks display, though. Since we're in the middle of the mountain, it was perfect. Of course, we'd closed the blinds and were watching a movie (Miller's Crossing - a Coens brother 'gangster' movie - plenty of similar sounds coming from the movie...).

I'm kind of hesitant to write about this, as I don't want anyone to get unduly concerned, but... I don't know, somehow I feel compelled.

I had my first trip (ever) to the ER on Saturday. We had all sorts of other plans, including a friend's wedding, but I had a rather minor migraine that refused to go away. I'd taken the maximum dosage of my medication the night before, and, although the migraine was minor, since they get worse over time I wanted to be able to be proactive. I called the doctor and he said to go to the ER (remember, NOTHING is open on Saturdays in Israel) because even if I took more of my medicine it wouldn't help. So, off we went.

Israel has apparently not figured out that smoking and medical facilities generally don't mix. Well, whatever. Since it wasn't any sort of real emergency, my experience was sssslllllooooowwwww. I was there for 6 hours. I got a shot and an IV. I felt pretty good at the ER - don't know if it was the shot or the IV (my guess is the IV). Another odd thing - the entire time I was there: no toilet paper or towels in the bathroom. Huh? You want me to give you a urine sample and you don't supply ANY paper? I don't think that's very sanitary. I just stood there until they'd give me paper - paper anything. Poor Mark was SOOO bored - and on top of it he is hyper sensitive to cigarette smoke. So, Sunday we both ended up staying home from work ('cause my migraine still wasn't gone) and Mark had gotten sick from the smoke.

I almost feel gilted that my experience was so bland - almost. I recognize that I'm much better off this way - not to worry :-) The dumb thing is that my migraine was never even really ... a migraine! I was still functional - heck, I even watched a movie that evening. Of course, I slept the entire next day - it was definitely draining. Ah well, Haifa seems to do this to people - a number of people here get a bit less healthy than they were back home, wherever that was. I wonder what it is. Most people attribute it to the pollution, which granted is bad, but aren't there a lot of polluted places in the world? (i.e. the Olentangy River in Columbus - GROSS!) Fortunately, most get better once they leave. I'm am living my dream - to be able to serve the Faith using my skills, I can't get everything!

Change of topic:
Tonight we are having some Swiss pilgrims over for dinner. We are SO excited! The family is close to my family, through a Baha'i who grew up with them and then moved to our community, who just happens to be a very good friend of my mother. It will be such a privilege to return the hospitality they have shown us. When I was working in France, Mark and I visited them briefly and it was heaven!

Then, tomorrow we head out to visit my brother Nathan in Edinburgh, Scotland! I am crazy excited about this. I just fell in love with the city the last time I visited him. It'll be fun to be there with Mark and just relax for a few days. An added bonus: the last time I went to Scotland I came back migraine-free for the next two months! Let's hope it has a similar effect again this time!

Posted by Mara at 08:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Okay, so I haven't gotten mum and dad's aproval, but isn't she absolutely adorable? She is the daughter of my good friend (we were college roommates). Daddy's a good friend, too :-) I put her picture up as the background of my computer and everyone - everyone - who walked by stopped and commented on this adorable sweetie. So, since she has made a definite contribution to the happiness of my day, I thought I'd share. Here's to Sadie :-)

Posted by Mara at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The wall of our apartment which faces the the street is made up entirely of windows. Our dining table is situated so that if we wish, we can sit at it and look out the window at the Mediterranean Sea and the mountains across the bay.

However, there is also a several story home (perhaps apartment building) in our view. The family whose doorway is directly opposite us got a puppy this past Christmas. I'm pretty sure it was Christmas because they had a pine tree draped in colored lights in their house - I'm pretty sure they don't do that for Hanukkah.

Anyhow, they got a pretty white puppy in December. Mark and I frequently watched the family interact with the dog on their porch during meal (and other) times. Sometimes the kids were a bit cruel, sometimes the puppy tried furiously to get into the house, sometimes they took him for a walk ... whatever, we watched the puppy grow into a happy, healthy ... bigger puppy, since I suppose he's not really out of puppydom yet.

There have been several episodes that have been rather outstanding. For example, the time the puppy kept getting into the house and then kept being led back out of the house (he's not allowed in) ... we were rolling with laughter and imagining the mother (who is clearly the one who doesn't want it inside) increasingly frustrated by the fact that she was being ignored, while the small children just couldn't get the door closed fast enough. As a result, the young boy would try to kick the dog away. Of course, the dog didn't like that much, so in the future, any time the dog came near him, he'd kick and the dog, thinking this was a game, would try to grab the boy's leg in his mouth... that was hysterical to watch (as no one was actually being harmed). And, fortunately, they eventually got over that.

Another time, more recently, it was still cold and raining out. The owners got a small plastic box (a cat carrier?) and put it outside as if that would appease the puppy. Really, I don't think our cat, Chi, would have been happy in there! Once we saw the poor thing actually wiggle his way in there because of the rain and wind. It was really quite pathetic.

Just a few days ago the puppy decided to get more friendly and would happily wag his tail and 'guide' any walker past his 'dominion'. People would frequently try to convince him to stay put to no avail ... he never strayed past his apartment block, though. At one point, he decided to go into the courtyard below his apartment. We wondered where he was going and what he was doing... to discover he'd stolen someone's towel! He was so happy and triumphant. He brought it back to show to ... the mother! She wasn't exactly happy, took it from him and put it out of his reach. He kept trying to jump and get it, until his rather short term memory distracted him with something else to play with.

So, now you know one way we spend our time. This is also a warning to those who live in Haifa - don't do anything too private on the sidewalks around our house! :-)

Posted by Mara at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I've had bad nights before. We all have, right?

Few nights, however, are so bad that ... well, I'll let you judge for yourself.

There was a lot of carnage last Thursday evening. Now remember this was the beginning of my weekend. And it was supposed to be a pretty good start at that. The French Speakers' Group had organized a talk with one of the members of the International Teaching Center, Joany Lincoln - a very cool woman, in my humble opinion. She and her family lived a number of years in French-speaking Africa before she was appointed to the International Teaching Centre here in Israel. She recently spent two weeks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is one of those French-speaking African countries (formerly Zaire). And the plan was for her to talk about her trip.

Good plan. And in fact, that event went very smoothly and was overall a lot of fun with a lot of good food (real cheese - yummy!!!).

It was all of the events surrounding that event that nearly killed me (not to mention Mark).

Mark wasn't feeling well, so he didn't come to the event with me. Which was fine. I baked some brownies and headed out. I saw the very bus I could have taken to the Lincoln's home as I got down to the street, but it didn't really bother me that I missed it. Catching a taxi would be fine. As I was walking up to the bus stop (an easy place for taxis to stop), I saw a cat run into the street. [If you're thinking "uh oh, I'm not sure if I want to read this", you have the right idea. You may very well want to stop now. This story is unsuitable for children under the age of 13.]

For some crazy reason the cat looked back at me, so I called to it to come back to me because a car was indeed coming. But it didn't. It turned back, took a step ... and BAM! AHHH! I screamed - some guys looked at me like I was crazy. But the cat wasn't even dead! Yet. Another car came. I couldn't look. I looked back, briefly, to see white legs flailing in the air. GROSS!! HORRIFIC! I couldn't look, so I looked up the street and tried to figure out what to do. Ah, yes, I looked up the street. To see a huge city bus barrelling down the street. I couldn't bear to think of what was going to happen. The bus couldn't miss that cat if it wanted to. On the other hand, it would finally be the end of this poor cat's misery. And it was, I guess.

Then I had to catch my taxi. I had to look down the street, at this mass in the road, that few cars were successfully avoiding, and try to see if a taxi was coming my way. The only good thing about this trip was that a taxi full of some Baha'is saw me and stopped. They picked me up and dropped me off and didn't even let me pay. Free ride to the Lincolns. That was kind. Ugh, but I was so traumatized. I can carry a rifle and go deer-hunting with my father, but watching that cat die was horrific.

Ah, if only that was the end of my story. Right now you're thinking, Mara that was traumatizing, but come on there are a million cats in Haifa. Whatever. Well, whatever.

I got home around 10 p.m. I think. A bit later than I wanted, but we just went right to bed after a bit of crankiness in each other's direction. Remember, I said this wasn't a good night. Some neighbors were playing some very loud Arab music ... Mark, having a headache went to sleep as far away from the music as possible.

Except I didn't know that. I'd fallen asleep before he got into bed. I woke up at 1 a.m. wondering where he was, so I got up to go find him. Was he in our spare bedroom? No. So I went to check the couch. I never got there.

On the way, I stepped on something in the hallway. It sort of squished under my foot. I thought, eww, gross - a big spider!!! Oh, if only it had been. OH, IF ONLY IT HAD BEEN!!! I turned on the light, and, for the second time that night, I SCREAMED! Which woke Mark up, and he came from the direction of the couch. So, I guess that's where he had been sleeping. But I digress.

I had stepped on a LIZARD!!!! Yes! A lizard! In the house! So, I grabbed a glass and put it over top of it so it didn't scoot away. I don't think that was necessary. It was still moving, but, well, I don't know the details and for that I am infinitely grateful to Mark. He took it outside and said "make sure I go outside tomorrow before you do." Hmm, first sign that the poor lizard hadn't simply been 'released out into the wild'. I said, "I think I better wash my foot." Mark replied, " You haven't done that already!?!?!?!"

It was all too much. It was simply all too much and it was one in the morning. I started sobbing. It took me 20 minutes just to wash my foot. It really wasn't even dirty. I think all the 'grossness' went... er... out the other side, if you know what I mean. I didn't even want to touch my foot. Then, I had to wash my hand which had touched my foot. I was sobbing the entire time. At that moment all I could think of was Lady Macbeth "out, out damn spot!". In high school I wrote a paper about how I thought Lady Macbeth was schizophrenic [thank you, Nathan]. I kept thinking about that as I tried to wash away the horridness of what had just happened. Once Mark FULLY disposed of the lizard, I made him talk to me - about really random things - for another half hour because a moment of silence meant I was going to start sobbing again. We didn't fall back asleep until about 2 a.m. Fortunately the music had stopped.

I tried to drink water before going back to bed, and we each took an ibuprofen to avoid headaches (for different reasons, of course). And for Mark it worked. I woke up with a killer headache, which of course evolved into a migraine. As if the night before hadn't been bad enough.

I finally got out of bed at 2 in the afternoon. And you know I don't do that regularly. I went over to a friend's place. She was selling a bunch of her clothes. She happens to be Indian, so there were punjabis and saris galore. I spent three hours there! There were four of us there, all good friends - some other people came and went, but mostly it was us four and it was probably the best therapy I could have had. I bought 6 punjabis and a sari! Woohoo! And it was cheap to boot. Okay, I spent $200, but I got SEVEN new outfits, with seven new scarves. And the sari alone could have cost me that in the States (and maybe even in India). It is GORGEOUS. And then I came home and got rid of some of my old clothes. Very satisfying.

Wow, I'm impressed. I even managed to end this entry on a positive note. Phew.

Posted by Mara at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)