The return

We've been back in Israel for a week now - and despite promises, we still don't have internet at home, so I am writing this from my parents-in-laws', where we are spending the weekend. 

The flight home was not an easy experience. It began shortly after my previous post, when A burst into the bathroom just as I was undressing for a shower, and threw up all over the floor. Luckily, he managed to miss the wall-to-wall carpeting on the rest of the upper floor, but it took me over an hour to clean up. He was still not himself when we left in the morning, had no breakfast, and almost passed out in the line for security, as it was very hot and crowded there. The TSA people were very nice and let him take his half-full water bottle through. By the time we reached JFK, A was fine. All was well until after supper was served, at which point S turned to me and said: "I don't feel so well." He spent the reset of the flight shaking and retching over a big plastic bag. The cabin attendants were very nice - they brought him lemon to chew on and a hot towel - butthat didn't help after a while. He slept very fitfully, and I slept even less, feeling as if I was once more travelling with a baby. 

When we arrived at Ben-Gurion airport, late on Saturday afternoon, a new wrinkle emerged, in that one of the suitcases did not arrive. Fortunately, it was not the carry-on trolley that ADC had checked at the gate at JFK (thus sneaking in an extra suitcase without being fined), which contained clean pajamas and a change of clothing for the next day; unfortunately, it was the suitcase containing all my clothes plus stuff for my siblings. (It eventually reached us in Jerusalem at 9 p.m. on Monday, so it could have been much worse.) After that delay, we continued to my parents' house, where we were reunited with my side of the family, plus with my phone - which my mother found on Friday, less than 24 hours before we arrived. 

We spent Sunday resting and recuperating (Y and N came over in the evening), then on Monday ADC rented a car and the two of us went up to Jerusalem, leaving A and S with their grandparents. They stayed in Kfar Saba until Wednesday, then took the train down to Omer, where we are now, while we cleaned and unpacked the apartment. We had rented our apartment with one room - the children's - closed off, where we stored most of our stuff. After arrival on Moday afternoon, ADC and spent nearly two hours walking around the flat and planning changes, which will be the subject of a separate post, as they come to pass. Apparently our tenant had left the house quite filthy, so R, our regular cleaning lady, who had cleaned for him for a while until his sexual harassment(!) became too much, had already cleaned most of it. We still had a few surprises: a connection for cable TV through one wall, a bidet attachment to the toilet pipe in our en suite (both without even asking for our permission), and condom wrappers - though thankfully no used ones - in a drawer in the bedroom. As soon as I could, I began doing laundry ...

On Tuesday R arrived, and finished cleaning the house. I cleaned alongside her, and we made good progress on unpacking, as well. She had some hair-raising tales about the tenant, whose ex-wife (he got a divorce over the course of the year, and apparently the reason he rented the flat was because he needed a place to live quite urgently) was someone she had been to school with. He will definitely not be seeing all of his security deposit from us ...

By Thursday we finished all the unpacking except for things that either belong to the boys, who asked us not to unpack their things yet, or require the proposed changes to occur before we can find space for them. That being said, with a bit of rearrangement and willingness to discard things, we have managed to find space for almost everything that was on top of the kitchen cupboards. We don't want to have anything out there anymore, as they get full of dust and grease, and it makes the kitchen feel more cramped than it actually is. It is such a relief to be back in our own kitchen, though. Not only is there so much more space than we had in Takoma Park, everything is the right height, we have all our tools AND there is a dishwasher again!! It's been working overtime, as I wanted to wash all the utensils before using them again ...

On Wednesday evening we went to the Machane Yehuda market, where we met many of our shopkeeper friends, who were all amazed that the year had gone by so quickly. We ate at a very nice Lebanese restaurant called Manou Bashouk ("Someone in the Market"), run by a couple from France - he's originally from Beirut and cooks like his mother did, and she's of North African origin, so that there is excellent couscous on the menu, too. Interestingly, there are vegetarian options for almost all the meat main dishes, which is great for me. We didn't do much shopping, just a bag of figs and a new draining board. We returned for a proper shop on Thursday morning, and when I finished decanting the different kinds of rice and lentils into glass jars, the kitchen started really looking like home again. 

On Friday we set off first thing to buy furniture at Ikea in Rishon Letzion. ADC was very loath to go there, but his sister E persuaded him that for a storage solution on the closed-off balcony, it made sense to go there. We ended up getting two metre's worth of three-drawer Nordli units, a Ställ unit for shoes, and a few other odds and ends, in about two hours - but I am never going there again, and certainly not with ADC. I hate being rushed when shopping, and while Ikea is not my favourite, they do have some very practical and functional ideas, that I would have liked to have had time to look at and think about, but couldn't, because ADC was determined to spend as little time as possible there. Anyway, the main thing is that on Sunday we will be able to finalise the arrangement of the living room, as the balcony extension will be organised. 

After Ikea we continued to Omer, where we have been relaxing ever since, despite the blips of the coninuing phone saga. That, too, is worthy of a post of its own ... Despite the irritations and inconveniences, we are very close to being organised and it is so good to come home, to be back somewhere where you know and understand how things function.