On the beach and at iCon

For the past five years, my parents have been taking all of us - me, my siblings, our spouses and children, now 16 people in total - to the holiday camp at Dor for a few days during Sukkoth. Traditionally, time is spent sunbathing, swimming and eating. My father gets up early to go fishing, and various children and adults accompany him. There is barbecue two out of three nights, and ADC and I make a vegetarian meal on the third. We get away from the beach for one morning or afternoon. 

This year, we arrived later than usual, as we went to the market on Friday morning and then continued unpacking until S got home from school. When we arrived, it turned out that we had more space than usual, as my parents had bitten the bullet and instead sharing a chalet with eumelia , she was by herself in a honeymoon suite / 2-person igloo, including a jacuzzi, which meant an extra kitchen and fridge, as well as empty floor space for the traditional board games played by the boy cousins, ADC and myself in the afternoons. We also had a slightly different location from the usual one, and it was even more peaceful than in past years.

On Saturday, S and I joined my father for fishing, together with my brother-in-law, R and his children SR and LR. While the men fished (quite successfully), LR and I looked for shells and talked. I haven't spent much time alone with LR, and I enjoyed the bonding experience. She is very conscious of being a girl, and in some ways she is very Victorianly accomplished- she plays a musical instrument (cello), learn dancing (flamenco) and loves drawing (on Monday she sketched the fishermen and the fish); so Victorian with a twist, I suppose. It was warm even at 6:30 a.m., and I was glad to be wearing an activewear t-shirt and shorts (the first pair I made) over my swimming costume, for a bit of extra protection. 

After breakfast, we had a quick swim and then showered and changed before setting off to visit NN, almost exactly a year after she visited us in Takoma Park. It took us a long time to find her house, as none of the houses have actual numbers, and their name is quite discreet, since they are renting. Lunch - made by her husband AN-D - was mainly quiches, with the correct ratio of vegetables to pastry/filling, i.e. about three times the amount of vegetables you find in commercial quiches! We had a good time catching up, although as usual - NN is so polite and I'm not - we talked more about what we were doing than what they were doing, before moving onto politics and academics, and ending up playing a new-to-us board game, called Dixit, in which the three C family teams took the first three places. At least I was able to compliment AN-D on the new machzor (prayer book for the High Holydays) for Yom Kippur, as he was on the committee that compiled it, and to tell NN that my father missed her Torah reading. 

As soon as we got back to our igloo, we began preparing supper - this year, the vegetarian meal was on the middle night, since guests had been invited for the third night, which also happened to be the first night of the Sukkoth festival, the week-long festival ending the series of New Year festivities in which observant Jews spend as much time as possible in transient structures, whose sorts are covered with plant material through which one can see the stars. (A funny story about the rabbi of ADC's parents' shul in the Negev desert: when he made aliyah to Israel from Minnesota, he included his sukka in his lift. As the sukka was meant for mid-September/early October in Minnesota, he has never used it since, the temperatures in Israel at that time of year being far too high for it. I digress ...) This year's theme for our meal was Persian food, including spinach cooked in pomegranate juice until it was completely reduced (very yummy and worth doing again). The only leftovers was the plain rice we'd made for the younger members of the party who reject any kind of sauce as the devil's work. 

On Sunday there was no fishing, as my father had to make the trip back to Kfar Saba and open his pharmacy for several hours. We spent the morning at the beach (at the next lagoon over, where there are fewer people and more waves than at the main beach, and some people did not apply sufficient sunscreen; fortunately, all my nuclear family were sensible) and then played Kingmaker in the afternoon until the guests arrived and a fish barbecue was prepared. A and S had a major epiphany: they do like fish! (Or at least, they like fresh sea bream cooked over coals). Everyone was very excited and my mother immediately began planning to serve fish next time we come for supper. 

On Monday, S and I once again got up early for fishing. It was less successful this time, but still enjoyable. We left Dor shortly after lunch, as we had another exciting day ahead us on Tuesday, and got home in time to complete unpacking, apart for the children's books. I even had ADC set up the converter for my sewing machine. Happily, he found an unused electric point next to the dining room table, so I will be sewing there - with much more space - rather than at my desk. 

Yesterday was something completely different: we went to the major Israeli sci-fi and fantasy con, called iCon. This was only our second time, and once again I was struck by how exhaustingly hot it is in Tel Aviv. The cosplayers all seemed a little miserable after a while, and the people wearing t-shirts proclaiming "Winter is Coming" are clearly delusional, at least for the next few months. I spent most of my time at lectures, two of which were very good and one of which was terrible. We also all went to a game show on logical fallacies, which was very amusing. The two good lectures were a panel on translating books featuring time travel, which quickly became - at the audience's urging - a discussion of the difficulties of literary translation generally, and of translation of speculative fiction in particular; and a really excellent talk on dragons and their natural/cultural history, given by an arachnologist who is a technician in the collection ADC curates and hopes to become one of his doctoral students (as soon as there is funding). The bad lecture was quite appalling: purporting to discuss "the Odyssey: from Homer to Tolkien," the unfortunate lecturer quickly proved to know very little about either Homer or Tolkien. This did not prevent her from retelling the stories before getting to the point that Bilbo = Odysseus and the trolls = the Cyclop. If there are parallels to Homer, could it be that this is because Tolkien had read him?! I don't expect an academic lecture; I do expect to be treated like an intelligent person. I expatiated on this to eumelia , who met us for ice-cream after her work and before we went to the dragon lecture, and she suggested that I give a talk myself next year, on Snape and Richard III. Definitely food for thought ... ADC (who was only persuaded to stay in the Odyssey talk because there was air conditioning) is also thinking of giving a talk. Happily, A and S only had positive experiences: they heard a different lecture, comparing the cultures of Marvel and DC comics (one is a workplace and the other is a family, in a nutshell), which provided them with a prism they hadn't thought of before. S also blew about 500 shekels (about $130) on comics and action figures - but this was his birthday money and savings for him to spend, so I can't really complain. We returned home tired but happy.

The High Holydays as a screen-free time

I suppose that if I've been insisting that A and S stay off their phones and off the internet over the past two weeks, it's not surprising that I have not updated my blog in that time. 

Rosh Hashana was spent at ADC's parents. In addition to the five of us, and the three permanent residents in Omer, his brother's family and in-laws (4+4), were there, not just for the first night, but for all of the first day. Everyone gets on well, so a good time was had by all, until the septic tank gave up the ghost. Too many small children being too conscientious about cleanliness ... fortunately ADC's parents have an en suite shower and toilet that is on a different line. 

Our pleasure was dampened by two deaths within two days of each other: my great-aunt N died almost a year to the day of his husband IG's passing last year. Her funeral was on Sunday, the day before Rosh Hashanah, immediately after her daughter from Australia - who had been on her way anyway - arrived. Auntie N had Alzheimer's, and she had not been a full box of chocolates for several years (she once actually gave me a beautifully wrapped box of chocolates which turned out to be partially eaten, and that was one of the first instances of her illness), but before that she had been a very outgoing person, the life and soul of every party. She had a song for every occasion, and always encouraged her grandchildren and great-nieces/nephews to perform, too. She had a good life, and her death was a relief, I believe. 

Much more tragic was my mother's best friend, E, dying on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. E was my mother's age, not yet 70, and she suffered a series of three strokes over the course of the past month. Even one stroke is terrifying, especially as she lives alone and her only surviving son lives in Philadelphia (her other son was killed in a border skirmish while doing reserve duty a few years ago). She lost the sight in one eye in the first stroke and the second caused her to become completely blind. I don't know how she would have managed any kind of quality of life, because she would have lost her independence entirely - and she loved reading. My mother was exhausted by Yom Kippur, as she hosted some of E's relatives who came for the funeral, until literally the day before. Furthermore, Yom Kippur is a day that she particularly associated with E, since that was the anniversary of her son's death, and my mother used to visit her with whichever grandchild was youngest, instead of going to synagogue to say Yizkor, the prayer for the dead. 

For me, Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement - is a day of identification with the Jewish people as a whole. I am not observant most of the year (being vegetarian, I keep kosher by default, but no observant person would consider my kitchen to actually be kosher), but on Yom Kippur I fast and spend most of the day in shul. It was a relief to be back home and standing next to my father, after last year in Takoma Park. On the downside, it was ferociously hot - over 35 degrees Celsius when we walked home after Mussaf. I managed to complete a wrap, knitted from the hand-dyed yarn I bought on Friday Harbor and ruffle yarn I bought at Joann in Wheaton, in time to wear in shul, since the AC assumes that you are wearing a tallit, anyway. I didn't have time to block it, though, so it looks at the moment rather like the feather boa Mick Jagger wears in Sympathy for the Devil.  

While everything I've described so far was going on, on all the few working days this month I was on the phone and/or e-mail daily with the shipping company and their agents in Israel. Our lift finally arrived on September 1st, but actually reached our home in Jerusalem at 8 p.m. on the 24th - even with the many holidays, that is ridiculous. Apparently there was no problem with customs, but some miscommunication with the consolidators (we had far less than a full container) delayed the Israeli agents, as they didn't want to pay the extra thousand shekels being demanded. The children were overjoyed to see their things again, I was mainly happy that everything arrived the night before - rather than the morning of - our family holiday at the beach, which will be the subject of the next post.

Twice a week updating did not happen

The past ten days have been incredibly full. It was ADC's birthday, I got a lot of work (and paperwork) done, I visited the Old City in a dust storm, we have refurbished the kitchen somewhat, and preparations for Rosh Hashana are underway. 

ADC's birthday was last Thursday. Like last year, I bought him a cake, as he does not believe I can make fancy birthday cakes. I totally agree! At the same time as buying the cake, I also bought a salad spinner. Since A and S have decided that they do eat lettuce, we have been eating salads rather than cut up vegetables, and ADC has been complaining for a while that we need to buy a salad spinner. My first stop was at a branch of a fairly fancy houseware store, where the salesgirl really didn't want to sell me anything. I remembered seeing a new kitchenware store just by the Machane Yehuda market, and continued there. Happily, although it was mostly accessories for baking, they did have a salad spinner - nicer and cheaper than the one I'd seen before. The salesperson took me around the corner to their other shop in order to wrap the box - and the other shop sells Arcosteel pots and pans, has a knife sharpening service; in short, it is the kind of shop that ADC loves. Telling him about it was an extra present, and he has been using the salad spinner almost daily, too. 

This week's work: reviewing an article (that required checking translations of a text, and I had suggestions for improvement, so it was worth it), submitting the final version of an article of my own  (and being invited to give a talk on the same topic to a general audience - that will no doubt be a post of its own), paperwork for the Israeli income tax authorities for 2014, paperwork for getting our lift released from customs (hopefully next week, immediately after Rosh Hashana), and editing a first draft of a grant proposal. I also officially finished working as a research assistent for one of my PhD supervisors, as his grant ended, and began negotiations to begin working for another professor who has just received a grant. 

For the past few days, since the early hours of Tuesday morning, Israel has been suffering from an unusually violent dust storm, coming from the north (Syria), rather than the south (Jordan/Saudi Arabia) or west (Egypt) as they usually do. Jerusalem was particularly hard hit, as it is on the edge of the desert, and on Tuesday there was almost no visibility, with outside games cancelled at schools and dozens of people with asthma etc. needing medical treatment. Unfortunately for them, that was the day M and her good friend V came to see Jerusalem. M said she hadn't been to the Old City since high school, and this was V's first visit; I am so sorry it was in such poor conditions!! We climbed up the bell tower of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Christian Quarter, one of the highest points in the city. On a good day, you can see to the Dead Sea; on a normal day, you can see to Mt Scopus; that day we could barely see the city walls. The nice guard refused to take our money, and we continued to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was surprisingly not busy. I guess anyone who could was staying indoors. We then continued to a viewpoint of the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock. I have never seen the Dome so un-shiny, and it was quite eerie to see it against a flat white background, instead of seeing the Mount of Olives behind it.

The house was quite dusty, as we had left the windows open when we went to bed on Monday, so it was a good thing that the carpenter was due to arrive on Wednesday. I have not provided a photojournal, so you will just have to take my word for it that my kitchen is now much more spacious and organized. Admittedly, I can't reach the top shelf of the new pantry, but that is why I have a very tall husband and two sons who are on their way to being as tall. I have found myself just standing and staring at the pans that now hang from hooks and are easily accessible, instead of being stacked and hidden away in a drawer. 

Finally, Rosh Hashana is on its way, starting tomorrow at sundown. ADC has been trying to make profiteroles for years, and as a trial run, we invited my sister J and her family for brunch today and fed them highly successful ones (finally!). We are going to ADC's family for Rosh Hashana, and I hope the batches he makes for them are as good. 

May all my f-list have a happy and healthy New Year! שנה טובה ומתוקה!

First day of school - an update

It is scarily easy to fall out of the habit of blogging once I'm home ... I would try another SED for September, except that the month is chopped up by the High Holydays, and I will be away from my laptop quite often. I'll try for twice a week posting and see how that goes.

Now that the accountability disclaimer is up, what have I been up to in the last two weeks? Slowly but surely, the house has taken shape. The Ikea drawers and shoe closet have been constructed (thanks to ADC and the boys); the dining room chairs have been re-upholstered in dark red basketweave (thanks to my sister-in-law E and the boys), replacing or rather re-covering Very Stained Beige (I didn't realise quite how awful it had been until we went to ADC's cousins for lunch this past Saturday, and their chairs had that same upholstery as we had had); we've bought new carpets and sent an old Turkish rug for cleaning and mending; we've bought a car (or rather leased one); all the boxes have been unpacked apart for two containing large kitchenware, which is waiting for the new kitchen cupboards (due sometime next week, I hope); I've made dentist and doctor appointments (just check-ups). Our lift is due to arrive at Ashdod port any day now, so - taking all the non-working days in September into account - the house should reach its more or less final shape by the end of the month. 

ADC has gone back to work completely, and I've also been working quite a lot. I finished translating an article, really not in my field and really poorly written, yesterday and today I had much more fun editing an entry for the Encyclopedia of Islam, third edition, and then finalising an entry I had written myself. I don't think that there are that many editors who also write the same kind of things that they edit, and I am glad to polish my USP from time to time. 

A and S had their first day of school today. Both returned to the schools they had attended before the year in America, and it seems so far that the transition is going very smoothly. Since getting back to Jerusalem both have been spending a great deal of time with friends, including sleepovers - making up for a year apart. Hard to tell yet what re-adjusting to school in Israel will be like, and I'm much more concerned about A, who has to get used to being back in a competitive environment where everyone is clever and wants to study.  

It has been so nice to sleep in my own bed with my own sheets again. Last Friday we had TB over for supper, and I could see how happy ADC was to be cooking in his own kitchen again. I love my dishwasher!! The week before we had a family event, another bar mitzvah, so I got to see all my cousins - everyone is back from the US now, and as someone said, now that the older children are heading into high school and then the army, nobody is planning to leave for a while.