Katrina Yellow: The mad bad and crazee life of Me!

bad bad bloggers

2010-05-10T13:13:00.006+03:00

need to attone! here for my sins, are some pictures and videos, to make up for my shocking lack of posting.

That is a video of Davy begging his aunty to put up some photos of his new cousin. His cousin was born on April 29th and is most adorable, and is making me very very broody!

Here are some pics taken recently. Here is Davy's ID picture for his school application. Yes I know I can't believe I had to get an ID picture for him. I am picturing the school with guards with Uzis. Given it is the local Jewish school, that sadly may be true and necessary but lets hope its not.

He is being sent there from January next year. It is a nice school, and about 70% Jewish, which makes me happy as I didn't want him to have a very insular experience, so its nice there'll be a bit of diversity. My catholic mother is less than pleased that he's being sent there, but she will have to cope, just like his other grandmother is less than pleased we live in South Africa now. Poor davy to have such crotchety grandmothers!

Here are some more pics. Some were taken at a holiday recently in the Cedarberg - a very beautiful place we've been going to since I was a wee one. Others were in Sedgefield with friends, and the others are Bob and I finishing a 12k trail run. I look shattered and I'd just fallen down the mountain - you can see on my leg some blood!

Other news is that I got the job as a Lecturer at a certain university. Very pleased although a bit shell shocked to already have started from May 1st. Also it looks like our house purchase is going through which is quite fabulous - by the end of the month we will hopefully be up to our eyeballs in debt!

new post - no really? Is there still anyone out there?

2010-03-22T21:49:00.003+02:00

This blog should be called the blog which died after an international move. I last posted midway in September and it is nearly April. i.e right before Rosh HaShana, and it is nearly Pesach! So I will have to just write down the highlights. Over the past few months we have done the following:

- taken an international flight with a toddler - never again.
- not realised quite how long it takes to find a rental in Cape Town, so stayed with my lovely brother and sister in law for 6 long weeks, during a period where Davy was taking up to an hour of screaming to go to sleep. Poor them they ended up coming home later and later!
- found a house to live in - it is pretty, has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a nice big garden for Shaka.
- submitted an offer to purchase on said house - we'll see how that plays out, they may accept but then will the bank give us a mortgage? I don't know because...
- Bob has become self employed - after too many months of a bad boss giving him trouble, he has struck out on his own - he's doing okay but the bank is bound not to be too impressed, so hold thumbs for us.
- found a job - this is me. I'm working in a research unit at a university here - most people can guess which university. I've also applied for a permanent post in the department I used to work in - so again y'all can hold thumbs until I know.
- found a new love - trail running - this is more Bob and less so me. Cape Town is just fabulous in terms of mountains and trails so we're really enjoying this. It is quite punishing but much nicer than running on the road with stinky cars. I ran my first 5k trail run on Saturday - it was tres hard! My shins hurt today.
- found a lovely Nanny for Davy - she cleans the house and looks after him and makes life generally bearable. He is beginning to get bored at home though, so will be off to play school for a few days a week to find some friends.

righto that is all! more to come as I think I am boring my Facebook friends with my random babbling, so I need to bore all of you instead! :P

a short update

2009-09-17T11:49:00.002+03:00

of everything going on in our lives right now - bullet points to make it quicker.

Davy - a good boy who sleeps well at night. Fall over backwards. The other day he woke up at 730. No more ear troubles, has learnt to walk, falls over all the time, has learnt to open doors and work the microwave, and today spoke his first english word - water!

Shaka - a good dog who is costing us an arm and a leg, and then another few legs, and a couple kidneys to export to South Africa. He got his doggy passport yesterday from the State Vet - he is ready to travel. We managed to get him used to his crate, but not to his water bottle - stupid dog is gonna be a bit thirsty for 9 hours.

House - in a state of complete chaos - we move on the 29th - or at least the movers come and pack everything up and we clean up and leave with 2 suitcases, a stroller and a car seat. We are going to the desert to visit friends for 5 or 6 days, and then onwards to Joburg.

Nephews - I have one on the way - yay! 12 weeks and looking very healthy. A little boy cousin for Davy to boss around.

Admin - an incredibly long list, which is slowly being whittled down. Lets hope we sort it all out otherwise the Israeli tax authorities or national insurance will track us down and make us confess in South Africa.

Car - not sold yet! Anyone want it? Problem is it is too expensive for most people - most people normally finance a car which costs 50K or more - very annoying! we're going to end up selling it for 12000 shekels below the list price to a second hand car dealer. Annoying!

Mother in law - hates my guts! Nuff Said there. It's a tough life being a wicked shiksa.

Bob - stressed and overworked but excited to be going to South Africa. His old boss has offered him a bursary to continue and finish his masters thesis so he is pleased and I am pleased for him. What is funny is we will both be at the same university. When will we ever grow up?!

Finances - luckily not as dreadful as they could have been, though no thanks to Shaka! His ticket and all admin is costing double what all 3 of our tickets cost. He's in the dog box.

Right that is all I should be working! I am currently downloading the entire internet so I have something to read once I move to South Africa where the internet she is slow and tired and no-one has kicked the donkeys in a while.

davy got converted today

2009-07-26T21:04:00.002+03:00

poor boy! He didn't enjoy it one bit. The same Rabbi who did his brit, Andy Sachs of the conservative movement, was there as part of the beit din for his conversion today, which included a splash in the mikveh. Here is a video:

The conversion was at Kibbutz Chanaton, up north. The place has an interesting history - take a look on wikipedia for the story.

some random pics

2009-07-25T17:27:00.010+03:00

because I am at home alone and bored. I should be working but I'm not! I feel like a surly teenager who refuses to do his homework. Here is me attempting to get some pretty colourful pictures.

Here is my cute child looking phlegmatic. You got that thing pointed at me again Mom? Oh alright.

I now completely understand my mother and the trillions of pictures she took of me, though they annoyed the crap out of me at the time. Here's a picture taken of David on his birthday, which was sadly not celebrated due to extreme sleep deprivation (on our part) and illness (on his).

I know I know, you say, but you have another child, where are the pictures of him? Indeed we do. Poor neglected Shaka. We're planning on buying him a rotweiler friend in South Africa. Hopefully that will make him less glum.

Just for comparison, here is another pic of David from a year ago. I canna believe he was so small. Oh dear getting all broody now. Thought I said my next child would be my doctorate, lets hope I stick to that! then again the next child will be 100% healthy, will sleep through from 2 months, and will breastfeed like a champion, yes? And will be born after a 2 hour pain free labour. Right? Okay then.

Okay I should really do some work now. I just finally got some data, and am now completely overwhelmed by the scale of the project which is useless as I should really get on with it. Useless!

Isn't it about time someone updated this blog?

2009-07-21T13:23:00.009+03:00

It has been 20000 years or so since the last time. I am testing out bloggers image upload thingy so if it doesn't work sorry! The above was taken in Acco in April - a long time ago. Here is another more recent one:

That was taken at Hilton Beach in Tel Aviv. Yes I am indeedy playing with the settings on the camera cos I am bored.

Davy is a big fan of the water which is good cos he is getting converted on Sunday. I hope he does not take a poop in the water, otherwise methinks they will call it a baptism instead and hand him over to the Catholic Church for safekeeping. That should get him written out of grandma and grandpa's will soon enough. Don't poop Davy!

Looking like a criminal in Gan Sacker in the above. He has developed a fondness for the park as has his mother. The park has no electrical outlets, beds to fall off of, dogs with tails to pull, things to pull of shelves, and it tends not to have much whining either. The park is a winner. It has saved his mother's shattered nerves many a time.

The above is the latest look for babies who poop too much, and thus run out of clean pants. Davy has had secondary lactose intolerance, an annoying condition which means he poops all the damn time. You haven't lived until you've woken from a dead sleep at 5 in the morning, changed poop while baby screams like a banshee and kicks you like a donkey, then screams and refuses to return to sleep, then vomits on you. All before 6 in the morning. Have kids everyone!

Investigating with all due seriousness a water bottle. You can all rest assured that it was checked and found to be within regulations.

Right that is all for now. Hope everyone is having a fantabulous summer!

a new post - in honour of linky love from Gila

2009-05-21T08:50:00.003+03:00

so yes indeedy Gila has been talking about me at My Shrapnel, so I have to write something new for the 2.3 people who will click over here today! think of something new to write quickly! aiee!

There is actually a lot new around here as things are very up in the air at the moment, and at the same time we have made a lot of decisions. The thing is we keep on changing our minds, so you have to check back in with us daily to see what the current plan is. Currently the plan is to fly back end of September, or maybe sometime in October. Previously the plan was for end of December, but we realised we will be flat broke if we stay that long. We are shipping everything to Cape Town - today I find a mover and some quotes. Previously the plan was to sell everything - something we rapidly realised was a very bad plan, because 1, israelis when they sell, want to sell for original price plus x (the item has appreciated in value while being in their care), and 2 when you sell something, Israelis believe you should sell it for original price times 0.1. Or maybe 0.05. So selling things was a bad idea, and luckily we realised that before we sold anything!

We are also moving house, and chucking Shaka to live with his grandparents for 3 months if they will have him. If they won't have him there's an outside chance we may move back to Cape Town 1st July when our lease end! We got a quote from a pet agency for how much to ship him back - excluding flight costs (i.e. excluding probably about 300 dollars) they quoted about 4000 shekels. Have they lost their flipping minds - the dog is not made of gold!

In the meantime I am attempting to sort out a massive load of admin, do some work, keep my supervisor's interest in my work (something which waxes and wanes with the moon), and maintain a killer exercise program with Gila, as we have a goal of 2 hours for the two oceans half marathon in April next year and we have to do it! So all in all life is very hectic, but when I am not too stressed to breathe it is also good. It's me birthday today - I am 29 - and I feel quite happy with my life, my very good husband, my darling child and all our prospects. Can someone please remind me of that next time I feel too stressed to breathe!

right aims for today - buy plane tickets, find a house, get a mover quote. Easy peasy. on with it!

a bumper post

2009-05-05T08:46:00.005+03:00

Because this here blog has not been updated in so long. So of course let us begin with a cute Davy video - here he is trundling up the stairs at Bob's parents' house. You can hear Bob's mother freaking out in the background, and me being completely inane.

Right so that is the Davy update. He is now nearly 11 months, and as you can see crawling and standing like a champion. He still likes to keep his parents up at night, and only every so often will give us a few good nights, but then he stops because he doesn't want us getting soft. A good night is when he wakes up once at about 3 or 4, a bad night I don't want to talk about in case there are people contemplating children. Actually, no-one warned me, so a bad night is waking up every damn hour. He has been very sick of late - has had antibiotics twice, and bad ear infections etc. I don't believe in the power of breastfeeding any more - you hear of these moms who say, well little Jonny never gets ill, because I'm still breastfeeding. Well young Davy is still breastfeeding and is always ill, so clearly he is the exception which proves the rule, that or he would be in hospital otherwise!

The big piece of news we have is that we are coming to the end of our 5 year plan here in Israel (it has been 4 and a bit years), and we have decided to go back to Cape Town. Life in Israel is as our cleaner put it, a bit of a ballbreaker, and we want to go somewhere where life could possibly be a bit easier. While South Africa may be a bit terrifying, at least child care and domestic help are dirt cheap, and my mother is nearby for some help when David is ill. As it stands, given the last ten months, I wouldn't have another child if we stayed in Israel - it has just been too hard without any support.

Last week David was ill, and I had to work as I was giving lessons to various classes - the week cost us 1130 shekels in babysitting costs, cancelled appointments, lost wages and other sundry costs. In South Africa that same amount of money would pay for a full time nanny for a month, who would look after David when he was ill. I realise I might sound a bit heartless - how can I not want to look after my own kid when he ill? But David has been ill every week to two weeks for the past 5 months! At a certain point it becomes a bit wearing, and it means I don't get any work done, nor do I get taken seriously. Life here without any family to help is very hard.

There are other reasons to our decision. I think the fact that life is hard here is often discounted because people - new immigrants - who come feel like they are rewarded in other ways. It's really nice to come here and suddenly feel like everyone is like you, the holidays are your holidays, and you don't have to keep on taking off work to celebrate your own holidays. We don't feel that feeling so strongly - in fact the holidays drive us nuts because they just mean more time not being able to get anything done. In addition we feel we could do better financially in South Africa, and have better quality of life there.

In other news, I have a twitter account which I update very frequently - here it is.

And in other news, this week I am handing in my research proposal, which is a massive piece of progress. I am hoping to work quite hard this year, and then finish off my phd in South Africa next year - we plan to be back by the 1st Jan 2010. My supervisor has already offered to come to South Africa for a visit - suspiciously around the times of the Soccer World Cup!

Righty o that is all for now. Please by nice in your comments regarding our decision. It has been a very difficult decision to make, and we don't think South Africa is utopia, but at a certain point one has to decide, and stick with it. We're not ready to stick with Israel, despite that we will be sad to leave. We feel we've done everything possible to try to integrate - we're both fluent in hebrew, have Israeli friends, live exactly where we want to live, have had a kid and have done everything to settle. Despite that we're not content here - here's hoping we will be in Cape Town.

a little video for you all

2009-02-04T11:17:00.001+02:00

how hopeless am I at posting? very hopeless. Here is a video of our adorable rotter, the one who doesn't sleep at night. Angel by day, rotter by night. Babies should come with all teeth pre-installed is all I can say - this method is not very efficient.

this post is more for me than for you

2008-12-02T13:04:00.004+02:00

so this is a post I started writing a month and a half ago!

Since time flies, and young Davy is now nearly 6 months old, I just wanted to write down some memories from these first months, because it is indeed a haze. Sleep deprivation clearly makes you forget it all, otherwise you would never have more than one kiddy!

So just to remind me what the beginning was like with young Davy. We were on such a high after the birth that the lack of sleep wasn't really a problem, and it was difficult to sleep during the day because we were too excited. He was quite sleepy the first few days, and I had to tickle his feet to keep him awake during feeds. Two days after his brit he screamed his head off til 4 in the morning - refused to go to sleep - we took him out for a walk in the stroller at 1 in the morning to get him to sleep. He did fall asleep, but woke up the second we got home and resumed screaming. I felt like I passed some sort of parenting test by finally managing to get him to sleep. He also reacted badly to the caffeine I was drinking - I had a glass and a half of coke by mistake one day, and he gave me 1.5 hours of sleep that night. The first two nights we had him in bed with us - he slept on my chest or next to me, and I slept very lightly then. Then we transitioned him to his crib which he didn't mind too much, so long as you put him in while he was dead asleep. Anything less than that and he woke up screaming and you had to repeat the whole ordeal of getting him to sleep again. Week 3 and 4 were quite horrific until we got the lactation consultant in to fix his latch, and then he suddenly started sleeping much better - before then he hadn't slept longer than about 2.5 hours in a row.

We were also quite silly, so didn't know he needed to be put down to sleep within about an hour or an hour and a half from when he woke up - so he was chronically over tired and screamy and it was very difficult to get him to sleep. I would feed him and he would fall asleep, then I would very carefully get up to put him down, and he would wake up because the bed creaked, and I'd have to rock him to sleep for another 25 minutes. Some days all I did was attempt to get him to sleep for hours on end - he would nearly manage but by then he would be hungry again, or need a nappy change, or just be so pissed he was tired he wouldn't want to sleep. He was a very cross baby until we started putting him down for regular naps - then he became a champion napper. Month 2 and 3 were bliss - he would sleep from 8 til 4, then 4 til 8, and he would nap for about 3 or 4 hours at a time during the day - easy peasy to deal with. Then it all fell apart at month four, and it took time to come right - about a month and a half. Suddenly though at about 3 months after ages of rocking him to sleep, suddenly we were able to rock him to sleep in his crib, with a dummy and a burp cloth to clutch on to. That was a major improvement and really made a dramatic difference in quality of life, because otherwise it just took forever to get him to sleep.

right returning to the present. now that food is sorted - this child loves food - and burping is all over, we now have teeth to deal with. Teeth imply screaming and waking up every 45 minutes for a few nights in a row - not a lot of fun. Then two days of peace, and it all begins again. Aiee. Thank god for ear plugs and taking turns with husbands or I would have lost it a long time ago. As it is life with a baby who does not sleep is indeedy quite difficult. When he only wakes up twice in a night we praise the lord, the little baby jesus, mohammed and any one else who is listening.

right some work must be done...

we're going to buy a house

2008-11-16T10:22:00.003+02:00

in 2020! Oy vey! Our house is falling apart, our landlord is a shit (pardon my french but its true), and of course we fantasise about buying a house. The problem is all the houses in Jerusalem, or really in Israel, cost a million trillion shekels. Or at least a million if not more. So I called the bank, to ask them how much we would need to pay as a deposit. Short answer - 30%. 30%! that is a lot of shekels if you ask me. That is 300 000 if we buy a million shekel house, which I don't know about you, but I aint seen so many million shekel houses lying around. Of course you can buy a million shekel house if you want. It will just be a tiny flat without a garden (sorry Shaka, we had to get rid of you so we could buy a house), or it will be in the West Bank somewhere close to Ramallah or Jordan - great. Or in the Negev somewhere, and methinks the commute might be killer. Of course if one buys a house in the back of beyond it's all very well, but then you need two cars - at least 2000 or maybe 3000 extra shekels needed a month for a car. So you may as well buy the 1.5 million shekel house, but the problem is you don't have the 420 000 shekels (that is 108000 dollars, or 1.07 million rand), lying around, so of course you buy in the back of beyond and buy another car, because it will take you another ten trillion years to save up the deposit for the 1.5 million shekel house. This is of course if the bank values the house the same as the seller does - unlikely, as the seller thinks his hovel is a pretty palace worth at least 200000 shekels more than it really is. Which is fine but then the bank will only give you a mortgage for how much it values the house at - leaving you in the dwang for at least another 100000 shekels or maybe more. Which of course you have lying around (next to your diamond earrings and Porsche) and can easily pay.

right that is my rant for the day, fueled by coffee and vitamin pills cos I am ill and snotty and dreaming of houses. If anyone has a lot of money lying around please send it our way. Apart from not having a trillion shekels, we are fine, just dealing with never ending laundry, a house built on an Indian burial ground with very angry spirits (everything keeps breaking), a crazy neighbour, a baby who thinks it is cute to wake up a lot at night (wrong Davy - not cute! not cute at all!), some illness (two colds in two weeks), and not enough hours in the day. Young Davy is indeed very cute though, which is good cos otherwise with his latest dreadful sleep habits we might consider giving him away. He can sit unsupported for about 10 seconds then he pitches over and giggles mightily which is very cute. He also rubs his eyes with his hands when he wakes up, which is too adorable, and also stretches and emits the biggest yawn once he is done eating in the morning - very cute. He has also taken to trying to blow spit bubbles with very funny sound effects. All in all he is a very cute kid right now.

Why Ace and the Tipat Chalav suck.

2008-10-29T21:30:00.002+02:00

I went to Ace hardware the other day. That was my first mistake. We needed some storage containers, because despite me doing a huge clearout, chucking out a rubbish bag full of stuff, the very next day we got more stuff. The universe likes to laugh at us it seems. Bob's family came round to visit bearing gifts - loads and loads of baby clothes, very much appreciated because Davy is growing like a weed - and piles of toys. So off I went to go and buy some storage boxes so our 60 square meters doesn't start feeling like 5 very squashed square meters. I could have gone to Shilav (the local fancy outrageously priced baby store) to get the boxes which go with Davy's bed, but I think they cost something like 400 shekels a pop.

So I go into Ace. It is a huge mess, and there are no prices anywhere. None of the prices you can see match up to the items on display. Things are falling off the shelves and are lying on the floor. There are as usual no salesmen anywhere to ask the prices. I lugged a huge trunk and two wicker boxes to the till. I knew the price of the boxes, but figured I would dump the trunk if it was too expensive. I wait forever and ever, and finally I get served. The surly cashier tells me the trunk costs 240 shekels - 100 more than I had decided I was willing to spend for it. I realise I have no time to be gadding about looking for stupid boxes, and Davy is about to wail (he had been good up til then), so I tell her fine. She rings it up, and promptly ignores me and goes to the next customer. I ask her if they have any big bags. They do not. I ask her if there is someone to help me take this stuff to my car. She gestures vaguely in some direction, and tells me to ask over there. I ask her how precisely I am meant to get this stuff to my car. She tells me to get a trolley. Very sensible suggestion but I already have my hands full with a baby in a stroller. I do not have 4 hands! Long story short, I go to the returns desk, where finally someone helps me because I started shouting and telling them I want to return the stuff I bought if no-one will help me take it to my car. They are such a load of bright sparks there - they can see I have a baby in a stroller, and yet two other people told me to use a trolley.

What is funny is that 3 years ago I would have stood by calmly being trodden on for a good half hour, and this time I just started to shout immediately until I got my way. I am clearly Israeli.

Now why do the tipat chalav (well baby clinic) suck? I took Davy for his 4 month immunisation and weight check the other day. I was made to feel like such a bad mother for a number of reasons. Firstly this woman sucked in her breath like I just tried to kill my child, when I turned around (put my back to him), while still keeping a hand on him, to get his pants. He can't go anywhere while I have my hand on him, for the one second it took! Then she asks me about his eye - one of his eyes is quite slanted and droopy in comparison to the other. I tell her it is fine, it is a family thing - both my brother and uncle have it. She says have I gotten it checked by a doctor. Yes woman, your very own tipat chalav doctor checked it and said it was fine. She still insists that maybe there is something wrong with his eye.

Then she asks me if we are giving him vitamin D, and if not we must give it to him. We were giving it to him but I gave up giving it to him because I read that breastfed babies do not need it. She told me I mustn't listen to rumours and I should give it to him. Listen lady, I have a lot more education than you, I read an awful lot about how to raise my child, and if I were feeding him formula, then he would need it. Then she starts going on about giving him iron. Again, I have read if you exclusively breastfeed to 6 months, then start with solids and make sure you give them meat, they don't need the iron. Again she makes out I am clearly just reading nonsense and don't know what I'm talking about. Then she stuck a needle about 2.5 cms deep into his leg to inject him. The previous woman didn't stick the needle nearly so deep, so I'm not so sure why this woman needed to stick it so deep. It doesn't sound like much all in all, but I really resent people giving me recommendations based on advice for a population of both formula and breastfed babies - it does not fit for my baby who does not drink formula. I especially resent people making me out to be some whacky bad mother, especially when I feel like I go to fairly extreme lengths to do what is best for my son.

Anyway, they made me fairly cranky as you can probably tell. A friend of ours said her sister stopped taking her baby to tipat chalav as they made her feel so bad about his weight gain, or lack thereof. This I can well believe.

Anyway I am off to bed. Last night Davy had a fever from the injection, so we gave him baby painkillers and fed him at 930 - he slept all the way through til 630 the little shit. Bob does not seem to agree with me that this means he should sleep with him again tonight as last night he got more sleep than I did with that baby. Why does he never pull these tricks with me?!

bla bla long time!

2008-10-17T17:56:00.002+02:00

well indeedy it has been a long time no post. What can you do. Here are some pictures and videos to make up for it.

Here is a sleep review from this morning:

Here is Bob after Davy gave him no sleep one night:

And some pictures:

some little fingers:

Davy wondering what on earth mom is getting up to:

Looking cute:

and looking silly:

So life is vaguely getting back to normal now. I am busy working on my research proposal which is due the end of October, otherwise I get tossed out by the university. Oddly enough they gave me a rather generous scholarship at the same time - strange behaviour given they're thinking of tossing me out. I've been working rather frantically on the proposal, while Davy has been at Rachel's house for about 5 or 6 hours a day, although not every day because of all the holidays there have been this month. Some days I take him to Rachels, attempt to work but can't due to sleep deprivation, then I take him back from her. He was sleeping beautifully - from 8 til 4, then til 830, but is not sleeping so well now. The problem is that he is not eating properly during the day. Life is just too too exciting, and mom's boobs are just a personal affront because they do not deliver the goods as quickly as a bottle. Mom's left boob in particular is just a menace and should be avoided at all costs, or if need be, eaten from for 3 minutes maximum. This is incredibly annoying behaviour which turns most feeding sessions into screaming matches, unless one can catch him when he is sleepy, which since he sleeps less these days is difficult. All is okay in Davy's world though because he can just wake up more at night and eat then. This is not good for us though!

Bob has been taking his fair share of nights with young Davy so that I can actually think during the day, and he has been taking strain too. He is also attempting to work on his master's work before and after work - a bit difficult also with sleep deprivation and a cranky wife. Although he did ask his work to pay him less and let him have a day off a week, and they said they would pay him the same and let him have the day off, which was very nice of them. The only problem is because of all these holidays he hasn't been able to have a day off because otherwise he would barely work at all. We are hoping things get a bit more on track when the semester starts and Davy is at a nursery for half the day, with me then succeeding in getting some work done, and Bob managing to get some work on the weekends. This is of course if the university (where the nursery is located) opens this year. As usual, Israeli style, there is a balagan with the university and funding - the university heads are threatening not to open the universities unless they get extra funding which was promised to them. It is never dull around here!

righto that is that - the dog needs a walk - maybe I will post again sometime in 2008!

I should really be going to bed,

2008-09-10T23:27:00.006+03:00

but I just had to post this graphic from Wordle.net which shows young David is clearly more important to me than Bob, and that we are money obsessed :)

Here is a video of young David looking like the pampers baby, in a cloth nappy nogal:

I could not be more pleased by the way with the hectic breast pump we hired. It costs about a thousand dollars to buy, and it would be worth every penny. It is so good in comparison to the other one I bought. I bought a medela mini electric and could not get anything with it, this one is the medela super electric plus I think, and it is hectic - today i got 150ml in about ten minutes. Moo!

Update: sorry about all the reposts, I'm trying to fix this silly code!

update update: brain not functioning too well here!

young davy in his bouncy chair

2008-09-07T21:27:00.002+03:00

Here is a video with me speaking my dreadful hebrew, showing young David in his new bouncy chair:

So young Davy was looked after by his baby sitter for the first time today. We have really fallen with our bum in the butter with this lady. She is incredibly good with him, has loads of experience with babies and is very sweetly lending us a play pen for him too. She worked as a nurse at Hadassah in the premature baby ward. It is most comforting to know he is being left in such good hands. Now we just have to see if I can manage to pump enough milk to actually leave him with her while I go and work at the university for a few hours. I ordered and got today a hospital grade pump, for rent. Hold thumbs that it works otherwise I am going to be chained to young David for the next 6 months!

long time no blog!

2008-09-04T22:35:00.002+03:00

It has indeedy been a very long time. Approximately ten weeks. The same age as young David, coincidentally! Babies are bad for blogging!

So here is a video of young David trying to roll over - it is most amusing.

Except not so amusing when he wakes up in the middle of the night stuck in the half way position and all frustrated. But he is such a good boy usually I can't really complain. He has slept 8 hours in a row a couple of times already, and now is sleeping about 6 hours in a row. I have decided to have only boys, because a friend of mine tells me boys are good sleepers - it seems to be the case!

So we are coping fine now that young David is a better sleeper. In the beginning he was not eating very well, and we had to get a lactation consultant in. She cost the princely sum of 400 shekels but was worth every penny, because once he started eating better he began to sleep beautifully. He also made up for lost time and put on half a kilo in a week! He now weighs a whopping 6 kilos - he is a big boy. I was lifting him up and down yesterday because it makes him giggle, and I ended up straining a muscle in my neck. Very silly. I need to do some weights because he is getting big fast!

He is also falling asleep better which is good, because the 45 minutes of rocking required to get him to sleep was getting very old very fast. We now play him the sound of a hairdryer on repeat, shush him, rock his bed, and thanks to Bob's mother we also give him a dummy (pacifier) which he now will consent to take. All of this will eventually result in him falling asleep, though if the dummy falls out before he is in deep sleep he will wake up again. This is not a hardship though because it was such a pain before trying to put him to sleep after he fell asleep on the boob, or in the sling, or in our arms. I would get up, and the bed would creak, and he would wake up. Such a nuisance! We've had a turn around in the last week or two and now putting him to sleep is so much easier than before.

We're also using cloth nappies with him because we are green crunchy hippies like that. They are fantastic and save an awful lot of money. I bought 1000 shekels worth of cloth nappies in South Africa and had my poor sister bring them to me. Given that nappies cost 65 shekels a packet, and you go through a packet in under a week, they are really worth it. Bob is slightly less convinced because he does not enjoy scrubbing the poo stains off them, but he cannot argue with the financial benefits. We need the money too because we have had an amazing month financially, and not in a good way. I got a fine today for 250 shekels, he got one the other day for 250 shekels, we missed getting a laptop fixed by two days after the guarantee ran out, which was 800 shekels for the fix, the washing machine broke (200 shekels), the dog needed a vet visit (250 shekels), and the car needs a service (at least 500 shekels). Ouchy ouch! There are other things but I can't recall them. It is a good thing Bob is working otherwise we would be velly poor.

Life is much improved these days. It was quite tough at first after my angelic saint like sister went home. We cried when she went! then we got my mother to come out and help us. She came for 4 weeks and enjoyed spending time with young David. We took him to a bunch of art exhibits which he seemed to enjoy, and I became an exhibit a number of times as a nursing mother. Some snotty women in the Tel Aviv museum of modern art didn't want to let me feed him on a bench, and wanted me to go and feed him in the toilets. hmmm, lemme think about that. No! So we went to another room and I whipped out a boob before anyone could say anything. Young David has been fed all over the show by now - on the bus with chareidis on either side, outside the Knesset when he moaned during a walk, in coffee shops and art galleries, museums, at the mall, in the car (not while it was moving) and once in a sling (this would be nice to perfect). It is all the same to him, he just wants to eat! At first I was very skaam about it, and asked people if it was okay to feed him (at coffee shops for instance). Now I could not care less and I feed him anywhere. I reason people prefer a quiet baby over a screaming one. I am very discreet in that I cover him with a light cloth, which I kind of have to do because he sometimes acts like a bull terrier with my nipple and does not stay on it all the time.

Here is another video of some of his first smiles. What a cute little boy! Or at least I think so.

Right I must go to sleep!

not pregnant anymore!

2008-07-03T21:13:00.003+03:00

Yes indeedy I am not pregnant anymore. Hooray! Young David was born on the 23rd of June at 3pm, weighing in at a hefty 3.75 kilos, after a 20 hour labour. He was born at home in a birth pool, because his parents are hippies like that. He will probably reward us by going on to become an accountant or something equally dreadful!

So here are some pictures.

Bob during the birth - looking rather tired. The first birth pool burst, luckily without me or water in it yet, so he had to dash out to get another one ten minutes before the shops closed, after a very long day at work.

Young David and his safta having a moment.

Young David after his first trip to the Tipat Chalav today. He did not like being put in that car seat - it was traumatic all round!

Seconds after he was born.

Little water baby.

The funniest picture of them all. We didn't tell our neighbours below us that we were having a home birth, as we had had it up to here with all the horror stories. When I started to let rip about half an hour before he was born, they got a bit concerned. They came to knock on the door but we didn't hear them. So at 3 o clock they called an ambulance. We heard the sirens and our midwife joked that "oh, here's our ambulance!", but we didn't really think it was for us. So within 4 minutes after the neighbour called the ambulance (impressive service), 3 big men came crashing through the front door, as I lay nekkid on the couch with young David, to save our lives. It was most hilarious. They were very amused once we told them it was a planned home birth, and were very impressed with the midwife's serious collection of resuscitation and other equipment. They wished us mazel tov and went away, and we then had some explaining to do to our very sweet neighbour!

Ze desert

2008-05-24T21:39:00.003+03:00

We went for a little trip to the desert this weekend, so that could have our LAST WEEKEND ALONE TOGETHER EVER OH MY GOD. Yes. Something along those lines. It was very nice, though a little hot and my ankles and calves seem to have formed a friendship where you now cannot tell the one from the other. I would include a picture but you would all cry and run away screaming. So here are some pictures of other things.

The view from our balcony. Velly nice dahling.

Bob relaxing in a park in Dimona. For your information, daar's vokal to see in Dimona.

Me, with a look on my face which says, "Get this baby out of me already!"

Some fake camels in the desert. They also had fake sheep but I didn't get a picture of them. Velly handy for when you keep on missing the real camels.

A sign warning you of the fake and real camels in the desert. We saw a herd of camels being herded by someone in a bakkie (pick up truck for the non South Africans). It was most amusing. The camels looked pissed.

A picture of the dreaded toilet in our little hut. We paid an exorbitant amount of money for this place, and the floor was made of gravel (odd), and the toilet was a waterless eco friendly swedish made bla bla toilet. What this really meant was that they were too cheap to put real plumbing in for the toilet, and so decided to go with these ones. It was really flimsy and a most enjoyable experience when all 73 kilos of me landed on it rather forcefully the ten trillion times I needed to use it. It also had this rather odd flap which was meant to swing open when you sat down, to reveal the hole below for your contribution to drop into, plus the toilet paper. However at first this did not swing open and so we could not figure out where the toilet paper and or other sundries were meant to go. Then I got cross and whined until Bob figured out what was going on and jammed the stupid thing open so things would go where they were meant to go. It was meant to be eco friendly by not using water, but since it had to be plugged into electricity 24/7 so that the fan on it would make sure it did not smell, it was not really. Neither was the electric geyser as opposed to a solar heated one - hello, an electric geyser in the desert? Are you kidding me? Neither was the massive bath which probably used about a million times more water than a shower would have. Neither was the aircon plugged into the wall. And neither was the electric hob as opposed to a gas hob. We figured the owners of this place were real cheapskates trying to avoid paying property tax or something, as the entire little house seemed to be made of plywood, and it clearly was not plumbed for sewerage. Very smart and all but do not try to fool me with your silly talk of the environment you cheapskates! We did have a fabulous time despite all my moaning.

A rather charming sign we saw in Dimona. Eh? Thats not nice.

Bob wandering through the desert.

Me lazing about.

We discovered a menu for not quite a restaurant, but rather a service where this fellow will bring you dinner somewhere. It seems he must be coming from Tel Aviv all the way out to the desert because the prices were ridiculous. If you look in the bottom left you will see he is offering you veggie soup and bread for two, for 230 shekels. That is 460 rand, approx 30 pounds. Yes, I know. What was he smoking? I wonder how many people call him for dinner. We had a good laugh after seeing this menu.

Bob having a well deserved rest in bed.

A rather odd satellite dish farm on the way home. There were little ones and big ones and medium sized ones and monster big ones. This photo does not do it justice.

Right that is all because I am tired now. For all you 37 week pregnant ladies just be warned that the desert plus a pregnant lady is a potent combination which can only result in cankles. The only solution is to have the baby. Then your ankles and double chin may recede to normal sizes. I will keep you all posted if/when this happens!

ze chareidim are such a bunch of charmers

2008-05-01T19:39:00.003+03:00

A generalisation I know, but still! So today is Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel. At ten AM a siren sounds for two minutes, and traditionally, everything stops. People stop their cars and get out and stand next to them. Buses stop. People stand to attention. For two minutes, and then life carries on as usual. So today I was on the bus going through the outskirts of Mea Sharim, a chareidi neighbourhood in Jerusalem. For non Israelis, Chareidim are ultra orthodox Jews, long black coat and sideburn fellows. They have fairly strong views on the state of Israel (it shouldn't be a democratic/secular state, it shouldn't exist yet because the Messiah aint here etc etc) and this includes these sorts of national holidays. On Independence Day they have been known to burn the Israeli flag. As I said a bunch of charmers.

So anyway the siren sounds, the bus stops, the bus driver gets out of his seat and stands, as do the rest of us. Meanwhile on the street, half of the people stop and stand to attention, including cars driving past, and half carry on about their daily business. Guess which half was which. Yes those not wearing kippahs, those who you can clearly see are not religious, stood to attention. The chareidim continued about their business. It was really interesting, and at the same time really offensive.

We also drove past a small demonstration by Chareidim. Their placards read things like, Mourning, For what? Jews are not Zionists etc. I don't get it though. This is holocaust memorial day, not Memorial Day for Israeli soldiers (that is next week). Surely these people lost relatives in the Holocaust? Surely it's got bugger all to do with Zionism? Are they just using next weeks placards? If you think about it I have much less connection to Yom HaShoah than they do and yet I still stand. I'm not Jewish, I didn't lose any relatives in the Holocaust, and probably I have relatives who were on the other side. And yet out of respect for people who did lose relatives, and just in general because I don't know, the Holocaust wasn't the kiefest thing that ever happened and maybe if we commemorate it it might prevent something similar happening again? I don't know. Anyway to summarise - bunch o charmers that lot! I could write more but I need to wek!

Could someone update this blog please?

2008-04-30T22:14:00.003+03:00

Oh wait, thats me that's meant to do that. Solly! My last post was a whole month ago - thats got to be a record. Well just because you've all been so patient (who is this you? is there anyone still reading this stuff?) here are some photies. Also because I could not be bothered to actually write anything.

Here is a picture of Bob's tomato plants. He smuggled two tomatoes back from Sicily in September, preserved the seeds and sowed them a month ago, and they are indeed healthy young tomato plants. They also look rather like marijuana so currently our little garden plot is filled with suspicious marijuana looking plants. I hope the police bring along a plant expert when they come to arrest us otherwise we're going to be in trouble!

Here is Shaka looking chipper. He is presently on about day 10 without a fit - hold thumbs. The vet examined him, tested his blood again and said there is no way he has tick bite fever (unlike what the first vet said), and said if he only has fits at a rate of one a week then there is no need to even treat them. So Shaka promptly had two within 2 days of each other, but now he has not had one in ten days. Hold thumbs it was just a phase :P

Here is a picture of our fridge. Please come and take it away. We will pay you. Okay we won't but we will only take 900 shekels from you if you do come take it away. Okay 800. I give you nice price. Now piss off and take this stupid fridge away! Bob's parents very sweetly bought us a new fridge and we have not gotten off our bums to sell the old one. So it is currently in our foyer using up electricity and storing Shaka's prime beef.

Here is Farmer Brown, I mean Bob tending to his newly planted tomatoes. The veggie patch you see to the bottom of the picture we call the killing fields as as soon as we plant something there some horrible bug munches it to hell and gone. But things seem to be coming along nicely - hopefully the killing fields will turn into the fields of spinach and cucumbers and aubergines! We have other stuff we're going to plant but we don't know what it is because we are super smart. We sowed a whole bunch of seeds but neglected to write on the pots what they were so now we are going to have surprise salad!

Here is a bird's eye view taken from the laundry hanging spot. If you look closely you can probably see Bob's ass so maybe it is best if you don't look closely. The fence you see to the right was made from an old futon - we are real cheapskates/hippies/freecyclers around here.

And last but not least here is a photo of me taken by my darling husband while I was unawares, and practicing our hippy trippy hypnobirthing relaxation exercises. I saw these pictures and nearly fell down in shock - is my stomach that big? How did that happen?! Aiee! And yes I am just about to drool in the picture because I was just about to fall asleep because ze relaxation exercises are indeed terribly relaxing. I dare any of you to listen to the slightly robotic voice telling you you are going deeper and deeper and simultaneously manage to look more dignified than I look in this picture (not very much). Its just not possible!

I have a funny story about being pregnant. Israelis are indeed quite touchy people and pregnant ladies are fair game it seems. This otherwise very sweet lady at work, who has already touched my tummy twice, got quite the shock today when she tried again. Quick as a wink I grabbed her hand, before she could touch me, and then I rubbed her tummy instead. And then I told her not to touch! She was in shock - it was hilarious. Then she was nearly offended - hang on a minute aren't you the one touching me without permission - shouldn't I be offended? So I told her hey listen lady you wouldn't touch my tummy if I wasn't pregnant so why do you get to touch it now? She did not quite understand the principle. But later she laughed and said she was quite surprised at the speed of my reflexes. Ha!

I am also going to get a t shirt which says:
Yes I am quite big - why thank you for commenting.
No we don't know if its a boy or a girl.
Mid to late June.
Yes I do plan to breastfeed - not that it is any of your business!
Shaare Tsedek or Ein Kerem (because I've given up telling people we're doing a home birth, I can't be bothered with their horror stories and shocked looks).

that should save me an awful lot of time!

how to spend a lot of money quickly

2008-04-01T11:25:00.003+03:00

the answer? Have a dog with an undiagnosed medical problem. Shaka was just at his fourth vet visit in 3 weeks - ouch! They took blood from him which I then took to some weird place near Tel Aviv. It was the Agricultural Ministry's something or other plus some big veterinary spot - who knows really. All I know is I drove there with one arm over my head the whole way because my ribs are killing me. It was the oddest place too - a huge compound with a million buildings, the odd field of horses or chickens, doors with big signs saying beware infectious diseases do not enter, and other doors with skull and cross bones signs for radiation, complete with crazy looking people in white coats. I was happy to get out of there alive! For those of you with animals with undiagnosed problems and not so fat bank accounts, get your vet to send your animal's blood tests there because it was a lot cheaper than other labs.

So in a few days we might know what is wrong with Shaka. He acted all pathetic after they shaved a bit of his leg to take blood and then put a bandage on it. It was most cute. Here he is trying to be brave despite his troubles:

The look on his face says, "How could you do this to me?"

And here are some photos taken at an organic veggie farm in Jerusalem. This is in the valley where they put the new extension to the highway which goes to Har HaTsofim. We went there looking for veggies but were turned away. Despite having a website which extols their veggies, they told us they have nothing to sell yet because it is winter. They looked appalled when we mentioned greenhouses. I'm not sure why because there are loads of other places which sell organic produce including stuff grown in green houses in winter. Plus, there are veggies which grow in winter. Duh! Anyway it was a pretty place.

All pretty but where are the damn veggies?

Some old houses on the way back.

Bob pretending to be a winter veggie.

Dat's all for now folks!

3 years of silly banananess

2008-03-29T10:49:00.003+03:00

Well yesterday it was 3 years since I landed in this funny funny country. When I first got here I couldn't speak a word of hebrew, and was dependent on Bob for every last thing. In the past 3 years I've since become fluent in Hebrew, to the point that I don't speak much else besides Hebrew in the course of my day. Oh and I can't speak English no more no more. Well at least not the Queen's English. Besides language issues, the past 3 years has seen us getting married, me starting a Phd, getting knocked up, finishing my Masters, and becoming highly cynical about the world at large and in particular this funny country. I think this has got to do with growing up though and has not too much to do with Israel.

I have a funny story from yesterday which new immigrants to this country will be only too familiar with. So when you come here you bring absolutely everything with you, and on each trip back to your original country you often buy a whole bunch of stuff because you haven't figured out where to buy it in Israel, or it is not as cheap/as good/ as in your home country. Gradually you manage to find substitutes, or to find the same thing here without being ripped off too badly. Some things you just give up on and make your own or do without (like good cheap brown bread for instance). Other things you search and search for and finally find, just not where you thought they were. For instance, if you want a hot water bottle, buy it at the pharmacy. Not in the supermarket where you might expect them to be. And as I learned yesterday, if you want to buy seeds, do not buy them at a nursery. We went to at least 3 nurseries, and each one had a rack of crappy old soggy seeds long past their expiry dates. We did buy some a month or two ago but nothing came up. So this time we refused to buy crappy old seeds, despite being assured by the nursery owner not to worry and that things would come up. Then we popped into the hard ware store for something else, and what do we find but a rack stuffed full of spanking new seeds with expiry dates past 2010. So if you want seeds buy them at the hard ware store. Not at the nursery like you might logically expect. The key here is not to expect anything to be where it ought to be and then to be pleasantly surprised if you find it anywhere at all!

So I am now the size of a small house. Bob backed up about 3 kilometres and managed to get this picture of me a few weeks ago. I am now a whole lot larger. It is scary stuff.

For all those of you out there who might encounter a pregnant lady on your travels here are some things you shouldn't say to her.

"Gosh you are immense. I was nowhere near that size when I was pregnant" - credit goes to my mother for that one.

"I had a terrible time in labour and so will you. It took forever and it hurt and I thought I was going to die" - again, my mother.

"Wow you've really gotten fat" - this time the otherwise nice secretary in my department.

"You should really think about a home birth - it's very dangerous your baby might die" - another thoughtful secretary at the Hebrew U.

"Oh my god I have just heard about this dread disease - you must go and get checked out immediately" - a well intentioned relative.

"Your kid's gonna be a retard" - my darling sister - thanks sister! then again this sort of joking is allowed in our family so this one I don't really mind. Except if the kid is a retard. Then it is all your fault sister!

This is your public service announcement. You have been warned! If you do say any of the above to a pregnant lady, you had better be ready to run.

if its not one thing it is another!

2008-03-24T18:46:00.002+02:00

So last week I had the wonderful Israeli nurse bedside manner again. I phoned to get the results of my blood type test and she gasped when she checked them like I had two months to live. Then she told me I am rhesus negative and I have to come in right away to get the immunisation in case my blood decides to start eating the baby alive. All the while she was freaking out because it got discovered only just in time apparently, because they do the immunisation at 28 weeks and thats when they find out my blood type. All the nurses were having a field day dissing the doctor for not picking it up sooner. So I had to go to the local hospital to go see a doctor on Friday morning to get the prescription for the immunisation. Sounds simple but it took over 2 hours as first I had to see the nurse to get a number for the queue for the doctor, then I had to wait for the doctor who came 20 minutes late, then I had to wait to see her, and then of course the computer did not work so she couldn't do anything for me, and then when it did of course she wasn't able to enter the system to see my test results. After about a million hours I finally got the prescription for the rhesus whathaveyou immunisation and left.

Then once we were happy my blood was not going to eat the baby alive, the dog had an epileptic or some kind of fit, again. So we had to take him to the vet to get him checked out again, and one of the possible causes is toxoplasmosis, which is the thing pregnant ladies should avoid in cat litter. So of course now I have to go and get tested for toxoplasmosis.

And of course the final straw was my mother in law phoning me all in a panic because some fool wandered the halls of the Hebrew U with measles, and everyone who was there when he was there is advised by the Ministry of Health to go get checked for it. Measles, as you can no doubt guess is not very good for pregnant ladies, so now I have to go to the doctor tomorrow to get checked to see if I ever got immunised for it. Aieee! Motherhood makes one neurotic it is plain to see. This child is going to be a retarded spastic toxoplasmastic measles infected eaten alive by my blood child. I was trying very hard not to get hysterical about all these things but it is hard when one is fending off phone calls from mothers and mothers in law who are both hysterical themselves about all these things. And then of course my mother decided to freak me out about having a home birth (if anyone has any opinions about this I could not care less please keep your mouths shut or I will get cross) and had to tell me all about quite how excruciating and horrific her first birth was. Thanks mom, way to go, even if I did want a hospital birth I would still be shit scared thanks to your fear mongering.

Anyway this has made me all quite grumpy not to mention neurotic so here is some lighter fare for you. It was just Purim, and part of the tradition is bringing around mishloach manot - little baskets of goodies - for family and friends. Some very sweet friends of ours brought us around some delicious cookies etc for us, and then they completely won us over by bringing round another
basket just for Shaka, filled with sausages. So here is Shaka sitting with his mishloach manot, waiting eagerly to be told he can eat it.

Here he is getting into the Purim spirit.

And here he is waiting oh so eagerly for Bob to unwrap his mishloach manot. I would show you pictures of him eating them up but he ate em so fast there aint none!

la di da

2008-03-18T12:04:00.002+02:00

I am sitting at home doing some wek on my research. Part of the wek has to do with trying to find out information about refugees in Tanzania. Which is great and all but it costs about 5 shekels a minute to phone Tanzania. And it is not clear they speak English in all parts of Tanzania. So I decided to try to find information on ze internets. A brilliant idea but so far it is failing miserably in execution. It appears internet in Tanzania is powered by two very slow donkeys, because these pages are taking a loooong time to load. Then if you can actually get an email address for someone in Tanzania your mail will bounce right back to you because they have not heard of this idea of updating the mail address when it changes. They put up webpages back in 1998 or so and have not updated them since. It is like a piece of internet history the Tanzanian internet. Now someone from Tanzania is going to get all cross at how I am dissing the Tanzanian internet. If there is someone from Tanzania reading don't get all cross, instead go give those donkeys a kick so the internet goes faster! And tell people to update their email addresses.

Though I have to give them their due, I know the South African internet is powered by at least 3 donkeys and should theoretically be a lot faster than the Tanzanian internet, but so many pages I have tried to visit in South Africa do not load at all. So somehow the Tanzanian donkeys are better than the South African ones. Maybe the South Africans should look into feeding their donkeys better or something. Or maybe they could stop turning off the power there and that might help!

I take it back. The Tanzanians do not win the slowest developing country internet prize. I just tried to find the webpage for the Geography Department at the University of Dar es Salaam. There is no webpage! There is such a department, but it has no webpage. Thanks guys that is most helpful.

I take it back again. They seem to have a page, they just did not feel it was necessary to link to it from the front page. Now I am waiting for it to load to see if it useful at all. I am not sure what to do if it has no email addresses on it. Maybe I could send them a letter? I would probably get an answer to my questions by round about May 15th, which is when I am meant to be presenting the beginnings of this research paper. Hmmm. Not helpful!

Yup they have no email addresses. I think I'm going to have to sign up for a package to call Tanzania for my sins. That should make it cost about 1 or 2 shekels a minute instead of 5. Grand! Anyway I am going to stop writing nonsense and do some more wek!

Cruelty to Shaka

2008-03-16T09:59:00.001+02:00

We are just the meanest parents. Shaka likes carrots, but he has to learn there is no such thing as a free lunch. He must sing for his supper!

Finally pictures and videos!

2008-03-15T21:55:00.002+02:00

Here is Shaka the hound dog. He currently smells like a minty fresh dog who has just brushed his teeth, thanks to his menthol flavour tick collar he just got from the vet.

Shaka caught in a rather indelicate moment in the recent snow we had in Jerusalem.

Pretty snow! Can you see how excited we get about so little snow?

Here is me looking like your local neighbourhood bag lady. Coat plus pyjamas is not the most stylish look:

This is my favourite picture, of the snow on the solar panels. I guess most of us were switching on ze geyser that day!

Here's the view from our front door:

Right I will put up more pictures when I have the energy. For the moment be happy with some silly videos we took lately. Firstly checking to see if Bob had tetanus:

Next a video we shot for our friends David and Veronica. For the non hebrew speakers, we want them to get married already, so we decided to let them know in our not so subtle way. You can also see where we picnicked which is right above where we lived for a year.

There is another video but it has not uploaded yet so you will all have to be content with that. We took some photos of my bulge but they came out so horrifying I have to figure out how to get photographed without looking like a baby whale. Once I do you can see the bulge. Maybe I will put some pictures up in 14 weeks time. Ha Ha I am so funny.

duh moments of late

2008-03-13T16:16:00.002+02:00

wondering out loud why some stupid ad on the radio was saying
אפילו הסיחה בחינם!
which means even the phone call is free. I was thinking to myself that's so stupid if I had to pay to call your stupid company I wouldn't bother, until Bob gently corrected me and said, well yes I do actually pay to phone most companies, but this company had a toll free number. Oh. Now I get it. Duh...

Second duh moment - looking at a population census map, and grumbling out loud that the map had a key for the different colours, but it didn't have all the colours on it. Once again Bob (who keeps the brain cell around here when we're not sharing it) saves the day. He asked me which colour wasn't in the key, and when I indignantly replied, "Blue", he told me gently that those bits that were blue were water. Oh okay. DUH!

I blame the pregnancy hormones. I'm making a human bean. My brain is not fully engaged!

the cheese ;ady explained

2008-03-10T20:59:00.002+02:00

So now you probably all think I'm a bit kuku because I talked about the cheese lady in the title of the last post but did not actually explain it at all. So in all my ranting I forgot to talk about the cheese lady too. Or the crazy kleptomaniac Russian granny. All in all it is a complicated story! So I have decided you must all watch out for the cheese lady at Supersol. We went to the shops, and I ordered some cheese, and the cheese lady misunderstood me, even though I was very clear. She wanted me to take a whole nother container of mozzarella, which would have added another 30 shekels to our grocery bill. Because I didn't ask for 2 containers I told her I didn't want it. So what does she do? She weighed the two containers I already had asked for, and put the price on each one of them, thus doubling how much we were meant to pay for the mozzarella. Luckily Bob is eagle eyed and caught the mistake at the till, and we got our money back. Score 1 to us, 0 to the cheese lady.

Then I went to the supersol down the road from us, and again asked for some cheese. While I was waiting for it I contemplated the olive oil, with my back to the cheese lady, and after having plonked my cellphone on top of my basket. It is the oldest crappiest cellphone in the world, plus their customers are quite wealthy (i.e. stoopid Americans for the most part who do not balk at their very high prices) so I did not reason my cellphone was in danger of being stolen. Wrong! Once I had pulled my jaw off the floor at how they charged a full ten shekels more for the same bottle of olive oil at the supersol in Talpiyot, I couldn't decide, so I thought I would phone Bob and ask him which bottle of over priced olive oil he wanted. But lo and behold when I turned back to my basket my cellphone she was gone gone gone. I was most confused and reasoned I had to have lost it, because I did not think it was possible someone had stolen it. So I looked around for it, asked the cheese lady if she saw it (she said no, of course), paid for my things and then asked them to phone it while I wondered up and down. The nice store manager phoned it 4 times, and it has a piercing ring, but we did not hear it. So I left them our home number and came home.

Upon telling this sad tale to Bob, we decided some stupid sap had indeed stolen my crappy cellphone, despite its advanced state of decrepitude. So we phoned it quite a few more times, but unlike the criminals in South Africa, this criminal did not answer. So we blocked the phone, and in the meanwhile told Bob's mama the sad tale when she called. Not an hour passed when Bob's mama called back, all excitement, to say she had found my phone. Eh? She called it again and again until a little old Russian granny picked up, and interrogated Bob's mama as to who she was (eh?), and then admitted that yes she had "found" my phone in the supersol. Sure lady, I know exactly where you found it - in my basket! And if you did find it, didn't you think you should maybe give it to the supersol people to give back to me? Hmmmm? But anyway she told Bob's mama where she lived, and he went to go get it from her. Crazy old lady!

So what has the cheese lady got to do with it? Well she was cutting the cheese while this old lady was rooting in my basket right in front of her and stealing my phone. Clearly she was in cahoots with the Russian granny! What, it isn't clear to you? Well anyway, just watch out for the cheese lady when you next go shopping...

grumpiness rules. and watch out for the cheese lady!

2008-03-10T12:11:00.002+02:00

So it has been an eventful past few weeks. This morning was not terribly exciting, just annoying. After I took all my clothes off and jumped in the shower, the municipality decided to switch off our water. Thanks very much for the warning you bunch of idiots. They do this every now and again when they reason life is too boring in our neighbourhood. Then everyone stands out on the street in their dressing gowns with their hair full of shampoo and gossips until the water comes back on. Most hilarious if you have managed to get your shower already, otherwise not so much.

So Shaka decided on Saturday our bank balance was clearly too high, and needed reducing a bit. So he suddenly had what resembled an epileptic fit, vomited, couldn't stand etc. If he was a reasonable dog he would have done this on a Friday, when it would not have cost us the 600 shekels it cost to disturb the vet from his saturday lunch. But he is not a reasonable dog, and our bank balance is now in no danger of being too high. Also by the end of the vet visit he was pronounced completely fine, and was in love with the vet because the vet fed him all sorts of doggie treats which he does not get at home. Then the vet decided to lecture us for half an hour on feeding the dog a raw food diet (despite that he said the dog is the poster child for doggie health and could not look better), and on why our dog was not neutered. Thank you Mr Vet but surely if the dog is healthy there is no need to lecture me, and I don't need to get my money's worth from my 600 shekels, can I please take my stupid healthy dog home and get on with my work? why thanks.

It is clear I am in a grumpy mood. My mood was not helped by us taking Shaka for a walk yesterday, and some brain damaged woman had her vicious dog out without a lead on, and it proceeded to attack Shaka. With visions of yet another 600 shekels, Bob kicked it solidly in the ribs, as did I when it came back for another round at Shaka, and luckily it did not manage to hurt him. What did this stupid woman do? Absolute nothing. I meanwhile was yelling and screaming at her to take her stupid dog inside, and to think what would have happened if her dog had attacked a child. Most uncharacteristically of an Israeli, she was completely mum and did not answer me - there is the slightest possibility she knew she was completely in the wrong. That or she could not understand me as when I am cross my Hebrew tends to get a bit jumbled. Either way she made this grumpy pregnant lady just a touch grumpier.

Speaking of brain damaged women, we did finally get our money for the car accident we had the other day. This woman simply drove into our car for no reason whatsoever, and then dragged out giving us the money to fix it for a good long time. It turns out she was indeed brain damaged - I am not kidding. On the day she drove into us they discovered that she had a brain tumour, which they then operated on a few days later. This explained why when I called her, not knowing any of this story, I was a bit confused when she sounded drunk at 9 in the morning. But all is well that ends well, and I'm glad we did not harass her and were nice and polite to her, despite not knowing whether she was jerking us around or not. The moral of the story of course is that if you suspected that Israeli drivers are brain damaged, in some portion of the cases you would indeed be correct. As for the rest, they just drive like they are brain damaged.

Right enough ranting I must do some work. In the meantime could everybody please leave our beleaguered bank balance, our dog, and our water alone? Thanks!

Banks and Blogger or why I'm going to kill myself this morning

2008-02-26T09:46:00.003+02:00

Have these people not heard trifling with a pregnant lady can be a tad dangerous? #$#$%@#!@#!@#!@#!
It has just taken me 20 minutes to be able to phone the bank and find out if my card is ready. Firstly, I agree, yes the bank should phone me when the card is ready, but that would clearly be too intelligent for them, or reeking too much of customer service. So I look up the branch - one in Jerusalem - and try to phone them. But the number I am given is an 03 number - i.e. not a Jerusalem number. I.e. for some dumb reason they do not give out the direct number, you have to phone their central bullshit number, wait on line for ever, until you can get a person to talk to. When I got a person, she made me go and get some stupid secret code so next time it would be super easy for me to get some service. I got the code, entered it in, and landed up in some stupid voice recognition hell which did not let me out nor did it give me a real friggen person to talk to. Although on a side note it was quite impressive that it could identify my very angry very accent laden hebrew. so I phoned again, got a person who again wanted to fob me off to the secret code stuff, but I refused and demanded she just tell me if my stupid card is ready. So she said okay, because I had private banking she could give me the branch's direct number. What about all the poor sods who don't have private banking - are they stuck in voice recognition hell until someone helps them? Then she proceeded to attempt to give me the number to my branch. Yes thanks lady I have that number already, I would not be wasting my time calling you otherwise, please give me the number of the branch in Jerusalem (the one it would have been so easy to put on your frikken stupid website in the first place so I didn't have to go through all this). I finally got the number and yes they do indeed have my card. Could they not have phoned me?!

right I am now going to phone and sign up for some yoga classes because it is clear I need to calm down - shouting and banging the phone down on the voice recognition system I am sure does not a calm and happy baby make. God!

by the way this is universal, or at least in South Africa they did this too - getting a banks direct number was rarer than hen's teeth - so it is not just here they prefer their clients to die of frustration, heart attacks and high blood pressure rather than actually help them out.

bits and pieces

2008-02-19T13:02:00.003+02:00

You all need to go and read Stuff White People Like as it is most hilarious and if you're a white person you will recognise yourself instantly. It should really be called stuff white Americans like in particular, but it fits quite well for most white people.

You also all need to go to Free Rice. It is a kief website where you get to test your vocab and act like a snob about how good it is, while donating rice to the poor starving kiddies in Africa darling. If you are a white person you will especially like it. My best level on it so far is 48 - reading all those romance novels in my childhood was clearly good for me.

So we have lots of snow pictures and even a snow video, but no cable to connect the camera to the computer. And the camera is a stupid Sony so we can't even put its memory stick in our camera for a split second and get the pictures. Maybe next week as the cable is in Netanya 100kms away.

It is slushy and snowy outside and Shaka is desperately bored but also does not want out. I am busy working on my data, whacking it into shape, and I thought you would all be amused by the following tabulation in Stata:

That so sucks it does not show the table properly. but the point being that I have a fellow in my data who claims to be pregnant. Interesting, velly velly interesting. It is at this point that we start diddling the data and make his value for pregnant equal to missing, rather than his sex, because while he might have gotten confused over whether he was pregnant or not, we presume he knows if he is a male or a female. Or we hope he does!

It is still pissing with rain here, though the snow seems to be done. School got canceled til 12 o clock, but I sincerely doubt anyone will end up going after 12. As for actual schools, apparently loads of people were in doubt as to whether to take the kids or not, so the schools are quite deserted apparently. I join with the other school kids of Jerusalem in saying YAY for snow! Although I am about to get cabin fever. It would help if someone would email me or write a blog post. I am all caught up on answering my emails, I have read all the Israeli, South African and English news, I've read all my subscribed blogs, there's nothing new on my pregnancy website, and despite it all I've actually done some work I swear. But now I am bored and I've read the internet flat so please send me an email. Or comment. Or something. Shaka and I are bored! Otherwise I will have to do some work - god forbid!

Snow! Again! everyone hold thumbs that it sticks!

2008-02-19T04:44:00.002+02:00

Now if I was terribly smart I would be able to upload my pictures to this computer and show you all the first pictures of the snow. But I have no idea where the cable is so I won't. But I promise I will once I find it. Thanks to Bob's parentals for lending us their camera, because now I have pictures of the snow! I even bet I have the first pictures of the snow because I don't think anyone else got up at 330 in the morning and then couldn't get back to sleep - the joys of being a pregnant lady!

It is still pissing down (can you say that about snow?) so everyone hold thumbs that it sticks and Bob gets the day off from his 5 straight hours of lectures tomorrow - or I should say today because it is already nearly 5 o clock!

Right I am going back to sleeeeeeep.

some days I just can't resist

2008-02-14T10:14:00.002+02:00

I don't know if you all also sometimes get fed up (or the moer in as we South Africans would say) with people who insist on offering their completely uninformed and unresearched opinions as if they are the Torah handed down at Sinai. Today I got this email from someone, after I sent an email to a list enquiring about a butcher where we can buy food for Shaka:

***

Are you trying to kill your dog???Chicken necks, any bones are really offf the diet.

My brother in law runs a huge kennel in Israel and has been in the dog business for 40 years.only dog food--unless you want to deal with a dog with shilshool and constipation.

***

Normally I just ignore these type of stupid emails but this fellow needed a reply. This was mine:

Are you trying to come off as ignorant? Because you did succeed. Why don't you tell your brother in law to read up about the raw food diet for dogs and cats before you give me your uninformed opinions. Many people actually switched to this diet recently for their animals when all those cats and dogs died from the chemicals that were found in commercial dog and cat food.

and if I am trying to kill my dog its clearly not succeeding because he's been on this diet for 2 years and is healthy and happy.

have a good day now...

pregnant lady update, scratched cars and snow!

2008-02-03T10:58:00.000+02:00

So first things first. Can someone please tell me where my knees went? I canna see them no more! this would not be so alarming if they weren't at the same time getting fat. When I signed up for this pregnancy deal no-one told me fat knees were involved. Or fat calves. My most beautiful Italian leather boots are decidedly snug around my legs - very very sad. Luckily I have ankle boots which my ankles are not yet too fat to fit into. I am putting this on the list of grievances for the first time this kid gives me shit!

Besides my rapidly disappearing knees my legs are also getting further and further away. I shaved my legs after a little break (a few months but who is counting here) and it was impossible. I could not reach em! Methinks Bob is going to have to get expert at shaving legs, or learn to love the hairy look. And don't go looking at me funny, I know all of you girlies do the same in winter.

So last week on our way to school we got stuck in a monster monster traffic jam. We had nearly made it to the top when suddenly in front of us we saw one car go crunch into another, and then someone went crunch into us. Bob lost it and nearly tore this stupid lady's head off, but then rapidly calmed down. She said she was very sorry, and gave us all her details. It really wasn't very much, just a tiny scratch, but one which unfortunately could not be polished out, and was over two panels. I took it today to get a quote - a whopping 800 shekels to fix a tiny bit of paint. So I called this woman, and first surprise, she had actually given me her real number. I told her the quote and asked her how she wanted to proceed. She told me she has no problem paying, she's very sorry, but she is actually in hospital right now and doesn't know when she will be coming out. She would love to pay me but she physically can't right now. Hmm... So, I said okay I would call her in a few days, and we could see whether she was out by then. So now you all get to vote - is she going to diddle us? Is this a real story? Will we ever see the 800 shekel? She seems very nice on the phone, but I would also be nice while I was lying through my teeth. Hmm... Wish us luck!

So I am back at school after 4 days of holiday thanks to the snow. As you can see I am working hard. Not. Anyway, hooray for snow! The second day of snow was much better than the first, no rain or wind but real powdery snow - it was gorgeous. Now our garden is one giant mud patch from the snow which Shaka thoughtfully brings some in for us each time he comes in. Such a thoughtful dog. It has been so frek koud (velly cold) that the snow has not even fully melted a whole three days later. I just drove to school and there are big lumps of dirty muddy snow all over the place still. Snow pretty, aftermath of snow not so much!

anyway that is enough mindless blabber. I should really attempt to do some work while I am here. not that I feel like it - I can't even remember what I was working on!

Oh while I am at it: here is a video that I found on Youtube. I really like the way she sings - but your mileage may vary.

Snow!

2008-01-30T09:49:00.000+02:00

Most terribly exciting! School's canceled, no buses running, we're staying at home today. Hooray! Bob saw snow falling for the first time - he was most excited. I would put some pictures up for you, but our stupid stupid camera she is broken. We took her to get fixed, she stay fixed for a month, and then broke again. Oh well - think pretty white snow!

We went outside all bundled up with Shaka. It was the silliest thing. He went out, started slipping on the stairs, got all confused, then went into the garden and was pawing at the snow trying to figure out what it was. Bob was throwing snowballs for him, and he was getting all confused trying to find the snow ball when it splattered. Silly dog!

Hectic Schmectic Bru! ze house is on fire!

2008-01-26T14:19:00.000+02:00

So I got an sms from my mama dearest which said the following:
Katherine please phone. escaped fire.

So naturally because I love and care for my mama, despite how much she annoys me, I gave her a call. It turns out that yesterday her house nearly burned down. We need to give thanks to the little baby Jesus, or to whoever was on duty up there at the time, because it seems her house had a miraculous escape. She was on the beach with her friend Steve, and their dogs. They smelt some smoke, so they dropped the dogs at the house, and drove up the road to see where the fire was. The fire was about a kilometer up the road, and there was one lonely fire truck battling it, and one helicopter, and the wind was howling. She lives in a little town called Scarborough on the edge of the Cape Point Nature reserve, and she has previously had fires come within half a kilometer of her house, but luckily no closer. She lives right on the edge of the reserve, and has empty plots above and below her house, on her side of the road.

So they drove back down to the house, and realised that the fire was getting closer and closer. Steve told my mama to go and get her passport, and her computer (it has all her photos on it). So they popped these items and Mac, the one dog, into her car, and by then realised that Georgia, the other silly hound was nowhere to be seen. My mother sent Steve to go and find her, and she drove away from the house, because by then the smoke was getting pretty bad. Steve battled to find Georgia, because the smoke was so bad, but he eventually found her cowering in the kitchen (poor hound dog) while the fire raged outside in the garden and the fence. It had by then burnt the plot below, and Steve saw it burn her garden, and jump around to burn the house above. He then got the hell out of there, with poor Georgia in tow, while my mother was of course freaking out because she couldn't find her cellphone and she didn't know if he had gotten away from the fire in time.

Meanwhile my mother had driven to the top of her road, to be asked by a fireman to give her a lift to the nearest fire hydrant. She said okay, but then asked him where that was, and he had no clue, and neither did she. So he directed her to drive up the road, towards the fire, to look for a hydrant. At some point the smoke was so bad and she couldn't see, so she decided discretion was the better part of valour, and she turned around and drove back. The road she had just been driving on then had 4 houses burn down on it. Freak! They say that apparently the fire travelled a kilometre in 5 minutes, because the wind was so strong, and because it was so dry. They are calling it one of the worst fires in recent Cape history.

Here is an article from News24.

Cape Town - Fires raging in Scarborough, near the Mother City are still not under control.

"The fire is quieter this morning but not yet contained," Philip Prins, fire and technical services manager for Table Mountain National Park told News24 on Saturday morning.

"Fire-fighting efforts are now focusing on the fire-line from Red Hill to Ocean View and aiming to prevent spread to the Da Gama Park area," he said.

The fire started on Friday afternoon in Scarborough, along Plateau Road, in the vicinity of Cape Point Nature Reserve and at Red Hill, Simon's Town.

"It was like Armageddon," a member of the Volunteer Wildfire Services, and Health24 journalist, Olivia Rose-Innes, told News24 after she joined dozens of firefighters throughout the night in an attempt to get the fires under control.

"It wasn't easy driving straight towards what looked like a war zone in Scarborough yesterday (Friday), even scarier heading in among burning houses and swirling smoke."

'The worst ever witnessed'

According to Rose-Innes many of the firefighters, some veterans of years of battling Cape fires, said this was among the worst they'd ever witnessed.

"The word you heard repeated was 'apocalyptic': the pall of smoke gives everything a weird red-gold glow; deserted, ash-strewn houses; bangs from gas canisters going off.

"One home-owner was still trying to save her books, until emergency personnel persuaded her to leave," she said.

On Friday News24 reported that a total of 73 firefighters and 23 firefighting units had been deployed.

The South African National Defence Force was also assisting with aerial support to get the fires under control.

Police closed off various roads and an appeal was made to motorists to exercise caution and not proceed to the affected area.

Babies are good for Visas

2008-01-20T15:18:00.000+02:00

I'm sure this baby is going to end up being bad for my Phd, but its definitely been good for my visa application. We went for our yearly interview at the Misrad Hapnim, where they separate us and then interrogate us. Last year the interrogation lasted for ever and included what we had eaten for the past 3 days, where we spent Shabbat, the names of all my and his family and their ages, and a million sundry other details. This year I got ushered in after Bob, to be told mazel tov by the clerk. She then proceeded to ask me a few sundry details, maybe 5 minutes tops of the vaguest of questions, and then carried on chatting away about how terrible most of the people are who apply for visas, while she printed mine out for me. Clearly babies are good for visa applications. If we are so dedicated to our pretend life together we're having a real baby together, we obviously deserve for them to give me a visa :)

She had some interesting stories though (while Bob waited outside, convinced I was being thoroughly interrogated). She estimates about 40% of applications are fake, with loads of men going off to Moldova, the Ukraine and other countries, selecting a wife from a catalogue, and then coming back with said "wife" and being highly insulted when the Misrad HaPnim does not give her citizenship straight away. One fellow, aged 78 or thereabouts, told the clerk with a straight face that his 20 year old Moldovan wife was in love with him, and that was why she was with him. Hmm. Another girl from Russia came for a visit, liked the country and wanted to stay. They told her to apply for a visa extension, and to leave the country in the meantime so she could come back in with a fresh tourist visa. She re-appeared three weeks later, with a fellow she'd met on a website, saying they were in love and planning to marry, could she please have a visa to stay and work in the country. Meanwhile with all these stories a Russian lady was being interrogated in the same room as me, with the aid of an interpretor, with the final question for her, "If you've been in the country for 5 years, why do you not speak a word of hebrew?". Of course I couldn't understand the answer, but I was amused by the question. In the end they gave her her visa despite her lack of dedication in ulpan.

bye bye strike, and kicking babies

2008-01-18T19:46:00.000+02:00

Bye bye to the strike! Of the senior lecturers that is. According to the papers, hello to the strike of the junior lecturers! Though we will see if it really does happen or not. Bob is in deep depression over the beginning of the strike, as he was working on something else which is of course just starting to take off now, and he just needs a few more weeks. I see in my crystal ball very little sleep for Bob in the next few weeks. I'm also mildly depressed. Now I'm going to have to work for my pay instead of doing bugger all for it but do my research. Dang it! Then again I am pleased Bob will not lose a whole year with his degree, and in fact if a year gets done in six months and doesn't kill him in the process, maybe it is for the best. Of course the kiddie is going to be born (tfu tfu tfu etc) right around his exam time, so that should be interesting.

Speaking of the kiddie, I drank a cup of strong black coffee this afternoon, and it has been doing a jig every since. It kicked me so hard I could feel it on the outside for the first time too, and Bob got to feel it kicking too which was quite cool. It is doing a little jig saying, give me a C, give me an O, give me an F, etc etc. It is most amusing. I bet I will be less amused when I can't go to sleep tonight because of the kicking, but its okay. It is quite something to go from not feeling anything at all a few days before, to suddenly feeling kicks so hard they can be felt through my stomach.

In other baby news I got the results from our 17 week AFP test back (the fetal protein triple marker test) and everything was fine and okay. I took the test because the ultrasound man saw echogenic foci (little calcium spots) on the baby's heart, which are a soft marker for Downs syndrome, and then got completely freaked out and was told by my gynea not to worry, but to take the test. The ultrasound man told me I needed to take the baby for a special heart scan, and to do another extended ultrasound, and to do other things I can't recall now, and my gynae got quite cross and said this fellow was clearly scared of a malpractice suit or something, and that he had read on the topic extensively and there is no evidence that just having these spots alone means the baby has Downs.

The ultrasound man clearly likes to terrify pregnant woman, because he is very good at it. After a sleepless and tear filled night after the ultrasound, and before the gynae visit, I was able to calm down but all in all it was not a nice experience. I'm writing this up because hopefully it will be googled by other anxious mamas to be, and it will re-assure them. Clearly this is an international pasttime for doctors and technicians, because I found one forum which had a huge number of women posting to it, who said they worried themselves sick after being told about these spots, and invariably their babies were born healthy and fine.

why yes it is rather cold why do you ask?

2008-01-16T19:16:00.000+02:00

Could it be because of the ice on the dogs water bowl that you noticed? Or the car that refuses to start in the morning? Or is the fact that the geezer burst yesterday? Or could it be when the electricity also gave in? It's tough to pick a single reason for how you could figure out its a little bit chillier than normal.

SO yes it is a bit $%%# freezing here. Bob is used to this sort of thing having grown up and experienced Benoni winters, but I come from Cape Town where a cold winter's day is minimum 12 max 14 - brrr! Jerusalem is certainly doing its best to show us those days are long gone! So yesterday morning we went to pour some water to make some tea, and of course the pipes had frozen and no water came out, despite the fact that we had left the taps dripping on advice from our neighbour. Luckily it was a sunny day (high of about 7 degrees - whoo hoo), so they unfroze after a bit. Bob went off unshowered, because we were too scared to put the geezer on before the pipes had completely unfrozen. Slowly slowly the pipes unfroze, and when water came out it was a rainbow of colours (well really just red and brown, methinks our pipes are about to kick the bucket from too much rust). Then I puttered around, did some work, did all the dishes (marvelling at the power of solar heating, that you can get boiling hot water a couple of hours after the pipes had been frozen), cleaned the house, and worked for an hour or two, and was just about to take a shower when our neighbour knocked on the door. He told me our geezer had exploded. I didn't believe him because I had seen the opposite neighbour's geezer explode, and that was a floor from their roof of epic proportions, and nothing similar had happened to us. I believed him though when I saw our mini flood coming from our very own roof.

So then I waited for the plumber man (installator in hebrew - eh?) who of course then said he could only make it the next day, because next to plumbers who work for free, he was one of the most popular men in Jerusalem that day. This plunged me into mild depression which was alleviated by my darling husband, who is not only handsome but also incredibly smart, who reminded me we have a gym membership to the gym which is 2 minutes up the road. Hooray! So we went and had the best shower of our lives there yesterday, half an hour before our dinner guests came, and then the plumber man came today. Bob helped him get up in the roof and heard him puttering around and answering phone calls every two minutes. He got a phone call from his wife at some point, telling him to come home ASAP, their geezer had also exploded. He had no sage advice for us, given that he had also left his taps open, short of move countries to a place where they build the houses so they can cope with the weather!

I am feeling very strongly at the moment that we're living in some sort of banana republic, or in some sort of black comedy. The saga continued when our guests came, and we had the temerity to plug in a heater and boil the kettle (things you wouldn't have thought you might want to do in winter, oooh no), and of course were plunged into darkness. Bob fiddled with the electricity board and emerged defeated. Luckily we could phone the electricity company, who sent a man round in about 15 minutes (some things are amazingly efficient here), put a huge fuse into the box, and charged us 50 shekels for the pleasure. And told us to stop overloading our electricity system. Eh? Anyway, I felt it was cheap at the price, as did our guests who could then take their coats off again! It is so stupid that one can have houses in a city where winter temperatures can drop to minus 2 and 3 at night, and aren't super high during the day, and yet a house can have no heating. We have a shitty aircon which we mistakenly thought did hot as well as cold, but discovered that while it is good at cold, it most certainly does not do hot. So that leaves us with our 50 shekel heaters, which we have to make sure we don't blow the system with. Oh and hot water bottles. Thank god for the hot water bottles!

It was most hilarious though how our guests all crowded into our teeny kitchen (6 people in a 2 by 2 metre kitchen) and stared at the hamburgers which were luckily still cooking away on our gas stove. Hooray for gas! It clearly pays to diversify in heating, and not just in the stock market.

The other banana republicness happening at the moment is of course the university strike. The lecturers are fighting the university presidents who are fighting the treasury. Or something. Suffice to say there is a big balagan and nothing has been resolved. The finance ministry head seems like a big bastard, and is saying he will not submit to the lecturers' extortionate demands. The lecturers are into day 70 something of the strike, and are quite enjoying the peace and quiet to do their research. The university presidents were trying to get the labour court to force the lecturers back to work, which failed on Sunday when they refused to do so. The prime minister showed his great brilliance when he told the lecturers to go back to work, thus showing he doesn't give a rat's ass about education in this country. Now the latest thing is that they're going to close the universities on Sunday if they haven't found a solution. This means that all admin staff, junior lecturers, senior lecturers, cleaners etc are out of a cosy office (with heating - important point!), and more importantly out of a pay cheque until this little lot is sorted out. We got an email this afternoon saying that if we come in tomorrow can we please turn off our computers, turn off all lights, and can the last person out please shut the door. Okay I kid about the last bit, but the rest is true. It is a farce!

So not only is Bob out of a degree (at least this year), there is a chance I may suddenly lose all access to academic resources, and of course my scholarship. While I wouldn't mind sitting at home for the next 5 months doing my research by myself, something tells me my supervisor might take a while to answer my emails. Oh and of course we might notice the absence of that money that we get every month! Its all a bit ridiculous! Of course it does sound like a big fat melodramatic step on the part of the university presidents to get the lecturers to come to an agreement, but if it happened it would be quite amazing.

And of course the other things which are happening besides the cold and strike are the the chaos in Gaza, and the fact that the government might fall apart any second now. A second Grad rocket was fired into Ashkelon, and ten people were treated for injuries and shock after I think 20 or so rockets hit Sderot. A kibbutz volunteer was shot dead by a Gazan sniper, and 17 Palestinians (3 civilians, the rest terrorists) were killed in an operation in Gaza by the IDF, including the son of one of the head fellows in Hamas. Yisrael Beitenu resigned from the government, meaning the government could fall apart if they lose their majority, which given they're a fragile coalition could happen quite easily. So why am I talking about this stuff? Just to say basically everything is heating up, and methinks somehow the strike is about to get pushed off the front pages again. Does anyone have a job offer for a nearly 5 month pregnant crazy lady?

In pregnant news updates, this kid has started poking me in the ribs which is quite something to feel. I have suddenly gotten a massive stomach - it happened from one day to the next. I have horrific back ache, heart burn, grumpiness, and I get up 4 times a night to pee, but apart from that I am feeling great - ha!

righto that is all for now - I will update when they come to throw us into debtors jail when I don't get my salary!

scary ultrasounds, merry christmas, the week that would not quit! Happy New Year!

2007-12-26T11:02:00.000+02:00

What a bloody week. And it hasn't even ended yet. It started last friday with us waking up at 530am to go get my dearest mama from the airport. We got her, came home, took her to the shuk for some shopping then came home and collapsed into a puddle. Then my husband, from here on to be known of as Saint Bob took her out for the whole day on Saturday so I could work on my presentation for this week thursday, which has turned out a lot less exciting than it should have been. Then Sunday I thought it would be nice to take her along to the ultrasound I had so she could see her grandkiddy in the flesh - well in the screen at least. That would all have been fine had the ultrasound man not decided to terrify the crap out of me and convince me that our kiddy to be needed heart scans, blood tests, possible amnios etc. Went to the doctor the next day, after a sleepless night, and he told me the ultrasound man is the last person in Jerusalem who recommends all the crap he did recommend, and that what he saw on the ultrasound (echogenic foci in the heart), when they are the only sign present, are not considered important at all (in terms of Downs and other things). So that was a bit traumatic all in all.

Then our car decided to go splat the day before Christmas, so the mother and I splurged on taxis to go to church (kill me now) and to go pick up the car. I could really get used to being squired around in a mercedes benz dahling. Then I had my presentation, which was beautiful but managed to murder the department laptop one time, making it give dramatic pleas for help and then finally keel over completely mid way, which threw me off a little. But it went okay and I got some good feedback so that was alright. Now I have been showing my mother around, and she has been driving me absolutely bat shit, and Bob has been crying in a corner for days now trying to escape to sleep at friends houses, but the end is nigh so its all okay. Or it will be come Friday morning.

Last night we had a wild party and actually I write this without having been to bed. Okay you all know that is a big fat lie. New Years is just not a big thing here, and I am so exhausted when I stay up beyond 12, so I hit Club Duvet at 10pm which was just grand. Husband stayed up to do some work and reported there were some fireworks at 12. We are old old fogies, clearly more than ready to have children.

Right I am off to clean my house, toss out the sad Christmas tree, take the mother sight seeing (help me lord), buy some things so I can wear my jeans without them falling off or anyone noticing they are unbuttoned, and generally get my house in order! I would say my New Years resolutions include losing weight, but we all know that one would be doomed from the start!

Knocked Up

2007-12-11T10:48:00.000+02:00

So we have followed in the grand tradition of all my friends by going to Italy and returning knocked up. Well I returned knocked up, luckily Bob did not. That would be weird. So we have spent the last three months jumping the hoops in the Israeli medical system which has proved most amusing. From the time when the gynae answered his cellphone (oh yes he did) while in the middle of doing a vaginal ultrasound on me (sorry boys reading next time I will warn you) to the time when the doctor said she could not give me a confirmation I was pregnant because only a gynae can give you such a confirmation and maybe I wasn't, but at the same time she would not give me a medical approval for me to join the gym, because I was possibly pregnant. Not masters of bedside manner nor logical thinking are Israeli doctors. So far my experience has not been too terrible, and has not cost too much, and unlike my friend in England I don't have to pay 250 pounds if I want a scan done early. However I did have to wait nearly three hours the one time to get one done, so maybe I might not have minded paying some money and not having to wait!

Anyway that is all for now. We are currently thinking about names for our little bundle of joy, and we've come up with the top five. Good solid Israeli names. Almog, Osnat, Moran, Dudu, and I can't think of anything else suitably horrific. Anyone with good ideas for names which sound good both in English and Hebrew feel free to leave them in the comments. We don't know what it is quite yet - I am nearly 15 weeks - nor will we find out thanks to my darling husband not wanting to know. I have told him if it is a boy he is in charge of getting its tiny whatsit snipped, not me!

I am going to tell my supervisor tomorrow which should prove interesting. If this was America, I think he would be cross cross cross, as it is I expect him only to be a little cross. We will see. Wish me luck!

Oh and about the university, they did actually pay me. They just thought it might be fun leaving a note in my box saying they were only paying half salaries (intended for faculty and not for TAs) and then pay my salary a few days late just to mess with us. Fun!

Anyway that is all for now. I haven't been posting so much because the only thing happening has been doctors visits and school work, neither of which are particularly exciting. I did go to see the nurse for a briefing on how to be a good pregnant lady, which was immediately ruined by her weighing me and telling me I have a license to eat whatever I want! SCORE! Very bad because I have been doing just that. I just weighed myself and despite copious amounts of cake, shwarma, chocolate, and everything that is not nailed down I have only gained a kilo so far. I think the scale is broken or smart enough to know I do not want to know the truth!

The aguda does it again: brain damaged morons that they are

2007-12-03T10:29:00.000+02:00

So this morning I had to fight my way through a bunch of Aguda (student union) morons to get into the university. The Aguda suddenly noticed (well done bright sparks) that students hadn't been able to start their studies this year, thanks to the lecturers strike. So they decide they need to draw attention to the fact that no-one seems to give a damn about solving the strike, including the university and the lecturers, and the government too. So what do they do? They decided today they would close the university. Because that will really help the situation, including helping those classes which are continuing to continue.

So along they come with chains and their biggest members, and chain up the big gates, and put their biggest members to man the other gates and not let people in, except university workers. So you would think that maybe, just maybe, the university security would do something about the fact that some group of kids wants to take over the entrances to the university. But no, at every gate you have a bunch of stupid green shirted Aguda students, acting like kings, deciding who to let in, and a bunch of security guards, standing peacefully aside watching them. Then once inside you have one security guard giving the most cursory check to bags I've ever seen, and not checking id's as they usually do, at all. It is super comforting to know that the security of the university is so easily overcome. If you have a few printed shirts and signs you too can close the university for a day. Got a test coming up? Haven't studied? Hire the Aguda morons to close the university for a day on some flimsy pretext.

So annoyed! with a capital A! ugh! Can you say third world country? Anyway...

Thanks fat cat professors - or why we're poor this month

2007-12-02T19:36:00.000+02:00

Long time no blog. Sorry! Many things have been on my mind which will all be revealed shortly. In the meantime lets review what is going on in this nutty country. So the teachers have been striking for nearly two months. There's been a corresponding rise in violence among teenagers, and annoyance among parents. Not all the teachers are striking, as I think the Irgun teachers union is striking, and the Histadrut is not. Something like that. What that means though is that enough teachers are striking that most kids will not be able to prepare adequately for their bagrut (matriculation) exams. Some of the exams are due to be written already in January, and there is no way most of the kids can make up the missed work. Not that I don't think the teachers' strike is justified, I do, but I just feel sorry for the kids whose bad luck it was to be in grade 12 this year. Then besides that most kids have already been given a gius (enrollment) date. Bob's young cousin Tamir is due to report to the army in June if I'm not mistaken, having supposedly written his last exams in May/June. Whether the army will delay the gius date I don't know, but certainly if they do at some point they will have manpower problems. So maybe they will have to extend the service of the kids from the year before the cover the deficit. Who knows.

Besides that, the professors also decided a strike was a good idea, at the same time as the teachers. Wrong stupid professors! No-one has given a damn about the teachers strike, because A) no-one in civil society cares enough to make a noise about it B) Anapolis conference etc takes top spot in the news and C) ze government could not care less, or doesn't have the money to sort the problem out. So on top of all that a lecturer strike was just complete overkill. There has been talk of canceling the semester, or when it does start canceling all breaks and holidays. Canceling the semester makes no sense, because then when do you do the first semester courses on which the second semester courses are based? You don't, and then do you end up canceling the whole year? Who knows. Canceling all breaks and holidays is all very well but we all know the professors have already lined up their fancy summer teaching gigs overseas, or conferences, to supplement their income (hence the stupid strike). So basically everything will get shoved into a smaller and smaller amount of time, quality will go down and once again you get a crop of students who haven't gotten the full amount of material they should have in the year. What this means is that kids who started last year, with the 6 week long student strike, have really got a very bad education so far (if they even do get anything this year). By third year I don't think these kids will be too well prepared, and I'm sure by third year it will be the turn of the tutors or junior lecturers to strike, god help us.

If I was a young Israeli deciding to study or to work, given the current balagan at the universities for the past two years, I would decide to work. If I was a student who had decided to give up well paying work for studying, I would return to work, and finish my degree some other day. Oh and last but not least, if I was me, a doctoral student who is also a tutor, who just got paid only half her salary by the university this month, ostensibly because of the strike, I would be mighty pissed off. Which I am. You all had better cover your ears tomorrow because there will be screams and yells and rude words emanating from Jerusalem, very very loud, until I get to the bottom of this. As far as I can tell, I'm not on strike, all my tutoring takes place in second semester anyway this year, I'm still working on my research, and doctoral students actually are meant to LIVE off their stipends, so where does the university get off thinking they can not pay me?! I could write more but I won't.

So am I saying the lecturers shouldn't be striking? No I'm just saying, as Bob has been saying often of late, that this country seems broken. And if it will go on spending 7.3% of GDP a year on defense, methinks things like education and social services will continue to be broken for a very long time. The only problem of course is that you can neglect the poor and the elderly, but neglecting education, especially for a country like Israel which relies on R&D and hi-tech startups for a lot of its GDP, when you dry up the pool of well educated graduates, your GDP may just fall. Think about it stupid government!

Anyway that is my take on the strike. Something else happened today - I was driving along when I stopped at a robot. I was offered a gold ribbon by a sweet young high school girly. I asked her what it was for, she told me, "Identification with Jerusalem". I asked her why we were identifying with Jerusalem. She told me so that they don't divide it. She was quite surprised when I said to her, "okay in that case I don't want one". She had plenty other customers though who did want one and who tied them to their cars. It is all a big joke because the cynical side of me says nothing will ever happen, the security situation will persist as is for ever, and the country will continue to be broken for a long long time. I think I have been living here for too long though!

lets see if this works

2007-10-14T19:29:00.000+02:00

Here is a little video taken from the balcony of the place we stayed in in Sicily. It is pretty!

Sorry it is quite a shitty video and my hands are clearly none too steady!

For the love of all things holy

2007-10-14T19:05:00.000+02:00

Can someone please explain why my darling husband saw fit to take this dorky picture of me? I am usually far more stylish and fantastic looking than that. I swear!

Bob plus red door. He got asked directions on that day by some Italians so he was clearly looking most Italian. I think this picture was taken in Monreale.

More from the cemetery. If anyone can explain why Jesus is doing this kief peace sign thing please do. He was doing it in a number of the churches we went into.

The night view from our balcony.

The colour version of that picture. Isn't that a pretty wall?

The obligatory picture of Etna. Yes that tiny mountain in the background is indeed Etna. We took that picture in Taormina, the original tourist town.

and some more...

2007-10-14T18:33:00.000+02:00

Here is my auntie (the only one who posed without complaint) against a pretty wall five minutes from where we stayed. We stayed in a tiny medieval town called Petralia Soprana whose very narrow and very steep roads gave us all the willies, me included. I just had to close my eyes at some points, but we made it back and forth every day without too much incident.

for those of you wanting to go to Sicily, and if you have megabucks, go to ThinkSicily.com. We took their very cheapest property (750 euro a week in off peak season) and it was fantastic. We stayed in a palazzo which was built in 1831 without a lift, which meant we had to go up 67 stairs every time we wanted to go home. It was good training for the hike and mountain biking we did later on in the week, although I do not think it did anything to work off the calories from all the gelato we ate. The town itself was old and gorgeous and off the beaten track and set in a beautiful national park, and had very few tourists (except for us). Bob wanted to marry the butcher because he sold us most delicious sausages, pancetta, salami, ham etc. Yum yum! Yes we did indeed over dose on pig while we were out the country - it was fantastic.

Sorry all kosher keeping readings you may return to reading. One day we will find a source we trust in Israel and then you won't have to hear us going on about it every time we go on holiday. Speaking of, I must tell my mama to buy sausages for when I come visit! Sorry!

A view from our balcony at sunset complete with birdie.

Inside a mausoleum at the cemetery in Castelbuono. The Italians have very stylish and very bizarre cemeteries. I thought at first we were looking at a row of small tenement type houses when we looked at it from outside but actually each family has a sort of house/mausoleum with metal and glass doors, where you can go in to put flowers down, put another coffin inside the side of the mausoleum etc. We were there on a Sunday and it was very sweet to see young people taking their old grannies and grandpas to visit the family graves.

I took a lot of pictures there, but unfortunately a lot were in black and white, which actually was a bad choice for the day, and a few were on macro by mistake. So annoying!

Check out the cool skull and cross bones detail at the bottom of those doors. Very cool.

And these are just quite cool post boxes we saw in Taormina.

and that is that!

Some england pics

2007-10-13T22:02:00.001+02:00

We were in England for the sum total of about two days. Since the last time we were there we never saw Gill, despite many plans, I laid down the law that we were going to see Gill no matter what. So one day we recovered from our dreadful flight and were taken to see a pretty manor house thingy bob, called Ighton Mote, and the other day we made our way into London to see Gill. I also wanted to go and see Tony but I knew it was not gonna happen, and did not want to over do things and end up exhausted. Bob is always accusing me of thinking I can do twenty things in one day so I submitted graciously (ha) did not try to see Tony (sorry Tony!) nor any cousins.

So we went to see Gill - 12.5 pounds each, thank you very much, for a travel card. That is lot of money! about R160. 100 shekels. A billion trillion Zimbabwean dollars. Just for comparison you can get a return bus ticket to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem for 30 shekels - about 3.2 pounds. And I think you can get an all day bus ticket for 12.5 tickets in Tel Aviv - though I could be wrong. It was worth it though because it was a load of fun to dash about and not worry about taking the wrong train and having to pay more, but by golly it is amazing how expensive it is there in jolly olde engeland. It was a lot of fun to be able to figure out where to go what to do etc by using smart websites (looked up by smart cousins) and actually reading the information at the train stations etc, because it was all in ENGLISH. hooray for English!

Here is proof the English have figured out there are these nasty people called terrorists about.

Which is great and all but surely you could organise some metal detectors or people to search people as they go into the tube. By the time you have figured out someone is about to blow you up, I think he's going to do it no matter what. Now in Israel that picture would say if you see anyone named Mohammed... etc. Okay I kid but on the one hand the security at the airports was so general it took forever (shoes off, bags searched, no liquids, frisked, questions etc), on the other hand it was nice to feel like I was not the only one being treated like a criminal (which is usually the case at Ben Gurion airport). Though I will say this - how is it that English airports have such hectic security, and yet the threat at Ben Gurion is probably much higher, and yet I have never in all my years of being interrogated by El Al personnel had my shoes taken off, or frisked,or my bag searched. And I have had security checks which took them nearly an hour, so its not like they don't think I'm not a threat. The answer is because the El Al personnel look for people called Mohammed, or for people like me who are not Jewish, or don't have an Israeli passport. Profiling clearly takes a lot shorter than assuming everyone is the criminal. And it means you don't get fleeced by having to chuck your water away and then buy more expensive airport water. Anyway!

Here is Bob looking like one of those people they should call security about. Serious man my husband.

I like this one because the people on either side look sooo grumpy. I suppose that is what taking the smelly tube every day will do to you.

Here is ighton Mote - velly pretty place. And full of damp. Surprise surprise!

Here is me looking like a dork near Gills house. It was cold! can someone please tell me to run a brush through my hair before I leave the house?

But it's okay because it runs in the family. Me looking silly, Bob smiling for a change, and Uncle silly too. This is one for the visa department. Can you see how cold I was when this was taken?

Just a few Sicily Pictures

2007-10-13T15:26:00.001+02:00

So I have finally downloaded the 1 point something gigs worth of holiday pictures. Very silly - I don't know why they invented digital cameras. Oh yes now I remember cos I used to take as many pictures as I do, just before I was always too broke after the holiday to develop them. So when we were in Sicily (the place we want to live in for ever and ever) I tried to do some experimenting with the camera, like using ISO800 - I think thats what I was doing, and using some of the silly preprogrammed kind of features, and some night picture setting. I generally tell Bob what I want to do and he sets the camera up for me - I am pretty hopeless. I like to point and click. and then click again about 50 more times. So I took some pictures out of the car window while we were stuck in a giant traffic jam in Palermo after we landed, and some others all over the show. Bob took the pictures and did all manner of contrast thingies etc so I am sure they look better than the originals. So here they are! There aren't a lot because he also is daunted by the ten trillion million pictures we took. It is also visa time around here again which means we have to prove our joint existence - which is tricky cos I take pictures of him, and he takes pictures of me, and never do we seem to meet. So I have to hunt up all the dorky family pictures we have, a very excruciating process. Once I am done with that I will put up a lot more pictures. Promise!

Here is Bob in the market in Palermo. I told him to suck it in, but did he listen? You be the judge! I was taking pictures on black and white because it was the middle of the day and the light was shite so none of the colours seem to be good anyway. Then of course I got shouted at because the veggies etc would have looked nice in colour. The one shouting of course forgot I have about ten trillion other colourful market pictures promise - but it apparently important that we have none of the market in Palermo. Hmmmmm... :)

By the way that two day old beard you see on him nearly caused him to miss the flight (amongst many other things). He got stopped by a security lady at Stanstead (if you can, never go through Stanstead, and never ever fly RyanAir. They are crap). He had to taste coffee creamer we had shoved in his bag, take off his shoes, have the camera examined, get frisked etc, and then run without shoes about half a km to the gate. I was waiting (as the second last person to get on the plane) to make sure he actually made it, otherwise he would have been left to moulder in Stanstead airport without any cellphone, telephone numbers or any way of contacting us. We made it by about two minutes. It is all a velly long story as to why we were so late which I will write down later.

Here I was using ISO800 (again, whatever that means), because things were whizzing past quickly while we were in the car. It seems to have worked quite well. Bob then made it a bit more contrasty.

See this would have looked soooo much better in colour. I say no cos the light was crap!

This I took in Monreale, if I'm not mistaken, a town outside of Palermo, on our last day of holiday. I took it in colour and I quite like the colour version too. Once I find it I will post both of them together.

righto I am going to look for visa pictures so I do not get thrown out the country. Hold thumbs!

silly blogger

2007-10-08T20:09:00.001+02:00

so silly blogger went and published the title of the post I was writing before I was done. I was writing that everyone around is knocked up - my friend Gilly in engeland, Gadija in South Africa, and now also my cousin in England. It is clearly the season.

So we have recovered/returned from our trip in Sicily, almost. I have very many adventures and pictures to post which I will hopefully get to soon. We had a most splendiferous time, eating much cheese, many pork products (yummy!) and drinking much wine. It was grand. We are going to buy a house in Sicily, just as soon as we find a few hundred thousand euros. The sicilians are really fantastic people, who were very sweet with our efforts to speak some italian. We were most useless at it but they didn't seem to mind.

I fly to South Africa in two weeks time, thanks to a cheap charter so there should be many pictures from that too. Hopefully tomorrow I get round to putting up some pictures!

finally! fixed camera!

2007-09-21T15:48:00.000+02:00

You'll be glad to know I am pretty as ever.

As is Shaka.

Especially when he's not being a slut.

Pretty lemons in the market.

Street names near the shuk.

More windows in Nachlaot, the area near the shuk.

Some feller putting up a poster.

No loaves, only fishes!

A handsome young man I accosted in the shuk and went home with.

Bits of history on the walls near the shuk.

More street names. don't know how anyone finds anybody's house in this area.

Clean laundry anyone?

Its enough to make you sneeze!

Still no loaves.

Lots of over priced produce in the tourist aisle. Go down to the Iraqi shuk for the real cheap veggies.

Pomegranates are in season.

This place should be good for a visit or two to the dentist.

The shuk was full of these fellers today, as tonight Yom Kippur begins, and these guys were helping people atone by donating money and waving said money around your head while you say the prayer to atone. Its meant to be a chicken which you wave around your head, and then you give it to the poor to eat, but there weren't any chickens today (I think its actually yesterday when they're meant to be). I was most unimpressed at the lack of chickens.

So was this lady by the looks of things.

Nothing like a nice fresh towel.

Righto that is it. Sorry for the looong break with no posting, and it might continue because we're going to Sicily next week - hooray - and then I go to South Africa at the end of October - hooray again! So if the camera continues to function there should be lots of nice photos though. Nothing much else is new and exciting, and I have to go eat something before Yom Kippur so byeee!
I may change the template for this blogger blog so the pictures look better because I don't want to squash them. So bear with me if it looks dodgy for a while.

Why I'm allergic to Tel Aviv

2007-08-14T21:30:00.000+03:00

I will sum up here. As I said to a friend on Facebook, this was our day:

60km, 1.5 hours of traffic, ten shekels parking, 330 shekels visa, 3 hours to jostle and push and wait to get said visa, 1 hour to get out of Tel Aviv due to traffic (a distance of about ten km's), and a 500 shekel fine for not seeing the smallest sign which suddenly changed a straight going road into a bus and taxi road only. mother##%$%ers!

What a flippen pain. We got caught as the road we were driving on continued straight, yet suddenly magically turned into a taxi and bus lane only. Very annoying. Even more annoying because we were trying to make it to the bank on time, and we had just sat for twenty minutes trying to get out of Tel Aviv, while truck after truck blocked these tiny roads in Neve Tsedek, and a police man stood not twenty metres away giving people parking tickets, and not making the illegally stopped trucks move on. I eventually jumped out the car and went to shout at the truck driver (yes I know I am completely Israeli now, not to mention a little touched in the head). They did move on then but I'm sure it was not due to me.

It was so clear our ticket was part of a big fund raising exercise. Surely they should make the sign on the road bigger, as opposed to just ticketing every car that goes through. We were one of about ten cars that we saw in half an hour, so it was clear it was a problem with the road sign, and not just our shoddy driving in particular. And 500 shekels? The average person in this country earns about 5000 shekels a month. We earn 4300 shekels a month. A fine which is 12 percent of our average income seems a little steep. Yet in the end we will probably end up paying it because we will have to go to court, back in Tel Aviv, and wait and wait, and probably come back another day, and probably have to pay it first, to risk getting late fines, and then attempt to fight for a refund etc etc. Basically a big fat story which means the weight of the bureaucracy wins and you end up paying because you can't afford to take another day off work to deal with it all.

As for the Italian embassy, they make the Israeli home affairs (misrad hapnim) look highly efficient. I know, how is that possible you say. We got there at 930, and they were open til 12. We managed to Israeli our way through a door with a very snappy security guard (uniforms designed by Valentino don't you know darling), who spoke no Hebrew, and very little English. Then we got a number and waited. And waited. And waited some more. They went from number 80 to 83 in an hour and a half. There was one old old fellow working, who also spoke no Hebrew, and very little English. Every so often he would shout at the poor person applying for a visa in rapid speed Italian, and they would slink away to try and get another document. Then just when you thought the queue might move the snappy guard would bring some idiot Italian in, or someone who would have greased his palm somehow, and put them at the top of the queue. When I gently remonstrated (read: shouted) he told me it was the systemo di italiano. Yeah systemo di italiano indeed. This is why we look to the Italians to make nice wine, and the Germans to make cars, because the Italians clearly do not have a word for efficiency, or punctuality, or precision in their language.

And yes, before another person asks me, I DO need a visa for Italy. Israelis and Americans alike are amazed at this whole idea of getting a visa. For what they say? They think it is cute and quaint. It is flippen annoying is what it is. Because I have a South African passport I say. Bloody hell! Good thing I never plan on visiting America because I hear their visa process is hell on earth.

Anyway that is enough ranting for one day. Suffice to say I am allergic to Tel Aviv. We got back to Jerusalem and it seemed like heaven on earth. Its pretty here, it doesn't stink, and thus far our coppers aren't bastards!

PMS

2007-08-08T22:34:00.000+03:00

and no I don't mean pretty molly skips and runs about picks flowers. I'm talking men run away and hide because I'm going to kill you all. Who am I going to kill you ask? Okay here is the list:

Firstly my project partner, whose second language is English yet he insists on correcting my English (to a state much worse than it was), and he insists of writing reams of bad bad English. Bad! Poor! whatever the hell you want to call it, its just tripe and I am sitting correcting it all. Yes I know I may write pretty badly on this blog but my academic professional English is pretty damn good thank you, and I've been paid to do proof reading by other similarly afflicted non English speakers who are also similarly verbose and lacking in grammar. Recently I helped someone with a one page letter and he was so impressed he wanted me to proof read his whole thesis. So silly partner with your silly English, run away and go and learn some more! and stop trying to correct my English.

Actually I think that is it. Just one person on the list. Maybe my husband dearest is second on the list, because he tends to forget for a few days of the month I lose all sense of humour and he must just deal. But then again he cooks me dinner so I think I will keep him around.

Annoyed!

Anyway what else. I have been working non stop to finish all my last bits of coursework for ever and ever amen. Then I can move on the thesis part, which according to my supervisor should take no more than 2 years. I'm presuming thats if I don't eat or sleep. We'll see. Since I had a wage negotiation with him this week that went badly (if you're wondering, I could earn more cleaning houses than working as a research assistant), I am not planning on sticking around longer than I have to earning slave wages. Bring on the real world!

We have just booked a trip to Sicily which is costing an arm and a leg but will be splendiferous indeed. We are going with my favourite uncle and auntie and cousin so it should be a whale of a time. Hooray for holidays I say it can't be too soon. This year has been an absolute killer and I swear I have developed gray hairs in the process. I am going to check in the mirror and report back to you all the next time I manage to write another blog post, hopefully before 2010.

Had some grand news this week, consisting of two pregnancies (you know who you both are) and a secret wedding revealed (you know who you are too!). So that was terribly exciting and grand - I say everyone should get married and have babies. Hooray!

righto I must return to correcting bad English. sigh!

Fantastic!

2007-07-22T14:27:00.000+03:00

Fantastic indeed is this article. It is bloody brilliant. For those of you too lazy to click, this is the synopsis. The current Minister of Education in Israel has introduced a book for third graders which discusses Israel's history, and mentions the fact that when Israel was created, the end result was not so brilliant for the PallyStOnions. This is what the article says:

***

The third-grade book, Living together in Israel, states that some Arab residents were driven out of their homes and became refugees and that Israel confiscated many of their lands.

The book's authors made it a point to state that it was the Arabs that refused the United Nations offer to divide the land between the Palestinian and the Jews (UN resolution 181), while the Jews accepted it.

"When the war ended, the Jews prevailed and Israel and its neighbors signed a truce… the Arabs call the war the 'Nakba', meaning the war of disaster and destruction. The Jews call it the War of Independence."

***

There are people calling for this women to be fired. I mean really, I agree, how shocking that she should be allowed to actually teach people that when Israel was created it was not all sunshine and roses for some of the people already living here. Horrific! Shocking! how dare she. Off with her head. She also made headlines last year by including the Green Line (the line which marks the 1967 borders between Israel and the West Bank) in some textbook or another. Here is what the article says about that:

**

Controversy
Settlers reject Tamir's textbooks /
Storm follows education minister's decision to add Green Line to Israel's map in student textbooks. Settlement heads announce they will reject textbooks; 'We will continue to educate about the whole Land of Israel,' they say

**

Yeah again I mean how dare she. Doesn't she know God gave Israel to the Jews? All of Israel? What's wrong with this woman. I don't know if you all know though, God also gave Israel to me. What, you don't believe me? It says so in my holy book. It is written in the Holy Book of Katherine. How dare you not believe me?

Anyway enough loony tunes ranting. I am at home slightly ill and attempting to work even though it is hot! It is not stinky Tel Aviv hot, but it is still hot. We are going to the Dead Sea on Wednesday and Thursday, you had better all hold thumbs we don't melt while we're there. It's usually 40 degrees there in summer. I know, we are flipping loony tunes, but we need a holiday. I have just a little bit of work left to do for my courses, and then sadly I actually have to get to work on this little thing they call a Phd thesis. But it will be nice to be done for once and for all with courses. Bob is working hard on his Masters project and expanding his knowledge of linear algebra for his general edification. We are hopefully going to Sicily for ten days in September, although once again the holidays have foiled us, and we're only going after Yom Kippur. Oh well a holiday in Sicily is a holiday in Sicily!

righto off to work in order to deserve said holiday...

Has anyone seen my

2007-07-09T22:35:00.000+03:00

bras

my foot cream

my mind

the food

all our socks?

Yes this is what happens when you move. I am waiting to discover these items, and since we have only got 2 boxes left to unpack I am singularly unimpressed because I don't think the abovementioned things are in those boxes. I suppose it is better to have lost my bras than the dog say, but for the good of the good citizens of Jerusalem it would probably be better if I found them soon. They can only take so many tank tops, and methinks in winter the tank tops are going to get old fast!

Yes indeedy we are loving our new housie, including the oh so short "commute" to school. Bob rolls out of bed ten minutes before his lectures, and when I feel like coming home I come home without checking to see what he is up to. Bliss! Bliss is also having a source of chocolate biscuits around late at night when you have a craving, and once we have eaten too many biscuits there is the university gym just around the corner.

Our criminal dog also likes Jerusalem, so much so he decided to escape this morning to go and see it all by himself. Luckily for us he is a scaredy dog and was cowering outside the fence waiting to be let back in when we woke up. Bob had some witch of a neighbour come and yell at him about this, while he was busy fixing the offending fence which let the criminal dog escape. The dog is now locked in in the laundry area at night until we finish our exams and put up a new fence. Criminal!

Apart from our criminally idiotic and wholly untalented guitar playing neighbour, this place is also a whole lot quieter than our old house. There is a sort of city hum, which I noticed the first few nights, but now it seems really quiet. Say bye bye country "quiet" hello city noises because I can actually sleep for a change.

speaking of which...

55 dogs or a guitar playing neighbour

2007-07-08T01:08:00.000+03:00

You pick and tell me which one is worse. If this stupid guitar playing neighbour doesn't stop playing at 1 in the morning, I am going to sic the 55 dogs on him. Augh! And in case you are all wondering, our house in the moshav had a neighbour with 55 dogs. And no I aint kidding. And yes somehow I am still bothered by a guitar playing idiot.

When I am king people who make others lose sleep at night will be shot. At dawn. By all of us who didn't manage to sleep the night before!

We are jerusalemites!

2007-07-02T09:12:00.000+03:00

Hooray! We moved yesterday. Our we hoos is full of boxes. You can barely move! Our wee dog is very confused, but seems to like his new home. If anyone in the Jerusalem area needs a recommendation for an honest and cheap mover, let me know. Shmulik the mover was fantastic, down to the very last bit of interior decorating advice at the end. Its a famous Israeli mover trick at the end for the burly mover men to stand in your lounge and refuse to leave until you hand over a tip, and these guys did not do that. The last time that happened to us they demanded 600 shekels tip, and we only gave them 400. If that had happened this time I would have punched them all on their noses and given them nothing. I was a real biatch to the mover men this time around, cos last time I was all nice and sweet and they walked all over me and scratched and broke our things. Never again! So this time they did not break a thing (not that I have yet discovered), and nothing got scratched either. hooray!

Anyway a vast amount of work needs to happen before next thursday, so I am going to get on with it.

New house!

2007-06-28T19:47:00.000+03:00

Is full of rubbish! We got the keys today and I took some photos with me friend Dany's camera, which is not so wonderful, but they work as a record. We spent the afternoon there, lying about groaning because of the heat, and waiting for people to come take the furniture which the landlord left for us to dispose of. Bob knocked on a furniture store's truck's window, and asked the guys if they wanted all the stuff, so they came back an hour later and took it all away. Hooray! We thought we would have to cart old washing machines up to the road and break our backs.

The garden is a flipping mess, full of weeds. We buzzed it with the weed-eater to get rid of them, and then I buzzed and Bob raked and packed into bags. The weedeater is fun! You buzz at things and then they disappear! Although note to self, this did not work on the mini tree I mistakenly buzzed. Mini tree 1, weed eater 0. Here are some pictures I took. Here is Bob hard at work.

Here is the super kief paint job of the study. The 70's called, they want their decorating style back. From those windows we have an epic view, and the windows open really wide.

Here is the view through the lounge to the hall way. That is a parafeen heater thingy, and the old school retro couches which some sweet religious guy is coming to take tomorrow.

The view from the hallway. There is a bit of a moat between the hall windows and the outside.

The balcony outside. Full of junk, but fan flippen tastic! It is so nice. And its quite private and secluded too. In an all the neighbours can see you sort of way.

The view from the top looking down into the garden and the house.

We discovered that unfortunately our washing machine wont fit into the bathroom, and the couches may not fit through the door. Aiee! But its fine there is a window the couches can hopefully come through, and a washing machine in the kitchen is not the worst thing in the world. I hope! We move on sunday, so hold thumbs that no-one else screws us over before then, because that seems to have been our experience of late. Righto off to pack!

no aircon! or how to raise your temperature.

2007-06-26T13:45:00.000+03:00

Typical universities! This is a companion piece to how to raise your blood pressure. We have these titchy tiny offices, which when it gets to 35 degrees, as it does here in ze holy city, get rather hot. So we each have our own aircons in our rooms. I suppose I should not complain, we at least have aircon. However, an aircon that does not work is not a useful aircon. So there are at least 5 rooms with aircons connected to the same electric circuit. So when the last person comes to his office and gets hot and switches on the aircon, the whole circuit trips. Then people like me whose computers are also connected to the same circuit cry, cos we lose our work.

At this point if you are stupid, you call maintenance who promise to send someone to come fix the electricity. If you are smart you know they will never come, and you go to the fuse cupboard (next to the bathrooms, for future reference), and you switch it back on. Then you hope that one of the 5 people has switched his aircon off in the meantime and wont switch it back on. This is a reasonable assumption on a coolish day, but not so much today when its fokken hot! So the last time I went out to flip the switch, 5 other people came out and everyone moaned. And then I realised if I wanted to work, I had to leave the aircon off. Wah!

Then along comes a technician who says the only way to fix the problem is to put in a whole new circuit, with central aircon etc etc. I.e. a project which will occur in 2010 and finish in 2020. If it ever gets approved. I hope to have finished my doctorate by 2020, at the very least, but in the meantime I am going to be hot! Then again, if you are super smart in this whole story, you request an extension cord so you can connect your aircon to a different circuit, and like a ministering angel from heaven someone comes from the department and brings it to you when you least expect it. Cool again hooray!

how to raise your blood pressure

2007-06-24T10:30:00.000+03:00

1. Live in Israel
2. move house in Israel
3. have a $#@@#$er of a landlord (very easy to do in Israel)
4. move in the middle of an Israeli summer - 33 degrees today hot enough for you?
5. Speak to Bezeq about moving your account. Of course they can't help you, this is the middle ages and only your husband can authorise anything. Kick yourself for not faxing them to inform them that you, despite being only his wife, are also a human being capable of paying the account, and changing its details. Serves me right if Bezeq thinks I am only fit to be in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant.
6. Speak to some dumb Russian lady at Misrachi. But first phone their automated system, because no branch these days gives out an actual phone number. It is all *#we-love-you-give-us-your-money-misrachi*# and not just the actual number. Wait with bad music blaring in your ear, have argument with clerk about it not being your ID number you put in, get transferred, call gets dropped, call back, get told you are number 294456 in the queue, put in your passport number (as requested), get told it is not a valid number (idiots), put in your new ID number which they should have no knowledge of, somehow this works, get transferred to dumb Russian cow, who speaks super slow and is like your mother in law (not mine, yours) who won't shut up, and cannot get interrupted mid flow, bang your head on the wall in frustration when she asks you "What do you mean, close the account?" I don't know, maybe I mean CLOSE MY ACCOUNT YOU IDIOT!, finish conversation, have stiff drink, resolve to never deal with them again and just wait until the bailiffs come to get you for the small amount of minus you racked up on the account when you used the wrong card by mistake.
7. attempt to sell your old furniture because you are moving into a tiny poke of a house compared to your grand moshav palace (for the same rent of course), realise that although you paid top dollar suddenly no-one wants to pay you 5 cents for your stuff. Somehow whenever I want to buy something in this country it is super expensive, whenever I want to sell something it is not worth 5 cents.

A very easy recipe. Follow even one or two of these points, and your blood pressure will be up in no time. Just make sure you have a stiff drink on hand to deal with the after effects.

My new crush

2007-06-22T11:54:00.000+03:00

I am in love with another man. But its okay cos he's gay. No need for Bob to worry. Although Bob does indeed have need to worry, because when I get a new music crush, I play their music again, and again, and again, and then about twenty more times, again! Until I am almost sick of it. So this is my new plan, to acquire some of Ivri Lider's music, and play it until we're all sick of it. Thanks to Lisa for giving me a new crush. Here is a video of his from a movie called Yossi and Yager, an Israeli movie, which is very cool. If you've watched the movie you'll enjoy the music video too.

I also wanted to post the video of his new single, but it seems to have disappeared off You Tube. If you go to his website it should start playing on start up.

The scareydim are praying

2007-06-21T19:56:00.000+03:00

And setting fires to the forests around us, and throwing rocks at policemen. All in the name of protesting the Gay Pride Parade, which happened today. Fires were started in the town nearest, and they know for sure it was arson, and fires right near where we live were either arson or who knows what. The news reports say there is no need at the current time to evacuate the residents of our moshav. Nice to know.

We did not go to the parade, cos it started at 5, and I only got to Bob at 630, and he only finished at 7, and it was meant to finish at 8 and we were not bothered to fight the traffic. Next year! Shana haba be yerushalim! (which means next year in Jerusalem, and is said by Jews at Passover, for oh, the last 2000 years or more). Yes I do like being sacrilegious why do you ask?

Righto it is time to unwind, do some work, pack some boxes, and hopefully get some sleep!

Edited to add: A local headline and first paragraph from Ynet:

Shas MK proposes 'rehab centers' for gays

Nissim Ze'ev suggests establishing 'rehabilitation centers' to suppress sexual tendencies of homosexuals, lesbians. ‘These people are dangerous and we must keep an eye on them,’ he says

Gotta love the religious. And you gotta love ignorant Israelis. It makes a potent combination!

Nasty feeling

2007-06-20T15:33:00.000+03:00

Is what I got from the fellows who came past our house today. They come past in a big truck, and you sell them your old stuff, or give it to them. They yell out Altezachen, which I think means old things in yiddish, which is funny cos they're mostly Arab. So they asked for water, and I gave it to them. I didn't let them in the house though, or even in the garden. They asked me though if I was from here. I said no. Then they asked if I was alone in the house. I said to them, Ma Pitom, which kind of means, whats wrong with you, are you stupid, and they said, what, you have a husband, and I said yes.

Could they be more obvious that they're casing the joint and want to steal all our things? Fucking criminals. I hate that feeling that when you get home someone will have broken into your house. Reminds me of a wee country I used to live in. Ugh!

I seem to make a habit of being nice to people who aren't going to be nice to me. I gave about 25 sheks to some guys who came past collecting for needy families. They are religious though, and religious to the extent that they are probably using the money for bus fare to go to Jerusalem to throw rocks at policemen who are protecting the gay pride parade. Why can I not say no to people? They're also probably the sort who would be most rude if they knew I was not Jewish and married to a nice Jewish boy. Ugh!

Here we go again

2007-06-17T18:25:00.000+03:00

Fucking Hell! Rockets just landed in Kiryat Shmona. That is a town in the north. Go read here.

And there we thought we might have a nice peaceful summer.

good news all around

2007-06-14T10:07:00.000+03:00

Arkady Gaydamak, megalomaniac extraordinaire, has realised that simply taking out pork from Tiv Tam, and closing the stores on Shabbat does not make the store kosher. Duh. Idiot. Their main trade is imported goodies like nice cheeses and wines etc, and those don't have a kashrut certificate. If he gets rid of those things then people will have no reason to shop there. Well done Arkady, did the penny finally drop?

The Gay Pride Parade for the moment has been allowed to continue in Jerusalem. It will take place next week Thursday if I'm not mistaken. This means we can expect a week of rioting in the country's capital, as one extremely intolerant nutter sector of the country protests the right of another sectors wish to march peacefully in the capital. Expect bins to be burnt, roads to be blocked, rocks to be thrown at the police etc. Enjoy! I really feel like most ordinary Israelis deserve all this chaos, because they have still failed to see that first the chareidim (from here on to be referred to as the scareydim) will tramp on the rights of gay people, and then they will tramp on secular people's rights.

Tfu Tfu Tfu but hopefully our old landlord will sign a lease with some people today to take over our house, thus saving us 3000 shekels. Please everyone cross your fingers! We have secured a mover for the first of the month, and for a reasonable price too. I know fall over backwards.

That's all for now folks!

only an economist could write this

2007-06-12T13:10:00.000+03:00

"death occurs when the stock of health falls below a certain threshold"

Yes and they used to call it the dismal science? Maybe we should start calling it that again. silly bananas!

In other news we have signed a contract for our new hoos in Jerusalem. It is two minutes walk from Bob's campus, and a free bus ride away from mine. Hooray! Our landlord is a shark and has a sharky lawyer, and I'm sorry if you're a lawyer, then I'm not speaking to you today, but apart from that we are fine. We did not get screwed too badly. Bloody lawyers. I now understand why Bob's parents have such an aversion to lawyers. oh well. Hooray!

this country is turning into Iran

2007-06-10T13:55:00.000+03:00

Very bad news today. Bad bad bad. Wear black, tear your clothes, don't sing or dance. Instead go read this article.

For the lazy buggers, it says that our local baby politician and millionaire, Arkady Gaydamak, has bought a controlling share in Tiv Tam. Tiv Tam is the only set of stores that sell things like shellfish and bacon, i.e. treif not kosher goodies, in Israel. They are open on shabbat and they sell all sorts of wicked imported things, which are decidedly not kosher. Gaydamak says he is going to stop them selling treif, he's going to stop them opening on Shabbat, and he's going to open up stores in Jerusalem. They previously didn't open in Jerusalem because I am sure they knew there would be riots and their stores would be burnt down by the local loony maniacs, oh I'm sorry the nice devout religious people of Jerusalem.

This coupled with attempts to pass a law to ban the Gay Pride Parade, just make me cross!

This is a public service announcement!

2007-06-03T14:07:00.000+03:00

For all Israelis, and I suppose anyone else too. Do NOT buy a Hyundai Getz. Our lovely new car - ten thousand kilometres on the clock - kind courtesy of Bob's nice parents, has the shittest fuel efficiency in the world. So do buy the car if you are made of money, but otherwise a new car which gets ten kilometres to the litre, and 13 if you're lucky, is not worth it. It's kind of like when we used to talk about owning a mercedes, and you'd have to take a bank loan for the petrol. It hasn't come to that yet but gee whiz it is close! We are moving basically to reduce the amount we drive - we canna afford it. Our old stupid Fiat Punto which had 104000 km on the clock used to get about 16km to the litre, and this silly car gets a whole lot less. And before you ask yes it just got serviced, it got run in properly, the tyres are pumped up. It is just crap!

It does drive nicely though...

it breaks your heart

2007-05-27T18:21:00.001+03:00

From Ynet
A man was killed Sunday morning in the southern town of Sderot after a rocket landed near the car he was sitting in.

The man, 36-year-old Oshri Oz of Hod Hasharon, crashed into the wall with his car after it was hit. He managed to get out of the vehicle and take a number of steps before collapsing. He was evacuated to the Barzilay Medical Center in Ashkelon, where he died of his wounds.

Oz was a computer technician who used to visit Sderot often as part of his work. He was survived by his pregnant wife and a 2-year-old daughter.

There are silly people all over the world!

2007-05-26T13:40:00.000+03:00

and I have proof! I just checked my site stats, and it appears there are some silly people who like to read this silly blog in Germany, Sweden, the faithful Kenyan reader, the faithful Australian reader, some silly Israelis, a few silly Dutch people (Goeie more to you) lots of silly Americans, a few silly Brits (too be expected of course, the Brits were ever lovers of silly), and even some silly people in Canada! Not to mention the original silly south Africans. Thanks for reading my silly nonsense, I shall endeavour to keep on producing it.

not much happening around here. We are still waiting to hear about the most perfect house in the world, in Jerusalem, exactly where we want it, perfect perfect perfect etc. Of course the landlord man has probably accepted a higher counter offer from the other more savvy couple and is not planning on telling us, but in the meantime we can keep on dreaming about the most perfect place in the world. It is getting most hot and sunny here, and I am almost losing the energy required to find a new house. Summer sort of sucks you in and all but the most urgent tasks do not get done. It is not even that hot yet and already I feel lethargic and sleeepy all the time.

We are both working hard. Bob has started working on a project for his masters, and luckily he had the time during the strike to get on with it and make a good start. The strike has now ended, and the university was full full full on Thursday. Most annoying. I had gotten used to the peace and quiet without those pesky students. I now have to do things like mark problem sets etc, which I didn't have to do during the strike.

I started working for my supervisor to be (hopefully) as a research assistant. I am progressing well - he only asks me about twenty questions each time when I see him that I can't answer and that make me look like a complete fool. Before it was about 100 questions per meeting so things are looking up!

I turned dreadfully old this week - a whole 27. I asked my mother how she felt that her youngest child is now 27. She told me she didn't feel a thing because she has been telling people for a year already that I am 27, because she is numerically challenged (read, dumbass). You would think it would be easy to figure out - I was born in 1980, so... in 1987 I was 7, in 1997 I was 17, in 2007, I am... 28! according to my mother at least. Thank goodness I got my talent for maths from my grandmama and not from her!

My phone stopped working on Thursday. Why did it stop, I hear you ask? Not because I have dropped it millions of times (only hundreds), but because it was exactly two years old. Phones these days seem not to work after their two year birthdays, it is very stupid. Do not buy Samsung. I am back to the flintstones era with Bob's old Nokia 3110. It is kief. It is as big as my head. It does not have a colour screen. It has old school voice recognition technology which does not work. It has a battery which lasts about two days. It cannot read Hebrew. But it is a phone, and it seems to work, despite that it is long past its second birthday.

Righto enough silly blather...

Sderot

2007-05-22T15:41:00.000+03:00

Sderot is a little town a few km's from the border with the Gaza strip. For the past few days its residents have had to put up with a huge number of Qassam rockets which are being launched by Palestinian terrorists. Here is a video of some poor fellow in a factory in Sderot who was wounded badly by one of these rockets.

A women was killed yesterday when her car was hit by a Qassam. Apparently a few thousand of the towns residents have fled, but a lot of them don't have anywhere to go. For the moment Israel is trying to do pinpoint air strikes to kill the rocket crews, with limited success. The people of Sderot are quite fed up, and many of them are suffering from anxiety. Kids aren't going to school because its not safe to take them, and some matric students who are trying to write exams had a rocket hit their school building while they were writing their exam. Apparently in the past 5 years Sderot has had over 3000 rockets hit it.

Here is more footage which is quite hectic too.

can you all please cross your fingers and your toes

2007-05-18T10:47:00.000+03:00

And pray that we get the little wee hoosie that want? It is near the university, is perfect perfect perfect, and we are in the running with one other couple. So while you all shouldn't hold your breathe until we hopefully get it, please do something else to send positive energy to Jerusalem. This little place is so perfect! Perfect!

Rain rain go away!

2007-05-16T22:07:00.000+03:00

Go click on this and you will some photos and a story in english about the giant storm/flood that hit Jerusalem today, while I was driving. I drove through the tunnel from Maale Adumim to Mount Scopus, and encountered a huge flood, giant balagan and cars all over the show. Ten minutes after I drove through the tunnel flooded and was closed to all traffic. I turned left because I thought I could do a turn around and go back to the university for a few hours and wait it out, but then I drove down into an Arab area and got lost. At some point I was completely lost, the car was all fogged up, huge hail was bucketing down, and piles of rain, all the street signs were in Arabic, and I could not see a damn thing. I finally managed to get out of there but by then the road across to the university had a moat of about half a metre of water which was flowing quite fast. I decided discretion was the better part of valour, and decided to turn left and attempt to go home. Did you know Hyundai Getzs can swim? I did not either. But our little car did quite well in about 30cm of water. I encountered about ten cars either crashed or stuck or stopped on the way, and then I got into a giant traffic jam where I did not move for about half an hour. All in all it took two hours to get home.

It is times like these I wish I drove a landrover!

Are Israelis racist?

2007-05-13T21:55:00.000+03:00

I dunno. You tell me. Go read this and this and then let me know. For those of you who are lazy, the two stories are as follows. The one is about residents of Lod who are planning on protesting outside the house of someone in the community who sold his house to Israeli Arabs. Hundreds of people apparently gathered around the house to protest and try to change the seller's mind. Here's a quote from Ynet:

"We have no problem with Arabs living in their own neighborhoods, but they'd better stay out of our neighborhood," one of the residents told Ynet, "this is their way to slowly kick us out of the city by taking over Jewish neighborhoods. Just like we don’t go live in their neighborhoods, they shouldn’t come live in our neighborhoods."

Now to be fair, Palestinians who sell their homes to Jews in the West Bank often are threatened with death, and I am sure you could find cases where they have indeed been shot/killed/hurt etc. Every time there is a sale of land the owner denies selling, because if he says he sold someone will come and threaten him and his family. So each side is equally bad - at least these Israelis are just protesting and aren't threatening to kill anybody. But really people, Arabs in your neighbourhood - is that so bad? So what? Get over yourselves!

The second piece talks about a bunch of rabbis in Rosh ha'Ayin who are protesting a joint Jewish-Arab event. Here is the title from Ynet:

"Rabbis in Rosh Ha'ayin join forces in protest of plan to hold joint Jewish-Arab event for women in town on Friday. 'These gatherings bring to assimilation… Arabs seduce Jewish women,' rabbis warn, but claim they are motivated by religious concerns, not racism"

What the hell is wrong with these people? For gods sakes it would probably be better if there was a bit more mixing - maybe the two sides wouldn't hate each other so much. Then again, to be fair, Palestinians who attempt to do the not socially accepted thing will find themselves killed (for holding hands with a boy), or firebombed (for owning an internet cafe) or killed again (yes I know you can't get killed again but anyway, for being a collaborator and warning Israeli security of impending terror attacks). If you don't believe me go do some googling. So each side clearly has as much of an ugly side as the other, the Palestinians just seem to be a touch more violent and lawless.

But I don't think Israelis should compare themselves to Palestinians. They should hold themselves to their own higher moral standard, and they should fight against stupidity and racism in their midst, especially when it is spouted by so called community leaders, and by the masses.

I am quite sure I am going to get flamed for this piece, but so what. Flame away!

Olmert Habaita!

2007-05-04T09:20:00.000+03:00

which means olmert go home! This is where we were last night:

I stole the picture from Ynet. We've been wanting to go to one of these mass protests in Tel Aviv for a while, so we finally got off our ass and did it. It was a protest against the current prime minister, who most people want to resign, but most people have no clue as to who they would want to replace him. So the country bumpkins went to the big city and met up with some friends who showed us the proper protest etiquette. Unfortunately I think someone showed them wrong when they first went because instead of lapping it all up, they poked fun at every politician on stage. It was most amusing. It is hard to be indoctrinated when the person next to you is going, "aaah, cute, it's a baby politician!". I tried hard to be indoctrinated but failed miserably. Oh well. It was great fun, and maybe in 2020 I will point you all to some of Idan's photos when he gets them up.

We just had a most surreal experience in the forest. Shaka went after what we thought was a jackel, so we were chucking rocks at it and calling him and trying to get him to come back, when around the corner comes an authentic old school Arab shepherd, whose dog was trying to eat Shaka for breakfast. We had a most amusing conversation with this fellow, including what he would do if he was prime minister. His plan included points such as he would kill all the car thieves, it doesn't matter if they're Arab, Jewish, Bedouin or whatever. That sort of opinion would not go down well in South Africa where a good percentage of the population is a car thief, or the wife of one.

Anyway much work needs doing. Have a good weekend everybody!

I'm on strike

2007-04-30T08:35:00.000+03:00

In solidarity with those stupid students. The strike continues, in its 21st day now. I am beginning to enjoy the strike. No marking, no students clogging up the halls. Here is the rather cross letter I wrote to the head of the student's organisation which is leading the strike.

To whom it may concern
Apologies that this email is in English, I hope you will make the effort to read it. Your website encourages feedback regarding the strike from students. I am a doctoral student in the ** department. I would like to tell you that I think this strike is damaging and a bad response to the problem. Israeli students do not seem to realise quite how good the level of education is, and quite how cheap it is in comparison to other countries, with similar quality education. The ** University is in the top 100 of universities world wide. I do not think you will find students at the other top 100 universities striking. They want to get a first class education, in the minimum amount of time.

You are causing a huge amount of disturbance to the students and the faculty who do not want to strike. They will have to deal with fighting with the university to get tuition money back if the semester is canceled. Many students do not wish to strike yet when they arrive at their classes the lecturers (who are now not on strike) do not teach even if there are enough students to fulfill the requirements. In our department classes are continuing for masters students, because we realise there is no point in delaying our education. We have broken the strike and do not support your continuing it.

If you really want the university or the government to consider your demands you should make every student not pay their fees at the beginning of the next academic year. That would cripple the university and ensure action is taken. It is not difficult to get students to not come to class - do something worthwhile instead, which will actually have meaning. Don't go fighting with police and causing injury to people, go and do a peaceful sit-in or protest outside the prime minister's office and refuse to leave until your demands are met. Your strike is affecting the wrong people, and currently the prime minister could not care less about your demands, because you have done nothing to affect him personally.

I think the Agudat Studentim is run by student leaders who wish to get a name in politics and actually do not care about the students they represent. You are potentially delaying the education of thousands of students - how does this help your cause? You say you care about higher education, but you are the ones currently stopping education from progressing. Go to the banks and demand cheaper student loans. Go to the prime minister's house and refuse to leave from outside it. Go on a hunger strike. Do something which will show you care about solving the problem and not something which shows you are good at being an agitator who wants a career in politics. You are currently doing everything to show you will be good in Israeli politics - you ignore the people you represent and just want to advance your careers. Well done.

Sincerely
Katherine **

Yes can you say cross? It is a stupid waste of time and because of it Bob might have to delay his masters for half a year if the semester is canceled. And then he will still have to pay for it. It is so dumb, because in his department the lecturers are loving the vacation, secure in the knowledge that they will refuse to extend their teaching to the summer vacation. So they get paid now, and they don't work. And even if students show up for class the lecturer doesn't come, despite the fact that he is not striking. Useless!

anyway that is all for now. I have got a lot a lot of work to do, so will go and do it now!

what did students do

2007-04-17T20:28:00.000+03:00

Before Google and wikipedia and mathworld and some other kief statistics website that I found the other day? Did we have to use books or something? I can't recall. Then again students in the old days did not have the hardship of being addicted to Facebook which can seriously interfere with your work.

Being a student is tough I tell you, tough!

you dirty dog you!

2007-04-17T17:50:00.000+03:00

Much extensive googling has revealed that our poodle of a lap dog things he is a hunter and a fierce warrior, thus he goes and rolls in jackal crap in order to disguise the nice clean domesticated smell he has acquired living with us. What Shaka has not considered is that dogs that smell like jackal crap, aka fierce hunter dogs, have no place inside our nice clean house. Sorry for you dumb ass dog you are out!

There is a dust storm in from the desert which has thoroughly clogged my nose and luckily not ruined my washing like the last one. It is looking post apocalyptic outside - all burnt sienna ish - and dusty and misty. Go away nasty desert storm you make me sneeze!

Today is the 6th day of students around the country striking. Yes, you heard me right, students. Yes, I agree, no-one is paying the students, so who cares if they strike. Yes I agree it is only students who are hurt by themselves striking, no-one else could give a toss. Yes, I know, students are naturally lazy so it's not that much of an achievement to make them not go to class. Yes agreed agreed agreed. Teachers at schools are also striking, along with some of the lecturers now for undergraduate courses. I agree they get paid badly, and I agree that someone should tell the government to stop spending money on guns and property deals for friends, and realise that education is important, but I do not think students striking is something which is going to bring the country down. Maybe if we didn't pay our fees that would speak a little bit louder than if we didn't go to class. My friend Dany says I am the type of soldier Fidel would have shot in the revolution, but he is silly communist from Venezuela so what do you expect. Everyone here doesn't go to class because if there are three or more students in the class, the lecturer will give the class, and the others will miss out. So no-one wants to be the person to make others miss out. And unlike in South Africa, where if you don't come to class, you just have to make it up in your own time, here the lecturer will repeat the material in the next class.

We are the proud owners of a bread machine. It is super awesome. We have already made white bread, brown bread and pizza dough in it. Yummy! It was when I bought another wholewheat load of bread yesterday for 13 shekels - about 20 ZAR - that I realised the situation had become intolerable. Israelis have not yet heard about whole wheat bread being good for you, rather they seem to regard as some sort of luxury product. I anticipate my ass increasing in size from the results of the machine, but it will be an enjoyable process no doubt. Poor old tony stayed with us during Pesach, and sorely missed beer and bread, and then we went and bought the bread machine only after he left - sorry! :)

victim of a drive-by savta!

2007-04-14T10:46:00.000+03:00

You know it is just about the time when you are feeling guilty for not phoning enough of the family on Pesach, and when you have skipped the last dreadful family birthday, when you didn't even make it to friday night dinner, when you are wondering when you will ever see your friends again, because of the huge amounts of work you have, that is the time that the dreaded Savta will call. You are about to be the victim of a drive-by savta shooting sorry I mean phone call. Savta means grandmother in hebrew, for those of you who have not had the pleasure of having one of these formidable ladies in your life.

Bob's savta is a particularly fearsome old lady, who just phoned us up and scolded us for not coming to Bob's second cousin's least favourite's never called or wrote or acknowledged existence for the first 22 years of her life cousin's birthday. By the end of the call I was proud of myself for telling her I hoped she also called up and crapped on the other cousin who had the temerity to flee to Italy for Pesach (lucky lucky girl) and not come to yet another dreary seder. I also felt like I would have felt better had I gone a couple of rounds in the ring with Muhammed Ali, so fearsome is Bob's savta. I suppose it means she considers me enough part of the family to call and shit on my head, and not Bob's, although when I did ask her if she wanted to speak to him, her answer was no, it's not important. It was important enough to phone and ruin my day, but it's not that important to speak to her grandson. The same grandson she didn't even know had an exam this holiday, hence his absence at all 29 of the family gatherings.

This is the Israeli version of family - quantity and not quality is what is important. You are a good member of the family if you can tick off at least three major holidays a year, called on all the birthdays, and contributed at least two pictures to savta and saba's family picture wall. If not you are a bad bad person and clearly do not appreciate your family you ungrateful git.

Anyway that is enough bitching for one day. To all my friends - sorry I have not been in contact lately, and I'm sure you understand due to the huge amounts of work there have been lately. To all family - I am glad you don't read this - and I hereby resolve to not answer the home phone again! And to my family - I miss you - I don't recall any of you ever phoning me up and kakking on my head.

Sorry for the rant it is just annoying to be snowed under with work, and to have someone phone you up and kak you out about not seeing you. Bob's savta is actually quite a nice old lady when she is not being so fearsome. Anyway.

Aieee

2007-04-13T18:50:00.000+03:00

So thanks to a little website called Facebook, and a friend called Tony, I aint done much work lately. Aieee! I have a load of work due for the coming week, and I am feeling all snotty and disgusting thanks to major allergies. So I might write some stuff at some point, but it might be a little while. Aieee!

People wonder why I left South Africa

2007-04-07T19:32:00.000+03:00

It was because of headlines like this:

By request

2007-04-05T23:08:00.000+03:00

Some pictures for Gill. Tony has arrived and we have been sightseeing with a vengeance. Here I am in religious girl garb in the old city. Yes I agree those are jolly big sunglasses and a silly grin.

Here is the plaza and the Western Wall - it was completely packed. Ten trillion million squillion people squashed in there and they all stomped on my feet. Every last one of them.

Here is a nice pretty view from the ramparts walk - a lovely walk all around on the old city's huge walls. Enough to give you the willies in places but very pretty.

Here is Tony asking why the hell Tel Aviv has a nice pretty promenade which is interrupted by an old rundown building which clearly needs demolishing. Why Tel Aviv, why?

Some work needs to be pretended to be done, hence no more blogging but more photos will follow at some point promise. As for you Gill, stop reading and get studying! :)

Finally

2007-04-01T15:37:00.000+03:00

I am going to put up some pictures from my trip in February. Finally! I have finished my exams, but we have been given a boat load of work to do for the holidays, and it is of course Pesach tomorrow too, hence not much time to do much at all. So in lieu of writing a bunch of silliness, I thought I would put up a bunch of silly pictures.

Apologies in advance by the way for the pictures not fitting. I have just gone back to flickr and it doesn't let me make the size the one I want, and I am too lazy to change each and every one. I will figure something out at some point. Okay I did go and change the sizes, and now they fit but they look horrible. I need to figure out how to resize them properly in flickr - hopefully I will dot hat soon.

Here are some penguins. We all know a trip to Simonstown in Cape Town is not complete without some penguins. Too many tourists at Boulders, hence I had to come here for the penguin fix.

Here I am looking like a dork in Cape Point Nature Reserve. If this place was in Israel it would be full of annoying people, rubbish, annoying children, and it would be a tenth the size. To combat the problem of rubbish and people the cost to get in to Cape Point is an astonishing 55 rand, and it seems to go up by twenty bucks every year. Although you can buy a wild card for 12 visits for the same amount, if you are a resident. Sorry for you tourists! My mother takes great delight in fighting with the gate people because they never believe she is old enough to use her pensioner's card.

Another one of the many reasons we should all live in Cape Town.

I think this is where film stars are rich recluses go on holiday. This place has been declared a reserve, there is no more building, and there isn't even a road down to the place. There is just a tiny path which is so steep I fell on my noggin the last time I was there.

One of the local loonies. Oh sorry that's my mother! Whoops :). Yes we have tried to stop her wearing that hat without success.

And one times mother in Simon's town.

Righto that is all for now. Much exciting news abounds. I got 88 and 87 for my exams - hooray! We have a new car - hooray! And yes we aint sold the old one yet - does anyone want a car? And actually not much else is exciting actually sorry!

Katrina Yellow: the grumpy edition

2007-03-26T00:03:00.000+02:00

Wow I am a grumpy bear tonight. Despite having finished my exam on Friday, and it going well (I think), and despite having had a very nice weekend, in which we met some lovely people, ate some nice food, saw some old friends, despite that it is nearly Pesach and thus holiday, despite that we went out tonight with some school friends which was great fun, and despite that I am done done done with exams, and despite that the weather is heating up slightly, and despite that my good friend Tony is coming to visit, and despite really enjoying the courses I am doing at the moment, I am seriously GRUMPY!

I think it is a combination of factors. A lack of vitamin B, serious homicidal hormone craziness (sorry all male readers), the idiocy of all Israeli drivers, every last one of them, the stupidity of Microsoft word, the stupidity of those people who still use Word as a serious editing tool, the annoyance of trying to put two languages into a Word doc, one of which goes right to left, and the other left to right, the complete illegibility of the person's handwriting I am attempting to put into said word doc, the fact that I am NOT a secretary and yet some idiot at school seems to think I am, the fact that they are doing road works right outside our house and thus we waited for twenty minutes not 200m from our house to get home, and the fact that every damn dog in the neighbourhood is barking at the stupid impatient (rightly so) cars who are hooting at 12 at night, and every other annoying thing in the world which I cannot recall just now. UGH!

So yes I am seriously grumpy. We had a very nice weekend, and I managed to clean up our house which had fallen into a serious state of disrepair while I studied for exams. Bob has been a model husband, cooking and cleaning and generally keeping things going while I studied. I now am going to do the same for him while he studies for his exam on the 10th of April. Today I managed to do a whole bunch of admin in nearby Beit Shemesh, I hope beating out all crazy housewives to the shops before Pesach. I plan never to go to the shops again, especially not at this crazy crazy time. Every good housewife in Israel is currently cleaning like a mad thing and throwing out everything she owns, kashering the house for pesach, and buying everything new. All the shops are filled with kosher for pesach products, and the usual scams are going around the internet (kosher for Passover petrol somewhere in America, as reported by Treppenwitz). We have done our preparation for Pesach - I bought a giant box of matza, which we will not finish, and we will contemplate keeping the rest for next year and then decide against it. Before you think we are so gross, it has nicely sealed mini packets inside, and it tastes so shit to begin with I am sure no-one would notice - in fact it might even improve with time, like wine. You never know!

I received an email in Hebrew from the university, saying I had received some sort of grant. This sounds grand but I don't know if this is just an old email telling me about my existing grant, or if it is referring to something new. If it is I shall tell you all and maybe I will be less grumpy, although I wouldn't count on it.

So now I am finished my exams I can actually dedicate myself to sorting some things out. The to do list includes cleaning the house, sorting out my South African tax, phoning my friend Gadija who looked after me so nicely in Cape Town and I haven't managed to speak to her since (I am hoping she doesn't hate my guts), call my uncle and arrange a walking holiday in Scotland or somewhere pretty in the summer so this level of grumpiness goes away, catching up work on my courses, starting research assistant work, starting my own research, and sleeping 8 hours a night. Oh and putting up some photos finally on my blog. I promise this will all happen soon!

In 3 days time I will celebrate (humph!) having been in this nutty country for two years. Put your hands up and say Aye if you also do not know where the time went. Aye!

Right I am off to find some earplugs and grump myself to sleep.

Reason #427986 not to be an Israeli Arab

2007-03-19T09:50:00.000+02:00

Because Tel Aviv University has just raised the minimum age for entry into its medical studies program to 20. The background is that most Israeli Jews will serve in the army, emerging at about age 20, while Israeli Arabs are not required to serve, and thus can begin studying at age 18. So, this policy effectively delays Arabs from beginning their studies for two or three years. Supposedly according to the university, 18 year olds are not sufficiently mature to begin studying medicine. Someone should tell that to South Africa, where they all start at age 18. And are renowned around the world for being good doctors.

It just seems to me like a completely senseless policy. Who the hell cares if Arabs can start earlier? Is there something I'm missing? It just seems like a policy to discriminate against Arabs because they didn't go to the army. The thing is, most Israelis don't want Israeli Arabs in the army, for a number of reasons. So you don't want them in the army, yet you don't want them to get on with their lives. Ugh.

Life in this country is great if you're Jewish. If you are not, then it can be great or it can be quite shit, as you fall in between all the cracks, and then every so often there is a policy designed for you, seemingly just to make your life more difficult.

I say the solution is, as Yaeli said a while back, compulsory national service for everyone, where if you don't want to serve in the army, you have to do volunteer work or some form of community work. That way no-one can moan, and I suppose Tel Aviv university's policy won't make a difference.

So my question is this. What would Tel Aviv University have to say about the following people - would it let them in?

Balamurali Ambati: He graduated High School at 11, was a college junior by age 12, and a doctor at 17.
Avicenna: Memorized the Quran at age ten, studying medicine at 13.
Sho Yano: He started college at age 9 and graduated summa cum laude at age 12 from Loyola University Chicago. At 15 he attends the Pritzker School of Medicine
Akrit Jaswal: India's youngest university student. He carried out an operation aged 7.

Thanks to Wikipedia.

An excellent blog about the current situation in Zimbabwe

2007-03-18T22:59:00.000+02:00

Go here for updated information about Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe

2007-03-18T22:24:00.000+02:00

I was going to write a silly post about something or other but decided to write about Zimbabwe instead. Thanks to Steve at Supernatural I came across this video, about the latest violence in Zimbabwe. It is shocking.

The South African government's position on Zimbabwe has been that of quiet diplomacy for the past few years. Because the president of Zimbabwe, Mugabe, helped the ANC before 1994, they seem to think they owe him something while he ruins the lives of Zimbabweans, and inflicts the type of torture you see above. South Africa is also currently doing us proud at the UN, by refusing to vote for a resolution on human rights abuses in Burma, and also suggesting similar resolutions about Zimbabwe do not get passed. Since it was the world's pressure on South Africa from the 1960's and onwards which eventually helped to isolate the apartheid government and cause it to crumble (due in part to the financial collapse in 1986), you would think the ANC would want to do something to play its part in ensuring the safety and security of Zimbabweans. In a purely altruistic manner, they could benefit from the increased trade and security that a safe and secure Zimbabwe would bring.

You might ask why I care about Zimbabwe. My mother was born there, as was one or maybe two of my uncles. She grew up there until she came to Cape Town at the age of eighteen to study and met my dad a few years later. My grandfather owned mines there until he and my grandmother left in disgust in 1980 (or thereabouts). My grandfather hated Mugabe, and said he ruined the country. He used to tell us about standing on his balcony as Mugabe's motorcade went by, wishing he had a gun and could shoot him. He left Zimbabwe for England and refused to ever go back there. I think they left when one of his mines was torched, and my grandmother kept marauders out with a shot gun. This is all fairly hazy and reminds me I should ask my mother for a little bit of extra detail. My uncle still lives there, and was jailed a few years ago while monitoring the elections. We were lucky that he was not injured at the time, and was released.

I've done the 5 day drive from Cape Town up to Harare a number of times, most of times requiring hard drink and cigarettes when we arrived from the stress of my mother dearest's driving. It is a beautiful country, with really lovely people, and it is a shame some despotic idiot is being allowed to ruin the place, while Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's president, seems to fiddle as Rome burns.

Edited to add some facts about Zimbabwe. It has 12 million people, of which 1.8 million have AIDS. It has an 80% unemployment rate, and a life expectancy of 40 years. Inflation is estimated at some large figure, over 1000% for sure. GDP per capita is 2000 US dollars per year, while South Africa's is 12500 or thereabouts, Israel's is 22000 or thereabouts, and the US 37800. It's real growth rate is negative 4.4%. Zimbabwe is a net importer of food. Zimbabweans currently attempt to walk through the Kruger National Park to illegally enter South Africa, as a result many are killed by lions, hippos, etc. Zimbabwe has had no other president since the last free elections in 1980. In 2001, Mugabe started a campaign to take by force the land of white farmers and redistribute it, thus starting the economy's slide into disaster. One of my students in South Africa had her father killed because he owned a farm in Zimbabwe. From the CIA Factbook: "Harare embarked on Operation Restore Order, ostensibly an urban rationalization program, which resulted in the destruction of the homes or businesses of 700,000 mostly poor supporters of the opposition, according to UN estimates."

Snow! or lazy falling rain...

2007-03-15T12:04:00.000+02:00

So I was driving to school today, a process which involved windscreen wipers, petrol filling up, crazy drivers, car heaters and many more exciting things, and so much time in the car that I heard not one but two news broadcasts (they happen every hour). When I was listening to the second one I was just about at school, and I was thinking to myself, you know, there is something funny with the rain. It's just not falling like it ought to. And then the news said all the northern schools were closed because of the snow, and they expect some in high areas, and of course Jerusalem. So yes hooray we have snow! It fell for about two hours or so, and has now stopped and is just bloody cold. But it was terribly exciting, because this is the first time I have ever seen snow falling. For the record - it's just like in the movies.

the snip

2007-03-13T12:52:00.000+02:00

We had a horrifying experience yesterday. Nope, not a car crash, or a crazy driver, or visiting an Israeli government office. Worse. We watched a real live brit. From about a metre away. As they say here, Ani be shock, ani mamash, mamash, beshock. which means, I'm in shock, I'm really really in shock.

So usually we go to these parties for a new baby, and if it is a little girl obviously there is just a party, and if it is a baby boy, invariably they have snipped it already in hospital. But yesterday we went to a brit which was the real deal. Of course there was a party and food etc, but we arrived just at the time they were about to snip the baby, and got front row seats.

So the sandak (godfather, kinda) sits with this tiny little 8 day old baby on his lap, on a big cushion. A man with a giant beard and big black hat takes off the baby's nappy, makes the sandak hold the baby's legs apart (it sensing danger has naturally closed them), wipes the baby's winky (for want of a better word) with a sterile wipe, shoves a piece of cotton wool in its mouth which has been soaked in grape juice or wine (not sure which), and in a trice commences to clamp the relevant bit, and slice it off with a scalpal. When this happens the baby screams like blue bloody blazes, but because there is so much noise and it is just a tiny baby no-one notices. I have never seen such an upset baby in all my life. The baby's winky also stands up straight, I'm thinking also from shock. Then the mohel (man who snips) sucks off the blood with his mouth (yes you read right, yes I agree, yes there was a story in New York a few years ago about babies who got herpes transmitted this way and died, yes oh my god!), and bandages it all up, props the baby up on the cushion and gets everybody to come round and take photos and get a blessing from the sandak. The baby meanwhile seems to have fallen asleep either from shock or from wine, this part is unclear. Aieee! Ani beshock!

sometimes I hate this country, sometimes I love it.

2007-03-11T13:52:00.000+02:00

I hate it when I hear my dog barking outside, in a rather frenzied manner, and I look out the window to see a grown man, with a kippah, kicking at my dog through the fence. And when my husband goes out to reason with said idiot, I hate it when he says we should tie up our dog, because there are children around. Our dog is kept locked in an enclosed garden, where the only way he can harm a child is if you throw your child over the fence, or if your stupid child puts his fingers through the fence, while simultaneously teasing our dog. And even if you do put your fingers through the fence, he's more likely to lick than to bite, as most rational and intelligent people know. I have seen a man with a baby stop and put the baby's fingers through the fence so he could touch and pat our dog, thus proving most people realise he is completely harmless. Setting aside the colossal stupidity of putting your child's fingers through a fence to some dog you hope is a friendly dog, our dog is not harmful. And you sir, are an idiot!

A good thing our gate was locked otherwise Bob would have gotten into a bout of fisticuffs with the fellow. There are few things that make Bob get cross, but when you kick our dog, that is one of them. Also when you nearly crash into our car that we are trying to sell that is another one of them. When we stopped after that fellow nearly crashed into us the other day, the first words out of Bob's very cross mouth were, "What are you doing? I'm trying to sell this car!"

The thing I love is that I can call up a pet shop 15km's away, order some things for our hound, pay over the phone with the credit card, and then have them deliver it to me this evening when I'll be home. Ain't that cool? still, it does not make up for the vast majority of animal mistreating ignoramuses in this country, though it does help a little. humph!

bits and pieces

2007-03-08T10:56:00.000+02:00

A typical only in Israel moment happened today. I was driving into the university parking lot, when I was stopped again after my car boot had already been checked. I told the guy, no listen, you've already checked me. But he stopped me to look at the for sale sign we have on the car, and to ask me all the usual questions, how much, how many kilometres, was it a rental car etc. This would all be normal except for the fact that I was at the top of the queue and a whole bunch of cars were waiting patiently behind me while we had our little chat about our car and its qualities and whether this fellow should buy it. Most amusing.

Speaking of, We are selling our car! If anyone wants to buy a Fiat Punto Spice, 2003, 104000km, 37000 shekels give or take, please do! Leave a comment if you want to see it. Yes I know this is a long shot but I just want to sell the car already, considering we will soon have another one.

I have my exam tomorrow and as you can see I am unfussed. I should probably be more stressed but I think I studied too much and peaked too early. I simply have no enthusiasm. But I must quickly get some, because I need to do well!

A short article about ATM bombings in South Africa can be found here. Next time a South African asks me aren't I scared about the bombs in Israel, I will ask them aren't they scared about the bombs in South Africa. ATM's are getting blown up at a rate of about one a day in South Africa - a quick and easy way to get money I suppose. Very funny, so long as you don't get bombed by mistake. But I think the criminals are pretty considerate and don't want witnesses, and thus aren't aiming to blow up people too. I sincerely hope the suicide bombers here don't hear about this. We could get people get blown up in ATM queues, with the bomber standing in the queue, and then an accomplice coming afterwards to steal all the money. Okay yes I know that is pretty macabre, I apologise!

Okay dokay things have clearly sunk to a low level, I think I shall sign off. Roger Charlie bravo, over and out.

this blog on hiatus

2007-02-27T16:02:00.000+02:00

I am indeed back in the supposed holy land. The many things which I need to write about include:

El Al and their dreadful security process
Durban, Kwazulu Natal, how pretty it is there, and how technologically unadvanced the domestic staff are (Shame!)
How you can drive 300km in 3 hours in South Africa
How many malls there are in Joburg
How much money I spent in South Africa (too much)
The Uct Strike and pictures
How nicely I was looked after by me friends Dij and Allan
How much work I have to do - a lot - two exams, two hectic courses, two sets of research assistant work to start after Pesach, two courses I am a TA for
Pretty pictures from Cape Point, UCT, etc
The Israeli dream, or lack thereof (vis a vis my acupuncturist)
How we got crashed into yesterday - yes, we are fine, yes our car is fine, yes Israelis are idiot moron drivers, yes hairpin bends in the rain are dangerous, and yes, as the other guy said, Baruch Hashem (thank God!), there was no damage.

However for the moment, you can take this as a teaser, and hopefully I get a spare second to write about one of these topics, but I don't anticipate being able to. The mountain of reading I have for just one of my courses is very high, and I need to do well in my exams. So thank you to everybody who is still reading, put this blog on an aggregator thingy whatsit, and then you will know when I hopefully, sometime soon, update again.

hellloooo?

2007-02-18T20:30:00.000+02:00

Is there anybody out there? I have been completely busy, and have not managed to reply to my husband when he emails me, let alone update this blog. But never fear I have a million pictures of my trip and when I get to a country with fast internet, I will upload them and put them up. It has been incredibly hectic these past few weeks, and I am just about kaput. Kaput kaput!

My kiddies write their far too easy exam tomorrow, and then I frantically mark it in hopefully one and a half days flat. Then I fly to Johannesburg on Thursday, see sister and brother for two days, and then arrive home at 630 on Sunday morning, and the way things are going, it sounds like I will then head straight for school for the first lectures of the two course I'm doing. I also have exams to study for, two new courses which I am a TA for, some potential research assistant work, and a whole lot of freaking out to do. I think if I don't sleep it might all get done!

Tomorrow I have to go and administer the exam. Since I am at my mama's house, this entails waking up before crack of dawn, driving for 45 km's, hopefully beating the traffic, and then twiddling my thumbs til 9, and then from 9 til 1 more thumb twiddling. I have to figure everything out myself in case something goes wrong, because the university is offering their admin staff 3.5%, when inflation is 5.5%, and thus they are all on strike in the very first week of classes. Methinks the university will crumble in five seconds flat when all hell and chaos breaks loose on Monday. The department I am in has 2500 first year students, all of them clueless, who are going to be squeaking and carrying on much better when they realise its soooo hard, and their readers are not available until the strike is settled.

I have to go figure out South Africa's draconian exchange control laws. In order to get my money out which I have earned here, I have to jump through some very high hoops. If I had a return ticket originating in South Africa, they might sell me forex. Since I don't, I have to sign declarations, which won't be true as I don't know if I am going to come back to South Africa in a years time, which is what they want me to sign in order to sell me forex. I also have the slight problem that I don't have the money as yet, so I have to convince some sucker to loan it to me, and then I'll pay them back when get paid, and then I can close my bank account for good. Problem being that I don't know how much exactly I will be paid. It is all a big balagan!

Happy 465th Birthday!

2007-02-06T08:16:00.000+02:00

to my darling husband, who I think today can be officially classified as very very old, at the grand old age of 28. I can only say this because I am approximately 9000km away. If I was with him he would bliksem me, as they say here in South Africa, for being so rude!

I am still in Cape Town, and will be here for another two and a half weeks. The weather is divine darling, I went walking with my mother in Cape Point Nature Reserve on the weekend and will put some photos up soon when I get a split second to breathe. Last night I went to go see Romeo and Juliet in an outdoor theatre (Maynardville) which was most amusing because Juliet spoke with a thick South African accent - think Pretoria or Bellville for those of you who would know. My lectures are going fine although they are completely exhausting - preparing for three hours of lecturing a day is quite a task. Half of the students call me Maam, or Mrs Mysurname, which is completely bizarre, and the other half are so old buddy old pal they call me Kath. The youth of today I tell you!

souf africa

2007-01-27T23:09:00.000+02:00

hellooo all. I am writing to you from me sisters hoos in johannesburg. It is warm here. hooray! lovely and warm during the day and then cools to a beautiful 17 degrees at night. now thats what I call a proper summer. I spent today with my brother at the mall of course dahling. We tramped Rosebank mall flat looking for various silly things. Everybody is very glamorous, everything is very expensive, and it is all very cosmopolitan darling. I saw very fancy cars everywhere, and we saw a police helicopter circling frantically around a hijacked car which had Tracker in it, the satellite tracking device thingy. Exciting!

Ben gurion airport was closed for an hour and a half when we tried to leave so the flight left an hour and a half late. I was a bit worried /excited we would have a riot on the plane from the chareidim (religiousos) because the flight might have landed only on Shabbat, but unfortunately we got there in time. Boring! Landing in Joburg was chaos, and we taxied forever only to get out and sit in a hot stinky very crowded bus. Then we waited for no reason at all until the guy next to me blew his lid and went and shouted at the driver until we left. The driver did not know he was dealing with a bunch of Israelis - ha! Then we waited for 45 minutes for our luggage, and then in a queue for customs. It was a crazy balagan. I went through the passport queue, and the guy asked me where I'd come from. I told him Israel, and he said to me,"Israel, Israel... hmm.. isn't that the place where the president is alleged to have raped some women?" Oh dear. I told him yes it was. Really now politicians you are giving the place a bad name!

Righto I am going to sleep so I can wake up tomorrow and enjoy a Sunday without work. Then I will truly know I'm on holiday. Hooray!

My mother's visitors this morning looked like this:

2007-01-13T16:04:00.000+02:00

Here's a closer look:

Isn't he pretty? My momma lives on the edge of a nature reserve right at the tip of southern Africa. Her house is right on the edge of the reserve, and sometimes these baboons come looking for mischief. Those residents who forget to close their windows, like my dearest Mama, will meet Mr Baboon in the kitchen, and will have to clean up this sort of mess:

Such a cliche I mean really.

Anyway, not too much is happening around here. I leave for South Africa in two weeks, and I have much much work to do before I get there. I will be there for a month, and I arrive back on the morning of the next semester. Then I have exams two weeks after that. I am also going to be doing three courses, being a teaching assistant for two courses, and lecturing for one of them if the rumours are correct. All in all a lot of work! So I am trying like mad to finish everything off and be super organised for the course I am teaching in Cape Town so that I will be able to have some fun time and enjoy the fun that is Cape Town in the summer. Hooray!

What a smart puppy!

2007-01-06T21:45:00.000+02:00

And what a miracle - three silly posts in one day. So for all of you who do not own an animal, kindly skip this post because it will be horribly boring. For the rest of you, listen to the brilliance that is our dog, commonly known as Shaka Parker.

So it is muddy and messy and wet and horrible outside today, and last night it was freezing. All in all the kind of weather that dogs would like to spend curled up inside on a blanket and not outside in the mud. So Shaka would like to be in inside as much as possible right now. The problem is he has to go outside to drink water, bark at the neighbours etc, mark his territory and let the neighbours dogs know who is boss. Once he has done all this, he wants inside again. The problem is that he is usually covered in mud and is all wet. Since our floors are light coloured tile, we have to clean him off before he comes in. Which is a complete pain of a task usually, but our Shaka has learnt how to kiff the system, as we say in South Africanese.

So usually I spread a towel down on the floor, grab him quickly as he rushes inside, and then tug him round and round the towel so that he walks all the mud and rain off on the towel and not on the floor. I might also use the dry bits of the towel to dry him off too. In the beginning this was an annoying prospect because he got all excited, ran inside completely skipping the towel step, and mucked up the floors big time. Then I noticed that I just had to block his entry into the house while he was on the towel, and just gently prod him round and round on the towel. Now we have gotten to the point that I open the door for him, point at the towel, and tell him, "round and round". He then goes round and round on the towel, without me touching him, and finishes off this cute performance by plonking himself down on it and rolling all over to dry off his wet coat. What a smart puppy!

Heellooo

2007-01-06T18:03:00.000+02:00

To the people from Kenya and Italy who read this blog this week. Cool!

and on a lighter note

2007-01-06T12:40:00.000+02:00

I now present what we wear in winter here. Here is a simple Russian boy, I mean Bob, wearing his school cap and looking suitable serious:

Here I am dressed for the cold. This is just my in the house outfit. My mother says I look like an old Russian granny but what does she know of high fashion. I mean really!

Here we are after all the wodka we have to dwink to keep warm in the bitter cold:

Last night we had an awesome thunder and lightning storm, complete with buckets of rain, and a sudden hail shower, with such quantities of hail that our garden looked white - we got our snow after all! We were going to make a hail man and take pictures but we'd drunk too much wodka so we went to sleep instead.

More useful advice:

2007-01-01T23:18:00.000+02:00

This person doesn't really deserve their email address posted here, because their advice is just stupid, not really rude. So far I have two not so useful replies, and no useful advice. Oh well. Here is useful advice # 2.

Maybe you should convert

Yeah very handy. Last time I checked converting to Judaism was meant to be done when you felt a deep and sincere appreciation for the religion, and a wish to join it, not when you don't want to pay 1200 shekels in government thievery. I'm thinking purely economically it would cost me more to convert than to just pay the 1200 shekels.

Or possibly this person reckons if they suggest this to me, it will be something new which I might not have thought of. Yes I have been in a relationship with a Jewish man for 8 years, married to him for one of those years, and I never considered that option. It simply never crossed my mind. What can I say us shiksas are dumb.

I think I am recommending to anyone sensitive this week not to come to my blog, because I sense a lot of annoyed ranting in the future.

And our latest feature: hateful people

2007-01-01T21:59:00.000+02:00

I thought about writing a preamble to my email to Janglo telling people to not bother emailing me if they were just going to comment negatively, but Bob reckoned let the crazy people waste their time, and I would just ignore the emails. It took one minute approximately and I started to receive mean emails. Here is the first one. Somehow methinks flossy pearl is about to receive a lot of spam - my husband has too much time on my hands and loves me a lot.

Here you go:

**********

flossy pearl
to katrkief

show details
9:57 pm (1 minute ago)
Images are not displayed.
Display images below - Always display images from flossy613@yahoo.com

A non Jew cannot, by definition, be MARRIED to a Jew. Therefore you have NO rights, just an obligation to marry a non Jew and let your "spouse" marry a JEW!

*************

It seems Flossy613 has internalised that there are 613 mitsvot (nice things you can do make the world a better place - that is my dodgy interpretation look it up if you need more), yet somehow she seems to think it is a mitsva to send mean emails to random people on the internet. Enjoy the spam flossy!