Celebrating veg

Why do vegetables look so appealing when they are in the shop, and so dull once they are in my fridge? I get so excited by the sight and smells, and buy everything I see - basil, and baby spinach leaves, roquette and radishes, and dill and parsley and lettuce, and... stop me, somebody. Because I know only too well how it ends. It ends when I remove the lower drawer of the fridge, and tip the entire contents of it into the bin, and carry the bag out quickly, because if not, it'll leak. Why?
I guess it's because I grew up with vegetables being an afterthought. If at all. Proteins were a rare treat. We ate bread, and potatoes, and fish cans. You ate to feel full, not to be healthy. Health was an afterthought, too. Salads didn't exist for me when I was little. One of my aunts never sat down to diner without a plate of veg, and we looked at it as if it was some curiosity. She ate celery sticks, could you imagine? I remember staring at her open-mouthed.  My mom lived her whole life (and still does!) on bread with jam. That's basically it. So the habit, written on the level of genes, of hundreds of generations of starved shtetl Jews, says, carbs first. Bread. And some more bread. Leaves are not filling. How many years will it take for me to re-program this? Because leaves are actually the most filling thing there is, nourishing body and soul, and giving me strength. When I manage to remember them.
It's a daily "doing teshuva". Daily reminder. Daily effort. We live in a different place and time. We don't get stuffed on potatoes, washing them down with tea, to keep warm. We are in the blessed Land, flowing with olive oil, date honey and pomegranate juice. I'm off... to invent another salad dressing, made of those ingredients. No more tipping the drawer in the bin. Celebrating the gifts of health that God gave us in every supermarket. Remind me I said this. ;)

The mundane-NES of dreams

When you spend your summer writing a book, (or at least attempting such a feat), the blog just gets shoved aside, and stays close to the shore, away from the current of life, where we're all swimming, trying to duck waves and all the things they carry. Here a log, there a rock, here a job, there  a jog, and before you know it, you're Old McDonald, counting your sheep sitting in the wheelchair in the old age home.
But what I really wanted to say is this: when you become religious, or maybe when you grow up in a community, one of the things you hear constantly is that material things cannot make you happy. And so children are taught to scoff at possessions, and make do with little, and share, and recycle and reuse, and to look forward and appreciate. All true and wonderful.
But, a rebel that I am, I've got to argue with that, too. And when I turn into Old McDonald, I won't be counting sheep, I'll be counting the times I escaped. (or my neighbour's sex toys)
I'd say, material possessions that bring you closer to your true self, do make you happy. Material possessions that serve a higher goal, that trampouline you to your higher self level, that enable you to achieve, give you an equisite, sparkling, glorious sense of joy.
And how do you know, which is which? How do you tell a simple desire for an object from a desire for a higher purpose? The urge you harbour feels exaclty the same in both cases, and you don't know until your wish has been fulfilled.
When your desire stems from the selfish, want-it-all-right-now part of you, you regret the purchase by the time you bring it home. You feel like your higher brain has been hijacked for a time - and it has been. Your conciousness lsitened to the simpler, more primitive part of you, the part that causes road rage, hate crimes, binge consumption, and impulsive behaviour. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala_hijack) When your achievement makes you hate yourself, you know you've desired the wrong thing.
When you have a dream, (oh yeah, I Have a Dream), and then suddenly you find yourself living it, as real as could be, larger thsn life, and you ask yourself, why is it so mundane? Where are the fanfares, at least the mental ones? Why does it feel so... every day? So normal and "always been this way"?
I call this "the mundaneness of dreams". For me, that's a sign that I have been dreaming in the right direction. When the dream continues to walk in step with the drums of my soul, when I don't feel like vomiting it out the second I have it, I know that I've wanted right. And then I make sure to remind myself, that it's mundane-NES, the miracle that is hidden in every day, every move and every breath. And that's when the happiness comes - the sparkling, bubbling, colourful joy, the rainbow of song and the dance of the heart, sprinklers on the spring grass and the maroon-and -orange autumn sunset, all blended into one.  I just hope I am never too old to dream, and to springboard myself in the right direction.

Beep your cat, and accept what God sends you

Every exit out of the RBS comfy haven and into the real Israel world leaves me with enough experiences to write a story. 
This morning, as I stood in a queue for the metal detector frame at the entrance to a governmental institution, there was a guy in front of me, wearing a long black cloak, looking more like a robe than a capota, with peot below his waist. He went through and the frame beeped. Now, the guard woman there wan't blessed with much patience. Metal out - she commanded. He looks behind her and says, I have no metal. Goes through - beep! She growls. He says, ah! and empties a pocket full of dozens of coins in small change. Goes through - beeeeep! - Metal! - she barks at him. -No metal, he pleads. After a prolonged search, he discovered a key and some wipes. Goes through. Again - Beeeeep!!! 
The guard takes him aside, barely holding herself together, and empties him all out. In the bottomless pit of his left pocket she discoveres a packet with dociments, miniscule nail sccisors, some string, and a clove of garlic. Yeah, I'll still be pondering this mystery tomorrow. What do you think? 

Then I had to help an Ethiopian woman, who explained to me in pantomine that her daughter gave birth, and the husband doens't work, and she needs papers for that, and it took me a few minutes, and I explained to her that she is in the wrong institution,  and we were both cracking up, and parted as good frends. 

Then I had to buy some ant poison, because the invincible creatures are pretty much taking over my house, we've got ants in the pants, and the disinfestation companies only guarantee cockroaches. Ants cannot be guaranteed. No, I'm not kidding. Maybe it has to do with ancient Egyptian magic rules, as in, they are smaller than a "seah", or maybe because the only thing that kills ants is a nuclear explosion, or maybe because phosphoorganics are illegal, I'm not sure.

I ask the guy, will my cat be safe if I use this poison? 
Sure, - he says. - and if she isn't, get another one. All cats are the same, no?
- No, actually not. My cat is so tame and lovely, she sleeps with me. 
- Oh, bullshit! You have to throw out the cat and get yourself a guy! So you don't have to sleep with cats. And don't be picky, take whatever comes! Don't complain! You need a guy! May God send you a good one, but take him in! Don't pick and look for faults! Feed him! Pamper him! And then you can sleep with a man, not cats!
I say, don't worry, man, I've got 4 kids, they keep me busy. 
-So what happened to your guy, he asks? 
-Um... em.... he's gone, no more, good bye. 
-No good. - he tuts and tuts. - Mamash no good! Get a guy and then you can come and take my cats also, I have plenty in my yard. 
At least I got a discount. Nothing like flirting with an 80 year old. Why didn't I think to say, if you think guys are not all the same, you've got to admit that cats aren't, either. 
Oh, but I suffer from severe case of staircase wit. No good. 
I'm off to have a cup of turkish coffee with the pet show owners, they treat cutomers like royals. And then the Russian cashiere at the supermarket will greet me with, how are your kids? Are you done studying yet, or you'll study forever? And I'll say, oh, but has your daughter come back from the army yet?
No place like Israel. 

Pre-Pesach Tiger and the Magic mirror

Last night, this house was visited by a mosquito plague. I managed to sleep right through it, seeing dreams with soapy rags flapping their wings at me and with some pitot, lisping something incomprehensible out of their gaping mouths as they crossed the road on a red light. But in the morning my kiddles woke up with hundreds of mosquito bites all over them. It must be the season. It must be that my cat, flooded by her feline hormones, sorely failed her job. What else do I feed her for, if not for her incessant efforts to keep the house creature-free. (Get off the hamster cage, you beast! The hamsters are not included in the "creature" definition. No. Just kidding, I speak Russian to my cat, and most of you wouldn't understand, anyway)
In the morning, as the opening notes of the latest floral sqeak in detergent fasion floated through my window, my now five year old baby woke up and moaned: "mommy, I need a qui-tow cream".
And so it happened, that in our trip to the Old City, a little jar of Tiger Balm came with, making regular reappearances all the way through the bus ride, the tram experience and the sauna hike.
On the tram, this Israeli woman starts tut-tutting at me, saying, look, your child is all covered in bites, do you know? Of course I know, I say, pulling out the Tiger. She says, "but why don't you use Fenistil?" "Only in Israel" - I answer her. "What?" - she doesn't quite follow. Only in Israel people would give you parenitng / medical advice on the tram, I think. Not the first time, either. 16 years ago, by this very same Safra square in Jerusalem a stately policeman of about 2 meteres tall approached us in a brisk step, scaring the daylight out of us, only to inform us that Jerusalem weather is no joke, and I should dress my baby warmer. "Have you got a hat?" - he asked, - "if you do, you should put it on the baby, or go home", - and he strolled off a little less urgently.
I thank the woman and explain why I prefer the Tiger. She pulls out her phone and takes notes of what else it's good for.
We are so lucky to live in a place where people dish out advice unashamedly. Where we are not too polite to comment, and ask, and be involved. Where every baby is everybody's baby. For good and otherwise.
Everywhere we go, people talk to Tamara. One seller at the shuk gave her a dried apricot, and another praised her for helping mommy. An exhuasted- looking Cofix waiter smiled and waited so patiently as she chose her cake. Coming from a country where kids are seen but not heard, if at all, I appreciate the feeling those people give my daughter. That she is real, she matters, she is special. Thinking back to my childhood, it's impossible to imagine. I believe very strongly that the way a society treats its children and the elderly defines it more than any other attribute. It's the mirror of our humanity, its measure and expression rolled into one. A magic mirror of who and what we really are.
At the hardware shop she settled on a chair, behind the sweaty, stressed, pushy crowd, and looked at the giant poppies opening and closing gently above our heads. A woman standing behind me in the queue stepped aside to give me a view of my daughter, so tiny and so grown up, taking in the world through a dirty Shuk window; her kindness and the view, together, made my breath catch in my throat. Just like every time I see the youth group volunteers singing Shabbat zemirot with a Down syndome kid who likes singing best of all, and they don't mind singing with him for hours in the park. Just like when I see the neighbors' kids holding back in a race to let the weaker boy win, and I turn away so they don't notice my tears. Just like when I see 17 year old boys taking babies to the park to let mommy rest. Just like when my own kids are loving to each other, and I, for one brief second, see my job done.
May we never lose our humanity, neither out of fear nor out of stress, and may we cherish the light in each other, in our children, and in this blessed Land, which we may inherit only if we learn to see and appreciate.