Day 345 (Erev Shabbos)

So we went back to the doctor again today, because thank G-d BSM is fever-less and I really wanted to send him back to daycare. The lab results were in: sure enough, BSM had a heckuva virus, but he's better now. I could have told you that. At least the blood-torture wasn't entirely in vain (ha ha): they checked his iron levels as long as they were sucking blood, and I can stop giving him iron supplements. Good good good. I mean, it's a bit of a shame, because BSM really likes taking his medicine, but I'm glad that his hemoglobin count is finally up to scratch.

When I went to Rami Levy earlier this week, the grade B tomatoes looked much better than the grade A tomatoes, so I made the obvious choice. The only problem is that meant I had to buy about 4lb of tomatoes instead of 4 single tomatoes, because the grade B stuff is sold pre-packaged. It wasn't a huge deal, and it meant that I made a new side-dish today, inspired by Spice and Spirit, but tweaked very heavily by yours truly. It came out really yummy, but the rice was so flavorful that next time I'll pair it with chicken breast instead of tomato halves.

***
Stuffed Tomatoes

8 medium tomatoes
2/3 c rice
1 cube basil seasoning (that's a thing that they sell here: it seems to be a soup-mix cube with basil)
oregano
1 onion
1 small can mushrooms
fresh garlic to taste
white wine

• Cut tomatoes in half and scoop out their insides.
• Puree the tomato pulp and measure it. If there's less than 4/3 c puree, add water so you have twice as much liquid as rice.
• Combine rice, oregano, basil cube, and tomato-guts in a rice cooker and cook. 
• Sautée onion, mushrooms, and garlic.
• Deglaze the pan with white wine.
• Add the cooked rice to the sautéed mixture, and pour in enough wine so everything is nice and moist. 
• Arrange the tomatoe-halves in a greased baking dish, and fill them with the rice mixture.
• Bake covered at 350°F until the tomatoes are tender. I think it took about 45 minutes/an hour, but I really don't remember.

Day 344 (I am tired of illness)

Sure enough, BSM was home with fever again, so I took him for bloodwork. He has tiny rolly veins, and he got stuck in both arms. Again, the nurse was awesome: after failing to hit the right vein after one stick, she told me she wanted to look at his left arm, but would only stick him if she was 100% sure she could hit the vein. Still, it was pretty awful. And then we had to wait around for an hour and a half waiting for BSM to pee. He didn't. Argh! He did, however, grab me by the hands and get me to play the Israeli version of Ring-Around-the-Rosie with him. I didn't know he knew that game. That's cute.

Day 343 (BSM home again)

BSM was home with fever again today, so I took him to the doctor. The doctor did something I haven't seen since we made aliyah: he gave BSM an actual physical! BSM's chest sounds good, the tummy-squishing gave good squished-tummy results, and his eyes, ears, and throat all look good. The doctor told me to bring him in sooner next time he's sick like this, but all he could tell me was that BSM seems to have some virus. If he still has fever tomorrow (which is when the lab is next open), I should bring him in for blood and urine samples. This is why I don't hurry to bring in my poor, sick kid-o. I don't particularly want to waste my time to hear, "He has a virus: let's stick him with needles!" But I continue to like this doctor: encouraging me to bring in a child after 3 days of fever is Responsible Medicine, and wishing BSM a refuah shelaima (speedy recovery) on his way out is Sweet.

Day 342 (Yerushalayim)

I went into Yerushalayim again today. I tried to get a quote for our darned table leg so we can wrap things up with insurance, already, but the first guy I talked to insisted that he had to see the entire table before giving me a quote. No. The second guy told me he didn't do anything fancier than hammering 2x4's or 3x6's or what-have-you's into place, but I should try Talpiyot. OK.

While I was wandering around, I met some friends from the US and invited their son, who's here for the year, to come for Shabbos some time. The clerk heard the name of my Yishuv and asked for more information, because he was considering living there. After a brief conversation, I gave him my number, Husbinator's number, and Rabbi Gold's number, and told him to come for Shabbos some time. Because that's how things work in Israel.

On the way home, I ran into a GPS issue I've had in the past: it tried to take me home through East Jerusalem. No, GPS, NO! I don't care if it's faster; I don't care if it's under Israeli control (that's an option on Waze). I will not drive there GPS-you-are. I will make U-turns near and far. So there.

Day 341 (sick)

Oy, I miss being able to fill out forms with aplomb. I filled out as much of the insurance forms as I could, then took them to the bank for the necessary stamps and had the teller help me fill out the rest.

Unfortunately, that little excursion sapped all my strength, and I laid on the couch whining for the rest of the afternoon. Husbinator built me a fire, but I was stiiiiiill whiny. Then Shira (my across-the-street neighbor) came by just to say hi, as she occasionally does. I've got news for you people: visiting sick people really can make them feel better. Well, it can make them feel better physically. It can also make them hear the drums of doom when they realize that their 18-month-old follows Hebrew directions much better than he follows English directions. I'd like to believe that's also due to Shira (a) being a trained pre-school teacher and (b) not being BSM's mother, but I really do think the Hebrew has something to do with it. It's time for me to stop lapsing into Hebrew when I talk to BSM and stick to the English, mon.

Day 340 (illness)

BSM stayed home with a fever, I have one of those colds that just wipe me out. This is not a good combination.

Even so, I managed to get something done: I went to the doctor's office and worked on cementing my friendship with the secretary. I also got forms to upgrade our health insurance and update our payment information.(Because we pay via direct debit, and we switched branches, so now we have a new account number. Eventually, I'll either find a free Israeli credit card or Go Not Gently into paying monthly fees to-- Ha. That day is a loooong way off, my friends.)

Day 339 (Shabbos)

We had a friend from Atlanta (who was also sporadically on the Kibbutz at the same time we were) stay for Shabbos. Not only was it nice to hang out with and old friend, it was even nicer to hang out with an old friend who plays with his little nieces all the time, so can actually entertain my kid.

In my not-quite-weekly Parsha observation, I realized something new and shocking this week (though Husbinator apparently has known this for a while). I still remember my high-school chumash teacher's brief but impassioned lecture that, "Let My people go," is a quote taken completely out of context. The correct quote, she stressed, is, "Let My people go so that they may serve Me." Well, this week I realized that isn't quite correct, either. The accurate translation of "שלח את עמי ויעבדני" is, in fact, "Send forth My people and they will serve Me." Where King James' minions got "let 'em go" from "send 'em forth," I have no idea.

Day 338 (Erev Shabbos)

Well, all that early cooking and shopping paid off: Erev Shabbos went much more smoothly than usual!

Day 337 (yet more busy-ness)

I did indeed get more cooking done today, including a second Yerushalmi kugel. (There's a bar mitzva this week and the rabbi is making his monthly visit.) One of the things I made was pareve vanilla ice cream, which taught me that my food processor can indeed whip cream! I mean, it has a fluted plastic disk that claims to be able to whip stuff, but I've never actually tried it before. I must say, I'm quite impressed. I am also impressed by how good this artificial mess tasted after I added real home-made vanilla extract. (Let's just say that the artificial vanilla extract in this country is slightly less yummy than the artificial stuff in the US. It is also considerably more expensive, even compared to the 8-oz bottle for a dollar at CVS, but especially compared to the gallon for about $5 at Restaurant Depot. And goodness knows I'm not shelling out money for the real stuff, so making my own it was. And it works!)

Even with the storm I really had to cook up today, I managed to de-mold BSM's room before I picked him up for daycare. Long story short, we just realized that running the humidifier in his room to counter his heater's dryness has caused mold to sprout on the walls and ceiling. Arg! So I got out some ratty PJ's, a bucket of bleach water, a scrubby, and a ladder, and scrubbed down his walls and ceiling. Seriously. Thank G-d, the stuff came off without a fight, though bleach water creepily dripped into my armpit more than once. Also, with the relatively mild weather, open window, and smell of bleach, I was really transported to the month before Pesach. Again, things have a refreshing novelty when done out of season.

Day 336 (and more!)

I finally, finally re-brined the darned olives. I think I made two critical mistakes when I did it the first time: not every olive's skin was actually broken and the brine wasn't strong enough. So I dumped out the old brine, rinsed the zillions of olives, slit each one with a paring knife, and dumped in salt water made the old-fashioned way. That's right, ladies and gents, there was no weighing of the salt and measuring of the water; I just poured a container of water, dumped in a bunch of salt, mixed, and made sure a raw egg floats in the stuff.

Oy, pickling olives is really, really time-consuming. Granted, things went much faster this time, but it still took me like four hours. Eventually, I realized I could listen to lectures, but the only thing on my phone was Rabbi Tatz speaking about Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur. You know what? Sometimes it's nice to listen to things out of season. It's novel.

And I learned something very, very important. I've known for years and years that repentance has three steps: regret, confession, and saying you won't do it again. That third step always gives me trouble, though: I know I don't want to do whatever-it-is again, but I also know from past experience that deciding not to do something and actually not doing it are two different things. And I don't like making promises that I'm not sure I'll keep. This leaves me in a bit of bind. Rabbi Tatz didn't give me a whole lot of comfort when he said that saying something along the lines of, "I'll try not to do it again" absolutely doesn't count.

Luckily, his next sentence explained the way out. To truly repent, you do have to say you won't do it again, and you have to mean it, even if you've messed that one up before. The thing is, during repentance you work on yourself and focus and his a point where you know to the very core of your being that doing whatever-it-is is a terrible decision. That's when you say, "The way I feel now, knowing what I've managed to finally grasp, I would never, ever, do that thing." What happens a few days or weeks or, if you're really good, months later when you've gotten distracted and lost sight of who you are and who you want to be... Well, that's another story.

So I guess what I'm saying is that it's a really good thing that I finally re-brined the olives, but I am still considering loading more seasonally-appropriate lectures onto my phone for my next long, quiet, tedious task.

Speaking of long, tedious tasks, Husbinator's JawSaw finally arrived. Let's start with, "wow," then back up and tell you that a JawSaw is what you get when you cross a tushie-pincher/chapper/grabber-thingy with a chain saw. Place mouth of device over branch you want to cut, pull lever, and chain saw descends and cuts said branch. And it cuts it much more quickly than an axe does, let me tell you. I tried a branch and stopped after about two seconds because I didn't feel anything, so I was sure I was doing it wrong. Nope, that branch was cut almost all the way through. Wow. Wowowowowow. So Husbinator cut the logs that LandPeople left for us (but were too big to fit in the stove), and now we don't have to be stingy about lighting the stove. Before, every log thrown on the fire represented long, difficult labor. Now it's just zip zap zoop. Yay!

And no, the day still isn't done. I made kugel and went to Rami Levy: I want to have all of the food cooked before Friday this week.

Day 335 (more productivity)

I combined exercise and chores today: I chopped more firewood with our axe. Good stuff, good stuff.

I also took BSM to his well visit, where the nurse told me that (a) BSM is really cute and (b) he needs to eat more. Personally, I'm wondering if that's even possible: thank G-d, this little boy eats. But I'll try to get a little more into him, and maybe replace some pretzels with eggs or something, and we'll go back in March to discuss.

Day 334 (so productive)

We need to get a quote to fix our dining room table before the insurance company will pay us for the damage. This morning, I called the head of the carpentry shop on the Yishuv to talk to him about that. More coolly, I made that call without planning the words first. Nevertheless, the guy understood my story and said to come by in the early morning some time. Heck yeah, spontaneous Hebrew phone call!

After that, I spent a good bit of time putting our bamboo fence back up: not surprisingly, it blew down during the windstorm that some would have you believe was actually a snowstorm.

I also applied for a job: it's been a while since I've done that. Unfortunately, a few minutes after submitting the application I finally managed to find out that the company is about an hour away from where I live, but nu, nu. Applying to the job got me to tweak my master cover-letter, so that's good.

Also on the job front, I chipped away a little more at translating the technical words in my CV so I can give it to Husbinator's cousin to translate the rest.

Bam!

Day 333 (daycare thrills)

When I went to pick up BSM today, he did not want to leave. This is not unusual. What was unusual was the solution to get him to leave: tell BSM to give his friend Moshe a kiss and then we'll see him tomorrow. Levy is about half a head taller than BSM, so BSM had to lift his chin to deliver said kiss. It was so cute! (And yes, I asked Moshe if it was OK before I told BSM to kiss him. He said it was.)

Day 332 (Shabbos)

Because it went below freezing on Friday night, we turned on a portable heater in the living room and  had the wood-burning stove going full-blast. When Shabbos came in I was actually uncomfortably warm. That hasn't happened in... in... I don't know how long. It was so warm in my house that I actually had to take off my sweatpants. I'd forgotten how that feels.

Along with the freezing weather, the Israelis tell me that it snowed "sticking snow" on Friday night. Oh, cuties. Just because the air is filled with snowflakes and they stick to cars and some tree branches does not mean that it's "sticking snow." I did not tell them that, though. No need to rain on their parade. As Husbinator pointed out though, this week is the first time (of 2) that the word "snow" appears in the Chumash, so that is pretty cute.

For lunch, we had Maya and Gal, a sweet Israeli couple from the neighborhood. I'm thinking that (a) everyone who lives here is unnaturally sweet or (b) that's just the sort of people who welcome the new kids into the community. We had a good time, and Maya made me feel great about my integration into Israeli society. Not only did she compliment my Hebrew, but she knows as little about the US as I know about Israel. When I brought out a banana cream pie for dessert, she said, "Isn't there an expression in English? Something like, 'If you can't make pie, you're not really an American'?"

It transpired that Maya and Gal have eaten with the Barzilai's since I've given Mrs. Barzilai Mrs. Jeremias' apple pie recipe. Maya says Mrs. Barzilai was really happy with the apple cake recipe, and she, Maya, concurs. I went on a very short "it's not cake: it's pie," rant, and then I realized that there is some truth to the expression Maya was looking for. Maybe apple pie doesn't actually sum up the entire American culture, but there does seem to be something about apple pie that gets this
American's radar up.

Day 331 (Erev Shabbos)

While I was focused all day, I wasn't as effective as I usually am: I was distracted by the fact that I am unaccountably nervous about the guests we're having tomorrow. I really, really like Maya, and I want her to think I'm reasonably cool, too. And not helplessly wallowing in my mess.

Day 330 (Snow Day)

I've got news for you people: I don't think that talking about BSM's dirty diapers is TMI. Feel free to skip the rest of this paragraph >:-) Over the past week or so, BSM has started telling me/Dikla when he has a dirty diaper. What a big boy!!! However, he's only mentioned it when external factors make it a natural topic of conversation, i.e., other children are getting their diapers changed or I ask him point-blank what's going on down there. Well, all that changed today. Today is the day that I was on the computer and BSM was playing nicely, and then he just walked up to me and kept telling me that his diaper was dirty until I understood what he was talking about. Yay, BSM! I am so proud of him!

In other baby news, when I tried to put him in for a nap this morning, I was reminded exactly why reading a nice soothing story isn't part of our bedtime routine. It's because my little book fiend gets waaaay too excited and rambunctious when we break out the books. "Look at this! And this! Oo, that reminds me of another book! Stop reading, I need to flip to my favorite picture!  Hey, I'm going to run and get another book now!" I try a soothing litany of good nights, but BSM is all about flipping around to find the cat! And the mouse! And a balloon! Hey, it's the moon! Let's go look at the sky! Etc, etc.

Since the weather was fine and we were running low on some things that aren't essential but would be nice to have, I popped out to Rami Levy. Oh, man, I have never been in that store when it was so quiet. And on a Thursday night, too! It actually made up for the insanity of earlier this week. It was so nice. So peaceful. The shelves were so fully stocked. There were so many open cash registers. Ahhh.

Day 329 (It Begins)

Wednesday. The day the Storm was supposed to start. And I'll say, there was one heckuva wind when I took BSM to daycare this morning. (Dikla seemed somewhat dazed that her playgroup was running today, but it was.) And then it rained a bit, and I was impressed by the hail and occasional thunder. Since when does it hail and thunder in the winter? What surely awed all of the natives though, was the snow. Not once, but twice, for a few magical minutes, we had big, wet snowflakes mixed with the rain. There will be no daycare tomorrow.

Day 328 (in which I succumb)

After meeting our friends' brother-in-law to give him the stuff they sent in our lift (that's 2 of 3 lift-sharers who have claimed their stuff), I threw in the towel and went back to Rami Levy. I got some more carrots, onions, and eggs, feeling that there's a real chance that this section of the country really will shut down for a whole week.

Upon my return home (holy moly, the checkout line was really nuts), I finished sharpening our ax and cut a bunch more firweood. (Thank you, Uncle, for giving me that hint I didn't even know I needed. Apparently you sharpen an axe with a file; the hand-held whetstone is for honing, not sharpening.) Tomorrow I'll fill up our water containers, and that will be it, I think.

In saner news, I figured out how to fit one more shelving unit in our salon! It doesn't even eat up floor space that wasn't already effectively eaten. Not only did I figure out how to fit another bookcase, I actually moved the furniture necessary and brought in our spare utility shelves that we bought as stopgap measure before our lift came. Actually wiping down the shelves and filling them up can wait: I did good.

Day 327 (peer pressure)

Well, the frantic screams on social media finally got to me: Husbinator and I went to Rami Levy today to get our shopping done before the "snow." And, more importantly, before the "Erev Snow." Boy am I glad that we went today: it was as crazy as Friday usually is, so I can only imagine the insanity that will be tomorrow (the day before we are scheduled for snow). And we do need to do our first biweekly shop, right?

My other nod to the impending weather was taking BSM for a nice long frolic in the park. I'm still not convinced we'll actually have snow (though I'm now seeing lows as low as 31, so maybe), but rain also puts a damper on outdoor play, so we may as well get in as much outdoor frolicking as we can while we can.

Day 326 ("winter is coming")

It was one of those days that I was bored, but didn't feel like doing anything. Thus, I spent an unwise amount of time on Facebook, growing steadily more and more frustrated with the mania over the snow predicted for the Jerusalem area later this week. To clarify, the temperature isn't supposed to get below freezing, so snow may fall, but there ain't much chance of it sticking. And yet, even local governments are getting in on the frenzy, releasing lists of Emergency Supplies that Everyone Should Have. Ack! Husbinator heard a great line later tonight that helped me a lot, though. When rockets fall, Israelis can deal with it: they take precautions, but remain calm. But when snow is predicted to fall, Israelis simply panic.

Day 325 (Shabbos)

After all those oodles of times I've heard divrei Torah about how Parshas Vayechi is a "closed Parsha," it finally actually 'bothered' me: I was trying to read the parsha in our Koren chumash, and I couldn't find it. I did, however, convince myself that I forgot to finish last week's parsha. I think it took me a solid minute of flipping back and forth and skimming confusedly before I remembered that there is a reason that Parshas Vayechi is called a closed parsha: there is neither an indentation nor a line break between the end of Vayigash and the beginning of Vayechi. It makes finding Vayechi a tiny bit tricky.

Day 324 (Erev Shabbos)

A bag of potatoes was about a quarter of the price of loose potatoes (per kg), so Husbinator bought a bag yesterday, and I made potato salad with what wasn't used for the cholent. The only problem is that I used up most of our mayonnaise making Sister's Yellow Dressing first thing this morning. I looked for more mayo, but we only had "mayonnaise spread" that our neighbor gave us. Because it's icky. So I ran out to Rami Levy, which wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be, but still took an hour of my precious Erev Shabbos. (I'd have gone to the mini-market on the Yishuv, but as long as we needed mayo, I figured I'd pick up another couple of things.)

Long and short of it is this: mayonnaise spread is miracle whip, which is, apparently, nearly-instant potato-salad dressing. Just add ketchup and onion powder. Hee hee.

Day 323 (10 Tevet)

I did what I like doing best on fast days: I cooked all day. Quite useful, this fast day being on a Thursday, letting me get rolling on Shabbos cooking without needing the freezer space.

Day 322 (on a roll)

Husbinator switched insurances! Yay!!! I went with him, but the family doctor at the new insurance is male, so I'll stick with the old insurance and female family doctor for now. I think I've figured out how to work with her, anyway: ask for her help rather than her opinion. As in, don't walk in saying, "I feel this and that, do you think X could be the cause?" No, no. Walk in and list symptoms while your body language screams, "Help, me, oh wise one! I beseech you!" Whatever. We'll see how it goes: I have the options of switching insurances every three months, anyway.

I did a bunch of baking today: I made challah, cookies, and a really gross lemon-poppy seed cake. I might have done better with the poppy seed cake had I clicked on the New York Times' article on the subject, but I'm still angry at the NYT (from Operation Protective Edge), and I point-blank refuse to give them the infinitesimally small fraction of a cent they might earn if I click on one of their articles. I just won't.

On the bright side, I got all of the doughs/batters raw simultaneously, so I had a nice easy challah-taking for the day's baking.

I also found time to scoot over to Rami Levy for an hour-and-half or so, and we got reacquainted. Hello again, Rami Levy. How nice to see you when you're running so many end-of-the-year 30% off specials.