Drinking the Kool-Aid (or Apple Juice, as the Case May Be)

Husbinator recently bought a gallon of Kirkland Apple Juice, because it was on clearance due to an imminent expiration date. Wanting to know just how fast we should plan to drink this thing, I checked the "Best By" date, which read 06/11/2022. My knee-jerk reaction, exclaimed aloud was, "Oh, come on! November is not that soon!" Apparently, even my frequent reading of dates on communications from the US Patent & Trademark Office hasn't been enough to prevent the change of my expectations of how dates are written. 

Also, dude, it tastes just like Juice Boxes!

Also also, the English label proudly proclaimed "Not From Concentrate," and listed the single ingredient as "apple juice." The Hebrew label, on the other hand, listed the sole ingredient as "מיץ תפוחים מרוכז." I know that "ריכוז" is concentrate, so, confused, I stopped and read everything carefully again. I then realized that the correct translation of the Hebrew ingredients is not "apple juice from concentrate," but rather, "concentrated apple juice." Well, I guess that explains why American apple juice is so very sweet.

Translation

This came up around Pesach-time, due to "Who Knows One?", so I'd better hurry up and post it now as it becomes relevant closer to Shavuos.

FF (with a huge smile and suppressed giggles): You know, some people say that לוחות in English is tablets! (bursts out laughing) 

(HUSBINATOR and I exchange that "Aw, classic kid-learning-a-new-word/definition!" look)

FF: Haha! Moshe did not get screens on Har Sinai!!!

Huh. That's right. Modern kids would think of ipads etc. when they hear "tablets."

Yom HaAzmaut

Independence Day was good. I went out briefly with Husbinator and night, and saw throngs of people, and it was Joyous!

It was a huge street party, with lots of simultaneous concerts on temporary stages up and down the street, and some fireworks. It was loud. (So loud! For so long!) But it was happy.

These photos from the Rehovot Municipality Facebook page are very similar to what I saw and how I felt.

Schoolwork and Memorial Day

When my kid asks for help with his homework, I don't expect to have an emotional reaction (other than possibly the natural frustration of doing homework with a child who is frustrated himself). But soon before Yom Hazikaron [Memorial Day] last year, BSM asked me to help him with his Language Arts homework, which was very light analysis of "My Brother Yonatan," a poem by Rivka Elizur, and I ended up crying. 

Fair warning: I just read the poem again, and now I'm crying again. So read at your own risk. Background for the poem is that (a) in Israel, the very somber Memorial Day is immediately followed by the very joyous Independence Day and (b) yes, seven-year-olds are rightfully assigned poems like this in school.

Here is a link to the poem. If you click on the headphones icon at this link, you can listen to a recording of the poem.

I must include a translation here, but my translation is a bare ghost of the original Hebrew, which has a subtle rhyme scheme and meter. I don't think I could ever capture it all in English, and certainly not without days and weeks of work.

"Yonatan My Brother" Rivka Elizur

Yonatan my brother!
He was my brother
He isn't anymore...
And my mother is always sad
Very sad.
She sits sits...
Is silent thinks...
In front of the picture of my brother Yonatan.

And I am Michael
I'm the little one,
And my brother in the Mountains of Chevron fell
And didn't come back...

The enemy in his hordes of thousands
Battled then
Toward Yerushalayim, to the capital,
And my brother and with him his friends
Fought heroically
And stopped the enemy that was fighting
With all their might...
That's what my mother told me.

Yonatan my brother!
He's wearing in the picture
His hat, a knit hat
To keep him warm in the evening,
At night, while on guard
At the post on the mountain...
And his eyes in the pictures are laughing... and all in all...

It's like he never fell killed
It's like he's alive and he's my brother Yonatan
And I am his little brother
And maybe in a little bit
We will walk hand in hand
In the square. And we'll be happy with everybody
And we'll dance and we'll sing... And yet.
She's sad, my mother
And my brother Yonatan disappeared.
He isn't, he isn't with me.

I sat in my room in the corner
And my eyes were looking at the picture...
Then my mother looked at me suddenly
And she said: Michael!
It's a holiday today, my son, for the country.
A holiday for the State of Israel.

Come let's go out in the square to the People
And we'll celebrate and we'll be happy.
Yonatan in the mountains did fight
For this...

Look Michael, at the picture
Doesn't it seem
As if he's also happy...
On this day of nation-wide celebration?

And we went out to celebrate in the streets...
And my brother Yonatan
Is watching us go
With openhearted eyes.

And now I'm crying all over again. Memorial day is hard.

Life Imitates Art

BSM and FF each get to pick a book that Husbinator or I read to them before bed. If the book is too long, we read part of it. Last night, both boys chose a page (well, technically, two facing pages) of I Spy.

FF, looking near the letter B: Hey, I found a rabbit! 
Me, pointing near the letter R: Hey, me too! 
FF: No, that's a duck! Or a platypus...

I had no choice, really. Late as it was, a bonus real-life search was initiated, and a bonus book was found and read. 

'Tis a delightful book, originally written in English: