Day 22

Oh man, today at breakfast Eitan stopped by my table to check which AutoCAD software I use. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later... Sigh. Amazing how deflated I feel after explaining to him that, well, actually, um, it's like this: my bachelor's is in physics, so I only have, like, a year-and-a-half of electrical engineering per se, and, um, so... In PV we use PC1D, but it only models solar cells. Not solar panels, not anything else. I neglected to mention that I am not exactly fluent even in PC1D. I need to check this wild excitement and crushing deflatement, and just center myself. It's not really crushing, just a super-bummer. It's OK: I have sponja to lift my spirits!

I can't say that every single floor in Israel is tiled, but I can say that I've never seen an Israeli floor made of anything other than tile. Since that's the case, the national floor-washing method, "sponja," is the method used to clean industrial kitchen floors in the US: an impressive amount of water is spilled on the floor, a long-handled scrubber scrubs the floor (optional), and a long-handled squeegee ("sponja stick") shoves all the water down the ubiquitous drain ("sponja hole"). I think it is the near-universal custom to then throw a dry rag over the sponja stick and dry the floor, but by that point, I'm done, and the floor can full-well dry itself. Oh, man, my floors are so gloriously clean.

It was a productive sort of a day: after sponja, I went to the daycare to help fill out some forms. Still not 100% sure what the forms are for, but that's OK. At least some of them are for a new-immigrant refund. If that comes through, it would be pretty nifty, but John and Shoshi are still filing for their refund after 5 months. Good thing it's retroactive, eh?

After lunch, we finally signed our apartment contract! As those of you who successfully did the math yesterday already know, we've been living here for three weeks, so it's good to have that done.

In other news, today was Baby Spiderman's first full day at daycare! I missed him mightily. When I picked him up this afternoon I was informed that (a) he drinks water from a bottle very nicely, indeed and (b) he even holds the bottle himself. I was not aware of that at all. In fact, I tried giving him a bottle of water within the last week or two, and neither of those facts was born out. Sneaky kid, showing off for ladies who won't nurse him.