Day 168 (less facebook)

I haven't really said much (anything?) about the war in Israel. The kibbutz is at the very far range of the Gazan rockets, and presumably too close to Jordan for any attempted strikes. The only experiential evidence I have that we're at war is that the empty apartments in our building, which are used for Shabbat guests, are now hosting war refugees. "Families from the South," everyone says, not wanting to make people feel worse, but seriously. War refugees. We seem to have new neighbors every week: our first neighbors went to stay with their family in Teveryah, our second neighbors were forced to move on (it seems that this is a short-term hospitality program the kibbutz is running: I don't know where that family ended up, though I did what I could in the way of networking), and now we're on family number three.

It's amazing how little I see the adults that have been living in that apartment. Or the other four guest apartments in our building. I see their kids running in and out... I can hear the adults when they yell at the kids... But in total, I've seen the 3 mothers maybe... 4 times? (I don't count the fathers because I'm not sure that the first family's father came up North with them, and from chatting with my current 6-year-old neighbor, I gather that her father works long hours. Maybe he works in the South and comes up to visit a few times a week? It's possible. Or maybe he's just working weird hours on the kibbutz. Six-year-olds are not the clearest sources of information.) But yeah, I see these women just often enough to learn their names and wish them well. And occasionally figure out the logistics of sharing a laundry-drying rack. And then there's a new family.

In other war news, I made a very strict rule for myself today: I can only be on Facebook for a maximum of 30 minutes. There's just so much propaganda and misinformation and passionate, useless ranting. So rather than telling myself all day to, "Get off Facebook now. Now! Okay...really this time: just skimming the headlines is upsetting you and serving no useful purpose," I set the 30 minute rule when I woke up. I succeeded, too: my stopwatch is showing 26 minutes and change. For the whole day.

Of course, I watched a loooot of television, but one thing at a time, eh?