Day 231 (unpacking)

Whew, it's a good thing I've been making bullet points! Catching up on some overdue blog posts.

Last night, I slept in my very own bed. Not the thin kibbutz mattress whose every spring was clearly felt, not air mattresses that deflate in the middle of the night, and not even your basic good-quality Israeli-made mattress on a wooden frame. No, my friends, I slept on my Simmons pocketed-coil system bed. On a box spring. Oh. My. Gosh. The sheer luxury of it! I'd forgotten beds could be so decadently comfortable.

Today, I started by getting books out of their boxes (which were on the front patio) and onto bookshelves. My goal was to get all of the Jewish books and most of the secular books inside and on bookshelves. To that end, I did my level best not to sort, and I just put the books on whichever shelf was closest at hand. It wasn't easy, this conscious lack of order, but I did it. Moreover, I got all of our sforim on shelves, and all of our secular books inside. (We ran out of shelf space after secular book box #10, so we have a box and a half left on the living room floor.)

It is glorious to have our sforim again, and our secular books, and other board books to read to BSM. I figured since his favorite part of Goodnight Moon (among the books of which I am sick nearly unto death) is pointing at the cats, and since BSM also likes dogs and loves barking, the first "new" book I'd read him is Doggies: A Barking and Counting Book by Sandra Boynton. Oy, was that a mistake. Now I'm almost right back where I started. However, I have laid down the law: I will not read that book more than once in a row or more than three times in one day. I have spoken.

I also had a nice long talk with Ema today, which was absolutely lovely.

And speaking of speaking with people, my across-the-street neighbor, Shira, called me this evening. She was sitting on the bus, and the woman next to her works in a lab near the Yishuv. So Shira put me on with her bus-friend, who is in charge of finding a replacement for one of their employees who is going on maternity leave. How cool is that? Unfortunately, it's an analytical chemistry lab, and due to the short term of employment, they really need someone who can hit the ground running. Since I've never even heard of the processes that they run, I'm out, but seriously, how cool? This is the kind of Israeli networking that I think might actually lead to a job, G-d willing.