lizrael update

Must be dreamin’.

There was ridiculous traffic on the dirt road leading up the hill towards Arafat’s compound. We each supposedly had meeting times but were all very late for them in any case. To the right was the beginning of the dusty compound and to the left was the beginning of the dusty hills.

To get into the compound you had to pass a rocket launcher. A rocket launcher in this case was a giant curved pipe coming out of the ground, with a rocket ready to launch, sitting at the bottom, underground. Every few minutes there were test preparations, when it would creep up towards the top with a comically-calm, low siren going off. It became a repeated ritual to endure while waiting on the road to pass it. The rocket’s track was supposedly to fly over the road towards Modiin but with each low siren we came to believe its target was much close than that.

At some point, my party made it through the compound and towards Arafat’s ‘house,’ trying not to look suspicious while passing through the dim halls and clay walls towards the back area. Arab teens in tight jeans and sweatshirts were passing through, looking and whispering but we knew they were instructed not to harm us.

The back area was carpeted and pampered with old wooden European furniture. Arafat was in a wife-beater and khaki shorts, holding a drink and inviting us to sit down to some pizza. We sat in a huddled group towards the end of the table, opposite his made up wife who held out her hand to each of us. Arafat told jokes for twenty long uncomfortable minutes and then I got up to excuse myself. I was late to pick up my child from daycare.

“Oh, you must have a gorgeous child,” Arafat’s wife crooned.

“I’m sure he will be a great pride to you someday,” Arafat croaked.

I nodded and thanked them and stepped out, past the teens who seemed all the more threatening now that I was alone, past the rocket launcher, which was once again just about ready to release a rocket, past the traffic which was starting to grow limp and wary as the sky went dark, and found my car parked backwards on a curved busy main road. My husband was there to meet me as I had instructed him and we jumped in. In one kind of quick maneuver I had the car out on the road and racing towards the airport.

Love/hate.

The thing about love/hate relationships is that eventually you come back to the hate.

It’s triggered by anything. Items on the news. The news reporters themselves. People on the street. Commercials on the radio. Things your friends say. Things your neighbors do.

So, if you haven’t guessed, I’m in the hate phase. Which is ok, because in a couple days I’m on the way over the ocean to New York for a few weeks.

Bibi and Biden can kiss my ass, and I’ll choose to temporarily ignore Ynet’s ridiculous ‘reporting’ on charedi affairs. I’ll keep  my non-Israeli passport close to me so it doesn’t get hijacked. I’ll turn the other way so I don’t have to see stupid spiked arse hair on my street or solo toddlers dashing across busy main streets in Beitar.

And most of all, I can shop at H&M in the States and not get trampled on, thankyouverymuch.

A baby in toe.

For the last 20 minutes of the drive home from shabbat in the Galil, Koala was hysterical in the car. It’s amazing how hysterical a car ride can make him, but last night was particularly bad. The heaving was worrying, and when we got home, I raced to get him out of his seat and get upstairs so I could calm him.

Going up the first set of stairs, I managed to trip and fall with Koala’s wet, red face in my arms.

A few things about falling with a baby: Firstly, I can remember what I saw and thought in that split second we went down together; it may as well have been five or ten whole seconds. It was also the most in-touch I’ve ever been with maternal instinct. I simultaneously saw my baby and the floor, and all I could think about was how not to have the two meet. It was like a checklist in my brain: baby’s head - check. Arm strategically placed underneath it - check. Hard floor - somewhere below us, better left unchecked.

In the end I had my arm in a way that his neck was on it and my arm fell first and his head bent back a little but didn’t hit the ground. Believe me, baby was tested and I was interrogated multiple times on how we fell and I know my gut would have made a different call if there was even a nano-doubt. But Koala was ok.

I picked us up and realized: a. he was ok, and b. I had broken a toe. I’m guessing that in our fall, I was focusing on him and didn’t prepare my bottom half for landing, and my foot got caught on the stair. As soon as I recognized he was ok, I realized I was not.

Take your index finger and middle finger and make a V… That’s what my big toe and index toe looked like. I felt like my body was turning alien, starting with my right foot, its second toe pointing out right, like my big toe had cooties.

Another baby-mother moment; after I picked us up, we looked at each other and he instantly stopped crying… I think he saw the look on my face before I even realized I had a look on my face - pure, penetrating, piercing pain.

It was just a toe and I’m very lucky. I breathed through it on the way to Jerusalem and after a relatively quick trip to the relatively new Terem at the tayelet, I was back home, buddy-taped and  feeding my sleeping, unhurt baby.

I’ve got crutches from Yad Sarah, a hafnaya to see an ‘orthodped’ on Wednesday, and an optimistic resolve that I’ll be ok to fly international alone with Koala in less than 2 weeks.

Motherhood inferiority complex.

More than once I’ve been told I’m a pretty laid-back first-time mom. I think when I got pregnant, I became so overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of what I was about to do and I kinda just let go of trying to even attempt to control the situation. I’ve just been able to take one day at a time, knowing that I’m in a powerful yet powerless position here.

And for the past ten months, I’ve been pretty much proven right. Being laid-back has been a great tool for dealing with new-mommy life.

I think, however, my metapelet may disagree. It could be all my own internalizing, but I can’t help but get the feeling she wonders where my head is at… Why am I not taking all of her advice? Why am I not rushing to the doctor every time he has a string of sleepless nights (every week, then?!)? Why am I not more upset that when I drop him off, he’s ecstatic to jump into her arms from mine?

On that last point… It really didn’t bother me until she started mentioning it every time. I’ve been happy with the way she is with him, pleased with the fact that I landed a  great daycare situation - a loving woman who genuinely cares for my kid. So what’s wrong with the fact that when we get to her house in the morning, he practically jumps out of my arms into hers?

But she’s mentioned it almost every day and somewhere it started grating on my nerves. How many times can you hear, That’s not nice, don’t you love your mama? before you start to shed your laid-backness and begin to get annoyed?

This week was different. I don’t know if Koala is just getting older, more aware, more contextual, or if Purim turned things upside down for real… But when I brought him in on Tuesday, he freaked out. He grasped on to me and the nail-digging in my skin was oozing with please don’t leave me. I laughed and tried again to pass him along to his metapelet and he burst out in tears. Finally, I kissed his head and just left.

It happened again the next day. When I came to pick him up in the afternoon, my metapelet said, “Well, finally, I was worried that he was leaving you too easily. This is a good thing,” with just the slightest hint of defensiveness. In my head, I rolled my mind’s eyes. Who’s this really about, anyway?

But I’m happy with myself. Another version of me would have been angry, jealous, emotional, put off, defensive about the whole thing.

Laid-back mommy me is just taking it one day at a time.

Life lessons in Tel Aviv.

I was in Tel Aviv today for the Bird Brain Unconference. The event was great, thanks for asking, but then three things happened that left me feeling like I learned about more than just Vardi awesomeness and actual birds.

1. Cabbie culture.

I don’t take cabs often because I hate the experience of feeling waited on and for me the ultimate being waited on is sitting in a cab as someone drives you somewhere. Maybe it’s exacerbated in Jerusalem; maybe it’s not like that everywhere.

But I had a pretty good experience in Tel Aviv today. Dude stops by the road to let me in and his daughter or niece or granddaughter, I don’t know, is in the front seat. He tells me he’ll just drop her off nearby and then we’ll go. And he was really sweet with her, all ‘boobah’ and ‘metukah.’ It just made me happy. He was also just an honest cutie.

I’m thinking based on past experiences, Tel Aviv cabbies rock the socks off of Jerusalem cabbies.

2. The foxes of the hills.

Said cabbie guessed I am a Yerushalmit. He also thought I was in high school, so 1 out of two isn’t bad.

It made me realize how Yerushalmit I actually look: I rarely have any product in my hair, never a fleck of makeup on a weekday, I wear sandals in any weather above 9° Celsius, and my jeans aren’t ass-hugging tight. So yeah, I get it.

Anyway, it came up that I live in Tzur Hadassah. He couldn’t understand where it was, so after a few other indicators, I threw in, ‘it’s in the hills around Jerusalem.’

So… It would be an understatement to say he flipped out.

“The hills??? You live in the hills? How can you live there? With all the FOXES? You live with all the FOXES right around you? The FOXES are everywhere in the hills! How can you do that??”

“I… I live in a house… With walls…”

“But the HILLS! The FOXES! How? FOXES!”

“I live in an apartment building… It’s nice… Trees, the view… It’s beautiful…”

“But the FOXES!”

Seriously, that is how the conversation went. Every time he said שועלים (foxes) he emphasized it like it was the Devil.

I stand by living in the hills, though. It’s lovely out here.

3. Coming off secular.

This was a fun little exercise in self-identity. Not once, not twice, but thrice did I have conversations with folks today where they assumed I was secular and bashed religious people. Fascinating experience!

Of course, I can’t blame them for assuming I was a safe listener. I was in Tel Aviv wearing jeans and a capped-sleeve shirt, hair uncovered and, well, I was in Tel Aviv.

One of the people was my beloved cabbie, who gasped when I told him I was taking the train to Beit Shemesh (to get to the HILLS with the FOXES) and told me: “How can you do that? Don’t you know, it is filled with religious people? Ichs, Beit Shemesh, it’s disgusting! And the train will be filled with religious people! Take the bus, it’s quicker at least…”

There is so much work to be done in this country. Maybe starting with the foxes.

Purim, baby-style.

Nothing like Purim to separate the early-risers from the late-bed goers from the up all night due to teething painers.

Wait, I think we were actually all three…

In many ways, Purim is more fun when you have an extra body to shove into a costume. But you kinda miss out on the party-parties. Still a fun set of days, though.

Koala update: Ten months.

Koala is ten months old and both his life and mine are starting to fall into place.

While Koala does not sleep through the night at this point, he does have a bedtime and he does collapse into it every night, for which I’m grateful. Having a routine is not one of my fortes, but it does mean knowing at a certain time of night we can commence the next part of the day (working from home, eating dinner, cleaning up) while Koala soundly sleeps in another room.

And, yes, I do a lot of nursing overnight. I’ve pretty much always nursed on demand and being away from each other for 8 hours of the day might mean more frequent night feedings, and I’m ok with it… to a point.

On the flip side, Koala has managed to find himself in a situation where his four upper front teeth are coming in at the same time. Is that like having triplets, where it’s really painful but you get ‘em all out of the way at once? It’s actual torture to watch (though it’s worse to go through, surely). Two of the teeth are in and two have just cracked.

But it’s not all teeth and sleep over here…

This month, Koala decided to buck up and walk some. A few Thursdays ago I was working from home and Koala was kvetching for attention. He’s at the point where I can’t work on my laptop sitting on the couch because he stands up, leans over and presses the keys (and closes programs!). So I looked around to find something new to distract him with and voila! In the corner was the lawn mower-esque walker we got when he was born, then dismissed as a present useful only in The Future.

The Future was this past month, because for fun I stood Koala up and put his hands on the handle and guided him while holding him steady. We took a few steps together, which was nice and patronizing (apparently). I let him sit back down and went off to get the camera because I thought a photo of him leaning on it could be nice for the grannies, but when I got back he was walking with the walker. By himself. Like a drunk person. But still.

Within a few days he was going from couch to coffee table to potted plant to couch. Anything that can be pushed (and makes a scrape noise against the tiles) is fair game as mode of transport. Koala is on the go.

So, yes, now there are plenty of photos and videos portraying thanks mama but I can do it myself.

In other news, Koala fell in love with a blue balloon that still limply floats through my salon, covered in drool, dust and some kind of white balloon decay.

Also, I’m pretty sure he’s learning to pose for pictures.

Camels and TV channels? Hasbara misses the point.

Israel’s new Ministry of Hasbara and Diaspora is not a shocking development, though probably ten years late. The thing is, it seems it’s completely missing the point. The heart is in the right place, but the message is… a bit off.

The videos on the homepage: Do British people honestly think we ride camels? Who cares if the Spanish don’t think we cook in indoor kitchens? The only one of the video examples on the new government-funded hasbara website that might actually make sense is the French woman reporting on gun shots heard all over Israel all the time. Acceptable, as it’s what a lot of people abroad (Jewish or not) truly tend to think after watching news coverage.

Then there are the tips offered when speaking to non-Israelis on your travels. Connect to someone by using broad hand motions, wavering voice tone and good body posture when speaking about Israel to someone else.  Ok, I’m simplifying it, a lot of the advice makes sense - body language is important. But. It’s a shame there is no mention of learning about the other culture before you go; studying the etiquette and ways of that region so you don’t make a wrong gesture or tone of voice and offend your hosts. I find that cultural-awareness and respect for other kinds of people is a problem, even inside our borders.

But the biggest thing the campaign completely misses: Derech eretz. Remembering who you are wherever you are, minding your manners and being a good example. Israelis have a reputation for traveling with no etiquette, no empathy and no concept that everyone is watching and making judgments. When you’re a guest in an another country, you have to play by their rules, or, yes, feel unwelcome.

And I don’t know that jumping on every native, waving your hands in a loud voice, talking up your own country is going to do just that. Maybe the best thing is to be a polite, appreciative, curious, memorable person who sets a great example of what Israel is deep down.

Look who’s moving to Tzur Hadassah.

Somewhere deep inside, I knew this day would come.

Tzur Hadassah is getting a ‘commercial center’ - which is basically a supermarket and an ATM - on Rechasim street.

I am not for this in any way, but I suppose my opinion isn’t worth much since I moved here two years ago and I don’t own property. But still. It’s unnecessary. We have a big-enough rip-off makolet and supermarkets all around us in Beitar Illit, Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem. I don’t see the sense in destroying trees and neighborhood peace to create an overpriced Mister Zol.

The worst part is, they decided to do it on a peripheral, dead end street. I don’t get that. If they want to build a community center eventually, and there is already a school in the middle of the horseshoe that is the yishuv’s layout, why not make everything commercial in the center, too? Why disrupt  peripheral residents with a supermarket?

It’s only going to get worse; the ‘nature preserve’ across from my building is slated for construction as well (housing, though).

Maybe it’s time to look for a new small yishuv?

I took these photos less than a week ago and the building has already progressed significantly:

Israeli Innovation.

When I think of ‘Israeli Innovation’ here are some of the associations I make:

• micro chips
• water purification
• desert irrigation
• swallow-able pill-cameras
• Google, Intel, IBM R&D centers
• Uzis

What I don’t think of is… hair conditioner.

I did pretty well though for 10 shekel. Product of the year!