The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

Passover is a great holiday. Seder this year was a bit hectic, as we piled 12 adults and 13 children into a living room/dining room area that seats 14 comfortably.

The Shabbat meals were fairly quiet, as Yaakov, Kinneret, and I hosted just my brother Ben. The food was a little sparse with no matza and all the bread eaten on plastic before the meal proper... (sorry Ben).

And then... we get to the good part. Each year, there is an Israeli juggling convention (IJC) held in Gan Hashlosha (Sachne) which is located between Afula and Beit She'an in the Beit She'an Valley.
(My dad claims it's in the Jezreel Valley, but it belongs to the Beit She'an Valley Council.)

I love juggling! I love jugglers. They're great people. I love juggling festivals. I don't love camping, but I'm willing to make the effort, as long as I have enough food. I really really really don't love traveling on multiple buses with my baby and lots of luggage. However, we examined all of our options, and sent up a big bag with Scott, and we went up by bus on Monday morning. We left at ten am, made a few stops at the central bus station in Tel Aviv, and got to Gan Hashlosha at three pm. It was hot and I was worn out from traveling, so Yaakov agreed to put together the tent and watch the baby so I could go swimming with Scott and his girls.

We swam. The water there is beautiful. The next day, I took Kinneret with me into the water. She was a little scared of it at first, but eventually, she calmed down and seemed to be having a good time.

The water there is beautiful, and there are fish in the water. The downsides to the convention: It was VERY VERY hot during the day, rising over 45 C (113 F). You can say "but it's a dry heat" as many times as you want, but when you're going through a liter an hour of water and you still don't have to go to the bathroom...

The gym, which usually stays cool all day got so hot that the few jugglers there wilted and could barely juggle. There was no air-conditioning available most of the time. The tent was so hot that I had a panic attack from feeling like I couldn't breathe the air inside of it.

In the evenings, it cooled down nicely. Friends and I cooked meals, and there was plenty of food this time. (Thanks to the Bar Yaakovs, Trachtmans, and Seltzers for their cooperation in feeding me and baby K. Sorry there were eggs in the cake, vegans.) On Wednesday, I hitched a ride to Beit She'an with M. Trachtman, and we spent a long time in the well-airconditioned supermarket. I picked up a cake for my birthday (which was Shabbat, April 19th, so passed with little fanfare. Thanks parents for the new outfit, and thanks Rach for the pearls!) and told the Bar Yaakov and Seltzer children that anyone who wanted cake had to sing happy birthday to me. It was a neat party out on a straw mat in the cool evening air.

The best parts were swimming in the natural spring, making some new friends and spending time with old friends, and Kinneret's big moment! At one of the shows, there were some technical difficulties, so they asked volunteers to come up and showcase whatever they want in order to amuse people. (With some assistance from Yaakov,) Kinneret went up on stage, sat there, and held three small rings (linked together) in her hands. I announced "Kinneret with three rings" and she got a huge round of applause. As we took our seats, Kinneret was asked for her autograph several times.

The down sides of the convention... There were mosquitoes and other biting insects. I'm still bitten up. Fortunately, Kinneret seems to be bite-less, and Yaakov was more careful about not getting bitten (not to mention that the aforementioned panic attack led me to sleep outside the tent all three nights whereas Yaakov and Kinneret slept inside the tent). It was insanely hot. The worst part, though, was that Yaakov was sick, so we ended up going home a day early (which was a relief in some ways), and we missed the big show with the international guests.

The beautiful:

Nir David at Twilight

Pesach Food

So Pesach is coming again, way too fast.

Mother-in-Israel said that I should post my favorite recipe, so here it is. It's a recipe for apple kugel that's so good that I would make it with matza even during the year. My mom says that it's from an out-of-print cookbook. It's not easy to make, unless you have a kosher for pesach food processor, but it's soooo worth the effort! I generally don't like sweet kugels, but this one's a real winner. I confess, though, that I have been known to eat it with vanilla ice cream...

Apple Kugel

3 matzot
6 eggs
½ cup sugar
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp cinnamon
½ c raisins
½ c chopped almonds
4 tart apples, peeled and grated (this is where you'll wanna use the food processor)
cinnamon sugar mix (1/4 t cinnamon and 1 T sugar)
¼ c oil

Crumble matzos into water and soak until soft. Squeeze out excess moisture. Beat eggs. Add sugar, salt, & cinnamon. Continue beating until well blended. Stir crumbled matzos, raisins, almonds, apples, and orange rind into the egg mixture. Place in well-greased 1 ½ quart casserole. Sprinkle with sugar cinnamon mix and pour oil over all. Bake at 175 C degrees until firm and nicely browned. (about 45 minutes.)

Hopefully, I'll be writing some tips on how to stay sane for Pesach cleaning, and how to keep within budget over the next few weeks, but I have to get my legos out of the laundry (just kidding. We don't generally EAT our lego.)


For more great recipes, check out Spice and Spirit.

Why I Can't Keep up with the Laundry

7am

It begins in the morning. Kinneret is wearing the clothes she slept in. Her diaper is blessedly still holding. I change the diaper and feed her a bottle without mishap. I'm wearing my pj's, because I don't have to go out yet.

Yaakov has dumped his yesterday's clothes, undershirt, etc on the floor. I dutifully pick up the socks (which aren't actually standing up on their own, so all is well).

8am
Today's a sheet-changing day, so I strip the beds. N0 problem.

9am
Kinneret eats a yogurt for breakfast. She cooperates. There's not even a lot of yogurt on the bib.


10am
Naptime. I've finished the first load of laundry, including folding. Neither Kinneret nor I have changed clothes. We're doing great!

I take the silk blanket off of Yaakov's bed, fold it, put it away. He hasn't used a blanket in about 4 weeks. Heck, he's already complained that the flannel sheet I gave him instead of a blanket is too darned hot, even with the fan on.

I put clean sheets on the beds. We don't have enough pillowcases, so we'll have to wait for them to come back from the machine later.

12pm
Kinneret needs lunch. Great. There's some baked sweet potato in the fridge. I mush up the inside and warm it up, and Kinneret digs in. Literally. With both hands. Much of it ends up in her mouth. Also much of it ends up in her outfit and on the bib.

1pm
change Kinneret's clothes. Into the pile they go. Cuddle some. Kinneret is tired, so she goes for a nap.
Put away clothes, realize that the next wash isn't in yet. Uh-oh. Put in the next wash.

4pm
Poofy needs a walk, and Kinneret could use some air too. Great! We'll go see how the new train station is coming along. I change into clothes (yes, still in pajamas up until this point.) Pajamas could do with a wash... into the pile they go.

4:30pm
We go towards the train station. After Kinneret's hat takes a few trips to the sidewalk, it goes under the stroller. Train station is not currently stroller-accessible. We'll have to take a look next week maybe.

4:45pm
There are loads and loads of ladybugs! They're really pretty. We count over 25, including 4 pairs in the process of "pairing up."

5pm
We get home, and Kinneret is hungry. I give her a bottle of milk which she downs in 2 seconds flat.

5:05pm
I pick Kinneret up because she looks like she needs a burp. She becomes a fountain. That bottle of milk... well, it's on the floor (and her, and me) now.
Change all of my clothes, get back into pajamas. Give Kinneret a bath, changing her clothes again. (and of course, when I went to get her into the bath, the diaper was dirty.)

7:30pm
I have an appointment. My mom comes over while I put Kinneret to bed, and then I get ready for my appointment (getting into new clothes). Pajama top is sweaty. Into the pile.

8:30pm
I come home, realize that I look like a wreck and want to look nice for Yaakov. Shower. Change into something nicer. Previous clothes were sweaty. Into the pile.

9:30pm
Yaakov helps me finish making the bed. Poofy promptly gets in... great. Doggy sheets.

10pm
Bedtime. Change into pajamas. Previous clothes can actually go back into the closet. this time.

Get in Touch with Your Feelings

Two Years Ago Today

Two years ago today, I woke up early. I got my nails done. I had my hair and makeup done. I fasted. I prayed the special mincha (afternoon prayers) for Yom Kippur. I had my picture taken dozens of times.

Oh, and I got to take Yaakov home at the end of the evening!

It's been a great two years, and I can feel that this is only the very beginning.

Kinneret Milestones

Today Kinneret sat herself up from a crawling position for the first time.
She makes progress in a crawling position, but doesn't exactly crawl.
She turns from her stomach to her back and back to stomach, but she needs to be motivated.

She claps her hands and says something like Yay!

Catching Up Memes

Ten Things I Don't Get

1. Why it's seriously hot in the middle of March. I'm wearing a t-shirt and sweating bullets
2. How to do Mill's Mess
3. Why Kinneret is all smiley one day and then can't stop crying the next.
4. Pain - it just doesn't make any sense to me. Trust me, I know that I bashed my head against the wall, even if it doesn't hurt.
5. Why anyone would claim that skirts are more modest than pants!
6. Why some people can't just be nice and they have to try to burst my bubble when I'm happy.
   
7. Why I can't make cream of celery soup that tastes as good as the canned stuff.
8. What motivates a person to shoot a bunch of teenagers having dinner.
9. What motivates a person to send a missile into a civilian area that poses no threat.
10. Why the international press chooses to claim that missile launchers are victims, while those who try to destroy them are attackers?

Ten Things You'll Never Hear Me Say

1. Rami Kleinstein can't play piano.
2. Yaakov is so superficial.
3. This is too big a steak for me.
4. Could you please move to a talk-radio station?
5. I'd love to go for a jog. And after that, maybe you'll let me wash your floor.
   
6. I've gotta get out of the country for Yom Haatzmaut.
7. Shlomo Artzi is playing Tzavta? And you have an extra ticket? No thanks, I'm not a big fan.
8. I'm glad they stopped Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It wasn't a good show anyway.
9. I loved college. It was a great social scene.
10. I'm not a big fan of desserts.
    

Globbing the Globe

A certain Princess but not Princess Kinneret Kangaroo has requested that people around the globe glob for charity. With such a great cause, I supposed I must help the war effort.

So here is my Glob post.

I have no clue what to say on a glob post, although I suppose a purim-related post could be appropriate. Purim is an interesting holiday. It celebrates how they tried to kill us and we won, so we should eat. Actually Haman tried to kill us, and Esther risked life and limb to save all of Am Yisrael.

It's pretty neat how one person managed to save a whole nation. She got stuck in this freaky situation where she was forced to marry a king, and she was basically not much more than a concubine. But not only she managed to make it work, she saved her whole nation.

I think there's something to be learned from that - that you can actually improve the world even from a crazy awful situation.

So I guess I glob with Esther.

Head in a cage. Flaming redhead. Baby spew.

Yes, this is another migraine-related post...

On Wednesday, I had a doctor's appointment at Malcha Mall in Jerusalem. My parents graciously offered to take me to the mall and wait with Kinneret.

The neurologist said that my EEG looks normal and that it basically rules out an electrical problem in my brain. She didn't have much else to say about that. So, with my appointment scheduled for 10:30, after a 20-minute wait, I was back at the shopping level of the mall before 11am. My parents treated me to a cup of coffee (vanilla) at Cafe Hillel, and then we began to explore the mall.

First, we checked out the special "nursing room" in the food court restroom area. Turns out that they have a really good changing table there, which Kinneret and I tested out. Then my mom decided to have a medallion made with Kinneret's face on it. It didn't come out great. Oh well.

Then we went on a search for booties for Kinneret. Let me tell you folks, it is hard to find decent booties at a decent price. After searching pretty much every single store in the mall, we finally found two cute pairs of booties, which I bought for Miss Kinneret. It turned out that one was too small, so we're sending that pair to her newest cousin in Toronto, Caylie. They're very nice and very warm, so I hope Caylie (and her parents) will like them.

After an exhausting search for booties (not booty), we decided to take a look at Toys R Us to see if they had anything cool. I ended up buying a very cute red wig, which I love! Everyone else thinks it's silly.

Thursday was the day of my MRI. I didn't sleep well Wednesday night, because I was nervous about it. I've seen MRI on tv, and it looks a bit unpleasant - your whole body is put into a tunnel and all. My parents couldn't take me because it's a total disaster to park at Hadassah Ein Kerem, and besides, what would they do with Kinneret while I was being tortured tested. So I took a bus and then a taxi to get there.

So I arrived at the hospital, and immediately went to the MRI area to get all the paperwork taken care of. Then I decided to look around. I went down some hallways that smelled pretty weird, and finally discovered a staff cafeteria. Since the smell was nauseating, I decided to forgo lunch there. Then I went down another hallway and found myself surrounded by medical students. I felt distinctly wrong there, so I went back to the MRI clinic area, and waited, looking at magazines and regretting my choice of book. I had brought A Beautiful Mind with me, but as I started to read it, it looked kinda boring.

Finally, it was my turn. They told me to put my stuff in what looked like a changing room, and double checked to make sure that I didn't have a hair band with metal on it or any jewelry. I changed from a jeans skirt into pajama pants, and wore a loose snood on my head. Then they told me to wait for the doctor.

Then the doctor, kinda out of nowhere, told me that I needed an IV line. So I sat there and let him put one in. I have a pretty serious fear of needles, but I can manage when I need to.

Then another doctor took me to the MRI room. He told me to lie on the table, with my head on the headrest. All good so far. Then he gave me headphones. I asked "Are these for music?" and he said "yes." Then he closed a cage around my head, put what felt like the bulb of a sphygmomanometer in my right hand, and told me that if I panicked, I could press down on that. That's it - no explanation of anything, and then he turned on the machine, which raised me and stuffed me into the tunnel. So there I am, with a cage over my head, in a tunnel, and guess what? It's not music. It's noise. I mean noise like sirens and buzzing and tapping. All kinds of noises which are supposed to stimulate my brain in a variety of ways.

As if this wasn't bad enough, I have a cold, and (roll over this text if you're not easily grossed out) -- fluid from my nose started dripping to the back of my throat -and I felt like I was suffocating.

So imagine, if you will, lying in a tunnel, with your head in a cage, listening to sounds of increasing loudness, and suffocating because you can't really clear your throat while lying on your back. I closed my eyes so I wouldn't see the cage. I tried to imagine that I was in my bed.

Then the technician/doctor/whoever came in and injected something into the IV. Of course, I couldn't SEE anything, and I couldn't hear him walk in either because of the headset, so all of a sudden, I feel something being injected. I asked him how much longer, and he said ten minutes.

Ten minutes. I couldn't imagine spending another ten minutes like that, but I didn't want to hit the panic button either. So I started counting to sixty slowly in my head. The noises got louder again, until I couldn't hear myself thinking each number out loud. I tried over and over to clear my throat. I tried to relax my body. I felt my arms shaking during some of the sounds. They shook of their own accord, and I couldn't stop the shaking. I counted slowly to sixty again. I thought of stray songs that I used to like. I coughed a few times. I counted again to sixty, slowly.

I lost my place around thirty, when a random song snuck into my head. I forced myself to continue counting, going on from thirty. I felt like all the air was gone from my lungs. The sounds got louder, shriller. The table shook violently as if it were having a seizure. I tried desperately to clear my lungs in the fourth slow, steady count. I listened to the sounds, trying to understand what they were doing to my brain. I counted another sixty, trying desperately to hold on to the numbers, keep them going, one number after the other. I opened my eyes, saw the cage again, thought about pressing the button, and forced myself to keep counting. I closed my eyes again.

Three minutes to go. Just three minutes. I couldn't count them anymore. I couldn't think of anything anymore. I opened my eyes. I closed my eyes. I cleared my throat, I took deep breaths, feeling my chest and abdomen fill with air. I started to count again. I couldn't focus. I got as far as three before my mind wandered. I thought that I had to count. I had to know. And while I was thinking this, everything stopped. The noises stopped. The shaking stopped, everything. And then I was pulled out of the tunnel. The cage was removed from my face, and I was told to stand. I couldn't.

I couldn't stand up at all at first. The doctor or technician or whatever he was had to help me up. He had to steady me. He had to help me get out of this room. I followed him back to the room where they'd put in the IV, and he gently, slowly, ripped the tape off of the IV. It was so painful. My whole body was shaking, and I was thirsty, so thirsty I thought I'd die. Finally, it was done. I held the cotton ball on the injection site, got my purse, went outside to wait for them to give me a cd with the images of my brain.

I'm afraid I'll have to stop now to get ready for Shabbat, so you'll hear about baby spew some other time.

Shabbat Shalom, all.
t.c.

Hold the Hijab, Please

I noticed myself ranting and raving over in Mother In Israel's blog comments. Over the course of several posts, she translates (and comments on) the Maariv article, Neshot HaRealah (women of the veil). The article discusses a disturbing new cult in which a "rebbetzin" (I put it in quotes because I've heard no evidence that her husband is a rabbi) wears ten layers and covers her face with a veil for the purpose of modesty.

People all over the Jewish blogging world (Mother In Israel has a list here) are taking a stand on the subject. Instead of leaving my comments on every single blog out there, here are my feelings...

The "rebbetzin" has said that women should cover their whole body, including the face, and she (for 'religious' reasons) does not speak except for four hours a week. She rarely goes out, and encourages her followers not to speak to men, get into a taxi driven by a man, or even go into a shop when there is a man inside.

Here's my main argument:

Judaism is about living in harmony with the world, not about living outside it.

Throughout the Torah, we are told how to experience but harness our animalistic side. We are supposed to taste the food, but make a bracha (blessing) to remember where it came from. We are supposed to enjoy making love, but only with our spouse. Even if we fall in love with a captive of war, we may marry her, but only when we are convinced that it is true love and not the heat of the moment.

We're supposed to search for the balance and the way to make even the most mundane things spiritually holy.

Putting my baby to bed at night is made holy by saying shema for her. Waking my husband in the morning is made holy by washing hands and helping him get organized to put on tfillin. My husband's work in a mundane job is made holy by the tzedaka he gives from his salary, and the home that he supports. Even my husband's hobby of juggling is made holy by the fact that he uses it to entertain sick children, to bring joy to Purim at our shul, and for sukkot to remind people of the simchat beit hashoeva.

Even grocery shopping is holy when you think about your Shabbat table, the guests you want to please, and the joy you bring to your spouse by preparing something they like.

Heck, even going to the bathroom is part of a holy ritual in which we give thanks to G-d for making our bodies function as they should!

So please, "rebbetzin" stop hiding from the world, and learn to live in it.

Quick Update

People seem to be worrying about my head. Thanks, people. It's much better, b/c of the Maronil (Anafronil). It still hurts most of the time, but at a livable level. There should be results from my EEG, but I haven't heard from the doctor who should have the results.

I have an appointment with her in two weeks, but I think I'll ask my doctor to give her a call. I don't think she'll speak to me, but she'll speak to him, and I really think that two weeks is a long time to wait for test results that have already been processed.

In other news, Kinneret and Yaakov both have colds. I took Kinneret to the doctor today, and he said not to worry too much. So we put a humidifier in her room to help her breathe more easily, and we're just going to wait it out.

These days, doctors don't give any symptomatic relief for cold symptoms for children under 2, because some new research showed that it could be dangerous... so poor Kinneret is miserable. I hope she gets better soon!

And finally, I'm now swimming 56 lengths (1.4km) each time I swim, and I'm down 4.5 kilograms!

Could be Better

After a week of relative calm on the head front, today I was dizzy and headachey and had trouble focusing my eyes.

My EEG has been rescheduled for Sunday, next week. Just means more time until we can give a guess at what's going on. I'm quite frustrated, needless to say.

I have to wait two days to even find out when my MRI is.
I haven't called Rabbi Firrer yet. I just don't... I don't know what I'd even ask at this point.

Thanks everyone for the continuing good wishes.

t.c.

Goodman Look-alike Meter

Everyone keeps telling us that Kinneret looks just like Yaakov or just like me. They can't seem to make up their (collective) minds. Well, folks, I guess that everybody's right. Or everybody's wrong?

All I know for sure is that she's CUTE!