What's 3 Inches Long and has the Hiccups?

If you're expecting me to say "I don't know either, but it's crawling up your leg," then you're out of luck.

Actually, it's a baby. Well, okay, I think the technical term is fetus, but seriously, it has a head and a body and s/he's so cute!

I had a test today called a neuchal translucency. The test isn't very thrilling. They measure the fluid at the base of the spine, and if it's a lot, then there's a higher risk of serious birth defects. My risk of having a baby with Down's Syndrome (G-d forbid) has been assessed to be about 1 in 2000, which sounds pretty good.

The exciting part of the test is that to measure this fluid, they do an ultrasound. So here's what happens. I go into the office, and the doctor puts the probey thing on my abdomen. At this point, I mention that I have a tilted uterus, so he's probably going to have to do an internal thing. He kinda shrugs, and starts moving the probe thing around, and all the sudden, I can see a head, and a body and all kinds of moving parts.

So I go, "Oh my gosh! It's a person! Holy cow, it's moving. Oh my G-d! Oh my!" and the doctor is laughing. My mom and sister (Yaakov couldn't make it) are standing there in awe. It was incredible. The baby was moving around a lot. He (this reflects the fact that there are currently more girls than boys in my family, so the [faulty] statistics indicate that I should be having a boy, not any actual knowledge) seemed to have the hiccups, and he was moving his arms and legs a lot. I could see such cute eyes and a nose and mouth. I'm in shock. It took more than a little convincing to believe that the images I was seeing weren't a video put there to make me happy, but now, I really believe there's a baby in there. He's only three inches long, but he's really there! And he's beautiful.
Sadly, this is the best picture the doctor was able to capture, because the baby kept moving!

The Philadelphia Story

In addition to being lazy, there's another reason I haven't blogged lately. I took a trip to the old country. That's right, I spent some time in the good old US of A. (and Canada, but you get the point.)

There were a lot of weird things about the trip - some good, some less so. First, this was the first time I ever arrived in the United States that no one picked me up at the airport. This is partly because we arrived at 6am on a Sunday morning, but more because I just don't have family in the New York metropolitan area anymore. The only person who could have picked us up was my Aunt Vicki's friend Phil (Vicki decided to give up her car several years ago.), and he would have had to leave home around 4:30am, which seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for your friend's niece.

Next thing, I've never arrived at JFK and not gone to visit my Saba (grandfather) in Queens. On the bus from the airport into Manhattan, we went fairly close to my Saba's old neighborhood. My whole mind started fighting and screaming about this. I know that my Saba passed away over 5 years ago, and more than that, I was there the day we took him from his house the last time, to help him make Aliya. He lived with my parents in our house for over a year after that, and I visited him in his nursing home when that became necessary, and I was there when he was buried. Still, it felt so wrong to land and not visit him.

We got to Grand Central Station, then switched shuttles to Penn Station ("and lead us not into Penn Station...") There we got on the train to Trenton, from which we got on the Septic (errr Septa - South Eastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority) system, and met my Aunt Vicki in Philadelphia.

We took a taxi to her place, dumped our baggage, showered, and then.... I got to meet Shlomo. Shlomo is Yaakov's son. He is a beautiful child.

We took him out to dinner that night, at a restaurant that serves a little bit of everything (really, everything.) I mean, they had Chinese and shawarma and fried chicken and Philly (cheeseless) steak. It's kinda bizarre. So we went in and got some food, and I started to get to know my stepson. He's a very attractive child, and he's bright. It did drive me a bit crazy that he continually talked about football, even when other subjects were brought up, but that's ten-year-olds for you. Anyway, we had dinner and then we took him for a walk. We went to Toys R' Us, which my mother's family claims was named after my maternal grandmother's family, the Toizers (although in my grandmother's case, the name was changed to Tizer, but still, coincidence? I think not!)

All the toys there were pretty scary. They all move around and yell and do all kinds of things that toys aren't meant to do, plus there are these nasty Bratz dolls everywhere who teach children how to dress like prostitutes. My friend AbbaGav has a better concept than Bratz. Anyway, Shlomo decided that what he really wanted for his birthday was a digital camera. I personally thought it wasn't a great idea, since 1. he's 10, 2. A camera isn't a toy 3. He doesn't have a computer to hook it up to. However, I let Yaakov make the decision. We decided that Toizer Us isn't the place to get a camera anyway, so we left the shopping until the next day and took Shlomo home.

To the left, you can see Shlomo making a political & health statement... Actually, you can see that I just don't pay enough attention to the background...

Anyway, there's much more to tell, but I thought this would be a good start for now.

t.c. Back from America!

Violins on Television...

Steven Spielberg called for a stop to violence on television. You can read about it here.

One interesting thing is that Spielberg squarely places the blame on the producers who make these shows. In the forums responding to his statements, you'll see the same point made over and over. Parents need to be responsible for what their children watch. So who's right?

Can I get away with saying everybody's right? Here's the thing. Today's audiences aren't satisfied watching "I love Lucy" and "The Brady Bunch." The wild success of crime shows like "CSI," "NCIS," "Bones," "Law and Order" (in all its various versions), is telling us something. People like watching twisted criminals. People enjoy watching the obscene. Ever wondered why Ricki Lake and the like are so popular? Heck, tune in any soap opera, and you'll see that within the "acceptable" boundaries, the sexual limits are being pushed, and you certainly wouldn't want your children to learn their morals from soap operas either.

In fact, for every talk show about best friends stealing each other's spouses, it probably happens twice on a soap opera. Sure, they're not showing nipples, but you don't have to be a genius to figure out what's going on under the covers either.

So - audiences want sex and violence, and audiences don't want their children to see sex and violence. Guess what? You really can't have it both ways - not all the way at least. Sure, you can make sure your kids aren't watching tv late at night (when the violence gets nastier) but you can't keep them from seeing every horrible thing that's on television without throwing the boob tube out of your house (and they'll still see some of that garbage at friends' houses).

So what do we do as a society? First, those of us who watch violent television shows need to think about what it's doing to us as people. Are we becoming less and less sensitive to violence? Does it take more and more to disgust us?

Next, we need to think about what we're teaching our children. Do our children sit watching television for hours a day without anyone checking what they're watching? Has the television joined our family with full status as a member, or do we remember where the off-switch is? Does it join us at the dinner table? If we don't live without television, our children won't either.

It's so easy to tune out to a television show - it's fun, undemanding, available. But the television is a piece of equipment. Just like you don't let the dishwasher decide what your family does, you shouldn't let the television. I wonder if it wasn't better in the days before the popularity of television. People went to a movie theater, sat down, settled in, and prepared for the onslaught of images and ideas. Nowadays, we just let it into our house without ever looking at what we get. We decide nothing - just let the network execs choose for us...

So Spielberg's half-right. The level of violence is disconcerting. But the producers are only giving us what we ask for. What does that say about us as a society?

The Oxford Comma

I love the Oxford comma. It disambiguates, conforms to speech patterns, and just makes me feel good.

I'm sure some of you are wondering what the #$@# an Oxford comma is. Well, I could leave you to click the link, or I could explain it to you:

Suppose you were going on a picnic with your brothers and sister and their twenty-two children. Suppose you were making the sandwiches, and you wanted your myriad nieces and nephews to choose their sandwiches from a list. Your list might look like this:
Tuna Salad
Cheese
Hummus
Lettuce and Tomato
Lox and Cream Cheese
Peanut Butter and Jelly
Cream Cheese

Now if you wrote it into a list without using the Oxford comma, you end up with this:
The sandwiches available for today's picnic are tuna salad, cheese, hummus, lettuce and tomato, lox and cream cheese, peanut butter and jelly and cream cheese.

So is that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a jelly and cream cheese sandwich? (Trust me, my mom is fully capable of making either option, and many of my siblings will eat them both.)

Now if you use the Oxford comma, here's your sentence:
The sandwiches available for today's picnic are tuna salad, cheese, hummus, lettuce and tomato, lox and cream cheese, peanut butter and jelly, and cream cheese.

See? Now we're perfectly clear as to what's available for those last two sandwich types.

This is why I love the Oxford Comma.

Now I'm off to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

t.c.

Remembering...

You know how sometimes, absolutely everything gets on your nerves?

So Friday, I was going to bake challah (it's that braided Jew-bread).
So I went into the kitchen, and everything was a mess (partly my fault), and I was stressed, and I just got all angry and upset at everything and started yelling and being just obnoxious.
Yaakov eventually took the dog and went for a walk just to get away from me.

Tonight, I decided I needed to sit down and watch our wedding video again. It's important to remember how much in love we really are.

P.S. The challah was AMAZING!

Surprisingly Unbroken

Some people claim to be klutzy and aren't really. Some people really are.

For example, a college professor of mine broke her finger pulling on a sock. I mean, that's really talented. Funnier, she broke her middle finger, and it had to be immobilized, meaning that she walked around for a month flipping the bird to everyone she saw. Fortunately, when you're a college professor, the whole "absent-minded professor" is somewhat more good-natured than the "spazz" title that the rest of us get.

Anyway, I'm a real bonafide klutz. Using "Juggling for the Complete Klutz," it still took me three months of practicing daily to learn how to juggle. It took until I was 9 before I learned how to ride a bicycle, and I was never all that good at it. I've tripped over my own feet, and during my "sheva brachot," I managed to hurtle myself down three stairs and create a bruisey icky thing that took months to heal.

So what possessed me to try rollerblading? It's all Scott's fault. See. For his daughters' birthdays, he (or maybe his parents) got his girls rollerblades (well, something between skates and blades for the 4-year-old, and real blades for the 7-year-old).

Then he decided that if he was going to take the girls blading, he needed his own, as did N., who he spends a lot of time with lately. So they each bought blades, and then took the girls blading, and then they went blading sans girls later on.

Of course, Yaakov got rollerblading into his head, so he decided he had to go. No problem, we have a skating rink in the local park, and my nieces and nephew, who live between here and the park, all love to rollerblade.

So... we called, and they were on their way out to a birthday party. So I decided to do the next best thing. I borrowed my niece's rollerblades. They fit. I walked around the rink in them twice, holding on to the rail. Then Yaakov decided to take me out into the center of the rink. Using a hockey stick, he pulled me out. It was fun, really. Until I started to panic and broke into a sweat and almost started crying.

Later, I decided I was in a trying things mood, so I tried walking on stilts again. On the second try, I was able to walk about 5 meters, leaning on Yaakov, before my legs went weak and I had to stop.

The good news, though, is that there were no major falls, and despite my klutziness, I am surprisingly unbroken.

Better Days

Scott, you're right - it's about time I post something new!

So... last night, I had a birthday party for my mother at my house. After monumental efforts, I was able to get most of my siblings (one couldn't get a babysitter) and a few of my mom's friends to come to my house. I then fed them all kinds of unhealthy and delicious food (lasagne, fresh bread with cream cheese and lox, borekas) and healthy food (cut vegetables). My sister baked a yummy cake. She claims that it was nothing, because pillsbury always comes out good, but she made the frosting herself and it was great, and she decorated the cake and it was SOOOO pretty. Besides, I know plenty of people who can mess up cake from a mix too. (hey, I burned frozen borekas)

The cool thing is that it's the first time since she got married that my mother has had a surprise party. It's also nice, because I had the pleasure(?) of hosting. It is nice to be an adult who can host parties. I did have to work very hard to clean up the house, but in the end, it was really clean, and it was nice, and everyone thought I did a good job.

The other cool thing is that now, for the first time, my house is clean. I mean, not perfect, but clean enough that I could have a tupperware party or a chug or any of the other dozens of things that I'd like to do here.

Now we just have to KEEP it nice.

I bought a little unit with drawers for my desk - since my desk is really a dining table, I couldn't get a regular drawer unit, but I have a small set of drawers on my desk now, so I can hide all my papers out of site. I only have one piece of paper with important information and phone numbers out. My pens and stuff are all out of site, and there's really space for everything. I even put the webcam in a better place so that I can use it more easily.

I should take pictures, but I'm really tuckered out. I'm just exhausted - I worked soooo hard since Monday getting ready for this party, and I'm not finished with the cleanup, even though we used very few dishes (and they are dairy so they can go into the dishwasher) and mainly used disposables.

I seem to use up so much energy doing even the smallest things. I went to an endocrinologist about that and some other stuff, so I'm going to have a whole bunch of tests on Monday, and who knows, maybe there will be progress. I've been reading up on something called "insulin tolerance" and if I have that, it would account for several different problems I've been having, and maybe help me lose weight too, which would be nice.

My weight is such a struggle. I mean, most people say that, and I believe them, but really - on herbalife, you're supposed to lose a kilogram a week, and me? In three months, I've lost 4, of which I gained 1.5 back. It's not like I'm not serious about it either. I am. I might not be perfect on the plan, but back when I was in high school, I did a similar diet, with an equal degree of resolve, and lost about 12 kilograms in 4 months (not a very fast pace either, but much better than what I've been doing lately) I was doing less exercise then than I do now, too, so it's not that either. It's just that something's wrong with my metabolism.

Anyway, my weight is a boring subject... so I'll move on. Rosh Hashana is coming, and hopefully we'll get the first rain soon. Every year, when the first raid starts, I go outside and dance in it. It's silly, but I just love the rain. I love it when the air is clean, and the heat stops being so oppressive. I love rain and cold. I miss my sweaters and velvet skirts. I miss my jeans more, but that's another story...

My parents brought me pomegranites from their tree yesterday for the holiday! Today, Yaakov sent me information about buying a Sukkah. We need to measure our outdoor space and check what size will be good for us, and then we'll have a Sukkah. Pretty exciting - this will be my very first - I mean, one that's mine and not just my parents'.

I think that's just about all the news from here, except that I sort of have a job, working from home. It's an editing job, but it's my excuse for not writing as much here... :)

Anyway, wishing you and yours a Shana Tova Umetuka - A good and sweet New Year.

t.c. Goodman

It's a Frazzle Razzle Day!

It's a Frazzle Razzle Day!

Well, the song is nicer - The song is called "It's a Brazzle Dazzle Day" and it's from Pete's Dragon - which is, by the way, a total must-see movie.

Anyway, it's been a frazzling day.

First, I have this huge aggravation with my bank & an insurance company...
If you're not interested in this story, scroll to the end of the green.

Four or five months ago, I cashed out an insurance policy that wasn't doing anything. I sent in a whole boatload of forms, and they said they had everything except the processing fee. I asked if the processing fee could be taken from the cash in the policy, and the secretary (or whoever) said that she'd check and get back to me. She didn't get back to me, so I assumed it was fine. Then, after about 6 weeks, they sent me a letter that I needed to pay the processing fee. So I sent them a check. Then they sent the check to the bank. On the day it expired.

The bank refused to honor the check. In fact, they bounced it and charged me 13 shekels ($3) . Fine. I asked them to send it back to the original issuer. They refused. I asked them to mail it to me. They refused. I asked them to send the check to the branch here in Modiin (for a variety of complex reasons, my bank account is located in the branch near where I went to college, not near where I live.) Okay. They can do that. It'll be there the next day.

Next day, I go in, get to the front of the line, realize I don't have my ID, go home, wait in line another 25 minutes, and they tell me "we don't have it."

Fine. I go back two days later. They still don't have it. They call my branch. The person from my branch says "I sent it to Modiin. It's there."

Yaakov and I go to Ireland. When we come back, I go to the bank AGAIN. They STILL don't have it (now 2 months later).

They tell me "call this number, and they'll take care of it for you, but the person who can take care of it is on vacation until next week."

Okay. Another week. I call the insurance company and ask them to reissue the check. Sure, no problem, just get the bank to fax us a letter saying that they couldn't cash the first one. Oh, and do it next week, because the company that we work with is on vacation this week!

Okay. It's Sunday. I call the number. No - we can't do that, only your branch can do that, and they're not open on Sundays.

Can you say AUGH?!

Next annoyance of the day. For reasons inexplicable even to myself, I let my New York Driver's License expire completely so it's not renewable, and never got an Israeli license. So now I need to get an Israeli license as if I've never driven before. (Which, in and of itself, is frazzling, but my bad, my problem.) So I go to the office where you're supposed to go to start the process and, after I wait in line 15 minutes, they tell me that that specific part of the office has moved - about 5 blocks away. Fortunately, my mom was with me - a real blessing, since I have no sense of direction. I literally don't know the difference between right and left without giving it serious thought - and I've spent time trying to teach myself. So another five blocks, plus another 20 minutes in line, and I take the eye test, get my picture taken, and now for just US$600 (to pay for 28 lessons), I can get myself a license... well.. of course, I need the written test, the driving test, and a physical, but ok...

Next, my mom drops me at home so I can get ready to go to the gym. I decide I really want to swim. So I get all my swim gear ready, except I can't find my goggles. Yaakov cleaned the house on Friday, and I really appreciate it, but I have no idea where he put my goggles!!!!!! Okay. no swimming. I'll go walk on the treadmill. All is well. Unpack, repack with different stuff. Ready to go. My parents pick me up, and I get to the gym, and I've forgotten my earphones. The ONE reason I go walking EVER instead of swimming (and walking is better for me, I know) is because I can watch tv/listen to music. I'm dying for a Swimp3, so I won't be so bored underwater. Anyway, my dad made some remark about how I should go walking without headphones to punish myself, and instead of just ignoring it (because it doesn't fit with any reality I can relate to) I let myself get angry. I hate that he can say something like that - and if it came from anyone else, I could just shake it off like nothing - and it can set me off. And of course, he's now angry that I got angry. GRRR...

And after all that, my blender broke. Let's see if I can find the warranty slip for it. I know where I *should* have put it. Let's see if it's still there.

So... I think I'm going to watch some tv and escape the universe for a while. Here's wishing all my readers a brazzle dazzle day (as opposed to a day like mine...)

t.c.Goodman

Don't Tell My Husband.

This is my new MAN.
Isn't he DREAMY??


(for those of you who don't know Yaakov - this is a picture of him during time when he's messing around after a no-shave part of the Jewish calendar. And no, I couldn't kiss him with the caterpillar.)

Some Blogging Thoughts.

Do real bloggers use Memes?
Do real bloggers take silly tests that tell the world which muppet they'd date?
Do real bloggers talk about their day?

What's a real blogger?
Is LittleGreenFootballs the kind of blog I should aspire to? Should I spend hours sifting through news to find things to interest my readers?

Should I make this a juggling blog where I can tell the world about my trials and tribulations with three clubs?

Should I take it back to its original state, where it was a diary? I'm soooooo lost.

and would someone freaking order from my amazon site already!

t.c.

Those who do not Learn from History are Doomed to Repeat it.

So today, we enter another armistice agreement. It is not a peace treaty. It is a temporary cessation of hostilities, at best. The two IDF soldiers who were kidnapped - the immediate cause of this war - have not been returned. The Hezbolla has not been disarmed, nor have they in any way intimated that the complete destruction of Israel and all Jews is off of the top of their priority list.

And now, Ehud Olmert will begin the appeasement process again, as soon as he possibly can. Appeasing a bloodthirsty enemy is always the best way. Looking at the most recent UN actions, we can easily tell who Kofi Annan looks up to.

Kofi Annan declares "Peace in Our Time"

Play Dead! (or More on Misreporting)

Some dogs just can't learn how to play dead.
Apparently some people have the same problem too.
See below:

War is Hell

I really meant to write more about the EJC. It was such an amazing experience that I can't imagine relegating it to memory without some more writing, but then...

The thing is that in the middle of my honeymoon, the news started to pour in. We heard that two soldiers had been snatched by Hizbolla, and we heard that missiles were falling in Nahariya.

By the time we got back from our trip, we were coming back into a war zone. And it's so strange. I'm glued to the news now, wondering what will happen, what can happen. It's very surreal. There are missiles falling in Haifa, a city where I've spent a good amount of time. Here, there's quiet.

The mood here is very subdued. We go about our daily lives, and we do what we can to help the refugees from the north. We don't call them refugees. We call them guests, but the fact remains - they are here because their lives would be in danger if they were home.

The world screams and shouts about the fifty reported dead. well, give or take 49 or so. It was a huge massacre, except for the part where only one person died. And in Qana, the sixty or so were also less than 30 when the final count came in. Plus you can't forget that whatever the news, Reuters, at least, isn't above distorting it.

Turns out, now that the cat's out of the bag, Mr. Hajj - a freelance photographer from Lebanon, is being found guilty of more and more fraud daily.

Power Line is showing two pictures taken at the same scene, of the same bombed buildings. That would be okay, except that Mr. Hajj claimed that they were taken over a week apart. Let's face it. Most of us don't remember which building was destroyed. We see two pictures of destruction on two different days, and we believe that two different things were destroyed.

This poor lady apparently had her house destroyed twice, two weeks apart.

Too bad Israel is forced to stick with facts, and we're a little too sensitive to parade our dead around.

At any rate, life in Israel continues, weirdly, but steadily.