My New Earrings

About two months ago, a webmaster named Sarah randomly contacted me and asked me if I'd like to try a pair of earrings from her site, Lushae Jewelry and write a review of them. Never one to turn down something free, I said sure. So she let me pick a pair of earrings and sent them to me, and here it is... my turn to tell you how I like them.

First, a word about me and jewelry. I like shiny things, but I rarely wear much jewelry. I wear my wedding and engagement rings and I wear the necklace that Yaakov gave me at our wedding. Other than that, I rarely put on a pair of earrings. Even on Shabbat, I don't always quite manage. The other thing is that my jewelry breaks down into two categories; real gold and real cheap. I have quite a lot of stuff that you could pick up for under $10. I have a few nice pieces, including the above mentioned wedding/engagement jewelry and a few heirloom pieces from my grandmother. I have pretty much nothing in the middle.

So these earrings, gold-plated with a pearl, with a price tag of $65, are somewhat of a novelty for me. I have to say, I was expecting them to feel cheap, and they really don't. They feel nice.

They shipped quickly, in a beautiful box. The style is delicate and elegant enough that it looks like the real deal. People have complimented me on the earrings every time I've worn them.

Would I buy them for myself? I'm not sure. Would I be thrilled if my husband did? Absolutely!

P.S. They ship internationally, including to Israel!

Travel Meme

My travels

Rules: Fill in the following questions & tag 5 friends (try friends who travel a lot).

• My best trip ever...
  Ireland


• My worst trip ever...
  7.5 hour layover in Amsterdam where I was both quite sick and too scared to leave the airport


• Most important thing I ever lost on a trip...
  passport, but I found it!


• Most important thing I ever forgot to take on a trip...
  the phone number of the person we were supposed to be staying with. (though we did get it... just took some international calls)


• Thing I miss most when I'm away...
  Poofy, home-cooked meals, Israel


• Thing I miss least when I'm away...
  stress


• Favorite travel partner...
  Yaakov, Rachel


• Place I hope to travel to someday...
  China

Nobody tagged

fill in this meme

Subsidizing Inner City Tomatoes

I was reading Hannah's Cooking Manager and she pointed to another post...
Vered at MomGrind wrote a post called Fat Acceptance, and it triggered all kinds of angry feelings in me and in a bunch of her readers - you can read the comments. And then I looked back at what she'd written and I pulled it apart again to figure out why.

Here's the thing. I agree with the second part of her post - modern societies need to work on better food education, better food choices, and better nutrition. When I was in Philadelphia a few years ago, I paid about a dollar for a single tomato. I grant you that this was in a smaller convenience-type mini-market, but still! A dollar for a tomato, when a whole bag of chips that could keep 3 kids from whining "I'm hungry" for at least an hour costs less than $2? There might need to be subsidies for inner-city families to get vegetables at reasonable prices without having to go far outside of the city to places they may not be able to get to because they may not have cars or simply may not have the time.

The first part of her post, though, made me angry. Who are you to judge? What possible benefit could your staring have? How could your judgment help her?

The reality is that Vered has no idea of this girl's story. Maybe the girl is suffering some terrible trauma. I put on about 30 lbs the year that my best friend died and my grandmother died. A year later, I took it all off. Maybe this girl has a thyroid problem and no matter what she does, she doesn't lose weight, so she figures she might as well at least enjoy herself. (A friend of mine got down to 500 calories a day and still GAINED weight.) Maybe the girl just doesn't think about it. What is certain is that society's stares and mistreatment will cause the girl to hate herself and lose self-respect and while she may lose weight from self-loathing, it will probably be through bulimia and self-starvation, not through the sensible, healthy life choices that come from self-love.

Am I missing something? Does anyone really think that their stares and nasty comments and mistreatment can help the problem?

Eye-rony

I've talked about how I take Ephraim to a clinic in Haifa for his eye. At the clinic, pretty much everyone has at least one eye that is "broken" in some way. Some, like Ephraim, have a small eye which needs to be enlarged. Others are cancer survivors who had to have an eye removed. In any case, pretty much every patient is one-eyed. Tuesdays are children's days, and there are a lot of toys. One of the toys is a big teddy bear. When I was there yesterday, I noticed that the teddy bear was missing an eye, and someone had taped an X of masking tape over the place where the eye had been.

I simply didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Obama's New Anti-Terrorism Plan! Totally Foolproof!

Following his success with running a presidential campaign by stealing cartoon character Bob the Builder's slogan of "Yes we can!" Obama has been hard at work figuring out how to wipe out airline terrorism. He has it all figured out now.

He will be using a clever take on Dora the Explorer's slogan of "Swiper, no swiping!" and will be hanging up signs that say "Bomber, no bombing!" in airports and on airplanes. The plan took a long time to come up with because:

1. Dora the Explorer is really high above his comprehension level.

2. The extensive changes to the slogan were quite complex for Barack Obama and his team.

Needed: Subjects for Usability Test

I'm looking for subjects for a usability test. The test will take place in Tel Aviv on Wednesday or Thursday. (Dec 9-10, 2009)

Subjects should be 20-35 with a good knowledge of Hebrew (Israelis preferred) and need to have a nokia smartphone with internet access and data plan.

Subjects will be compensated for time and travel.

Please contact me at LeahGabrielle at Gmail dot com if you are interested.

Please repost this anywhere and everywhere you think someone relevant might be looking!

What You Missed!

For those of you who didn't join me today (that would be everyone except Ephraim), here's what you missed...

First, we had to scale a big concrete wall. Well, okay, it wasn't that big. It was about waist height, but you try scaling it with a stroller. This really nice young lady (late teens, I'd guess) helped me, and it was actually really not bad. This is because the mall isn't open at 6:30 in the morning, and I didn't feel like walking 3 blocks out of my way to get to the train station. The road that goes to the train station should be open by the next time I need to go, and if not, well, my appointment then is at 10am, so I'll be leaving a bit later anyway.

Next, there was a guy wearing a kilt on the train. I mean, a real live Scottish kilt. But here's the funny thing. Usually when you see a guy in a kilt, they're like decked out in full gear... not this guy. He was wearing this blah t-shirt and a North Face jacket. It's like someone secretly switched his jeans with a kilt and he didn't notice...

Ephraim and I played peek-a-boo a fair amount of the way to Haifa, and then we found a taxi and got to the clinic right on time. The clinic staff was fantastic as always, and Ephraim is doing great. They didn't get us a new lens today, but they fixed the one he's wearing now to make it more comfortable, and they'll mail us a new one in the next few days.

On the train home, Ephraim really wanted to crawl around, and there's a bit of clear space where I guess wheelchairs could be, so I let him down, and I closed the door so he couldn't leave the compartment, and I went to sit back down.... only I forgot I had been sitting in a jump-seat (like a movie-theater seat), so I ended up on the floor. Ephraim crawled around for a while, stood up next to some older gentleman (by older, I mean older than my father), banged on the seat next to him a little. I asked the man a few times if it was ok, and the man said it was fine. Then someone left the compartment to use the restroom, so I got up to close the door and when I sat back down, I again landed on the floor! It's too bad there was no video camera on me. I think it could've gone viral. :)

Anyway, we're all home and my chair here.........k;lgj/efgjgjdkf/

(just kidding)

be well.
LeahGG

Maybe I Was Wrong

Back in 1991, my parents took me to my high school's freshman orientation, and my dad ran into an old friend of his. He was friends with her, his parents were friends with her parents, so naturally, he wanted me to be friends with the daughter.

Over the years, he asked me repeatedly "So are you friends with ___?" and each time I'd say "We have nothing in common." or "I have nothing to talk about with her." Over my four years at Frisch, I think I never had a class with her, and I don't think I ever had a conversation with her. I knew who she was and that was pretty much it. Don't get me wrong, I never disliked her, but I never liked her either.

A few years ago, I found out that she lives in Jerusalem and is a writer. A few days ago, I found out she has a daughter named Kinneret. Maybe I was wrong... maybe we do have something in common.

What Some People Will Do to Get a YouNeverCall Hat

YouNeverCall is offering a free hat to anyone who reviews them and lets them know where the review is.

Apparently, that seems too complex for some people, so they did a search, found something I'd written about YouNeverCall on my blog and submitted it as a review to the staff over at YNC.

Here's the thing... Sam at YNC is the type to notice such things, because, well, he's my brother. So he ran this one by me, since he didn't know I had an address in Wellsville, PA. (I don't.)

So sorry, Angie, I think it was a great creative effort, but I think you'll have to write your OWN review if you want to get a YouNeverCall hat.

LeahGG

Must Have

I must have this, and it's Bethami's Fault.
There's no place like...painless, there's no place like painless...

It's All in Your Head - Twice the Suffering, None of the Relief

Some of you know that I've been sick for the last 2.5 months or so. Some of you might even care.

I have fibromyalgia, so it gets the blame for pain and exhaustion long before a doctor will even order so much as a regular blood count. Finally, though, the levels of pain and exhaustion exceeded what my doctor could write off, so I got a whole bunch of blood tests run, and while some of them are off, there's nothing with a big arrow saying "big disease here" so I'm still without a diagnosis, which means that some people (doctors included) are saying "It's all in your head," so not only do they have no relief to offer me, they can also make me feel guilty for my pain, my exhaustion, and the fact that I'm not up to speed.

Ah the sheer joy of it all.

The Chicken Dance Makes Me Cry

No, really. I was at the mall today, and they started playing the chicken dance, and the tears started rolling down my face.

I was thirteen when Steven Orne and I danced to the chicken dance on a Sunday sometime around Yom Haatzmaut 1991. Israel was 43.

I was still thirteen the following January, when Stephen died of complication of hemophilia. I always remember dancing the chicken dance with him, and I always cry when I hear it.

For some reason, "Yesh lanu tayish," which we're dancing in this picture, doesn't make me cry as badly. Yehi Zichro Baruch

He Was Always Ok

Yaakov and I have friends whose names in Hebrew are Yaakov and Leiah, and they're expecting, G-d willing, in a little over a month. I let them know that I had a special kippah appropriate for a brit for a baby whose father's name is Yaakov. (It says "? son of Yaakov") See, it's cute because we don't know the baby's name yet at the brit. All we know is the father's name (one hopes).

Anyway, I made this for Ephraim's brit, and because of everything that surrounded his birth, the running to specialists, the extreme blow dealt to me by unsympathetic and insensitive doctors, the misinformation I found on Google and had confirmed by stupid doctors, and the simple fact that for a time, all I could see of Ephraim was his one small eye, I didn't ever use it.

So I was hoping that someone else could use this kippa, because it took a lot of work to make it. When I offered it to the other Yaakov and Leiah, I told them why it never was used for Ephraim, and the other Yaakov asked "How is Ephraim?"
"Ephraim's ok," I answered. "He was always ok. I was the one who wasn't ok."
and it's true.