Blog/October 2013/Oct 11th

Oct 11th (See this week's devar torah)

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Hi, again!

A productive and busy week, all in all. The weather was pleasant, though a bit warm for the season; it’s supposed to cool down to average temps and then heat up slightly beginning next week.

Sarah went on a three-day/two-night Israeli trip with her friends. They went all the way to the very north of the country, enjoying Tel Dan national park, “white-water” rafting on the Jordan and Naḥal Ḥermon — among other things. She and her friends had a most excellent time!

I had another follow-up meeting with the AposTherapy people. They tell me “you’ve made very good progress”, and have put weights in my (therapeutic) shoes to help my knees build strength. This coming week I (finally) have my appointment with the “knee clinic” at the university hospital at the entrance to Jerusalem. I doubt they’ll be able to help too much, but at this point I’m not going to give up my appointment.

Esther did follow-up with the bank, and we finally finished everything we needed to do there, B”H! And my current employer has become the first official client of Aaron High-Tech, Ltd., so we’re on a roll. Now we need to develop another client at least, and continue with the business development.

And on that note, Esther and I had a meeting with the fine folks at MATI, to determine whether or not they would approve another 15 hours of free business consultation for us. Because the “free” part is under the auspices of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, their representative was at the meeting. She looked at Esther’s “national identity number”, and declared she couldn’t be a “new immigrant”. Esther, having encountered the “it can’t be right” sort of official multiple times in the past, had already decided to bring her proof of status — the so-called “certificate of immigration”. Of course, the MATI people had already done that when we first started talking to them, but this lady was an un-trusting Russian. Anyway, when she saw that Esther’s papers had been worked on by Marina (another Russian lady at that gov’t office), she said, “Oh, Marina. Very good.” So we breezed through that roadblock, but only because the lovely wife was paranoid. I’ve trained her well.

In any event, MATI approved the extra hours; they were very friendly in fact, and the aforementioned Russian lady encouraged Esther to “use all your benefits” while they still exist. Not that there’s very much in the way of benefits left to her, or that we can really utilize them.

Esther and I purchased new phones, partly because the old ones’ batteries were no longer holding a charge, partly because the old ones’ screens have shrunk as our eyesight has deteriorated and partly because the newer technology phones are faster and better. So I was going to order “on-line”, but since we had to go to the aforementioned meeting, Esther suggested I find a store in Jerusalem. That I did, and while it was a little more expensive than the on-line places, it wasn’t terribly so.

After our meeting we went to that store, where we found extremely knowledgeable and helpful staff. I was really very pleasantly surprised by how professional the people at Pelecom in Jerusalem were. And I gave them a surprise, as well: once we got home, I pulled out my keys and found a heavy-duty magnetic fob had attached to them. Turns out, it was a key to unlock their merchandise, without which they couldn’t sell anything! Truly, I didn’t intend to take it… anyway, I returned it the next morning, and they were very happy to see me again.

Aside from all that, we’re looking forward to a mostly quiet shabbat with our “third daughter”, Sarah’s friend Dinah. On this week’s menu:
fresh homemade ḥallah, crispy roasted chicken, oven fried potatoes, roasted cauliflower, baked beans, stuffed peppers, cabbage salad, spicy kohlrabi, oriental eggplant salad, tuna salad, egg salad, rice, fruit, cookies and chocolate cupcakes.

Until next week,
shabbat shalom!

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