Blog/May 2009/May 1st

May 1st (See this week's devar torah)
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Hi again!

Help feed the hungry in Israel!

Update on the ant obliteration campaign: situation under control for now! Last week I told you I put out some home-made poison syrup for the ants. Now I can tell you that the first day there were some ants on the bait, the second day there were a lot, and the third day there were hardly any. I then switched the bait for fresh stuff, and no ants came -- and in fact there were only one or two ants to be seen in the kitchen. So while they were coming in to take the bait, I spied a hole in the wall from which they were coming. Once they ceased coming in, I plastered the hole -- and so far, B"H, we have been ant-free this week.

I forgot to include a picture of Esther's challah, which she wanted me to post. And she's reminding me to mention the sheseq chicken she made with some of the sheseq we picked last week from our tree. It was a sort of Persian recipe, and came out delicious. This week we picked a lot more sheseq -- we're going to have to find a way to use it all.

This past week was Israeli Independence Day (יום העצמאות), which is generally celebrated by barbecuing entire herds of animals and firing off fireworks. We were going to go see the fireworks in the central park in Maale Adummim, but instead we watched from the comfort of our "office" room. As it happened, we could see everything perfectly and didn't have to leave the comfort of our home.

The following day (Independence Day day), we were invited to friends of friends of our friends, out by Rosh HaAyin -- for a festive day. After we had been invited there, cousins of mine invited us to their place, but we had to turn them down since we'd already accepted the other invitation. Once there, we met a lot of other olim -- who were all from Cleveland and, it turns out, all seemed to know the parents of the cousin who had invited us over! Small world ...

For the 61st Independence Day, someone posted a list of 61 things he liked about Israel. I can add a few more: 1) Any kind of furniture can be made twice as expensive if the term "`ets male'" (solid wood) appears in the name -- even if the closest it came to wood was the pulp used to print the advertisment 2) Israelis are not shy about correcting you about your mistaken choices. "You don't want that ice cream!". 3) I can look out my window, see the holy city of Jerusalem, smell the sweet aroma of roses from my garden and hear the din of the muezzin all at the same time. 4) Everybody in Israel is only two people away from the Prime Minister (most are only one). It's a small country.

Work has been incredibly stressful, since my particular product is the first thing we're shipping, and it's going to go onto CDs to accompany our customer's products in stores. It has to work correctly or we don't sell our actual product (which is downloaded by my product). So I've been worn out and stressed, but now I can see the end of the tunnel. Next week should be less stressful, B"H.

I didn't realize there was a good physical reason to dislike our old neighborhood here, but according to this report from the CDC, where we used to live has the highest incidence of Leishmaniasis in Maale Adummim!

Travelers in the Indian Ocean have recently been the targets of Somali pirates. Not too long ago, some of the pirates got more than they bargained for when they attacked an Italian cruise liner and encountered the Israeli security detachment on board. That's how to take care of business!

This shabbat Sarah will be staying over at her partner in hair-crime Rivqua's place. We hope she has a great time, and we'll miss her!

Until next week,
Shabbat shalom!

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