Blog/January 2013/Jan 25th
From RonWareWiki
< Blog | January 2013
| Jan 25th (See this week's devar torah) | Comments or questions? Click here! |
Hi, again!
What a week! We started off just before shabbat, with Major Events. A glass bowl fell in the kitchen, shattering on the counter-top and sending shards flying everywhere. One of them hit Esther and sliced her wrist; though we were able to stop the bleeding, mostly, we ended up (quickly) driving to the emergency medical center in town. This was fifteen minutes before shabbat started.
The emergency center staff patched her up, giving her four stitches ... and though she's fine, really, she needs to avoid using that hand for the present. One interesting fact: in our apartheid country (and especially in the right-wing settlement of Maale Adummim!) the nurse and doctor at the emergency center were both Arabs. As we were there, an Arab family from Azariya (opposite the main road from us) came in for treatment. And as we were leaving, an Ethiopian family came in for treatment.
In any event, the trauma passed, we got home just as it got dark -- twenty minutes in and out, and ten minutes or so walk home (it was already shabbat at that point). We had a relaxing shabbat, and were looking forward with anticipation to the upcoming elections on Tuesday. We went and voted, and on the way back from the polling place, Esther slipped and fell on her other hand. So now she's got two bad hands, meaning Sarah and I have to do all the shabbat preparations, Heaven help us!
Then the results of the election came in, and -- as usual -- my choices proved to be by far in the minority. My party did not make the cut (it was close, but not close enough). In an extremely surprising turn of events, Yair Lapid's "Yesh Atid" party took far more seats than predicted by all the polls, and Netanyahu's Likud party lost 11 seats (that's almost 10% of the Knesset, and it's 25% of their former strength)! So a much weakened Netanyahu now has to cobble together a very wide coalition, and the resultant government will undoubtedly be unstable and weak. I'm glad that "Bayit Yehudi" got 12 seats, since they're nominally "on my side"... but they will probably be in the coalition, and will therefore be unable to prevent Netanyahu from giving in to the inevitable US pressure to "make courageous compromises".
During the week, we attended my boss's engagement party. Sarah did a lot of movie-making things I don't understand. Esther tried to keep from injuring herself any further. And the two of us went for a romantic evening shopping at Rami Levi, for groceries. During the election day (which is a national holiday here), I did a barbecue. Oh, and we also helped some friends get to their voting place. Including Sarah, who voted for her very first time!
Wrapping up the week: yesterday, Sarah spent most of the day cooking under her mother's tutelage. Today I have been cooking (under my own tutelage, thank you very much!). But in a reprise of last week's excitement, I dropped a glass bowl on the floor and it shattered most impressively, but -- thank God! -- it didn't hurt me or anyone else, though my pride did take one on the chin.
This shabbat we have perhaps the most full-house we've ever had. Friends of Sarah's, and one of the friend's sisters, her brother-in-law and father! The menu will include:
ḥummus,
corn salad,
cabbage salad,
radish salad,
orange soup,
baked chicken with homemade barbecue sauce,
eggplant moussaka,
potato kugel,
roasted veggies,
meatballs,
rice,
zucchini-mushroom-onion quiche,
egg salad,
tuna salad,
spice cake and semolina-cookies...
and in honor of tu-beshevaṭ:
figs, dates, pomegranates, olives, grapes and raisins and barley salad. Oh, my!
Until next week,
shabbat shalom and tu-beshevaṭ sameaḥ!
| Top: Blog | Prev: Jan 18th | Next: Feb 1st |