Blog/June 2010/Jun 25th

June 25th (See this week's devar torah)
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Hi again!

Another busy week in the Holy Land: birthday celebrations, wedding celebrations, leaky ceilings and more.

Sunday was Esther's (secular) birthday; and as I mentioned last week, I took the day off work so we could properly treat her. First thing, we made her a pancake breakfast. Then we went to the Inbal hotel's spa, where the three ladies were treated to a relaxing massage. After that we took in a light lunch and went home to relax. That afternoon Daniela and Sarah made a birthday cake, and I prepared a Moroccan-style fish and couscous for dinner.

Then on Tuesday we attended my cousin's wedding, at Binyanei Hauma, at the western entrance to Jerusalem. There I met a few more cousins I hadn't met before, which was nice. Unfortunately, I had been suffering from a pinched nerve in my back all day; and it didn't get better. After a few hours at the wedding, my back was hurting enough that I signaled Esther that I wanted to go, and we tried to. But my cousin stopped me on the way out, and insisted his massage therapist (who was also at the wedding) treat me. So this man I had never seen before starts massaging me, right in the middle of Binyanei Hauma. We attracted some attention. But when he was done, I was able to walk with almost no pain; so it was worth the sidelong glances.

Do you remember the leak in Daniela's ceiling we "fixed" last year? Guess what: it reappeared. Given the temperature has been over 30C most of this week, and it hasn't rained for a long time, one assumes the leak is not from rain seeping in. The neighbor hasn't been here for a week either, so it's hard to believe that the leak originates from their house (and we did not experience any leaking for almost a year). So I climbed up on the roof and noticed that Sarah's air-conditioner leaks water onto the roof. My working assumption at this point is that there is a small leak in the roofing material which the water is able to seep into. And since Sarah has her air-conditioner working a lot during the summer, that may be the vector by which the water enters into the ceiling. There are no water pipes there, and there doesn't seem to be any other source of moisture on the roof.

We went to the local "Ace" hardware store to see if we could pick up a can of tar. The salesman didn't know what "zefet" (tar) was, so I told him "tar" in English... which he did understand. Anyway, they don't carry that, but they do have 20L containers of roof sealant; which is WAY too much for my purpose. Since they didn't carry a smaller size container of the sealant, I went to a house-goods store and got 2M of heavy plastic sheet, which I then put under the leaking air-conditioner. This is a stop-gap measure to try to solve the problem; if it works, I'll get a container of sealant (or maybe replace the faulty air-conditioner, but that would cost a lot more).

One of the gifts we gave Esther for her birthday was a "digital picture frame". That's a device which simply displays the pictures you take with your digital camera, in a sort of 'slide-show'. This afternoon the girls and I loaded it up with pictures -- and since we don't have a television, I can see we might spend a lot of time oohing and awing over our digital memory bank. It is a pretty cool gift.

This week we have no guests, and Daniela is going to be at one of her former teacher's for shabbat. So we have a short menu: baked chicken and potatoes, eggplant, cabbage salad, kohlrabi, meatloaf, apple cake and fruit.

Until next week,
Shabbat shalom !

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