For a long time I was one of those people who moves somewhere and always dreams about going back to the motherland. I had my leaving speech for work all planned out. "I've always dreamed about going home...and now I am..." Then, about 3 years ago, we had the opportunity to move back. The husband was unusually gung ho about throwing our eggs into a basket and moving to England. The Emergency Exit was open. I could realise my dreams.
After some soul searching, I realised we were better off here. I reaslised. Not the husband. Me. Oh dear He-who-is-holy. The husband's assertations that he had actually improved my life, brought me into the fold of GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE, and had given me the coveted house-near-the-beach was all BLOODYMOTHERFUCKING true. (Pants.)
Which is why today, I get to drive 10 minutes down the road, park my car in the insider-knowledge car park, cross a bridge, and hey presto I am in Tel Aviv port.
Tel Aviv port is a really cool part of the city. Relatively new, and still developing, it went from being a dive of disused hangers and a couple of nightclubs, to a huge complex of restuarants, bars, hangers for events and weddings, shops, boutiques, ice cream joints, and most lovely of all, a huuuuge deck that they made emulate the rise and fall of the waves, and in the middle of which there is a huge sandpit. The deck is of course on the sea and if you stand at the right parts in the right weather, you can get showered in sea spray. Rocks.
This is the quality of life that you only get on holiday. Or if you live in LA. A carefree day spent between ice creams (and what ice creams! the best! apricot ameretto, halva-pistacio and melon-pineapple served over hot chocolate cake...) and the beach (yes, they have a couple of lil-beaches dotted about too). And as I look out on the twins jumping and frolicking in the surf with their friends, the water twinkling in the sunllight, no clouds spoiling any of it, I know that life is good. This is what we're here for. This is why we live in Israel with the bombs and the wars and the neighbours who don't like us so much. Its because we have a good life. The place gives you a hug, and you feel good. So good. Hell, I didn't even remember I was fired.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
love...it hurts
so listen, these grandiose plans of mine, the ones to fuckin blog all the time...they are not working out as expected. Because the diary of the just-fired is a busy one. It's like preparation for retirement. I figure if I have ONE TASK to do in one day, that's enough to engage the WHOLE day. Got something at 12.00? Hell, there's no time to go to the pool beforehand, none at all.
This is DAY 3 of the unemployed.
Day 1, I was off doing something mysterious. I watched 4 feature-length films and two episodes of drama series's.
Day 2, I was supposed to go on a trip with the kindergarden, but the teacher nixed me at the last minute. A rage against this woman is long overdue, but I think it would be more productive to save it for city hall. This blog is my happy space! So instead, in the afternoon of day 2, I spent an hour discussing marital strife in front of a one-way mirror at Bar Ilan University. I told you, happy!
And then, somewhere on day 2, I happened to notice that when I lock my car, the driver's door ain't locking. This means a trip to the garage. A task for day 3!
There are some places where Israel differs so wildly from where I grew up that it really smacks me in the face. I mean, there are certain elements of living in Israel you get used to. Washing the dishes at 6pm when a blast rattles your windows. It could have been a bomb. Or a flyby. Either way, you just carry on. Having your car boot checked when you go into a parking lot or having your bag checked when you walk into just about every public place. Cars honking and drivers screaming at one another. These are wildly different to the Home Counties, but it's everywhere and I promise you you don't even notice it after a while.
Yes, I grew up a long way from here. In a different space and time. Which is why going to a garage in Pardes Katz is such an experience. If you live here, you'll already have an idea of what I mean. Because a garage is a garage in Israel. And you'll know Pardes Katz by reputation.
To be fair, I haven't been to any garages in England (that I can remember at least). But I'm pretty sure that they would comply with some basic minimum standards. Here, the garage is typically some kind of structure. Doesn't have to be a building. It might be corrugated iron built around a frame. There might be old road signs bent into shape to patch up a hole in the ceiling. They might have adapted the inside so there are a couple of nice-looking air-conditioned rooms, maybe there is just a kitchenette underneath some metal stairs. A ladder leads up to a room hiding behind someone's window blinds. In short, the place is a hotch potch of whatever materials came their way.
The head of the garage, Itzik, is Lord over all. He was not a wordy man. He removed the sidepanel of my door and diagnosed the "manoa" wasn't working. I probably should know the translation, but it made sense to me at the time. It looked like it might take some time so I went out to lunch with Gingy, my husband's best friend from High School. I haven't seen him in a while so it was a bit of a shock to see he now shaves off all his hair so there's actually not much point calling him "Gingy" any more. He's our insurance agent and he was facilitating my trip to the garage.
Gingy took me out to a pasta place down the road from the garage. This place also wouldn't exist where I grew up and . Plastic garden furniture chairs around plastic tables. Cheap cutlery washed by an apparantly cheap dishwasher. The building was also mostly a "structure". The pasta wasn't bad, but the place was crummy.
Back at the garage, Itzik and the hot mechanic are fiddling over my door-opening-device-box. (Hey, don't blame me for not speaking "garage"). It took them another hour6 hands to shave off a bit of plastic and to squeeze it back together. He got it working. I got going. Back to the safety of my luxury life where I actually have my own 4 walls and none of them are corrugated iron.
Yeow, I can't wait for Day 4.
This is DAY 3 of the unemployed.
Day 1, I was off doing something mysterious. I watched 4 feature-length films and two episodes of drama series's.
Day 2, I was supposed to go on a trip with the kindergarden, but the teacher nixed me at the last minute. A rage against this woman is long overdue, but I think it would be more productive to save it for city hall. This blog is my happy space! So instead, in the afternoon of day 2, I spent an hour discussing marital strife in front of a one-way mirror at Bar Ilan University. I told you, happy!
And then, somewhere on day 2, I happened to notice that when I lock my car, the driver's door ain't locking. This means a trip to the garage. A task for day 3!
There are some places where Israel differs so wildly from where I grew up that it really smacks me in the face. I mean, there are certain elements of living in Israel you get used to. Washing the dishes at 6pm when a blast rattles your windows. It could have been a bomb. Or a flyby. Either way, you just carry on. Having your car boot checked when you go into a parking lot or having your bag checked when you walk into just about every public place. Cars honking and drivers screaming at one another. These are wildly different to the Home Counties, but it's everywhere and I promise you you don't even notice it after a while.
Yes, I grew up a long way from here. In a different space and time. Which is why going to a garage in Pardes Katz is such an experience. If you live here, you'll already have an idea of what I mean. Because a garage is a garage in Israel. And you'll know Pardes Katz by reputation.
To be fair, I haven't been to any garages in England (that I can remember at least). But I'm pretty sure that they would comply with some basic minimum standards. Here, the garage is typically some kind of structure. Doesn't have to be a building. It might be corrugated iron built around a frame. There might be old road signs bent into shape to patch up a hole in the ceiling. They might have adapted the inside so there are a couple of nice-looking air-conditioned rooms, maybe there is just a kitchenette underneath some metal stairs. A ladder leads up to a room hiding behind someone's window blinds. In short, the place is a hotch potch of whatever materials came their way.
The head of the garage, Itzik, is Lord over all. He was not a wordy man. He removed the sidepanel of my door and diagnosed the "manoa" wasn't working. I probably should know the translation, but it made sense to me at the time. It looked like it might take some time so I went out to lunch with Gingy, my husband's best friend from High School. I haven't seen him in a while so it was a bit of a shock to see he now shaves off all his hair so there's actually not much point calling him "Gingy" any more. He's our insurance agent and he was facilitating my trip to the garage.
Gingy took me out to a pasta place down the road from the garage. This place also wouldn't exist where I grew up and . Plastic garden furniture chairs around plastic tables. Cheap cutlery washed by an apparantly cheap dishwasher. The building was also mostly a "structure". The pasta wasn't bad, but the place was crummy.
Back at the garage, Itzik and the hot mechanic are fiddling over my door-opening-device-box. (Hey, don't blame me for not speaking "garage"). It took them another hour6 hands to shave off a bit of plastic and to squeeze it back together. He got it working. I got going. Back to the safety of my luxury life where I actually have my own 4 walls and none of them are corrugated iron.
Yeow, I can't wait for Day 4.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
going dental
First off, apologies for the suspension of services. We have been operating a British Rail style of Sunday Services and I closed the lines for a while while I have been ploughing through the 5 stages of GRIEF involved with change. Denial lasted a day, anger about 4 days, bargaining I wasn't too sure about, but now I am safely tucked in depression and enjoying the food immensely.
But that's not what this post is about.
As a young child, I went to a dentist in Aldershot called Mrs Bird. At least, I think that's what her name was. I remember her chin whiskers clearer than her name. She always said I had lovely teeth. When our family moved to Guildford, my mother found us a Polish dentist on the basis that anything Polish is by far superior. Dr Wilcienski was also a fan of my teeth. He lauded how I could be a poster child for british dentistry. Little did I know that the rest of the world scoffs loudly at british teeth, and that in fact we are well known for our dreadful teeth.
Dr Wilcienski never found anything wrong with my teeth. Even his wife, also a Polish dentist (who saw me one day when he was off) seemed to like my teeth, she might have gently chided me for eating too many kitkats but that was about it. X-rays that showed my wisdom teeth coming through had me off to an Australian dentist at the bottom of Farnham Road, but he didn't see the wisdom in taking them out and so I came to Israel with a full set of never-been-worked-on pearly whites.
3 months in and I went to a henne for some friends. I don't know if you've ever been to a henne, but they feature henna and sugared almonds. I cracked a tooth on one of the sugared almonds.
The husband took me to his father's private SUPER-DOOPER south african dentist in the poshest dental practice known to mankind. Nothing could have prepared me for the gasp that left his core before he had time to compose himself. He said that every single tooth in my mouth needed working on. His assistant concurred. His assistant also diagnosed receding gums. I think he was porking his assistant, but that was never proven and is slightly off-topic.
Lots of SUPER-DOOPER expensive tooth-work later, including root canal at his partner, Solly's, and I was ready to never see a dentist again.
But life isn't like that. A little while later, the wisdom teeth were coming through big time. By this time I was on Israeli healthcare and it was recommended by the mother-in-law to ditch SUPER-DOOPER and to move on to the more than adequate local healthcare.
It just so happened that the day my last two wisdoms were to be extracted there was a terrorist attack at a Pizza place in Jerusalem. Tooth removal collided with Israeli news-junkies. I spent a three-quarter hour appointment watching the same bloodied people wandering around and the same ambulance men shutting the door and banging it off to the hospital over and over. I thought I was going to die. No amount of prescribed mint ice-cream could make up for the trauma.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
Time passed and the next tooth down cracked on something. I know what you're thinking but no. It can't have been another sugared almond because I wasn't at a henne since 1999, and haven't eaten any more sugared almonds since then. I had to get an emergency appointment and they are most receptive in Ramat Gan for those. The diagnosing dentist said the whole tooth would have to come out. I got another appointment for tooth extraction. After waiting for an hour after my appointment was supposed to be, a badass angry man in scrubs calls me into the dentist's chair. He had a score to settle. The battlefield: my mouth. He yelled at me more than once for shutting my jaw (you never can tell but you have a natural reflex to slowly close your jaw after flinging it wide open. Go figure.)
And when the tooth was out, I developed dry socket. I'd like to say it's the most painful thing EVER, but since then I've had an HSG, and that was BY FARRRRR the most painful thing EVER.
Still, the dry socket was pretty damn bad and caused me A LOT of trauma.
And so. I never go to the dentist unless something happens. Never go near the place. And, as could well be predicted for the poster girl of British teeth, in passover a wine gum married the corner of one of my fillings. So I had to bite the bullet and go. I booked an appointment and shared my terror with the receptionist. Oh yes, she says. I'll give you Dr Manor.
And when the time comes to meet Dr Manor, I am suprised to see he is a freshly shaven, dashing young dentist. The air fills with rousing music from the best romance film. He has to redo the filling. He understands my fear. He puts me at ease. I have 2 mirrors, 2 suctions and a drill going in my flung wide jaw, but I am calmed by his gentle breathing on my forehead. His hands are big and gentle, when he brushes my lips with his fingers or gently moves my jaw open a little wider, it's very sexy. He's drilling away but I'm thinking to myself that he must be good in bed. When he dries the filling, he leans forward and I can feel his chest on my head. I am filled with the fumes of his aftershave. He moves round and my elbow is leaning on his knee. *Le sigh*.
Too soon, it comes to an end. I'm trying to be cool about it, but I feel like a teenager. I've never had such a lovely dental experience. I must be the only person I know who has experienced stockholm syndrome with their dentist.
I'm going home now to check if we've got any wine gums left.
But that's not what this post is about.
As a young child, I went to a dentist in Aldershot called Mrs Bird. At least, I think that's what her name was. I remember her chin whiskers clearer than her name. She always said I had lovely teeth. When our family moved to Guildford, my mother found us a Polish dentist on the basis that anything Polish is by far superior. Dr Wilcienski was also a fan of my teeth. He lauded how I could be a poster child for british dentistry. Little did I know that the rest of the world scoffs loudly at british teeth, and that in fact we are well known for our dreadful teeth.
Dr Wilcienski never found anything wrong with my teeth. Even his wife, also a Polish dentist (who saw me one day when he was off) seemed to like my teeth, she might have gently chided me for eating too many kitkats but that was about it. X-rays that showed my wisdom teeth coming through had me off to an Australian dentist at the bottom of Farnham Road, but he didn't see the wisdom in taking them out and so I came to Israel with a full set of never-been-worked-on pearly whites.
3 months in and I went to a henne for some friends. I don't know if you've ever been to a henne, but they feature henna and sugared almonds. I cracked a tooth on one of the sugared almonds.
The husband took me to his father's private SUPER-DOOPER south african dentist in the poshest dental practice known to mankind. Nothing could have prepared me for the gasp that left his core before he had time to compose himself. He said that every single tooth in my mouth needed working on. His assistant concurred. His assistant also diagnosed receding gums. I think he was porking his assistant, but that was never proven and is slightly off-topic.
Lots of SUPER-DOOPER expensive tooth-work later, including root canal at his partner, Solly's, and I was ready to never see a dentist again.
But life isn't like that. A little while later, the wisdom teeth were coming through big time. By this time I was on Israeli healthcare and it was recommended by the mother-in-law to ditch SUPER-DOOPER and to move on to the more than adequate local healthcare.
It just so happened that the day my last two wisdoms were to be extracted there was a terrorist attack at a Pizza place in Jerusalem. Tooth removal collided with Israeli news-junkies. I spent a three-quarter hour appointment watching the same bloodied people wandering around and the same ambulance men shutting the door and banging it off to the hospital over and over. I thought I was going to die. No amount of prescribed mint ice-cream could make up for the trauma.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
Time passed and the next tooth down cracked on something. I know what you're thinking but no. It can't have been another sugared almond because I wasn't at a henne since 1999, and haven't eaten any more sugared almonds since then. I had to get an emergency appointment and they are most receptive in Ramat Gan for those. The diagnosing dentist said the whole tooth would have to come out. I got another appointment for tooth extraction. After waiting for an hour after my appointment was supposed to be, a badass angry man in scrubs calls me into the dentist's chair. He had a score to settle. The battlefield: my mouth. He yelled at me more than once for shutting my jaw (you never can tell but you have a natural reflex to slowly close your jaw after flinging it wide open. Go figure.)
And when the tooth was out, I developed dry socket. I'd like to say it's the most painful thing EVER, but since then I've had an HSG, and that was BY FARRRRR the most painful thing EVER.
Still, the dry socket was pretty damn bad and caused me A LOT of trauma.
And so. I never go to the dentist unless something happens. Never go near the place. And, as could well be predicted for the poster girl of British teeth, in passover a wine gum married the corner of one of my fillings. So I had to bite the bullet and go. I booked an appointment and shared my terror with the receptionist. Oh yes, she says. I'll give you Dr Manor.
And when the time comes to meet Dr Manor, I am suprised to see he is a freshly shaven, dashing young dentist. The air fills with rousing music from the best romance film. He has to redo the filling. He understands my fear. He puts me at ease. I have 2 mirrors, 2 suctions and a drill going in my flung wide jaw, but I am calmed by his gentle breathing on my forehead. His hands are big and gentle, when he brushes my lips with his fingers or gently moves my jaw open a little wider, it's very sexy. He's drilling away but I'm thinking to myself that he must be good in bed. When he dries the filling, he leans forward and I can feel his chest on my head. I am filled with the fumes of his aftershave. He moves round and my elbow is leaning on his knee. *Le sigh*.
Too soon, it comes to an end. I'm trying to be cool about it, but I feel like a teenager. I've never had such a lovely dental experience. I must be the only person I know who has experienced stockholm syndrome with their dentist.
I'm going home now to check if we've got any wine gums left.
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