zebra crossing

max and me

2010-05-07T09:34:00.002+03:00

I'm just watching Marley and Me and it brings back a few memories. I've starred in a few episodes of "When Bad Pets Happen to Good People" myself with my dog Mojo, but actually the film brought me back to a dog we had in my childhood who was called Max.

I was 6 so I can't remember what type he was. He was brown. We got him from the RSPCA in Chobham.

Max was a rascal. Most of my memories are located in the family holiday beach house in West Sussex. One time he came home with a rabbit slung over his shoulder. Another time he helped me clean up the milk when I smashed a bottle on the way home from Bracklesham Bay Post Office and general store (come to think of it, I was 6!! What kind of slave labour is that! Sending a 6 year old a mile to buy 2 glass bottles of milk!). Another time he flew over a breakwater and landed on someone sitting in their deckchair.

But the funniest by far was this. Picture the scene. The Great British Seaside. Half an hour of hot July sun. The early eighties. Someone with her terribly fashionable mullet and bikini lathering herself up with sunoil on a great eighties deckchair. Her skin glistening in the sun. She slides into a comfortable reclined bathing position.

Dude is on his rounds. Dude is marking his territory. Dude levels with sunbather. Dude picks up his hind leg. Dude shoots. He scores!

Sunbather now glistening for a new reason.

Mullet struggles to get up from her reclined position, choking and arms and legs a-flailing. Dude has drenched her left side.

He he he.

no shvong

2009-08-13T16:23:00.003+03:00

I haven't posted in more than a little while because I'm a big fat white blob on the couch, one with crumbs at the corner of my mouth and crusty milk stains on my chin, one who feels that watching the biggest loser will somehow rub off on me and let me lose 75 pounds in 12 weeks even without Bob or Jillian shouting obseneties in my face, or even without ever setting foot on a treadmill. Ya. I'll let you know how that one goes.

For a while I was able to get my friend come over for some big love. She is the only other person in the world who gets as excited as I do about mormons, polygamists, prairie dresses and the fbi in one short sweaty breathless sentance. She would block off an hour in her outlook calendar and come over to the den of unemployment to see how Bill and Barb and Nikki and Margene where doing. But life has been getting in the way a little too often lately, and my friend has had to not come over for reasons her end, my end, or just because she went to wisconsin on holiday. Silly little things like that.

And so I miss the mormons and was therefore REALLY HAPPY when Oprah went down to theYearning for Zion ranch in Texas. The sharper pencils in the box will happen to know that Oprah did that oh, in about february...but when you live the otherside of the world, you find fedex takes its time delivering Oprah reels to second world countries.

Most people on the YFZ ranch hadn't even heard of Oprah. She was just some random black lady come by to ask funny questions like have you ever heard of somebody called Cinderella and Shrek and Shrek too. And people, as I lay on the couch and revelled in the world of totally brainwashed teenage girls, I at last felt complete. Until the credits rolled.

So what's next? I'm googling mormon underwear and hopefully I'll get my kicks in new temple undergarments.

rondayvoo at the beehive house

2009-07-13T14:34:00.004+03:00

You know what it's like when you watch too much porn? And all of a sudden the world is a wierd, clothed place? And when you go to the bank or the hospital, nobody starts stripping off? Which is probably just as well because none of em are buff at all. But all the same it's wierd because you entered a parallel universe for a while where every secretary does her boss (male or female) and where everyone sunbathes nude in the backyard of their villa?

Well, that's what its like when my friend Pats and I watch Big Love. Pats becomes my sisterwife. Pats and I work hard to do what we can to ensure that our family will please our heavenly father and guarantee our family has a large area to picnic in the celestial afterlife. Pats and I are on top of the world, looking down on creation and the only explanation that we find is the love that we've found ever since HBO started making a primetime series about polygamy. We expect the rest of the world to behave in the same terms. And it's wierd because there is no prairie dress fashion to speak of in Israel.

Last night I watched The Source do a piece about Daniel Ambash. I guess polygamy isn't so far away afterall.

some people stand in the darkness, afraid to step into the light

2009-07-02T14:22:00.003+03:00

After 70 days of unemployment, today I made it to the beach for only the second time. Honestly, people, I don't know what the hell I have been doing. I should have been there all this time. Because the beach is sublime. Our corner of the med has crystal clear waters, long sandy beaches, tiny little crabs, and Little Egrets. Little Egrets are cool because they have yellow feet which I absolutely love. You can just imagine how that darwin conversation went... "Bill! I dig your shoes man, where'd you get them from?" And the rest is a whole different species.

There's one thing about our beaches that you might not find in any other beach in the world. And that's a long segregated section that's for women onlyonly on sundays, tuesdays and thursdays, and for men on mondays, wednesdays and fridays. (Nobody gets saturday because the beach is "not in the spirit of shabbat".) The segregated section is literally separated from the rest of the beach by aluminium sheets from the cliffs to about 10 meters into the sea SO THAT NO-ONE OF THE OPPOSITE SEX CAN SEE YOU.

Now, today's thursday, so I was able to complete my walk to the next town up the beach and back by walking through the segregated section. And here's what I noticed...apart from the fact that there is a male security guard at either end of the beach, and that Israel doesn't actually have the budget to employ Pamela Anderson, Yasmine Bleeth, or Erica Eleniak (i.e. all the lifeguards are also male)...well, the women bathing there are covered from head to toe. Swimming caps, huge long smocks, and people, I kid you not...TIGHTS! This hardly screams 'day at the beach' to me. And seriously, if any man wanted to get off looking at women, he wouldn't go anywhere NEAR the segregated swimming, he would go to the public section of the beach where the israeli women wear so little, I'm pretty sure they don't even have areas where the sun don't shine.

So, people, I got a good tan off of the glare of someone else's ass, and plan on going back again next week. Don't tell my husband but...I don't ever want to work again.

scooby snacks

2009-06-25T15:07:00.003+03:00

You know that in some countries there are commonly known gestures you use when driving? Like in England, flashing your headlights to let someone go ahead of you, or in Israel, flashing your headlights to let someone know they're driving too slow? So tell me, what's the signal for "bloody bursting for the toilet so move out of the fucking way and let me pass"?

Ever had that happen to you? You're driving but you don't seem to actually be getting anywhere because in terms of your bladder, you're nowhere.

Your whole ride home is like an assault course or an arcade game...avoid the bus pulling out, avoid the learner driver, avoid the stopped taxi, the old guy in the saloon who's driving at 20 in a 60... You are so damned desperate for the loo that you're actually starting to believe that if you hit another red light, you're going to go right there in the driving seat.

Eventually you get to the home stretch, past the last lights, two turnings from home, when....you get behind another old guy. He's not going slow by normal standards, but by this time your bladder cockpit warning system is screaming DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! You can't turn left at the T-junction because some dumbass not-concentrating soccer-mom in her 4x4 is speaking on her cellphone and coming. And then there's the gate. You have to phone to open the gate. Call not going through, call not going through. GAAAAH! Finally!

Get in the house, up the stairs, pants down, bum on the bowl...OH NO! FORGOT TO CLOSE THE FRONT DOOR!

cured

2009-06-07T12:45:00.001+03:00

your kid annoys me

2009-06-04T18:39:00.004+03:00

What I am about to tell you is something that most people won't ever dare utter. That's because they are way too polite. Not me though, for I am applauded in certain (small) circles for my general intolerance of the human race.

So, people, let me tell you openly and honestly that some of my friend's kids and kid's friends just ANNOY THE BEJAYSUS OUT OF ME.

Offensive behaviour, part #1:
When I pick YOUR DAMNED KID up to bring her home to our house to play with my kids, YOUR DAMNED KID dawdles. YOUR DAMNED KID insists on walking along the wall and refuses to have their hand held even though they might fall, while my kids almost run into the street because they are not dawdling. When I tell YOUR DAMNED KID to get down off the wall and hurry the hell up, YOUR DAMNED KID throws itself on the pavement in a huff. My precious kids get run over.

Back at the house, YOUR DAMNED KID blocks my kids' path and won't let them pass. YOUR DAMNED KID says something mean and my makes my kids cry. No, my kids are not wusses. YOUR DAMNED KID was being mean. YOUR DAMNED KID snatches toys from my kids. YOUR DAMNED KID hits my kids. YOUR DAMNED KID rips the bow off Hello Kitty's head. YOUR DAMNED KID won't sit where she's told as she can annoy my kid far better if she takes her place instead. YOUR DAMNED KID wants to wear every single item in the dressing up box. One. After. Another.

Offensive behaviour, part #2:
When I pick up YOUR DAMNED KID to take her to the swimming pool, YOUR DAMNED KID doesn't listen to a word I say. YOUR DAMNED KID won't wear a swimming cap in the pool. YOUR DAMNED KID want's my kid's goggles and my kid's rubber ring. YOUR DAMNED KID tells me I have a fat stomach and ass. I don't care if your fucking kid is 4.

YOUR DAMNED KID is whining because she doesn't want the popcorn or the grisini or the strawberries or the grapes I brought from home. YOUR DAMNED KID wants me to buy her an ice cream. YOUR DAMNED KID doesn't want the "guest towel". YOUR DAMNED KID want's my kid's towel. YOUR DAMNED KID has taken my kid's towel! YOUR DAMNED KID is hitting my kid because he's trying to get his towel back.

YOUR DAMNED KID doesn't wait for me before running off back to the swimming pool. YOUR DAMNED KID refuses to get out when it's time to go. YOUR DAMNED KID then disappears because she decided she would get out after all, and go in the oppostie direction to where we were sitting.

YOUR DAMNED KID wants to climb on the gate to get out. YOUR DAMNED KID doesn't want to get off the gate. YOUR DAMNED KID runs through the car park. YOUR DAMNED KID wants to sit in the seat in the car WHERE MY KID IS ALREADY SITTING. YOUR DAMNED KID is shouting in the lifts. YOUR DAMNED KID wants to take my kid's tin of chocolates home with her. YOUR DAMNED KID is throwing a tantrum because you've arrived and have to go.

Epilogue:
How did it go today, was she good?
Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

summer time...and the living is easy

2009-05-23T19:55:00.004+03:00

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.

love...it hurts

2009-05-21T20:50:00.003+03:00

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.

going dental

2009-05-12T12:41:00.005+03:00

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.

THE EXPERIMENT and its last ugly turn

2009-04-28T09:30:00.003+03:00

Last week on Thursday the cubemate asked me if I wanted to get coffee. This is code for "lets talk about something secret". The cubemate told me that next week would be the end of his term. He was getting fired. Skeptical, I demanded evidence.

The cubemate had it all thought out. He'd made an erroneous error before passover and hadn't been called up on it even though everyone was mad. They only get mad at people who are in. When you're out, they don't care so much. Also, The Snake had sent him an email which only contained a screen capture of another one of his errors. And The Scientist had added him to Linked In.
He was out.

All day Thursday he nervously preceeded each phonecall with "It's THE CALL".

We got through Thursday and concluded that they would do it on Sunday.

On Sunday he was much calmer. He was already tasting life on the outside. Again, all day he was disappointed when he answered THE CALL and it was only The Co-ordinator.

I went home as usual. At 4.45 there was an invitation to a meeting at 9.30 the following morning. The title: "updates".

In big corporations, "updates" is code for someone got fired/some shit is going down. If you haven't been fired before the meeting, you're ok. Most of the time, of course.

The next morning, no-one is doing any work. Everyone is huddled around in threes and fours discussing "updates". No-one knows of anyone who was fired. It must affect us all. At 9.10 I get a call from a former employee who was apparantly-accidentally sent an email by The Scientist saying that he was fired. So maybe it doesn't affect us all. The Scitentist's salary alone could save the division! In the toilets there's a whole bunch of women discussing the 9.30.

In the meeting, we are wooed by our charismatic leader and the gum-chewing nutjob from Canada. Difficult market blah blah, affected by the recession blah blah, not the core focus of company strategy blah blah, tried everything we could blah blah, but left with no alternatives blah blah, closing the division. Lots of people ask questions pertaining to the "tried everything we could" part. We are reminded to come to work on Thursday. And to keep it quiet. Oops. I've already sms'd a live feed and have people in england who know about it by now.

The aftershock: everyone who had drunk the koolaid* is flabbergasted. How can this be? What went so wrong? After 29 years here, WHAT are they going to do now???

Not me though, I'm alright. I've been fantasing about this for months! I'll be able to do all the things I've been putting off for years. And get a base-tan, tan-tan, and an after-tan. And I can't WAIT to blog about the Israeli unemployment office!

Best of all, I'm free of the EXPERIMENT. I can go and join a new one. But first, lazy summer days at the beach.

*It has come to my attention that not everyone if familiar with this expression. If you're not, use the comments.

subtelties of cross-cultural animal sounds

2009-04-27T06:40:00.002+03:00

A typical conversation around the dinner table:

AnguBogu: Look, I've got a frog.
Mummy: What do frogs say?
AnguBogu: Quack quack.
Mummy: Ducks say Quack. What do frogs say?
AnguBogu: Quack quack.
Mummy: No, thats what ducks say. Frogs say "ribbit ribbit".
AnguBogu: Quack quack.
Mummy: No, ribbit ribbit.
AnguBogu: Quack quack.
Mummy: Look boy, you're never going to make it in the real world if you go around saying frogs say quack. Thats Israeli. I'm trying to teach you things so you're not going to look stupid out there. Frogs say ribbit.
AnguBogu: Quack quack.
Mummy: [clenches teeth, lowers chin] ribbit ribbit.
AnguBogu: [clenches teeth, lowers chin, moves lips around trying to nail correct aggression level] Quack quack.
Mummy: RIBBIT RIBBIT!
AnguBogu: QUACK QUACK!
Mummy: Ribbit.
AnguBogu: Quack.
Mummy: Ribbit.
AnguBogu: Quack.
Mummy: RIBBIT.
AnguBogu: QUACK.
Mummy: Eat your food.

i eat too much

2009-04-20T19:51:00.000+03:00

So I’ve been thinking about pedophiles. I think I can understand where they’re coming from. (If this alone is enough to inspire you into hate mail, please do leave a ranting comment).

I imagine it must work like this: They get an urge. Probably when they’re out at the park and see a little child playing or something. Then their brain gets to thinking. I want me some of that. Their brain doesn’t stop sending these thoughts. They can’t get them out of their head. The thoughts become all-consuming. Must. Have. A child’s ass. The thoughts and physical urge flood their veins and pervade every atom in their body. Maybe they try to control it by trying to focus themselves on something else. Ah but look at the ducks! Lovely ducks! Not as lovely as that 6 year old over there though. Doomed to failure, they can’t control it. It’s agony until they get what they want. Maybe they get it that day. Maybe they don’t. But they are overcome by the WANT to have it.

I know this because I feel the same way about food. Internet, I confess that My name’s zebra, and I’m an addict.

I like food. Not just any food. Don’t want none of that healthy salad shit. Legumes, be gone! Don’t be waving that lettuce leaf at me. I need some crap, and I want it now. I have to physically restrain myself from going and getting something crap to eat. To prevent myself from gorging between meals (the gorging becomes the meal). It might be crisps, it might be a marmite sandwich. It might be chocolate or biscuits. Or wine gums. Or mini eggs. Or a croissant. Or bread. Once I fix on something, its very hard to forget it. It taunts me. It calls to me.

I can totally identify with the pedophile. I suppose it’s the same for serial killers, druggies, and alcoholics. If they feel the way I do when I know I’ve got a packet of m&m peanuts stashed in the cupboard, the longing teeming through their veins, the way the thoughts of a sweet reward pervade every thought I have, making it impossible to concentrate, well…I’m get that. I do.

I am not a pedophile, a serial killer, or an alcoholic. But I get addiction.

where's zebra?

2009-04-19T17:50:00.000+03:00

Next time I post, I hope to be answering this burning question.

feckin hilarious

2009-04-07T19:15:00.001+03:00

"I once bought a very nice and special גמד גינה (garden gnome) in Amsterdam, and tied it to the olive tree with an iron chain…and he stayed there quietly for a few years until my boys played football in theחצר (yard) and decapitated it :-)"

talking of slough…

2009-04-06T19:09:00.000+03:00

One brilliant sitcom to come out of the uk (one of many, obviously) is The Office. Class.

And then they took it to America and butchered it. I know Americans who love it. For me though, watching it is like having my eyelids forcibly pulled apart and stabbing dirty butter knives into my eyes.

And yet I now hear they intend to bring it to Israel and do an Israeli version. But there is no Israeli like Gareth. Everyone’s been in the army for a start. No-one has a company pub quiz night. No comic relief. And nobody here would ever put someone else’s stapler into jelly. Its doomed to fail already.

Having said that, there is plenty of material to make an extremely funny sitcom out of being a technical writer at a big American corporation in Israel. For example, a typical day starts like this:

Oh yes. I work in a department where the “start up” mentality reins supreme. Its all about fires, covering our asses, and damage control. Usually in documentation because I am the last pit stop.
Example: I pulled this off last year’s Stupidest Things Ever Said wall calendar:

This is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. The “oops shit, we’ve already programmed it and closed the application” thought. Quickly followed by “it’ll be ok, we’ll cover our asses in documentation”.

And while you may snigger, I see this and feel the TW’s pain. This is what they’re doing while they’re professionally massaging the text so that it resembles some sort of sane and logical grammatically correct English: …mumble mumble…This is sooooo stupid…mumble mumble…ruining our reputation…mumble mumble…gonna look like fools…mumble mumble…FOOLS, I tell you! …mumble mumble…Feckin IDIOTS…mumble mumble…Bunch of fucking fuckwits…

And later, getting a coffee while PDFing the offensive document: …mumble mumble…IDIOTS!!!!

For more material, remind me next time to tell you all about Israel’s technical writing conventions!!!!

she has a nice ass...

2009-04-01T20:03:00.000+03:00

t5

2009-04-01T19:52:00.002+03:00

For the observant among you, I have been away. I went back to the motherland for what I'd call a weekend. Someone from work called it a honeymoon. In that case I'd call it a rip off.

So here you are, a Twitteresque feed of the flight home:
19.38 check in. You have to do it by computer. Fumble around looking for booking ref, BA frequent flyer card.
19.45 fast bag drop. Not fast. Bag, no! ~the lady was lovely@! And the drop more like strained thump. Bag is 28 kilos. 25 pounds please.
19.50 queuing up to pay for excess baggage. At least BA then take it off your hands. My therapist makes me take it home with me.
19.55 still queuing. Arab mother and daughter who speak no English can’t work out what they’re doing. Keith behind desk having a problem with the airlock chute.
20.00 all ok. Decide to enter duty free lounge from the other end. After a long walk, realize other entrance is for first class only. It’s like you’re back at school and been rejected by all your peers. You’re just not good enough. Did you think you were good enough?
20.10 Back down at the plebs end, long queue.
20.20 After queue jumping a large Chinese family to passport control, now waiting in line for x-ray.
20.35 Everybody else’s cosmetics are in a plastic bag. Mine were checked luggage. Everyone else has taken off and are carrying their high heels. My shoes are still on foot. I am not a lady.
20.36 It occurs to me that actually I have overpaid for a second ticket on this flight, one which we are not using since my husband preferred a Malev to Budapest, and that in fact, BA OWE ME!!!! Or at least I should have a free seat next to me. I am such a MUG!
20.40 Felt up by security after beeping through. When I asked her if it was good for her, she doesn’t laugh. She must get that a lot. Cringe.
20.50 I’ve bought 2 books (one chick lit and one on mormon polygamy) (i love mormon polygamy!), chocolate, water, and a sandwich.
20.51 Find the comfy sofas and read til its time to board the flight.
22.00 Boarding. Find seat. Look at lady in front of me who is wearing a bandanna weirdly. That bitch has the empty seat that belongs to my husband next to her!
22.10 My neighbour arrives. I look up briefly. That woman in front is holding a dead long-haired rat in the safety information card. Confused. Back to Marian Keyes.
22.30 We’re in the air. I look down at London (well, more possibly, Slough). It looks gorgeous. Don’t know when I’ll be back here again. Feel my guts wrenched out of me and falling away to the ground below.
22.31 Shut eyes. Sleep.
05.05 Frantic rubbing of arm. Through blur can see non-gay air steward. SEAT. BACK. UPRIGHT.
05.10 As soon as you can make out Reading, you can work out where everything else is. EXCEPT FOR I HAVE THE WING BLOCKING EVERYTHING IN MY VIEW. And we’re coming in slightly further south than other landings. We fly over Ramat Gan.
05.15 Landed. Everybody up (this is Israel! We never wait until the aircraft is safely docked at the gate!) Woman in front is WEARING her long haired rat. Oh, so she’s religious.
05.38 After a long hike, arrive at passport control which is typically heaving BUT OF COURSE NOT TODAY because I finally did the hand identification passport control on the way out to save myself the queue….AND THERE IS NO BLOODY QUEUE!
05.39 Brain can't work out how to do the hand press. Eventually get it on 4th attempt: one must squeeze one's fingers together.
05.45 Collecting the duty free we bought on the way out. Cigarettes, check. Hair straighteners, check. Bug box, check. What the hell was in that bug box? Its covered in ladybirds and Amit will later ask me if the box is full of ladybirds. Yes, dear, your father and I thought it would be best to buy a box of ladybirds.
06.00 Taxi home. I am quiet. Taxi driver has the urge to talk. Taxi driver explains that he has to work a 14 hour shift in order to put food on his table. The first 8 hours he works he doesn’t actually make any money on. Compare it to a black cab, he says, he charges a third of the price. He blames the government. I really care. He gets a 5 shekel tip.
06.20 Key in lock. Home.

my life would suck without you

2009-03-25T08:56:00.002+02:00

p.s. i can't get kelly clarkson out of my brainspace this morning.

you gotta pieeeeeece of meeeeee...

i reaslise if i were a man, a dodgy wrist would produce titters from my peeps

2009-03-25T06:49:00.004+02:00

My friend Ora has been hitted by some carpel tunnel in her wrists and for the last couple of days, I have too. Although with me, its unlikely to be the repetitive typing or the sitting at the computer for hours on end. Mine can be blamed on:
1. Lifting Le Cruesset with your left hand
2. Performing front support in Pilates
3. Being a dumbass

Its a serious disability. I am unable to do CTRL+T, CTRL+E, or even any work that doesn't involve surfing.

And so, I am off to the .uk tonight to get off of my wrist. And there, I will complain about the cold and how its affecting my joints. You can take the girl out of Britain...

it's just another manic sunday

2009-03-22T17:07:00.002+02:00

Reading the post of my friend’s drive to work has inspired me to describe my own journey from duvet to cube…

5.30 Alarm goes off. Try to get out of bed as quickly as possible to shut it up. Trip over small body entwined in my arms and the covers, and the slippers on the floor while the alarm, which is in my phone on the other side of the room to save my brain from night radiation (by order of the husband) is getting progressively louder and singing Mr Big Stuff…who do you think you are?

5.31 Alarm on snooze, phone radiating next to my head. NOT taking chances again.

5.31 Turn around and look at bed. No room to get back in as the small body is now taking up my half of the bed.

5.32 After moving small body to center, get in the side but by this time there isn’t enough of the duvet to cover my backside. Shiver.

5.39 Snoozed alarm strikes again. On a normal day, it would be shut up again. Today I have to work as long as possible before leaving early so I get up.

5.40 Stumble into bathroom. Relieve myself. Bring into focus heap of clothes on floor. Other small person obviously wet the bed.

5.42 Stumble into the washing machine. Literally. Stub toe. Cram in duvet, sheet, pjamas. Put on the hold cycle.

5.44-5.46 Bathroom stuff (contact lenses).

5.46-5.55 Standing in wardrobe trying to figure out costume for the day. Look for a particular jumper. Come across a different jumper bought at the beginning of winter that I forgot the existence of. Decide it’s too thin. Keep looking for clothes.

5.57 Start ignition in car. Drive round to gate. Fumble around for phone. Call the gate. Gate pretends it can’t see or hear me. Phone pretends it hasn’t got enough reception to make the call. Vvvvvvvvv down the window. Wave phone at the outside world. Call goes through; gate opens.

Left out of the parking ramp. Next left at newly landscaped central reservation of entrance to neighbourhood. Nice flowers and pebbles. Do I see them? No, I’m on mission: get to work. Also, it’s still nautical dawn.

Right at the bottom. Quick look left to check no-one’s coming. Arguably, that should have been done first. Next traffic lights are red. This early, there’s no reason for them to be. La la la, wait for no-one coming from the other direction to cross our side of the road. They don’t. The lights go green and I floor it.

Pass the dragon petrol station (realizing I have an eighth of a tank, I’ll fill up later) and right onto road 5. Weeeeeeeeee going down the ramp and coming up to cruising altitude of 130kph.

Notice that the skies are beautiful: a ribbon of golden light between the hills above Qasam village and where the clouds start (since the sun hasn’t risen yet).

Break suddenly when I notice the police. But they’re not noticing me so its ok. (Are they reversing on a motorway?! If I get fired, I am applying to the force.)

06.07 Drive into the still dark underground parking to take my usual spot. Yay! Nobody’s taking it today!

06.08 Clock in. Go up to the 5th floor.

06.09 Put the kettle and lights on.

06.10 Arrive at cubicle. Another week has begun.

Is life beautiful? Yes, because its monotonous, predictable, and nobody will notice I was 8 minutes late.

trust me on the sunscreen

2009-03-18T08:59:00.002+02:00

good toes, naughty toes

2009-03-17T18:47:00.003+02:00

My daughter was in danger of getting KICKED OUT of ballet class at age 4 and a half, which is quite a record for our family to be getting kicked out of something. The charges: disturbing the peace and being a public nusiance. And so, I was requested to go down for a lesson to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't get up to any mischief.

When I was her age, I was also taking ballet lessons. For all the good it did me. I think I was the least uncoordinated ballet dancer in the history of bad ballet dancers. I failed my grade one ballet and never went back, much to Mrs Demerick's disappointement. I was crap but she had great hopes for me. In the exam, the school hall roof was leaking and I was placed next to the bucket. I didn't kick the bucket although I did slip on the wet floor a few times. I know it sounds like an excuse, but honestly, I would have been brilliant if it wasn't for rain that day.

Watching Shaili today, I can see the striking family resemblance. She can't bend over and touch her toes, she can't sit with her legs stretched in front of her and fold her top half down on her legs. Her first position is alright, but they get increasingly dodgy from there... Don't ask about the arabesque.

However, she was really very well behaved. I was impressed at her trying. And she's really good at point and flex, which I know as good toes and naughty toes. Maybe she won't be the next Darcy Bussel, and most likely she won't be in any west end chorus, but good for her for trying and not getting kicked out!

le vent

2009-03-12T19:35:00.002+02:00

This morning I was late into work. We’ve already discussed my fondness for being just plain lazy, so I am sure you can appreciate that when the alarm goes off every molecule in my body presses itself with all its might as far downwards as it can go, ensuring that the gravity on my body is about 300 times the strength of normal gravity, rendering me unable to get up.

My good friend from the third floor and I, we go way back as early morning arrivers. We aim for 6. She usually makes it. I usually don’t (not in the winter anyway). Its not because we hold a masochistic bone in our bodies. It’s not because we love our jobs THAT MUCH. It’s because we have a condition. It’s called FEAR OF TRAFFIC.

Its not that we are frightened of the lunatics on the road, although there are certainly enough of those about. The statistics in Israel have road accident deaths higher than the numbers killed in wars. The number of times I have had a near-death-experience because of a dumbass is uncountable. Well, it’s probably once that I came REALLY near to death. All other times I would have merely enjoyed a nice prolonged stay in the hospital. But no, its not really because of that at all. Its because we can't stand getting stuck behind some slow mofu or being second at the lights. My girl and me, we like to drive fast!

Another advantage of getting in early to work is that the parking lot is god’s chocolate box and you get first pick! I don’t even have to be awake to throw a swing to the left, a swing to the right and then ta-da! I am in the perfect spot with my head pointing the right way, close to the lifts and yet first row for minimal fuss at getting out again at the end of the day. It totally rocks. But come in a bit later and…you forfeit the right to a good spot.

So this morning, I was only a little late, but most of the drive-in good spots had already been taken. As luck would have it, my regular spot was free! I couldn’t drive in in the normal way because I had already gone down the lane that would get me in from the other side, and besides, some dork had parked his car in the spot to the rear. So, I started to position myself for a reverse-in maneuver which is not easy when you have posts directly opposite the spot. That was when I noticed I had an audience. There, off to my right, was a lurking car. Stopped. Engine running. Dark figure at the wheel. I am not a champion parker but if there’s one thing that will definitely throw off my game it’s an audience. So in order to get a better angle and to let the lurker pass, I pulled into the disabled spot diagonally opposite the target.

I could see him thinking “stupid woman driver” as he lurks past. But then he stops just past the target spot. WTF? There are no more spots around here! Very strange. As I start to reverse towards my target, I see that he is also attempting to reverse in a 90° angle into MY TARGET SPOT! WTF!!!! I stop and I hand gesture to him that I am going in that spot. He vvvvvmms down his passenger window. “What?” he asks me oh-so-innocently.

SHEESH!

I shouted that it was really not nice, not nice at all. But he didn’t think so and continued reversing. Asshole.

I decided to cut my losses. After all, we get paid from the time we clock in, not from the time we spend fighting over a parking spot in the car park. Not to mention that such childish behaviour is way below the likes of me! So I went around, got another spot (further away from the lifts, but still front row). Even with the extra 10 metres I made it into the lifts before him because by this time he had complicated his parking what with his 90° attempt and the opposite posts. Stupid man driver.

His smelly car was still in MY spot when I left for the day and so I scrawled YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE in big lipstick letters on his windscreen and haven't stopped feeling good about it since.

by the pricking of my thumbs...

2009-03-10T16:56:00.007+02:00

…I feel a post coming on! Today is Purim, the Jewish festival of costumes and of doing the exact opposite of what you usually do. Not unlike Hallowe’en, it has morphed into a dressing up day and nobody can really remember why. Hey, that’s not true. Half this country is filled with religious folks who take the reading of the gospel according to Esther muy seriously. Just not me.

Like any self-respecting heebie-jeebie holiday, this is about triumph over adversity and kicking the pants off of ancient nazi oppressors. This time there was some Persian dude who wanted all the Jews dead. We celebrate him by eating OZNAI AMAN, which the cleaners put out in the coffee corners of each floor on brightly colored tablecloths for a time window of 1 hour 15 minutes. At 11.15, the ears are gone and the tablecloths are neatly folded away ready for next year. As I’ve hinted, OZNAI AMAN are, translated, “ears of amman”. Not eating all the ears in the capital of Jordon, no. Aman was literally the dude’s name. The capital of Jordon may well have been named after him, I don’t know, and you can verify the yay or nay of it over on Wikipedia. So these oznai aman, they are the dude’s ears, as represented by some thick triangle of pastry wrapped around poppy-seed jam. Woah. That is some serious ear-wax, dude!

Warning: May contain a dead dude's ear wax.

This morning as I was eating an ear and idly procrastinating about doing some work (yeah, I wasn’t very good at doing the opposite of what I normally do, I admit), I received this on my mobile phone from a number that is not in my phone book:

I had to squint a bit but that’s got a striking resemblance to my daughter. As the policecop in me rose to the surface (those black tracksuit bottoms were at the top of her bottoms pile in her drawer yesterday, so it would make perfect sense that her daddy dressed her in them today, so yes that definitely is my daughter…), I started to be alarmed. Has somebody kidnapped my daughter and is sending me a proof of life photo? Are they demanding a huge lump sum due to be left at the end of a long deserted driveway in the middle of a dark and stormy night? Are they intending to pull off her toenails if I don’t cough up? I’m also worried about the background. As in, “We’ve got a bouncy castle full of zoo animals, and we’re not afraid to use it!” Is she about to be stomped to death by an inflatable zebra?

I calmed down when I got this one:

~ at least her brother’s with her.

Another way of celebrating is by drinking until you can no longer distinguish between the phrases, arur aman ("Cursed is aman") and baruch mordechai ("blessed is mordecai"). Pass the port, dear, the kids won’t be home tonight!

living in a post-funeral fuzz

2009-03-09T19:22:00.002+02:00

The blog hiatus was in part due to lack of inspiration. There’s something about winter that makes me want to crawl under a duvet and sleep. Spring, summer, and autumn too, come to think of it. The animals do it and its called “hibernation”. For humans it’s called “just plain lazy”. Anyway, any moment I am not under my duvet I am actively angry about not being there, wishing I was there, and making telepathic love connections with my pillow (Rrrrrr).

The other part was that I took an unscheduled trip back to England for my grandmother’s funeral. Travelling there through Tilford, Runfold, and Crooksbury Hill was a weird time warp because that was my stomping ground around age 4. It all looks same-same but different. I didn’t remember that I remembered swimming in the River Wey at Tilford. The river looked cold.

I’ve gotten used to Israeli burials so a half hour service at Aldershot crematorium was…different. I think it probably would have been a good scene in a film if I hadn’t been directly involved.

To be fair, the service was quite pretty. My aunt and I had been all over the Surrey & Hampshire countryside clipping bits of pussy willow, catkins, and rosemary for the flowers which my aunt arranged in 3 oasii from Forest Lodge Garden Centre to go on the top of the coffin. (If there’s one thing Surrey is proud of, it’s garden centres!) My aunt can kick the asses of most florists. I was there for the creation of the order of service so I knew what was coming. My cousin held her own reading from John. I studied John at school so I know all about the way the truth and the life. Too bad I became a Jew so now I’m forced to stick my fingers in my ears and go la-la-la when I hear the mention of the lord Jesus Christ who died for our sins and to make sure we get a place in heaven. (Looks like I should la-la-la louder, ah?) My Dad cracked during his address and there was not a dry eye in the house.

But all that wouldn’t cut it in Hollywood, no. What would cut it would be the stuttering, paper-shuffling, in-his-eighties vicar. That was pretty good because I couldn’t really understand what he was saying, apart from when he repeated the reading my cousin just did. But the best bit, the highlight of his audition, was undoubtedly the way he pressed the button for the (cheesy, faded, ugly) curtains to close on the coffin, and then held up his hand to wave her off. Randy would have been down with the dawg. Paula would have thought he was beautiful. Simon’s only criticism that he had not chirped “Coo-ee, Nana (see you on the other side)!”

My relationship with my grandmother could have been better. But I was young, my father was a son, my mother didn’t like her in-laws, and my brothers and I had a healthy interest in the sport of taking the piss. But we can’t regret the past now. My Dad said it’s a different country. And my visa’s expired.

And when I got back home, the husband was asking why Nana was cremated. I couldn’t come up with anything better than “because everyone does it”. Is burial so expensive? Then I started to think that maybe I’ll be the only family member with a commemorative stone in the world. Just please make sure I’m really dead first. So that I didn’t watch The Vanishing (original Dutch version) for nothing.

most of them speak for themselves...

2009-02-24T11:50:00.007+02:00

Undoubtedly the best email I received recently was this one full of reading suggestions:

I have to admit, I don't really get this one. Dora isn't famous for being a slut and while there is an insect fanfare after every level, I've never seen a baby in that backpack. Oh well.

Actually I don't get this one either. I debated leaving it out. Maybe its an amerian book and americans will scream with laughter. Maybe.

Well put.

True enough.

An important lesson inside.

two bars of chocolate and a packet of crisps

2009-02-23T19:56:00.001+02:00

A while ago I started a diet. I didn’t want to, but my waistline said otherwise. So I made a commitment to follow a well-known diet for a month. It went well and I pushed on for another month. But inevitably the other shoe dropped. Momma got bored of watching what she ate. Momma’s weight went the wrong way one week. Momma got depressed about it and let all hell break loose. Momma wanted chocolate, Momma got chocolate. Momma wanted peanuts, Momma got peanuts.

At the end of that week, Momma forced herself to face the NAKED TRUTH and stepped up on the scales to assess the damage. Momma set the conditions so that the best possible case scenario would be reflected on the scales: first thing in the morning, naked, and AFTER pee-pee. Momma exhaled and stood on the scales. No. Change. No change! I gorged myself for a week, and…de nada! Wow that feels good! So good I feel like grabbing Mottle’s hand and running dancing into the woods out back of Anatevka…wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles!

This week I am definitely going to be good. The little god of bathroom scales has granted me a second chance. A chance to put things right and make good with my life. I daren’t let him down because otherwise next week he will definitely shout at me.

you're going on the naughty step

2009-02-20T10:30:00.003+02:00

I watch a lot of little angels and supernanny shows. It never fails to make you feel better about being a parent. The people they have on that show are DISASTERS at being parents! Their kids run riot and scream and destroy things and the parents have no clue. No control. They don't see that their whole household is run by their 2 year old. Mine isn't, so I'm doing good.

But when the telly goes off, things are far from perfect. Why are there toys scattered over every bit of floor space in the apartment? Why is there an ikea igloo where the coffee table should be? Why are four and a half year olds still not dressing themselves and drinking out of sippy cups? Ooooooops.

Thats the problem with our generation. Our parents were brought up strictly. They brought us up more relaxedly. And we just want to be friends with ours. We need to be taught how to parent. Also, where women burned bras to free them from the confines of running the household and pushing us into equality in the workplace (not that that ever fully worked out), they actually burned us here 50 years down the line. Because society has shifted, you need 2 incomes to maintain a decent quality of life. But men are still perceived as the breadwinners and women are still supposed to take care of the kids, mostly after working a full day of work. You come home ragged and getting through the evening with tired kids can be a real shlep.

Supernanny's mantra is simple (so the voiceover guy says): punish the bad behaviour and reward the good.

Yeah, I try that. I'm probably better at the punishing than the praising. I think that I've successfully implemented only one thing from watching supernanny. Yes, at least they wipe their own asses. I'm in a post-modernist nirvana.

if he hadn't been waiting for his ride, he never would have stopped at the bakery. and then my day in food wouldn't be a complete write off

2009-02-17T08:00:00.001+02:00

My cubemate is an evil little mofu. It all started yesterday when he brought in some chocolate chip cookies from Inglish Keik (they don’t spell it like that. On their behalf, I do. They pronounce it like that, and you’d never find a Victoria sponge in there). I caved and had a chocolate chip cookie before lunch. Yeah, I have long known that I have no self-control whatsoever.
Then after lunch, FOR SURE I was going to have another one for dessert. It would be rude not to! And you know, the one just wasn’t enough…

I managed to hold myself in the rest of the afternoon at the mall, but as soon as I walked through the door at 6pm, I was ravenous. Like a nervous addict, I approached the fridge. The salami got it. I opened the cupboard. The cashews were too salty so the peanuts took a big bashing. I must have had about three hundred THOUSAND peanuts. And at this point, I must confess, I knew that the food was on its way! The husband was out slaying a noodle mammoth. The husband came home to find a baseball bat in his face and was mugged and robbed and stripped of all consumables before he had even put the key in the lock. I left him in the hallway for the neighbours to take care of. I was busy ripping the sellotape off my VEGVEG and smoothing my chopsticks. I gorged. One gyoza and half the VEGVEG later, I was done. Satisfied.

Until I remembered the mother in law had left a home-made chocolate cake…

dum de dum nothing to do

2009-02-16T07:55:00.000+02:00

I went shopping yesterday. Killing time, really. Now that the babysitter is firmly in place giving me free time, I’m actually at a loss as to WHAT EXACTLY to do with the extra time. Sure, there are a gazillion things I could do, but most of them involve being at home and in bed. And definitely not things to squeeze into an hour.

So I dragged my sorry ass around the mall. Devoid of actually needing anything, I wandered aimlessly as a cloud. I checked out skirts for baby girl zebra. I checked out books for baby boy zebra. I checked out Fox’s new summer collection. It looks like they have given up any hope of winter actually coming at all this year and have decided to push on through to strappy tops and shorts. I actually heard the shop assistant breezily insisting to a man (obviously a man) that three-quarter length trousers could be worn day to day even now. Outside it was very windy and rather chilly. And I’m significantly more laissez-faire than most Jewish mothers and never have my kids wear vests.

I left the mall with a clean car, hair clips, and spongebob squarepants toothpaste. And I still had 45 minutes left to kill. I’m going to have to be a lot more inventive on Thursday because we sure as hell won’t need any more toothpaste.

busy day at the polls

2009-02-11T19:48:00.003+02:00

Yesterday we went to the polls. We were confronted with this:
(source)
One of 31 parties or a white slip. If you read hebrew you'll be able to tell that you had the option to vote for the PUTZ party or even the FUCK(H) party.

It took me at least 5 minutes to locate the paper slip I’d decided on. Some people felt that I would be better suited to use this:

And at the end of the day…it was the most useless election ever. Nobody to vote for and nobody won. And certainly not the people I voted for. They didn’t get ANY seats. I think it would have been easier had we had an african american candidate.

At least we got the day off work. We went to see Madagascar 2. Except here it’s pronounced "Mad-gas-car Shty-mm". And with that you get "pop-koren". Oh! The injustice of watching animation starring the vocal talents of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith, David Schwimmer, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, Bernie Mac, and Alec Baldwin cut out in favour of some Hebrew no-namers! I’ve had to check on the IMDB today to see what funny bits I missed. They don’t even sing “I like to move it move it”. They sing “I move my bottom bottom”. Yes they do. You can’t make this stuff up!

I wanted to watch Bolt but it was vetoed. Incidentally, that's pronounced “Boll-et”.

exterminate! exterminate!

2009-02-08T22:30:00.000+02:00

Ram hash. Home of smiling children, strawberries, and daleks.

looking hot when you're as frazzled as the bacon in a greasy spoon breakfast

2009-02-05T19:58:00.005+02:00

The other night I was invited to the home of one of the other-mothers-from-the-kindergarten who was having an other-mothers-from-the-kindergarten evening. And here's the thing about my neighbourhood: the men are ugly but rich enough to sponsor a trophy wife.

Most women in my neighbourhood are faltzani frechot trophy wives which loosely translated means nouveau-riche tart trophy wives. I am not a trophy wife. For starters, I am too tall and lollop in comparison to all the little tight-ass skinny bitches that strut around here. Also, I am proportionally larger. OK, I'm FAT. Too fat for the skin-tight low-cut midriff baring clothes that are sold around here. I'm a fake blond but I don't make it straw-shade or fan it every other day. Besides, my husband says my hair looks like a bush. My fingernails do not pass the ends of my fingers. And I have a job. No self-respecting trophy wife would work! Even worse, I work full-time and have a permanently ragged look about me. I wear one uniform outfit all the time. (And it's black!). For the trophy wife, it's all about pedicures, manicures, hairdressers, massages, facials, gyms, and lying in bed when your kids get home while your full time babysitter tends to their needs. And yet I have a complex that I am looked at as if I should be a trophy wife. I am what my husband brought back from overseas! Imported product! I should be better than the rest of the trophy wives because I am the foreign trophy wife. But my trophy wife career was nixed on my first trip to Israel. I am not an agile dancer. Mr. Zebra-to-be's friend's girlfriend noticed this to the soundtrack of It's Raining Men on my second night and told her gagging-for-it friend that he was fair game. Gagging-for-it made a point of sitting between us at the 5am coffee shop stop. Friend's girlfriend has not stopped paying since.

But, I digress.

So I went to the evening with the following attendees:
A.M. Normal.
A.S. Along the path to the fiery pits of faltzanidom hell. Has one of those minature white is-it-a-dog-is-it-a-rug? dogs. But sweet, funny, and chatty. Has a nicely decorated apartment and puts on a good spread.
M. Wears big sunglasses. Indoors. At 9pm.
I. Thin. Wears leather trousers. Summer holidays on a yacht off Croatia.
Absent was R. who is so far away from the pits of nouveau riche hell that she is off the charts. Her kid gets HAND ME DOWN CLOTHING for godsakes and even I turn my nose up at that. The evening was her idea and I probably wouldn't have gone except for occasionally I discipline myself that jedi mothers also need to socialize and that going to bed at 9pm does make me a bit of a Norman no-mates hermit.

And so, I knew ahead of time that it wouldn't be the most riveting evening of my life. But I like A.M. and A.S., and think that M. is quite humorous. I. was very reasonable at her son's birthday party when a total bitch trophy wife told me I should look after my daughter as she was trashing I.'s house. I. said not to worry, the most important thing was to enjoy the party.

Despite that when I arrived I saw Celine Dion in concert in the living room, the evening went well. We made a pact to sign our kids to the same gan next year. (Do my children know I am divining the course of their lives by choosing their friends behind their backs?? Who cares!). We bitched about the teacher and how stupid she is. What with classic lines such as…"I'm glad your kid got hurt on my day off! I wouldn't have known what to do with him what with all that blood gushing everywhere"…we had a lot to go on.

Everyone shared something. It was about bread rolls, Dudu being on his second marriage, bitching about the country club owners (you see, nouveau-riche. Not only are you a member of a country club, you are posh enough to bitch about the owner!) and I. locking her kids in the yacht every evening on holiday and going out drinking in Croatia.

You know, bitch-troll-skinny-bitch-nouveau-riche-tart-trophy-wives are ok when you break them down for an evening. They lose their evilness and move down the scale and become ok. It helps that sitting down there is no strutting. I will never be a trophy wife. I'm lucky if I get to the hairdresser once a year. I'm not allowed to give up my job. Nop, I am not a trophy wife. But then I will never lock my kids on a yacht for a Croatian martini either.

welcome, cilaprex googlers!

2009-02-04T19:01:00.008+02:00

Maybe its time to invite all those people who google Cilaprex into the blog. Quite a lot of you come here. And from all over the world. Even arab nations! (beware, you might self-combust because you are reading something coming out of Israel! You have been warned! Avert your eyes!!). My doctor prescribed me Cilaprex because I went to her complaining that I am always stressed out and evil.

Honestly, I didn't really take much Cilaprex so I can't give you much guidance. I prefer to take denial and then watch the side-effects wreak havoc on my homelife due to stress triggered by my day job and useless husband. Was he shouted at because he was useless, or useless because I shouted at him? Chicken. Egg. Useless I tell you.

The best cure is laughter. And I've been laughing today. Out loud! Here's some laughs I wanted to share with you:
http://15minutelunch.blogspot.com/2005/11/searching-for-salvation-or-salivation.html
http://15minutelunch.blogspot.com/2006/07/searching-far-and-wide.html
http://15minutelunch.blogspot.com/2008/10/searching-for-big-bird.html
http://15minutelunch.blogspot.com/2009/01/crap-i-drank-yesterday.html

(these are the kind of blog posts that are so good, they encourage me to curl up into a ball under a rock and die in a minute dust cloud of unworthiness). Hats off to you, Johnny Virgil!

Then there's the news I've been looking at:
Do "men" realize they rolled up a Viking into that ball?

And the news I was fed in an expat newsletter:

I'd be confused! I once slowed down to speed limit for a cardboard cutout police car. But we've already established I'm a criminal (see here).

For the person who has everything. But do they have a moss bathmat grown with their own roll off body water??

There's something about the "it has emerged" ... did the illegal immigrants suddenly emerge from some wheelie bins outside Acton Town Pizza Hut?!

And the last thing that made me laugh was myself!
In response to an article written by a man who was headed back to the States after not finding a job 5 years after he came to Israel:
He was probably one of those people you see at STC conventions with wild eyebrows, a nervous tick, and his pants belted in tightly under his manboobs.
The thing that makes me laugh is that I don't make myself laugh until someone writes back a ROFL and then I read it back to myself and guffaw so hard it makes Eduardo ask me why I'm crying.

gordon

2009-02-03T19:20:00.000+02:00

Tel Aviv, 3rd February 2009

although she lives with 7 other men...she's not easy

2009-02-01T19:36:00.002+02:00

I wish I was 4 and a half years old! I could get up early, demand choco-milk, and watch a full feature-length disney film before 7am. Then, someone would dress me and take me with my freshly and lovingly prepared breakfast to a room full of 23 of my closest friends. I can show off my new crown, not take it off all day while I run and scribble and play! I can have someone spend 2 hours looking after all my needs and giving me piggy back rides and eat a freshly prepared supper and have a bath and splash the whole bathroom wet but I don't care because someone else will clean it and then I can put on my Stephanie nightdress and robe and super-soft socks and crown and spend the last 20 minutes of my day watching Shrek.

keep out of reach and sight of children

2009-01-30T15:49:00.002+02:00

There is some really dire film starring Jennifer Lopez and Ben Afflek called Gigli or something, probably from the Bennifer days when them popping into Baja Fresh for a burrito was still BREAKING NEWS on E! News, and they team up to half-kidnap some retarded chap for money or something. As I say, it was a terrible film and not worth watching excpet for the retard who JUST HAS TO read something. Anything. And you know, I totally get that. I do. Because when I'm having a crap, I totally need to read something too.

Oh come on! Men do it all the time!

Usually when you're in the bathroom you don't get much of anything to read. The downstairs toilet in my house is considered the "boys toilet" and there is plenty of reading material in there. But I am a girl so I use the girls toilet which is the bathroom. I don't really need anything long, just something to take my mind off passing the poo. So I find myself grabbing the nearest thing and wrapping my tongue around the long ingredients of bathroom items. Did you know there's Tetrachlorohydrex GLY in my deodorant? And Sodium Diethylenetriamine Pentamethylene Phosphonate in my shampoo?

This morning I read the headlice treatment I brought back from england. I threw away the box when we were in england so the ingredients are lost to me. I had to entertain myself with the CAUTIONs. Do not smoke while using this product. Just the image of me (or anyone) treating my kids for headlice with a fag hanging out of the corner of my mouth made me laugh out loud!

And splash, I was done.

this is what is considered "public art"

2009-01-28T20:16:00.001+02:00

Petach Tikva, January

Somebody made a killing doing sculptures for the city of Petach Tikva.

caught red handed

2009-01-27T16:41:00.003+02:00

Gah! I am a criminal in my own bank! They have sophisticated ways of getting to you these days. Here I am, innocently trying to book something online when it tells me I need a securecode. A securewhat?! I put in the detaiils it asks me but it refuses to grant me a secure code. I call up the bank. He asks me some questions. Name, date of birth. First and fourth number of my internet bank code. I don't know, I never usually call you up! What are the 9 numbers at the bottom of the card? This is not going well. My mouth gets dry. I don't have the card on me! Its at home! All I have are the usual numbers I need to get stuff from amazon!So stupid! I panic and hang up the phone acting like anyone who's stolen the card details might.

Later, I call them back with my card in my hand. But its too late. My account has RED ALERT written all over it. They won't let me do anything over the phone and are in the process of dispatching a SECURITY PACK to my house. The man on his headset is from yorkshire and I don't like the way he's pronouncing my name. It's going to take a few good weeks to get the pack here and back and get me a securecode. Darn it! Cutting internet shopping privileges...why, that's behaviour worthy of THE EXPERIMENT!

while you go about your daily life, its always there lurking behind a corner...

2009-01-26T19:48:00.004+02:00

I had a good chat today with one of my readers who was going through the archives and came across the one about THE EXPERIMENT. A manager was standing in the cube just then which is ALSO PART OF THE EXPERIMENT. So I sat and listened to him tell me how suddenly the clouds parted, the sun shone through, and it all became clear to him. He likened the experience to the level of nirvana he achieved watching the Matrix. Holy compliments, Batman! Glad to help.
I experienced THE EXPERIMENT firsthand this morning. I tell you, some people I interact with are either victims of the experiment, or perpetrators. Or could well be both!

Here are some other facets of THE EXPERIMENT that I have identified recently:

Put walnuts in the chocolate cookies and insist that they ALWAYS had walnuts in there.
My mouse now makes a distinctive deep plastic click when I click.
Tell me I have a new dotted boss
Tell me unofficially that I have to justify my job for the next year (mention out-sourcing)
Tell me not to tell anyone (no worries, just the whole internet)
Tell me you are thinking XML is great for my cv and that's about it
Take away my right to print in color for the 3rd or 4th time in as many months.
Set up an employee event and as usual block my access to sign up. Let me in on the 50th attempt only to reveal that the event involves paying to clean up a beach.

from the camera phone

2009-01-26T06:39:00.000+02:00

HaYarkon River by night, January 2009

it's good to talk

2009-01-25T20:37:00.002+02:00

Last week I was in no mood to post here. It was a hard week and I had the yuppie disease for oh at least 3 days of it. I was struck quite hard and did a lot of sleeping. I think I might still have it, at least during office hours. You try staying awake for more than 5 minutes straight and see how you fare. It was a depressing week in THE EXPERIMENT, with firings and ch-ch-changes in the air. I think the only time I really laughed was having an instant messenger conversation on Tuesday applauding the genius of the name STIFFROD.
Having said that, the week was not a total write off, and we did manage to get the ball rolling on 2 projects for this year. And I got to do what I enjoy the most in the world…connect with people. Very British Telecom and Nokia, I know. After last week where two family members declared they never want to see us ever again, things turned around and I managed to meet up with an old friend, develop a relatively new friendship, meet up with a bunch of old friends over delicious food!, speak with a few other mothers from the kindergarten and bond, AND the husband cooked a lovely dinner for our friends.
I love connecting with people. There's nothing finer in life than sitting down with someone and really feeling that you're on the same page as them. It is so liberating to feel validated. Smiles and laughter abound and you feel loved and appreciated. Life is good.
We also went to another birthday party with TimTam. Could any clown possibly be cuter? He gave us his new dvd containing a free poster. I managed to nab that before the kids saw! The poster is now in its new home under my pillow. I hug the poster tight in bed all night long. Not sure who's going to watch the dvd more; the kids, or myself…

so outta here

2009-01-21T19:24:00.001+02:00

Somebody big left last week (voluntarily) (we think). There is a certain etiquette in leaving that is often not observed by leavers. Here's what you should do if you are leaving your place of work:

Money collection. You want to leave with a good present. The present is going to be the trophy of your time at the company so if you get something you're not into, its going to mean you had a bad employment experience. Make sure you get somebody good to collect your money. Ideally, someone who liked you, and is dedicated to the cause (i.e. will send out 2 if not 3 email reminders—maybe even walk around the office with a chink-chink of change, will tell people who ask what the "going rate" is the highest amount given, and most importantly who will ask you what you want). Don't be wishy washy about what you want. Aim high.
Drink. Schedule a half hour. Nobody is going to diss off work for an hour for you. You're outta here. Timing is important: a 10.30 am late breakfast on the day you leave is optimal. The drink is more than a drink. It's your way of saying: this is who I am and why you're going to miss me. That's why serving dark chocolate cake and strawberries looks good. And why serving in-house catering looks nasty. Extra brownie points for homemade stuff.
Speech. Hopefully you've had good bosses who will give you a good speech. If not, they might drone on forever about the company and then give you some formula of thanks for all your hard work. Avoid making everyone in the room say something about you. Not a good look. Then it's your turn. Almost every speech I hear inspires me to mentally start writing my own. Mine has changed over the years, but it would have been so great to leave about 100 times and used every draft. Most people give the saccharin speech: I've learnt so much from all of you, this is a really great place to work. BARF! Two great speeches I've attended stand out in my mind. One chap gave his guidelines for getting by in the workplace, eg. smile at everyone (and mean it!) and sing out loud. The other girl gave a list of things from THE EXPERIMENT that had prompted her decision to leave. EG. "They took away the swap shop--I'm leaving!" "They took away my room--I'm leaving!" We were all pissing ourselves!
Final email. This tool is often used in place of the drink by people who got fired. It tends to be a soppy "farewell, my friends" email. It is also used by people leaving of their own accord as a here are my new contact details email. Only the best ones will contain phrases like "great springboard to world domination", "leaving to pursue my dream as a (well-known airline) pilot", references to Elton John, and "I won't miss you. Die, suckers!"

there's an elephant in my blogroom too, but I keep stubbing my toe on it

2009-01-19T20:11:00.003+02:00

In our company we have a library that serves the company. I've been there for 5.5 years and never needed the library. When it moved location, they did a grand reopening. I hear 4 people turned up, and 2 of them work in the library.

Slash slash slash!

The sound of layoffs is in the air. 30 people go home. Your friends. Your colleagues. Good people. Long-serving people. Management are huddled in the conference room with the good chairs. They've gone past the fat and are cutting the meat. Groups of two and three have "corridor conversations". Meetings are entitled "updates". Everyone looks grave (except for some people who must work for finance who still find the mood to play ping pong). Why this one and not that one? Why me and not them? How much longer do I have? My boss advises us to keep our powder dry. I'm not sure if he means gun powder or foot powder because the advice follows a story about his nephew the soldier who was holed up in Gaza and didn't change his socks for 12 days.

The library is still safe. They say that the librarians will be the ones to lock the front door after we all leave.

at my desk...all the pencils are sharp

2009-01-15T19:22:00.003+02:00

There comes a time in my job, once or twice a year, where the projects dry up and you slowly find yourself s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g out everything you need to do, doing the admin work you never usually have time for (backing up all of your files, for example), and wondering how you are going to fill in the next 8.5 hours on the clock.

Nobody likes to not work. Especially when they are being paid to work. Especially when management is casting for a new line up on soon-to-be-ex-employees. A time when being caught chatting on facebook is not a good look. A time when it simply isn't wise to run up to your boss with your tongue flapping asking for some new projects. This will certainly get you on the list. You have to appear to be so busy that you are indispensible. At least for this round (at the current rate, firing rounds are every 3 months, next one rumoured for next week).

Right now I am busy on squat diddly. I've made a to do list and realised I have 2 open cases and both those are dependant on other people pulling their finger out. I've archived all my jobs from the last 6 months. (Apart from 2 projects that were shelved and one that I can't find but think it was a document they gave to a non writer and it begins "In 1929…") and I've muda'd my desk. (A few years ago we had a tidy up the office drive and called it muda. Its supposed to be Japanese.)

I even wrote to support to see if they fancied making up a user tip which is usually something they bug me to do when I have no time.
- Do you have some tips or something for me to do??
- Not really, But I can scrape something together , why?
- Bored.
- Shhhhuush Not so loud. I have some very angry turks writing us letter, but a bit sensitive. Very funny probably to someone from outside support.
- Give me whatever you have and regale me with tales of anything interesting.
- No.
- pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease
[no response]

Oh well, back to facebook. No change in the last 5 minutes. It's obviously all part of THE EXPERIMENT.

2009: will walk around kicking people's asses with great footwear

2009-01-14T21:01:00.005+02:00

Recently I've bought two pairs of heals that are so fucking luscious that I can hardly control myself! They are so comfortable I get to wear them all day long and sleep with them all night long and life has never been better.

The first pair I noticed at a great social event: the 4 year old's birthday party. Not on a four-year old.

Immediate case of MUST-HAVE-ME-THOSE-SHOES!

I rushed out that very weekend and got them. Or, I would have gotten them had they had my size in stock, so I had to order them in and then wait another week.

Here they are:
Top view:

Detail:

Birds eye view:

Other side view:

nab yourself a pair here!

Also, I got some red ones from in England from a well-known high street store.

Kick-ass!

OK, watch out! I'm coming to stamp on your face!

sublime pleasure is...

2009-01-13T21:28:00.001+02:00

...eating a packet of beef hula hoops and watching a new episode of Grey's Anatomy in an empty house at 5.20 in the afternoon

not a hot dog...MY hot dog!!

2009-01-13T13:58:00.004+02:00

Every now and then the universe brings together a melody of things that collide at the same time. And this time it’s hot dogs. We had hot dogs for dinner last night. (A well-balanced meal goes a long way. Amit was full for about oh-an hour and a half on his half hot dog and cried himself to sleep moaning “but I’m hungry, but I’m hungry!”)(TOUGH TITTY!) Also, we’ve been reading the well-known children’s classic (if you don’t have it, GET IT) The pigeon finds a hot dog by Mo Willems. It’s a great little story about (guess what) a pigeon finding a (guess guess!) hot dog! And a duckling who comes along and annoys him about it.

And now Ora sent me a GAZA-WAR news link: Islamic Jihad seizes IDF rocket, hotdogs. Apparently Hamas fighters seized some Israeli army equipment which included some Zoglovek hot dogs. The article suggests that the hot dog packets were already empty by the time Hamas got their hands on it, which is surely a good example of Israeli brutality and injustice in Gaza.

I especially like the quote by Islamic Jihad in relation to the incident: "Our message to the gutless enemy is that our fighters will ambush you everywhere," the group said. "They will surprise you and hurt you in response to your crimes in the Strip. You should be aware that we still possess many surprises that will hurt you and make you sorry."
Gah! They’ll be after our buns next!

pear guitar...interesting

2009-01-12T19:15:00.002+02:00

Most people who know me just know that I do not care for a puppy in a field of daisies or propped up on a log. (The exception being my aunt whose love for the sweet puppy eyes or uplifting verses often overrides the will to not click Forward and enter my email address). Nor do I care for the Dalai Lama's Millennium Musings 9 years later. Nor emails that start with "Make sure you scroll all the way down and read what is written". Nor emails promising bad things if not forwarded to 10 people within 5 minutes. Nor emails parodying chain emails or emails that promise you GAP will track you down and give you $25 worth of t-shirts. Nor emails containing outrage over something or the other when a quick check in Snopes will reveal it as a falsehood. I hate emails containing pps files where you can't click through quickly. I especially hate pps's where pps-creator has flexed the tools available to him and has text appearing letter by letter, or coming in from the left corner with a swirl before landing at its place on the slide. No. No. No. And don't even think about setting it to any kind of music. Especially if it's a collection of 2 inch babies made out of marzipan.

I have a bunch of people who like to send me fwds. Most people know to only send me the highest quality kick-ass stuff. But apparantly, some don't. In particular, I have a former colleague who sends me fwds WITHOUT FILTERING THE CONTENT.

This morning I received an email containing 19 (19!) photos of fruit art. I kinda have to wonder about the people who create fruit art and marzipan babies. In fact, anyone who uses food as an art tool rather than just eating it must be pretty weird. Also, HOW MUCH TIME do they have on their hands?! I have so little time that even the thought of chopping a salad gives me conniptions! So I look at this email. The instructions state I must read all the way to the end. Here's a butterfly cut out of an apple. Here's a banana dolphin. Here's the bust of a man swimming butterfly stroke in a watermelon. Here's an egg pram (yolk and white still inside). Here's a loaf of bread fashioned to look like a homeless person's shoe complete with cut off toe section showing bread toes and crusty toenails! Here's a tomato wearing wire glasses talking to some cauliflower sheep. Here is a little man with an orange peel body and the top sixth of an orange-head about to ram it down onto a juicer. Lovely.

At the bottom of the email I am informed that it's International Disturbed People's Day. Damn right I am disturbed about witnessing that little orange man's impending suicide! "I don't care if you lick windows, take the special bus or occasionally pee on yourself…" Which category does my former colleague think I fit into!??!

And at the end, the email tells me:
You hang in there sunshine, you're friggin' special.

Well, I like that last bit.

bloody hell, this is a fucking shit-ass post!

2009-01-11T18:54:00.002+02:00

My grandmother was Polish and lived in Poland. (I didn't really realize what this would mean until I got to Israel where the phenomena of having Polish in your blood is an understood and pitied syndrome, but that's another post!). As a child we would go to visit her and I remember watching television with her more than a few times. In Poland in the 80's, they didn't like subtitles or dubbing. But one man made a killing doing a voice-over of every single part in everything on the television in a non-emphatic monotone (female parts included). That way, in Ghostbusters II, Ray's yelling WHAT THE HELL IS THAT??! at the rumble of the underground slime would come out as a bland "what is that?". Luckily you could still kind of hear the English underneath it. My grandmother's reaction to monotone voiceover man was a sharp intake of breath in horror at pretty much everything he said. I hate to wonder what her reaction would have been had voiceover man put some effort into his job.

The sharp intake of breath trickled down a generation to my mother and was reserved for me for whenever I said anything that might be taken as my being rude. We were banned Grange Hill on the grounds that it was rude. Neighbours was more wholesome but Home and Away was also out. To be frank, we were lucky we got to watch Emu's All-live Pink Windmill Show!

Despite this, growing up in England, I would swear like a sailor with friends just because it was a way to rebel against the way your parents raised you. And saying an exam was a "fucking nightmare" wouldn't offend them in the slightest. It was a badge of commradary, a way to fit in. Still, I would avoid swearing in front of anyone I showed respect to. But I don't live in England anymore and here a lot of people use English swear words and it has lowered the effectiveness. For example, it is not uncommon for a fuck-up to be called a fuck at a meeting ("there was only one fuck…we didn't get the x's on time")(or for you: "hayah rak FUCK achad…sh-ha x-im lo igiyu bezman"). "Shit" is used as a loving expression for when things go wrong. Over time, the shock-value of swearing has dulled. I like ordering a big fuck-off coffee. In the good days, Nicole and Paris would be all Love you, Bitch, Love you, Bitch and that was ok. So all my environmental indications now suggest that swearing is becoming acceptable. And I still swear too.

It's generally considered not a good thing to swear in front of your kids. They are impressionable. Bad language is a sign of lack of education and lack of respect. But I am pretty relaxed, and I don't always remember to not swear in front of my children. In fact, my mother's sharp intake of breath is pretty much the only reason I fear using language around my own kids as we all know how they love to repeat things. But you know, it wouldn't offend me if they stubbed their toe and said "Shit!". I guess it might offend me if they said "Fuck you, you big fat fucker", but that's because talking about someone's weight, that's low.

top ten things that follow "i feel the need, the need for cheese"

2009-01-08T20:40:00.003+02:00

10. "Brie..." (sniff) "you stink..."

9. "And there was that one incident with the Admiral's cheese"

8. "Your body's writing cheese your ego can't cash"
7. "She's lost that loving cheese" "She's what? Man, I hate it when she does that"
6 "Gooness gracious, great balls of cheese"
5. "It takes a lot more than just fancy cheese"
4. "You don't have time to think up there. If you think, you're cheese."
3. "What were you doing up there?" "We were giving them the cheese".

2. "That's right, Cheese...man. I am dangerous"

1. "Edam, you can be my wingman anytime!" "Bullshit, you can be mine!"

gaza war soapbox

2009-01-07T20:40:00.003+02:00

How do you know that a tree makes a noise when it falls in a forest with nobody in earshot?
How do you know that the rest of the world exists when you are not looking at it?

When I went to Cairo in ’07, I was totally blown away by the crazy place. Cairo is not very far from here. It only took all-day on a bus trip to get there at 3am. But that’s only because you have to drive through Eilat as it would be too dangerous to go through the Gaza strip. And probably also because we got held up somewhere in the middle of Sinai for over 2 hours arguing about bakshish (rub fingers and thumb together).

Cairo is unlike any other place I have ever been to. Not the shuk. That's familiar. They sell the same drums, camels, keffiyeh, and trinkets I can get in Jerusalem. And they are suprisingly uncreative with the pyramid souvineers. The same "my friend, my friend" attitude that is customary in the middle east and I hear India though I wouldn't know haven't ever been. The same tea with mint we drink here. The same nargila although they call it something else there.
The difference was the streets. As many lanes as lorries, vans, cars, camels, bikes, donkeys, and people that can squeeze into. No-one stops at a red light. Like EVER. You cross the road because you've got the balls to do it. You've just got to cross and hope that the driver values his donkey more than life itself and doesn't fancy your blood on its nose. A couple of times my brother saw my life flash before him and yanked me back on the kerb. But he didn't convert so hasn't got the hutzpah that comes with being Jewish. And what really amazed me was that all this daily balagan (*chaos) was going on 250 miles south west of my life! And its been going on for like EVER! It's going on RIGHT NOW!

But it's quiet in my apartment. I can't hear the honking horns of Cairo. I wouldn't even know that there's a war going on 44 miles from my posh neighbourhood. That yesterday morning a rocket fell 14 miles away and injured a 3 month old baby. That every day for the last 8 years rockets launched in Gaza and fall within a 50 mile radius from my house. So how do I know? Unlike when I was 14 and I looked out of a Surrey school window in a History lesson and thought "wow, there's a war going on in the gulf and I can't feel it", I do feel it. I know that my husband will get called up next month if its still going on. I know what that means because we were at war with Lebanon 2 years ago. I know that the cubemate is at the border. And that the finance guy is in there. I know my husband's cousin's husband is in there. They put a box up at work next to the lifts asking for any spare army equipment that the male workforce is likely to have. My cubemate called his boss and said "make sure HR know I'm here...you get chocolates..." We have the news on all night. With the news we visit the shiva (*wake) of the killed soldiers and the hospital beds of the injured soldiers. We discuss it endlessly and we have the news internet sites on all the time. We're all nervous. We're all conscious that Israel gets a bad press for this kind of thing. And that no-one said anything to Russia about Georgia or the massacre last week in the Congo. We feel bad about the innocent victims but at the same time we know that these terrorists don't think twice before hiding behind a school child as body armour. We know that if another country had rockets fired upon them every day that they would retaliate. So we do and most of us want Gaza cleaned up. We left there 3 years ago and they are still blaming us for every problem in their infrastructure. Nobody is on the television shouting about how much money and how many chances they've had to build themselves a viable country there. They want more. They want it all. They want what was offered to them in the UN partitian plan of 47. And then they want the rest. They want us in the sea. So, forgive us for defending ourselves and for fighting back a bit.

Maybe you don't see what's happening here or maybe you don't see this at all. After all, you can't see it from your house.

PS> I bloody loved Cairo.

i'm baa-aack! and so glad about it!

2009-01-06T19:46:00.005+02:00

I got back from my xmas trip yesterday morning and still feel hung over from the food and the flight. Never travel with children.

If there's one song that defined the trip, its the TING TINGS: That's not my name. I knew the song from driving around in Israel and found it mildly amusing. But then on holiday I saw it on some english comedy-quiz show (Oliver will tell me which) sung by some fat comedian (Oliver will tell me which) and it was on Jools Holland's NYE show. And then bam! it was the holiday song. Def not any song sung by DUFFY who, it turns out, IS NOT the former Casualty cast member after all. (disappointing!) However, Duffy was definitely not Irish, you're thinking of Megan.

They call me hell
They call me Sta-cey
They call me her
The call me Jane

That's not my name. (uh, uh)
That's not my name.

Being back is definitely not great. Life always looks shit in January. Israel is at war. The cubemate is serving his country again. So is the finance guy. The husband is not (too chubby?). Its time to start a diet. Its time to start working my butt off. My SME is gone. The head of sales quit so I'm getting a new dotted line boss (you'd have to be corporate to understand why you have a dotted line boss). The print tests came back bad. So much crap. I think I might call it hell.

I'll call it Sta-cey. I'll call it her. I'll call it Jane. That's not it's name. Uh. Uh. That's not it's name. Uh. Uh. It's name is FUCKED UP PIECE OF SHIT NEW YEARS PRESENTS.

getting ready for xmas

2008-12-22T21:56:00.002+02:00

Last week my cubemate was off serving the country in the reserves so I took the opportunity to play (read: BLAST) some xmas songs. My good friend Tim, download queen, gave me a bunch of xmas songs and I was rocking the open space with them (Thanks, Tim!). Most people (even those wearing kippers) didn't mind. Although they did joke that they would take my certificate away.

At home we've had the sparkly lights we got in Haifa last year on the tree. Its a real evergreen fir tree but its a bit of a stretch for it to aspire to be a xmas tree. Its branches are weak and droopy. The tree is about 3 foot tall. With the lights and the xmas songs playing it just about does the job.

I've had no mince pies, no carol singing, no xmas office parties, seen barely a sprig of tinsel.
The kids have been taught the true spirit of xmas. That means: tree, gifts, father christmas, and gifts, set to a soundtrack of Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, and Elvis. I know some people get all angry that xmas has become so commercialized and that people today miss the true spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ's birth. I remember being like that in my former incarnation as a practising catholic.

Today I am many many moons away. I want my kids to know that excited feeling of presents and stockings. The gifts are relatively small and not about what's the biggest next best thing. Tomorrow I am taking them back to England to try and capture a bit of the season for them. On the one hand I should have gone earlier as preXmas is always funner than postXmas. On the other hand, it was important for me that they light the hanukah candles with their grandmother and friends, and remember the miracle of the oil. Of the Maccabeans winning against Hellinism. I know all the words to O Come All Ye Faithful IN LATIN! but I can barely get through Surah Hoshech, Ner Li Ner Li or Sevivon Sov Sov Sov.

Yes, we are going for xmas. But I am going to pack a hanukiah. I call this coexistance.
For us this is about celebrating traditions.
Its hanuxmas my way. And I don't think you can judge me.

i swear to you my back is swollen

2008-12-18T20:51:00.003+02:00

top 10 thoughts that crossed my mind on the massage table
1. That's my writing hand! Patti was going to kiss that!
2. Bending my leg like that...that's a departure to the norm...
3. What are these monks chanting?
4. Sounds like No Sacrifice by Elton John.
5. IT IS No Sacrifice by Elton John.
6. Monks chanting Elton John. That's just wrong!
7. Did you work for easterneuropeantorturors.com?
8. Do you hate your parents or something?
9. Did you just split up with your boyfriend?
10. Ou...ou...OUCH!

top 10 thoughts that crossed my mind on the massage table that didn't make it into the top 10
1. What's that bowl down there for?
2. Mm...that's nice.
3. I'm going to dribble...
4. ...ohhhhh that's what that bowl's for.
5. Wait, that's less nice.
6. That's unusua...OUCH!
7. Your elbow is in my buttock!
8. That is so going to bruise!
9. I don't think my legs were designed to be bent like that!
10. This manouvre...isn't this what Geena Davis did to put a deer out of its misery in the Long Kiss Goodnight?

december: early morning in petach tikva

2008-12-18T06:59:00.001+02:00

we may be in THE EXPERIMENT, but we still have a pulse

2008-12-16T22:48:00.003+02:00

Our offices are located in an industrial park which they are still building so there are an abundance of empty lots and scrub areas. It is for this reason THE EXPERIMENT gave us 2 in-house dining areas with consistently dire options and that's why we experimentees never get fed a decent meal (lack of healthy dining options) or leave the building during work (read, DAYLIGHT) hours. Some people ARE brave enough to risk losing clocked minutes and go for a walk around lunchtime just to break the monotony and to get some fresh air.

The other day I was having lunch with my esteemed colleague in the cafeteria when her cubemate came running in all bright eyed and bushy tailed. "There are two lesbians on that empty plot outside doing it on their lunch break!!" The man could hardly hide his bulging enthusiasm. "If anyone needs me…I'll be outside!" and off he ran.

After lunch today I got a call. The esteemed colleague's cubemate. "Too bad you didn't pick up earlier! The lesbians were back!" He then proceeded to explain their antics in such graphic detail that I don't doubt that he left breath condensation and a large drool smudge on their windscreen. "I'm going to take you tomorrow to show you!"

About 35 minutes later I got an email from my esteemed colleague. "I'm coming on your field trip tomorrow". Feels like we all need some fresh air.

not that i'm that great of a dresser, but...

2008-12-15T19:44:00.003+02:00

I think we should talk about attire in the workplace. Although we all have days where we like to slob out, lets not forget that the workplace is where you spend most of your life's daylight hours, and looking your best should be prioritized in there along with making sure you eat lunch and not acting like a 12 year old. If not for anything else but to maintain some level of decorum.

Israel is a much more relaxed work environment than most countries. I remember working for Vodafone back in England and they enforced a dress code for people who answer the phone. This was a place where people were closed in a room for 8 hour shifts and whose only responsibility was to answer the phone. Zero visual customer contact. And yet, jeans were not allowed. I had a friend working for Adecco who was forbidden from wearing bootleg trousers lest any job seeker or potential employer interpret the wideness of the bottom of their trousers as lack of professionalism.

Here are a few fashion violations that make my eyes sore on a daily basis:

Tucking of sweatshirt into jeans
Wearing socks with sandals
Wearing white socks and black shoes. (If you grew up where I did, you SO know about this. I don't know why Guildford, Surrey was the cornerstone of sock-shoe etiquette, but we all knew the singsong "white socks, black shoes: KEVINNNNN!")
Wearing trousers that are too short. Correct length has trouser falling onto shoe. No ankle flappers, please.
Dressing like a granny when you aren't even 28.
Looking like you couldn't quite make your mind up between beach and work and compromising by dressing for the beach and coming to work in Bermuda shorts.
Trainers. Running shoes. Sneakers. Whatever you want to call them. If they aren't new, don't wear them to work!
Animal print skin tight tops.
Shorts or even ¾ length trousers.

There are a couple of people in my company who dress very well. Its always great to see what outfits they have put on. They are edgy. They are cool. There are other people who have a signature look. There's the guy who always wears a beret. David always wore Hawaiian shirts. The lady who always wears stilettos. She's the one who was really worried about the air vents when she heard they were going to be placed in the floor in the new building. Must be ok because we've been in the new building for a year and a half, and she's still wearing stilettos.

Then there's another guy who always dresses top to toe in one color. We see him everyday and his whole outfit is the same color. Even the shoes. I don't know about the underwear. My cube-mate asked me if he is a color specialist who is branding himself. So I asked around about the color thing and the only information I gleaned was that he likes big breasts. One morning he got into the lift with me so I broke protocol and offered "today the day is purple, ah?" The dude was very surprised that I (an almost stranger from another department!) had noticed that he has this thing! He confided that he has 22 colors that he wears in a rotation. The guy simply OCD-has to wear the same color. I happen to know that some days he breaks a little and will wear a striped shirt with MORE THAN ONE COLOR in it…gaah! One day I saw him and he was wearing blue. "Blue today", I said. "Light blue", he corrected me.

I quite like his color clothing peculiarity. Having your own signature is cool. But I can't abide by that sweatshirt tucked into those jeans. That's the signature of bad taste!

young man, are you listening to me?

2008-12-14T20:15:00.002+02:00

Over the weekend I took the twins to the birthday party of two of their friends. I am obsessed with going to kids parties even though when I’m there I could rip off my ears from the noise and scratch my eyes out with boredom. No, I like going for one reason alone: I have to know that I throw the most kick-ass parties.

Parties are important to me. I always loved them when I was growing up and it is really important for me to create the best memories and Kodak moments for my kids.

I have a vigorous rating system used to judge other people’s parties on various categories:

Category 1: Strength of entertainment.

When I was growing up, having a clown was unheard of. It was all pass the parcel, pin the tail on the donkey, musical statues, musical chairs, and dead lions. I was great at dead lions because if there is one thing in life I can excel at its being still and not doing anything. I am champ at that. But now I live in Israel and there is no way on god’s sweet earth that I am going to attempt controlling a room full of rowdy 4 year olds with my Hebrew. I draw the line there and there must be a clown.

The clown has to be good and not at all annoying. I can’t stand that pulling a long piece of paper out of your mouth trick. Setting fire to that piece of paper and magically making it become sweets: that IS cool. You should be on whatever reality show has you becoming Uri Gellar’s next apprentice. Repeated use of “hamutziim” (pickles) in place of “hamudiim” (cuties) is also the sort of behaviour that will make me visualize myself performing matrix-style fight scene manouvers in slow motion at your head. Balloon hats go down well. Even better is when every kid gets a balloon sword or butterfly or whatever. I have found the best clown ever from the excellent recommendation of a friend, and I have mentioned before that I AM IN LOVE WITH HIM. He engages the kids, remembers all their names, he is funny (even for the parents), and he is the best clown I have seen. Ever. And he’s hot but we’ve already established this is the married woman in me talking. I already know that TimTam will do our party next year. And maybe my birthday too, not sure yet.

Hand in hand with entertainment and on the strength of yesterday’s party, I think I should add a category especially for use of music:
Witch Doctor = 20 points
YMCA = 100 points
The birdie song = –90 points
…with actions = –20000 points.
I must say I was very pleased to see use of the village people at a 4 year old’s party. Great to see the Y and M in action, less so to see the C and A then sort of become a heartless flap to the right then to the left.

Category 2: Food.
The food is a good measure for how well people can host a party. Pizzas smack of taking the “throw money at it” option. Hot dogs smack of “all kids eat hot dogs, right?” lack of creative thinking. Not to mention that its well known that hot dogs are full of crap and you have to slice them into 2 or preferably 4 lengthways in order not to choke on them, yes even in 4 year olds. I have a friend who worked at the children’s hospital and this is a conversation for another time but believe me, she KNOWS. Food for the parents is also important. We are still at the age where the parents hang around and they expect food. Good food. Shakshuka and quiche score. Dry cake, big X.

Category 3: The Cake.
The final test is the cake. Baking a cake in a tin foil case and putting a shop-bought piece of sugar paper on it looks so tacky. Shop-bought cakes go back to the “throw money at it” option. No, in order to out do me, you are going to have to CONSTRUCT your cake and make it into something totally imaginative and at the same time wildly appetizing. In other words, a pirate ship and a princess castle.

Avoid avoid avoid:
Now, the worst thing of all to do at a party would be to set a powerpoint presentation of all your baby photos to some heavy arty music and make your guests endure 5 minutes of you thinking that your child is the most adorable thing in the universe. This is hard enough to sit through at the bar mitzvah. GOD FORBID but it might be ok at the funeral. Frankly I’d rather watch a powerpoint set to celine dion with pictures of puppies and bunnies, followed by taking a gun and blowing my brains out.

The party yesterday has a good rating, even though there were various violations of badass party etiquette. The balloon decorations scored extra points.

Best of all though, the party nursed my ego because hevrei (people)…I still kick party ass!

in my job, rhyming is essential

2008-12-10T18:56:00.007+02:00

Martin, reading over my shoulder: "Welcome to the (comapny name/product name) bonanza." Bonanza?
Me: Its just a filler. Don’t you want to write me some marketing fluff to go in there?
Martin: No, I think you’ve got enough material to go on.
Me: OK, but can I still use the word bonanza?
Martin: No. (pause) It doesn’t rhyme with anything.

not to be trifled with

2008-12-09T19:51:00.005+02:00

In the summer we were at the morasha junction and some weathered dude in a sleeveless Tshirt was offering us figs or prickly pears or some fruit and I admired his stamina out loud to my husband. These guys...and they are at every junction...walk through the traffic when the light's red offering their wares all day long. Its hot, sweaty, exhaust fume work. And you're lucky if you get one punter per red light. And its well known that in Israel their pitch is protected by the mafia. So you can't just start selling or even begging at a junction without the protexia of Israel's underworld. Otherwise they would come by and beat you up and steal your strawberries. So they probably have to sell 10 punnets to get money for 5. Anyway, on that day my husband boasted that he is exempt from the need for mafia protection and he could tout his berries at any junction he wanted. Oh yeah? I say. Hows that? I have connections he said. (Note that "connections" was said in a tone laced with mystery and intrigue.) I have connections. 15 kilometers of "I better not tell you", "You're better off not knowing", and "I can't tell you...for your own protection" later, and he finally admits that he might have gone to high school with someone who might have grown up to be in some outer ring of the mafia. This reminds me of the time after we got married and he had me going for 2 days about his shady past in the mossad.

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from the ganenet* (kindergarden teacher) to say that a kid had hit amit and he has a scratch near his eye. I said yes I know, this happened last week. She said I know it’s the same kid and he’s been punished. I said What, you mean this happened again? Yes, and I have to tell you because its near his eye but he’s perfectly fine. But last week it was also near his eye and you didn’t call. Yes well we didn’t really see what happened and he didn’t cry or anything.

Give me a break. This is Amit we are talking about. He’ll cry inconsolably for 10 minutes because you drained the (cold) water out of the bath. He’ll cry because some other kid who has come over to play has the audacity to pick up one of his sister’s toys. He’ll cry because Daddy not Mummy is showering off his midnight pee. He’ll cry because there is a lump in his hummus. And that’s all just in the last week. He’ll cry for anything. I find it highly unlikely that some kid hits him and he’d just suck it.

My husband is better at homeland security than I am. I put it down to a playground fight and move on. He starts to stalk the offender. I can’t publish here how he reacted when an unidentified neighbour dumped their bucket of cinema popcorn on my car for fear of prosecution. (Although let it be noted, nobody has dumped their popcorn on my car since!) So I wasn’t surprised when he called me this morning asking for names, dates, and places. I told him to go and unleash his fury on the ganenet because a) I don’t like her anyway and b) he will get the point across far better than me.

He called later with the following update: I told her not to let that kid get near Amit again. He’s not allowed to play with my son. Furthermore, if anything like this ever happens again I will teach Amit what my parents taught me. I will teach Amit to break a chair on that kids face.

And with my husband, you know he’s only half kidding. He's got connections.

ode to torgovnik

2008-12-09T07:27:00.003+02:00

I love this shot taken in Rwanda by Jonathan Togovnik.

The story is that the older daughter, the one she's hugging, is from her marriage. The daughter born of love.

The second daughter, the one in the background, was born after Valentine was raped by militia.

"he put a spear in my leg, he pierced my leg and forced me to be apart and he ruthlessly raped me for four hours. I stayed in that place being raped every night for six days. Why I love the first daughter more is because I gave birth to her as a result of love. The father was my husband. The second girl is a result of unwanted circumstance"

I think the photo captures the mood so well.

Check out http://www.torgovnik.com/, he has many great shots, including a series on the reserve soldiers...check out Dr Riba who is Shaili's pigeon toes doctor.

generally speaking, where i'm involved at least...its best to avoid the subject entirely

2008-12-08T19:03:00.003+02:00

Last week I was riding the lift (this does not sound good. Delete. It’s a fusion of American and the proper way to speak. Had I said riding the elevator I could have gotten away with it, but elevator is a butcher of the correct term, lift. And riding in proper English has connotations I certainly don’t want to get to in a public glass lift).

Last week I was in the lift and one of my colleagues alighted. Not famed for his tact, perception, or delivery, he looked at my stomach and said “What? Are you pregnant too?”. I told him—No, and it isn’t polite to ask. He said “Actually no, I think it’s a beautiful question to ask.” “Noooooooooo, you are implying I am fat.” He said “I’m not implying anything. You are taking it where you want to go”. Sensing the man was an ape and the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, I left it.

Yesterday somebody else congratulated me. A woman. I told her no, I am not up the duff. This morning she asked me if I was cross with her. Not cross, no. But I was bummed for the rest of the day yesterday. I even told my friend about it 8 hours later and I had only called her to wish her a happy birthday, not to drown my sorrows at the bottom of a beer glass. So I told this woman No, I just put on some weight thats all. Ah, she says, so you’re just fat?

there's just no way to write about arabs without coming off as a rascist snobby bitch.

2008-12-07T20:31:00.006+02:00

Yesterday we drove up north and passed places called Baqa Al-Gharbiyye, pronounced "back-a al- jab-ee-yeah" and Umm Al- Fahm, pronounced "Um, let's fuckem".

We visited our dear arab friends who have just moved to Nazareth Elite. Yes, that's not the low down commoner's Nazareth, its the posh elite part. It's 80% Jewish up there but they think highly of themselves and rightly so. They are the best kind of people.

My friend took me off to Al-Tabune to buy some delicious rotisserie chicken on onions on bread for the rest of the people who had gathered at her house. Insider knowledge is everything. On the way she took me through the area where she grew up, which is worlds and worlds apart from the place I grew up even though we were born only 3 months apart. Her hood is an arab area and it shows. If you've ever been anywhere arab you will know what I'm talking about. Its a different level of affluence and a different mentality and different things are beautiful to their eyes. I saw large sparse shops which sell pastries (good pastries). I saw small packed shops full of chinese toys. I saw beggars and women beggars and child beggars. I saw cars packed with teenagers windows rolled down, arab pop music blaring out. Which I know about because I listen to sama-fm and it hasn't even launched yet. That's how cosmopolitan I am.

Their idea of xmas decorations just wouldn't fly back home. Plastic, plastic, and flashing plastic. And yet you feel the pulse of the place, very much alive and happening. The people in the areas we drove through are poorer than we are. Their priorities are different. But if an inflatable chinese-looking santa makes their xmas, who am I to judge?

We came to my friend's road and she told me "when I was growing up, we all lived down there: cousins, uncles, the works. I come from a very small family. Only 150."

I might even get one of those chinese santas. Ho ho ho.

december sunset over haifa and nazereth

2008-12-07T07:08:00.000+02:00

I wish to apologise, people!

2008-12-04T19:22:00.001+02:00

When moving the xmas tree table to find the plug for the xmas tree lights the other night, I *might* have mumbled something vague and incoherent about the xmas tree table being wedged to the wall by the sofa and the sofa being wedged to the xmas tree table by the fisher price garage and the fisher price garage being wedged to the sofa by the dining room table, henceforth when you try to plug in the lights you are faced with moving a train of furniture 5 times your body weight 4 centimeters. Just to plug in the xmas tree lights. And I just *may* have insinuated that I place the blame for all this wedging business firmly in the hands of my mother in law and *maybe maybe* I even took her name in vain. But I was facing moving a train of furniture 5 times my body weight 4 centimeters!

This was all kindly recorded for me by my angelic little daughter, who did not waste any time the following morning before telling the mother in law that mummy hates it when she touches things in the house and makes mummy a balagan* and touches mummy's things. I am not sure exactly what she said because I wasn’t there and have now heard the story 3 times and the things that were revealed to my mother in law by the holy truth according to my angelic little daughter changed each time.

But the message to my mother in law was as clear as a fog horn. And I have been reprimanded by the supreme court of in law injustice.

So, I would like to issue this PUBLIC apology on the internet which can be accessed by anyone and everyone and probably not ever my mother in law because she can’t read English and wouldn’t know what a blog was if it came up and bit her on the ass and that’s fine with me because the universe will know that I apologized publically and will ignore the fact that I can't face broaching the issue and grovelling on my hands and knees to beg her for forgiveness. Mother in law, I hereby apologize for mentioning that the way you tidy my house is anything less than perfect, and I really do appreciate you making order in the wild chaos of my home. Especially since my roommates are really fucking messy.

*balagan=mess/chaos
Note to self: watch more closely how you swear when the short people are around.

Today I...

2008-12-03T20:25:00.002+02:00

What I wrote:

Hold down Alt and roll the mouse over the trash icon. The icon changes to the grim reaper to indicate that you are about to permanently delete the image.

What I wanted to write:

Hold down Alt and roll the mouse over the trash icon. The icon changes to the grim reaper apparently standing in a cauldron for no discernable reason other than perhaps to reinforce his evil image with some witchery to indicate that you are about to permanently delete the image. AND EVIL CACKLES COMING FROM SOMEWHERE OVER YOUR SHOULDER RESONATE AROUND THE ROOM. MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!

morning chest, tel aviv

2008-12-02T07:38:00.001+02:00

all i want for christmas is my two front teeth. And other silly christmas songs.

2008-12-01T19:39:00.003+02:00

Today I cracked open the advent calendars, put the flashing lights on the tree, and listened to the worst collection of xmas songs ever: "CHILDREN's XMAS PARTY". Why children should massacre Wizzard's I wish it could be xmas everyday with their bastard angelic voices is a crime I will never wrap my head around. As far as the music industry's concerned, it falls somewhere between American Idol and Mariah Carey's dress sense. Hell, its more worthy of going to court over than George Michael wincing out of his contract with Sony, but when was there ever sweet justice in this world?

Anyway, the singing kids started on butchering little donkey. Not literally of course. For those of you unfamiliar or rusty on your carols, the hymn is a dedication to the donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem. The song idolises the little donkey, and gives it encouragement to keep plodding on the road (don't give up now little donkey!). One line even goes so far as to say little donkey little donkey had a heavy day.

Now I know that the distance between Nazareth and Bethlehem is not to be sniffed at, but EXCUSE ME?!?!?! Little donkey had a heavy day! Awww, poor little donkey. Plodding along a dusty road! With a heavy load! Probably like every day of his damned miserable life in -1BC. Or are you implying that Mary rather packed on the pounds during pregnancy? Did the songwriter ever stop for a moment to think about Mary? 9 months pregnant, has to travel to a far off town for a stupid census?! On a donkey! Have you ever stopped to think how hard that must've been? There was no cvish 6* back then, baby! That woman deserves a medal! Where's her song?

Then I got me to thinking...how many carols are actually about Mary? Where's Mary's giving birth in a barn with no epidural hymn? Why does good king Wencelas get a song for looking out of the bloody window and Mary gets nothing for pushing the son of God down her birth canal?! Even mummy, the slut with an old fat man fetish got a carol when she was seen kissing santa claus underneath the mistletoe. Not to mention frosty the snowman, rudolph the red nose reindeer, or the three kings of orient are, what ever that means. They all got their 15 minutes.

But not Mary. The best she got was being called "mild" (Once in Royal David's City). Mild! It's just not right by Mary. Now, I have no musical talent to speak of, but I'm sure someone can rustle something up for poor old Mary. Something to the tune of Ding Dong Merrily on High perhaps:
Puu-U-u-u-u-u-U-u-u-u-u-u-U-u-u-u-u-u-U-u-u-u-u-u-U-u-u-u-u-u-U-uu-sh! The baby's head is crown-ing!

*cvish 6: Israel's super-fast toll road. You get on there and its like a time tunnel. Vooooom! 20 minutes and you're in Afula.

they take your friends away, its THE EXPERIMENT.

2008-11-30T19:21:00.004+02:00

A few of my loyal readers who prefer to TALK about the blog rather than to leave comments (leave comments! leave comments!) told me it is high time I stop alluding to THE EXPERIMENT and damn well explain it. These people are actually IN the experiment, and I still have to explain it to them when they complain about the dining room mixing lettuce leaves and baby leaves. Baby leaves are a disgusting bunch of stalks with a limited amount of leafery that are placed into a salad to "jazz it up". Well, people, I say no! And, Yeuch!. No. More. Jazzing. The person who invented the trend of mixing baby leaves in with salad should be taken out and shot right now. But they let me smile wistfully at my work buddies and say "All part of THE EXPERIMENT".

Anyone working in a huge corporation will know THE EXPERIMENT. Most people ignore it because the corporation pays them and gives them nice benefits such as bringing in a cake sale every Thursday afternoon. And the people, they need job security. And cakes. Its just easier to ignore what's going on behind the scenes. In return for your blood and sweat, the corporation purports to run as a huge multi-national business. But it's all fake I tell you! The bosses are actors. Their bosses are men with white coats. And they play out THE EXPERIMENT on the people they employ. People like you. And me of course. It's very The Matrix.

And that is why anything that happens to you in there, anything straight out of Dilbert, anything Kafkaesque, anything that will challenge your comfort zone...that's the men in the white coats testing you. They're looking for how you react. They're looking for who can take it, and who can't.

You work in a cube. THE EXPERIMENT.
You share that cube. THE EXPERIMENT.
Camera pans out...you're working in a huge cube farm. THE EXPERIMENT.
Floor upon floor of cube farms. THE EXPERIMENT.
Baby leaves in your salad. THE EXPERIMENT.
Boss calls you in for spending 4 times the average of your peers on the phone, average being 5 shekels. THE EXPERIMENT.
You can't use your employee card to get food out of the vending machines today? THE EXPERIMENT.
Word wrecks your DTP? THE EXPERIMENT.
Cilantro in an innocent-looking salad? THE EXPERIMENT AGAIN.
Boss tells you to work through the weekend? IT'S ALL PART OF THE EXPERIMENT!

Me, I am one of the masses of employees who needs the job security to look after my family. And I have to admit, the cakes are nice. But every day, every day without fail, I find little facets of the experiment. Things that I cannot ignore. Things that tell me its all a big sham. Things like if you press the button of the 'smart' lift 17 times, you can get it to change which lift it'll send you. Why 17 times? THE EXPERIMENT.

Today THE EXPERIMENT took one of the main things that kept me going: the cute guy on the fourth floor.

Damn, I'm going to miss him. But I won't let the experiment get the better of me.

I'm not sure what the prize is, but it probably involves ice cream and a gold watch.

inbox, last week

2008-11-30T17:52:00.000+02:00

as far as I know, he's still hiding there.

Just. Say. No. originated from Nancy Regan!

2008-11-30T13:37:00.000+02:00

And I thought it was Grange Hill. You learn something new everyday.

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i'm eating. i've got a cake/flower pot on my head. i'm cool.

2008-11-30T06:45:00.002+02:00

life is great!

2008-11-26T21:45:00.000+02:00

This morning Michael was in the shower and I came in to ask if I looked ok. He said isn’t life good? My business dreams are on the road and what’s more we have a professional blogger in the house. I didn’t even know he could conjugate the verb “to blog”.

Do you think he’s having an affair?

november afternoon, tel aviv

2008-11-26T08:17:00.002+02:00

so, I was hanging out with my sister...

2008-11-25T17:14:00.008+02:00

I was driving through Tel Aviv on my way to The World’s Most Expensive ParkingTM and I saw the Tel Aviv Opera building on Shaul HaMelech. Its such a beautiful building and I haven't driven past or even visited it for such a long time. I remembered when I first came to Israel and how foreign it looked. I remember the first time I saw it which was at night and it must have been before I moved here because we dropped by to see Esti who worked at the Apropo there at that time.

Turn left and you pass Asia House. We had a friend's husband who worked there as a prestigious lawyer. Once I went to meet him there because he was paying me to be a companion to my friend who was recovering a head injury she suffered in a car accident. As he walked me to the cashpoint and we were discussing his wife's condition, my eye was caught by a baby lizard that had somehow fallen into my friend's husband's path. I watched as the lizard ran and squiggled along just slightly ahead of our trajectory. I can't remember what my friend's husband said because I was transfixed watching the lizard running and squiggling until all of a sudden came the inevitable *SQUISH!*

...

As my friend's husband withdrew my salary, I looked back at that sorryass baby lizard footkill whose killer wasn't even aware of his actions.

a little green spot on a ball

2008-11-24T19:37:00.002+02:00

Its been long known to me that my husband is notoriously bad at geography and I will often throw him random trivia questions such as "What continent is Cameroon in?" and "What color are the people who live in the Ivory Coast?" just to get him confused. But I didn't realise that the phenomena was spreading.

Yesterday, over at friends, Shaili gave the mother their inflatable globe and asked her to find Israel for her. As the seconds yawned into a minute, for a moment there I really thought she might not find it. Israel... Israel... Eventually she found it, a small green speck at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean sea where we left it. I don't know what was scarier, that, or the fact that when Shaili asked her to find it, she said "Can you find the land of...", physically went away and thought about it for a minute, came back and triumphantly said "Israel!". Ach! but its easy to forget where you live when you're 4.

Afterwards, Shaili explained to me that we live between the sea and the makolet*. She gets that from me.

*makolet=corner shop

flying elephants

2008-11-24T07:16:00.004+02:00

I love this image taken by Gregory Colbert.
Everyone talks about swimming with dolphins, but I think swimming with elephants would be way cooler.
Link: http://www.ashesandsnow.org/

Top Ten you know you're the parent of small children when...

2008-11-23T16:47:00.004+02:00

1. You are driving alone and yet fight the urge to shout "TRACTOR!" when you pass one.
2. Ditto for trains and planes.
3. The pitter patter of tiny feet is typically accompanied by the noise of something being dragged
4. You know for a fact that wax crayon cannot be washed off walls and re-painting is your only option.
5. You fear the moments when they are in the other room and QUIET.
6. You play give us a clue and your submissions include Mickey Mouse and Dora the Explorer
7. Dora the Explorer music is your ring tone (and you love it)

8. You are woken up by a small finger in your nose.

9. You are late to work because you want to know whether the wonder pets will be ok
10. Your handbag is filled with McKids meal toys, hair ties and half eaten/half spilled packets of crisps.

Costa Rican goats go backwards

2008-11-20T18:22:00.003+02:00

20 November
Today I:

Soundtrack to get to work: KT Tunstall so loud that when I get into the car after work, I scare the bejesus out of the parking lot.
No. of minutes after 7am I waited to have coffee SO I WOULDN’T LOOK DESPERATE=32
Operation submitted as a batch job. Check email for results.
Checked email for results.
They take kosher seriously here. We have two separate dining rooms, one for meat and one for milk. In the past, we received email WITH PHOTOGRAPHS demonstrating how to use the red meaty squared trays on the square tables and the rounded orange dairy trays on the round tables. This is a subtle yet cunning way of making sure that a person eating a dairy lunch does not sit at the same table as somebody eating a meaty lunch. If you’re eating a chicken breast, not only can you not sit on the same table as someone sinking their teeth into a cheese sandwich, but your table can’t even be next to them. Because if that happens, the child cow steak would be insulted at being present in the same airspace as its mother’s milk in the béchamel sauce of a vegetable lasagna. And the lunching Jews in question would surely burn in hell at a temperature so high that no Hollywood special effects team could ever possibly capture it. Both dining rooms have outside areas which are close to but cordoned off from one another. Because a seat belt strip can totally save the situation.
And then, today.Today when I look, today everything is jumbled up! And you know, I wouldn't give two hoots if you came at me waving a sirloin near my ice cream, but I guess I am anal retentive enough to let the disharmony of the situation get to me!
Just look!

And just to be clear, I’d rather not risk burning in hell at 3000°C.
Operation submitted as a batch job. Check email for results.
Checked email for results.
Feel like listening to George Michael. You gotta have faith a faith a faith.
Played to death: Wham! Last Christmas.
No. of times put off going to the toilet until bladder was fit to burst: 3
No. of times huband used gay voice to parody interviewees for his secretry position, army commanders and others: too many to count!

somewhere, between the grey padded walls of the fifth floor...

2008-11-19T21:01:00.000+02:00

-Martin, I have something to confess.

-What is it?

-This morning before you got here, I had bad coffee breath so I went into your drawer and took one of your professional mints.

-That’s ok, they’re there for the taking. No need to confess.

-Are you sure? I mean, you are missing an opportunity for cube domination here.

-What do you mean?

-I mean, you could say “That’s really not OK” and use the opportunity to exert power over me.

-Why would I do that?

-For your own personal enjoyment.

-I wouldn’t enjoy that.

Explaining polygamy to people who don't watch big love

2008-11-19T08:47:00.002+02:00

“88.2% of statistics are made up on the spot” -Vic Reeves

2008-11-18T17:30:00.006+02:00

This morning, I had a bowl of Fruit ‘n Fibre. I stole the box from my husband. But he shouldn't notice until at least Saturday, so it's fair game.

Once, a long time ago, before he broke Tiff’nay’s heart, Grant Mitchell of Eastenders did an advert for Fruit ‘n Fibre.

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I can’t eat fruit and fibre without thinking of Grant. Or, for that matter, of Tiff’nay lying in the street outside the pub on New Years Eve.

Anyway, in the course of finding photographic evidence of Grant eating Fruit ‘n Fibre, I found this wonderful site: http://www.tvwhirl.co.uk/advertsdg.html
And it got me thinking, what are the top 10 adverts of my youth?

10 Great ads that I had forgotten!
1. Pepperami: It’s a bit of an animal (Pepperami)
2. P.P.P.Pick up a Penguin. (Penguin)
3. If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club! (Club)
4. Big Bad Dom (Domestos)
5. ACCRINGTON STANLEY? WHO ARE THEY? (Milk)
6. How do you do it? (Cadbury’s Crème Egg)
7. Oh no... an iceberg! What will we do? (Extra Strong Mints)
8. Fly Fishing by J.R. Hartley (Yellow Pages)
9. Woaaaahhh-ohhh! Vitalite... That's right!! (Vitalite)
10. Things are not quite what they seem (Diamond White)

10 Great ads I hadn’t forgotten:
1. Robin Hood Robin Hood spies the Weetabix (Weetabix)
2. You know when you’ve been tango’d (Tango)
3. Pardon me but I thought I heard you mutter… (Anchor butter)
4. But smart ol’ Blue he took the Milky Way (Milky Way)
5. (striking a match on a bald guy’s head) (Hamlet)
6. Boddingtons: cream of Manchester (Boddingtons)
7. Do you love someone enough to give them your last Rolo? (Rolo)
8. So he got an account called Liquid Gold. (A building society)
9. Two all-meat patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions in a sesame bun (Big Mac)
10. Only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate (Flake)

Gold!

2008-11-17T17:00:00.000+02:00

17 November
Today I:
• No. of passwords entered in the course of my day: 6
• Wrote Pint Test in cell E2 of an excel chart
• You can exit a cube corridor and fall in stride with someone you don’t know when suddenly a tennis ball pops out of his back pocket.

No no no, that's the elephant again

2008-11-16T17:23:00.008+02:00

Today I:

Was told I should be taking drugs. Or asked why I was not taking drugs. It was a bit ambiguous.
Said "pass"with a northern British accent without anyone noticing.
Laughed and laughed about how Pats will identify THE ONE.
Identified multiple new facets of THE EXPERIMENT:
1. Tell me to report missing time, tell me my password has expired, do not register the new passwords BIGTITS1 or 23FATBOYSREADYTOPARTY.
2. Deny me access to the QA and support lab.
3. Close the gates to the parking and have me wait for them to open e-v-e-r-s-o-s-l-o-w-l-y to enter or exit the parking lot.
Loved you: because you figured out how to use the branch you had to retrieve the stick your friend threw into the fountain, and you didn't get wet.
Loved you II: because I caught you in my wing mirror hanging out of the back window smelling the wind with happy abandon like a dog
Delicious: special edition pink! M&M peanuts (may have been out of date)(didn't matter)

FW: New less than 2" length EVDO USB modem with GPS & microSD

2008-11-16T09:20:00.002+02:00

YES!

I ♥ TimTam

2008-11-15T20:19:00.005+02:00

-We have to leave the beach at 2.30 because we are going to a birthday party. TimTam's gonna be there.

-Ooooh, I LOVE TimTam.

-So do I. He's so good and also he is hot.

-Ooooh, yes yes he is he totally is hot.

...

-Look at where we've got to when the only men we meet and think are hot are children's birthday clowns.

I'll have !anything but! the fish cakes, please

2008-11-14T13:44:00.004+02:00

Israel is good for many things. Israelis are good at many jobs. But waitering: Nop.

-Can I tell you what the specials are today?
-Yes please.
-There's Fishcakes, there's--
-What do you mean "Fishcakes"?
-Fish that are like, er, well, cakes.
-What kind of fish? How are they served?
-ER...(looks at notepad)...I'll have to check...

petty theiving starts early

2008-11-13T15:18:00.005+02:00

These objects entered our house and were not bought, given, found in a McDonalds meal, sent by post, left by another child, brought by safta, created on the premises, or any other means other than blatant thievery:

car
port of origin: yael's gan*
entry into the house: May 2008

cat
port of origin: merav's gan
entry into the house: September 2008

bunny
port of origin: shir's house
entry into the house: October 2008

absent from picture: spiderman
reason for absence: knowledge mummy wants to return to origin prompted concealing of hot goods

* gan = kindergarten

sublime pleasure is...

2008-11-12T19:43:00.001+02:00

bunking off
having a leisurely morning coffee and a cheese stick with a friend
finding a packet of salt and vinegar crisps in your bedroom
having 2 rows of cadbury's dairy milk for desert
having someone photoshop you into an engineering memory
having 3 rows of cadbury's dairy milk for goodnight munchies

goodbye tzabar

2008-11-12T13:50:00.006+02:00

Tzabar voted off the Ach HaGadol last night in what was a shocking poll.

The coalition will now fall apart and Yossi Boublis will win the money.

Its a fucking disaster!

why i love google

2008-11-11T10:37:00.002+02:00

where else will you be offered a recipe for a spam breakfast burrito?

Shalom, Haver

2008-11-10T14:03:00.003+02:00

10 November
Today I:

Noticed that it’s Rabin’s Memorial Day. Rabin was a dude that was assassinated at a peace rally in 1995. He was Prime Minister of Israel at the time. Rewind to 1995, and it’s a year after Oslo and all is going well for the man. Well, as well as it can for a politician in Israel where at any given time most of the country is complaining about you. He came off stage and was shot 3 times by Yigal Amir, a religious fanatic who wasn’t even an arab. He was severely punished by being sent to prison and getting married to a starstuck dossit* and having children through conjugal visits. Itzak Rabin is remembered every year by a concert for Peace and by memorial candles all over the place. Its so very cool to remember Itzak as a symbol for the peace process, so much so that a national memorial day was set up in his honour. He is an idol for secular Israelis who want to be in. Half the people worship him. Half the people hated him and support Amir. And half don’t give a shit, but we don’t count them anyway as they are arabs.

A couple of weeks ago when we were in the desert, we were forced by proximity and volume to be silent witnesses to a conversation between a few 20 year old Americans and Australians. It went something like this:
American #1: You know that Steve Irwin? Is he like Australian or from New Zealand or South Africa or something?
Australian #1: (measured) Australian.
American #1: Are you like really sad that he died?
Australian #1: He’s like dead, and I get that. I think it’s a shame. But I don’t think he was more special than other dead people so I don’t think he should be elevated into some kind of huge symbol and worshipped and stuff.

She then went on to say many derogatory things about Steve Irwin’s wife, which I don’t think was called for, and I don't agree with her at all. Steve Irwin was a legend and is up there with Kurt Cobain and Freddy Mercury and he should totally have whitewashed roadside shrines surrounded in bright flowers and statues. But in the context of Rabin, I do like totally get what she was saying.

* dossit: slang for a religious woman

Baked potato faux pas

2008-11-09T20:24:00.000+02:00

Today I:

made the fatal error of wrapping my potatoes in tin foil. The skill of being able to bake a perfect potato is learnt at university but is obviously not akin to riding a bicycle.

Like a rolling stone

2008-11-09T09:42:00.001+02:00

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Dog castration. Yes or no?

2008-11-09T07:05:00.000+02:00

...Twinsetandpearls said no, but had been through a 'sticky patch' with her springer spaniel: "He loved dd's toy horse which was about his size and if pressure was applied in the correct place it would neigh, which I think the dog took as a compliment."

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You wouldn't steal a car

2008-11-09T06:37:00.000+02:00

I've always found this a bit presumptious.

And that is why I added 7 new dvds to my collection.
Lets face it, I was cut out of my mother's will already.

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elvis was a cajun

2008-11-05T20:32:00.000+02:00

4 November

Today I:

If only Israel would take Purim costumes as seriously: http://mightygoods.com/features/halloween-costume-guide
Snapshot Pilates: Albert’s face shmushed onto his OVERBALL having a rest from swimming.
Identified facet of THE EXPERIMENT: do not peel the onions before adding them to the lasagna.
Good to be mummy: "Mummy, I'm frightened of marshmallows" (boy hasn't even SEEN ghostbusters! But I've evidentally I've watched enough times in my life to build up such a repository that Stay Puft's image passed down the umbilical cord 4 years ago and imprinted firmly on his mind)
Bad to be mummy: the amount of sand that can come out of a shoe at the end of the day!!

Status of my front lawn: busy

2008-11-05T13:37:00.001+02:00