Israeli Mom

In preparation for our big trip to the US, we decided it was time for our two boys to start learning English. The kids are pretty excited about this, and looking forward to the lessons. Yesterday, we started by learning the names of six animals in English: cat, dog, bird, fish, snake and mouse. IsraeliDad made them some cards with the pictures, and we played a game of “Which card is missing”. They had fun, for about 10 minutes, which I guess is the attention span of Dan, who’s not even five years old yet (birthday coming up next month!).

That isn’t to say that they don’t know any phrases in English. You see, the latest addiction is to playing Warcraft 3 - a fairly advanced strategy game involving building and managing a small medieval town (if you’re human that is, it could be an Orc settlement, a lofty nightelf camp or a ghoulish graveyard of the Undead). Our kids mainly play as humans (in the game, that is, irl they often behave more like orcs). Since the game is in English, they’ve picked up on the most important phrases orated by the game characters.

And so, at the ages of roughly five and seven, these are the phrases my kids know in English:

“We need more gold”

“Build more farms”

“Not enough wood”

“Our town is under attack”

“Yes, Sire”

As they progress in the game, I expect them to learn the more advanced “I live to serve” and “for honor!” that the knights recite, but for now, their armies are made up mostly of footmen

At first we thought this isn’t the right English for a visit to the US, but IsraeliDad commented today, that they can already do diplomatic work over there with these phrases. We’ll just say we’re from Israel and they can say: “Our town is under attack - We need more gold”.

Apparently some Israelis are taking an active side in the American elections. I happen to know from my cat forums just how emotional and heated up these elections can get. Cats and politics? Well, yes, we have a special forum dedicated to debates and current events and let me tell you, these elections generate quite a bit of moderating activity.

For myself, I feel that I don’t really know enough about American politics to form a very substantiated opinion. Being a pro-peace liberal, I guess I would be an Obama supporter. That said, I think you have to know a country’s politics well before taking sides, and I most certainly am not an expert on American politics or culture, for that matter.

Well, some Israelis obviously feel they know better, so much so that they decided to put together a short video demonstrating their support for Obama:

There’s at least one former Chief of Staff, along with a few prominent actors and media people. It’s interesting to watch, just don’t think that the average Israeli is that involved in the American Elections.

Wrapping up September with some images here.

Here’s our school boy on the morning of his very first day of school:

Some pictures from our day trip to visit the family in the kibbutz earlier in September:

Dan wanted to inspect his uncle’s pond up close:

Two adorable puppies wanted to play with me:

Back home, our kids and their friends, trying to bring Grandpa down. Look closely, there’s a Grandpa there in the middle, with five kids trying hard to get him down.

Our Dan and his friend Yonatan amidst Sea Quill flowers that grow not far from where we live. These flowers are known in Israel as signs of Autumn.

Some pictures from IsraeliDad’s niece’s wedding:

The wedding took place outdoors - note the apples and the grenades, reminding us that Rosh Hashana is near.

My Dad’s hand as he dips a slice of apple in honey for Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year’s Eve)

And the beginning of the family feast celebrating the new year:

We just found out today that our kids are going on one long holiday as of tomorrow. It’s Rosh Hashana tomorrow, then another weekend, then Yom Kippur, a weekend and the long holiday of Sukkot. So, our school decided to bridge over the entire thing and merge it into one long holiday of almost 3 weeks!

Scary thought. Especially since IsraeliDad isn’t well. Besieged by another round of strep throat along with another outburst of his chronic liver inflammation. It’s nothing too dramatic, ever since he’s been a young boy, whenever he has a major cold, his liver reacts with a form of non-infectious jaundice. It means he’s tired, can’t do much and has to lie down most of the time. Which rules out too much action with the kids over this long vacation.

Wish us luck, I’ll try and keep the blog updated, but who knows what the coming few weeks will look like… So, before I leave -

Shana Tova ~ Happy New Jewish Year to you all!

We went to the first of the two weddings last night and it was absolutely magnificent. It’s been a while since we’ve been emotionally moved by a wedding ceremony like we were last night. It was a very unusual wedding, in that the young couple chose a totally secular service, without a Rabbi. This service has no legal standing in Israel, so in order to get registered as married people in the Home Office, they had to do what many secular Israelis do: travel to Cyprus and get an official civil marriage held there. Last night was really the wedding party, along with their own unique, authentic ceremony which they came up with on their own. It was moving, emotional and very happy.

Then this morning, I could hardly drag myself out of bed (not that I had anything to drink, it was just the late bedtime). I had a wonderful refreshing surprise with my morning coffee though - the first rain of the year! Pouring rain, in fact, for about ten minutes, that made the air smell so good.

I couldn’t help but work out outdoors this afternoon, just to soak in more autumn smells and sights. Small puddles at places, strewn with gem-like colorful bougunvillia flowers; Dry leaves and twigs dancing in small circles along the paths; wonderful long white sea squill flowers. Everything serene and so perfect for this last Shabbat of this Jewish Year.

I will be posting pictures too! Don’t mind the poetic streak there, I still know the media I plan on a picture post that will sum up the month, in a few days.

Asaf is an Israeli teenager who has recently been diagnosed with permanent kidney failure. His family is looking for a live donor who can donate a kidney to Asaf. Donor must be of blood type O or B - it’s a long process of evaluations, obviously, but the blood type is the initial criterion.

Read more about Asaf here

Updates on that blog indicate that there are six potential volunteers already - but as far as I know, they’re still looking for more candidates. Just doing my miniscule bit in spreading the word.

Internet traffic is a strange thing. As a webmaster, I always check to see how people got to my site, through which search engines and which search terms. Some funny ones for this blog, I admit. Since some of them are obviously looking for info regarding Israel, I thought I’d pick a few and address them. So, if you reached this blog searching for the following, maybe I can help!

Israelis in India -

This blog comes up in the top ten on Google India for this search term! So yes, plenty of Israelis in India. It’s “the” thing to do after you finish your military service. Some go backpacking in South America while others try to experience exotic India, usually staying there for a few months, and sometimes even longer. Myself, I tend to stay away from places that require special vaccination protocols, but I know so many people who’ve been to India and absolutely loved it. My dear brother-in-law, the one getting married next week, has spent a year there and actually ran his own restaurant there. I had mentioned it before, I think, hence why the blog comes up in the search results.

If you need more information, the only link I could think of is the one to the Israeli embassy in India.

how to eat sabra fruit -

Well, I mentioned our sabra cacti in the backyard, and I also talked about my kids eating habits. Two separate topics, but they were enough to bump this blog up to the first 10 results in Google for the encompassing question of “how to eat sabra fruit”. Well, my personal recommendation would be to try some other fruit, but if you insist, try the new thornless variety. If you absolutely want to try the common types, growing around in the fields of Israel, here’s what you’re supposed to do (do this at your own risk) -

1. Take a long branch and fix a nail at the end, to pick the fruit with. Or just hit it out of the bush - don’t put your arms inside the thorny cacti, that’s the general idea.

2. Using a fork and knife, have fun peeling it off, without ever touching the skin of the fruit with your bare hands.

3. Eat it and spit out the stones that are inside the fruit.

4. If you survived it all, write in and let me know if it was worth it. My husband says it is, he does it occasionally.

hairy lively moms -

Why thank you very much! Ever since I posted about the Zohan movie and mentioned the hairy thing, I get the most intereting searches for hairy moms, hot hairy moms and all that. “ripe hairy mom” is another favorite. Not!

I don’t mind being at number one at Google for “hot Israeli Mom” (ok, so Google mixed up my reference to the Israeli weather and the blog’s name…), but if you’re looking for hairy Israelis, well, go watch Zohan or something and keep me out of this!

Next week it’s Rosh Ha’Shana, the Jewish New Year Eve. I think it’s Monday evening. This year, we’re having a week of celebrations pretty much, as we’re ending this year with a wedding, then starting the next year with another  wedding.

First, it’s IsraeliDad’s niece who’s getting married on Thursday. Sweet young couple, about to leave for France soon, for their course of studies, they wanted to leave as husband and wife.

Next week, right after the holiday, my brother-in-law, IsraeliDad’s twin brother is getting married to his beautiful fiance. Major event in our household, obviously, and I still need to figure out what to wear for this one!

Right now, with both weddings planned as outdoor events, we’re hoping for sunny weather. As it happens, the forecast is for a rainy weekend - not usual this time of year, so let’s hope it will be in between dry spells

We’re still going! Very much so, even, but we’re thinking about making some changes. Apparently, return flights where you fly to and back from the same destination are much cheaper than one-ways. That means that flying to Tucson from London costs over $800 a ticket, just one way. A return (two ways) ticket from London to LA and back costs under $650…. I have no idea why, but spending hours at Kayak.com has convinced us that we need to fly to LA, make a round trip of the West and get back to LA for our flight back to London (and then Israel).

That means adding a tour through Arizona and Nevada that will include at the very least the Grand Canyon National Park, and potentially Zion and Bryce too. It also means spending a few days in Las Vegas! All in all, a lot more driving, but we think this is going to be as much fun, if not more so, than the previous plan.

The good news is that the kids are in school. And they’re fairly happy there, so it seems. This new school is very different from the schools we had back when I was growing up.

Ron, the first-grader, can choose which subjects he wants to take. Math and Hebrew (reading and writing) are the only subjects that are mandatory. For the rest he will have to decide in a week’s time which “courses” he wants to take this semester. This week and next week, he can still try them out for size and see which suit him best. I really want him to take English, to get prepared for our trip (only six months from now!), and other than that, he can also take woodwork, history, lots of different classes in PE, and a few other subjects. To be honest, I feel that it may be a bit too much choice for such a young boy, but he’s having fun trying out the different classes, so we’ll see what it all boils down to in another week’s time.

Dan, in the adjoining kindergarten is just having fun, as well he should be. He’s actually joined Ron in a couple of classes, out of interest (kindergarten kids can choose to join classes if they want to) and he says he wants to take the history course too.

There is some bad news today too, a bit upsetting for me, actually. My mom phoned to tell us that they had a burglar come into her home. She lives with my 80 years old grandfather and my invalid uncle in the same apartment, so like IsraeliDad was saying, it was actually lucky that they never noticed anything and he only got away with her purse. You never know, when surprising a burglar how things might end, and he could have gotten violent. Still, she’s had quite a bit of cash in her purse, as she was getting ready to pay a loand, plus somehow, the theives managed to withdraw more cash from her bank account already. All in all, a loss of ten thousands shekels (about three thousand dollars), which is a lot of money for Mom, sigh.