The only reason we went down south was to stop thinking about Ezi’s biopsy. The latest day for the answer would have been Sunday. But no answer has been found. And we are still anticipating. Since the doctor’s office repeatedly had no answer I tried the clinic. Nothing.
Fortunately we have our Japanese guests to distract us. They help us to get a perspective on the situation and on our lives here.
“bendice las manos” my late ex-mother-in-law used to say. “Bless these hands.” That was the only expression I could think of going up the elevator after a massage by Galina at the Carleton Plaza in the Dead Sea. Tal had buried me in mud before that, and she too deserves a blessing.
The rest of the world may be going to hell but I have had a perfect day – starting with a dip in the Dead Sea, continuing to breakfast (I LOVE nothing more than hot cheese cake), and then to the falls at Ein Gedi. I think Ezi’s even forgotten that we should have had the results of his very significant biopsy already. He had a regular massage, I had an Ayoveda. Life doesn’t get much better than this.
Except for the very ordinary food – a result of the massive number of families to be fed – we have been having a divine visit at the Carleton.
Eat your hearts out. This is the view from my balcony.
After a fantastic lunch in Herzlia with some dear friends at Patqua, we drove to the Dead Sea in 2 hours and were floating in the salt water by 5:30. The Crowne Plaza turns out to be the exact opposite of what I read on Tripadvisor. There was parking in front of the hotel, the check-in wait was brief and the staff was very polite and helpful. Our room must have cost more then the disappointed guests on the web, or we had great luck, because not only do we have adjoining rooms with the kids, but we have wine, fruit, chocolate, water and free internet. And the proximity to the sea is wonderful. The food is pretty blah but the desserts were surprisingly good, considering that they’re parve. So far, so good.
So far from the world, and yet the world is here. You can see Jordan, and not only does the car radio pick up mostly Jordanian stations, but my cellphone is charging me roaming rates because I’m out of the country. Libya heads the news, but the rocket attacks from Gaza are still going on, and the only peace is inward/
A sudden decision to wait for the biopsy results at the Dead Sea. Oren made reservations at the Crowne Plaza. Late last night, instead of writing something here I looked up the reviews of the hotel. Oy. I am pretty sure I’ve been there before because it sounds so terribly (and frightfully) familiar but never mind. So we’re on our way after lunch.
I hope I can focus the camera this time.
Nice glass exhibit at the Land of Israel museum.
It all started when he hit me back. And I won’t apologize because I was right. so there.
when a family party was postponed because relatives were out of the country I didn’t realize it was a pilot cousin captured in Erithrea with a sealed package containing part of a kalachnikov. It was secret. She’s a PhD in computers and with a sweet and innnocent manner and it’s clear she had no knowledge of what she was carrying. But tonight she’s back home and the news
is all over. Now I want to welcome Vered Aronson home.
So we had a ceasefire, and rockets are still falling, and we’re still attacking the rocketeers. I understand from my friends who write me from abroad that nothing is being mentioned in the news about the barrages we’re getting on civilians. Does that means that in today’s day and age we could be destroyed and no one would know the difference? Just like my aunts and uncles?
In the mean time Khaddafi has fallen and it is the heartfelt hope of all of us that an enlightened democracy will rise and blossom!
So it’s time to get the canned goods and water bottles into the shelter. My cans of choice is baked beans, tuna fish, and corn. My friend in Beersheva says that she sends her husband to her supermarket but otherwise they stay home and try to identify whether the noise is from the grad missiles hitting the iron dome or a neighbor. These are not fun times.
Let them not get worse.
But how can Israel just sit there and let its citizens be indiscriminately killed by barrages of random missiles?
It comes down to this. When I was getting divorced many years ago and trying to borrow money for milk from relatives, a cousin of mine grudgingly reached into his pocket and said, “You have to know who to divorce, just like you have to know who to marry.”
Because I spend so much time in waiting rooms in hospitals I don’t get to see much of my friends any more. But we do have little spontanteous outings. The other night for example we went to see this little exhibit of Finy Leitersdorf’s fashions of the sixties and seventies. They were always impressive, and one of the first wonderful things my mother-in-law did for me was to buy me a wonderful desert coat. So it was a real pleasure to remember what real Israeli designing was about. But there was another surprise. A letter from Finy’s husband Yonatan Simon to my mother and father-in-law 
and then a drawing of his daily schedule
that included a sketch of his art class with my sister-in-law Dina.
