Let me take this opportunity to wish a good year to all the people who have filled up my mailbox with new year wishes. So happy new year to all the banks, health clinics, theaters, supermarkets, department stores, journals, etc. who took the trouble to send me one of the identical cards you sent to thousands of others. You really made my day with all those hard-to-load videos of apples and honey.
september 5, 2021 – night before new years Read Post »
There’s a whole big thing in the Times magazine today about the name Karen and how it means a white self-indulgent bitch, usually racist and narcissistic, and how the name became popular in the 60’s I think but now is totally uncool. So I have to make a declaration: My name is not really Karen.
I know, I’ve written poems about how my name Karen in Hebrew means a ray of light as well as a horn, and when the King James Bible was first translated they mixed up the translations, giving Moses horns instead of light emanating from his head. But the truth is, I was named after my grandmother, Haya Keila, but the registrar entered my name as Karen Hilary, and that’s what I became.
So I’m not a Karen, okay? Well, I am, but not really.
september 5, 2021 – karen Read Post »
It’s all over the busses here – how terrible abortions are and how you will regret it later. I’ve been seeing them for years – a few at a time – and thinking it is some extreme religious organization, and who will pay attention. But somehow it seems to infiltrate – that thought that even if the mother is endangered, the child should not be sacrificed – even though it goes against Jewish law to put the fetus before the mother. And suddenly I had a flashback – when anyone in Israel could have an abortion, without a board to approve it. And people still had children, and they were loved.
Texas has made me lose all hope.
september 4, 2021 – Read Post »
NOT FOR THE WEAK STOMACHED READERS
The plan was to go up north with a bunch of friends for a birthday trip today. But with my back still suffering from a minibus trip a few days ago, I decided my health comes first and joined some other friends for a catamaran jaunt. I always find the sea invigorating, but I hadn’t had more than a veg shake for breakfast before we toasted with champagne on the yacht and by one began to feel queasy. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the usual sea sickness because it was accompanied by all kinds of bathroom difficulties before the quadruple vomit in the galley.
I could not partake in the feast the group shared and went home to sleep it off. Now I am back to normal and if I weigh the beauties against the faults, still come out positive – the view of the shore from Netanya to Jaffa is magnificent and the conversation fascinating, with many important issues raised. But if I promised to do something for you this weekend, forget it. I’m out of commission,
september 3, 2021 – sailer’s blog Read Post »
We’ve reached the number of 80 assassinations in the Arab sector this year. Everyone blames the police who are scared to interfere, but I also blame the need to take control over one’s life. Corona is a small part of it, but the feeling that all order has been lost and the individual or the small group is the only possibility of establishing some kind of order – even if only in the family, or the community, or the business. No country, no hamula, no medical authority, knows how to take control, so why not me? Silly, but it feels like Corona has brought us into the world of the wild west.
september 3, 2021 – daily murders Read Post »
four more days before the holidays and we spent so much of the day on the phone connecting with elderly people, isolated friends, relatives – and some of them we hope to actually see.
The loneliness of the elderly is impossible to believe. Even in this country, where neighbors seem to know everything about each other, people die alone, unknown. We ourselves should not be seeing our children, the unvaccinated grandchildren, but we cannot resist.
september 2, 2021 – warning: holidays on the way Read Post »
so this friend tells me that the only habit he maintains is to clear his history every day on the search engine. And we’ve got more important things to talk about so I skip over that. And then I wake up in the middle of the night with that sentence, “clear history.” All my life I’ve been trying to document history, to learn from history, maybe even to change history, but clear history? Nah. I just finished an article on the way the little bit of history of my family and friends in the Holocaust keeps changing, that even my mother changed her official testimony about her sister’s fate when she discovered my uncle had abandoned her when the Nazis caught her on a mission in the forests. She wiped out her sister’s married name from the records. Both the original and the doctored versions are fascinating to me.
So I looked at my google history – and I thought, if ever anyone is interested in how my mind works, it will be an amazing document. But if you follow these pages you’ve got enough to do.
september 2, 2021 – clearing history Read Post »
I have not yet begun the new years’ plans. Okay, I’ve made the chicken soup and the kreplach and baked a cake and bought most of the stuff I need – but I’ve got so many meals to cook for. Even when we’re invited out we are given responsibilities – a salad, a soup, a honey cake. So Friday one meal, Saturday lunch – the kids that are busy with their in-laws for the holidays, Monday – dinner for the others, Tuesday – at friends. After that we go back into relative lockdown until Yom Kippur.
And what of the gifts? Tomorrow is my day to skip in and out of strip malls and see what I can dig up. We tried yesterday with some of the kids and it almost killed me. And we found almost nothing in the shops. They prefer online shopping anyhow. Real life doesn’t interest them.
Come to think of it, I prefer online as well.
september 1, 2021 -new years plans Read Post »
