chaos isn’t the word for it. My favorite vacation place, Arabesque, was vandalized yesterday and people are being stoned on the street. Don’t go out, I say to myself. But I’m going.
No, I didn’t go. I am too old to get caught by a siren in the middle of the street. The siren a little while ago caught me so off base I didn’t even make it downstairs.
may 13, 2021 – chaos 4 Read Post »
I’m not sure we even wake up completely when the rockets go off. We took two trips to the shelter last night, and went back to sleep after a quarter of an hour – we’re that tired. But after 1,200 rockets in the past few days we’re getting used to going crazy at any moment.
I do know that our Arab neighbors were not in the shelter last night. Did they go back to their villages and towns? Today I will try to find out where they are. The Arab boys living across the street haven’t been around all week and who knows if they aren’t demonstrating in Yaffo. I do not like this more than I do not like the rockets falling in our neighborhood. The people who live near me worry me as much as those I don’t know far away.
may 13, 2021 – sleepwalking Read Post »
this is why I started this blog in 2001, to let the people I love know I’m still here, that I haven’t blown up yet and so far all is well.
So at 5 I told our trainer I was on my way to the doctor at 5:30 and she said “No, you can’t. There’s going to be rocket-fire at 6. Can’t you see no one is outside?
Just to make sure I called my step-daughter who knows everything and she confirmed.
So I apologetically cancelled the doctor. The secretary was angry – so late – and I’m sure the doctor would have liked to go home early and be with his family in a safe shelter.
But I waited for the last minute because I kept thinking – it isn’t logical – 6 is the wrong time – it’s just before iftar. They would wait until the celebrations for idl fitr.
And the rockets didn’t come. So in the meantime, we cleaned out the chemical toilet in the shelter, brought some food and games for later, and came upstairs for dinner.
My friend called to say she asked her granddaughter to sum up her first school year. “It started,” she said, “With zoom, zoom, zoom, and is ending with “boom, boom, boom.”
I expect a ‘boom’ shortly.
may 12, 2021 – so far, so good Read Post »
We’re so occupied with tracking rockets we’re not watching the politics here. And it’s a shell game. Remember what Henry IV tells his son:
may 12, 2021 – busy days Read Post »
i was up at 2:30 a.m. (I would like to s ay it was as if my heart told me but I wake up sometimes like that) and as I was preparing my hot milk, the sirens went off again. Once again we shared night stories with the students. I am a joker in these circumstances, trying to make everyone calm, but forgetting to take my shoes.
going down there to clean up after breakfast
may 12, 2021 – another boom Read Post »
Picture our evening: we shower, get into bed.
And the sirens go off, and we run to the shelter. And the only people who join us are our next door neighbor and the kids from upstairs. No one else has the energy to run down all those steps. So there are 4 adults and 5 students. We hear the rockets and know they fell nearby, and some of the students are shaky, scared.
We wait a quarter of an hour and go upstairs and the sirens go off again. And one adult is fed up and doesn’t come down. The five students, however, are young and very fast. One has remembered my suggestion to bring Rummicub and we begin to play. They are playing in Arabic and translating themselves to Hebrew for me. I am totally unfocused but what the hell – we play. And the time has passed when we could have gone upstairs but we haven’t finished the game. Finally, I came in second to last and let them go home. Let’s hope that was it for the night.
may 11, 2021 – rockets! Read Post »
I know, I know, you’re checking in to see what the simple citizen thinks of all the rockets being fired on Ashkelon, Ashdod, Jerusalem, and of course, the whole area near Gaza. And guess what, we don’t like it. Today, on the Israel Trail (where we walked at least 12 miles in the hot sun to see all kinds of ruins of civilizations built on civilizations destroyed), most of the people with whom I spoke blamed Bibi’s policies in Jerusalem, but I think there are a lot of other answers as well, including the fact that we nurtured Hamas and ignored Fatach and Mohammed Abass, and that we didn’t do anything to help curb the violence and crime in Arab towns.
But you’re asking if I’m scared, and why I’m going out on the Israel trail when there are rockets all over. Okay, I’m scared. I do believe rockets will fall on Tel Aviv and I’ll be in danger. We have a shelter in the basement of our building, and I am always ready – but I’m more worried about children, grandchildren, and how they will all be affected. 15 months of lockdown was more than enough to screw them up.
so why was I wandering along to the source of the Yarkon river today? because it was out of rocket range. and it was beautiful. 
it kind of puts things into proportion.
may 11, 2021 – chaos 3 Read Post »
sometimes it is good to remember happier days – my love for this poem has continued for seventy years. And it always makes me cry. I had to accept the challenge and try to translate it to Hebrew. Even if you don’t know Hebrew you can feel my emotion.
may 10, 2021 – new colossus Read Post »
