israeli politics

The last time I was in New York,  well over a year ago, our friends told us that the coup attempt we are watching now in the Capitol was inevitable given, the rhetoric of the president.  

Wasn’t anyone else aware of the possibilities of the results of such inflammatory language?  It’s impossible for me to comprehend that there was no back-up plan in case this kind of situation occurred.

 And it’s impossible to believe we will be able to stem these events in the near future.

I’m looking at the steps of the Capitol and remembering the first time I saw those steps.  A photograph of my father standing with the NY state senator.  Incredible pride in my father’s face that his case for Israel was being heard.  I have to find that photo.  It made me proud to be an American….

january 6, 2021 – it had to happen Read Post »

israeli politics

We’re still here, aren’t we?

We may have lost all track of time

Maybe for us it is the 306th

day of March, but at least

it’s not the Ides.  Maybe

some of us have not left our homes,

spent more time in bed than in our cribs,

kissed fewer lips and longed for more

than ever before.  Maybe we have lost

folks or have endured the illness

that passes all comprehension

and maybe nothing has happened

to anyone we know.  So.  So.

We’re still here, you and me.

We’re still here, aren’t we?

 

december 28, 2020 – new years’ poem Read Post »

israeli politics

One thing about closure is that you don’t know much about what is going on around you.  I’m tired of talking to people on the phone, on zoom, even of looking out the window at who’s taking a walk down the street.  I know that my grandchildren are all in school, but I have no idea of how it feels to go back there and whether the teachers are terrified of catching something.

So I announced on facebook that we are half-vaccinated.  And what I discovered was that many of my equally silent friends have also been vaccinated and were not sure who to tell.  The estimate is that by tomorrow there will be half a million people.  Out of a population of – it turns out – almost 9 million, that’s not bad.

Was anyone sick after the vaccine? I asked my friends who had written me.  “Eh,” was the majority response.  “A little soreness, maybe a bit more tiredness.  In short: Eh.”  This from a population of kvetchers.

december 28, 2020 – vaccines – before, during and after Read Post »

israeli politics

so a notice comes for a package waiting in the post office.  it is very exciting, especially since the package delivered early this morning was only a special shampoo I ordered a while ago that I no longer need.  THIS package will be worth the trouble of traipsing to the post office (where there is no parking), taking a number, and standing in line – because in all likelihood it will be Heather Ferguson’s necklaces that she sent from Canada so long ago!  Yes, I think, and I’ll wear the necklaces and give one to each of my daughters, and maybe to one or two of my best friends.  Anyway, this dreaming keeps me going for a while.  

Of course the P.O. is crowded and I take the wrong kind of number at first, and when I realize my mistake, take the right kind, and see that I might as well go across the street to the university bookstore and buy a new keyboard before my number is called.   I come back half an hour later and it is almost my turn so I stand in the middle of the room yards away from everyone else.  

Suddenly my number is called, but as I step up to window #4, someone from before returns to the clerk to ask something, and a delivery man drops off a bundle of papers, and a man with a box steps in to complain, and suddenly I hear the number after mine called to a different carroll.   

It is my turn to butt in and complain. Determinedly, I take my place at window #5 and show her my number.  Yes, she says, and adds a few words.  But she is behind her mask and behind a plastic window and there is noise from the crowds behind me and I can’t understand what she’s saying.  It takes me a minute to realize that I have to show her my notice.  “People wait so long, they forget what they came here for,”  she shouts at me,  and goes to the other room to bring the package.  

But it’s only a slim envelope and I walk back a bit crestfallen.  No jewelry for me.  It turns out to be a book of Louise Gluck, “Faithful and Virtuous Night,” and since I was a bit disappointed by other books of hers I was not happy to see it.  But it’s really good.  Really.  I read the first poem in the car as Ezi and I drove to buy a pair of shoes before the shutdown, and it captivated me like no other in recent years.  

We’re going into lockdown anyway on Sunday so the necklaces will wait.  And even if they arrived, my planned visit with Heather and friends on zoom wearing my Jools will have to be cancelled because I’M GETTING A VACCINE ON SUNDAY!!!

 

 

december 24, 2020 – post office Read Post »

israeli politics

After a long wait on the phone, I was shocked to discover a live person talking to me and had to catch my breath before I could answer him.  Yes, I want to vaccinate but I have an allergy to penicillin. “Do you carry atropine?” “No” “December 30, 12:15.”   

Now I have to find out what it entails, if Ezi should vaccinate, if my life has significance, and other questions of universal importance.

We’re still full of half-answers, mistaken notions, and open possibilities.  For example, a friend said he was coming by on Thursday because he will be safe since he’ll be vaccinated on Wednesday.    

Then I remembered.  There was a time when I did carry atropine – during the Gulf War.

Mistakes have been h

 

 

December 20, 2020 – vaccinations et al Read Post »

israeli politics

Because our internet is out – for some reason – I’m writing this offline and will post it without looking when it comes back.  You know I don’t even go back and correct anything even if Grammarly tells me to. 

First off, I woke up with a sense of doom and by the evening hope I will have forgotten this feeling.  It was partly because everything went wrong with yesterday.  Except for the IAWE arc reading itself last night, it was quite mad. We spent a great deal of the morning updating my computer, and then tried to install the usb microphone so I could record poems for Robert Priest.  That seemed to wreck my audio in zoom and I couldn’t give my little speech at the amazing arc 28 launch about the Israel Association of Writers in English and how we work together to finance the journal and produce these evenings and how we’re going to have a newsletter soon…. 

There was also the matter of the discovery that I will have to take the vaccine in hospital surroundings because I’m allergic to penicillin, and we have no idea how the vaccine will behave on anti-body-less Ezi.  In the meantime my son-in-law is in isolation having been exposed to a corona family member. 

And every muscle in my body aches – for no reason. 

But the worst part is that I’ve been so long away from a hairdresser – partly because of corona and partly because of my sinuses – that I dyed my hair and it turned out black and I look like a witch.

Just writing that down made me feel better, made me realize that all my troubles are minor and my own situation is the best it could possibly be.  Yes, I will gradually lighten and ultimately go grey as it grows in.  and I’ve seen it on my cousins – it’s totally white and gorgeous.  Watch me,  by 2022 I’ll be a distinguished mature lady.

Maybe I’ll even grow up.

And I made friends with a hedgehog today who gave me proportions –

i mean if she can survive in a totally unexpectable world, so can I

december 18, 2020 – Read Post »

israeli politics

Even though it is a holiday, we have – suddenly –  begun to believe that covid may well come to an end, we are getting more careless and more pressed to complete all the things that we’ve neglected for the past year.  I say ‘we’ when it is just me, but i do feel it around me.  so my entries are a little shorter than usual… 

december 17, 2020 – falling behind Read Post »

israeli politics

two separate issues.  

since Ezi is even more in love with planes than ever, he traces them on his app so we knew exactly when the first vaccinations would arrive, and turned on the tv to watch it.  And there was our Prime Minister, taking all the credit, perhaps even justifiably.  Who knows?  He doesn’t share anything that might be important to anyone who could be considered important.  In any case it is a great day – and we can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

One thing we will not do is travel to the emirates in the near future.  I’m sure they are very nice people and we could become very good friends and partners, but I have a little worry about infections and terrorists.  What happens to some Israeli who catches corona while he’s there and needs hospitalization?  what happens if Iran gets wind of him?  I think I’ll stay here for a while longer – at least in this country.

 

december 9, 2020 – vaccinations and emirates Read Post »