Still Phony

I’ve taken a break from this space for some time now. Mostly this has been due to writer’s block. For the life of me I couldn’t think of anything trivial enough to write about. Things have been pretty serious around here: peace talks are in the toilet – raise your hand if you’re sorry about this. Then there was the fire in the Carmel followed by the firestorm in the Knesset and the media. And all of this was followed by the hurricane on Sunday which blew over one of my cypress trees. Well, this was serious to me. But I spent an inordinate amount of time in this period struggling with my new phone.

All I wanted out of life was to download a few ringtones, nothing too fancy. I would go to Google and could plainly see that there was nothing wrong with the connection. But from there the browser would just not work. Ok, once in a while it would give me something like you’d throw a bone to a dog. Most of the time, however, nothing/nada/bupkiss. It was getting me down.

Then yesterday I had a breakthrough. Now, I am renowned in the computer world for the gentleness of my touch and I have never worn-out a keyboard. You see, it turns out that touchscreen is something of a misnomer. I found this out when I tapped the infernal thing quite hard, more out of frustration than inspiration, and it blooming worked!

Suddenly I was able to acquire a few nice pieces like Debussy’s “Girl with the Flaxen Hair.” I’ve never actually seen flax and so I don’t really know what it looks like, but I think this is about a blonde girl because men never change. For my ringtone I went with Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” – just because I love it. I’m so relieved. I think I may also be unblocked.

Phony Baloney

In the neighborhood where I grew up there was a park with a great, big hill that had a reservoir on top. Most of the hill was wooded and the back of it was quite steep. My friends and I used to love to climb up the back way on the “trails” as we called them. It was a challenge and as close to an adventure as any of us had ever experienced. But for some reason it always freaked out my mother. “If you get hurt, don’t come crying to me,” she would say. I don’t think that ever stopped me and I don’t think I ever got hurt.

All this comes to mind because of our cell phone service provider. Orange says if we don’t buy new phones, they won’t fix the old ones should they need it. I like my old phone. It’s small and cheap and works perfectly as a phone which is all it does. Best of all, it has a flip-open cover, meaning you can close it and it doesn’t dial itself from the bottom of your purse they way the previous one did. I can’t tell you how many messages I got saying, “Your purse called me again.”

So I’ve had a dilemma. Should I keep my perfectly good old phone and hope that nothing goes wrong in the next two years? Is that even a good bet in the world of electronics? Or should I just cough up the money for a new one? Ultimately Orange had more luck than my mother did with the Don’t-come-to-me-if-you-don’t-do-what-I-want admonition. I’ve gotten more cautious in my old age.

That’s why I decided to upgrade. The new phone when it arrives will have a camera, an FM radio, a touch screen, an internet connection and GPS capabilities. I’m hoping I can also use it to talk to people, but that’s not part of the hype. I’ll just be happy if it doesn’t shop on the internet from the bottom of my purse.

What Feast of the Tabernacles?

We have arrived once again to the week-long holiday of Succot when we celebrate 40 years of wandering in the desert. As I’ve mentioned before in this space, I find it the most perplexing of Jewish holidays. I don’t know about you, but if I had been lost in the desert for all that time with no way to shower and nothing to eat but the same old manna every day, I would want to forget the experience as quickly as possible, not commemorate it.

But commemorate it we do. The main task involves building a tabernacle. When you get an instruction like this you know you’re in trouble. “Tabernacle” is a huge, substantial word for something so flimsy. Besides, some of us are, shall we say, mechanically-challenged and consideration ought to be given. Not only could I not build a tabernacle to save my life, I was the only kid in my kindergarten to flunk Tinker Toys.

Once you have the tabernacle you’re supposed to decorate it with the four species: palm, willow, myrtle and a citron. These aren’t the kinds of things you find laying around so you either have to shlep to a market to buy them at hefty prices or else raid a neighbor’s garden or national park, all of which is pretty unsavory.

Like I said, this holiday is nothing but trouble. The neighbors and Park Service wardens can rest peacefully and the emergency services can stand down: I will not build the tabernacle. In fact, I think I’ll just ignore the whole thing until it goes away. Wishing everyone a happy holiday, just please wake me when it’s over.

No Milk Today and Not Much Else

I’m so naive. After the splendidly long holiday weekend I genuinely expected to be able to shop as usual on Sunday afternoon. Wrong. I stepped into the kibbutz store only to be greeted by mostly empty shelves. I thought I had been transported back in time to the Soviet Union. There were no tomatoes, no bananas and no bread. Two people were arguing over the last bunch of grapes. And of course, there was almost no milk. There’s almost none in the whole country.

It seems that Israel’s cows have gone on strike in support of the airport workers. Or maybe it’s the other way around. In any case, you can’t fly into or out of the country and you can’t drink a glass of milk while you’re here. What the airport workers grievances are I cannot say, although I suppose they revolve around money, but the cows are said to be aggrieved by the heat.

I don’t know about you, but I’m nonplussed. Summer here is always hot. If you look up the definition of “hot” in Webster’s Dictionary you’ll see it’s defined as “summer in Israel.” This can’t come as a surprise to the cows. As far as I know, they haven’t just emigrated from Finland. But somehow August was so hot that they stopped giving milk in September. This must be bovine logic.

The thing is, it stopped being really hot and humid three weeks ago. So why is there a milk shortage now? How big a lead-time could there be? I would have expected the stuff on the shelves to be slightly fresher than that. Like I said, I’m naïve. It couldn’t possibly be that the milk monopolies are holding back the supply to raise the prices for the holidays. That would be inconceivable.

Swimming the Channel

I’m a couch potato by nature. There’s nothing I like better than curling up with a mug of whatever and letting the Hollywood entertainment machine work its magic in my head. I’d be overjoyed to never have to move from that state of bliss. Sadly, in the real world if you want to live longer than 15 minutes you have to put in a certain amount of exercise. I don’t like it, but I do it. So when, during a chat with my friend, Maya, she mentioned that she’s swimming every day before work and that I should do it, too, because it gives her so much energy for the rest of the day, I inwardly groaned. The world if full of fitness gurus who want to get you out of bed early and run you around a track “for your own good.”

Still, there was something slightly attractive about the idea of having a dip on these sultry summer mornings. So I started doing it and it’s a humbling experience. I have always loved immersing myself in water. Like Labradors I think water is the best thing in the world. But as for propelling myself through it – isn’t that what outboard motors are for? Luckily, there are very few people there at that hour to witness my performance. I move at glacial speed through the lovely, silky water, enjoying every moment of it and just sorry I have to get out of it to go to work.

I don’t get the energy rush Maya talks about. If anything I find myself longing for a nap afterward. But come to think of it, I haven’t seen her there in the weeks I’ve been doing this. I guess we work on different schedules. In any case, I’m grateful to her for the suggestion because it’s about as pleasant as exercise gets. And as everybody knows, exercise is a good thing when it doesn’t kill you.

Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, FIFA

Now that the World Cup is finally drawing to a blessed close, I find that I have some feelings on the subject. Normally I wouldn’t care because I’m so not a sports fan. Watching any sporting event for me is about as exciting as watching chorus lines of ants marching in and out of their hill. But for some reason this event seems to arouse global passions, so I thought it was worth a look.

Wrong. This is the most boring thing ever invented. As my nephew wisely observed, any sport where you can only score one goal in 130 minutes isn’t worthy of the name. This could be the American in me. We like our athletes to look and act tough. American football could never be played by wimpy little guys in shorts. Americans can’t respect guys in shorts. Well, ok, basketball players – but they’re tall.

So tonight this event which has been going on for 30 or 40 weeks will end. That means only one more night of going to sleep with plugs in my ears to muffle the cheers and groans coming from neighboring fans, especially the slightly incapacitated ones that gather at the House of Wine. Then maybe they’ll talk about something else on Israel Radio.

The final – I like the sound of that – features the team of seriously anti-Semitic Spain against mildly anti-Semitic Holland so I guess you know who I would be rooting for. If I cared, that is. Instead I plan to be blissfully asleep.

Catastrophe

I’ve always been a cat person. I like dogs –I’m a big fan of Cesar Millan – as well as just about all other mammals and birds but when it comes to sharing living space cats are ideal. They’re sweet and loving and you don’t have to worry about them barking in the night and biting the neighbors.

On the down-side, cats are not really trainable. Or controllable. In fact, they seemed convinced that they are the Masters of the Universe and we humble humans were born to serve them. There may be something to this: cats can change their mass at will which you know if you’ve ever tried to lift an unwilling one.

I bring this all up because of the current tribulations of my poor Chloe. After having disappeared for 3 days she dragged herself home and through the cat flap with a hind leg so broken that even I could tell the bone wasn’t attached to anything. The vet thinks she was hit by a car. I am simply amazed she survived that, got herself home and then also survived the surgery to repair the damage because this cat is 21 years old. How old is that in cat years? I don’t know, but it’s ancient.

I hope our relationship also survives this. Chloe already thinks I’m trying to poison her. The liquid antibiotic I have to force down her throat is pineapple flavored – utterly vomiticious to any self-respecting cat. So I’m not her favorite servant at the moment. But I am full of admiration for her. What a survivor, what a worthy cat!