Don't Mask, Don't Tell

I picked up my new gas mask on Sunday. I panicked when I first saw the notice of the distribution, not because of the mask and what it represents, but because it said to bring the receipt I got when I turned in my old one. That was an eternity ago. Well, four years. How can anyone expect me to remember where I put a flipping piece of paper so long ago?

That old mask had been hard to part with, like a member of the family. We bonded during the first Gulf War when I had to take it everywhere I went. At night when the inevitable air raid siren signaled that Saddam was hurling yet another scud at us, the mask was actually comforting, although the routine did get a little old toward the end when it was clear there would not be chemical weapons in the missiles. The last air raid or two I told my husband to leave me alone and let me sleep. I wasn’t going to play anymore.

Now I tried to remain calm. I thought, if I was smart – and how often can I claim that? – I wedged the receipt in back of my identity card. I started pulling out all sorts of folded-up bits of paper, some of them historic, until finally the last one which was indeed what I’d been looking for. I would be able to get my new mask without having to throw myself on the mercy of the court and plead senility or some other embarrassing mental defect.

As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. The soldier-in-charge wasn’t at all interested in my receipt. He only wanted the identity card. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or just really annoyed. But I spent minutes looking for this, I protested. He shrugged. So after years of masklessness, I again have this item of personal protection, nestled in my shoe closet among the footwear. Let’s hope it stays there, undisturbed.

We Are Not Amused

My sister asks why I have not blogged about my recent 30-hour sojourn in the belly of socialized medicine. It’s a good question. The thing is, I’m not sure I can accurately describe the experience of a Middle Eastern hospital to her or anyone else who hasn’t experienced it firsthand.

To start with, there is no such thing as a semi-private room. I was in a new ward so there were only four beds to a room instead of six. The bed itself was reclaimed from a Nottingham dungeon, consisting of metal strips on a frame topped with a thin mattress filled with lumpy pellets. But even if it had been comfortable, which it wasn’t, it would have been like trying to sleep in a bus station, there being also no such things as visiting hours. Everybody’s whole clan comes meandering through at any old time.

Then there was that one of my roommates who did not stop talking. Ever. Yes, she even talked in her sleep. For the first twelve hours or so we heard in minute detail how she cooks kebab, how she makes humus, where to buy the best pita – all of this to a roomful of fasting people in surgical ward. Then we heard replayed conversations with her daughter on clothes, where to park the car, her uncle’s business dealings with… Here I punctured my own eardrums. At one point I opened my eyes to find her standing at the foot of my bed wanting to know what was wrong with me. “How did you get that? What have you been lifting? Don’t you take care of yourself?” Only in the Middle East could you be expected to justify your life to a total stranger.

All of this would have been worth it, albeit annoying, if I had been treated. But I wasn’t. After being given an injection in the emergency room to stop my screaming, I was transferred to the ward where I was dumped on a bed and left. Eight hours later, a doctor wandered by, pushed on my stomach and left. I saw only one nurse on the ward and nobody would give me any information. The next day I was blithely told that they had no time to fix my problem and were sending me home. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

But when the elevator doors opened on the ground floor I couldn’t believe what I saw: a mall! There were bookstores, drug stores, clothing stores, restaurants – civilization! There was even a MacDonald’s. Yes, MacDonald’s in a hospital. You can chow down on a Big Mac and then go right upstairs and take your chances on a triple bypass. It’s very efficient, probably the only thing in the place that is.

So you supporters of Obamacare, beware what you wish for. This is your future. Mine involves escaping to the Elysian Fields of private medicine where I expect to be treated like the Queen of England. I’ll let you know how that goes.

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.