Geula - hopefully going home soon

Geula is a neighborhood in Jerusalem. It also means "redemption". However, Geula Jerusalem is a place that raises my short hairs.

The pic doesn't really capture how dirty, smelly, noisy, and croweded this area is.

Makes me want to go home to Tsfat.

So we're giving the cease-fire a couple of days to measure how well it sticks. Basically a typical cease-fire with our Arab cousins has amounted to "We cease, they fire."

We aren't pleased that katyushas were still raining on the whole Galilee region yesterday, and that WITH our troops up to and over the Litani river. Can you say "Kiryat Shmona will become a life style"? Hope not.

So we will wait until the end of the week. The kids have camp until then, and I have been invited to a good friend's celebration of her first grandchildren (twins) and a wedding this week. I can really look forward to going home.

Jerusalem Still - Teddy Stadium on Tu B'av

So we went to Teddy Stadium last night to hear Rav Amnon Yitzhak. I learned several important things about going to "hear" something at a stadium.

First, if you got there early enough to find seating anyway, so sit as directly across from an ampliphier as possible. The first pic is from where we were originally sitting and it was a study in wave disturbance. Namely sound waves from one amp disturbing the other so we couldn't understand a thing, even though the sound was loud.

Second, when you leave your home for a couple of weeks in case of war, bring a sweater. It might get cold.

Third, do not in any case allow your fourteen year old daughter to insist on staying til the end when the end is later than the last bus home. It took us two hours to get home, since there were very few buses, none to our area of town, and for some bizarre reason hardly any taxis and the ones who were around were not picking up fares unless you called. I refuse to own a cellphone. So we finally took a bus to the central bus station area, got out early to walk to Angels to get a very needed late late night snack, and finally got a cab from there to finish off the last bit back to "home".

Notice I still have not tripod. I am working on truly forgiving the girl, since really I never should have loaned it to her in the first place. One of my golden rules over the last few years has been to never loan out anything I can't afford to lose or have come back in bad condition. Sadly, many people around me do not seem to be careful with others' property.


Last night was the beginning of Tu B'av, the 15th of the Hebrew month of Av. Notice the full moon rising over the stadium... cooool. Eventually the whole stadium filled up (22,000 people singing "We love you Hakodesh Baruch Hu!").

And I bought a 1 Gig thumbstick yesterday to clear my camera cards and get some more web work done. A few Photoshop graphics eat up a lot of space on wittle owd XP memory cards. Not that my graphics is much good:

Wandering Jews

Have you ever had one of those plants, the Wandering Jew? They put down roots wherever they hit soil, always seem to spring back from boughts of drought, and will root overnight in water? Yeah, well, it all sounds nice, but I can't say it's a delight to be a wandering Jew.

We have it pretty easy. We're staying with relatives, their apartment is large, a minor miracle happened and the guy in charge of the salary department actually got me into the computer system so my salary was direct deposited at the end of last week, and I only have three kids to shlep around.

But it's the nature of the wandering Jew to just want to go home. Okay, Master of the Universe, you gave me a paid vacation, my kids have gotten to go to an expensive American style day camp that they never would have in times of peace, my home is still intact, everyone from my job is still alive and unharmed, and I just can't shake the strong feeling that if I had the ruby slippers, clicking my heels would have worked to get home.

My brain on war is very scrambled. Last Shabbat we were in Kochav Hashachar. I didn't take picture. The Shabbat before that we were in Ramat Beit Shemesh A. I didn't take pictures. Hey, what's a photo blog with no photos????

So I will try, bli neder (no promises), to start taking pics again so that I can make my blog posts the way I like to: a picture with only a little blurb of text.

Oh, and did I say that I want to go home?

Jerusalem Pictures

Hrmmph. All my friends are blogging on time! Laurie over at http://safed.blogspot.com is also in exile, but she's blogging. Aunt Laya over at http://auntlaya.blogspot.com is still blogging from exile. And my pal who lives here in Jerusalem at http://sector-9.blogspot.com is blogging. Waaaaaaa! I'm the only one who doesn't have regular computer access for blogging. Or the time and/or energy.

Mostly just keeping the kids amused or busy this week. I did manage to get out to a meeting about the http://torahscience.org starting a university with the Gal Einei Institute ( http://www.inner.org). Other than that, I went to Geula to try to get some funds to help pay for the food that my SIL's family is so graciously providing us for now going on 2 1/2 weeks. The give-away was already finished, and the sign said, "Na lo lhafriah", or "Please don't disturb", so I didn't bother asking if that meant that no more applications at all were being accepted, or if only that day was finished. I don't like rude signs.

Over a week ago my friend Elana Rozenman invited me and other Tsfat ladies to a dinner at the Clayman's that was originally dedicated to the Sderot women who have been putting up with Kassam rockets for 5.5 years already! The setting was stunning:

This was the view from the balcony where we were treated to a gala barbeque dinner.

That's Mrs. Clayman in the sky blue turban and dress. What an amazing gift for charity they have!

These pics haven't been edited at all, since I'm not home. I don't have my programs, my computer, among other things. I can't get much done on my business, since I insist on all my programs being legal (it is for business, after all), and they all have a limited number of activations. I tried getting a laptop.. but the Ctrl button stuck. The rentals are all rented. Most people don't have the IIS installed on their systems even with XP Pro, and since most people aren't actually legal with their Windows, they can't just install it. Without IIS, I could install Apache server, but I really fobbed getting Cold Fusion set up properly with it. In other words, this lady really, really needs her vewy own waptop!

That was a long way of saying these photos are larger than usual and probably not balanced regarding light, etc.

Also, still have no tripod, thanks to one of the girls in Tsfat who borrowed it to video the 8th grade graduation show. I do hope she'll take it to heart as soon as we're all back home and replace my tripod which she broke.

That's about it right now. I'm not the greatest blogger. I really like posting the photos and short blurb. I do have my card reader, which makes it easier to post photos, but when it's not your own puter.... ah exile. Doesn't make great press, though. No real hardships.

No pics, I'm a war refugee

Of course, I took my camera with me. Heck, I took all my backups, our passports, the deed to our apartment, even our kids vaccination records!

We left because otherwise I would have committed familicide after more than three days of all of us locked in the house with the trisim down. This way the kids can have a life, and I can try to figure out whether I can work on the road. Remind me that for a computer addict, it's really, really stooopid not to be mobile capable.

Not sure what will be. Looks like the Almighty has quite a ride in store for us. Fasten your spiritual seatbelts.