Rain Rain Don't Go Away!

9:45 p.m. we are having a holy hail storm here in the holy city of zefat. after a few weeks of an unusual heat wave it began to rain on thursday. it rained all throughout shabbat and on and off all day long. the air smells so fresh! all the dust from this endless summer has finally washed away. i look down at the gorgeous green lawn and lovely evergreen and fruit trees that are all moist and glistening. all the dried up clumps of earth are now wet. this is a great blessing for the people of israel. i have the two dogs on my lap as i type, because, we are now experiencing a thunder storm. i should get up and give them some rescue remedy. a moment ago, it sounded like the great flood back in noah's time. for a moment, it seemed like the end of the world. it's quiet, again. i spent the day in bed, unfortunately, recovering from a food bender. i fell off the diet wagon, once again! i lost a kilo last week, and that's 2.2 pounds. i was feeling hopeful. i thought that i had things under control. and suddenly, i was having a food binge. i started eating yellowish-pink dyed marshmallows, of all things. and then i hit the ice cream. i even ate the vanilla and banana part. i topped it off with spicy, cheesy doritos, which were chock full of MSG. i drank some berry flavored sparkling soda on friday night and i think that gave me the migraine that woke me up at 11:00 p.m. i never drink carbonated drinks. i even ate some banana cake with a little of the left over frosting from the birthday party. for sure, i stay away from rich's non dairy whip cream, because the chemicals give me migraines. but it's a bit odd, because i was migraine free for a year. my homeopath is coming to zefat soon, so it is something to add to my list of health and mental issues. i just finished two batches of laundry for the kids. in this weather you have to use the dryer or else wait a week for the jeans and towels to dry. i also finished the shabbos dishes today. i put out several sets of wine glasses for the meal since zvi brings home really good port form his place of work. in this weather, we don't have hot water from the solar heaters so we have to heat the water electrically, which is very expensive. and there just isn't enough hot water for everyone to shower and do the dishes in hot water, too. so i saved the dishes and glasses for today. gal and sahar went off with the sephardi grandparents this morning to hadera to visit the sephardi great grandparents. they came early this morning to pick them up. they hadn't seen sahar in a week. but he seemed to knew them and put his arms around his sephardi grandma. my heart yearns for him to do that to me sometime. i am the only one who speakes to him in english, so maybe it's harder for him to relate to me. i couldn't get too close to him this shabbat because cloey is just too jealous. i can't even talk to him without her getting aggressive and hyper ventilating. once again, i left her out on the porch of my master bedroom. and once again, she kept up her barking for about five hours. zvi and gal stayed downstairs for the entire afternoon and another young couple came over to visit with their three year old son. so i had to keep cloey out on the porch. cookie is very laid back and doesn't seem to react at all to the baby. at one point, i had sahar in my arms and cloey tried to jump up high enough to reach my arms. of course, the neighbor was bothered, and she came over after shabbos, with the name of a homeopathic remedy to lessen jealousy in dogs. it seems, that while cloey was howling, she was reading a magazine and came across an article that dealt with a new baby coming home to a jealous family dog. i looked up the remedy on google but it mentioned excessive sexual activity and lewdness quite a few times. perhaps, the dog in the story was a male. however; cloey was fixed and is anything but sexual! i'll just add this to my list of issues when i see my homeopath. it was very frustrating cooking for shabbos on my electric burners. it was my first time using them and i was definitely not used to them at all. it took a full hour for the pot of potatoes to boil! and it took about a half an hour to boil a small pot of eggs. i wanted to make a dish of mashed potatoes and boiled eggs for zvi and gal. zvi has this dish at the sephardi house on shabbat morning. he and his father-n-law and the two small boys go to pray at 5:00 a.m. and return from the synagogue at 9:00 a.m. and apparently, no one wants to eat cholent with meat at that hour. so the sephardi mother keeps a vat of boiled potatoes with boiled eggs on the electric platter all night long. and in the morning , she peels the eggs and mashes them into the potatoes. zvi loves this dish! so i tried my best to duplicate it. i guess i came close enough, because zvi and gal gobbled it all up! he wanted to know how i knew the recipe. i had asked gal's mom how she made it. she didn't add any oil, or butter or margarine. it was strictly just potatoes and water and salt. the sephardim also eat hard cooked eggs on shabbat morning, that have been heating in water with tea bags on the platter all night long. the tea bags give the eggs a brown tint. i've seen them serve this for kiddush in shul. i used the left over sauce from thursday's stuffed peppers to cook the chicken legs and pieces of chicken breast. i added more hot paprika and some cumin and curry. it was a hit too! i made a loaf sized mashed potato kugel with dehydrated fried onions and salt and pepper. i often cheat and use these fried onion flakes for taste and to save time. i try to use fresh garlic when i have it but i also make use of dehydrated garlic chips, too. i don't use garlic salt because it usually is laced with MSG. i added half a cup of whole wheat flour to about two cups of mashed potatoes for this kugel. i also added three eggs and a little oil. i then put a little egg wash over the top and sprinkled sesame seeds and baked it for an hour. it made a nice crust and was like a potato knish. it's quiet now and the dogs are more relaxed. oh rain , rain, don't go away!!