Erev Shabbat

it's 11:00 a.m. erev shabbat in the holy city of zefat. the kids are going out for shabbat so i guess it will be just me or perhaps me and michal for dinner. i could go downstairs and have shabbat with my sister and her clan but i feel like being upstairs in my own space.

i haven't been near the computer all week. my niece has practically lived on it. i let go of my diet and really binged one day. i had two cheap swiss dairy chocolate bars, a handful of marshmallows, an assortment of pesach cookies and brownies and a couple of bags of potato chips. add to that matzah and butter and you can imagine how sick i got. i couldn't even talk with anyone. i was totally, in my own sugar dazed world.

yesterday, i took myself in tow and ate only fruits and protein. i feel a little better now. i don't know where these binges come from. i absolutely, cannot just eat a piece of chocolate without it triggering a binge. i had some raw almonds and a banana for breakfast this morning but skipped the dates. i need to detox from sugar again.

yesterday, the entire sephardi clan went to a nearbye park (15 minute drive) to have a picnic and barbecue. i was simply not up for joining them. i stayed in my housecoat all week long, perched on the t.v. couch. at 9:00 p.m. zvi decided to make his own barbecue and raided the fridge for meat. we only had frozen steaks and turkey schnitzels. he went down to the supermarket on the other side of town and finally returned at 10:30 p.m. with fresh lambchops and chicken wings.

apparently, his friend worked in a butcher shop and he persuaded him to prepare some chops for him, after hours. zvi can be pretty determined when he wants something bad enough. they started the fire and i started making french fries. i always forget how long it takes to make chips on pesach. gal had to come downstairs to my apartment to cut up the salad as i do not allow any of my pesach utensils to leave my kitchen.

by midnight, zvi and his brother-in-law were happy campers, munching out on lambchops and drinking red wine. gal and her sister were upstairs watching the 'charlie's angels' movies and munching on chips. i was back in my bed watching the boob tube. zvi was finally satisfied and went to bed. i went to sleep around 2:00a.m.

i got up this morning and decided it was time to blog. everyone was sleeping and it was finally, my chance to get near the computer. when i turned it on it was all in hebrew. i also had to type in my name and code to get into my e-mail. it wasn't automatic anymore. i also had a hard time downloading my messages. i was feeling very frustrated. i couldn't find the usual internet icon, either. i am not that computer savy and therefore have had my computer set up for my limited useage.

everyone and their sister have been on my computer this week. my sister downloaded the program 'chrome' to enable her to see her daughter and grandchild in india earlier in the week. she left it on assuming that i would use it to see our sister in california,too. it was my first time back solo on my computer in 5 days and nothing looked familiar. i started to panic. my sister told me to calm down which got me more aggravated. instead of just fixing it she told me that i was chosing to over react and that it was all in my head. she said that no one had done anything to hurt me. i then started to scream.

i immediately called michal to talk me through the program. my niece came in one moment later and quietly, removed the 'chrome' and everything was right again. once again, i was calm. and once again i shook my head in disbelief. shabbat shalom!