You Dirty Rat!

it's nearly 1:00 a.m. in the holy city of zefat and i'm wide awake. my heart is racing a bit because we just caught a huge rat upstairs in the kid's apartment. i got home at around midnight from my sister's and the kids came home shortly afterwards.

i missed yoga this morning because i couldn't fall asleep last night. i finally stopped staring at the clock on the wall at around 5:00 a.m. i jumped up at 8:30 a.m. and really made an effort to get ready to go. i felt a bit nauseous and shaky so i went back to sleep. i didn't stir again until noon. yesterday i woke up at 9:30 a.m. when i was due downtown at a play rehearsal. i had also gone to bed after 5:00 a.m. i absolutely couldn't move from the bed. gal had already left with sahar for the day and i hadn't even heard them leave.

i spent the entire day stuffing food down my throat. i ate all of the almonds and cashews and consumed an entire bag of frozen blueberries. i lost track of how many containers of cheese and yogurt i wolfed down. i even ate a salmon steak and a huge bowl of noodles, later that night. i weighed myself this morning and i have gained 3 kilos. i was hoping to lose a little weight for a wedding next week. oh well!

i made up last night to make a birthday cake for my neice today. i was supposed to bring it over before she left this evening to party with her friends. i bought a really nice top for her in town on tuesday. i had offered to make dinner for the family but was turned down. i guess it was just as well since i wasn't really up to snuff the past couple of days.

i managed to bake the cake around 4:00 p.m. i used one cup of rye flour and two cups of white flour. and i used a cup each of both white and brown sugar. i used a cup of banana liqeur for the liquid. someone gave it to me for a present on tu b'shvat. when exactly, does one serve banana liqeur, anyway? i decided to make some chocolate lollypops to decorate the cake. i tried melting a bag of chocolate chips but it didn't melt right. it became a ball of semi- hardened chocolate. i added a little oil, which made it worse. i also added a bit of wine, which totally, ruined it. i ended up tossing it. i looked at the package and realized that it was from pesach. for some unknown reason, the pesach chocolate chips do not melt. go know!

i realized that i had to go down to the supermarket below and buy some more chocolate chips. i decided to take sahar with me. gal was also out of diapers so i volunteered to get some. sahar was not a happy camper. i was tempted to take him out of the stroller but i feared that i wouldn't be able to get him back in. he eventually, chilled out in the store. a small bag of bambas goes a long way. i had to schlep home the stroller and the diapers because there was no delivery service. this was not an easy feat. i had to keep stopping to rest my hands.

i couldn't find chocolate chips with the proper kashrut certificate so i bought a package of chunky baking chocolate. it melts easily and makes better chocolate molds. it doesn't taste as good as the chips but i was going for the 'visual' here. i even poured some melted chocolate over the top of the cake and added a few colored sprinkles. it was, way, too hot, to start playing around with whipped cream icing today.

my sister called to let me know that she was going to tiberias and wouldn't be home until 6:30 p.m. gal needed to go to the pharmacy and was planning to take sahar along. he started fussing in the stroller so i told her to leave him with me. i was in no hurry to get to my sister's. gal and zvi met up at the supermarket and returned home at 8.00 p.m. i had a strong feeling that my neice was no longer at home. nevertheless, i jumped into a cab. i arrived shortly later to an empty apartment.

i had just heard the sad news that a bus had crashed on it's way back to zefat. i started to panick and fear that my sister, had been, somehow, involved in the accident. i started to have palpitations. i left the gift and the cake on the kitchen table, and went downstairs to see if i could find my sister. first, i searched the grocery store. i bought some rolls and a magazine for shabbat and made my way to the fruit store. i decided to buy some fruit for shavuot, which falls out on tuesday night. i decided to make a cheese and fruit platter. i bought cherries, apricots, nectarines, melon, kiwis, grapes, and apples.

by the time i got back upstairs, my sister had finally come home. she phoned my niece, who was already in town with her friends. my niece said that it was very cute that i had made a cake and come over to wish her a happy birthday. she then blessed me and i blessed her back. she also apologized for not being home. apparently, no one had told her about our 'plans'. i stayed until midnight schmoozing with my sister. i had a salmon steak and coffee before i left.

i returned home to find a note from the kids. they had gone to town with sahar. i couldn't imagine why they had schlepped the kid out in the cold. they came home about ten minutes later. then i heard zvi call down to me that they had a huge rat upstairs. oddly, i have been thinking about rats all week long. i ran downstairs to get a trap and brought cloey, the pincher and 'ratter' dog upstairs with me. she immediately, went into action and was sniffing the situation out.

eventually, the rat made a mad dash towards the bathroom. cloey followed the rat. i followed cloey into the bathroom and quickly shut the door when i saw the rat. thank goodness, the rat was confined to just the bathroom. zvi came in with a broom and swatted the rat on the head. i never knew he had it in him. all i could think about, was the potential danger to innocent, little, sahar, fast asleep in his crib. zvi, pretty much, immobilized the rat and cloey took over from there. next, i had to get the deceased rat out of cloey's tightly, clamped - shut mouth. somehow, i managed to retreive it in one piece. i then cleaned up all of the blood from the bathroom floor. i then wished everyone a good night and disposed of the dead rat and all of the garbage outside.

shabbat shalom!