All By Myself

it is 1:00 p.m. in the holy city of zefat. i am home alone today. the baby went to his sephardi family. yesterday night, when the kids came home, sahar gave me a great hello. after all, we did spend friday night together.

after the shabbat meal, the young parents went downstairs at 8:00 p.m. to go to sleep. zvi was pretty mellow after downing most of the wine. he even, sang some ashkanazi tunes for me. they left sahar upstairs with me and told me to bring him back down after he fell asleep. little sahar was wired and a bit drunk from the kiddush wine. he played for a couple of hours and then passed out in my arms. i shared my t.v. couch with him and cookie dog. cloey dog wanted to jump aboard but i chased her awhile. she bit my finger and drew blood. then, cookie dog went into my bedroom and pished all over the bed and my freshly laundered house robe.

sahar slept until 5:00 a.m. but was very restless. he tossed and turned about in his sleep alot. he even hit me a few times in the head, at one point. when he did wake up, he gave me the most delicious smile. i desperately, needed to get to the bathroom and put him into the playpen. he, of course, screamed his head off. his dad came up to fetch him. my daughter-in-law felt quite guilty that he had kept me up all night. i din't sleep that night but it was mostly out of fear of rolling over onto him and crushing him.

i figured that i could catch a nap in the afternoon. the kids took sahar out for a stroll and i finished my bentching. the kids came back with a sleeping sahar and left him with me. i had the pleasure of his company until 4:00 p.m. my son wanted me to watch him on saturday night too, but his wife took mercy on me and took him over to her parents' home. i was so darn tired that i didn't and couldn't fall asleep. i think that i finally passed out at around 4:30 a.m.

i was 'given' the day off yesterday and somehow, got myself out of the house, in spite of the rain and cold weather. i made my way over to the biteuch leumi office and got the paper work for the discount for my real estate tax. the office was strangely, empty. i was in and out in about 5 minutes. it was a bit surreal. it was just, too easy.

i got right over to the tax office and then had a good two hour wait there. you can't win it all. i would have had an even longer wait but a friendly lady passed me a lower number that someone has tossed out. i really wanted to go to the unemployment office too, but it was already, closed. i did, thank the Lord, get my tax discount. the next stop on the bureaucracy train, is the water company. that will just have to wait for another week.

in the meantime, i am trying very hard to drum up some customers for my tu B'shvat sedar. no one seems to be interested in coming this year. everyone has some reason for passing it up. one person is travelling, another has a bad back. one person is diabetic, another's husband is coming home from a trip. one person isn't going out if it rains, another person doesn't eat fruit. what a shame that i already bought tons of goodies! however, i refuse to give up on it now. i might just make an intimate dinner party, instead.

i had thought about cleaning up the house today and catching up with my laundry. it's already 2:00 p.m. and i'm still not dressed. the refrigerator repairman is supposed to come over today so i don't dare go out. i was, also, supposed to call the plumber back today but i couldn't be bothered. i passed on the homeopath, too. it is just too cold in the house to wash the floors. my feet are frozen. i need to get some pile lined booties, for sure.

i helped zvi translate some promotional winery literature into english last night. he did most of the work and i was very impressed with his knowledge of wine and english. his young wife was not so delighted. she feels that his boss is taking advantage of him. i actually, looked forward to having a little 'quality' mom and son time together. it was no picnic, folks. the computer shut down a few times and zvi lost some of his work. at first, of course, he accused me of accidentally, hitting the off button with my knee. and of course, he cursed a lot and couldn't deal with his little toddler son coming into the room every couple of minutes. but, all in all, it was a successful joint adventure, thanks to the computer translation program.

i am a bit psyched. my geneolgist sister scanned me pix of what appears to be our paternal great grandparents. you might remember that my parents recently died at the age of 91. we are really talking about way back when. my great grandfather looks like wyatt earp, complete with handle bar moustache. great grandma looks more stern yet, heimishe. what a find! she recently reconnected with our first cousin. her mom was my farher's sister and my favorite aunt. it was in aunt mollie's albums, that she found the pix.