Zelda Does Chocolates

it's 11:30 a.m. on a sunday morning in the holy city of zefat. sahar is napping in the living room. the dogs are with me in the blog room. i am waiting once again, for the washing machine repairman. i blew him off at 7:00 p.m. last week.

he promised to come here at noon today. we shall see. i went to bed around 5:00 a.m this morning. we got back from gal's family around 10:00 p.m. last night. gal was feeling sick and i was also feeling viral. i had a whole lot of chocolates to mold for today's simcha. i knew i wouldn't be able to potchka with sahar around. i started melting chocolates at about 11:30 p.m. and finally finished at 3:30 a.m.

i had a mold of 8 baby strollers but there were only 4 male ones. freezing only 4 at a time was most time consuming. i decided to make 'maxel tov' molds, 11 at a time. at final count, i had made around 50 carriages and 50 mazel tovs. i bought little plastic baggies and gold ties to close them. i made about 12 gold coins because i still had some chocolate left. i used about a kilo (1000 grams) of cheap non dairy chocolates.

i have to admit that the chocolates, which were synthetic but very kosher, tasted awful. even the expensive coffee flavoring that i added, didn't make it any tastier. it looked okay, but it wasn't a culinary triumph by any standard. i will definately, not be buying these chocolates again. i bought them in the same store where i buy all of the chocolate molds. i just assumed that it was proffessional. trust me, baker's chocolate tastes better than this drek.

anyhow, i did the mitzvah. that's what counts, i guess. most israelis do not have a sophisticated palette for real chocolate. i must say that these chocolates leave a nasty after taste. it's like eating plastic spoons. it's too late to do anything about it now. the chocolates have already made their way to the shul.

the repairman just called. of course, he's running late and won't get here until 2:00p.m. i still need to feed sahar and bathe him before his mom returns from work. speaking of food, i totally, forgot that i left mini corn shnitzels and fries in the toaster oven for sahar. luckily, the shnitzels wern't burnt. i managed to salvage some of the chips, too. i was going to make him macaroni but i only had lasagna noodles and spaghetti in the cupboards. he prefers finger food, anyway, these days.

he is beginning to chat up a storm. after a week with the sephardis, he is only speaking hebrew. he is beginning to call the kids by their names. i am 'tata'. in hebrew, safta is grandma. he says aviya, and adi. he calls his mom by her name, gal. he calls his father, abba. he no longer says no. it is 'lo' now, the hebrew equivalent.

he does quite a few animal sounds, too. it's moo for cows, ga ga for ducks, ra ra for dogs, and ba ba for sheep. he does a good impression of the baby crying. i must say that he is totally being plied with sugar at gal's home. they don't believe that he drinks plain milk in his bottle. they won't put chocolate powder in the milk because they believe it will make him hyper, but they will give him sprite and artificial syrups in his water. it makes me ill to watch him being over stimulated, too.

i usually put a little molasses in his morning milk for iron. i admit that i do give him pretzels with all sorts of chemicals in them. i make him an omelette for breakfast and try to get him to eat plain yogurt. i have been known to give him pudding. i am not perfect. we all need a lot of tolerance and balance. i try to buy ices without food coloring and additives. it's a losing battle.

i am very upset that my son has started to smoke again. it is really making me crazy. what a shame! he quit over 2 years ago. i don't think he is planning on quiting this time, either. i threatened to throw him out but it doesn't work any better than before he was married. i wish sometimes that he didn't live with me. what a horrible thing to say! i know.