Be Careful

it is 12:30 p.m. in the holy city of safed.  I just finished mopping up the laundry room and kitchen downstairs.  the pipe from the washing machine dislodged and all the water flooded out.  this is not a small job.  the laundry room is humongous.  I started my day by slipping on some dog pish in the hallway and landed on my back with one leg on the ground.  the other foot folded under my body and it feels like I might have broken a toe.  I rubbed my trusted arnica oil on it and so far it isn't black and blue but it is very painful to stand on it.  are we having fun?

I discovered that pigeons had been nesting on my rooftop balcony.  I need to clean up upstairs as well as clean the apartment. you may remember that it got trashed two years ago when we had a 3 day dust storm.  I had just made pesach upstairs for a potential renter and I left the windows open to air it out.  I haven't had the time or energy to clean it up since.

my grandson came over at 8:30 a.m. as he is finished with his 3 week summer camp.  the daughter-in-law found a 2 week camp that starts next week for both kids.  the only problem is that it's located very close to my sister's apartment.  I would not like to run into her while I'm picking up the kids.  it's also located near the Sephardi family's apartment so hopefully they will help out a bit.  the burden does seem to fall on me each year.

I asked the kids if they had made Shabbat plans on thursday.  I was open to cooking this week.  I was invited to join them on Friday night.  I didn't think that I would have the energy to walk up to their neighborhood.  I didn't really want to eat heavy food so late at night.  I have been stopping my eating every night at 8:00 p.m.  I don't think I lost any weight yet but I feel a bit better.  I had bought a prepared frozen chcken stir-fry and I figured on eating it on Friday night.  I was hoping to rest on Saturday and read a book.  I thought I'd have some canned tuna fish and salads for lunch.  I wanted to stay in.

I defrosted the 'stir-fry' and it looked quite disgusting.  I think I might had bought this once before and threw it out.  the sauce was kind of phlegm like.  I didn't even think of heating it up.  the dogs got a great meal.  they loved it but they also love dog do.  it was a bit disappointing.  I decided to cook some tuna steaks for dinner for myself.  I went back to bed for a while.

I was so exhausted on Friday morning that I didn't get out of bed until 11:00 a.m.  I actually schlepped out of bed to answer the phone.  it was my son asking if they could come for Shabbat dinner.  I sprung into action and washed the floors.  I had done the master bedroom on Thursday. I needed to buy fish, lemons and drinks.  I had one beer and a Bacardi breezer in the fridge.  I had bought eggs at the open air market, as well as a bunch of mangoes and black grapes and olives on Wednesday.  I still had some tomatoes, cucumbers and green cabbage and a large bag of carrots in the fridge.  I had tons of cookies in the closet.

I ran down to the supermarket and bought 3 bottles of soft drinks, a bottle of lemon juice, a large challah, 2 avocadoes, 2 beets, 2 small bananas, 2 lemons and 2 containers of cottage cheese, a bag of cilantro and a bag of milk.  I wanted to make my skinny cottage cheese pancakes for Shabbat morning.  I changed the bed sheets in case someone wanted to sleep over.  I defrosted a package of chicken thighs.  he kids brought over their defrosted fish fillets before they took off with the grandkids for the day. 

I made a bunch of boiled eggs.  I turned some into an egg salad with mayonnaise and some into an avocado and egg spread.  I could only find 2 fresh lemons in the supermarket.  one was the size of an orange.  I bought the lemon juice as a backup.  I never use it.  I grated the beets and added lemon.  I prefer raw beet salad to cooked beets.  I also made a grated carrot salad with lemon, ginger, coconut flakes and cilantro.  I made my own chumus.  I cooked the fish in a Moroccan spicy red sauce with carrots. I made a cole slaw with mayonnaise and cilantro.   I made a cooked tomato salsa.  I broiled the chicken in a spice mix of cumin, sweet paprika, turmeric, garlic and allspice.  I made a pot of boiled wheat.  the kids usually love it.

my grandson entered with his bag of pajamas and let me know that he he was sleeping over, right off the bat. my granddaughter started to cry because she also wanted to sleep over and didn't come with pajamas.  luckily, I had found a pair of her shorts and a tee shirt and put it in the bedroom.  their parents left and I took the kids to the corner with the dogs.  it was pretty hot in my house and there was air outside.  no one was sleepy.  I had set up a fan in the bedroom so it was a bit cool.  I slept between the kids, as usual. 

we made it out to synagogue at 9:00 a.m. after a couple of squabbles.  they were pretty behaved and found kids to play with.  we stayed for the Kiddush and both kids filled up on drinks and boiled eggs.  I had a lovely lunch of fish and then chicken.  the kids were busy playing.  I let them swim in the pool for a while.  the house pretty much got trashed.  the five year old balabuster cleaned it all up by herself.  no one took a nap.  I did lie down for a bit.  we went to the local park and found a turtle.  they had never seen one.  we finally said goodbye to the turtle and went home.

we got back into out Shabbat clothes and walked up to their apartment.   I had some salad and waited for Shabbat to end.  my son drove me home.  I was a bit tired. wonder why?