Do you watch Jeopardy?
I don't really watch it very often but it is on around the time that I get home from work. My wife and children watch it while eating their supper.
Sometimes I know the answer, and sometimes I can guess them, but usually I am quite amazed at the knowledge and speed that these people can answer those questions.

Yesterday happened something that made me doubt the whole Jeopardy thing.
One of the questions was:

The Word "BARAK" in Hebrew.

Finally something I can answer right?

Both me and my wife yelled "Lightening" at the same time. OK maybe she was first by a millisecond because I had my mouth full.

The contestant answered "What is Blessing".

She is so stupid we both said.

To our amazement that was the correct answer.

What is that supposed to mean?

Do they have Jeopardy answers that they can download somewhere and learn by heart?

What are the odds that both Jeopardy and the contestant will make the same error?

Or maybe they changed Hebrew in the last five years and forgot to tell us?
I can assure you that no Hebrew speaker would get that one right.

It is quite funny actually but maybe you have to know Hebrew to appreciate the joke.
"To bless" in Hebrew is "BERAKH" or "BERACH" depends how you want to spell that sound that you don't have in English and sound like you clear your throat. If you change it to "BARAKH" in means to run away. If you cannot pronounce it right and say K instead of KH and then write it the way you said it you get BARAK which is lightening and also a former prime minister's name. The joke on him was that BARAK BARAKH, to say that he always run away when something goes wrong.

I am sure that this entry was enlightening to everybody around writing dot com
Drive safely, Write On and don't feel bad if the Jeopardy is smarter than you because I am sure that you can invent just as many questions that they will have no clue which answer you expect to get

 

Who do you look like?
Why does it matter so much?
I just got an email from my brother with pictures of his two beautiful daughters. My wife said that it is so funny how the older girl looks like her mother and the baby looks like my brother. I said that sometimes and can change as they grow up. Of course that my wife disagree, so I said that her brother's twin girls looked like him when they were babies and now they look like their mother.
That was the first argument that I almost won in 24 years. But then I said, "maybe your brother and sister in law look alike?". She replied that this is not true but my brother and sister in law are identical and could be pass as siblings easily.

Why every time that we see a baby we have to find out who does he/she looks like. And why we are so happy when it looks like our side of the family, our blood, and heart so much when it looks like the other side. As if we won or lost in some gene contest?

I remember how I resented growing up that everybody said that I looked like my mother. I guess I wanted to identify with my dad. Latter in life more and more people said that I looked like my dad, but by that time I'd already realized that my mother was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen (except my wife of course).

What does it matter who we look like? What's matter is what inside, isn't it?

I find it amusing and sometimes annoying.

 

Name
Would you change your name?
Have you ever thought about changing your name?
I think that most people never thought seriously about changing their first name and even the last name is changed less often than it used to.

Yesterday the receptionist asked me if I knew Eliot. She had a recruiting company inquiring about Eliot that used to work here. We had no idea who is Eliot and then it occurred to us that it must be Ilya.
Ilya is a guy that used to work with me in a temporary position about three years ago, until he found a permanent job at a company not far from where we are. I still see him on a regular basis when I take my lunch break walk, and he'd never mentioned that he'd changed his name.

We checked the phone book and saw that he is indeed listed under his newly invented name. The receptionist said that I should to him to spell his name Elliott, so nobody change the l with d
I said that I will bring him in so she can tell him herself, and so I did.

When I saw him yesterday I gave him a hard time about his new name and invited him in. Then I told the receptionist to tell him what she had told me. It was a precious moment to see them both turning red at that silly joke.
I am so evil sometimes.

I was born with a different last name that sounded German. I hated my last name growing up, as it sounded so foreign. I even adopted the last name of my girlfriend. When I was about 6 years old, my parents finally gave in, and we changed our last name to something that sounds more Israeli. Sometimes I am sorry that we did.

My wife always complain that she changed her last name when we got married as if I forced her to do it.

If you are changing country and language, then why not change your name? Every object (almost) have different name in different language so why not me? It is very annoying to have a foreign name. Some people never learn how to pronounce it right and some names have funny meaning in a different language. For example, My uncle's name is David, but his nickname is Dudu which sounds like doodoo. He introduces himself as "David" when he is dealing with English speakers

Many of us take a new name on the web. Are we afraid to give our true identity or just have an opportunity to adopt a new name without those annoying people that already know us? So if my wife reads what I write about her she can laugh, not realizing she is laughing about herself


 

I came to work today and found that I have a message waiting for me. The red light was going on and off telling me that I should check my voice mail. This couldn't be good, I thought. Monday morning a message? I guessed that it would likely be my wife. We just spoke before I left home, so something must of come up. She could get me on my cellphone but felt more comfortable leaving a message.
I listened to the message and could hear in her voice that she is asking a favor that she knew that I wouldn't be too happy.
She said that the school has yet another "in-service day" that I would need to watch the kids on the nineteenths. As I have only ten vacation days a year, maybe I could ask to return the day on the weekend. OK that by itself is maybe not that bad. I don't really like asking my boss to work on a Saturday, and working on a Saturday is always very depressing, but if there is no choice there is no choice!
And then came the blow. The Mother of a friend of my older is having a breast reduction surgery at the same day so she asked if I could also watch their son. So what could have been an OK day with my two boys, if I would have been lucky, will now be three times the nightmare. That other boy is a nice enough kid but he is very hard to control. Very wiled and unamenable. He has lots of issues. My son love him, but the dynamics when I have all three of them is very tough. It is very hard to find something, other than fighting, that will keep all three of them interested.
I find that three is a very tough number, and I am very glad that we stopped at two.
Now I know that that mother would have no problems saying no if we would ask them a similar favor. We would never ask anyway.
Sometimes I think that the world is divided between those who take advantage and though who are being taken advantage.
I would hate to be in either side of this division. I am not sure in which side I would hate to be more.
 

Last night we went to our children's school to see the graduation play.
When my wife left work she phoned me on her cellphone when she finish work, as she does everyday. Then she saw one of her best girlfriends at the hospital so she had to hang-up. I am sure you all know how girlfriends are more important than husbands.

To my shocking surprise, she phoned me back a couple of minutes later, I really didn't expect to hear from her again so soon, and she told me that her friend's mother just passed-away at that very minute, and that I cannot tell anybody. When I asked why I couldn't say anything, she said that her friend's son is playing one of the main rolls at the school play and she doesn't want him to know before the show that his Grandmother died. Can you imagine how hard it must be to keep something like this from your child and pretend to have a good time on his special night when you just lost your mom? I told my wife that I couldn't do that, and she said she would. Actually in reality I think that I could but wouldn't and she would but couldn't.

It reminded me the just before my Bar-Mitzvah ceremony a girl from my class lost her mother. Oddly enough for the same disease that just took my wife's girlfriend's mother's life. That death was very tragic. The mother was fighting the cancer for quite sometime in the hope to live to see her daughter's Bar-Mitzvah and died just few days before. It resulted in postponing the Bar-Mitzvah for all the thirteen childrens of my class and thousands of guests. In the mean time my grate grandfather passed away and didn't get to see my Bar-Mitzva.

Death has this way that even when you know it's coming and even expect it, it always catch you unprepared. Always a bad time.

Always shocking.

 

My son (8) came to me today and whispered in my ear:
"I know the F-word in Hebrew!"
I was surprised. I am not using the F-word in Hebrew, so where would he hear that from?

Actually there are two acceptable words in Hebrew that mean the F-Word. Both are too bad to use around children or members of the other sex Actually the commonly used F-word in Hebrew is the English one. It is not considered too bad. I guess something like saying "eff" in English. I is quite funny that Hebrew has so many bad words borrowed from other languages, like Arabic, English and Russian and the English ones are considered the least offensive.

I asked him what the F-word in Hebrew, but he wouldn't tell me. He knows that he is not supposed too. But then how does he know it if he is not suppose to say it? Finally he agreed to tell me the abbreviations: "BS"
I was very surprised. I asked him who told him that and he named two Israeli kids from His class.

I told him that what his friends are saying is BS!

No, OK I am lying, but I wanted to say that.

Now I had no choice but to explain the the BS word is actually another English bad word adapted by Hebrew and means a totally different thing.

He knows all the meaning of the BS word, but he doesn't fully understand the F-word. He doesn't get how the middle finger means the F-word, or maybe he he knows and just enjoy seeing me struggle and wiggle to avoid explaining him. I think that my wife should teach him English and I will stick with the Hebrew.

The whole thing of bad word become so interesting for them because they are not allowed to say them. I can just see them talking with their friends trying to guess the meaning of each bad word and inventing new one from connection where it slipped out from an adults mouth or when they saw it on TV.

Then he asked me why there are bad words if you cannot use them?
And if there is a good meaning to the F-word, the BS and the SH also means pooh.

He got me so flustered that I went on line and looked it up in Wikipedia:

"Fuck is an English word that, as a verb, basically means "to have sexual intercourse". Its use is generally considered censurable and offensive in more formal, polite, or politically correct circles. On the other hand, it may be rather common or expected in various informal and domestic situations, or among culturally liberal social groups and types.

It is unclear whether the word has always been considered vulgar, and if not, when it first came to be used to describe (often in an extremely angry, hostile or belligerent manner..."

How am I supposed to explain that to him?
Maybe I should just let him read the Wikipedia?
Am I a hypocrite or just feel like it?
I want him to think about sex and see it as something beautiful and not as something dirty or a bad word, but how do I do that?

I haven't read the Manuel on how to explain the bad words to your child, so if anyone has it please let me know.


 

The mention of killing

I am sure that you all read my short story "Last day" . At least 24 unique members viewed it. I hope that none of you is under 13 or you might have learned that in newspapers sometimes the news are violent. If that had happened please accept my apology, this is only fiction, I can assure you that there is no violence in real newspapers.

From watching the news it seems to me that in America today, more kids see and even practice violence than kids who read about it. Maybe if the will read more and understand how bad it is, they will do less?

I think that it is very important to talk to kids about everything, yes everything, even that thing that we never mention and to our surprise we become grandparents before we know it. The important thing is to talk about it on their level of interest and understanding and of course the right moral way, so they know what is right and what is wrong. So they know that killing is wrong. That it hearts. The right books can help parents talk to their children about difficult subjects. I think rating is a very complicated issue I am just afraid that it is done in a way that heart more than help.

It remind me a little of the that we (the Jews I don't know much about other religions) interpreted the laws of the bible. For example it said that you should rest in Sabbath, you shouldn't work. It doesn't say that you should make your life harder by not turning on the lights or not driving your car. This is not restful! We are so afraid to commit a sin that we always take it to the extreme until it becomes impossible to practice, and most of the laws are ignored by most of the Jews. Do we want the ratings to be ignored as well or to help the parents know what is age appropriate?

Now I am not saying that my story is for children. I don't intend showing it to my son, but not because of killing or moral issue, only because the characters are older and I don't think that he will be interested. Maybe we need an additional rating for every piece, for the target audience age?

He is 8 years old (9 in June) and he is reading "Harry Potter" now. He is in the fourth book. I have to say that I was worry when he started them. I didn't want him to get nightmares. He is very sensitive. A couple of years ago they showed him the Princes Bride in a summer camp and he was pretty disturbed by it. He also read "Treasure Island" and stopped reading it when somebody died there.

Anyway he insisted that he wanted to read it and that many of his friends read it and even saw the movie. He has this way of wearing you down until he gets what he wants. In the end I agreed that he can try it as long as he remembers that it is only a fantasy and if we see that it affect him, he would stop reading it. So far he is doing great and he is loving it. I know that from the fifth book it gets darker and darker but we will see how it goes.

It reminded me that when I was about his age, I used to love reading. I used to go by myself to the school library and pick my own books. I once took "The Travels of Marco Polo" to read. When my dad saw it he told me that I shouldn't read it at such a young age, because I cannot fully appreciate. He said that he had a similar experience as a child that after reading a book before he was ready for it, he never came back to it later.

I listened to my dad and didn't read the book. I haven't read that book to this day! Maybe I should try and find it, so I will know what it is about that a nine years old boy cannot understand, or not mature enough to handle. Maybe I was even ten years old, I don't remember, but I couldn't have been that much older, because in older age I didn't read much for fun. School reading was more than enough, and I had too many other activities. I also didn't write for fun.

Sorry about the above sarcastic remark, but I couldn't help it. I also attached the letter that I received regarding that piece if you are interested in all the juicy details.

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"Last day" 

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My Blog want an update. What a demanding little thing he is!
The reason that I neglected him for a couple of days is that I am working on this short story for the May contest. The name of the story is "Invalid Item"  I would love to get some feedback before I submit it to the contest. I you have some time, please read and let me know how I can improve it.
The story is a bout a little boy and his adventures on Kibbutz, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you.
Other than that everything is pretty much the same. We had a couple of rainy days, hopefully now everything will be green and beautiful. I bought my wife a new bike for Mother's day, but she didn't have a chance to try it with all the rain. We had a mother day branch with all the mother-in-laws and tonight I do the groceries shopping. So here is my update...
 

You can't imagine!
How ironic!
I just went to the store and I found that "Imagine" is actually a brand of soup.
Of course that I had to buy it, though its price was outrages! Can you Imaging $4 for a cup of soup in the super? I just love soups, hope its yummy.
I guess that this is what's left of imagine, soup!
 

Remember John Lennon? Remember Imagine?
I imagine that you do. I hope that everybody will always remember, but unfortunately eventually they will forget.

My son is doing the song Imagine for his recital. How come an eight years old knows that song? No I didn't tell his about it neither my wife. They don't play it very often. Not in Canada anyway.

We went on vacation to Mexico and he participated in a contest there and won first place. His prize was a shirt with the word of that song written on the back. I guess that in Mexico people still imagine and hope that something will change, or maybe they just like that song. Takes time until that American culture reach other parts of the wold.

I remember that I heard this song when I was about my son's age.
You can hear it here if you forgot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEOkxRLzBf0
How much hope we had back than. We had a dream. A dream that the world could be better one day.

I remember the three times that I realized that this dream maybe not just far but maybe getting farther and farther all the time as much as we try.

First time was?
You guessed it, when John was murdered.
It was unimaginable that some on would kill John Lennon who to make peace.
I just couldn't understand why someone would kill a person who wanted peace in the world. The only why that I was able to justify it is that the person must have been a crazy fanatic American that maybe was a patriot or religious.

Second time?
I think that most Israelis could guess that but I wonder if any American would? It was wen Rabin was assassinated.
I lived in California at the time. It was a time of great hope for peace.
This is when I realized that not only our enemies are against peace, but also our own brother. It was unimaginable for me that an Israeli would kill the prime minister because he wanted to make peace.
The only why that I was able to justify it is that the person must have been a crazy fanatic Israeli that maybe was a patriot or religious.

And the third time I am sure you all know!
That's right it was when the twins fell.
I lived in Israel at the time. Even though I was already used to the daily terrorists attacks, this was unimaginable for me.

Why would someone kill thousands of innocent people?




 

Starving Artists

Last night we went to a children festival to celebrate the 60th Israel anniversary. They also celebrated the 35th year that they are having this festival. This is the school that my wife used to go to growing up. Well it has a different name now, it moved to the other side of town, and all the teachers are new, but it is basically the same school. Actually my wife won first place at that festival when she was 12. We still have the tape with her song, and I give her hard time about it. She and I suffer from similar insecurities. I just can help it, I have to torment her and laugh at how embarrassed she gets. Such a nice husband

Our kids don't go to that school, we cannot afford to be Jewish (a sarcastic remark - please ignore) but we thought that it might be fun to watch for the good old time. We went there and the first thing that struck me was the tickets price. $10 a ticket. A little much for a school festival, don't you think? We were already there so we had no choice and payed the $40 fine. I am just thinking, 99% of the audience are parents of performing children, should they really pay that much to see their kids sing? Of course they would pay any price, but why take advantage?

The first half of the show was the actual contest, which was better than I expected. They have some good talents there. The children wrote all the words and melody for their songs and it was quite impressive. The common theme that when through most of the songs was bittersweet, war and peace. O On the second half they brought artists that won over the years with their winning songs and it was quite professional. I don't think that any of them are doing it for a living. Some as a hobby or as an extra job. There was one music teacher, one actor and maybe few that perform at night clubs or special occasions.

My older boy takes guitar lessons and my younger son takes art. The both love it, though I do need to negotiate with my older son, so he would practice every morning. Few days ago he asked me what instrument did I play when I was young. I told him that I didn't play. He asked how come. So I told him that I wasn't talented enough. He looked at me with disbelief. Who can the person that he admires the most can be not talented enough to do something?

The Kibbutz couldn't afford private music teachers for all the children, but they still believed very strongly in art and creativity. They also believed in equality. Equality was maybe one of the strongest values and especially when it comes to education. So how can you solve this conflict? What they did is have a music teacher for all the class together. from a very early age we all had to learn notes and play the recorder. After a couple of years, they brought an expert musician that with our music teacher tested each one of the kids.

I remember my test to this day, more than thirty years latter. I came into this room. My dreadful teacher sat with this serious looking woman. The woman played notes on the piano and asked me what they were. The asked me to sing a song. I was too shy to sing. The tried to help me out and asked to sing a song that I sing to my little brother, so I sang that nursery rhyme about a big green car and that was it.

Then they divided that children to three groups. The most talented children, who could choose any instrument and would get private lesson. The second group could get group lesson, so they could choose between few strings options and the third group? Well you guest it, I was in the third group.

When my mother heard about it she was furious. No one can tell my mother that her son anything less then perfect and live to tell about it. I don't know how many tables she turned over on Kibbutz, but all I know is that the next day they told me that I could choose any instrument that I would like. I didn't want to hear about it anymore. After being told that I wasn't talented enough I didn't want anymore humiliation.

I have a sister one year younger than me. Over the years we divided the areas of excellence between us. She was the artist, and I was the good student. She would dance, paint, write, and I was good at math, and almost any academic subject. All except English. I never took English seriously, I had no idea that it was that important. I remember that as a child I was actually thinking what is more important to learn and what not. I don't know based on what. I guess that it was just the status of any subject. May be it was a combination of that and my own interest and talents. I do believe, however, that having such an artistically talented young sister, pushed me away from doing any art other than what I had to. I had to be the best, and if I couldn't than I didn't want to do it at all.

This morning I had a discussion with my wife, well just a quick talk before she left for work. She said that she was surprised that she was surprised to see one of the guitar teacher in last nights festival. We got to talk about another teacher. She said that it was sad to see how his already in his thirties and didn't accomplished anything. I thought about it. How we all want our children to take art. We all love art. We all appreciate art. But when it comes to profession suddenly it becomes not important enough. Why a guitar teacher is any less important than a secretary or a nurse? So what if he makes less money? At least he gets to do what he likes. Its true that it is hard to support a family this way and give them everything that they want.

It is true that he complain that he is broke all the time, but we all complain about something. It in our culture. We complain all the time. We are used to hearing complains. When somebody walk around saying how good his life, we automatically think that something must be wrong with him isn't it? So that guy complains that he is broke and doesn't have a family and I complain that I don't have time for myself. My wife worry that our children won't have enough money and I worry that they will have a job that they hate.

Well, I think that this post is getting a little long and I wouldn't want to bore you, as I am not writing for myself only. I guess that the irony that I see in all this art business is the mixed message that we give our children: take art it is good and important, just don't make a living of it.

 

Thanks so much to ShellySunshine for the awesome badge:
.

I loved it.
It was a truly touching gesture. I am amazed at how deep people connect on this site and of the magic of the words. I am having a lot of fun.

Now I am even more motivated than ever, I just need to find the time...
I am working on a short story for

ID: 1221635   (Rated: E) Short Shots: Official Contest  Use the photo to inspire your creativity. Write a short story and win big prizes! by Diane

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Fighting with our loved ones

We fight with our parents, we fight with our siblings, we fight with our children and we fight with our colleagues, but most or all we fight with our spouses.
How do I know?
Actually I don't, I never actually saw a couple fight in real life other then me and me wife and yet I suspect that we are not the only one.

Why do we fight?

I had a friend who was married three times and he claimed that all the problems between a couple is actually a controlling issue. Doesn't matter if it is about coming late from work or about the toilet sit, any argument is actually about controlling each other and controlling the relationship. While he might be right, as he had much more experience than I do, I still think that his approach might be a little too simplistic. I'd rather view an argument about the late time at work as a cry for help, attention or love, but then what is the toilet sit about?

Growing up I hardly ever saw my parents bickering. They probably left the argument for the time that they were by themselves. Living on Kibbutz, were the children slept in their own house, made it easier to accomplish. The two main issues that I do remember them argue about, were my dad's smoking and his late ours at work. The arguments usually were just my mom telling my dad. I cannot remember any exchange of words the way we do.

We fight everyday. Usually small arguments, sometimes yelling and crying. But every day there is at list one disagreement. We are together for more almost 24 years, so I suspect that it is not going to change.
I hate fighting.
If there is one thing that I would like to change in my relationship is the fighting. I suspect that my wife doesn't enjoy fighting either, and yet we do it everyday.
Is it controlling war?
I can speak for myself, that I have no desire to control my wife, and even though she does like to be in control I wouldn't exactly call her a control-freak. In fact if you'd known us, you wouldn't believe that we fight everyday. You'd think that we are this perfect couple that never fight, but we do!

What do we fight about?

Usually it is the small issues. The big and important issues we discuss, but all the little things we fight about. Putting away the laundry, cleaning the toilet sit, changing light bulbs, collecting the dog's pooh in the yard, making a mess and calling the plumber, just to name few examples.

As I cannot draw from experience with other wives I do have experience of living with other people.
Growing up on Kibbutz we shared room with a partner. Usually after two or three years we had to change partners. We would choose our best friend to live with. The kid that we liked the most in the class and after we shared room together, never failed, we became the worst enemies. Now you can say that all childhood friendships are that way. But interestingly enough, the only people that I stayed friendly with through all these year are those that I never shared a room with.

When my girlfriend (now my wife) came to live on Kibbutz, after we knew each other for three years, she received her own room (the houses on Kibbutz are so small that we call them rooms), however she never really lived there. She lived with me in my room which was called a Villa. It had a bedroom and a tiny living room attached. We lived together for about two years before we broke up. Those were probably the toughest years in our relationship. Serving in the army and adjusting to life in a new country were definitely factor that made it even harder. After we broke-up, it didn't take very long before we were back together, but we never moved back to live together until we left the Kibbutz. After we were a couple again my wife was very adamant that she will have her own room. That we would sometimes sleep at her place and sometime at mine. And that just the way it was for about two years until we left the Kibbutz and move to live in the city, were we couldn't afford to rent more than a one bedroom apartment. These two years were probably the most peaceful and happy years of our relationship. We each had his own room, and we did whatever we wanted with it.

My brother in law and his wife, another perfect couple like us, broke up about four years ago. They lived apart for about two years, and then they moved back together, but she still keeps her rental apartment. Everybody, of course, have something to say about that, but I think that it is a pretty smart idea, if you could afford it.

Now it maybe just my crazy ideas, I do get crazy ideas sometimes, but it seems to me that if we could all keep our own space, we wouldn't fight as much. Now I know that this is not practical for most people that want to raise a family together, but what about older people?
I see it again and again, people at older age, both have their own family and house they can afford to live in. They find a new love and they move in together. Why do they feel that they have to move in together? Is it a controlling issue?


 

First I would like to thank Nada for the awardicon and her encouraging words that inspire me and encourage me to write more.
Thank you Nada!

My own mortality
When I told my wife about Steve, she said that sometimes we are sad when someone dies because it reminds us of our own mortality.
It is very interesting.
I think that ever since I learned about my own mortality, the hadn't been a day that I forgot about it.
As a kid I remember staying up at night talking to god making all sort of promises and vows if he would only let me live forever, or at the very least a million years.
That was my most precious prayer, right after the prayers for peace that I inherited from my ancestors and the prayers for a little brother that will help me against my sister.
I received one of my three prayers and figured that one of three is not that bad. Maybe the first one was too big even for god.
The mortality is still undecided. So far I am still here but on occasion I find my mortality not only threatening but surprisingly also comforting . That's even more scary.
As I grew older and more reasonable I found comfort in all sorts of ways (my wife, my children, my family, my art and even my work just to name a few), but I am still very much aware of my mortality.
Maybe even more today as I am past the half of the average male life expectancy.
It is true that when we see death closer, we sometime see things more clear. I remember that I broke up with my girlfriend (now my wife) when I served in the army. I figured that I am still young and I should have more experiences before I tie the knot.
The I was sent on an operation to Lebanon. Our force was discovered and we got into a pretty bad fight with some casualties. Laying there with the bullets whistling around me and the bombs falling from the sky. Not knowing when my turn will come, all I could think of was my love and I vowed that the first thing that I would do if and when I come home, would be to find my way back to her heart.
I am trying to live everyday as if it is my last day and as if I have another million years to live.
If I manage to do the right thing for both scenarios then I am covered.



 

Steve died
I feel sad.
Why is it that?

Steve was the lifeguard on Kibbutz. A good looking man. Big muscles. We used to laugh at his American accent as kids. That what kids do. Everything different makes them laugh. We used to imitate his speech all the time. We he told us to be careful and not do something, we always just laughed and didn't listen, but he wouldn't lose his temper, like Kenny, the other lifeguard, who was Canadian too. I just found out now that Steve was from Canada. I always thought that he was from the States.

He was a quiet and the most gentle person I'd ever known. One of the strongest people on Kibbutz. I remember how he won all the wrestling contests by the swimming pool. Even as he got older he kept looking young. Never smoked, always protected from the sun, exercised and ate healthy. I though that he is closer to my age than my parents age and I couldn't believe it, when they told me that he was older than they were. His children are more than ten years younger than me.

I didn't really knew him. I new all about him, but I didn't know what kind of person he is inside. On Kibbutz everybody know everybody. Everybody talk about everybody and everybody see everybody, but in most cases it is quite superficial, like the way we know a celebrity. We know their image.
So why am I so sad?
A person that I haven't talked to in my life passed a way.
It turns out that he had lung cancer. He was so healthy that he didn't feel sick almost until the day that he died. He looked great until his last day. He went into the OR and died from complications. A blood clot or something. Shocking. Maybe that's what it is - shocking.
I haven't seen Steve in probably twenty years and haven't thought about him. Yet his sudden death have such an affect on me. Very strange.

I remember being sad when other people that I didn't know died. When Princes Diana died all the world was sad. I was so sad about her tragedy, and I never even thought about he twice before she died.
Maybe part of it is guilt.
When life end, we suddenly remember how we mistreated that person, only when it's too late.
Sad.
 

would you let a seven years old go by himself on a train?

Last night we went to friends for Sabbath dinner. Once a month we get together about seven families and have a Friday night supper, every time at someone else's house. It always get a little crazy with all the children running around and yelling. Their ages are from five to twelve. On occasion we bring someone to talk, usually it is about the Cabala or the Talmud or something of that sort that I am not that interested, but last night was different.
The person that come to talk looked in his late seventies, very shaky, maybe he had Parkinson disease.
After dinner we sat to listen to the talk, and my wife saw our seven years old son riding his bike outside without a helmet or a jacket. She ran outside to yell at him, and I remembered how growing up I could go anywhere on my bike, no one new where I was. I didn't even own a helmet. The life on Kibbutz were very protected from the outside world, but still accidents could happen. I once run into a barbed wire fence with my bike and they had to take me in an Ambulance all the way to the near city, a 45 minutes drive, the Ambulance did it in 35.

The person started to talk. It turns out that he was in Germany before the war and that his parent sent him on the children-transport to England just before the war started and some how he survived. He took the train to Holland from there on a boat to England.

Can you imagine a seven years old by himself?

And I thought how we don't let our son ride his bike without a jacket and a helmet and only to stay on the sidewalk.

He remembered the last time that he so his mother's face in the train station, not realizing that it wasn't a fun ride. He arrived in England the gave him to a foster family. They were a couple that couldn't have children, and they wanted to legally adapt him. His parents at the time were still alive and tried to get papers to leave Germany, so they didn't agreed to that. The couple gave him back to the hostel, were he grew up with another twenty boys. This reminded me a little how I grew up on Kibbutz. We spent all day and night with other children. Spending only a couple of hours in the afternoon with our parents. But we knew that we have our parents. I know that there is someone there that think that I am the best. Or at least one of the three best...

It is amazing how different are the life of each generation, and the amount of freedom that we give our children, but one thing stays the same. We always do what we believe is the best for our children under the changing circumstances.


 

waiting for the delivery to come.
They said that they will come between 12:00 and 4:00 pm. I told them that I have to be at work but if they could give me a call about a half an hour before they come, I could meet them at my hour. The said no problem. When I hear "no problem" I know that there are going to be problems. Never fails! So just to be on the safe side I asked them for their phone number just in case. I don't know why I asked them for it. I never think about these things until its too late, maybe I am getting smarter at old age?
So today I am waiting for their phone call. Waiting and waiting. I had my lunch at my desk, my boss would've been so impress hadn't he spent the day at the beach. So I am waiting and waiting. Not leaving my desk for a second. Finally at 2:00Pm I decide to call them and check what's going one. Why hadn't they call me? Of course they put me on hold for an hour. They pass me from one dispatch to the other until finally I get the right one and he claim that he called me at one and left a message on my machine. I said that there is no fxx way and asked him the number that he called. Sure enough it was the right number but the wrong extension. He left a message at my bosses machine, who happened to be at the ...
No I am waiting for them anyway. He said he would be here at 2.30 and it is already 3:00 Oh well...

Finally he arrived, he wouldn't even help me carrying it saying it's not his job.
Can you believe it? At my age carrying 171 pounds by myself? I hope I will be able to get to work now.

 

Why I hate German Cars?
Monday night as I was driving my son back from his Taekwondo lesson, he started asking me about cars.
I tried to concentrate in my driving, fighting my way through the evening traffic, so wasn't paying much thoughts and answered him with the first thing that came to my mind.
He kept asking about different cars model if I would like to have.

I was very picky for fun and anything less that a Lexus I didn't agree to have.

Each car that I didn't want, he also demanded to know why.
So to explain why I didn't want an American, or Korean car the explanation was simple, but when it came to Mercedes, BMW, VW or Audy he wouldn't accept my rejection.
Than without thinking I slip and said that I just don't like Germans. To believe that me, that hate racism the most, would come with a comment like that.

Than he asked why? Is it the Holocaust? But it was so long ago!

I tried to change that subject but it was already too late. I had to explain to him that our family came from Germany, that my grandmother run a way in a boat from Europe to Israel and had lost both her parents in Auschwitz.

I told the story with as little detail as I could, I didn't expect to tell him that before he is much older, he is not even nine, but maybe some things come more natural at that age.

All he said was that now he is mad at them.

I told him that I was wrong, and that is not a good reason not to like Germans and for sure not a good reason not to like German Cars and that they make the best cars. Even my grandmother used to buy everything German because the make the best quality.

So he agreed not to be mad and moved on to talk about other cars.

I was left to think how stereotypes and racism are tattooed so deep in our brain that we are not even aware of it. As hard as we may try to erase it, deep down it is still there, just waiting for an opportunity to show its ugly face again. As educated as we are to know how bad it is, and as much as we believe that we are not this way, somewhere we all still have it. We all get it from our parents in their words or actions, intended or unintended, and it just keeps on living and passing from generation to generation in our subconscious.





 

The Good Earth and Thousand Splendid Suns
If you haven't read these books, I don't know what are you waiting for.
I cannot think of one thing more important or urgent than reading these books.

Last night, I finished reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by American author Khaled Hosseini, his second, following his bestselling debut, "The Kite Runner". The style did remind me of his first novel, but for some odd reason the story brought back the memory of the best book that I have ever read, "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck published in 1931.

The two stories are very different. They are as different as day and night and different as two stories can be. One is told by a woman author, telling from that point of view of a man and the other is exactly the opposite.

I tried to think why my brain connected the two stories, apart from that fact that they are both wonderful stories and I thought about the following similarities:

1.Both stories are very compassionate, the characters are very realistic, they are alive, they have good and bad qualities and the author is not judging them, but merely telling their story.
2.Far eastern rules, culture, and religion.
3.Poor people in a survival situation.
4.Political conflicts
5.Drought and shortage of food.
6.Multiple wives family situation and the conflicts following that.


But the similarity that strike me the most is the character of the first wife (O-Lan and Mariam). Both women came into the world in shame that wasn't their fault. Both are not the most bright, or the most sophisticated women, but they leave the world in dignity. They asked for very little and got punished for no reason. The injustice just rip your heart apart. Their simple actions have the most significant affect on the story and their destiny.
Despite what men or god threw at them, an unimaginable amount of pain, they prevail. They are the real "Good Earth", the true Afghanistan - the "Splendid Sun".
 

My coffee maker broke on my birthday!
How is it that?
Can somebody explain that?
Negative or Superstitious: this must be a bad sign. Somebody hate me up there and want to make me miserable on my birthday.
Positive: I will go and get myself a new fancy coffee maker for my birthday. This way I will always know how old is my coffee maker. Not that it really matter they never last more than a year anyway.

And the Sink in plugged - now I am sure it is a bad sign - cannot think of anything positive about that!

Any suggestions?