shabbat shalom 07.06.07

Hi everyone,

Here it is a lovely day in June (unusual in our summer) and I'm stuck at home with an intestinal virus that has me dashing to the toilet every half hour. It's been a long time since I had one of these problems, normally my digestive tract is hardy and obedient. I've taken four doses of a commercial anti-diarrhea medication with no luck, so I'm turning to an old Beduin remedy, black tea with fresh sprigs of zaatar (hyssop). Five will see you ten that this works better. We already know zaatar has antibiotic properties, and it cured me once when I was down for the count in Jordan some years back.

Aside from this little problem (which really isn't so bad, I can sit on my terrace between dashes to the john) the work week was pretty good. I had a lot to do and did it. Tonight at 7:30 I will join a conference call for Washington-based SCB (the Society for Conservation Biology), a committee meeting to make some decisions about annual and regional meetings. It looks like we are going to start alternating annual and regional meetings, which means Asia would have one every other year.

I proposed Bangkok for next year and the Asia Board of Governors thought it was a great idea. We felt, ever since Nepal, that we really need f2f meetings to strengthen our section, and most of our guys are far too poor to contemplate annual meetings outside our region.
If this work, I will be going to Thailand rather than America next year, at a fraction of the cost. That sounds really good, because in 2009 we host the annual meeting in Beijing, China, thousands of participants, and we really need to be ready, with lot of work to do. Also, like a lot of other people, I've gotten interested in the Far East. I had a little taste of Bangkok on my way to Nepal in 2005 and I want to see more. It is green, lush, gentle, exotic and the food is great. Not to mention Thai massage, which I woud indulge every day I am there, I'm sure.
So everything should be great.

Only fly in the ointment, and it saddens me, is that I had a falling out with my American neighbor, Nancy. It's been brewing for a while; I noticed she's been pretty cool the last month, although I had no idea why. I was pleased when she stopped in the area of my office last week on an erran and invited me to lunch. Yet halfway through, out of nowhere, she called me arrogant.

I guess I blinked like an owl, thought "turn the other cheek", muttered something inane and let it pass. She looked at me intently and let it pass also. On Saturday, I took a dish of pasta and tuna salad to her house as a gift, with several of my cats trailing along (well, tuna, you know). She took the gift, then grabbed a broom and chased off my cats from around my feet with an angry grimace and a complaint about cats getting into her construction site (a new upper floor). I offered to get her cat repellant, but it is "chemical" and she refuses to use it....

I went home sadly and shaken, thought about it, thought maybe something is distressing her that I don't know. I called and asked "Is there anything wrong? You seem stressed lately." She paused and firmly said, "No, I'm fine".

Well, I said, since my cats follow me around and you can't stand them, I don't think I can come over to your house any more. I don't want to see what I just saw happen again.

"Don't be infantile!" she snapped. Again I was stunned and hung up soon after. In this country, with all our yelling, we tend to avoid making personal criticisms like that. Maybe it's the Arab honor thing still in our culture. You can yell about stuff all you want, but be very careful about attacking a person's honor, including his personality. I can't remember anyone ever saying something like that to me in all the years I've been in Jerusalem, and here I just collected two insults from an American. I didn't know what to make of it.

I thought about it overnight and decided to back off; she is returning next week for three months in America and that may sort things out. I sure don't want any more abuse like this. But at 7 am she was at my door before I went to work, with an errand she wanted me to run for her at my office. Not a word of apology either.

Chutzpah! I caught mysef before blurting what I was thinking, and quietly explained that I had thought matters over last night and I'm backing off for a while; I can't handle her. "But I just can't stand your behavior!" she yelled at me. "It's YOUR behavior that's upsetting me, thanks." I politely said, and closed the door on her. Haven't seen her since. Perhaps she was surprised.
This may be a cultural thing. Do Americans hurl insults at each other like that and go back to being buddies the next day? And I don't mean insults in an affectionate tone, I mean in a hurtful way. I've had a few encounters with Americans in the last years where I heard stuff like this and it astounded me. In Israel, people are more careful about personal stuff, even with their enemies. Maybe especially with their enemies; forgiveness is not a particularly Jewish trait, and sooner or later people will get you back. Different standards perhaps?

Or is this just her way of trying to control me or prove her superiority to the Ph.D. next door? I can't think of anything I've done; does she simply resent what I am? If so, it's incurable, and I'll just have to let that relationship go. And yes, that makes me feel bad. In all sincerity, I try not to pick fights with anyone, only when I can't avoid it. Yet this woman will try to argue with me when I just pass on a weather report or the latest bulletin from our security network. I begin to think quarrels are a form of entertainment and social interaction for her, that she thinks is fun It's not for me, especially in sobriety.

Well, I'm still scratching my head about what is going on there but, as with the AA prayer, I'm "accepting the things I cannot change, and changing the things I can." I can't change her, but I can sure as hell get out of her way.

shabbat shalom,
Linda