Hi everyone,
It has been an interesting week. Last time I wrote, I was just digging out from under the snow. Now it is practically shirtsleeve weather. I have to admit I far prefer the blazing Mediterranean sun and arid climate that Israel has most of the year; northern snow and grey skies don't attract me at all anymore. Which is funny, after growing up with lots of snow….
I did damage assessment last weekend; the house had taken a real beating in this last storm. The gutters need repair, and I had the gardener welding down the tin roof over the woodpile this week. The old eaves of my cottage are getting rotten and will need replacement before the next winter; and the grouting between the limestone facings and along windowsills is all rotten too. Ah the joys of home maintenance! Repairwork gets harder these days since we have to clear Arab contractors with the local military headquarters and Jewish contractors either won't come or charge a fortune. I hope to take advantage of the visit of an American who is experienced in these matters and possibly with time on his hands to do some of these jobs or at least guide workers to do them better. (There was a good reason King Solomon imported Phoenician contractors to build the Temple in Jeruslaem; it seems most Jews then and now were born with two left hands. What Israel really needs is the discovery of one of the Ten Lost Tribes among Applachian hillbillies, who could build a rocket using spit, string and prayer…..)
I prepared my workshop for next week, although every now and then a question pops into my head that one of the students might ask, and I have to go look it up. Of course I am nervous; I haven't taught in ages and even when I did, I was terrified every time I lectured. It's okay once I get into it, but the hours before teaching are sheer torture. It's a form of stage fright. I can take gunfire fairly calmly, but standing in front of people still scares me silly.
Service work. Cornell Alumni Association (I got my doctorate at Cornell and am a member) asked me to interview a couple local high school students who applied to Cornell for undergraduate studies. Anyplace else, this is a ho-hum issue, but these two kids are at the Quaker School in Ramallah (Palestinian Areas) and I'm in Jerusalem . They are not allowed to come to me and I am not allowed to go to them. What to do? Well, I know one place, an orphanage near my home, which has a front door on the Palestinian side and a back door on the Israeli side. Years ago I used them when we were taking food to Palestinians under curfew in Beit Jala and Waladja. We'd enter from one side with the food, and when the curfew lifted, the Palestinians would pick it up from the other side. Kinda funny, actually. So I called the orphanage and arranged a meeting there for next week.
Just to balance things out, I'm on the committee for an organization that helps Israeli victims of terror, with the specific job of checking the accounts every year. I just sat with the director, who is a kindly soul who has no head for administration at all. I was asking basic questions about the numbers and what comes in and what goes out, while he blinked at me with that "deer caught in the headlights" look. So I sent him back to his accountant to sort a few rather glaring errors out. Better I singe him than the tax office does. This happens every year; I have to make sure this dude hires a decent executive secretary this year. Charities are notoriously messy about their accounts, which is not helped at all by the suspicion that many of them are dishonest….
Service work number 3. I'm adopting another cat. Don't groan, this is a real special case. Frankenstein was found with his head split open after an attack by some human sadist (picture 1).
It has been an interesting week. Last time I wrote, I was just digging out from under the snow. Now it is practically shirtsleeve weather. I have to admit I far prefer the blazing Mediterranean sun and arid climate that Israel has most of the year; northern snow and grey skies don't attract me at all anymore. Which is funny, after growing up with lots of snow….
I did damage assessment last weekend; the house had taken a real beating in this last storm. The gutters need repair, and I had the gardener welding down the tin roof over the woodpile this week. The old eaves of my cottage are getting rotten and will need replacement before the next winter; and the grouting between the limestone facings and along windowsills is all rotten too. Ah the joys of home maintenance! Repairwork gets harder these days since we have to clear Arab contractors with the local military headquarters and Jewish contractors either won't come or charge a fortune. I hope to take advantage of the visit of an American who is experienced in these matters and possibly with time on his hands to do some of these jobs or at least guide workers to do them better. (There was a good reason King Solomon imported Phoenician contractors to build the Temple in Jeruslaem; it seems most Jews then and now were born with two left hands. What Israel really needs is the discovery of one of the Ten Lost Tribes among Applachian hillbillies, who could build a rocket using spit, string and prayer…..)
I prepared my workshop for next week, although every now and then a question pops into my head that one of the students might ask, and I have to go look it up. Of course I am nervous; I haven't taught in ages and even when I did, I was terrified every time I lectured. It's okay once I get into it, but the hours before teaching are sheer torture. It's a form of stage fright. I can take gunfire fairly calmly, but standing in front of people still scares me silly.
Service work. Cornell Alumni Association (I got my doctorate at Cornell and am a member) asked me to interview a couple local high school students who applied to Cornell for undergraduate studies. Anyplace else, this is a ho-hum issue, but these two kids are at the Quaker School in Ramallah (Palestinian Areas) and I'm in Jerusalem . They are not allowed to come to me and I am not allowed to go to them. What to do? Well, I know one place, an orphanage near my home, which has a front door on the Palestinian side and a back door on the Israeli side. Years ago I used them when we were taking food to Palestinians under curfew in Beit Jala and Waladja. We'd enter from one side with the food, and when the curfew lifted, the Palestinians would pick it up from the other side. Kinda funny, actually. So I called the orphanage and arranged a meeting there for next week.
Just to balance things out, I'm on the committee for an organization that helps Israeli victims of terror, with the specific job of checking the accounts every year. I just sat with the director, who is a kindly soul who has no head for administration at all. I was asking basic questions about the numbers and what comes in and what goes out, while he blinked at me with that "deer caught in the headlights" look. So I sent him back to his accountant to sort a few rather glaring errors out. Better I singe him than the tax office does. This happens every year; I have to make sure this dude hires a decent executive secretary this year. Charities are notoriously messy about their accounts, which is not helped at all by the suspicion that many of them are dishonest….
Service work number 3. I'm adopting another cat. Don't groan, this is a real special case. Frankenstein was found with his head split open after an attack by some human sadist (picture 1).
Oh would I love to catch the people who do things like that. I have some real creative things I could do to them, mostly involving surgery that would ensure they would never reproduce more of their kind…. Frankenstein survived and healed, but nobody wants a cat with a scar on his head like that (picture 2).
So of course I took him, to add to my gimpy menagerie. The animal shelter is delighted. And personally I get a lot of satisfaction from rescuing critters like this, far more than I get from helping Homo the Sap. Can you blame me? When was the last time a cat split a human's head open??Not much else to add. I'll volunteer at the cat shelter this Saturday and take Frankenstein home with me. It feels like spring is coming; the drive down to Beit Shemesh should scare up a few almond trees in bloom now. I'll try to take pictures.
Shabbat shalom,
Linda
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http://shabbat-shalom-jerusalem.blogspot.com/
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