"olsvig2000@yahoo.com"
Friday, April 3, 2009 9:00:57 AM
To:Linda Olsvig-Whittaker
GivatHaTermosim 006.jpg (714KB)
Hi everyone,
It is the week before the start of Passover, which is probably the most beautiful season in Israel. Even in this drought year, the area around Jerusalem is full of flowers. I attach a picture from a popular viewing area not far from my house, Givat HaThermosim (the Hill of the Lupines) but similar wildflower displays can be seen everywhere in the Mediterranean part of Israel now.
This is also a season for life changes. Several babies have been born among my circle of friends and acquaintences, but several elderly or chronically ill people have also died. In the case of the latter, I guess the winter wears them down so that even if the weather has improved, they are at the end of their strength. As for the babies....well, counting backward, that marks July and August summer vacation.....
I'm on vacation myself right now. We have a one week enforced holiday at the office due to Passover Week (the first time our offices closed for Passover), so I filled in some extra days around it and have two full weeks of vacation. I'm spending this at home - after all, where better to be at Easter and Passover than in Jerusalem - and have plenty to do. I don't go in for the cleaning frenzy of good Jewish housewives before Passover (getting rid of the leaven commanded in the Bible has evolved into the Festival of Spring Cleaning, when all males take cover). My house will always look like a well provisioned barn. But I do want to clean out cupboards, put away winter clothing and pull out the summer stuff, get rid of unwanted items, and generally put my house in order.
I also have an excursion to Tel Aviv and Jaffa planned, and another to Ashdod for a good fish dinner with my pastor and his wife. It is the season to get out and around. There will be events in Jerusalem. I probably won't brave the crowds in the Old City, which is jammed for Easter, but will go to someplace outside the walls to enjoy the holiday. I will be helping with my congregational "seder" (the Passover meal) as well. Traditionally we seat about 100 people at a communal feast and read the siddur. I usually get the job of watching four roasting lambs or kids while everyone else goes to get in fancy dress, which is a nice meditative period which I enjoy.
This has been a rugged week. Early on I got news that an old friend, the lady I visited a couple weeks ago in Nazareth, died of a heart attack. I could see it coming when I visited her (there is such a thing as seeing death marking the face of someone you know well) and I think she knew it too. Still, she was mentally alert and vital until the end, and I think she was ready. At 86, not a bad way to go. I should be so lucky.
Another item was funnier. I've written before about Shkedy, our chief scientist, and how he tried to get me fired a couple years ago, but the director laughed at him. To this day Shkedy doesn't know that I know about that. When I got this 4-year European project on habitat mapping, I decided to put Shkedy on it because he has professional ability as a landscape ecologist, even though it is generally agreed he is a pain in the ass. In fact he has served pretty well in the tasks I assigned him even though he gives me a hard time. I'm learning to deal with that.
Meanwhile, he got the director sufficiently pissed off at him to deny him approval to join the other two people I'm sending to a project meeting in Aix-en-Provence next week. Southern France in springtime....he was just dying as he watched the other two prepare for the trip.
I chanced to meet the director in my boss's office yesterday and decided to take the bull by the horns. Blushing furiously, I explained to him that I need Shkedy at that meeting, what he is doing on the project, and why it is important. The guy (an army general) gave me some rumbling about how it doesn't look good to send so many on trips during a recession, but I pointed out it's not OUR money, it comes from Europe, and if we don't spend it, we have to return it. More rumbling, I'm saying yeah, yeah but.... I figured I tried.
So an hour later, the director ORDERED Shkedy to go to France......Shkedy came staggering into my lab to find out what the hell I said to convince the guy when all his efforts failed. Well, I just told the unvarnished truth....which is usually enough to shock Israelis, who are not used to it. I'm sure the general has his angles, but I'll find out that later.
Meanwhile, Shkedy is skipping around makin last minute travel arrangements and high as a kite. He came in to talk to me about logistics, still shaking his head, and at one point just stared at me for half a minute with his mouth open, like he wanted to say something but didn't know what. I just grinned. Now he owes me, he knows it, and he knows I know it.
God has a sense of humor.
shabbat shalom,
Linda
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