shabbat shalom 27.06.09

Hi everyone, Okay, first the cat, since I got more queries about the health of Alifa than I ever did about my European project.... Alifa is a little better.  She wasn't eating for a while, and refused whatever I gave her.  I was about to take her to the vet for euthanasia, but finally tried a different cat food (the most expensive available, of course) and she likes that, so euthanasia is on hold and she is gaining weight again.  And we also will try a new medicine on her for treatment of anemia, starting next week.  So she lucked out.  She is showing more energy now.  Nice cat, living on borrowed time. As for the rest, this week was a blur of hard work.  I am going full tilt at my work on the EBONE project, supervising a hardworking Dutch graduate student, hiring a programmer to start with database management, and gettin the remote sensing work off and running.  Got maybe 5-6 balls in the air and it keeps me busy.  I've just rolled out of bed and to work, come home to eat dinner and feed the cats and then to bed.  It will stay like that through the summer, too. My Dutch student has settled into the guesthouse a couple doors down and comes by daily to walk my dogs for me.  He's a nice, well bred young Christian and a pleasure to have on board.  I feed him dinner occasionally and ferry him to Jerusalem and back on top of the work, but he has more energy than work can handle.  Yesterday he walked home from Bethlehem, a good 14 kilometers in the blazing sun.  That impressed me, not least for not getting mugged or heatstroke climbing through Beit Jala. We had "hamsin" the last couple days.  Hot air mass from Saudi Arabia, temperatures soared and air became extremely dry.  (How do they live with this in Arabia??)  I get klutzy in this weather, fumbling whatever I do, but at least not the wicked headaches I used to get when I was new in Israel.  Those would leave me flat in bed.  Today it doesn't hit me but the poor Dutchies got headaches.  (I've got a new Dutch immigrant as a technician as well; my lab has become a colony of Holland for the duration of the summer.) I've really been oblivious to anything outside work for the last week so there isn't much to report.  The landscape has gone to the sere brown of summer, with only the evergreen trees and shrubs giving some relief.  A few stubborn thistles bloom this time of year but from now to October the main color of the mediterranean zone is sandy brown.  We dodge the midday heat and emerge in early morning and late evening for fresh cool air.  There are advantages to living in this furnace, however: my arthritis vanishes for six months of the year.  I'm beginning to appreciate being baked. There are some charms about June in Israel, though.  The evenings are still cool.  The fig trees are getting ripe.  The grapes are swelling.  It is the season of cool, fragrant melons of all kinds, of sitting out in the garden with watermelon and bulgarian cheese for dinner.  People go swimming.  A lot of us switch to sandals and flip-flops for the next several months.  (I haven't worn socks for two weeks.)  Israelis begin to eye their vacation options (Greece? Turkey? Scandinavia?).  Kids are on the edge of the "Great Vacation" and their own plans for summer.  With the ban on weddings past after Pentacost (none between Passover/Easter and Shavuot/Pentcost) and the evening weather nice, the wedding halls are going full tilt.  It is still cool enough for picnics and people are doing barbeques all over Israel.  It is a relaxed season, and for the moment no terrible crisis is on our heads. It is also the silly season.  Jerusalem had its Gay Pride parade a couple days ago (probably with one cop to every participant, to keep the irate religious from storming them).  The religious then turned to another target: the city is opening a parking lot next to the ancient walled city for the sabbath.  On Saturday, the area around the Old City is jammed with cars as people gravitate to the only commercially open part of town on Saturday.  Tourists and locals alike wander the alleys, eat humous, shop in the bazaar, and sightsee the wonders of the Old City.  It is in fact a charming way to spend a Saturday and I've done it often enough myself. However, the city parking lots are closed on the sabbath, so cars are parked every which way around the walls of the Old City.  On the sidewalks, in the center strip of the road, everwhere they can.  The new mayor, an engineer by training, apparantly decided to put some order in this.  Parking will be free, but it does recognize some people drive on the sabbath.  So, the ultra-Orthoox haredim decide this is an excuse for a shit fit.  There will be demonstrations at the parking lot today.  Ah well, the haredim need an outlet for their excess energy and a source of entertainment too.  They don't have many options to have fun, so I guess this is one sabbath activity the rabbis will permit.  That's Jerusalem for you. Meanwhile, I'm pretty tired and will just use this day to rest, piddle around in my house, go to the spa for a massage, nap, and brace myself for another busy week.  shabbat shalom, Linda