shabbat shalom 25.09.09

Hi everyone, This started out a hectic week and got worse, but at least it is over. I had three deadlines to meet on grant reports, and am getting there but very busy after being overseas in the Czech Republic for two weeks. So I was clearing my desk and getting at those reports. On Tuesday morning I noticed one of my cats had a lump the size of a walnut on the inside of his leg. Took him to the vet, who lanced the abscess and gave him antibiotics. So far so good. Driving home with the cat, I stopped at a traffic light to let an ambulance through and had barely stopped when I felt a bump from the rear. Got out to assess the damage. A chain accident, what fun. The car behind me had stopped as well, but the woman behind had just kept going, and plowed into him. So he was pushed into the backside of my car. Bent my bumper and trunk frame, and smashed a set of rear lights, but his car just got squashed. Lucky nobody was hurt. The woman, in shock, just kept saying in Hebrew "I don't know where my head was....." On the mobile phone most likely. Well, sigh, there went the day. I gave my report to the police, took the cat home, called the insurance company, filed a report there, took the car to the garage, and then....no car. (No loaner unless I go to the insurance-approved garage, and I went to my own dealership garage. Stupid me.) In Jerusalem this is not a big deal because the bus system goes everywhere, but I live in a West Bank settlement that hast two buses in the morning and four in the afternoon. Everybody drives. So this meant hitchhiking on the West Bank. I haven't done that for a while....People were good about it, but this schlepping around without a car was exhausting. I got my car back yesterday afternoon and it was like reuniting with an old friend. I hate to drive but I hate to hitchhike even more. (Heck, I need a chauffeur and a maid, but not in this life.) By the time I finished work yesterday I was wiped out. Hate to think what it is like living without a car out here when you are my age and have a house to run....I know people who do it. Stuff like groceries become major problems.... At least now we have a 4 day weekend, to recover. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, starts Sunday night, so it is hardly worth going to work. Everything but hospitals and ambulances shut down for Yom Kippur; even radio and television go off the air. Maybe half the country observe the fast, and the other half stay home anyway because they are afraid of being attacked with stones if they go out. In some places, even ambulances get stoned on Yom Kippur. It is nice to have such quiet for one day, but it's only partly willing, and partly intimidation. I personally don't get much out of fasting besides an headache and a very grumpy disposition, so I stay home and work on the computer. Tried Yom Kippur a few times, but found my homicidal impulses rising after about twelve hours. So I've abandoned it. Other people tell me they feel light and purified by fasting and I believe them; it just doesn't affect me that way. For me, it's more like trying to hold my bladder for 24 hours. Hard to think of anything spiritual when all you can think about is having to pee. Or having to eat or drink. (They don't drink water for 24 hours either.) So the spiritual dimensions of fasting are kinda lost on me. I'll go for the shiatsu and herbal tea approach to enlightenment...... There is a spring on the way home up the mountain which has associations with various saints. My pastor tells me that this spring is on the old Roman-era route between Jerusalem and the coast, and is the place where Phillip baptized the Ethiopean eunuch. It has associations with later Jewish saints too, I understand. So before holidays like Passover and Yom Kippur, the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews mass at the spring to purify themselves. Not sure of the ceremony but I think they shake the lint out of their pockets with some kind of prayer to the effect that as they get the dust out of their pockets, they also get rid of their sins. Something like that. Anyway, the spring was a sea of black suits and black hats yesterday as maybe 500 haredi men (why only men, I never see women there?) were gathered around the pool, on the roadside, on the road. It was like trying to drive through a flock of black-fleeced sheep, and they seem just about as oblivious of cars. Maybe if you get squashed while performing this ritual, you go straight to heaven. Looks that way. I got through without taking any black frock-coats with me, but that was just due to skillful driving and quick reflexes. Hate to bash the car after just getting it back..... It will sure be good to have four days at home with my cats and my chores. Maybe even manage to finish the weekend newspaper this time. shabbat shalom, Linda