Yesterday, about twenty minutes into our “quiet” Shabbat, our telephone rang. Immediately, I knew it was my sister. Unfortunately, it being Shabbat, I was not able to pick up the phone. I figured she’d remember soon enough that with the time change it was already Shabbat here and let it go without much thought. About twenty minutes later, it rang again. My anttenae went up: something was going on. When the phone rang AGAIN about an hour later, and then AGAIN about half an hour after that, I gave myself permission to have a full-scale freakout. My father was driving to Boston to spend Shabbat with all of my sibs, so my brain automatically jumped to twisted metal and flashing lights. I proceeded to torture myself for the next 25 hours until I could find out what was going on. When Shabbat finally ended, I practically pounced on my computer to call my sister.

Turns out, my worse-case scenario fantasy was founded on quicksand, thank Gd. Shira actually had some fantastic news for me: She’s coming to visit next week! I am beyond, beyond excited. I didn’t realize how much I missed the States until my mall debacle the other day, and even more so after an outing I had this afternoon with a friend who’s here visiting from America. On top of that, I was really sad to miss the dinner my family had all together last night, the first time they’ve been together since the end of the summer. I think Shira’s visit will give me the double-shot of America and Family of which I am so sorely in need. Now to plan a fun and inspiring trip that will tempt Shira to stay a little longer than a week…

I am considering writing a petition to the Israeli government to implement a Real Sunday instead of this back-to-the-grind hoo-hah they have going on here. Even if there’s no school on Friday, I do not consider it a day off, not when you have to run around getting Shabbat dinner together or traveling to get wherever you need to be before sundown. As soon as Shabbat ends you’re already prepping for the upcoming week. The only reason I’m not going to write a petition is because I don’t have much power as a tourist and because my Hebrew is such crap they would probably think they’re getting some cute letter from a kindergartener who’s learning about pen pals. I’ll just have to live with the sad fact that in Israel, or in Judaism, for that matter, there is never a day off.