I’ve just arrived home after an outing to dinner with my husband and sibs-in-law at El Vaqueiro, a South American/South African steakhouse near downtown Jerusalem. The restaurant offers an all-you-can-eat option that includes a parade of different meats that you are encouraged to try (they bring each to the table, one by one) and then you can choose more of your favorites. There was South African beef sausage, roasted turkey breast, chicken wings, veal and turkey rolls with dried fruit, beef stew cooked in a traditional South African clay pot, entrecote steak, corned beef, barbecued veal, and asado, South American roasted steak. Oh yeah, and in case you’re still hungry, endless plates of Israeli salads, bread and oven-roasted potatoes. Sounds delish, no? It turned out to be the most unsatisfying meal of my life; I didn’t eat a thing.

At first, it was easy to just sit there and watch everyone sample what was obviously a delicious display of food; my body was completely not interested in having anything like meat to deal with, and I was content to sip my hot water with mint. However, as time went on the dishes became more and more fragrant and the food started beckoning to me. Finally, I decided I would eat. But the minute I thought of putting even a bite in my mouth, all the thoughts of everything I’ve just read about factory farming came rushing back and I just couldn’t do it. I literally could not eat it. For those of you who know me, this is definitely a new one.

T-minus twelve days (!) until we leave for home. After our doctor’s appointment this morning, Shuie and I took Yonah to the mercaz and sat at a cafe and chatted. Shuie is thankfully very peaceful about our decision to go now and encouraged me that I shouldn’t feel badly about leaving. “Everything happens on Gd’s timetable,” he said. “There’s so many things that affect so many other things, and Gd knows the reason why it’s time. Maybe us going will enable something good to come that might not have been able to happen while we’re still here.” Can you see why I married this man?

My current brain buzz is about what we’re going to do when we get home. Shuie has a couple of great options waiting for him in Cape Cod (More on those when they’re finalized), so it’s possible we’ll be sticking around there for a while. As for me, I’ve got a very likely job possibility teaching in Cambridge, MA. The timing works out because I’d be filling in for a maternity leave who will be coming back at the end of April, exactly when I’m due. The problem is that if we stay on the Cape, that would mean I’d be commuting an hour and and a half each way. I know people do it all the time and sometimes you gotts do what you gotta do. But I honestly don’t know if, physically, I would be able to handle it. As my husband says, right now I go on a five-minute walk and I’m ready to sleep for the rest of the afternoon. So, we’ll see. I’m going to go and visit the school when we get back and I’ll get a better sense of what things would look like and if, realistically, it could work. Now if only I could think hard enough to speed up time…

Shira called me on her way to the Cape, where our dog since childhood, Jazz, is being put to sleep. Jazzy was a beautiful golden retriever with a puppy’s energy, even into her teens. After we moved out of the house, Jazz became Mom’s baby; she was constantly with her and followed her everywhere. I guess it’s fitting that now she’ll follow Mom again to wherever she is. It’s a strange thing; I haven’t lived with Jazzy for years (after my parents moved to Manhattan she went to live at our friend Billy’s farm on the Cape, where we were free to visit her whenever we wanted), but this feels like such a huge loss. It’s not just saying goodbye to this wonderful animal, but also to the piece of my childhood/adolesence/young adulthood of which she was so vital a part. The tinkle of her leash throughout the house and the tap-tap-tap of her paws on the wood floors were part of the soundtrack of our house, and she is present in so many of the memories I have of my family. She’s even in some of our formal family portraits.

And of course, it’s like losing Mom all over again. Losing that part of my life is so painful because it’s just one more piece of Mom I can no longer hold onto. It’s been seven months, but moments like these make the pain feel so fresh. Even watching my father haul his luggage up the stairs the other day brought tears to my eyes because it was like saying goodbye to her, too. How can someone who is no longer here still be so present, so vivid in my mind? Sometimes I can actually hear her talking. It’s a strange, sad thing, letting go of someone you love so deeply. You don’t lose them all at once, but piece by piece. Eventually, all you have of them to hold onto are what is living inside of you.

I hope Jazzy’s last hours on earth are painful and free of pain. Thank you, Shira, for being there to take care of her.

I have a friend named Sara Benincasa who I have known for almost a decade, since our days tromping around Europe as part of Emerson College’s Kasteel Well program. Even then I knew Sara was not only a delight, but she was dangerously smart and laugh-until-you-lose-consciousness funny. So it was no surprise to me that, nine years down the road, she would be doing her brilliant stand-up all over the country, appearing in magazines and rounding up a bevy of famous, funny folk as her friends. Well, today I got an email from my lovely friend telling me that she wrote about none other than YOURS TRULY on her blog! I am truly honored and way excited. Does this mean I’m actually legit? If you’d like to read Sara’s two cents about Reezie, check out http://sarabenincasa.wordpress.com/. Check out the rest of her site to see some of her outrageous standup and short videos (her Sarah Palin stuff is too good).

Dad is leaving this afternoon (sniff…) but I’m not as devastated as I was when Shira left because I’ll be seeing him again, Gd willing, in about two weeks. I have to admit that I have been a sorry excuse for a hostess. Sick, tired and childcare-less, home is where I’ve been parked for most of this week, save for our archaeology expedition and the occasional trip to the park and the grocery. Dad has been content to go out on his own when the mood strikes (yesterday he spent the day at Kever Rachel, Maarat Hamachpelah and Kever Rut, all burial places of our foremothers), or hang out here with me and watch Rodney Dangerfield on YouTube. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to escape what I am calling the Curse of 43 Ramat HaGolan; if you stay in this apartment for more than 48 hours, you are going to get sick. You all know about me and Yonah; Shira left here with a lovely case of Conjunctivitis and now poor Dad has a stomach flu. At least I know it’s not just me.

Having Dad around for the past week has made for a nice distraction but as soon as he leaves it’s down to business. I have 15 days to pack up this place, sell anything we’re not taking with us (basically everything except the clothes we came with) and get ready for life back in the States. This may sound exhausting, but I am actually getting a charge out of actually DOING something. As my husband says, “She’s the type of girl who says she’s going to do something, she does it”. So let’s roll.

Over the past year or so I have been educating myself about natural living, organic farming and the complete disaster area that has become the food industry in the United States. Some favorites are “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver, “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan, and now I have a new favorite, thanks to my brother and future sister-in-law. For my birthday, they sent me an amazing book called “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer. I (forgive the pun) gobbled it up in about 24 hours. The book is an expose about factory farming, which is the standard system of raising animals for slaughter in the United States. While I don’t want to give everything away, some of the highlights of factory farming include: packing thousands of animals into small compartments and depriving them of fresh air and sunlight for their entire lives, letting them live in their own excrement, genetically manipulating them so they’ll grow faster (to the point where their legs can’t hold them up and they are unable to procreate on their own), feeding them antibiotics (which also affects our resistance and immune systems) and physical abuse. 99% of meat sold in the US, including kosher meat, is raised this way.

After reading this fantastic/horrifying book I am ready to pack it in, buy my own farm and live off the land for the rest of my life. However, that’s probably not going to happen today. So in the meantime, I’ll have to start slowly. First order of business: whether or not to go vegetarian. It’s an idea I’ve been toying with for a while. I haven’t been able to eat much meat during this pregnancy anyway because my system is so sensitive, but now I find that when I do eat meat, it just doesn’t feel right. While I was having cholent (beef stew) at lunch on Shabbat, for example, all I could think about was the poor living conditions the cow I was eating may have had, and all the hormones and antibiotics that had been pumped into its system and was now making its way into mine and my unborn child’s. Now, I know what you’re thinking, and unfortunately, Israel is not exempt from the factory farming craze. According to CHAI (The Concern for Helping Animals in Israel), the Israeli PETA, “Agricultural trends in Israel closely parallel those in the rest of the world”. The U.S., or more specifically, the conglomerates who control 80% of the world’s food supply, set the standard for everyone. That said, I have a choice of whether or not I want to support them, which quite frankly, I don’t.

So what would it mean if I gave up meat? Well, during the week I eat vegetarian anyway (right now, tofu for lunch and dinner are all my body can handle). I eat tons of fruits and veggies, a good amount of dairy (though that will also need consideration at some future point) and whole grains, preferably organic. My son is not a meat eater; he just doesn’t like it. And my husband will eat whatever I put in front of him. The challenge is that while I have these change-the-world, progressive leanings, I am also an Orthodox Jew. And for Orthodox Jews, a beautiful chicken or beef dish is the crowning glory of every Shabbat and Holiday table. What would my guests do if they came for a meal that was lovely, nutritious, plant-based and completely flesh-free? Would they throw down their napkins and storm out? Would they smile politely while vowing to themselves never to come back? Is it possible to be a vegetarian and still be a good Jewish mother? I guess there’s only one way to find out.

Dad just left. Yes, I cried.

I had a really sweet moment last night after I crawled into bed (too late, I’m afraid). As I lay on my side, my body hugged around my belly-friendly tube pillow, waiting for sleep to take over, I felt LB’s weight in my belly. I thought of the baby curling up and falling asleep inside of me and, suddenly, I felt this sweep of love for this little person I have yet to meet. It was a moment of pure sweetness, a welcome window of joy that I desperately needed. Things are not easy today, but this baby gives me hope that the future holds something better.

I haven’t officially mentioned the debate that has been going on in my house for the past several weeks on the blog because I felt it was best to keep it mum until a final decision was made. Well, we finally did it: Last night, Shuie and I agreed to come home. I booked our tickets today and we fly back to the States on Wednesday, December 30th. For those of you who didn’t see this one coming, all I can say is that this trip has been a lot tougher than I had thought it was going to be. I didn’t know I was pregnant when we planned our year in Israel, nor did I know I was going to be sick for almost our entire stay or that I would be wrestling with impairing depression and doubts. I also didn’t know that it was going to cost so damn much to live here.

I wish I could say that this decision was a simple one, but it wasn’t. My husband is very happy here and feels like he has a community he belongs to. However, he is able to complete his program in the States and Gd willing will do so by the summer or next fall the latest. For Shuie, our time here has been a long-needed shot in the arm. For me, it has been the opposite.

I have often chided myself for being too weak or not passionate enough about my goals here to keep pushing for them, or that maybe I don’t have enough faith that things will get better and that I’m a coward for not sticking it out. I also wonder if I’m being selfish for dragging my husband across the world, asking him to leave his daughters and then changing my mind about the whole thing. But after almost four months of wrestling, I feel wrung out. All I want now is the comfort of home and the faces of people who know and love me, and to have some sense of peace before this baby comes. I guess sometimes you have to travel to a foreign country to realize all you really wanted was home.

But I’m not naive. I know a lot of the feelings I have been wrestling with here will follow me to America. I also know that it will still be isolated for me at the house in Cape Cod, where we’re going to be living until we figure out our next step. But I have to hope that going home will provide some sense of comfort for me and that maybe it will be easier to heal with a network of support instead of trying to manage it on my own.

Other than our flight being booked and our ultimate destination determined, the plan is still up in the air. Shuie will be finishing his program, though where yet I’m not sure. As for me, I have no idea what I’m going to do. Getting a job is tricky because I’m having the baby in four months, so at this point I’m focusing on getting our stuff sold or packed and shipping out. I’ll have to deal with the rest when we come to it.

So, my friends, I’m afraid that my blog will not be nearly as exciting as it had been or might have been, had circumstances been different. But if there is still a demand, I’ll be happy to write life back in the States, pregnancy, Mommying, dealing with grief, whatever. You’ll let me know.

There’s this thing I’ve heard once or twice that you’re not supposed to complain about Israel, it being the gift to our people from Gd and everything. Word on the street is you may even sacrifice your chance to be here if you’ve got beef and advertise it. Well, today I’m willing to risk it because this country is ticking me off, big-time. Well, maybe I should rephrase. The country itself is not bad; it’s actually quite beautiful when you look past the collective bad attitude of its residents and the ridiculous policies that make everything, from transportation to picking up a package, a complete balagan. But eventually, one comes to think of a way of life as inherent to the country.

Allow me to illustrate. Yesterday I got on the bus and waited to hand the driver my card. I was standing within the door frame and could not move forward until the girl in front of me moved on. The driver decided to re-open the door, which caught my arm and gave me a good, painful jostle. When I looked at him incredulously — of course he knew I was there — he started snapping at me as if it was my fault. This, by the way, is a typical Israeli attitude: it’s always YOUR fault. I lost it on him. “I can’t move!” I yelled at him. “And I’m pregnant!”. I refrained from using a few choice names, but only because I didn’t know them in Hebrew.

Today, I went to pick up a package from my brother Josh, which apparently could only be held in one central location far, far away. Not the biggest deal, but I’m not quite sure why they couldn’t hold it at our local post office. So I arrived at this huge warehouse in Givat Shaul and was pleasantly given my package. That is, after I paid a delightful 300-shekel tax, of course. Not even the sight of my brother’s familiar left-handed scrawl or Katherine’s fantastic wrapping paper could cheer me up after that one.

I know individually these little incidents don’t seem like much, but they pile up. So, while I’m grateful that Israel is open and available to everyone who wants to risk it, today is just one of those days where I wish I’d passed.

At the moment I am feeling immensely guilty because I just dropped Yonah off at Ruchama’s, even though all I’m going to be doing this morning is sleeping and, if I can build up the strength, go to the grocery store (Dad went to yeshiva with Shuie today). To my credit I did go to bed last night with chills and nausea and I genuinely do need more sleep, which I won’t get if I keep Yonah with me. It’s only for a few hours, right? I’m not the worst Mommy in the world. And I did give him an extra peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich…

Dad arrived on Monday evening full of his usual boundless energy — for the record, my father is a superhero; he wears spring jackets in blizzards, walks with the speed of a high-powered Vespa and sleeps maybe 4.6 minutes a day — and ready for shwarma. Pretty soon, he and Shuie were off to the Mercaz and came back with dinner. Dad’s booming “Hello” gave Yonah a little scare so Bug is still tentative around his Zadie. Dad has resorted to bribery by buying Yonah an order of french fries last night; I’m hoping Yonah will go to him without a fuss by the time Dad leaves.

On Tuesday morning, Dad decided he wanted to go to Bet Guvrin, a national park and archaeological site our family visited when we were here almost fifteen years ago. Dad recalled seeing special burial sites there that he just learned about in the Talmud and wanted to see again, as well as a columbarium where pigeons were bred for use in the holy temple. So, off we headed to rent a car first thing in the morning. I immediately thought to myself, “Five bucks says we run into some kind of trouble renting the car…this is Israel, after all.” But I decided to keep my mouth shut to avoid bringing negative energy to our trip. Well, whether I said it or not I was onto something. We had to wait almost half an hour for the car. First, there was damage to the outside that they needed to write up. Then, the gas tank wasn’t full. Then, they had to wrestle the car seat into the back. By the time we left, Dad looked at me and said, “I’m tired. Let’s go home.” Of course we didn’t, but maybe it would have been a good idea.

We got to Bet Guvrin and found a series of rolling, rocky hills. All of the sites were off the main road, so we parked and tried walking around to find them. We did manage to see an ancient olive oil press that looked like a chunky stone doughnut that you roll in what looks like a giant saucer. There was also a log with a few loops of rope tied to it to which the pressers would tie rocks and crush olives. Dad tried lifting the log alone, without the rocks, and said it was really heavy. Dad then decided we should walk up the main road and see if we could find any of the other sites we were looking for. I got the feeling that the main road was just that — a main road — and that we probably wouldn’t be able to find much by sticking to the path. Plus, it curved uphill, which made pushing the stroller oh so much fun. Within five minutes, I was totally tapped out so we headed back to the car and tried to driving to the other sites.

Contrary to popular belief, fifteen-month-olds are not so into archaeology. Around this time Yonah decided that this trip was lame and it was the perfect opportunity for a meltdown. Dad and I drove around in circles for a while before he ran into the information booth to figure out where everything was. They didn’t offer much help; this is Israel, after all. On our last go-round, Dad managed to find a tour guide who told him that the burial sites he was looking for were not at Bet Guvrin, but at Bet She’an. So much for reliving memories past. By then, we were ready to book out, go home, and sleep off our big adventure.

I’ve been feeling badly because I want to show Dad a good time around Jerusalem, but between Yonah not feeling well, me being tired, pregnant and not feeling well, I haven’t been able to show him much more than our guest room. But he assures me he’s very happy to just hang out, sleep and spend time with me. He has been here a number of times before doing the touristy thing, so I have to assume he’s telling me the truth.

Yesterday, while Dad went to return the car, I went to a session with Elana and then we headed to a class given by Avivah Gottleib Zornberg, an intellectual powerhouse with a fantastic Scottish accent. Avivah is an interesting character. Her father was the head rabbi of Edinburgh and an amazing mind. He never had sons, only two daughters, so he raised them to be huge Torah scholars. Avivah’s knowledge is amazing, but she also knows a lot about psychology and the arts, so she tends to tie in outside references to everything she is teaching and gives the characters in the Torah a very human feel. She talked about how although it says in the torah “Veyeshev Ya’akov” (And Jacob Settled), the settling was less a physical one and more a wishful thinking on Jacob’s part. Very quickly, we see that he became unsettled when his sons told him that his beloved Joseph was killed. As much as we think we’ve accomplished everything we need to accomplish, that we’ve reached a plateau in our lives where we can just relax, those things are really not up to us. At any moment, life can be turned upside-down all over again. Avivah suggested that perhaps it was precisely because of Jacob’s decision that everything was “settled” that Gd overturned his life. I enjoyed her class very much, although I had to skip out early to pick up Yonah. I got home to find Dad fast asleep. I was hoping we could go out to dinner but could not manage to pin down a babysitter. It ended up working out because I started dropping big time in the evening and, as I mentioned, ended up going to bed with the chills.

So today, Dad and Shuie are off learning, Yonah is at Ruchama’s and I am going to rest. We’re going out for dinner tomorrow night, Thank Gd, so I don’t have to cook. Tomorrow is the first night of Channukah and my birthday. I have yet to get presents for my husband and son, which should be a good indicator of my energy level. I am praying I’ll be able to get myself out of the house for at least a little bit today and hopefully find something for them. It might also be nice to get some provisions since we barely have any food left in the house.

Okay, enough writing. Bedtime.

For the past three days, Yonah has had a high fever, runny nose and today broke out in an adorable rash. Dr. Wolf says it’s just a virus and that the rash (Roseola) is the final stages of the germs leaving the body. Well, thank Gd. While Yonah’s recovery is first and foremost on the gratitude list, I am also glad that three days of being stuck in the house are hopefully coming to an end.

Since I have been housebound for three days I don’t have any big adventures to report (unless you call wiping rivers of snot an adventure). My father arrives tomorrow afternoon. Normally I would try to come up with some kind of itinerary to keep my guest occupied throughout the week but I can guarantee that my Dad has a million people and places here that he wants to see; chances are, he’ll be off as soon as he sleeps off the jet lag.

Last night Shuie and I went to our friends Adiella and Binyamin Yitzchak’s Sheva Brachot (Sheva Brachot [Seven Blessings] are a series of dinners that take place each night for a week after a Jewish wedding). I had really wanted to go to their wedding, but one of the Jewish laws of mourning prohibits me from going to any sort of celebration for 11 months following my mother’s death. It was a double bummer because Adiella is my friend and because I really wanted to go to a wedding in Israel. Disappointment aside, the Sheva Brachot was lovely. It was thrown by Shuie’s yeshiva so all of his friends and their wives (my friends) were there. The thing I like about this chevra (community) is how chilled-out it is. One of the less pretty sides of the Orthodox world is the competition people have to make THE MOST FABULOUS wedding, bar-mitzvah, Sheva Brachot, etc. Instead of a fancy, catered shindig like some people would turn themselves inside out to throw, Adiella and Binyamin Yitzchak’s Sheva Brachot was a vegetarian potluck and the dress code was “Whatever”. Instead of some lavish catering hall, it was held at Kol Rina, the Carlebach shul in Nachlaot that used to be a bomb shelter, and everyone just relaxed, danced and enjoyed each other’s company.

I was touched by two things in particular during our evening out. The first was how gorgeous Adiella looked. It’s not that she wasn’t beautiful before she got married, but there was an unmistakable glow about her that I saw the minute she walked in. There is something special about being a bride, and I think even more so when you’re a Jewish bride, or “Kallah” in Hebrew. From the time you get engaged, you have Kallah status, and you keep it all the way through the first year of marriage. A Kallah and her Chatan (groom) are considered like a king and queen and are treated as such by everyone (hence the “thrones” they sit in at their wedding and the “feasts” thrown for them for seven nights afterward). The perks of Kallah-hood are that people fawn all over you and ask you how wedding plans/married life is and you’re not obligated to host any Shabbat guests for the entire first year so that you and your husband have ample quality time. I loved all the attention when I was a kallah and sometimes miss the romantic whirlwind of engagement and newlyweddedness (yes, it’s a word now).

The other thing I found particularly sweet was when Reb Aaron, Shuie’s rabbi, said after the meal, “Chevra, I think we should spend the rest of the evening singing and offering blessings to the Chatan and Kallah”. I have been to so many simchas (celebrations) where it just seems like one long cocktail hour with boring small talk and maybe a sliver of holiness before everyone attacks the smorgasbord. But this small group created a holy, joyful little gathering, and the blessings offered were so, so beautiful. Unfortunately, Shuie and I had to sneak out early to be home for the babysitter before we could offer one of our own.

I need to brag about Yonah for a minute in case someone doubted for one second that he wasn’t a genius. When I picked him up from Ruchama’s today she told me that when the other kids play with blocks, they just throw them around or line them up. Yonah used them to build a tower. I was so proud.

I can’t believe tomorrow is Thursday already. They say that Shabbat starts coming in on Wednesday night and builds over Thursday before coming to full flower on Friday evening. For me, Wednesday night means menu planning, Thursday means shopping and Friday means cooking my tush off. We may or may not have guests to stay this weekend and the Edens are coming for lunch. To be honest, I hope our potential overnight guests bail; I kind of want to keep things quiet even though I had last Shabbat off. It’s been a tiring, emotional week and I don’t really want to host anyone. Since nothing has been confirmed yet, is it impolite to tell them to seek lodging elsewhere? Bluch.

I am craving America. I want to drive my car and go to massive supermarkets and buy stuff I don’t need, in bulk, like a good American girl. I want to turn on the radio and hear people speaking in English. I want to pay for things in dollars. I want to see my family. I hope seeing my father next week will give me a temporary fix.

I am one of those people who don’t do well when underslept; I get cranky, short and completely scattered. It was no surprise to me, then, after two nights of waking up with Yonah that I felt like an overturned mobile home in after a Kansas hurricane. I considered skipping my meeting and session with Elana but at the last minute kicked myself out the door. When I got back, my beloved husband took over Yonah duty so I could have a delicious two-hour nap to set myself right again. I have also officially called off my Monday Chabura because shlepping out at night is just getting too hard for me. It is so uncomfortable for me to go into hibernation mode — I get a buzz from lots of activity and social interaction — but I also know what happens if I push myself too hard, and it ain’t pretty.

I had a some really encouraging conversations last night with two midwives and a doula (birth coach) to find out some more information about home birthing. It sounds like a monumental experience that takes a lot of bravery, especially in the medically-obsessed culture we live in. Women have been taught that giving birth is a dangerous experience that requires medical intervention, like an illness or an injury. The philosophy behind home birth is that women were created specifically to have babies and with minimal guidance and encouragement, they can do it on their own. I’m currently seesawing on the idea. I wanted to do it with Yonah but I was too nervous about it since it was my first birth. This time I feel like I might be ready to try it, though the prospect of ruling out the option of painkillers is a scary one. I am all for natural birthing; research shows that it is the healthiest option for babies and mothers. But my last labor was 19 hours long and I never would have gotten through it without some help. So we’ll see.

My father arrives in six days and I am really excited to see him. Incidentally, his visit coincides with my birthday and the first day of Channukah. The little girl in me is happy to have him here to celebrate with me and hopes he’ll spring for a present or five. Speaking of which, ’tis the season for Channukah present shopping. I am completely at a loss as to what to buy my husband; unfortunately telling him that brewing his second child is gift enough doesn’t fly. Thankfully, I live in the Mecca of Judaica stores (is that a contradiction in terms?) so I should be able to find something that tickles his fancy.

Living in a country whose language is not your first means that, pretty regularly, you are going to find yourself feasting on a thick slice of humble pie. In general, I can understand what people are saying to me after a five-second delay, and with my third-grade Hebrew skills I can pretty much get across what I need to. However, the language barrier has made for some pretty priceless moments over the past few months.

Take today, for example. It is not a rare occasion for my doorbell to ring in the evenings with some person or other asking me for tzedakah (charity); here in Israel there is ALWAYS someone in need. However, the interesting thing is that the people who come are usually collecting on behalf of someone else: a poor family, an underfunded yeshiva, a couple about to be married. I’ve heard all kinds of stories on the other side of my intercom. At first I was taken aback by the whole arrangement, but now I’m pretty much used to it. In fact, I’ve even taken to dropping my loose change in a vase near the door so it’s handy when the needy come a-knockin’. Tonight, when I heard my buzzer around half past five I figured it was Shuie, keyless again. But when I picked up the intercom and heard a stream of Hebrew in my ear, my ears perked up.

“HebrewHebrewHebrewHebrewHebrewHebrew,” said the voice on the other end.

“Mah?” I said. What?

“HebrewHebrewHebrewHebrewHebrew,” was his retort.

“Od Pa’am?” I asked, buying myself time to figure out what was going on.

“HEBREWHEBREWHEBREWHEBREWHEBREW,” said he. Apparently he knew the rule that when you speak to someone who doesn’t know your language, all you need to do is talk louder and they’ll understand.

“Atah Rozeh Tzedakah?” I finally replied. You want Tzedakah?

“Lo!” came the voice, exasperated. “Dryer!”

Oh! He came to fix the dryer! Although I was thrilled to see him (we’ve had a two-month long washer/dryer saga that would make you weep) I left the door open, busying myself with Yonah so I wouldn’t have to make eye contact with someone who clearly thought I was an idiot. In he went to our Machsan (storeroom) to tinker with our masochistic dryer, followed soon by Yossi, who loves to check out the scenery when fix-it people come by. While I was reading to Yonah I heard the dryer guy chatting with my landlord. “She asked me if I wanted tzedakah,” he chuckled.

Okay, I know some Israelis can be jerks. I know he’s a stranger and I will never see him again in my life (unless my dryer has another nervous breakdown). I also know his opinion matters naught in the scheme of things, but I was totally embarrassed. I guess today’s humble pie came a la mode. As a side note, just as I was writing this story a Chassidish man just buzzed, asking for tzedakah for a poor family. I should have given him my dryer.

Today was a bit of a whirlwind since we went away for Shabbat to Shuie’s childhood friend Zelig Barr’s in Ramat Beit Shemesh. By the time we got home last night I was too exhausted to do any prep (including giving Yonah a bath), so I was moving like a rocket from the time I got up this morning. Morning meditation was out the window as soon as I heard Yonah calling me (”Meema! Mommee!”) from his crib and before I knew it we were packed up and on our way to Ruchama’s. Thankfully, I was still able to get some quality quiet/me time during my walk through Nachlaot on the way to my art class. There is something invigorating about walking through a city first thing in the morning as everyone is getting ready for the day, like everything is brand-new and ripe with possibility. As I weaved through the merchants unloading trucks and wheeling their wares out for display and on through the winding stone alleys of Nachlaot, I caught myself in one of those moments when that “newness” feeling, the crisp air and the sun on my face make for unfiltered delight.

I hate to sound cliche, but I am really learning a lot about myself in my Veil Painting class. The whole idea of this type of art is that it’s a slow, organic process meant to unfold in tiny steps. I began today’s painting still in that “rush” mode, residue from the morning, and within a few minutes I was trying to coax some kind of form out of the painting instead of building a foundation and letting the form emerge. I wanted to get to the finished product, then end result, without going through the process. My teacher Miriam caught on pretty quickly and gently directed me to go back to basics. When I remembered to breathe and let go, I could relax into the process and just enjoy.

I hate to say it, but that little episode is typical me. I’ve never been good at waiting, and I would prefer to skip the process and the just get to the end result. Like, “I want to be more patient…RIGHT NOW!”. Even when it comes to my learning, I want to be able to learn independently today and move forward to be able to teach other people. I want to zoom through the grieving stages and just be used to not having my mother around anymore. I want to rush home so I know I have my ducks in a row before Little Bean comes instead of waiting to see what Gd has in store for us. So today’s lesson is a reminder to just breathe and be where I am, as hard as it is. If I can manage to let go and unclench every muscle in my body, I may even end up enjoying what the present moment has to offer.

Seriously, November is over already? I can’t believe how quickly time is flying. I’m already 19 weeks along in the pregnancy and Little Bean is apparently auditioning for David Beckham’s old spot on Manchester United. I try to remember to enjoy this pregnancy; it’s much different when you have another kid to run after. When I was pregnant with Yonah I could savor every single move he made in my belly; this time, I’m lucky if I notice anything going on. Still, just like every child is different, every pregnancy is different, too.

On that topic, as the result of a few horror stories I’ve heard about the midwives in Israeli hospitals, I’m strongly considering having the baby at home or in a birthing center. I actually wanted to do it with Yonah, but there were no birthing centers near where we were living at the time. There’s a huge movement of women who homebirth here as well as some amazing, loving midwives. I just wonder if I’ve been so indoctrinated by the whole “The Hospital is Safest” thing for me to actually be able to relax if I was laboring at home. It’s definitely something to consider, and if anyone has any experience one way or the other I am soliciting birth stories and advice.

Wishing everyone a happy rest of the weekend.