Yeah

This place. This place. I’m always in one. I pray to be one.

instead

i could have significant and meaningful things to say, but instead i’ll just share the observation that summer is upon us. but contrary to tradition, i won’t start whining about my vast and multifaceted disdain for the climate this time of year – i’ll be positive and list a few things i love about summer:

1. mango season

2. fig season

3. tomato season

4. cherry season

5. nectarine season

6. sundresses and sandals

7. warm breezy nights

8. cold, refreshing beer

9. parties on balconies

10. people not laughing at me for wearing bright yellow

huzzah!

fresh pine

for what use is this bombardment of my psyche, this robbery of my sound mind? how does it benefit this species’ survival? this rewind, this edit, this futile imaginary replay. hope, i scowl at you. i give you the dirtiest stare i can muster. you are useless, you dreamer, and you cause only trouble. you waste the fibers of my being through which you are so tightly woven. you are an imbecile that knows nothing of statistics, and i would put a swift end to your pathetic existence if i could only detach it from mine.

about that

he never stops pursuing us, no matter how far we stray. sometimes he lures us back to him with a carrot. sometimes he then rips that carrot out of our mouths and uses it to beat some sense into us.

you’ll most likely not, but you just may.

to put forth all effort into trying to cause something to happen accidentally is a game.  and games are supposed to be logical, but is there anything that less fits such a term than to recognize a certain pattern, to realize a certain probability, then to ignore them both?   there is a dysfunction that drives away reason; hope is its name.  it helps us forget the lessons we have learned, and enables us to persevere through paths that are almost always dead-ends.

wall collage

i don’t know why i have the urge to snap pics with my iphone in grocery stores.  stop judging me.

what is wrong with this picture?  whoever guesses it gets 1 point.  1000 points gets you a hug from me.

On the other hand, establishing a location where i can be completely surrounded on one side by a wall composed entirely of chocolate and on the other side by a wall composed entirely of wine makes up for the previous flaw.

alsoooo i finally decorated my living room!  wall collage time!  here, i believe that the wall decor as a whole is greater than the sum of the parts, which are: records for a shekel each, knick knacks from here and there, google-image stolen black and white pics of the IDF and Kaveret back in the day, israeli posters from the 60′s, one especially zionist propogandawesome plate, a book, and my grandma’s ukulele courtesy of my sister, adina.

thanks, adina.

thadina.

i’ll post more pics of the room later…whenever i can use someone’s camera instead of my phone…

turn left

so i’m out with my native israeli room-mate and 3 friends…earlier we had a bit of a political/theological argument…

me to friend: take the bus with us, your stop is on the way to our house

friend: you guys live together?

my room-mate: yep

friend: oh how wonderful! that’s great that a jew and an arab are living together in harmony!

har har har….

golly…didn’t think i was *that* left winged…

but seriously… after things like this recent nation-wide survey , i have to think to myself, what are they putting in the cornflakes here?

so 45% of jews would feel uncomfortable having arabs as neighbors and 50% of arabs would feel uncomfortable having jews as neighbors.  really?  way to be racist.  are we really that primitive?  that fearful?  then again, if it was based solely on music choice, i would feel uncomfortable having both arabs or middle eastern origin jews as neighbors.  also both of those groups use way too much hair gel, and it would probably clog the pipes in the neighborhood.

chappy chanukah!

yay! it’s chanukah!

chanukah is probably the holiday that i feel most deeply, and most of those feelings are both warm and fuzzy.  they are so warm and so fuzzy that, in fact, if i ever have a soft, furry rabbit as a pet, i will name him chanukah.   he would, of course, be white, like the color that would be found on the streets right now if israel wasn’t so anti-snow.  stupid bureaucracy.

unlike most other holidays, i don’t generally connect to chanukah in what i would call a “spiritual” way, but its traditions sincerely move me as my actions link this living, breathing body to the blood of my past.  while singing maoz tsur, no thoughts of maccabees slaying greek temple-defamers enter my mind, only images of  a young spanish jewess in the 1600s secretly kindling candles from a ghetto, or a little russian-jewish immigrant girl on the lower east side in the 1910′s lighting her menorah from a tenament window,  or a 10 year old ronit kory in the DC suburbs, blue lights sparkling from the snow-kissed bushes in front of our townhouse and glittered styrafoam dredeils and stars hanging from the ceiling by gold beads.  although i have doubts about the supposed miracle of chanukah, i do not say the words “blessed are you….that performed miracles for our fathers in those days” in vain, because there is one miracle that i cannot deny:   god has, in an almost wastefully extravagant mercy, preserved my people across the ages.  (thanks for that, by the way, i like existing.)

i only wish that the jewish people now stood for the justice that we had for so long not been granted, but that’s another blog post for another time…

meanwhile, chanukah via youtube…

this is one of my top 10 favorite songs in the world, but i couldn’t find a good rendition of it without the beatbox…so…have a rappy chanukah (har har har)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw-ZgyIJh00&feature=&p=3D18A3CFA677612B&index=0&playnext=1

and, now, for the cutest thing ever (check out the girl at 36 seconds)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gMTvGmpVbI&playnext=1&list=PL5C0E285AA459CDF4&index=8

i want you so bad

thanksgiving as a vegetarian was unexpectedly awesome.  people seem to focus on the turkey as the iconic holiday dish, but they forget that it’s one of the rare american meals in which vegetables – almond green beans, mashed basil sweet potatoes, and roasted succotash at my family’s table – actually fill up the majority of a the plate.  and, yes, stuffing is a vegetable in my book.  i don’t feel the need to carry the majority of the cultural elements of my upbringing on the east coast to new home in the middle east, but thanksgiving is a gem that deserves a place in my life.

speaking of food, here’s some visual imagery of the current, general situation in israel:

+1 = real parmesan from italy at 14nis for 100g…i used to have to go to a specialty shop to find this, but now it’s available in most supermarkets, and only about 6 shekels more per 100g than the inferior israeli variety (israel makes some lovely cheese, and probably some quality parm-like ones, but that which is available at this particular supermarket is not one of them.)  anyway, one point for you, israel, you win my consumerism.  um, and i guess kind of italy too?  whatever, the point is that this cheese had made this country a better place and might solve the israeli-palestinian conflict.

-1 = fake cheese.  i thought that my eyes forever escaped forced view of this imposter when i left america, but no.  ”processed cheese food” has spread like the bubonic plague all around the world (way before i got here, i just have never seen it advertised in this quantity).  this product is called “pizzarella,” fake mozarella, and anyone that actually reads the label will see that the word “cheese” is no where to be found, only the phrase “milk protein and vegetable fat.”  ok, they should think of a better phrase to describe the stuff…but the name “processed cheese food” has always annoyed me because it’s not cheese, so cheese should not be in the name.  how about processed dairy food?  anyway, it even looks gross in the picture, the way it flakes apart instead of streaming in dynamic strings of genuine cheesy goodness.  in any case, i am appalled.  minus one point for israel’s gastronomic landscape.  i understand that people should have the right to buy this product, but it should be hid in the bottom of the refrigerated area in shame.

+1 jerusalem artichokes!  they are neither jerusalemite nor artichokes, but they are my favorite tuber.  they go for about a million dollars a pound in the states but here they cost about a half a shekel, or 10 cents, each.   and jerusalem artichoke soup is part of the top 10 reasons that i adore the colder seasons.  oh, this is my local friendly supermarket guy, scanning a horrid mistake that i made: non-baby raw spinach…my salad tastes like a bowl of tree leaves.

+.75 i have finally found an adequate pasta place to serve as cheap eats for groups of struggling 20 somethings like me.  until now, hummus ben sira was my go to empty-wallet meal out with friends, and still stands as the establishment that i feel offers diners the best deal in the city, but man cannot live on garbanzo alone.  pasta with a choice of about 10 sauces is whipped up for you in a jiffy at just 20 shekels, and added toppings and veggies for a few more.  the down side is that it tastes like 20 shekel pasta, or at least what i ordered.  on the other hand, there are so many places in this city that uncreatively serve what tastes like 20 shekel pasta  but charge you 50.

two fun little links starts NOW!

1. um, i want this for chanukah.  SO BAD.

http://www.bttrventures.com/

or not…cuz they only ship to the US.  boo.

2. how neat…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXQAgzfwuNQ

huffing and puffing

and now for an angry rant, by ronit kory:

this whole darn world’s political opinion about the situation here annoys me.  it’s challenging enough to find an opinion *inside* this country that i agree with now that leftist zionism is practically dead, let alone the painfully one-sided pieces from abroad.  every single blog post or comment on a newspaper article that i come across either contains blind worship of israel and fear/ apathy/ hatred of palestinians or blind victimization of palestine and vilification/ absolute condemnation of israel.  and what furthers my disturbed disposition is that it seems like no one has bothered to simply look up two basic definitions in the dictionary (it’s on the internet now, folks, you don’t even have to pick up a book):  occupation and genocide.  the former group would like to believe and persuade you in their thinking that neither exists here, while the latter insists that they both do, to the point of nazism.  the fact that i’ve read almost no statement from my passionate fellow internet users or heard a verbally expressed opinion from an outsider that recognizes the first of these things while denying the second is troubling and despairing.  why does everyone have to be so radically pro one thing and anti the other to the point of either denying what is obvious or that of twisting half truths?  since when is the world full of the purely innocent and the purely evil, the only situation that would allow for any side being blamelss, a bold claim both views hold for their team?  isn’t there anyone reasonable out there?!?!  gosh darnit world, stop pissing me off, i’m trying to enjoy my morning!

this concludes an angry rant by ronit kory.

in less infuriated news, i’ve happily moved to jerusalem proper and am working for an non-profit called musalaha here in town.   for the first time in my life, i leave the office (yes, i work in an office, and i don’t understand why people complain about them – they’re clean and there’s free coffee!) with the blissful feeling that i’m actively working towards bettering the world in some minuscule way.

random pics from my resurrected iphone (thanks, oz)

omg it’s so close it’s so close!!!!  i wanna ride it!!! it’s so sleek and smooth looking!  i’m so excited!!! go jerusalem!!!  go israel! yay!

nothing says class like an israeli wedding dress!  will someone please tell me *what* is *wrong* with my *people?*

that’s the bathroom in my new rented apartment.  if you say you’ve seen uglier tile in your life then you are a dirty liar.