Israeli Suzy

Working In Israel

2009-11-27T11:45:00.000-08:00

I was warned before I began my job search here that "all bosses are crazy". I heard horror stories about the way employees are treated and most people seem to move from job to job. I sent out about a zillion resumes, however, using sites that are made available to Anglos looking for work in Israel. I found it mildly disturbing that most of the jobs didn't offer information about the companies, and always wondered who I was giving a summary of my life's work to. But I couldn't not work, so out the resumes went.

The difference between putting together a CV here and doing the same in the States is that bosses here don't care how well-rounded you are as an individual. They want to see exactly what your qualifications are for the particular job. Each CV I sent out was tailored for the job. I was also warned that new Anglos in Israel usually spent the first year working in either internet gambling or internet porn. I decided that I could handle gambling. A little over a year ago, I answered a very vague ad that was simply "American Content Writer Needed for light, funny copy". I sent along a CV and writing samples, more than a little worried that it was for a job in porn, and got a response within an hour.

So I've been working for JamesAllen.com since. Thankfully, we are neither into gambling or porn, although I understand that one of the employees does like to spend part of the day looking at porn. It's okay with me. I don't have to see it. I am writing for a website that sells diamond jewelry. I have my own issues with diamonds, and was posting article after article to a sister website about the horrible treatment of diamond miners and the never-ending flow of blood diamonds. Leonardo DiCaprio can star in as many movies as he wants about the subject, but it has done nothing to stop the violence. I do feel a bit like I've sold my soul to the devil, but I like the work in general. I put my personal feelings aside about diamonds and can write ad copy and banners and blog postings and news articles (along with copyediting previously-written pieces that test my patience) with the best of 'em. I am an advertising whore, and I can live with that.

And yes, my boss is crazy. He can step on an employee's feelings without batting an eye or feeling guilt. Fortunately, I have found the set of balls required to keep us even. If he yells, I yell back. We have had shouting matches that I couldn't imagine having with an American employer. No one else is willing to yell at him, and I have set myself apart by demanding respect. Since we share the same kind of crazy, it works. I had one foot out the door when my friend Anna quit after he crossed over the line of respect with her, but I've stayed at my job with my crazy boss because I can't imagine anyone else who would put up with my particular brand of crazy.

I call my office "The Big Top", because it turns into a circus. When my boss, who prefers to keep his name off of the internet, gets an idea in his head, we must execute it immediately. It took him some time to understand that I can not vomit out brilliance on command, but I can work fast if he gives me an assignment and leaves me alone to do it. When such orders are given to the office, everyone runs around like crazy and gets stressed. This is why I keep my desk facing away from everyone. I put on my headphones, stream in music, and work.

I also call the office "The IHOP". When I started, it was all Israelis. Anna and I added the American aspect. After Anna left, I did the work of two people for four months until we found another writer. ONE HUNDRED or more shitty writing samples later, I found someone I liked. My boss trusted me with going through the CVs and picking good candidates. Some of the writing was so bad that I wanted to cry. Other samples were so bad I had to laugh. I picked the guy with not a lot of experience, but who sent articles he had written reviewing music. And he was well-rounded. He didn't get the 'tailor your CV' memo, and, since I was doing the choosing, he was The Guy. He's working out just fine, aside from the constant open-mouthed eating of succulent fruit that gives off sounds which drill into my brain. But I digress. Then we had two Americans and several Israelis, and a part-time graphic designer from Argentina. Soon, we had to hire more programmers. Now there are two Russians in the mix. It's the IHOP. And the Big Top.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon this: http://acidcow.com/pics/5743-please-design-a-logo-for-me-with-pie-charts-11.html/ while I was working.

I went into convulsive laughter. I couldn't stop. Elan, who sits near me, was laughing at the way I was laughing. While I was in the middle of my snorting, obnoxious laughter, my boss came out of his office with an assignment. He was very patient, waiting for me to stop laughing. It took several minutes.

Before he started working with us, the new guy had been working for one of the porn sites, and told me about working endless hours in a windowless room and getting constantly second-guessed by non-native English speakers.

I am lucky.

Even though I know that, in the States, the person who keeps their cool in an argument wins, that is just not how it is here. The person who can yell the loudest for the longest wins.

And this bitch has the pipes for it.

Never Ask An Israeli Woman When She's Due, and other lessons learned in Tel Aviv

2009-11-13T11:51:00.000-08:00

I have lived in Tel Aviv for a year and a half now, and I love it. I have learned some valuable lessons since I've been here regarding the Israeli people. There are also some important misconceptions I really must correct. But first, the lessons:

1. Never ask an Israeli woman when her baby is due. Women in this country are generally shaped differently than American women. There are variations, of course, but it seems that most Israeli women have very think legs, child-bearing hips, and carry their weight mostly in their bellies. These bellies are often proudly displayed. For real. But there are an awful lot of women walking around looking about 5-6 months pregnant or more. Maybe it's because they have small frames (the people here are TINY). But, for whatever reason, there is an epidemic of women looking knocked-up. I think that it's really pretty cool that women are so much less self-conscious about their bodies, although I maintain my hard work to keep fit and flat-tummied. But you must never, never ask a woman when she's due unless you see a baby emerging from her body at the time. It's too risky.

2. Muffin-tops are acceptable, if not embraced, in this country. Even very thin women buy low-low-low-riding jeans that are just too small. Fat or not, there will be overhang. On some of these skinny girls, I can't help but think that it has to body organs hanging over their jeans. Summer is prime muffin-top viewing time. My friend Anna and I always marvel at this phenomenon. She, too, is American, and believes in wearing jeans that are the correct size.

2. "Low-Rise" has its own meaning here. Seriously. I have friends who buy decorative undies because the top of them *will* show. A cute little bow in the front, maybe. Could be a pretty design. Underwear becomes an outward fashion statement. Some of the jeans are so low that I fear not only a viewing of the rear-crack, but the--ahem--front one as well. And the way these jeans are designed, the pockets that are traditionally on a person's ass are actually on the back of her thighs. Maybe I'm old-school, but pockets are utilitarian for me. I use them to put things in. Sliding my ID and some shekels into my back pocket makes sense. How I would do that if I had to reach down below my ass, I don't know. I guess it's fashion. It looks silly to me.

3. There is no such thing as 'weight-appropriate' or 'age-appropriate'. Women of the larger variety will wear tiny skirts and low-cut, belly-baring tops. Or worse. White leggings, for example. With colorful underwear underneath. And when leggings are stretched to that degree, these women might as well be wearing cellophane. Also, it is not uncommon to see a woman in her 50s or 60s wearing clothes that are clearly designed for young people. We all reach a certain age when babydoll dresses with printed footless tights and stiletto heels are not acceptable. Also, being painted up like a Christmas whore is not necessary when one is at the flea market. Except here. I, myself, have tried on jeans in various shops in the city. No matter how much the salesperson tells me that the ultra-low-rise looks great on me--and even if it does--I am not 22 anymore. Explaining the importance of this is difficult. Of course, it is difficult for a woman of my height and muscularity to find any jeans that don't cut off the circulation to my feet. I must stress again that the people here are tiny. Most stores don't carry pants that are long enough or built to accommodate bigger thighs. Anna and I were jonesing hard for the Gap. We are both on gap.com's email list, and we would be sitting at our desks at work, simultaneously sighing when we saw the latest sales advertised. When I was in the States over the summer, Mom and I hit the Gap like a tornado.

3. On baldness: there is a strange epidemic of baldness here. I noticed it, Mom noticed it, and other Americans I've met have noticed it. As a woman who prefers a good head of hair on a man, the dating pool--already shallow due to certain height restrictions I have--nearly evaporates. Israeli women don't seem to notice this any more than their boyfriends/husbands notice the muffin-top. They've worked it out. I can't.

4. Israeli men are assless. I am a woman who likes a nice ass on a man. As common as baldness is the sad concavity in the back of the Israeli man's jeans.

5. Israeli men, no matter how old, fat, bald, ugly, or stupid believe that all women want to sleep with them. I am constantly approached by men who make me briefly question whether I have lost my mojo. The feeling quickly passes as I accept that 'God's Gift to Women' thing is as prevalent here as it is in Jamaica.

6. Most Israeli men AND WOMEN believe and accept that "all men cheat". I have friends here who have tried to explain to me that men just do it, and what I don't know can't hurt me. I call this "bullshit". Alon tried to explain this to me in an elaborate (and very stoned) explanation that began with "Men are like lions". At first, I wasn't sure if I wasn't getting it because I was high at the time. Later I realized that I didn't get it because it didn't follow any logic. As far as "what I don't know can't hurt me" goes, well, when I do find out, it will hurt him. A lot. And probably render him impotent.

More on this in my next posting, which will be soon. I am back on this thang.

Socialized Medicine: Upsides and Not-So-Upsides

2009-07-18T02:01:00.000-07:00

So I've been here for over a year, my Hebrew is improving, and I can even navigate the all-Hebrew website of my health plan. I can see all my test results and upcoming appointments there. I can also make appointments, search for doctors, and so on. It's mostly a good thing.

Almost everything is 100% covered by the Health Fund, and medications are cheap, which is nice. There are a few exceptions, of course. Like migraine medications. Those need "special permission" and the neurologist has to submit certain paperwork to ensure that I don't get charged full price for the only migraine medication that works for me. Full price is 250 shekels, which, right now, means about $60. In the US, the same medication is $499. For six (6) pills. Not kidding. Naturally, my neurologist failed to send in the appropriate paperwork, and she's harder to reach than JD Salinger.

What is strangest is that there is no nurse to call you in for your appointment. Outside each doctor's office (and there could be as many as 6 or 7 in one area) is a list of his/her appointments for the day. It only lists the first name of the patient and the appointment time. If someone gets there ahead of me, there's always a conversation about what time each person's appointment is. Some people will just try to bolt in ahead. Fortunately, after an exhaustive search, I found a GP who is nice, speaks English, and returns phone calls. She also makes sure that the person who is supposed to be next actually is next.

One day, a few months back, I had to go see a doctor about a women's issue. Without going into detail, I will say that lasers and discomfort were involved. Sitting in the "waiting area" (hallway) with me were a few women going in for similar issues, but there was another doctor who removed moles and so on in the same area. So there I was, worrying a bit about my girl parts, and there are men all around having moles removed. I started talking to a woman who was very, very nervous and upset. I kept my voice down, because other people's cooters are not the business of every person who has a suspicious-looking freckle.

I was the only one keeping my voice down.

A couple was there. The woman was having the same procedure I was. Her boyfriend was having a very loud, animated conversation with one of the assistants about how long it would be before they were able to have sex. My Hebrew was good enough to understand this. What I did *not* understand is what made this a topic of conversation in the middle of a crowded hallway.

Okay, so I go to see my OB/GYN last week. I show up a bit late for my appointment, but I know Dr. G. usually runs behind, so I figure that the one woman and her infant in the waiting area were before me. I would still make it to work before Oded had a cow. Since it's really hot and humid here, I was sweatin' like a whore in church. I sat down under the A/C and started fiddling with my new phone, which cost me nothing because I was very pleasant with the people at Orange (the cell phone company), and because I was showing the appropriate amount of cleavage. Israeli men are SO easy.

Then another woman showed up with her infant. I knew that her appointment had to be after mine, but I also know the pushiness of the average person trying to get in with the doctor, so I had a little internal debate.

Should I let this woman and her tiny infant go before me, even though her appointment is after? She did, after all, have her hands full with that little bundle of baby vomit.

Because I needed to get work at a reasonable hour, it was also reasonable to go to my appointment as scheduled.

If this woman and her giant baby stroller were to try to push ahead of me, how far was I willing to go to block her path? If simply telling her I was next didn't work, would I be forced to look threatening enough to scare her back to her seat?

Was that the right thing to do to someone with a baby?

If it ever came down to it, was I willing to issue a smackdown on some baby's momma?

As it turned out, Dr. G. emerged from the appointment before mine, and I stood up to catch his eye. Since I am difficult to miss, he saw me and told me to go ahead into his office. I had already decided that, if it came down to it, I would tell the woman that it was my turn and she'd have to wait. If that didn't work, well, I found the image of me body-slamming a babymomma entertaining. As long as she wasn't carrying the baby.

These are simply not things you have to consider when you're waiting for a doctor in the States. Yes, it seems so much more civilized to have a nurse call your name when it is your turn, to lead you to the examination room, and to take your vitals. Here, all of the medical clinics have a free-for-all kind of feel.

Of course, medicine is very advanced here, and a lot of new medical technology comes from Israel. The doctors are highly competent. They aren't always nice, but they're good.

Given a choice, I'll take socialized medicine. Everything is a bit more of a pain in the ass, but we all get medical care, and, if we look hard enough and smile at the right people and bitch at the others, we get exactly what we need.

Running on the Namal Tel Aviv

2009-02-12T12:34:00.000-08:00

The Namal, or North Port, of Tel Aviv is, in two words, Gor-Geous. In Three words: A-May-Zing. Tonight, as I was running on the wide wooden path that is like a dock in heaven, passing men in chairs fishing, the Mediterranean Sea was putting on a show, with waves crashing over the fence and soaking a good bit of the walkway. I could hear the waves over my offensively-loud 311 iPod mix. Today, I went about 10km, running at least 7 1/2 of it. I started out getting through at least 3 without slowing down. Granted, I'm not sprinting. I've got a bit of an old lady vibe with my jogging, which is why I prefer the cover of darkness when I'm out.

There seems to be some kind of display of painted dinosaurs (they all seem to be apatosaurs). It reminds me of the painted cows I saw in Minneapolis and then, later, Boston. I will try to get out to photograph them tomorrow, possibly after shabat has begun and people are with their families. It gives me quiet time. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll round up a friend who can take pictures of me on the mini-dinosaurs. They seem to be painfully cute.

I am nervous as hell about my surgery on Sunday (remember: Sun-Thurs work week here), but running helped me clear my head and relax. Tomorrow is a yoga day, and I might actually go to a class instead of practicing alone. Depends on how late I sleep. And I have a lot to get done before Sunday, since I'm told I need 4 days bed rest after the surgery, and we all know how much I enjoy sitting still. I think my friends will have to take turns holding me down, or maybe handcuffing me to the heater or something. Bed rest sucks, but at least Dad loaded me up with a few seasons of Dexter and House to keep me busy. I can also catch up on my Dr. Phil (just kidding).

Am I the only one who isn't interested in the teachings of Deepak Chopra? I don't feel the inspiration. Right now, I am inspired by the teachings of Nick Hexum. And P-nut. I am also in an intensive study with Isabelle on relaxing meditations. I haven't mastered the purr/roll over moving meditation yet, but I'm trying. I have learned a great deal about life from TMX Elmo, also. He teaches me that nothing is so serious that you can't let yourself have a good belly-laugh. Avi, my 2 year old kitten, tries to make friends with TMX Elmo, but doesn't know what to do when Elmo stops moving. I'll try to get video of it.

Anyway, these are the thoughts for the day. And some links.

www.liberalhexum.org

Every swear word ever uttered on the Sopranos, in chronological order

Play around and watch a few shows. Ze Frank is a genius. http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/

So much to say...

2009-02-08T08:59:00.000-08:00

A Moment To Recognize That The US Finally Got It Right

(And he don't look bad topless, either)
My apologies to Bob, the only Republican holdout on my blog list

I can't start at the beginning, because there is SO much. So I'll jump all over the place, which my mind tends to do anyway.

I just got back from a FANTASTIC run. For those of you who know me, you know that running has never been my strong suit. Short distances on the basketball court or soccer field, yes. But distances? NO WAY. Of course, I don't like it when I can't do something, so I decided it was time to learn how to run farther than down the block. And I get better every day. About 2 1/2 km today without slowing down to a power-walk. That's really, really good for me.

I got back and Danny, who owns the dog grooming business at ground level in my building, is throwing his 31st birthday party out of the shop. There are about 15 people on the street, drinking wine, beer, mixed drinks, and water (okay, I was the only one drinking water--I had just gone running). They were passing around joints and everyone was messing up the rotation. All out on the sidewalk. In front of God and everyone.

Then the cops showed up screaming something through their bullhorns. My Hebrew is getting pretty good, but garbled cop-Hebrew through a bullhorn is difficult. I thought they were breaking up the party, but my friends just kept nudging me a little further down the street. Finally, I asked Itai what was going on.

Someone left an unattended bag at the bus stop. No one would claim it. They were concerned it was a bomb and brought in the bomb squad and everything.

Hmmmm....things you don't think about in Portland or Charleston or Boston or San Francisco...

Turns out, some old lady probably just forgot it when she got on the bus. If it was my first bomb scare, I might have gotten nervous. I just wanted to get up to my apartment so I could finish stretching and posting to my poor, neglected blog. I wasn't at any time concerned about anything going boom. You kinda get used to that here. I'd rather be searched every time I walk into the bank than worry that someone dangerous is NOT getting searched when he or she walks in. Besides, the security guy at the bank loves me because I always say 'boker tov' or 'yom tov' ('good morning' or 'good day') while most people do the Big Resentful Sigh because he's looking in purses and backpacks and running the metal-detector-wand-thingy over people. Except me. Because he remembers me, because I'm nice to him. I keep waiting for other people to catch on, but they don't. I alone walk in getting a big smile and "boker tov! ma shlomekh?"

So I have this AMAZING job that I love love love. I work as Marketing Director for www.JamesAllen.com.. Their marketing department is here and I'm learning all about Search Engine Optimization. I was hired to copyedit the "Hebrish" (as I call it), or English written by native Hebrew speakers. BIG difference between speaking fluently and writing eloquently. Also, I was to take over the blog to write 'funny, edgy' material (www.diamondthoughts.com) which would draw people to the site, and then I created "my kids", Nick and Sarah, who are traveling around the US, drinking beer, having adventures, and looking for the perfect engagement ring (it IS for work) since they plan to get engaged at the end of their trip. Sadly for Nick and Sarah, they may never end up married, since it looks like the company is going international and I'm going to have them in Thailand and Brazil and Scotland and who-knows-where-else. My fictitious offspring are 22 now. I fear that, after "Vito" turns this into an e-book and the kids keep traveling, they will be old and wrinkly before they ever find that one perfect ring.

Sound like my life, only without the exciting adventure. Or the man to stay with me consistently, over time.

Some days, when I am copyediting and celebrities aren't misbehaving enough to be interesting, I get frustrated with the horrendous abuse of my beloved English language on the website. Those days, I am especially grateful for the other American in the office, a woman hired at the same time as I was. Anna. She has dreads. She so much smarter than I am that it is frightening. I would call her very nearly "Mark Gannon Smart". But not quite, because, as many of you know, "Mark Gannon Smart" is very, very, very fucking freakishly brilliant.

Thank God I was good at competitive sports.

Anyway, Anna and I both hold dear the minute details that make the English language special. We both love the special turns-of-phrase. We both love the way a well-written sentence can bring out emotion. And we both love love love good spelling and proper usage of grammar. Just know that when you see the word "Jewellery" in something I've written, it is for SEO purposes, because that's how the British search for jewelery. With extra letters.

Anna and I also enjoy a lot of the same kind of humor. One day, I was sitting at my desk after getting to work extra-early, and Anna came in and slapped this down on my desk:

I thought it a very considerate gift. It sat on my desk all day for us to laugh at, but I had to bring it home to be with my Colon laundry detergent and my Fairy dishwashing soap.

Anna is also what I would call in America a bit of a woods hippie. Here, she is "leftist". She marched past my house in the demonstration against the recent Gaza War.

I am very much for the Gaza War. I don't like war, and I think any collateral damage is too much collateral damage, but I stand behind Israel in protecting itself from terrorist attacks. Please, let's not turn this into a debate. I'm making a point about the Political Oddity that is me here.

When Barack Obama was elected President, I was more proud of the US than I have been in, let's say, 8 years. Here was a President that I think capable, brilliant, diplomatic, smart enough to keep those with dissenting opinions in his cabinet, and he looks great without a shirt on. At work the day after he was sworn in, I went into work and went about my day. I checked the news briefly, to see that Obama had already put the kibosh on Guantanamo. My heart almost burst out of my chest, I was so proud. Anna and I were both so pleased at Obama's immediate act to stop the torture there.

Then we all sat down for lunch together, as we do at work every day. And the debate began. Suddenly, Anna the Dread-locked Woods Hippie and I were arguing against the other 8 people in the office (thank God for a small staff). They were saying that sometimes torture is necessary to get information about a terrorist attack before it happens. I thought it perfectly rational to argue that the 0.01 percent of the time that actually happens is great, but how do you justify torturing innocent people the other 99.99 percent of the time. I even found myself arguing that everyone has the right to a trial before they are condemned to any fate, and that their fate shouldn't be torture.

POOF! I was the other "leftist" in the office, even though I support Israel in wars against Hamas and Hezbollah. Weird.

Now we've got election here this coming Tuesday, and I still have to do my homework before I decide who to vote for. It's so complicated here. So many parties. And just so much of everything. It makes me wish I liked drinking beer, because it makes me want a beer. Or a valium.

Also, since I moved here, my exercise regimen has been forcibly altered because of my pathetic Hebrew. They always say it's okay, that the teachers of most classes can translate when they need to, but it slows the class down, and I remember how I would get impatient and even irritable when one inexperienced person would slow down a good ass-kicking yoga or karate or kung fu class. Okay, granted, I was the one slowing down the kung fu class. And I felt the disdain oozing from the pores of every other person in the room. Except Mike, who will eventually be sainted, I'm sure.

I practice my yoga on my own at home, I have taken up running, I do some conditioning exercises, and I go to Bikram classes from time to time, as I have written about. The studio, pictured below, is stunning. I like taking the classes in Hebrew there because the sequence of poses is always the same in that class, and I can tune out the Hebrew and focus on my practice. Or I can tune in the Hebrew and learn some new words, like "slowly, slowly", "to sit", "forward", "up", "down", and so on.

This is me, a friend from class, and Bat (baht) the instructor. I didn't want to put this picture in because I look like shit, but it shows not only how sweaty and gross we get in class, but how small some of the clothes are the regular Bikram Yoga practitioners wear.

This was a very exciting day, and it was while my Mom was in town. I called Alon, my vacation boyfriend when I was here a year and a half ago, and he invited me and Mom over for dinner. I asked where Calanit, his roommate and the one who cooks in the house, was. He told me he was cooking. I asked if he was sure. He said "of course" in that way he has, like nothing could ever go wrong as long as he is at the helm. I asked him if he had ever cooked before. He said "no" and mentioned something about whether he should put the pasta in the pot before or after the water was boiling. Again I asked if he was sure he wanted to cook. Again I asked where Calanit was and what time she would be home. I knew she was going to shit eggrolls if he messed up the kitchen. So here is Alon, the Ultimate Alpha Male, cooking for me and my mom:He is laughing because he is on the phone with Calanit, who was still at work. He had done something to the pasta, and (thank God for speakerphone) Calanit laughed louder and harder--and for longer--than anyone I had ever heard. The pasta was fine, although I am unsure what exactly he had been aiming for. Calanit came home, flustered, with a bag of pasta in her hand, you know, just in case.

That meal goes down in the history books because Alon does NOT cook. Women in his life cook. Calanit, or his mother, or his girlfriend. They cater to him like he is the king and they are some kind of maidservants. I have made it clear to him that that ain't how I roll. I am the one woman in his life (and we are just friends) who expects him to move his lazy ass. If he's at my house, I'll make coffee, or dinner, or whatever. At his house, he'll ask if I want coffee, then yell to Calanit (or, on holidays, his Mom) to make coffee for me. Then I shame him into getting up.

Israeli man. American woman. Like PopRocks and Coke. Really fun and entertaining, but possibly lethal.

On that same visit, Ilana took me and mom to Shuk HaPishPishim, the Arab open market in Jaffa. I had been there before with Alon, but we got less done because he jsut wanted to watch me try on jeans. He liked the ones I couldn't breathe in. I bought ones built like cargo pants. Anyway, that day at the shuk was awesome. Ilana is fun, and she's great at bargaining. I've even gotten pretty good at bargaining. I am unmoved by people who say they absolutely can't come down on the price. They usually change their minds if you start to walk away. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are doing this, it must be done in Hebrew or the price at least doubles. The funniest--and oddest--part of the day was when I was looking at a bunch of random stuff on a table, and the man who owned it said something to me I didn't understand. I looked at Ilana. She explained to me and mom that the man was offering to buy me.

Yes, a man was going to pay my mother to purchase ME. When I re-tell this story to Israeli friends, they all ask "How many camels did they offer her?" In retrospect, I wish we had at least gotten to the bargaining phase so I would know how many camels I am worth in Arab society. I knew Mom wouldn't sell me. I'm not ripe yet.
On Rosh HaShana (Jewish New Year) I went to Alon and Calanit's, my home-away-from-home on the holidays. I am told that I am welcome all the time, but Calanit is usually on the phone while Alon sits in a hashish haze staring at the television, even if it's one of the digital music channels. Even Pinky, his miniature pinscher/chihuahua, has taken on Alon's extreme slug-like behavior. That dogs sleeps more than my cats do.

This is Alon, behaving in a way that used to make me go all mushy inside. After being at his house during the onslaught of holidays in the fall, I reached the point that, while I do love his voice and his passion, I wished he would learn a few new songs. Sorry baby. Also, sleeves. What is it with the Israeli man's aversion to sleeves?
A more relaxed Alon, with the two things he can't live without. Hash and Pinky the Lazy Little Dog. Hash is so common here that far more people smoke it than don't. Cops don't really care, neighbors don't complain, and everything is very chill about it as long as you're willing to share, which is, of course, the nature of the drug. Alon, by the way, is STILL angry with me from several months ago when we were walking Pinky and I stopped him from mounting a pure-bred Pekingese whose elderly mother Alon was in deep conversation with. Neither of them noticed that Pinky was mounting everything, including much larger dogs he couldn't quite reach. This little Pekingese girly girl was clearly in heat, because she offered it up like they were on Hollywood Boulevard. I pulled on Pinky's leash. The woman, who spoke no English, was grateful, since she planned on breeding her dog with another Pekingese and selling the puppies. Alon got all pissed off because Pinky could have had his first time with a "supermodel of dogs". He is still refusing to have Pinky's nuts cut off until Pinky can have a truly wonderful first time. I keep telling him: "It's a dog. Give him 3 minutes with a stuffed animal and he'll feel exactly the same." Alon is unmoved. He acts like his nuts are the ones on the line.

Israeli men. They do not neuter their male dogs. Giant dog nuts are everywhere here. You can't walk down the street without getting mesmerized by the hypnotic swing of some great dane's nuts, or some bulldog's nuts. With the damn dog-groomer right downstairs, I am in Canine Testicle Central. When you are an American, and are not used to it, you can't help but look. Trust me. I am not turned on my dog balls. Quite the opposite, in fact.Flora is Alon's mother. She brought an enormous can of beer to our Rosh HaShana celebration. You gotta love that. She is a tough nut to crack, and nags her 37 year-old son like he's 12, criticizing his smoking, his bachelorhood, his smoking, and his smoking. But she brings the BIG beer to Rosh HaShana.

I was sitting at the cafe in my neighborhood that is like a second home. This guy was steering a refridgerator down the street on a shopping cart like it was totally normal. I found it hilarious. You know what shopping carts are good for? Groceries. Not so much for major appliances.Y'all had to know there would be one cute cat picture. Avi (almost 2) and Rita (almost 13) are not best friends. Rita has clearly, at some point, unleashed major whoop-ass on Avi, because he doesn't jump on her, trip her, paw at her, or push her out of the way as he does with little Isabelle (almost 9). But when they get onto this kitty tree, Avi re-grows a pair and taunts Rita. If he doesn't quit it in a reasonable amount of time, she retreats to the bed, where he dare not go when she is at rest there.

Christmas in Tel Aviv. I didn't have a tree, or a large enough plant, so I used a vase of flowers. My Dad sent Christmas gifts, as he does every year. I spread them with cheer around the vase. I put the Nutcracker Suite into the CD player. I called my Dad, and we opened presents over the phone. We're non-traditional.
These are the gifts that showed up on time. The gifts above, I received on New Year's Eve, which is a non-recognized but completely celebrated holiday. This means that everyone works on January 1st, but most of them are hungover. We call the holiday "Sylvester" here, because Jews have their own New Year. Pics of that are above. Remember Flora and the giant beer? Anyway, it was kind of nice to have two different Christmas calls with my Dad, because no one even knows it's Christmas here. When I left work on Christmas Day (remember: not a holiday here), I mentioned something about opening gifts with my Dad. Aviv, a guy at work, said something like: "Oh yeah, isn't Christmas next week or something?" I almost lost my shit. I raised my voice and said "December 25. Christmas. It's today. It's a big fucking deal and no one knows about it. I need to go home and talk to an American." Christmas is, for me, about spending time with my Christian Dad on a day that means a lot to him. It could be any day. If it is important to him, it's important to me. Plus, growing up in the States, even the Jewiest of Jews knows when Christmas is. Osmosis. We can't help it. I had a doctor's appointment this past December 25 and arrived at the clinic just in time to hear Dr. Tzviran sing the Chanuka prayer and light the candles. It was nice. I walked home in the rain and kept whistling "Winter Wonderland". Now the election is tomorrow, and I got a call from Calanit this morning. She reminded me that it is important to vote, and I said I would. Then she asked who I'm voting for. To me, that's like talking about how much money I make. But in Israel, neither of these topics is out of the question. They are, in fact, common. Everyone talks about how much they make except me and Anna, who are evasive when the subject of money and rent paid come up. Anyway, Calanit said I should of course do some reading before I decide who to vote for, but that she is voting Kadima. She went on to talk about how Tzipi Livni is smart, and honest, and good. I was saying "mm-hmm" over and over. Israelis lack sublety.

Everyone inthe country gets the day off on election day. Except us. I don't know why. The law says that we're supposed to be paid 200% our normal salaries if we have to work on election day. Anna has a serious issue with this and is going to talk to Oded about it. Since I'll be flat on my back for 4 days next week after my latest surgery, I am in no mad rush to have time off. I am, in fact, lately the first one here and one of the last to leave. I love my job. I love writing.

Please, please keep in mind when checking out my work that I am not just writing for fun, but to bring traffic to JamesAllen.com, so when you see something that looks a little awkward or you see 'jeweller' or 'colour', remember that I am becoming a Search Engine Optimization maven, but I do not do hidden text or any of that 'black hat' crap. As a side note: check into the origin of the term "black hat" as a negative.

I miss you all. I promise it won't be long before I do this again.

Love from the Holy Land.

יש לי עבודה--סוף סוף (that means I got work, y'all)

2008-11-23T22:54:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of me the day I interviewed for the job I ended up getting. I was early, so I went into the bathroom and photographed myself in the mirror. I have ones of me not smiling in case I didn't get the job. The ad only read "American Content Writer", so I had some concerns that they would be some internet porn company looking for someone who can be hot in English. I decided that, if necessary for my first year in Israel, I could bring myself to work in internet gambling, but not internet porn. I believe it has the right to exist, and I have the right to not be a part of it.

But I digress.

I was interveiwed by my now-boss, who we'll call "Vito", and we talked about my writing experience after he explained that his company does all the marketing for www.JamesAllen.com, an online American diamond and jewelry seller. We looked at some of the products on a huge screen in the conference room while he showed me the different features, like being able to pick your exact diamond and look at it through an online jeweler's loupe for imperfections. They also have some really cool things like looking at a rotating 3-D image of the ring a person chooses. We talked about Search Engine Optimization, and how he needed someone who could write funny American content to drive more people to the JamesAllen website. I was confident I could do that. After we basically chatted for 45 minutes, I told him he could check out my personal blog (you know, from when I posted to it all the time) if he wanted to see unedited Suzanne writing. He told me that he would be in touch after the high holidays, and I left feeling like I desperately wanted the job.

Because I couldn't sit by and wait to be found fabulous, I decided to send him a thank you email. My Mom suggested I write it like a mini blog entry, which I thought was clever as hell, so I did it. The next day, still antsy, I decided I wanted to call to remind him that I was really interested in the job. Since I'm unfamiliar with Israeli business practices, however, I first called a guy I had met with previously about preparing my resume for an Israeli employer. It's really, really different than in the States. I got his voicemail, so I looked at the email from "Vito", and it listed the New York office number, the Maryland office number, the Tel Aviv number (Hertzliya, actually, but most of you probably haven't heard of it--it's just outside of Tel Aviv), and his mobile number. I summoned every last ounce of balls that I have been steadily growing since moving here, and dialed "Vito"'s personal cell phone number. He answered "hello", and didn't sound amused. I told him that it was me, that I enjoyed the interview, that I was very interested in the job, and asked if he had seen his email yet. His response was something like: "I haven't checked my email yet this morning and I have to go. I'm in a meeting". I figured I had really, really screwed up and said something about hoping to hear from him.

Then I went about my day. I went to talk to some friends about the interview and how nervous I was, and they all looked at me like I was crazy when I said I had called his cell phone. "We don't do that here", was what I kept hearing. Oh, shit. I'm gonna have to end up working in internet gambling, right?

And my phone rang. It was an "09" number, which is Hertzliya, so I answered immediately. It was "Vito". He asked if I could come in soon to meet with him again. Rosh HaShana started the next evening, and I was hesitant to ask for the day before a holiday starts, and he said "Can you come in today?"

I went home, showered, and got to Hertzliya as quickly as I could. "Vito" told me that he liked my email and that the people in New York (where all the diamonds are and jewelry is made) loved my personal blog. That surprised me, and made me happy. Offensive, sarcastic wit is, after all, kinda my thing. We talked salary and expectations and I left knowing that I would be starting a job soon.

After Yom Kippur (the MacDaddy of the High Holidays), I went into work. I was there by 9. No one else showed up until 10. Welcome to the Holy Land, as I've heard said so many times. "Vito" had told me that we don't punch a clock, that we can go in as late as we want, but we should be getting in 40-hour weeks. We can sometimes do work from home, too. Since I have a tendency to be most creative when I am in my pajamas (or less), this is another bonus. And they pay for our lunch every day and travel back and forth. I take the train. There's a station about 10 minutes walk from my house, and, at the other end, about 20 minutes walk to work (or a 20-25 shekel cab ride).

Although I am still, technically, in my "training period", I am ass-deep in real work. But I get to write absolutely freely about any topic I choose on the company's blog--www.diamondthoughts.com. Jim, as in "James Allen", loves my writing. He loves my sense of humor. They think I'm a genius. Boy, have I got them fooled. I'm not a genius--I am just a very, very demented English Major.

I have to exercise some self-restraint when posting to JamesAllen.com/news. THAT is hard work. 'Serious' doesn't come naturally to me at all. But I was even given a title: Marketing Director. Yeah, baby. I'll never have business cards because I am all behind-the-scenes, and I like it that way. I don't have a phone on my desk, and I don't even have an extension.

What I DO have is a partner in crime, another woman hired at the same time, who also posts to news, but is happy to leave the blog to me. She's way better at html and a whole LOT of other stuff than I am (I'd call her about 5X smarter than I am, easy), but we both have an appreciation--even adoration--for the English language. Since a lot of the jewelry descriptions on the site were written by Israelis who speak English, well, let's just say we have a lot of correcting to do. When she and I are copyediting, which is SO way harder than just writing, we laugh out loud at some of the shit we see. Sometimes it's hard to even figure out what the hell the person was trying to communicate. We are compiling a list of evocative adjectives and verbs that help us describe jewelry in complete sentences and without sounding semi-pornographic. This picture is Anna, the aforementoined partner in crime, who the guy at Rap 'n Roll (our favorite place to eat near work) simply calls "Rasta". She will hate me briefly for this picture, but I will replace it with one that does her justice. In this photo, she is either concentrating very hard on editing ad copy, or checking out someecards.com to email me something offensive.

As it happens, I have found the one place I can work for someone else and have a great time. Sometimes Anna and I get into mini shouting matches with Oded over copy on the site. He doesn't mind and neither do we. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. But Anna and I have, thus far, become a united front. We love the English language and we know how Americans shop online. She's funny as hell, too. Would you believe she was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home? After being here for 6 months, I have NO problem believing it.

I love my job. I love that I can laugh and have fun and joke with everyone. There are only 10 of us in the office, and we all eat lunch together. I knew we were really turning into a family the other day because they pissed me off so much I shouted "BULLSHIT!", slammed my fist on the table, and forced everyone to listen to my argument that evolution has made it so a man's foremost biological need is not to spread his seed everywhere, any time. This is an argument I have had with more than one Israeli man, and even a discussion I've had with some Israeli women. "All men cheat" they say. "Not one who wants to be with me", I respond. And there are good Israeli men. But men here are given way too much leeway to be macho.

Be macho and protect my country. Be macho and kill that spider. But don't think "macho" means "go ahead and have intercourse with everyone". That shit don't fly with American girls. And they love us American girls. I couldn't even begin to answer why.

Interesting to note that, since I moved here, I have become a ball-buster myself. I had always relied on my mom to do the major ball-busting, but I think I finally have my training wheels off and am riding along just fine. No one gets away with bullshit anymore. Being in Israel has brought out my inner Ball-Busting American. I think I am more American in behavior now than when I lived here.

I have SO much more to tell you all. I will. I promise. Love from the Holy Land.

And if you need a fix, there's always my work blog: www.diamondthoughts.com. I post something to it at least 4 times a week. Do you dig how I'm already totally turning into an advertising whore?

FYI: No bullshit, JamesAllen.com does truly (not saying this because I work there) have the best prices on diamond jewelry ANYWHERE. Check it out. I hated to admit how impressed I was by the quality of everything. Now Anna and I will just spend the next 8 lifetimes making the website quality reflect product quality.

I'm A Grandmother!

2008-10-18T04:17:00.001-07:00

This probably comes as a shock to most of you, since I have no children, and, unless I was born in certain parts of the South, am a bit too young to be a Grandmother anyway.

But I have my 3 fur-children, Rita, Isabelle, and Avi. They are my sun, moon, and stars. They are all neutered because I can't deal with cats in heat, and I don't want litters of kittens running around the house.

And I have my adopted street cats, the previously-documented Joel L. Harrison Memorial Alley-Rabbit Squad. T-shirts being designed. Patent pending.

Most of the regulars to my daily late-afternoon alley-rabbit feedings have names. Isha, Sharon (pronounced sha-rohn), Mike, Jack (after Hugh Jackman--he's a handsome cat), Isabelle 2 (she has an ear deformity that reminds me of my Isabelle), Georgia (named after my Dad, always hungry and loving to a fault), Grandpa (the eldest of the regulars, and very dignified in his manner), Tom Selleck (you'll see why), Betsit (bet-seet; a Hebraized version of Betsy, my cat from childhood), Cash (he's a Money Cat), Mr. BigNuts (Need I explain?), Dan-the-Little-Red-Headed-Boy (an orange tabby named after an ex-boyfriend), Mommy (she had kittens shortly after I moved here) and her two boys, Alon and Calanit. Calanit is a girl's name, traditionally, and I named the kitten too early. Sometimes, with boy kittens, you can't tell right away, because their nuts don't necessarily drop immediately. I named the kitten Calanit as an homage to my friend of the same name, and then, a few weeks later, saw that Calanit the Cat was, indeed, quite male. I am not sure whom to feel guilty towards: Calanit the Cat, who is a boy with a girl's name; or Calanit my friend, whose name I indiscriminately gave to a male cat.

Then there is the story of Adolfa. She caught my attention right away because her markings make her look rather Hitler-like. Since this is Israel, I thought it fitting that we take the name back, to give it a positive connotation. Hence, Adolfa the cat, a very sweet girl who, clearly, caught the attention of the boys in the neighborhood. Suddenly, I noticed that Adolfa was looking different.

Adolfa was knocked up. In Tel Aviv, when a cat is neutered, his or her ear is clipped at the end. This is for house cats as well as street cats. This ensures that a cat will not be captured twice for surgery. Of course, with males, there is another way to tell. There were two possible suspects in the Adolfa-baby-daddy situation. Dan-the-Little-Red-Headed-Boy and Mr. BigNuts. I knew that the truth would come out when the kittens did.

From left to right, in this picture, Mr.BigNuts, Cash, Adolfa (eating for 4) and Dan-the-Little-Red-Headed-Boy.

I waited as Adolfa got bigger and bigger, checked the internet for the gestation period of a domestic cat, watched as she ate and ate and ate and ate, preferring to have me push the food towards her. Then she sniffs my hand, looks at me, and eats more. She still does this. I almost have her, literally, eating out of the palm of my hand. It is important to earn her trust, since I have to catch her and get her to the Municipality Vet for spaying before one of the boys knocks her up again.

Soon, she disappeared for a few days. I was hoping and hoping that she was just somewhere nursing kittens, and that she hadn't been hurt. A lot of Tel Aviv locals don't like cats much, so I worried a little. But when Adolfa reappeared at the daily feeding, she looked deflated. She still had the belly, but it wasn't full anymore. And she was hungrier than I had ever seen her. She was pushing other cats out of the way for food, and she is not aggressive by nature. I knew that, somewhere in my neighborhood, there were some little baby kittens.

The first day I saw them, I counted three. They were teeny tiny, but followed Mom part of the way from their hiding place to where I feed her and the other Alley-Rabbits. One looks like her. The others, who were busy climbing a tree, look like this:It did not take Matlock to solve the mystery of who the baby-daddy is. Here, kitten stands behind Mom as she eats. This picture did not capture his almost unbearable tiny cuteness.

I followed them as Adolfa went to get a drink, and kitten scooted under her for a beverage of his/her own. The kittens are living in the yard of the building behind my building, so I climbed a wall and jumped a fence to get these pictures. As I made my way into the yard, I saw that Adolfa, who had been in my yard, ran around her building and got between me and the kittens. Surprisingly, the baby-daddy showed up, too.

Proud Papa, Mr. BigNuts, evidently a Name Rightly Earned.

Grandpa seemed to have been watching them while Adolfa was having lunch at my yard. I didn't realize that it takes a village in the feline world, too. I assumed that the males would jump ship, because they can. But even Grandpa, who looks so much like Adolfa, appears to be involved as well. I'm not sure that this is normal cat behavior, but I like it. I had named him "Grandpa" long before Adolfa was pregnant, because he looks like a Grandpa. He is clearly an older cat, and he doesn't push or hurry or make a fuss over food. He shows up, watches, and eats when things quiet down. He is a dignified feline.

It is the kitten that looks like Adolfa who stole my heart away. This one stayed mostly hidden, looking at me with HUGE kitten eyes as I skirted around to get a better picture. Bear in mind that I could hold all three kittens in one hand at the same time. So tiny!
But I am not bringing any other cats into my house. I have reached Maximum Catitude. I love my Alley-Rabbits, but I can NOT do more than assisting the Municipality in having them neutered and performing the daily mitzvah of feeding them and adoring them for 20 minutes or so. I think they're okay with that. Most of them have become so loving and sweet over the past six months. Even Tom Selleck, who was very skittish and wouldn't let me get closer than 6 or 7 feet. This is Tom Selleck, who must always be called by both names:

Not only does he have the cheesy-seventies-moustache markings, but he has Magnum, P.I.-quality chest-hair markings as well. I'd love to get him a little gold medallion to wear around his neck. Tom Selleck, as you can see from the photos, is also not yet neutered (note the complete ears). Before we have a city full of cats who look like feline porn stars, I must take him to get the Big Slice. I never suspected him to be Adolfa's baby-daddy, and I was right, but, with markings like those, it's only a matter of time.

Congratulations to me, brand new Grandma to three perfect kittens. Since my own Grandmother had pictures of Rita and Isabelle on her fridge, calling them her great-grandchildren, I guess now, even though she isn't around anymore, I have finally given her the first great-great-grandchildren in the family. And I didn't even need an epidural for any of it.

Regular Kickboxing Class--not so "Regular".

2008-10-16T06:21:00.000-07:00

When my karate jones got to be too much to handle, and I could feel my arms turning to mush, I went out in an active search of something martial-artsy to do. I found the Muay Thai class (previously blogged), but, before my first class, and, somewhat intimidated my the wall of man that is Moshik Keidar (http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=xovO1Eua618), I decided to try a regular "kickboxing" class with a woman named Keren. figured it would be similar to the conditioning/sparring classes at Masters Studios, per description of my tour guide at the gym where all these classes take place. I wasn't so fond of the floor--it is a fairly thick mat that makes balancing and pivoting difficult--but I was very, very taken with the real boxing ring in the room. And the heavy bags. I missed wailing on those to get out aggression.

I showed up early and started stretching. There was some kind of a karate class going on, but I couldn't really figure out what it was about. Some people were wearing belts ranging from white to black, some people were wearing no belts at all, and no one was in any kind of uniform. Not even matching t-shirts. It was a mixture of sweat pants and cargo shorts and t-shirts or tank tops. I was able to identify the teacher only because he was the black belt barking out orders. They seemed to be sparring, but no one seemed to be blocking. They all just kept getting hit, or running out of the way.

About 15 minutes after my class was due to start, and with a big group of us waiting and stretching, the karate class ended and two people walked in: a woman with a wild head of light brown frizzy curls who I guessed--correctly--was the teacher, and a DJ. Yes, a DJ. Anyone who knows me would have appreciated the look on my face. At Masters, I was often known to comment heavily on the "gay disco"style of music that Wendy likes to play pretty loud. Mike played the same CDs, but softly enough that I never felt the urge to say anything. I think he was about as fond of the music as I was.

The instructor, Keren, consulted with the DJ for a few minutes. I approached only to warn her that my Hebrew is still basic at best, but I'm a good mimic. I realized quickly that my knowledge of Hebrew, or any verbal communication at all, was irrelevant in this class. The music came on so loud that we would just watch Keren demonstrate a series of moves and then mimic them to the pounding beat of the music. She would start of with a jab. We would hop and jab for a minute or so. Then she would whistle like a construction worker to get our attention, and she would add a cross punch. Jab, cross. Facing the mirror, to the air. Then it would be jab, cross, straight punch, elbow. All while bouncing. The bouncing seemed to be a crucial part of the exercise. To gay disco. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear a dance-mix version of "It's Raining Men" while 10 or so hot guys in tighty-whiteys and angel wings danced out in perfect unison.

Bounce bounce jab, cross, straight punch, elbow, front kick, side kick...bounce bounce jab, cross, straight punch, elbow, front kick, side kick, stepping stool kick (repeat 10 times). Run in place as the music turns to a dance mix of something by Madonna. Left jab, left jab, right jab, right jab (repeat 10 times, advancing on each punch). Left jab, left jab, right jab, right jab, left upper cut, right upper cut, right knee, left stepping stool kick, right back kick (repeat 10 times, or stand there for a few rounds looking confused, joining in for the stepping stool kick and back kick, then go have some water).

This crazed combination of fighting moves and choreography makes for wimpy punches, kicks that wouldn't dent styrofoam, and one very, very confused American girl. Even wailing on the heavy bags is done to music, and very specifically choreographed. I go slower to hit with power until I can't lift my arms or bend my legs, until Keren bounces over and I go fast while she construction-worker-whistles her approval. It makes her happy, it helps me step outside my comfort zone, and my eardrums only want to bleed a little.

One day, after Muay Thai with Moshik, a regular kickboxing class was starting. A woman who has seen me in class stopped me to say hello. Moshik practically pulled me away, getting my attention by looking at me from--oh my God--even his eyebrows look like they could snap me in half. It's pretty hot. Really hot. But I digress.

I excused myself from the conversation with the woman from regular kickboxing and Moshik tapped me on the arm. He said in his deep, Israeli, I-can-kill-a-man-with-my-thumb voice: "Israeli girls like the kickboxing. You're not like them. You're one of us". And I thought: "Yeah, I'm with him". I'm one of somebody.

But he knows that I do the regular classes a few times a week. He knows I still have my yoga practice. He's seen me running through my Kung Fu and Karate forms. I want to be well-trained from all angles, and to constantly, constantly stay just outside my comfort zone and learn and learn and learn.

He'll shit eggrolls when he finds out I'm trying belly-dancing next week, though.

Muay Thai Kickboxing...or How I Get Bruised

2008-10-05T04:48:00.000-07:00

Since I've been in Tel Aviv, I've had a terrible jones for my martial arts training. I miss Masters Studios so much that there's a hole in my heart. I find myself running through First Longfist in my living room, forgoing the jumping kick because I'd go through the window, down two floors and onto Ibn Gvirol Street. I found, through friends, a kung fu teacher who is Russian but speaks English, but he only does private sessions and I've been hemorrhaging money since I arrived here. I decided NO PRIVATE SESSIONS until I am making enough money to cover rent, food, yoga, cat toys, a little savings, and then kung fu.

I remember watching Mixed Martial Arts on the various fighting shows--UFC and so on, and the Muay Thai influence looked brutal. Then, while watching "Fight Quest" on the Discover Channel, I watched two grown men getting their asses handed to them by these tiny, wiry little Thai men half their size. I had very little interest in being on the receiving end of a knee to the face while in a clinch. It has taken me years to love my nose, and now I want to keep it the way it is.

Before I moved to Israel, I researched heavily about the kind of martial arts I could study here. I knew karate was out, because they seem to love their Okinawan styles here. Okinawan styles are notoriously rigid and humorless, and anyone who has ever been in a class with me knows that 'rigid and humorless' won't fly with me. I studied up a bit on jiu-jitsu, but those guys seem to spend a lot of time grappling on the floor. Again, not interested in that so much.

I remember watching UFC one night with Scott while still in Charleston. The kicking and punching were cool. The clinches were, clearly, just a way to catch your breath as long as you keep yourself protected from knee strikes. But those grappling things on the ground--I got a kick out of those. Two sweaty, bloody men trying to wrap their thighs around the head of their opponent. I remember saying to Scott: "Doesn't this seem a little gay to you?"

You'd think I had insulted his truck, or his video game system. (In retrospect, I say to myself: 'Wow, he was an idiot').

Anyway, no matter the gender, I knew I didn't really want anyone trying to cut off my oxygen supply with their thighs. Better they just strangle me.

Being in Israel, the only way to study Krav Maga is to be a teenager in the army or to take month-long courses that would take me away from my apartment, my cats, my new job, and a hefty sum of money. I thought again of Muay Thai, and figured it might be fun. It would be totally out of my comfort zone, something totally new, and a definite physical challenge. That's the way I felt about karate before I started. I was always challenged there, and it became comfortable after a while. I know that Muay Thai will be the same. It takes some time, though.

When I was introduced to Moshik, the Muay Thai instructor, I looked up at the very serious--not to mention handsome--face of a solid cliff of man. He was tall. He was lifting weights at the time, so he was all sweaty and his muscles were popping out all over the place. He was not a wiry Thai man. When he shook my hand, I was Pebbles meeting Bam-Bam. I thought he would lift me off the ground, slamming me into the ceiling, and then slam me back down through the floor, leaving me in a crater the exact shape of my size-10 Reefs. I like a nice, strong handshake, but this was bordering on painful. He was serious in that way that made me want to tickle him. He had a kind of Ivan-Drago-From-Rocky-Four vibe, and I thought to myself 'I will break him". He will smile. I WILL make him laugh.

I learned that we don't bow in the same way we do at Masters. It is a bow with both arms at the sides, hands in fist, with a flexing of the upper arms like pushing the lever that blows up the dynamite to raze a building. And there is a noise. It is the same noise we are to use when he asks a question and expects consent, or when he gives instruction. If he says "hevantem?" or "mevinim?", both of which mean, essentially "understand?", he wants to hear this noise. It is foreign to me. I am used to the kiai. I like the kiai. I can kiai with the best of 'em. And so we're back outside my comfort zone. I am slowly, slowly, trying to add the noise to my practice, but it's only been a few classes. The noise sounds like "oos", and probably means something in Thai. I find it strange, but I'll adjust.

At my first class, Moshik remembered that I don't speak Hebrew all that well. For about 10 minutes. Then his instructions came fast and furious in Hebrew, and the guy I was working with explained what we had to do. Fortunately, Moshik usually accompanies his description of the combination he wants us to work--which are different every time to prepare us for any situation--with a slow demonstration on an experienced student. I'm a pretty good mimic, so that helps. I had fun learning the kicking to the legs. My first partner kept encouraging me to kick harder and punch harder, and that was super fun. I learned to block body or thigh kicks by lifting my leg like a dog at a fire hydrant. I also learned to turn my body so kicks would hit me on the ass, which is more padded than the hip or other alternative (a shout-out to Hansje here, for her Amazing Aim). My first class, we also learned how to work clinches, both starting them and getting out of them, all the while sending knees to the body or face (controlled strikes with knees, always). I was still working with a guy who is taller than I am, which is not common in the general population, but is more common in this class. He was very serious and not the biggest fan of deodorant, but he was nice and helped me learn a lot, to slow the pace of the fight and not lose control or balance.

Sparring is so different for me here because we wear only mouth guards, big gloves, and shin guards. Helmets are not common. Only one person in class seems to wear one regularly. I think I might because, as I said before, I like my nose the way it is. Moshik stresses to us that we are not hitting with all of our strength, and that we are supposed to avoid being hit at all. But you never know. Accidents happen, even in controlled environments.

We do a lot of kicking with the shins. To the opponent's outer thigh, outer calf, inner thigh, and inner calf. We are to avoid knees during class. Those things break easy. Leg sweeps are allowed, and I enjoy them far more than I should. I even like to be swept. The mat breaks my fall, and Mike taught me very well how to fall so I don't get hurt. I like, as usual, to kick high. When we started sparring during the first class, no one wanted to fight me because I am a girl, and I was new with no training. The first guy to draw the short straw was surprised when he learned I had some tricks up my sleeve. First, I did my favorite trick from Mike, to keep throwing out front kicks and pushing my opponent back with my foot. That way, I could set the pace of the fight. When I saw some of what he had, I could figure out an attack. Once the fight really started, I was blocking different kinds of kicks and punches, but I held my own. I took a few shots, but I would just say "nice" and keep going. Suddenly, men didn't mind fighting the new chick anymore.

I was no star, but I held my own. My repertoire is certainly more karate than Muay Thai, but, in the middle of a fight, who really cares?

In last night's class, there were a bunch of guys I hadn't seen the previous week mixed into the group. I had to egg them into fighting me by shouting: "My country has plunged the entire planet into economic crisis. Who wants a shot?".

I wish I was kidding.

I surprised the hell out of one guy by faking a kick to the leg and then sending a crescent kick over his head (I didn't want to hit him with that kick. I still haven't learned to control it). He smiled, and later, I got a nice, gentle shot straight at my nose. We all have our weaknesses. But I have a helmet. He was making a point. I smiled back.

Most of the students give me good Muay-Thai-style advice, attacks I can use that are more suited to this style than, say, Kempo Karate, my first Martial Arts love. Full-contact fighting is a whole new ballgame. And I love it. I love a few fresh bruises and the pain of having used Martial Arts muscles, which are totally different than yoga muscles or weightlifting muscles (not that I've lifted a weight that didn't meow at me in years).

So my ass hurts from a kick to it and my arms are sore from holding up my guard in front of my face unless I'm punching. So my knee hurt for a few days from twisting it a bit while doing a spinning kick on a new surface. So my foot hurt last night from having a kick blocked by an elbow (it had to hurt him more than it did me). The thing is, the pain lessens with repetition as my body gets used to the new way of moving. And the bruises lessen as I get better at fighting in this style. I don't mind a little pain. I ain't scared.

Oos.

Why I Love Tel Aviv

2008-09-13T07:19:00.000-07:00

I was walking to the pharmacy after a visit to my ear, nose and throat specialist, in the midst of the worst and most painful ear infection of my life, when I realized that I was looking around with a goofy grin on my face. Was it the fever?

It was the neighborhood I was walking through. And I found myself singing my own version of the song "I love Paris in the Springtime" or whatever it's called, the song Meg Ryan turned into "I hate Paris" in the movie "French Kiss" (one of my favorites of all time--Kevin Kline at his hottest). It didn't fit the the music at all, since 'Tel Aviv' has more syllables than 'Paris', but gimme a break. I was having a crucial breakthrough moment of Israel love.

I will summarize in the form of a photo-essay, accompanied by my thoughts as I wax philosophical about the beauty of this city.

I LOVE that this is what I see when I turn right out of the gate of my building. On Shabat, it is quiet like this. On every other day, it is a ridiculous clusterfuck that makes driving in Boston seem rational. I am happy to have a bicycle and two working legs.

I LOVE Rothschild Boulevard. There is a giant path down the middle of the street, surrounded on both sides by grass and trees, with two lanes of traffic on either side. Even in the rushiest rush of rush hour, you feel like you're strolling through the park. The right side of the dotted line is for walkers, the left for bikers, but no one pays attention to that. It keeps things interesting.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE that none of the streets in residential Tel Aviv seem to meet at angles that make any sense at all, and that there is nary a stop or yield sign to be found at any of these intersections.

I LOVE the giant wall that is built for the segregated beach, which is used by the Orthodox Jews seeking pious fun in the sun. There are alternating days for men and women, as it is considered disrespectful to see the opposite sex in a bathing suit. I am unsure of the types of bathing suits that are worn on the Segregated Beach, because I am not allowed there. Except on Shabat, when the Orthodox spend their day in prayer and study, and their beach is opened up even to treif like me. The wall is so long and extends far enough that swimmers can not be seen.

I LOVE that this sign exists, and that this is the only kind of gas station you see in the city. The gas stations only say "Paz" (in Hebrew, of course), but the offices all have the full name, and in both languages. I almost peed myself laughing at this, and wished my brother was there to play Beavis to my Butthead.

I LOVE that my friend Gal appreciates my love of Jesus humor and paraphernalia. He loves my hot pink Answer-Me-Jesus, which is like a Magic 8-Ball, but with Godly responses like: "pray harder on this" and "you are a sinner".

I LOVE this handbill. In Hebrew, "pilpel" is "pepper". This is actually an advertisement for a reggae show last month. They were all over the city, and I loved that someone thought of this slogan. Brilliant. Funny.

I LOVE that there are these cages for recycling all over the city. I can think of 2 within a block of my apartment. Right now, they are only for bottles, but the recycling and conservation movement here is huge, so I'm sure more is to follow.

I LOVE Tel Aviv's second form of recycling: putting your shit out on the street and letting people take what they want. One person's trash, as they say. These people were looking through these giant piles of clothes wrapped in sheets. I'm certain that they were discarded in this way because so many people like to look through it and find their own little treasures. There was practically a party on my street when I was moving in and getting rid of stuff that made it all the way here, but I didn't want or need. I was popular that night.

I LOVE that almost everywhere you look, people are flying their own Israeli flags. Out their windows, across their porches, and in rows, hanging like garlands, wherever they will fit.

I LOVE that, on Shabat, I can stand in the middle of my street (my building is directly to the right, out of view) without getting run over. The same can not be said of any other day. On other days, cars speed up when you cross the street where there is no crosswalk.

I LOVE the funky-colored fountain that sits atop Kikar Dizengoff (Dizengoff Square), which is raised above the street and has four paths leading up, two from each side of the street, for easy crossing.

I LOVE that I have seen this same graffiti in Charleston. I don't know the answer without googling it--I won't lie. These benches are also atop Kikar Dizengoff, around the fountain, so you can sit and rest and chill a bit, listening to the fountain and people-watching.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that this is the view from the front door of the yoga studio where I practice Ashtanga. Behold, the Mediterranean. So close, waves sometimes splash over the fence. It is to the sound of the sea that I practice yoga. Completely awesome. And way better than chanting.

I LOVE that these naked mannequins have stayed that way for months now, while a new store is being built at the Dizengoff Mall. There is something indecent, but funny, about seeing these fake naked people every time I walk by, which is almost every day. I can't imagine what the Orthodox must think. I'm surprised there hasn't been an uproar, since I heard that the Hasidim were kicking up a fuss in Brooklyn, USA, over a billboard for the new 90210. As a side note: When did they start putting nipples on mannequins, and was it REALLY necessary?

I LOVE that this shop exists out in the open, right by the Mall, and that the Hebrew underneath the English is transliterated English. It reads "sex style" in Hebrew as well. I haven't been into the store, but there are many like it with similar names, all in transliterated English. I guess Hebrew doesn't like to get dirty.

This stopped me in my tracks. I can't say that I love the idea of a pearl thong. In fact, it looks and sounds terribly uncomfortable. I called my mom the day I saw it. I couldn't believe that it was real, that it was more than urban legend, and that it wasn't hidden behind the curtained windows of shops like the one above. I mean, seriously. Who buys this stuff? (Please do not feel that you have to respond).

Another item I can't say that I love. What I DO love about this item is that the shop in which it is so proudly displayed is on a King George Street, which has constant traffic by all kinds of people. Crossing King George from Ben-Tzion (major street), you walk dead into this...this...gay bondage display. It shocked me, and I am not, as you know, easily shocked. Looking closely, though, you'll see that it is only 29.90 shekels, so it can't be real leather. No self-respecting gay man would settle for pleather, so this must be for a hetero demographic. And people wonder why dating makes me nervous.

I LOVE that there is a very popular band here called the Testicles. These handbills were all over the city, in all different kinds of neighborhoods. When I mentioned it to my friend Gal (see above, playing with Jesus), he showed me his CD case, which has a Testicles sticker on it. He knows the guys in the band. Evidently, the lead singer is a Russian guy who, instead of two top front teeth, has one giant, wide front tooth. That is kind of their gimmick, I guess. I'll try to go see them one day, just out of curiosity. Gal and I have very similar taste in music, so I might be a Testicles fan, too, some day.

I LOVE this funky, mirrored figure in the display window of a store. It wasn't an art gallery, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what the shop sells, but this thing is really cool nonetheless. If I'm walking down Bograshov on any day other than Shabat, I can go in and see what they're selling.

This, transliterated to English, reads "E.S.P." Every time I see it, I am reminded of an episode of "Absolutely Fabulous" in which Edina yells at her psychic because, if the psychic was good, she would call Edina when there was a problem, and that Edina shouldn't have to call her first.

I LOVE that flakiness abounds all over the world. In English.

I LOVE the way people in Tel Aviv park. There is not enough parking for all the cars, so people get very...creative.

I LOVE that this entire row of cars is parked illegally, from one end of the street to the other.

DUDE, WHERE'S THE REST OF MY CAR?

I LOVE that this teeny tiny little car was parked in a space that wasn't meant to be a space. This is why people buy automobiles that look more like bumper cars here.

I LOVE that this building looks like it is melting. This is the way it was designed, and it is completely awesome, and in a very expensive neighborhood in the North of Tel Aviv.

I LOVE these funky pink flowers that I have never seen anywhere else. They totally rule. They look really sad when they shrivel to brown nothings, but they are so cute and fuzzy. They are the baby kittens of the flora and fauna set.

I LOVE this statue. It is on Dizengoff Street, which, as you have probably figured out, is a major road here. And, out of nowhere, here is this guy, looking either exhausted or ready to watch a porno (or both, I suppose). He is, I feel the need to inform you, anatomically correct.

This is the crowded beach on Shabat. I do NOT go to the beach on Shabat, but I love to walk by and see the people practically fighting for spaces where they can rent chairs (12 shekels a day) and be near a restaurant, from which they can bring you drinks, alcoholic or not, fresh fruit, sandwiches, french fries, ice cream, and anything you want, for about 3 times the price you'd pay anywhere else.

I LOVE how beautiful the beach is, even when it is covered with tourists, clustered like sardines under the different-colored umbrellas, depending on which beach you are on. I love that Mediterranean is never any less beautiful, no matter how surrounded it is by children and tourists. I love that sand is so hot from the sun that you HAVE to wear shoes (Reefs, in my case), even if you are going to the water for a swim. I love watching people who don't realize this doing the "My Feet Are On Fire" dance, losing all sense of decorum and bouncing around trying to get back to their chairs without suffering 2nd-degree burns on their soles.

I LOVE feeling safe at the beach. I feel bad for the poor guys who have to be in full uniform and carry around M-16s in the hot sun, but I bet they get ice creams for free.

I LOVE this sign, because, when I read it, I always read it "Chernesky". You know who you are.

I LOVE the name of this street, and how close the name sounds to it's Arabic counterpart. It means, essentially, "Peace Unto You".

I LOVE men playing beach volleyball. These were well-developed men in their 20s without excessive body hair. It is something you grow to appreciate here. I loved watching these guys for about five minutes, until they lost and the court was taken over by a heavyset, back-hairy man in a speedo. I decided to spare you the photos. Consider that my gift to you.

Peace unto you. I won't wait so long between postings next time. My job hunt has kept me feeling busy and un-funny. I think of you all, always. Kisses from Tel Aviv, which I LOVE.

Back to Ashtanga, and A Reminder That The World is Random.

2008-08-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

So there is an entire book dedicated to products that, had foreign languages and pronunciations been taken into consideration, would have probably been given different names. I am assuming that this Israeli B-vitamin supplement would have been called something else. Instead, I get a giggle every time I take my vitamins.

For the past few weeks, or maybe a month, I have been going to Ashtanga classes in the North of Tel Aviv, on the Namal, which is the Port. The studio is separated from the Mediterranean by maybe 30 feet of dock. When I am practicing, I either hear the sea, the dull moan that is most yoga music, or obnoxious kids running by. I try to focus on the sea. Or my breathing. I try not to focus only on Rodrigo, my teacher. He teaches in the strictest of traditions, and everyone knows how much I like structure, but he does teach Ashtanga well, his adjustments are fantastic, and he is completely gorgeous. Worth getting up early to take a class and see Rodrigo jump. I was surprised to find that he teaches in English. As his name implies, he is clearly not a native Israeli, but he speaks Hebrew. Nonetheless, he leads all his classes in English. I would have been fine either way. I know Ashtanga pretty well. My first day there, young Rodrigo (I'm guessing he's 25) asked me in a kind of snide way if I have ever taken Ashtanga before. I was happy to tell him that I have taught Ashtanga and that David Swenson himself (one of Ashtanga's Big Dogs) trained me. He made another snide remark about David to the class later, but, nonetheless, had to borrow my book, written BY David Swenson, during a different class.

Rodrigo is like an amusement park to me. He is so serious. Everyone knows I am serious about my yoga practice, but I try not to take life too seriously. Rodrigo takes everything seriously. But he is my Israeli version of Wally, from Masters Studios. I know that somewhere, beneath the surface, is a seething cauldron of hilarity waiting to bubble over. I was able to win Wally over and make him laugh, and I will do the same with Rodrigo. I have already gotten him to smile despite himself, but the laughs are slower to come. It took months with Wally. I shall have patience. Especially because Rodrigo is hot. He has a body to die for, these broad, muscular, defined shoulders that make you want to cry, and the perfect color of skin. A Latin Jew. I could have only dreamed of such a thing before.

And, to get back to yoga for a second here, by body was so happy to be back to Ashtanga that I almost cried after the first class. My spine felt better than it had in a long time, all perfectly aligned due to an adjustment from Rodrigo. Any well-trained teacher with man-strength could have done the adjustment. That it was him is a mere bonus.

So I am now mostly doing Ashtanga, and sometimes Bikram. There is a story that I meant to tell from when Ida was visiting, about the Hot Yoga class we took together. As I have described, the men in class seldom wear very much. If they are wearing the kind of running shorts with built-in underwear, they tend to tuck the shorts part up into the underwear part to make them more speedo-like. Boxer briefs, they tend to hike up at the sides. I myself will now practice wearing yoga pants and a sports bra or small yoga top, but there are limitations for me.

The day that Ida and I went, there was a man there, about my age, wearing a pair of very short boxer briefs with a vicious tiger stenciled on the ass. He was right behind me. Ida and I were unaware of the tiger until it was too late for all of us.

Bikram yoga includes 26 postures. The tenth pose involves stepping your feet apart about 3-4 feet (depending on your height), then rotating to the right, turning the feet as well, and rounding your spine down to try to touch your forehead to your knee. Then you slowly come up, turn to face forward, and then rotate to the left to do the same thing on the other side.

This was when Ida and I came faces-to-ass with the Tiger Guy. Also bear in mind that talking is not allowed in a Bikram class, and uncontrolled hilarity would definitely be frowned upon. But here we were, Ida and I, together in a yoga class for the first time in years, giddy at seeing a friendly and familiar face, and completely overtired. And the room is over 100 degrees and humid. Think Charleston in August. Or Tel Aviv in August. Or Tel Aviv now, at 9:30 at night.

But I digress.

The point is, we were long past giddy and were confronted with this man's ass, and the stenciled tiger thereupon. Having gone through most of the standing sequence, the man had developed quite a wedgie. Aside from the discomfort I felt on his behalf, I felt terrible for that poor tiger. It was the kind of captivity no wild animal should be subjected to.

It wasn't until after we got back to my house, showered, and were snacking on the couch that one of us brought it up. I knew if I had looked at her in class, we would have laughed and been scorned for our judgment. In the comfort of my apartment, it was okay. It was exactly what I needed. A good laugh with someone who understands why it is so funny. Sadly, a lot of my jokes don't translate here.
And then there is the recurring theme in my life of the Joel L. Harrison Memorial Alley-Rabbit Squad. I have not taken many pictures, since most of them are hand-and-camera shy. A few have come to know me and love me. I have named 6 of them. Above is Adolfa. I should probably say her name more quietly when I greet her, but I want her to know her name and be proud. We're taking back the name together!

Isha (EE-shah) is the closest thing a street cat comes to being "mine". I call her "Isha" because it is the Hebrew word for both 'woman' and 'wife'. But that is a whole other issue. I call her my wife because, every time I come in the gate, Isha jumps onto the stoop and meows at me until I bring food down to her. I can hear her meowing as I go up the stairs, into my apartment, back down the stairs, and as she weaves between my feet on my way to the back of the building, where I feed them. In short, she is a nag. She lets me touch her, and is particularly fond of having the top of her head scratched. Since her ear has been docked, I know she has already been spayed. She is one of my outdoor Alley-Rabbits. Then there is Jack. I wanted to name him after someone handsome, because he is a handsome cat, even though he kinda looks chubby in this picture. So I named him after Hugh Jackman. But I couldn't call him "Hugh", because it looks stupid spelled in Hebrew. Jack is a big, strong boy, and mostly wants attention instead of food. He is my boyfriend cat. A wife and boyfriend. Who says it's hard to find someone special in Tel Aviv? I consider feeding to me my mitzvah. God wouldn't have put such precious angels in my yard if I wasn't meant to take care of them. The other who are named are Sharon (sha-rohn), Mike, Georgia, Isabelle 2, and Betsit (bet-seet). Each is a story unto itself.

Soon to come: My undercover investigation of Israeli fashion, and "Gay, or French Tourist?: It's a Tough Call".

My Misplaced Mojo

2008-07-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

I went to the beach about a week ago, and not one single man approached me or tried to pick me up. When I was here in October, and when I first started going after I moved here, I had Israeli men all over me, and I practically had to swat them away like mosquitos.

But last week, I was sitting in a chair, listening to music, looking at the Mediterranean, and not one man (or boy) approached me. I specifically mention 'boy' because, shortly after I moved here, a 21 year-old boy came up to me on the beach. He brought his friend, who spoke some English. He kept asking me--through his friend--to walk with him to the water. I asked him back--again, through his friend--why, since we couldn't communicate. The truth is, I knew why.

Evidently, Israeli men get some hot action in the sea from tourists. There are small rock islands, man-made, to keep the surf from getting too rough for swimmers. You see them, about 20 meters long, with maybe 70 or 80 meters between them. I am told that Israeli men, with their brown skin and charming accents, are like Sirens, luring women to their fate on the far side of this little islands. Fortunately, I am neither stupid, easy, or a pedophile (I'm sorry, but he looked like a child to me). So I stayed on my towel, wished him a happy birthday (his friend explained that his birthday was the reason for his afternoon drunkenness), and put my headphones back on. I'm sure a few meters up the beach he was able to find an unsuspecting--and, probably, younger--tourist to oblige him.

Back to me, in my chair, by myself, with not one man approaching me. I was wondering if maybe I had put on weight, if I was looking too old. I was actually affected by this lack of unwanted attention. I became paranoid about being unattractive to undesirable men. I walked home with a blow to my self-esteem and a sunburn from hell.

I went to the beach again yesterday. I needed to even out the spots that blistered and peeled (and yes, Mom, Lisa, and everyone else, I am using a much stronger sunscreen now, even when I go out to walk anywhere) from last week. While I was on my back, I was listening to my iPod again, relaxing, looking at the sea, and resting. Still no men. Even as I re-applied sunscreen, the International call-of-distress/pick-up-invitation, I was like a disease. Young men walked by me, glancing and moving on. I thought "I'm old".

Then I flipped onto my belly, took out my book, and started reading. Within 10 minutes, a man in his 20s, handsome, tall, good body, walked up to me and said hello. I said hello back. He asked, in a very thick accent, how I was doing. I said fine, thanks. Then he asked: "You are a tourist here?"

A-HA!

My book is in English. Prior to that, I actually blended with the locals because I managed to rent a chair (12 shekels a day) and order drinks (Diet Coke and a water) without help. As soon as I sent up the red flare that is the book "Choke", by Chuck Palahniuk (not for the feint of heart, FYI), I was immediately in a young Israeli's missile-lock, so to speak.

I responded in Hebrew that I live here. He asked "In a hotel?".

You gotta love his persistence. He really, really wanted me to be a slutty tourist.

I told him, in Hebrew, "No, I live in Tel Aviv. I am Israeli and American".

He soon gave up. His Siren Song wouldn't work on this sailor. The sad part is, he is a beautiful man. Had I not known his dirty secret about hunting fresh meat on the beaches, I would have liked him if we met at a cafe or something. Better that I know the secret.

But the really, really good part is, I haven't lost my mojo. I still have men looking at me on the streets (Israeli men are champion gawkers), in shops, at the flower shop as they buy bouquets for their wives (they are also champions at infidelity, I'm told). I have just lost that look of a tourist, of a new person, of an easy target. I can function enough in Hebrew that, in only 3 months, I have weeded out a huge number of trashy men. Yay, me!

Except for the part where I shouldn't have to look for external validation. I'm in therapy. It's a process.

But I digress.

I have, recently, gone into shops and had entire conversations with people, and they didn't know that I don't speak Hebrew. I ordered my latte, or my sandwich, or asked directions, all in Hebrew. They understood me, but certainly could tell I am not a native speaker. Nonetheless, they responded in Hebrew and I understood.

I try to learn one useful conversational phrase a day (in addition to the grammatical stuff). Yesterday, it was how to ask "What's up?". At last, some slang. Today, I learned some colorful words from Billie, who owns the flower shop across the street. She was on the phone, firing a delivery person for a valid reason. I understood some of it, and was able to fill in the rest. I will ask her Sunday afternoon what some of the rest really means.

I do most of my practice at Cafe Hillel, where I can be found studying almost every afternoon. The managers there, or maybe owners (it might be a franchise thing, not sure), are brothers. Barak ("lightning" in Hebrew, and pronounced very differently than first name of the Democrat running for President of the US, he was quick to point out) helps me with words or phrases I don't understand. He helped me with "What's up?" and "ashtray". He also helps me by being dangerously handsome and there to offer me my drug of choice--caffeine--every day except Shabat.

Anyway, crisis of faith over. Mojo intact. And the best part is, no one can tell that I'm new anymore.

I am fully American Israeli. I can even say "son of a bitch" in Hebrew. And I have.

A Day In Jerusalem (Guest Starring...)

2008-07-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

I got an email about a week and a half ago from Ida Becker, who is currently traveling the world for an entire year. She wrote that she was coming through Tel Aviv and did I have time for a visitor. Did I? Did I?

I did a little seated Dance of Joy and responded YES and wrote her my phone number so she could call when she arrived. Since Border Control can take hours, especially since she had been to Syria, there was no way to know exactly what time she would arrive. But arrive she did, that little blond life preserver in my sea of self-pity. When she got out of the taxi, we hugged, and then we just looked at each other for a few seconds. It was strange. I met Ida while teaching yoga in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. She was traveling around the world. I was standing in front of my apartment in Tel Aviv, Israel. Surreal is the word that springs to mind. Then we went upstairs and talked about her travels and my adjustment to living here and then we talked about boys and how to find a good bikini wax in a foreign country. Girl stuff. We walked around the city, stopped to introduce her to a few of my friends, ate bagels (such a stereotype--they're actually not easy to find here), then she waited while I went to therapy, passing the time by sleeping on a bench on Sheinkin Street. Evidently, all American hangups about What Is Proper go out the window when you've spent a few weeks in Africa, convalescing from a motorcycle accident. After that, we went to yoga. It felt very full-circle. Met at yoga, and were then going to yoga in Israel. After that, Hummus and Pita and pjs. I let Ida wear some of my clean jammies. This is her in my living room.

The next day she was leaving for a kibbutz in the North to visit family friends. Her mother had sent a package to them of some necessities that she couldn't get just anywhere on the road. She stayed on the kibbutz for 2 nights and then came back to the TLV, arriving late at night, since the trains don't run on Shabat and she had to wait until sundown on Saturday to come back.

We decided to go to Jerusalem the next day. Somehow, she only arranged for five days in Israel. And you can't come to Israel and not see Jerusalem. It would be like going to Charleston and not trying grits (I did, and they were gross). It would be like going to Maine and not eating lobster (we were clearly not kosher Jews). It would be like going to Minnesota and not freezing your ass off (longest year of my life).

But I digress.

The next morning, we took a bus to Jerusalem. They run every 15 minutes between the TLV and the Holy City, but we somehow managed to get crowded onto a nearly-full bus anyway. Ida sat in front of me, and I sat next to a cute young man and his M-16. You actually get used to that after a while. The ride is just over and hour, but, once we got into Jerusalem, we got stuck in dead-locked traffic. I figured it must be a car accident or something at the intersection up ahead.

As an aside, I must add that the irony of a person with a panic disorder moving to the Middle East does not escape me. I went to Jerusalem for an interview at the Jerusalem Post, and 3 days later there was a pigu'a (terrorist attack) on the street the bus station is on. Some lunatic Palestinian Israeli (and I'm not saying all Palestinians are lunatics, so let's not all get our panties in a bunch) drove a bulldozer into a bus not unlike the one I took only a few days before. 3 killed, several injured. It happens. It's terrible to say it like that, but it happens here. That only a few weeks later, my mind went to 'simple traffic accident' and not 'another pigu'a, my God, we're all gonna die' is a testament to the work of Dr. Noel Hunt, Wonder-Psychiatrist who I miss nearly as much as my family.

Anyway, Ida and I debated for a while about getting out of the bus, as many were, and walking, but I wasn't sure where we were, although I was sure we were near the bus station. One of the buildings looked familiar. After about 20 minutes of sitting in a non-moving bus, we decided we could get out and find someone non-Haredi to ask (Haredism is the most theologically-conservative form of Judaism. Even if I had asked, they would probably not respond, as I had not yet covered up my cleavage with the scarf I brought). As soon as we got out of the bus, I asked--in Hebrew--another young soldier if he speaks English. When he said 'yes, a little', I asked if he knew where the bus station is. He indicated that we should follow him. Such a nice boy. A nice boy, his large army-issue backpack, and his M-16. He led us straight to the bus station, like any nice boy with an M-16 would do. He looked about 15. He was probably just 18, just beginning his 3-year service.

Jerusalem is not like Tel Aviv. It is much more conservative. It is a well-known phenomenon that young people are leaving Jerusalem in droves, and leaving it mostly to the Ultra-Orthodox. There are still stores where you can buy tank tops and tiny skirts (when did skirts get so tiny, anyway?), and they even have Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf cafes. And McDonalds (Thanks, America!). But there is a different feeling in Jerusalem. It is a place that demands respect, although it is not always given.

We asked at the bus station how to get to HaKotel (the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall, as it is sometimes called) in the Old City. It was either another bus or a 30-minute walk. We were both up for the walk, even after I warned Ida that we were, essentially, climbing a mountain. Along the way, I stopped again to ask directions. We were told that if we walked straight up Jaffa Street, we would hit the Jaffa Gate into the Old City. As we kept moving, and I realized we were suddenly going downhill with the Old City on our right, I decided to ask directions again. This time, I asked a British boy--in Hebrew--how to get to HaKotel. He answered in English. We ended up going through the Damascus Gate, which is the entrance to the Arab Quarter. I didn't think twice about it, but was alerted right away that we weren't in the Jewish Quarter, thanks to an aggressive 80 year-old man. As I tried to walk by him, he got in my path and touched my boob. I pushed harder to get past him, and, I kid you not, tripped over his cane as I got away. When I caught up with Ida, she asked me: "Did that old man grab your boob, too?"

Toto, I have a feeling we're not in the Jewish Quarter anymore. The Jewish men will stare, gawk, drool, comment, catcall, and even get up to talk to you, but, in my experience, they do NOT grab strange boobage. Cultural differences. Before we walked in, I put my scarf around my shoulders to cover my chest, as I would in any part of the Old City. That's just being respectful of the history. Ida, being a blond, covered her hair as well. She had already been in a few Arab countries, where they always pay special attention to blondes. One man followed us all the way through the shuk to the spot where the Jewish Quarter begins--and there is a security checkpoint. They scanned our bags, like they do at the airport, and we walked past some shops, stopping and looking at the amazing things you can buy. The shops are more like kiosks, most of them, and they are, literally, carved into the stone of the old city. Every time you walk into a shop, you are walking into a cave. Then you walk out and there is sunlight and it is simply stunningly beautiful.

Soon, we walked out into major sunlight into the piazza in front of ha'kotel ha'ma'aravi (the Western Wall). It is wildly impressive no matter how many times you see it. Ida uncovered her hair, as we were in complete sunlight, and it was hot that day. The wall has a dividing wall set up, so the men can pray separately from the women. For some reason, the men get a lot more space, and the women are crammed together like oysters in a can (another non-kosher reference). So it is. Before we went into the area set up for prayer, we stopped, having heard a man speaking English to his children. I asked if he would take a few pictures of us with each of our cameras. The best one is at the top of this page. It gives you a little perspective about the magnitude of the Wall.

Then we went and put our prayers in. This is the part where I always start to cry. I write prayers onto little bits of paper and then try to cram them into virtually non-existent spaces in the Wall. Thankfully, God made me tall, and, since the women are separated from the men, I have an advantage when it comes to reaching the high cracks. Down at a normal-sized woman's level, bits of paper are jammed into tiny cracks until they become like mortar. As I always do, I asked a few small girls if they wanted me to put their prayers in. They said yes, and I placed their bits of paper, prayers for the future and hopes for world peace (I'm guessing) into a higher spot in the Wall. I also, as I always do, knelt down to pick up pieces of paper that had fallen out, and made room for those up high as well. I don't do this because I feel that God is there and is watching. I know God is there. But I do this because there is something about being here that brings out the good in me. I don't expect extra credit from God. It's just extra-nice to be nice there.

I cried, I kissed the Wall, and then backed up until I reached Ida.

Then we decided to get back to the TLV. First, I needed something to drink. After we got out of the Old City, we were again on the Arab side of Modern Jerusalem. It was different. The signs were in Arabic and Hebrew, and no English. Before we hiked up the hill, I wanted a drink, no matter what Arab/Jew relations were like that day. So we walked down a street, looking for a place to buy Nestea Iced Tea (wildly popular and available in even the smallest kiosks in TLV and Jerusalem). But here, in a largely Arab-populated area, there was a difference. They had stores with empty shelves. The kiosks had some drinks, but it was all juices and brands I didn't know, and I wanted something familiar. We walked about 100 meters, seeing nothing but sad-looking kiosks with old-looking produce and nearly-empty cases, until an Arab man asked "What do you need?" Without thinking, I responded as I would in that situation anywhere else: "What I need is a Diet Coke" (I had changed my mind). He said he had Diet Coke in his shop, so I went in and bought my Diet Coke and a water, only vaguely aware of people looking at the Stars of David tattooed on my right wrist. I didn't feel animosity. I didn't feel any kind of threat. I just felt sad that on just the other side of the city I could bathe in Nestea Diet Iced Tea if I wanted to, and here, they don't even get half-liter bottles in their shops.

We walked back to the bus station, stopping at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf so Ida could get "the worst iced coffee" she'd ever had. We should have gone to the Cafe Hillel across the street. So it goes.

After our trip, I argued like a champ about taxi fare from the bus station to my house, finally getting the price I wanted from a taxi driver I spoke to in Hebrew. Israeli taxi drivers love to screw the Anglos. I always, always, always speak Hebrew to taxi drivers. Otherwise, I'll end up paying 3 or 4 times what the trip is worth.

Then, at my apartment, Ida and I worked on finding her a safe passage to Jordan, as she had to leave from Amman on Tuesday to get to Bangkok for the next leg of her trip. When we got hungry, we took a trip across the street to the AM/PM for chocolate, then came home for some girly talk, and, finally, sleep.

It was a fantastic day in Jerusalem.

The next day, there was another pigu'a, another Palestinian Israeli driving another bulldozer into another bus, in Jerusalem. That's just how it is. It's sad to say it like that, but that's just how it is.
__________________________________________________________________

To see what Ida has really been doing, and why, here's the info (my Truth will appear on there sometime soon):

In an age when neighbors are disconnected and societies are fractured
due to religion, creed, politics, race, geography, socio-economics,
and countless other markers, the U Truth Project seeks to discover
commonalities within the human drama that supersede surface differences.

Armed with little more than a camera, a laptop, a copious supply of
anti-malaria pills, and a tentative route, adventurer Ida Antares
Becker is circumnavigating the globe and asking the people she meets
to share one statement of truth.

The U Truth Project is a web-based photo documentary that chronicles
the responses.

Join the journey ::
www.UTruthProject.org

You're So Vain

2008-07-18T05:40:00.000-07:00

There is a very strange, ongoing theme in my Israeli experience. Carly Simon. In cafes, at the beach, at the pool where Alon1 works, I keep hearing Carly Simon singing "You're So Vain". In Israel. At Cafe Hillel. Being pumped onto the beach via enormous speakers from a nearby restaurant (where they bring you drinks and food in your beach chair). And at the pool at the Hotel Dan Panorama, which caters largely to Israeli tourists visiting Tel Aviv, but also attracts various Anglos, Indians, and other random tour groups. They come to a 3-star hotel, check in for their vacation/meetings/Hi-Tech Conferences, and are entertained by--for whatever reason-- Carly Simon.

The irony of me hearing her yesterday is that I was at the beach, in desperate need of a tan. I like to spend a few hours, a few afternoons a week, relaxing at the sea. I often study there, because my other study spot, Cafe Hillel, doesn't get sun at the outside tables past 9am, plus it is as hot as balls downtown where I live, and the sea often offers a bit of a pleasant breeze. And, while I am improving my Hebrew and becoming a better Israeli, I also want to get tan because I'm so vain. Soon enough, I will have a real job and won't be able to escape to the beach. I will only have weekends, and I hate the beach on weekends.

The way I pick my beach du jour is by looking for a place where there are happy children playing on swingsets and jungle gyms, their parents slathering sunscreen on them and giving them shekels to use the public bathrooms.

Then I go as far away from that as I can get. I settle in the quietest spot, an oasis away from people, but where there are chairs to rent. I simply can not enjoy the beach when there is sand in my bathing suit, or I have struggle to sit up and read comfortably. And did I mention the sand in my bathing suit? I really, really hate that.

I went to the beach this one particular day, hearing Carly Simon as I settled in. I turned my chair to face the sun, knowing that the Chair Guy would be around soon to collect 12 shekels and give me a receipt to prove I had paid him. The Chair Guy kills me. The first time I saw him, I did a double-take. This is why:

Two things about Chair Guy...no, three things:

1. He is wearing a large fanny pack. 1987 called. It wants its fanny pack back.

2. He is wearing a bright red Speedo behind that fanny pack, but, from most angles, we do not know this. I mean, Dude looks naked.

3. He sets up and moves around chairs, tables, and umbrellas. This means a great deal of bending, squatting, lifting, and carrying of heavy things. Dressed like this. Let your imagination do the rest.

It is obvious walking around Tel Aviv that there is a heavy European influence on fashion here. Speedos, while not common, are not at all considered odd. I am finding this to be a tough adjustment. Bright red, while shocking enough to my conservative American sensibilities, is nothing compared to some of the things I see in store displays. Next blog entry. I promise.

But I digress.

Although my back is turned, I can hear that Chair Guy (or Fanny Pack Guy, if you prefer) is busying himself with setting up quite a layout. There are tables, umbrellas, lounge chairs and yellow sitting chairs being carried past me by both FP Guy and his employee, perhaps and FPG-in-training. There is a lot of yelling going on. This isn't because FPG's helper was hard of hearing. Israelis enjoy yelling. If someone doesn't understand you, say it louder. If they still don't understand, then shout. The whole country is kind of like watching Al Pacino's performance in "Scent of a Woman" (his only really bad performance ever, in my opinion). Although Pacino's character in the movie was blind, he shouted throughout the entire movie, as though maybe he was deaf instead. FPG was yelling as though he wasn't being heard, although I'm pretty sure that FPGs-in-training were jumping to their feet three beaches down.

A man showed up wearing black pants and a black button-down shirt. He sat down in his self-proclaimed Taj Mahal (sounds the same in Hebrew) and began to settle in. I turned around and asked, since there were so many chairs and umbrellas together, if he was expecting people with children. He said no, and asked why.I was honest and told him that I would move if kids were coming. He laughed. He is probably 50-something, and he has very good English. So we talked a little. A few people showed up, and FPG sat down next to this man.

After a short conversation, I asked the man his name. He said "Peter". I told him that didn't sound very Israeli to me. He explained that his real name is "Pini", but he lived in New York for 20 years, and you can't have the name "Pini" in New York. Fair enough. I could tell, since my Israeli man-radar is getting stronger by the day, that Pini was harmless. So I continued talking to him.

Then, in a whirlwind, a woman showed up wearing a black dress over a red bikini, talking up a storm and kissing everyone in the ever-growing group I now found myself in the middle of. That's another Euro-thing I've adjusted to. In America, we are huggers. Here, it is kissing on the cheek. Close friends get both, but the kiss is mandatory. I find it very sweet, but probably why I have had the flu twice since I moved here.

The woman introduced herself to me and we got into a conversation. Her English was quite good, but I was reminded of the recurring "Saturday Night Live" skit in which Chris Kattan plays Antonio Banderas, and is always speaking in English, then saying "how do you say...?" in his most provocative Spanish accent, and then having the English word anyway. With this woman, whose name escapes me (as most names do, except perhaps, I don't know, Pini), every few sentences it was "Ekh Omrim...?" and then she would either find the word, or Pini would supply it. That day, my valuable conversational tool du jour (I try to learn a truly practical word or phrase every day) was "ekh omrim...?" which means "how do they say...?"

The woman, in a flash, whipped a joint out of her purse and lit it. She held it out for me, but I declined, as did Pini. I think everyone else partook. I was mesmerized by the rate at which this woman could speak, and how quickly topics changed. Then she took off her dress to reveal a very tiny red bikini (whether or not she and FPG coordinated this, I can not say for sure). She has a very nice body, but she is older than I am and has huge boobs. Her bikini top was not tied up very tight, so, try as I might not to notice, and as much as I liked this woman and enjoyed talking to her, I kept hearing the same song running through my head:

Do your boobs hang low?
Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie them in a knot?
Can you tie them in a bow?
Can you throw them over your shoulder
like a bag that's full of boulders?
Do your...boobs...hang...low?

This is why I keep a lot of thoughts to myself. I am eternally about 9 years old.

As several joints got passed around, beach security came over. The young man stood and looked around our group for a minute, and then sat down after receiving kisses on the cheek from everyone , ignoring the smoking. I realized I was sitting with people who were connected. Pini had that air about him, but I always make that assumption when someone reminds me in some way of my Grandfather, so I wasn't sure. He told me that he is at the beach every day, that he grew up here and knows everyone, and I should call him any time I need anything: if someone is bothering me, if I want to get into a night club, and so on. It was kind of "Godfather-by-the-Sea", only we were all Jews instead of Italians. Marlon Brando Godfather, of course, before Michael took over (although Pacino's performance throughout the series of movies was flawless).

Then a woman yelled over to us, offering massage. As an American, I found this very strange. The only people to offer you unsolicited massage are usually trying to sleep with you. But this was at the beach. And a stranger. I now know that at this beach, you can sit in a chair, have a cocktail and fresh fruit, smoke a joint, and get a massage. THAT is a full-service beach.

Israeli Men, God's Gift to the 18th Century.

2008-07-11T02:52:00.000-07:00

Today, I was at my favorite coffee shop, Cafe Hillel, as I am most afternoons. I ran into a man I've seen there about a hundred times, and we talked for a few minutes before he left to go to a wedding at the Kineret. Then I sat, as I usually do, reading the newspaper and sipping a latte, enjoying the heat of the day. I deliberately say 'enjoying', because everyone else seems to be 'suffering in'. There are certain stereotypes that got to be that way because they are absolutely true. One is that few people in Israel are ever content with the weather. In the winter, it is too cold, and everyone talks about wishing summer would get here already. In the summer, it is too hot, and everyone wants winter to arrive in a hurry. As I sat and talked to this new friend, Benny, about the stereotype, I said that is is, clearly, because I am only a half-breed (Dad is Irish-Catholic), that I can unequivocally say that I love the summer, bring on the heat, gimme the humidity, let the sweat come a-pourin' down. The truth is, my Mom doesn't fit the stereotype. She absolutely, unequivocally, hates the heat and likes the cold. Winter is fun for her. But she is not Israeli.

Before I get on to the topic of this post, I have to get one thing off my chest: Two words that you never want to hear when you are talking about a Hot Bikram Yoga class--White Speedo. 'Nuff said.

So I was at Cafe Hillel, sitting outside and enjoying my latte, reading about an Israel/Hizbollah prisoner exchange scheduled for this coming week, when I saw an attractive man walk in. He had that whole "I'm the shit" air about him, but most men here do, so I looked past it and just admired his looks for a few seconds before he walked inside. I went back to my reading for a while.

Before I left, I went inside to get another latte to keep me fueled to write this blog, as I have had certain friends nagging me that I don't make new posts often enough. It's not for lack of material, but, rather, because it is hotter in the room I use as an office than anywhere else in the house. I don't mind it being hot outside, but if I'm inside, I prefer to keep cool. The cats stick to any other room in the house. While this would be the first choice of rooms were there an Air Raid, it is the last choice in the summer. Unless there's an Air Raid in the summer. Maybe, just for me, Iran can wait until November before they start doctoring photos to make it look like they can reach Israel with bombs.

But I digress.

So I go inside to get a cafe hafukh gadol khazak (Hebrew for a big, strong latte), and I see a very narrow, pretty, young blonde woman at the counter, struggling to communicate with the guys who work there. She has less Hebrew than I do. I can walk in now, and the guys no longer get that terrified look that says "Oh shit, not the American again", because I can actually have a short conversation and order in Hebrew. One of the guys working there (and yes, Mom, when I say 'guys', I mean 'they were ALL male') was holding up a calculator to show her the amount of money she had to give them. She looked very confused and I considered helping her because she didn't understand that 'tishim ve'akhat' is 91 shekels. It must have been a large order to equal that much, and I imagine she was standing there for a while, struggling to order, before I walked in. I felt her pain. The calculator solved the money issue, and she went to sit down. As I was leaving, I noticed that she was sitting with the aforementioned attractive man. He was speaking to her in English in a thick Israeli accent.

This requires that a reasonable human being ask: "Why didn't the man do the ordering and paying for their meal, since he is a native Hebrew speaker?".

Welcome to Israel, where men often expect women to do their bidding. In my post about American bars vs. Israeli bars, I cited an exchange between me and my friend Alon, who expected me to go get us drinks when we were out at a crowded bar with female bartenders. Needless to say, he ended up at the bar, ordering for both of us. Not because I'm a bitch, and not because I don't like to do things for my friends, but because it didn't make sense for me to order when the bartender was more likely to pay attention to--and understand--Alon.

The problem is that most women seem willing to put themselves through agony and embarrassment for their men. If Alon had a broken leg, or was mute or something, I would have gotten the drinks that night. Since he was neither, and since he recognized my facial expression, he did the only practical thing. But I can understand why he is the way he is now. It is a cultural difference. Women here fetch. And this little foreign blonde girl was willing to fall right into the stereotype rather than asking the man she was with to take care of ordering lunch.

I admit that it could be very easy for a woman to fall into this trap. Most men here carry themselves with a raging machismo. It is sexy as hell. It is part of what I love about Israeli men. They aren't wimps. They have all served in the military and have been forced to become men in a way that most Americans can't understand. Military service in Israel is never easy. The hardest part isn't at the training camps. It is after the training camps, when they are actively fighting enemies on 3 fronts. The swagger that Israeli men have drives me wild. But, at the same time, it needs to be tempered. Swagger away, be macho and all that, but don't expect that I am signing on for modern servitude just because I am dating you.

And for the love of God, women, stop supporting this behavior.

I am not trying to go all FemiNazi ( a term I don't use here) on Israeli men. I only want to be treated with the appropriate amount of respect. Of COURSE I will get the drinks some of the time, when my Hebrew is better, and there is a male bartender, and I am showing enough cleavage. And of COURSE I will get up and get things for people who are guests in my home. And I positively love to nurture men when they are sick. Another friend of mine, Alon2, told me I am like a Jewish mother when he is sick. I respectfully asked him not to compare me to his mother, as it is creepy since he and I date sometimes. Nonetheless, when he was sick, I was fully prepared to be there to bring him juice and soup and aspirin until he felt better. Because that's what you do for someone you care about, right?

My dear, sweet Alon (from hereon "Alon1"--and don't you forget it, he says) is learning that I am not like the other women in his life. I am not his mother, who brings him things and caters to him in a way far beyond what I would ever ever ever expect of my own mother, unless I was post-surgical or something. Even then, it isn't that I expect it, but simply that my Mom takes good care of me when I need caring for. I am not his roommate, who does the same as his Mom. And I am also not his girlfriend, who, evidently, brings it to a whole new level, from what I've heard (I have successfully avoided meeting her). He is learning a valuable lesson about women--We Are Not All Doormats. When he comes to my apartment, I will get up to get the coffee, or the soda, or the snacks. I will even cook. And if he is sick and none of his regular servants are available, I will gladly go to his apartment and take care of him because I care about him. When I met him, we dated briefly, and I am fairly certain that part of the attraction was that I am a completely different kind of animal to him. Being with me was like watching the Discovery Channel. It was the same for me. I had never met anyone with his confidence and swagger, and it made me want to, well, see him naked.

I believe that there is a happy medium, even in Israel. I have met wimpy Israeli men, so there must be something in-between. I will find it, and, when I do, I think I will look forward to our verbal sparring as much as I will our adoring pillow-talk.

Let it be known to my American friends: Yes, the men here are smokin' hot, but that often comes hand-in-hand with the machismo. It is just as difficult to find a good man in the Holy Land as it is in the Old Country.

Shit.

p.s. I will photograph and post pictures of some smokin' hot men soon. In the meantime, look back at the pictures of Alon1. Always works for me.

Hasidic Roller Derby, or, "Aren't you hot?"

2008-07-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

Last week, I saw a Hasidic man rollerblading down Dizengoff Street. For those of you of the goyish variety, Hasidim are those Ultra-Orthodox Jews who wear a lot of black, year-round, and have those side-curls (payot), fringes hanging from corners of their shirts (tzitzit), long black coats, and sometimes giant black hats or even big furry ones. I remember stopping that day and watching as his payot moved forward and back, forward and back as he took very long, easy strides on his very 21st-century rollerblades. All the faster to get to synagogue, I guess.

Then, walking to yoga the other day, I saw a young man, maybe 15 or so, wearing an American football jersey, and I noticed tzitzit flapping in the breeze from the white, collared shirt he wore underneath. His hair was traditionally short, and he had payot, and an American football jersey. I wouldn't even understand this phenomenon if it was a regular football (soccer) jersey. Everyone has those here. The mixture of Old World tradition and 21st century culture doesn't make sense.

Of course, if I were the one making the adjustments to allow for modern products to mix with traditional ones, the big fur hats would be the first to go. At least when it's summer. This past Shabat, I was walking to get coffee with Keren as a group of Hasidim were going to their ba'it knesset (synagogue). Most of the men had on black suits and kipot (yarmulke, or Jewish beanie, if you prefer), and were clean-shaven except for their payot, which was standard curled and perfected. This, by the way, is an affectation, a show of vanity, even. The rule in the Talmud is (paraphrasing here) 'not to trim the corners of your beard'. So you see Hasidim also with big fuzzy beards and no discernible payot, because they are all frizzy, too, and mixed in with the rest of the beard. Vanity is, I guess, allowed in some circumstances.

But again, I digress.

The fur hats are GIANT. Google Hasidic Judaism. Wikipedia has a good bit on the dress code, and great pix of the enormous fur hats that some of the men wear. It is always the older men with super-long, frizzy beards, dressed head-to-toe in black, and wearing their prayer shawls (talit) over everything who also wear the fur hats OVER their kipot. Oy vey. I was wearing a cotton strapless dress and sweating my ass off. I can't imagine what they go through. Maybe that's part of the tradition, constant discomfort to keep you thinking about God, like wearing a hairshirt or something.

I think about God. Even when I'm strapless. I don't mind that they want to keep to tradition, but why allow rollerblading and wearing talit under a football jersey, and not toss the fur hat aside in the summer, or let the kids watch Rekhov Sesame or something from time-to-time. Whatever floats your fedora, I guess.

Health Care For Everyone! Strange as it may be...

2008-06-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

First, a few random observations about Israeli culture, etc., then on to the health care thing:

The "Holiday Season" here begins in late September/early October and ends in mid-June. How did this country, in only 60 years, become far more technologically, medically, and socially advanced than most countries that have existed for centuries? They are forever having a day off, 8 months out of the year. No wonder so many women here are pregnant.

I saw a really good-looking man at yoga yesterday. He had many of the features I find attractive, and seemed nice. But he was next to me, practicing yoga in black Calvin Klein boxer briefs. He looked great in them, but there was something just un-sexy to me about a hot man in hot undies in a room full of people doing yoga.

I have learned to find chest hair attractive in only 7 weeks! Mind you, I'm not talking about those guys who look like they're wearing sweaters, and have back hair and all, but I'm liking a nice, hairy chest on a man now. As Keren said:" Lucky for me".

Israeli women tend to have shapely hips and phenomenal shelf-like booty, but the men here have no asses at all. It is a society of assless men. As a woman who has generally found baseball pitchers, and their substantial rock-hard 4-wheel-drive rear ends wildly attractive, I am adjusting to checking out other body parts instead. Hairlines, eyes, teeth...Eventually, I suppose, I'll think of looking at things like 'brains' and 'personality'.

MACCABI HEALTH FUND--My Health Plan of Choice

I finally got around to going to the clinic to get my official Maccabi card and be assigned a GP, who I was free to change should he prove to be an asshole or something. It was fortunate that I went when I did, as I was coming down with what felt like the Ebola virus, but turned out to be sinusitis and the flu. I walked to Balfour 10, where Maccabi Tel Aviv has one of its clinics, and was pretty sure I was going to die the whole way. I love walking, and it was a lovely day for a 20-minute stroll down tree-lined streets, but I had a fever already and felt like death warmed up. Having received my card, I went to the information desk to make an appointment. I was to see Dr. Libster the next afternoon. I walked home, hit the couch, and began to feel worse.

The next afternoon, after rigorously studying Hebrew with a fever (I probably did the same question 10 times), I walked again to Balfour 10. I was told that Dr. Libster is in room 5, and was shown where to go. It was a set of chairs at the end of a hallway, where there were two doors. Outside each door was a list of patient names and appointment times. While I waited, a man came racing down the hall, apologizing in Hebrew, whipping out a set of keys, and going into the office of my doctor. I was thinking that he couldn't be the doctor. He was wearing jeans. He was wearing sneakers. He wasn't in an office safely guarded by a secretarial and nursing staff. He not only didn't have a white coat, but he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt.

The man whose appointment was before mine got up, knocked on the door, and went in to see the doctor. No nurse came out and called his name. While the man was in the office, another man came barrel-assing down the hall, knocked on the door and opened the door to ask a question without waiting for a "come in" or "kadima". I was glad for 2 things: I was not the patient in that room, and the doctor was not a gynecologist.

When it was time for my appointment, which was about 20 minutes after the scheduled time, but doctors are doctors, even in Israel, I knocked gently on the door and poked my head in. I asked if it was okay, and he waved me in. I sat down at his desk while he did something on his computer. Looking around, I saw the examining table, which was still all disheveled from the previous patient, a sink with sterile soap (sigh of relief) and several bottles of stuff that makes a room smell pretty, all in a row, fighting their own uphill battle. The room had one tiny window, up high and probably painted shut. And it didn't feel, well, sanitary.

I have observed before that Americans are way too concerned with germs. We have antibacterial everything. Children are kept away from so many germs that they don't have an opportunity to build up immunities to them. Gone are the days of getting away with washing hands without soap, brushing teeth without more toothpaste, washing dishes with any regular old dish soap, and certainly the 5-second rule no longer applies. 'Dirty' has become a dirty word.

But I digress.

So I tried to put my American germ phobia aside and waited for the doctor to pay attention to me. He looked up, asked for my Maccabi card (insurance card), and for 6 shekels (right now, worth a little over $2). That is the amount I have to pay for an office visit. And I don't pay for the health insurance, incidentally. He asked what was wrong, and I explained my symptoms. He changed the paper on the examining table and had me get up. He did the usual doctor things, looking into this, palpating that, listening to this, asking if something hurts, blah, blah, blah. Then he asked me to sit down at the desk again.

He told me I have sinusitis and a virus. He was going to prescribe antibiotics and a nasal spray. I asked him why I felt so awful and he said "Because you're sick". I half-smiled and said "Oh, so I got the funny doctor?". He is clearly Russian, but has probably been here most of his life. He is the way he is at Maccabi because all of the doctors are informal like that. And at least he has a sense of humor. That is mandatory.

Then he hit me with a way-off-speed pitch: He told me that my blood pressure was very high, and he was concerned that I have hypertension. He gave me a sheet to bring with me to the vampires upstairs. Their hours of operation were unforgiving, so it was either ass-crack of dawn, or miss some school. I went the next day, but couldn't get an appointment again with Dr. Libster until a week from tomorrow. I'll keep you posted about the hypertension. I assume it's just stress.

I have found that it is stressful to be away from the people that I love, and who love me. I carry around the quote: "What do you pack to pursue a dream, and what do you leave behind?"

What I have found that I left behind is people, and the love that they give without words or sometimes even gestures, but by merely being there. And that is a hard, hard thing to leave behind. I cry a lot.

But what I brought with me is a big dream, an opportunity to do something most people don't dare to do, a brand-new fresh start, 3 loving cats, and a kickass wardrobe (thanks, Mom).

I also got a referral for a psychiatrist, because I was seeing a fantastic one in Mt. Pleasant, and I clearly am in need of talk therapy, and to keep up the meds I take. Yes, it is the awful, secret truth that yoga does not necessary calm all anxiety and cure all ills. I am a basket case. I have a panic disorder (and yes, I see the irony of someone with a panic disorder moving to the Middle East, but I don't sweat that political stuff. I sweat the small stuff). Evidently, the shrink is good, because I don't see him until the 3rd. I couldn't get anything sooner. The problem with shrink-shopping is that is more difficult to get a good, comfortable fit than it is bathing suit-shopping. One size does NOT fit all when it comes to psychiatry. I hit the psychological lottery when I found Dr. Hunt in Mt. P. I found someone with whom I felt I could be completely candid, not hold back, say anything (and be redundant, if I felt like it). Poor guy probably had NO idea what he was getting into with me. But he helped. He didn't just listen and nod. He made me do homework and try to learn about myself and how I fit in--or didn't fit in--to the Charleston social structure. So he's a tough act to follow. I wish Dr. I-Already-Forgot-His-Name-Because-I-Made-The-Appointment-A-Month-Ago the best of luck in getting through my finely tuned, well-built, totally reinforced outer shell.

Another upside, however, to this Health Care for Everyone thing, is that not only are my prescriptions covered almost completely, but some non-prescribed, over-the-counter medications are partially covered as well. I can overlook certain things in favor of having health care. Mental health care is covered, too, and they do not acknowledge preexisting conditions. They don't care that I've been a basket case for years--they'll still take care of me. Thanks, Israel!

I still wish I would see white coats and nursing staff, but I guess with socialized medicine, you give up certain "socialized" luxuries.

The Joel L. Harrison Memorial Alley-Rabbit Squad

2008-06-02T05:02:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know that I love cats. If you don't, we have never met and you have never heard of me.

Tel Aviv is known for bring overrun with stray cats. Some are feral, some are downright love-machines. But they are EVERYWHERE. I love being in a city that is positively covered in cats. They are on the street, on front stoops, sleeping curled up in potted plants, standing on the dumpsters of restaurants, walking around in outdoor cafes, walking in and out of the open-front stores that define the city as non-American, and, in particular, they are waiting for me to get home.

When I first moved here, there was a very skanky-looking cat that had what I believed to be a cut or a sore on her side. She was skinny and her fur was unclean and she was a total mess. And she lived in my yard. I felt sorry for her, but I wouldn't touch her, because, if she did carry a disease, I didn't want to risk transferring it to my cats.

After speaking with a woman who is heavily involved in the spaying-and-neutering of stray cats in the city, I found out that there is a procedure they sometimes use on females in which they go in through her side to spay her. As the cut began to heal, I realized that she was recently neutered.

In Tel Aviv, because of the tremendous stray cat problem, the city has actually gotten involved in taking care of it. Intact males and females are captured either by a citizen, or by the Municipality, spayed or neutered, and either put into a shelter (if there is room) or returned to the street. Most of them are returned to the street, and I believe they are even returned to the place where they were originally captured. This is so forward-thinking. Instead of killing the cats because there are no homes for them, they merely take away the cats' abilities to reproduce. And almost everyone gets involved to some extent, either feeding the cats or calling the Municipality to take care of them. Several organizations exist that will give discounts on food to people who feed the cats.

Since some of them are feral, you have to earn their trust before you have any hope of capturing them. You can tell an intact cat from a neutered one by their ears. When a cat is neutered, one of its ears is docked, so it has one full ear, and one ear with a flat-top. I had no idea that my little Isabelle, considered deformed because of the loss of half of one ear to frostbite, would be one among many in Israel. Not that she sees them. My angels stay indoors.

But I digress, again. In order to earn the trust of a feral cat, you have to feed it regularly and not try to touch it until it is good and ready. I try to feed the cats in the morning before I go to Ulpan, and in the evening, before it gets dark but after the heat of the day. At any given feeding, I can have anywhere between 6 and 18 cats waiting for me. There was a pregnant one for a while. She disappeared for a week or so, and has reappeared thinner and still with complete ears. I did not earn her trust in time. Now there is another one. There are several young kittens that come around, but are all very hand-shy. I put food near them and try to keep greedy adult cats at bay so their cute little behinds can eat.

I have named my gang of cats the Joel L. Harrison Memorial Alley-Rabbit Squad. I fooled around with other names, but this one is too perfect. My Grandfather, Joel Harrison, referred to cats as 'Alley-Rabbits' to egg me and my Mom on, as he was a dog person. Since these cats truly are Alley-Rabbits, more or less, the name seems perfect.

And the formerly-skanky one, who grows thicker and cleaner every day, I now call "My Wife", because she nags me every time I open the gate. She starts screaming at me for food every time she sees me and does not let up. She has a very loud voice. My neighbors love that I call her "My Wife". I also now have "My Husband", a very handsome tabby with green eyes and a sweet demeanor. More than food, he seems starved for love. He rubs up against the bag of food until I feed the others, and then I pet him for a while. He is a wonderful cat, neutered, and I adore him, but I still wash my hands and legs and any other part he touches before I touch my own cats. Although Feline Leukemia and Feline AIDS don't seem to be as much of a problem here, I take no chances when it comes to my angels, who are vaccinated anyway. And there is no vaccination against fleas, so I am very careful.

My project is really to earn the trust of the complete-eared cats, who still need neutering. At any feeding, it is usually about 50/50, neutered/un-neutered. The kittens are what kill me, with their big eyes and little tiny faces. When I feel that they trust me, I have to betray that trust and call the municipality on them. At least I know that they will not be killed, and that I may see them again soon. They may not trust me again, but, then again, cats are not necessarily known for long-term memory. And besides, I won't be anywhere around when the cat-catchers come. I will be safely hiding in my apartment, or at Ulpan, or at the cafe up the street that is like a second home to me.

I am impressed that a country smaller than New Jersey, with limited resources and constantly at war, makes time to deal with cats in a humane way. Not with euthanizing, but with neutering in a catch-and-release program. Tel Aviv is partially known for its cats. And you can't go anywhere without seeing lots of them. I hope that, someday, America will catch up to Israel in its treatment of animals.

The Joel L. Harrison Memorial Alley-Rabbit Squad may need to go worldwide. Maybe that is my mission here.

Somewhere, my Grandfather is either laughing his ass off or cursing me out.

When It Stops Being Vacation

2008-05-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

It hit me like a ton of bricks last Wednesday. I got a card in the mail from my friend Christy (my first personal mail since I arrived), and I started to cry. I cried during my studies, I cried so much at the cafe that I kept having to go inside to get more napkins to mop up my tears, I cried on the phone to my Mom, and I cried into Keren's shoulder until she had to leave for an appointment.

I cried not because I am in Israel. I belong here, and I know that. I am home.

I cried because everyone who loves me and knows me really well is thousands of miles away. I cried because all of my friends and family are having their lives and doing their things and I am too far away to be a part of it. I cried, mostly, because they are NOT here.

There is no Mom to sit at a cafe with and talk to and joke with. There is no Dad to spend endless hours on the phone with, because, by the time I call him, it is very late here, and I am in school 5 mornings a week. There is no Bob and Jane and Hansje and Chris and Sirli et al to see at Karate, to remind me that I have friends. There is no little Grae to show me that I can love a child completely, when I thought they were all a pain in the ass before. There is no Lisa to call me with all the local Charleston dish. There is no Melissa to nag me into getting my dead ass out there and be sociable. There is no Mike to teach me Kung Fu and serve as a reminder that there are good men out there who understand me. There are no yoga clients who love me because I am NOT like other teachers, who can't imagine learning from anyone who is 'traditional'. There is no Karen, my best friend from four years old, to know me better than I know myself (a 9-hour time difference is a bitch). In short, I miss my people.

And the ridiculous, hackneyed platitudes that I am given make me INSANE. "It will get better", "You'll make new friends here", "It just takes some time".

Duh, people. I know that. But that doesn't change the fact that I am no longer feeling like I am on vacation. School has started, it is time to start working, my friends here all have lives of their own and can not be at my beck and call, and the reality of being so far away has set in.

Tel Aviv is no less beautiful than it was 6 weeks ago, and neither are the men. My friends here are still wonderful. The falafel is still fantastic. Learning Hebrew is fun and interesting, though sometimes a little frustrating. And, after six weeks of essentially camping in my apartment, having my stuff here from America is wonderful. Sleeping in my own bed. Eating with real silverware, not plastic. Having the rest of my yoga clothes, so I'm not wearing the same 3 things to class all the time. And, once I get the voltage changed on my washer and dryer, watch out, baby! I love doing laundry. It's like therapy.

In short, I miss you. Yes, you! Come visit. There is always room at ba'it suzanne (casa suzanne, chez suzanne, my house) for anyone who wants to see Tel Aviv, or Jerusalem, the Galilee, the Kineret, Eilat, and everything around and in between.

Real life is not a vacation. I knew that before I moved here. And things will get better. It just takes time. Yadda, yadda, yadda. (Seinfeld reruns are in heavy rotation here...shock!)

American Bars vs. Israeli Bars

2008-05-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, Israeli bars have bendy straws. I've never been in an American bar that had bendy straws. I am more likely to go to a crappy restaurant, if my crappy meal is accompanied by a soda that comes with a bendy straw.

As I have previously stated, I have a touch of social anxiety, and, therefore, avoid situations in which I will be surrounded by lots of people and noise. My friend Alon always asks me why I don't call his roommate and go out, because she loves to go out. He understands why I don't, as he and I are much the same kind of animal--we like to stay safe and warm and mellow in our homes. Going out to clubs or large parties is just a little too much. He nags me anyway, because he feels, I think, a certain personal responsibility to ensure that I have a large social network in Tel Aviv. He was the first friend I met in Tel Aviv. I knew Keren from when she lived in Charleston, and then she moved back here, but he was the first person I connected with here. He works in the spa at the hotel I was staying in on The Greatest Vacation Ever last October, and we got to know each other as I passed by him the first few days on my way to the pool. We kept in touch from time-to-time after I went back to the US, and insisted that I call him one week before I moved here, and the minute I arrived.

I have been to his house several times and hung out with him and his roommate, Calanit, who is awesome. Every time I have been there, she has asked if I want to go out with her and her friends, and every time, I opted to stay, quiet and safe, listening to music and talking to Alon.

Last week sometime, Alon invited me over to his house for our standard evening of music and conversation. Calanit answered the door and gave me a big hug and a kiss (I am adjusting to the European-style kiss-on-the-cheek thing, although I am still a hugger at heart), and I talked to her for a while before I made it to the salon--that's 'living room' to you and me--to say hello to Alon and smell him hello. He smells better than anyone I have ever known, so I always smell him hello and goodbye. But I digress. Soon enough, his cousin Kobi and his sister, visiting from France, came back from somewhere, and we were all sitting around, talking. Of course, in a previously-unheard-of twist of fate, I was the quietest one, because Alon's sister, Yael, speaks fluent French and Hebrew, but very little English, so the conversation kind of went on around me. Being a man, Alon took my silence to mean "I so wish to rub your back", and I, being a big sucker for a good-smelling man, obliged.

Calanit came into the salon and stood there, as she so often does, looking like she had a purpose. She wanted to go out. Alon looked at me and asked if I wanted to go. I smiled a little, and so did he. For once, we were going out. Calanit was so excited when I actually finally agreed to leave the comfort of her apartment that she began the flurry of activity that was changing out of sweats and into club clothes. Having anticipated this turn of events, I was actually moderately dressed up and even wearing makeup, just in case. I knew the offer would come, but I wasn't sure what my answer would be.

Alon popped up like a jack-in-the-box and opened a bottle of wine. He said: "If we're going out, let's fucking drink!" Since I have the alcohol tolerance of an infant, a glass of red wine later, I was ready to GO. Calanit was like a kid at...um...well, not Christmas, I guess, since this is Israel, so let's go with a kid at her biggest birthday party ever, and Duran Duran was playing live. I've never seen her smile so big.

We got lost on the way to the bar. I am not sure how, since it became obvious that Calanit had been there many times before, but Alon and Calanit were arguing as they always do, like brother and sister. I wished so much that I could understand what the hell they were saying. I would like to note here that I taught my four companions an American slang term on the way. I was "sitting bitch", which is the term my friends and I use for the person who gets stuck sitting in the middle of the back seat. How did the tallest person get stuck there? I don't know, but I was certain to teach my friends this important Americanism.

The bar, when we walked in, looked, sounded, and smelled like every other bar on the planet (except you can still smoke in bars in the TLV). It was loud, crowded, and full of drunks.

But there were certain subtle differences:

1. When a group ordered a round of shots, the bartender also gave each of the drinkers a lit sparkler, like the ones we use on Fourth of July. Then all of the people in the group formed a circle, put their arms around each other, and danced around and around, reminding me of Jewish weddings (really, I have only been to 2, but this scene brought back memories of both).

2. Alon asked me what I wanted to drink, and I told him. He wanted a Heineken. He got money out of his wallet and held it out for me. I looked at him like he was crazy. First, I did not feel like yelling a drink order at a female bartender who may or may not speak English, when a good-looking Israeli man is much more likely to get her attention. Second, I do NOT fetch. Evidently, this sets me apart from Israeli women in bars. Alon later got a girl he didn't even know to go get him a drink, and one for me as well. What kind of girl fetches drinks for a random hot guy and the six-foot woman he's with?

3. People my age still go to the bars. When I am in the US and I go out to bars, I always feel like I'm one of the oldest people there. Here, I was among a lot of kids in their early 20s, yes, but there were plenty of people my age and older. I found it comforting, and somehow more fun.

4. Compared to Israeli young girls, and even grown-up women, American women dress like they are deeply religious. There is a certain amount of irony in that, I think. The rise on the average pair of jeans here allows for visible butt cleavage, and the skirts are so short that I can't imagine that any of the women in them can sit. Also, it is perfectly acceptable to show thong. And before you get out your drool cups, boys, keep in mind that it is not only perfect bodies that are so dressed. I think being comfortable in your own skin is a beautiful thing. I think showing all of that skin is something different altogether.

5. It is not uncommon to see Israeli men wearing skin-tight tank tops or t-shirts, a la "International Male", circa 1985. Thankfully, this seems to be the trend among only the very fit, or very skinny.

6. In order to get into the VIP section, you evidently need only be a very tall woman. Perhaps they thought I was the token drag queen.

7. The drinks could probably launch a 747.

Similarities between American bars and Israeli bars:

1. Everyone is trying to get laid.

The Twig 'N Berries Coalition

2008-05-18T05:59:00.000-07:00

As you have all probably read by now, I have, essentially, sold my soul to the False Guru and thrown myself fully into the practice of Bikram yoga. While in America, I didn't like the practice at all. I found it painfully dull. For those of you not obsessed with yoga and its different forms, Bikram Yoga was developed by this guy--Bikram Choudhury--who thought that practicing the same sequence in a hot room all the time would be sweet. And it would earn him TONS of money, because any idiot who can get a publisher to agree to a book on a new, exciting form of yoga is likely to be a millionaire, even if the yoga sucks and causes massive amounts of injuries.

In Bikram's case, the only injuries reported are to his reputation. He is a well-documented egomaniac and Rolls Royce-driving asshole. Something about a "guru" driving a Rolls doesn't sit well with me, but who am I to judge? Well, I'm the one writing the blog, so judge I shall. I am aware that Bikram charges the most (about 9 grand last time I checked, which was about 5 years ago) for his teacher training. He is also not particularly nice to his students, yelling at them from the throne on which he teaches that "Suzanne needs to eat less cookies and practice trikonasana more!" I use myself as an example not because I have been in one of his classes, but because he proudly proclaims in his book to have said such a thing to a student. As my copy of his book is currently in transit from America, I am unable to quote directly. But I remember. I remember thinking 'what an asshole'.

I am thinking about doing a yoga video myself, not to take advantage of misinformed beginning students, but because I teach differently than anyone I've seen, and there is a market for what I do. Love it or hate it, the choice is up to the buyer. I plan to include a disclaimer that the video is not intended as a substitute for working with a good teacher, but, rather, to supplement an already-established practice with a fun, ass-kicking 90 minutes of yoga. The truth is, yoga DVDs can be a dangerous thing, since there is no teacher in the room to correct form and help prevent injury, but people love 'em, still email me for recommendations on them all the time, and will buy them if they are on the shelves. Ah, capitalism. Until I can pick out a house and a car and pay no money, ever, I am in the money-grubbing free-for-all with everyone else.

Except I need neither a throne nor a Rolls. A comfy chair for my living room, and a Harley-Davidson for the streets of Tel Aviv, maybe, but nothing that makes strangers wonder if yoga is really nothing more than another way for pricks to make millions.

Because yoga is a beautiful thing--the thing I have chosen to build my life around for the last several years. I have even found the beauty in the series I previously found completely and unforgivably tedious. Part of it is that I don't understand Hebrew, and all the classes I go to are in that language. This enables me to totally focus on how my body feels in each pose, and I have made great strides in a short period of time because of this. There is incredible beauty in feeling that a pose is right, in getting that 'aha' moment when you know that something in your mind/body connection has clicked together. I snap out of my little world only when my favorite teacher comes over to me in between sets and corrects my form quietly, and in perfect English. I also get the smug 'n happy face when I hear "metzuyan, Suzy", which means "excellent, Suzy". Not bad for the chick who didn't want anything to do with Bikram Yoga for the past 6 years. And I have to admit that the way the sequence moves from backbend to forward fold to backbend to forward fold for 26 postures, and because of the nature of each pose and the manner in which it follows the last, inspires me to think that, jackass or not, Bikram was onto something. I am particularly fond of his realization that muscles are much more pliable in heat. A standard Bikram practice is led in a room heated to between 38-41 degrees Celsius, or approximately 90-110 degrees Fahrenheit. Yummy. I love the sweat. Bikram gets the standing ovation from me for that, anyway.

But then there is the issue of Dress Code. Bikram Dress Code is different than regular yoga dress code. In Bikram Yoga, the less you wear, the more you fit in. Most of the female students wear "hot yoga shorts", which I have often referred to as "ass shorts". "Ass Shorts", when you bend over, or if you aren't blessed (or cursed, depending on your perspective) with the kind of tuchis my friend Ida calls 'two scoops'--a nicer term for a tiny heiney--show at least a third of your ass-cheeks. I marvel at the women who walk into the room wearing shorts that are smaller than some of the underwear I own, displaying partial cheekage and often imperfect thighs. Bless them for their confidence in their own bodies. More power to them for feeling so comfortable in their own skin, regardless of its condition. But ladies, please. I have even seen a young lady come to class wearing underwear. Yes, it was black and would, therefore, not become see-through as the class commenced, but I know underwear when I see it, and I didn't expect to see it so clearly out there, in lieu of shorts or pants. Women also generally wear only a sports bra on top, which is fine. Again, that comfort in one's own skin is so uncommon in America, and I am impressed by it, regardless of what size the woman is. I am definitely the stand-out American in class, wearing full-length yoga pants, a sports bra, and some kind of wife-beater over it. I show my belly only during the final breathing exercise, because it is important that the breath come from the belly, and I prefer to watch mine expand and contract as I breathe. Then my tank top comes back down and I roll onto my back for final relaxation.

But then there are the men. Ah, the Men of Bikram Yoga. They are all shirtless, regardless of weight or amount of body hair. I get it--it's hot in there, and they don't have breasts (not most of them, anyway) to cover. But the bottoms that they wear. I am nearly speechless.

And yet here come the words. Oh...My...God...

Some wear spandex shorts that are long. Okay, I've seen one guy who does this. The rest wear either Bill-Clinton-Onion-Skin running shorts, Speedos, or even underwear proudly displaying its designer. I have seen Calvin Kleins and Tommy Hilfigers. And I'm not talking boxer-briefs here. I'm talking briefs. Tightey-Whiteys that are, thank God, either navy blue or black. It is this group of men that I have named "The Twig 'N Berries Coalition", dubbed so because of what often becomes visible, whether in clear outline or actual, well, visibility during certain postures. FYI: Jewish men are circumcised. Have doubts? Come to class with me. One day, I began to fall out of a pose and was, therefore, not focusing on myself in the mirror for a brief (no pun intended) moment. In that briefest of moments, I noticed that a guy in the front row, wearing black Calvins, was sporting wood.

Being the professional yogi that I am, I was able to return my focus to getting back into the posture, after only a second or two of looking at the floor and grinning. It probably wasn't my best Dandayamana-Dhanurasana ever, but that guy's wood probably had little to do with it. I had, after all, lost my balance before I ever caught a glimpse of his happy unit.

So, 5 days a week, for 90 minutes each time, I am the most conservatively-dressed person in a room full of women in ass shorts and sports bras, and the Twig 'N Berries Coalition. Coming soon to a yoga studio near you.

Anti-Social No More!

2008-05-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

Everyone who knows me, knows that, for the past 10 or so years, I have avoided any event that attracts a lot of people. Everything ranging from concerts to crowded bars has given me a chance to utilize my hyperactive imagination to come up with excuses that sound better than: "I don't want to go".

Also, I do suffer from social anxiety. I generally feel endlessly uncomfortable in a crowd of people, unless it is a yoga class. For some reason, even walking into a studio where English is, at best, a second language, has never given me the willies. But a packed bar full of native-English speakers? Totally terrifying.

As you have read before, I was unable to resist the call to be at Kikar Rabin for the Independence Day celebration/fireworks/freak show. And I had a great time. Of course, it is always much easier to do things when you have the protection of a circle of friends around you.

Today, I got a call from Vered, telling me that there was an event at Kikar Dizengoff, and I should check it out and then come see her at her shop. It being Friday, the equivalent of an American Saturday, and, since I had no paperwork obligations to tend to (hallelujah!), I decided to go.

Vered failed to tell me the scale of the event at Kikar Dizengoff. It was a festival that blocked off traffic on Dizengoff Street (a major roadway here) from King George to Frischmann, about 8 city blocks. The street, which also contains the Dizengoff Mall, which has levels of walkways crossing over the road itself, was PACKED with people. The first thing I saw was a fenced-in area where men were playing basketball. I could hear loud and familiar music playing from nearby, so, after checking out the game, I walked 20 meters further and found another fenced-in area that had several ramps on which people were doing bike jumps and tricks. There was a DJ playing hip hop that I actually knew. I muscled my way to the front so I could watch and take a few photos.

Moving ahead through the crowd, I stopped in to visit Liat at Jungle, a pet store where I like to visit with the chinchillas. I had never held a chinchilla before, and the first thing I said as one began to nuzzle me was "I can understand why people make coats out of you, even though it's mean". Those things are SOFT. If you have an opportunity to cuddle a chinchilla, take it. Fortunately for me, cats are notorious chinchilla-hunters, so I have no risk of wanting to bring one home. I can already picture Isabelle licking her chops and trying to look innocent while belching ultra-soft gray fur. The whole staff of Jungle gathered around today to watch my video of Avi walking towards the camera. No one here had ever heard of a Munchkin cat, and they have now asked me to send the video to them so they can post it on their website. Although they only sell small pets (chinchillas, guinea pigs, rabbits, and fish), I think they are interested in the Munchkin market now. Avi is, after all, a small pet.

I then walked past a stage where an Israeli hip-hop group was performing. I think I've heard them before, but I have, evidently, walked past many famous people in my neighborhood, and I just don't recognize them. The lack of "US Weekly Israel" and "Israeli PEOPLE" has given celebrities here a certain amount of privacy. There is already a Cosmopolitan Israel, so we can help spread American body-image issues throughout the world. It is a perfect match with America's other great gift to Israel: McDonald's. Really. It is disturbing to see that word spelled phonetically in Hebrew.

But I digress. About a block further down the street was another stage where an Israeli rock band was performing. The singer was female, and was kicking ass. All around me, people were passing out little Israeli flags. I love that about this country. They are always celebrating their country, always proud, and always having fun. There were stands on the street selling jewelry, purses, and even beer. On the street. Shabat Shalom indeed.

The crowd began to look a little different. It was pure American 80s punk: colorful spiked hair, black eyeliner centimeters thick, Doc Martens, ripped jeans or tights, and safety pins everywhere. The next stage was an Israeli punk band. They were, evidently, on a break, because I didn't hear them. But their fans were waiting.

By the time I got to Vered's shop to say hello, I was reeling from the energy of this street festival. I stayed there for coffee, then went back out to see more. By this point, most shops were closing for Shabat, but the festival looked far-from-over. The street vendors were still out, and the beer was still flowing. I even watched a group of kids in a mosh pit 6 lanes wide rocking out to the very American, proudly Irish-in-heritage rap band House of Pain. It was a recording of the song "Jump Around", which, if you were alive in the early 90s and going to the bars, you must admit that you, too, put your arms in the air and jumped in unison with the rest of the drunks as Everlast shouts "jump!jump!jump!jump!" Admit it. I saw you.

So I have found myself embracing more social activity here. I want to see and experience as much as I can. Granted, I didn't know what I was getting into when I set out on my walk this morning, but I'm glad I did. The energy was infectious, and it put me in a very good mood. And anyone who knows me, knows that it is not always easy to do that, either...

Israel's 60th Birthday Party!! and, My Neighborhood is like High School, Only I'm Popular This Time.

2008-05-06T06:59:00.000-07:00

As many of you know (or maybe not, either way is okay), Israel is celebrating its 60th Birthday this year. I somehow managed to arrive in the beginning of a balagan of holidays. I choose not to translate balagan because I only know a very impolite term to equal it. Also, 'holidays' might not be exactly the right word.

Certainly, Pesach is a holiday. That lasts a week, and you can't eat leavened bread, so you either shop beforehand and stock up on pita or whatever bread or pastries you might want, or eat matzoh, which is actually really good when you break it up and mix it with stuff. Yom Ha'Shoah is not a holiday, really. It is Holocaust Remembrance Day, so it is not a celebration. It is somber, and sad, and a whole lot of other words that basically mean that it is not a time to be partying like rock stars. There is usually a little bit of time between Yom Ha'Shoah and the next two important days, Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) and then Yom Ha'Atzmaut (Independence Day). Not so this year. The way the calendar worked out this year, Independence Day would have fallen on Shabat, and you can't be partying like rock stars on Shabat, so those two days were pushed back a bit, and it felt like one right after the other after the other after the other.

At least Tuesday during the day was normal, so Alon picked me up in his new car and we went to Yafo to the Arab Shuk (market) there. The whole thing is various kiosks PACKED with stuff. Each one was more overwhelming than the last. I had deliberately left my wallet in Alon's car, as he said he would buy lunch, so I wasn't really looking for anything for me. We ended up in this one place that looked like it was tiny, but ended up extending back so far that I couldn't see the end. There were clothes hanging everywhere. Everything from belly-dancing get-ups to furs to Hawaiian shirts to jeans. Alon picked up a pair of jeans and asked if he should try them on. I encouraged him. He put them on and I almost passed out. "They aren't too tight?" he asked me. I think my response was something like "God, no". Then he tried on another pair that I liked a lot, so much that I was forced to grab his ass and say "look at that. You have to buy them". Then he picked out a pair for me to try. I ended up getting the same pair that he got, only my ass lacks the perfection of his. I look forward to the day that he and I end up going somewhere together, looking like idiot twins, wearing the same jeans. But I digress, as I so often do, to talk about Alon.

Tuesday night was the beginning of Memorial Day. Keren had a lot of family things to do, as so many Israelis do. The day memorializes not just those who have fought and died for Israel, but for people killed in terror attacks as well, and almost everyone here knows someone, or is related to someone who knows someone who died in these ways, so I was by myself at home. Hot, my cable company, chooses to not broadcast most channels normally on somber days, so I ended up going back and forth between Fox News (yuck) and BBC News (yuck again). The next day, I had a bit of anxiety, and a bout of homesickness--not for a place, but for my friends and family, so I didn't do anything at all on Wednesday. Keren came over that evening, and I was still feeling anxious and unsure how I could deal with the huge crowd that would be a Kikar Rabin (Rabin Square, right down the street from me) for the performances and fireworks. Nonetheless, I agreed to go out to get something to eat. We ate at a place near the square, and there were already a bunch of people on the street and gathering for the show, some dressed up, some spraying silly string on each other, and all having a good time.

We decided that we had to go back to my house and get my camera. By the time we got back to Rabin Square, the streets and square were packed with people. Keren and I fought the crowds and bought some perfect tchotchkes. I got a giant inflatable hammer with the Israeli flag on both sides. Then I got a star that lit up in a bunch of different colors and hung it around my neck. I took pictures of everything, and then the fireworks started.

Bear in mind that I am fairly jaded when it comes to fireworks. I worked in professional baseball for five years, and every Friday night game meant a fireworks show. It was a great way to sell tickets. But I got bored with it. I stopped going to Fourth of July fireworks altogether.

But this show was something else. It was beautiful, set to music, with lasers making pictures on the side of the building from which the fireworks were being shot. I filmed the whole thing. I found myself intensely moved by it, especially at the end, when everyone on stage and all 60,000 of us in the crowd sang the Israeli National Anthem, "HaTikva" (The Hope) together. Of course, the only way I know the lyrics is because of a cover done by an Israeli hip hop artist called Subliminal, but at least I could take part.

After that, I texted my friend Manara and met up with her down the street. She and her friend Hannah had found the tchotchke I had been coveting all night: headbands that had springs with Israeli flags at the end--and the flags lit up because of batteries in the headband. I was totally decked out in Celebratory Israeli Shiny, Lit-Up, Happy Junk. The four of us had so much on (did I mention the ring I got that also lit up in various colors for only 5 shekels?) that later, people thought we were vendors. Not vendors were we, just shamelessly tacky and having a great time. We walked around the city for a while to go people-watching, but we found ourselves to be the ones watched. We were photographed by a few different tourists who thought we were either a riot or just four crazy girls. We all enthusiastically posed with our arms around each other. It was a great night.

PART II--My Neighborhood is a High School, Only This Time I Am Popular.

While my Mom was still here, we found a great little flower shop owned by a woman called Billie. She has great flowers and they are crazily inexpensive. I stopped there today after lunch with Keren, because my apartment needed fresh-flower smell. When I went in, Billie greeted me like a long lost friend and asked me what I needed. I said I wanted something beautiful and fragrant. Her English is very nearly perfect, so she understood 'fragrant', but kept accidentally saying 'pregnant'. I didn't correct her, because the fertility of flowers is not a particular concern of mine. She helped me pick out some beautiful Stargazers and some other pretty-smelling flora, and I stood there while she went to the back to put together an arrangement for me. She called me into the back and said "Come talk to me". So I did.

She asked how I was liking the neighborhood, and I said that I love it. I also told her that I sometimes feel lonely because, at night, I am mostly at home either watching tv, reading, or sitting on the windowsill with Rita watching the drunks outside the pick-up bar across the street. She told me that she heard I'm doing yoga now. I don't recall having told her that I found a studio I like, so I asked her how she knew. She kind of waved her hand and said "People talk". She also asked why I get lonely, and I told her that I haven't really met anyone who asks me out. I mentioned that it might have something to do with how tall I am.

She said: "They certainly ask me about you".

I told her I wished they would ask me about me, and she said that they aren't sure if I'm married, or have a boyfriend, and maybe they are a little intimidated by my muscles and my height, but they have certainly been asking. Evidently, she is known in the neighborhood as being something of a match-maker (news to me), so men have gone to her, having seen me in the neighborhood over the last 4 weeks. She has someone in mind for me, but he is an American who made Aliyah and is opening a business next to hers. I'm not sure that I came to Israel to meet an American, plus I'm all hung up on He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Directly-Named, but I'm trying to keep an open mind.

So the mens here do still find me attractive, even though I live here now. I have already been told by several people that Israeli men love tourists and visitors because they are seen as "easy". I don't believe that I, at my age and stage of life, want the kind of man who wants to find a temporary playmate. So I am wary of the men who approach me and realize that I am not Israeli as soon as I open my mouth and speak English. I have been told that I look Israeli, which I consider a tremendous compliment. But I don't sound it. Sure, I am loud and borderline-obnoxious like many Israelis, but I am loud and borderline-obnoxious in English. Give me time. I already know how to say "move it", "outside", "where are the bathrooms", "big, strong latte", and "Avi, get off the table". I have some other Hebrew, too, but I only use it when I have to. I'll get over worrying about sounding foolish. It certainly never stopped me before in my native language.

Anyway, I am having a great time with a few blips of missing my family and friends in America (and Big Bro in Brazil). I am where I belong. Plus, you ALL will want to come visit me when you read more and realize how amazing this country is. My door is always open. As I hear so often: "Now you have family in Israel".

It's The Little Differences...

2008-04-29T05:09:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought of buying a bag of milk?

Not being able to buy bread in stores for a week because of a religious holiday?

Having only 3 cell phone companies to choose from, each one less responsive and customer-service-oriented than the last?

Seeing men at yoga really wearing speedos, regardless of weight and/or amount of body hair?

Having strangers offer to help you find the post office, call the cable company, read text messages sent in Hebrew, or carry heavy stuff, without expecting some amount of nakedness in return--in fact, expecting nothing in return?

Seeing, three times in one day, and on different men, t-shirts that read : "One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, FLOOR" (without going to Old Orchard or Revere Beaches)?

Being greeted like an old friend at the place where you bought your microwave oven?

Explaining what it means to play grab-ass?

Hearing from everyone that a bicycle is the best way to get around the city?

Knowing that EVERY PLACE, right down to the pet-supply store and grocery stores, deliver?

Getting an Israeli flag as a free gift with the morning newspaper?

Finding out that the word 'tattoo' has a gender, and that it is male, and every adjective used to describe one must then also be masculine as well (and feeling mildly offended)?

It is the little, tiny details about living here that cause me to stop. It isn't seeing billboards in Hebrew or herds of Hasidic families wearing all black, head to toe, in 90-degree heat (32C), with their payot (side curls) and tzitzit (fringes dangling from their waists) moving ever so gently in the hot breeze. As a side note, the Hebrew word for "tits" is nearly indistinguishable from the word for these ultra-Orthodox clothing fringes, a lesson I learned the hard way while saying something about a 'tse-tse fly'.

When I moved into my apartment, I couldn't walk across the floor without the bottoms of my feet turning black from the amount of dirt that built up since it was last cleaned. I clearly needed to buy a mop. People mop differently in Israel. I have not seen even one Swiffer Wet-Jet (I will gladly supply my address to anyone who wants to send me one). What you get instead of a Swiffer or a sponge mop is something that looks like a very long-handled squeegee which you use to push around a large square of thick fabric that has been soaked in whatever your cleaning fluid of choice is. It was in a particular moment of clarity that I thought to buy plastic gloves for the squeezing-out process.

When I crave a really fantastic fresh peach or slice of watermelon, I can walk half a block and get incredible produce fresh off the kibbutz, no hothouse or thousands-of-mile travel involved, from a guy who has a hole-in-the-wall space--on the first floor of my building--which he closes at night by pulling down a heavy garage door. When I want fresh falafel, I have to walk a full block further. They are open late, except when Maccabi Tel Aviv Basketball is on.

Men here are NEVER flattered to find out that they share a name with my wonderful kitten, Avi. Suddenly, they are "Aviv" or "Avram". I'd be flattered if someone named a kitten after me. Of course, about 27 different people have asked me if I am familiar with the Israeli recording artist named "Rita". It is evidently okay to have a cat named after a person if the person is neither male nor you.

And, seriously, you can buy milk in bags. It is a much more authentic cow-like experience, I'm sure (I'm sure I would have to 'moo' every time I poured), but I prefer to go the extra few steps and get a carton of milk. I wouldn't know where to buy the special pitcher that the bag of milk goes in, anyway.

Oh yeah, and The Late Show with David Letterman is on at 9:30am.

I Am Not A Fan Of Bikram Yoga, But...

2008-04-29T02:18:00.000-07:00

But I found a Bikram studio that is a five minute walk from my house. So I went. Although doing the same thing every single practice gets boring, the Bikram series is fantastic for stretching out my lower back, and for working on backbending--which is my greatest weakness in my yoga practice.

My lower back has been weepy since I moved here because I have been cleaning every floor, every cabinet, every surface. I also have been moving heavy things around, and carrying heavy bags when I buy things for the house. So my back told me it was time to get into some yoga, which I missed terribly anyway. I had no yoga mat, as all of mine are in the container which is slowly making its way here. I looked in sporting goods stores to find a mat, to no avail. In America, you can walk into Marshall's or Wal-Mart and find them. They are everywhere. Here, I realized I would have to go into a yoga studio to get one.

So I went to the only official Bikram studio in Israel. The website is in both Hebrew and English, so I was able to understand it. I liked that. Since I have taught the sequence, I knew that I could follow along just fine, even though the class is conducted entirely in Hebrew.

The woman at the front desk, after I asked her in Hebrew if she speaks English, said "yes, of course", and I told her that I am a new immigrant, that I have taught the series even though I am not officially Bikram certified, and that I was looking forward to taking the class. I was able to buy a mat there, and they have showers in case I want to wash the sweat off before I leave. Since I live so close, I don't really need that, but yesterday, when I was going to visit a friend right after class, I did shower there. It is a nice feature in a yoga studio, but one I think I will seldom use. Public shower and public bathrooms give me the heebie-jeebies, but they are, sometimes, a necessary evil.

The classes are very interesting because they are taught in Hebrew. I have picked up a few words, like 'inhale', 'exhale', and 'forward', all of which will be very handy when I begin teaching here, which will hopefully be soon. I have had the same teacher in the classes I've taken so far, and her English is very good, so a few times she would say something in English, and I knew it was for my benefit. A few little corrections on form, and even the occasional 'very good, Suzanne'.

Although I, again, get bored with the same sequence held for the same amount of time, every time, I do so enjoy a nice, hot room. I can feel my muscles relaxing and stretching beyond the limits they can reach in a colder room. I also just love a really good sweat. Since the people there are SO nice to me and so patient with my pathetic Hebrew, I joined up for a while. Now that I have a mat, I can practice at home and do my ab routine without breaking my tailbone on the tile floors in my apartment. While in America, I would do my practice in the back room at Masters Studios (my beloved dojo), and then do my 11 minutes of abs.

Taking a class in a foreign language is actually very freeing, in some ways. I am able to turn entirely inwards and focus on the feeling of each pose, rather than focusing on the words from the teacher. For me, a yoga practice is about feeling the postures and finding my edge in each one, about extending a little further and stretching a little deeper. It is why I have found practicing alone has really moved my practice forward (kadima, in Hebrew) in a way I hadn't expected. My mind remains uncluttered by the words of the teacher (no matter how wise her words might be), and it becomes all about my body's reactions to the pose. And I find that my mind doesn't wander beyond the room. I am not thinking about anything else but that moment. I am truly in the moment when I am practicing alone, but in a group of people. I can absorb the energy of the class, and give out the positive energy that I am generating, but there are no distractions. It is a new kind of intensity, and I am totally digging it right now. I am taking today off from my practice, as I think I pushed my neck stretches a little too far yesterday. I am allowing a day of rest for my body, as dictated by the literal pain in the neck that I feel.

So, although I am not generally a fan of Bikram yoga, and everything I have read about Bikram makes me think "What a jackass", I love the studio, I love the heat, and I love the teachers. The students mostly ignore me, except to check out my practice. But I am used to this. Having taught for so long, I am used to having people watch. Maybe soon, they will speak to me, when they see that I am not a visitor but a Tel Aviv resident. Maybe not. Either way, I will continue to go, and some days practice at home, and, hopefully, I will soon find a kung fu school.

I know that yoga is a path without end, that we never stop learning. I learn something new from every teacher, from every student, from every class. And it makes me a better yogi and better person, I think. I don't ever want to stop learning, so I will continue לשאף ולשף

I know you want to hear about yoga...

2008-04-26T03:52:00.000-07:00

...but I have to write about my experience today at Misrad HaPnim (The Ministry of the Interior), to get my permanent Israeli ID.

When a new immigrant (me) gets off the plane at Ben-Gurion Airport, they are brought immediately to a miniature version of Misrad HaPnim, which is in a room that is not unlike I imagine the waiting room at a prison might be like. There is an uncomfortable couch, bad coffee, and cranky people who force you to be photographed for your temporary ID after a 12-hour flight. I tried to explain to the woman who was making my temporary ID what "dirty pool" is in America. Since you have probably read about the flight, you know what I must have looked like. Imagine that famous mug shot of Nick Nolte after he was pulled over for drunk driving, only with crazy BLACK hair instead of crazy blonde hair.

But I digress.

Then, the olah (new immigrant) must make arrangements to go to the real Misrad HaPnim nearest to where they will be living. Since I live in the middle of Tel Aviv, it is walking distance, and today was a lovely day. I wore my yoga clothes, in case I got out in time to walk straight to class from there. I was carrying a very large bag that contained: 3 years worth of paperwork (I was advised to bring everything), my purse, a towel, a change of clothes (I was going straight from yoga to visit a friend), a book to read while I was waiting, a hair product, and deodorant. I was also carrying a yoga mat in a mat bag.

If you think security is tight at the airport, try getting into the Ministry of the Interior in Israel. With two bags, one of which was huge and full of random shit.

Anyway, I arrived 15 minutes before it was due to open, since I didn't want to wait in a long line. When I arrived, I laughed to myself. There were at least 75 people waiting ahead of me. Most of them appeared to be quite cranky. I watched one man in a kippa (yarmulke, Jewish Beanie, whatever you want to call it) shouting--loudly--at someone who worked there. I didn't understand what he was saying, as he was yelling in Hebrew, but I got the gist of it. Even in Israel, an asshole is an asshole. And he was at the front of the line. The rest of us were either watching, sighing impatiently and loudly, or talking on cell phones. Such is bureaucracy. I didn't really expect the miracle of being first in line, and, once they opened, the line moved fairly quickly anyway.

**Note to self, however: next time, I will either bring a person in a wheelchair or a baby in a stroller--they had to go in through a different way, and got to jump ahead of the rest of us.

I was given the number 827, and shown where to sit, and where to look for my number to come up. In Hebrew. I'm guessing that was what he said, anyway. He could have been calling me a stupid American, but I doubt it. They love us in this country. And besides, now I'm an Israeli.

I amused myself looking at the vast array of hot Israeli men. I feel like a kid in a candy store here. Hot men are EVERYWHERE. But that is for another posting. Altogether, I was only there for about an hour or so, and I had plenty of time to pick up my laundry, go back to my apartment, and love on my kitties for a few minutes before I went to yoga.

Tomorrow, the Misrad HaKlita (Ministry of Absorption)--again, I hear those words and think of the marching hammers in The Wall--is closed, so I have to wait until Wednesday to go. I want to be there when they open at 8.

Maybe the lines won't be long because Thursday is also Holocaust Remembrance Day. At 10:00, a siren will go off for one minute. Everyone stops what they are doing, whether they are working or eating or driving, and stands up. People even get out of their cars and they all stand for a minute of silence to remember the six million Jews who were killed by the Nazis. I think it will be lovely and moving, and I will probably sob like a child. My apartment is right up the street from Rabin Square, where Yitzhak Rabin was murdered at a peace rally on November 4, 1995. There is a memorial there that makes my chest feel tight every time I walk by, which is fairly often.

Bureaucratic bullshit can't come close to eclipsing the constant reminders I get that I am supposed to be here. This is where I am meant to be.

But still, next time I go to the Ministry of the Interior, I'm borrowing someone's baby.

The Flight of the HouseCats.

2008-04-23T14:11:00.000-07:00

Anyone who tells you that traveling with pets is easy should be shot on sight.

When I began planning my Aliyah, nothing made me so nervous as the thought of bringing my 3 cats on the plane with me. The 5 minute drive to the vet was always a constant three-part harmony (with Avi singing a resonant bass), so I could only imagine what a twelve-hour flight might be like. Of course, there was the two-day drive from Charleston to Newark, one night in a motel somewhere north of Richmond, getting them through security at the airport, waiting for 3 hours at the Newark El Al terminal, fitting them on the plane, dealing with 3 cats experiencing their first-ever plane take-off, re-medicating them throughout the flight, keeping them calm while I filled out various forms and received information at Ben-Gurion airport, and a partridge in a fucking pear tree.

My Mom, amazing, understanding, cat-loving Mom, felt the same way I did, but nonetheless took on the challenge of helping me get the cats overseas and setting up my house a bit. It would have not been possible to bring all three on board without her. I am forever grateful.

I didn't even have time to feel anxiety about my own overseas move--I was too worried about theirs.

First, of course, there was the fact that I have 3--not 2--cats. If I only had 2 cats, they would not require a license to bring them to Israel. But I have little Avi, in all his little Avi-ness, and so I had to contact the Department of Veterinary Services in Israel (a division of the Ministry of Agriculture. I always associated the word 'ministry' with Pink Floyd's The Wall for some reason), and get from them the necessary forms to fill out, and to have my veterinarian fill out and get stamped by the USDA Vet in Columbia, and still have it all in my hot little hands NO MORE THAN SEVEN DAYS prior to my arrival in the country.

Oy vey, as they say.

Having received all necessary information, I received a Permit to Import 3 Domestic Cats from the USA to Israel. The permit will be scanned in as soon as my scanner arrives from America, as it is hysterically funny. Definitely worth the read.

Avi, as it turns out, is a great little traveler. Everything is pretty chill in Avi World. He was in a carrier with Rita (El Al allows carriers weighing no more than 8 kilos, and Chubstein--Isabelle--combined with either Rita or Avi would have been over the limit, so she got a carrier of her own). Rita was not pleased with the situation, but I slipped her the magical acepromazine, and she cuddled up with her baby brother almost as though she didn't spend the bulk of every normal day planning his death. Isabelle, who has always been a foaming-at-the-mouth, screaming-and-whining, chewing-through-the-bars-of-the-cage kind of traveler, needed twice the medication that her sister and brother did. I found, luckily enough, that grinding up the pills and sprinkling them like parmesan cheese over beef baby food fooled her every time.

The car ride from Charleston, including an overnight at a motel, was not pleasant, and I was a nervous wreck. Isabelle started screaming the minute I turned on the Jeep, and didn't stop until she was unconscious from medication. Unfortunately, I was not able to partake of the tranquilizers, as I was operating a motor vehicle--the motor vehicle of my dreams, my dear sweet love, O Midnight Blue Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo (a tear wells up in my left eye. But I digress.

I had them calm enough, again thank you to the makers of acepromazine, animal tranquilizer, in the airport. A "passenger", who was clearly a member of Mossad, or whatever the Israeli equivalent of Air Marshals is, feigned interest in the cats and came over to check them out. Proud Mommy that I am, I was happy to show my sedated angels to her. As I was not smuggling military secrets or little baggies of plutonium underneath Isabelle's belly, I wasn't concerned. We boarded the plane without incident, aside from the cooing of the flight attendants at the splendorous beauty of my cats. Every few steps it was: "Oh, can I see? So beautiful! What kind of cats are they?" I wanted to say: "The kind that hate questions", but I don't want to fuck around when the Mossad is flying in the cabin with me.

At takeoff, it was Armageddon.

Isabelle totally lost her shit. I knew she would. As soon as the engines turned on and she could feel the vibration of the floor beneath her and hear the noise all around her, no amount of acepromazine or valium or whatever they use on charging elephants, nothing was going to stop the Tasmanian Devil-like spin of Isabelle Marigold Gannon. As the engines got louder and louder, Isabelle did as well, so I unzipped the top of the carrier enough to put my hand inside. The familiar smell of her Mom usually soothes her.

She drew blood, and lots of it, from my right hand, but I kept it there until we leveled off a bit and she could relax some.

Then I took my valium. But I couldn't sleep, because no amount of valium was going to stop me from needing to check my cats' vitals throughout the flight. I would wake them, look at their eyes, force water down their throats for hydration, make sure they weren't looking anything more than a little doped-up, and pet them for a few minutes each.

And we made it. No sleep, one lousy meal, one scuffle between Avi and Rita, and a few Isabelle tantrums, but we made it.

Then those lovely folks at the Ministry of Absorption (do you see marching hammers?) took my picture for my Israeli ID card.

No warning. Thanks, folks. Welcome to Israel. I look like shit.

Welcome to Tel Aviv, Where the Men are HOT.

2008-04-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

So one of the things that I first noticed about Israel is that it is chock full of beautiful men. Aside from the unnaturally large percentage of men experiencing hair loss, there is a level of hotness here, a swagger, an attitude that Israeli men have that makes me insane. I'm giving myself whiplash looking at everyone. I have crushes on 3 different men right now, which surpasses the total number of men I had crushes on in 6 1/2 years in Charleston, South Carolina.

My Hebrew is still woefully bad, but I am working on it. And I begin Ulpan (language institute) in July. Then, I should at least be mildly conversant. For now, I find that most people speak English, at least enough to combine with ridiculous-looking charades to get my point across.

I know how to say a few important phrases: "I need a big latte", "I have three cats", How much does this cost?" and "Where are the bathrooms?". These few phrases can get me through the day. I have found that I can read Hebrew, but I don't necessarily know what the words mean. I try to read every sign I walk by and recognize as many words as I can.

There is this one thing that chaps my ass a little, though. People think it is 'cute' when I say something wrong in Hebrew. What I need is for them to correct me. The cute jeweler up the street corrected me, in a very kind way, when I incorrectly asked "what are you doing". I forgot the damn pronoun. Hebrew pronouns are the bane of my existence. They are freakishly multitudinous. It depends on whether it is the subject or the object. There are words for "for me, for you, for him" etc, instead of having a word "from" and then the pronoun. There is a pattern, and I understand it when someone explains it to me, but then I forget and say it wrong. I mostly practice my Hebrew by sending text messages to my friends that way. Keren, my best friend here, will correct me if I text or email something wrong, but everyone else lets it slide. Then they practice their English with me. It is a funny little game.

I have not yet gone out to experience Israeli night life, but I have only been here one week. There is plenty of time. I still have so much bureaucratic shit to do, that nightlife is the least of my concerns.

Tomorrow, I will go to get my permanent Israeli ID and find a rug for the living room floor. I will also go to a yoga class. I'll be sure to report back.

Deciding to Make Aliyah.

2008-04-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

The picture is of one of the reasons it was hard to leave. I miss Grae!

As soon as I decided that I wanted to make Aliyah (Jew returning to the homeland of Israel), I asked first if I could bring my cats, and then if there was a quarantine period. The answers were yes, and no. So I began the long process of agonizing paperwork that makes Aliyah possible.

Yes, Israel wants Jews to return to the homeland. But, since they offer certain benefits (health insurance, no import taxes for 3 years, and a small monthly stipend, they really make you prove that you are worthy. And Jewish.

Thankfully, I had joined, though seldom attended, a synagogue in Charleston, South Carolina, where I was living at the time. I contacted the Rabbi there, explaining that I planned to make Aliyah, and I needed a letter from him, stating that I am indeed Jewish, born to a Jewish mother, and was a member "in good standing" at the synagogue. I wondered to myself what it took to be a member in bad standing, since I went to services only once, and stopped because everyone was trying to set me up with a man in his 50's who had 2 daughters in college. And he was not attractive. And he was a convert. Converts know everything, because they HAVE to study to be Jewish. I was born to it, and dropped out of Hebrew school while still too young to have learned Hebrew (in retrospect, a stupid move on my part). I am nonetheless Jewish, because my Mom is. So it goes.

The Rabbi happily agreed to write the necessary letter. I then filled out an application that was about 15 pages long, and included an essay question on why I wanted to live in Israel. I emailed it all, along with my CV, a blood sample, and two strands of hair (slight exaggeration) to get "approval" to move to Israel.

Then I flew to Boston to visit my friend Melissa and go to the Aliyah Center there, to find out what else needed to be done, and to open a file there, without which I would receive none of the benefits (called an "absorption basket"). Melissa, thinking I was crazy for wanting to move to the Middle East, nonetheless went with me to my appointment with Tova, the Shaliach in Boston. We started my file and I felt like I was on my way.

I went up to Maine with Melissa. We both grew up there, though we didn't meet until our early 20s, when we worked in the same restaurant in South Portland, Maine.

While on that trip, I broke the news to my friends that I wanted to move to Israel. A few of them tried to talk me out of it. Melissa went so far as to try to fix me up with a man she works with who happens to have a Jewish last name, though he is not Jewish, since his mother is not.

When I told my friends at Masters Studios, where I took karate, kung fu, and tai chi, most of them were supportive, but there were a few "I'll believe it when I see it" people, who I wanted to drop-kick.

Before I decided where to move, though, I knew I had to make a trip to Israel to see what areas of the country felt best. I knew it was either Tel Aviv or nothing, since I require a secular city. I have never been religious, never kept kosher, and have 5 tattoos (strictly forbidden, according to Jewish law).

So I began planning my "pilot trip" to Tel Aviv...