Corona Changed Everything

I am no worrier. I've lived in Israel for a very long time. I have friends. I even have childhood friends who also moved here. I work, I bought an apartment, I did IVF and had a baby, I've been a single mother for almost 12 years. And all this in a language I'm not 100% comfortable with.

I hate the weather in the summer which is far too hot for me, and getting hotter apparently. I hate the national pass-time of hiking in the countryside because I can't see any countryside - only Mediterranean scrub. Otoh, I love it that we live 45 minutes from the Mediterranean. In theory. We're actually not beach lovers.

I love visiting the UK. I love the countryside, I love walking in the countryside. I love London, I love the humour, I love listening to the radio talk shows and understanding all of it. I love dealing with bureaucracy or commerce on the phone or by email because I have full command of the language and all its nuances.

I've always been torn between living here and living in the UK. The more years you expat yourself, the harder it is to go back. The more you have invested in your expat life and the less you have to go back to. However, no one expected covid-19 or that it would change everything. Not just highlighting what I already knew, but bringing up things that I also already knew but had buried deep.

We are far away from close family. It wasn't a problem when a short plane ride was available and traffic went both ways - they came to us and we went to them. But now what happens if I get sick? Who looks after DD? Would you take in a traumatised child who needs to be in quarantine for two weeks and could endanger your own family?

So I'm being over cautious about social distancing. DD came to me last night and said sadly, "Mummy everyone else is out having fun." In theory she's correct. In practice, we both know that we hate that sort of hiking or even picnicking in 34 degree heat sort of "fun". I don't even know what other kind of fun there is in this country in this sort of heat. In past years we went along with friends and endured the heat in order to enjoy the company.

I have a drivers' license but I don't drive here because I don't have a person to call if we break down, get stuck or have an accident. I mean, I have people to call in an emergency but once the emergency bit is over, I still have to deal with all the mechanical and insurance issues. This scares the hell out of me. So we don't have a car and as much as I say it's cheaper to take a taxi any time we want to go anywhere out of town (which it is - I've done the maths) we don't. Our lives are limited.

Our lives are limited, not only by lack of private transport. It's a language thing. I shy away from too much responsibility at work, at school (DD's and mine) and in the community. This is tragic for a natural joiner and organiser.

Finally, as we face DD going into Middle and High School, I feel I'm limiting her education. Her Hebrew has surpassed mine but due to our English lives at home, she doesn't have the language skills necessary to excel. And though I can help her with the material, by looking up the information in English, I can't help her with presenting what she knows. School is half about what you know and half about presenting what you know according to the teachers' requirements.

Maybe covid-19 has turned me into a worrier. Or maybe it has just made me face some difficult truths. Whichever, it has changed everything.

One Of Those Women?

A dress. It's not a photography blog, ok? 

Many years ago my flatmate and I decided to have a party in our apartment. We were living in the middle of a building with windows front and back. Left, right, up, and down were other apartments. They were mostly occupied by retired women - probably because it was a building of tiny apartments in an old neighbourhood. So being British and polite, we knocked on all the neighbouring doors to tell them in advance, apologise for the noise, and assure them that it would be over at midnight.

Back in our apartment, my flatmate said, "did you notice how every door was opened by a bra-less middle-aged woman?" We fell about laughing. We didn't get it. We didn't understand how not going out to work, not having a partner or flatmates, not having friends popping over without notice, can lead to a level of not bothering to get dressed heretofore unimagined.

I have DD of course but she's as laid back as I am. When we made the list of what clothes she needs for this summer it boiled down to 1 T-shirt, 1 pair of shorts, and 14 pairs of pyjamas. Even on a normal Shabbat (Saturday) we sometimes don't get dressed all day if we're not meeting up with friends. So I was halfway there before this isolation business. I blame a lot of it on the extreme heat in the summer but essentially, I had become one of those women.

My current neighbour, one of the first of us to go into quarantine after returning from the US in March, is also a single woman. However, she got up early every day, dressed as if she were going to work, and kept to some sort of routine. I want to be one of these women. I was not in quarantine at the time and we'd meet on our balconies - she in full make-up and executive blouse, me in my bathrobe.

The Fly Lady says the first thing you should do every morning is get up and dress till shoes. There is so much common sense in this. When your friend brings something round for you and asks if you can meet her at the corner as she's in a rush, you can just nip down to meet her. When someone says, "meet me in Roladin for coffee in 20 minutes," you can be there in 20 minutes because you don't have to also shower and dress in that time.

Yesterday I decided that with another five weeks of summer break still to go, I was not going to be one of "those" women anymore. So this morning I got up early, showered, and dressed till shoes (my Fitflops do double duty as shoes and slippers). And here I am. All dressed up and nowhere to go - because we're actually trying not to socialize atm.

So did it make any difference? Yes of course it did. Not sure yet. I'll give it a few more days and let you know.

Tomatoes But No Abundance - R2BC

A few weeks ago I cut up a tomato and planted it in soil.
Now I have three tomatoes growing. 

This week was productive. Who was it who said, "when you look back on days you were proud, they won't be days when you did nothing."? 

The Linky is with Becky on Lakes Single Mum and here are my Reasons 2B Cheerful this week. 

1
The End
I wrapped up three college courses and submitted the final grades to two of them. (The 3rd course has a retake exam at the end of August for those who need it (failed or absent).

2
Cleanliness is next to Godliness
Wrapping up those courses freed my mind to start cleaning my apartment which has been neglected for a few weeks. It feels good to restore some order and DD appreciates it too.

1
Abundance - Ha!
I walked away from Deepak Chopra's Abundance course. I still believe in the power of the mind but on the third session the task was to start your own course and invite your own friends to join it. In other words it was a scam to get more hits on DC's You Tube channel - where the sessions are located.

My friend who invited me was only doing it as part of her course. I thought she'd chosen me among her friends as a spiritually open person and I believed she had a calling to guide such a course among her friends. I'm cheerful because I had the sense to just walk away when my instincts told me to. It was abundance for Deepak Chopra that's who. My abundance will come and meanwhile, it freed up some much needed time in the mornings. Actually, I'm over-abunded with work atm.

4
Refund
I got a refund from DD's school in lieu of the class trips and other activities that didn't happen last semester. At least that.

5
Bureaucracy
Lots of bank and bureaucracy to deal with this week. Yes it's a hassle but I'll feel great when it's done.

6
Summer Course
My summer course starts in one week. I'm actually looking forward to setting it up on the website. It's something new this summer. I'm using more of the website's wigdets and gadgets for quizzes and forums, rather than just asking students to submit work.

7
Stairway to Heaven
The building committee in my block has sprung to life over the past couple of months. Suddenly things are getting fixed. This week our stairwell is being painted. I've set up a Paybox account to collect money from all the apartments. (Did I mention that I was coerced onto the building committee?). Let's see how much of a hassle this becomes. So far I'm only one who has paid up.

That's it for now. Have a good week.

Corona Car Rally - R2BC

A car in a mask.

My Reasons 2B Cheerful this week are about DD's graduation from primary school. In a normal year the 6th Grade go on a two day trip with a sleep over, they spend weeks rehearsing a full show, and there's a graduation ceremony. It's a big deal.

This year they were barely in school for any of their final semester and obviously there was no trip. The parents' committee came up with an alternative keeping to the corona restrictions and gave the 6th Grade a great sendoff.

We met at the school (HQ) at 16.15 with decorated cars. The first event was a car rally around Jerusalem. Each car had two pupils and two parents. We were given five clues to places we had to go to in the correct order, and at each station we had a task to complete and then send photographic evidence (still or video) back to HQ. It was cleverly organised so that everyone had different stations and tasks in different orders.

As the photos and videos came in they were forwarded to the class and parents' whatsapp groups so we could enjoy seeing everyone else's efforts as we completed our own tasks.

Our route went as follows:
1. Cinema City to the person who said, "Sometimes it's the smallest things that fill up your heart." We googled it. It was Winnie the Pooh. Unfortunately the Disney statues were closed off. I felt I should have got extra points for finding a Winnie the Pooh stuffed toy in a vending machine. But we didn't and other groups were told to just skip that bit.

2. Sing this song in the appropriate place. Our song was Under the Sea so we went to the aquarium. Our girls were too embarrassed to sing so I took over the performance - making up the words as I went along in Hebrew. Then they had a better understanding of what embarrassment is.

3. The clue was a sculpture at the Science Museum where we had to build the tallest tower we could build.

4. We had to go to the house of the school nurse, where she had laid on healthy fresh fruit for her visitors. (Other cars went to other staff members with similar related treats.)

5. This is where we cheated. Although I claim that we were in credit for finding the alternative Pooh. Our final task was to go to the Jerusalem Forest, a good hour's drive round trip, and write a message in sticks, stones, and cones. We found some local trees near the school and faked the forest.

Back at school a burger supper was served in four different classrooms. Then parents who'd been on the car rally went home and the second parents arrived because only one parent per child was allowed, to keep the numbers down. First time ever being a single parent has been an advantage.

Parents of one class went to watch a slide-show while parents of the other class watched the kids performing some skits, dances, music, etc... followed by the graduation ceremony. Then the parents swapped places and the whole thing was repeated. There was a lot of hanging around.

For me the highlight of the performances was a group of kids marching onto the stage, chanting, "and then we returned to school!" Halfway across the stage they turned and walked the other way, chanting, "and then we didn't return to school." This was repeated a few times: "Then we did return to school!" "Then we didn't return to school!" "Then we did return to school!" Etc...

OMG, this is exactly how it was. As a teacher myself I can tell you that at least twice a week we were waiting for someone's test results to see if the whole school would be closed, or if just one class would be in isolation (and all who taught in her), or what the new government regulations were regarding which classes go to school and which get remote lessons and on which days. Absolutely crazy.

We came home late, exhausted but happy. It was hard leaving the building because it would be the last time. It wasn't the building, obviously, it was the last time these particular parents would meet as a group. We were a good group. And it was a final letting go of DD's young childhood.

As always, the linky is with Becky on Lakes Single Mum.