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| Anticipating the wheat harvest. Or perhaps just thinking about the pizza we ordered for them. |
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Wedding
On Thursday night I went to a wedding of the son of old friends from my teenage years. The parents and I had loads of adventures together in England in the 1970s - early 80s, from camping in the Wye Valley to campaigning for the freedom of Jews in Soviet Russia. We moved to Israel around the same time. We spent Shabbatot (pl. of Shabbat) together, I celebrated with them the births and Bar/Bat Mitzvas of each of their four children, I worked with the wife for a few years in educational publishing where we wrote maths textbooks together, and they offered me their garden for a baby blessing party for DD.
More about weddings in Israel in another post, but suffice to say this one was lots of fun. Lots of old friends from those early years, lots of catching up and lots of great dancing to music from our era. Perhaps belting out the words to 'I Will Survive!' which aren't the most appropriate lyrics for a wedding, was a bit strange but we went with the flow.
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Sleepover
Going to a wedding requires extensive pre-planning on my part. I have to rush home from work, shower and change, if it's a day that DD has gymnastics - take DD to gymnastics, arrange for her to get from Gymnastics to my friend Sarit who graciously has her to stay for the night*, organize how DD will get from Sarit's to school in the morning**, find my way to the agreed meeting point to get a ride to the wedding, make sure my ride is also willing to bring me home again afterwards, and only then relax and enjoy.
*Think about it. If I get home some time after midnight, apart from the enormous cost of a babysitter, what would I then do with the babysitter? I wouldn't expect someone to walk home at that time of night and I don't have a car to take her, nor would I put a teenage girl in a taxi on her own at that time of night.
**On this occasion I let DD miss Stupid Friday at school - stupid because it finishes at 11.45 - and Sarit dropped her off here on her way out.
This is actually the second wedding I've been to in two weeks. It's wedding season. Sarit had DD both times so big big thank you. xxx
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63 Up
There was much talk about the long awaited 63 Up which was screened in the UK over three nights this week. Again, I want to write a whole post about it, but I found all the amazing episodes, even 63 Up, on You Tube and binge-watched the whole lot. Coupled with the wedding I went to, the program makes you assess your own life as well as watching the lives of the Up 'children'. The series is charming and alarming and I can see why the participants dread it coming around every seven years. Anyway, more about that in a different blog.
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Blogging Along
Last week I committed to blogging every day in June. I managed four days out of seven this week. This was largely due to binge-watching Up on Wednesday, work and the wedding on Thursday and a final push to finish report writing on Friday followed by conking out in the early evening. But hey, I'm fine with 4/7. It's better than 4/31 which is about what I managed last month - not even four I think. I'm still up for it and hope to do better from now on.
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Shavuot
Tonight and tomorrow is the festival of Shavuot (lit. Weeks). Traditionally we're celebrating the end of the seven-week grain harvest that started with the barley harvest on Pesach (Passover) and continued with the wheat harvest. Later they tagged celebrating the giving of the Torah on Mt Sinai, onto this harvest festival. Lots of eating, especially cheesecake. Again, more about this in its own blog post.
Have a good week y'all.
