Inside Joke

Abba: Maayan, they're saying on the news that some Grad missles hit Beer Sheva about an hour ago!

Maayan: Yeah, I know. I was walking to a friend when they hit.

Abba: Did you see it?

Maayan: No, but I heard them.

Abba: Was it close?

Maayan: No. Somewhere in the neighborhood.

Abba: In the neighborhood? That isn't very smart.

Maayan: What?

Abba: You know, somebody could get hurt.

Maayan: Oh yeah, I know. They should shoot them at open places where it's safe.

Abba: I'm going to make a compaint.

Maayan: Good idea.

Abba: Well, are you okay?

Maayan: I was shook up a bit at first, but I'm okay now.

Abba: You know, it's all for the best.

Maayan: Thank God.

Changing of the Guard

Last week my battalion, the 670th Artillery Bat. took a refresher course. They had first aid lessons and ammunition updates, and we got to practice loading, aiming and firing on squeaky clean simulators designed to replicate our ancient M-109 self propelled howitzers.

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I don't know what it is, but something was missing. Was it being covered with dust, the blast of gunpowder when the ol' girl fires, the smell of men that haven't bathed for a week or the taste of the Turkish coffee we make when we think the CO isn't looking? (But he really knows, 'cause he always just happens to show up when it's ready.)
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Soldiers have stories they can't tell. There are things about being in the army that you can't explain. You can't understand if you weren't there.




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Israeli soldiers have this tough macho image, but it's not true. Lior (on the right) came out of the closet recently. I don't usually use the G-word to describe people because I believe a person's preference is a personal matter, but Lior final admitted what I've suspected for some time. He's a Geek.

The crazy thing is that Lior snagged a wife most men can only dream about. A couple of weeks ago he brought her to a brother soldier's wedding and she stole the show. She gave the Vulcan salute and said, "Live long and prosper." How many female Trekys live on planet Earth? (It blew me away; after she did that I hardly noticed the bride.)

Tzachi (on the left) lives in an institution for the criminally insane in Tel Aviv called Florentine. The rational behind releasing him for reserve duty (and letting him bear arms) is that when he's in the army he's off the streets. I know exactly how long he's been in the 670th - he arrived to do his first tour of duty as a reservist at an outpost I commanded on the Syrian border two weeks before my youngest Odelia was born.


I'm something of a dinosaur in uniform. Nir, my crew commander was on vacation in Holland, so Ori took his place. Ori hadn't been born yet when I joined the army.

(And the cute blond is younger than my daughter. She also out ranks me. Note the officer bars.)

Serving in the Israeli Army has been a significant part of my life - it is one of the reasons I came here. I don't know how much time I have left before my soldiering days will be over. Sooner or later my body will betray me, or they will just kick me out.

There's never been much ceremony at the changing of the guard in the 670th. The guys I knew when I joined got tired and then you didn't see them anymore, and new faces took their place. One day I will be gone, and then I will be just another one of the stories the guys tell to pass the time.

Inside Joke

Maayan: Hi Imma.
Yael: What's up?
Maayan: Okay.
Yael: And what about him?
Maayan: Oh, he's so nice. I was having a bad day and he took me down to the Dead Sea and made a fire. He brought some food and a guitar and we had a picnic and sang some songs. It was very romantic and I felt
better after that.
Yael: Oh, I see. Poor guy.
Maayan: What?
Yael: I mean, he's finished, right?
Maayan: Imma!!!!
Yael: Never mind….

Yael: So when will you break it to him.
Maayan: After Shabbat.

OMS

A lesson in giving your kids more credit for common sense:

A pagan lives on my moshav. Nira moved here about 12 years ago. She's a real live, honest to goodness, sun worshiping pagan. I picked up on her religious persuasion immediately. My neighbors were incredulous. Here in the cradle of the world's three monotheistic religions, the very idea of worshiping the sun is absurd.

But I was worried. Nira was very active with the school and the preschoolers. She organized a winter's solstice for my then 4 year old Netanel's preschool Hanukkah party. The other parents thought it was quaint, or eccentric, but harmless. I almost fainted.

I am very open minded about these things. Over the years I have explained to my kids that there are things we believe, and things that Nira believes, and the difference is that the things that we believe are true. But I was never really sure if I was getting through.

Until tonight.

Observant Jews traditionally write the Aramaic or Hebrew initials for "Lord Willing" at the top of every thing they write on. (I don't. What do you do if you want to toss the paper later on?)

So tonight Netanel and I were sitting outside and he comes up with this one:

"I wonder what Nira writes at the top of her pages. 'SW'?

At first I didn't know where he was going with this.

"What?"

"You know, like how we write 'LW' for 'Lord Willing', does she write 'SW' for 'Sun Willing'?"

"I don't know. I never realy thought about it." Sometimes I'm amazed at the way his mind works.

"And lets say she backslides and goes secular. Does she go around saying the sun doesn't exist?"

"I guess so."

"So then how does she explain that big light in the sky?"

I'd never really given it much thought, but what happens if a pagan goes atheist? Good question.

Now I'm not sure if I worried too much about Nira, or if making sure my kids know a pagan when they see one paid off.

But I have another question. Now days they have all these initials on Messenger, like 'LOL' and 'TMI', and that 'OMG' is swearing. (sorry)

So what does a pagan write; 'OMS'?

A Big Fat Jewish Wedding

Before Yael and I got married, her brother Yehudah asked me to come with him on an errand. It seemed innocent enough and I agreed. He drove me out into the marshes in Haifa's harbor district where poisoned streams of industrial waste flowed in canals by factories and the electrical power plant. The perfect place to dump a body.

He started talking about Yael, and told me what a stand up girl she was, and that he would hate for her to get hurt. Coming from a hairy, muscled Mediterranean guy like Yehudah, the message was clear.

Obviously, I did the right thing without further persuasion. I discovered later that while Yehudah is a little wild, he's not violent and the ride in the marshes was a practical joke.

Yael's family is a big one. When they are together there's noise and confusion and lots of good Indian food (Her parents came to Israel from Bombay). And do the math. Yael is one of six brothers and sisters which all have at least three kids each and if you take in account cousins and nieces and nephews, that adds up to a lot of weddings and brises and Bar Mitzvahs.

Yael and I saw "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", a comedy about a girl of Greek-American extraction that falls in love with a regular WASP kind of guy. The story hinges on the contrast between her colorful and spicy family and the groom to be that is as bland as "toast" according to the girl's mother. All through the movie Yael and I laughed and our eyes would meet; the movie was about us!

Weddings Greek, Jewish, Israeli, or Indian – they are all variations of the same genre of loud and crowded chaos.

And to be honest, I am toast. I like quiet, I like tranquil, I like boring. I hate big, fat Jewish weddings. Once I told my brother Barry about an up coming (Yael) family event. I was all pushed out of shape because they were putting a lot of pressure on me to go.

Barry was taken aback by my stick in the mud attitude.
"You're lucky enough to have people who go out of their way to invite you to share their celebration, to spend time with you - and you're angry about it?!!"
As usual, Barry has a point. Yael's family pays me the highest compliment; they want me to be part of their family. And I'm not in the mood to party with them.

Being toast is chutzpah.

There's this parable about how God is like this guy throwing a big, fat Jewish wedding. He sends out invitations, but everyone in town are toast. They have better things to do, they're busy, they have excuses. They blow the guy off.

The guy doesn't cancel the wedding. He invites the poor and the beggars, and they all have a great wedding. It turns out that this guy is a pretty serious dude, kinda like the goon Yehudah pretended to be. He punishes all the people that didn't bother to come to his wedding.

The moral of the story is that God pays us the greatest of compliments. He offers to let us be part of His family, and if the invitation is the greatest of favors, then blowing it off is the greatest of insults.

What I'm wondering is this. What about toast? What about a guy like me that doesn't like big, fat Jewish weddings, but shows up anyway? What about someone that goes to the wedding, but can't wait for it to be over already?

What does God do about toast?

Being a Boot

When my children were young, I tried to create a shell of love and safety around them, because they were fragile. I wanted to protect them. That was my job.

They grew and developed in the shell I built around them, but one by one the time came when they out grew the shell and started to peck their way out. They had to do that.
That was their job.

Everyone knows that if you prevent a chick from hatching out, you end up killing the chick. And you can't help them crack the shell either. If you do it before it's time, the chick is exposed to the world outside before it's ready and dies. They say that you shouldn't even help the chick when it's time. The very process of hatching is important to the chick.

Some parents make the mistake of trying to keep their kids in a shell to long and smother them. Others think that being a chicken is so great that they crack the shell before its time. But the most common mistake we parents make is when our chicks are breaking out. We try to help them and forget that cracking the shell is an experience that is painful, but very important. Out of the best of intentions, we rob them of one of the most valuable experiences in life.

I recall a story; I think it was about Byron, my sister-in-law's dad and my mentor that taught me everthing I've ever learned worth remembering about being a farmer. I think it was Byron, but I can't swear to it. The farmer shucked his boots by the door every day when the day was done. His kids found an egg that was about to hatch and put it by their dad's boots. When it hatched, it was a duck.

Apparently ducks think that the first thing they see when they bust out of their egg is their mother, and so this duck using duck logic decided that the farmers boots were his mother (mothers?). For the longest time, whenever the farmer put on his boots and crossed the yard or went to work, the duck would run after him. Every duck knows that well behaved ducks follow their mother.

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."Mama?"

When our kids are hatching out, they are looking around them and will end up following what ever they see; what they see first, what they see the most. I don't think our kids need us to help them hatch out. That's something natural and even if painful, it's good for them. Perhaps the best thing to do is just to be there for them, and to be the kind of people that we want them to be and to hope they will follow.

When our kids are hatching out, maybe it's our job to just be a good boot.

I'm a Chameleon

There was a girl that rode the bus my brother Barry and I took home from high school. She was a mother hen that ruled her flock of rowdy roosters like a tyrant until we got off at the bus stop where we transferred to northeast Portland. She was argumentative, contrary and critical; so naturally I was attracted to her.

All in all, I was a pretty good kid, a square, but she treated me like a drug dealing pervert; she knew how to make me feel good about myself. She had this thing about "character". Character, by her definition, is what we were and what she had. Of course I gave her a hard time all the way home and she scolded me, but deep in my heart I was eating it up. I can only recall one thing she ever said that got under my skin. She called me a chameleon.

I didn't know much about chameleons because there aren't very many in Oregon. I knew that they are ugly and bug eyed, but she was referring to their ability to change color to match their environment. She was saying that I was a fake, a phony that changed my appearance and behavior according to the people around me. I think the reason that chameleon label stung while otherwise I enjoyed her abuse, was that it was true. I would be the bad boy to impress her and be the good boy when it suited me, but she saw through me and knew that none of these were my true colors.

Barry was here in Israel for Hanukkah with his daughter Brianna. He tagged along with me and remarked that everywhere we went, people liked me. I don't know why he thinks that's so remarkable, but maybe it's because I mix with a lot of different kinds of people. Right-wing settlers and Arabs, the ladies of the English staff and the rough crowd in the teachers' smoking room, native born Israelis and Russian immigrants, you name it. I'm not like all of the people I hang with, but I like them all and they like me. It's true; no matter where I go or who I am with, I fit in. I'm a chameleon.

We have chameleons here. A chameleon can be as yellow as straw or as brown as turned over earth, but most of the time they are green and live in trees and bushes. They climb the branches slowly and when the wind blows the leaves they sway along. They are barely visible to the untrained eye, protected from predators and invisible to the bugs they prey on. They look like just another leaf. Chameleons are very observant. They have bug eyes that swivel around independently of each other like security cameras detecting threats.
I think that if you were to ask the leaves, they would tell you that they like chameleons. In fact, they would be very surprised to find out that chameleons are reptiles. The leaves think that the chameleon is just another leaf. In a way, it's good that chameleons don't try to really be a leaf. Leaves don't see the bugs and certainly can't gobble them up. It's okay to be a chameleon.

I think the reason people like me is that when they look at me, they see one of themselves, the way leaves look at a chameleon and see a leaf. I sway in the wind with them, but because I'm not really a leaf, I'm me, I can see them. Even though I can mix in with the people around me, I'm an outsider and can observe. I don't have bug eyes, but I can see their bugs even if they can't see them for themselves. I'm a chameleon; that's what I do.

I didn't stay in touch with very many of my high school friends, not even that self righteous little goodie two shoes that ruled the bus home from school. I would like to tell her that she was right, but that she was wrong about me. Just because someone is a chameleon doesn't mean that he doesn't have character. Chameleons aren't phonies; they are chameleons. It's their job to mix in and observe. They don't harm the leaves and those around them. In fact, it's good to have someone in the tree that can see the bugs and catch them with their lightning quick tongue.

It isn't so bad being a chameleon. I guess I can live with that, bug eyes and all.

The cussing Catholic

Stephanie is my old girlfriend from high school – obviously she's old if she's my age and she doesn't deny having been my girlfriend. Sorry to disappoint you, dear readers, but there's no spicy story here. Gentlemen never kiss and tell, and I'm no gentleman; so if I'm not telling, then you can trust me that Stephanie has nothing to be ashamed of.

My brother Barry calls her a "cussing Catholic", probably because she's taken to using four letter words lately. The one she uses on me is "INFP". Back when Stephanie and I were both Evangelical Christians it was common practice to sign our letters with "ILYWTLOTL", which stands for "I love you with the love of the Lord". Heaven forbid that we would use just "love"; love sounds like dove, which starts with "d" and that sounds like "b" and that stands for beer.

Now she calls me an "INFP", which is probably the initials some really juicy Latin swearwords – God forbid she just call me a smartass.

Stephanie is the reason I started blogging. About a month ago I discovered her blog and of course I'm not one to be outdone by a cussing Catholic. In spite of myself, I have to admit that she writes some pretty good stuff. I read one of her stories that I really liked about how she was inspired while washing the dishes. I made the mistake of telling the librarians at school about my friend that found the holiday spirit in the soap bubbles in her kitchen sink.



They rolled their eyes.
"She found the holiday spirit in soap bubbles", they repeated me dryly. They looked at each other sagely. It must be some American thing.

Well, I'm not a cussing Catholic, but I'm sticking to my guns. I like Stephanie's story. Click on the link below and judge for yourself.

http://recollectedlife.blogspot.com/2007/12/i-found-it.html

Ami's Profishuncy Test For Teachers of the English Langwitch

Except for one native born Israeli of Moroccan ancestry and a French lady, English speaking countries from all over the globe have representatives at the English staff's table in the teacher's room of our local high school. While we maintain the pretense of solidarity among ourselves when in the presence of our students, we often carry on fierce debates over the rules of grammar and the proper definition of certain words and expressions. The following proficiency test is a product of some lively discussions at our table.


1. English is not spoken properly as the mother tongue:
a. west of the Atlantic Ocean.
b. west of the Mississippi River.
c. west of 24th Street, Portland, Oregon.

2. The expression "your ass is mine" means:
a. Your ass belongs to me.
b. Your ass and my ass are one and the same thing.
c. You are in a lot of trouble.

3. The expression "my ass is yours" means:
a. My ass belongs to you.
b. My ass and your ass are one and the same thing.
c. I am at your service.

4. When in doubt about the proper spelling, pronunciation or meaning of a word it is best to:
a. ask Sharon because she's from England where "real" English is spoken.
b. ask Martine because she's from South Africa and when she says "here" it sounds like "hee-yah".
c. ask the principal because even though he doesn't know a lot about English, it's always a good idea to suck up to the boss.

5. In which of the following words can you hear the "invisible R"?
a. Wa(r)shington
b. idea(r)
c. hee-yah(r)
d. All of the above.

6. When the ladies of the English staff say that they're "hot", this means that:
a. They think that they are irresistible to all members of the opposite sex.
b. They are experiencing the effects of hormonal changes that are normal in the female life cycle.
c. Maintenance needs to fix the air conditioning.
d. The male members of the staff should think of something urgent that needs to be attended to in the library.

7. When the ladies of the English staff get cranky this means that:
a. They have finally realized that they are no longer irresistible to all members of the opposite sex.
b. They are experiencing the effects of hormonal changes that are normal in the female life cycle.
c. Maintenance still hasn't fixed the air conditioning.
d. The male members of the staff should immediately attend to something urgent in the library.