Hi all!
It's 22:37 here on a quiet Saturday night. It's quiet 'cause me & Scabbers (the hamster) are the only ones awake in the flat.
We had a nice, relaxful Shabbat (i.e. the Sabbath, which began yesterday at sundown & ended today at nightfall;
http://www.jewfaq.org/shabbat.htm), which was good because yesterday was ultra-depressing. I referred to that bus that got blown up Thursday morning in my previous-plus-one post? Well, it turns out that one of DW's cousin's sister-in-law was one of the 11 people who were murdered. So, we had to go to the funeral yesterday morning. (The Jewish custom is to bury people ASAP, even the same day if it can be done, but never on the Sabbath or a major holyday; see
http://www.jewfaq.org/death.htm). The (divorced) woman left behind two teen-aged children. The son eulogized his mother; it was heart-rending. In the little hall, where this took place, Ecclesiastes 12:7 ("And the dust returneth to the earth as it was, and the spirit returneth unto God who gave it.") was inscribed on the wall. Then we all followed the body (wrapped in a plain white shroud inside an opaque cloth, carried on a special stretcher) to the gravesite. I find funerals very, very humbling. We think that we're such hot stuff & that we are our problems are so important and then you realize that one day, all the people will be following us to our graves.
As we were cleaning & cooking before we left for the funeral, I put on the TV to catch the latest sports news & as I was surfing to the sports channel, I passed MTV & stopped. It was playing "Life for Rent" by Dido (she has
such a beautiful voice!) & I kept thinking about the line from the song's chorus ("Nothing I have is truly mine") in terms of getting ready to go to a funeral.
What snapped me out of my depression was getting a big, slurpy kiss from Naor (all 3-years-old of him) when we got back home (we had arranged for friends to mind Da Boyz after pre-nursery school & first grade, respectively).
So Shabbat was good. After (short) evening prayers last night, we came home to a dinner of soup (mulligatawny), salads, stuffed peppers & wholewheat carob cake (all homemade!) for dessert. This morning, it was off to (long) morning prayers & then home for the customary big lunch. We had guests from the neighborhood (he is of Yemenite extraction & she is originally from England; a real ingathering of the exiles!). Lunch was soup and salads (same as last night), veal & (brown) rice and more cake. This afternoon was (short) afternoon prayers, the playground & then (short) evening prayers.
Hi christschick!
mle, those are great photos!
Be well!
ssv
