Turkey Basters and Progeny

I cannot speak for other countries, but here in Israel, it has become much more common and acceptable for a woman to decide to go ahead and have a child alone. I do not want to exaggerate; we are not talking huge numbers. It is not as though every other woman who hits 38 and has not yet gotten married immediately runs out to buy donor sperm and a turkey baster. First, most of us continue to be optimistic for several years past our 38th birthday and second, there is no need to buy the turkey baster because while one will need to buy the sperm (confirmed with single motherhood guru Ellie), the actual process of creating a baby from such sperm is covered by the national health service.

You know, now that I think of it, this might explain why, despite the increase in single mothers, I am still having a hell of a time finding a new turkey baster to replace the old and decrepit one I have now. I mean, in theory you would think that there would be an increase in demand and a corresponding increase in supply but since the insemination process is covered, the increase in single mothers has no impact at all on the turkey baster market. Which, in turn raises an obvious question: Gila, since you are now officially several years past your 38h birthday AND since you are looking to buy a new turkey baster, does this mean that you are planning on having a child on your own?

Which brings me to the actual subject of this post: things that are, one day, going to make me go postal. Here is my list of such things.

• People asking me if I have ever tried (or even heard of) internet dating.
• People asking me if I am going to have a child on my own.

If you ever pick up a newspaper and see a screaming headline about an accountant who totally lost it and brained a co-worker with the office coffee machine, you will know immediately that it was me and that said co-worker started to tell me about his neighbor’s cousin’s friend’s daughter who either 1) met someone on the internet and got married or 2) had a child on her own or 3) some variation thereof, like, say, she met someone on the internet and borrowed his sperm and turkey baster to have a child on her own. Because now that internet dating is ubiquitous and single motherhood has become more mainstream, everyone and his grandmother is falling over themselves to introduce me to the concepts.

I tell you, it is just a matter of time before that coffee maker flies. And it will be a crying shame because we waited so long, YEARS, for a proper coffee maker. And if I destroy this one, there is no way that the CEO is going to approve a replacement. But then, I have a french press in my office, so I do not really care, do I? Be warned, dear co-workers, be warned!

Right, so I am not going to get into the internet dating issue because that is its own, little, shrieking post. Let’s stick with the babies, shall we? And so, the answer is no, I do not want to have a child on my own. And yes, I am aware that 1) my biological clock is ticking (because I am not an idiot) and 2) I am over 40 (ditto) and 3) the cop who gave your sister-in-law a speeding ticket has a friend who had children on her own and is blissfully happy. Yes! I know everything! And no, I have nothing against single motherhood! I am totally cool with the concept. For other people. The turkey baster is for chicken. Totally innocent.

Rant over….

Jerusalem Night Run

This week, Jerusalem hosted its first 10K Night Run. Ostensibly, the Night Run was supposed to get all of us runners pumped up and excited about the Jerusalem Marathon which is right around the corner. I think that this is nonsense. The Jerusalem Marathon is a full three months away. If you ask me, the real reason that Jerusalem decided to have a Night Run is because Jerusalem has a problem.

The problem is one of demographics. Young people, or at least young people with an interest in useful education and gainful employment, either do not come to Jerusalem at all or they come to study and then run away the moment they have their degree. And it is hard, HARD, to run a city when a staggering percentage of your citizenry does not work and does not pay taxes. So our fearless leaders are trying to address this. Apparently, they did some surveys and they came to the conclusion that the reason everyone keeps running away is not the lack of job opportunities and not the rock-hurling Haredim and not the ongoing war on women and not the rampant religious coercion and in short it is not that the city is well along its merry way to becoming a kosher version of Tehran or Kabul. No, the reason is image. Young people do not see Jerusalem as being cool. Jerusalem is not happening. So our leaders said to themselves—follow the logic here—if Tel Aviv had a Night Run and Tel Aviv is cool then if Jerusalem has a Night Run it will be cool too.

Genius, no?

Right, so our fearless leaders were possessed of a plan. All that was left was the minor issue of execution. Compare, if you will, the Night Run in Tel Aviv versus the Night Run in Jerusalem:

	Tel Aviv	Jerusalem
Scheduled in	October, when the Tel Aviv nights are still nice and warm, but no longer hot.	December, when the Jerusalem nights (and the days) are fucking freezing.
Sponsored by	Nike. The god of athletic wear.	Aminach. A mattress manufacturer. (WTF?)
Number of participants	About 15,000	About 1,000
Entertainment	Super-trendy world music stations all along the route	A couple college students with drums at Jaffa Gate.

The winner of the Jerusalem Night Run got a mattress. Runners-up got pillows. I do not know what Nike gave out in Tel Aviv, but somehow, I do not think their prize basket looked quite like ours.

God bless 'em, our fearless leaders. They try so hard.

Of course, I signed up. Because, hey, the Jerusalem Marathon (Half, for me) is right around the corner and I need to train. And I am a total sucker who is willing to pay NIS 90 to do a run I do every week anyway, for free. So I went, and I got my ugly-yet-very-functional running shirt and the route was super flat, for Jerusalem. But, sadly, a bit boring. And it was only sort of freezing. But I finished in what was, for me, very respectable time, 1:17. And then I went home and read articles about how women in Jerusalem are being forced to dress in religious garb if they want to visit the Clalit Health Plan main clinic, and how a Haredi rabbi justified segregation of women on the basis that “this is how it was done at Auschwitz”.

But yes, a Night Run is going to solve all of our problems.

Driving Directions

This past weekend, a Tel Avivit friend and I made plans for her to come to Jerusalem on Saturday. Our plan was to go to the Old City, where we were going to cover up our whorish slacks with wrap-around skirts (dug out of my summer clothes stash for the occasion) and hop over to the the Kotel for a good pray. Once that was done, we would lose the skirts and move on to one of the non-Jewish quarters for lunch at a non-Kosher restaurant. My friend was excited about this itinerary because while Tel Aviv boasts countless non-Kosher restaurants, many of which are far better than the ones in Jerusalem, the ability to juxtapose a meal at a one with a trip to the holiest site in Judaism—on Shabbat no less—is a uniquely “Yerushalmi” treat. Alas, on her way out of Tel Aviv there was an unfortunate encounter between the back of her car and a dumpster so she had to cancel. I would chalk this up to G-d preventing her from engaging in improper behavior on Shabbat, but, given that her Tel Aviv alternative probably did not end up including anything more devout or wholesome than what we had planned, that would have been be an exercise in futility. Which I am sure G-d realized, seeing how He is omniscient. And why on earth would He want to waste His time?

Anyway, before the dumpster incident, I had sent her directions so she would not get lost on her way here. She liked them a great deal and suggested I share them on my blog, so that our weekend plans would not go completely to waste. Accordingly, I am happy to present “How to Get from Tel Aviv to Gan Hapaamon, in Jerusalem. With Commentary”

1. Take the Ayalon Freeway to Route 1. Do not go into spaced-out-freeway mode until you are safely on Route 1, or you are liable to end up in the wrong lane and find yourself going somewhere else entirely. Which is not necessarily bad, but there are no holy sites there and even if there are, I have the holy wraparound skirts. And I am in Jerusalem.
2. Stay on Route 1 until you pass the Lod and (I think) Route 6 exits. The Route 6 exit may be after the exit I want you to take, so if you pass it, you may or may not have gone too far.
3. Get off at the next (?) exit--Ben Shemen (443) This way, you get to avoid any potentially rioting Haredim who have apparently been amusing themselves near the center of Jerusalem or at the entrance to Jerusalem or somewhere (details have been fuzzy) by lobbing rocks at cars. Of course, 443 could also at include rocks thrown by Palestinians, but I do not believe it has recently. And it is flat and less twisting.
4. Is it just me or do you also find it rather odd that when a Palestinian throws rocks, the police toss him in jail for terrorism but if a Jew throws rocks, the police do nothing? My thought—throw them all in jail (call them terrorists, fanatics, whatever you want) give them all piles of rocks and let them throw rocks at each other while the rest of us go on with our lives without having to factor in rock throwing into our driving directions. Voila! Happiness all around!
5. Anyway, so, now you are on 443. Stay there. I mean, yes, keep driving, but keep going straight. Eventually, you will go through a checkpoint. You are now really close to Jerusalem. It is also around this point that the road becomes Sderot Menachem Begin.
6. Before the road was Sderot Menachem Begin it was a few other things. This is common in nature. Like... before a butterfly is a butterfly it is a pupa and then a caterpillar and then a full grown Sderot Menachem Begin. Anyway, I am not quite sure what it was, though I am reasonably certain that (a) it was neither a butterfly nor a pupa and (b) Golda Meir is in there somewhere, even though that sounds a bit obscene. Whatever. Do you care? I can look it up if you do.
7. Keep going straight. Do not take any exits. G-d knows where you will end up and then your only option will be to call me up for help and I will have to give you directions. And I am a tad dyslexic in these things. Really, this will not end well.
8. The last exit is Golumb; you have no choice but to take it. Damn it. Okay, wait, let me look at the map....I’m turning the phone so I can figure out what direction….yes… turn left here. G-d bless you iphone. It is so much easier turning your around than, let's say, a map. Or my computer screen.
9. One of the first lights after you turn is Pat Junction. One the right side, on the near corner, there is an ugly parking lot and on the far corner there is a Delek gas station. Turn right here.
10. Immediately get into the left hand lane. Turn left at the first light
11. The name of the street you are on starts as Yehuda Hanassi and then changes 75 times over the next kilometer. It’s all good—this provides employment for countless city clerks. Just keep going straight. You will pass through one light (my neighborhood) and two traffic circles.
12. After traffic circle # 2, you will come to a light. Go straight. You are now on Emek Refaim, land of a thousand restaurants, all of which are closed for Shabbat.
13. Go (get this!) straight! Toward the end of Emek Refaim, you will need to veer to your right (kind of a modest forky thing) because the Derech Beit Lechem has bitch-slapped Emek Refaim and has taken over. The park and the parking is immediately after this, on your left.
14. Look! I’m here! With the skirts!

Angela

Angela Erickson Jandrew died a week ago, Saturday night. She was a friend of mine from high-school, one of a few I am in touch with today, some 23 years after graduation. “One of a few” both because of the impact of time and distance on relationships and because I never had that many high school friends to begin with. Back when my social and communication skills and ability to read social cues were seriously deficient as opposed to being slightly off; back when I was really and perhaps unpleasantly weird as opposed to a bit eccentric; back when my mantra was “you haven’t thrown a public temper tantrum since you were nine and that means you can progress” and back in the days before I could pass for normal, there existed a few people that liked me or were at least willing to tolerate my hanging around. Friends and non-actively-hostile acquaintances, I like to call them. Angela was one of the friends. She actually liked me. That was what I wrote her mother when I got the news of her passing. Thank you for raising such a person—that could look at someone who was unlikeable and somehow see a person to like. Because I do not know how I would have made it through high school without these people in my life. Those were truly dark days for me.

This is what I hate about myself. An amazingly good person has just died. She liked people. She was positive. She volunteered regularly and she kept it up for years as opposed to slacking off after a year or two. She went to church. She was inspired by her cancer to volunteer more and raise money for cancer research. In short, she was honest-to-goodness good. And instead of focusing on her life, I am turning her death into something all about me. Really, it disgusts me. This is especially true today, on Yom Kippur. And even more especially true when one considers that—at least of the date of this writing—I have been granted my second chance and Angela has not. It just is not right. I realize that this may not be the best time to say this, seeing how that this is the day when G-d is doing the accounting and is sealing my fate for the year and if I am not going to be in synagogue at the very least I should be trying to make nice, apologizing for my sins, thinking positive thoughts about Him, asking him for shit and so on, but really, sometimes you just have to ask “G-d, just what the FUCK are you THINKING?”

What can I say? My timing is bad. But you have to admit that the question applies.

Before anyone feels too bad for me, I should point out that it is not as though I have been a particularly close or a good friend. She has been ill for some time. Most of my “support” has been comprised of commenting on her Facebook statuses or ‘liking’ the more positive ones. I could have done more. I could have sent actual messages. I could have called. I could have sent her a care package from Israel to cheer her up. I did none of that. Now I cannot look at her Facebook page without wanting to cry, or actually crying. Because, you know, that is so helpful.

Anyway, the net result of all of this is that I have spent the last week in a state of emotional crisis with the overall theme being “maybe I made a mistake in leaving the States and maybe I should move back”. Because, if I were in the States, I could date non-Jews and then get married because Jewish guys clearly do not want me so I need to be somewhere with more of a mix so as to ensure success. Whereas if stay here I will stay alone for the rest of my life. Which means my life will have been wasted. My friends have been quick to point out the myriad holes in this theory: breathtakingly faulty logic, I love Israel, I have a good life here including good friends and a good job, my love life or lack of same is not the sole measurement of my success or lack of same, the US economy’s current place in the toilet, I am un-insurable in the States, relative vegetable quality, etc. At this point, I am coming around to their point of view. The vegetable argument is a strong one, as is the fact that seeing how I get horribly homesick for Israel if I am away for more than ten days actually moving to another country would probably be a spectacularly bad idea. So while I am still making vaguely threatening noises about moving to Los Angeles (do not ask me how that city got into my head—I have no clue) or AT LEAST Tel Aviv, I know that I am staying in Israel.

So now I am moving over to emotional crisis-stage two which is, if no less self-centered, at least a bit more conventional. What does death do, but to remind us of our mortality? I am 41 years old. What have I done so far? What could have I have done, had I focused and used my time wisely? What percentage of my life have I squandered? I dream of being a writing a book. I dream of writing many books. How many books could I have published so far had I been writing instead of mindlessly surfing the internet? Or writing instead of working 12 hour days? How many years have I promised myself to stop working crazy hours? I look at old pictures. I question previous decisions. I remind myself of every opportunity I have squandered, in every area of my life. If I had just stuck to that diet, I would be thin now. That nice guy in ulpan—if I had ignored the fact that he had a girlfriend in Hungary, maybe I would be married now. I promise myself that this will change. Everything will change. Maybe not this week, of course, this week being my week to be in a funk. But next week, for sure. I remind myself just how long it has been since I threw a public temper tantrum. How long it has been since I quit smoking. How long it has been that I have friends. How long it has been that I am seen as normal. You see, Gila, you can change.

The worst part? This will pass. As much as I am panicked now—ohmyGodlifeisshortandIhavenotdonewhatIwanttodosoImuststarttoday—the panic will pass. I will go back to my regularly scheduled procrastination. I will go back to my weekly passes over my 10 year plan, in which I journal my progress, noting little to no progress but somehow always justifying it. I will go back to my excuses. I will still tear up if I look at Angela’s Facebook page, but the urgency will have faded to a ghost. That scares me more than anything. Yes, you can change, but only if you do so in time. Eventually, you run out of time and you run out of chances. If I do not have the feeling of urgency to drive me, what will?

But before it passes, and while I still feel it, Angela, thank you for being a friend. I will miss you. The world is a better place for your having been here and a poorer place in your absence.

So, my weekly blog post is now overdue and the problem is that I do not have a lot to write about. I am sitting here at Aroma with a journalist friend and just now we were discussing the matter. Of course, being a professional journalist, she has suggested any number of sensible, thoughtful, mature topics to write about while I came up with a fab idea which was none of the above. I would elaborate on my idea but the problem is that I have embarked on a mission to go on one blind date a week until such fine day when I meet that Special Someone with whom I go on two or three dates or even MORE dates with, in which case I shall be able to replace said number of weeks of blind dates with non-blind dates and wouldn’t that be nice? But anyway, on these blind dates I sometimes mention that I am the proud owner of a neglected blog and, inevitably, the blind date wants to know the name of the blog and sometimes he even reads it. In which case it would be an extraordinarily bad idea to write about what I was thinking about writing about because it would make a bad impression and then he will definitely not call me again and I am hardly going to get up to Date Two that way, am I? So, if you are my most recent blind date or an upcoming blind date and you are reading this and you want to know what my topic was, please note that:

1. This is simply not the type of matter I would ever even remotely consider discussing with a stranger on our first or second date (although it is, apparently, the type of matter I would seriously consider putting on my blog for everyone and his grandmother to see, assuming that his grandmother reads blogs)
   
2. Once we have gone out for at least 20 years, I can share this information with you. Said deadline is as per consultation with my friend, the professional journalist.
3. By said time, I will have no recollection of either the conversation or the blog post. If you are lucky, however, maybe the professional journalist will have taken notes. (Doubtful—she really disliked my idea—but you know, those journalist instincts are said to be powerful).

As a result of the above, I am left with nothing to write about apart from my “one-blind-date-a-week-mission”. The reason for the blind dates is so that I can meet Mr. Special Someone. The reason for having one blind date per week is so I can 1) keep up the momentum and 2) any more than one will render me insane. Which is also not likely to lead to Date Two.

Sweet Returns and Violent Ceramic Cows

“Think of it as an investment”.

That is my response when people ask why I would throw a book swap to raise money for Alyn or a clothing swap to raise money for Alyn or do something else to raise money for Alyn. (Why Alyn? See here). Why do I not just take the money I would spend on supplies or cookie production raw materials or decorations or whatever, give that to Alyn, and call it a day? But if I do that, my contribution is limited to what I have available. If I invest wisely, my contribution can grow. My contribution can be equal to all of my contribution dollars, plus a bunch of yours. And you walk away with some books or cookies. Or both! Win win!

As a "what would ideally be a brief but will instead be a long-winded" digression, Israelis frequently ask that question and Anglos never do. This is not necessarily a point in favor of the one and against the other. Perhaps Anglos give more to charity than Israelis and have found creative ways to get people to give even more. Or perhaps Israelis are equally charitable, they just do not require incentives in order to give. Now, of course, as an Anglo, I secretly lean towards the former while giving public lip service to the latter. The lip service is necessary so that I do not come across as one of those horrid, judgmental Anglos who loves Israel but hates Israelis. (Did I not sound admirably reasonable and fair in the first section of this paragraph?) In general, one does not want to come across as judgmental because, unless one is judging: the Right, the Left, the Hilonim (seculars), the Haredim, Tel Avivim, Settlers, the people in favor of the demonstrations or the people against the demonstrations, judging is simply not okay. And it is particularly not okay on Tisha B’Av, and especially when it is Tisha B’Av and one is not fasting and/or doing anything else in honor of the day and so, in other words, one is at a point where topping it off with some bad-mouthing of my fellow Jews could well be the thing that just pushes G-d off that proverbial edge, so far as my fate is concerned. Which would be bad. In particular when I am trying to get back into the dating thing and thereby providing G-d with any number of excellent and entertaining opportunities to smite me with, I don’t know, another aging Sonny Bono gone to seed look-alike, like He did last year.

And now we are done digressing….

Anyway, one learns over time what works; which investments are profitable. Book swaps, for instance, if scheduled well, can do very well. The trick is to not go overboard on the refreshments and while you need to have a good supply of trading books, by no means should you allow your guests to go overboard on the book dumping. (Last year I was left with about six sacks and cases of old books to dispose of post-swap. This year, I am imposing a book cap). Clothing swaps on the other hand are nice on paper—everyone says “oh that sounds like fun” but in the end very few people show and it is not profitable.

And then there is the at-work cookie sale.

That goes well if you have a Yanay. Yanay is my co-worker. When I told him that my intent was to put out the cookies in the kitchen together with a piggy bank in the shape of a parti-colored cow and a note (Five NIS for Two Cookies! All Proceeds Go To Alyn!) he told me I was dead wrong, a horrible salesperson, and that was not the way to sell cookies. Instead, he grabbed the cow, had me fill some plates up with cookies and he proceeded to march from office to office with me in tow. I would start off with this wimpy spiel about how Alyn is a great cause (it is) and the cookies are really good (and they are; I do make some fine cookies) and please support this cause and blah blah blah and then Yanay would jump in and tell the person that no discussion was necessary, it's for charity, cough up the cash, he or she was going to buy cookies. Or else Yanay would brain them with the cow. Now, the cow would have only survived one braining (it only cost 25 sheks and I suspect that the ceramics may not be of the highest quality), so if Yanay had to make good on his threat, say, early on, when we were in R&D, we would have had nothing with which to intimidate QA, HR and the other departments. Fortunately, the fear factor was enough. In fact, we managed to achieve nearly 100% participation, including from those who 1) do not eat cookies and 2) are Haredi so they do not eat my cookies. In the end, I tripled my charity investment. Suffice it to say that I am way impressed with Yanay’s sale skills and am totally going to consult with him in respect to clothing swaps….

Here is Yanay, with his weapon of choice. I can safely say that, at least for today, Yanay is my absolute favorite Israeli in the whole, wide world.


(And a thanks to my office mates who bought nearly all the cookies! NIS 170 is now safely ensconced in Alyn’s coffers!)

Feeling jealous? You two would like to buy some virtual cookies? Sponsor me here!

Why I Should Probably Stop Watching CSI

Some people should not date. Some people have brains which are so convoluted that they should just be consigned to a lifetime of solitary living with a passel of cats or, at the most, matched up with someone at random and told “Voila! You are married”. They and their brains not have to undergo the agony which is dating. More importantly others should not have to undergo the agony that is dating them.

Some people would be me. And if it weren’t for the fact that 1) I have a severe allergy to cats 2) calf-length skirts and those high-collared shirts look really horrible on me and 3) Shabbat observance would mean I would NEVER get my sewing class homework done, I would totally go the cat or Haredi route.

(You know, now that I think about it, I am kind of wondering if “some people” could be expanded to “accountants and others of a suspicious nature”. I mean, I have never done a survey. Maybe I should! And then I can publish it and make lots of passive income! I am thinking about passive income because I am taking a personal finance course and the instructor told us that we should focus on passive income as a way of increasing our total income. Except—and I could be wrong on this point—I strongly suspect that there is not a particularly large market for surveys dealing with the mating habits of accountants and others of a suspicious nature. Never mind then. Back to the post.)

Right, so here is the problem. I mean, the first date, I am fine. I mean, I do not know the guy and the date will probably suck and we will probably despise each other and then (please G-d) never see each other again so what is there to worry about? And normally the first date meets or even exceeds all expectations so there is no second date so that is fine as well. But sometimes, on rare occasions, I have a second date. And my poor, demented little brain goes bonkers. It spends virtually every second between date one and date two frantically careening between extremes. One moment it is planning the wedding and the next it is imagining a scene out of CSI (which, incidentally, I watch far too much of) in which a bunch of crime lab specialists crack jokes over my battered corpse which has been abandoned in the woods. And then we are cooing over our first child! And then WHAM smack over to the other side of the brain in which he turns out to be a pathological liar! Or abusive! Or unfaithful! Or a cad! Or a con man who is going to abscond with all of my savings! Granted, seeing how no one wants my survey the sums will be paltry, but still.

Exhausting does not begin to describe it. If he is someone in my circle (read “an Anglo” because if you are Anglo and you are in Israel, my friends and I can find someone who knows you) the situation is not so bad. Make a few phone calls and it is easy to confirm that the suitor is who is says he is, has the job he says he has and is not possessed of criminal tendencies. But without that—utter mental exhaustion.

Last week, for instance, I went on a first date on a Sunday. We decided to go on a second date. That was scheduled for Friday night. That means I had five whole days for my brain to completely go to town. By Friday I had managed to freak myself out to the point that I deposited a piece of paper with my date’s name and phone numbers with my friend Galia. If I turn up in a ditch somewhere, I told her, this is where to send the police. Her response was along the lines of “no problem, but if you manage to get yourself killed on Shabbat, be aware that I am not going to do anything until Motzei Shabbat”. Hey, that is cool. Motzei Shabbat is soon enough. I mean, the system worked out fine with the bombing—no reason to assume that it would not be sufficient here. And, hey, I would be dead, so what would be the rush?

I know, I know. Deranged. Sigh….. Hmmmm....maybe this is why I am not married?