My favourite children on earth

I love seeing them grow. These are the most amazing kids in the world. And I'm not saying this because I'm related to them, but because apparently everyone else thinks this, too.

The two eldest graduated this year with exceptional honors at the top of their class. The eldest is also the most popular in the entire school and is the center of attention everywhere he goes. The youngest is rapidly becoming the social butterfly that attracts girlfriends left and right.

Every time I get their photos, like these, I just want to hop on a plane and go back home to hug them and never leave again! I just love them to pieces. But what really kills me inside is knowing that next year, the eldest one, my favourite kid in the entire world - is joining the army. I just can't believe it. Nor can I let him go. He's just a kid. No one can deny it when looking at his photo. This kid is turning 18 in two months! Why do they grow so fast? Why?

Like a boomerang

My plan to surprise my husband for his birthday shot back like a boomerang!

I completely ignored his birthday from the morning till after the contractor left our house from installing a cabinet. Then I went over to the room where he was playing his video game.

Mybrid: "So...did you find your birthday present yet?"

Ybrid: "Yeah, a week and a half ago."

Mybrid: "Funny, but it only arrived a week ago!"

Ybrid: "Oh. I guess it was a week ago then."

Mybrid: "So why didn't you TELL ME you saw it?!!!"

Ybrid: "I figured you had a plan."

Yeah, the plan was to hang you, you moron.

An inspiration

Inspired by the Embiggen post:

Photo taken at Tefen Industrial Park, Israel. Same place as the ones below:

Happy 43rd!

Tomorrow is my husband's birthday. He doesn't know I've been thinking about it for over a month. I've been intentionally making all kinds of plans for this week including a contractor coming to install a cabinet tomorrow in my bathroom.




Typically I have to think very hard what to get him because it's not easy to get something for someone who buys everything he wants himself. But this year I actually had three different options. The race was between a TempurFlow mattress, XBOX 360 Elite and the winning candidate: An inversion table!








I had consulted our chiropractor for advice on how to purchase one and eventually went for the one that's easily stored in a closet (since we live in a house without a basement for something like this). I ordered it on Amazon and figured delivery may take a while. Turns out, I was wrong. It was at the front door the following day! But here I am standing at the front door, with this huge package weighing over 70lb and no way to hide this in our house.





So I pondered this for a while and came with the brilliant idea of hiding it in plain sight! With the help of some towels I dragged the box on top of them through the front door and then "rolled" it until I could let it rest against the wall. Then I used the towel to cover the writing on it so it doesn't catch my husband's eye. Mind you, I do need to explain that we're still in the process of furnishing our house and figuring everything out, so obviously all the boxes you see in the photo have been there for several weeks now.

This large box has been sitting there for a week now. I've been taking a photo of it every morning. Just for the fun of it. And yup, he hasn't noticed it yet. It's right there in front of his eyes when he walks in the front door every single day. It's right there in front of his eyes when he listens to the messages on the phone, it's right there when he picks up his keys to the car.




I'm thinking about getting up tomorrow morning and not saying a word about his birthday. Then when I get home I'll oversee the contractors installing the cabinet and when they leave I'll sit down and ask him, "SO....did you find your birthday present yet? Because it's been in the house for a week now. Staring at you every morning and afternoon."

EDIT: Woke up this morning, took a shower, got out of the shower and first words to my husband this morning were....."You need to take down the toilet paper holder here before the cabinet is installed." Yeah, this is the first birthday in 14 years that I have not acknowledged early morning. And I'm willing to bet he didn't even notice THAT.

What a nightmare

A couple of weeks ago I went to a local family doctor with the goal of setting up a file with him in case I ever need something from a local doctor and can't drive all the way to Maryland for it. An hour and a half of a visit, with tons of questions and a thourough examination. At a certain point, out of the blue, he started asking me questions that were totally unrelated to everything else I discussed with him.

I was supposed to rank the answers from 0 to 3. Zero being unlikely and 3 being very likely. After several questions he looked on his monitor and says, "you have one of the highest scores I've ever seen, I'm giving you a referral for a test."

At this point I no longer cared because after being diagnosed only a week earlier with yet another chronic illness, I was so grateful when he undiagnosed me, that I was willing to give him a go at a new diagnosis.

This weekend I spent the night away from my husband. I wish I could tell you all it was an exciting night with this fantastic new lover I found, but as you all know me, I lead a non-exciting life. I spent the night at a hospital in a sleeping lab. Apparently the doctor doesn't think it's normal to fall asleep when reading a boring book, watching a boring TV show, surfing the internet at work or riding in a car as a passenger. Obviously this doctor is so local that he's never had to commute from Maryland to Virginia through the DC beltway and the Wilson Bridge to fully appreciate how boring this traffic can be on any given day at any given time. The only point of interest that I wake up for are crossing the Wilson Bridge because I love watching the construction progress on it, and the Severn River bridge because I love imagining how some construction could improve traffic on it.

Honestly, I don't think my case is so unusual, I've seen numerous people fall asleep as passengers in the HOV lanes. And I'm willing to bet I'm not the only person who falls asleep after two pages in a boring book, or across the history channel on TV, or while reading my blog.

But like I said, I didn't mind this test. Until the morning after.

Like.Oh.My.Dog. Do they honestly think I can fall asleep with all those electrodes attached to my head, neck, ears, legs, finger, chest and abdomen? Oh and wait, did they really think I can have a good night's sleep with the camera watching me all night? And what about that flow of cold air at my face? Was I supposed to ignore it and manage to stay asleep? You've got to be kidding me! Needless to say, I didn't get a good night's sleep out of this test. And the nerve, they woke me up at 5am on a Sunday!

I won't know the results for another two weeks. But whatever the results are, I just really hope I don't have to go back and repeat this test, because that wasn't as much fun as I expected.

Of course as soon as the doctor told me I have a sleeping problem, I'm more conscience of it and can't seem to get a good night's sleep only to end up wiped out and exhausted during the day.

And that's my excuse why I haven't written this weekend in my blog. I'll try to come up with more creative stories in future.

The oddest search

I've been tracking the keywords that people enter in Google Search before they arrive in my blog, and today I had a good laugh from the search that someone typed in:

If an Escape Hybrid drives through the forest does anyone hear it?


My guess is that only if a tree falls on it.

The amazing internet and a stunning discovery

Those of you who have been following my blog at least since January this year, have read my post about the Holocaust and how my grandmother survived. If you didn't catch that post, here's where you can read about it.

Some of you may not have gotten as far as the comments, but last month (that is five months after I posted about my grandmother), someone posted a comment on that post. And that is what prompted me to post an urgent request to the anonymous writer of that comment to email me immediately.

No where in my post did I mention my grandmother's first name. I only mentioned her last name and how she got it. And here was this comment written by someone in Colorado who knew my grandmother's full name - Maria Kozdrowicz. The comment shocked me.

I immediately went on eBay and put in the number mentioned and got the shock of my life. There it was - my grandmother's Polish Passport for sale on eBay!

I had never seen her passport before. Nor have my parents! I immediately called them while they were away from home on vacation and asked them if they know where her passport is. They had no idea, they've never seen it. When I told them the story they couldn't believe me. I told them it had her photo, her birthdate, her place of birth, and all the right stamps.

The seller was someone in my hometown of Haifa. A name we've never heard of. Because we were really worried about raising any alarms to him that would cause him to raise the price, I ended up buying the passport for the $45 he placed on it.

I received it this week. A piece of family history is now in my hands again. Along with a very important date stamp which my parents had forgotten - August 25th, 1957. The day they got off the boat in Haifa, Israel. The boat from Europe to Israel, finally making it back home after 2000 years in the diaspora. In two months they'll be celebrating 50 years in Israel.

The person who sold this passport did not answer any of my inquiries of how he got it. He's ignored my emails and requests. I will try one more snail mail effort before giving up.

If he knew the entire story behind this passport and the fake name on it, he would have asked for more money or donated to a museum. There's more to my grandmother's story than what I wrote. In June 1976, my grandmother's brother got on a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. Yes, it was that flight. My great uncle was one of the hostages. That's an entire post in itself.
My grandmother's other brother received a medal of honour from General de Gaulle. Yes, another entry for a post. A third brother wrote a book about his survival at a Ghetto as a doctor, a book that I read once and will never forget (unlike hundreds of other books).

This grandmother is the mother of the painter whose paintings you've been seeing on this blog. And yes, she's the one with the talent and where it all came from.

I have the passport with me now. But how do I thank an Anonymous writer? How can I ever thank him for doing a random search on Google for my grandmother's name and coming across my blog and being gracious enough to put a comment? How do I tell him that he stumbled upon one of those fascinating stories and not just a passport for sale? How do I tell him that he helped a family close a chapter in its history?


My grandmother passed away almost ten years ago, of Alzheimers. May she rest in peace and may her life's memory live forever on this blog.

You won't see this on TV

This movie was made by visitors to the Kruger Park in South Africa. Kruger Park is the type of Park where you visit for several days to watch all of Africa's wild animals. This video is absolutely amazing for its contents. I guarantee you won't be disappointed. I've never seen anything like it on TV or in real life (I've been to Kruger Park a couple of times).

Love at first sight

Three year old Yang Yang kissing a Beluga whale.

I love this photo. It amazes me to see a three year old human act without fear to large creatures in nature.

And then it amazes me to see a three year old run away screaming from my loveable cute dog as if he was a monster. Poor doggie.

Where does hatred begin?

For those who wonder where the hatred begins, here's a video to demonstrate a point:



Does anyone truly believe it's the nature of 5 year old to shout that death is a noble cause? Does any other nation teach their kids to hate this much? And the world is quiet and allows yet another generation of terrorists to grow up and get trained to die in the name of Allah. As long as this continues, there's no hope for peace in the Middle East.

No hope, if 5-year olds are taught to hate and die.

Hungry as a Diving Tiger

Photos taken from http://english.pravda.ru/photo/report/diving_tigers-1817/2/

Wonders of Medicine

I had enough with my husband sneezing, coughing and being overall cranky every year during spring, and decided to set an appointment for him with an allergist. The lady on the phone explained to me he's not to take anti-histamines 'til he sees the doctor (four days away). So I emailed him with the day, time, place and directions. But since he doesn't read my emails, or reads them partially, he only read the day and time. Never read the directions. He took an anti-histamine the day before the appointment. Mid-day I said to him, "You didn't take any pills did you?" Of course he said, "why?" I pointed out to him that there was more to that email.

Didn't really matter. He went to the doctor. Doctor stuck him with seven bricks of tests on his back (each brick contains eight needles with different allergens). Then he was instructed to sit still for 20 minutes. A week later my husband still has a nice pattern of mosquito bites all over his back. Turns out he's allergic to pretty much everything under the shining sun except very few critical living things: rabbits, horses, dogs and wife. Oh, and he can tolerate dust and mites - thank dog, because I'm getting a divorce if he starts demanding that I dust the house daily.

Finally I have a normal husband back in my life. No sneezing, coughing, or crankiness.

***********************

I signed up for a summer camp. Never been to a summer camp before. My Polish mom was too worried about my health to send me to a summer camp. So I figured I should do it before I turn 40. I received the paperwork yesterday. Background check, medical forms, consent forms. You name it. And all this for five days of a camp. But what really frustrates me is the portion on the forms that ask about my immunization record.

Oh blimey, I'm supposed to know what DTaP/DT/Tdap, IPV/OPV, MMR, PCV, HIB is??? Okay, I managed to figure out TB thanks to CNN mentioning it every five minutes this week. But I haven't the faintest what the others translate to in Hebrew!!! I have my Hebrew book of vaccinations which has been filled up since I was born, but I'll be darned if I know the translation to these diseases.

I'm going to attempt to do a free translation from the Hebrew word to the English, and see if anyone can guess the medical word for it:
Ava'abu'ot - Big Bubbles
Shitook Yeladim - Quietening children
Karemet - illness of the cream
Tzafedet - illness of the frog
Sha'elet - illness of the cough
Chatzevet - illness of the Maritime squill
Ademet - redness illness

So yes, I've been vaccinated for all the above, and I'll never be a bubbly, creamy, froggy, coughing, red Maritime Squill (the quiet children never worked on me as you can see). But I'll be darned if anyone cares if I were all these things.