Update on driving test: Still failed

In case you were wondering, no, I did not magically pass my driving test over the weekend. the failure from Thursday still remains. This is very sad, not to mention nerve-wracking and panic-inducing. The reason for such intense feelings is that if one fails the Israeli driving test a second time, one must take 28, that's TWENTY-EIGHT, two tens plus eight ones, driving lessons (at 120 NIS a pop), a WRITTEN exam, in HEBREW, plus ANOTHER driving exam. I am using a lot of CAPITALS to emphasize the IMPORTANCE of NOT FAILING again. Hence the panic. In the meantime, I need to wait two weeks, for that is the law of the land. "Those who fail must wait in penance for two weeks, contemplating their failurehood, until allowed to retake the test." (For those of you who want all the harrowing and gory details of my test, you may email me privately and I may or may not decide to share them with you. Let's just say it was not my finest hour. Or, rather, my finest three minutes, because that's all of the test I completed.)

Anyway, the good news is that both kiddies went to gan today! One whole day of gan! The one good thing about Ariella being home basically all week is that she was VERY ready to go back to gan and told me what a good day she had. On Friday, she still wasn't feeling 100% but she was desperate to go to gan because she didn't want to miss the Shabbos party, and she had already missed the Rosh Chodesh party the day before. She was not happy when we told her she should stay home and get better. So today she was relieved to not have to stay home with "mean and boring Mommy." (It's my official title; I'm thinking of having it put on a t-shirt.)

Tomorrow we return to Supersol, aka Shufersal. We continue the hunt for baking soda. This hunt began a few weeks ago, when I realized, that, in fact, I needed baking soda. There was none to be found in Supersol or any of the other stores I checked. This strikes me as odd. Baking soda is not the kind of thing that can be "out of season," can it? Are there baking soda bushes out there in the Galil that are sensitive to climate change? I am down to my last few teaspoons of the precious substance. In the baking aisle, there is plenty of baking powder, and enough "vanilla sugar" to fill a sandbox. I'm not sure what the Israeli obsession with vanilla sugar is. There are always large quantities for sale, and they come in varieties, such as "vanilla sugar with cinnamon." Also in abundance are cornstarch, ground coconut, and poppy seeds. I would like to know how Israelis can use these exotic ingredients in their cooking if they CAN'T BUY BAKING SODA.

I will keep you updated in our baking soda search, which may very well end in Lisa's pantry.

Poofah update:
I would like to hereby award 23,500 poofahs to: Momz, Donny, Laurie, and Shira, who left comments on the previous post. Keep up the good work! If anyone else is feeling jealous and would like to earn themselves some good, old-fashioned poofahs, feel free to comment! I am now offering 20,839 poofahs for the next 5 commentors.

Now, I must go on my nightly Yaakov search, to see which floor of the apartment he has chosen to fall asleep on, then pick him up and transfer him to his bed. Every night is a surprise!