Special Welcome

I would like to take this opportunity to give a special welcome to my sisters, the incredible, indefatigable, invincible, but never indecisive Silverbergs from Baltimore, MD. (Well, they are no longer Silverbergs, but they will always be Silverbergs to me. Tell Mom and Dad I said hi!) Loyal Readers from the very beginning, they have now publicized their undying loyalty to aliyahbyaccident by joining our Loyal Readers Club. (The story on how they became my sisters will be for another time, but for those of you who were wondering, RKT = rice krispie treats, Dadz's favorite dessert.)


Well, it finally happened this week. My superpowers wore off and I got sick. All year, I have managed to stave off the angry beast of bacteria, the satan of strep, the villain of viruses. At the beginning of the week, both kids had strep, although by Monday night they were both back in action. Donny then got sick on Monday. And on Wednesday morning, I wasn't feeling so hot. I figured it was just a one day thing, but Wednesday night I couldn't sleep because swallowing was so agonizing. My glands felt like two painful golf balls in the side of my neck. I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep in between painful bouts of swallowing. As you might imagine, I was unsuccessful. So at 1:00 in the morning, I got up and tried to make some tea. On the way back from the tea kettle to the table (a distance of about 7 steps at the crow flies), I fainted and fell on the floor. Haha! I thought. I got up onto my chair, and sat gazing at the tea kettle. Hmmm, I thought to myself, somewhat hazily. That water is going to need to be turned off soon. "D-o-o-o-n-n-n-y," I croaked, but the defenses Donny puts up against the Outside Noise worked against me here. Having no choice, I started making my way slowly to the stove, collapsed on the floor midway, woke up (or, in fainting parlance, "came to"), reached up from the floor to turn off the fire, and then lay back down on the floor. For a few fuzzy moments I was conscious only of a blissful happiness that I did not have to get up anymore. Then, my first coherent thought was, "How in the name of falafel does Yaakov find sleeping on the floor comfortable????" Eventually I made my way up, got to the couch with my book and phone, and put Crisis Plan #2 into action (CP #1, as you remember, is "Call Donny." This had, as we saw, failed miserably.) So I called Momz. The phone call mothers love to get when they are 6,000 miles away. "Hi Mom," I croaked. "I just fainted. Twice." Momz was oozing sympathy, while in the background Dadz was fretting. "Tell her she better be off the phone before 'Lost,'" he said anxiously.


I passed the rest of the night on the couch, reading, dozing, and eventually I crawled back into bed. Thursday morning found me at the doctors, and you will all be happy to know that as of today, all four of us are on antibiotics! I give thanks to the One Above and to Alexander Fleming.


In other news, I had a realization this week. One of my barometers for rating a community is how they would respond to the Baby Scenario. In other words, if someone had a baby, would the community kick into action, bringing them dinner, helping take care of their other kids, etc? I worried that our Shimshoni community was rating fairly poorly in this matter. When a friend had a baby a few months ago, I brought over meatballs and rice, and she seemed rather caught by surprise that someone would actually do that. This week, though, I was asked to take part in preparing a Shabbat meal for a family with a new baby. My task was cake. Then it hit me - the reason people don't do the whole bring-the-family-with-a-new-baby-dinner thing is that in Israel, people don't DO dinner! What, they're going to show up at someone's house with a few yogurts and an unpeeled cucumber? Of course not! So instead, they take pains to prepare elaborate Shabbat meals for new-baby-families. I felt much relieved to realize that our shul was not unfriendly, they just don't eat dinner.



I would also like to point out that I blogged FOUR times this week. Have a good Shabbos.