Acceptance! (It took a while, but we got there.)

Exciting news, here in the Rose household. Our children have been accepted to school for next year! Today we got the letters from first grade and nursery school wishing our children luck in the coming school year. Phew, this was a relief. Now, yes, it's a public school system, so the chances of them not getting in were pretty slim, and yes, there was only really one choice anyway for each of the kids, making the chances of them not getting in even slimmer, like Chinese noodle slim, but still, we're excited, for as they say in Israel, "אין סיבה למסיבה"
שרקמ,א טםו ןמפרקדדקג 'ןאי צט יקנר'?
(Whoops, should have switched back to English!)

I am also very impressed with the expedience with which the registration handled. We registered in January (online, actually, which despite my cynicism WAS pretty impressive), and were told we'd have the acceptance letters by May. So the fact that they were only one month late is another reason to celebrate! Whoo-hoo! Par-tay! Is there anyone here who can bake a beautiful white cake with pink icing for the festivities? Why, why, yes, actually, now that you ask. ME!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish a צאתכם לשלום (Whoa! I am on a freakin' Hebrew roll tonight! A לחמניה, if you will.) to Rachel "No Peer Pressure For Me!" Rosenthal, who is heading out to sunny California for the summer to help Gov. Schwarzenegger balance the state budget. No, no, she is actually heading out to do God's work and teach young adults about Judaism. (The world having been created already and all that.) Rachel actually had an opportunity to come to ISRAEL this summer and do God's work by keeping me company, but noooooo, she had to go out to sunny, beautiful California, where she's going to hob-knob (הוב-נוב?) with celebrities and stuff. I told her if she sees George Clooney she can give him a kiss from me. He'll understand. (People, just so you know, Momz and I were two of the ORIGINAL George Clooney fans. We get dibs. If the TV show "Sisters" means nothing to you, then you are NOT in our club. Right, Momz?)

In other very exciting news, we now have a laundry line! For some reason - horror of horrors - our apartment did not come equipped with a laundry line. Can you BELIEVE???? What are people supposed to do with their wet clothes? (Um, use a dryer, like civilized people, maybe? I am thoroughly American, laundry-wise. Laundry lines are for Real Israelis. I use my dryer.) Anyway, our landlord asked us if we could follow up with Lines of Laundry, Inc. and get one installed. Maybe he and his wife, when they make aliyah, will want to use one of those things. You know, for catapulting uncooked peas across the courtyard to building seven. Actually, our landlord is a very nice man and would probably never do such a thing. Hmmm...I wonder if chick peas would work also.

In any case, I called up Laundry Lines Forever. Now, you have to understand, that each item in this apartment is specialized. Daveed of Dimri can fix but a few problems; for the rest, he just gives you a number to call and you hope for the best. He's like a Palm Pilot, or a Blackberry, with a cup of coffee. So this is how I've come to have Laundry People, Kitchen People, and Bathroom People ("Binyamin Bathroom" is an actual entry in my cell phone.) Also, I've learned, the first call is free. Not for me. For them. It doesn't count. You make the first phone call. They listen to the problem, take down your name and number, and promptly dispose of it. They know they're not going to do anything about; you know they're not going to do anything about it; they know you know they're not going to do anything about it; and you know they know they're not going to do anything about it. Got it?

So you make the first phone call. Then, a week later - surprise! - you haven't heard back from them. So you make your second phone call. At this point, something might start to happen. In the case of Laundry, Laundry, Laundry!, when I made my second phone call yesterday, they said, "Ok, we'll come tomorrow in the afternoon." Now, of course this ended up being an afternoon of chasing them down, but they did come and install it. In the case of the Kitchens-B-Bad, it took a month of unanswered phone calls before I called in the heavy hitter - Daveed himself, the Rolodex with a cuppa joe. He called and threatened to withhold money, and whaddya know, within a week the guy came out to fix our broken microwave door (it had fallen off), our broken drawer (it had fallen out), and various tracks and hinges, etc. etc.

Well, I seem to have run out of inanities to write about. I am so pathetic that I even asked Yaakov (who is still up at 8:45) about gan, in the hopes he would say something cute that I could share and end off on a funny kid note. But alas. Just some rambling about how he went swimming at gan and then he was so tired he took a nap. (The evidence of which is on the couch right now, playing with Ariella's stuff, instead of sound asleep in bed.) So I will sign out for the night. [Me, signing out.]