Harumph

Things that are annoying me and taking up lots of time:

1. Cars. They are inefficient, money-sucking, dangerous hunks of metal and I vote we all just learn to fly. Yaakov will teach us.
The car in specific that is annoying me is the one (mine) that was making a special flapping noise. Which turned out to be not a herd of wild horses (as Yaakov conjectured), but the flattiest flattest tire you have ever seen. And then, when Donny tried to change the tire, he said he was missing some sort of metal turn-y piece that is necessary for getting the spare out. So then he called Triple Aleph, but when that guy came and I mentioned the missing piece, he said, "And am I so different than your husband? [Ed. note: What a very appropriate thought, on this week of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.] I also need that piece! It's supposed to come with the car! I will have to call a tow truck, but you'll need to drive out of your garage to meet him outside."

So then I had to drive my lopsided van outside, but luckily they didn't ask me to drive it onto the tow truck. Which is how I came to be driving beside a taciturn, be-earringed young man who towed me to the nearest "puncheria" to get a new tire.

Perhaps you, like me, thought that a car arriving at the puncheria on a tow truck is like a person arriving at the hospital in an ambulance. In that they would push all the other cars out of the way, STAT, because my car was so much more grieviously injured than theirs. But no. I had to wait my turn in line, just like all the other loser patients. However, 20 minutes and 600 shekel later, I drove out on a brand spanking new tire! It had gold wrapping, and a little piece stayed on. I'm keeping it there, to remind me of this special time.

The whole removal-and-replacement bit, with the electrical thingy (how I didn't make it as a mechanic, I'll never know) that pushes your car up reminded me uncomfortably of a gynecological exam and I felt bad for my poor car. Those tools can be cold.

2. The new apartment that is not yet mine. You could pollute an entire ecosystem with the amount of gas I use driving between my old apartment and my new apartment. This is because we are at the Price Quote stage of pre-moving in, and we require two Price Quotes per Thing. Things include, but are not limited to: Window bars, painting, alarm systems, shower doors, an alarm system for your shower door, shower bars on your alarm door, etc.
Which means meeting two different people per Thing. And none of the people I ever need to meet can come at the same time. So I drive over to get a Price Quote on a Thing, drive back, squeeze in some work and a load of laundry, and before you know it, it's time to drive back to get another Price Quote on another Thing.

3. Laundry and dishes and the dirt on my floor. I should just let them all win, since they seem to want to so badly.

So these things are keeing me very busy and not leaving much time for blogging. Which makes me sad, oh Loyal Readers. Plus--and you are never going to believe this one--despite the craziness of our lives right now, the children just go on needing things, like rides to chugim, baths, dinner, attention.

Well, hopefully this will end soon and we will get to move and our apartment will be beautiful, despite Yaakov not having his yellow-and-teal colored room.

On that note, I will end with a head-scratchingYaakov conversation:

Me: Did you play in the chatzer today? [This is a winter conversation. The chatzer is full of sand. During the sandal months, it doesn't matter because the sand slides right out. However, in the winter, it is crucial that we dump the copious amount of shoe sand into the garbage. Often I am surprised there was even room for his foot in the shoe.]

Yaakov: Why do you always ask that? Just ask me if there is sand in my shoes!

Next day:

Me: Yaakov, is there sand in your shoes?

Yaakov [expasperatedly]: I don't know! How should I know that?

Me [slow and confused]: Well...did you play...in the...chatzer today?

It's a twisty world Yaakov lives in.