'Tis the Season

Preface: Let me start off with, we are all sick of the coronavirus and the situation we are all in. I haven't been the most understanding of those who don't follow the (granted, very confusing) rules and this is something I am working on. I have to remind myself that most people really are trying to do the best that they can. And even if I don't agree or I can't understand it, that this is where they are coming from. So, this is something I am working on. (Coming back to this blog three months later, and apparently I still need to work on this).

Now, onto our adventures:

No, not that season, our holiday season. Normally, here in Israel, around the beginning of August everything begins to slow down. And if you need anything done, everyone says, we'll get to it after the holidays (meaning mid October) or, I don't know, might have to wait until after the holidays, etc... This year is obviously a bit (totally) different. First of all, the country has been semi shut down since mid March.  It opens and closes and opens and closes. Currently we are basically closed for the next few weeks. (Oh, as of early December we are more open than before, because you know, we need to get ready to close again)

The kids attended school for about two weeks. And then schools shut down. My eldest attended his pre-army program for just under a month and now those are shut down. My work of course continues on as usual but I fear I'll end up with more shifts in the Corona units as those units expand and expand. (Well aren't I just a prophet)

Luckily the hubby can keep working from home. The happiest one around here is definitely my dog because now she has a full house of servants to let her in and out at will. And she can keep herself busy protecting all of us from the dangers that lurk outside, like leaves and the supermarket delivery guy (same guy for over a year and she still wants a chance to lick him to death). 

Okay, so what have we really been up to? Hubby and I managed to sneak in a 20th wedding anniversary getaway to a hotel I've been eyeing for a few years. We had a fabulous time and somehow the hotel managed to get all of their workers to wear masks all of the time and even the guests were very compliant. And they managed to stagger meals and such so the hotel never felt crowded. 

For anyone who has heard me discuss cocktails, well this was the place to be!!! Super fun cocktail bar happy hour... I would seriously go back to the hotel just for the cocktail hour. I mean, if the hotels reopen while I'm still youngish.  If a bunch of bartenders can get two parents of four teens to feel cool and comfortable in a cocktail bar, when then those guys have earned their tips. Seriously, go to the cocktail bar. See me for details. I'll even go with you. 

Back to regular life for yet another whirlwind of zoom back to school nights, technology program graduation for one girl, and cooking and more cooking for the holidays. We might be shut down but the cooking goes on and on and on. 

DECEMBER

Well well well, if that ain't a kick in the pants. I apparently started this blog just as the holidays were starting here in September. Then of course, everything changed again and I forgot about it. And now I came back in December to write a new blog which is apparently titled, 'Tis the Season and well 'tis. Now it's the season of Hanukah, Hanukkah, Chanukah, Chanukah, whatever just give me some donuts. 

I came back to write this blog mainly because of two hilarious events that both occurred this evening. I was cooking dinner and put some music on. So there is this new song that includes lots of popular Israeli singers. But I only know a few of them. So I had one teenage daughter watch the video with me and tell me who everyone is. She is apparently well versed on the culture because she knew everyone except the old people. (I knew the old people)

Then we are sitting at dinner. Me, my husband and three teens. The fourth teen is at his pre army program.  So we are discussing something and I am sure it was relevant, when I asked if whoever they were talking about, was famous for belfies. My kids told me that's not a word, and even after I explained what it is they didn't believe me (you'll need to Google it). So then I asked our Google home thing that I hate, ok Google, what's a belfie? And well, Google is apparently just as knowledgeable as I am. You're welcome kids.....

What else that's semi normal have I been doing you ask? Well, in the few months between blogs we managed to sneak in a family vacation. I had originally planned to be in the USA visiting my parents and Target. But pandemic. Then we had planned a family vacation to Eilat, but also, pandemic. And then I planned a four night getaway to a little villa up in the north, plan C and we managed to pull it off. Come on kids, everyone into the teeny car, it will be fun!  And it was. 

Who knows when we will get to vacation together again. At some point in the next year my eldest will draft into the military. My girls are going to spend their spring and summer with matriculation exams. And my work vacation needs to be planned a year in advance. So we grabbed the chance and went and we had a lot of fun. 

WORK

I know everyone loves my work stories. Unfortunately I haven't had as many hilarious Hebrew issues. I mean if I have, then my coworkers have managed a straight face. I have somewhat mastered understanding Hebrew with masks on. At the beginning of this situation it was impossible. I couldn't understand anyone. Now it's just the usual confusion. 

Oh, I was reading messages from a work group and couldn't understand why we were discussing donkeys. Which is written חמור. We were apparently discussing material which is חומר. 

Potato/potato. Whatever. Eventually I was like, something is off here....

I somehow have gotten over my fear of speaking during zoom meetings. Or not gotten over my fear but apparently what I want to say is more important than me being afaid of speaking over everyone on zoom. Staff meetings are so weird now. I miss when we all sat in a room and ate salad that someone made and quiches that someone made and kept getting shushed because 50 women can't exactly sit quietly. And hearing Hebrew and Russian and Arabic and English all being whispered. Good times that will hopefully be back again. I'll bring the cakes. 

Oh, one last Hebrew thing. I am now absolutely convinced that some of our ummmmm, elder babies? Experienced babies? Long term babies? Whatever the term may be (I call them my buddies) Anyway, I am convinced that they recognize my accent. Because I walk into a shift and they wake up. They are like, oh, that American softie has arrived and she will definitely hold me during any free time she has. I will now wake up and make my best face and she will sit with me. And yep.... 

We are back! (not that we've gone anywhere in six months)

Where to even start? At the very beginning perhaps? Like back when the world was open for travel and even for exciting things like shopping at the supermarket?

So, this blog was started in March: 

So it's more of a historical blog at this point. 

Hebrew hilarity (only what I can remember, there has definitely been more)

Boss: Arielle, can you find "some Hebrew word?"
Me: what, I didn't hear you (code for please say that again because I literally have no clue what we are discussing)
Boss: Arielle, can you find "some Hebrew word?"
Me, "of course, just tell me what that is." ( I always try to be agreeable)
Boss and coworker now laughing. " It's not a thing it's the name of a person.
Me: yeah, no problem (thankful that mask hides red face)

Followed a few days later by some slight confusion between the head doctor and myself between the words disconnect and clean. Ummmmm, it all ended well. I promise that I am professional, just I cannot understand a lot with the masks. Luckily for me my most recent shift was full of native Russian speakers. So they spoke Russian most of the time and no one expected me to understand anything. I did ask them to at least teach me some Russian. So far, no improvement.

(I will add an update. I can now understand almost everyone with their masks, so I'm guessing when we can remove the masks, I'll basically be a language expert)

Corona, because that's what on everyone's mind.

But first, let's go back in time.  I was lucky enough to request and receive a few days off from work in mid February, before Corona got out of control.  Obviously I decided to run off to London with the hubby. He worked and I had me some fun!

What did I do, you might ask?

 Well first, I spoke in English to everyone for three full days and it was glorious...

We saw a show, the Prince of Egypt, which was amazing. It wasn't officially out yet but I highly recommend seeing it.

I went shopping

Strolled over the London bridge twice

Went to the Florence Nightingale museum

Went to my first ever martini bar

Stayed in a super cool fancy hotel, complete with doormen with bowler hats

Spoke some more in English

Then back to regular life and the world has now shut down to travel.  We actually spent a lovely few months all at home together. Let me start by saying that we were some of the lucky ones who kept our jobs. My job as a nurse continued on much the same, just lots of new rules. And my husband transitioned to work from home. Our kids sort of had school from home but not exactly. I wasn't too worried. They have experience about how to manage themselves from when I homeschooled them a few years back. Also, you can't really micromanage teenagers because that will just slap you in the face. I remind myself of this every time I try and micromanage my teenagers...

_______

Okay, skip ahead like four months...... (Or I'll never finish this)

Teens are bored

I spend all of my money on food

I'm working more than ever

I have a collection of masks because obviously I need them to coordinate with my clothing/activity

I have learned how to cook many new dishes

I have also learned to make some simple cocktails

Also I spend a lot of time googling cocktails

Teens are bored

We bought a ping pong table

Fire pit gets lots of use

I buy a lot of marshmallows

Work stuff:

I finished my course. Or okay it's not totally finished. But the classroom portion is done. I passed my first set of exams. Now I am in the midst of my internship of sorts. (Well now I'm done because I was slow on the blog). Basically I have to work in a different NICU for ten shifts, with a clinical instructor. I was sent to the other Hadassah hospital. Obviously I was super nervous to start for totally weird reasons. 

#1 I have parking issues

#2 I get lost a lot

#3 how will I know where the bathroom is

#4 what if I forget Hebrew in a new place

#5 what if I forget to bring shoes

#6 can I get out of my parking space

I wasn't worried about the actual internship part. Because that would be too normal. And good news. Parking at this Hadassah is way easier.  And I get to park for free because I work at Hadassah. I leave my house thirty minutes early in case I get lost. Usually this results in me snagging my new favorite parking spot and no, I won't reveal it's place. They showed me where the bathrooms are located. I keep my shoes in my car. And apparently I can still speak Hebrew in a new place. And my clinical instructor is an English speaker in case I forget something. 

What else is new here?

Eldest leaves (already left) for a pre-army prep mechina program soon

Other high school kids aren't really sure what will be with school. (Well, we have a schedule and now they have started but it's still not totally clear). I'm assuming we will get a final answer like two days before. So basically I assume they'll be home? At least most of the time. 

Hubby continues to work from home thankfully.  He is amazing at blocking out all distractions and just working from the middle of the hallway. (This reminds me of when we had twin babies sleeping in our bedroom and he never heard them cry. Side note: they cried basically all of the time for four months).

I continue to learn more and more about life here and about the different types of people. But I'll save that for a talk I'm supposed to give for a Hadassah group. (Already gave this talk and didn't really discuss this much).  Let's just say that two days ago (three weeks ago) at work,my shift (not in my own unit, I was sent to work in a Covid-19 unit) the staff was as follows: 

Russian immigrant

American immigrant (that's me)

Jewish Ashkenazi Israeli

Jewish Yemenite Israeli

Muslim Arab Israeli, son of a mukhtar

We had some interesting discussions in the middle of the night about our various communities and religions. This is the real Israel and this is what happens when we all sit together. (Whether by choice or because they threw a bunch of random nurses together)

I can now say that the son of a mukhtar bought me coffee and if that isn't a new experience for this American, I don't know what is. 

Also, coffee at 1am is amazing!

Okay okay, this blog is already outdated but if I don't publish it then I never will. 

Next blog will probably focus on my exciting life of: work, house, work, house, supermarket, house, work, house, work.... Stay tuned.....

Work hard, study hard, play hard....

My kids have informed me that it's been a while since my last blog post and that I'm slacking. So here we go.

What's new?

Well, as usual I have decided that my life here isn't confusing enough and that I should agree to go back to school for a special certification course for nursing. Why, you may ask? Well, because I am unable to say no to anything basically. (Except last week my kids sent me pictures of puppies and said we should get another one. That was a hard no!)

Anyway, the course began a few weeks ago.  I won't say it's not hard but it is more manageable than I had imagined. I'm only a few weeks into it so we shall see what happens in a few weeks.

Obviously funny things have already happened in the class.

I sit in the first row so that I won't be distracted and can catch as much Hebrew as possible. Which basically means I stare at the lecturers. Like seriously stare. Hopefully they don't think I'm just weird 😂

One lecture (at least) also isn't a native Israeli. But has been here probably 20+ years. He is a doctor, lectures totally in Hebrew but the randomly stops to check his grammar. Like hmmm should this word be masculine or feminine. And all I am thinking is oh crap, if he is still unsure, I have zero chance.

Since I've started this blog, another few weeks have flown by. I passed my first exam in the class, I feel less scared during lectures, and I  even ask questions occasionally when I'm not busy staring. However, the WhatsApp train of messages that goes on still hurts my brain. I can't keep up without a lot of effort.

Vacation:

Making aliyah (okay fine and having older kids, but mostly making aliyah) has been amazing for my vacationing life!! Part of it is that the food is kosher so I can travel anywhere within Israel that I want easily. Also, we aren't paying Jewish day school tuition. Also, the hubby isn't using the majority of his (always generous) vacation days, in order to take off for the Jewish holidays. Here those are just days off.  I mean, not for me because I'm a nurse but for most people.

We had been planning to go away for a few days of Pesach (Passover) and I have reservations at a field school up north. But with my job I won't know if I have the days off until a week or two before, because I can't take official vacation during any holidays but I can work three days in a row in order to have a few days off. If the stars align as they did last year, I could be off but there is no way to tell now.

Well, two weeks or so ago, we got our new schedule (we receive two weeks at a time) and I saw that I was off from Thursday at 3pm all the way through the end of shabbat. So I asked off for Sunday in the following schedule and booked a last minute family trip to Eilat.

If you know me, you know that I am a planner and this was out of character.

If you're not familiar with Eilat, picture Ocean City, NJ but mainly kosher food. And even more hotels. And fancier hotels. Also you can see three countries from Eilat, so sort of the same...

I won't bore you with the details. But I will say. If you want a fabulous quick family vacation with four teenagers (may you all be so blessed) I can't recommend Eilat and my hotel enough. We chose an all inclusive hotel because I like to know my costs up front. And with four teens, food costs can get a bit insane.  We basically had four days of family fun. Board games, meals, walking on the boardwalk, visiting the Coral Beach, meals, cocktails (just me), ice skating, board games, and just general fun. Oh, also the hotel room had a rain shower. Huge highlight! We are easy to please.

A few highlights/discoveries:
One of my daughters apparently loves watching National Geographic on television. We don't have TV at home per se (just Netflix)  but apparently she loves it.  And she likes weird stuff. I watched several hours with her about mysterious plane crashes, wars, drug smuggling, etc... I had no clue she was so ummm interesting...

Did I mention the hotel was all inclusive? This includes wine beer and cocktails in addition to juices and soft drinks. Well, the dining room has two beer taps which are conveniently places near the soft drinks.

So one of my sons (the younger in case you're curious) wanted some juice with breakfast but instead took beer. He came to the table and handed it to me. Then a man looks over at him and says, "so, do you always drink beer with your breakfast?" Haha!! You can bet we didn't let that joke go for the whole vacation.

I learned that my other daughter would 💯 want to go on some scary boardwalk rides. I nixed that because they freak me out. I also learned that if I drink two cocktails before playing board games with her, it does not increase my chances of winning.  She almost always wins.

And that leaves me only with my eldest. As you know he is very tall, especially compared to me. When we checked into the hotel, they give you bracelets for the all inclusive. One color for adults and another for kids.  The man at reception wanted to give him adult bracelet. I said umm he is 17 he is just tall. He looked super skeptical.

Then as we left Eilat and were going through security at the airport, the security guy is asking me who everyone is. Then asks, are all of these your children (while staring at the big one). I said, yeah, he is just tall, but he is still my baby!  Of course I followed that up by pinching his cheek. My kid, not the cute security guy.

All in all, as close to a perfect family vacation as we have ever had. Relaxing, bonding, eating. I think everyone was happy about it except maybe my personal trainer. Maybe I'll just bring him next time.

One last thought:
I feel like the my absorption into Israeli society is evolving in a positive direction. We had a staff meeting this week and not only did I understand almost everything, but I even jumped into the fray to ask questions and give my opinion. I mean okay, my opinion was fairly quiet but a year ago I would never ever had said a word at a staff meeting.

Okay, I'll end this blog before I get busy again. I'll leave you with the following thoughts.

#1 I love my name
#2 originally it was a boy's name
#3 now it's popular for girls
#4 anyone my age with my name is a boy
#5 I can't say a proper 'reish'
#6 this leads to frustration
#7 it also leads to funny coffee names
#8 most of the coffee guys are actually Arab
#9 so I can't blame them really because the struggle is real!!
#10  but coffee is good and the staff is nice
#11 signing off, Arielle, Aryeh and Areel