Last night I read instead of writing anything. I am still pretty far behind but making progress. I wanted to leave a note for each person as I read and got caught up, but somewhere along the line that just fizzled out. Probably my brains just shut down, I don't remember.

Yesterday was kind of the day from hell. It started out okay, but sometime after noon John cut his thumb pretty badly while working on a plumbing job. Of course, all of our first aid stuff is packed except for a handful of bandaids and so on, nothing to cope with the mess. And John doesn't remember where he put the box with the bandages and all. Fortunately Dr. Cannon was home, he's the dr. who lives on the next street from us. So John was able to get it properly bandaged and a referral to the moked - which is sort of like a mini-emergency room at the clinic.

That's where the hell started for me. John cut his right thumb. I had to do the driving. First we drove to Petach Tikvah, and eventually actually found the clinic. Parked, went upstairs to wait and wait and - did I mention he'd done this just after noon? I hadn't had any lunch. Hans had come along and picked me up a bag of pretzels from the vending machine - I also didn't have any change. He hadn't had lunch either, but he's eighteen and figures that pretzels and a snickers bar constitutes a good lunch.

John got in to see the dr., who rebandaged his thumb and told him to go to hospital to a proper emergency room to get it stitched and a tetanus shot. I'm sure you can guess that emergency rooms and hospitals here are no more fun places than they are anywhere else in the world. I drove us all to the hospital where, unsurprizingly, a cut on a thumb, even a deep cut gotten while working on plumbing, was not the highest priority there.

They would only allow one person to go into emergency with the patient, so Hans waited in the E.R. waiting room and I accompanied John through the initial steps of the process.

There was one thing that kept our interest up while we were waiting to see the dr. There was a man in handcuffs and leg irons in the E.R., being kept separate from everyone else and accompanied by two police officers and a member of the hospital security. Since the first news of the morning was the escape of a serial rapist, a real psychopath, from prison, we couldn't help but look and wonder. After all, it was quite the guard he had.

Turns out, after we got home and could look at the news photos, it wasn't him. But it did give us something to think and wonder and talk about while waiting.

Havva took a bus to the hospital when she got off from work, so after she had gotten to the hospital - and was waiting in the E.R. waiting room with Hans - and John still hadn't gotten in to see the dr., I called her to be the one to stay with John, while I drove Hans home to be with the younger ones. I'd left Zechy, who is sick and dragging, home in charge of Simcha who was feeling *really* rotten, and Eliyahu who was just feeling rotten enough to be crabby and difficult. Neil, well, let's not go there, shall we? He was at home, but Zechy was by far the more fit person to be in charge.

Just as an aside, what can one say about a grown man who can't be bothered when his brother-in-law cuts himself seriously and needs to go to the E.R., leaving home three sick children 16, 12 and 7, to even offer to help out with as simple a chore as walking the dogs or washing the dishes?

So I drove Hans home (I was the only person able to drive the car, which is why we broke it up like this), since he was only a little bit sick, and probably most of that was from his vending machine lunch and sitting around hospital waiting rooms, to take over from Zechy and deal with supper and bedtimes. Havva waited with John. I picked up a pizza with Simcha's help (I waited in the car while she ordered it and picked it up, it's a long walk from anywhere I could have parked), and prepared to head back to the hospital to get John and Havva.

Just as I was leaving, though, Havva phoned to say that they had finished up and actually caught a bus to Tsomet S'gula and expected to catch the bus there to come home. I cannot possibly tell you how grateful I was to hear that. I was able to get out of the car and take my shoes off.

In my current physical state, I am extremely grateful that I was able to rise to the challenge of driving John where he needed to go, and taking care of what I could. But the aftermath is feeling like crap, sick, aching, and trying not to add to my suffering by pushing myself too hard, or by curling up in a little ball and allowing everything to stiffen up. It's not easy to find a balance.

I finished copying some Winnie the Pooh story tapes that are so old I couldn't even find a reference to them online anywhere - I was looking for the artwork that would have come on the original package. We all survived, kids had supper, kitchen got (mostly) cleaned before bed, and I got a whole lot of knitting done. I'd had the sense to grab a pair of needles with a placemat I'm working on, as well as making some progress on the mohair blanket when I copied the tapes. I know what I call progress on my various knitting projects is pretty pathetic compared to what most of my knitting friends do - and to what I used to do in the good old days before M.S. But hey, it's what I can do, and I am glad to be able to do it.

I couldn't sleep last night, and was still awake at about 3am when Hans was laughing out loud - loudly - at something he was watching on the computer. I was kind of harsh, which I regret, but I was so tired and his laughter had jerked me awake as I was actually dozing off. *sigh* One doesn't want to curtail ones children from laughing. But at 3am? And I am so sick and not getting better. My nose and the face around it is constantly inflamed from all the nose-blowing I am constantly doing. And I can't breathe through my nose, which is a big part of why I can't fall asleep at night. And it's been going on for more than a week, I think, with no apparent change. I am so sick of being sick.

I also wrote a sour and cranky email to my daughter Jessica, which I expect will not be well received. I don't know - but she's cut me off for less than that in the past. I'll just have to see. I did tell her in the email that I was tired and cranky and it had been a very bad day. She had written to congratulate us on the 'cease fire' that I guess was trumpeted in the American press. I don't know, 'cause I didn't see any of the news articles, but I do know that less than an hour after the 'cease fire' was supposed to start - and after Israeli soldiers were withdrawn from Aza - rockets were hitting Sderot.

'Cease fire?' Since when is the definition of a cease fire that Israel stops defending itself, but they keep doing everything they've been doing? I don't know exactly since when, but I do know that has been the working definition for most of the world for more than a decade. What really frosts me is the idiots in our own government who have the unmitigated gall to proclaim this as some sort of a victory.

So, anyway, I wrote rather angrily. It was more articulate and pithy than anything I've written here. And it wasn't directed at her (but will she bother to recognize that?) And as of late last night the news was that supposedly the PA was actually trying to police their own people to stop the rockets. We'll have to see what happens, but I've got to tell you, I haven't got a lot of hope. The 'cease fire' doesn't include Yesha, where I live right now, and where rock and fire bomb attacks are a daily thing. And if they do stop the bombing it will only be to continue collecting more weapons and developing an even greater capability to attack us.

One of the famous quotes here is that In Israel, in order to be a realist one has to be believe in miracles. And I do. I have seen more miracles since we moved here than I could begin to count. But there is evil in the world, and contrary to what some people would like to believe it is not Bush, or U.S. 'imperialism,' or building a fence to try and keep people from coming here and blowing themselves up in crowded cafes.

I can't write about that here. I just can't.

So, John talked to the landlord last night, and the tenants aren't out of our new home yet, and he couldn't even promise that they would be out by Friday - december 1st, the day our lease takes effect. I can't even think about it. It's in Hashem's hands and something will work out somehow. I have to believe that, or I'll be running around screaming in panic. And *that* won't help anyone.

And Neil. Well, I have figured out conclusively that I cannot live in the same house with him. And I have talked about it rather a lot with John and Havva and Hans, and a bit with Zechy. And, just knowing that is somehow making it easier to cope - at least a little bit. I am still furious, but it's nowhere near the level of homicidal rage I had had going.

It's no crime to say I can't possibly live in the same house with him. I couldn't possibly live in the same house with my sister, either. The big difference being that my sister is, for all of her problems, able to function in the adult world. The one time I tried giving her house-space, it lasted for about three months. And she found an apartment and moved on. Neil is not that functional. He could, theoretically find and rent an apartment. But it would be a very short time before he wasn't making ends meet and couldn't manage simple necessities. Of course then he could and probably would find somebody else to mooch off of.

I'm waiting now for him to head off to Jerusalem. Monday nights are Neil-free nights. Of course I would find dealing with Neil that much easier if I could be planning our move to our new home. Instead of trying not to think about it and trying to remember to pray when I forget to breathe and oxygen to the brain starts to run out. I don't know why it has to be like this, but somehow it always does. That's one reason I hope never to move again.

I am going to get up now. I'll make it downstairs. Don't know if I will make it further than that. It's laundry day - at least once Neil is out of the house. Crazy, that we have to wait for him to get out in order to do our laundry. Can't live with the man. Not at all.

John is at the moked this morning, having his thumb looked at again. They take deep cuts acquired while working with plumbing rather seriously. With any luck in a day or so the bandages on his thumb will stop looking like something out of a cartoon. It really is funny-looking right now.

Enough. I'll be back to reading again. Hi to everyone.

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06