I'm grateful for: a possibility of sleep; a very quiet night; boiling water.

Latest unbelievably sick news ... you don't want to hear it. Okay. I'm not better yet. Not all better yet, not a little better yet. Today, not so good. It's to be expected - for some reason I am always sick and miserable on Fridays anyway. I call it the Friday malaise. On a bad Friday it can hit as early as noon. On a good Friday it might hold off until 9pm or so. But it seems to always hit me at some point.

I get this hollow, weak feeling accompanied by a bunch of lousy emotions. Feeling sorry for myself, whiny, whiny, whiny. I know what it is, it's the Friday malaise, and when it hits, I generally know to take myself off away from people and wait for it to pass. It always does, eventually.

So the fact that today there is no improvement in my 'flu symptoms I'm just putting down to Friday. I'm not really feeling worse.

I have this awful, awful thing where half of my face is just in agony, presumably from the pressure in the back of the sinus. I've had it three times - once yesterday, after helping Havva make the soup, and twice today, each time after spending at least 45 minutes out of my heated room with my down comforter. I doubt it's a coincidence, but I don't know if there is a direct connection (colder air = nasty pressure headache) or if there is some more complicated mechanism, but I guess I'm going to be spending my time camped out in my room for the forseeable future. At least until there is some sign of sustained improvement.

In the news news, today (in the last 24-36 hours?) five people died in hospital because there was no room left in i.c.u. and there wasn't the staff or equipment in the regular hospital department to be able to give them the help they needed. What a nightmare! I understand that the hospital staff was basically hysterical about this.

The news didn't say which hospital, or give too many details. What grabbed the news was the political machinations in the labor party and the disgusting behaviour of our president. Clearly that is more important than the fact that people are Dying of this 'flu in the over-crowded hospitals. They've called back retirees to work shifts and are doing all that they can. There's no one to blame. It's just that I think given the choices, I'm more interested in as much information as I can get about the health care situation than I am about whether Peretz thinks Avitayil should run for President.

The health ministry also hushed up the number of deaths after people got the 'flu shot. Apparently there was about four times as many people died after receiving a 'flu shot than the news reported - until a week ago. No specific word on whether any of the deaths could be positively connected to the 'flu shot, either. Four people died after getting the 'flu shot the same day in the same hospital, but of course dozens or hundreds didn't die. So who knows? They don't seem to think this sort of thing is important enough to do a thorough and critical investigation of. Instead they run around trying to cover their asses with burning newspapers screaming 'there's no story here!' What amazes me is that so much of the media goes along with it. Well, maybe not amazes me. Stirs up some righteous indignation maybe?

What it really does is make me furiously frustrated and angry at all of the damn fools (I seem to know too many of them) insisting that they are well informed because they read the newspaper or some such. I'm not saying I am that much better informed, but at least I *know* that I don't know - and that information is either not being gathered, or is being withheld. I know it's not some kind of conspiracy either - or not a big one, maybe there are a bunch of little ones around. It's mostly just people acting like people. People who are trying to cover their own asses, or trying to push their particular agenda, or truly are convinced they know what we need to know, so why bother us with unnecessary details? People who had a bad day and don't want to be penalized for it, and people doing the best they can, but the best just isn't good enough (those poor hospital workers - I can't imagine).

So shit happens and it is not reported, or mis-reported, or buried under a pile of stupid shit (I'm sorry, but I really think what someone supposed Olmert is doing to embarrass Peretz really is stupid shit - it's not even news, it's opinion). And all we can do is muddle through, pulling out our best understanding of what is going on, what is important, and, Gd willing, trying to keep an open mind and some courtesy for people who have gathered a different idea of what is going on and what is important.

I actually take great comfort in the fact that during WWII, and the fifties and sixties, the news coverage was just as strident and unbalanced and incomplete as it is today. Probably at plenty of other times as well - maybe all the time. But it reassures me that things are not actually becoming 'worse.' It's that I (we?) bought into the illusion that things were getting better (which they are, technologically), and then start to worry that it's the world coming to an end when it's all as bad as ever. 'As bad' - venal politicians, bad/biased reporting, people being selfish and working for their own ends even when it goes against the public good, wars and hatred existing on a rather constant basis, people hurting, torturing, and killing each other - it's all been going on, and continues to go on. When I don't have the illusion that: 1) It didn't used to be like this, something horrible has broken down and the world is going to hell, or; 2) It's been getting progressively better until it suddenly took this horrible turn for the worse; well, then I am relieved. Not necessarily happy that this is the way things are, but, I don't have to be afraid that we're on the brink of the end of all things, armaggeddon, Ragnarok, etc., etc.

Really the world is a wonderful and horrible place filled with wonderful and horrible people. One could certainly be expected, if one lives in the U.S. and really only knows and has experienced history as taught normally and reads news that trumpets disaster, for thinking that somehow the whole world has been nicely getting along, progressing towards some peaceful semi-utopian future, and that there is some unusual crisis where did the morals/responsibility/accountability/sanity go?

The world, including the U.S., is filled with as much dishonesty and nastiness and sin - and also heroism and nobility and honour - as it ever was. If it is some microscopic amount better or worse, we don't have the ability to tell. Really.

So, as I started off with, I am relieved to know that the news services are pretty much the same as they ever were. It means things aren't suddenly going to hell. I'm relieved to know that politicians are no worse than they have ever been - you just have to be able to keep breathing through the inflamatory headlines - or else go read some of the inflamatory headlines from the 1960's, or the 1940's or the 1910's. I'm relieved to know that the atrocities committed today are really no worse than those committed in 1972, or in 1904 or in 1878 (or any date you choose to name). Slightly different in performance as we have different tastes in attrocities today and different tools with which to perform them.

I'm also relieved to know that life expectancy is better than it was in the 1950's or 1920's or 1830's, and that it's unlikely I will ever have to live without antibiotics or indoor plumbing or central heating unless I choose to. I am a *big* fan of indoor plumbing. Just so you know. I had none in Vermont, but if we'd lived there long enough, there would have been hot and cold running water - you can trust me on this.

The only thing I can see that really is worse is that in 1916, say, you only had to look at inflamatory, adreneline-producing headlines once or twice or (at most) three times a day. You got a break between times. Now there is no break, as the news services and public service announcements and do-gooders are busy screaming at us 24/7 - if we let them.

I try not to let them. But, yeah, I am addicted to the news. I wasn't in the U.S., it's an Israeli thing. I know there are Americans, and Britons and Germans and Japanese who are also addicted to the news - I'm not saying it is ONLY an Israeli thing. But, trust me, it is an Israeli thing. I think in part it's because in every car crash, the odds are that there is someone related to or known by someone you know in it. You'd have to work pretty darn hard to find six degrees of separation between any two people here. Or five, or maybe even four.

I like that about the place.

Someone asked me, since we are thinking of buying this place, does that mean we are not returning to the U.S.? I don't know how to answer that. I mean, I still have my beautiful home in Vermont, and I still have a daughter and two grandchildren in New Jersey. I have ample reasons to want to return to the states, temporarily or permanently. Do I know what the future holds? I do not. It is theoretically possible that I will never set foot in the U.S. again. It is theoretically possible that we will all return to the U.S. ('all' meaning John, me, and the kids that still live at home) to stay forever.

All I can say is, I want to own this house, I want to be able to make use of the fields and the lul (chicken house) and alter and build on the house as I choose without fussing with the landlord or worrying about damages at some distant future date. I want to feel like we have roots, and I want my kids to feel secure. I love it here. I loved it in Vermont. How can I choose to close the doors on any options, particularly as my higher power hasn't done so?

On a completely unrelated note, the tax forms have theoretically reached the I.R.S. I mailed them the same day as a bank deposit so I'd have some way to gauge, and the deposit has been credited to my account. So now I get to wait and see what the I.R.S. does - find out what we did wrong, most likely. It being the first time we ever filled out tax returns on foreign income while not residing in the U.S.

I'm just praying, Please Hashem that whatever we did they really do owe us money and it will show up sometime in the not TOO distant future. At this point, if we do get the money we think we have coming, it would genuinely solve all of our forseeable financial problems. Okay, we would not be independently wealthy, but we would be able to live within our income and have a small amount for unforeseen expenses. Please Hashem! I'm not asking for much, just what is theoretically already ours. If I really did it right and there aren't some weird rules that I missed or confused along the way.

I haven't filed 2004 tax returns. Bad me! But, those are a lot more complicated since we resided in the U.S. for almost exactly half the year - and had no income to speak of (I can't remember if John got one or two unemployment checks, or none, and there was almost no sales while we were in the U.S. - and the first six months in Israel we were supported by the state - no earned income at all.

Hey, I have to say it's a great deal. For the adventure of our lives, the airfare, and first six months expenses covered by the Israeli gov'ment. If we were more sane, we would have come over with some money of our own, and then had more options. But, I am not complaining (today). It was a heck of a rough ride, but I love where I have ended up. Not that it's an ending.

John says that Neil will start moving his stuff out on Sunday. And that he will theoretically move himself out on the first. I'm scared and happy. I don't even know what I'm scared about. I guess all those nameless dreads that we sometimes worry about even when we don't know we're worrying about them. And relieved. Did I say relieved? I won't really be relieved until I can put the dirty laundry basket in what is now his room. It's in my room, and people have to come into my bedroom to put laundry in it. The added privacy is kind of mind-boggling to contemplate. For all of us.

I must be doing better. It's about 10:30 now, and I am actually thinking I might try and fall asleep. Not now, I am not tired enough, but the various symptoms are not so bad that I worry that I won't be able to fall asleep. How is that for famous last words?

Have I mentioned that my husband is an ass? My husband is an ass. Or a jackhole. Or something like that. He just left (of course I've been interrupted many times while writing this). He can't even muster up a 'targeeshi tov' - 'feel good.' Even Neil manages to say that. It's not like I'm not obviously really sick, or that I'm not trying my best, or anything like that. It's that John really, truly couldn't care less. It's depressing.

I don't *want* to live (to have lived) my life with a man who really, truly couldn't care less about me. I don't want to live (to have lived) my life with a man who doesn't care about himself. Waah! I just don't wanna play anymore. *sigh* But, just as I don't want to have a mother who would choose to destroy me rather than feel some discomfort, there are some things you just don't have choices about. Waah!

So there.

So today I cried (the pain was that bad for a bit), and while I cried I prayed. I prayed that as long as Hashem has me in a situation in which there is little or no human comfort and support for me, that He should give me the strength and the ability to deal with it. If I am to be the sole emotional support for every person in my little family, including myself, I need more tools, and more power to effect changes. This is the situation? Well, then make it possible for me to give to my kids what I haven't been given. Give me strength to bear up under all of my burdens, and show me which burdens aren't mine to shoulder. 'Cause the way it is now? It's not working.

So, Neil moving out, and perhaps John moving to the small house. Hans and Havva going back to the U.S. and (Please Hashem!) perhaps the U.S. gov'ment solving our immediate financial problems. If it all works out, my life should look so different that I'd have nothing to complain about. Well, maybe my health and day-to-day vicissitudes. But perhaps I wouldn't even want to complain about that, then. A person can hope.

I have no anecdotes from today. And my arms are shaking. I'm still weak, and have to stop. We watched Finding Nemo today for the movie, and I finished the Bob Dylan book - a very good book. I'm glad I read it. I'm also relieved. It's so awful when I read a biography or autobiography of someone who I really like, and afterward find I don't like them so much. That didn't happen here. Musician people definitely filter the world differently than non-musician people. Interesting to notice.

I've started We Captured A U-Boat, and also just finished Seven Little Australians. Being sick is good for books. Simcha was pretty sick today, and I got her to spend a good chunk of the afternoon in my bed, under the comforter, and listening to the Seven Little Australians audiobook with me. Poor thing looked really washed out. I don't know if she felt any better, but she looked better before she went to bed. John was reading aloud to her The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg (sp?). Lots of neat books today.

And I guess that's it. Wishing sleep and good health for myself, and joy and laughter to all of us. Be well and Gd bless -

I'm listening to The Pogues: The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

:: 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