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Honey is Sweet Sick day - 2009-01-17 i'm grateful for: saltine crackers; finishing some books; ginger ale. Terribly upset stomach today, and I'm sitting on the toilet thinking 'they can't be bombing me today,' but of course they can. The sky is blue with white clouds, not a terribly normal thing to see here. The sun is shining and the helicopters are whirring overhead. My guts are really a mess - is it something I ate? The eternal question. I have never yet managed to find any relationship between what i eat and my gut problems. I don't believe there is one, really. The choppers have nothing to do with the 'booms' going on around here, so I'm not really sure what they are doing, flying back and forth overhead all day. The booms here are rockets being launched from Gaza. The more distant although sometimes louder booms from there are as often as not tanks firing on buildings that turn out to have had ammunition stockpiles, and our boys setting off booby-traps that were set for them (usually intentionally, usually with no loss of life or injury, but not always). They could be flying wounded to the hospital in Be'er Sheva, or soldiers from a southern base to the fighting in Gaza. For the most part they are not the helicopter gunships that used to warm my heart (years ago, before the war started, when we were first living here and experiencing the rocket attacks) when I saw them overhead, going to shoot at the people shooting rockets at us. I occasionally get to see the drone spyplanes - I could see them more than occasionally if I got out more often - which are quite visible in the air over Gaza from our moshav. They fly very slowly and are quiet and give off a different sort of an engine sound. It makes sense given that they are really just oversized versions of the toy remote controlled planes. The clouds are darkening now, becoming more 'normal' for this place and time. Grey clouds, but they don't give us any rain. Good for the soldiers, Barukh Hashem, but what will we use next year for water? If the rains don't come. No on here in Israel seems to be thinking of that just now - all thoughts are of the war. I live in an agricultural community, though. One neighbour lost his entire crop of potatoes through the frost we had here - almost entirely unheard of. We've now had the two coldest winters on record for the northern Negev - and this one may turn out to be the driest as well. It's more than a little bit scary. Still, what can you do? I'm listening to the helicopters and wondering whether or not to run back to the bathroom. Two things you wouldn't be likely to see juxtaposed in any sort of movie about living in a war. Still, I have to do all the normal things one does, while the doors rattle and the ground shakes. I'm eating crackers and drinking ginger ale. By the grace of Gd we were able to get a case of American saltine crackers in our last bulk order. What would I be doing now without them? I shudder to think. I have a dog sleeping at the foot of my bed. The dogs are still far more freaked out by the booms than we are. If this war ever stops, if the rockets ever stop coming our way, I will have to learn four entirely new personalities for our dogs. When they finally relax, that is. I couldn't get out of bed for the tzeva adom this morning. Just couldn't, legs wouldn't work. I stayed in bed, no problem, but that caused a problem for the dogs who couldn't decide whether to be with me or out in the hall with the rest of the family. It was so early in the morning no one could make it under the house in time. Anyway, the poor dogs, well, two of them, whined and scrabbled at the door, whichever side of it they were on. Poor things. Later on, we had some company, a bunch of Xtians including the husband of my Canadian friends stopped in briefly. They had an Israeli guide with them, and we all chatted about the war, the political situation, and electronic fly swatters. They had brought us one as a present. What a weird world. They had been sight-seeing - going to tsomet Sa'ad, from which high point you can see the fighting going on in Gaza from this side of the fence. They said they couldn't see anything because of fog. Another unusual bit of weather for this part of the world. I don't know about global warming, but it sure looks like climate change of some sort. Anyway, it is starting to get darker and colder, my stomach is feeling a bit better, the animals are getting put away for the night without me (sadness). I'm off, TH is going to read aloud to S3 in here. I'm still listening to the helicopters overhead 0 bleats so far:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::
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