I'm grateful for: a very good birthday day; being able to indulge my love of jade; everything wonderful!

Today was one of the best birthday celebrations, if not the best birthday celebrations I can remember. We didn't do anything really special, not really, but I got to do what I wanted and had a lot of fun and was very happy. And I got a jade toad. How cool is that?

Woke up late, very, very late, like after 1pm. The first night I'd managed about eight hours sleep in more than a week. It did wonders for my mood.

After breakfast I basically laid out what I wanted to do. S3 finished reading a book to me - It Could Always Be Worse. A non-favourite because whenever I am reading it I am always thinking of another version of the story that I like much better, but I found this one, and he needs to practice reading. It went pretty well.

Then S2 and I worked on reading דרקון - אין דבר כזה 'There's No Such Thing As A Dragon' in Hebrew. We didn't finish it but were making good progress.

An important thing happened while we were working on it. S2 and I take turns reading a page or two aloud, one reads and the other looks up words we don't know in the dictionary. S2 was reading, and I had my eyes closed so I could try to understand his speech, rather than just reading along (I read Hebrew reasonably well, at least when it comes to children's books). I did fine until he read spoke a word that I don't know, and my brain just shut down. I mean that quite literally. From when he spoke the word I didn't know I wasn't able to comprehend or even hear another thing he said. All I heard was like vague sounds, nothing that even sounded like words. I also felt a bit of a headache and became quite nauseous. I know I've had this reaction before, but never under such perfect laboratory circumstances, where I could see it happen and recognize exactly WHAT was happening.

After we'd looked up the word we didn't know, S2 repeated the whole sentence (it wasn't a short one), and I knew and understood every other word. But when my brain had shut down I couldn't even recognize that they were words. This is probably the biggest difficulty I am dealing with in mastering Hebrew. My reading is okay and progressing reasonably well. I can speak and make myself understood - other than having no vocabulary to speak of, and i am improving in that area slowly, slowly. But I really cannot understand when people speak to me in Hebrew, and now I have a better understanding of the mechanism. Hopefully this is a step in finding away around it, or finding a fix.

I talked to a friend of mine about it, and she said she'd known a boy who was hard of hearing who had pretty much the same reaction. He'd moved here from the U.S. (with his family), and found he couldn't hear well enough to understand, and had the same sort of nausea/brain stoppage. So it's something I can hopefully find out more about.

That was the biggest deal. After that we sort of gave up on reading the book, and I moved into the family room (my choice for the 'party'), and there were presents. The most significant one was the jade toad, because I'd been admiring and wanting one for the longest time. It looks pretty small sitting on my desk, but then seems reasonably large when I am holding it. It's rather cute. I have a 'thing' with jade. I just relate to it really well, or something like that. Back when I lived in the U.S., I was rather reluctant to acknowledge it or buy myself much jade because I knew too many people who were all full of mystical/magickal crap (no insult intended to people who do the real thing), who would go on, and on, and on, and on about who significant jade was and how each of them had a special relationship to it. So, I pretty much just stayed away from it.

Now I'm away from those people, and I am finding more and more that I really, really love it. I have several pairs of jade earrings. My favourite pair of earrings unfortunately went missing and hasn't been seen in a few years - they were made for me by D2 out of yellow jade, and just suited me right down to the ground. I wish I knew what had happened to them.

But anyway, ...

Along with my toad, I received some earrings with jade stones at the bottom of long gold chains (lovely), another pair of earrings with cats heads (for Kitten), and some lovely cards made by the younger children. I really love those.

Then we watched the newest Doctor Who special together, with popcorn and cupcakes (my choice instead of cake). It was good fun. We also watched all the special features that came with WallE. I made it outside to feed the birds, and we had a cookout, very traditional with hotdogs roasting over the fire (and falling in the ashes), and marshmellows and all kinds of fun and games with an irregular and too strong wind and recalcitrant matches. It was just wonderful.

Then TH and I went into Netivot to return WallE to the video store. Kitten came with us, and road on my shoulder or snuggled inside my jacket. It wasn't cold, but she really didn't like the truck going by, and I think was ready for the adventure to be over long before it was, poor Kitten.

She has taken to the car, though, and on the way back home just snuggled up on me, after investigating a bit, and fell asleep.

Back at home I did some sorting and got rid of a handful of books and movies (yeaaaa!), before we moved back into the family room, everyone but S3 who was in bed and S1 who was writing, and watched a couple of David Tenant episodes of Dr. Who. That is actually the end of the series and we'll be starting again with the first doctor William Hartnell maybe even tomorrow. It's silly, but I've never been able to see them all straight through in order, and I am enjoying this.

And that is pretty much my happy day. Kitten fell asleep with a bit of a thud, and has barely twitched, sleeping in my lap this whole time. Chamudah, the short black dog is also contentedly sleeping on my bed. I may have to move to a sofa at this rate. It's 4:30am, *sigh* and TH has to get up before the crack of dawn to be at work by 8am in order to have the car serviced. Thank goodness it will be done, but why does it have to be so difficult?

I need to be awake by 10am, which is when the siren goes. It is יום הזכרון - Holocaust Remembrance Day, and there's a siren goes off and at 10am everyone in the whole country, at least everyone Jewish, stops whatever they are doing to stand at attention for two minutes. It's not a large thing to ask, for the one and a half million Jewish children murdered. They are making a special point about the children this year. I don't know if they make a special point about a different thing every year, I don't remember it being done before. But, anyway, I don't want to sleep through that. It would seem awfully disrespectful.

Besides TH going to work, there really isn't anything much going on tomorrow. Wednesday is the big day, because i have to leave the house around 6am to drive S1 to his appointment at Tel HaShomer, the main army base. S2 has an appointment with the dentist at the same time, so TH will be either borrowing a car, or tramping with him, or even calling for a taxi. A crazy day, but all the crazy gets over early at least.

I'm going to try and finish up thing I am doing on the 'puter and get some sleep. Be well, all, and Gd bless,

I'm listening to the sound of the keys on my new (happy, happy) keyboard. I wonder how long I'll be delighted by it?

:: 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