I'm grateful for: getting to finish writing about today, a with a bit more sanity; a really funny new (to us) book by Gerald Durell - Marrying Off Mother; living WITH fear instead of IN fear.

Oh, what can I say. It was too long a day. The supposed meetings with the officers didn't happen. They had us show up four hours early for the tekkes, and then we just sat around in the heat, me getting worse and in more pain the whole time.

There was a small ceremony, something of a practice ceremony actually which I decided not to go to. I was already seated in my wheelchair at the location for the big event, it didn't seem like anything would be happening, and for some reason the army base wasn't very wheelchair accessible. ;-7

Or COURSE, that was when the only really interesting thing happened. S2's mefaked (sargeant?) chose S2 as the soldier from his plugah (company? brigade? I'm not sure) to get his (the mefaked's) old tags. It's a kind of passing of the baton thing, and means the mefaked really likes and thinks well of S2. But I was back at the stands, holding seats for D3 and TH, and TH phoned to tell me all about it. *sigh*

The tekkes was beautiful - they always are. It is something the IDF does so right. I also met a very nice American/Anglo woman with a five-month-old daughter, and we had a very nice time chatting. Her oldest, a boy who was just gone nineteen, was also at the tekkes. Her kids are about the same spread as mine, only mine are roughly nine years older. She took my phone number, so maybe she might actually call me? Stranger things have happened. She doesn't live too terribly far from us, either.

Then, the fortunate part of the day, D3 got to talk to a female combat soldier and also a female combat officer. That was a big part of why D3 came, hoping to get some information and maybe even advice, since she's pretty clear she also wants to go into combat in her turn. There aren't so many of them, and their options are limited to a few different jobs - one of them is the same as what S2 is doing, another it anti-aircraft. Shoulder-mounted missile launchers, what makes some people's hearts to pitty-pat. They can also join tank units, although they aren't allowed IN the tanks, they do get to move them around.

So that part was good and satisfying and something to appreciate. Then we went home.

Drive home, long, not satisfying, stopped for supper and it was a huge disappointment. We stopped somewhere we'd been before and loved it. Today, no. I wasn't able to keep my eyes open for the second half of the drive home, but I couldn't sleep because I kept thinking that I was falling asleep at the wheel and jerking myself awake. No fun, that.

We got home and put my bed back together, read S3 a few chapters of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, that's his new bedtime story, and pretty much crashed. I watched an episode of Joan of Arcadia with D3, and S2 joined us for part of it. All of us are sunburned - mine is the worst looking, D3 seems to be hurting the worst. S2 looks red all over, but that's what happens when you put redheads with their pale white skin in the desert. I also have a heat rash on every conceivable part of my body, and on a few you might not think of. Ouch!

Tomorrow it is my intention (yes, I am insane) to get up at the crack of dawn, again, and drive north to the Rosh HaAyin shuk. It's for a treat for me, so I really hope I can get what I want there, after all of this if I can't it will be too too bad.

When I get home tomorrow? Don't look for me. I intend to be dead, and maybe even buried. Maybe a bit happier, but then, who knows? D2 is coming south with us from Tel Aviv so we will have a full house for shabbos and for S2's birthday.

I'm listening to Tower of Power: What is Hip?

:: 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