I'm grateful for: things looking up - ish; no dogs in my bed tonight; S3 apparently sleeping through the night tonight.

I'm avoiding typing an email. I think about half the time I manage to type anything here it's because I'm avoiding doing something else.

I am so, so, so tired. And achey. The news is all good. Ish. S1 went to T.A. today to see a shrink, and the shrink agreed he could go in the army. Apparently it needs two more signature, but also apparently the other two tend to just rubber-stamp what the first one says. So, in a few weeks (it takes that long), S1 should be getting news of his impending entry into the army. We are very happy with this, could only be happier if we had a guarantee already.

S1 can't do the sort of army service he wants to, because of the circumstances of his entering the army. He is being taken as an adult volunteer, so he can't do the regular basic training or get posted as a normal new recruit. It seems that the army is very enthusiastic (according to the shrink) about S1's knowledge of military history - and his native English.

So, S1 may well end up doing something diplomatic or intelligence or strategy related. Who knows? Whatever, it will be a chance to serve in the military, which is all S1 has wanted for the last five years or so. His only problem was deciding WHICH military.

S2 went back to base today, full of determination and feeling much better about his situation. Unfortunately that better feeling is being sapped by the army's typical way of doing simply everything. So, he's was braced to refuse a direct order, which the army so far has not given to him. It is most probably coming, but he can't know when, or how, and in the meantime in theory he is supposed to be getting a transfer to another army group.

He can't maintain the level of readiness that he left the house with 24/7. When they finally get around to giving him the order it will probably catch him unawares. Typical. it's an illegal order, he's known for weeks that they were planning on doing this, and it was a very hard decision to reach - to go to jail rather than follow an illegal order. He discussed it with us, with his rabbi in the army, with the rabbi here, with every single person in the army he's come in contact with, raw recruits, strangers at bus stops, officers, commanders of different units than his own, not to mention with his own commanders.

His commanders refuse to take this seriously. They just don't believe or understand that S2 will refuse the order - they can't see (so they say) what the big deal is. He has bad officers - period.

I don't know whether to hope that the transfer comes through before they get around to giving him the order, or if, having put so much into this, I should pray for him to get his chance to make this moral stand. It's hard to know.

One good thing is - if he does end up going to jail over this, it won't be held against him (except by his immediate superiors). In fact, it may well make him look like a better soldier to most everyone.

D2 has been fretting herself a bit too much about money. She doesn't have enough. What college student ever did? But she came up with a Plan. She went home full of energy and enthusiasm and couldn't wait to start doing the steps necessary to put her plan into action. I hope she is successful, but only time will tell, and quite possibly a LOT of time. During which she will still be fretting about money. Oh, well.

S3 is sick - he's got a 'flu from the friend he went to J'lem to visit last week. We knew the friend was sick, so this isn't a surprize. It doesn't seem to be a very virulent flu, it just has kept TH and I up all night for the last three nights dealing with S3 having fever dreams. During the daytime he seems to feel mostly okay, and when he goes to bed he doesn't seem to feel bad, but in his sleep he has fever dreams, which don't quite wake him up, but keep him giving out little (or not so little) cries in the night. He remembered one of the dreams he had this morning and tried to tell it to me - yup, a classic fever dream. *Sigh* Poor guy.

TH and I are absolutely staggering. Somehow we keep going, but I can only assume it is Hashem carrying us.

TH has to go into work today/Monday. He has a presentation to make to a bunch of visiting yahoo's - er, important people. Otherwise he'd just take the day off and sleep. He couldn't sleep today/Sunday because of having to drive S2 to Be'er Sheva, D2 to Petakh Tikvah, S1 and I to Tel Aviv, and then get us back home again. Tuesday, barring some sort of unreasonable disaster at work, TH is taking vacation.

And that is another week gone, with no progress toward getting the house ready for RS. It's just over two weeks now. I'm just trying not to freak out over it all. *sigh*

To top everything off, our landlord summoned TH to come see him tonight. TH really could have used the time for other things like work or sleeping, but since we had no idea what it was about, he had to go. I was worried, was he going to tell us he'd sold the place and we had to get out? Or was he unhappy about some part of our rental agreement? What? Worry, worry, worry.

What it was, was that he's been getting sick of his sons (I've no idea how many, at least two of them) badgering him to let them move into this house. He doesn't want them moving in, or buying the place from him (TH and I have no idea why), so he wants TH and I to buy the place. Now.

No details. I mean, there are no details. He is just determined that we should buy the place so that he can be done being bothered about it. Which makes perfect sense to me, but we simply cannot just come up with a down payment, a mortgage, and enough money to pay the mortgage on his say-so. He hasn't agreed to a price, either, which was our big headache the first time through. He named a price, we met it, then he wasted more than an entire year trying to get more money out of us. Problem was/is - we haven't got any more money.

The myth of the 'rich American' hurting us yet again.

I talked to RS today, asked her if she could come up with any money towards a down payment. She was typically insane. Nothing I can do about that. So I get to just sit and pray. And try to breathe.

What happens next? I don't know. I guess my next thing is to try to get some sleep. I've managed to kill enough time, and wear out my fingers enough, that that email isn't getting written tonight. Oh, well.

I'm listening to Gogol Bordello: Dogs Were Barking.

:: 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