Ridiculous stress

I locked myself out of my mother's house today. I was annoyed at myself, but it wasn't so terrible - I walked across the street to a neighbor's, borrowed a screwdriver to take a screen off an open window, and clambered through. Then I walked to the front, UNLOCKED the door, and went around back to put the screen back up.

And here is where I got stressful - as I walked in again, I promptly noticed that the cats weren't greeting me. Oh no, I thought, where are the cats? I couldn't find them anywhere. Then I knew - they must have gone outside through the open window! What cat could resist? They're always trying to get out the front door, this would have seemed a godsend to them.

I called Jonathan and my mom to come home from shopping, as I needed the extra pairs of eyes. I grabbed keys, my cell phone, and a cat carrier so that when I came across them, I could scoop them back up. Then I wandered around our neighborhood for half an hour calling, "Simcha! Osher! Come here!" I couldn't find them.

By the this time I was in tears, envisioning them getting in fights with the local possums, getting run over, or just getting lost in this new country (we've always kept them inside since we've gotten here). I had gone to three neighbors, two of which were outside helping me look.

After forty minutes I finally headed home, still calling their names. And as I reached the house, I heard Simcha meow in response to my calls. Hooray! I thought. But where IS he?! I circled the house trying to find him, calling continuously so that he would meow back.

Then it hit me - he was calling from INSIDE the house! That couldn't be! I had checked everywhere in the house! I walked in the front door, still confused, and I realized the meows were coming from Beverly's room, which was closed. I opened the door, and who do I see? Simcha and Osher, sitting on the bed meowing, looking at me like I'm absolutely nuts for being so stressed.

After getting over my panic, and wanting to both kiss and kill them at the same time, I thought through everything that had happened since I locked myself out. This is what I think happened: One door of Bev's room opens into the house, the other door opens outside into the backyard. The cats aren't allowed in there because she has lots of decorative masks with feathers, which they like to eat and destroy. So we always keep the doors closed. But when I left to put the screen back up on the window, I left through the back, and I think I probably left her door ajar. The cats must have gotten in and accidentally pushed it closed. Then, when I came in through the front and saw they were missing, I checked every room in the house, including that one. But they know they're not supposed to be in there, so, following past precedent, when they heard me come in, they hid under the bed! Forty minutes later, they were bored and wanted to come out, and so Simcha meowed in response to my calls.

Madness.

So here I am now, frustrated, slightly bedraggled, and calling all our neighbors to thank them for looking for my cats who weren't even missing. And where are they? Sacked out on the living room recliners, relaxing in the sunbeams.

Does that seem fair to you?

Cuteness

You know you're in LA when...

I'm out to lunch with my friend Danielle when we get onto the topic of celebrity gossip.

"I don't follow it much," she says.
"Really? I read it all the time," I say, turning my head to look at her.
"But you have to remember," she says, "I went to high school with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. They were a year below me, and didn't interest me then either."

I had forgotten she was from Sherman Oaks - turns out she went to school with Henry Winkler's daughter too. Then again, why was I surprised? In high school one of my friends did a commercial with George Clooney, and in college I went to dinner with Helen Hunt and Hank Azaria (I was friends with Helen's cousin).

It seems odd to me that this *doesn't* seem odd. Maybe it is time to move on.

Rabbinic update

I found out that my student pulpit will be in Mattoon, IL, about four hours south of Chicago. It's a small congregation of nine families, and I'll go there once a month from Friday to Sunday, leading Shabbat services and teaching an adult education class.

I'll also be teaching/tutoring Hebrew twice a week in Cincinnati, at Rockdale Temple. That part will be familiar, as it feels similar to what I did at Temple Israel.

We leave for Ohio on July 11th, and have lots of plans in between (two weddings, trip to Tahoe, learning trope from my mom, more housesitting, Mara and Mark visiting, oy!). Had a fabulous time with Anne a few days ago, and a shout-out to Gwen and Sylvan, who now have this blog address.

Fun day

Yesterday was the perfect social day. In the early morning was Holly's phone call, and a bit later on Jonathan and I went to Manhattan Beach to meet up with Ari and Kim, our jet-setting friends from Chicago who we first met at the Keren Hayesod intersection in Jerusalem.

In the afternoon I browsed Long Beach's Belmont Shore with Tara, a friend from high school. Greek food, Jamba Juice, and a year's worth of catching up... you can't go wrong.

For dinner Jan and Beverly took us to Claim Jumper as a belated anniversary present. We played checkers at the bar, laughed our way through dinner, and loosened our belts after the chocolate chip calzone... yum!

After dinner we headed back to Jane and Sheryl's, where we're house/pet-sitting. Their dog, Pandora, is so sweet - she keeps smelling Simcha and Osher on our clothes and gets confused.

We didn't take any pictures with Ari and Kim, but here are others from the rest of the day.

Tara and I going back to our 10th-grade roots in the hold-the-camera-out-and-take-a-shot-of-ourselves pose

I love this woman. Can you tell she's a toy designer?

Mom and Beverly. (Or Jan and Bev, whichever you prefer).

Us at dinner.

And because I find it fundamentally wrong to put up any photos without including ones of the cats.... :)

Happy Birthday, Gregory!

Holly and Dan had a healthy baby boy today! He's 8 lbs, 20 1/4 in., and has blond hair. In the words of our sages, may he live to be 120.
Mazel tov!

(In my news, the eye surgery went well. I'm just not supposed to read or use the computer much... urgh.)

Scotland pics

Finally! I went through the like 400 pictures and picked about 20. Enjoy!


Scotland the beautiful

(Edit: I had written descriptions for each picture, but they aren't showing up in the slideshow. Go to the main page if you want extra info.)

Last of the Israel photos

Me with Deborah (my Berkeley-Tel Aviv Univ. medical school friend) at the top of the YMCA tower. The Dome of the Rock is behind us.

Osher hiding.

The larger context view of where Osher was. How did he get up there?!

Savta and Avraham at the restaurant the night before we left Jerusalem, when they took us out to a fancy dinner.

Jonathan's fine

In his own words (from one of the comments):

Thanks everyone. The surgery went very well, and the doctor seems sure that it wasn't cancer [though they're sending it to Pathology to make sure]. I came home from the surgery and passed out for 4 hours. This went a little easier than last time thank goodness!

Again, thanks for all the good thoughts, I'm sure that's why everything went so well! =)

Wish us luck

I haven't mentioned anything here before, but Jonathan has outpatient surgery tomorrow to remove a lump in his arm. With his history of cancer, we're all hoping for the best. Think of us tomorrow - I'm sure he'll be fine.

Northern CA

To go back a few posts, here are some shots of the time we spent in Placerville.

The wagon train on the way to Tahoe. Remnants of the Wild West gold rush days are everywhere.

First view of Lake Tahoe. It's so pretty!

Jonathan with Tante Edna and Uncle John at the lake.

After we left Lake Tahoe, we drove straight down to Aunt Lois' and Mike's. They took us to a wonderful dinner for our anniversary (which was the 4th), and then the next morning we got up bright and early to look at the "Big Trees." Literally, that's what the sign said: Big Trees. It's a redwood forest in the Sierra Nevadas, and these trees are the biggest I’ve ever seen.

Jonathan and Aunt Lois on the trail. We quickly got lost, and by the end had gone over three full footpaths.

Looking up into the foliage. He's standing *in* the tree trunk!

My husband is 6'1". You'd never know it - doesn't he look tiny next to these giants?

We're all a bunch of tree-huggers in CA, you know. :)

After the day of hiking in the forest, we drove to Aunt Lois’ property. At 24 acres, they pretty much own the mountain. This will be the view from their living room window:




When we finally got back to civilization we were exhausted, so the day afterwards we just hung out at the house, and then went to Stockton for dinner to meet up with some of Jonathan’s friends from his Silicon Valley days. Thursday we drove the three hours to Fresno to see his mom and brother and sister’s families. Our nieces and nephews are all adorable – six-year-old Trevor was so happy we’re back. “My uncle was in the war!” he had told everyone. Yes, but he's home now, Trevor, and out of danger.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and today was the long trek home (with one more stop in Burbank to see yet more people). Now we return to the familiar: LA is smoggy, there is lots of traffic, and what do you know, Paris Hilton's return to jail was the prime topic of all the radio shows. So here we are, tired, happy, and home, and glad to see the kitties.

Beautiful article on Jerusalem tensions

Clashing values alter a city's face

Thousands of less devout Jews move out each year, many frustrated by the growing clout of the ultra-Orthodox. The trend may leave Israelis with a painful choice.

By Richard Boudreaux, Times Staff WriterJune 5, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-orthodox5jun05,0,7713016.story?page=1

Cows and cars. Not necessarily in that order.

Aunt Edna and Uncle John live in Placerville, right near where the first gold nuggets were found. The town's oldest architecture is straight from the 18oos, and the town's nickname is "Old Dry Diggin's." They are amazing and gave (flat out gave) us a car to take to Cincinnati, a beautiful Toyota Camry that even has a sunroof. They've also given Savta a run for her money in the "feeding us til we burst" department. We hung out, looked through old photo albums - Jonathan was so *cute* when he was little! - and we went up to Tahoe with them yesterday, about an hour away.

Today we've moved south to the county of Calaveras. Not the town itself, but the county (I learned yesterday that counties are not always made up of various cities, but that people live in a county in the............... SPACE............ between towns). Aunt Lois and Mike live in a mansion four times the size of my mother's house, and they're going to build a house on their property of 24 acres. You can't see the house from the road, just the driveway. Cows and horses are everywhere, and wild deer came onto their property yesterday. Just.... there. Eating. By the side of the road. Deer.

A very confused rooster crowed well before sunrise this morning. But what made Jonathan laugh rather than curse was that in my half-awake state, I mumbled, "wow, a rooster!" I'd never heard one before. I was gratified to find that the movies have gotten it surprisingly right - the crow really *does* sound remarkably like "cock-a-doodle-doo."

City girl, guilty as charged.