And we’re back….from that extended nonexistent commercial break. You may wonder where I wondered off to, or maybe not. For those who are curious, I was back in the U.S. for Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday, my niece’s birthday, my cousin’s birthday…but not my uncle’s birthday. I cite UT’s birthday (February 13th…I’m sure he’s still accepting birthday wishes) because he pitched the biggest hissy fit upon hearing Mom and my departure date the day before. Sure, I could have posted while I was at home as there were many subjects to discuss…the Children of Peace Auction, the multitude of family Crèche sets, the Neverending Painting of F and A’s House, the Midnight Sledding Adventures, the First Time I Made the Family Pasta Sauce, the Trip to the Oregon Coast (courtesy of the wonderful W family), Quelf, the Arrival of Thor and Prince (new family kitties), the Integration of Thor and Prince, Etc… (I’m capitalizing as though these were chapter titles, including “Etc.”). But I was lazy and chose not to. Absence explained.
So here we are, back in the Holy Land. Mom and arrived the early evening and after corralling our personal mass of baggage (most of it was comprised of gifts, I swear…okay, Mom was carrying the gifts and I had half a suitcase full of glitter, but what art teacher type person wouldn’t?) and departing the arrivals zone, where NO ONE presented me with a welcoming balloon (please refer to an earlier post, I’m not sure which one), we headed towards the transportation station (what a delightful rhyme). We grabbed a cheroot (I’m spelling it phonetically according to how I’ve heard it pronounced), which is essentially a shuttle bus that you don’t need a reservation to ride, and sat down (because that is exactly what you want to do, sit down, after traveling from Seattle to Tel Aviv via two airplanes separated by a 6 hour layover in Newark over the course of 40 odd hours). Eventually, Mom and I were dropped off at the Pontifical Institute of Notre Dame, which is right next to the New Gate of the Old City and serves as a hotel, museum, church, and (most importantly, in this case) restaurant for tourists and pilgrims alike. I say eventually because there was a verbal altercation between the driver and a prospective passenger that went on for some time before we were able to depart the airport. Both parties were vociferous and unintelligible (the unintelligible part was likely due to the fact that I speak limited Hebrew, limited to the words for hello “shalom” and thanks “toda”, neither of which seemed to be very popular in the conversation). The drive, when it finally commenced, was beautiful. It was my favorite time of day (my dad’s favorite time also) when every object upon the earth (that was the nicest way I could say “all of the trees and power lines and rocks and hills and buildings and towers and cities and etc…”) is silhouetted against the ever changing color wash of the twilight sky (again, this sounded nicer than “tons of black paper cut outs in front of a blue/periwinkle/pink/peach/lavender/scarlet/cobalt…I feel like I’m in a clothing catalogue listing the colors…burnt orange/sienna/black sky”). Mom and I (and C a couple of times) had traveled the stretch of pavement between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem (AKA the 1) many times at various stages of the day and I had often found it attractive, once we were outside of the respective city centers, but I never found it so strikingly beautiful as on that late winter evening. (Forgive me for my writing style. I just finished “Mollie Peer” by Van Reid which is set in 1896 Maine and he has a way with words that sticks with a person.)
After we wrestled our baggage into the entrance of Notre Dame (the driver of the cheroot thoughtfully pulled our luggage out for us) and secured a safe resting spot for it (AKA the corner by the check-in desk), Mom and I devoured a delicious dinner of hummus, chicken shawarma, fries, lasagna, Coke, and San Pellegrino. The front desk kindly called a taxi for us (that poor man, he was overwhelmed by the site of our bags) and the taxi driver deposited us at the doorstep of the guest house. When we entered the guest house 6 ½ months ago, we (C, Mom, and I) were assaulted by the deterioration of the refrigerator contents and so were understandably gun shy about our approach on this particular evening. However, everything was fine and I have absolutely no story to tell…you’re crying on the inside from story deprivation, I can tell. We settled in over the next two days visiting the butcher, the baker, the…not the candlestick maker, but instead the green grocer, and the regular color of grocer, and prepared for school on Monday.
Currently, I am attempting to make Mom’s Pasta Sauce while she is out. Here’s hoping everything will turn out all right…I had three different kinds of canned tomatoes…that does not bode well.
Readin': The Lost Art of Mixing
10 years ago
