tossing felines

Happy summer, everyone. Yes, I know I'm a day late. I have pretty much completely lost track of the date, someone please remind me when its July 13.

Yesterday was basically another Shabbat for me. I woke up and went downstairs at my usual time and NOBODY was home. There was nothing for me to do. I went back upstairs and went back to sleep.

The rest of the day was a nice montage of eating, sleeping, reading, watching LOST, and laying out by the pool. I finished the first of the three books I brought, The Hopeful Skeptic, a very good read if anyone is interested in a very nontraditional look at Christian theology, and am trying to decide which of the remaining two to read next. I will probably read these two faster than I read the last one, seeing as I am on the final episode of Season 3 and I have no desire to rewatch that pathetic 13-episode excuse for a fourth season. Sidenote: I also only took 3 books last year when I went to Alaska. Guess which ones they were and you win a prize. Guess the other two I have this year and you win another one. And no, I am not counting the Bible.

Two other things of particular interest occurred yesterday. One, my new roommate arrived. Her name is Aliza and she is from Brooklyn and has been working at a lodge in the desert down south for the last two weeks. She's pretty chill and its nice to have some company after being alone for a week and a half. Two, LILACH BOUGHT GROCERIES. Ok, let me back up and give you some context here: We have been out of like, everything, since before Shabbat. Milk, bread, eggs, cheese, meat, you name it, I have been scrounging around and stretching out the remains of my travel food for the last few days since I got back. So anyway, she comes back from town with a carful of bags, and it was like Christmas (or Hanukkah, since this is Israel). Ahhh, so much glorious food! I have been dining very well for the last day and a half.

Other food things to mention, I have been getting more creative and independent with my cooking recently and some of it has worked and some of it hasn't. Let me explain: I don't have a stove. I do, however, have a closet full of old appliances, including about 9 hot plates, most of which do not work. The other night i decided to make pasta. Obviously, I need one hot plate to make the sauce (a lovely mix of tomatoes, a mystery cheese, zatar, and cayenne pepper.......don't ask me, I was making it up as I went along), and one hot plate to cook the noodles. Well, I found one hot plate that really worked, and a second one that maybe sort of worked. I started cooking the sauce on the one that really worked, and kept waiting and waiting and waiting for the water to boil on the other one. It wasn't happening. Finally I said, screw this, I'm cooking the noodles in my hot water pot. This was definitely successful, but my next cup of tea may or may not have tasted slightly of spaghetti. Tonight I attempted to make an omelet, which was another semi-failure since I didn't have a spatula or a flat frying pan......much less a nonstick frying pan. So, I had scrambled eggs for dinner. I have, however, been having much more luck with sandwiches and have made two excellent tuna melts recently.

Today we went to weed in the hanging gardens for the morning, which wasn't too bad. It was nice to have someone to talk to (instead of myself) while I worked, and it was somewhat cooler and breezier today. Sidenote: It is suddenly really cool here, and Guy says it is going to be colder during the day tomorrow. Whaaaaat? Perhaps I will actually need my sweatshirt for once. In the afternoon Lilach and Guy went to Akko for Tomer's end of the year party and left me in charge. Oh, crap. Ok, well, it wasn't that bad. I did manage to get four rooms ready and get the right people to the right rooms. I just couldn't answer any of the 9 billion questions they all asked me. By the time Lilach and Guy got back I was in desperate need of some Jane time, so I disappeared upstairs for a shower. And this is where the damn cat comes in.

There are a lot of very cute stray cats everywhere here. The great cat lady, Meghan Ewing Phleiderer, would be beside herself if she visited, because Israel is basically a poster child for having animals spayed or neutered. Anyway, there was this cat that was loitering around outside and nuzzling up to Aliza looking for food, and it was super skinny so she decided to feed it. She gave it a piece of cheese. Then it moved onto our porch. I felt bad so I gave it the empty tuna can from lunch for it to get the leftovers from. Neither of these were good ideas. Now the cat thinks it belongs in our house, and worse any door that opens (including those of guest cabins). I left the door open for a minute this afternoon and it walked right in, and I had to lure it outside using another tuna can. I didn't really want to pick it up because I thought it might scratch me, but I later gave up on this plan. Then tonight, I was coming back and I didn't even see the cat on the porch, opened the door for half a second to walk inside, and the cat was in the house before I was. It ran all over everything, the beds, the staircase, the table, the counter, and after trying very unsuccessfully to lure it outside with the trashcan and a cucumber (don't ask, it was what I had on hand), I finally picked the thing up and literally tossed it out the door. Ok, this was kind of mean, but I was getting really annoyed and its not even my house to begin with, so I couldn't really give it the idea that it was ok to come inside and chill with us. It ran in again when Aliza came in and she tossed it back out, and it has been periodically meowing and rubbing itself against the door ever since. Sigh.

In other news, I realized that by the time I return to the States I will have been gone exactly 40 days. I think this is kind of cool given why I came here in the first place and the fact that I didn't plan it at all.