Guess what – I’m a cat-sitter once again!
Meet my friend’s cat, known simply as The Kitten. He looks to be at least partly Maine Coon. He’s affectionate and sweet, and I’m in love.
Curled up, showing a bit of fang:
Did I mention that I’m in love? Well, I am, and I don’t care who knows it!
See that background image? It’s not the one that was there before.
I decided that I wanted to use an image of my own as my background image. I found this post on the Blogger help forums, and then tried out a bunch of photos until I found one I liked.
I also figured out what portion of the photo Blogger uses as the background image. That means that now, when I take photos, I can compose the pic in a way that may allow me to use it for a future background image.
I really like this new system. I can do so much more, and I’m learning a lot!
(Here’s another great post about how to change the background image if you’re using the Picture Window template.)
Long ago (well, probably more like a hundred years ago in Internet years), I designed the website for my women’s tefilla group, Shirat Sara.
A while back, I decided that it was time to redo the site on Blogger, and I just completed it. The end result is here.
It’s two sites, actually – English and Hebrew. Each links to the other. Check ’em out!
UPDATE: I finished another one. Check out the Leader Minyan’s new home page. (In Hebrew, too.)
When I saw these items on a low stone wall near the trash bin in the parking lot of my apartment building, I had to wonder, for a few moments, about their history.
An Easter card (in Polish, I think); a small wooden box that had once held tea from Nepal but now held partially-used Sabbath candles (not pictured); a small red flower; and a slide.
Here is a closeup of the slide:
To me, it looks like a silhouette of a group of people talking comfortably around a potted plant with tall, broad leaves.
When I was in the Rehavia neighborhood last Friday morning, I passed a florist shop (where Rita the tortie hangs out), and saw what looked like a display of rag dolls facing the street:
Then, on my way home, I passed a terrace with an effigy of what looked like a young man wearing pajamas:
I guess one could call it the Day of the Dolls.
A few nights ago, I saw a kitten trapped on this ledge (click on the photo to see the notes of where it was, and where I was):
I could see that this kitten was trapped, and was not going to get off the ledge without help.
So I grabbed a flashlight, a step-stool and a small bowl of canned cat food and headed out to the far wall, which is actually at ground level on the other side. I went up the step-stool, climbed over the wall, carefully let myself down onto the ledge (although that far wall looks low, it’s actually a bit high for a person of my height), and put the food bowl down near the kitten, who wouldn’t even look at it. Instead, it hissed and backed away from me, redoubling its frantic efforts to find a way off the ledge.
Although I have a slight fear of heights, I realized that I could handle this situation. The ledge is fairly broad, and I was in no danger of falling. A resident of the building watched me from the entrance, but did nothing – he couldn’t do anything from where he was, anyway, and I assume that he could tell from the kitten’s loud cries of distress, the food bowl in my hand, and my attempts to calm the kitten, why I was there.
Gathering my courage, I crouched near the wall, reached out and grabbed the kitten – who was leaning over the ledge by this time – by the scruff of its neck, lifted it up and whisked it to the upper ledge on the far side, which leads to safety.
I put the kitten down next to the food bowl, but it didn’t even look at the food. It bolted almost the moment that its paws touched the surface.
Sigh.
Well, I tried.
A local cat poses for the camera:
Hadi watches a fly:
The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.
Just under five years ago, I took this photo of the elm tree in the front yard of our building.
Several months ago, the tree had to be cut back severely because of disease. Branches were rotting from the inside, causing a significant risk of injury to passersby. It was sad to see the tree cut down so drastically, but it was necessary.
Still, there is hope. The tree's growth is coming back dramatically:
Maybe there will even be seeds next spring – which means that the local parakeet community will come to eat them, and maybe I’ll even get to take pictures of them.
Hey, a girl can hope.
Actually, it was Elisson who inspired me.
I’d been thinking about it for a long time, and today I decided to buckle down and do it. This evening, I finally upgraded to Blogger’s new template system and chose a new template for my blog. It took quite a bit of work, but now it’s done. Ta-da!
So... how do you like my new look?
There will probably be other changes, since not only does this system make them fairly easy to do, but I can also navigate the CSS in the template pretty well. I figure that I’ll take a few days to go through my photos, and then I’ll choose one of them as the background image.
And then, who knows? I may change the image again at some point to fit the season, an upcoming holiday, or my mood on a particular day. Or I may change the color scheme. Or the template. Or anything I darn well please, as often as I like, simply because I can.
Or maybe not. I’ll see how I feel.
After all, this is my own tiny little corner of the Internet.
Who needs the World Cup championships when I can watch Hadi playing ball?
The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.
I remember the day I took this photo very well.
I was on a bus coming from a tour of the City of David the Passover before last. My traveling companion was an American woman who needed directions, and since I wasn’t pressed for time that day, I offered to guide her to the next leg of her journey.
The full blog post about that ride is here.
I was infuriated to see that security guards were enforcing segregation on the bus, which has not been designated as a segregated bus. I kept my camera out and took some photos, which I published both on this blog and on my Flickr page.
Some weeks ago, I got a phone call from a writer at The Jewish Daily Forward asking permission to use a photo of mine for a story that he was writing about segregated buses in Israel. I said, “Sure,” and named my fee. He agreed, and the photo is running in today’s edition—on the front page!
The article is here.
Tiny little blogger makes the big time. I like the sound of that!
If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s paying for something and then not getting what I paid for.
About a week and a half ago, I was heading to work from downtown when I needed to use the bathroom. Just across the street, I saw one of the coin-operated bathrooms that the Jerusalem municipality installed recently, and decided to use it.
The “Vacant” light was on...
... so I paid my shekel and pulled the door, which wouldn’t open. I pushed the refund button, but my shekel didn’t come back.
By now I was pretty annoyed. I called the municipality’s hotline and complained, and eventually, after quite a runaround, I managed to speak with the head of the sanitation department. Unlike the others I had spoken to, he was understanding and accommodating—even when I asked for my shekel back on the grounds that the municipality gets enough of my money in taxes every year.
And so, several days later, we met near the parking lot of my workplace, and he handed me two shekels: one to make up for the one that I had lost, and a second one for the woman who had tried to use the automatic bathroom as I was speaking to the municipality people, and had inserted her shekel before I could reach her.
Since I don’t know who the woman is, I donated that shekel to charity. I put the other one toward a small bag of chocolates that I shared at the office.
Citizen activism: it pays!
Last Thursday night, my group, Et Al, had a gig up north in Kiryat Tivon, a gorgeous suburb of Haifa.
The gig went fantastically—I think it was our best one yet. I spent the night at my friend Joanna’s, and early Friday afternoon, we headed to Mifgash ha-Steak, an excellent, reasonably-priced kosher grill restaurant in Herzliya’s hi-tech zone, for lunch.
We ordered Middle Eastern salads for appetizers. I’m sorry I forgot to take pictures of them when they arrived. They were varied, colorful and delicious. I didn’t count how many of them there were, but there were a lot. We had great fun sampling each one.
And then came the meal we had ordered: the mixed grill for two.
It was heavenly. We couldn’t finish it. The only suggestion that I would make to the management would be to include two lamb chops instead of one, since it’s not easy to split one lamb chop between two people. I can᾿t imagine that it would increase the cost by all that much, and I’d be willing to pay it.
Then came dessert. I usually don’t order dessert when I eat out, but this time I did. I asked for one scoop of raspberry sorbet and ordered Turkish coffee, which is said to aid digestion. By the end of this meal, I needed all the help I could get!
Then, we drove to the nearby marina to get a look at the sea and the boats. This boat appears to be a navy vessel:
Then we saw something a bit more connected to land: a magnificent, gleaming Harley-Davidson motorcycle:
At home, I was greeted by a praying mantis resting on a newspaper that was sticking out of a mail slot:
Then it was back home for Shabbat and rest. In all, an excellent weekend.
It would seem that recently, Hadi has learned one important word:
“Mine.”
The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.
A metal gate at the Mahane Yehuda open-air market:
Open drainage holes in a Haredi neighborhood. According to one resident, the local residents opened them in order to prevent children from using the area as a soccer pitch.
The light rail tracks from one angle...
... and from another.
World news: in Hungarian, English, French, Romanian and Amharic.
Construction across the street from Jerusalem’s central bus station. I believe that it is for the new train station at the International Convention Center, for the fast train to Tel Aviv that we’re supposed to get one of these years.
(With apologies to Burt Bacharach, Hal David and Dionne Warwick)
What do you get when you kiss a cat?
You get enough fur to sew a blanket,
And for a week, you’ll sit and yank it—
I’ll... never kiss a cat again....
(Don’t believe me!)
I’ll... never kiss a cat again!
“That’s silly, Rahel.”
You’re right, Your Ladyship. It’s very silly.
“But it’s cute.”
Thank you, Hadi. Gimme five!
“Sure, as long as you give me a bellyrub.”
The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.
I think that Hadi is gradually forgetting her traumatic visit to the vet. This morning, she appeared much calmer, and she let me pet her and offer her bellyrubs.
In fact, we went from this...
... to this...
... to this.
Hadi appears to be feeling much better... and she also appears to be learning to trust again.
The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.
Like most people I know, I’m a member of several professional email lists. An ad appeared on one of them recently from a local outsourcing company seeking workers.
Soon afterwards, one of the list members posted a link to the company's brochure, suggesting that we read a certain excerpt. She ended her post by wishing us appropriate, gainful employment. Although she did not tell us what she had discovered or include an explicit warning, her tone was clear enough.
When I clicked on the link, I found the following:
In the current economic climate especially, clients would gladly outsource these services if they could save money without sacrificing quality. The challenge? Finding qualified Americans (and other Anglos) who will work for wages considerably less than the US standard.
The solution? Israel! There is a wealth of American/Anglo émigrés to Israel. Most are highly credentialed, highly motivated professionals with limited job options. Salaries in Israel are generally lower than in the US, demand for jobs is high, and this group, who accepted material sacrifice when they moved to Israel, and with limited knowledge of the local language, are happy to accept work at much lower than US rates. It’s a win-win – a difficult to employ group gets challenging work in a congenial work environment while earning a living wage and [redacted] gains the ability to offer higher end services to its clientele....
My first thought was: what hutzpah! This company posted an ad looking for workers, and at the same time describes in their brochure how they intend to take advantage of them! Still, I can say one thing in the company’s favor: at least they’re honest about it.
I was also offended at the thought that the founder of this company, himself an English-speaker living in Israel, is so willing to cash in on his fellow immigrants’ economic plight. But then, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened in Jewish history. Jews were sweatshop owners, too, back in the day. (And worse than that—but that’s a post for another time.)
I also felt personally insulted—as though this particular employer were portraying English-speaking immigrants to Israel as a bunch of miskenim (Hebrew: poor, pitiful creatures) at worst or, at best, starry-eyed idealists who took a vow of poverty on the tarmac at Ben-Gurion Airport. No, Mr. Company Owner, none of us “accepted material sacrifice” when we moved here. Yes, we put up with certain disadvantages in order to live in a Jewish country, but I do not know anyone who is resigned to them. Every single person I know who lives and works here is constantly trying to better his or her situation, as am I.
Not only that. Many of these “credentialed, highly motivated professionals” who are forced to accept “wages considerably less than the US standard” end up leaving Israel after a while. The long, relentless struggle to meet basic living costs and cut expenses can be extremely wearing and, in many cases, dangerous to health. Over the past several years, quite a few of my friends have left the country because even with all their training, ability and motivation, they couldn’t make a living here. They would have preferred to stay, but their circumstances deteriorated beyond mere “material sacrifice” to outright poverty, and at a certain point, they’d had enough. Just last week, a friend of mine, a brilliant, capable English-speaker who works three jobs, all in her field, told me that with all the work that she is doing, she can barely make ends meet. She hasn’t given up, though. She constantly takes courses and expands her field of knowledge in the hope of finding better employment.
I don’t think anyone needs a degree from Harvard Business School to figure out that companies do better when their employees are pleased and feel appreciated. Desperate, embittered employees earning subsistence wages do not make for a stable, productive work force.
Speaking for myself, Mr. Company Owner, I do understand. Really. You want to make a profit and live well. There’s nothing wrong with that. Only there’s this one thing: so do I. Like any reasonable person, I prefer to work where my employer appreciates me and pays me what I am worth.
When you are willing to do that, sir, we can talk. Until then, I hope and pray that I will never be desperate enough to need a job at your company.
Just as I was getting ready to go to bed a little while ago, I heard meowing in the stairwell. Thinking that perhaps one of the local strays had become trapped in our building, I opened my door in order to go downstairs and let it out.
Imagine my shock when a lovely tortoiseshell cat with white paws walked into my apartment and started sniffing around!
She was not wearing a collar. Fortunately, I realized immediately that she belonged to the couple who live in the apartment directly below mine. I picked her up gently, reassured her that all was well, and made my way down the flight of stairs. Luckily, my neighbors were still awake. I put the cat down, and she waited politely at the door. I knocked, and the husband answered.
“Is this your cat?” I asked him.
“Yes! Thank you so much! I’m sorry for any trouble that you went to,” he said.
“It was no trouble at all. I’m glad she’s home,” I said, and headed back upstairs to tell the story...
... and go straight to sleep!
For the past several days, Hadi had been scratching at her right ear so much that she had developed a sore on the skin nearby. This morning, my neighbor and I got her into the cat carrier and took her to the vet.
It was a fascinating visit. The vet took samples from Hadi’s ear, prepared a slide and put them under his microscope. “Oo-wah,” he said—that’s the Israeli equivalent of “Wow!”—“look at that! She’s got ear mites, all right—loads of them. And an ear infection, too. Hey, come look at this—there’s a female ear mite laying eggs, right here on the slide.”
We looked. She was.
Well, no more. The vet gave Hadi an injection and several topical treatments, including Revolution. That little kitty is now up to her ears—literally—in medications, and it looks like she’s going to be fine.
Now if I can just get the sight of those reproducing ear mites out of my mind....
Thanks to my friend, her human mom, Hadi’s doing just fine.
She’s so much better since her recent visit to the vet. She’s gotten more affectionate, more trusting and more playful. Here are some photos of her enjoying some human company.
First, doing some kitty yoga:
Now, posing for the camera:
In all this, we’ve been lavishing love and attention on Her Ladyship:
After a cuddle, Her Ladyship curls up to sleep:
Her Ladyship and Hadi have met a few times, and Her Ladyship has yowled and hissed. But we’re not worried. She will get used to Hadi in time, and who knows? They may even be grooming each other in a few months’ time.
The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.
