On Holiday

Let's go away for a while, you and I, to a strange and distant land.......Holiday, far away, to stay on a holiday, far away, let's go today in a heartbeat!

I'm so excited that we're going on honeymoon #2 today! When we planned this trip months ago, I told Pidgeon I didn't think I was going to have the strength at the end of my seventh month to get on a plane. Good call on my part. I'm pretty tired these days and my energy is waning daily, so I'm excited that we're going on vacation in Israel. I haven't been up North since 1995 (although, my trip in 2006 with my folks to Amuka and other grave sites to pray for a mate doesn't really count since it was all in one day!) and I'm hoping to see some turtles this time! 

We were very lax in our planning of this trip and, aside from two restaurants we want to eat at, we have zero plans. Unlike last year, when we spent 5 days languishing by the pool at the Dead Sea, there is so much more to do up North. I told Pidgeon I wouldn't mind taking the wooden Christian boat across the Kinneret. There are a lot of Christian sites up North and it might be a good thing for me to experience if my friends Jules and Julie ever make it to Israel to visit us. 

Shabbos was very relaxing, which was nice. I ended up not sleeping well Friday night and somehow, fell asleep in between courses at lunch. Pidgeon ended up finishing lunch without me and, when I woke up at 3:30, I was happily surprised to see that all the dishes we done, the food was put away in the fridge, and the table was clean. What an amazing guy I have, no? 

Our plans for last night were supposed to just be getting ready for the trip. I had a huge load of laundry to do and, since there were some items there that I wanted to pack for the trip, I loaded up as soon as Havdala was over. We relaxed a bit on the couch when all the commotion took place outside.

Basically, the neighbors directly across the street from us have not one but two 30+ children with a mental illness. Unfortunately, they don't always take their medication as prescribed, and when that happens they both tend to get violent. They've both attacked women in the neighborhood in the past, which is one of the reasons I'm very cautious about how I walk in the neighborhood. Anyway, as we were sitting on the couches and relaxing, we heard one of them attack a woman near the house. The Father came outside to try and diffuse the situation and, since I definitely don't understand Hebrew when it's screaming, I called Pidgeon over to watch and translate. The women were yelling that he attacked and hit them, while the Father claimed nothing happened. Since I only heard and didn't see what happened, we stayed inside and kept out of it. The police showed up a few minutes later and went from house to house asking about the incident - although they didn't come to ours. I made sure to SMS our neighbor, who had a baby last month, to be careful going out tonight since the neighbors weren't on their meds. She got back to me right away and reminded me that he had attacked one of her friends not once - but twice! Usually, when this happens, they arrest him and put him in an institution. Since the two women who were attacked left (I heard them get into their car and leave), the police didn't take the boys away. I'm just really hoping that both of them get back on their medication and soon! It's not a fun situation to have directly across the street from the apartment.

Anyway, I guess all the excitement got me in the mood for some comfort food, and all I wanted was ice cream. I literally called around to see if ANYONE would deliver ice cream. Aldo on Emek Refaim said they weren't delivering on Saturday night, and Fro Yo on Ben Yehuda doesn't deliver period. I even called Babette to see if they would deliver, and they said no. Same with Waffle Bar on Derech Beit Lechem.

Pidgeon offered to go out and pick me up some ice cream, but  I didn't want him to leave the house. But, the craving got so bad, that I was able to be convinced (it wasn't hard) to get dressed and go to Waffle Bar.

It was good to get a small walk in and the ice cream was yummy! I'm actually not such a fan of waffles, but it was pretty decent, and Pidgeon watched me practically lick my entire plate clean! 

Satisfied and full of sugar, I skipped home and then tackled 2 hours worth of packing and organizing. I was so wound up on a sugar high though that I couldn't fall asleep before 2:30 a.m. You can imagine how wiped I am now that I've been up since 8, but we're hoping to hit the road fairly early so we can get in some time up North today too.

Well, I'm off to get ready to go! Wishing everyone a wonderful week!

Yom Tov from Baka!

It's Complicated

Just call me Puff Fatty. I have no idea what happened but, seemingly overnight on Monday, I went from pregnant to puffy. I put on 3 pounds in less than 12 hours, my legs resemble tree trunks (pine, not oak) and my face was absolutely huge. It was a bit terrifying, so I went online to find out what the heck was going on.

It looks like I'm suffering from a typical pregnancy symptom called edema. Which, basically, is the swelling of the extremities. The blood pools around the legs and ankles and, depending on diet, your feet and hands can swell too. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't able to take off my rings. That made washing for bread a bit difficult, but I remembered learning a long time ago that people who wear rings every single day on the same fingers don't necessarily have to take them off to wash because it's not considered a Chatzizah as it has become almost a part of the body. Wish I could remember where I learned that - or if it's even true - but I figured why bother asking a Rabbi when I can just paskin myself.

And, depending on the reason why you're puffy, the "solution" varies. I think it had to do with the fact that we spent majority of Monday in a car. So, I made every effort to get the blood circulating by doing lots of errands in the house, getting up from my seated position, elevating my feet when I was on the couch or on the chair, etc. I also drank a TON of water, which I actually do normally every day (I have always been a big water drinker) and decided to not add any extra salt to my food. Then, around 8:00 p.m., I laced on my walking sandals and Pidgeon and I decided to go for a walk.

It felt so great to just be outdoors, in the cool Jerusalem night air, moving. It felt good to just really move, at a normal pace for my belly bump. We, of course, had no destination when we left the house so Pidgeon offered to take me to Emek Refaim and "buy me a treat". Well, I'm like a 4 year old when I hear the word "treat" and started imagining all the yummy goodness he could buy me. Which, sadly, defeats the purpose of a healthy walk if I end up eating some high caloric ice cream (which was what I was craving).

Well, fortunately for me, we ended up at this impromptu flea market down the block from Burgers Bar. Now, it's the 9 days, so I felt bad about buying but figured that it was okay if I really found something nice. There were a lot of jewelry tables set up, but I didn't really see anything in particular that I like. I'm actually obsessed with earrings that Britney Gastineau wears on The Gastineau Girls so I was looking for similar earrings and didn't find anything. But then, we came upon this really cool table with beaded wired animals. The artist made all these animals out of wires and then "colored them in" using different beads. There was this really cool cobra that stretched clear across the table, two beautiful red crabs and lobsters, some scorpions, a black and white lamb, etc. Well, I have had a turtle fetish ever since I inherited my first and only pet Turtle, Angus

There was a small, purple turtle that was really pretty already out on the table, but I kinda like my turtles green. So, Pidgeon asked the woman running the booth about a green turtle, and sure enough there was a beautiful green turtle with red eyes, just waiting for me. That was just the treat I was looking for! So, Pidgeon bought it for me and they wrapped it up in a really nice paper and we headed home. I figured, one good treat deserves another, so we stopped off at this new frozen yogurt store sandwiched between Tal Bagels and Aldo Ice Cream. We samples the yogurt (it tasted like frozen yogurt with a bit of an after taste kick) and Pidgeon got himself a fruit juice smoothie and I just abstained. We walked home with our treats and realized, when we got through the door, that the excursion took us more than an hour! Perfect amount of time for me to be on my feet.

I rested a bit and then decided to get started on dinner. I had found Alaskian frozen pollack the other day, and in my mind thought it would be a good fish to bread and fry like shnitzel. So, I got to work on breading and frying and imagined a great dinner of pollack shnitzel with some leftover quinoa and roasted curried cauliflower. Well, I don't know if it was the fish or my crappy non-stick frying pan, but what I ended up with was basically little fried fish bits and fried breading. It looked absolutely nasty, like a bomb exploded all my fillets. But, Pidgeon insisted that it would taste great, so I just spooned out some quinoa and topped it with the fish bits.

It actually tasted okay, it just wasn't as aesthetically pleasing as I had hoped. We finished dinner in time for a rerun of How I Met Your Mother in Hot Stars and decided to relax for the rest of the night.

Meanwhile, we've been trying to join the online shopping group of CityDirect. Any New Yorkers reading this will think immediately of Fresh Direct except CityDirect is more like a hybrid between Fresh Direct and Urban Fetch.

Ah, Urban Fetch. I freaking LOVED Urban Fetch when I lived on the Lower East Side. I would order movies, pints of Ben and Jerry's, cold medicine when I was sick, cigarettes and once I bought a big box of glow in the dark condoms. I don't know why I did it, I never used them, didn't even have a remote reason to think I would need them, but I wanted to see what would happen if I bought them. Nothing happened, the delivery man brought them with all the other stuff I ordered, and I kept them in the back of my underwear drawer. Fortunately, my 90 year old Grandfather (at the time when we lived together and I was all about the Urban Fetch) never found them, and I tossed them out when I moved to the Upper West Side a couple of years later.

But, I digress.

So, we've been trying to become members of City Direct so we could order our groceries online. Now, fortunately, we're at a position right now when we can actually find time to go to the grocery store, but figured this would come in handy P"G when the baby comes and we both just can't get out. Plus, I already order my fruits and vegetables from our local green grocer, so figured why not get everything else online.

We had some problems setting things up, but then Reut the most amazing Customer Service representative in ALL the land, called and walked us through the process.

Now, I love online shopping and I love food shopping, and this just combines my two passions. I literally spent an entire hour just putting together our food shopping list for delivery this afternoon. I didn't order any of the fruits or vegetables from the shuk, but was VERY happy to see that you could order baked goods from Marzipan. The great thing about this was that I was able to find items I didn't even know existed, like whole wheat puffed pastry, and a cheaper brand of edemame. I kept the list pretty small, just what we need for the next few days, just to try it out. The best part was that I knew, before even placing the order, how much money I had already spent. For people like us, who are on very strict budgets, that was just brilliant. This way, I knew what I could and couldn't afford, and even decided to get rid of certain items this month because I didn't really need them.

I was a bit perplexed when the site didn't ask me for payment information, but I was so caught up on the site that I forgot about my shot and was late getting the icing process started. We went to bed and I figured I would call Reut in the morning to check it out.

We slept in a bit, which was nice for me since I was so tired last night, and I called Reut to ask about payment information. Turns out, after the delivery and once they know we're satisfied, a customer service representative calls and asks for credit card information. That's fabulous! Now I know that I don't have my credit card information on their servers, which makes me very happy. She called me again a few minutes later to tell me that some items weren't available, or the brand I wanted was available but they had a different brand instead, and I was very happy with that. And, within minutes of hanging up, my delivery was here.

The delivery guy was very nice, he unpacked the groceries for me out on my kitchen counter, and I gave him a little tip and he was on his way. It was just a pleasure, and I'm looking forward to P"G using this service again.

Meanwhile, I've spent my morning watching four back to back episodes of Denise Richards: It's Complicated. I gotta say, it's pretty addicting, and I'm all about the E! programming these days. I have about 6 more episodes to catch up on, but I'm thinking there's more drama to come and it's very entertaining!

Well, Pidgeon just got back from his morning out, so I'm going to go and try to figure out what's for lunch.

Yom Tov from Baka!