Say It in Hebrew

"ישׁ לכּם אספּירין?"

"Yesh la-khem as-pee-REEN?"

"Do you have aspirin?"

Like ice dancing and bonsai gardening, packing is best left to the professionals. 

I packed (with a lot of parental help) to move to and from college four times, to and from grad school four times, and to and from my teaching job twice.

I am a professional.

I am also the daughter of an engineer. And I come from a long line of independent-minded women.
For the uninitiated, this is a potent combination that ultimately produces a feminist with quiltmaking scraps tied around her head, ripping packing tape with her teeth and issuing threats to anyone who packs or tapes or, indeed, moves in a non-approved fashion. I scared myself.
Scientists are not used to such raw unravelling; they prefer to do things in their own cohesive, perfection-seeking ways. But two perfectionists can bring any process to a halt.

J packed everything, a week ago, just "to see" what we had to work with and whether we would need more boxes. The shipping guy, Georges, in a moment of prescience, left us three new boxes after we signed the contract, despite J's protests that we wouldn't need them.
I repacked, the day before Georges arrived, according to My Way, which, it turns out, is actually My Dad's Way, and woe to him who questions it. 

"I'm not being arrogant," I told J. "This is just what works. How many boxes have you packed, in your life?"

His look told me to forget the tape and remember a little humility.

This time, we went out for falafel and hummus (shakshouka). 

Forget about two years in the Middle East, as a test; any marriage that can survive the upheaval of packing is on firm ground.

Any husband that can survive feminism and independence is rare. 

“הלב”

“Ha-LEYV.”

“The heart.”

In the last two weeks in Rehovot, I found a great hidden cafe, Cafe shel Sarit, shaded with bougainvilla vines; a French bakery I’ve never been to, right around the corner from the Russian market where I go all the time; and ads for yoga classes near where we live.

Would I like another month, here, to sample the new finds and to visit places I haven’t been to, yet (like Latrun and Abu Ghosh)? Well, yes. And no. Some days, more yes than no.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. I had planned to remain wholly unattached to Rehovot.

But I really like having a handful of great cafes nearby, where the waitresses know me and J., and know exactly what we’ll have. I like taking the train to Tel Aviv, but not living smack-dab in it. I like the Institute campus, and its four million acres of lawn. I like subsidized lunch (and the view) from New Charlie’s. I like 88 FM. I like wandering around the shouk. I like the clatter of palm tree leaves, all over town. I like Eyal’s pastry shop. I really like the Book Club.

Argh! I’m a local! How did that happen?

Well, I’m not that local, I suppose. I don’t really speak the language, and there are large sections of town that I’ve never seen; namely, the neighborhood east of the Karl Berg Russian market, where I wandered around on Tuesday night, trying desperately to find the apartment where the Book Club meeting was to take place. The Institute-issued map (like everything else they issue) was well-intentioned but in bad need of an update: streets that looked normal on the map were closed off or nonexistent.

Eventually, I found the address and rode up to the apartment with a tired businessman who leaned against the wall of the elevator and practically fell out when it arrived at his floor.

Nearly all of the Book Club’s regular members were there, and I realized how much I’ll miss the group. Before Christmas, I’d dropped off some books at a member’s apartment and talked with her, for a while. I think I must have complained that the social portion of the club, in which people graze on snacks and catch up with each other, was too short.

“Well, I didn’t join the Book Club to socialize,” she said, perched on an armchair. “I only joined it for the books. I don’t need it for the friends.”

I stared at her, stung. “Well, I DO!” I thought.

The Book Club is made up of native English speakers, most of whom made aliyah from the U.S. or Canada; there are also two South African members.

There’s Ramona, the no-nonsense organizer, with a background in editing engineering journals and an M.A. in French literature, who commutes to Tel Aviv to take courses from the Institut Francais.

There’s Amira, Tuesday night’s hostess, who dresses classically, and who was not afraid to tell the club that she liked The Da Vinci Code.

There’s Jody, the former professor of biology, who writes her reviews on index cards and who invited us over for coffee, when she and her husband were planning a trip Prague, last fall.

There’s Norma, the only Orthodox member in the Club, who winters in Florida and has the best tan of us all.

There’s Sid, the former chemistry professor, who writes his reviews in fine, tiny script, in a spiral notebook.

There’s Lily, with whom I went to the Book Festival in Jerusalem, last year, and who invited me over for coffee and to view her family’s quilts; if we had been in school together, I’m convinced we would have been best friends.

There’s Rose, from South Africa, who has a beautiful, lilting accent, and wears delicate clothing with small embroidered flowers.

There’s Sam, also from South Africa, the most laconic member of all, who speaks in a gentle, measured way, and who never takes more than one book–if that. If Moses wore Birkenstocks, he’d be the very image of him. The last meeting was at his house, and when someone brought out a book titled The River of Angry Dogs, Sam’s giant dog rose his head from under the coffee table and gave a soulful bark.

There’s redheaded Mindy, outspoken and with precise, quick reviews; she mothers the group in an efficient way.

There’s Mariah, who lived on a kibbutz and whose cousin in Canada is an Honest-to-God Famous Author who dedicated a book to her, which she brought to the club and over which we all swooned; her reviews would be at home in any graduate-level literature class, but they are often so thorough that they make the rest of the club squirm for a commercial break.

I love them. I hope they’ll forgive me when I write a book about them.

At this last meeting on Tuesday night, I gave my ad-lib reviews (writing them out makes me feel too much like I’m in grad school, again) and finished, but forgot to say thanks for the memories and good times, even though it was foremost in my thoughts. After everyone else had finished giving their reviews, Ramona produced a book on Israel that the club had bought for me, with their best wishes and a list of everyone’s addresses. “Don’t forget us,” the card urged.

It’s rather bad form to cry on a book, but I’m sure they understood.

"לאן"

"Le-AN."

"To go."

A few photos from this morning, before it became too hot to anything outside but sit and drink limonana or iced coffee, in the shade:

Below, the dodgy side of the shouk. (The covered market is to the left, outside of the picture.) The shop with the plastic buckets hanging outside is run by a man who looks like Falstaff's grumpy, more-slovenly brother. The only reason he gets any business is because he sells these things far more cheaply than hardware stores…

A mosaic on an apartment building near Steimatzky's. Left side: happy Rehovot family; right side: The Last Supper??

The little art cinema, down the pedestrian street from where the mosaic is; I've never before realized it, but the sign proclaims it as the Colonia Cinema…

Lantern outside the Alkali Cafe…

A street near where we live…

View of our front yard…

".גן"

"Garden."

In the early 1900s, Rehovot's vineyards were uprooted and converted to citrus production; the ruins of the wine market on Hanasi Harishon is probably a remnant of early vinoculture. There's a garden above it, past the far walls, and the wine market is surrounded on three sides by apartment buildings, so the ruins of the market echo with all sorts of domestic life: someone taking piano lessons, someone else (much more advanced) practicing on a flute, people washing dishes and singing, a dog barking…

The first picture shows the small garden outside the walls of the wine market; this garden is ringed with orange trees; the second picture shows the vats, inside, and the vast courtyard, which is all that remains of what must have been a vibrant corner of Rehovot, at one point.

נל ך למשׁחק כּדןר גל."

"Neh-LEKH luh-mees-KHAK ka-doo-REH-gel."

"Let's go to the soccer game."

Last night, we gave up on packing and went to the River Cafe for sushi. It was only seven o'clock, and the World Cup game wasn't scheduled to start until later in the evening, but four Japanese chefs, in black caps, t-shirts and black-and-white striped aprons, had been recruited to set up the restaurant's projection screen on the patio. The screen itself, which was anchored by a box labelled "White Ginger", wasn't being very cooperative. One of the chefs kept trying to pull the screen up from its cylinder and attach it to the top of the frame, but this, of course, is impossible, and the screen just kept zinging back down. 

Next door, the Burger Bar restaurant was an illustration of well-organized and well-planned smoothness. A giant projection screen hung from the windows over the restaurant, above the patio, and no one buzzed nervously around the cable box, which sat on a tall stand. Waiters glided around the tables. The restaurant was packed.

Meanwhile, the River Cafe was empty, except for us, and the hostess was wrestling with the cable box, while someone on the other end of her cell phone yelled instructions. A passel of waitresses appeared and clustered around the hostess. Once the dust cleared, the cable box was hooked up and the projection screen, open. The waitresses looked extremely pleased with their work, and the chefs backed away in admiration.

Only then were we able to order.

We've vowed to go back on Monday, for the U.S.-Czech Republic match, which is bound to end badly, for at least one of us. But fantastic tempura is consolation enough, for me.

This packing business is exhausting. And if you've never packed with someone else, before, let alone packed an apartment, it can prove to be a baffling experience. My packing philosophy is, much to my father's chagrin, "We can always get more boxes," while J's seems to be, "The fewer boxes, the worthier the challenge." Suddenly, Our Stuff becomes My Stuff and Your Stuff.

Your Stuff inevitably takes up more space, and is of inestimable sentimental value; thus, suggesting that Your Stuff could be significantly reduced, with a little work, is never a good idea…that shelf full of chocolate Kinder-Egg toys notwithstanding. 
The real test of the marriage will be if we can consolidate and pack Our Stuff with minimum emotional and physical injury.

And without spending a fortune on sushi as therapy.