Coming Home

A cheetah spotted on our safari at Ngala Private Reserve, which is adjacent to Krueger National Park in South Africa. I was in such awe when we first spotted these creatures. It's just amazing to see such dangerous animals up close and in the wild!

Home

I'm home. It's great to be home. Last weekend, on the sad occasion of my uncle's death, I was able to meet up with numerous family members who I rarely see. We were all so sad that my uncle wasn't there with us (indeed, we planned to get together while he was still alive, but instead the day planned for the family get-together became his funeral), but I cherished the time with all who were there, as I am sure my uncle would have wanted.

I come from a big extended family. You could probably call it huge. When my aunt called for a family photo, virtually the entire crowd from the funeral lined up. I had no idea.

When we showed up at the funeral home, a gentleman standing outside said, "These must be my cousins." He identified himself and all I could say was, "No way!"

It's great to be home.

Garage Sale - the Final Episode

Penguins in Cape Town -- they were sooo much fun to watch -- such comical animals!

Today we held the final garage sale installment. Sweetie's daughter, her boyfriend and I had held one for 5 hours on Wednesday, but with few results and one really, really horrendous incident. Today we had even fewer results. So, that's it. What is left is going to charity or the trash.

Back to the horrendous incident -- during the sale, I went inside briefly to make a salad while Sweetie's daughter Sweedle manned the sale. I was quite a distance away (the garage is detached) and had the house door closed. But, even so, I suddenly heard a commotion coming from the garage. So, I rushed out, and watched in complete horror as this very tall and big-boned middle-aged Israeli lady walked around the garage kicking things and generally wreaking havoc for no apparent reason. I was shocked!! I didn't know what to do. I imagined that if I tried to intervene, she would become even more destructive. At one point, she picked a very heavy electrical transformer off the floor and set it down on some delicate Japanese decorative sushi plates!!! I nearly screamed.

She couldn't carry everything she bought (probably because she shoplifted one item and hid it in the double baby stroller she had with her, unbeknownst to us until she left), and came back the next day to pick up the rest. I had her ticket and knew she would try to have a second go at the garage. So, I had her items ready at the front gate and used them as a barrier when she tried to push her way in. I told her everything was gone.

Horrible.

These sorts of experiences really sour us on life here.

Busy Days

Today's photo is of a cell on Robben Island, the island where Nelson Mandela was once held prisoner. A truly incredible place to visit and highly recommended to anyone traveling to Cape Town.

Sorry posts are few and far between these days!

Spent a night at Amirim in the Galilee this weekend. Beautiful and peaceful and lots of good food.

But now it's back to reality.

We're continuing our garage sale efforts -- we held one for two hours on Saturday and it was something else. It was advertised only via our housekeeper and we had almost more of a turnout than we could handle! OMG. My head was spinning. I was powerless against these experienced garage sale mavens who lined up ONE HOUR before opening time. Brilliant strategy, however, as we felt pressured to open the door early and they got first dibs on our priceless treasures (okay, pseudo-junk).

Seal Island

We took a boat trip to Duiker Island which is famous for its seals. The ride was VERY rough and a few times I was afraid the boat would tip as it rode huge swells. Fortunately, that didn't happen and we were able to enjoy watching the seals.

Cape Town

I wish I had more time to write about our fascinating trip to Africa. Though it was marred by the news of the burglary of our house in Israel (got the news on Day 2), we did see some amazing things.

Cape Town had a lot to do, and wonderful weather. Clear skies with great views of the famous Table Mountain. The only problem was security -- it was not advised to walk outside the hotel grounds after dark. Even just to walk a few blocks down the main street.

This pic is from Cape Point.

Photos are Back; Next Steps

I am slowly working my way through my list for insurance -- every day I remember another treasured piece of jewelry that I will never see again. Even some of the smallest, least expensive pairs of earrings I had will be sorely missed. As I expand my list, I realize that most of my jewelry pieces were gifts. With fond memories attached. Of visiting friends in Japan. Of farewell parties and small packages opened at the airport.



I have decided, as VegetableJ so wisely suggested, to focus on going home first, finding a job later. I'm going to book a flight to Ohio and stay at the old homestead until I can get my bearings again and/or find a job. This has all upset me much more than I thought it would. Though I am dealing with the theft and the resulting sense insecurity, all the fallout from it (losing my computer, harddrives and all their data; trying to fill out insurance forms; trying to sell much of our stuff prior to the move which has now been brought forward by about two months and is imminent; etc.) has added stress to my plate that I'm honestly not handling all that well. I can't say I've ever felt this ungrounded in my life.

On the good news front, I am plunging forward with organizing some of my trip photos -- so here's the first one from Cape Town -- the lovely Villa Belmonte where we stayed on night prior to the rest of our tour group's arrival. It was gorgeous and I wish I could transport myself right back to their open-air veranda for breakfast!

Action Shot

Here's an action shot from my safari park adventure.  Didn't realize what I had captured until we looked at it on the big computer screen.  Obviously animals don't have the same need for privacy that we humans do.

Can I get some sleep?
Life in Israel continues to frustrate.  On Friday, we were awoken at 0430(!) by road crews getting an apparently very early start on their never-ending "tear up the road, over and over again, for 7 months" project.  For some reason, the road workers and the garbage man cannot enter our neighborhood in any gear but REVERSE.  So, for several minutes, we hear, "beep beep beep beep BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!  BEEP!" as they come all the way down the street and past our house.  It baffles me.  

Also, the dog across the street (or rather his irresponsible owners) has tested our last nerves.  We've asked the neighbors 
kindly TWICE now to manage his barking during the nighttime hours.  His bark is so loud that it pierces right through our shutters and double-glazed windows, jolting us both awake.  We end up sleeping on twin bedrooms in Sweetie's daughter's bedroom on the opposite side of the house about 2-3 nights a week....Any tips or hints on how to get better results from the neighbors are welcome!  It's clear that they do not walk or interact with the dog at all.  He's a huge bull mastiff-type, who doesn't get any exercise, and can't see through the fence and hedges surrounding his yard, so he's barking at EVERYTHING.  And NOTHING.

 

Unwelcome Guest

I was working late in our home office the other night when I heard a noise on the patio.  The office is in the basement, but there is a lower level patio cut out about 12 feet under ground level -- it's great because it gives the basement lots of natural light.  Anyway, I called up to Sweetie to see if he had thrown something down into the patio or something like that.  He hadn't.  He instructed me to close the shutters and we'd see what was out there.  So, I closed the shutters and turned on the patio lights.  He looked down from the upstairs and said, "It's a cat."  

A cat.  A small, very mangy, nasty-looking cat.  It had apparently jumped, or fallen, into the basement patio and now couldn't get back out.  We watched as it got up on the patio table and did a spread-eagled leap into the air toward the wall of the patio, falling to the ground like a ton of bricks.  Yeah.  He hadn't quite mastered the whole jumping thing.  

It is cases like this where my 7th and 8th-grade gifted students class ("Project Challenge," which my classsmates and I affectionately called "Project Reject") proves its worth.  I start brainstorming 101 ways to get a yucky cat out of a basement patio WITHOUT bringing it into the house and tracking fleas all over the place.

My first idea was to put our tall ladder on one of the patio chairs so that the cat could climb out and make the short leap to ground level.  So, Sweetie did that.  For the longest time, the cat wasn't getting it and kept leaping off the table fruitlessly.  

So, I put Plan B into action.  I put a bunch of canned tuna into an empty tea bag and tied a roll of string around it.  Then, I lowered the string down into the patio from outside, resting it near that chair with the ladder on it.  However, the cat didn't appear.  In fact, I couldn't see the cat anywhere on the patio.  Sweetie came to investigate and noticed that the ladder had moved.  The cat was gone.  Hooray.   And it was waaaay past our bedtime.