Whodini’s Wisdom
Posted in: Random Thoughts | Comments (1)
Moving to a place not entirely of my choosing has brought some interesting personal problems into my life. The language barrier is sometimes frustrating for all parties involved, but I get things done to a certain degree, if not the fastest and most complete way. Hebrew is difficult to learn and I’m finding I cannot remember even the simplest phrases from day to day, so I carry out my small, infrequent conversation at the stores and with various service people in simple English peppered with an exaggerated form of charades.
There are many people from the US here as well as a few from the UK, Australia and other English-speaking places. I have socialized with some through CS’s work functions and a few random get-togethers. The problem is I can’t make friends of my own. Like anyplace, many of the people I meet I get along with fine, but someone you really make friends with is a more random process. I won’t be friends with everyone I meet, although some will always be social acquaintances - people we like but perhaps don’t have any deeper level of commonality with.
I don’t have many choices in whom I spend my social time with, which isn’t to say it isn’t enjoyable, but I have no opportunity to meet people on my own. I work from home all day, so I don’t get a chance to spend downtime outside of functions with the women that I’ve met. At night, Little Miss Thing goes to bed at 7:30 and I have a few nightly conference calls here and there, so I usually get to leave the house on the weekends with CS and kiddo for going about town just the 3 of us, or spending time with other families and many times I need the weekend time to get normal errands done. At home, I looked forward going grocery shopping because Amelia enjoyed it and it was time out of the house. Now I dread it. I can’t read the labels, find what I need, or understand what anyone is saying. It takes me twice as long to do half as much and the whole time I just can’t wait to get out of there.
I don’t have any friends here. I’ve only met one of our neighbors the day we moved in as the walls and trees are very high with the dual purpose of keeping people out and keeping extreme levels of privacy from streets and yards. CS talked to another neighbor that was a less-than-successful endeavor to achieve a level of “neighborliness”. I’m not sure if there really is a level of true friendship among the US community here but more a forced social construct because you have to work together, attend the same functions, etc.. Of course any workplace has that, but I don’t work there and yet it’s the only social resource I have.
I don’t need to have BFFs here as I have friends at home. It would be nice to find people I have things in common with that I could talk to or even just go to a pub with. There is one woman here that I get along fairly well with, but her situation is similar to mine and you can’t just rely on one person all of the time for your need to socialize after looking at the same 4 walls all day, week, month. It tends to burn out a person. I don’t have any outlets here and, oddly, I have less free time than I had at home.
There isn’t a solution, really. I will be home in January for a quick visit and maybe in the summer and then…who knows? Thankfully my books are here. I do a lot of reading these days.
Heather @ December 2, 2008
New Theme
Posted in: General | Comments (3)
Do you like it? I like it. I’ll have to find my blog roll, clean up the top links and change the photos, but change is good.
Heather @ November 28, 2008
Adventures In Grocery Shopping
Posted in: Food & Drink | Comments (4)
At the moment I have a vodka pie dough chilling in the fridge (yes, vodka) and contemplating what I’m going to make for Thanksgiving while I’m having difficulty locating many things that go into my recipes from home. We live about 15 minutes north of Tel Aviv. There are many places to purchase food but to what end, I ask, to what end?
Things that are easy to acquire:
White cheese
Salty white cheese
Salty white cheese in tubs of water
Smoked meats of various origins and colors
Oranges
Yogurt
Fifteen different sizes and flavors of soy milk
Chicken whole, in pieces, in freezer cases and from food carts
Rice. Aisles of rice.
Hot dogs
Fresh bread
Espresso
McDonalds (sadly, no Quarter Pounders)
Burgers (not always with cheese)
Israeli salad (mixture of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, onions)
Corn. There’s even corn in the frozen chicken nuggets.
Ice cream
Things I’m having difficulty identifying or haven’t yet been able to find (some of them kosher issues) or knew I wouldn’t find and have to get from home:
Limes
Bacon that tastes like bacon and not thin strips of bland pork. Send sulfates!
Pie crust/frozen dough for crust (plenty of phyllo)
Mozzarella cheese in any form
English muffins
Plain white bread
Fine sugar (very ‘crunchy’ here)
Table salt - only kosher available
Smoked paprika
Berries - only frozen
Deli roast beef
Gallons of anything. All milk is half gallons or in plastic bags (not sure what that’s about)
Solid albacore tuna
Condensed milk
Evaporated milk
Vanilla beans
Chocolate chips
Fresh shellfish
Shredded coconut - stuff here is like powder
Cornmeal
Cakes and pies
Fluff
Bell’s Seasoning (kicking myself for not packing it)
Cranberries
I’ll post more about my adventures in food now that I’m getting more organized here and finding more snippets of time. We have found a decent Chinese food place, complete with people from China who do the cooking. They put sesame seeds on the chicken fingers, but it’s a variation that is pretty tasty.
We also have a pizza place that doesn’t gag us with too much salty Bulgarian cheese being passed of as a normal pizza topping and includes a fresh packet of oregano with every order. I like the bulgarian cheese, but it doesn’t belong on my pizza.
Chuck has been indulging in shwarma, which is a pita stuffed with fried chicken, hummus, pickles, Israeli salad and, occasionally, french fries. In short, it’s a heart attack on a plate. I have asked his coworkers to be on the lookout for complaints of arm-numbness and debilitating chest pains.
Heather @ November 25, 2008
Who’s Cooler Than Me? Lots of People. But No One You Know.
Posted in: General | Comments (2)
Some people (DAN!) have bitched that I haven’t been blogging enough. And you know, they’re right (DAN!) But you know what I have been doing? I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing.
1. Working (thankfully, updates to come)
2. Unpacking (still)
3. Finally cooking decent meals now that I have pots and pans.
4. Getting daily visits from various warehouse worker people trying to get the house and its contents up to speed
5. Building a whole brand-spanking-shiny-new goddamn website (DAN!)
I present to you WWW.MACKERELLY.COM TA-DA, DAN!
It’s not too fancy-pants right now, but just you wait. You’ll see. It will include photos, recipes, updates on my family cookbook project and travel bits. All of my general ranting and raving will still be found here. All of the structure is done, I just need to dress it up. For the geeks, I am using Yongfook’s Open Source Sweetcron (because I am Edgy with a capital E) and I think it’s perfect for this new endeavor.
At the moment, I have only included a feed of my Flickr photos. More to come.
Heather @ November 20, 2008
Poetry Corner
Posted in: Random Thoughts | Comments (1)
You may have stopped by for the Great Big Life In Israel Update. It’s not written yet, so some other time maybe.
However, I do have 3 haikus that were lovingly drunkenly written on bar napkins for me at The Local at our Goodbye Beerfest. I have been carrying them around in my purse for well over a month, so here they are.
The Management is not responsible for content or quality
Dude! Yarmulka Up!
Them Jews got God ordered rules!
Israel up, bitch!
(Kevin G.)Heather goes away
Bacon flavored tryst of pain
Q-Town’s loss. We cry.
(Adam C.)Cold wind in Quincy
Why do I feel so forlorn?
None to scold me now.
(Dan K.)
Heather @ November 7, 2008