Love in the Time of Corona (part 1)

Gil finally agreed that I was probably right about how we first met (after gaslighting me for at least 6 months). For a long time we disagreed about where we’d met, him claiming it was at a Shavuot picnic, and me claiming it was at a friend’s Shabbat dinner. It made for an awkward answer when excited strangers asked us how we had met. About a week ago, after I had already started believing his version of events (I’m distrustful of my memory to begin with, so when people are very insistent about their memory of events, I tend to believe them), he finally admitted that his memory of how we met wasn’t consistent with the order of events. He’s going to have to get used to admitting I’m right.

So the order of events is apparently something like this:

He starts getting acquainted with the Jerusalem social scene, poking his head out of the sand every once in a while. He meets and befriends a friend of mine, and is invited to Shabbat dinner at which I too am a guest. He is a bit horrified and astonished to see me there, as he had swiped on my profile on OkCupid literally a few days earlier, and had not gotten a response from me. So he spends the meal trying to play it cool, while wondering if I’m pretending nothing happened, or if he should say something, maybe acknowledge the fact that he had “liked” my profile. Meanwhile, I am completely unaware of any inner drama going on with this guy since I never saw him on OkCupid and to my knowledge we are complete strangers. I just thought he seemed like a nice guy.

Then we meet again a few weeks or so later at another friend’s picnic. There are a lot of people there, so Gil and I don’t really talk much, though I vaguely remember his presence and me thinking that he was tall.

Fast forward a few months later and he is gradually becoming part of my social circle. I see him occasionally at Shabbat meals, and then a friend brings him to one of my meals so I start inviting him to my meals. He seems like a nice guy, funny, and intelligent too, so why not? Plus he lives in my neighborhood, so it’s easy enough for all involved.

I didn’t really think of him as dating material, despite the fact that one of my friends suggested it, and a family friend (you know who you are Jeff) that knows us both from the old country wanted to set us up (but was thankfully dissuaded by his wife). The biggest reason I didn’t consider him as a potential match was a pretty big one- a daughter from a previous marriage. Anyone who has ever talked to me for more than 5 minutes knows my feelings about children and animals (there’s an inverse relationship between the two). I’ve dated guys with kids before but it always ended up feeling too complicated. And frankly, my life is complicated enough as it is. I live with a stubborn cat who destroys everything my roommate owns, and I can’t seem to get through a whole year without having more than three jobs (at the same time). Throw a helpless, small human into the mix, and we’ve created sit-com levels of unnecessary complications.

Apparently though he thought I was hinting my interest to him by inviting him to Shabbat meals and to singles events through Facebook. I can see now how that might be misconstrued, but I invite lots of people for Shabbat meals, and I invite Facebook friends to events I think they might be interested in (including single friends to singles events). I guess inviting him to a Tu B’Av party and then to Shabbat dinner the next night was not the best idea if I was trying to broadcast platonicity, but it honestly never even occurred to me (I invited maybe 10 people to the event and then another 10 or so to Shabbat dinner, probably with several people overlapping).

He stayed after dinner to “chat” and we ended up having a 4 hour conversation. It was 1 o’clock in the morning by the time I finally looked at my watch. This was possibly the longest conversation I’d had with another human being (Oliver and I chat all the time, but mostly about tuna), including on dates, in a very long time. And even more unusual, it was actually interesting.

I remember sitting behind a guy at some event, a guy that I had sent a message to on OkCupid and who had not replied, and listening to him have an entire conversation with a girl about bags. He got very excited when he saw she had a similar cotton bag as him, and found this an interesting enough topic of conversation to maintain for at least the next 5 minutes (that’s when I tuned out). Needless to say, I dodged a bullet on that one.

Then when he asked me out to dinner, I was intrigued and pleasantly surprised. Dinner? Guys don’t ask girls out to dinner anymore. I’ve been asked out to coffee, drinks, and a park bench once (that probably should have been a red flag right there), but dinner? Men just don’t invest that kind of time or money on a woman these days. It’s all about quantity of dates, not quality.

I accepted, on the condition that he wasn’t making it (he had warned me before that his cooking skills rival that of a 5 year old’s). The evening of the date, we met at the bus stop located between us. He had been reading something on his phone, and after greeting each other, he asked me what I thought about moral relativism (that’s what he’d been reading about on his phone). So we spent the first part of our first date discussing the definition of morality as a function of time and culture. As opposed to where we got our bags from.

How I Spent My Time in Quarantine

Honestly, I mostly didn’t until recently. Being a lab worker means it’s essentially impossible to work from home. Especially when your work involves mice and you have a cat. Since I didn’t really want my research to get eaten, I was going in to work even as the city slowly started shutting down. My plan was to continue working until the last coffee stand shuttered its metaphorical doors.

 A few weeks ago, all students received an email requesting volunteers to help with the corona testing in the virology unit of Hadassah Hospital. The country was opening up more testing centers including one in Hadassah Ein Kerem, and much more staff was required. Seeing as the tests are performed using real time PCR, a common laboratory method, they were recruiting grad and post grad students at the medical school to help them do it. I signed up to volunteer and a few days later got recruited (obviously this step required an absurd amount of paperwork, blood work and vaccinations, and a trip to the security dept. which was opened between the very specific hours of 9 and 11:30, to pick up a volunteer tag).

 They began the first shifts about a week later. They signed me up for the Wednesday and Thursday morning shifts which I was informed were from 7am to 4pm. In the original email I had received, the shifts were supposed to start from 8 which is almost doable for me. Waking up at 5:45 in the morning is not really my idea of a good time. I am capable of dressing myself (as long as it doesn’t matter if both shoes are the same or not), eating (I have found that this is an instinctual act, as long as it doesn’t matter how much food gets on the sweatpants I am wearing because that was the best I could do about dressing myself at that hour), and getting to work (even if it takes a few attempts to get on the correct bus traveling in the correct direction). In fact, being faced with the options of getting up while it’s still dark out to test throat swab samples, and sleeping in, well...…... we had a good run humanity, it’s too bad it had to end so early.

But since I had already committed, I agreed to this torture session masked as an attempt to aid humanity. As I’m sure you can all guess, the first few shifts were mayhem. The volunteers mainly stood around waiting for instructions but since the actual staff had no idea what to do, we mostly loitered, blocking the hallways while the workers ran around trying to figure out which lab had run some specific batch of samples, or yelling at the lab workers for scanning all the forms upside down, etc. We didn’t know who to ask for instructions since no had bothered to introduce themselves and whoever was in charge had neglected to tells us. The person explaining to us what to do (i.e. move boxes from one place to another place, which we were subsequently told by other people who appeared to work there to move to another place a meter away because they were blocking the supply cupboards) didn’t really seem to know herself what to do. We later established that she does not in fact work there, but actually works in the microbiology lab next door and was temporarily reassigned to virology to work on the corona testing.

The first day I arrived 10 minutes early and was told by someone to just wait in the staff break room until they started the shift. By 8:00, all the volunteers were hanging out in the staff room wondering if they had forgotten about us and about the whole plague thing the entire world is currently experiencing. So we went looking for someone to give us directions with the assumption that SOMEONE was running the shift. Microbiology girl ended up instructing us to take the giant cardboard boxes of samples from MDA out of the fridge and put them on carts for the 3 different labs doing the testing. We spent 10 minutes loading up the first cart, 20 minutes looking for more carts to use until finally reappropriating carts we found lying around with other stuff on them, another 10 minutes loading up that cart too, and then another hour or so waiting outside the labs (all 12 of us volunteers) in case the lab workers needed something. After an hour of blocking the hallways and aggravating the other people who may or may not work there (who knows?) but were trying to get through, I asked someone who seemed to work there if I could go on a coffee break. She said yes, but that I couldn’t go out like that! I looked down at myself garbed in a disposable lab coat, shoe covers, hair net, cloves, and surgical mask, and said, “obviously.” When I got back, there seemed to be no change in status, so I asked her if there was anything to do. I said, “I would be happy to help if there’s something to do, but if not, I have my own work in my own lab to do.”

She apologized that there was nothing to do but informed me that the dept had been forced to take a specific number of volunteers, even though they told them (I don’t even know who the “them” is) that it was too many and they didn’t have enough work to warrant that many people. She said I was definitely free to go, no problem. I asked her who the person responsible for the volunteers is and happened to run into him the next day. Turns out, he’d never even been to the virology labs and had no idea what was happening there (which was not much besides a smidgen of chaos).

The next day was basically a repeat of the first day, although I lasted a few hours longer before I just took off (I had no idea who I was supposed to inform that I was leaving and figured no one was going to notice one less person idling around anyway).

Thankfully by my third shift, they had started getting their act together and we did more than just move boxes around, although our instructions on what to do seem to change every 6-24 hours. I still have no idea who most of the people who work there are and they have no idea who I am (they never take roll call or check off who’s there. I could be the gardener dressed in a lab coat and face mask for all they know.). Thankfully, they’ve started increasing the testing dramatically so there is actual work to do. Don’t get me wrong, things are still a complete mess, but they’re a predictable mess. We know that Hadassah Har Hatzofim is going to send half their samples without forms, and that a certain civilian sector of the army will send us samples on dry ice that consequently become jellified after they thaw, and hence almost impossible to pipette. I also know that half the staff is going to be late since the buses are running at only 25% frequency, and that we will run out of scrubs for everyone by 7:15. There is only a 15% chance of all scanners working properly, and a 10% chance that MDA will bring their samples within an hour of when they call to tell us they’re on the way.

The silver lining (well, maybe) is that they decided to make us actual workers instead of just volunteers, which is slightly more of an incentive to wake up even before all those nutty early morning runners would be out if the government hadn’t banned it. Unfortunately this means a truckload more paperwork (took me two attempts to successfully send in all 20 pages of paperwork, the contract, and pictures of my ID and diplomas), online safety, hygiene, and sexual harassment lectures and tests (took me two attempts to pass the hygiene test), opening up a Hadassah email account (5 days later and I still can’t log in due to a variety of different technical issues) in order to be able to fill out a 101 form (no, that was not in the first 20 pages of paperwork like you would think it would be), and then a return trip to the security dept. whose hours they have thankfully extended due to demand, to pick up a staff tag. Probably by the time I get this all straightened out, there will be a cure for SARS-CoV-2, and probably for HIV and cancer too.

As of late, I have not being going to work (the one I ACTUALLY get paid for) very often since all my cell cultures got infected with bacteria and I had to throw them out. This is why I’m a lab worker and not a doctor since I can’t even keep my cell cultures alive. Since all of my urgent work got thrown out, and the rest is in the freezer, I don’t have too much to do that can’t wait. So I too have been spending my time cleaning for Passover (not that my roommate left too much to do), listening to recorded power point presentations about mitochondria since classes have gone digital, and most importantly, serving as a lap for Oliver for as many hours of the day as physically possible (I had to explain to him that 24 was the max).

My non-work day schedule goes like this:
  9:15- alarm goes off.
  9:25- alarm goes off again.
  9:35- alarm goes off again. I actually wake up this time, but spend the next half hour in bed checking the news and Facebook while Oliver sits on my lap.
  10:05- I eat a small breakfast.
  10:30- is it time for lunch yet? No? I guess I’ll go back to YouTube.
  11:00- is it time for lunch now? Still no? Ok, guess I’ll do laundry/wash dishes/take a shower, etc.
  11:30- is it time for lunch now? No? Well I guess I’ll heat up some Aroma coffee I’ve been hoarding in my fridge.
  11:31- Open up a recorded lecture about mitochondria. Pretend to myself that I’m paying attention, while checking the clock every 5 minutes so I don’t miss lunch time.
  12:00- lunch time!!! Defrost one of the hundred sandwiches I’ve got frozen in my freezer that I have to finish by Passover.
  12:30- go back to the lecture. Actually pay attention this time for about 15 minutes.
  12:31- remove Olive from laptop, move the laptop off my lap onto a different surface, return Oliver to newly vacant lap.
  12:45-17:30- spend the rest of the day checking every half hour to see when it’s dinner time.
  16:00- consider doing some sort of exercise. Remember running outside is banned, reject idea of exercise. Go back to watching the clock.
  11:00- realize I have wasted the entire day doing absolutely nothing useful and that I have a 7:00 shift tomorrow morning so I better go to bed soon.
  12:30- actually go to bed.

Election Blues (#3) and a Global Pandemic

Seeing as we’re all stuck at home for the near future (and possibly the far future as well) I feel it is both my duty, and my salvation (for someone who can’t even stay home from work on vacation days, keeping busy is a must), to entertain everyone with a blog post. I know they’ve been pretty infrequent for the last few years, but that may change if the world remains shut down.

First, some updates about my life:

I have officially finished my Master’s degree and have started my PhD in biomedical science (shockingly without any serious bureaucratic hurdles). I am also engaged to a wonderful man (ha, I bet most of you had already given up on me) though making wedding plans right now is an exercise in futility. My original plan was to wait until the next election day in 6 months or so and have a nice day wedding, but it seems we might have to wait for the election day after that.

Also my poor giant lug of a cat Johnny is sadly no more. He got cancer last Passover and I had to put him to sleep. It took me an entire 2 months to acquire another cat. His name is Oliver and he’s a little over a year old. Meaning he’s still at the stage where he runs around knocking stuff over and causing general mayhem. Luckily he sleeps at night (usually on my person) and doesn’t wake us up. Too often.

Now some updates about Israel:

I just reread my last blog post about the first of what became a series of 3 elections. I had to laugh at my naiveté at thinking that we would all go vote, someone would win, and then we’d have a government (as good or bad as that government might be). Alas, 3 elections later and I’m not sure we have a government yet. I’m not actually positive since the news coverage is focused almost exclusively on the current global pandemic and only mentions the Knesset to tell us which MK is mad at which MK today. In fact, I would go so far as to say that probably no one really even cares at this point about the politicians unless they’ve caught the coronavirus and have spread it to us.

Now some updates about the world:

Don’t panic, but we are currently in the midst of a global pandemic (never mind that the word panic is already in the word PANdemIC). I myself thought I had the coronavirus last week, but it turns out that the symptoms of an anxiety attack are very similar to those of COVID-19, but much more transient (it went away a few hours later after I calmed down). I looked it up and the only number you can call if you have a suspected case of coronavirus is MDA. So I called them and the conversation went something like this:

Me: I think I need to be tested for coronavirus. I’m having trouble breathing and I’m coughing.

Yitzhak from MDA: have you been exposed to someone with a confirmed case of the virus?

Me: not that I know of, but anything’s possible. I work in a hospital and take public transportation.

Yitzhak: If you haven’t been exposed, then it’s not corona. Go to the doctor if you’re not feeling well.

Me: …. are the doctors testing for corona now?

Yitzhak: no. But if you don’t feel well, you should go to the doctor.

Me: …. so you don’t want to test me for corona?

Yitzhak: you don’t have it. You haven’t been exposed.

Me: how can you be certain of that? Do you know where all 300+ infected people have been 24/7 since they were infected? Isn’t it possible that I crossed paths with one of them without knowing?

Yitzhak: No. The health ministry knows exactly where every one of them has been, and you would know if you’d been exposed. Since you work in a hospital, you should know this.

Me: (in my head: “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard”)

Me: (outloud:) ah.

Last week my roommate got an update that she had been at a Purim party with someone who later tested positive for the virus. She got this message a week and a half after Purim (an impossibility according to Yitzhak from MDA). So she was essentially quarantined for 4 days having missed the first week and a half. By day 2 of quarantine she had cleaned almost every surface in the entire apartment. I fully expected that by day 3, the walls would all have a new coat of paint, and that by day 4, we would have a new room attached to the apt, where there had never been one before. Alas, still a 4 room apt, but one can dream.

However, after staying home for several days in a row, I have a new understanding of cats. Their journal entries must look something like this:

Day 578 of home quarantine:

I ran around around the house singing and knocking stuff over. I won a fight with the laundry hanging out to dry. It will think twice about starting up with me again. I watched the birds outside for an hour until I got bored. Then I napped cuz there was nothing else to do and I was tired from running around the house.

On the bright side, a lot of people are going to get their Passover cleaning done early this year.

The Election Blues

I hate election season. I did my best to ignore all politics and election propaganda for as long as possible. Which is difficult when you’re receiving a constant stream of spam from parties who think that if they send you 20 messages a day, you will want to vote for them. I thought about voting for whatever party DIDN’T spam me, but that really only left the chareidi parties whose constituents mostly don’t have texting capabilities on their kosher phones. Even I’m not willing to go THAT far for my principles.

I took the whole “ignoring the elections” thing so far, that I went to work that day like normal. Actually my entire lab showed up (besides the boss), cuz we’re nerds. Granted, being the only lab working means you get to use ALL of the departmental equipment without having to wait or sign up.

I have an intense distrust of all politicians (based on life experience) and don’t usually vote for a party based on their platform (which they’re not going to carry out anyway). I vote for the person I think most likely to leave the country in one piece at the end of their term. Which is why I didn’t vote in the last American election. I kind of figured that both candidates were just as likely to leave a burning wreck behind them as they sailed off to Tahiti in their private yacht 4-8 years later so I wrote the country off as a loss and jumped ship.

Honestly, it’s absurd that this country can’t go an entire term without the coalition collapsing. What is wrong with us that we can’t make it an entire 4 years between elections without some catastrophe resulting in the entire knesset falling apart? It’s even more irritating when you realize how much elections cost. Someone has to get paid for sending out all that spam. And guess who ends up paying for it. If you think about it, we’re being forced to pay for our own spam.

I had a very difficult time deciding who to vote for. In fact, I didn’t decide until the morning of election day.

I obviously wasn’t going to vote for the Chareidi parties. And frankly, I don’t know what self respecting “religious” Jew would vote for a convicted criminal heading a political party (Shas).

I obviously wasn’t going to vote for the Arab parties either. Although, neither was anyone else seeing as young Israeli-Arabs had called for a boycott of the elections in response to the Nation-State Law, clearly not understanding how democracy works. Not voting on principal, especially for the only parties working to strike down the law, is cutting off their nose to spite their face.

I wasn’t going to vote for the left wing parties. Though I agree with Meretz on many social issues, I don’t agree with them on issues of security and am disgusted by their apologist attitude and self-recrimination as Jews in a Jewish state. The labor party encourages a welfare state. Although the country was built on socialist values (and probably couldn’t have succeeded any other way), we have thankfully progressed to a point where the same socialist values that built the country would only be detrimental to further advancement.

The New Right (Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked’s break off party) seemed to tout changing the justice system as one of their main agendas after Ayelet Shaked’s tenure as the Justice Minister. Which makes me wonder what Naftali Bennett was doing all that time as the education minister, since I didn’t hear a word about changes in that arena, and the education here certainly isn’t getting any better.

Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut party was an interesting party. Half of his platform I agree with strongly (reducing government intervention, increasing competition, and restricting the Rabbinate to a licensing) but the other half is completely insane (building a synagogue on the Temple Mount after removing it from Wakf control???). Apparently many of his voters were younger people who are in favor of legalizing marijuana, which was a huge part of his campaign. Aside from the apocalyptic visions he induces in me, my personal principle is not to vote for the guy all the potheads are voting for. Although it may help to explain why his party didn’t make it in to the Knesset even though many polls predicted him passing the minimum percentage of votes. It’s entirely possible that his all potential constituents just forgot it was election day and spent it playing video games instead.

I wasn’t going to vote for Kahlon’s Kulanu party, since they have proven themselves to be effective in their last term in the Knesset only as human seat warmers. Their election posters stated that they were “the only party to choose YOU.” I don’t know what they chose me for, but I certainly didn’t volunteer for anything.

The United Right shot themselves in the foot when they decided to join together with Otzma Yehudit, the self admitted Kahanist party whose leader was banned from running for Knesset on the grounds of “incitement of racism.” I don’t vote for racists or extremists. It’s a thing I have.

That leaves the largest parties- the Likud and Blue and White. And frankly, after watching the frequent cat fights between them, I wasn’t particularly impressed by either. If your platform consists of bashing the other guy, you haven’t actually given anyone a good reason TO vote for YOU.

I’m quite tired of being embarrassed by Netanyahu and the scandals that seem to follow in the wake of his family and everyone unfortunate enough to be around them. And his capricious politics and fickle decisions make it difficult to know what he actually stands for. I’m not sure he even knows at this point.

On the other hand, I hold Gantz responsible for the disaster that was Operation Protective Edge, in which 67 Israeli soldiers were killed, and another 469 were injured. Incidentally, Moshe Ya’alon, the Minister of Defense at the time, is number 3 on the party’s list. While much of the party’s platform seems worthy enough, I would absolutely not want to see Benny Gantz as the Prime Minister.

And so you understand the reluctance with which I walked into the voting station and cast my ballot. I’m still not sure I voted for the best party, but frankly, it probably doesn’t matter that much since the Israeli government is set up in such a way that it is almost impossible to change anything, especially when the ministers have no idea what they’re doing, and the MKs are just as likely to vote against a law proposed because the person who proposed it insulted their mother the day before as they are because their party is voting that way to blackmail another party into giving them what they want. So at least I have peace of mind that no one’s vote really counts for anything and it’s all a farce anyway (a very expensive one).

So here’s to hoping that the next however many years until the next election go smoothly and don’t cost the taxpayer TOO much money.

The Israeli Postal Disservice

I have been ordering things online for many years now, and a good 95% has made it to me intact and on time. But either I offended the postal gods, or the post office is currently being operated by 5 year olds, because I have had a spate of mail related “incidents” recently.

I ordered two books from the Book Depository in October. 50% of them made it successfully all the way from the British post office to the Israeli post office 3 weeks later. By 3 months later, I had given up that poor second book for dead and wrote a message to the Book Depository’s customer service in which I stated that although two books had allegedly been shipped on October 23, only one had made it. It’s already a bit strange that they would package and ship two books separately on the same day (why not just stick two books in one box?), but I have given up on asking these questions because rarely do I get a satisfactory answer. The nice lady who replied to me within 24 hours (less than 24 hours later, can you imagine???) alleged that there had been issues lately with the Israeli postal system due to structural reorganizations of the system. Not being Israeli, she didn’t understand that “reorganizations” means that someone’s cousin Moishe has been hired to head the post office branch, but don’t worry, he’s totally qualified, he used to be a tank driver in the army, so he can totally handle sorting a few packages. She said it was possible that it might still come. I replied that it seemed quite unlikely if it hadn’t arrived after 3 months, but that in the unlikely event that I did receive the book after they had refunded me my money or resent the book, I would just send it back. She acquiesced to my not unreasonable demands, and two weeks later I went to pick up the book.

You’ll never guess what showed up at the post office two weeks later. Now keep in mind, this was already 4 months later. The book had clearly been though some traumatic events, judging by the package (or what was left of it). After letting it rest a bit for a few days to regain its bearings, I dutifully gave it to my parents to ship back (who generously footed the shipping bill since the Book Depository was unwilling to lose more money over the Israeli postal service’s incompetence).

A few weeks after my original book order, I had ordered a sweater from AliExpress. After 2 months, the seller inquired whether I had received it or not. I was able to confirm that it had made it to Israel via its international tracking number, but was unable to learn its subsequent fate (which is apparently impossible to do without an Israeli tracking number). I let them know that I had not received the package despite the fact that it had arrived in the country a month before. The seller told me he’d try to track it down and update me on his progress. Which he did the next day. Apparently my package got “destroyed” in transit. How you can possibly “destroy” a sweater in a package is beyond me. You can literally drop it repeatedly on the floor and nothing will happen. IT’S A SWEATER. So unless it got attacked by a pack of wild animals (possibly the same ones that got to my book?), I am quite flummoxed. At this point it seems likely that the main postal sorting center does in fact keeps a pack of German shepherds on the premises to ravage all packages sent to Natania Casden.

At some point after reordering the sweater (and an additional sweater for back up), I noticed a bunch of papers on the floor next to our mail box. A few days later, I was annoyed enough about the litter on the floor to pick them up. Lo and behold, it was two second notices from the post office about two packages I had not picked up yet and that were still waiting for me. This was confusing since if these were the second notices, where were the first notices? I found them. In my neighbors’ mailbox. They had been sitting there for about a week and I had been wondering why the neighbors weren’t collecting their mail. It’s because it WASN’T their mail. The reason it didn’t reach the correct mailbox is because the post office had neglected to jot down the small detail of the apartment number when they wrote my address on the notices. So the mailman stuck them in 'a' mailbox, any mailbox, hoping it would eventually get to the correct person. The post office then sent out second notices, and again did not write an actual address. Considering the main job of the post office is to make sure people get their mail, they don’t seem to be taking this job very seriously. I guess Moishe’s getting paid whether or not Natania Casden gets her packages.

The real kicker is the phone call I got last week from a number I didn’t recognize. The voice on the other end sounded like a teenage boy.

"Hi, this is your neighbor. I have your package.”

"…...What?”

"Yeah, the mailman delivered your package to me by mistake. I opened it. It’s underwear.”

"……….. Why did you open my package?!”

“I dunno. I got a package so I opened it.” At this point I could hear some kid in the background yelling, “it’s underwear! It’s underwear!”

"Where do you live?” Said I, slightly apoplectic but trying to controlling my rising anger.

"At number 7.”

“What?! How did the mailman get confused between number 22 and number 7?!”

"Wait, is this a man or a woman?”

"It’s a woman! Would you please just return my package to me?! Just stick it in the mailbox for apartment 6.”

"Ok.”

Honestly, it’s probably unnecessary to state at this point that I did not get my package back. I did try calling back a few days later but the guy insisted that he had put the package in front of my door that same night, said “I have to go,” and hung up. I don’t know what this kid is doing with women’s underwear, but at this point I don’t think I want them back.

To summarize, this circus of a postal service is doing a pretty atrocious job at getting people (or at least me) their packages. Which is quite problematic, as soon many online international suppliers are going to get tired of refunding people’s money and resending packages to Israel and are just going to refuse to sell things to Israelis. This will then be seen as a political statement both by Israelis and internationally, potentially sparking a commercial war where countries will refuse to engage in trade with each other, leading to a financial crisis, and a downsizing of the Israeli postal service, and who knows what’s going to happen to Moishe then?! Actually he’ll probably be the last one standing at the post office after all the other workers have been fired, and then there’s absolutely NO chance whatsoever that anyone’s going to get their mail.

So the message for the day is to stop ordering things online in order to prevent WWIII.

Cats in Conferences

I suppose work conferences can be hit or miss affairs, depending on where they are, how packed the schedule is, and how much you like your coworkers. I have successfully managed to avoid every departmental “retreat” on the grounds that I need to take care of my cat, but actually because I can’t imagine anything more horrible than spending 3 days doing team building exercises (which is what I assume is happening at these retreats) with all the professors in my department and listening to lectures about self fulfillment and fungi.

However, 3 days in the Queen of Sheba hotel (5 stars) in Eilat (can anyone say VAT free shopping???), all expenses paid, with a gym, pool, spa, and gourmet food on offer 18 hours of the day? Well, I’m not a complete idiot. The other option was actually going to work and working. The only catch? Lectures for almost as many hours as food was available. There was also a poster viewing session, in which I took part. I would not normally sign up for extra work, especially since I’m not convinced that anyone particularly cares about what I’m working on besides me and my boss, but he talked me into it. So I designed a poster and got stuck answering questions about it to the few professors my boss guilt tripped into coming over and pretending to look interested while clearly scoping out the snack table behind me.

The first day started with a 5 hour drive down to Eilat, signing in, and dinner (a bona fide feast). Then a lecture session after dinner. Which was interrupted by some cats in the ceiling. I imagine this happens often at 5 star hotels. The last lecture was interrupted by a power outage (or someone who got fed up with the incessant talking and wanted to go to sleep). We then had a “dance party” (euphemism for a bunch of old people flailing their limbs to the beat. Well, almost to the beat). This also happened to be the day of my 30^th birthday, and the day that I learned that I’m older than some of the PhD students. So I drank some wine, laughed at the people trying to dance, and went to bed.

The next day started at 9:00 am, with lectures and poster sessions all day until 8 pm. Obviously, most people snuck out for at least a few hours. The cats stuck in the ceiling were possibly the only ones who didn’t. I definitely saw the people from the lab next door to mine slinking out of the hotel in bathing suits with a surf board.

That was the evening I made the fateful mistake of buying an Asus laptop from Machsanei Chashmal. I had ordered a laptop from Bug, to be picked up in their branch in Eilat (again, tax free), and was told that there was a 95% chance that the laptop would make it there on time. I’m sure we can all guess what happened, seeing as my life has a very definite pattern. So I walked into the first electronics store I passed, and they happened to have one laptop left of the model that I wanted. It had been in the display case but hadn’t been used, and the very pregnant store clerk checked it out and made sure it worked before selling it to me.

Well I’m sure we can all guess what happened to the laptop, based once again on the pattern of my life. It was sent back twice, the first time only a month after purchase. Dealing with the Asus Israel costumer service, the delivery company (who repeatedly called me at 1pm to ask if I was home so they could pick/return the laptop), and the repair company Asus uses is a story in an of itself, but bottom line- buy an Asus only if you enjoy conflict and frustration. And throwing expensive electronics out the window.

But back to the conference. All in all, I’m not really sure why the conference was held in Eilat considering they seem to have forgotten to schedule any significant amount of time IN Eilat, or at least the part of the city that exists outside the hotel. Frankly I’d have been just as happy to drive 5 minutes to a hotel instead of 5 hours as long as there was food and no scorpions in my bed (army story). But perhaps this was a strategic move to prevent us all from escaping. It certainly worked on the cats.

The Big 3-0

Turning 30 is a huge milestone. When I was a kid, most of my friends’ parents were all in their 30’s, leading me to believe that 30+ is old. My own parents were in their 40’s and 50’s when I was younger, so they were obviously ancient. Not to mention my grandmothers, one of whom was in her 80’s and the other in her 90’s. They were one step away from being living mummies.

Obviously as I’ve gotten older I’ve had to readjust my thinking a bit, especially as I have many single friends in their 30’s who still go out and have fun. In fact, there are some advantages to being 30. For one, I’m old enough to not have to take anyone’s crap anymore. If you’re talking nonsense, I now feel that it is acceptable for me to let you know that you’re talking nonsense. Also people tend to take you more seriously when you tell them you’re 30, as opposed to being in your 20’s. But basically, those are the only advantages.

I guess having some actual life experience is nice too. My sister asked me on my birthday what I had learned in my 30 years on this planet. My response was to not walk down the stairs while holding something in the dark. In hindsight, there were probably many other answers I could have given her. So after some serious pontificating, I have come up with a list of things that I have learned over the years.

1) Never make anyone tell you a secret if they don’t want to tell you, and if they want to tell you the secret, don’t let them. There’s a good reason why it was a secret in the first place. No one wants to get whacked because Tony couldn’t keep his big mouth shut in Sal’s Deli and blabbed to everyone where the money was hidden.

2) People are resistant to being dissuaded from their own opinion, even by a thoughtful, well stated, logical argument. This is why I mostly don’t argue with people about stuff like politics, religion, and social issues. And when I do, I generally regret it because neither of us has changed our opinions and we both now think the other is a complete idiot.

3) Your mother is always right. Even when she’s wrong, she’s still right. Case in point is this story:

I was walking with my mother... We argued about which direction to take. She took the long way and I took the short way. She got there a few seconds after me, but I got pooped on by a bird on the way. So she won that round.

4) Most modern art was probably made by accident. Like when someone dropped something into or onto something else and instead of chucking it, they made contemporary art out of lemons. For example, this sculpture was actually a lab accident. Apparently many types of plastic melt when you run them through an autoclave.

5) Never wear flip flops outside. They will invariably rip at the most inopportune time. Like, 2 hours away from home by foot in the middle of nowhere. Flip flops are the shitty roommates of shoes- totally unreliable.

6) There’s no manual on being an adult and no one really knows what they’re doing. However, paying your bills and having clean underwear are a good sign that you’re doing a passable job at the whole “adult” thing.

7) Life is too short not to be weird. Surround yourself with people that entertain you. Otherwise you’ll have to take up drinking out of boredom, like me.

8) Fashion is a social construct promoted by a bunch of old French guys who I’m pretty sure are just sipping champagne on the Riviera and laughing at the rest of us that we actually fell for it. Like seriously, what the hell even is this?! 

9) If you are unhappy about something in your life, you have 3 options- a) do nothing and continue suffering b) change your attitude about it and learn to accept it c) change whatever it is that you’re unhappy about. Either way, don’t keep complaining to me about it. Unless you want to pay me 200 shekels per hour.

10) Animals are way better than humans. With animals, you pretty much know what you’re going to get. Unconditional love (on the condition that you feed them of course) and companionship. I’ve never had a cat ditch me to hang out with his other friends or break up with me because “it just isn’t working.”

So these are the things I’ve learned. Thank you all for letting me share my wisdom with you. If you have anything to add, I’d love to hear it.