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Yep, this apartment really does have everything: toaster, electric kettle, phone, dishes, cookware, cleaning supplies, teabags, sugar, candle, matches, spare lightbulbs, clothespins, and more. We're mostly organized now, but that doesn't mean we don't lose things several times a day. The place is small enough that it has to be [My new computer has a strange keyboard--where is the quotation mark?] a place for everything and everything in its place. Which means also that we have to remember all those places.

I've just spent a while reading other people's blogs and I wonder why am I blogging. How do you do it? How do you find time? How do you collect your thoughts? How can you make it interesting? Oh, well, I'll just go through the motions and hope for the best.

Grocery shopping is an adventure. I can't read the labels. I don't recognize any of the brands. When I tried to find a bag of rice I recognized the word for rice and it looked like rice, but, no. When I got it home I realized it was a kind of pasta shaped like grains of rice. Then I bought something that looked a little like an orange tomato, but it was definitely not a tomato. It was solid all the way through, but tender, and had a few very tiny seeds and was delicious and sweet. Good for eating plain or putting on cereal. Then I bought some salt, which turned out to be kitchen salt, which isn't what we call table salt because it was very coarse, not the best for sprinkling on food. Vegetables are cheap, which suits me fine because I love eating lots of vegetables. I bought a can of tomato paste which was really half-way in between paste and sauce for consistency, and a little bit sweeter. I am going to try red rice, which I hope tastes better than wild rice. So far I haven't found any rolled oats for making granola.

All shopping is an adventure, if you can forget how much time is being wasted. I don't have time to find the best buys, because I have to get to work studying Hebrew. A really good butcher knife is essential, and I was about to buy one, but while I was waiting in line I said to Al, this is either a sort-of-good knife, or a totally worthless one, but how can I know until I try it out. Another lady must have noticed my doubtful look (I don't think she spoke much English), because she shook her head and said, I bought, lo tove, which means not good. So I put that one back and went to another store, where I found a good knife and also a good set of salt and pepper shakers for under $10, wow, actually only $3. I try to remember the good bargains I find and forget all the bad ones.