People List

I was a little bit sick this morning, so I couldn't decide whether to go to class or not. I finally did, but about an hour and a half late. As I feared, I missed an important lesson. After class I walked part way to the bus stop and stopped to rest. There is a little circular cement area with a tree in the middle with aspen-like leaves. There is a semi-circle bench that holds about 10 people, only there are usually 0-2 people there. I looked around to see what sort of landscaping there was. The usual. Some fairly nice plants but randomly placed. Some pittosporum, a few evergreens, some fuzzy-purple-clustered flowers, and some weedy elm branches poking through. Someone started to cut out the elm but left the branches in a pile. There are some beautiful hollyhocks, about 10 feet tall. Well, they used to be beautiful but they're past their peak. I was thinking they need to be cut down but maybe they are letting them reseed. Just then a lady walking by plucked off a few seed pods and put them in her purse.

Another opportunity to make a list. I just look at all the people going by.

A lady wearing a pink dress with a white shirt over it, a straw hat, sunglasses and sandals.
A man wearing a rusty orange short-sleeved shirt and beige pants.
A very tall man in a black suit and hat. The hat looks like it is too small and sits too high on the head, which makes him look even taller, but that's the way some of them purposely wear them.
A nearly bald man with a dark red kippa. I wonder what holds it on.
Two older men and a teenage boy. The boy is carrying what looks like a large painting in a purple bag.
A man and a woman sipping cappucinos (or something as delicious).
A man wearing white shirt and pants and a black kippa talking on a cell phone.
An old woman in a mismatched outfit with striped socks and sandals. Rules of matching-ness are quite loose here anyway, which takes a lot of the stress out of finding clothes, and if you don't match you don't feel you have committed a great sin.
A nicely dressed man in a blue bike helmet pedalling steadily uphill.
A woman in a nice spring-colored outfit wearing white moccasins that are coming apart at the seams.
A man with a notebook under one arm and a cell phone in each hand--talking on one and pushing buttons on the other, which is ringing.
Three school boys carrying schoolbags. I thought school was supposed to be out this month.
A woman with a little white poodle on a 20-foot leash. The poodle walks straight ahead without stopping to sniff and investigate like many dogs do (if their owners let them).
Two boys walking briskly along, one with a Canaan dog. A couple minutes later they go by again from the other direction.
Haridi girls with babies in strollers.
Teenage girls in jeans and tennis shoes, carrying huge purses/bags. You should see all the bags here. I have deliberately refused to look at very many of them. Who needs more than one or two anyway. But it's tempting...
A pale old man walking slowly.
A weathered old woman walking faster.

Finally I proceed to the bus stop. While waiting for my bus (which was about the 14th one) I overhear a woman saying (in Hebrew) "eight hundred million shekels!" and a man on a cell phone saying (in English) "Open the aircondition! Open the aircondition!"

Finally I am on the way home and I notice that the trash cans (at least one in every block) are very full to over-flowing and the recycling bins (about one per block) have been recently emptied. They collect plastic bottles in bins about 5' by 6' x 8'. A big truck comes by and sucks them all up with a huge vacuum machine.

Now I'm home so I'd better start studying future tense. You can't, as in English, just add "will" to the verb. And unlike Spanish, you can't just add certain endings to the infinitive (with a few variations). You have to add a letter to the beginning or maybe the end or maybe both and sometimes leave out a vowel and I-don't-know-what-else. Learning Hebrew is lots of fun, but lately I've lost the feeling of making any progress. I feel like I know less than when I started. But that makes me more determined.

I love the weather here, and the fact that there aren't noisy air-conditioners everywhere. If you lived in Tel-Aviv you'd want an air-conditioner. Jerusalem can be hot, but it's generally pleasant.