February

Four weeks since I posted. That doesn't mean nothing is happening. Three weeks of that were "vacation." Which only means that there were no classes--Al had to work as much as ever. Do you know what it's like to be married to a work-a-holic? But in spite of that, we managed to do lots of good things--pictures to come.
Today is sunny and I must get out of the house. The last two weeks have been full of complicated thoughts. There's nothing like warm sunshine to soothe them all away.

Grocery shopping can be colorful.

Another street cat--wild, of course. There are hundreds of them. I have petted one tame cat since I've been here. I also saw a tame cat in a little restaurant, a pure white one. He sat indifferently on the floor and didn't beg or jump on the counter. Even so, it seems odd to see a cat in a restaurant. Nice, in a way, that people aren't so obsessed with "health."

I started to write a story about a Booh and a Rabbit. It was plain enough what kind of character Booh was going to be, but I wasn't sure about Rabbit, and since he got kidnapped the very first page, I didn't have to think about it, but I'll have to get back to him. In many books I have read, you can tell which character the author most identifies with. I identify with Booh, so Rabbit will have to be styled after someone else, or maybe a different side of myself. Ah, I think I've got it--Booh is the present and Rabbit is the past. Rabbit finds an olivine--do you know what an olivine is?
But I have more important things to do. Like think complicated thoughts. I'd rather not, actually, but sometimes life gets complicated. Then I have to remember, "Consider the lilies---they toil not, neither do they spin." And they don't make long lists and complicated charts and schedules, either. One reason for doing that is to get a feeling that things are somehow in control, and that I am somehow making progress. Which means that 99% of the time I feel that everything is out of control and I am making no progress.
Well, Booh and Rabbit and thinking and making lists and feeling accomplished will have to stay in the bacground. My task right now is to learn some Psalms in Hebrew. No small task.
Correction--learn ONE Psalm in Hebrew. That's enough for today, or maybe a week. Read it, look up all the words, figure out the grammar, listen to it read.