Monday morning continued

Now what do we do. Ah-ha! It's fixed. I had to close out that last post because something went wrong. I accidentally hit some key, I don't know which one, and my keyboard went into backwards-upside-down mode. When I hit the space bar, the cursor went up! I've never been able to make it do that before.
Anyway, last week I intended to put up more photos, and blogspot quit working. I'll get back to it maybe later today.
Right now I am in a language mode, not a picture mode. I would really do well not to get too carried away with pictures. I seem to be unable to just post them and forget it. I first have to examine umpteen photos to pick out the very best and most relevant and then I try to edit each one to try to make it look better, which is kind of a waste of time, because they are really about right anyway (pretty clever, Canon Power-Shot!) (And I don't have the kind of editor I need, which is one I used to have that would straighten slanted photos--I habitually hold the camera a bit down on the right, which looks bad on a photo with a building or a horizon.)
Language. When I was about twelve years old I determined that what I wanted to do with my life would have to have something to do with language or music. Well, it never happened, and just as well. Raising a family was what the Lord had for me, and it was (and is) great. But now it's back to language. I wish, wish, wish that all young children who have the aptitude could be taught languages while they are young. (Get busy, Elijah, in case you are a missionary someday, or in case you travel.) It would be so much better than waiting till you are fifty-some to learn a new alphabet. It is so easy and fun to do it when you are young, and will save you hours and hours of work later.
When I was ten years old I studied a tiny bit of French. I still remember, "En ete, il fait beau. Le soleil brille." I still remember about 200 words of French. I looked through a dictionary and counted them. Some of them are words we all know anyway, like ballet and chandelier. If it is that easy to learn when you are young, that is the time to do it. But you don't know why when you are ten years old, and now my computer is in italics mode and won't stop! I have to de-italicize over and over again. (Not so clever, Hewlett-Packard!)
I ran across (thank you HP, for changing the rules--now that the italics button is on, there are no italics--and my emoticons have disappeared, or I would make a face for sure. ) - - - As I was saying, I ran across the word for "font," which is "גופן" . When ever I think of the Hebrew word for "font" in my mind's eye I don't see "גופן" but "gofan". When will I ever have a visual memory in Hebrew? That is why I think it would be great to teach young children different alphabets (Hebrew, Hindi, Arabic, Russian) and a few words because once it's in your head it's there and can be revived, especially if you review a bit every week, or every month or so.
A lady in a store said something to me that was probably "Are you ready to pay?" I heard "pay" because that is a word I know, but I didn't catch the words for "are you ready." I didn't suddenly go deaf, but I just couldn't catch them. My brain isn't alert enough for foreign words. Have you ever had the experience of someone "hearing" what they thought you were going to say, and you feel like yelling "that's not what I said and you're not listening!"? Partly it's the way the brain works. If you're focused on something that turns out not to be there, you have to go back and refocus so you can hear.

Monday morning

Nice and sunny today. Sunny enough to make our dark apartment a little less dark. As soon as I can I will take a cup of coffee and walk about sixty yards to where there is a blue metal park bench where I can sit and soak up some sun and have a coffee break. Except the sun doesn't really hit the bench until a bit later, so I will take another coffee break when it's more sunny. Or I can walk another ten yards to the red park bench. Or if I am up to it I might go down to sit on the green park bench and see how the stone wall is coming. It seems odd to put so much work into a wall. They do it one block at a time. The blocks come roughly shaped and they have to be chipped into shape. The put in little shivers of blocks to hold the big ones level while the cement is drying. Drainage pipes come through at regular intervals. They stuff something into them temporarily so they won't get plugged with cement.

Passover

It's really quiet. Quieter than most sabbaths, and not just for one day.

The first thing you notice is little groups of people gathering in the vacant lots making little bonfires to burn the kametz. No yeast must be found in your house or in any of the stores. We went shopping today and found some food unavailable because it contained yeast. All the shelves containing cereal were covered with plastic and had a sign saying "kametz, do not open." Various other areas were covered with plastic. Toothpaste with soda, some candy bars, some baby formula were all covered. There was no bread at all, only rice cakes. There were some kosher cakes and macaroons. There was, as usual, lots of chocolate.

On Tuesday we headed south for our vacation, which also made up for our last two honeymoons which we didn't really celebrate. ("All things come to those who wait.") Besides riding a camel, we saw lots of nice vacant land and barren hills and eroded mountains. Lovely, after being in the city so long.

Burning the kametz.

It is starting to green up. Not sure how green it will get or how long it will last. See the sink hole? There are many of them and some big enough to cave the road in.
These goats are wa-ay up there. They're the African type, with long floppy ears.

Bedouins live here. This is a nice-looking place. Many of them are ugly trash heaps. Do Bedouin women have no desire for beauty or do their husbands just not care? Of course the scenery, in this case, would make up for the shoddy sheds they live in.

Lots of groves of date palms.

The white streak down the mountain is salt.

The soil must be fertile for there to be so many greenhouses.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in this and three other caves. You can see just one cave in this picture. There are hundreds of them all along the highway. I wonder how many of them have been explored. You'd have to watch out for rock slides.

Caves aside, this is a nice place to visit. I got the nicest green sunhat here. Prettier than any cave.

Getting closer to the water.
And here we are!
More to come.

On our day off we did something different.

Which means a bunch of boring pictures (or not so boring). But hang on, we did actually do something besides take pictures.

I loaded this picture full size, because I want you to zoom in and find the little door. An underground house! Interesting!

A guy with a camel!

A baby camel!

Looks like they're making some sort of deal.

Is he going to buy the camel?

Don't I look silly! As I got on the camel the man said, "A hundred shekels up, a hundred shekels down." Fortunately he wasn't serious or I'd still be up there. And it was less than that actually.

Doesn't he look sillier yet! (I'm going to "lose" that hat)
More to come.

Interesting

I'm trying to think of something interesting to say. Um, Er, Uh well, ....

Nice try. Maybe I won't try to be interesting.

I'm really worried about my favorite dog. I've seen him wandering around a couple times. I'm worrying that maybe he's lost. He's quite thin, thinner than you would expect for a dog with a home. He has a collar on, and if I could catch him I would see if it has a phone number on it.

If this isn't called a bottle-brush tree, it should be. Actually I think it is. The flowers don't feel like bottle-brushes though. They're kind of soft and rubbery.


This is not much to look at, compared with some balconies I have seen. Just one measly bunch of flowers. Sometimes there are five times this many, but then I don't have my camera with me.

Flowers don't mind growing out of the sidewalk. Bloom where you're planted. Or where you happen to be. I'm sure these weren't planted, but maybe some seeds spilled over from the planter above.

...

I just decided to check a blog I've been following about a child in Forney, Texas. The latest article is encouraging. Don't miss the part about Dutch kisses.
http://prayforlucy.wordpress.com/

Vacation

I'm sure glad this week is over. It took 6 trips to the visa office to get our tourist visa extended. It wasn't "automatic," as they told us in the U.S. that it would be.

Anyway that's over with. And I hope I'm done with unscrupulous taxi drivers. They'll charge you an arm and a leg if they can get away with it. And lie to you.

I need a break from Ulpan, too. It went reasonably well for a while, and I got 100% on my last test, which many thought was difficult. But then everything started to slide. I spent quite some time today reviewing the things I was supposed to have learned but didn't. It's starting to come clear again, but I want to get ahead a little before class starts up again.

The weather is cold again.

This dark red rose was so fragrant I could smell it from several feet away.

This is me. Or it would have been, except I was the one holding the camera. Nice backdrop, though, wouldn't you say?

This is a poppy.

And these are poppy anemone. They don't take a very good picture. They look like red blobs. Maybe I need different lighting.

One solution is...

Where to park your car

One obvious solution is...on the sidewalk. This one's been here for so long it turned to stone. Really! It is solid stone! Any guesses as to what kind of car it is?

I like the stones behind it too. First the natural stone, and then the ones put above it. I don't know what the thing is that looks like a window--whether it had some purpose or whether someone was being funny. Pretty funny, either way.

Snapdragons
Hollyhocks

Wisteria

At the day care center next door

A blooming tree trunk