WEATHER

Our record-breaking winter storm in December was quite an event. Eight inches of snow. Several episodes of hail and snow pellets. It took till the end of February before the piles of tree branches along every street were picked up. Our nice bottle-brush tree got broken, and so did the biggest rubber-tree I have ever seen. The leaning trees in the park had to be cut down, for which I am not sorry. But I don't understand why they left four-foot tall stumps, too high and slanted to sit on.

The last few days have been truly warm. I can actually take off my coat and sometimes my sweater indoors.

The cycle of spring flowers begins. I wish I were organized enough to make a flower diary with pictures. Mustard, poppies, anemone, oxalis, and various others probably bloom at very exact times, partly overlapping each other. My favorite rose bush this year has only two big beautiful deep pink-streaked flowers, instead of several small lighter-colored ones. White, lavendar and purple alyssum are blooming where planted. A hollyhock is coming up in the sidewalk. One year it had beautiful blossoms. The next year it go cut down before it bloomed. It doesn't know that it actually doesn't, according to some people, belong in the sidewalk. Judas trees are blooming, yellow puff trees are starting to bloom.

 Anchusa, which has small deep blue flowers, is blooming. It's actually kind of a weed, but the flowers are nice. One year, back in the early 70's, I planted the garden variety, which looks about the same but without the thorns. The next year I didn't want them, but they were hard to get rid of. Every piece of tuberous root would start a new plant.

Every time I see a spectacular flower display, I look for the same thing to happen the next year. But it never happens again at the same place. But there are new ones. This week I saw some well trimmed pittosporum with lots of light-green new growth.

But the brick sidewalk near our flat hasn't been swept in over three years. The row of 20 or more big flower tubs gets no care at all, except for an automatic watering system, which is in need of maintenance. What grows in them is what grows easily, including a few persistent flowers and lots of weeds. The nicest flower displays are often half overtaken with some weed. Or there are several nice plants but they are much too crowded. I can appreciate a sort of wild look, but the dirt and dust and  neglected look never cease to bother me.

Fresh Water

If weeding your garden gets the weeds out, does salting the ocean get the salt out?

גנן גידל דגן בגן, דגן גדול גדל בגן׃   Or you could say, Ganan gidel dagan bagan; dagan gadol gadal bagan. Meaning, the gardener grew grain in the garden; large grain grew in the garden.

Anyway it's nice to have my computer working correctly again. They removed 12 gig of junk that windows had added over the last several months. 12 Gig!!! And there was a lot of dust inside and some spyware that AVG missed. So it's really nice to know a good computer guy. And I got my computer back in one day. Now it works like a charm. And it's quiet.

The Lord's Day

I wish I could find some short articles on the Christian Sabbath. There are hardly any Christian Sabbatarians in Israel, and I'm not even being fussy about whether you keep it on Saturday or Sunday. One in seven, just like God did in the beginning. Simple enough, and so helpful.

Ring out the Old

It's gone. It wasn't bad. In fact, it was everything it was supposed to be.

But now is time for resolutions. Number one, go to bed on time.

I have gotten myself into a horrible rut of too little sleep, always stressing out (making stress out of even the most enjoyable things). Leads to heartburn, dizzy spells, etc.

Well, at least I'm not depressed!

Cold

I wore my winter coat in the house all day. Typical winter day. It was probably about 15 C. Clothes hung out all day and are still wet. Mosquitoes are slow, but they're still around.

Church on Wednesday and Saturday was attended by several prisoners. Maybe "attended" isn't the word--they listened in by phone.

Jerusalem is an interesting place. But I didn't exactly have an interesting day. I was a bit sick so I didn't accomplish much. I don't have any cute kids that say cute things and do cute things. I didn't go anywhere except for a short walk and I saw nothing new. I did stop for a look at my favorite rosebush. I am tempted to cut a rose and take it home. Nobody loves that rose as much as I do. The bush usually looks pretty sad, but the roses on it are nice. I wonder if the bush were treated for rust would the flowers still be as good.

I didn't see the gray cat today. He's not an average cat, but a special breed of some kind. He frequently sits on a wall by the sidewalk, at a convenient height for me to stop and pet. After petting him for a minute I walk on, so he jumps down, runs ahead, jumps onto the wall again. He does this several times, then returns home. If I had a cat that nice I'd be worried someone would steal him.

I stopped to pet the fat yellow cat. I startled several wild black and tabby cats out of the garbage bin.

I transcribed several tune ideas from my recorder. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be able to finish a tune.

Supper was supposed to be a delicious potato soup. It turned out to be a so-so potato soup. Try again tomorrow. Only without the potatoes.

I Found It!

I just stumbled across the verses that intrigued me some time back.

Compare Psalm 71:3 and Psalm 31:3 (written with middle part scrunched). Switch tsaddi and dalet and consider that hand-written vav's and yud's are very similar.

הֱיֵה לִי לְצוּר מָעוֹן    לָבוֹאתָּמִידצִוִּיתָ  לְהוֹשִׁיעֵנִי
הֱיֵה לִי לְצוּר-מָעוֹז     לְבֵיתמְצוּדוֹת   לְהוֹשִׁיעֵנִי

Or simply leave out vav's and yud's and an alef and you get,

לבתמדצת
or
לבתמצדת

first is "be for me a rock of strength, and for a house of defense(s) to save me"

second is "be for me a strong habitation, to come continually, you commanded to save me"

Also I find interesting that in the Psalms you can often change the line breaks and verse breaks without changing the meaning.

Winter rains

Fortunately winter rain doesn't mean cold rain. At least so far. It's more like spring rain. A bit dreary, but nice to have everything getting a wash-down.

Unless it's the clothes on my clothesline. Then it's dirt that washes down from the sky.

After living in Israel for a while, I find myself thinking of myself as Israeli. It's "us," "our troops," "our" prime minister. The day Gilad Shalit came home was quite a day for me.

Most of what is missing here is nature. I have never wanted to be a city person. I miss the grass, the open spaces, the nice parks in Indiana, the nice park north of Dallas, trees, waterfalls, etc. I thought I would perk things up by buying 3 house plants. I was horrified when I got home and realized that one of them had cost me $17!!!!! It has grown 5 new leaves and dropped 20. Oh well, it's trying--probably busy growing more roots. The other two look about the same as when I got them.