The Island, Part 3: House of Sand and Fog

Weather men can rarely be taken seriously. How many times have we each heard that “today will be a sunny day” only to wish later on that we had taken an umbrella? And what does “There is a 50% chance of rain today” mean? It sounds like an intelligent way of saying, “We have no clue what the weather will be like today, so let’s cover out butts and sound intelligent while saying nothing significant at all.” This mindset gave birth to the popular phrase “Blame it on the weatherman” – yes, like the hit song by B*Witched.

I, too, used to blame the weatherman.

Ok, I still do.

But at least now I have a greater appreciation for how unpredictable the weather can be. (Depending on the place in question, of course. Naturally, I expect the weather man to pick up on a rainfall in Israel in the middle of August.)

The reason I can now sympathize with with the weatherman: My Island.

My Island can show a mix of sunshine, clouds, light showers, thunder storms and fog all over the course of one day, any/all day(s) of the week. Here’s an example:

I’d wake up one morning to find a very thick fog outside my window. Deciding that it is not ideal weather for a day spent outside, I’d sleep in, only to wake up a few hours later to discover that it has turned into a beautiful, sunny day, perfect for all outdoor activities. I’ll quickly get dressed, daven, eat a late breakfast and head out to start a nice hike around the island. Halfway through the hike, the heavens will open and drench me. I’ll find the closest path, branching off and leading me through the woods into town for my quickest route back home. By the time I hit “Main Street,” the rain is falling so intensely that each drop on my arm stings and burns. I’ll dry off at home and curl up with a book for the rest of the afternoon, watching the storm pass over the island. By dinner time the storm has passed and all that remains of it is a scattering of clouds, causing one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. By the time I curl up in bed and turn out my gas lamp, the clouds have all dispersed and I have the most exquisite view of the stars in the sky.

Of course, there are some days of pure sunshine and others that are the classic rainy day, but for the most part each day is a mix of two or more weather patterns. Sometimes an entire week will be overcast, whereas the week leading up to it will have been the most beautiful week the island has ever seen. This creates a problem for day trippers and people who stay overnight. Should they bring hiking clothes, planning to be outdoors most of the time? Or an umbrella and rain boots so they can move freely around town and the artists’ studios in the rain? During the three weeks that my family stays on the island we like to invite family friends to stay by us for at least one of those weeks. If someone were to invite me for only one week, I’m not sure I’d accept. You could get stuck indoors the whole time. At least with three weeks you’re likely to get at least one full day of each weather type. I wouldn’t want to pass any of them up. Here’s why:

Sunny Day

The Sunny day allows you to do anything you might want to do outside. Some things are necessary to do outside, such as hanging up freshly laundered clothes to dry and food shopping. On a sunny day we’ll likely do a BBQ for dinner. And depending on your mood you can either chase the sun across the sky in a reclining lawn chair on the house’s wrap around deck, or you can venture forth into town and beyond. On some sunny days I’ll want to stay closer to home – maybe build sand sculptures on the tiny beach, watch artists on “Main Street” painting, go up to the island’s museum and lighthouse for the best view of the whole island, watch people fishing at the dock, or climb down onto the rocks in front of our house and watch the tides come and go.

Other sunny days I’ll leave the house in the morning and return in time for dinner, spending the entire day hiking in the forests and on the cliffs, taking an occasional break to eat the sandwiches I packed for lunch, read a book, photograph the beauty around me or play my recorder while surrounded by nature. If I feel the need to get farther away, I can always take the ferry tour around the island, or row a boat to the smaller island, adjacent to the harbor and trek around there for a few hours. Clear skies make for pretty average sunsets, but also the best stargazing at nights.

Cloudy Day
Cloudy days are most likely to have a short sun shower, but they are also good days for doing outdoorsy things. I might be less inclined to do activities that are meant for soaking up the sun, such as spending time on the beach or going out on the water. Cloudy days are actually great days for either sitting on the deck and reading while enjoying a great breeze, or hiking out to the cliffs for a nice place to sit and think or read or play a recorder without it being too hot. The evenings where the clouds are present but not thick make for the best sunsets.

Rainy Day
Days with light showers are probably the most annoying (and some summers can be the most frequent). Since it generally won’t be raining all day long, it’s enough to make you wary about leaving the house, and if you are already out of the house it will leave you looking for shelter elsewhere. Once, while out on a hike along the cliffs, I found shelter in a dense part of the forest inland a bit, where the humidity from the rain locked in about a million mosquitoes with me. Yeah, a bit unpleasant. But if I’m fortunate enough to still be at home when it starts raining, I’m in for some real treats. Since I’ve lived in cities all my life, rain clouds were never particularly special, but on this island they are a source of true beauty. The best way I can think to describe it is by quoting a verse from Sefer Bereishit (Genesis) about the second day of creation:

G-d said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.” G-d made the expanse, and it separated the water which was below the expanse from the water which was above the expanse. And it was so. G-d called the expanse Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. (Translation taken from the JPS Tanach)

Rain hitting the ocean

When the rain clouds hang low enough, you can see the wisps of rain as extensions of the clouds as they touch the ocean. True beauty indeed. Additionally, unless the rain clouds are very dense, there will like be a beautiful sunset, perhaps even an exceptional one with the rain-cloud-touching-ocean phenomenon.

Light rain at sunset

Stormy Day
Stormy days on My Island are probably the most exciting kind of day to have, although too many in one summer can be a bit bumming. On stormy days you don’t venture outside for the most part. You may, in the morning, venture out to the deck to either bring in or tie down the lawn chairs, plastic chairs and plastic table, because if you were to leave them as they are, you will most likely find that they have either been blown into your neighbor’s lawn or blown out to sea. Right now it must seem horrifying, so what makes it so exciting? Everything else. The waves during a storm can reach huge heights, and as our house is located on the ocean front, the view of the waves is superb. Another reason why storms are super-exciting is due to the view. You can see a storm coming in when it is still miles away, with no buildings or gigantic trees blocking your view. And once it hits, there’s no better place to have a front row seat to a crazy lightning show than sitting on the couch in the living room in our house on My Island, looking out of one of the two large picture windows that the living room boasts.

View of a serious storm approaching from the front deck at sunset

A slightly less severe storm approaching late afternoon

During the height of the storm, the glass window panes rattle as the wind shrieks by, and the wooden house shakes. During the eye of the storm, the world is eerily calm. Still, there are dull moments – after all, the storm generally doesn’t last all day. The rest of the day could be cloudy, rainy, windy, or even sunny (albeit less likely). So a stormy day requires indoor, rainy day activities. Since for most of our summers there we had no electricity, we didn’t have to worry about the storm short-circuiting our computers and such, but it also meant that we couldn’t spend the whole rainy day inside watching TV. So what do you do? To each their own. My mom, for one, preferred to paint and work on various crafts projects that she’d bring up with her to the island from year to year. My dad would read all day, getting up periodically to watch the storm. Me? I’m a puzzle person. Each summer I’d bring up a 1,000 piece puzzle to complete over those three weeks either during indoor days or in the evenings. (Although, like my dad, I’d also takes break to read and just gaze out the windows.)

Our dog never liked storms much. He’d whine and hide under the table or desk in whichever room had more family members in it. When the storm would get really bad, we’d all gather in the living room to watch it, and our poor, frightened dog would get a headband placed over his floppy ears to block out the sound of the thunder (it just goes to show how scared he was that he never tried to force it off his head), and be fed a spoonful of peanut butter to glue his mouth shut so he’d whimper less (peanut butter also seemed to soothe him a lot). If we happened to have guests over for a week during which time we had a storm, we’d likely spend the evening hours watching the storm with a fire in the fireplace, playing a fun party game such as Taboo or Cranium (and occasionally Scrabble). All in all, a fun, cozy, exciting and yet relaxing day.

"Fist of G-d" cloud about to pound us with stormy weather

Foggy Day
On a foggy day, my dad will never fail to mention the famous British newspaper headline from G-d knows when stating “Fog in Channel, Continent Cut Off,” a rightfully so. The fog on my island can be extremely odd and quite amusing at times. The first time I encountered it was my first summer on the island when I was nine years old. I went on a hike not far from the house with some assortment of family members, venturing forth into a fog so thick that you could only see a few feet ahead of you. We were hoping to see the famous shipwreck beached on one tip of the island. I’ll never forget the way the fog parted as we approached it, revealing out of nowhere this rusted over ghost ship. First thought that entered into my overactive mind: Eek, pirates! We’re all gonna die! (This was, after all, pre-Johnny-Depp-as-a-pirate era.) The ship was nothing more than a medium-sized fishing vessel, but I was tiny at the time and the ship seemed huge. I have since taken to going down there with my camera on foggy days, hoping to capture the eeriness of it all, but the fog never cooperates, acting a different way each time.

From the deck of our house, we have a perfect view of the smaller island across from us. On really clear days you can see as far as the mainland. On foggy days, however, you sometimes can’t even see past the front yard. Other times, the fog is really low hanging, so it looks as if the island opposite us is floating on a cloud of mist. And yet other times, when the fog isn’t hanging as low, only the base of the island across from us is visible. Sometimes the fog is so dense that it’s hard to breathe, and yet other times it will be so light as to wisp away at your merest breath. Sounds magical, doesn’t it?

Fog creeping in

No matter what weather the island experiences, there’s always what to enjoy about it (although it can be rather upsetting when you plan the day before to go hiking, only to wake up to mud and rain). As always, too much of anything is undesirable, but thankfully three weeks each summer is generally enough time to enjoy at least one day of each type of weather.

And in the end, who can blame the weatherman with weather as unpredictable as that?

The Island, Part 2: Reign of Fire

In Part 1 I provided a very basic introduction to my island, but I failed to share with you any of the true wonders. You may not have understood what the appeal for such a place is, but for me, no place could be better.

On this small, roughly kidney bean shaped island, only the inner-most curve of it is inhabited. This inward curve provides some element of protection from the harsh ocean, making it the best place for the harbor (which is also protected by a smaller un-inhabited island opposite it). The outer curve of the island is all tall, jagged cliffs – hardly hospitable living conditions. Along the inner curve of the island runs “Main Street”. I call it such, even though it has no name and is naught but a dirt road, because is pretty much connects everything. The part of Main Street that is closest to the harbor is “Downtown,” where all the stores are. There isn’t much by way of stores. There are a couple of souvenir shops, an art gallery (the island is, after all, an artist colony), a pizza place (non-kosher) slash mini-market (it used to only be a pizza place, but when the Island Market went out of business and became a souvenir shop, someone had to take over the food selling business), a small fresh produce store, a fish market, a tiny post office and a couple of inns. On one edge of Downtown stands the library and the one-room schoolhouse, and on the other side of Downtown stands the Island church.

Fifteen years ago, when I first went to the island, electricity was a rarity. Places in the center of town of course had – how else would the milk in the mini-market keep? But as you moved father out towards the edges of Main Street, electricity became rarer and rarer. (I used to use the computers in the library about once a week to check my email.) Further along Main Street – past Downtown in either direction – are more residential areas. Just off the road at the southern end of Main Street is where our house stands. As such, fifteen years ago the only electrified object in the house was a land-line phone. Yes, there was plumbing (that seems to be everyone’s first concern), but we had no microwave, TV or internet, and the fridge and oven both ran on gas. Much like in the good ole’ days, it was light so long as the sun was up, and when the sun set there was darkness. Still, even back then there were ways of bringing light into the darkness. Each room in the house had at least one gas lamp hanging on the wall. At nights I would leave my bedroom window open, allowing the sounds of the ocean waves to wash over me, as well as the cool night breeze. I would then light up a gas lamp and bask in its warmth while curled up under my blanket for a good read. For those of you who have never seen a lit gas lamp, the gas tends to pulse, causing the lamp to flicker, growing dimmer and then lighter every so often. The flickers cast interesting shadows on the wooden walls of my bedroom, allowing my imagination to push its limits. Once I turn off the gas lamp for the night and my eyes adjusted to the dark, I would fall asleep while gazing out at the starry night sky. (Having no street lamps is such a blessing.)

A Kerosene Lamp

The other things we used to light up the house at night were kerosene lamps. In case you have never seen one of these in use, they generally consist of a glass bowl, which is filled with lamp oil, into which a wide cloth wick is placed, held by a contraption that allows it to be raised higher or lower into the oil. A glass chimney is then placed around the flame, sending out a healthy glow that will provide light as far as a few feet away.

During weeknights my family would gather around the dining room table with a couple of lit kerosene lamps to play any number of card or board games prior to reading and going to sleep. It’s amazing how entertaining non-TV evenings can be. (Ok, we weren’t completely TV-less. In the house we found a solar powered mini-TV. By mini-TV I mean that the screen was roughly 1.5 inches in size after a magnifying lens was placed over it. And as it was solar powered, on cloudy days there was no reception, and even on sunny days it was difficult for the antenna to find anything. I think with my brothers’ tampering we managed to watch maybe a couple of episodes of The Simpsons one summer, but for the most part we were TV-less.)

On Shabbat we had bigger issues. We could, in theory, leave the gas lamps on for a full 25 hours, but we would likely drain the gas tanks at that rate, and being the somewhat money-conscious people that we are, we decided not to risk that. Our only other option was to fill the kerosene lamps as full as we could, which would generally provide at least one or two lamps still burning by the time Shabbat ended. In order to have enough light to have a nice Friday night meal, however, we would have to use any and all lamps we could find. Let me tell you, having tens of lamps lit with full bowls of oil scattered all over the house made the place look more like a cathedral than the home of an observant Jewish family. As the house was made entirely of wood, I think the landlord came to dread Shabbatot as the time when any stumble on our part could mean he’d lose a house. At the end of the day, I think it was for this reason that he finally decided to electrify the house.

So there it was. One summer (maybe our eighth?) we arrived in the house to find functioning electric outlets, an electric fridge, a microwave, a toaster oven, and electric lamps in each room. In some ways it was more convenient. We could use our computers (and thanks to my Dad’s tampering with the phone lines we would occasionally have internet), and we no longer had to fear burning down the house on Shabbat. (We couldn’t be bothered to kasher the microwave or toaster oven, so we never used those.) Still, in my bedroom late at night I’d light up my gas lamp and curl up on my bed underneath it with a good book. Nothing could have been more delightfully cozy.

LOST

Question: If you were stranded all alone on a deserted island with only 5 things in your pocket/bag, what would they be?

It’s a fairly common question that we’ve all considered at one point or another, although statistically anyone reading this will most likely never end up in a situation even remotely similar to the one in question.

I did.

(Well, a remotely, remotely similar situation.)

I was 14 years old at the time, and it was my final summer in the sleep-away camp I attended ever since I was a kid. One morning after breakfast my age group was told that mishlachat (the Israeli staff brought in to work in this Pennsylvania based camp) had planned a special day for us. We were told to change into comfortable hiking clothes, fill up our canteens, pack lunches and meet back at the entrance to camp for further instructions. Once we were all back together, we were broken up into 7 groups comprised of approximately 10-15 campers and 3-4 counselors. Mishlachat then explained to us the name of the game. We were to be loaded, one group at a time, into a series of vans. The windows would all be covered with black garbage bags (in fact, the front windshield was covered as well except for a small rectangle through which the driver could see… crazy Israelis) and we’d be blindfolded as well. After being driven for about half an hour, we’d be dropped off in a pre-planned location. Before mishlachat would drive away, leaving us on our own, we’d be given a walkie-talkie and a map with our drop-off point and camp marked on it. We’d then be on our own to find our way back to camp grounds.

I was grouped together with a couple of friends, one of my bunk’s counselors, a large and fearless male counselor (who will henceforth be known as “Bob”), the head counselor of our age group and some other campers. We were the second group to be shipped out. I remember being transported blind in the camp van, trying to recall every turn we made. One moment I was convinced we were going in circles, the next, I wasn’t so sure. After the first 5 minutes I gave up trying to remember anything because there was simply no way to keep it straight. I put so much faith in movies that it wouldn’t be too difficult to sense car movements while blindfolded. But at the end of the day we were being kidnapped and nothing in my head could save me.

And so it was, after about half an hour of driving we were dropped off in the middle of a grassy meadow, surrounded on one side by a forest and on the other side by some little country lane. We were given our walkie talkie and map, and we stood in the knee-high grass watching the van drive away.

Despite it all, the excitement of adventure got my adrenaline pumping and I entered survival mode. Only one other member of our group, aside from myself, felt comfortable using a map, so together we spread it out and studied it. It seemed simple enough. Since we had no car, we were not limited to streets, and the most direct route back to camp seemed to be in the direction of the forest. The map showed a little stream starting at the edge of the forest that met up with the highway halfway between our drop-off point and camp. The plan was to kick off our shoes, walk through the stream, and then hike along the highway. Sounded simple enough. So we headed towards the forest, fanning out to find the stream, not knowing how wide it would be. After circuiting the closest bit of forest for half an hour, all we managed to find were some muddy areas – hardly a stream. So we headed back to the meadow to re-examine the map, letting everyone take a look at it this time.

As we were arguing over the exact positioning of the stream, our walkie-talkie came to life.
“Uh… hello? Can anyone hear us?”
“Yeah, this is so cool! We’re group six, who are you?”
“Group four. We have a problem.”
“So do we. Group one.”
“I wonder if we all have the same problem.” (Counselor from my group with the walkie-talkie)
“Well, we’re just getting out of the van and group seven probably just left camp grounds a few minutes ago. Why? What’s the problem? (Group six)
“Our map shows us dropped off by a lake, but we were dropped off in a residential neighborhood.” (Group four)
“Yeah, our map shows us by a stream that we can’t find. (Us)
Etc. etc.

It turns out that the Israelis mixed up the maps. Slowly but surely, each group was able to determine their position relative to camp and decide the best route to take home via the walkie-talkies. Group five happened to be dropped off a couple of hours outside of camp, and group four was dropped off by the mini-amusement-park a short distance from camp (I still to this day resent that their group got to buy ice cream). After all the groups had worked out their routes (while ignoring our group entirely), someone finally piped up over the walkie-talkies:

“Has anyone heard from Bob’s group?”

The answer was, of course, no. No one had heard a thing we said all this time. Not only were we given the wrong map, but we were also given a walkie-talkie that only worked one way. We could hear them, but they couldn’t hear us. We eventually gave up trying and just turned it off.

Without any clue as to where we were, we went towards the little country lane. It took twenty minutes for the first car to drive by, and drive by it did, even though we were hailing it to stop to ask the driver where we were. About ten minutes after that another car passed by, and finally about five minutes later a car finally stopped, except he himself was lost and couldn’t tell us where to go. Rather than stay in place all day we decided to follow the road under the assumption that all roads had to lead somewhere.

After about an hour of walking, it turned into a dirt road, and then eventually led us somewhere… to the edge of a small wooded area. Naturally, we decided to explore. After a number of minutes, we found ourselves at the other edge of the wood, facing a wire fence blocking our way from a nice, little house surrounded by rolling green hills. On the front porch rested a number of shotguns. Ah yes, we were in the middle of Hicksville, USA. Trespassers are not only unwelcome… trespassers get shot. Well, at that exact moment a small group of guys conveniently needed the little boys’ room. Since the trees around us were too sparse, Counselor Bob decided to lead an expedition over the the fence to the far side of the nearest rolling hill. The remainder of us watched the small group frolic off into the horizon. After about five minutes or so, we noticed some fast moving dark dots coming from that same direction. As they slowly approached we noticed that it was our expedition team, running for their lives and shrieking like a group of pre-adolescent girls. It mattered not that we couldn’t make out what they were yelling, as a few moments later we saw three viscous looking dogs chasing them. They made it back to our side of the fence, brave Counselor Bob reduced to tears, and we decided it was an omen. On a rare occasion you can outrun a dog, but you can never outrun a bullet from an angry farmer’s shotgun.

The rest of the adventure is somewhat of a blur in my mind. We sat down for a late lunch on a grassy hill overlooking some small town, at which point G-d opened the heavens and drenched us. A bit later, after we resumed hiking, one of the girls in our group twisted her ankle and needed to be carried the rest of the way, slowing down or non-existing progress.

I don’t know how we managed it, but some time around 7:30 pm our group finally entered camp grounds. We were wet, achy and hungry. Dinner was over and all the kitchens could arrange for us to eat was some bread and peanut butter (this was back before it was a banned substance due to allergies). All the other six groups were back already, fed, showered and warm. (The second to last group arrived back in camp over two hours before us, and the first group back had only been out of camp grounds for a grand total of three hours).

I was tired and miserable, and did not even think for a minute how that day would forever be ingrained in my mind as an extraordinary adventure.

So, even after that experience I still don’t know what I would want to be stranded with on a desert island.

Not an Israeli, that’s for sure.

The Island, Part 1: Welcome

Ever since I began writing my blog half a year ago, I’ve been avoiding writing about my island. Some things are just so close to the heart that no matter how well you write, nothing can do these memories justice. Still, it would be a bigger crime to refrain from sharing these memories with you. I will be attempting to do this phenomenon justice by writing about different aspects of it in a series of posts.

I call it a phenomenon simply because it is more than an experience, a place, a time. It’s a state of mind, only not.

Welcome to my island.

My grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary when I was 9 years old. As lovers of world travel, they decided to celebrate their landmark by inviting the whole family to join them in their favorite of all travel spots. That summer was the first time I ever stepped foot on my island. Joined by my grandparents, aunt and uncle, parents, brothers and dog, we managed the 8 hour drive plus the hour-long ferry ride.

About now you’re probably waiting for me to mention the name of said island. Well, it won’t happen. Not now, not later. I could make something up about keeping the name of the island secret so as to create an air of mystery that will draw you further into the story, or perhaps simply to preserve some of this island’s magic for myself. The truth is much less satisfying. Back when I was 9 years old, part of the island’s allure was that is was practically unknown to the world. My family got in the habit of not mentioning the island’s name to keep it from becoming a more popular tourist location. Years later, after many publications about this island (including at least one article in
National Geographic), the island is hardly a secret anymore. Still, old habits die hard.

(Side note: If you’re REALLY interested in the name, I’m sure you’ll be able to puzzle it together eventually with the help of the internet.)

The island is roughly kidney bean shaped, under two miles long and under one mile wide, sitting roughly 10 miles out to sea. It is a year-round home to under 100 individuals, growing in population to around 1,000 over the summer (tourist season). This provides the basis for the island hierarchy…

Those who reside there year-round make the top rung of society. After the island elite are those families and individuals who live there semi-annually from Memorial Day through Labor Day (the warmer months when the island isn’t covered in snow and surrounded by frozen ocean). Following them are the families that return every summer to rent for a couple of week to a couple of months. Lastly are the day-trippers who arrive on the first ferry in the morning and leave on the last ferry in the evening. To the native islander there is nothing more despicable than a day-tripper, and yet it’s the summer tourists who support the natives enough in the summer months to allow them to survive the rest of the year on the island.

One can easily pick out the native islanders from the tourists. Firstly, the natives don’t wear weird sun-hats, fanny packs, cameras with gigantic lenses around their necks, or carry a map of the island around with them everywhere. They also don’t wear high-heeled shoes. (Which is extremely impractical as there isn’t a single paved road on the whole island.) In fact, most island kids don’t wear shoes at all.

(On occasion you’d see a day-tripper get off the ferry with golf clubs asking for the nearest golf course. This was always a source of humor for my family. A golf course? On our rustic island?! Just goes to show, a number of years back one of the elderly islanders made a “mini-golf course” in his yard. Still, its use is more of a replacement for playing cards in the fish-house after hours, rather than brushing up on your swing.)

Anyway, my family fell into the second to lowest rung on the scale of island hierarchy. We began going up to the island around 15 summers ago (this would be the 16th), staying for roughly three weeks each time. At first we were no better than your average tourists, but over time people began to recognize us. By our seventh year or so, I no longer had to tell the grocer my last name for my family’s tab, the post office lady knew my family members, and people on the roads would nod their head at me in recognition. I tried my best to fit in as an island kid, walking barefoot on pebbles and broken glass (our gravel driveway at home helped me build up strong calluses throughout the year). I even made friends with a few of the actual island kids.

Last summer was the first summer in 15 years that I didn’t go to my island. The prices for renting have soared (thanks a lot financial crisis), the dates for rental are less convenient, and now I have a significant other in my life, keeping me in Israel throughout the summer. I don’t mean to blame him – it’s not his fault. Last summer he simply didn’t have enough vacation days to make going up to the island a possibility. This year, now that I’m working too (and no longer a student with summer vacations), I also lack vacation days. Fortunately I was at least able to share my island with him during our first summer together. My island is such a part of who I am and where I come from that I can’t imagine not sharing it with him. Still circumstances change and it seems as if those wonderful summers from my past are in the past. But one way or another I will go back. Not this year, and probably not next, but it will happen. Of that I am confident.

In the meantime I’ll sustain myself with memories of a time when the grass was greener. With you as my guest, we’ll go back to that special place and relive the magic, not in a state of melancholy, but for the excitement and adventure of it all.

To pique your interest until the next post, here’s a digital storytelling about my time on my island that I made a number of years ago for a class project:

Apocalypse Now

I grew up in a little Jewish bubble. I therefore did not know until a week ago that a week ago the world was supposed to end… or at least some Christians believed so. It’s called the “Rapture” (read about it on Wikipedia if you’re like me and had never heard of it). Well, needless to say we survived, but only just.

I couple of days before then, Jerusalem experienced some annoying weather, namely a sandstorm. For those of you haven’t lived in a desert for any significant time, sandstorms are gross. The sky turns all orange, layers of sand begin to cover everything that’s uncovered outside (and you Americans complain about shoveling snow) and every time you breathe, you’re inhaling massive amounts of dust. Yummy. I learned the hard way in a sandstorm a couple of years back, that a sandstorm is equally traumatic to a white load of laundry (hanging out to dry, as we do here in Israel) as is a red sock. Bottom line: yuck.

Anyway, I left the house early in the morning of this latest sandstorm (on my way to work – yes I have a job now, and that’s why I haven’t written lately) and the eerie calm coupled with the orange haze made me feel like I was in some sci-fi movie where life on Earth is at an end.

Fast forward nine hours.

The haze was all but gone by the time I returned home from a long day at work, but the end of life on Earth was moving ever closer… At least it was for the poor bird that had fallen out of the sky, dead, on our patio. Yes, I know. Ew. (Thanks to my wonderful husband for disposing of the body.) Anyway, upon seeing the dead bird, my mind immediately jumped to a scene from last year’s now canceled TV show FlashForward:

How’s that for a combination of haze, dead birds and the end of the world?

Anyway, I don’t really believe that the world is ending. Not yet at any rate. Still, with the next supposed rapture date set for a few months from now, I’d like to kindly ask all birds to avoid flying over my patio. Thank you.

Walking Miss Daisy

Warning: This post is pessimistic. Also, it may teach children bad values. (Chessed – loving-kindness – is a good thing, kiddies!)

High school. Remember it? Remember the excuses people had? “My dog ate my homework.” “I didn’t study for the test because my ____ (insert random relative) passed away.” “I’m sorry I’m late. I was helping an old lady cross the street.”

Well, I never used any of those excuses in high school, but you can believe how shocked I was to find myself using that last one two nights ago.

It was Friday night. My husband left for shul about 10 minutes before I did. We brought in Shabbat early because our wonderful dinner hosts were doing so and wanted to start dinner earlier as well. Not knowing how long it would take me to finish getting ready, I left my husband with the following instructions: If you see me after shul, great. If not, assume that I went straight to our dinner hosts.

All was going wonderfully. I was making great time and would have made it to shul well before the end of the evening prayer had it not been for that little, old lady who needed help crossing the street. She called out to me when I was only 5 minutes away from shul (our new apartment is about a 20 minute walk away). Still, how could I turn down this helpless old lady? Anyway, all she was asking was for help getting to the traffic circle. It couldn’t take more than a minute, right? Ten minutes later, as we were three quarters of the way to the traffic circle, the old lady – let us call her Miss Daisy – inquired as to where I was headed. I told her I was on my way to shul, bringing in Shabbat early. Upon hearing this, Miss Daisy decided that she wanted to come to shul as well, so we turned around and headed back in the other direction. Twenty minutes lost, no big deal. I might show up towards the end of davening, but at least I got to help an old lady!

Forty five minutes later, we hadn’t even covered half the ground between where she first stopped me and the shul. Convinced that davening was almost over, if not over already, I kept an eye out for my husband. I told her that the early prayers were probably over, but if she was interested to join the regular prayers at sunset to bring in Shabbat, she could maybe make it on time. Except when she found out how late they would end, she decided that she didn’t want to be out that late, and she didn’t want to ask me to leave early to walk her back home (WHAT?!), so I should just walk her back now. I tried explaining to her that I had to leave – that my husband and our hosts would be waiting for me – but she never got the picture. I wanted to cry. We turned around and retraced our footsteps from the past forty five minutes of walking.

Over this roughly hour and a half of walking, I kept thinking to myself, “Oh, this is horrible. Everyone will be waiting for me. I tried to do a good deed, but somehow it just went all wrong!” Meanwhile, Miss Daisy was recounting her entire life story: How she came to Israel from France, met her husband and got married when he was seventeen. How she worked as a secretary and was very good with a typewriter. How her husband had died two years earlier at the age of sixty four. How she was now sixty four years old (I promise you, she could not have been a day younger than ninety). When she told me her age, she asked me if she looked it. I thought she was pulling my leg – lying about her age to she if she could pass for thirty years younger. I decided to play along and agreed that she looked like a youthful sixty four. Then she told me that she was actually sixty, and when she moved to Israel the immigration office added four years to her age. Um… right.

Then she started asking me questions. If I was French. (No.) Am I married? (Yes, hence the head covering.) Do I have any kids? (No.) Why not? (How do I answer that?) What do I do? (Graphic design.) Does that involve computers? (Yes.) Could I teach her how to use her computer? (Um…) What does my husband do? (Programming.) Could he teach her to use her computer? (Um…) Where do I live? (Named the neighborhood.) Oh, she used to live there. What address? (It’s confusing.) She’s familiar with the area. What apartment number am I? (Lied about the number.) She has a friend who lives near there with seven kids… soon by you. (Me?!) She also has a daughter who lives near her with five kids and another on the way… soon by you. (More?!) She has another child in Bnei Brak and another one in France. They also have lots of kids… soon by you. (Okay…) It’s against the Torah to plan childbirth, did I know? (Riiiight.) Ten years ago she didn’t look like this. She went through menopause – do I know what that is? (Awkward.) – at age forty eight, and because of that her bones got weaker and she got osteoporosis and now she’s all hunchbacked. (I’m sorry.) She used to walk with a cane, but her doctor told her it was making her walk crooked. (Look out ma’am, you’re walking into a bush.) So she got a walker, but she wasn’t happy about it because it makes her look old. (Impossible! You look so young!) The nurses in the assisted living facility decorated her walker to make it more cheerful. Do I like it? (Um… I don’t believe that the Lubavitcher Rebbe is still alive, nor that he is the messiah, but… um… yes, very cheerful.) Do I like the kafiya on my head? (Um… a kafiya is an Arab headdress, generally check-patterned, like Arafat wore. What I’m wearing is called a headscarf… a mitpachat… Mit-Pa-Chat.)

And as we finally approached her assisted living facility…

Will I come inside to see her shul? (I’m sorry, but my husband is waiting for me.) It’s too bad that it’s Shabbat and she can’t take my phone number. (What a shame.) Will I come visit her? (We’ll see.) Her name is Miss Daisy and she lives on the third floor. (Good to know.) Do I have any friends who could teach her computers? (Any takers? Anyone? Anyone?) When I have a son, can I invite her to the brit-milah? She’ll even bring a present. (Wha-at?!)

After an additional three minutes of just saying goodbyes, I finally departed. Departed? Okay, I ran. I ran as fast as I could. I got to our hosts, but my husband had just left to go look for me. I left and found him, and together we returned to our dinner hosts, who were very gracious indeed about my holding them up for so long.

Lesson learned: I’ll never be taking that route to shul again.

Bottom line: An act of chessed for one person may be hell for another.

Welcome to the Batcave

House naming is quite common in England. Less so in America. Even less so in Israel. But behold! I have named our first apartment… The Batcave. You may wish to believe that I named it such due to an unnatural obsession with Batman, but this is not the case. (I’m more of a Superman fan anyway.) Hopefully, by the end of this post you will agree with me that I have named it quite aptly.

ONCE UPON A TIME…

Once there lived a house in the heart of Old Katamon, Jerusalem. It was a one-story house with high ceilings, as is common in Arab-style houses. One day, when the landlord was no longer residing in this house, he figured that he could make more money by dividing this one-story house into four small apartments and renting them all out. These apartments passed from hand to hand until they were owned by different landlords and rented out to different renters. One day, a building contractor decided that it would be appropriate to build another two stories of apartments on top of this formerly one-story house. And that is how the apartment stood two years ago when we first moved in.

We rented one of the ground floor apartments. Having once been part of a house, the architecture and spacing was quite… unique. When first walking into the apartment, you enter “the room.” This is a smallish room that served as our living room, dining room and kitchen. It is so small that when the dining room table in the center area was opened up to hold its capacity of eight people, the person sitting at the head would find his/herself situated between the oven and the fridge. To make the dining area even less appealing, about two arm-lengths from the other end of the table is the bathroom. Now compared to the rest of the apartment, the bathroom is relatively large. (I believe it was the original bathroom prior to the breaking up of the one-story house into four apartments.) But I digress. Back to “the room,” there are a number of windows that are non-functional. What is a non-functional window, you ask? Well, one small window, situated above the couch, would open into our neighbor’s apartment if it were not painted over and nailed shut. There is another large window situated above the other couch, just below our high, Arab-style ceiling. This window opens to the guest bedroom. While it is too high to make visual privacy a problem, it cannot block the light coming in from “the room” next to it. (This guest bedroom has no other windows and therefore no other source of ventilation.) Once again, back to “the room,” there is one other window strategically situated in the kitchen area above the stove. This window, which I can only imagine once opened up into the back yard, now opens up to the stairwell for the two floors of apartments above the one we rented. It was rather amusing to watch neighbors going up and down the stairs while we sat down for dinner. (Sarcasm.) The last thing of note in “the room” is a bookcase that is built in to the wall. It appears to be a normal bookcase, but if you go to the stairwell of the two upper stories, you will see a door. This door has no handle, but it does still have a mezuza. What was once the backdoor of this one-story house is now the backside of our bookcase. (And yes, I had tried tilting all of the books that we kept on it at one time or another, but the bookcase didn’t rotate in the wall to reveal a trapdoor. How disappointing!) Anyway, those are the three windows in “the room,” and if you haven’t figured it out yet, there is no good source of ventilation. Therefore, when we had guests over and “the room” got stuffy, it was advisable to keep the bathroom door open (since there is a window to the outside in the bathroom) for ventilation. Pleasant, right? (Oh, and on another note regarding the bathroom window, there are no blinds or curtains covering it. When we moved in, there was a moldy towel blocking the window from view. We asked the landlord to replace it with blinds, which he refused. Since we were not prepared to keep the moldy towel there, we took it down. Made getting in and out of the shower a tad awkward until we covered the windows with something else.)

Other than “the room,” the bathroom and the guest room, there is the master bedroom. The master bedroom is situated in the corner of the building. As such, it is equipped with two large picture windows to the outside. So, what beautiful views did we have from our two picture windows, you ask? Well, from one window you could see the concrete covered “backyard” storage area, home of the pillars that support the two added upper stories. From the other window we had a nice view of apartment number four’s (from the original ground floor house) backyard. Well, at least we got ventilation in the bedroom, right? Wrong. Window #1 doesn’t get a whole lot of fresh air from the underneath storage area, and window #2 forms a “L” shaped corner with #4′s living room window where the neighbors like to smoke. When the wind wasn’t carrying their smoke into our bedroom, the open window allowed us to hear canned laughter from “Friends” at 3 o’clock in the morning. We preferred that window to stay closed.

So… why do I call it the Batcave? Pretty simple. Due to the lack of windows, there is a lack of natural sunlight in the apartment. At the sunniest point of the day, it was so dark in the apartment that without a light on in “the room,” one was likely to walk in to the table. Also, the Batcave sounds cool. (I named it such in an attempt to condition myself to think more highly of the apartment than I had reason to for the last few weeks of our stay there. Worked great, can’t you tell?) (More sarcasm.)

Wait. I’m not done yet. The window situation was cause for more grief. We’ve already established that there are three windows in the apartment that lead to the outside: two in the bedroom and one in the bathroom. The glass used in these windows is super-thin. Therefore, every winter it is very common to wake up to windows dripping (on the inside) from condensation. Also, being as thin as they are, the windows are helpless against keeping moisture out of the apartment during the winter rainy season. You know what happens when there is an excess of moisture buildup and water droplets trapped in a room… That’s right… mold. (Black mold. If it were green I might have named this apartment “Krypton,” to keep with the superhero theme.) Two winters ago it was quite a nasty shock to discover mold growing all over our bathroom walls, our bedroom windowsills, and around the walls at the base of our bed. Our landlord’s solution to the problem was to leave the windows open at all times so that the moisture could dry out. Yeah right. Did he really expect us to keep the windows open throughout the whole winter??? (Mind you, I worked from home at that time and I did not enjoy spending all day wrapped up like an Eskimo.) So two years ago we managed to make it through the winter with the windows closed, cleaning up the mold every couple of weeks with bleach. This past winter we decided to try our landlord’s advice. It didn’t work.

So we moved.

Goodbye Batcave!

The Mask

Purim is one of those holidays that is masked (no pun intended) in uncertainty. It’s very clear why we celebrate Pesach the way we do, but Purim? The mitzvot that we have to fulfill on Purim are as follows: read the megilla, give money to the poor (matanot l’evyonim), send gifts of food (mishloach manot), and eat a festive meal. Reading the megilla I understand – it’s a recorded event that happened years ago on this day, so we recount the story. The festive meal is also pretty easy to grasp; we’re Jews, we were hunted, G-d saved us, let’s eat! We’re supposed to give money to the poor all the time – yes, the mitzva of giving tzedaka – so why is it extra special and important on Purim? And giving gifts of food to friends a month before Pesach doesn’t really sound like much of a kindness to me, even if it’s meant to spread unity and friendship.

Then there are the other customs… like getting drunk. Why do we get drunk on Purim? To be like Achasverosh? He doesn’t seem like the best Purim character to try to emulate. The Shulchan Aruch says that you’re supposed to get drunk to the point where you can no longer differentiate between “Cursed be Haman, blessed be Mordechai.” Does this mean that on Purim we’re not supposed to know who our enemies are? Because given the country I live in (Israel) and the recent tragedies we’ve experienced, I think it’s of utmost importance to remember just who our enemies are. Sure, there are other reasons for why to drink on Purim, but I must admit that as someone who just doesn’t like alcohol, I’m a big fan of the Mishna B’rura‘s explanation that it’s perfectly fine to reach that state of unknowing by taking a nap.

My favorite Purim custom, however, is dressing up in costume. I don’t understand why we do it, but I’ve learned to stop asking and just do it. I’ve heard all sorts of reasons for it: because Purim is all about hidden miracles, so we hide ourselves, because there’s something in Kabbalah about bringing out our inner beings that we normally keep hidden on Purim, because Mordechai was honored by getting dressed up in royal robes, etc. etc. Bottom line: I don’t get it, but I do it quite enthusiastically.

I’ve always loved dressing up. My parents kept a trunk full of costumes, which over the years expanded to a trunk and a big box full of costumes. I never needed a reason to dress up in costume. Some days I’d be a cowboy, others an Indian, sometimes I’d be a super hero, other times I’d be a damsel in distress. Around the time that I was in 6th grade, my mother taught me how to operate a sewing machine. Since then my costumes have become even more creative (and absurd). Dressing up for me is not about looking elegant, or “hot.” It’s about having fun, adopting another personality, being someone or something other than myself. Don’t get me wrong – I love myself, but it’s fun to be other people sometimes too. (Maybe that’s why I love acting as much as I do.)

But for all that I love dressing up just for fun, dressing up on Purim has become an obsession. I’m not sure exactly when it started, but the first time I remember doing something creative for a costume was back when I was in elementary school and the original Star Wars movies were re-aired in theaters. My family is big on Star Wars, so we women decided to dress up together. My mom dressed up as C-3PO and dressed up our shop-vac as R2-D2 (which she pushed around with her), my grandmother dressed up as Chewy (Wookiee sounds included), a friend of mine with long hair joined us as Princess Leia, and I dressed up as Darth Vader. You have to understand – Star Wars returning to theaters was a big deal, and Darth Vader costumes were aplenty that Purim. The reason why my costume kicked the other Darth Vaders’ butts is because mine was homemade! I took some plastic version of a motorcycle helmet that we had in the toy box, painted it black (and then used black face paint around my eyes and any other part of my face that showed through the helmet), made myself a black cape and chest-board control panel, and walked around breathing deeply like a chain smoker. It didn’t look realistic, but there was no question as to who I was supposed to be. I even made a little girl cry when I wished her a happy Purim. After nighttime megilla reading my shul always had a costume contest during which each contestant came forward and announced in a microphone what he/she was dressed as. Over time the contest expanded to have an adults contest too, as well as giving out multiple awards such as “most creative costume,” “cutest costume,” “fiercest costume,” etc. etc. That year, they only had one category: best costume. I won.

I tend to be a bit over-competitive when it comes to Purim costumes. It became my goal to win the costume contest each Purim. I succeeded. By the time I was leaving high school, I felt too young to partake in the adults contest (as all the adults were parents of kids my age), and winning the kids contest was like taking candy from a baby (literally). After high school, I came to Israel. There were no more costume contests, but I had my standards to live up to, and that was competition enough for me.

While I don’t remember all of my costumes since then, here are most of them:

Pillsbury Doughboy – The year after I dressed up as Darth Vader, I dressed up as the Pillsbury Doughboy – you know, that lovable little white dude with the chef’s hat who goes “heehee!” when he gets poked in the stomach… Interestingly enough I made the same little girl cry when I once again wished her a happy Purim. Never thought of the Pillsbury Doughboy as scary…

Wealthy Lady from the Mid 1800s – This was the year my mother taught me how to use a sewing machine, and this was one of the few things I sewed from a pattern. I was a beautiful gown with a poofy skirt, poofy sleeves at the shoulder, lace around the sleeve cuffs,and a lace covered bodice that came down to form a “V” at the waist. It was truly beautiful, except I don’t know what possessed me to make it hot pink! I suppose that I must have figured that if I were to dress up as something girly, I might as well go all out. So much for realistic period costumes…

Medusa – Having made a costume with a sewing machine and a pattern the year before, I decided to try my hand at sewing without a pattern. I bought silky/slimy snake skin fabric (this was at the height of animal print fabric popularity back in the 90s) and made a very elegant, fitted dress, from neck to toe with sleeves that came down to a point by my middle fingers. I then took a headband and twisted black pipe-cleaners around it, gluing onto the tips of each pipe-cleaner a diamond shaped, cardboard-backed piece of the snakeskin fabric and attached little, red, felt snake tongues to the tips of the snakeskin diamond. That made for quite dramatic, snaky hair. Add finishing touches of green face paint and creepily long finger nails, you have yourself a Medusa scary enough to turn men to stone! (Badum ching!)

Movie Theater Floor

 

Movie Theater Floor – This costume is actually one of my all-time favorites. Earlier that year my parents had carpeted some rooms in the house. I took a leftover rectangle of carpet and spray painted it red for the base of my costume. I took empty popcorn containers, soda cups, straw wrappers and candy wrappers from the local theater and glued them down to the red carpet. I made some popcorn and glued it down around the edge of the popcorn container, smushing it as I went to give the illusion of spilled and walked on popcorn. I then poured a lot of glue at the opening of the knocked-sideways soda cup, and when it dried I colored it brown to look like spilled Coke. I even took chewed bubblegum and worked it into the carpet using an old pair of shoes. The highlight (pun intended) of the costume was a long, blue, rope-shaped night light that I tied down around the edges of the carpet. I hung the carpet around my neck, and plugged the lights in, setting me aglow. Sure, it meant that for the full effect I had to stand next to an electric outlet, but it was worth it!

Piece of Chewed Bubblegum Stuck Under a Table – Probably my strangest costume to date (yes, I have other strange costumes too), I covered myself, head to toe, wrapped best I could in a pink bed-sheet, with a piece of pink foam wrapped around my head. I was a piece of chewed bubblegum. I then strapped a board to my back, covered it with a table cloth and glued down a place setting in the center of it. When I leaned forward, I was a piece of bubble gum stuck under the table. To finish off the costume I wore brown socks on my hands and feet to be the four legs of the table. What can I say? I went through a weird phase.

You Are What You Eat

 

You Are What You Eat – The next year was my first year in Israel. I went to a fabric store for inspiration for a Purim costume, and I found the exact fabric used to make my seminary’s table cloths. Inspiration received. I took a cardboard box big enough to fit over me, cut holes for my head and arms, covered it with the tablecloth fabric and a plastic tablecloth cover, which I also cut holes in. I then took a plastic plate, cut out the inside and glued it down over the hole for my head, and glued down a place setting (napkin, fork, knife and cup) around it. When I put the costume on, it looked like my head was on a plate. I taped a sign to the front of me that read, “You are what you eat.” It seemed a fitting costume for a seminary girl.

Anna Banana

 

Anna Banana – That first year of mine in Israel was a three-day Purim (Purim meshulash – what happens in walled cities – like Jerusalem – when Purim falls out on Shabbat). As such, I had another day of dressing up in costume. Far be it from me to dress in the same costume two days in a row! It happened to be that there was another girl named Anna in my year at seminary, and so together we decided to dress up as “Anna Banana” (meaning we both dressed up as bananas). I bought bright yellow fabric for the outer peel, and a pale yellow fabric for the banana. I made a hood out of the pale yellow fabric, and a sort of robe with sleeves out of the bright yellow fabric. When we held our arms up, it looked like we were bananas being peeled. We added oval “stickers” pinned to our stomachs that read “Anna Banana #0000001″ and “Anna Banana #0000002,” like the stickers you so often find on store-bought bananas. (To date we still argue over who is Anna Banana #1 and who is Anna Banana #2).

Day 3 of Creation

 

Day 3 of Creation (flower) – By the time Purim rolled around in my second year in seminary, there were only 6 girls in the second-year program. We decided to dress up as the 6 days of creation (and no one would be Shabbat). I got stuck with day 3: plants and such. So I decided to dress as a flower. Using a very creative technique I picked up from an artist friend of mine, I made the flower using a wire-frame with pink fabric sewed tight over each wire petal. I put this circle of pink petals around my face and wore a green skirt and shirt so the rest of me would look like the stem. Then using wire I made leaf shaped arm bands that I covered with green fabric. Once again, another nauseatingly girly costume, but it was a success.

Cactus

 

Cactus – Having officially become an Israeli citizen the year earlier, I decided to do something Israeli for Purim. Native born Israelis are known as “sabras,” or in Hebrew “tzabarim,” meaning cacti (hard on the outside, soft on the inside – something like that). So I bought dark green material, made myself a green robe, and using the leftover material I made oddly shaped “balloons” that I stuffed with socks and the like and pinned all over me to make the odd protrusions that cacti have. Then for the pricklies, I just stuck toothpicks in the fabric throughout the costume. Yeah… weird. Needless to say, no one hugged me that Purim.

Evil Stepmother/ Witch

 

Evil Stepmother/Witch – Inspired by the Disney film Enchanted that came out earlier that year, I decided to dress up as the evil stepmother from Snow White when she’s in the witches form. The costume was fairly simple. I made a big black robe with a long hood, and put it on, covering also the backpack on my back to give me a hunched-back look. Then I powdered my hair white (for whatever bits of hair stuck out from under the hood) and put on a fake witch’s nose to which I added a large and ugly wart. Then I took a woven basked, filled it with green apples, and topped it off with one deep red, poisoned-looking apple. I went around to people, offering the red apple and saying in my best evil witch’s voice, “An apple for the pretty lady/handsome man?” My costume was ruined when my college principal took me up on my fake offer, grabbed the red apple, and ate it. Next time he saw me he clutched his throat and pretended he was dying from poisoning. Then he got up and walked away, laughing. Grrrr…

Guide and Broom

 

Guide and Broom – Ok, so this is probably my weakest costume to date. I had met the man of my dreams and was set to get married a week after Purim. What with last minute wedding details to work out, I had no time to work out a costume that I could really be proud of. Add on to that the need to plan a costume for two, I’m still surprised we had anything to dress up as at all. But this last minute wedding craziness gave me the inspiration for this costume: A Guide and Broom a bit crazed a week before their wedding. (Get it? Guide and Broom instead of Bride and Groom.) My fiance dressed up as a guide (tour guide, and an Israeli one at that) in khaki shorts, sandals, hat and holding a colorful umbrella for his tour group to easily spot. Oh, and he had a black bow tie around his neck for the confusion of it all. I dressed up as the broom, wearing all brown and a kid’s sized straw colored hula skirt around my knees. Oh, and a kiddie costume bride’s veil for my confused nature. Not my best, but we got some laughs.

Black and White Film Stars

 

Black and White Film Stars – Ah yes, my most failed Purim costume to date. We decided to dress up as Humphry Bogart and Ingred Bergman from Cassablanca, but in black and white, as if we had just stepped out of the television screen. My husband wore black shoes, black pants, a white button down shirt with a black bow tie, a white suit jacket, and a black fedora. (I even let him shave his beard so as to look more like Humphry Bogart! I’m such a nice wife.) I sewed myself a gray silky gown, similar to the one that Ingred Bergman wore in the flashback to Paris scene. The real challenge was the skin. I searched high and low to find gray face paint to complete the black and white TV look, but I couldn’t find anything that would work right. Finally, the day before Purim I found gray face paint, but only after thoroughly covering any bit of showing skin with it did we realize it was way too dark. So for Purim that year we dressed up as Zombie Humphry Bogart and Ingred Bergman.

Robin Hood

Maid Marian

 

Robin Hood and Maid Marian – Two summers ago when my husband and I were vacationing in America, we bought a Robin Hood feathered hat at a Renaissance Faire. Since then I’ve been meaning to make him a complete Robin Hood costume, and I finally did it. He wore his own khaki pants, tucked into his “boots” which I made by making fake leather leg warmers that are the same color as his hiking books, tied up with fake leather string. He borrowed a loose, white, hippie-ish shirt, and I sewed him a dark green/gray fake leather vest, which he kept closed with his woven-styled belt. Even with the Robin Hood hat on his head, the highlight of this costume was the hooded cloak I made him. I modeled it off of the traveling cloaks worn in The Lord of the Rings movies, down to the long, pointy hood and the metal sort-of brooch. For accessories I made him a coin pouch which he hung from his belt, made him a leather quiver which he slung over his shoulder (and in which he kept a couple of Native American bows we own… ok, wrong type for Robin Hood, but better than nothing), and we borrowed a wooden bow (which we modified a little) that he wore around his back. For Maid Marian I made a medieval looking gown out of bright green velvet, complete with bell shaped sleeves, ribbon around my upper arms, and a matching belt that hung to the floor. On my head I wore a gold veil (not the kind that brides wear that cover the face, but the kind worn in Medieval times) held on with a green and gold ribbon. Together, we were quite the sight to see, but individually, the Robin Hood costume totally stole the light. To add to the fun, our themed mishloach manot included Chanukah gelt (steal from the rich and give to the poor) and beer (brewed by Friar Tuck). Awesome costume, awesome time had by all.

So, yeah… not a clue what we’ll be dressing up as next year for Purim, but I assure you it will be awesome. Until next time…

Harry Potter and the Most Amazing Amusement Park EVER!

Once upon a time there was an amusement park called Universal Orlando. This park was divided into two parts: Universal Studios (where it based rides and shows on popular TV shows and movies such as The Simpsons, Jaws, Men In Black, Shrek, etc.), and Islands of Adventure (where the rides were divided into themed sections such as Marvel comics, Dr. Seuss, Jurassic Park, Cartoons, etc.). On June 18th, 2010 the park added a new themed section to Islands of Adventure… The Wizarding world of Harry Potter (WWHP).

Now in order to do this post justice, I must start from the beginning, and I am therefore going to take you with me on a journey back in time to when I was in 8th grade. Author J. K. Rowling had just published the third book of the seven book series and I was just as adamant as ever against reading it. It was, after all, just going to be another silly fad, right? Wrong, but I didn’t know that then. A girl in my class did a book report (remember those?) on the third Harry Potter book (yes, in 8th grade) that she presented to the entire class and got me thinking about maybe trying out the series. It was settled when my aunt and uncle bought me a paperback copy of the first book for a Chanukah present later that year. Since I couldn’t ignore it anymore, I read it…

And thus began the great adventure.

I became so addicted to the books that I read and reread all of them each year, waiting for the next one in the series to be released. Even once I had other books to keep me occupied, Harry Potter was always my “sick book” of choice (you know when you’re sick and your brain is so groggy that you can’t comprehend anything too intricate). By the time the seventh and last book came out I was already an adult and I was still mesmerized. In high school I had my own page on a Harry Potter fan-site (I honestly don’t remember which or I’d redirect you there) where I wrote about the many allusions to various mythologies in the books (Remus Lupin, Sirius, etc.), mistakes in the books, and predictions for the remaining books (most of which came true, thank you). I spent one summer ruining my dad’s vacation by reading all the books out loud in a (horrible) fake British accent with a good friend of mine. I was (am?) a Harry Potter fanatic.

And then the movies came out.

I hate them. And yes, “hate” is a strong word. The first one came out in 2001 – the same year that the first Lord of the Rings movie came out. If you haven’t gathered yet from my earlier post, I love Lord of the Rings – both the books and the films. Why then do I sooooo dislike one film adaptation while I can’t get enough of the other? After all, both are adapting a fantasy classic, and in doing so take away a large element of our creativity by telling us how characters and settings appear. I, personally, am a big fan of my imagination (in case you haven’t realized that yet) and I don’t like it being squelched. Fortunately, Peter Jackson’s vision for Lord of the Rings came very very close to my own, and being able to see those breathtaking shots (elsewhere than in my imagination) gave LOTR extra bonus points. Harry Potter did not fare so well. The CGI just didn’t reach a believable level. Quiddich, which should have been the most exhilarating spectator sport ever, looked like an old video game. And Hagrid… really? He’s supposed to seem horrifyingly gigantic at first, not like a large oaf. Anyway, I refused to watch the Harry Potter films on the grounds that they’d spoil my imagination for the books. Unfortunately the commercial advertisements on TV took care of that for me, but on principle I still refused to watch the films. Years later, at my husband’s urging, I caved in an watched a few of the films (including the most recent one in theaters – a mistake I do not plan to repeat). My biggest problem with the Harry Potter films is no longer its fantastic ability to crush beautiful imaginations, but rather its inability to do justice to the story. You see, Peter Jackson realized that in converting Tolkien’s epic into a film, he’d either have to either make a reaaaally long film (yes, longer than 3 segments of 3 hours each that exist today) or he’d have to cut out elements of the story. Goodbye Tom Bombadil, et al. You were loved in the books, but alas, there was no room for you on film. Oh well, at least the story told on film was seamless without those elements. The Harry Potter films, on the other hand, try to incorporate everything, and therefore come out with very little that actually makes sense.

Anyway, enough ranting about the Harry Potter films. This post is already as long as some of my others and I haven’t even gotten to the essence of what this post is about yet… The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

One thing I must point out is that the amusement park is based on the HP films and not the books. (This is, after all, Universal Studios.) All the same, I had an absolutely great time there. I see I must elaborate. Here’s what the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is like:

As you approach the walls that surround WWHP, you are greeted by a sign reading “Welcome to Hogsmeade.” On the other side of the wall is the Hogwarts Express train, stationed at Hogsmeade Station. You are standing in the middle of the wizarding village of Hogsmeade, neighbor to the Hogwarts castle. In order to get to Hogwarts, you must pass through the streets of this wizarding town. Surrounding you are snow-covered English rooftops with crooked chimneys that are so stylishly Harry Potter (and I say this based on the font used on the books’ cover jackets, not based on the film sets).

And that’s when it starts… The Harry Potter theme music. No, they don’t have giant speakers blasting it throughout the park. It’s in your head. And you look around and you realize that you are in your own movie, complete with its own set and soundtrack.

Well, if you just entered the world of Harry Potter, what’s the very first thing you’d want to do? Fly, duh. So we headed straight over to the main attraction: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. In the queuing area you wind your way through Hogwarts, making many twists and turns. Just inside, one of the first things you pass is the hourglass keeping score of the house points. Needless to say, Gryffindor had quite a lead. The lights are all dim, so one room seems to turn into the next. Since we went on an “off” day, the lines were non-existent. As such, we walked rather quickly through all the rooms, not taking our time in the queue area. I am therefore positive that I missed a lot of awesome features. Oh well. Next time. Anyway, we passed through the greenhouses and through many other dark rooms. In one room, supposedly the Headmaster’s office, a projection of Dumbledore (quite a realistic projection, actually) greeted us, and in another classroom, another excellent projection of Harry, Ron and Hermione appears from underneath the invisibility cloak and tells us to meet them somewhere so they can sneak us down to the Quiddich match. We passed by the Sorting Hat, which spoke to us quite animatedly, issuing warnings about the danger of what we were about to do (as well as listing the safety regulations of the ride), and passed through some rooms of talking portraits issuing similar warnings. The rooms with the animated portraits were quite remarkable. Not all of the portraits seem animated at first – only a few act lively, talking animatedly to us – and then you catch a blink or a sigh from one of the seemingly stationary portraits. Covering the portraits is an effect layer making the portraits, no matter how they move, seem cracked like real oil paintings do.

As if the queue area weren’t enough, the ride was even more exciting! You sit on a bench that Hermione enchants, and then you take off, flying as if on broomsticks! The story itself is a little vague, but the excellent blend of live sets with incredible animatronics and wrap-around projection screens makes it feel so real that you don’t even bother questioning why Hagrid’s runaway pet dragon is ferocious and evil. Yes, that’s right, you get chased by a dragon who breathes hot fire (steam) at you, chased by Aragog (remember the gigantic spider from book 2?) who spits venom (or water) at you, chased by dementors who try to suck out your soul, beaten silly by the Whomping Willow, and you somehow end up in the Chamber of Secrets, and then out in the Quiddich pitch in the middle of a match, which, according to what Harry says at the end of the ride, you helped him win. Like I said, unclear story, awesomely realistic ride.

Aside from The Forbidden Journey, there are only two other rides in WWHP: Flight of the Hippogriff and Dragon Challenge. Flight of the Hippogriff is your classic “family roller coaster” (meaning it moves at medium speed and is entirely non-thrilling). The only reason whatsoever to go on that ride is to see Hagrid’s hut and an animatronic hippogriff (and to say that you went on all the rides in WWHP, which is why we went on it). Dragon Challenge, on the other hand, is your classic kind of thrilling roller coaster. The roller coaster existed prior to the opening of WWHP as Dueling Dragons. The change of the name to what it is now is to pay homage to the first task of the Triwizard Tournament (book 4), which has nothing to do with flying a dragon, so once again the premise of the ride makes no sense. All the same, it’s a worthwhile ride. The queuing area displays both the Goblet of Fire and the Triwizard Cup (oh, and the Weasley’s crashed flying Ford Anglia on the way up). The coaster itself features two tracks that supposedly race each other: the red track (Chinese Fireball) and the green track (Hungarian Horntail). The first time we rode the ride we went on the Chinese Fireball. I don’t remember the 2 dragons taking off at the same time, but there were a few places where the cork-screws of both tracks intertwine, giving the illusion that you’re about to crash into the car on the other track. It was quite exciting. Later in the day when we rode the Hungarian Horntail, both cars left at the same time, but we didn’t pass the other car at all during any point of the ride – highly disappointing. Bottom line: red track was better for us, but it’s all about the timing.

Counter to everything you’ve ever known about amusement parks, the longest lines in WWHP are not for the featured ride, rather for entrance into Ollivanders (not to be confused with Ollivander’s wand shop in Diagon Alley, this is meant to be a smaller Hogsmeade branch – never mentioned in the books – and as such, you are not meeting Ollivander inside, rather Ollivander’s assistant). (Inside Ollivanders, there’s a short demonstration of “the wand choosing the wizard” almost word for word as it happens in book 1, accompanied by some “magical” effects, after which you can purchase silly plastic souvenir wands.) We waited a good half hour to enter Ollivanders (remember, we had no wait for the other rides, it being an off week and all), but the wait was probably one of the most enjoyable parts of our time spent in WWHP. You see, on the line we began talking to a “Hogwarts student” (term for the WWHP staff) named Bonnie. We asked her tons of questions about the production of WWHP. She told us that in order to be accepted to work in that part of the park when it opened, you had to go through a difficult process where you had to first answer 4 difficult questions about Harry Potter, and after passing that you then had to sit through a 6 hour NEWT exam (the exams that 7th year Hogwarts students must pass before “graduating.” Upon our request she gave us a bunch of sample questions from these exams, which between us we were able to answer all of them (Bonnie was quite impressed – said she never met any visitors before us to be able to answer them all. I don’t know whether to be proud or embarrassed). We also got the insider’s scoop on WWHP. Here’s a little known fact that we learned: Universal Orlando began building WWHP before many of the films were out. By the time the 3rd film went into production, WWHP had already built The Three Broomsticks, a part of the film set that is not seen until the third movie. So what did they do? The film crew asked Universal for the blueprints of their Three Broomsticks since it was already built and would save time on the film trying to design their own. Another little known fact… much of the set used in the films is presently in storage at Universal… in the next few years they are hoping to build a Diagon Alley extension to WWHP. All in all, the wait for Ollivanders was quite enjoyable (Bonnie – wherever you are – you deserve a raise).

The rest of Hogsmeade didn’t let down either. Both The Three Broomstick and The Hog’s Head serve food and drink, including such Harry Potter classics as Pumpkin Juice and (of course) Butterbeer (which supposedly tastes nasty, but isn’t Kosher at any rate). There’s even an Owl Post post office in which you can write and send postcards with an authentic Hogsmeade postmark. The store Dervish and Banges sells a lot of Harry Potter merchandise, but to me was most notable for its caged copy of The Monster Book of Monsters which snores, snarls, and occasionally wakes up and goes crazy snapping as onlookers. The real treats in Hogsmeade, however, are Zonko’s joke shop and Honeydukes sweets shop. Zonko’s sells both joke and prank supplies from Harry Potter (such as extendable ears, screaming yo-yos, sneakoscopes and pygmy puffs) as well as your practical joke supplies from the outside (Muggle) world. Honeydukes is everything you’d expect it to be… and entirely non-Kosher. They sell everything: Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans (with only 3 normal jelly bean flavors, the rest are disgusting sounding), Canary Creams, Acid Pops, Sugar Quills, Chocolate Frogs, Pepper Imps, Peppermint Toads, Fizzing Whizzbees, Candy Floss, Ton-Tongue Toffees, and there’s a special baked goods section that sells Cauldron Cakes and Hagrid’s Rock Cakes as well as other more common pastries.

My only real problem with The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is the premise. I was expecting to enter WWHP and suddenly have magical powers (not real magical powers – I’m not delusional, but I expected to be made to feel like a witch or wizard). After all, one of the reasons why Harry Potter has become such a fad is that people like to pretend that they are like Harry. That’s why kids buy magic wands. That’s why college students “play” Quiddich. Instead, WWHP chose to insult us: all tourists are visiting Muggles, and all Universal employees are Hogwarts students. That’s right. Rather than aim for a temporary suspension of disbelief, they chose to take the cheaper, less imaginative route. I entered WWHP with my own dreams of having magical powers, and instead I just had insults thrown at me. One “student” while ushering us onto a ride shouted, “All Muggles, this way!” I gave him a passing glare and responded in my best hefty African-American woman’s voice, “Who you callin’ ‘Muggle,’ Muggle?” (Honestly, all I was missing was the finger snapping to emphasize the attitude.) I think they’d have had an easier time making me feel like a witch, but hey… If they want to sacrifice the story, it’s not my fault.

Why is it sacrificing the story, you ask? Well, you see, in reality Muggles can’t actually see Hogwarts. The books describe that there’s a spell cast over the castle to make all non-magic passerby see a pile of old ruins. Also, Muggles can’t perform magic, so the whole wand selection ceremony that they have in Olivander’s wand shop, as described before, makes no sense. Not to mention that they’d all get into serious trouble with the Ministry of Magic for breaking about a thousand rules pertaining to Muggle secrecy. Muggles aren’t supposed to know that there’s magic at work in the world, you see. Maybe that’s why the main ride is called “The Forbidden Journey”… and we’re supposed to believe that goody-two-shoes Hermione would take part in such a forbidden crime? As I said before, I believe they’d have had an easier time convincing tourists/visitors that they are witches and wizards instead of the opposite, not to mention making much happier children (and therefore happier adults). Too bad they didn’t consult me beforehand. I’ve got plenty of great ideas…

Honey, I Shrunk my Wife

Ok, so my husband didn’t really shrink me. All he did was take me to Disney World… for the first time in my life! I can’t help it if I turned into a kid again!

Over a four day trip to Orlando, we spent three of them in four different Disney parks (and the fourth day we spent in Universal): Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM). All of the parks were fun and entertaining in their own right.

Animal Kingdom is home of the ride Expedition Everest… probably the most fun ride in any of the Disney parks (and the first roller coaster I was able to keep my hands in the air for the entire ride), and the show The Festival of the Lion King… an exciting blast of acrobatics, animatronics, singing and dancing, and awesome stunts. While it was impressive to see live animals in a Disney park (instead of animatronic animals), I personally enjoy live animals much more at the local zoo. Still, the artistry in the design of the park, especially the architecture and the wall paintings of tigers and such in the Asia section, was beyond exceptional.

Epcot's Emblem

Epcot, what is supposed to be the geek’s favorite park, was a bit of a letdown. I expected futuristic stuff – the technology of tomorrow, if you will – but all I got was rather dull educational stuff… and Michael Jackson saving some planet with his dancing. The most acclaimed ride in Epcot, Soarin’ (a flight simulation ride), was overly hyped in my opinion and a bit of a letdown. Alternatively, I had gotten really worked up and nervous about the ride Mission: SPACE for nothing. (The deal with Mission: SPACE is that back in the 90′s, two people within a few year span died after exiting that ride. As a result, Disney now offers two tracks for the ride: the original track, which simulates g-force with a lot of fast spinning, and a new track which is a simple simulation ride, minus the spinning. I was concerned that if I went on the original track, I might be #3 on the list. I didn’t even get nauseous or light headed.) Oh, and what’s with the over-large golf ball? The other half of Epcot – World Showcase (where they try to present in both architecture and manner eleven different countries. There wasn’t much to do in any of the “countries” – an occasional show, performance or ride, and plenty of non-Kosher dining – but it was a nice multiple-hour stroll with my husband through pretty landscapes, however fake. One major problem I had with the World Showcase was that it wasn’t always clear where one country was ending and another beginning, or which country I was “standing in” at any given moment (forgive me for not being well educated in the differences between Japanese and Chinese architecture). One highlight however was watching my husband get tipsy in Germany and needing to regain his balance. I’d never witnessed that before.

Hollywood Studios was all sorts of fun, especially to this particular girl who thinks her life is one big movie. Take the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, for example… man, I want to be him! I think more than any other action hero, my dreams (asleep dreams, not aspiration dreams) are most influenced by Indiana Jones and all those stunts he pulls. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had to work my way through booby traps to get all sorts of treasures (in my dreams, I mean). But even with Indy’s awesomeness, I’m inclined to say that he fell just short of the Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show. I mean, what’s more pulse-racing than high speed car chases, sailing through the sky while driving backwards, and motorcycles being driven through walls of fire? Not much. Maybe the Tower of Terror. Until that free-fall ride I had yet to hear my husband scream on a ride. He usually just giggles like a teenage girl (it’s really, very cute). Interestingly enough, the photo taken of us on that ride shows all the riders around us with their hands in the air, while my husband and I clutched onto our seats and to each other for dear life. Good times. Then, of course, there is the most popular ride of all the Disney parks: Toy Story Midway Mania. Wow. Let me remind you – we were not there during peak season. The longest wait we had for anything was maybe 15 minutes long. And then there was Toy Story. When we first got to the park in the early afternoon, the wait was reported to be 80 minutes long. We figured we’d wait until the first nighttime showing of Fantasmic (Hollywood Studio’s nighttime spectacular) when we figured the wait would be shorter. Wrong. We came back later only to find the wait had lengthened to 100 minutes. Since that was really the only ride that we had left to go on, we figured we’d wait it out. Fortunately we were followed in line by an Argentinian family where both the mother and her sister were at one point in their lives Israeli, so we spent the whole wait speaking to each other in Hebrew. That made the wait seem to fly by… that and the fact that the actual wait was only about 35 minutes. (Apparently they lie about the wait time on that ride so that only the most serious of the visitors will actually risk the wait.)

Cinderella and Prince Charming in front of Cinderella's castle

And then there was Magic Kingdom… the most magical of them all (hence the name). While at the other parks I may have felt like a little girl in a candy shop, here I just felt like a little girl. I imagine that it would have been more amazing being half my present height, standing in the shadow of Cinderella’s castle, but the effect was not lost on me. Even more magical though was seeing the Disney princesses up close: Cinderella with her Prince Charming, Snow White with her Prince Charming, Sleeping Beauty with her Prince Charming (his name is Prince Philip, did you know?) and me with my Prince Charming. (The day we were there happened to be Valentine’s Day, not that it matters, since we don’t celebrate the Saints.) (On a side note, either the Charming family is very large, or Prince Charming is quite the player.) Add into the equation Mickey, Minnie, Donald Duck and Goofy, and now you can understand my wide eyed wonder. While I was immune to the fear, I can completely sympathize with the little girl behind me who started crying when the villain from Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent, materialized on stage during a musical stage show. She is quite the scary one, and she was very much real, standing on that stage with puffs of smoke evaporating behind her.

The rides in Magic Kingdom are of course all classics: Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion and It’s a Small World, to name a few, and surprisingly they were not all targeted for children (although none of the thrill rides even measured on the same scale as the thrill rides in nearby Universal Studios). The part that my husband and I enjoyed most as adults (I’m pretty sure we agreed on this) was Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. The premise is cute: after the monsters discovered that laughs can power their world much more than screams could (watch the movie again if you don’t remember), they are now holding comedy shows where their sole purpose is to make us laugh. With an audience full of little kids, teenagers, adults and grandparents, it’s a wonder they succeeded. Not only were they hysterical, but they had my husband the engineer stupefied as to how they had the on-screen animations interacting so seamlessly with the audience. Ah, the wonders of modern technology. Speaking of modern technology, the highlight of our day in Magic Kingdom was hands down Push, the talking trash can. As we were leaving the section of the park called Tomorrowland, a trash can on wheels, saying hi to passerby, was moving towards us. I whipped out my camera and started filming. Push (named such due to the text on his trash can lid) saw me doing so, and thinking I was taking a picture approached me saying “cheese!” It was love at first sight. The ensuing conversation went something like this:

“Hi! Where are you from?”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m from Israel.”
“Ooooh, Israel! I’m from Tomorrowland. My name’s Push.”
“Hi.”
“Nice to meet you!”

Now just imagine everything Push said in a techno Elmo voice and you can understand why I was a puddle. For the next four days, every time I saw a Disney trash can with the word “Push” printed across the lid (and Disney has them roughly every 12 feet) I’d sigh and say, “I miss Push.”

Magic Kingdom's "Wishes"

And so we get to the nighttime spectaculars. In Magic Kingdom it’s called “Wishes,” in Epcot it’s “IllumiNations,” and in Hollywood Studios it’s “Fantasmic.” Each one is remarkable in its own right. Wishes is the most straight forward: fireworks above Cinderella’s castle. IllumiNations takes it a step further as a fireworks and laser lights show over the lake in the middle of the World Showcase. (While the lasers weren’t super easy to see, it was nice seeing the fireworks both above and reflected in the water below.) Fantasmic, however, takes it to a whole new level with fireworks, lasers, and images and film projected onto a wall of water being sprayed up from the pond in which the show takes place. Oh, and it also tells a story. All that being said, my favorite nighttime spectacular show was Wishes. It doesn’t get more magical than an incredible display of fireworks against the backdrop of Disney’s classic emblem with such Disneyish songs as “When you Wish Upon a Star” from Pinoccio and “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” from Cinderella playing over the loudspeakers. I was transported to another place. A place with no evil. A place with no worries. A place where dreams really do come true.

It’s no wonder that Disney World has long been called “The Happiest Place on Earth.”