On thin ice

Yoni and I walked to Ben Yehuda. Yoni is my nephew but is not Rafi, Eli or Eyal. I was considering McDonalds because I have never been to the one on Ben Yehudah and also, there is something about the forbidden that makes it attractive. It is like forbidden fruit but the tree has hamburgers growing on it. It was closed. This made it more forbidden but also harder to get in to. So I gave up on that dream, at least until tomorrow. What happens to a burger deferred? They'll just reheat it. Instead, we walked to Pasta Machine (motto, "Pasta No Drama," preach man, preach).

I got a mac and cheese but with rigatoni and rigatoni and cheese just doesn't carry the same gravy-tas. Plus I got water for the drinking of. Yoni got a Fanta. Total, 77NIS. I added 2 other cheeses because I believe in all that is right and good and cheesy. The cheddar sauce was mild and they gave me added parmesan. Plus I poured on a couple of packets of black pepper. Yoni said it was tough for him to finish a serving so now my pride was on the line and I had to prove something to prove to someone. Hi Yoni. Hey, Yoni: I finished it, no problem. Who's the man? Who's the fat, balding, old man with two thumbs? This guy! This fat, balding, guy. Yay? Anyway, the mac and cheese was quite nice. There was a lot of the very creamy and cheesy sauce.

Afterwards, Yoni showed me B-Fresh (Yo, Yo Yoni!) and ordered a New York. This store specializes in lovely, refreshing and healthful fruit drinks and acai bowls. The New York is milk, vanilla ice cream, tapioca and Oreo cookies. Yoni asked for no tapioca so he got a healthful and refreshing chocolate shake. 33NIS to support the faltering New York economy. Money well spent.

On Ben Yehuda I saw people on the Sulam trip including some of my students (too many to name and I forgot their names anyway). Hi guys! That frum looking guy with the guitar was back and just ripping it up as usual. He had his usual backing tracks and also a keyboard to accompany his guitar. The Sulam kids said that they were doing "lunch on Ben Yehuda" so we walked up Yafo. Subtlety, thy name is Rosen. We cut through the shuk (which was reasonable even on a Thursday) and stopped at Power Coffeworks at which I got a most pleasant decaf on ice. 26 NIS. I just noticed that across from this place is a "Kuba Bar." I'm cukoo for kubas so I might have to walk through there at some point and try it out. So many restaurants, so little time.

I intended to nap but all those silly reels aren't going to watch themselves so I did my part and scrolled through them for a bit. I also did laundry. I never realized just how depressing doing laundry can be. Not regular laundry which is quite catahrtic, but this laundry. So why did this trigger me sadness? Why did it creep into the corners of my foresight? Well, I'm glad you asked. Once I started folding the foldables, I realized that it made sense to put everything in to my suitcase in an organized fashion (and I'm all about fashion).  So I actually started packing. I began that month long deceleration towards earth so that Sunday will be a little less hectic. I also (while I was sulking about it) set up a ride back from the airport on Monday morning. This is depressing. I'm seriously having one of the best vacations and it will all have to end soon. Snif snif. Yes, I hope to come back and maybe even in the future, and maybe someday make my stay a touch more permanent but as for this trip, my time is running out. I succumbed to my neuroses and set up clothes for tomorrow, Shabbat and Sunday because that's when this will all be a low carb wrap.

To sum up: Yoni is going to take drum lessons, Eyal is on the road to film stardom, Avital will be a famous singer, Rafi will make cookies and build a computer out of them (your cookies have a computer). Eli will drive a truck and Nava will handle the PR. (side stories about Nava...she was a waitered an event last night and has decided that waitering is not for her. Tonight she went to a silent disco which she thought was 18+ and she was going to have to sneak in. It turned out it was 18- and she spent the evening getting hit on by 13 year olds. That last detail may not be entirely true. But maybe.) Anyway, the six of them are like the Partridge family, but talented.

Ori came by. Hi Ori! I ate pretzels and we prepared for the evening's skating excursion.We got onto a 7 bus at 5:15 and headed to First Station and the local rink for the Jerusalem On Ice festival or something like that. The First Station looked much livelier and less abandoned once people were there and it wasn't abandoned. There was a bouncy house, but many of the kids were priced out of it and had to use the bouncy apartment. We got into the rink and saw that an ice hockey session was still on the ice. So we lined up to get our skates. Apparently, 10.5 in base UK is 44 so I got some 44's. All the skates were hockey skates (which I have never used before) so, no toe pick.

Skating is tough and tiring. Did you know that guys and gals who play hockey have to skate the whole time and not fall down? Crazy, right? Gone are the days when I could skate passably for hours, come off the ice for a bagel, and then skate some more. Now, I skate haltingly and when I'm done, I am so done. But watching the kids was neat. Avital and Eyal went from fearful to fearless, Yoni worked on helping others in a very altruistic ways and Eli and Rafi skated like pros. I guess the secret training in the IDF is ice skating. I did feel like the skates had not been sharpened in ever, and the ice surface wasn't cleaned and resurfaced after the hockey session so that's why I wasn't an expert. I blame the tools. In the rink it wasn't nearly as cold as I feared it would be. It was refreshingly cool, like me!

Some things are international -- at the rink there were many people of all ages, many beginners (small kids who have never seen ice and knots of pre-teens and teens, and senior citizens). There were parents with kids of all ages, and the one figure skater doing spins in the center. Plus there were the skate bums -- the 9 year olds who skate better than most everyone else and the twenty-somethings who were weaving in and out of traffic and freaking out the lesser skaters with hockey stops and showing off. Ther was also one wobbly 54 year old tourist trying not to embarrass himself. I left the ice after 35 just to sit and enjoy the coolth. Sure, those guys can skate but can they provide the scansion of a poem? That's my jam and is an equally useful life skill IMHO.

My ankles hurt. I already HAD them on ice and that's why they hurt. I think I think that I should put skating on ice. Much like on the streets there were people of all cultures, colors, religions and levels of religiosity. If I had taken a picture of the assembled masses, you would be shocked, shocked I say. Chasidim, non-Jews and everything in between. And many of them could skate.

For dinner, David took Eli, Rafi, Yoni and Avital to Captain, while Nomi and I took Eyal to Fioro (Fresh Pasta and Pizza Bar). Eyal got a salad (huh?) and a fettuccine in a pink sauce. I toyed with getting a pizza but opted for two appetizers (eggpplant parmesan and fried risotto balls) while Nomi got the creamy risotto. The eggplant dish was hot and delicious. The risotto balls were crunchy on the outside and creamy inside, quote good. Nothing had an inventive or revolutionary  flavor -- it was homey and comforting. The place was busy but still well maintained and run. But as a side note, the pizza looked really good.

We had taken the 7 bus there but took the 18 back, but because of a stuck bus, heavy traffic and a new set of roues in order to create more pedestrian-only streets, it turned into a 7 mid trip. That's called science, kids.

Back at home and I listened to Eli, Rafi, Nava and Ori chat in a mix of Hebrew and English and I soaked it all in. It was a good day.