January Surprise

Morning started cooler and rainy. A gusty wind pushed the thick cloud cover away and left us with a mostly clear sky and cold air, punctuated by clouds and more wind. We took the light rail to the center of town and hoofed to the tailor. Maddie dropped off most of her stuff but we have to go back to get her uniform tailored. Then to grab some food. Rebar had no food she wanted (she was planning on getting a bowl of oatmeal with berries and coconut but they had no oatmeal, berries or coconut so the guy was willing to make a bowl of kiwi, pineapple and cardboard -- she demured) so we headed to Cafe Hillel. She got a white hot chocolate (made with white chocolate tablets which never quite melted) and a croissant and I got a double espresso. Mine was yummy and who cares about anything else?

We made it to the Mamilla mall and stopped at TopShop, a mid to higher end clothing store. Maybe. Who knows. Taking your kid dress shopping sucks in any language and on any continent. Only three sentences get spoken to a dad : 1. Here, hold this. 2. What do you think of this 3. I'm ready - get out the credit card.

The appropriate responses are 1. Yes dear 2. That's a little um, little 3. Shouldn't we check with your mo- whatever, ok.

In my head the answer to all 3 is "get bent" but I resisted the urge.

Next we went shopping for dresses at Zara. Zara is the Hebrew word for "strange" as in, "strange, I didn't think you needed anymore dresses". Next, Mango, as in "man, go away until your daughter needs you to pay." Hebrew is a magical language like that.

6 dress, 1 sunglasses and 2 shoe stores later we had not purchased anything else but I had the chance to be bored in a wide variety of settings. Also, my back. Ouch.

We made if to the Hadaya store where I surprised Maddie with the piece her mom had bought for Maddie's 21st birthday. She really likes it and was really confused and surprised. To celebrate, we stopped at Mr. Pretzel where Maddie bought fresh pieces of pretzel. I suspect that the guy's name is not actually Mr. Pretzel. He is probably an immigrant and his name was changed when he moved to Israel. Also, he might have been born a woman. I really don't know.

Back up from the old city in search of food and a bathroom. On the way, we made sure to run into two more sunglasses stores and see the rest of the world. Hugs and selfies and other things that give me hives. We grabbed a couple of slices at Big
Apple pizza and then, refreshed, headed to more dress shopping and then back to the tailor. A stop at a sunglasses store or three, hardware stores and more dresses.

Max Stock for a lint roller and hangers, Tambour for a sewing kit and double sided foam tape. Zol Stock for a bath mat, foil wrap, electrical tape and foil pans, then the light rail for a couple of stops (as the wind kicked up and temperature plummeted), to Turim. We figured to walk home from there but decided to stop in Mayan 2000 for some supermarket necessities -- toilet paper, paper towel, orange spray cleaner, laundry detergent and, of course, Wacky Mac. Suitably laden, we trudged back to the apartment so I could properly clean the bathroom. The kid keeps it pretty tidy but sometimes it just needs a daddy to get it truly clean. Next up, dinner plans because we haven't eaten in a couple of hours.