Mental Note

MUST TRY these
homemade soft pretzels... Elisheva would love these when she came home from
school one day... waiting for her with a mug of hot chocolate...

I love having someone here who is so easy to
please. The rest of us seem so much more complex. I hope this means
she will have many of her wishes fulfilled in life. :-)))

Chanukah party was absolutely exhausting... but a
generally good time had by all. Except YM, who didn't want to be there
because his friends were supposed to go paintballing, even though in the end,
they didn't go. ECH kind of didn't want to be there, but then once she got
started she spent an hour trying to get the stacking singing dreidl to
spin. That's not exactly fair. She just wasn't having her favourite
kind of leisurely Sunday: she'd gone from babysitting to laundry to
babysitting again and running to my parents' house for eggs, etc. It was a
lot of work for her, and overall, she held up very nicely.

We have rented an apartment in Yerushalayim!
(just for the 2 weeks we're there)

STILL NO PASSPORTS FOR THE BIG KIDS. Got
their father's death certificate last Wednesday, so I took it on Thursday
to the Passport office in Mississauga, but they say I still need a copy of the
Divorce Judgment... and guess what I could not find anywhere in the
house??? So I had to shlep downtown on Thursday morning with Naomi in the
stroller to the Family Court office at 393 University to order a copy of the
divorce file. And it apparently takes 5-7 business days, even if with a
rush.

Turns out this Thursday's a holiday, too, so
they're closed. And this Friday.

SO, if I'm lucky (have I been lucky at all
lately???), 5 business days brings us to Monday, December 29th. At which
point, I run downtown, pay $19 for a certified copy, run with that plus all the
original documents PLUS a printed copy of our e-tickets as proof that we're in a
rush (duh!) out to Mississauga... pay for the passports and pay extra (with
e-tickets as proof) to RUSH the passports (which will also mean a return trip
the following week to Mississauga to pick them up).

Gaah.

My father seemed to be enjoying the Chanukah
party. He looks gaunt - there is no other word for it. His cheeks
are actually sunken now. And pale. To me, when we first arrived, he
looked a bit jaundiced, too, but my mother hasn't mentioned liver problems, so
maybe just my imagination, or the yellowish lighting and paint in the living
room. :-)


I like how relaxed Abigail's boyfriend,
Peter, looks in this photo (no, it's really NOT a Jewish name). That's what my family does to
people, especially when we're partying. :-)))



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