Geoffrey Chaucer, quoted above in French said, I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose. Profound.
After Buggy came to my rescue last week, he surprised me right before Shabbat with these amazing roses. As I sat down to compose this entry, I thought about how nice they smelled last week. I've been doing everything in my power to wipe away any remnants from last week's plumbing incident. Yesterday, my Dad asked me how it's smelling over here and I told him all the things I've done to try to get my place smelling better.
First, I lit scented candles, burnt lavendar scented oil and water and used the huge bottle of bamboo stick incense that Buggy's sister gave me for Chanukah in my bathroom. When that didn't really penetrate through the smell, I sprayed an entire bottle of air spray. After sighing because I'm not personally responsible for depleting some of the ozone layer, I took a whiff and still smelt the stankiness. So, I did what I know drives my Dad crazy back home. I made popcorn. And then burnt it.
That was much better. Then, I decided to cook myself a piece of meat for dinner. So now, my apartment smelled like burnt popcorn and beef. And then today, for lunch, I decided to roast an entire head of cauliflower.
As Kurt Cobain eloquently put it, smells like teen spirit in here.
The good news this morning is that the country didn't go on strike. The bad news is that no one told my bus driver and I waited for the 9:10 a.m. bus for almost an hour! The bus didn't show up at my stop until 10 to 10, and that left me 10 minutes to get to class. I called Lisa and told her the situation and she nicely informed Professor Kramer what had happened. I've never walked so fast to class in my life! I wouldn't have been that upset about missing class normally, but I really like this class and since we only meet once a week, I didn't want to miss it! Then, it was back to Professor Harvey's philosophy class and all I can say is that the philosopher we focused on today wrote in riddles. We batted a few Latin terms back and forth and tried to wrap around the proof for the existence of God, but the language was so confusing that I kept getting caught up in the prose. I'm going to e-mail Professor Harvey and ask him to explain it to me again, just so I can 100% understand it.
The beauty of my 2:00 p.m. class being changed to 10:00 a.m. is that I have the entire afternoon free! Granted, I still don't get back to my apartment before 2:30 p.m., but it beats getting in at 4:30! They are completely ripping up my street and today, they moved over to do the other side of the road. I don't exactly know who is in charge of all this road work, but that person gave the workers permission to drill through the night and I was awoken at 3:30 a.m. to the sounds of jaws of life pulling up gravel and leaving them right next to my garbage cans. If I remember tomorrow morning, I'll take a picture and put it up on the blog so you can see what mayhem is at my front door.
So, I'm trying something new today. I'm trying to give all the people of Israel the benefit of the doubt. I am hoping that my cleaners didn't MEAN to try and rip me off today.
Let me explain.
I went to get a key duplicated for my neighbor and then walked to the cleaners to pick up that Banana Republic skirt that got ruined in my suitcase. Now, I husband all of my coins because I need them for the laundromat and, since tomorrow is laundry day, all I had were bills in my wallet. Unfortunately, I did not have many small bills (that being said, I didn't have that many big bills either so don't think I'm Ms. Rich of anything). The cost to clean the skirt was 23 shekel and I handed them a 100 shekel bill. Well, they didn't want to break the bill and asked if I had any coins. I just got a 5 shekel coin when I paid to have the key duplicated, and so the cleaners handed me back 72 shekel.
Now, my parents will attest to the fact that I am not very good in math. I will admit it, I am not very good at basic counting! Yes, I use my fingers and sometimes my toes to help me out. I'm not proud of that fact, but it's my reality. Some people just can't work with numbers. So anyway, I'm looking at my 72 shekels and thinking something isn't right. Meanwhile, the cleaners went back to work and left me there staring at my money. So, I took a pen on the desk, and grabbed a piece of paper and did the math:
105-23 - 82!
He had shorted me 10 shekel! So, I called him over and showed him the math. He apologized, opened the money tin, and handed me back 10 shekel and then said, in Hebrew: "everything is okay". I hate that saying, but they're good cleaners and since I honestly don't think he meant to cheat me out of 10 shekel, I just said thank you and continued on my way.
Buggy and I are planning a little evening out next Thursday night to celebrate our engagement. I am still looking for a fun place for folks to come hang out, drink, and enjoy themselves! There's this place called Bulldog that wasn't too bad, with kosher food and a decent DJ. I know people had a lot of fun there in the past, so I have to look into it a bit more before we send out an e-mail with the details.
Tonight it's all about baking. I need to bake for Shaloch Manot on Monday! I couldn't believe that I had forgotten tomorrow is Taanit Esther, which throws a little wrench into my plans for the day. I was hoping to work out in the morning, then do laundry in the afternoon. But, since it's a fast day, I have to forgo the gym. I'm still going to hit the laundromat though, my sheets and towels need to be washed desperately!
OK, I'm off to make chocolate cakes!
Literature of the day is Ghetto Wedding by Abraham Cahan, which is a terrific short story!
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