Constantly Running

I've been having variations of a similar dream for quite some time now, and last night's was really interesting. I keep having dreams that I'm running. And, the best part of the dream is that I really, really enjoy running. Last night's dream had me running on the boardwalk here in Tel Aviv, and it was at night with a comfortable cool breeze coming off of the water. In the dream, I run like I'm weightless and it feels incredible. The motion of running fast is very comforting, extremely soothing, and I just look around as the scenery passes me by.

I'm definitely hitting the gym today. In fact, I'm probably going to be hitting the gym very, very soon.

Buggy and I had an engagement party at Paula on Saturday night and it was so much fun! Now, I called the party for 8:30 because I assuming that since Saturday in this country is like Sunday night in the States, people weren't going to want to hang out very late. I thought that an earlier time would be a good thing. Well, either everyone in this country likes to be fashionably late or I just called it for an unrealistic time, but no one showed up before 9:45 p.m.! Now, Buggy and I made a pack and while I ususally have my 5 minutes rule (you know, the 5 minutes to give a blind date to be late and a minute after the 5 minute rule you're heading back to your apartment to wallow in self pity and gorge yourself on some Chunky Monkey), he convinced me to give everyone an hour. So, we had our own little Lechaim and then our friends and Buggy's family members showed up.

It was a lot of fun! First, Julia came and told us that she's engaged to her boyfriend! That was such a nice, shocking, pleasant surprise. So, Buggy and I toasted another engaged couple. I ended up calling Jeff, who mind you lives down the block from this bar, to find out where he was. Fortunately, he showed up shortly thereafter. Oren and Rachel came, which was nice considering that Oren's sister got married yesterday, Lana and both Gayles were there too, Merav and Josh from my class, and a handful of other Tel Aviv friends. Buggy's siblings were there, except for his younger brother who is in Miluim, and a couple of friends from Jerusalem drove out as well. By the end of the night, I had a few Mojito's and shots under my belt and Buggy made sure I got home ok.

Yesterday, the weather in Tel Aviv was out of control! It was pushing 85 degrees here and people were heading to the beach in droves. We left the summer swelter and headed to the cooler mountains of Jerusalem to do some more wedding errands. We checked out a couple of stores to register at, and also got together with him folks.

And that's when the call came in about my plumbing issue here in Tel Aviv. Folks, this apartment is for the birds! It is all cosmetic and no substance! Apparently, Itai's toilet was stopping up yet again while my toilet was functioning just fine. So, his mother called while Buggy and I were on our way back to Jerusalem to tell me that the plumber was coming to look at Itai's toilet and can he look at mine too, will I be home. I told her I would not be home and she cannot come into the apartment. The next thing I know, Itai is calling me from work to beg me to let them into my apartment. He said that they hired a different plumber and he promised that there would be no mess.

Of course, he lied. My landlord called me a few hours later to say that they had to remove the toilet again and snake the drain. She said that apparently the workers had thrown rocks and such into the pipes and that was the cause of the problem. Also, Itai's apartment had absolutely no problems whatsoever. All the problems were in my apartment. My landlord promised that they had cleaned up behind themselves and everything was now fine. So I asked here, was there any waste at all on the floor of that apartment. She said aboslutely not.

Liar.

When I got home, my apartment smelled once again like doody and my kitchen window was wide open to let out the smell. Now, I was not happy that the window was open when I was not home. I am very careful to close all of my windows whenever I'm not home. But, I understand that otherwise the smell would have just been overwhelming. I'm upset because they also told me that I can't use the toilet for 24 hours and then they did not give me the option to go to a hotel for the evening. So, I came back to the apartment and used the toilet eventhough it was well within the 24 hours. Too bad for them!

Now that I've written all about yesterday's ordeal, I'm a bit worked up so I'm going to head off to the gym.