How can anyone ever be that desperate for Bamba?

Bamba, in case you didn't know is Israel's unofficial national snack (actually, it may even be official, for all I know). Basically, bamba is a cheese doodle without that ghastly orange cheese flavor that I love. Instead it has a ghastly peanut butter flavor with the texture of the Herr's cheese doodle. As soon as Israeli kids are weaned, they graduate to Bamba. I believe a gajillion bags of the stuff are sold annually. Last year, they came out with a chocolate stuffed Bamba that really was disgusting. But hey, different strokes for different folks.

You get my point. Israeli's love their Bamba. Still an item I read in the Jerusalem Post this morning had me scratching my head in disbelief. I couldn't find it on the website, so I'm taking time to type out the item here:

Bamba Burglar Busted

A 35-year-old Beersheba resident with a strong late-night craving for bamba recently picked the lock and broke the door of a store across from his home in order to get some of the peanut-flavored snack. He ravaged the store until he found a bag of bamba and then proceeded to consume the contents of the bag, exited the store and left the packet behind.

The next morning the store owner discovered that his shop had been broken into and the only thing stolen was the bag of bamba. The owner contacted the Beersheba police, who came to the site and took fingerprints from the empty bag. These were matched up the fingerprints of a man the store owner identified as a frequent purchaser of large amounts of bamba.

On Wednesday the Beersheba police department claims bureau filed charges against the defendant, who was released on bail. His case is scheduled to be heard in court in the near future. "I'm crazy about Bamba," the defendant told investigators. "I was hungry and all the stores were closed, so I broke into one of them."

Crazy about Bamba, indeed.

Shabbat Shalom, and have a great weekend.

When I last left you...

...a man in a car stopped me while I was on a walk with Ozzy. He had seen me give directions to another who stopped me. He told me he was a policeman and needed to know where that man was headed.

It was so strange. I felt in my gut that the man was not a policeman. Why would there be a man in the passenger seat who seemed to be dozing? If he was close enough to the first driver to see him asking for directions, why didn't he just put the medal to the pedal and follow him? The first person asking for directions didn't seem to be trying to evade a tail. He seemed fairly relaxed.

I didn't ask for ID. The thought occurred to me, but the interaction happened very quickly. The second time he asked me, I answered him by saying disbelievingly, "You're a policeman?? Really???". The man gave an exasperated sigh and pulled away. I started to try to recall some details about the guy in case I heard of something strange happening later and would need to come forward to perform my civic duty. Things like the make and model of the car (a Mazda 6), what he looked like (like many Israeli's, dark with dark eyes and dark, curly hair), what he was wearing (a brown and white striped polo shirt).

And then--this really amused me--a third car stopped me. But this guy really did need directions--I almost chortled out loud as I told him I couldn't help him.

So that's that. I guess this will end up in the annal's Baila's Unsolved Mysteries. Feel free to speculate or make up a story about what this was all about. I was going to do that, but I'm really tired.

Incidentally, to those of you who accused me of getting as much mileage out of Nablopomo as I can by putting this into two posts--you are absolutely right. I hang my head in shame.

And now I better hit publish to get this in on time.

This is weird

What do you make of this?

Today, Wednesday,(remember? my almost-favorite day?) is my day off. The weather is refreshingly perfect these days and I decided to go for a long walk with Ozzy. On the way back, a car stopped and asked me for directions to a nearby street. After giving them to him in a fairly competent manner, I continued with my trek. Several seconds later another driver rolled down his window and stopped me:

(Do I even have to mention that all of this took place in Hebrew?)

Man: Ehhhhhm, giveret (lady), I am a policeman. That car that just asked you for directions--where is he going.

[That's funny. You don't look much like a policeman. Are you undercover? And why is your "partner" in the passenger seat dozing? Hmmm.]

Me: Excuse me?

Man: (speaking slowly--did he hear my American accent from just one word?) The car before me that stopped you for directions--where did he want to go? I'm a policeman.

[Let's freeze right here for a while.]

Don't you think this is strange? Has anything like this ever happened to you?

Before I tell you what I did, I want to know what you would have done. Would you have told this guy? Or moved on?

This enquiring mind wants to know.

"בגלל המוזיקה"--For the music

I love radio. I grew up listening to WINS--1010 WINSRADIO--"You give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world". On Fridays, my mother would get ready for Shabbat listening to Art Raymond. As I grew older, I started listening to pop music on WABC-AM. I also listened to Don Imus and Howard Stern on WNBC-AM. I listened to Stern when he moved to FM as well, although he started to get totally raunchy and not as funny. When I started driving to work a couple of years before we moved here, I listened to audio books and when those would finish, to talk radio, mostly Sean Hannity and Mark Levine.

I'm happy to say I love radio in Israel, too. I'm relieved to say I understand [most of] it. Like any good Israeli, I turn up the volume when the news comes on. Unless it makes me ill, which is fairly often. I listen to all kinds of talk radio. Fridays on Galei Tzahal (army radio), mothers dedicate songs to their soldier sons and daughters and that always gets me. I listen to psychology and political call-in shows. I once heard a whole segment on air conditioning systems. Fascinating stuff in any language.

But my morning drive is reserved for Galgalatz. I just love the way the announcer introduces the DJ (Hadar Marks) and her show ("lo bo-ayr"). She has a bluesy, husky voice. The playlist consists of both English and Hebrew pop music. Out of the blue I can here a song like California Dreamin', or a Beatles song, or something more recent like the Black Eyed Peas or Beyonce. I'm always surprised, usually pleasantly, and I love to sing LOUD when a good song comes on the radio. (My kids just love that about me). I've even begun to recognize Hebrew songs, and if they play them often enough can start butchering those songs as well.

Here's one song I found on Youtube that's being played alot. I wonder if that means it's a new song. I wonder if the artist, Dani Sanderson, is very popular here in Israel. By being an immigrant, I'm just not in the loop on the pop culture thing. It's definitely something I want to change. It's probably alot more fun than politics (although in the states I was up on both).

Anyway, this song has a catchy tune and reminds me of country-western music:



I like the refrain:

ואתה לבד And you're all alone
מתגלגל בדרכך rolling along your way
אתה לא לבד you are not alone
אחרים לבד איתך others are alone with you

Hope you enjoyed that.

Laila Tov--G'nite.

Halfway through

...Nablopomo, that is.

I wanted to participate because I was having a tough time being inspired lately and I thought if I was forced to write something every day I would have no choice. Since this is, at its heart, a slice-of-life blog, I would have to look at the mundane things in my life and try to bring it to you in an interesting and entertaining way.

I know that sometimes I hit the mark and many times I don't.

Still, I do think alot about everything I do, see, read, and conversations I have. I wonder if it's something worthy of blogging about. Most stuff I discard. I'd like to say you're getting the best of my life experiences, but really my life is sometimes only interesting to me.

It's ironic. Maybe if I got away more from the computer I'd have more to write about.

In any case, I just wanted to let you know that I'm committed to finishing this. So you've got another 14 posts to slog through before we get to December.

If you'd like you can make suggestions for posts. Don't bother asking me to do a post about how often I change my sheets (already done), my sex life, or [another one] Ozzy. But otherwise, I'm open to suggestions.

And feel free to give me constructive criticism. (But I'd much prefer compliments. I'm a very needy person).

I'll see you tomorrow, whether you like it or not.

Benji's selling t-shirts

Not only is my friend Benji of What War Zone a funny guy, he is also quite the entrepeneur. Benji saw a void in the Israeli/American marketplace and is now filling it. Here's what he says:

"For 2+ years, I have walked past t-shirt shop after kiosk in Jerusalem and marveled at the completely lame, unoriginal, pathetic, low-brow, and stupid tourist t-shirts. You know the ones....the shirts which haven't changed in twenty years and probably longer than that..."

I remember seeing some of these shirts when I was here for my year in Israel, in 19--well, never mind, but trust me it was the dark ages. Remember this one?:



It was cute then, but now it's just, well, old. Hasn't it occurred to anyone that we could use new t-shirts. Ah, yes, well, it occurred to Benji!

If you click on over to Benji's t-shirt site, you'll see an updated version of these type of shirts, infused with Benji's own brand of humor. And the prices seemed quite reasonable, I might add.

I'm wishing Benji lots of luck in his new venture.



While you're clicking, why don't you head on over to Ima on the Bimah. She has Haveil Havalim up and running. (Ima is also a fellow-NaBloPoMo-er).

Shavua Tov, everyone. Have a great week.

Do you know where your children are?

I do. Sorta.

Many kids in Israel belong to a youth movement. There are a number of large movements, both religious and not and kids across the country are involved in many ways. In Modi'in (and perhaps everywhere in Israel, I'm not really sure), schools finish early on Tuesdays, because Tuesday evenings are reserved for various activities at the youth movements.

My kids go to Bnei Akiva, a movement near and dear to my heart. I came to BA relatively late in life (after high school), but its ideology of working and living in Israel spoke to me from the very beginning.

For my kids, BA means they are busy on Shabbat afternoons, as well as Tuesdays. They have been hiking all over the country, sleeping under the stars, climbing Masada at dawn, visiting sick children in hospitals under Bnei Akiva's auspices.

But the absolute pinnacle of the year happens now. It is called "Chodesh Irgun" [month of the organization] and is basically a month-long color war between the grades that will culminate in performances by each grade this coming Thursday night. During this month (which begins right after the Jewish holidays) the kids are out almost every night, till LATE, practising their dances, painting banners and the snif (the branch--the youth house where they meet) and well, I'm not sure what else. On Saturday night there will be a special ceremony in which the winner will be announced, the 9th graders will perform a daglanut [dance with the Israeli flag] and will receive the name of their "shevet"--the name which will follow them for the rest of their lives.

Seven more days of wondering what time they will be home. Seven more days of telling them homework must be completed, tests must be studied for and rooms must be cleaned. Seven more days of listening to them debate what the new shevet name will be. Seven more days of them coming home exhausted and dirty, paint encrusted everywhere.

Seven more days till life returns to normal.

But then of course, the countdown to Chanukah begins.