Powder Power

Snow.

No. Just no.

I will never understand Israelis. Why do they like white chips of frozen water falling from the sky and break every fucking thing on the ground? Trees breaking, trees falling on cars, on electric poles, busting water pipes, causing power failures, engine failures, schools and businesses being closed…

I get why my dog loves it. She’s half-Husky. Practically a polar panda bear. Snow makes her happy. So happy, it makes her jump for joy. Look how happy she is!

My kid also digs it because building snow-people rules, right?

Well, I hate it. Israelis don’t get it. And those who know me and who know where I come from also don’t get it.

“But you’re CANADIAAAAAN!” They bleat.

Yes, I am Canadian. But it’s because I’ve suffered 15 fucking winters in this desolate snowy wasteland and decided I’ve had enough, that I moved to Israel. To ESCAPE this awful weather. To not have to deal with snow and ice and freezing rain and temperatures cold enough to crystalize ghosts in mid-air.

But lo and behold, the white curse followed me to Jerusalem and I’m buried in ice once again.

I keep seeing pictures of Jerusalemites on my feed. They all look so happy to be playing in the snow, building snow people, playing with their kids and their dogs in the snow, and I’m sitting there on the verge of tears. What’s wrong with people?! Do they have mammoth skin or what?

The after-effect of the storm hit us on Thursday evening when we lost the power in our house and resorted to freezing our asses off because our heaters are all electrical. The waterworks would have eventually broken if my tears weren’t frozen in my tear ducts. I started fantasizing about summer and declared to my husband and my in-laws:

“Fuck this shit. This summer, we are going on a serious hardcore vacation, like Eilat or Tiberias. I don’t care how far away it is and how long it takes to get there. This is where we’re going. And we’ll book a hotel fucking NOW!”

But while summer is not here yet, I couldn’t wait for Friday afternoon when we could escape to the sunny Negev and spend the weekend at my parents’ nice and warm house. And as luck would have it, our car broke down as we made our way there.

“I’ll be damned if the power outage curse didn’t follow us out of Jerusalem too!” I thought, and I hoped that our curse wouldn’t affect my parents’ power.

It didn’t. With my dad’s help, we managed to get to our destination and we enjoyed a nice unfrosty weekend.

[Update about the car: I was eager to get to work this morning so I had to resort to an expensive cab ride at the crack of dawn to make it here on time. But my husband, my kid and my dog are all still stuck in Be’er Sheva, while the car still refuses to work and the mechanics are trying to figure out what’s wrong with it. If you ask me, this car is long overdue for a date with the crusher.]

So all of this was caused as a direct result of the snow storm. I’m so glad that it’s finally melted and the power is back on in my house. I just hope my husband manages to get our gang back home in one piece at some point today. I really want to reclaim our routine. I’m so done with this season. Man, so done with this bitch.

Peace, love and Sun

The Unfuckening

I recently started seeing this meme circulating around my Facebook feed.

It has happened to me as I’m sure it has happened to everyone else. But then I thought, surely there must also be the exact opposite. As in, when your day is going so fucking bad but then something good finally happens. And that is the UNfuckening.

The unfuckening happened to me today. Ever since last week, I expected this week to be one hell of a fuck of the purest ray serene. Just how much balls this week could suck, that I did not know or expect. I’m in the middle of three consecutive days where my daughter has plans after gan. Any time there is such a day, it pisses me off because this means I can’t nap, I need to pick up my kid early so that I can have enough time to give her a bath (and not wash her hair because it would take too long) before going to whatever activity we have that evening, and then we get home super late, at which point I need to hustle up some dinner like a fiend, hoping that my daughter hoovers it, and that I won’t have too much trouble getting her to brush her teeth, and that she will agree to have just one bedtime story, so I can get her in bed by 20:00.

So yesterday, she had her Grade 1 Prep class. As we were getting ready to leave, my daughter tripped and hit her cheekbone right on the edge of a stair. We still made it on time to the class, but with a wonderful black eye to show for it. Final bedtime: 21:00.

Today, we have an activity at another school we’re considering for her. And like I did yesterday, I’m planning on taking a cab because of the weather (more on that below). But last night, my phone started acting funny. I couldn’t make any outgoing calls or receive any calls either. It would be impossible for me to call for a cab today, and I will have to struggle with the weather or get my husband to leave work early. Prospective final bedtime: 21:30.

Finally, on Wednesday, she is starting a couple of courses. And although my kid is vaccinated, Covid cases are on the rise again, and I’m nervous as fuck about it. Just adding on to the stress. My own prospective final bedtime: fucking never.

On top of all that, the weather is shiiiiiit! And I mean fucking shiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!! Yesterday, it rained like hell, then it hailed, and it was freezing cold with the whipping wind that was strong enough to keep me from walking a straight line. It literally kept pushing my leg back every time I tried to put it in front of the other. The wind is still going strong today and although the rain abated a bit, it’s still impossible to walk. This is why I had to make do with cab rides. I knew that even if I tried to take my kid home by foot as we usually do, she will simply take off with the wind.

I told my husband: “Seriously this week just keeps getting worse. I bet if I had a car, it would have probably broken down by now.”

The unfuckening came in a few levels. First, my mother-in-law said she’ll be home all day (she lives right above us), so if my phone still doesn’t work, I can use hers to call a cab. One problem solved. New prospective bedtime for today: 20:30.

Second, as we left the house, we spotted a rainbow. A full one, from one end to the other. It was the first time my daughter ever saw a real rainbow, and such a perfect one at that. She was so excited about it and I was thrilled for her. This is the one good thing that came out of this supremely shitty weather.

Finally, my phone somehow fixed itself. I called my husband and then he called me back and saw that everything works again. It was weird but unfuckening indeed.

Now, I’m under no illusions. I’m sure there is more trouble in store for me this week, and the next, and the one after that. With Covid looming high and mighty, gan could be closed, classes and courses could be cancelled or postponed, the Lindemann concert might be cancelled too, we might be slapped with yet another season of Holidays in Lockdown, predictions of doom abound… So rainbow or no rainbow, we never got our white dove with the olive branch in its beak. All we have is a fat, ugly crow with the decapitated leg of a roadkilled cat in its beak.

I hope that some kind of rainbow and dove will appear when this Covid storm is over, so we can get back to our regular programming, and resume bitching about things like politics and global warming and the prices of cottage cheese. You know, like we used to do before all this load of true fuckening was dumped on us.

Peace, love and we talk about red countries as if it was the Cold War all over again.

Hibernation Nation

Jerusalem Streets:

So 75 years ago, they liberated the concentration/death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, and for the occasion, they will be closing off the streets of Jerusalem. Dignitaries, representatives and politicians from 50 different countries will be coming to Jerusalem for the World Holocaust Forum, and the city is on lockdown.

Yes, it is an important event to commemorate, and of yes, of course it must be commemorated in Jerusalem. I don’t dare question that. But the closing off of streets is still a huge inconvenience for many of the city’s residents who need to get to and from work.

Some of the city’s schools have already announced that they will be closed. I’m still waiting to hear from my daughter’s gan. I, myself, will not be going to work tomorrow and Thursday because many of the city’s buses and public transportation will also be affected – either cancelled or rerouted, come around less often, and get to their destination much later than scheduled. And since public transportation is the only way I can get around these days, I’m basically stuck. Not to mention crazy fucking traffic for all those who get around by car. This means taxis are off-limits because it will take me so long to get to work by taxi, I’ll probably end up paying like 100 NIS and still get to work late. It’s not worth my day’s salary.

ALL of that besides the fact that the weather has gone from shit to super shit – crazy low temperatures, rain, hail, and oh my God, is it snowing?! FUCK THIS SHIT!!!! All we need now is a touch of freezing rain and we’re fucking Canada.

Longass Weekend:

AND SO! I will be home all day tomorrow and all day Thursday. I won’t be back to the office until Sunday. As such, I need to find ways to dis-bore myself.

1. Invocate the order bug and reorganize the whole goddamn house, including my daughter’s toys.
2. Cook some potato cutlets. I haven’t made them since the first time I tried and I remember them being super fucking yummy.
3. Read some Master King (remember to take my book home from the office today!)
4. Exercise my lazy ass! I haven’t had a decent workout in so long, I feel like an octogenarian. I need Integral Tai Chi in my life.
5. Sleep, because let’s face it, I won’t be able to resist the temptation.
6. If I get so bored I lose my fucking mind, I’ll take my dog out for a walk. This does require a certain amount of craziness because who in their right mind will leave their house when streets are closed AND flooded? They might very well be closed off to pedestrians as well. It has been known to happen. But walking my dog could be a fun activity if I find a decent route.
7. Write in my diary. Get on with the only resolution I made for this year.

Peace, love and so many leaks, so little buckets

Seasoning

During times like these, when winter is getting on everybody’s nerves, I decided to take a step back to try and understand why some people in my midst love winter and hate summer. If you’re like me, then you must be a normal human being and simply do not understand how liking winter is even remotely possible.

One of our clients suggested that the reason people like winter is so that they can wear winter clothes. I admit, I like my long metal hoodies which I can wear only during winter. But that is far from being a satisfactory reason for which people like winter.

So if you’re a normal human being, I think we can all agree on the following pros and cons of both summer and winter.

(I will focus on seasons in Israel and more specifically Jerusalem).

Summer pros:

• You can go to the beach and/or and outdoor pool
• It takes you nothing of a time to get dressed
• Blue skies
• Blooming flowers and trees
• Green grass
• You can wear tank tops and shorts to show off your awesome bod
• No need to turn on the water heater to take a shower, especially if you have a sun dude which kicks everything’s ass
• Travelling is a breeze
• Summer breeze in Jerusalem is warm yet constant and keeps you from getting overheated
• A bunch of kickass summer events, festivals, open air concerts
• Ice cream and popsicles a-plenty
• Summer nights are nice and warm (except in Jerusalem where you will need a light jacket)
• The sun actually exists
• Rain? What’s that?

Summer cons:

• Wildfires
• Sand storms
• Sunstroke (unless you wear a hat)
• Dehydration (unless you drink enough water)
• Melanoma (unless you wear sunscreen)
• Stinky smelly sweat (which I personally don’t really mind but I’m trying to stay objective and most people don’t like that)
• No gan, so kids get super bored and parents lose their minds
• Moving the clock forward so you sleep less

Winter pros:

I listed them a few posts back, but I’ll add a couple more.

• Krembo season!
• Sunsets
• Metal hoodies
• Moving the clock back so you get to sleep more
• Drinking soup becomes your life’s purpose
• Drinking tea becomes your life’s greatest pleasure
• The Kinneret is happy
• Snails come out to play

Winter cons:

Oh lord, where do I begin?

• It’s so cold you get ice forming on your cornea
• Anything that requires use of hands takes a hell of a lot longer
• Getting dressed takes for fucking ever
• Getting your kids dressed is damn near impossible
• You dread taking a shower because that involves getting naked in a freezing cold bathroom
• Pneumonia
• You need to get a flu shot
• You need to get your kids vaccinated as well
• You get sick anyway
• Your kids get sick anyway too
• The wind is so strong, it makes it impossible to move and makes your kids fly away
• Floods, endless floods
• Indoor leaks
• Electricity bill arrives as an active grenade because you blast every heater known to humans in a futile effort to heat up your house
• Electricity bill explodes because you turned on the water heater and forgot to shut it off
• You leave the office when it’s pitch black outside and it’s not even 5 p.m.
• Your player/smartphone breaks when it comes into contact with the rain because you neglected to put it in a plastic bag
• You cover everything in plastic bags
• Everything gets wet anyway
• You slip, you fall, you break your face, your car won’t start, your car won’t stop and you slam into a tree
• Rain turns dogshit into diarrhea and smears the streets with it
• In the event of snow, plowers don’t plow your street because there’s like a grand total of three plowers in all of Jerusalem
• Power failures a-plenty
• You can’t decide if you should suffer the cold coming in through the windows of your house, or leaving them closed and suffer the awful smell of dirty socks in your house
• Your body is dry as fuck, your knuckles crack and bleed, your lips are chapped and they bleed every time you try to smile
• Your laundry takes forEVER to dry

So there you have it.

If you’re a normal human being, you should be hating winter with every miserable frozen fiber of your being.

Peace, love and drainage

Freezing Wind, Scalding Jelly

Ignoring things like rain, cold, wind, gray stuff, coats, tuques, scarves, gloves, boots, blasted heaters, layers of clothes, piles of broken umbrellas, naked trees, mud, deep-ass puddles, all-around fucking shitty winterness, December should be pretty swell. So here are my plans for this month:

1) Create an updated version of my Etsy shop catalog and include all the zines I made since the first edition came out. That was probably back in like 2017 or something. If I can locate the InDesign document I used, this should be a breeze. If not, well then, this will take some procrastination. Dude, if I need to redesign the whole goddamn thing, I will most likely never do it at all. I need to find that document!

 

2) Bake sufgies (short for sufganiyot or Hanukkah doughnuts). I used to buy the lot of them from different bakeries every year. But I no longer trust the employees of said bakeries to wash their hands after using the bathroom and then proceed to kneed fecal bacteria into the sufgies dough. So making them myself I shall, as my mother potty-trained me properly when I was little and washing hands is a major part of it.

3) Get my daughter’s printed photo album from Picabook. If you’ve been following my ZineWriMo progress last month, you know that I’ve already sent in the order for the album I designed. I recently received the message that it has been mailed to me, and I’m so excited to see the final product! I hope to get it within the next week or so.

4) Hanukkah party at gan: My daughter and all the kids of her gan are having a party on December 17. Usually, when my husband and I are around, my kid acts completely different and I know that during parties, she sometimes goes as far as closing in within herself, not participating in any activity, screams and cries if we try to encourage her to participate, and we end up wishing for this ordeal to just be over so we can take her home. I sincerely hope this won’t be the case. Either way, I think we might get some pretty sweet pictures for next year’s photo album.

5) Get my latest zine printed. I already completed my ZineWriMo issue last week. I gave it to my husband to print (he works at a print shop) but he’s swamped at work, so he didn’t get around to printing it yet. I hope he will get it done before the end of this week and I’m super excited for that too! Pictures will be posted on this blog once that’s done. Then I got trades to send out, which gets me to my next point.

6) Kickass mail! I got a few trade requests and stuff coming in from all over the place. Once I get the SMS of photo album receipt from the post office, I’ll go there and pick up a bunch of snaily maily awesomeness along with the album! That will be a good day, and if it doesn’t rain, it will be a very good day. You can bet I’ll post a status on Facebook about it, peppered up and down with exclamation marks!!!!

7) Hanukkah family visits. My in-laws are coming in from the States, and I think I’m more excited for my daughter than I am for myself, because seeing her play with her American cousins (especially with her only girl-cousin who is 7 years older than her) is the best thing ever! Unfortunately, because of my in-laws’ visit, I will miss my grandmother’s birthday around that same time. But it’s not too bad. In fact, I much rather stay in Jerusalem and see my daughter play with her cousins than travel to the south of the country for a party which may very well involve my starving to death because my daughter doesn’t sit still in a place that she doesn’t know and having to chase her around instead of sitting at the table to eat. And it may very well involve Karaoke, and we all know how I feel about that (ughhhhh).

I also thought of making a list of New Year’s resolutions at the end of December but so far, I have none. So this is a sort-of December resolutions list and whatever happens by the turn of the decade remains to be seen.

Peace, love and happy holidays everyone!

Septemberrr

Yes, this is a weather rant, and no you don’t need to read this. I just need to vent. If the weather has the right to vent* so hard I feel my face flying off, then so do I.

As you all know, I am a professional winter-hater extraordinaire. If I could make a living off of hating winter, I’d be smoking rolled-up Shekel bills.

But seriously though, winter depresses me. And living in Israel, I sort of got used to winter coming rather late. September is still pretty warm. Last year, it was even warm enough for sleeveless shirts and beach outings. This year, September is showing no mercy. Winter came far too early. The skies are gray, the wind is strong and cold, the sun makes its random cameo appearances, but not for long and it’s back to gray depressing skies.

And so, fighting winter blues must also come early this year. I decided to make a list of things I DO like about winter because (surprise!) there are some.

1. Krembo:
   At the very fucking top. The number one awesome thing about winter-time, Krembo season! In summer, it’s far too hot, and the thing would be all melted anyway. Chomp!
2. Hoodies:
   I really love my metal hoodies and I never get a chance to wear them in the summer because, again, it’s way too fucking hot. Also, my boss doesn’t mind it too much if I wear them in the office because I’m cold. Metal t-shirts is a different story.
3. Sunsets:
   In winter, the shifting angle of the sun and the reflections of the clouds make for beautiful breathtaking sunsets coloring the skies with shades of purple, red, blue and black.
4. Moving the clock back:
   There are good things and bad things about this. I love sleeping an extra hour. That’s always a plus. But this also means that it gets very dark very soon and it sucks.

That’s basically it. Everything else about winter sucks. fat. hairy. dick.

Peace, love and icy fingers all over my hands.

---

*French word for wind

Slutwalk Jerusalem 2019

Slutwalk was painfully intense and crazy empowering. Definitely the place to be for a feminist activist mother of a little girl, or boy for that matter.

This past Friday was the peak of the heatwave in Israel. Jerusalem reached a high of 39 degrees, so before I left for the center of town, I made sure to take every precaution to keep myself from fainting – headscarf because no hat ever fits, sunscreen even though I never even tan, and so much water I drown.

When I heard of the heatwave I thought maybe I shouldn’t go. I mean, last year there was no heatwave and I still saw a person faint after the march. Even with my earphones firmly in my ears, blasting yet another crazy metal tune, I still heard the thud her head made when she hit the ground. It disturbed me for the entire following week.

But I’m really happy I made the effort to go, seriously. And the precautions I took proved to be effective and kept me strong enough to keep chanting along with the crowd.

“No means no means no means no means no. What part of no did you not understand yet?” We went on chanting.

I took a few pictures too. And I’ll include them with a full report of the demonstration in the next issue of my zine.

So yes, Slutwalk kicked some major patriarchic ass.

On to Pride! June 6, and I am SO going!

Peace, love and badass bitches take no shit.

Zinester Beats Winter

I feel pretty damn happy with myself today! A rare occurrence on a day where the sky is so gray, it’s practically black.

Though Tai Chi Thursday didn’t happen because I woke up with excruciating cramps, I decided to finish up on the mini zine I started yesterday about fighting winter blues. Here’s a picture of the finished product. I shot this photo in the office today while our central heating didn’t help me with my icy fingers, and I had to work with my gloves on.

One of the tips I give is to create anything at all. “Creation beats destruction,” I write. And as is pretty obvious by my mood today, creating this zine made me super happy, and winter skies didn’t stand a chance.

This pretty mini is now off to the press and then, on Zine-Making Monday, after I write the final piece for my PMS Perzine, I’ll go to the post office to send a bunch of zines including this one.

Peace, love and victory is mine!

 

 

---

Get messy and follow the bleeder: Like my page, PMS Mess!

War on Winter Mini-Zine

My activity for today was to create a mini zine. So I spent my day at the office making a mini zine with tips for fighting winter blues because seriously that’s what I’m trying to do and it’s becoming pretty fucking difficult when we have a combination of crazy winds, hail, rain, snow and thunderstorms in the forecast.

Yes, shit.

As my luck would have it, I ran out of glue, so my mini zine is all in pieces which is why I can’t share it with you at the moment. But this is the cover I will be using:

It’s a computer collage I made a few years back as the cover for the freedom issue of Af magazine. I didn’t think I’d ever get a chance to use it for one of my own zines, but yes, I’m using it for my new mini zine.

I think the zine as a whole came out rather nicely. I’m especially proud of myself because instead of using computer graphics and Google Image searches, I drew my own stuff! My lack of talent at drawing was not so bad, if I do say so myself, and my attempt was successful. So hell yay!!

Peace, love and dear winter, prepare to meet your doom!

White-Out the Winter

Since renewal is pretty much the theme of the new issue of my PMS Perzine, I decided to try a new style of writing and wrote a very short fiction story.

Originally, I wanted the story to be about a 20-something-year-old woman who tries to fight her winter blues by doing one of the things she loved most which is going to her favorite office supplies store and look at the cute journal designs, only to find that the store has closed until further notice.

Which, by the way, is exactly what happened to me today, except I’m a 30-something-year-old-woman, and I have better ways to fight my winter blues. But yes, woe is unto me, my favorite office supplies store is closed until further notice, and I’m upset as fuck. Where do I get my zine ammo now? How do I fight my winter blues?

My short fiction story turned out quite different than what I had intended, but I think it’ll do. It’s about a 30-something-year-old woman trying to fight the winter blues by looking for a best friend.

Which, by the way, also hits pretty close to home. Looking out the window this morning, I saw the first blue sky since last week. It’s been gray and depressing this whole time. So as I was doing my meditation part of Tai Chi Thursday, I thought “If the sky can clear, maybe my future can, too. Maybe I will find a best friend at some point.”

The story also ends on a positive note. I felt it necessary after the “closed until further notice” sign on my favorite store stared me in the face. Just a bit of positivity in a fiction story. At the very least.

Peace, love and your mind is like a boundless sky.

 

---

Get messy and follow the bleeder: Like my page, PMS Mess!