What's Cooking Here

I'd say the main things that are cooking are some yummy dinners because, hey, I've got all the time in the world now (having all the ingredients is, however, another story.....Israel has still not recovered from Passover's "Eggmaggedon", when, during the most egg-use-intensive holiday of the year, there was a national shortage.  Importing 12 million eggs from Europe was supposed to solve the problem, except that this meant that each citizen got 2 eggs.....On the plus side, the country's been holding up just fine in the toilet paper department).  Anyway, we even made potato latkes by hand (like, with a hand grater!) because, well, did I mention we have some extra time on our hands?

The girls started back to virtual school on Sunday.  Ilana's going a half day and Penina is going about 3/4 of a day.  They attend classes on Zoom, which I think is great, as it encourages getting out of pajamas.

Here are some random thoughts I'm having:
--Growth hormone is released only during deep sleep, so I wonder if children are growing more now that they're getting additional sleep since they don't need to wake up so early for school?

--I wonder what the rates of traffic injuries and other "accidents" are these days?  How much have they decreased?  (I took a great course in nursing school, the premise of which was that "accidents are injuries, and injuries are preventable".  *I* thought it was great.  Shalom Shachne says it changed our lives, and not for the better 😂)

--I'm telling everyone who will listen--ie my family and now all of you--that I suggest taking Vit D supplements, unless you're someone spending lockdown suntanning in the backyard.  I imagine relatively few of us are getting enough natural Vit D at this time

Yesterday, Ilana's school announced a two hour window for parents (only) to come pick up everything their children had left at school.  The school had one pickup time right after lockdown started over a month ago, when students (only) were allowed to go in and get specific books the teachers asked them to have at home.  It's too bad they didn't initially ask them to take everything, which was what Penina's school had done (then again, the very first night of lockdown, there was a severe wind- and rain storm and part of the roof of Penina's school blew off (!), so, from the beginning of all this, her school wasn't sure if they would be up and running again before the end of the year). It was surreal to be in Ilana's classroom with other parents, all of us wearing masks and gloves and throwing books and pencil cases in bags so we could get out of there as soon as possible.....Definitely not like PTA night a few months ago, that's for sure!

Nefesh b'Nefesh just started online Hebrew conversational groups, which I started taking to supplement my twice weekly ulpan which is now "listen only".  Today was our second class, and I found out that 3 out of 10 people in my class had made aliyah in the last few months, and one arrived in March and had 1 1/2 weeks of being out and about before lockdown began.  That's some unusual aliyah.....(Interesting that there are people continuing to make aliyah now.  Then again, if you're coming from Europe [like the three people in my class], between the antisemitism and the rates of coronavirus, you're probably only improving your life by making aliyah). 

As someone who loves to stay home, my days feel pretty reasonable, as long as I look at it one day at a time and just think that I'm having a Sunday day (not that those exist here.....).  And then I go out and see people wearing masks, and, wow, it all hits home what a time we're in the midst of.....

These are the things that count as newsworthy in my life these crazy days:

Woohoo--Chana is finally free to leave the house!  Her first big adventure was taking out the trash to the bins at the end of the street (a coveted expedition these days, now that Israelis are only allowed to go 100 m from our houses unless we're going for food or medical care).  We celebrated by putting a "Welcome Home" sign on the door and singing "Siman Tov u'Mazal Tov" when she returned:

The city is also trying to make staying indoors easier by sending out a Simcha mobile to liven things up--a flatbed truck with a DJ with lights and a fog machine and a couple of motivators (some wearing masks) encouraging us to all come out and dance on our balconies.  Love it!

I've been trying to get the hashtag #tinyruns to popularize, although since I'm only posting in the 10-person running group I belong to, I'm not aspiring to Frindle-like popularity.  Here, for example, are two of my recent runs:

last 10k for a while--March 19

#tinyrun of 3 km: 100 m back and forth and back and forth and back.....How that guy ran a marathon in his living room I cannot imagine!

Penina was supposed to have gone to Poland and returned by now.  We are hoping that she will get another chance to go next year, before she graduates high school.  What the heck--I made her a welcome home sign as well (although I needed to open the door to show her, since she hadn't left the house that day):

Perhaps unsurprisingly, she said that Poland felt quite similar to here....

Lastly, although life in general feels stressful due to the "Zombie Apocalypse" (as we call it), my personal and familial life has taken a large step down on the stress scale since I got laid off from work 1.5 weeks ago (and, even better, my last direct patient contact was two weeks ago, so, in spite of all my beloved students who coughed on me while being examined, baruch Hashem, I'm still here).  The downside of being employed by a company that works almost exclusively with gap year students and tourists is, well, I'm sure abundantly apparent to everyone reading this....

Hang in there, wash those hands and stay safe, everyone!