Back to School (!)

I know this probably sounds CRAZY to those of you who already know that your school is done until the end of the year, but most of Israel is back to school, now that the numbers of those infected are "down to a trickle".

Ilana went back to 8th grade a few days ago.  Penina just had her first matriculation exam and that led to the first time she walked back into school in 67 days (she's been counting), although we expect her to sometime this week rejoin the rest of her class in being back full-time.   The challenging thing with starting this past week was that we were in the middle of a really strong heat wave leading to temperatures in our city of 106 f.  And it lasted for six days (thankfully, not at that level of heat.  But you know it's bad when we say things like--"Wow, it's ONLY going to be 91 f on Friday--that's ten whole degrees colder than its been").  This led the Ministry of Health to temporarily lift the requirement that students wear masks at school.  Which everyone seemed to take as "do whatever you want, go wherever you want, what the heck, we're all done with this thing".  Or maybe not QUITE that bad, but something like that.  We'll just say that our kids were part of a minority wearing masks in school and good for them (personally, I think all masks should have "I'm Wearing a Mask Because I Care About You" printed on them. Might make it easier for people to deal with wearing them).

The heat wave finally ended, but the crazy weather is still out full-force because this morning we got a downpour of rain, the likes of which are unusual after Purim, rare after Pesach and almost-miraculous the week of Shavuot.

For those of you who are reading this on the Blogspot page, you've probably noticed the blog's spiffy new header.  My thanks to Chana C of New Hampshire, who made our original header, which showed people at the Kotel. 

I asked her to update the header since we haven't been to the Kotel in a looong time (on what turned out to be my last day of work in the Old City, I was so intent on high-tailing it out of there and getting home that I didn't go to the Kotel, although had I known I wouldn't be back for months, I would have likely made a different choice....).  Interesting side note: davening at the Kotel for the holiday of Shavuot at the end of this week is by lottery.  I think it's beautiful that I live in a country that you win the lottery and get to pray at the holiest site!  Anyway, the new header shows the view off our mirpeset (there's your new Hebrew word for the day so you can impress people saying "porch" in Hebrew), since that's where we're spending huge amounts of time.  To follow-up to a long ago conversation with our pal Damon, who told us how he was spiffing up his Manhattan porch, we gussied ours up by sweeping (aim low is my sometimes motto), buying two lounge chairs (ooh, they come with cup holders AND cell phone holders now!) and getting a new hanging swing to accompany our glider swing.  

New and Improved!  Thank you, Chana!