It's my own spin on the classic "Holiday" song (although, maaaan, I can't get that song out of my head). And things here feel, thankfully, so much more normal than last year, when I wore mask and gloves to go to the grocery store and waited in line to get in since they were limiting the numbers of people admitted. AND, this year we have eggs.
Things here feel almost like back to normal. The main difference from, say, two years ago, is that mask-wearing is still a law (rumor has it that after Passover, the law will be relaxed, or perhaps even removed. Too bad--I actually like wearing a mask both from a public health perspective (guess how many cases of seasonal flu Israel had this year? ZERO) and from a personal perspective (I had some skin cancer surgery and no one even knew!).
Shabbos this past week was amazing/crazy. We had a friend in seminary stay with us along with a friend of Chana's from college who made aliyah this summer. For dinner we had Penina's friend's family over. They made aliyah this summer from Mexico and this was the FIRST time they had been invited out for a meal (eek. I just can't imagine moving halfway around the world and then sitting in your apartment not knowing anyone. For NINE MONTHS). Ended up being 13 seats for dinner which led to sort of endless issues of the "where did the we put the leaves to the table?!" variety and its sidekick of "I know it *seemed* like a good idea months ago to put the folding chairs waaaaaay back there, but....".
For lunch our neighbors came over with their dog, who is Percy's bestie. They have lived on our street since the summer and this was the first time we had them over (heck, it's only the second time in an entire year that we've had any other family over). In the afternoon, Shira S (who stayed with us last week) and her seminary roommate popped over from their teacher's house in a different part of town. It was so nice to be with other people! It was also crazy and totally exhausting because who is used to being so social for hours on end?! And, oh my, the amount of dishes. We've definitely become used to having post-Shabbos cleanup take less than an hour. Let's just say that this one took a weeeeee bit longer.
This all came against the backdrop of reading Friday morning that France was going back into lockdown (oy). And made me all-the-more thankful that Israel has done such a good job vaccinating its citizens (a number of our guests also were post-covid. It definitely hasn't been a picnic here). As the Wall St Journal said in an opinion piece: "hospitalizations and deaths are rising again in Italy, Germany and France....To date the U.S. has administered 34 doses per 100 residents, the U.K. has jabbed 40, and Israel has 111. Most vaccines require two doses. Compare that to about 12 in France, Germany and Italy."
Tomorrow is, yet again, election day. Hopefully this time a coalition can be formed that will prevent election number 5.....
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