I don’t usually do advertisements on my blog; but occasionally someone comes along who deserves a shout-out.  If you ever find yourself in need of a fabulous tour guide in Jerusalem, then Dvir Hollander is your guy.

 

We’ve used Dvir twice and we now consider him our dear friend.  He’s incredibly knowledgeable about Jerusalem.  He is well-schooled on Christian, Jewish and Palestinian history in the region.  He is funny, warm and charming.  He’s even great with kids.  And, an added bonus, he’ll keep you from getting ripped-off by dishonest vendors.  This past week, he tore into two different street vendors who artificially jacked-up prices because, in Dvir’s words, I “have blue eyes.”  He’ll customize tours based on the ages, knowledge levels and desires of his clients.  He was able to keep our kids spell-bound for nine straight hours on our first tour in November.  Then last week, he worked his magic for another nine hours with my whacky family who were visiting from the U.S.

If you want to book a tour with Dvir, here’s his info:

Dvir Hollander, Licensed Tour Guide, Jerusalem Specialist                                                            972-50-9700480                                                                                                                       hollander2000@gmail.com                                                                                                       http://www.justjerusalemtours.com

Here is the latest picture of my oldest child:

 

Not to brag, but … ok, to brag:  Cecily has it all.  She’s beautiful (reference above pic),  she’s tall (5’11”), she’s smart (currently enrolled in 3 AP classes: calculus, biology and psychology), she’s a starter on the varsity basketball team, she’s a great photographer and she loves to travel and has an adventurous spirit.  And, she’s about to graduate from high school, taking her one step closer to becoming a contributing member of society.

BUT … she’s quirky.  Here’s proof:

She refuses to let me get rid of this shirt.

 

Yes, this is indeed, her 6th grade graduation tee-shirt.  And though, I agree, graduating from 6th grade was an enormous accomplishment, definitely worthy of a commemoration tee-shirt; there comes a time when a girl really needs to unload rubbish like this.  Especially when that girl has been shipping it around the world as part of our family’s precious weight allowance.

Quirky!

Seriously child!  Throw out the tee-shirt already!

More proof that my daughter is quirky.  I picked her up from school a bit early today.  Her plan was to come home and study for tomorrow’s psychology final.  Instead of studying, she toyed around on her cell phone for a while, followed by this exchange:

Cecily: “Hey Mom, did you see the hideous dress Jennifer Lawrence wore to the Golden Globes last night?”

Me: “Nope.”  

(Have I mentioned we live in Jordan?  Not a lot of Golden Globe coverage here.)

Cecily: “Here, have a look.”

 

Still Cecily: “I think this cat wore it better.”

Quirky!

But really, quirky isn’t all bad.  In fact, most of my favorite people are incredibly quirky.  Quirky people are fun to be around.  Quirky people make me smile. Quirky people are lovable.

This would include Cecily’s little sister Elizabeth, who came home from school looking like this:

 

Yes, Elizabeth thought the back of her hands would make perfect Tic-Tac-Toe boards.

Quirky!

And don’t get me started on the boys …

We’re still snowed-in; depending on your definition of “snowed-in.”  If “snowed-in” means no school, then yep, we’re still snowed-in.  Today will be the fourth day of no school.  School was cancelled Thursday, (remember our weekend is Friday and Saturday), Sunday, Monday and again today, Tuesday.  All high school finals are postponed until January, after the Christmas break.  I bet Jason $1000 that the kids will be back to school sometime this week.  He bet me $1000 they won’t.

BTW, what does the bank do when one writes a check using a given bank account, only to deposit that check back into the same bank account?  Hmmm.

If “snowed-in” means the embassy is closed, then I guess we’re not snowed-in.  The embassy was closed on Sunday, but is now back open for business, but with a late start.  11:00 a.m. opening.  If you need a visa to the US, don’t show up at 8:00 or you will be sorely disappointed.

Here’s the problem.  The streets in our part of the city have only one very small lane that has been plowed.  We’re not getting more snow; in fact, the temperatures have been in the upper ’40s during the day.  This means a lot of snow is melting, causing the one lane roads to turn into streams of water.  The streams freeze up at night and turn into ice skating rinks.  The skating rinks don’t melt and turn back into streams until about 11:00 in the morning.  So it’s basically impossible to drive before about 11:00 a.m. or after about 6:00 p.m.

Yesterday morning, Jason decided that the only way to the embassy was on foot.  He started walking up our road only to find himself on a huge, impassable patch of ice.  The only way to get up the hill (and I am not making this up) was to crawl.  Yes, I said crawl.  Can anyone out there in blogosphere claim you have crawled to work?  My husband so deserves a raise.  Or a grade promotion.  Or a giant bag of M&M’s.  Or some ice skates. Or a puppy.

If “snowed-in” means you can’t drive, I guess we’re not snowed-in, because yesterday I did drive to the grocery store with my neighbor Jessica.  The worst part was getting the car out of the driveway.  The one-lane plowed road didn’t give enough clearance for a standard minivan to get out of the driveway and turn onto the road.  So every time I tried to back out, I would hit the snowbank behind me.  After a thirty point turn, we were on the road (or should I say stream), on our way to the store.  At that point, the biggest road hazard wasn’t the snow or ice, but the Jordanian drivers, who on a good day are awful. (Lovely people, bad drivers.)

So, don’t ask me how I’m going to occupy my kids again, for the sixth day straight.  Maybe we’ll sneak outside and watch Daddy crawl to work again.  That should be fun.

See, even Jordan’s king is getting into the spirit of things, helping push a car out of the snow.

Sorrow is possibly the only emotion that words can’t adequately describe.

Rest in peace my brother.  ‘Til we meet again.

Steven Thaxton Parker

December 12, 1966 – November 28, 2013

 

 

 

 

Turns out, my kids aren’t perfect.  I received a physical reminder of this fact earlier this week in the form of an official warning of bad behavior letter from a school teacher.

One of my kids (I’ll just randomly say it was a girl and her name is Molly.  That way, no one will ever guess which of my gaggle of children this was) brought home said letter and showed it to her father.  Now, I don’t know why she showed it to him first, because anyone would agree, I’m the nicer parent.  Nonetheless, her father told her that she had to show it to me, thus passing the buck and forcing me to be the heavy.

Here is the letter, in most of its entirety:

Please ignore the initials at the bottom.  They in no way give any indication to which child this may have been.

It seems as though Molly may be a bit of a chatterbox.  And it took the teacher three months to realize this.  Or maybe it took him three months of restraint before he finally broke down and was forced to get the parents involved.  Because, honestly, we have known she was a chatterbox since she was fourteen months old.  We get it.  This comes as no surprise.  Truly, the biggest surprise is that this warning didn’t come after week two.

However, I must point out that if this letter of warning is to be believed, it clearly wasn’t Molly’s fault.  The other children made her talk during reading time.  The whole situation was obviously out of her control.

But here’s the thing; I’m no stranger to naughty kids.  In fact, very few people know this, but I was a naughty kid myself.  In kindergarten, I had a bad pinching habit.  If someone crossed me, they were going to get it!  And I was particularly vicious on the school bus where there was very little supervision.  Apparently too many kids were leaving the bus bruised and bleeding, or some such nonsense.  So part way through the year they made me sit at the front of the bus with the two naughtiest boys in my grade.   For the rest of the year I had to sit where the bus driver could keep an eye on me.

Back to the warning letter of this week.  So as I said, I had to be the heavy because someone else ducked out in a cowardly manner.  So I took Molly into my bedroom, shut the door for dramatic effect and in a stern voice and with a look of disappointment I began reading the letter out loud.  Unfortunately, by the second sentence, I had to physically turn my head so that Molly wouldn’t see that I could no longer control my laughter.

“Mom, are you crying?”

“No!” muffled giggles.  “But I’m pretty close to tears.”  (All true, by the way.)

I then buried my face in my hands in a dramatic fashion while I composed myself before issuing the stern punishment which included spending the rest of the evening in her room, thinking about what she had done, grounding for the rest of the week, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I’m sure that none of this will ever happen again.

But here’s the thing:  Truth is, it’s the chatterboxes of the world that are most successful in life.  Chatterboxes become good communicators.  And good communicators rule the world.

If only that were true of the pinchers of the world …