UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE!

Did you know that the First Lady of Iceland is an Israeli Jew? WHAT?!?!??! HOW WEIRD!

Well, exciting news! I got a ride to the airport! My parents are going to be out of town when I finally leave LA, so I was going to have to take a taxi....... But my "family" across the street has offered me a ride, which is especially nice when you consider that they are totally anti-Israel (and, by that same token, against Jewish immigration there)

Stories for Grandchildren.

So since my uncle's been here, I've been hearing tons of stories about all the crazy shit my grandpa used to do. My mom is less eager to share stories, but she did say of my grandma, "When I was a teenager, she used to do embarrassing things in public just to see my reaction...." which made me think, for the first time in my life, that I"m clearly related to this woman. When I'm a mother, I'm definitely going to be intentionally embarrassing my children just cos I have nothing better to do. And then when I'm a grandma I'm going to unintentionally embarrass my family by flirting with waiters less than 1/3 of my age. Aw grandma..... :-)

So anyway, my uncle is telling stories about my grandpa's youth. A couple I've heard from him before, such as the story he told me last year when I was visiting him in San Francisco. Apparently my grandpa was a merchant marine (this was new to me) and was sleeping on deck during a storm in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night, and a huge wave came and bucked him off the ship. He managed to grab the last possible railing on the edge of the ship, saving himself by clinging on for dear life. Eventually he managed to pull himself back onto the ship in the middle of this storm.

When my brother and I heard this, we looked at each other and said, "WHY THE HELL DIDN'T GRANDPA BOTHER MENTIONING THIS TO US?"

And I still wonder that. I love my grandpa, but he's an older fella now. I grew up knowing nothing about him, and now I'm only learning about him through my uncle's love of telling stories--and I only see that uncle once every couple years.

Tonight at dinner my uncle shared a different story about my grandpa, about how he got shot at in Indonesia. Apparently there was some sort of civil war or something going on when he stopped there with the merchant marine boat, and they all got shot at and narrowly escaped. I'm not doing justice to the story, but just trust me that it's kind of awesome.

It's just been weird taking in these stories and such, and it makes me wonder what my grandkids would know about me. I feel like I would be much more eager to freely volunteer information and stories, unlike my grandpa who never told stories but rather explained scientific principles, like why you can get liquid to stick in a straw if you put your finger at the top. Come to think of it, pretty much whatever shred of understanding I have of science is thanks to my grandpa. But I know nothing about him as a person.

As for me, I'd want to tell my grandchildren about how this one time I folded laundry on a kibbutz, and how I got mooned by an orthodox jew just outside of Jerusalem, and how this one time in Los Angeles on Venice Blvd I almost ran over a midget dressed as a cowboy riding a unicycle. I want them to know that I supported Welsh independence, and was a card-carrying member of Plaid Cymru, a Welsh political party. If my grandchildren are Israeli, I want them to laugh at what an idiot I am when I tell them that when I first rode Israeli busses I was shocked that drivers give passengers change AND a ticket! Or that when I first got to Israel I couldn't figure out why everyone was playing ping pong on the beach without paddles.

And they'll totally be bored, and they'll whine about how my stories are boring. But I'll yell, "I'm your goddamn grandma, so you better listen anyway!" Because I don't want them to know about me because their uncle told them when they were 20, I want them to know because I told them. Because that's just sad.

Sex and farts.

So my uncle drove down from Northern California today to visit my grandparents (his parents, duh!), and he's staying next to my room in my brother's room (the brother who is in Israel at the moment). And right now I'm hyper-aware of all the little noises I make that I normally don't notice. For example, when I shift in my chair, it sounds like I'm ripping loud, wet farts. And I'm a fidget, so I make that noise a lot. It's VERY loud and you can definitely hear it from down the hall. When it's just one of my brothers down the hall, I don't particularly care that they think I'm farting up a storm because they are my brothers, and farts are not only welcome in my immediate family but actually sources of pride. So right now my uncle probably thinks I have severe intestinal issues.

Also, my bed is broken. Once in 9th grade a bunch of friends were over and they all sat on my bed and......well, now my bed is broken. So basically now whenever you lie in my bed and you cough, shift slightly, or even just breathe, the springs go SQUEAKY SQUEAKY! It basically sounds like someone is having angry and enthusiastic sex in my bed, but really someone's just breathing shallowly. Everyone in my immediate family is aware of this and knows that I'm not doing something dirty in my bed, but an infrequent guest does not know this.....

ALSO: I talk in my sleep. Sometimes very loudly.


I'm going to be quite red in the face tomorrow at breakast.

Nothing too exciting to report on the aliyah front. Just playing the waiting game. But as far as games go, this one's pretty boring.

I decided to go online and listen to galgalatz and found that I can also look in on the studio, so I thought that'd be cool. It actually wasn't that cool. Basically all you see is a couple of girl soldiers sitting around, looking bored, occasionally doodling or going on the computer in the studio, and one of them had a lollipop in her mouth. It was actually rather funny to watch


Also, tonight at the deli my grandma took one look at the waiter and said, "I'm old, so I'm allowed to say this: you are the best looking waiter I've ever had!"

HAHAHAH......oh grandma.....I couldn't stop laughing, turned bright red, and couldn't make eye contact with the waiter for the rest of the evening.

Brigadoon Reference # 87

We had some really heavy rain here in LA over last night and today. I'm peering out my window at the moment and it's really starting to clear up quite a bit right about now, but off in the distance you can see some low clouds floating over LA, covering up the view of the Hollywood sign off in the distance, and generally giving off the impression that LA is this mystical, mysterious place. Partially obscured, foggy..... It's almost like Brigadoon.

Then again, I can turn anything into a Brigadoon reference.

What's in a name? A whole lotta stress...

I'm in a bit of a pickle. No, I'm not talking about dealing with parental reactions to my impending aliyah (Mom's okay with it now, Dad's still pissed and bribing me to go anywhere else in the world.)

I am, of course, talking about the name-change issue. Well, it's not really an issue, but rather an option.

I was considering changing my name to some Israeli name that starts with a Samech or Sin, but I figured that that'd be disrespectful to my parents and also it'd be really embarrassing to not be able to pronounce my own name correctly.

If I change it to Sammy סמי I'm going to have the problem of my legal name being a boy's name. It's bad enough now when people see "Sam" on paper and assume I have a penis, but now I won't have the luxury of being able to point out, "Well, technically it's Samantha."
The other problem though is that Sammy, as pronounced by Israelis (at least the ones I've met), sounds almost exactly like "Semi." Which, of course, makes me think of trucks. I don't think Israelis will make the connection, but I don't want to think of myself as a type of truck trailer any time someone calls my name for the rest of my life.

What's wrong with keeping my legal name "Samantha," you ask? Well, the problem is that Israelis constantly spell it incorrectly, with a tet, because they don't understand that the "th" isn't pronounced TAH. So for the rest of my life people are going to be calling out my name, like if they're taking attendance or if I'm in a waiting room of some kind, and they're going to say, "SemenTAH?" Which would start to piss me off after a lifetime of that. And which, of course, brings up the other issue with remaining a legal Samantha, which is that when you transliterate how Israelis say your name, it looks like "Semen" is in your name, which is just gross.

Well, as I said once before in Israel, I really should just save myself a whole lot of trouble and change my name into a single letter, kind of like an extreme form of Cher's simple name.

More later,

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