Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

Sorry we haven’t been writing much lately, but we’ve been spending most of our time in a bomb-shelter. No-no, don’t worry, the only “katyusha” around here is caperbush and we actually didn’t mind her dropping in on us.

Check out what we did with the place. During the “good times” it will now be a play room so the people in the building will take care of it and the small kids will not be so afraid to go in there if necessary.

( See Before and After )

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Weirdo Ads

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

Our temporary residence in Israel has given us a chance to immerse into the depths of the Russian-Israeli culture. Here is what the average “Russi” sees in his every-day newspaper:

“SALE! SALE! SALE! Happy Rosh haShana! 1 kg of Ham 28.90 shekel”

Next to the optimistic newspaper title “Success”, an ad that colorfully reads “ABORTION” and reassures in small print below “Best Gynecologists”

Ambulance Yakov
FREE BURIALS
(for non-Jews in caskets & clothes)

We would send it to the “Tonight Show”, but doubt that Jay would appreciate the subtlety of Russian humor.

Tags: culture, funny
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In Limbo

Sunday, October 29th, 2006

Scary to think so, but today it is exactly one year from the day the first snow came to Boston, and we set out to circle the world. For those of you who know our route so far, also know that we’ve failed in our plan to finish the trip in a year and now are barely on our second continent. I thought about summarizing the past year by posting its highlights, but soon realized it was impossible – way too long of a list. Instead, I suggest you take a look at this page. It has thumbnails from every place that we’ve been to and to me it’s like an hors devoirs platter. SmugMug changes them every time you load the page and, even though I can recognize the link by its name, I still wait for the random choice of “hors devoirs” to load.

Our route in South America – coming to your screens straight from my 11 year old sister’s bedroom wall.

We are now in Israel, where we are stuck in limbo – by far not done with our trip, but are yet to start its next leg. Between my painting and Shurik’s Hebrew lessons, we managed to squeeze in an adventure or two.
( more… )

Tags: extreme, underwater
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Baby Talk

Friday, October 6th, 2006

I’m all jealous of the first words that my friends’ babies are saying. But I just realized my “baby” is uttering his first words as well, in Hebrew. I was taking off my contacts, when Shurik asked half in Hebrew, half in Spanish “How do you say contact lenses?” I replied, and proceeded to ask in Hebrew:
-”How many camera lenses do you have?”
-”I have 4 lenses,” he said. “One of them is a gefilte-fish ear.” (i.e. fish-eye)

And here’s another one:
-”Let’s go to table,” Shurik says to me in Hebrew one night.
-”Table?”
-”It’s the only piece of furniture I know how to say.”

Tags: funny
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Two Minutes

Friday, September 29th, 2006

It might sound banal, but I’ll still say it:
You never know when you are meant to leave this earth. Taking loved ones for granted is the biggest mistake you can make.

Couples fight. We, as a couple, fight mostly about stupid things which we don’t even remember half way through the fight. Today we fought as well about something stupid. I came back from class where my tyrant of a teacher finally gave me an approving nod, the first one in a month, and I was anxious to tell Shurik. I played the scene over and over in my mind, and, when I entered my grandfather’s office where Shurik was putting some internet to good use, I was met with a sour face. From there, long story short, my mood was ruined as well, and, pissed, I grabbed my portfolio and stormed out. Steaming, I moved through the park like a bulldozer walking the same road I take almost every day. I know almost to the dot how much time it takes to get to and from the office and even how long it would take to get to the Winery intersection, that I was about two minutes from, when I heard a sort of an enormously loud clap in a clap that made me buckle. When I looked up, all I saw was tall flames and black smoke. I was unharmed, probably too far away from the explosion, but my hands were still shaking and when I dialed Shurik my mind had trouble forming a sentence.

Shurik came running and we walked around the affected area to my grandmother’s house to hear on the news what was it all really about. We walked in silence, when a thought made me stop short. Right after storming out, I had to stop. My glasses, which I normally don’t even wear, had fingerprints on them. My hands were busy with the heavy portfolio, so to clean them, I found an empty spot on the side of the street, put the portfolio down, and began rubbing the lenses with my shirt. The fabric was rough and uneven so I probably scratched more then cleaned. The whole thing must have taken me about two minutes.

P.S.
One man died, the one in the car, and other six got hurt. Among them a nine year old. It was not a terrorist act this time, it was an assassination of a Ramli man who the police knew all too well.

Tags: relathionships
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