What's on my mind Today

I have always asked myself what is people's facination with going to the beach. The air? the views? the sand?

Labels: beach

A friend of mine asked me to write about this. So here I go.
Warning! Please do not read if pregnant :-)

Well, the story begins with the following facts. I was pregnant. I was due in a week. Yes, a week is still enough time to get ready... according to my calculations, especially if you consider that the pregnancy is only 40 weeks. Ok when I put it that way... perhaps it is not a long time. Then consider the fact that I did not imagine giving birth ahead of time... OK . I am glad we got that straitened out.

It is the middle of the night. Actually past 2A.M. which technically means early morning. I was just woken up.. no, no, not labour pain. It was the cat who jumped on my face, thinking it would be fun for me to eat some of her fur, while I am asleep.
After making sure she was out of my way, trying to return to what I wanted to do, yes sleep, knowing that soon my nights would be drawn into a vacuum of unsleepiness bound by the "food siren", as I call it" of the baby.

I wasn't able to sleep, feeling some pressure in the lower abs area. Naturally, I thought I ate too much for dinner, knowing how us pregnant ladies eat, and I especially (pregnant or not.. truelly , ask my friends :-) ). Nope! It was not the food.

Soon enough (meaning in a couple of minutes if not less), I felt some pain that was coming and going. I got up to get dressed and made sure the whole house was up with me.. it was time to go to the hospital. Suddenly blood! oh no.. this is sooner than I expected. Lots of blood.. Oh no... Come on we need to hurry.
No one is in a hurry. I mean, labour pain can last for hours!.

Hurry..... my water broke... I have to change my clothes. Done. Can we go now, already? Wait!... more water, more water. let me get cleaned again. Alright I am ready now... wait more water. It's coming out! IT'S COMING OUT, call the AMBULANCE NOWWWWWWWWW!!!

"I want a DOCTOR. I want a DOCTOR" I hear myself saying out loud, almost screaming at the top of my voice.

And out you go. paramedics came in just in time to see her pop her head out and cut the abilicle cord.
I got dressed, walked down 4 flights of stairs and got to the ambulance that drove us to the hospital.

Kind of "Little house on the prairie" style of delivery, don't you think?
"Bring clean sheets and some hot water"

PS. For those pregnant women who had to read the artile.. don't say I didn't warn you :-)

We were sitting in a coffee shop when this guy walked in. He was carrying a laptop case. It was hot. He face was sweating. He sat at the table next to us. When the waitress came up to him to take his order the only thing he wanted was a glass of water. Not mineral water, tap water.

He place the laptop case on the table and opened one of the pockets. He peeked inside to make sure t was there and then closed it again. He was sweating. His face was dripping. He wiped his face with his hards. Once the waitress came back with the water he gulped it all in one long sip. He then opened that pocket again, peeked inside making sure IT was there and then closed it again.

I was following his every move. He wiped the sweat off his face yet again. I then got a call and turned to take out my cellular phone from my hand bag. He disappeared. I asked my friends if they had notice the strange guy that was just sitting at the neighboring table. No one notice he was there and no one felt when he was gone. I was looking to see if he had left something around and could not see anything obivious. I began describing to my friends what I had just seen. We decided to check the neighboring table for anything conspicuous. There was nothing there. Not a thing.

Not a few minutes go by and this guy comes back, still carring the laptop case, his face still sweating. He sits at the neighboring table again. I point him out to my friends. He clears the sweat from his face and opens the that pocket again. This time he takes it out. It was the laptop electical cord. He then takes out the laptop.

He did not seem like a computer guru to me, by the way he was typing (he was not typying two hundred words a minute that was for sure, ten is more like it). He was looking at something. Concentrating. What laptop is this? An HP.

Suddnenly his friend shows up, he too carrying a laptop case. He too takes out his laptop, and IBM thinkpad. The waitress come up to them and take an order. This time a real one.

The moral of this story
1. You can never be too careful - better safe than sorry
2. Looks can be deceiving
3. Don't show the donkey part of the work - with only some parts of the puzzle, our imagination can take us to a multitude of places.

We all laughed at this. I am gald it ended this way.

tags: memories & short stories / don't show the donkey part of the work

When we get old, the last thing we want to do is to climb stairs. In our teens, we use stairs as a good cadio-vascular sport, to get in shape. What is fascinating is how kids love stairs. Going up and down the stairs can keep them busy for a quite a while.

When we were in Italy, I was amazed to see little kids just having a ball walking those slopes, rolling down the hill and climbing a maltitude of stairs. Whether it was up or down just did not matter. It is quite a good exercise for parents as well. Pushing a stroller with a 30 pound todler, the stroller probably weighs another 10 pounds, and of course you have to put something in or on the stroller: water, souvaniers, dipers. It could come to 45 pounds just like that... and push.

Those hill towns of Umbria, Italy sure are lovely. They are very old and some are very well preserved. They are also very slopey. You cannot get that using your treadmill, that is for sure. No wonder those 80 year-olds live that long, the great fresh air along with the exercise keeps them fit.

Some of the cities have escalators / moving stairs that could take you from the parking lot up to one of the main streets.

The main question remains: how did they ever manage to get all those rocks for the buildings and the fortresses in the 15th century and for so many cities. This is, my friends, a mystery to me. It's definately worth a visit.

tags: memories & short stories / a heaven of stairways

She was already a famous singer when I was a child. She is considered one of the first women rock singers and she sure was unique for her time. With a beautiful voice and great fingers (for the guitar) she is definately one I would recommend seeing.

The old theatre/cinema by our appartment building is no longer there. They brought it down and built a monstrous building (with very noisey neighbors , I must add). A whole generation of kids are growing up on the ruins of this cinema, not knowing there was culture and art right under their noses. I remember Yehudit Ravitz performing there.

I could hear her from my bedroom. I must have been about eight years old. The theatre/cimena was quite large (and considered sophisticated for that time). Many perfomers, artists and comedians appeared there with much sought out perfomances. Those old wooden seats, no aircoditioning (but there were ventilators), the stands of flickering lights, the scent of the theatre , such memories.

She was in the dressing room. We could look through the window and see her sitting causally with her band getting ready for the performance.
All the songs in her repertoir were known. I knew all the word and I was lying in bed singing along with her.

A few weeks ago I got to see her again (this time in Givatime). I had second row tickets. Really close to the stage and the band. WOW. It was a much smaller theater with comfortable seats, airconditioning and excited audience who energized the band to sing just a few more songs for us.

I really enjoyed her performance. As usual, I know most of the songs and the lyrics too. It was fun to sing along , live , this time. The girl who sat next too me knew the words too and we laughed when our eyes met while we were singing the songs.

Yehudit Ravitz also sang a few songs just her and the guitar, without the band. Those were really touching songs. She is working on a new album and she sang a new song from that album. It was kindof a bossa nova style song and it was just beautiful. I cannot wait for her album to come out already.

My old time favorite (from the quite songs) is "The most beautiful girl in the garden". I really should record it and upload it to this post.

tags: michali blog/memories & short stories/the most beautiful girl in the garden>, michali blog/memories & short stories/yehudit ravitz>

He was miraculous. It was said that he has been here about ten years ago. I must have been sleeping to have missed that too. Sting came here and gave an amazing performace. He filled up a soccer stadium (about 25,000 people showed up) WOW.

I had so much fun. His song repertoire included songs from the Police and solo Sting songs from all his years of music making. The band was a small rock type band, which consisted of two electic guitars, Sting on the bass guitar and the drummer (who by the way was awesome and energetic throughout the whole concert). He did not take any breaks and sang for an hour and half, just like listening to a CD recording, but live. It was just great. He sounded great.

We sure were hungry after the concert. We decided to stop at the Pancake House. It must have been midnight and the chariot was soon to turn back into a pumpkin.

I have this rule. I never leave my handbag or purse out of my sight. It is always on me or very close to me. I heard too many stories of people who have had their wallet stolen, even in the office (right out of thier own room), and I wasn't going to let that happen to me.

It was a choice between the booth or the table and chairs. My preference was the booth, but I was overruled. I hung the handbag on the side of my chair leaning backwards with one hand always on the bag.

I guess I was so mesmorized by the concert and sooooo hungry, I let myself dive into the food without paying attention.

As we got to the car, I opened the purse and terror struck me. It was gone. My wallet was gone. My camera was gone. Gone, gone, gone. And to top it all off, my eye glasses were broken in two. I immediately ran back to the restaurant to see if the culprits were still their. They were long gone.

I was quiet. I was angry. How could this have happened to me. To me. To me. To me. TO ME!!!! I am always so cautious, so suspicious, so benevolently alert.

Most people don't understand me. When things go wrong I usually close up. They think I am depressed but I am not. I really need to stay away from everyone. I don't need to talk about it, but I do need to do two things - sort out my feelings and my thoughts. What I realy need is some piece and quiet, to be left alone. No need for consolation, just let me be.

In terms of my feelings, I was mad as hell. I am sure if I had caught them, I would have taught them a lesson or two. With my bare hands.

In terms of my thoughts there were two things I needed to do:

• Go over the whole restaurant scene and see where I went wrong
• Find a solution so that such an unfortunate incident will never, ever, ever, ever happen to me again.

It was obvious that the only time I took my hand off my purse was when I was eating. Although I sucked in the pancakes like a vacuume cleaner, they had enough time to reach into the handbag and take their loot.

My conclusions

• We should have sat in the booths
• When ever going out don't hang your handbag or purse on the chair!
• Take a small purse - it is less conspicuous

If you must take a large purse or handbag, make sure

• It is not made of cloth (cloth can be easily cut with a small knife).
• It should have many segragated pockets that can be firmly closed (by a zipper or some other method) .
• Spread your precious items in the different pockets

Of course someone can run off with the whole handbag and we are back to square one. So

• Before leaving your home take out of the wallet anything you don't need - cash, credit cards, coupons, pictures, memories. Bring just what you need for that activity.
• Keep the purse or bag in front of your eyes, on your legs, between your feet, anywhere away from the long arm of the thief.

Material things come ago. We can learn lessons from other people's mistakes. We can learn lessons from our own bad experiences. We cannot move the clock back and relive the day.

I was stung, and the scars will stay with me for a long time.

I hope that in time I will be able to reminisce about the Sting and forget about the sting.

Tags: memories & short stories / the sting

I really dislike mosquitoes. I haven't really found any use for them either, in the food chain, maybe for spiders, but truely, spiders can eat other insects.

There are many other problems with mosquitoes. For one it is very difficult to get rid of them. Every female mosquito can lay over 100 eggs. All they need is some still water. Worst of all, they can pass diseases on!

Outside they are a nuisance, but at home, inside your private dwelling they are much more. You are trying to sleep and suddenly, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz the next thing you know, you have been bitten, on your eyelid.

"But I put some mosquito repellent" you say to yourself, half asleep. "OK not on my eylids, but, well , everywhere else on my body, even on my clothes.
And how the devil did they get to that spot. It is covered with a shirt? ".
The Buzzzzz is still lingering in your head when you are thinking "What should I do next?"

The next step is to kill the mosquito. Obviously, if you don't, you are not going to get to sleep tonight.

So how do we kill the mosquito?
As you turn on the light, the mosquito has done a disappearing act. But don't let that fool you. Once you are still she will be back haunting you. One bite is just not enough!

1. Vacuum cleaner - Spray a bit of insect spray killer into the bag, turn on the vacuum cleaner and let it suck them in.
   Problems:
   - Very noisey at night
   - Until you hook up the vacuum with the long hose to reach the ceiling, the mosquito will find a new place
2. Shoe - yes that is very close to your bedside. Just pick up the shoe and, splat, the mosquitoe is gone.
   Problems:
   - your significant other will not apprieciate the shoe print on the wall
   - after sucking so much of your blood it will definately leave a mark
   - if the shoe has a non flat surface, the mosquito will be able to escape
   
3. Newspaper - absolutely. It consists of a flat surface, there is only the blood on the wall to worry about. (And that you can clean in the morning... )
   problems:
   - naa.... it will stay there until you repaint the wall or the ceiling (and there's a trophey for your success, hanging there for your view, no shelves needed)
4. Clap your hands - just scare the creep and clap your hands, where the mosquito is in between both palms.
   problems:
   - In most cases, the mosquito is quicker (unless you are Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid, and then you can just use chopsticks :-) )
   - If you did manage to catch it, all the blood is splattered in you plams.... yackkkkkk
   - If you do it with wet hands you may have a better chance of catching it.
   

Ok, so what do we do. We seem to have covered all the options.
Well, I have an idea.
The Solution (my invention):

• Get 1 piece of paper towel
• Fold it in half
• Soak it in some water so it is damp (it shouldn't be dripping)...now you are ready to go
  
• Place the damp folded paper towel on the palm of you hand and...
• shlack, fast, decisively yet lightly place the paper towel on the mosquito.
• The mosquito got caught in you own little homemade net.
  ==> Now it is stuck to your paper towel and not to you, it didn't splat all the blood on the wall, your hands are clean.

Good night.

tags: michali blog/howto/how to kill mosquitoes

Once upon a time, people had a small piece of land, they had to cultivate, plant, water it and pick the grown fruits, then find someone to sell the goods to. It was hard work that insisted on hard physical abilities and working for hours at the fields, no matter what the weather was like.

It is fun to see that today you can pay someone to pick fruits on their own land and then pay for what you have picked.
This new trend of berry picking sure is fun and fruitful to us all.

It is always more delicious to eat berries (and other fruits for that matter) that have been picked straight from the trees. Even if you keep it in the refrigerator for a couple of days it will probably still taste better than buying things at the supermarket.

Every season you can pick different fruits from strawberries, blueberries, apples and even grapes.
I recommend this to everyone. But get there early before the sun is very strong, and before others have had the chance to get the best, sweetest fruits.

Cheers.

Tags: memories & short stories/strawberry fields forever