What a weekend.
Thursday night – Finish work at 5, head to the gym for a spinning class. Ride a lot, sweat a lot.
After class, meet Yos, meet up with Ran, Elon and Jax for drinks at O’Connel’s (nice Irish pub). After drinks and snakcs, all head back to my place, where we hang out and get high. Lotsa fun.
About 2am, all gone, asleep.
Friday:
8:15am – awakening, and Yos comes over a bit later to work on his machine.
12:30pm – Dad picks me up, go visit sister in hospital after baby boy is born.
2:30pm – preparing to leave Betar (Dad’s place) with one niece to other sister’s moshav for my eldest niece’s Bat Mitzva – first in our family, big event. Ride was nice, played lots of Blues music. Slept a bit.
4:15 – arrive at moshav, unpack car, run around like headless chickens. See people that I’ve never met.
6:15 – Make really strong coffee. Drink. Feels like a boot to the head.
6:30 – Preparing food and whatnot for Friday night meal. Lots of food. Not an understatement. 30 people at each meal. Although20 of them are kids.
8:00 – Big dinner. Finally meet these weird extended family relatives from South America, related by marriage or whatever. All speeches made in 3 languages, if not 4 (English, Hebrew, Spanish and Yiddish. Go figure).
9:45 – dinner over, clear off tables and prep for after-dinner party with all residents of moshav. Whoa. Got heckled by some guy who remembered me from my childhood. Whoopee. Like I give a damn.
01:00am – about to go to sleep, notice the military truck parked behind sister’s house. Head over to say hi, and bring a plate of goodies. Poor reservists. i hope on my reserve duty there are guys as nice as me to come round and sit and schmooze to pass the hours while they have to sit around and stare at a small screen for 8 hours.
02:00am – pass out from exhaustion
Saturday:
08:00am – wakeup call sounds like “Why are you still asleep? Half the day is gone already!” In my head: What am I, Amish? let a guy sleep! Fall out of bed. stone floor hurts. a lot. not recommended, especially in the early hours of morning.
09:00 – prepping fod for “lunch” at 10am. bleah. TONS of food. Oh, and beef tongue. Yarghl.
10:00 – lunch. tons of food. I am the official catering expert, and have to assist in everything, from place settings to presenting the platters and what have you. joy.12:30pm – meal over, cleanup. get rid of the kids, work on that for a bit. Sit down afterwards for a nice cold beer with bro-in-law. relax. Head back to sister’s for a nap.
5:30pm – wake, prepare final meal, bagels and cream cheese. Sounds simple enough, right? NO. piles of everything, as if we’re welcoming the starving population of wherever.
7:35pm – meal over, Shabbat over. CLEANUP! Work like crazy to get everything where it needs to go, ordering everything just right etc. Get sent home with leftovers, always a good thing. Except for that tongue stuff. eww.
8:30pm – make another platter of goodies for reservists, and walk the 20 feet to their truck. spend a bit chatting, and find out that one if them is virtually my neighbor in the city. Huh. Small world? I think so.
9:30pm – parents pick me up, drive me and niece back to Betar, drop off niece and mom. Climbin staris to their house, my knee start hurting. Sharp pain. Ouch. Shake it off. Dad drives me and my leftovers back to J-Town. Climbing my own stairs, my knee is really complaining, so I slow down. BIG ouch.
10:45 – pack some ice around my knee. smoke a bowl. life is a bnit better. watch some TV.
11:50 – pass out
Sunday:
06:30 – alarm with decent music. In shower knee dies on my. I want to die.
08:00 – at work, find out how to go to a doctor. not my forte. schedule for Tuesday.
10:25 – realize that I’m not walking anywhere for lunch, order in.
12:00 – now. Wrote all this for me, to remind myself that family matters, but how much and to who are a big question. If I can barey walk as a result of this weekend, I’m going to be mightily pissed at the family.