Klaas and the Nemaal.... and.so.on

This morning I woke up and found literally tens of dead ticks on the floor next to where my Klaas's sleeping quarters is. That's still not enough tho :( Later on I found huge, grey ticks -that exploded with huge amounts of -my Klaas's- blood when I killed them- I am still holding him on a line within the home. I feel bad about that. But I need to do that. I want him to come back 'home' (his new home) - after having had treatment professionally - and not be attacked with those creeps ever again.

And so.....................

This morning -for the very first time- I set off on my very personal 'route' to the Nemaal with my new friend. He was so gorgeous. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. That's where the "beach report" of today turns sour... I had only eyes for him...

But still, here's an account of the things that caught not only my attention but also my heart and sense of humor this day:

First of all (though happening later in this day) is the clip of the folk-dancers on Tel-Aviv's beach front:

Do they lighten up my day? Yes. Most certainly so... and so ever since I walked this route and 'met' them, (beginning 2008)

It's a different (for me much higher) level of enjoyment when standing there, hearing that

music and seeing so much people enjoy from it that they dance to its tunes...

These are the Police On Skates.... Yes, wouldn't you believe it? Perhaps it exists already but I was sooooo amused by it....

Police on skates. Just imagine them chasing a suspect after a robbery......

Ms. Cat had a bad foot. :( I am so sad because I honestly don't know the medical implications but know that an infection can, if not treated, lead to a fatal consequence. Ms. Cat herself, btw, seemed quite the regular. However I noticed a 'sign of complaint' when she approached ( to give her juicy food) me. I wish I would know what to do :(

She's in some sort of crazy way 'my' cat - so I do feel responsibility for her health...

"A" flower. One of the many I don't know their name of but catch my heart with their beauty. Sending me, even if it were for only one or a few seconds, to Paradise - because I believe Paradise consists of beauty... Like this:

Klaas

This is Klaas. He's my new friend and companion. Hana and me picked him up from the dog compound this morning and soon as he is totally tick-free he will be roaming around this part of the apartment. Klaas smelled horribly (like all the other dogs in the compound where they are doing their needs in the (not too small) cages they also spend their whole day in except for some walks during the day). We just had our first bath... It was a disaster, hahahahaha!!! He's just as afraid of water as was my terrier Doobey. Must be in their genes... Klaas is around 5 years old they say but he's already growing grey hair - also one of his eyes has a problem. But he's very sweet, and that's what counts!!

Welcome home Klaas. I hope I can offer you a pleasant life...

No walk to the Nemaal yesterday. Nothing. Totally nothing... I did. Except wash a lot of dishes that had piled up in the corner of my living room a.k.a. kitchen.

And so when I set out this morning (forgot what time but must have been around 07:30 a.m. approx.) I had this renewed feeling - just like having crept out of a dark, suffocating box and stepping into the sunshine. I vividly remember being 6 years old and sitting near the window in our classroom at school. I saw a flower growing at the yard's garden and I felt immensely jealous of it. I knew flowers don't live all that long but I was very much willing to trade my "prison" with that flower. --Granted, I could have easily walked to the Nemaal yesterday and this imprisonment was voluntary - but I honestly didn't have the ooommpphhhh to initiate anything after having gone through a full working week and other other situations I perceive as serious pressure. Sometimes I think I am not strong enough to face life....until:

I step outside (when I leave with the intention of a 'walk' -as in not walking to work or errands) I walk as if through a different atmosphere - I don't care how I look like or what people might think of me and I also don't let what is taken as "normative" occupy me at all: I only have eye for the things I find beautiful, endearing or otherwise touch my heart) .... and I land into my dream world.

Here are some of the impressions I let this diary share with me....

A flowerbud in Abba Hillel... looking like a peppered strawberry:

One of the very few flowers in a tree at the corner of Abba Hillel and Bialik - a tree that's covering up the benches homeless people are spending the night on... I still don't know if I should feel sorry or envy those people. They have 'nothing' and yet.... they have what's most important: freedom.

A Dandelion along the route - looking so vulnerable and yet as if hiding a secret only letting us believe it's vulnerable...

A closer look... Such complexity, sophistication. It makes me always look at what seems 'simple', and thus supposedly not worth someone's awe, with respect. All due respect.

Enter with me behind the gates of FairytaleLand... Of course there's first of all Fairytaletree (and since it's Tu-Be-Shvat today I hummed 'Happy Birthday' to him) -

He's so solemn and magnificent that usually I feel totally humble when standing in front and underneath him - when visiting him..

And a little before that is Rabbit Hill.. though the naughty, playful living toys do much more go to the playing grounds under Fairytaletree opposite that hill:

Slightly further down the 'trail' (mentally having stepped out of FairytaleLand already) I discovered a totally new species of the Bird Of Paradise - well... at least for me it is totally new. These grow on trees and are blue-ish i/o the orangy-red ones I know that grow on 'bushes' or plants:

I decided not to walk my usual route but continue on at Ibn Gvirol to find the address of the Tsa'ar Ba'alei Ha'yim (which I did, but it was closed as was to be expected). I so much want the company of a dog. I know I can't have a dog because I am not at home most of the time and it would be purely criminal to leave a living creature like that alone during that time but.... My emotions and reality (read: logic) have absolutely no contact with each other and I know my emotions will win and I will end up with a great friend living with me soon. I wish I was able to restrain myself :-(

And so - arriving to the Nemaal 'from the other side' I noticed this exquisite beauty resting near Reading power station. He let me take a few photos of him and then thought it was enough and flew away...

The sea was gorgeous as always. Today he was as grey as were the skies. The wind was blowing so hard I sometimes had to hold on to the balustrade. But it was a feeling of pure ecstasy that this wind blew through me. It lifted me higher and higher and at some point I imagined myself to be flying with the numerous seagulls that were performing their acrobatic stunts in the skies over the sea with the agility and expertise I would like to own. Here they're hunting for food... read = fishing. I ended up with numerous 'empty' photos of the skies because my camera just ain't good enough to capture these virtuosos on picture :-(

The last photo is of the Kitty I placed photos of before. She's really growing and this time, like always, made sure I would notice her - somewhere there under the hedge in Pinkas...

Going to face another week of reality. Such 'is' Life...

Not too much to say

Today is my daughter's birthday. After hard 'labor' (and endlessly long as well) I brought a living creature into this world 30 years ago. I can still remember the feeling of disbelief. DID I DO THIS?? Me? Wow.... Such an accomplishment. I never could have thought I was able to fulfill something so magnificent. A tiny little baby - so complete, so beautiful.

Anyway... life goes on and it is only good we cannot look into the future. At least, not me. This 'future' I am in is as alien to me as sci-fi movies about the 21st century were when I was a kid. How one's own flesh and blood can cut the vein she came from. It's not her fault. But it still hurts. So I go on photographing things that find their way into my heart because of their sole existence that's appearing to me.

Like this snail that I found yesterday at the entrance of the building I live in - in the middle of a, for him, HUGE space... all alone... Like a magnet he attracted me and had me lying on my stomach making pictures of him. Because I so much would like to convey that feeling I'm getting when I see things like him. An inexplicable pure feeling, a connection with awe to nature. To the most primitive form of it that's -actually- the most sophisticated as well:

Happy birthday dear daughter - although you don't celebrate it and say you hate presents ...

Sentimental Old Fool

I am. "The Day After" (my birthday). Having realized that I have ended up belonging to those people 'we' (my family and I) always felt most sorry for (namely the people who don't have family close to them) more than anyone else on the world had me in a drunk fit the night before and in a hang-over on my birthday. Must say I gave myself the best birthday present anyone could give me though: hours upon hours upon hours of sleep. And so... this morning I took off on my regular routine....

The sea must have known something had happened to me the day before as well because he put up a show that was so beautiful it is impossible to lay it down in pictures. He was splashing around high and far, roaring loudly and with the rays of the sun penetrating between every single drop he threw over the railing of the boardwalk PURE bliss was the only feeling I could feel there and then.

The funny thing is that even the birds on route and at the shore seemed all to come out and 'congratulate' me - expressly showing their presence. The Warbles, the Palestine Sunbirds, the Pigeons and Doves, the Seagulls (all of their varieties), the Parrots, the Shags and Comrons - they were all there. Ms. Cat also shot like an arrow out of a bow from out of her hiding place to loudly greet me (and luckily I still had a small tin of soft and savory cat-food in my backpack for her). It was perfect. What I lack on close family I find nature makes up for. It's a pity I can't spend more there but are mostly locked up in work-jail....

One morning in January

.............. I was sitting with my daughter in a small 'coffee shop' at the corner of Ha_Tikva and Jabotinsky in Ramat-Gan and we heard the 'news' on the t.v. that was installed there: Ofra Haza.... she was in hospital and terminally ill. Nobody knows the real story - tho I tend to think that real stories don't exist but are the result of confusion...

Now that's my birthday 2moro, I remembered this.

My daughter (of whom I thought she would automatically know how much I loved her -harrey: that comes without words..., I thought - ) and the end of an era of Ofra Haza vs. Yardena Arazi. One had to chose. Like one is always FORCED to chose. Why?? If I liked both am I a cheater? Am I disloyal to any of them... or rather: why is one FORCED to chose when one loves all???

I am who I am. Love me, Like me or Hate me. I am Who I Am. And those are even the words of God.

70 years ago

A wish not come true:

Twice a bug that started showing signs of life after 70 years wrapped in a piece of leather in a tin box:

And the life of somebody who was one of the closest persons to my heart, my being, that hide behind that....