As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don't know We don't know. ~D. Rumsfeld

Friday, May 29, 2009

Day Two of Three (holiday-days)

Only left at 07:00 a.m. but it was already 29 degr. C. Still it wasn't 'stuffy'.

A Wren who had been arguing loudly in the morning quietness with another Wren -who flew off soon as he saw me- not yet noticing I am pointing the camera at him. Soon as he noticed he too flew off of course:
29-5-2009-wren
Kishkashta (an Israeli children program from way back - click here if you'd like to know what I'm talking about) - stood there in a garden I've walked past perhaps thousands of times but still never noticed. Just shows that repetition doesn't necessarily means you see everything every time.
29-5-2009-kishkashta
Near Kishkashta I saw a Blackbird. I don't see those too often so ... yes: a photo:
29-5-2009-merel
I would not have thought these were Jasmines but the smell is exactly the same and so I decided they are Jasmines:
29-5-2009-jasmine
A bush who seemingly carries different kinds of flowers (most definitely different colors):
29-5-2009-various-flowers-in-one-bush
And, what is this little bird (smaller than the palm of your hand) ? I see him a lot and he's most evasive. Seems like they can smell me from over 50 meters or so and 'run'. This time I zoomed in a lot way above my head. And still..... he looked down and took off:
29-5-2009-whatz-ur-name2
"We're just standing here, being beautiful and serene and smelling like chocolate" - look:
29-5-2009-beautiful-in-delicacy2
Hey little laborer!! Why don't you make a noise when you're crossing my path? I could step right on you and all your hard work would have been for nothing :(
29-5-2009-heavy-load-to-carry
A request from the Tel-Aviv municipality:
29-5-2009-hithashvut
And then... a request TO THE TEL-AVIV MUNICIPALITY (please, everyone reading this blog - please, please sign the petition or show your support in any other way possible - I have just had it with the "dump" attitude of those burocracy-dictators. These are trees who BELONG in Tel-Aviv - they were there long before those sleeky people who are only after money were even born. How DARE THEY??
29-5-2009-PLEASE-HELP
And so I arrived at the Nemaal and was so happy to see they had cleared away the horrible polluting waste that was thrown in the pond. The compensation came immediately in the form of literally hundreds of fish swarming the pond. Here are just a few of them:
29-5-2009-water-clean-fish-back
and some tiny little ones whose silvery color was shining through the surface like diamonds :-)
29-5-2009-shiny-silver-baby-fish
If you're thirstly and have no money you never need to worry at the Nemaal. There is always some 'good soul' who has left his drink for you the night before:
29-5-2009-letz-have-a-drink
Today I had a 'thing' with Mr. Egret :P He was mostly showing me his... well... his behind :P Most of the time I was alone at my mezah but from time to time people came on it and he would take off. In the end I found he started to come closer and closer to me - as if I could chase those people away who were disturbing him to hunt for fish....
29-5-2009-mr-egret4
29-5-2009-mr-egret3
29-5-2009-mr-egret2
29-5-2009-mr-egret
There probably always are stars on the water when the sun is shining but sometimes those stars make a special effort to be noticed (and provide me with a portion of sheer bliss):
29-5-2009-stars-on-d-water
What I wonder is what a sewage pipe so close near the sea (tens of meters away from it only) is necessary for? Is it for dumping sewage to the sea?? If so, did Israel ever hear of the 1976 Barcelona Convention??? They better watch out because if they go on like that I feel I really would like take them to international court:
29-5-2009-who-r-u-fooling
This, btw, is the poo a police horse left behind him on a very populated beach along the Tayelet:
29-5-2009-poliz-horses-poo
And here are the police on horse responsible for that (not cleaning it up):
29-5-2009-poliz-horses-poo2
Israeli police anyway has their noses too much up in the air. They act as if this country in only theirs and they can do whatever they like.
The last picture made me feel a little bit weird. I was looking into the pond at the fish and noticed that some very strange 'tides' or 'streams' had formed around the shadow my body casted on the water. Judge for yourself:
29-5-2009-magnetic-water-attraction

Thursday, May 28, 2009

La vie goes on....

Having arranged my mom's re-burial for later in July this year I set out to the Port of Tel-Aviv again this morning. I find myself having become a tin soldier in the army marching the streets back and forth near the office buildings people are stowed away in most of the time of their precious lives - I had to run (or rather walk) this restraint out of me today as SOOn as possible. The soonest was around 06:00 am.

My God! Whereas I have to pass by on Your beauties without having the time it deserves to enjoy from them 5 days a week - I am at least happy there are 'holidays' and Shabbaths. I step out of this apartment building and find myself in a world totally different from the one I am meeting when walking to work during the week. This is not due to the environment suddenly changing but to my state of mind: I feel I can be really 'me'. Not having to fulfill anyone's expectations about me, but instead just absorbing the wonderful world of the 'outdoors' You have given 'us':

ואין לי זמן, אני רוצה ללכת לים
סתם כי בא לי לשכב על החול החם
לא לחשוב יותר מדי להביט בציפורים אולי
זה קצת גדול עלי, חיים מסודרים מדי




Here goes:

A bird was flying dangerously close over my over my head soon as I headed out of the side streets leading to the main way up to my 'path'. I photographed him - but was disappointed to find that the photo turned out vague and blurred. However -in order to keep this memory- I'm going to place it anyways. Photo #1..... He sat still for as long a time it takes to make a photo of him. As if to say "OK, you have my permission" :D

Then, when crossing the Yarkon bridge, I suddenly saw what was that little 'hubble' around a duck. It turned out it was a Mommah Duck with her offspring. Sooooooooo cute ;) New life being very closely watched by "mom", the way it should be... Photo 2.

I entered the "lane" near Nordau and was impressed by the muscles one of the fattest trees I've ever seen was showing. Photo 3. I hope the photo will show what I mean. Such a macho!!

"The" Frangipani tree (of which I showed its poor condition in a former post) was trying to start to bloom again. There were a few flowers on it and LOADS of buds. When I photographed one trench with buds on it I saw a wasp was trying to find food on it while his wings were transparent and glowing in the early morning sunshine... Photo 4. And, photo 5 shows a Frangipani on the other side of the tree that's in the shade.

Near Rabbit Hill I felt touched by the trenches and its 'fur' of a bush of which you could simply know that he was enjoying his time in the sun: photo 6....

And, so I finally reached the Nemaal. I had a nice talk with the fisherWoman and went on to have a quick ice-coffee. When the anglers at my mezah told me my cell phone was ringing (I never hear the damn thing) I started to make my way home and took my (empty) cup and filled it with water (at Aroma at the Beach) for Ms. Cat after having spent some very glorious time at the mezah - since when I saw her before coming there she seemed thirsty.

Ms. Cat is in photo 7. The most beautiful cat in the whole wide world. Her facial expression is such that it shows a whole lot of wisdom and to tell the truth ... who am I to doubt that. She might know the secrets of life a lot better than I do since... I don't know any of them. As a matter of fact the older I become the more I am convinced I don't know anything.

Further there are photos of a brightly colored bug who crossed my path near religious beach. Of the incredibly sensual smelling Jasmine bush near the beach, of a butterfly that kept on foll0wing me on the way home but I did get a poor photo of, of a set of table-'legs' I have recognized all through last year and this but only now did I lay the connection: they're the antique upholders of old-fashioned sewing machines (Singers) and are being used to uphold the tables of the restaurant that is selling non-kosher seafood at the Nemaal of TA and of a pigeon overlooking the sea and of an old house in "ha kovshim" street near to where there once was a youth hostel that I still remember being 'active'.

B'Ezrat'Ha'Shem I will be on my way again tomorrow. It's my 'release' and 'let go' after being locked up in an office all week so I am thoroughly enjoying the outdoors...

28-5-2009-posing...
28-5-2009-mommah-duck-and-kids
28-5-2009-muscled-tree
28-5-2009-wasp-on-frangipani-buds
28-5-2009-frangipani
28-5-2009-bushbush
28-5-2009-ms-cat2
28-5-2009-red-bug2
28-5-2009-jasmine
28-5-2009-buttahflie
28-5-2009-singer-tables
28-5-2009-pigeon-overlooking-sea
28-5-2009-derekh-ha-kovshim

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Another day at the family court

Yes, another day that started with having a few drinks of Wodka. I just can't swallow this -what they call- "life". It is too hurtful and everybody thinks they are so terribly rightful without having any feelings for someone else or even making the effort to place themselves in someone else's shoes.

When I came to Israel it was so very innocently, so naive. Here was this 'boy' (although already 25) and he would be my soul-mate, my partner, my second half....

Obviously when I found out that his interests didn't lay into traveling the world together but were rather 'square' in that that he wanted to begin a family I did go along with it because that is what soul-mates are for: share the same things.

I never had marriage or children in mind. I wanted to enjoy life. And, wanted to enjoy it with someone together. There wasn't much enjoyment of life after I met this boy. He wanted an institutionalized conventional life in one way but on the other hand dropped the whole thing and went out night after night with his friends (and NOT me) and later, when the friends got tired from it, started to go on gambling sprees all by himself - most of the time coming home around 06:00 a.m. after I had comforted 2 children the night before into believing this is OK to do for a father. Why should I hurt them more than they were hurt by it already, right?

Having married a professional manipulator has complicated things though. He would talk his way out of it each and every time, shifting the blame on me - and my origins as a born non-Jew- because I 'didn't understand warmth, coming from a 'cold' country'. One child got carried away with this explanation as to why I didn't accept pure impertinence and cursing me by my children and later saw that something was wrong with this explanation while the other child, the oldest who had a lot of anger in her for some reason, never gave up on the idea that it was me who was to blame for all that was going wrong at home.

She is getting married now, May 31st - not that I'm invited (though my conversion name appears on the invitation they sent out inviting other people) - and I hope she will become very happy. But it is strange to think that I have no feelings because I just stood up protecting them - trying to teach my children other feelings could also be hurt.

I placed my bets on the wrong horse and lost it all. I am not a person who thinks there is a second chance. So, practically speaking, I think it is all over for me - and I would be able to live with that if at least I would have the undivided support of my children ( a produce of my efforts to serve life). But I don't have that.

So. In short (after this long story) - I really don't think life is livable anymore for me. I am in no way a snob but ever since being young I would not accept life treating me bad and .. it has and ... I have put up with it for too long already. And.. NO, it is not my fault. I was as flexible as could be but.. that 'boy' slowly turned into a living devil in disguise and I have no energy (and I am too old) to start all over again looking for happiness.

C'est la vie. As long as I prefer to live 'la vie'. Which, I think, isn't very long anymore.

btw: this is the song I heared the whole time when my father passed on in 1984 and life haven't been the same since (this song and Sam from Olivia Newton-John for some reason) and that I keep hearing in my heart this whole day already:



Monday, May 18, 2009

Getting warmer

And more people are visiting the beach. Fairytaletree is overwhelming me with his fragrance each and every time I visit him -which is way too little ever since I started working an additional job. The ground around him is covered with his passionate flowers like a carpet.

The rabbit population at Rabbit Hill has gone up from 5 to 15 (spring is in the air hahahha).

The sea is still cold. I think about 22 degr. C. but as magical as ever - no matter how much people are polluting it - I think Israel should be brought to international court for this though. Forget about politics etc. this is a major crime it is committing. How dare they pollute my (and everebody else's) sea, grrrrrrrrrr.

16-5-2009-peep-a-koo
16-5-2009-flowers-in-d-c
16-5-2009-flower-in-bloom2
15-5-2009-beautiful-waterworld
15-5-2009-beautiful-waterworld5
15-5-2009-whatbird

Saturday, May 9, 2009