Hey Schat!

"Hey schat, hoe gaat het? Alles goed? " was the sentence I was greeted with this morning after arriving at the Nemaal. A cyclist helding out his (gloved) hand to me asked me this. I had and have no blooming idea who he was or how he knew I speak Dutch but sometimes I surprise myself and I helped myself out of this situation very elegantly -though I say so myself. "Goed hoor, en met jou? Een fijne dag nog verder he!" (I shook his hand and walked on) - and the man was overrompeld but OK with this answer. As he biked past me a second later he turned around and with a warm smile towards me said "Jij ook, he! Nog een fantastische dag. Zie je nog wel!" :D
(I know you read this, H. Take that smile of your face!! :D : D )

I had an awkward dream last night. I know it is because of the posters I see when walking about this elderly man who went missing just like that. I pass those posters and think to myself "how can his family keep up the regular life when something like this happens to a loved one?" - It hurts even trying to replace myself in their situation let alone how they must feel. And so... last night I dreamed my mother went missing. I can tell this much: it is an unbearing pain (because in dreams one feels things as if they are real).

Later on, when walking my way home on the boulevard, I heard this man playing on some acoustic music machine. I saw everybody walking past without stopping even and intended to do the same thing. Only it was then that he started:



and one of those little invisible arrows that go through my heart for some reason or another touched base ... I just had to let him know about it so dumped a 10 NIS piece in his hat. I DID NOT opt for having him say "Thank you Sweetheart" in a loud voice through his microphone!!! Don't know if I would have given him the money if I'd known because straight away all passer byes were looking at me :(

The mystery solved (I walked down the boardwalk further up north of my mezah to see if the 'mystery' of yesterday was still there and climbed the balustrade and descended when I saw it to be so) :


This fisherman isn't using the playball for bait but it sure looked like he did so I had to laugh and.. take a photo, of course:


This I have never seen before. It is a produce of the sea -of that I'm sure. It looks like a ball of little shells but it's not. It is soft and feels like pasta.