hodayot [thanksgivings] for today

10:35
My Body, my Partner, my God
I give thanks to our back parts:
the back of our head, our neck, our shoulder blades, our spine
and last but not least: to our buttocks, so besmeared as "ass" etc.
Yes - thanks to our -ass (this even rhymes!) for letting me sit and write this!

I'm grate-full, that I had the courage to communicate my - tiny - desire,
that my landlords should not trigger my childhood-trauma of "cleanliness",
when they want me to take care of their children.
"When they are with me,
they are allowed to get dirty, take it or leave it!"
I'm grate-full, that I accept that Ofir turned his back in anger,
interpreting my quest: as a hidden refusal to care for Lior altogether.
I'm surprised and grate-full, that Meital this time understood what I wanted, Meital, who often without being attacked in the least, becomes so defensive),
and when she brought Lior, said: "I told Ofir, that your quest is logical
and that it is our problem, that we didn't think of this ourselves."
I'm grate-full, that Meital thought of an additional gesture, a SMS:
"May it be a wonderful day for all of us!" and I answered: "Amen".

In fact, I had been just ready to start the tedious job, when Ofir came.
Now, despite my silly defensiveness, I didn't rush to clean the veranda.
I called after him: "I'll do it with Lior tomorrow,
she so much likes to put things in order and to clean.
Can you live with the postponement?" He hesitated and then said:
"Yes, but she shouldn't get dirty, because after that she goes to
the general rehearsal of her end-of-the-school-year show."

Last time I explained to her, that these plants on these stones
grow by themselves and almost without soil,
and that therefore the content of the dustpan
should best be dispersed over that stripe of stones.

The ballet-teacher - pregnant - appeared on stage as an actress,
inter-acting with the girl, who moved through time in a time-machine.

Finetuning to my Present

I was content with the morning:
1 1/2 hours with Lior, Pool, work on K.i.s.s.-Log,
even a bit of sleep - compensating for the sleep I missed during 3 nights,
and again pool, lunch, garden, a bit of TV,
but then I lost control over the exterior situation.
This sounds bombastic, and yet "finetuning" means to look at the small situations.
Meital had asked me, if I wanted to come to Lior's show of all dance classes.
I didn't want to, the more so, as she needed to buy a ticket for me - 25 NIS.
But how could I refuse?
I said to myself: be open to what comes to you from the outside.
I thought: 2 additional hours not al-one - I can bear that.
But then at 17:30 Meital came with Amit:
"He screws a hole into our head since 3 o'clock,
he wants to be with you!"
Already in the morning, when Meital brought Amit, he made a scene,
he wanted to stay with me, and even after she took him to the car by force,
he escaped and ran back into my room.
Now I let him stay with me, and it would have been alright,
if not for the command - as if nothing had been agreed in the morning -
"but see, he is already dressed up for the show, don't let him get dirty."
Since it was only for 3/4 of an hour,
and since then we would all go to the show
("you don't mind, that we go early to get places,
since there will be crowds of people?")
I succumbed.
This was a mistake, because for 45 minutes I had to say at least 15 times:
"no, you can't do that, it will dirty you!"
and for the rest of the time I had to watch him closely, even hold his body,
so he would not dirty himself,
for instance when he wanted to wash the few dishes in the sink,
or to water the garden.
It was crazy, and I became more and more angry at his mother.
Later I again made an agreement with her,
that her kids would come to me only
if they were allowed to soil themselves.
("How could you take him out into the garden, into the sand,
just now before the show!" she exclaimed in shock...)


Still this part was only nerve-wrecking, but not boring.
Then came the part of waiting for about 40 minutes until the show started,
at first outside, but there at least was space, then inside in a movie-hall.


And then almost 2 hours of one dance after the other,
interrupted - luckily - by a kind of story with some suspense,
a girl getting caught in a time-machine and finding herself in different periods
of the past and at the end even of the future, in 2050.
I have difficulty to be among people and "to sit through" anything,
which is only "input",
as opposed to creating myself, with people or on the computer.
It was also very hot, and even Ofir complained now and then.
When it finally was Lior's turn on the stage - about 3 short times -
I busied myself with trying to get some reasonable pictures
- for her parents and me-
despite the distance, the light conditions, the props which disturbed,
so I had no time to judge the dance itself.
When we finally drove home, I thought,
that it was expected from me to only praise.




21:14
"How was it, Rachel?" "Fantastic", I lied,
"But I was very disappointed, Lior knows to dance,
but the songs and the movements of her dances
did not bring out her potentential
nor what she has learnt the last 2 years.
Well, at least you have been with us, and you enjoyed it."
But this fake self-consolation lasted only a second.
Then she discharged harshly
and together with the other mother, a neighbor, who was with us in the car .
Meital had seen the show last year and rightly could expect the same quality,
especially since Lior was older and more "professional" now, as she said.
"I'm paying 230 NIS per month for 8 lessons, and that is the result?"
I felt so sorry for her, that I forgot my own 'nightmare' of this evening.
Probably she also felt ashamed,
because she had glorified the show beforehand.

I don't know what to do with all this, except to feel it.
I tried to listen to a "Delta-Scobel " program,
the theme of which greatly interested me,
but I could not concentrate and returned to editing the photos of this day.

Now - the next morning (7:59) - I still don't understand,
why I attracted those "nicely-torturing" hours in my life.