On Thursday night, Daniel, Declan, and I took the Carmelit to Massada Street. Rumor has it that a street party was taking place there, and the Carmelit was free to ride on that night. It turned out all right. Rain and thunder. Open-aired burger/fries and pomegranate juice place. Because it seems most Israelis don't pick up after their dogs' poop, I wouldn't let Declan play in the puddle after the last big bout of rain while we were at the street party. I suspected plenty of fecal matter run-off congregated in the water, and was semi-impressed, semi-disgusted, and semi-incredulous that another mom was letting her toddlers jump up and down in them. It proved too torturous for Declan to simply watch without joining in on the play, so we had to move and distract until Daniel's colleague and her boyfriend finally met up with us in the crowd.
On Friday night, Mark and his mom traveled up from Tel Aviv and we all shared a cab to Nesher to eat dinner with Or and Kirsten. There were tender meatballs in tomato sauce, nicely flavored crockpot bone-in chicken with mushrooms, roasted fingerling potatoes sprinkled with rock salt, among other things. It was delicious. I brought over some sauteed greens via the CSA supply and zucchini chocolate chip muffins, which I kind of over-baked.
Then, today, we had banana pancakes with imported Canadian maple syrup with Mark and his mom, a stroll along the Louis Promenade, and a lunch of four differently stuffed bourekas with hard-boiled eggs and Israeli pickles.
It was nice...to have company of friends. Comfortable people who I truly feel at ease around. Still, I don't know what's wrong with me... I feel "like butter spread out over too much bread." It's not because I'm awfully bored at home with Declan. There's now a schedule in place during the mornings: Mondays and Wednesdays, I stroller Declan over to Vardiya (a 25-minute hilly walk) to a Hebrew mommy-and-me group. Sundays and Thursdays, I study Hebrew for three hours while Declan plays with a babysitter.
When I meet up with friends and hang out with them for a period of time, the gray shroud lifts temporarily. And it's not that I dislike living in Israel--I'm increasingly grateful for the chance to observe the culture here firsthand. One year is really a very short time to experience a foreign country.
Yet, I'm still dragging my feet, psychologically, every single day. Not quite sure I'll make it to another day without going crazy. I am, in a word, unhappy, but I don't really know why.
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