The Wedding, chapter 1

The Prima Donna and her fiance, PDF, are getting married at the beginning of September. Or, at least, as of 15 minutes ago, they were. It tends to be subject to interpretation about twice a week.

He's half-Indian (Indian-Indian), half-Moroccan, born in Israel. Think Yul Brynner as Pharoah, and you've got a good idea. He comes from Kiryat Shemona, which is a small town in the north of Israel, notable mostly for having Katyusha rockets dropped on it from time to time. It was built in the 1950s when the Israeli government idealistically thought that putting penniless Jewish refugees from North African countries in out of the way places would lead to the development of the area. What they've got now is a lot of penniless second generation Israelis without work or even much infrastructure in towns that are glorified slums. Many of these development towns depended on a single factory, and since putting a factory far away from its sources of supply and its markets, and near a border with an enemy country doesn't really make for a profitable business, most attempts at industrial development failed pretty fast. In a way it's a shame, because the northern part of Israel is very beautiful. Most of the settlements--kibbutzim and moshavim--in the area have gone into "zimmerim"--wooden holiday cabins with all the amenities, to take advantage of the natural attractions.

PDF and the Prima Donna have been living with us in Jerusalem for the past two years, but the wedding will be in the north because about 80% of the guests--PDF's family--are there. Our side is small, and we don't have a lot of friends to invite. PDF wants to arrange a bus since he also wants to invite quite a few of his police friends, but even so, I think if 50 of the approximately 400 guests come from Jerusalem, that will be a lot.

So far, the Prima Donna has put a deposit on a dress from a bridal salon. In Israel it is unusual to buy a dress; they are usually rented. She will have her makeup and hair done on the day of the wedding in Kiryat Shemona but will take the dress from Jerusalem. Originally both she and PDF wanted to hold the wedding in an outdoor garden (a very popular kind of venue in Israel, which has the climate for it for a good part of the year) but that fell through (chef died of a heart attack--!-- and his replacement, we have heard, isn't very good) and it is now to be in a hall. All arrangements need to be reorganized, with less than two months to go. It is also going to be a lot more expensive. (In Israel, it is not de rigueur for the parents of the bride to pay for the wedding--it's more a collective sort of thing, but in our case, most of the cost is being borne by PDF. Our contribution was letting the couple save rent money for two years by living with us, since we don't have the means to make a large gift. Guests in Israel normally give money as wedding presents, to help defray the wedding expenses. Mizrachim--Jews from Middle Eastern countries--traditionally have gigantic weddings. It's not just that the families are large, but a matter of honor. The Baritone Solo, my husband, comes from an Iraqi family. I'm not even opening my mouth, but frankly, I HATE big weddings)

The Tenor is arriving from NY, having given his sister a very generous sum as a present, and wants to invite all his old army buddies (the DivaF is one) to spend the weekend after the wedding in the north, living it up and rehashing all their "wonderful" memories of Gaza in the second intifada. We also intend to spend the weekend there--those returning via the transport we arrange will not arrive in Jerusalem until about 3 a.m., and the wedding most probably won't be over until then, so we can't possibly return the same night.

So we've been searching the internet for a place with facilities large enough--and luxurious enough--for all of us. It's rapidly becoming "decision by committee" and I'm getting a headache. Everyone has a different, and better, idea. Not only does it require the organization of an army operation, but since we are Jews, three sites, 4 opinions. I'm beginning to hope the couple will just elope and notify us the day after....(to be continued, inshallah)

Obesa Cantavit

You might be forgiven if you think we are a musical family. Actually, nothing could be farther from the truth. In 28 years my husband, the Baritone Solo, has never sung Kiddush on Friday night twice to the same tune. I am mildly tone-deaf, which does not stop me singing along with Andrea Bocelli or Joan Baez when I'm alone in the house (not very often any more, which is probably a great comfort to the neighbors.)

Our Son The Tenor used to sound rather like a dying cow when he attempted to be a Mizrachi singer, back in high school. He now lives in NYC, and I don't know if he still tries to impress girls with his voice. I hope not.

Neither of the girls sings although the Prima Donna has lungs of iron and is not shy about letting out a geshrei when the Diva takes an item of her clothes without permission. So far both the Fiances are mute. The PDF is heavily armed (being in the Israeli equivalent of a SWAT team) so he doesn't really need to make a sound, and the DivaF is generally humming in agreement with whatever the Diva croons.

Ah yes, my moniker. It means "the fat lady has sung", you illiterate. What kinda eddicashun yu got that you don't know Latin? Want me to stick my spear up your whatsis so you'll remember?

The Books that Influenced My Life

There are three books, well, one is a series of books, that I remember even today, well over 40 years since I read them. Deathless literature, you suppose?

Wrong.

The first one was my 4th grade reader. Since I usually took the book, meant for an entire school year, and read it from cover to cover the first evening I had it, reading in class was an excruciating experience for me. It was SO BORING, to sit with half a dozen nincompoops who struggled with infantile prose, a page a day. But this book was about a pioneer family travelling West (I believe "West" was what we would think of as the Middlewest, today) in the first half of the 19th century, complete with covered wagon. There was Mom and Pop, and two adorable and unbelievably well-behaved children, and undoubtedly a dog named "Spot". What made the book memorable was that nearly each chapter was devoted to a particular task or skill: making butter or soap, how an intinerant cobbler made boots, and so on. Once the gob of dough kept over each week from the bread baking went missing--a major tragedy since that was the only leavening available. (It was found stuck to the underside of the wooden kneading trough--kneading "trough"! What an exotic item in the age of electricity and plastic!). Besides learning (who knew when it might be useful to know how to make soap?) all kinds of arcane skills, the reader drummed home that essential American value, Self-Sufficiency. Ever since then, my approach to just about everything is "can I do it myself?" In a couple of weeks I intend building a pergola--the neighbors look at me aghast. "Why don't you get a carpenter?" they ask. Don't they understand? That takes all the fun out of it! After all, I came to Israel "to build and be built". So, I'm building!

The Sue Barton books, written in the Thirties by a woman who had studied to be a nurse in the Twenties, had a great deal to do with my decision to be a nurse. Of course, by the time I entered nursing school in the mid 60s the profession had already changed beyond recognition. But Sue Barton didn't solve mysteries, a la Cherry Ames (who always seemed rather unprofessional to me). Her experiences with teachers and head nurses and patients engrossed me, and when, after graduating, she married a handsome doctor and left hospital nursing for life in New England, I felt let down somehow. Hospitals were where it was at.

Not long after Sue Barton, Sister Luke entered my life. "The Nun's Story" made a huge impression on me, which might be construed as odd, since I am Jewish. In those days I perceived nursing as a total committment; instead of a habit we had a uniform, full of starch, instead of conventual discipline we had precise ways of performing tasks in accordance with the principles of asepsis, we were supposed to be instantly obedient to the doctors' orders, and we were supposed to be completely selfless. (It came as rather a shock when I realized that nursing was an 8 hour a day job, actually.) But the concept of discipline has remained with me. I also found the spirituality intriguing, "translating" it into Jewish modes of conceptualization. In many ways Christian monastic life, adhering to a Holy Rule which defines one's entire life as an act of worship is exactly similar to the Jewish approach to Halacha. (Forget about Jesus, of course) If at this point you say that I am obsessive-compulsive, you'd be right, btw.

So there it is. There have been thousands of other memorable books that I've read (and even more that weren't memorable), but these are the ones that actually made a difference.