So I'm back from Camp Ramah, with 2 weeks and 2 days to go until Z-Day. For the curious, that would be "Zion Day". Woot. But for those in the know about my shady French Canadian upbringing, just pretend I said "the day" in a cute Montréalaise accent.
So I was looking back on this blog that I haven't updated in like months, and two things came to mind:
a)Black's Photography is so going to sue me for libel and
b)Na'ava has been after me to update for quite some time now. It seems we live vicariously through eachother's blogs/blog comments. And so here are some crazy updates for the curious. Also I have nothing else to do for the next half hour. Now, this is supposed to be a blog dedicated to my year in Israel and the preparations for it, so at the end of each update, I shall post an explanation on how it relates to my upcoming adventure.
1 a) For the past three months, I have been working at Camp Ramah in Canada as the Bishul Lady. That would be the cooking lady, folks, the one who teaches good little Jewish boys and girls how to bake challah, fry up an egg, whip up some cookies, and generally, how to be good little housewives and househusbands. For those of you who actually know me, stop laughing. Seriously, stop. My cooking skills have vastly improved. All thanks to Michal Samuels (shout out!), chef extraordinaire, who attends "a really small private culinary school" called Kendall College in Chicago, and who does not judge me on my lack of culinary expression, but rather on my obsession with Hilary Duff (shout out!) and Dora the Explorer (¡que lastima!). And thanks be to God that I was not a counselor.
Before camp this year, I:
-Was from the "Survivalist School of Cooking", as in, I prepare food for myself so as not to starve. No fanciness, no frills, no presentation. Cereal from a box, add milk. Scrambled eggs were as fancy as I got, because those are really hard to screw up.
-Killed cake. Apparently, you should not put two Betty Crocker Cake Mixes into the same pan. Even if the pan is really really deep. And especially not if your oven cooks at 100 degrees below the displayed temperature. And especially not if you suck at reading directions. Because no cake takes 2 hours to cook only partway through. It becomes pudding. So I used to make really good Betty Crocker pudding, and really sad, pathetic Betty Crocker Cake.
-Burned Pillsbury Ready-Made Cookies.
-Ordered in Japanese food so often, that the guy at Tak-e Sushi recognized my voice and my order and wondered why I didn't order in last tuesday, because I order every tuesday (Hebrew class night) and thursday (O.C Parties night), and am I sure that I don't want 2 orders of edamame this time? Because I always get 2 orders of edamame. (Actually, that part he got wrong. I always get 2 orders of agedashe tofu. You only ever need 1 order of edamame. It's an appetizer. Duh.)
After camp this year I:
-Still kill cake. Which is fine. You can always buy it at a grocery store or something. Actually, there will never be a feasible occasion where I absolutely have to make it. It will be emotionally cheaper just to buy it.
-Can make the best damn French Onion Soup ever.
-Can make a decently good egg-thing (Michal calls it a "fertata", but I think that there's a difference between fertata and fritata, and until I figure out a)how to spell them and b)what the difference is, I shall call it an egg-thing) with veggies and especially with jalapenos.
-Have discovered that while my mother's oatmeal cookie recipe is good, the USDS chocolate chip cookies are better and more popular.
-Still hate doing dishes and probably will never be able to look at a dish-drainer without feeling physically ill
-Know way too much about how to keep the ants out of my sugar (little f%$^ers...)
-Can roll sushi like there's no tomorrow
Lessons for Israel:
-I can now cook passably well, though still only enough to keep from starving. Just like there are people in Israel who also probably suck at cooking, and so we're going to start a club where only sucky cooks get to join, and we're probably going to open up a restaurant in Haifa called "God, This Stuff Sucks", or, in Hebrew, "Yo, Zeh Me'afahn" (יו, זה מעפן). It will be a smash hit, like the Bubble Tea shop that I will open in Tel Aviv to make billions.
-I now know that the answer to the question, "should we put the eggs in before the flour?" is not "why not?", but "yes". This has nothing to do with Israel. Unless you want to get all philosophical and compare eggs and flour with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There would be peace if they would all just sit down and make cookies together.
-I will make friends by bribing them with chocolate chip cookies. Or I'll just make them all fat, because have you seen those Israeli girls? Get them a good meal.
-I will save up my money so that I can buy paper plates each week and therefore, not have to wash them (this is still up for discussion with my financial advisers, AKA mom and dad.)
-The approach I had toward the ants (make them dead!) will work equally well toward Israel's legendary cockroach population.
-I can now make my own sushi (never mind that the cost of the ingredients will be phenomenal, considering I will no longer be living next door to the 2nd largest Asian population in the world), which is important, because Israelis can't make real (read: Torontonian) sushi.
1 b) my Hebrew has vastly improved, thanks to the Mishlachat (goy translation: Israelis sent to be 'emissaries' to Jewish camps and other organizations) at the aforementioned camp (shout out!). I now have mad hookups in Israel, as well as a place to spend Shabbat every weekend for the entire freaking year. And because they were all such good, sweet guests at the cottage on days off, I promise not to be an obnoxious house guest who leaves her stuff everywhere. I save that behaviour for my mother (shout out!). And my parents are even willing to let me go to Efrat, provided that Michal Haktanah/Michaella pick me up in Jerusalem so that I'm not actually taking a bus across the Green Line, god forbid, phtoo phtoo phtoo.
Lesson for Israel: For serious, I learned a hell of a lot more Hebrew.
1c) On one of my days off, I got a Siamese fighting fish. His name was De'gahn. He died of toxic shock because I changed his tank without letting him adjust long enough, but at least he didn't die of anorexia (like I thought he would), because he was so stupid that he poked at his food and only ate it if it's on it's way to the bottom of the bowl. He was also phenomenally dumb. I think his bowl was too reflective, so he thought he saw another fish, and was always flaring up at the sides of the bowl in some ritualistic mating challenge that went unanswered. Very frustrating. He even played dead, so I tapped the bowl every now and then to make him "come alive". Except the time he didn't. So I had Tal flush him. All in all, it was very traumatic. But, it provides great lessons for the year in Israel:
Lesson for Israel: When living in the dorm, I should try to be pet-free. Because I kill them. Like I kill cake.
2) So I've been doing all this shopping and clothes sorting and deciding what I'm taking and what gets left behind etc etc etc, and I realize that I actually have enough clothing to dress a small African country. Or at least to clothe the entire homeless population of Toronto. They would be stylish, albeit underfed. Sort of a whole Kate Moss thing going on there. But I have such separation anxiety whenever mom makes me take something out of the pile. I might just sneak everything back into the suitcase three hours before we leave. That's what I did for camp, anyways. And I still didn't wear everything. See, the point isn't "Are you actually going to use all of it?". The point is, I like to just know that it's there should I conceivably need it. And even though I could probably find everything cheaper in Israel, the reality of the matter is I just feel more comfortable going with everything I could need. And also, I should be buying stuff in Israel anyways. I think their GDP goes up whenever I visit. Zionism at it's best. Who needs the Jewish National Fund when you have the Garber-Goldberg Family Credit Card? I mean, really...
3) Last thursday, my dad and I trekked out to the Israeli Consulate to apply for my student visa. But we really didn't need to leave as early as we did; The Consular Services is only open once a week, and only for a few hours at a time, and only sees about 30 people per day. So if you don't get there in time to a)get a number and b)line up for 10 am then you c)won't get your visa. Luckily, Daddy runs the Jewish Mafia, and his buddy Gabi, the Assistant to the Economic Consul, got me the very first number the night before. So we waltz in there at 9:30 (and pass all these religious kids who probably lined up two hours before to get their number), pick up an "envelope" at the front window with the number ticket, waltz out for coffee, laugh at the religious girls who have "number 10 and 11" (try number one, suckers!)and then back in again to say "what-up" to the actual guy who is the Economic Consul. After we leave his office, the security guard outside is lining up all the religious kids by order of number, and has them stand way back in the corridor to go through the metal detectors, but motions me and Daddy over to him:
"eh...you and your daughter, you go in. They wait for you".
The Mafia. Swear to God.
My favorite part of the entire event? The religious girl meticulously writing out a letter for her visa application which states that her parents will support her financially throughout her course of studies. FYI, Reject: The letter has to be typewritten, actually signed by your parents, not you, and if you're going to forge a letter from your father, try not to have such girly handwriting. (she was signing it "Stanley something-or-other") And for God's sake, if you're going to do something blatantly illegal, shouldn't you not be doing it in a government building? I mean, if she's going to be that stupid, she should not only be rejected, she should be slapped. Or at least publicly humiliated. Which I suppose I'm doing. So there you go.
4) I recently attended the South Asian Festival in Little India. Totally out of the way, but way beyond fun. I think the find of the day was the Islamic bookstore, where I bought a tin bracelet with Arabic on it. I'm pretty sure it's some verse of the Koran, but just in case it says "Free Palestine, death to the Zionist Americans", I'm looking to get it translated. But until then, I like calling it my jihadi bracelet. And I'm probably going to pack it in a suitcase rather than wear it on the plane. So if anyone has good literary Arabic skills, let me know. But I think no matter which Koran verse I got, it has to be better than the same style of bracelets that you can pick up at Jewish bookstores; the ones with the names, dates, and ages of victims of suicide bombings. I mean, how morbid can you get? I bet their family members don't walk around with those vile little bracelets. It's total exploitation. Suicide bombing is a war crime, not a fashion statement. It's propaganda, and it's totally sick. And what's even more disgusting is when I see kids picking through the baskets at the stores, looking for a "nice name to wear". That's just plain antithetical; s/he was murdered. That's the point, not whether or not they have a nice sounding name. And that's why I like my jihadi bracelet, because a)for sure no one else in the Toronto Jewish community has one, and I like being an individual and b)it doesn't send morbid little messages like the suicide-bomb ones do. Unless it actually does call for Jihad, which I seriously doubt. So there.
Lesson for Israel: When buying stuff with writing you can't understand, make sure you ask someone what it says, first.
Two weeks and two days left. The countdown has begun.
