flashback to October, 2005
I signed a contract with a new hitech company so I had a month off, free of job interviews and going to work. But I still didn't have a car. This wasn't so bad during the week, but Israeli Jewish holidays proved to be a bit challenging. Trains don't run during the Sabbath and religious holidays, and buses are hard to find, except in some of the mixed neighborhoods and cities such as Haifa.
Therefore, being secular and having the high holidays fall smack in the middle of the week can make you feel stranded. Rosh hashana passed. Yom kippur passed. Then it was Succot. There was no way we were going to spend 4 days without a car stuck in our house eating Pasta and watching DVDs of Seinfeld.
There were two new age festivals that were meant for families during the festival of Succot - one was Festival Breshit, at the Sea of Galilee and one was Segol, at the Dor beach. I didn't know one from the other, so I asked my son to choose. He chose fresh water over sea water, and that's how we ended up, one quiet morning during Succot, on a chartered bus - an eleven year old, a forty-two year old, and a bus full of teenagers with minimal shanti style clothing, multiple body-piercing, tattoos and vodka.
This was the bus to the family festival. After about ten minutes on the bus, I was ready to turn around. But I had already paid for the fares and so there was no turning back. There was nowhere to go anyway. Our tent and backpack were already in the baggage compartment of the bus and I was determined to get away from the city life, even though I missed driving the company car and stopping wherever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to.
Eventually we reached our destination on the eastern part of the Sea of Gailee, along with thousands of other teenagers, and thankfully, a few families. The family camping area was uncomfortably close to the noisy chai shop where many of the teenagers partied all night.
But before nightfall, I still had to pitch my tent, and there was someone who had offered to help me with that.
This writer called Arie's cellphone. There was no answer so she asked someone else to help her with the tent. Shortly before the sunset, her phone rang.
Showing posts with label new age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new age. Show all posts
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Post 18: New Age Lover
Post 18: New Age Lover
originally created as column 18, November, 2000
Dafna poses the following two questions to the men she dates: Do you like cats? How do you feel about your mother? If the man in question hesitates on both accounts, he is out of the picture. Needless to say, Dafna doesn’t date as much as she used to.
Dafna spent a few months in the U.S this year visiting friends and family and trying to raise some funds for one of her business projects. She became very fond of Mark, and Mark was crazy about her. “Like, that’s so great”, he used to say about almost anything. Mark was very wealthy but lived like a hippie. Dafna considered herself fairly into new age associated subjects such as natural medicine, mysticism and yoga. But even she had her limits.
And although Mark showed serious intentions of investing in Dafna’s business, she wasn’t quite sure what she had to give in return. “I mean the guy is intelligent, handsome, and very sexy” she confessed to me. “But if I slept with him, I’d probably have to sleep with everyone else he is friends with. I mean, there we were in a beautiful house made of wood, eating a tasty vegetarian meal. At the dinner table gathered an assortment of intelligent, warm-hearted people, who had apparently has shared more than a meal with Mark.
I thought he adored me, but he seemed to adore these friends just as much, and wanted me to experience them too. But even I have my limits. Just because all of the people at the dinner table had clear skin, and were eating herb salad and tofu, does that mean I have to sleep with them all?”. It seems that even in the twenty-first century, Mark was a misplaced sixties child who believed in free love. Dafna returned to Israel a little less ambitious than when she initially set out on her fund-raising mission to the States. American men may be more tolerant and smoke less, but Mark lacked in terms of quantities of unhealthy substances he made up for in number of partners. So much for moral vegetarians.
This writer invited Dafna for a steak dinner upon her return to Israel. And we didn’t order dessert.
originally created as column 18, November, 2000
Dafna poses the following two questions to the men she dates: Do you like cats? How do you feel about your mother? If the man in question hesitates on both accounts, he is out of the picture. Needless to say, Dafna doesn’t date as much as she used to.
Dafna spent a few months in the U.S this year visiting friends and family and trying to raise some funds for one of her business projects. She became very fond of Mark, and Mark was crazy about her. “Like, that’s so great”, he used to say about almost anything. Mark was very wealthy but lived like a hippie. Dafna considered herself fairly into new age associated subjects such as natural medicine, mysticism and yoga. But even she had her limits.
And although Mark showed serious intentions of investing in Dafna’s business, she wasn’t quite sure what she had to give in return. “I mean the guy is intelligent, handsome, and very sexy” she confessed to me. “But if I slept with him, I’d probably have to sleep with everyone else he is friends with. I mean, there we were in a beautiful house made of wood, eating a tasty vegetarian meal. At the dinner table gathered an assortment of intelligent, warm-hearted people, who had apparently has shared more than a meal with Mark.
I thought he adored me, but he seemed to adore these friends just as much, and wanted me to experience them too. But even I have my limits. Just because all of the people at the dinner table had clear skin, and were eating herb salad and tofu, does that mean I have to sleep with them all?”. It seems that even in the twenty-first century, Mark was a misplaced sixties child who believed in free love. Dafna returned to Israel a little less ambitious than when she initially set out on her fund-raising mission to the States. American men may be more tolerant and smoke less, but Mark lacked in terms of quantities of unhealthy substances he made up for in number of partners. So much for moral vegetarians.
This writer invited Dafna for a steak dinner upon her return to Israel. And we didn’t order dessert.
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