Post 54: Close Encounters of the Israeli Kind

Post 54: Close Encounters of the Israeli Kind

Until recently, my contact with aliens were residents of Israel working here illegally. I don't know a lot about science fiction. I've seen some of the more famous movies like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", E.T. and Star Wars.

So you can imagine that I raised my eyebrow when I went to a singles workshop and met a guy who claimed to have seen aliens himself. During our first encounter, he seemed as normal (or as strange) as any other candidate that I have for dating- divorced, non-smoking, and father. When we actually had our first date, he told me about his experience channeling aliens and his therapy with them in Kadima, Israel. Without revealing his name, he is one of the people who are referred to in Adrian Dvir's book. I'll call him Benny.

The funny thing is that I was more disturbed about his disfunctional family than his encounters with aliens. There was no way that I was going to get involved with another man who did not communicate with his siblings and parents. I am seeking a partner, not a patient. I stood by my former boyfriend while he was going through therapy (only to be cheated on in the end!) and was not going to get involved again. I complained to my acupuncturist (who lives in Kadima but did not know that it had been a center for alien activity) that I am off kilter, because I continue to attract strange men into my life. She calmed me down, assuring me that perhaps I just want to help and nurture people - and it doesn't necessarily mean that I am as strange as these men.

I did succeed in saying goodbye to Benny after the first date, and recommending he see a psychologist, rather than me playing psychologist. I mean there are other guys out there, and he's not the last non-smoking divorcee on earth.

If this writer met a guy who got therapy from aliens, who knows whom she'll meet next - maybe an alien himself? Well, as long as he is divorced, educated, emotinally mature and non-smoking.

Post 45: Finding a Haven Despite the Teenagers

flashback to october, 2005

Arie and his exwife named their children according to the same letter of the alphabet - the Hebrew letter aleph - Alma, Erez and Alon. The first one I met was the Alon, the ten year old.

Arie and Alon greeted us near the main gate of the festival area. After a kilometer walk from the family camping area, we found our meeting place and introduced ourselves. Arie and I had met a week or so earlier at a party. I didn't know if he was coming with a girlfriend or by himself, but I was happy to see a familiar face and even happier that my son would have some company among the hippies who seemed to have forgotten that there are no more hippies left. We decided to go the the evening performances together, featuring Israeli artists - not mainstream but not too alternative either. This suited me fine.

Arie had half his house with him. He had even set hooked up some of his appliances to the electric system of the festival employees. The reason he was set up in the staff section is that his 15 year old, Erez, was working in the children's area, helping with ceramics and other activities. Erez was apparently hanging out with his teenage peers, while Arie, Alon and my son hung out together, listening to the likes of Mika Karni and the sons of the late Meir Ariel. A few groups had cancelled because of the impending rain, but we didn't care.

This writer realized that she was actually having fun at this festival despite it being invaded by teenagers.

Post 44: Busride with an adult, some teenagers and the vodka bottles

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.

Post 43: He appeared from the sidelines

flashback to October, 2005

Free. No work. No car. No boyfriend. No worries.

After 4 and a half years working at a hitech job in central Israel, I didn't yet know that they were about to lay me off. Before they could make a move, I had a massive Crohns-Colitis attack, the second of my life and ended up in hospital. It was a slow recovery with a lot of suffering and a few benefits. The first benefit was that I lost about ten kilos in a month (do NOT try this diet at home!) and men were looking at me again....people at work thought I was on vacation. Others thought I was pregnant, thanks to the steroids that I was on.

And since they didn't want to lay me off while I was sick, they waited a few months and gave me my notice in May. This gave me a few months to negotiate my dismissal and prepare for my new life.

Summer lent itself to a carefree life. Yes, I was job searching, but I was also rediscovering men and rather enjoying the attention. I didn't really want a boyfriend, since I was happy to have my health and life back. It really wasn't important anymore. But i went to a lot of social gatherings in order to network with men (and women) and find out about job leads. Since I was focused on the leads, and not on the men, they seemed happy to talk to me. In the end, they actually sent me cvs to send to the company I worked for, but that's another story.

The other project I took on was to set up my ex bachelor friends. Since I realized that I really really really had to swear off bachelors, the least i could do was take them to parties where they may be attracted to marriage-minded eligible young women of child-rearing age.

Little did I know that the party I took one of my friends to would actually attract my future boyfriend. I thought that the party, in northern Israel, would be full of young people, but we were the youngest there. The guests thought we were a couple, so they spoke to me with utmost confidence.

And then he appeared from the sidelines. He was interested in the carrot-orange juice that I bought, not in me, and he promptly drank almost the entire litre. We had a short conversation and we discovered that we were both headed for the same spiritual festival at the Sea of Galilee - festival Breshit - and both with our sons. We exchanged phone numbers and said we'd try to meet up there.

Nice. A divorced guy with a boy almost the same age as my son. Someone to help me put up my tent.

This writer forgot about why she had come to the party in the first place. her bachelor friend stayed a bachelor, but not for long.