Mom's visit

It was really a treat to have my mother with us last week. I have a free day so infrequently that the fact that I had a couple of days to do some errands and sip an ice coffee WITH MY MOM was really a novelty. My mother landed Sunday night and on Mon we drove to J-lem to visit my grandfather. He was very disappointed that he wan't able to feed us on Taanit Esther, but he sent us home with enough to make up for it. We raided his Pesach pots, because I'm making Pesach for the first time and he won't be cooking at all. After we loaded up the car with our million plastic bags, we headed out to the shuk. There we filled in whatever other Pesach items we needed, and of course bought some food to break the fast. When I say "some food" I really mean a ton of food. My mom in the shuk is like a kid in a candy store. We bought so much that we had to make two trips to the car. Fruit, veggies, fresh bread, fresh cheese, nuts, and of course "g'viniyot". Whats a g'viniya- you might ask. Cheese Danish. They're not so easy to come by here, but the Fruchters of Queens can't break fasts without them. Its the carrot at the end of the stick. In fact, if there is evidence that there will not be a cheese danish at the end of the fast, it just might not be worth it to finish the fast. My mom was getting a little tired and was weakening with the smell of all fresh bread and pastries, "do you want to break your fast?" she asked, looking at me for support. "Mom, hang in there," I said, "we'll find you a cheese danish for later and you'll be fine." and thats exactly what happened. Gviniya in pocket, she held out and we continued on our way. That night was Purim. We all went to shul to hear the megilla and we stayed afterwards for a carnival. They had break-fast food there. Shame we spent the whole day and a whole week's salary on break-fast food at the shuk. Oh well. We ate that food for the rest of the week-- breakfast, lunch, and dinner... There's always room for g'viniyot though, they were finished by the next morning.

Purim day was fun, we had a seudah with my grandfather's wife's family. We were an ecclectic bunch-- including charedi, granola, and normal (thats me). Ayelet had a fabulous time because 2 of my grandfather's charedi step-grandaughters were dressed as clowns. Ayelet thinks that any clown is Nachum the clown from Uncle Moishe. She followed around these 2 teenagers the whole afternoon, calling them "Nachum." There was singing and dancing and a birthday cake for Grandpa. We had a great time and headed back to Modiin with some time to relax a bit.

We were back to errands on Wednesday, and made a trip to Home Center. Home Center is supposedly the Bed Bath and Beyond of Israel. But don't get your hopes up. Its half the size, half the quality, and at least half the pace at the checkout counter. We got some things there, including yet another set of plastic drawers. I decided that you can only consider yourself a true Israeli if you have one set in each room. I'm proud to say we've reached that mark!

Whenever we have visitors come, everyone always asks, "what did they bring?" My mother brought us lots of goodies and clothing, toys and books. When my parents are here they don't buy many things to bring back. Snickers are kosher everwhere, so gone are the days where you would stuff a whole dufflebag full of those. Gone too are the days when you would buy Marzipan rugelach and bring them back... or KFC chicken. I don't want to take this personally, but it's hard not too. I mean come on- is there really NOTHING here, in my country, thats worth buying to bring back? I was pleasantly surprised then when my mother explained to me that she was on a misson to bring back some of the tiny tik gavs (knapsacks) that I described in an earlier blog for her friend's grandkids (hi Judy!). I take full credit for those purchases. Maybe I should begin to endorse more Israeli products on this blog, hmmm....

We had a great rest of the week and in short, it was just wonderful to have my mom here. We accomplished a lot together and had a good time doing it. She got the water stains off my dishrack, I got her hooked on nana tea, and now she knows how to say cheese danish in Hebrew. Could you ask for anything more?