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Shmuel Moshe Yonah (Shawn Michael Taub)
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| Scared to death of driving |
[10 Nov 2009|06:42pm] |
I had my first driving lesson on Monday. I have never been so scared in my life - not getting married, not having kids, not moving to Israel, not on any roller coaster, not when I've been in a fist-fight. For serious, it took me a good hour after I got out of the car before I could breathe normally.
I'm learning manual gearshift, since it's cheaper and will allow me to drive both manual and automatic when I get my license. Learning the controls was easy, up until the whole thing with the clutch. For the entire lesson, I was too afraid to take my foot off the clutch because I was so unaware of how it works. Since then, I have done my usual coping mechanism of research and have learned what it does (which is exactly what my driving instructor says it does - it releases the contact of the motor from the wheels), and am only moderately less scared to death.
Okay, let's face it. I'm taking my life in my hands and putting everyone else in danger when I'm behind the wheel. Starting off in a parking lot with a bunch of other first-time drivers was fine, but then he took me on actual roads. That's insanity.
Also, that the instructor is using Hebrew words that I've never heard of in my life (there's a real Hebrew word for brakes?) doesn't help, but like with all learning experiences in this country, it should go fast - if not out of actual learning, then out of dire necessity.
Today's my second lesson. Here's to hoping I can work up the nerves necessary to not completely freak out.
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| Life beyond freezing |
[05 Nov 2009|07:01am] |
Our heating system broke down. After dropping an incalculable sum on fixing it last year, the ancient machine started spewing out carbon monoxide. On Monday, the gas company will come and install a brand spankin' new system that will heat our radiators and water at a cost I'd rather not divulge since it's pretty much beyond our budget (yay parents!), and at that point we won't have to resort to multiple blankets and that crappy electric radiator for the girls' room.
In other news, I'm not getting kicked out of school this year. Yay! While I expertly failed my pharmacology exam miserably (sitting down in front of two self-important professors and doing an oral exam? great way to wipe one's memory), I managed to pass the gastro/endocrine nursing exam with a 71. As such, my school year this year consists finishing second year courses and a few third year courses that fit into my schedule. First semester pharmacology, gas exchange nursing, ethics (from 3rd year), and clinical work, then second semester clinical work, emergency nursing (from 3rd year), and another dreaded communications course (3rd year).
Also, the Yankees won. This is infinitely teh suck, since any time the Yankees win, baseball loses, but at least House will be back on the air. Yes, my priorities are very straight.
The girls are everywhere. They're both crawling (Bracha on fours, Eliana military-style), and spend much of the day exploring the apartment. Babyproofing is still in the works, and one may find the wild Eliana in her natural habitat, grabbing a clump of dust and chomping down on it. For serious, we're working on it. With thanks to the in-laws for getting a new vacuum cleaner, and the brother-in-law for letting us borrow the old one.
Eli's got her two bottom front teeth, Bracha's got one with the other not far behind. They both suck at eating solids, but last week we discovered the magic that is breadsticks. At a shul kiddush, they had breadsticks, and given our exasperation with trying to get the girls to do more than drink formula, they were handed breadsticks, and lo and behold, they hath verily taken to gumming them and probably spitting out more than they bite off, but it is nutritious nonetheless. We have since bought stocks in various stick-like foods that they can grasp and chew. Next up: carrots, softened by boiling.
That is all I have time for now. Enjoy your day. (Yankees suck.)
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| The Yonahs' Vacation: The First Week |
[30 Sep 2009|11:32pm] |
We have all been sick. For serious. WTF.
We are all since better. Now it's just a matter of time until everyone else here gets sick.
Have visited the ROM, the CN Tower, Kensington Market, Toronto's Chinatown, the Ontario Science Center, and the AGO. Have also done obnoxious amounts of shopping.
Note: The AGO doesn't allow you to walk through the gallery if your 7-month-old infant is sucking on a propped bottle in their stroller. This is because it is a bottle, and as such, counts as drinking in the gallery. Needless to say, we won't be going back there anytime soon. Pity, it doesn't suck as an art gallery.
Note: Seeing Ruben's "Massacre of the Innocents" made me realize how fucked up Herod really was.
Note: You need more than two hours to do the ROM.
Note: I don't care if it's dark out, seeing downtown Toronto all lit-up is friggin' awesome, and is absolutely worth a trip up the CN Tower.
Next week: Second day Sukkot trip to Wonderland!
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| Life with kids is more interesting than birthdays |
[10 Sep 2009|11:13pm] |
- Earlier today, I was making a wild attempt to feed Bracha some broccoli puree. She decided that it would be much more interesting to spray the entire room green by pursing her lips and blowing bubbles.
- Yaffa (testing the bungee seat): What do you think, will this work?
Me: It's worth a try.
Yaffa (cracking up laughing): What, and if one of our kids crashes to the ground and cracks their head open, we always have another one?
Me: Yeah. I say we give it a shot.
Yaffa: I hate you with all my heart.
Me: I love you too.
- Eliana is a puffball. Only much cuter.
- Both girls have taken to the piano we bought them. For something made in China that cost us 70 shekel, it's pretty awesome. It plays 20 different tunes plus "Old McDonald" and a few animal songs, as well as having a full scale and then some for keys. Whenever one song key is pressed, it keeps playing until another key is hit. This has lead us to some interesting remixes of "Old McDonald".
- Of course, I'm more interested in learning how to play Nintendo themes on the piano. I've already mastered The Legend of Zelda and Tetris. Yaffa keeps reminding me that it's the kids' toy. To which I respond, "Before we got married, I told you explicitly that I would enjoy my kids' toys much more than they would."
- Bracha is almost crawling. She's actually losing sleep over it. She'll wake up in the middle of the night, wailing, rocking back and forth, trying to figure out movement. Yaffa has done some research that has turned up that babies do this when they're about to reach developmental milestones like this. It makes sense - Eliana used to scream her head off when she couldn't figure out how to roll over to her stomach. Of course, she didn't like being on her stomach, so we used to joke that she'll cry until she rolls on her stomach and then she'll cry some more.
- The solid food thing? Not going so well. It's partially because we suck at feeding them more than once a day. Eliana did pretty well today with the broccoli, for as much of a mess as she made. Bracha has figured out that she needs to open her mouth to eat, but the food, as said above, tends to end up sprayed all over the room.
- Oh my God, there's two of them. This is the single biggest cosmic joke evar (Yaffa: You misspelled "ever". Me: Fuck you.). Me with kids is one thing. Me with twins is God laughing his ass off.
That is all.
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| Repost from Facebook |
[02 Sep 2009|05:33pm] |
From one of my friends back in Toronto:
I think it's fitting that Disney is buying Marvel... Both companies specialize in fictional characters like Mutants, Spiderman, and 16-year-old Virgins
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| I need a library, or Why Hebrew U sucks |
[31 Aug 2009|08:22am] |
I desperately need a place to study now that the university's libraries are closed. (Some bright individual thought it would be a good idea to declare a break week smack dab in the middle of when students are desperately studying for moadei bet or frantically trying to finish off final papers. All university services are closed, so not only can I not use the library, my teachers can't update my grades.) Does anyone have any experience with municipal libraries? I know there's one really close to me, but I can't seem to figure out what hours it's open or what services it offers. The municipality website gives extremely meager information.
All I need is a computer with an internet connection and a place for a USB key, and a quiet space. I suppose that's too much to ask from the geniuses at Hebrew U. Y'know, if the complete lack of action taken against cheating wasn't reason enough to boycott Israeli academia...
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| An overdue post |
[25 Aug 2009|09:44am] |
In some particular order.
- By some miraculous act of God, the four of us have survived six months together as a family. If we keep going like this, we might actually make it to a year without any serious injuries. Extra props to the girls for putting up with us, and to my wife for putting up with me. Pictures to follow when we get a chance to upload some.
- My computer is dead, dead, dead. The new hard drive that I got during the Pesach upgrade has up and died, taking along a whole shitload of pictures of the girls with it. Somewhat mercifully, bli ayin harah, tfu tfu tfu, hamsa hamsa hamsa, etc... the old hard drive with all my mp3s, schoolwork, videos, recipes, and the early pictures of the girls remains alive, and I didn't have anything else on the new hard drive. Also, it seems that my motherboard has gone down in a fiery death, minus the fire. My computer guy says that there's little that can be done to salvage the computer, since the MoBo is ancient technology and the processor won't be compatible with anything you'd find nowadays. Oh what a difference five years makes. So now we've got a replacement Pentium 4 with the old hard drive, our CD drive, my old 3.5" floppy (FTW!), and a new hard drive to run programs from. The saga will continue later.
- Yaffa's iBook G4 laptop is dead, dead, dead. What started as the odd loss of her playlists on iTunes continued to Finder not loading at startup, culminating with the computer not getting past the Apple logo at first boot. We are planning to take a trip to Tel Aviv for when the new Apple Store opens in Dizengoff. גם לירושלים מגיע אפל סטור.
- I have quit my job at the Pediatrics Department at the hospital. The reasons are numerous, but suffice to say that my craptacular grades this year can only be blamed on two things, and since the twins are sticking around, the job goes. It sucks on many levels, not the least of which is the cutback in budget or the experience that I won't be gaining as I work. Furthermore, with what feels like half the nurses on maternity leave, and the other half about to retire, I know that my leaving will only complicate things further. Well, at some point, I've got to do the selfless thing and choose my flailing schoolwork and my growing family over a job that has brought me much experience and frustration. This was not an easy decision, but I'll figure it out.
- As implied above, my grades suck hermaphroditic emu gonads. While I've passed everything except for Pharmacology, I haven't gotten a single grade over 75 this year. This is very depressing. My next exam is nursing for the gastrointestinal patient. But get this: I can't find Coeliac in any of the material for the test yet. wtf.
- Which leads me to the Coeliac disease issue. The biopsy results came back from the endoscopy I did a few weeks back. Guess what? Inconclusive! FUCK YOU! For some reason beyond my understanding, the results came back as "Inconclusive - may show early signs of Coeliac Disease, but difficult to tell." My gastroenterologist wants me to get a second opinion from a senior doctor at Hadassah, which could take upwards of three months to get. In the meantime, I continue the diet, and if my anti-TTG levels go down, then it's a confirmed diagnosis. In the meantime, I'm still sucking down Omeprazole for that duodenal ulcer.
- The in-laws have gone to the States for a few months. This means less free babysitting. It also means much more sleep deprivation due to not having the occasional reprieve from childcare. Of course, it also means spending less time with my in-laws, which sucks, in and of itself.
- We are due in New York and Toronto for a visit, but it is currently impossible to determine when that will be due to school. Updates to follow.
- The Gap opens up today in Mamilla! Woo hoo! 500 NIS for a sock, here I come!
That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure there's more, but I can't get this brain to function.
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| Shii |
[17 Aug 2009|08:17am] |
To hell in a handbasket I go. With apologies to feminists everywhere.
Props to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) joshbrown's brother, Joe.
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| Pregnancy FAIL |
[12 Aug 2009|12:29pm] |
Props to Ilan Manoim for the link.
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| Nearly two weeks gluten-free |
[11 Aug 2009|10:28pm] |
It's been almost two weeks since my endoscopy showed a very inflamed and ulcerated duodenum. Yes, I know, until the biopsy comes in, there's no final diagnosis. But hell, I can read the signs just as well as anyone else.
Since I got my initial blood test result showing that my anti-TTG levels are sky-high, it has been many weeks of denial and anger and bargaining and depression. Acceptance is still a little far off, but we're working on it.
Today's foray into the wilds of Jerusalem brought me to Tito Bravo, where one can order a gluten-free pizza. And it was good, I say. Crunchy crust and all. The wife approved of it, and did her bizzarro dough analysis thing, which I swear is something endemic to her immediate family members and probably has something to do with Gelpe's Old World Bakery. She says it's starchy, so it's likely made with corn and/or potato starch. I still can't understand how she got to that, even though she tried to explain.
Our next stop was merely by chance. We were walking up Agrippas past Lalush (Hebrew for "to knead") where they were offering free samples. Me, in my gluten-tard self-pity, declined, saying I wish I could have. When Yaffa explained to them my agony, they promptly invited us in to look at their selection of gluten-free products. And they verily did carry goods from my new favourite bakery in the world, Teena Pâtisserie. They had cookies, bourekas, and quiches. Super-awesome was that they had jachnun and puff pastry.
Our last stop on the tour was to get more non-gluten flours. Which, by the way, do exist. For serious, before I got hit over the head (more accurately, small intestine) with this dumbass diagnosis, I never knew they made flour out of white rice, brown rice, quinoa, soy, and garbanzo. We also found gluten-free soy sauce (most soy sauces nowadays are made with wheat) and a bread mix.
Closer to home, our backyard supermarket (no, seriously, we see it from our porch) has a section for gluten-free products. Corn-based pasta is cheaper than typical Osem pasta. Who'd've thunk. Also, Osem makes their own gluten-free crackers and pretzels. This is a major life-saver.
But the most important thing in all of this is that I have the best wife in the world. Not only has she weathered endless amounts of whining, bitching, crankiness, and self-pity, she's also gone out of her way to figure out recipes for her gluten-tard husband. For those that have been reading her LJ, she's been trying something new every few nights. Her major successes include soft dough deep-dish pizza, cinnamon apple muffins, and most recently, bagels. The hardest part of this diagnosis was, without question, knowing that I would never be able to eat my own wife's most incredible baking ever again. Somehow, after nearly three years of marriage, I managed to forget that Yaffa has this uncanny ability to surprise me with her endless amazingness. In this case, it's her deeply embedded talent for doughs and batters of all types - even ones without wheat flour. And dammit, it tastes good. My wife kicks ass.
So yeah, I still whine and complain every time I come across something else I'll never be able to have again (passing bakeries has now become physically painful), I also feel extremely relieved that I'm not going to have to live a life without baked goods.
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[09 Aug 2009|02:38pm] |
I just had a shot of Balvenie 10 year single-malt scotch after much reviewing of online information regarding distilled drinks and gluten-free diets. Adjusting to adult-onset Coeliac disease has never been easier.
Of course, the fact that my wife made me really tasty gluten-tard-safe pizza did help. And snacking on gluten-free pretzels helps, too.
Woo, the room is spinning. I am such a cheap drunk.
Take that, immune system. Autoimmune my small intestine.
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| The shooting |
[03 Aug 2009|12:44pm] |
I am shocked, revolted and disgusted by the shooting at the center for GLBT youth in Tel Aviv. I offer my condolences to the families, and pray for a complete and swift recovery to those that survived the cowardly, vile act of murder. I hope that the police catch the perpetrator as soon as possible, and that this deranged criminal will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. (Preferably with as much torture as possible in the process.)
I am not shocked, though definitely bothered, by the knee-jerk reaction of certain members of the GLBT community to declare this as an act of religious extremism. While the community certainly has a right to a certain level of playing the victim card - God knows they've had a hate-filled history not that different from Jews - to automatically blame Shas for incitement to murder is wrong.
Fact is, a crime of this sort in Israel can be one of four things:
1. A Islamist terrorist attack
2. A hate-motivated crime
3. Personal vendetta
4. Deranged lunatic off the street
The first option seems highly unlikely, since it has none of the typical signs of such an attack. The perpetrator was clad in black, with a mask, came in quietly (as best as can be derived from the news), opened fire, then ran away. If it was Islamist terror, the perpetrator wouldn't hide his/her face, would shout "Allahu Akhbar", and would continue firing until someone killed him/her.
The last one, too, seems highly unlikely. Unlike the States, not just anyone can get their hands on weaponry in this country.
That leaves hate and vendetta. Vendetta is entirely possible - someone came in to shoot up the place where his/her sibling/child/friend/etc was "stolen away" from them, a drug deal gone horribly wrong, mob hit, they're all possible. It's even possible that it's hate-linked vendetta - avenging the "out"ing of a relative/friend/etc.
What bugs me is the knee-jerk reaction of calling it homophobic violence. As a Jew who lived in Toronto, I've witnessed and experienced my fair share of suspected hate crimes, and I've also seen lots of them end up being perpetrated by Jews, often not even being a criminal act. (Major example: a shattered fire-door window at a synagogue suspected as a gunshot, turns out it was a kid playing with a slingshot.) I'm not dumb enough to rule it out, but I'm not going to jump to that conclusion as have some gay rights activists that have been quoted by newspapers.
And even if it was a hate crime, why the automatic assumption that it was someone from the lunatic fringe of the religious right? (Note: as much as I wish I could say it, and for as much as I can't stand them, Shas is not the lunatic fringe.) Maybe I'm a little slow to understanding Israeli society, but can anyone honestly say to me that there's no such thing as secular homophobia?
To the credit of many in the GLBT community, some of their leadership, and especially my friends, not everyone has publicly called this a religiously-motivated hate crime. I do appreciate (and even envy, a little) your ability to not jump to conclusions.
Now let's concentrate on catching this bastard.
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| No more denial, it's gluten-free diet time |
[30 Jul 2009|11:41pm] |
I had my endoscopy on Thursday. The biopsy results won't be back for another two weeks, but there's pretty much no denying it at this point. I'll be amazed if the biopsy results come back negative. I definitely have Coeliac disease.
The procedure went pretty smoothly, I suppose. Lidocaine spray to numb my throat, a push of midazolam that didn't quite work (I didn't feel anything the whole time the doctor was asking, "Are you sure you're not feeling a little blurry?"), then a push of fentanyl, and I was out for about an hour and a half. Turns out that there's a small ulcer in my duodenum (upper part of the small intestine) and plenty of signs of inflammation. Where there's inflammation, there's an immune response to something. Coeliac is an auto-immune response that attacks the small intestine when gluten is detected. This along with my astronomically high anti-TTG levels (a known marker for Coeliac), plus low iron levels, general exhaustion, and a strongly denied lactose intolerance... I think I can add things up myself.
Unfortunately, I didn't get the much wanted "unexplained weight loss" symptom that is part of the typical list of symptoms.
After a long and incredibly hard fast of Tisha B'Av, I had my first official gluten-free meal. Yeah, you guessed it. No bagel after the fast. So far, surviving and not starving from this diet.
For serious. Coeliac disease isn't a life-threatening disease... so long as I don't eat anything with gluten in it for the rest of my life.
What a pain in the ass. (More accurately, small intestine.)
I'm gonna stop bitching now, since sooner or later I'll have to deal with it.
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| From Spain Dad, a Baby Blog |
[20 Jul 2009|09:20pm] |
Here
I've discovered it's difficult to have an intelligent conversation about cloth diapers when they come with names like these...
Fuzzi Bunz
Happy Heinys
bumGenius
Snooty Booty
Wee Ones
Robin's Fanny Fluff
Baby Softwear
Thirsties
Fussybutt
Kooshies
PouPond
Happy Hempy
Wiggle Worm
Rumpster
Nothing Butt Cloth
Bummis
The Bear Essentials
TrendyTush
Toot-Toots
Mother-ease
Bamboozle
Any favorites? I'm taken by Wee Ones and Happy Heinys.
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| Insider information |
[15 Jul 2009|08:11am] |
When I asked my coworkers about the mother starving her 3-year-old, they knew exactly who I was talking about, and by name.
Some of the talkbacks are priceless, especially the ones denying that it's true or accusing the police/press/state of lying. Perhaps I just find it amusing because I have information access to the case.
Somewhat corollary to all this, I was wondering what would happen if someone kept close track of these various violent protests (in this case, the family is Netorei Karta, and their fellow hooligans torched the welfare office where the mother was arrested) and published it monthly to all major Jewish institutions. Would that make a dent in the funding of these extremist causes? At the very least, would it result in accountability in handling donor money, to make sure that as little international Jewish donor money went to the offending organizations and their various causes?
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