in which our Heroine is confined to a small, quasi-electricity-less, entirely-heat-less Apartment for Four Days without her MacIntosh Computer yet somehow Valiantly Fights to Witness another Week in which the Lord Shows No Sign, alas, of Making His Return to Earth to proclaim Peace and Warmth and Put an End to all the Bitterness (of cold showers), the Strife (-ing through knee-high snowbanks) and Gnashing of Teeth(-cracking Bread and Stray Root-vegetables our Heroine has been Forced to Scavenge for, for want of Proper Consumables during said Involuntary Confinement)
I made the fateful decision to leave my computer and all my work at the office Wednesday night. I was part of a joint choir concert way up North that evening and didn't want to schlep all that stuff around Israel. The concert was good fun, but the weather was already monsoon-ish by the time we piled on the bus for home. We barely got back before they closed all the roads going in and out of Jerusalem. (Never ye mind -- we singers paid the weather little heed, entertaining ourselves merrily enough all the way home. I had conspired with a few others to convert our late-night, post-concert conveyance across the country into a proper Party Bus by doling out some whiskey I'd stashed onboard earlier, and teaching everyone the lyrics to such American classics as "Hit the Road, Jack". A jubilant time was had by all aboard-- save, perhaps, the bus driver.)
Of course we "heard tell of the storm 'a brewin" several days in advance. But I assumed it was just going to be another overhyped meteorological doomsday scenario, after which I'd stand back and proudly declare (to myself or whatever people-group I happen to be standing next to at the time) that "No one on God's Blustery Earth is as tough as a Midwesterner", then chuckle to myself in a light, carefree way that nevertheless smacks of condescension.
I'm not laughing now, as I've been trying to coordinate several skype interviews, collaborative work meetings with my co-author and make headway re pressing deadlines all without stable/continued access to the interwebs. I'm using M's computer right now, but the vowels won't always type and everything shows up in Hebrew characters, so it is, so to speak, a less than ideal situation. Nevertheless, I thought I'd better let everyone know that I was okay. Or, maybe first tell you why I might not be okay (did reports of our mini-apocalypse even break into the Western news cycle? Maybe, if only because John Kerry is in town...) ...and then tell you that though I might not be okay, I am in fact okay. (Okay, grandparents? :)
Here are a few snaps of a snow-laden Jerusalem, taken by people who were able to find their cameras in the darkness (over 30,000 Jerusalemites were without electricity for over 40 hours):
A dormant Church of the Dormition (see what I did there?)
or, better yet,
It's Beginning Toll Look a Lot Like Christmas
or
Gentile Bells
(and now I'm going....)
There's No Place Like Dome for the Holy Dais
or
Rockin' around the Qubbat As-Sakhrah (eh)
or
Go Tell it on the Mount, Temple
or
Away, Imam Anger! / Snow-kids form their beds
or
Angels from the Ruins of Golan (too soon?)
or
Islam Mommy Kicking Snow in Clots?
The Great White Whale-ing Wall
or
Deck the Wall with Bows of Holy
or
The First No-wail
Frosty, the Shalom-men
or
Walkin' by a Winter Wandern-jud
or
Go Dress Thee, Hairy Gentile Men / Lest no Kippah Display ?
I tried to work today, really I did-- I took a taxi up to the university (no public transport is running) and that was a mild adventure worth about 30 bucks. When we arrived, the gates to the University were locked. Alas and alack! My scholarship! How it suffers! Ah me, this is day 4 without any ability to do my research and I can't let myself feel at east. Indeed, only the kids seem to be enjoying the snow with proper reckless abandon. Hordes of families have driven up today from Tel Aviv just to see the stuff... adding to the traffic milieu, of course. But no matter-- tis a rare occasion. I only wish I weren't so dependent on my laptop for my work!
But enough of that. It's nothing that would even give a Midwesterner pause, and yet this entire country has ground to a halt. What can I do but wile away the hours with New York Times Crossword puzzles, or re-reading the one academic paper I have a hard copy of, or re-arranging M's plants in order of greeness?
I want to tell you two stories about the little Scottish church I go to here. Then I should try to put in some work, because after all, as I am fond of telling scientists who are inevitably confused by what sort of research I do: "I don't need no lab -- my brain is my lab." I guess it's just you and me this weekend, brain. But first, the stories:
Story One: last week a woman visiting the church was telling a group of us afterwards all about a beautiful new Nativity set made of olive wood she had recently purchased from a Bedouin craftswoman. No sooner had she set it up on her windowsill (back in those days, long since past, when it was warm! Like....Tuesday) -- no sooner had she set it up and turned to sip her tea, but Mary and the baby Jesus went missing!
She didn't have to look far before seeing two scoundrel felines lurking with -- sure enough -- tiny wooden figurines in their maws. She dove at the nearest cat, screeching "MARY MOTHER OF GOD!" and thus victoriously reclaimed the Blessed Virgin. But at this point in her story-telling she sighed and sadly concluded with: "Och, but Aye could nae save the wee bairn!" That's right, folks: A feral cat ate the baby Jesus. Just ate him right up. Unless that cat was Catholic (and I suspect not), eating Jesus was a bad move. It only confirms what I have long suspected -- that Jerusalemite cats have had congress with The Beast; that they are the devoted minions of an abysmal lord, sent to spy on a holy city and to eat tiny wooden baby Jesuses painstakingly carved by nomadic indigenous peoples.
Story Two: this one goes out to my musician friends, especially church musician friends. There is a fabulous young Korean woman who usually plays organ for us at the church, but she's been out of town these last few weeks. From Lord knows where, a sweet but entirely whack-a-doodle woman bedecked in all self-knit articles of mismatched hue has humbly taken it upon herself to accompany our hymn-singing during Advent. She may well have good intentions (though, actually, it's hard to say for sure), but the Good Lord just can't be pleased by the unique kind of racket the woman consistently generates with that instrument.
And it isn't just that she plays the wrong tempos, or even the wrong key signatures or the wrong hymns, or even some expertly disastrous combination thereof (as exemplified in today's service), but on top of it all she also plays too much or too little -- a single note of introduction for one hymn, a whole two verses for another. Or she might choose to go on playing through seven blasted verses of a song when the congregation has stopped after three.
She's so bad that it is deeply hilarious. It's important not to snigger though, because the congregation is small enough and the acoustics fine enough that they'd only conspire to locate the sin's origin. But man, it is a difficult exercise not to burst into laughter at every hymn. I suppose it is a cross I alone must bear. Though perhaps not, because today even the preacher starting to lose patience when Thelma Marie (or whatever her name is) kept trying to start the next hymn while he was still talking. And with the wrong notes. Repeatedly.
It went something like this:
Previous hymn ends on a loud, outrageous chord that is either entirely wrong or entirely Schoenberg-ian
Preacher [with jollity]: And now that we have celebrated the feast, let us ..
Loud burst of partial chromatic scale as Thelma Louise orwhateverhernameis slides across the organ bench turning pages in the hymnal
Preacher [with annoyance]: .. let us go out into the world in peace...
Another non-sequitor blast from the organ, this time in partial Lydian mode, as Thelma Louise adjusts one of her several layers of "coats"
Preacher: [with manifest vexation]: ...in peace [he emphasizes the word to achieve thinly-veiled irony] to Love and serve the Lord, that we may...
Thelma Louise prematurely starts in on the three-fold Amen, at irreverent tempo reminiscent of bacchanalian quadrille
Preacher: [summing all priestly virtues not to fly into a fit of frothing vitriolic rage]: NO, not YET!
[clears throat; collects himself, continues peaceably:] ... that we may shine the light of God's grace for all to see.
Long, awkward silence, during which the Preacher nods vigorously as though to cue the organ, yet organist fails to see him through several yards of self-constructed vintage scarf. Eventually, Thelma Louis receive the hint, the organ starts up again the three-fold Amen, but this time at the pace of lethargic, two-legged turtle wading through shrimp gumbo. After only two "Amens", the organ abruptly and inexplicably drops out, leaving the congregation (of 5 persons, including myself) to muddle through the last "Amen" without accompaniment. The preacher storms down the aisle and out the back of the church, while I stare straight ahead at the alter, attempting simultaneously to stifle uncontrollable laughter and tears of utter despair.
End scene.
It was like a bit from a British sketch-comedy sho. Ah, me, what hilarious creatures we mortals be.
And now you are all caught up. I will go snuggle up next to a heater, leave M use of her own computer, and attempt some scholarship of my own. Let's to work, brain!