First thing in the morning for me, I didn't fall asleep until after 5am. What's up with that?

I am effectively typing one-handed, and it is really hard to adjust to not having my fingers keeping pace (almost) with my thoughts. I'm learning, getting better, but this is no fun at all. *sigh*

I'm dealing with some ugly stuff related to my ugly past, along with physical difficulties and of course living in an unfinished room with no heat in the winter and not (for some reason) enjoying it.

We are going to try and go ahead and install a bathtub. I've given up on waiting for gub'mint funding, or the safe room/my bedroom being finished. On top of everything else we have no hot water. If there is a bathtub, we can at least heat water on the stove and take a hot bath. We lived in the U.S., in a one room house and water heated on the wood stove, so this is not new for me. It is just something unexpected and that I was not prepared for, in a 'proper' house with, supposedly, all the amenities.

So it goes. I am hopefully going to find out if the gub'mint funded bathroom overhaul (making it wheelchair accessible, among other things) is even possible. After all this time it may turn out that they won't pay for it if our lease doesn't count as 'long-term.' So we have to find out what 'long-term' means. Our landlord wouldn't write us a full ten-year lease, instead we have two leases, consecutive, of 4 years 11 months each. Go figure. There is nothing a Moroccan (at least a Moroccan Israeli) won't spend to try and save some money. If the landlord wrote us a proper ten-year lease, they would have to register it, and presumably pay for it.

So now I need to find out if two leases, totalling 9 years and 10 months will count as 'long-term' enough to continue the long and laborious process of trying to get the gub-mint to pay for making a bathroom that I can actually use properly.

That on top of finishing the mamad (that is what the safe room is called), and having the electrical service completely overhauled. One of the reasons we don't have heat is that the electrical service is so f**ked up that we can run a total of two electrical appliances with any significant draw, on top of the refrigerator. We juggle turning on heater and space-heater, washer, dryer, microwave... Honestly, life was easier when we had only a generator which we turned on at most two hours a day, for computer and phone (and the occasional movie). We had a wood stove that heated the house, we heated water on top of it, had oil lamps that gave plenty of light, and solar showers on top of the outdoor bathtub we occasionally filled as much for the fun of it as anything.

I miss our place in the country in the U.S.

Well life in Israel is a different type of adventure for sure, but putting it in perspective with our time homesteading in Vermont makes things seem less annoying than when looking at it in comparison with life in a normal house in a normal town. Of course, we didn't plan on 'homesteading' in Israel, especially after living here for more than a decade. And paying rent for the privilege.

I'm not writing about any of the really difficult stuff. I don't know when or whether any of that is going to come out. I am having absolutely nothing to do with my sister, except that we are both on this weekly conference call. I would be happy to miss it, except that sometimes (like last night) it turns out to be really helpful. Her birthday is this week, which brings up all kinds of painful stuff. Listening to her last night was helpful in strengthening my resolve in doing nothing with her - which wavers around the birthday, which is a huge deal in our family. More important than holidays or other event because it is a celebration of the individual.

I'm having to deal with all sorts of validation of my past, and I'd gotten used to the idea that I was just going to have to trust what I remembered, but wouldn't have any proof. Have to live with these weird things and never knowing. Except that I am getting validation in many, many ways and it is f**king with my head. I was happier not knowing, that it was all real. That weird stuff like that really happened, that my mother really was and is that sick, and so on.

So it's been a lot of no fun. I'm getting a better attitude as I type, so I hope I will be coming here and doing more of this - at least as my physical condition permits. Besides getting hold of gub'mint offices, I have to get to the clinic to get a commitment to pay so that I can schedule a ct scan (again). No one told me I needed this new-to-me piece of paper before I could have the scan, which is supposed to help diagnose whatever is wrong with my left hand. And we have to buy some cat food, having run out over shabbot. Yikes! I don't think we have run out of cat food before, so if we have it's been years if not decades. The cats are not complaining with the tuna we are giving them for now, but a diet of tuna is really bad for cats. We just don't have enough sardines for five of them.

Yes, five. I would be happy to get rid of all but the two that I claim, two live with oldest son in his little house, and one comes and goes, not wanting to be 'ours' but not wanting to be on her own. She grew up on an army base, so her relationship with people is quite different.

My two cats are Kitten, who I rescued at two-weeks old and bottle fed going on nine or ten years ago. And Sonny, who was my friend Donna's cat before she had to move into an assisted living apartment. She died not long after. So I have inherited Sonny, who earns his keep by killing scorpions and other pests we didn't have to worry about in New England.

Here's The Husband, so I guess that is my sign to stop typing already. He is home sick, which is a real treat. The new job has him working all the hours Gd gives us, and isn't paying him anywhere near enough. So our lives continue as they have been, and overall, despite all my complaining here, it is quite good.

I'm grateful for: A healthier perspective; a pane of glass between me and the outside world, at least sometimes; having enough, whatever that means, and however it works out.