THE FEARLESS EXPLORER

B"H


Wednesday, August 20th

Rolled out of bed at a quarter to 9 to the tune of my landlord & cleaning lady yammering on about *something*. Turns out the alarm didn't sound, but my computer woke up at the designated time. That's useful...
Called my sofer. He's hilarious. We discussed last night's bombing. "It's just the same thing, over & over again." he said in a hopeless tone. We also chatted about sirtut (scoring qlaf [parchment]), what flick he should take his children to today, etc. We're going to meet tomorrow at 9 am.
I'm so tired I'm nauseous again. It'll pass. In the meantime, I should do my laundry & errands in the village. Get change for the cleaning lady. Thank G@d I'm alive & healthy.
Finished my everyday & walked through Bloomfield Park on my way to do e-mail.
It occurred to me that I'd never checked out the Windmill in Yemim Moshe. This windmill, such a historic landmark, I painted on so may ketubot for so many couples & yet, I'd never had a good look at it. So I went in. It was free (yay!) & I learned a ton about Sir Moses Montefiore & his decades of charitable work with Jews all over Europe as well as all the people (not just the Jews - the Arabs too!) of Eretz Yisra'el. Quite amazing. Very cool architecture in the neighbourhood, too, in this first Jewish neighbourhood established outside the walls of the Old City, with a windmill & green space & small plots of land to grow vines & fruits. People still live there. It has an amazing view of the Old City, as it's just across the valley which used to be referred to as Gehinom (Hell). The city's midden was here, so there were always garbage fires burning & this is where the Christian concept of Hell comes from. I must say, they've cleaned Hell up nicely, tho' - now it's a park with an outdoor theatre & concert space :) Not so bad a punishment if you've misbehaved in this life, to be sent to the movies :)
King Herod's family tomb is in the north end of this park & I checked that out as well. Very mysterious, the worn, broken cave breaking the surface of the lawn like a sounding whale...
I was wandering about through some of my favorite streets behind Ben Yehudah after my e-mail stint & this old guy followed me near T'mol Shilshon (a very excellent coffee house). I just turned & stared hard at him, annoyed. Then I slipped down a lane & out the back by some construction.
On a partially finished glass front building some graffiti read, "Ain isur yesh mutar" (There is nothing forbidden, only permitted) scrawled above a pentagram in white spray paint. I smiled. If only I owned a camera...
There was some kinda crazy thang goin' on at the Italian Synagogue - kiosks & flags & tables & banners & colours & I'll have to have a peek later...but I have more quill cutting to practice!