We Interrupt this Blog for and Important Announcement

Photos from my Nahariyyah (yes, I will spell it differently every time) shabbaton will be posted shortly.

However, today is a great day in Planet Israel history: I have a bed!

It all started when my air mattress popped. One night of sleeping on the cold Jerusalem stone floor, bones grinding against one another every time I tried to roll over, convinced me that it was time to finally break down and buy a real bed, a process which I described in greater detail in this post. Fortunately, I was able to call on friends and neighbors in Pisgat Ze'ev, and most people still haven't put away their foam matts from sleeping on the ground during Sukkot, so I was able to stack up several foam slabs and build a makeshif sleeping pile. But pulling myself off the ground had been getting old.

Finally, Thurdsay, a knock at the door.
"You ordered the bed?"
"Bring it in!"

Wow, they were 5 days earlier than expected. How could that be? But watching them drag in the pieces of the new bed, I realized that it didn't quite look like the one I had bought. Finally, Miri the landlady, popped her head out the window from upstairs, "Eh... that's my bed." Turns out we both ordered beds.

So pretty soon Avi the landlord and Miri the landlady were asking me to take their old bed which they had just replaced off their hands. It's a bit frustrating, one of my negotiating points on the apartment was that it came with no furniture. Meanwhile, I figured I could use their bed until mine came. Since everything shows up two weeks late in this country, at least I'd have something for the time being.

Of course, my bed was the first and only item I've ever ordered which showed up here on time. So now, after two and a half months of sleeping on the floor, I've got two beds! I'm thinking of trying to transform one of them into a sofa.


Meanwhile, even better news came... after working with my company for the last few months trying to figure out how to get money deposited into my account while I'm all the way over here, my first telecommuting paycheck has finally been deposited! Wow! I celebrated by buying a water heater, seltzer machine, new pots and pans, real sheets (the ones I have now are hand-me-down teddy bear sheets), a little doormat to dry my feet, fresh tzitzit, and cooking utensils. I dropped 700 shekels in 30 minutes.

Also... fellow Olah and blogger Movin' on Up noticed my picture had shown up in an Israeli paper (Globes) and took the time to scan it and send it to me. My reputation preceedes me! All around, a great day.