[Today is La Passionara’s birthday. As is traditional, she has been reminding me since last June. We are supposed to go out to a restaurant but everything in Ashkelon is closed. Ditto for Ashdod. I’ll have to think of something. What’s left of my manhood is at risk.]
GOODBYE 29 January 7, 2009
COMFORT FOOD: EAT YOUR WAY TO HAPPINESS
One of the reasons men, most men, love being called up for reserve duty or even active service is that one is, of necessity, detached from the cares of every day life. A nagging wife? A sick child? A boring job? Unpaid bills? The list is endless. In uniform, kitbag on your shoulder, you wave and say “I’ll take care of it when I get back in thirty days/forty days/whenever” and off you go to have fun with the guys. You may be crippled or killed or shell-shocked for life but the odds are in your favor and the risk makes your activity that much more pleasurable.
Even in a miniature country like this, where you needn’t cross oceans or continents to get to the action, where the front may be twenty minutes from your home, walking out the door in your uniform is like stepping into another world.
Having played most of the different male roles – I am currently doing a COG, Cantankerous Old Grump – I have come to the conclusion that the true heroes are the LLBs, the Ladies Left Behind. This is not to take anything away from the troops. I know what they are going through. Several, including one in critical condition, are from Gush Katif. And my daughter Tamar just called to say she is on the way to the funeral of another who was from her settlement.
Still, everyone is praying for the troops, concerned for them, while civilians – largely Les Girls – are on their own. Which isn’t really true. There has been a tremendous outpouring of support, for people in the south generally, for Gush Katifers in particular. Free this, free that, home hospitality, you name it.
Three consecutive sirens just sounded [8am, Jan.7] and the effect was quite beautiful. The thud of the first explosion was heard simultaneous with the second siren, the thud of the second with the third siren. Alas, the third thud was unadorned by appropriate background music.
I puffed away – no smoking in the sewervilla! – and stroked Cholera while watching a crowd enter and exit the sewervilla as if it were the F train on Delancey Street.
An interesting phenomenon is that a lot of people are noticeably putting on weight. Comfort food is what helps you get through the tension. And comfort food is, by definition, fattening. No one says ‘I’m so nervous, I’ll have a green salad to calm me down’. And even if, by superhuman effort, you keep meals more or less consistent with proper eating, how do you get through the hours and hours of televised war reporting without varieties of nuts and chocolates? You don’t survive a half hour of al-Jazeera chewing on a carrot. Nothing less than a cheesecake will do.
Added weight on a gelatinous blob like me goes unnoticed. On most people it can’t be unnoticed. So my particular problem is less overeating than hyper-tobacco-incineration.
I’m going through my cigars at a scary rate. And they’ll soon be finished. If you think I’m weird now, watch me then. And don’t be surprised to read that seventy flatbed trucks loaded with stogies are being delivered to me, under UN auspices of course, to solve my humanitarian crisis.
If we can expand the definition of graffiti, there is a Graffiti War going on here, an echo of the Gaza War. And the battlefield is each sewervilla. Printed posters have gone up on sewervillas and tombstones saying “We are returning to Gush Katif… An historic injustice will be made right… We will again be Israel’s first line of defense…” Most of you think the very idea is absurd, or impossible given geopolitical realities. Be that as it may, many of us think of little else. Yesterday, when it was reported that our troops were in the former settlement of Netzarim, some here wept openly.
At the same time, government crews race from sewervilla to sewervilla spray-painting “Defense Ministry Home Front Command cares about you.” They don’t do it if people are around as our reaction has been less than enthusiastic.
Another siren, another thud. This one landed two kilometers down the road in a farming community called Beit Ezra. No one hurt, thank G-d, and no serious damage, but lots of soiled underwear.
Later La Passionara got her way, and it was wonderful. She had read a review of a restaurant in a rural community out of rocket range not far from Rehovot, and off we went. Everything was picturesque, including the food, and we walked and walked and walked around the village, oohing and aahing about things like a well dug in 1870 and crystallized dog poop from 1893. As we were about to leave La P saw a museum devoted to the community’s history. The door was open but as we entered a woman said “Sorry, I’m closing up”. She then asked Rachel where were we from, Rachel said ‘Gush Katif’, the woman appeared genuinely excited and took Rachel on a private tour while I – o’ Joy! – sat on a bench outside and billowed clouds of cigar smoke into the ionosphere. A happy birthday, indeed. And I can relax for half a year, at least.
There have been numerous articles, learned and not so learned, decrying the use of the term ‘disproportionate’ in describing Israel’s response to eight years of missile attacks from Gaza. My own feeling is that ‘inadequate’ would be a better word, especially in light of today’s news about a three-hour cease fire which is clearly the precursor to leaving before the job is done.
Proper use of the term would be, say, “French President Sarcasti’s marriage to a super-model after dumping a plain wife is clearly a disproportionate act.”
Keeping in mind that the killers of Jews in Mumbai were Pakistanis and not Palestinians, and those who blew up the Buenos Aires Jewish Center were Iranians and not Palestinians, it is clear the war is not between Israelis and Palestinians but between Jews and Muslims. Given that there are some ten million Jews and one billion Muslims, proportionality would call for one thousand Muslim deaths for every Jew killed.
Several of you have criticized me fiercely for expressing bewilderment that so high a percentage of Jews had voted for Obama despite paying lip-service to being supporters of Israel. I have just seen a poll indicating 70% of Republicans support Israel, while 55% of Democrats support Israel. Is it any wonder I have become disillusioned with my co-religionists in my old age when Christian believers are more steadfast in support of Israel than Jews?
We just had a call from someone who identified himself as a journalist. I think he said – not kidding – Borat from Kazakhstan. I wanted to pass him off to Rachel, but she was out for a walk. I told him to call back later but he pleaded, “Just one question…” “Just one” I said.
“How do you feel about Palestinians suffering so cruelly in Gaza?” he asked.
“Hamas leader Khaled Maashal said ‘We Palestinians will defeat you Jews because we wish for death as you wish for life’.”
“So?”
“So, may they get what they wish for.”
moshe
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