21 November 2007

The other day I got taken for coffee by my health care service. More correctly, the survey-taker they hired took me out for coffee. Apparently there’s enough interest in the satisfaction and needs of American immigrants that they hired a consultant to interview the likes of me. As if free coffee and participating in an Israeli institution’s newfound caring for new immigrants – especially the stereotypically rich Americans – wasn't rewarding enough, I was given gift certificates that are valid at stores as varied as Tower Records (we still got it here) and supermarkets.
The survey was exactly 30 minutes, entailing questions about my health care service back in the States and how much I knew about my services here. The best question was hands down about comparing the four health care funds: “If each of them was a person how old would they be, what would they do for a living and where would they live?”

The gift certificates and creative questionnaire were a great diversion from what has become a rather sedentary lifestyle. Aside from schoolwork, it’s been a lot of looking for jobs. I think about working so much so that last night I dreamt one of my former colleagues had moved his office to my graduate school, and was so excited to see me that he hired me as an inspector of security protocol for trips in Israel. I was basking in the morning sun atop the mountain fortress of Masada when the workmen renovating the apartment below woke me up.

It’s been grey, cold and wet here the last few days, but the weather wouldn't stop me from a job-hunting advice meeting. I arrive right on time, well-dressed and using English full of complex sentences and dependent clauses, hoping that somehow this meeting would transform into someone walking in with an employment contract to sign. I got great advice and a few leads on job postings, but alas, no contract to sign. I decided to stock up on discounted magazines at the bus station and made it home a few minutes’ ahead of the first deluge of the afternoon. The electrical storms that have graced the coast since Sunday finally made their way here, lighting up the terracotta-colored sky like a strobe light. The rain falling by my bedroom windows, amongst the still-leafy trees, gives the appearance of a frigid rain forest.

I have to now get myself outside amidst the continuing rainstorms, as I felt compelled the other day to rent Thanksgiving-themed movies. “What’s Cooking?” which must have repeated itself on the NYU closed-circuit station ad infinitum during my tenure there, was only a precursor to the modern classic “Home for the Holidays.” The movie’s witty, the writing is'nt so bad, and the dinner scene is one of the best portrayals of a dysfunctional family ever. As people were too lazy to illegally upload the movies onto YouTube, I rented them from the well-stocked video store a half-hour walk away.

Now they’re due, the rain’s still coming down, but there’s hope….once the requisite turkey and Beaujolais Nouveau is put away, out comes the most wonderful time of the year: Jelly doughnut time.

11 November 2007

I’m walking to a friend’s for lunch on Saturday, dressed rather nattily: plaid pants, grey merino sweater over a pink oxford cloth dress shirt with a button-down collar. I live a total of five minutes away and arrive on her street just on time. As I’m crossing the street, a police car pulls in front of me from seemingly nowhere and the cop, easily in his 20’s, asks me for ID. Since it’s the law for citizens to carry ID, I take it out of my pocket and the guy asks me if I live in the neighborhood. Paralyzed with fear, I say yes, and he puts my number in his car’s computer. Five minutes later, he hands my ID back and wishes me a Shabbat Shalom, driving away. I’m shaking, I’m furious, I mouth an expletive at his rear window and walk up the stairs to my friend’s apartment.
I normally say I have no problem getting stopped, since as far as I know I’m not involved in any illegal operation. Sure, I blast Arab music in my apartment, but the neighbors and the next-door health clinic have yet to call the cops on me. And there are days when I know I could be targeted, based on how I look. I’m trying to believe that this cop was simply bored and wanted something to do by pulling me over. After all, he was darker in skin tone than me.
I’m trying not to think about it, remembering to write some snappier responses to bring along for the next time being stopped Walking While Semitic. In the meantime, I’ve joined the mainstream and am thoroughly enjoying The Next Big Thing: Little Mosque on the Prairie, a Canadian sitcom about the interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims in a small town in Saskatchewan. The show is funny, right on topic, and a great remedy for being racially profiled.

It’s becoming winter. The jelly doughnuts started appearing on bakery shelves a few weeks ago in a two-month preparation for Hannukah, the scarves are back, and it’s Festigal time.
Festigal (or Pestigal, for the grammatically correct) is apparently this annual nationwide concert/performance for kids featuring the most popular celebrities. Each year, there seems to be a theme song that gets its own music video, which is nothing more than rewritten classic (and already painful in their original form) international pop songs. One year it was “I Need a Hero,” another year it was “The Final Countdown”…this year is “Major Tom” by Peter Schilling, who wrote it as a response/idolization of David Bowie and his Ziggy Stardust image. I remember hearing this song ten years ago on the classic rock station along with the Moody Blues and Supertramp…and now it’s the theme song inevitably to be sung by thousands of schoolchildren.

After watching every conceivable Halloween special from American TV (it’s amazing how many Americans mark the holiday cycle by what’s on TV, a fact proven by the comments on internet sites with these videos), it’s slowly time for the Thanksgiving specials.

Postscript: It rained nonstop for close to two hours this evening! Hopefully they sell rubber galoshes here, otherwise maybe I can melt some Crocs into something more useful.