Finally

It took 17 years of driving in the states, followed by three failed tests, two driving lessons and about 1,500 Shekels, but I am now the proud holder of an Israeli Driver's license.

For Our Son's Former Girlfriend

ArandVee's Potato Kugel

6 eggs
1 large onion - quartered

Process above with blade attachment of food processer. Remove to large bowl.

7-8 potatoes

Process potatoes. Add to large bowl and mix immediately.

Lots of salt
Lots of pepper
2 tsp. bread crumbs or matza meal
1/2 c. oil

Add above to mixture in bowl. Mix well. (Air uses his hands.) Taste to make sure there is enough salt. (Potatoes eat salt.)

Paprika - sprinkle over top.

Bake at 350 uncovered for 1 1/2 hours. If you use a Pyrex pan, you should check the bottom to make sure it's browned. Otherwise, take your chances.


Yaptchik (or Potato Kugel Cholent)

Take raw potato kugel mixture and pour half in bottom of crock pot. Flatten out. Add cholent meat in a layer. Pour remaining half of potato mixture on top. Sprinkle paprika over top. Bake at 350 uncovered for an hour and a half. Take knife and stab kugel twice. Add enough water to cover plus about half an inch. Put pot into crockpot on low. Enjoy 24 hours later, or so.

Eggs

We have birds. Our birds had sex. Lots of times. Anyway, thats not the point. The point is, they had eggs. Momma bird sat on the eggs for weeks. Gestation was supposed to be 18 days. Now, four of her five eggs have turned gray, and she has given up on sitting on them.

Veev and I were talking about what is inside the eggs. If we cracked one open, would we get a partially developed bird? Egg yolk? Something completely different?

Any ideas?

Headline

"Autopsy Shows that Anna Nicole Smith Died of Accidental Drug Overdose"

It’s like saying that an alcoholic died of "accidental cirrhosis" or that a smoker died of "accidental lung cancer."

God only put each of us in charge of one body (unless you're beside yourself - but that's for another time). Shouldn't we be taking better care of it?

It only cost me an hour and a half...

...Or How much life sucks if you live in Europe/Africa/South America.

I did it. Israel played England on TV on Saturday night, and I watched the whole thing. Kick after kick. Head butt after head butt. I watched it all. Unless you ask my oldest. He says I missed the first minute and a half, but the next 88.5 minutes surely made up for that emasly minute.

This is part of the qualifying series Eurocup or something like that. These teams are looking to represent their country and bring glory to their nation. And it is duller then a Mandy Moore movie.

Goalie has the ball. Goalie kicks the ball halfway down the field. Person uses his head to bounce it back toward the goalie. Other person uses his heaed to bounce it back. Players knocks ball to ground with feet, and kicks ball. Ball goes back to the goalie.

Repeat.

And repeat.

And repeat again.

And Europeans think this is as good as it gets.

Pathetic. And boring.

A Call For Help

I want to talk to you about Esther, a girl in New York whose phone number is 718-854-5222.

There is an organization based in New York called Rofeh Cholim. You may be familiar with them. I don't know what they do exactly, but they basically call people trying to solicit funds.

Over the past few weeks they have called here a number of times trying to raise funds to help a woman who has breast cancer.

Repeatedly I have asked them to take me off their phone list, as I live no longer live in the states and am not interested in giving money to their organization. The girls who call listen for a moment, and then hang up on me, usually in midsentence.

Tonight I called them back and asked the girl to take me of the list. She told me she would take me off the list when she got in front of a computer, but I don't believe her. She claimed, even though she answered the phone right away and knew who I was when I called, that she was not in front of the computer and would take me off the list when she had a chance.

Her name is Esther, and her phone number is 718-854-5222. If everyone could call her (don't worry about time or time zones; she certainly doesn't care that she frequently calls after midnight here) and ask her to take the Zacks' off her phone list, I would appreciate it.

Leon Feingold - RHP

Leon Feingold intrigues me. I don't know who he is, but he is signed for this coming season in the IBL. He is, for those of you who don't speak baseball, a right handed pitcher.

What intrigues me the most is he is older than I am. He's not the oldest signed player, and there is one guy who is older than me but younger than Yudi J. The oldest player was born in 1961, although it is unclear if he is a player or coach from the profile.

Not as old as the Rookie. But still, older than I am.

On his MySpace page, he talks briefly about his career in the Indians farm system and his professional competitive eating status (He once ranked 12 in the world) and some other less interesting information.

He seems to be genuinely exxcited about having a second chance, and for the chance to play in Israel. At some point in his career, he was described by former Major Leaguer and Indians coach Billy “B-Dub” Williams as “The nicest guy he’s ever met in baseball.”

I'm looking forward to watching him play.

More Modiin Miracle

The Miracle are scheduled to begin play in just over 98 days, in the league's opening day. The IBL website has a fantasy baseball game, a contest called stump the Abramowitz (I'm not making this up) and a list of the 38 players already signed to contracts for the initial season.

But here we are, less than 100 days before opening day, and tickets are not on sale, and there are no ticket prices either. I want to be there on opening day to watch the Miracle slaughter the Petach Tikve Pioneers, but there is no ticket information available yet.

And how am I supposed to plan my IBL fantasy team without a larger player list to choose from? Someone has to get their butt in gear and start making things happen. Like a logo for the Miracle would be nice. Then we could buy an official licensed Modiin Miracle Baseball Cap or Jersey.

Bitchin Kugel?

Shlomo was one of the Rosh Yeshivas in one of the yeshivas I attended. He was young and fun, with a milf for a wife and two kids we used to toss around for fun on boring shabbos afternoon. Veev used to come to the yeshiva for shabbos when we were dating, and she would stay at his house.

Shlomo had a lot of strong points, and was one of the few rabbis I came across who I actually liked. The fact that we could sit and smoke all morning long on the leather couches in his office cemented his reputation as one of the good guys. We would drink together, and watch football, and work on different business ideas so that the yeshiva could turn into a self-supporting institiution and not rely on donors and fundraising.

Friday afternoon and Shabbos were the highlights of yeshiva life. Shlomo's potato kugel would appear in the yeshiva kitchen on Friday afternoon. We would go through it before Mincha, and then, after dinner on friday night, we would eat the kugel and dip into the chulent.

I wasn't as brave as Shlomo; I couldn't go for chulent on Shabbos morning before shul, but he did. And by the time Kiddush came after minyan, we were ready to dip into more kugel. Air Time readers who have been here since '97 might remember I included the recipe for the magical potato kugel; At the time I called it Shlomo's bitchin' potato kugel, which is what Veev and I called it after Shlomo gave us the recipe, shortly after we were married.

We lost touch with Shlomo and his family. We moved to Detroit; he left the yeshiva. Our paths crossed this summer, and a few weeks ago, we spent Shabbat at his house. In retrospect, I should not have been surprised to see the shaved-head business man, who spent much of the time we were together either drinking or sleeping it off. It was Purim weekend, so I will cut him some slack there.

Then I googled him, and found his bio at the company he started. Almost every significant item in his bio was untrue, from his degrees to his years of experience working as a fund manager.

It had been a long time since we had seen each other, and a long time since he claimed to be a rosh yeshiva. Still I am really disappointed in him. The fact that I counted him as one of the good guys in the rabbi game when he turned out to be just like the the rest of them was one thing. But the fact that we named our Potato Kugel in honor of him was too much.

So now we need to rename the Kugel. And I don't know what to call it.

We could call it Bitchin Kugel, but I think it loses something when we take away the name in front. When Al Taubman was convicted in Detroit, I was never comfortable that they kept his name on the Oak Park JCC campus, and even though Shlomo is not a convicted felon, I don't want to associate the Kugel with him.

So to all the people who claim to be reading these days, any suggestions for what to call a kick-ass potato kugel?

Dear

אני חושבת שאנחנו היחידים שעדיין קוראים את הבלוג שלנו

ואולי רק אני

Pete on Dan Patrick - March 14, 2007

"I believe I am the best ambassador baseball has" - Pete Rose

"Mark McGwire has been retired for six years, and what he took was not illegal in baseball's eyes when he took it...don't penalize Mark McGwire" - Pete Rose

"I bet on my team every night" - Pete Rose

"Yeah, I bet on my team to win every night because I believed in my team, I loved my team" - Pete Rose

What's up with Air?

Air has not posted in a long time, so I will update you on some of what's been going on in his life:

~ When we went away for Shabbos we stayed at the house of Air's former Rosh Yeshiva. Man, I wish he was still posting...

~ Air's brother named his new baby boy Shiloh Techelet.

~ Air has been working so hard lately that his boss told him he's fired if he stayed late again last night.

~ I offered Air 25 NIS to bathe our youngest. He agreed to 35 and took it out of my wallet this morning.

M.

M. was in Yeshiva with Air for the first two years of high school and a very unworthy eight-ball opponent to me. There was some bet, thirteen years ago, about who would buy whom a drink in a bar. I won a White Russian in a really seedy bar called the Blue Hole or something, on Yoel Solomon. A couple of years later, I went to Chicago to hang out at a friend's house, and he and Air both showed up. We all spent time together, and M. ended up sleeping over in the basement of my friend's house because the video of the Family Ties Finale didn't end until 3:45 a.m. Being from a Haredi family, he was completely freaked out that someone would see him there. He skulked out of the house at 6:30 when no one would be out.

He got married a year later, just two months after Air and I did. I drove in to Chicago with Air's brother for his wedding, and was instructed to introduce myself to the Kallah as Air's wife and nothing else. OK.

Fast forward almost twelve years. A friend of mine R.K. had a baby boy last Shabbos, and we went to his house in RBS to celebrate the baby's Bris. (They named the child after his Zaidy Irving and also the dad's childhood best buddy. But that's not what for this post.) Over Shabbos we realized that M. lives in RBS also. But R.K. informed us that M. told him we must never to look him up or call or anything. Because of me. Hmmm, I guess he doesn't want to confront his past.

Tonight we found ourselves in RBS again for the Purim Seudah. Air suddenly was obsessed with finding M. He mostly wanted to see his old friend's reaction to seeing me. After the Seudah, we looked him up in the directory and found his address. We showed up as he was heading out the door to go to a friend's house for a drink. He looked at Air and it took him a few seconds to recognize him. He was clearly very excited to see Air. He kept glancing at me.

And then the moment came when two and two became four. He realized I was who I was. He had known I was married to Air, was even invited to our wedding, but his memories of Air do not include me at all.

M. was really glad we were there. He invited us all in and introduced us to his wife and friends and kids. He was all M from the old days. He was laughing, young, fun and all smiles like we remember. I have no idea if this is the M. of today, but today he was the M. of old.

Although he didn't mention his past friendship with me, he did noticably recognize me and speak to both of us in front of everyone. He also said he was so happy we came and that we should feel comfortable coming by any time. He inscribed one of the Sfarim he wrote and gave it to Air. He mentioned everyone in Air's family and spoke with fond memories of them when he was a Ben Bayit in their house for two years. When his wife left the room, he asked me if I'm happy here and if Israel is working out for me personally. It was almost like old times.

All in all, the whole experience was fun and worthwhile. And when I told M what R.K. had warned us, he tried to deny the whole thing, but...maybe.