Safra-Knit

No, this post isn’t about sudoku or neopets, but it is a game nonetheless.  It is the game of internet costs.  In Israel, this can be an annual, bi-annual (every two years) or possibly even more.

My internet comes via ADSL and it works well for us.  We just put a little adapter in our phone jacks, and plug the computer modem into the other line.  We’ve been doing this nearly since we arrived in Israel, and not much has changed.  During last years’ “game” Internet Zahav (our internet provider) gave us a deal where we paid a set fee to them for both the provider and the infrastructure (Bezeq).  It was a very good deal, but I don’t remember the exact cost.

A few weeks before the contract for the year came to a close Internet Zahav called and spent some time on the phone with me for the new deal.  The same price I was paying before but getting 8mb speed.  Sounded great!  Unfortunately, I got lazy and didn’t call Bezeq to see what the cost would be for their side of things.  Sunday, I took the time to call. 

First they told me I was currently paying 119 shekels a month for 4Mb and that that was because I didn’t have a required period of payment.  They then said that 4Mb for a year would be 96.90.  They said to go up to 5Mb would be 106.90.  I told them I needed to think about it.  She then said let me see what I can do.  After a minute or so she comes back with an offer of 96.90 for 6 months and then 106.90 for the next 6 months.  Ok, thats interesting…it is lower, so I’ll go with it.  She tells me I need to call my internet provider, and tell them to move me up to 5Mb.  I then told her that I already have 8Mb with them, if I switch to that with Bezeq.  She then says…oh let me check that price for you.  I said no, it will be too expensive…she says let me check and comes back with a price of 111.80!  Only about 5-7 shekels a month more for nearly double the speed!

Sounded good to me…so she said, let me check wether the infrastructure is in place in your area.  BZZZZ wrong answer, I can’t go up beyond 5Mb in this neighborhood!  So she comes back with a counter-offer.  Only 91.90 for 5Mb!  (With a 1 year contract.)  So the net price I was paying went down about 10 shekels, and I got an extra Mb of speed.

I think the bottom line is that the longer you stay on the line with them, the lower your prices go.

Technorati Tags: internet, bezeq, zahav, adsl

In the evening, I sometimes like to listen to NPR radio.  I mostly listen to the weekend programming, such as Car Talk, This American Life,  and some of the other talkshows. One thing I’ve heard lots about is Health Care and Obama’s plan.  I’ll admit, I have not read his plan, but I live in a country which has done a good job of providing socialized medicine.  It is far from perfect, but here are some examples of how we have interacted with our healthcare.

Firstly, there are four very similar "HMO" type organizations.  You can pick which one you want, and there is no difference in basic coverage.  The difference is basically which HMO has what kind of coverage in your city/neighborhood.

 Our pediatrician takes two of the four in his office, and he has two other people who share the office, so that most days there is coverage both in the morning and afternoon.  We can schedule our appointments online, and get complete information on blood tests, medications and list of all the doctors each of us has seen.  

Last Friday, my eldest was sick with probable strep throat.  I checked the computer and saw that none of the pediatricians were working that day, so we went to the Urgent Care Clinic (TEREM).  They are open evening and Fridays.  Within an hour he (hubby) was back with a prescription for anti-biotics, and a note to call them Sunday night (after Rosh Hashana ended) to get the test results.  Since the prescription didn’t come from our HMO, we could only go to one pharmacy to pay the HMO rates (if it was on HMO stationary, then we could go to any pharmacy that our HMO takes).  The pharmacy is also the nearest to the clinic.  

The holiday ended at 7:15 on Sunday night, and at 7:45 I received a phone call that the test results were positive.  I couldn’t believe they called so quickly!  The total cost for this non-HMO service was 50 shekels.  If the doctor’s office had been open, then it would have been free, and I could have received a message to my phone that the results were available on the computer.

On the whole, I’m very happy with our medical care….I’ll give other examples of how things go as I think of them. 

 

 

 

In 1990 I graduated from college, and had no clue what I wanted to do with my life.  I decided to spend a year in Israel and take some time to think about my future.  I went to Kibbutz Ulpan and then did a volunteer program in what was then the development town of Beit Shemesh.

While on kibbutz, I met a few of the non-Jewish volunteers; one from Alaska and another from Wisconsin.  These were individuals I never would have met under “normal circumstances.”  One was a dairy farmer, the other an Air Force pilot.  I think for all three of us it was a pivotal time in our lives.

Jump ahead nearly 20 years, and we managed to have a reunion of sorts during my visit to the US.  You might wonder what would a dairy farmer, airline pilot and a religious Israeli librarian have in common, but we managed to have a wonderful day together, chatting, walking around and reminiscing. The thought that kept going through my head is whether or not any three people could be put together and get along so well…it just seemed so natural.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but after 7 years of living a rather homogeneous life, it was nice to have some diversity. (But isn’t it funny to note, that all three of us consider Israel to be a central theme in our lives?)Technorati Tags: israel, reunion, friends

Mom in Israel tweeted (that is something you do on Twitter) about making sourdough starter, so I decided to come along for the ride.  I had not idea how interesting it would be!

 Since the starter has been completed, (which took close to two weeks)  I’ve been trying to make a different sourdough product each week.  So far I’ve made pizza dough, coffee cake, onion bread (that was the least successful, too tangy–my fault) and dough for quiche.

I keep the starter in the fridge, and pull some out and "freshen it" the morning I’m going to use it.  Freshening it consists of adding half a cup of water, and half a cup of flour to about half a cup or less of starter.  All of the products I’ve made use 70% organic whole wheat flour, and the kids have been enjoying the food.

 If anyone has any other suggestions how to use the starter, I’d love to hear it.  I’m also looking for suggestions how to make bread when you have very specific and limited bits of time to do it.

 

• On the needles: Bubbles washcloth and Fingerless glove swatch

Just sharing this in full..definitely worth reading.

 

Welcome to our reality

Say you live in any one of these cities: Oslo, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, London, Stockholm or Washington, and at 11 a.m. today the war siren goes off. You’ve been told it’s just a drill - your city isn’t being attacked by ballistic missiles or long-range rockets. Your country neither plans to attack anyone, nor is there intelligence indicating it is the target of imminent attack.

Still, the wailing siren - a curiously anachronistic instrument for the 21st century - is upsetting. You do as you’re told and seek out a nearby bomb shelter, or enter the reinforced-concrete room common in homes built since the 1990s.

At work, there is some gallows humor as colleagues file into the bomb shelter. At school, your children will head into the shelters with their teachers. It may strike you that the authorities were imprudent in collecting for refurbishment those cardboard boxes with their plastic shoulder-straps containing gas masks and a chemical-warfare antidote.

Of course, if you do live in any of the above-mentioned capitals, this scenario is beyond far-fetched. There are no shelters. No safe rooms. No gas masks.

No one is threatening to wipe Sweden, Germany or Scotland - or any of the others - off the map. There are no Sajil II ballistic missiles aimed your way. Your country didn’t absorb 5,000 rocket hits in the course of a single summer. It doesn’t share a border with a country that deploys Scud D missiles. And the notion that missiles laden with WMDs could explode over your head is simply beyond imagination.

Though Muslim extremists struck in Spain, Britain and the United States, the sense that any further danger looms is not widespread. That’s why no one undergoes a security check to enter a supermarket, department store or cinema. And why armed guards are not posted outside schools.

WE ISRAELIS live in a very different reality.

That truth was brought home in remarks Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made at Sunday’s cabinet meeting regarding Turning Point 3 - the week-long nationwide emergency drill.

The exercise is "routine," something the country does annually, he said, adding that it "reflects the special way in which we lead our lives - which, upon reflection, is not all that routine."

Want to understand the Israeli psyche? Consider that when our country was born, those with whom we sought to share this land rejected our right to exist. Though we have created a technologically advanced, Western-oriented country, and made peace with Egypt and Jordan, our "normality" still demands that a high-school graduate head not to university or for a gap year, but to basic training.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s (when there were no settlements and no "occupation") our homeland was under attack anyway. A single example: On March 17, 1954, gunmen ambushed an Eilat-Tel Aviv commuter bus. First they murdered the driver, then they proceeded to shoot the passengers, one by one.

In the 1970s, we fought off a surprise attack on our most solemn holy day - after having withstood a war of attrition. In the 1980s, we fought bitter wars in Lebanon to fend off attacks against our northern border.

In the 1990s, we signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestinian leadership. And since then? More Israelis have been murdered by terrorists than ever before.

Efforts to reach an accommodation with a violently fragmented Palestinian polity have thus far proven fruitless. The "moderates" appear no less unyielding than the fanatics.

We caught the Syrians, to our north, building a clandestine nuclear facility under North Korean tutelage. They make no secret about hosting Hamas’s politburo, pressuring it to resist even a tactical timeout in its anti-Israel belligerency.

Hizbullah dominates Lebanese affairs and provides Iran with shock-troops along our border.

Then there is Iran, which may have enriched enough uranium to manufacture a nuclear bomb by year’s end. Even as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens our obliteration, he insists that the Nazis did not systematically destroy European Jewry. Yet he is feted at UN forums, while Europeans shamelessly subsidize trade with his country.

That is our reality. It’s the one many of us will be contemplating at 11 a.m. today, when the siren sounds.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1243872307901&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

• On the needles: Finishing off the handles on the Elisa Nest Tote

I’m not sure how I stumbled across it, but Batzek Alim (בצק אלים) translated as Filo Dough is one of the loveliest cooking websites I’ve ever seen.  With pictures and text they give you a step by step description of how to make a variety of foods.

The recipes today were for Tzatziki with homemade crackers. Every picture is more beautiful than the next.  My favorite part is that they give you a visual shot with everything labeled. 

From the grated cucumbers down to the salt and pepper, they show you what is in the recipe, and how it should look when chopped or grated or sliced.

 

 

Another recipe for homemade chocolate pudding gave information about how different amounts of cornstarch would affect the final results.  From this I learned the words for different sizes of teaspoons (flat, regular, generous?, heaping).

 

 

Anyway, with Shavuot tomorrow, you may want to take a look at this beautiful site…even if you don’t know Hebrew.  

 
Updates:  Thanks to Yael in the comments for the correct translation of Batzek Alim as "Puff Pastry", and also to Sharon for another good site.  Another note..the third teaspoon I corrected to heaping teaspoon.  My english is truly failing me.

Technorati Tags: cooking, recipes, hebrew, israel

• On the needles: Elisa Nest Tote (in the home stretch)

While leaving work today, I got in an elevator with another employee of the University (who I know by sight, but not by name).  He was pushing a cart with fresh apricots, fresh cherry tomatoes, and peanuts. 

 I commented about the odd mix of food and he asked me if I liked apricots.  I said yes, and he offered me some.   I took one, and he said take more.  I took three, and he reminded me to say "Shehecheyanu" if I hadn’t eaten them yet this year.  And by the way, he isn’t religious (at least in appearance).

 It is just nice…

• On the needles: Elisa Nest Tote (still)

Took the kids to the street festival on Emek Refaim. 

I took the girls out for ice cream early in our trip.  At Aldo, I got them us a Belgian waffle with two scoops of ice cream (Twix and Ferro Rocher if you have to ask.)  Before the middle one started eating I said to her "just remember the sugar is going to make you jump, so no jumping in the street."  She asked me where the sugar was…I didn’t even know what to say. 

 As soon as she finished her last bite, she got up and ran for the door.  I asked her where she was going, and she said she was just going to dance by the door.  Was I right, or was I right?!

Anyway, the previous day, we had seen some dancers from Taranula Dance Group rehearsing in the park, and they told us they would be performing at the fair.  Watching them dance was really interesting, especially for the eldest.  They really use their whole bodies, but it isn’t sexualized.

 You can see more here.  It is in Hebrew, but I think you can get enough of a feel for it even without knowing Hebrew.

Dang, tried twice to embed, it just isn’t happening.  Here is the link..take a look.

• On the needles: Elisa Nest Tote

My husband has been complaining that I save all the jars in our house…this is the perfect pattern to hide them put them to good use.  The only problem is that I’d have to figure out the measurements…and that requires work.  This would also work as well for covering cans, or anything.  The danger of glass jars would be the three small children who live here.

Technorati Tags: knitting, recycle, jar, jars,

• On the needles: Elisa Nest Tote

I’m not sure how my situation would compare to what one would have in the US.  You can be the judge..

 This morning, my little one put out her arms and said "up…peeeze", so I grabbed her by the arms, and lifted her up.  She immediately started crying, and I had a sense that I had screwed up.

 She kept fussing, but was calmer, so I brought her to childcare and told her caregiver, that there might be a problem.  Before I had even finished dropping off the middle one, the caregiver called.  So at 8:00 the story begins…

 I first went straight to the medical clinic nearest our house, where our pediatrician works.  First the secretary said nobody could help til the afternoon, and then the other secretary said that the pediatrician would be in in 5 minutes (8:30).  He apologized to me and said this is something he doesn’t do, and I would have to go to the main clinic to the orthopedist. 

So, I get her back in the car, and start driving to down town to the main clinic.  I get there about 9:00 and am seen by the orthopedist almost immediately.  The Arab orthopedist takes a look at her chats with me about the English word "pacifier".  He gives a little twist to her arm, tells me to wait a few minutes to see if she starts using her arm, gives me a note for work (a requirement in this country) and sends me on my way. 

By 9:30 the little one was back in childcare, and by 10:10 I was at work. (The note was from 8-10:30, so I was well covered.) This was all especially good, because today was Pope day and I couldn’t get on campus until after 9AM anyway.

 So how does this compare to medical care in the US?  What would you do?  (Oh an notice this was all completely covered by my HMO.)

• On the needles: Elisa Nest Tote