Sunday, July 26, 2015

My Nine Days

As I sit here fasting for Tisha B’Av, I’m looking back on one heck of week.  During the saddest 9 days of the Jewish calendar, commemorating the destruction of not one, but both Temples in Jerusalem, Iran gets a free pass to bomb the world, my daughter’s host in Boston has asked me to bring her home early, I had dental surgery, and found out my driver’s license is expired.  Oh dear.

What can we say about Iran?  The greatest hope is that these people extinguish themselves like the banned VW terrorist bomb ad.  We wake up one morning, and the leadership is gone.  Oh goody. Let’s go clothes shopping.

My daughter’s best friend moved to Boston last year and they’ve been skyping and texting and who knows what all year long.  Finally, here comes summer and the chance for the two to be together again.  I was hoping it would last a month, but instead it took about 2.5 weeks for them to start arguing.  For some reason, no one thought to plan any trips or activities.  The girls, both 13, were home together all that time.  Needless to say, the friendship suffered.  So when I got the call requesting I bring my daughter home early, I scrambled to make flight arrangements – but we don’t fly during the nine days.  Add to that aggravation the fact that my daughter is stuck in a place where she’s not wanted until after today’s fast.  I’ve been a wreck about it since Tuesday.

Ok, my teeth are bad.  Surgery-bad.  Had the right side done in April, right after Pesach, and now the left side.  My dentist only works on Tuesdays so I had to pick the first Tuesday where the healing process wouldn’t interfere with teaching at the university. That, unfortunately, was during the nine days.  My mouth hurts, but not enough to stop me from eating cake, which constitutes a soft food.  The struggle continues.

Just before the nine days I bought a new car.  My three year lease with the Ford Fiesta, a wonderful car but not the right one for me, ended and now I’m the proud owner of a Honda FIT.  However, I wanted a better detail job on both the interior and exterior, a driver’s manual (pushing buttons is scary when you don’t know what it will do) and the GPS tracking system which is listed with coming with the car but didn’t.  My appointment was Thursday, the 7th of the nine days.

A note about that dental surgery: the dentist used a “roofie”( Flunitrazepam) to put me out.  I woke up Wednesday morning at 2:50 am not knowing where I was or how I got my bra off.  Wednesday night, I couldn’t sleep a wink, and woke up Thursday morning in a daze, knowing I had a 7 am at the Honda dealership.  I got there at 7:15 am.  In one piece, thank G-d.

But the car would need to be there all day and a loaner was lined up.  All I needed to do was show proof of insurance and a driver’s license.  The driver’s license expired 4 days ago – surprise, when I turned 57 years old.  No renewal reminder, no renewal.  Complacency is a bitch – I just assumed Big Brother was watching me.  He is, but not sending out the notice to renew. 

I ran out of that dealership so fast and got to the closest DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) with one eye in the rear view mirror looking for the Highway Patrol.  In less than an hour (a miracle in Hollywood) I was good to go.  No GPS, no driver’s manual, no detailed car.  But safe from prison, which is kinda makes up for the loss.

G-d protect, grant us good health, long life, a new leadership in Iran, and remind me to floss more often.  Amen.