It’s Raining in the Holy Land

It’s 1:45am and I’m about to turn in for the night. I’m almost all caught up though, which is a good thing. I have some emails I need to send tomorrow (nir1, goodall, stevenh, iolausian), an exam to finish writing, and then NaNoWriMo to prepare for…oh, and I have to mop my floor.

This is the first time though that I’ve been able to get on top of things over the past two weeks and feel like I’ve finally caught my breath – sometimes army life can just take everything out of you. It’s been one of the weeks where I wake up at 0500 and get to bed at around 0100 the next morning.

It’s raining in Southern Israel at the moment, Kibbutz Zikim is being treated to a fantastic storm complete with lightning and thunder and wonderful, much anticipated, rain. The storm has been progressing towards a nice, relaxing, drizzle which echoes wonderfully off of my bomb shelter (which, conveniently, is also where I keep my bed). Storms have always been my favorite weather and out in the rural areas of Israel it’s wonderful to watch as it interacts with the landscape.

Last night I got back to the kibbutz late (after teaching in Tel Aviv – I was originally planning to stay, but it didn’t turn out that way) and as I was making dinner I saw a mouse dart out from behind the fridge. Having sufficiently scared each other (the mouse scared me and I, in turn, scared him with an incredibly manly high pitched squeal of “HOLY SHIT!”) the mouse darted out of the house.

I slept with my magav next to my bed last night in case he decided to come back and needed to be shooed away once more. I don’t want to use a mouse trap since my general rule is don’t come into my house and I won’t go into yours, not ‘come into my house and I’ll shoot first ask questions later’ but a guy has to take a stand. I think I was more startled than anything. I think field mice are cute in general (and Efrat and I have saved them before on base when we’ve seen them stuck on those hideous glue pads)…it was more of the ‘field mouse from the middle of nowhere hell bent on a mission’ that caught me off guard.

This, among many reasons, is why at some point I really need to do some legwork towards finding a boyfriend…sure, sure the companionship, sex and travel partner are great reasons in and of themselves…but I think the greater benefits come from having someone’s arm to dig my nails into when this shit happens…normally as I scream “HOLY CRAP DID YOU SEE THAT.” Similar reactions are to cockroaches…I’m cool with lizards and rocket fire though.

Anyway, tomorrow at 12:30 I have to pick up my uniform from the laundry facility on the kibbutz. I hope to have my exam completely done at around 16:00, emails out at around 17:00 and the place cleaned by 18:00…just in time for me to relax with a cup of coffee and listen to music.

G’night world.