I may have missed T6, but I celebrated Thanksgiving with some of my friends the next day. My deskmate The Mean Lady BFF Anna & her husband/my friend Eric invited people over for Thanksgiving on Friday, because in Israel Friday is the weekend and more people could come that way.
Well, we had a great time. Eric grilled some delish chicken (because the supermarkets don’t have turkeys, but you can special order them, but we didn’t know that), Anna made scrumpch sweet potatoes and stuffing, and Leah brought yummers green beans. Me? Non-cooking, lil’ ol’ me brought soda and fresh ground coffee.
It was a nice mix of Americans and Israelis. (Eric has lived here a few years and has some good Israeli friends from his job.) After we ate, Anna bust out the Thanksgiving word find ™ sheets, and we all had a cutthroat laugh, trying to finish the game first. I haven’t done that shit in years! Yo, the backwards, diagonal ones are a bitch, yo !! I kept cracking myself up by
yelling out I found ‘sturkey’! or I found ‘grindian’! It never got old only for me. I may have sucked at the Word Find™, but I took first place in the maze (helping the pilgrims get to the turkey). Nice !! I used Anna’s own cheat method of working backwards. Whatever part of the brain that game uses, I totally have a great [whatever part that is].
I was dying to play Celebrity, but after dessert, half the guests got the hell out of there before we broke out some more games left to attend other engagements. So we ended up watching YouTube cat videos on the TV and then praying to God to please puncture our eyeballs watching Anna & Eric’s honeymoon slide show.
I love my friend Anna, and she is both an awesome host and cook. Thanks, Anna!
Leah, AnnaBecker, Rebecca, Samadar
Moosh checks out Anna's liberal ass.
If you read G-Fish regularly, you’ll know that Petey practically thinks his name is Ehzay Chamood (Hebrew for What a cutie!). Girls and guys are powerless to his cuteness charms. But so far, it hadn’t translated into putting a ring on my finger.
Until now?
There’s a very cute physical therapist I went out with back in April. I really liked him. It wasn’t just his (very good!) looks. It was this über kindness & chill vibe he exuded. So, I asked him out again, but he told me he had a boyfriend.
😦
But did he really? I had reason to suspect this wasn’t true. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He lives in the neighborhood, and we have always been friendly when we bump into each other.
Well, last week, Pete and I ran into him and his dog on the island/walkway in the middle of a boulevard. Of course, he was very taken with Pete. We caught up while Petey and his dog played with one another. I was thinking it, but rejoiced inside when he said Wow, they play so nice with one another. You should both come over sometime, and we’ll have a coffee while the dogs play.
SCORE !!!
Even if he was thinking only of the dogs and not trying to just get me to come over –
So what !?!
Petey and I are so going over there and colluding to make him my husband! So, I waited a couple of days and then texted my future husband him Hey, Petey and I would really like to come over for a playdate. He responded pretty quickly with Great!
So, we aimed for this weekend, but it didn’t happen, because I had such an incredibly booked weekend. But we did speak, and we’re going to make the playdate happen this week.
Petey is eating filet mignon this week.
I’ve started taking Petey to one of the dog parks in Park Hayarkon. Although he’s gotten much better, he’s still a little stubborn during our walks sometime. While he no longer makes me drag him the whole length of our street (until getting excited when he sees the park), he still will randomly dig in his heels and try and stop us for no reason at all. (All I have to do is stare at him a bit and then give him a little nudge, and he’s totes excited about continuing; it’s really weird. He’s high-maintenance like that.) And he particularly won’t walk on the main paved path in Hayarkon. He’s all about the giant lawns (better smells than the bricks and pavement, I guess). But I’m sick of stepping in piles of other dogs’ non-cleaned up poo, so I’ve decided to veto the lawns. And so I’ve settled on a basic walk around the block, coming parallel to the park at one point, but not going inside anymore.
But my boy deserves the best, and so we started going there in the evenings, when I take a break from work. The dog park is fenced in and divided into two parts. The older and smaller part is like a big dirt sandbox, and has all these wooden structures that dogs can climb (plus, benches for we parents owners). But now, there’s this newer part, which is a much larger fenced in grassy open area. It’s really cute – to see the pack go back and forth between the “rooms” – you know, ’cause sometimes you just needs a little change.
It was so cute last week, when we went in the afternoon, and no one was there except for us. I got up on one of the structures and encouraged Pete to climb up an join me. He jumped up and put his front legs where I was standing, but was kinda helpless to get up there that way. I wound up getting off the structure, placing Pete on the ramp, and just slowly pushing him up, enough so that his legs started to move and he was walking up. Then we were up there together looking down from the top. Then, I got off and did the same thing, pushing/walking him down. Well, imagine my surprise when right after that he just ran right up all by himself !!! I didn’t have to try and entice him up or anything. He was brave enough to do it on his own after having only been shown the way one time !!! Ditto, going back down! Such a genius, my boy.
We paid a visit midday today, when the entire Hayarkon was in full swing so I could get the pics for this post. The dog park was packed; maybe 30 dogs in there. Petey went nuts. Right away he found nicole, another 4 month old (female) pup he’d met before outside Super Baba. They played very nicely for a while.
Then, Petey went over to these Gramps + Mrs. Gramps, who we’re so uptight, they had their chihuahua mix on his leash as they sat on a bench. Pete and him really got into it but good. Pete’s pretty submissive, and so I didn’t interrupt if I saw him on his back with the other dog on top, not unless I heard him cry or yelp, which I didn’t. But after a while, I heard a sound I didn’t recognize, sort of a growl but not, and I didn’t know if it was Pete or the other stinking mutt dog. Turns out the other dog’s retractible death trap leash was around Pete’s neck and, like, choking him. Maybe, not really – I mean, I don’t Pete was in any danger. But I picked him up nonetheless, spoke to the old farts couple in English and said I’m taking this off him and unclasped the other dog’s leash so I could get it from around Pete’s neck. This freed the other dog, but I didn’t care. Let the medicare recipients them deal with that after the bastards nearly let my dog choke to death.
Newly freed, I plopped Petey down in the other area, where he joined a huge crowd of like 10 dogs. A pretty huge bulldog took a liking to Pete, and for the next 15 minutes he just chased him everywhere. I kept a close eye on them. If I would have heard Pete cry or yelp of look unhappy in anyway, I would have stepped in. But, you know, both dogs were smiling the whole time. Although to me, it looked like the bulldog was, well, bullying Pete, because Pete would periodically take cover under a picnic table where it was harder for the bulldog to get him. Twice, Pete even dive-bombed into a big hole and just kinda “holed up” (sorry) in there instead of running (maybe he was tired). I didn’t get a picture of her, but – swear to God – bulldog’s owner was this big bull dyke (I swear, not making this up). She set off my gaydar with her Western-style swagger whenever she walked a bit around the yard. I really didn’t wanna be a baby by going up to her and saying Um, excuse me, Miss Bull Dyke? Your dog is bullying my dog. Can you please go over there and get him so my dog can play with some other dogs? Nah, that was not high on my list of Things I Wanted To Do. So, my barometer was Pete and “bully”: as long as they looked like they were both having fun, I stayed out of it.
Anyway, after a while, Petey ran for his life snuck past some idiot guy opening the gate to the outside, and I sprang into action and ran after him. We didn’t go back inside the dog park.
Pete was filthy! Bulldogs slobber a lot. Bulldog slobber + dirt = one dirty pup! I wasn’t about to put Petey through the hell experience of another shower so soon after his last one, so I just held him steady while I ran a soaped up rag over his dirty parts. He cleaned up fine and zonked out in his crate.
Phew!
Filed under: Amerijones, Exploits, Feelings, Identity, Struggles | Tags: family, gay, men, nightlife, Thanksgiving
I have the greatest family ever. Seeing so little of them is definitely my least favorite part about living here. But video Skype chats and Facebook photo comments are wonderful things, and they’ve been enough for me to get by. It’s stuff I’ve written about here & here. As far as celebrating holidays go, I would like to be with my family for these, but I can’t be, and that’s mostly been OK.
Thanksgiving is different.
For the past five years my cousin Jennifer has been holding it in her huge, beautiful 19th century home in suburban North Jersey. I love it because it’s the one holiday where my whole fam schleps up from Philly, instead of me having to go down there. To get to Jennifer’s, I only had to hop on a 20 minute bus ride from the Port Authority, drink deeply from all that family goodness, then say sayanora and head back to NYC to play with my friends for the long weekend intead of being trapped in surburan Philly hell.
It’s more than that, though. For starters, Thanksgiving at Jen & Harry’s is called TURKEYPALOOZA. Each year, they send out a new goofball invitation heradling the event. Here’s this year’s:
Jennifer’s husband Harry is an amazing chef and we eat like The Biggest 
Loser contestants kings. You can’t tell by my darling, slim figure, but I have one hell of an appetite. Jen indulges my goober sense of humor by helping me art-direct increasingly elaborate staged pics of me hoarding and binging on desserts. Some of our past work includes:
Jen & Harry plan out a new craft for us to complete each year. In the past, we’ve painted our own ceramic dessert plates (not unveiled until the following year!), designed our own napkin holders, and decorated our own turkey feathers, which were assembled to create a picture of the full bird:
It’s gotten so we don’t even refer to it as Turkeypalooza anymore. Not unlike a big-budget Hollywood franchise sequel, we refer to them now as T3, T4, T5, etc. So this year I missed out on T6. *sad face* But I was going to plan something really special to connect with them all. I bought my cousin a cheap webcam on
amazon.com, set up a gmail account for her and used it to set up a Skype account for her. While I have Skyped my mom, bro/sis’n’law/niece, and dad individually before, I had never Skyped the whole fam in one place at one time. I thought it would be totes awesome to have peeps just rotate in and for me to speak with the whole mishpacha this way.
Only, I think what happened was I didn’t set it up far enough in advance. My cuz did manage to log into her Skype account, and the last message I got from her the day before Thanksgiving said she was exhausted from all the planning but she wold plan a test Skype with me sometime before everyone arrived. Then…I waited by the
computer all evening, but never connected with her. I used Skype’s SMS feature to send txt messages to her cell, my mom’s cell and bro’s cell. Still nothing. 😦 [I found out later that peeps who get txts from you via Skype can’t respond to them. I thought everyone was ignoring me, but they probably just had no way of responding.]
I wasn’t sure what to do. I had plans to attend a screening of a lesbian romantic comedy called “I Can’t Think Straight” as part of TLV Fest‘s “Alternative Movie Nights” monthly film series, AND I was supposed to stop by Max Brenner’s chocolate restaurant to celebrate my friend Jeff’s birthday. I’d gladly miss both those events if it meant being face-to-face with my fam (via video Skype). But no one was responding, and I didn’t want to sit at home and not connect with them and also miss both my plans. So I figured I would go and could always try them at my 1:00 a.m. (their 6pm), after everyone was in their trypophan comas. I was running late to make the screening, so I painted on my vintage GAP jeans (the ones that make my ass look great), walked the dog, hopped on my bike and was off. See, since I was late and this was a film fest screening, there would likely be an introductory speech before the film screened. If I was going to inch my way through the crowd in a front row seat (excuse me…’scuse me, sir…pardon me…sorry, thank you…) and draw a lot of attention to myself, might as well make sure my ass looked good.
So I got to the cinematheque, which is sort of Tel Aviv’s arthouse multiplex…and it was dead. The guard told me nothing was going on, but I insisted the screening was going on. He let me in, and I went upstairs and into an in-progress screening of….Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works.” 😦 Sure enough, I checked the Cinematheque guide, and the screening was LAST NIGHT.
How I got that wrong, I’m not sure. But, oh well. I txt’d my friend Ronnie, and asked him if they were still at Max Brenner’s. He txt’d me back Dude, that was last night.
Eff, man !!! There actually was a Plan C. My friend Danny had introduced me to this weekly gay party in 2012 Bar called “Beef,” and I really liked it. It’s a leather party. Hot guys, amazing music. And it’s on Thursdays, so I could always go there. And had I gone straight there, I probably would’ve been fine. But, you know – it was a big double-whammy I just had. Not connecting with my whole fam at T6 like I had been expecting to
was a big disappointment. But I thought I had plans (natch, double-plans), and so I wasn’t gutted about the whole thing. But when I took the back-to-back hits of finding out both the screening and birthday parties were last night and I had missed them both, it was like *WHOMP !*, and I was suddenly feeling sad & lonely. Sad & lonely is not a good mindset for me to walk into a bar with. So, thankfully I remembered to do the next right thing, and I called my friend Anna. Voicemail. Dang, but I left one. Then, I did the nexter, righter thing and called my sponsor. He had gone to bed early (it was 11:00 p.m. by this point), but picked up. I brought him up to speed. It was a short phone call, but it was all I needed; just not to be alone with the feelings and to tell another person how I was feeling really stabilized me. I told him what I planned to do next, and he told me to have a great time. And so I hopped on the bike and was off! (It was a good week for music, what with new albums dropping from Glambert, Gaga, SuBo and RiRi, so I was jammin on the bike ride over.)
I got there early, and the place was still empty. But I saw my friend Russell there, so I went to his booth and started talking with him and his husband Avi. Actually I didn’t really know Russell yet. We were FB friends and had been introduced, but never really hung yet. Russell’s kinda famous in the gay community in Tel Aviv, I think. I didn’t discuss this with him yet, but his lawsuit to have his marriage (to a same sex partner) recognized in Israel went all the way to the Supreme Court in Israel and was successful. Anyway, we got a chance to talk, and I really like him.
So, it’s only recently that I’ve really started going out in Tel Aviv. My first six months, I was doing full-time ulpan (intensive language school) in the mornings, then working afternoons-thru-evening, then doing Hebrew homework at night. Throw in blogging and my articles for iGoogledIsrael, and there just wasn’t much time for it. But I’m taking a break from my Hebrew education, and – although my mornings are still packed with creative writing and working on a memoir of how I made Aliyah in a span of 5 minutes – there is some time to sleep in now, if I want to go out. And I’m starting to meet some people, and see them out and about and get introduced to more people, and then introduced to more people through them, and…
So, anyway, the place starts to fill up, and I’m having a good time, and then suddenly my BlackBerry vibrates. OMG, it was my cousin Pamela returning my instant message !!! When I was trying every way I could think of to connect with the fam, I remembered she was a BBerry Girl, and I tried I.M.’ng her, but she didn’t respond. Until now, that is! So, suddenly we’re IM’ng and I come alive. I mean, my heart is just filled with love and meaning.
It may not have been the connection I was expecting – with the whole family in full-on video and audio – and instead it was typing with thumbs on an itty-bitty keyboard to one cousin while being surrounded with men in leather, but it was enough.
More than enough, actually. It made my whole night. (Thank you, Pammie !!!) And so, my cousin sends me through the I.M. first a pic of my first-cousin-once-removed Dayton. And then, she sends me my little niece Alexa; both from the dinner table. And so, I snap a pic of my surroundings to send back. but – even though the flash goes off and sort of embarasses me – it’s too dark for it to come out very good
. So, I have to go for this: there are three bartenders in the main room. An ugly one, a really cute one, and an *cue angelic music* truly holy Adonnis type one (in the pic above that opens the post). I tell a friend my plan and get the boost of encouragement I needed. I go up and explain to him that I’m I.M.’ng with my cuz from the Thanksgiving dinner table and she’s just sent me two pics of my little nieces, and I just have to reply with a pic of my surrounding – namely, hot men in leather, and it’s gotta be him and well, would he pose for me? Luckily, he’s not the shy type, and he gives me a good one, and I snap it. I tell you, it was more embarassing having the flash go off and looking like a goober cheeseball tourist in front of everyone else doing what they wish they had the balls to do photographing the hot bartender. But it was worth it. After this, I was feeling some serious mojo kick in, and I later went back up to the bartender and showed him the I.M. thread, and he told me to friend request him on Facebook.
SCORE !!!
Seriously – why shouldn’t I be with a guy this hot ??? So, after this my whole night just kicks into overdrive. I’m so high from the family connection that my vibes make me really attractive to everyone in the bar, and I’m meeting guys left and right. I ask Pam what we should do – is a Skype still possible at this point? She’s like Yeah, but hurry. Jen wants to put the kids to bed. But I’m about 15-20 minutes away from home by bike, and then I’d have to take the dog out, and then boot up the PC, and I couldn’t make a Skype happen before at least a half hour at the earliest. Plus, I kinda didn’t want to leave the bar. The night was in full swing, and I was lovin it. Pam didn’t twist my arm and said, Nah, let’s just bag it. Right answer, PammiePoo !!
I saw my friend Ron, and I talked to him a little bit in Hebrew first, and he paid me the hugest compliment. He said You know, some people might make fun of your [totally sucky] Hebrew, but let me tell you something: I think it’s a really brave thing you did, moving all the way here and starting a new life at your age, and so does everyone else. They won’t admit it, but everyone looks up to you for what you did, because it’s really important for Israel, and we appreciate what you’ve done. You’ll have a better life here, more opportunity than you would in America. I was not expecting this from him, and it made me feel terrific.
So, anyway, then I rode home, walked the dog…and surfed the ‘Net for two hours, b/c I was so wired up. I still wished I’d had a chance to see and talk with everyone in my amazing family, but it was amazing in its own right how my night went from sad & lonely to maybe my best night out in Tel Aviv yet.
Thanks to H.P., Shuki, Anna, Russell, Jacques & Shoham, שמאי, Eliad, Danny, & Pamela !!!
Filed under: Preaching, Published Columns | Tags: #tweetsgiving, gratitude, Thanksgiving
My friend and the owner of consulting firm Community Organizer 2.0, Debra, asked me to participate in something called #Tweetsgiving. An annual 48-hour event pegged to Thanksgiving, the project encourages people to blog, tweet, share and host parties about gratitude. All grants and donations raised by the project go to trick-out an elementary school in Arusha, Tanzania with computers and other high-tech learning tools. (Last year’s #Tweetsgiving helped fund efforts to build a new classroom at the same school.)
Anyway, I made my contribution this week’s iGoogledIsrael column, so check it out, please. I also encourage you to add the tag #tweetsgiving to all your tweets ) and follow @TweetsGiving (if you’re on Twitter), include a link to www.TweetsGiving.org in your posts (if you’re a blogger), or just plain old donate.
The U.S. nonprofit behind the project is called Epic Change.
Yoda says it’s a good idea to play a bit with Petey in the apartment after we come back from a walk before I put him back in his crate. So, he doesn’t get the idea that being in the apartment = only being in the crate = a punishment.
So, sometimes we’ll play tug-of-war with his rope toy, and sometimes we’ll roughhouse, and sometimes I just lay on my back and let him lick the hell out of my face as much as I can stand it.
Well, sometimes Petey gets a little carried away and uses his teeth along with his tongue. He’s bitten my lip once or twice, and my nose, as you can see in this picture. It really hurt, and I reflexively cried out Ouch! (Samadar says crying a fake Ouch! sound is a good way to teach him not to jump up on people. Like, just like how he’d yelp if I stepped on his tail or hurt him, a dog can understand you crying out as meaning that you’re feeling pain. So if you make an Ouch! sound when he jumps up, he’ll begin to understand it hurts people when he jumps up on them. Even if it doesn’t really hurt, in theory it can get him to stop the behavior. We’re trying it.)
What do you think, Marcia?
Anyway, it was really hurting, so I stuck my finger in there to dig for gold to check and see if I was bleeding, and yep, I was! Petey had totes broke the skin. Good thing he’s had that rabies shot, or else…
Petey’s pretty content in his cage crate. After all, this is what the experts say: that dogs in the wild will naturally create for themselves locked, fenced-in walls small, private areas they claim as their private, personal space.
Sometimes, he’ll begin whining in there while I’m at work at my desk. It sounds just like a goat’s bleat; it’s kinda funny. I alternate between getting really annoyed if I’m trying hard to concentrate and laughing at him that he’s such a little baby!
Finally if he doesn’t stop, and I go over to check on him, I’ll be super pissed to find him sitting in a pool of his own pee. Finally it hit me:
Pete’s bleating crying is him trying to (first) tell me I have to go! I’m bursting, Dad – take me outside, like, now! (and then) Oh, this really sucks, Dad – I’m wet, sitting in a pool of my own smelly pee. Please make it better, Dad – please !!
Duh, me. Instead of thinking This is weird, Pete usually doesn’t cry in his crate. Why is he crying now? and ignoring it until I discover what he’s done and flipping out…I finally got that the ONLY reason he’s crying is to tell me something.
So basically, my dog is smarter than a fifth-grader I am.
Actually, I can be so selfish caught up in my work, that when the (warning) crying first starts, I’ll try and barter/reason with him, like Wait, Pete. Daddy’s just wrapping up a really important email first. Can you please just hold it a little longer like a big boy? As if, Scott. Really!
Pete received his last puppy vaccination this week – a booster for “the six in one” vaccine against the six main puppy diseases. They say two doses is sufficient, but three is recommended.
I thought he might cry, no nope – he totes didn’t even notice. Pete’s back was to the doctor; he was standing on his back to legs, leaning on my shoulder and giving me kisses while the doctor gave him the shot. Good boy!
And the shot was only 90 shekels (about $24.32; cheaper than the antibiotics he just completed). Good vet!
Next up is his heartworm shot, which he’ll get next month and every four months after that. (Even cheaper at 40 shex, until he hits a certain weight and it goes up to 80 shex.)
One of the nice things about my gym, Pure, is that they will customize a new workout program for you every two months. I got my third consultation this week. This time I had a new guy named Oren.
Girlfriend is serious! He put me on a (I forget what he called it, but it has a lot of supersets) program designed to really burn a lot of calories. Here’s the program:
15 bench press reps + 15 bicep curl reps + 15 lower abs (pushing my hips off the bench and my feet up in the air). 45 seconds rest. 2 more sets of this, with another 45 seconds rest in between the sets.
1 minute of treadmill @ 12.5 km/hr, followed by 1 minute of treadmill at 6.5 km/hr
2 minute rest
15 lat pulldowns + 15 tricep extensions + 20 crunches. 45 seconds rest. 2 more sets (each w/ 45 sec rest in b/t).
Same interval cardio as before. Another 2 minute rest.
Last exercise is this killer squat/overhead press combo, where I lift the bar over my head when I come up from the squat. 15 reps, followed by 20 reps of the oblique abs exercise of my choice.
Finish up with 2 km of treadmille @ 10 km/hour pace.
Damn !!!
Wait, there’s more. He also gave me a diet nutrition regimen to follow.
3% fat yogurt before I walk the dog in the a.m.
2 egg omelette + 1 small bowl oatmeal for breakfast.
3 hours later – snack of 1 apple & another 3% yogurt
lunch is some protein (chicken breasts, tuna, fish, tofu, chick peas, beans), small dish of carbs (pasta, yams, rice, potatoes)
3 hours later – snack of 5% fat cheese on whole wheat bread (half a sandwich)
dinner is veggies & dairy
And I’m supposed to stick with this –
But so far two whole days I have stuck with it. I don’t like to cook, but I am making the omelette, and I boiled up a batch of whole wheat pasta to heat up small bowls from each day, and I’m eating lots of these pre-made salads and my new favorite food (who would’ve thunk): cottage cheese (1%!) (sweetened with two splendas, though).
Oren measured my body fat, and I’m at 22%. That’s normal range for someone who’s 40, but I’m still 39, so it means I’m a little high. Oren was a great motivator. I always knew diet was my big problem. My diet isn’t terrible (I don’t eat fried foods or red meat), but I have a mondo and a half sweet tooth. But I think I just needed to have somebody hand me a plan like this, for me to be able to stick to it.
Wait. Check with me in a week before you break out the sparklers.
And, back to Petey!
So, I wrote before how he just wasn’t feelin’ goin’ down the stairs by himself. After that post, we tried again (with me pulling him on his leash), and I got him outside…only to realize when we got back, that he had tinkled all the way down he was so scared. 😦
But if you’re a stubborn a-hole like me if at first you don’t succeed… So, we tried again the other day and – voila! – no problem, it was like Petey had been walkin’ down stairs his whole life. So. Proud. Of. Him !!
So, I took him out for lunch to celebrate.
Gefilte Fish Out of Water 