Not Anonymous

But we celebrated anyway.

My birthday is actually this coming Monday, but life being what it is, it was celebrated today and much fun was had.

My siblings got me exactly what I wanted. The "Hawaii Five-0" first season box set! Which, omg, yay!

This is especially good, because I've gotten my parents to watch the show and it will bu much easier to watch the episodes through the DVD machine, rather than hooking up my computer to the big tv screen every time we want to watch an episode.

So much fun.

Speaking of my parents, they got me a tablet.

A tablet.

With a touch screen.

It's 7" of goodness, on which I'll be able to read e-books, fanfiction, watch television and take my computerised life with me wherever I go.

I honestly can't believe they got me a tablet. It's currently charging and it doesn't have a name (I name all my computers), but tomorrow once I've played with it for a while I'll know what's what with this little machine.

I have H50 and a tablet!

I can't believe I have these things now!

One a month on a Tuesday I have an LGBT Feminist Reading group meeting. It is my happy place to go to where I can be all smarty pants and feel like my intellectual muscles aren't atrophying.

On Monday I get a call from my mother telling me I'm needed to babysit my niece (the one I nannied over the summer) because she's sick (her her daycare is closed, or both) on Wednesday and can I come the day before so that I can be at my sister's house bright an early.

And I was all... ugh.

I refused to miss my one a month happy place, so I got up at five this morning in order to catch the ten to six bus which would get me in time to the central bus station of my city to catch to bus back to my home town where my sister lives.

Soooooo, yeah.

I slept for four hours (I'm a night person, I go to bed around midnight - one am and later on a regular basis) and was out the door at twenty to six... and arrived at the station just in time to see my bus stop, see me run and shout at the top of my lungs to "Wait! Wait a minute!"... it drove off.

Regular readers probably know what I said out lout at that point.

Say it with me: "Motherfuck!"

Luckily a cab came by and I dished out the dough I can't really spare for the fare and I arrived at the central bus station in time to get the earlier bus to my home town.

Thankfully, it's an hour and a half ride down south so I napped and I arrived lively enough to entertain my niece as she ate and messed up her hair, face and shirt as she smushed yoghurt all over herself.

Ah, the joys of being jobless, available and living so fucking far away.

...and despite the 20 minutes of rain we had, hasn't really left yet.

It's the 1st of September and I have a mountain of things I need to get done.

I did feel, that despite my long absences from here, which will be rectified as soon as I've finished my homework of 12K Words in Academia, I thought I should mention that today is my last official day as my youngest Niece's Nanny.

Unlike last time, during which I took care of her older sister, I was in a much better place emotionally and physically, not to mention that Baby herself was much older than her sister was.

Still, it's been intense and I've, obviously, bonded with her and so seeing her go to a crèche (family business, the woman take no more than four babies of approximate age at a time) really hit me.

Today we went to spend some time at the crèche, to get her used to place, play with the toys, get to know the caretaker (the woman who owns the place) and I just lost it.

I don't mind crying in public; I'm inclined to say that my life consists more in pauses of crying than me starting and stopping the tears that seem to live in the corners of my eyes. However, when you're the Aunt and that baby isn't actually "hers".

I cried and then the baby cried and it was terrible. Of course I just let her play and she was fine. Me? I'm okay, really.

Just, it's hard, I'm glad not to be tied down to the baby any more, but you get used to a that tiny presence and watching her learn to crawl, roll over, sit up and grow a tooth (and a taste for cannibalism! OW! It freaking' hurts when she bites!) is very rewarding.

I'm glad I'm no one's mother.

Every time I take care of a baby, I can honestly say, I'm happy I'm never going to have one of my own.

Oh, yeah, no children of my own in my future - as I mentioned to a friend, if I ever date someone with kids, I have no problem being "Step-Mel" or "Auntie-Something", but actual pregnancy, giving birth and going through the endless anxiety that never really goes away of making sure that little clump of flesh and blood survives... no.

Just, no.

Right now, she's sleeping her afternoon nap and later on her parents will pick her up to go home.

As for me, well, my oldest niece claims she remembers me taking care of her as a baby (yeah... no) and we have a very special bond. I can only hope the baby's family tells her of the summer her Auntie Melly took such good care of her - even if she bumped her head a few times and I stepped on her by accident.

A group I've joined called Academic Bi, from their profile: Academic_bi is an international mailing list for discussion, exchanging information and ideas about topics related to bisexual theory, queer theory and the academic study of bisexuality/pansexuality/fluidity and omnisexuality of course :)

People are making introductions!

And a little funny thing for the more classically minded queers among us, courtesy of my big brother:

The one that amuses me the most is the term
"metrosexual". It's supposed to refer to a hip,
urban (METROpolitan) guy who dresses well
and can handle being "just friends" with women.
But "metropolitan" comes from "mother city,"
with the "metro-" part being "mother."
Making metrosexuals, well, rather Oedipal.

Funny!

Things are tense.

[Southern!Girl] came up from Beer Sheba for the night and ended up crying in my arms as we snuggled.
She said (I paraphrase) that there people suffering more than her in this situation.
She's right of course, but she's the one crying in my arms.

Add to that, I feel as though my family has gone 'round the bend.
Living with my parents give me ample opportunity to discuss the war with them and how one sided the media is (towards the Palestinians, of course).

My mother said she doesn't agree with me on the suffering of the Palestinians as compares to the suffering of the Israelis. I had an argument on the phone with my older Jerusalem-residing sister who ended up saying (again, paraphrasing) that she agrees with everything I'm saying, but bottom line, the lives of the people of Sderot and the other towns and villages surrounding Gaza are of more value than the lives of Palestinians in Gaza.

And again there was the dropping of Hamas' immoral tactics: human shields and using the civilian populations and housing for their weapons and their headquarters. That all they want is the destruction of Israel and that they get money from Iran and only use it to fight and not create infrastructure for... well, anything.

Thing is... when you're talking specifically about Hamas these are facts. Question is how you're going to put them in context.
Context being... the Occupation.
There is no separating that from the situation.
The whole "we left Gaza and they let everything go to waste", is just so moronic I can't even articulate it properly.
Being of South African heritage, maybe I should begin using the term Bantustan.

One sentence I can't get out of my head and really can't believe I've been hearing, not from anyone specific, but in general:
"We [Israel] haven't hurt too many innocent people".
What does that even mean?
That collateral damage is swept under the bloody rug?

Israel is so ethical, the defence ministry calls houses that are about to be bombed and tell them to evacuate a head of time:

We just received a phone call on our land line. It was the Israeli Defence Ministry, and they said that any house that has guns or weapons will be targeted next, without warning and without any announcement. Just to let you know, we don't have any weapons in our house. If we die please defend my family.
[...]
For the last year and a half the Israeli government has intensified the economic blockade of Gaza by closing all the border crossings that allow aid and essential supplies to reach Palestinians in Gaza. This forced Palestinians to dig tunnels to Egypt to survive. Israel continued to threaten a military operation in the Gaza Strip, until the madness of war became inevitable for both sides. And since it began, hundreds of Gazans have been killed.

I don't know how other people around the globe think. Did you think to be honest with yourself once to understand the truth? A handmade Palestinian rocket jeopardizes Israeli security, but Israel's deadly F-16s, rockets, missiles, and tanks don't jeopardize Palestinian security?

Emphasis mine. Quoted from Electronic Intifada.

Hamas was elected democratically, by the people of Gaza. They then went on to kill all Fatah activists and their families in the strip.
This is despicable, bad and terrible and certainly shows Hamas to be "bad guys".
In my home's political discourse they've been compared to Robert Mugabe of Zimbambwe as to how Evil they are and how cheap they view life to be.

But see, I don't care how Hamas view human life, because this kind of discourse just dehumanizes them more and more, and it's not as though Israel has that much better an opinion on Human Life, which is categorized very nicely into religious and ethnic criterion.

The traumatised children of Sderot are also human shields, but that's dehumanizing them isn't it.

I've been accused of hating Israel. Why do I not remember the history of my people's persecution, how can I prefer the Palestinians over my own Israeli brethren?

I don't hate Israel, that would mean hating the people that make the country, I think the way the power is structured prevents the people to actually be a part of the governing body and thus have very little influence in any sphere of influence.
I remember my people's history very well, I'm very much living in the paranoid fantasy that my own Jew-Ways will get me killed.
I've been to Warsaw (and imagined the Uprising) and to Auschwitz (and breathed in the Ashes). That isn't our entire history, reducing it to that, defining our Jewish-Israeli identity in that way diminishes our own subjectivity and the using of that history to oppress and dehumanize an Other People is the ugliest kind of narrative exploitation.

Thus endeth the spiel.

Free Palestine, Gaza, Rafah, Beit Hanoun, Ramallah and the rest of us. Bring hope to Sderot, Beer Sheba, Ashkelon, Ashdod and the rest of all of us.
Peace with our enemies.

There is soon going to be a Wedding in the family.

My big brother is engaged!

It's time to Partayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

Yes.
Happy times.

Brother pulled no punches.
Took my future Sis-in-Law on a weekend holiday in Rome.
Proposed in a romantic restaurant.
White gold diamond ring.

Very sweet.

I love weddings.
Marriage... well, I have my own opinions on Marriage.
But hooray for Big Brother and Future Sister-in-Law.

It's good.
It's great.
I may even bring a date *waggles eyebrows*

The eldest Sibling is in Berlin. Germany.

The Sibling-in-law (spouse of the sibling above) is in Copenhagen. Denmark.

Their children are staying in the Asylum. Arkham.

Jealous. Is what I am.

That's all.

Good night.

The America Family are on their way back!

And they're staying.

Forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yayz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sister (and my bro-in-law) and Babies (aged 6 and soon to be 3 - God she's big *sniff*) and they're here to stay.

They'll be living with us for a while before moving into their own place.

*BOUNCES*

My sister sent me this really good review of The Dark Knight, from the Jewish perspective.

It's very interesting and it gives a different spin and interpretation on this already riveting and multi-layered film

Batman: The Dark Knight in Jewish thought - contains spoilers!

I just got back from the Cameri production of Fiddler on the Roof - Hebrew, obviously.

Friends, readers and lurkers... it was fucking. Amazing. Awesome. מהמם. אדיר. Unbelievable.

It was mind blowing. Couldn't have been better if they'd tried.

I'm just... in awe at how well done it was, my hands are still hurting from the amount of clapping I put them through.

Not only was the acting amazing, the choreography was fresh and updated, the singing was amazing.

I was in row eleven on the floor, so I had the perfect view (minus a giant head that happened to belong to the person sitting in front of me... grrr) and didn't miss a thing.

I'm so happy my sister had an extra ticket for me (and at the last minute for my mother): Leigh, thank you very, very much!

Here's a taste of what I saw this evening - This is a video of the Cameri performance from June 8th 2008:

( The quintessential FOTR song! )