Swirling Thoughts #65 – Throw up is throw up but there’s nothing easier than cleaning it up from a stone floor with a sponga mop

I don’t know why horror films about insects need to have the insects grow to gigantic size
The khamsin seems to have subsided but there is no end in sight to the onslaught of microscopic mosquitoes it brought. There are no less than 100 bites between the kids and myself. My daughter’s friend walked in covered in Vaseline. I asked her what was going on. She explained it was so she wouldn’t scratch her 17 mosquito bites. My mom had recommended vinegar. We've been using what's left of some Band Aid anti-itch spritz from NY. Whatever works.

Tuesday is the best day to be sick here, remember?
I have two kids home sick today – with some sort of stomach affliction. Since malaria takes about a week to incubate (don’t think I didn’t look it up) and the last West Nile outbreak in Israel was in 2002 I’m working on the assumption that the illness is not mosquito-related. I was excited that at least they were sick on a Tuesday – remember the doctor has evening hours Tuesdays plus morning hours Wednesday – and was biding my time until I phoned in for an appointment (phone is first answered at 4:30). But, alas, I could wait no longer and at 2pm I called in the hopes that the doctor would accidentally answer and I could scoot my kids in for an early appointment.

Ulpan is helping my receptor skills
With my ears ready to listen carefully in Hebrew I started translating to myself the message on his answering machine. This is what I picked up: “Today is Tuesday… Doctor not in... Doctor not coming back until after October 20… Use the doctor in the Kupat Cholim… Here is her number…”

Okaaaaay....
So I looked at the clock and dialed the Kupat anyway. “Segur” (closed) was the only word I needed to understand on their machine. Oy. I got clever and made a third call to the private medical clinic upstairs where, thankfully, they speak English and though they were quick to tell me they were not the ones substituting for my doctor they did let me know that the Kupat Cholim office re-opens at 4pm. A priceless morsel of information. And now, as my kids sleep upstairs, I wait. And scratch.

A down (albeit itchy) day in the aretz…