Swirling Thoughts #219 - you really don't have to speak hebrew. but then u need to understand the signs better.

There is a pizza store in the Jewish Quarter in the Old City.  Generally, they get two types of customers. Old City residents and tourists. Old City residents get a discount. Tourists get spoken to in English. I took my kids with some of their  friends for pizza recently. We were a large group so (in my very best Hebrew) I asked the guy behind the counter if he could slice each piece in half.  I half-wondered if he would, upon hearing my perfectly accented Hebrew, offer me the Old City resident discount. He did not. Instead, he offered to speak to me in English. I insisted he should rather correct my Hebrew. He paused.

You asked me to chop the pizza.

I am not giving up. I will continue to butcher the Hebrew language until I have made it my own. That said, of course I will still automatically opt to read signs in English. Or better yet, try to figure them out based on the graphic:

NO HI-FIVING

NO 1990s

NO HAIRCUTTING SCISSORS

NO STAIRCASE LONG-JUMP 

NO CLIP ON SHADES

NO LEVITATING 

NO TIMBERLANDS

NOW WAIT A MINUTE. THAT'S JUST NOT NICE...

NO FAT GUYS

NO RABBIs

NO AMERICAN FAST FOOD

NO STICK-UPS 

Did u guess it yet?

 

swirling thoughts #218...welcome back

Rosie had a Rosh Hodesh birthday party in school a while back. The kind where every kid with a birthday that month celebrates together in a joint party effort. The kind where each parent brings a different item to the party. And the kind where the parents of the birthday children show up to the party.

In case you lost track, Rosie turned 6. 

There were many calls back and forth. In Hebrew. With lots of repeating.

Ima shel Rosie? You will bring drinks and plates.

I will bring drinks and plates?

Yes, you will bring drinks and plates.

Let me make sure I understand.  Drinks and plates?

Yes.

We will bring the activity for the kids because it needs to be a game in Hebrew and that will be too hard for you.

Um, yes.

And we will all show up at the party at 10.

Ten?

Ten.

Okay!

Fast forward past a lot of intermediate phone calls changing the time from 10 to 11 to 9 to this one:

Ima shel Rosie? The parents will not attend the party.

I should not go?

No.  You should not go.

Are you sure I should not go?

Yes, I am sure. You should not go.

Ok. I will not go.

And so I sent in the drinks, the plates, and my birthday girl.

And she came home from school and asked me why I did not come to the party.

But no parents came.  Right?

No, mommy. The parents of the kids whose birthday it was DID come. Except for you.

Ouch. I am back in ulpan.