Surprise ½ Day Off – July 28, 2009

I guess when you leave a relatively clean life; occasionally unexpected gifts come your way. Last year, it was the gift of a cold Heineken on a warm Sunday night. Today it was the mistake of a bus company. We were scheduled to be with the largest USY group of 45, group 4 (Amy Easton, Amalia Cowan and Matt from Seaboard). With their 5 staff they are 50. Danny, Arnie and I are 3. We had a fourth, June Kraft, an educator from Tampa who was joining us. USY ordered a 53 seat bus, thinking that one person could sit in the tour guide Jump seat in the front. Alas, a 51 passenger bus arrived, so one of the group’s staff and I took the “bump” to get the morning off. But I digress, back to yesterday.

We had an exceptional group of USYers with group 6. Half went to meet Alice Jonah at the Diplomat Hotel (I wrote about her earlier in the summer). Half went with Arnie and I to Big Brothers/Big Sisters to meet Libby Reichman, who has really build something from nothing. There we also met former Washingtonian Shaiel Yitzchak and his little brother Ephraim, old friends of mine (Ephraim for 3 years, Shaiel since he was 15 so maybe 21 years), and more recent olah Naomi from NYC who is also a Big Sister. Their clubhouse is a great meeting place, we’ve been able to help them with some great mitzvah stuff (last year, professional banner signs for attracting volunteers when they do fairs, a projector for their movie nights and this year, a gas grill (and installation of the gas line to it) for their fun barbeque nights. It’s nice to see our efforts making people so happy.

In the afternoon, we again packed a couple of hundred packages with Moshe Kott and Lev Ramot, and the USYers were really tremendous. Our closing activities with them were the best we’ve had; they were cooperative and on time all day, and we rewarded then by finishing almost an hour early and giving them some free time.

Dinner was grilled fish at Doron’s (pre-Tisha b’Av special) with Fran and Bernie Alpert from Archeological Seminars.

Today was supposed to be my day to see Avshalom Beni of HAMA; I’ll have to figure that out later. I was able to meet with Yael Rosen from Atzum at 7:30 this morning, to fund an adult diaper service for 6 months for one of the Righteous among the Nations living here in Israel, someone who saved dozens of Jews during the Shoah. What was the old Army marketing line? “We do more before 9 am than most people do all day!” I went downtown to run a couple of small errands that otherwise would have waiting for my final days last week – a trip to Yad LaKashish, a visit to my friend storekeeper Mr. Yirmiyahu that Rabbi Leonard Cahan introduced me to over 23 years ago (who sold me the plastic protective covers for my tallit bags for 5 shekels a piece and kippot for 30 shekels that cost twice as much a few blocks away on Ben Yehuda. Then I stopped at one of my favorite used book stores, Stein Books on King George (please note, no stops for cappuccino, juice or pastries) where I made a modest purchase. I had time to finally go pick up my shirts that I left last week at the laundry, only to find that they are missing – perhaps given to another customer in error. Hopefully they will be returned soon. I’ve been using these guys for years and nothing like this has happened before. I can be patient – I have other things to wear for Shabbat.

So that’s the story – I will meet the USYers at 3:30 or so to help them process the day, have another quiet evening before tomorrow and our 4th and final USY group of the week. We will be going up to Hod HaSharon to see Linda Mosek from Click, and then Ruth Schlossman, Mitzvah Hero from A Gift of Comfort before beginning the fast of Tisha B’Av.

May have to take a nap after lunch – it’s too hot to be outside too much. This is the vacation part of the “working vacation”. Until there is more to report . . .