Jerusalem Day

 It's the 28th of Iyar on the Jewish calendar, Jerusalem Day. 

As soon as I turned on the radio today there was someone blathering about how awful it is that ... Israel is winning the war. Let me see, out of all the books I've read and documentaries and movies I've watched and actual WWII veterans I've talked about, I've never read or seen or heard anything about how mean the Allies were to not send food and money to the Nazis while they were fighting them, nor was there any objective but to wipe the Nazis off the face of the Earth. We chased 'em right back to Berlin and Germany went through extensive de-Nazification for years after the war. There was never anything about feeding anyone until the Berlin Airlift. The Germans did not expect to be fed, they'd lost and that was that. Keep up your good work, Bibi! 

In Israel, there's a neat event to take part in:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_of_Flags

Here in the US it's also the anniversary of D-Day. My old neighbor Burt Butler (RIP) was in the Navy in WWII and took part as far as being part of the fleet. 

Last night after assessing how much Chardonnay I had, I drained out the liter I had in the opened box, and sad to say, ended up drinking it. I tried using 100ml in cooking and that just made my cooking taste a bit weird so that use is out. I drank it, staying up until about 4AM, "to get tired". Pretty dumb. So of course I woke up at 2 in the afternoon, the old nigh-owl schedule I don't want to follow again, ever. 

So when I got up after putting my bedding away and all that, I dug out the unopened box and put it out, along with some circuit boards, for the bums. The circuit boards and the wine disappeared pretty fast. I am traditionalist enough that I'll buy a half-bottle of wine for Shabbat dinner and that's it. 

A quick note on the weather: It's 81 in Honolulu, 76 in Tel Aviv (granted it's 1AM there but the high is 81) and 95 here. 

My original plan had been to tell Ken I was leaving for Hawaii after voting in November, but to take an "exploratory" trip around my birthday in September, and just ... never come back. But now of course those plans are all out the window. Converting to Judaism will take, I assume, 2 years. That's not just taking the classes but obtaining papers that will allow me to move to Israel. Then it's either move to Israel or hunker down as a retiree here. 

To think I was, at one time, considering moving to New Orleans. It's cheaper than here, on the order of Tel Aviv or Hawaii. There's one streetcar that would take me everywhere that's essential to go. As a trumpet player I'd fit right in, and there are even special programs and perks for street musicians (and those who call themselves such, however much they actually suck). Street musicians = tourism dollars and the Powers That Be know this. 

I'd watched every episode I could get ahold of, of the HBO series "Treme" which was most of them, that I was buying on DVD from Fry's. I'd watched a ton of other things on YouTube too. I'd figured if nothing else I could always contact Dorise Blackmon (RIP) who would always be there, renting out houses and rooms. I'd rent a room from her. 

Well, Dorise is gone, New Orleans is the murder capital of the US which is really saying something, it's like a place being the vodka-drinking capital of Russia. It's a cesspool of drugs and violence, and being part of the South, hatred. There *is* a Jewish community as there is in every major city in the US, but I'd be drastically shortening my life expectancy if I moved to that shithole. Let the crackheads keep it. 

I packed 11 things and did my post office and FedEx run, and my new sun hat did seem helpful. The brim flops back too much in the strong winds I have to deal with, though. 

I got 2 tea eggs at 99 Ranch and ate those, went back to H Mart and now it was past 7 but they didn't have anything in the hot case I wanted. I got some peppers and things, a package of GreeNoodle miso flavor, a little 50c Korean candy bar that turned out to have a thin chocolate coating but nothing to worry about, and some interesting wheat based sweet potato flavored jerky. 

I pickup up packing materials and boxes, got back here and did a good parking lot cleanup and got in here and turned on the radio. They're in a big harangue about Miram Adelson, who's donating to causes she believes in and publicity she believes in, and this is Very Bad(tm) because she's a Jew. It'd be perfectly OK if it were an Aryan doing this. 

Sad to say, Miriam Adelson is pro-Trump and I can only think that she thinks Trump can be controlled more easily than a Democrat - since the US could tip into pogroms and death camps under either party. I wish I could caution her that the big German industrialists thought they could control Hitler, and they found to their dismay that they could not. The several attempts to assassinate Hitler - the ultimate off switch - all failed. 

After eating I realized it was 10:15. Oops. I vacuumed the office and washed the dishes, the bathroom had stayed surprisingly neat over the last 2 weeks so I let that slide, as Ken drove up. We had our usual hang out and talk time, he offered me a burger but I said I'd just eaten so it's better he save it for later. Unfortunately, Ken is "kind of out of money" so he has to wait until he gets paid, then he can pay me. That means instead of getting $1400 this week, it'll be $1800 next week. I said it's no problem, this is why I save money and I'll just keep track of the missed paychecks. I said I was glad to see him and glad he's well and that I'd worried a bit about him. 

We had our usual talk about how various rockets work, and I showed him some hilarious footage on r/dronecombat and all in all we had a good time. I gave him my last unopened "volcanco" lemon juice thing to try, because I'll just go to Whole Foods tomorrow and get some more. It turns out he likes to put lemon juice in gin & tonic. As for me, I'm done with sodas and things like that and have come to really like just drinking ice water with a squirt of lemon.