After my intense search for white gloves which I wrote about last week, I received countless offers of white gloves throughout the last days.
“Why didn’t you ask me?” many of my friends reproach me now, I have a lot of white gloves in my closet!”
So everything that happens is a lesson for life. Next time I need an odd item, I will put up an ad on our board in the lobby and save myself a lot of trouble. But frankly I’d rather write about it!
Whenever I want to learn about lessons in life, I go through my old diaries and am full of amazement at how people change across the years. A few weeks ago I read again about my daughter’s time in the army. She was a lieutenant, and spent her years of service in some obscure place near Jerusalem. She lived in a tent, slept on a miserable cot, rarely enjoyed a shower, and was surrounded most of the time by hungry goats and all kinds of insects which were often hard to identify. She took good care of the young girl soldiers in her charge, got involved in their lives and survived one hard day after the other. Whenever we, her parents, wanted to visit her, she discouraged us, because she knew how upset we would be viewing her living conditions..
Now leafing through another diary of many years later, I think about how life has changed for my daughter. A wife, a professional, the mother of three boys, she informs me that her dog, David Beckham, is invited to another dog’s birthday party..
“So, she says worriedly, what am I going to buy for the birthday dog? I am sure everybody will bring a rubber toy bone and I would very much like to bring him something original!”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Of course, I am serious, she replied, I hoped to receive some advice from you!”
I am sure my daughter will figure out what to buy for a dog’s birthday party. After all the Israeli army trains her soldiers to cope with the most problematic situations!
I leaf through another book a few years old and I arrive to the evening when I lost my cell phone. This was shortly after I moved into the Elisha Towers. I searched everywhere and finally decided to ask the desk for help. One of the boys on duty came up to my home.
“Just ring the number of your cell, it will ring back and you will find out where it is!’”
“Yes, I know, I said quite embarrassed , but the trouble is I don’t really know the number, the phone is kind of new and I don’t use it much! I wrote the number down on an envelope and I don’t know where the envelope is!”
Now the young man and I were looking for the envelope...
“You know, he tried to cheer me up, Einstein wrote his whole relativity on an envelope, so you are probably a very smart woman making notes on an envelope!”
I thought that his conclusion was open to reasonable doubt. We found the envelope with the cell phone number under my kitchen radio. I did not remember putting it there but the boy rang the number and the ring tone came back cheerfully from under my blanket. He pulled the blanket and gave it a good shake and my cell phone fell out!
“I must seem very stupid to you!” I said.
“Not at all, the young man smiled, this is my third case this week of a lost cell phone! And most of them are found in beds. Trying to find them is not even a challenge! My evenings are a bit dull so I am quite happy when there is a bit of action!"
Truth is that I would prefer not to be the one who causes the action, but who can promise?
Lucca