Gift of RA

I was amazed yesterday I had the energy to write a post – it hasn’t been that way for quite a while.  This bronchitis has taken all my energy and most of my breath.  It doesn’t take much for me to be winded – I walked up the sidewalk from the garage yesterday and I was out of breath.  However, I seem to be doing a lot better than I was.  I’m starting to feel more my regular self.  It would have been much nicer to be feeling this well in Toronto, but when I think of how I felt when the doc gave me antibiotics and when I went to Canada, there was quite a difference then.

I wasn’t sure I would be  able to pack for the trip. but I did.  We had to be up about 3:30 in the morning to catch our 8 a.m. fight – I wasn’t sleeping all that well, so it wasn’t that difficult to be awake and get dressed.  Just before Shuttle Express came, there was a call from them to say they had upgraded us to a town car – no charge.  So it was just us.  It was a  SUV and Eddie had to push my tush to get up – no problem getting out, I just slid to the ground.    While we were waiting at the gate, Santa and his elf came by.  The kids loved it and then he came to us.  He asked if Eddie had been good and I told him he had been very, very good.  He said I was buttering him up, that I wanted something bug from him – a new kitchen.   I told Santa I already have a new kitchen and new car – that  threw him for a bit.  We had a picture taken with him and he went on to his next conquest.

We had a direct flight and everything went well, except I was coughing all the time.  Raouf and Sonia were there to meet us and we drove back to their house.  We spent a lot of the visit talking and being together – they are so much fun.  A lot of time I don’t really know what is going on because it is in Arabic, but it is great for Eddie not only to practice it, but to talk with people who know Jerusalem, the family and the things about it.  He doesn’t have to explain himself because they know what he means.  There was also a lot of English, so it worked out fine.

The next day was Christmas Eve and there is a family dinner that night after we watch the service from Bethlehem.  It has been the 6 of us the past 2 years – Eddie and me, Sonia and Raouf and the two boys.  This year Juries and Brahim both have girlfriends and so they were invited.  Juries’ girlfriend is Serbian Jew and Brahim’s is Vietnamese.   We all had a great time at dinner, they decided to try a new place.  It was great, though I appreciated the simple menu section – everything else seemed to have so much food.  I hate to leave food on my plate when it tastes lovely, but I have limited capacity and don’t like to feel stuffed and uncomfortable.

Christmas gifts were opened when we came home – we usually send ours and I take gift bags but I never got out to buy more.  Fortunately there were bags from last year, so it worked out fine.  We got in the habit of going to bed late and getting up late in the morning.  I slept well some nights, some not so restful.  Eddie either caught some of my stuff or developed his own cold – he and I were a real pair.  He seemed to be stuffed up most of the time, plus coughing and blowing his nose.

Christmas Day we relaxed, then late in the afternoon we went to Raouf’s uncle’s house.  We had gone there last year and met a lot of his family.  This year was no exception, though one of his brothers wasn’t there.  His wife has MS and she was in a scooter last year.  Now she can’t walk and everything is difficult for her.  Brahim and Juries came in the other car and spent the time downstairs in another apt with the younger group.  John’s daughter was married in the summer, so they had the videotape of the wedding running.  It was quite interesting and because Victor is Portuguese, they arranged to have the Portuguese club come and dance.  Meanwhile, everyone is talking, mostly in Arabic, some English.  Last year I sat by John and we had a lovely time.

Road’s brother in Jerusalem was taken to the hospital – he has diabetes and continues to smoke, drink and not take care of himself.  Fortunately he recovered and was due to go home in a couple of days.  I was glad when we went home because I was tired, but so glad we went.

December 26th is boxing Day, so we went to 2 Middle Eastern stores to buy things. They took us to one we hadn’t been to before – Yikes, you should have seen the traffic in the parking lot!  We found a place fairly near and went in, though it seemed there were only a few things they buy there.  then we went to the one went to last year – now that is an Armenian grocery.  It has a welcoming feel whereas the other is like an impersonal supermarket.  It is so mush fun to look at all they have – this year we didn’t buy anything to take home.

Looks as if this will go into Part 2.

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