Sometimes A Sprained Ankle is a Good Thing

I sprained my ankle in the desert, which seemed like maybe it could spoil our travel plans, or at least make things difficult.

Well. It did make things difficult, but in some ways, it was a good thing. I spent the last day in Israel sitting with my foot up, which was good, since I got a lot of work done, and I was able to take a wheelchair when we went through Amman Airport in Jordan, where we had an overnight stopover, and when we arrived to Bangkok Airport.

The flight from Tel Aviv to Amman is so short, they don't even have time to turn off the seatbelt light or serve a snack. We don't even get up to cruising altitude. But then we had a long wait until our onward flight. Luckily, Royal Jordanian Airlines are a bit old-fashioned, and they put extended transit passengers up in the airport hotel with complementary buffet.

The hotel is pretty shabby - it probably was very nice and of high-standard when it was built, back in 1985. But it clearly hasn't been renovated or had any repairs since then. Still, we got a nice room with 3 beds, basic cable TV and a bath, which is infinitely better than the usual sitting in an airport "transit lounge" (an oxymoron if ever there was one).

Arriving to Bangkok, we asked again for a wheelchair, and a man came along with one. It was great. He pushed me all the way thorough the mile of corridors to immigration, and even jumped the queue for us and took care of the passports. Actually, he went so fast, Purple and Littletree could barely keep up!

Then he got my bags off the luggage carousel, and led us through customs and even got me a taxi! I think it was barely 20 minutes from getting off the plane to speeding away in the cab - a world record, surely :)

Anyway, now we're in Bangkok, it's hot. My ankle is starting to feel better, and tomorrow we fly to China. So it could be a whiles before I post again, Here's a cute pic of Littletree, just to tide you over...

An Elephant Ate My Daughter

One of the weirdest things in Tel Aviv (note it's definitely not the weirdest), is at the playground in a huge shopping mall called Dizengoff Centre.

They have this larger-than-life flibreglass elephant with stairs leading up into its mouth. Children climb excitedly up the stairs into the dark, red belly of the beast...

And slide down through a chute that comes out its butt!

The children emerge, barely digested, to gleefully run around and go again.

And no one seems to think it's strange.

Littletree and I followed this adventure up by getting into a fight with a random passer-by: I was standing on a busy street-corner, talking on my phone to arrange a meeting with my friend. Littletree was sitting at my feet, waiting patiently. It was a loud and hectic place to stand, and I was already feeling a little stressed and overwhelmed...

Anyway, someone walked up with a dog, and the dog proceeded to sniff Littletree in the face. Littletree whined and backed away. The dog followed and started licking her. She whined more, and tried to fend it off, but not very convincingly. I said in a good dog-commanding voice (in Hebrew) "Hey! dog! Go! Shoo!" The dog continued to harass Littletree, and she continued to be disturbed by it.

Then I saw that the dog had an owner standing right next to us, so I said to her (in Hebrew) "hey, get your dog away from here". The woman replied that the dog wasn't disturbing my daughter. I raised my voice (clearly not so cool, but hey), "Yes! The Dog IS Disturbing Her! She's Frightened, Now Get Your Dog Away From Us!!"

Without moving her dog, the woman said "whoa, you're so aggressive!"

So then I lost it.

Shouted in her face (in English) "OF COURSE I'M @#$%ING AGGRESSIVE! YOUR DOG IS ANNOYING MY DAUGHTER AND I ASKED YOU TO TAKE IT AWAY! NOW GET YOUR @#$%ING DOG AWAY FROM US YOU STUPID B!TCH!!!"

Clearly not my best moment,

But clearly, IMO, you can't just let your dog go around getting in people's faces, especially when they ask you not to. Littletree could have been allergic to dogs, or phobic, or anything. She didn't know. Clearly I could have dealt with this waaaaay better. But somehow, being in Israel has me acting like that much more than I'd like.

Thank goodness for Rescue Remedy. Then i took Littletree to the park to meet Butterfly and climb on stuff.

New Article

Another of my articles was published on Essence of Life
It's about a woman called Wangari Maathai, an African woman working on changing the world.
Check it out
and as usual, go make a comment in the forum :)

I'm pretty busy at the moment, since we're packing to leave Israel and fly back to Bangkok - we'll only be there for 3 days before we fly to China, to the rainbow gathering, so most likely I'll be offline for a whiles.