Happy Birthday to Me!

The Gilberts have been having lots of fun since I last wrote here about 2 weeks ago. We've visited the New York Botanical Gardens (lots of flowers, though not as many as in the streets of Ra'anana, if you ask me), and the fancy new Museum of Mathematics in NYC (lots of cool things that didn't really seem all that maths-like, but a fun afternoon nonetheless).

Some flowers

Fun at the Botanical Gardens

We also celebrated Mother's Day last Sunday. It turns out that Mother's Day over here is a very BIG DEAL, and is not shunned by religious Jews like it is in the UK. It's also taken much more seriously than "Yom Hamishpacha" ("Family Day") in Israel, which is too lazy even to distinguish between Mothers and Fathers. Maya and Tzofia made lovely cards and gifts for me at school, and Eitan made coffee and pancakes (at home). Leora cheered all their efforts and agreed with the sentiments. I quite enjoyed all the undeserved affection but the day was somewhat overshadowed by my impending "big" birthday. Yesterday (Friday), I hit the big 4-0, and officially started my decline into senility and general decrepit-ness, (though if I'm being honest I would say that the decline actually began about twenty years ago).

I had a lovely birthday: I received lots of extremely elaborate cards made by the kids and a few in the mail (snail and e-), and a new (first ever!) iPhone (together with various accessories which I don't quite understand yet). I had breakfast in Manhattan with Avrom before he ran off to the office, and then took myself off for a walk around mid-town. I had a great tour of Grand Central Terminal (not allowed to call it Grand Central Station - that refers to the subway station) and did a little bit of shopping. Back in Teaneck in the afternoon I went out for ice-cream with the kids and we enjoyed an easy take-out Shabbat at home - because cooking would not have been a fun birthday activity, quite frankly. I also spent the day receiving lots of Happy Birthday phone calls and messages, which was rather lovely.

Shavuot here went very smoothly - the big kids had shiurim until around midnight, and we had a lovely lunch at friends. Can you believe that people are still willing to invite us for meals, when they know that we're skipping the country in a couple of months? We are constantly bowled over by how kind and welcoming people have been to us here. We are quite relieved to be finished with the whole 2nd day of yom tov thing. Apparently some Israelis sneak out of the house at the crack of dawn with a fake moustache and a wig, and drive somewhere for the day. Sadly, we are not that cunning, and our 2nd day yom tov consists of Avrom working in the study, and me trying to keep the kids busy. This time they mostly went over to friends in the afternoon, but they felt very awkward, having to dress and act as if it was yom tov for them, after having spent the morning on iPods and iPads and secretly making me birthday cards. We'll be happy to get back to keeping the same yom tovs as our neighbours.

Now we are really starting to plan our return to Israel. Many people have asked me how we are feeling about leaving. The answer is that we have very mixed feelings. We are sad to be leaving friends and our lives over here, but we are also excited to get back to our lives in Israel. So, I think that is a good result. (Also, I'm quietly excited about showing all the nay-sayers in Ra'anana and London that we really did come to the US for only one year. You know who you are.) I expect I'll write a more detailed post soon about all the things we are going to miss when we leave. I imagine no school on Sundays will feature quite prominently on that list.

Have a great week everyone!