The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

By Dnoll



So, it has been a while and I find that I need to report on many things and as it happens, there seems to be a good, a bad, and an ugly element to each story that I need to expel on to the internet. So let’s get started…

The Good…
The good is amazing and all around me everywhere I look. The first place I need to check in with is Adele’s lecture that she gave. She was awesome!!! I didn’t actually see the lecture; however I heard volumes of goodness. She set out to change the whole Country and that, it seems, is exactly what she is doing. I can’t go into details on what she is up to however, oyvavoy…. Talk about science fiction (without the fiction)!

Ok, our friend and loved one, Josh has just launched into Man-hood with such a bang that could be heard from here to the shores of the Old Country (U.S.A.). He had been working so hard on his Torah portion for his Bar-Mitzvah and when the time came to deliver… did he ever. I could hear the jaws dropping onto the floor from my side of the machitzah (curtain between men and women). My jaw even hit once or twice (which didn’t affect my hearing of his perfect recitation in the least) and actually, I knew he had it in him the whole time anyways. It was just great to see Josh shine so brightly! He is now considered part of a minyan (something that I have yet to accomplish) and is really soaking it up too.

The next good thing is that we now have a house in Zichron Yaacov, Israel! That is truly amazing and we are so exited we can barely contain ourselves. What an absolutely amazing life that Hashem (blessed be his name) has given us and continues to bless us with! Wow… that about says it all as far as the good… on to the inevitable, the bad.

The Bad…
I am going to do this in order so we shall start with Adeles lecture. All I can say about that is that for about 3 months prior to the lecture… life was not so rosy at the Noll’s house. She was stressing out in a major way, but not to worry, you already know the ending… or do you?

Josh on the other hand… nope, nothing bad to say about that one. He was just amazing! So let’s just move on to the house deal. The bad there is known to all. Moving!!!! Ich. Everyday I work for 10 hours and come home and pack some more. I am sneaking this little blog in because I haven’t posted for so long. I know, it will all be great in the end and we will hardly remember a stressful thing… can’t wait (actually, yes I can, time is a weird thing… reading some Dr. Gerald Schroeder stuff now… sorry for the break in transmission). So on to the Ugly…

The Ugly…
Guess what happened the morning of Adele’s amazing presentation? She had all of her stuff stolen from under her feet. She had turned to speak to someone for a second and when she turned to gather her things… they were gone! Her purse with her wallet (think all identification, credit cards, cash, i-pod with all her work music, palm pilot with her whole world on it, prescription sunglasses ($400 to replace here) and just to make the pain a little deeper… her laptop computer with her presentation on it, her notes, and an extra hard-drive with extra information on it (just in case). Oy. Well, as you know already, she went on to shock and amaze without all the stuff and bummed a ride home from Tel-Aviv, feeling violated and accomplished… at the same time. I don’t know if that is ugly or beautiful… go figure.

Josh… he is just plain beautiful!

The house… yes there is some ugly there as well. It seems that we may have landed somewhere in the Israeli version of the Twilight Zone. We have purchased a home from one of two cousins that have been feuding for years and guess where the other cousin lives? Yep… next door to us and we get to share the driveway with them. We didn’t really notice anything wrong until a wonderful flowering bush turned up dead one day. We thought that maybe it was the gardener that we hired from the cousin on one side to clean up the mess that had been left, but after the other cousin made it clear, albeit in monotonously slow steps, that he was very interested in maintaining a certain amount of room in the driveway for his vehicles to motor back and forth… you get the picture. Anyways, the story gets uglier, but I find it difficult to tell so… lets just end on a good note.

Josh is really flying high. He is doing Tefilin with me in the mornings sometimes, he wants to know about Judaism, he really wants to do well in School (he has always said he wanted to be a doctor and now we all see it is possible for him) and… oh yeah! Zach is getting top grades on his Baccalaureates! And it is all in Hebrew too! What great kids…that is all I have to say,

Shalom le kulam.

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