I hate teenagers

At least, the ones who bonfired last night and left every lot in the city a garbage-strewn mess.

Sadly, though, you get used to that after living through a few Lag B'Omers here. No, there's a special reason I'm bringing on the hate: My husband was the first one up this morning. He was outside and looked at the remains of last night's bonfires on the empty lot next door to us.

Not only had these juvenile delinquents left piles of garbage everywhere, not only had they put their stolen grocery cart (used for hauling sometimes stolen wood to the fire site) INTO the fire so it could be destroyed...no, that wasn't enough.

The stupid, irresponsible, lazy ****s didn't completely put out their fire and it was still burning this morning! Luckily it didn't spread, but it very well might have.

We've done the bonfire/barbecue thing in that lot many times, but aside from a few blackened rocks, you'd never know it the day after. I know teenagers are by definition not really supposed to care about their fellow man, but this is ridiculous!

This year was the first Lag B'omer I can remember (since moving to Israel) that we didn't celebrate with a bonfire. Instead, we joined friends at their house for a barbecue. Great company, great food (especially my own personal Waterloo: chicken wings). They had a CD of classic Israeli hits playing throughout the evening, and we were trying to think of which song could be labeled THE quintessential Israeli song.

Not an easy choice, that's for sure. I could think of several, but I guess my vote would go to the beautiful "Atur Mitzchech", sung by the quintessential Israeli crooner, Arik Einstein:

"House" fans, check this out

Funny (most of the time, anyway) parody:

Why do people keep asking my husband to defraud them?

Would you mind reading this post first? Thanks.

Last month, my husband received another invitiation to defraud. It was during Pesach, and he wanted to take our kids, along with his brother-in-law and his kids (it was a wonderful day off for the wives) to the circus in Tel Aviv. My husband found a site on the 'net advertising tickets for sale between 70-110 shekels. But when he called the ticket office, he was told that the lowest price available was 120 shekels.

But I saw tickets advertised between 70-110 shekels...

The lady on the other end of the line told him that those prices were only for people using a certain credit card. Did he have that credit card, she asked?

No.

Well, then, are you entitled to a discount?

I don't know, what discounts do you have?

If you work for certain companies, you get a discount. What company do you work for?

Company X.

No, sorry, that's not on our list.

What companies are on your list?

She giggled. Well, if you worked at Company ABC, for example, you'd get a discount.

Oh, Company ABC! I've worked there for many years!

She giggled again. All right, then, you just have to call our special discount ticket number (?) and tell them you work for Company ABC and you'll get a lower price.

So he did. They didn't ask for any proof of employment, and sold him the tickets for 70 shekels each. That's about $20 apiece, which is still pretty pricey (my husband only paid for 3 tickets as our oldest didn't want to go). But we decided to splurge, and the rest of our Pesach vacation consisted of free or nearly free outings to parks, picnics, or places of interest- like Neot Kedumim.

And the kids LOVED the circus. Kept talking about it for days afterward.

I just realized that this post (and the other one) doesn't exactly put my husband in a particularly good light. Rest assured that he is usually one of the most honest, moral people you'll ever meet. But if a company is offering you the chance to defraud them, how can you say no?

Chalk one up for our health care system

When it works, it works wonderfully. And when it doesn't...well, no need to get into that now.

It feels weird to say we had a "good" experience at the ER, but on the ER experience scale, this one couldn't be described as "bad."

My son was at his swimming lesson a few weeks ago and was on a swing suspended above the pool. He was supposed to jump into the water, but landed badly (in the water), right on his tummy. Ouch! That happened to me once when I was a kid and I still remember how much it hurt.

But my stomach ache abated rather quickly, from what I remember. My son, on the other hand, was still doubled over in pain 2 hours later and couldn't sit upright. I got scared that maybe he had internal bleeding, so my husband took him to the hospital.

There was practically no wait in the ER, the kid got a good going-over and everything checked out just fine. By the time they returned home, the pain in his gut was pretty much gone, too.

Now, to the bill. When you go to the ER, you're supposed to bring along the ubiquitous Tofes 17 (Form 17) if at all possible. This is a form signed by your primary care physician authorizing your trip to the ER- it's basically a promise by your HMO that they will pay the hospital for your treatment. But since many people need to get to the ER in a hurry, without seeing their doctor first (which is what happened in our case as the clinic had already closed by the time we decided he needed to go to the hospital), they show up without the Tofes 17. As we did. And are billed the full amound, as we were. 572 shekels (about $165), to be exact.

Not to worry, though- as long as you can prove afterward that your form-less trip to the ER was warranted (why else would you go, I wonder, though I'm sure this is to keep overanxious parents from running to the ER whenever their kid sneezes), you'll get the proper discount. All I had to do was write a note to the head of our local clinic explaining why we'd taken the kid to the ER. The other day I was informed that, as expected, he'd approved the trip, and the bill was lowered to 139 shekels (about $40). Pretty reasonable, eh?

This post might not impart anything new to my fellow Israelis, but I hope someone in chul (chutz l'aretz = outside the country) will find it interesting to read how the Israeli health care system works*.

And when it works, it works!

*There are a few other options for health care that you can use if you're unlucky enough to get sick when your clinic is closed. You can visit an urgent-care medical clinic or even...brace yourself...have a doctor (it won't be YOUR doctor, but who cares) make a house call. Yes, a HOUSE CALL. And you thought the house call had gone the way of the dinosaur! We actually utilized this option a few years ago and were very happy with the doctor and the treatment.

Both the urgent-care clinic and the house call are cheaper and potentially easier than the ER option, but we were worried enough that we thought the kid should go to straight to the hospital- he was in really bad shape.

Your "awwwww" moment of the day

This is so "otterly" cute! Especially near the end when they find eachother again.

What a coincidence

Now this is funny. In my last post, "Almost enough for 2 baseball teams," I linked to the website of the Duggar family and their 17 children.

Today I read that #18 is on the way! And the article says:

"And for what it’s worth, when child No. 18 arrives, they’ll have enough kids to field two baseball teams."

OK, I know the baseball thing is probably the first thought a lot of people have upon hearing about that many children, but I still think it's funny.

18 kids...wow. That's just...wow.

Almost enough for 2 baseball teams

Speaking of out-of-control food prices, I wonder how much this family spends each week at the supermarket. Really, I can't even imagine it.

The sad thing? I was looking at their pictures (check out their gorgeous house) and realized that they look SO much more organized and tidy than my family- and we've only got about 1/6 the number of kids! I guess they have to be super-organized or it would be pure chaos over there. The laundry alone would do me in.....

I wonder why they put all 10 boys in one bedroom instead of splitting them up?