I didn’t think we’d do school for as long as we did. To be fair, one could argue that I didn’t think at all: the sunburn on my face and chest is evidence of that. We did plan ahead, but poorly. I forgot the sunscreen at home, and I neglected to bring a sweater for when the sun went down and it got chilly. Of course, we weren’t planning to still be out at sundown, which brings us round to my original point: today was much longer than expected.
We went back to Park Ra’anana this morning—some of us walked while others took the bus. I’ll digress here just to say that there’s an app that makes taking public transportation as simple as it could possibly be. Moovit takes your destination and gives you all the possible ways to get there. When you get on the bus, you scan the QR code and put in the number of riders, and it goes on your tab (which is charged to your credit card at the end of the month.) The app even chimes when you’re two stops away from your destination and then again when you get to your stop. That’s it. Easy. I mean, I had to invent a valid-looking-but-fake Israeli Identification Number for the app to take my payment information, but it worked and my public-transit adventures went seamlessly today.
Where was I? Right, the park. We put down our travel towels in the shade and unpacked our school stuff. Mr. December did math with three of the four kids while I worked on getting E to do some kind of work. In the end she did. After a few hours of school, we took a break and the kids ran off to the playground for a bit. Afterwards we walked through the Seven Species garden and the herb garden, taking time to pick some kumquats along the way (all the low-hanging fruit was gone, but that was no problem when E sat on Mr. December’s shoulders.) Then we headed for the bus.






During our visit with our cousins yesterday, I learned that one of them creates beautiful tile mosaics. I asked if K could come and make a mosaic with her; she responded with an invitation for us all to come, for all the kids to make mosaics, and also (by the way) she’d order some pizza for lunch. Of course we said yes.
We arrived at their house at 2:20 (exactly when the Moovit app said we would.) K and I didn’t leave until 7:30. Why? Because K is an artist, as you know. And good art takes time.
(It’s a good thing these cousins really like us!)






