Jerusalem Stone Is Like Easy Mac...

It's rainy season in Jerusalem, which I am aware is a blessing. It only rains 7 months a year, and this is the desert. If there's no water, then the desert won't bloom. Bring on the geshem (rain)!

That being said, I lost my (super cute) umbrella (I WILL find it!) and had to make do what the tools I found around my apartment. It wasn't all bad, because I do have my rain boots, and they are spectacular (I made quite the splash walking up my driveway tonight, for example, maintaining the delicate warmth and dryness in the boots.). I also have a variety of hooded sweatshirts and my North Face brand Expensive Fleece With Armpit Zippers. But none of these items helped me when it came to navigating Jerusalem stone, which is notoriously slippery, and also mandated to be the material of all buildings in this fine city.


This picture was actually taken at Fire Extinguisher training at camp this past summer, but you can see my North Face in all of its armpit-zippered glory! (I really just love this pic, so thanks to camp for documenting it.) Red Crocs added for an Israeli feel.

Rothberg takes this building code VERYSERIOUSLY, so even the stairs leading up to the building that houses all of my classes are of Jerusalem stone. One of my favorite lines from the very funny, but underwatched and subsequently cancelled show Huff, came from a bit where two characters slipped on some spilled Easy Mac. It went a little something like this:

"It's the Easy Mac! It's delicious, but it's treacherous!" (uttered by Oliver Platt's Russell.)

If Jerusalem stone is Easy Mac, and delicious is beautiful, then you know what's coming...I lost my footing and slid onto my hands, arms and knees onto the stones, thus being initiated into the historical club of Jerusalem dwellers who had lost footing on the slippery, wet stones. Nobody was around to witness the event, which leads me to think that if a Sara Beth falls on the stairs, and nobody is around to laugh, it happened if she wrote about it on her "blob." (Love you, Zayde!)

Zayde and Mark Salute my "Blob" (This is one of the best pictures ever, and has very little to do with Israel. Oh well.)

I'm even so lucky as to have a little knot, a bruise on my forearm, to remind me (probably for a week or so) of this initation rite.

Thank you sir, may I have another?