tiyul avoda

Summer is officially here. Kids in grade 7 and up are now (as of 2 dys ago) in the malls or planted in front of tv and computer screens. Or visiting savta (granny). Younger kids are still in school for another week, but the older ones are floating in that netherworld between the academic year and the beginning of all summer camps.

Mine is going to "math camp" (euphemism for summer school ....mwa-ah-ah-ah!!) -- three mornings a week for the month of July. She fought it only half-heartedly, as I made it clear this was not negotiable. The kid did even worse in her 2nd semester than she did in the 1st one, but we're not going to talk about that. Many plans are afoot to set things right, and I'm optimistic for grade eight.

Moving on... mommy's going on a tiyul avoda tomorrow -- work outing, to the Hebraically challenged -- and I'm very much looking forward to my first real tiyul in years. I used to get out in the country a lot in the "old" days ... participating in one group or another. First one was in ulpan (Hebrew school) the very first winter, 1983. I'll never forget the thrill of leaving the icy cold Jerusalem winter (tons of snow that year and, though Canadian, I was unprepared) and barely two hours later, peeling off layers as we hiked through hot desert sun, ending up by some waterfall where we all jumped in the pool and got ourselves joyfully soaked. Israeli Geography 101: this tiny country has a LOT of climate zones!

Since then, I've seen quite a bit of the country, but no real sightseeing/hiking kinds of trips for longer than I can remember. It's just not mr. Squarepeg's sort of thing, and one needs a bit of cooperation for this activity.

Tomorrow, we're meeting at work at 7:30 am and expect to return home not much before midnite. We'll be bussing north to the Galil and to Sfat (Tsfat) and having some great entertaining dinner somewhere well-known. More details after the fact. Maybe I'll even have a pic or two for y'all.