Hello Girls,

For the first time in months Suma was up and about without having to be awakened. Its a shame that it happened at 05:30 in the morning. She was looking for you to say goodbye. Without opening the second eye she went back to bed She was up again at seven, took care of herself and I took her to school. Thus ended the easy part.

08:00 – Osmo, Boket Tov. Nothing. As though I could hope for more. I went into Tintin’s room (the one with the big huge bed – he sometimes lets his parents sleep with him) and tried the same routine. ‘Tintin, Boker Tov’. Hah, might as well be asking Barood to like me. ‘Not to worry’ I told my inexperienced self, ‘the gardeners will be along soon with their mowers and blowers and grunts and hisses’. Somehow I wasn’t sure that all these noises would be of any help but I opened all the windows facing the yard anayway.

08:07 – The gardeners are here. And here comes the lawn mower. ‘Osmo, Osmo, Boker Tov’. Funny, the lawn mower was much quieter this morning. Osmo turned around and carried on his undisturbed sleep. Just for the protocol I tried Tintin. A total waste of time. He cuddled up a little bit tighter – subconsciously thinking that I wanted more room in his bed and didn’t wake up. ‘Uh-oh, it looks like this is not going to work out well this morning, I wonder what Ima would have done?’. The answer was quite simple actually – Ima would wait till 09:30 to wake the two slumbering princes.

08:15 – Time was working against me. It was clear that short of physical violence nothing was going to wake them. And even if I dragged them out of bed they would still be in a total dysfunctional state, urinating in their cereal bowls and falling of their chairs. ‘Hmm, I do recall seeing them awake during earlier hours’ I told myself. ‘That only happens on weekends, and, ‘come-on, come-on o-failing memory, grant me this one favor, just this time please’. ‘YES’, it struck me. He gets up if there’s something immediate to gain from it. Now where was that present I was supposed to give him on the weekend? It would have helped had I remembered what it was. Aging brain cells are not a thing you can trust. ‘Have faith’ I told myself. ‘While you are losing millions (or was it billions) of bain cells every minute (or was it every day), you only used 5% of them to begin with (or was it 50%)’. ‘What a pathetic situation to be in’ I thought to myself. ‘Here I am trying to calm and encourage myself, and I can’t even get my make believe stories right’.

The clock was not impressed. It kept on moving. Not only did I have the two of them still asleep. I would have to get TinTin into a costume, and to top it all I promised to bring a TV set and a video to work. ‘TV, video, TV video why does that seem to ring a bell?’. ‘BECAUSE YOU NEED THE TV TO SHOW THEN SPACE JAM FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS AND THE CASSETTE IS UNDER YOUR LAST CLEAN PAIR OF UNDERPANTS!!!’. The power of recollection slicing through my brain was more than a man my age, a father on his own, a provider for a family and a person feeling sorry for himself could handle. ‘Don’t panic’ I told myself. ‘Sit and think this through’. ‘There is a golden thread hidden somewhere here, and if you follow it all the pieces will fall into place’. ‘Well they’d better’ I told myself. ‘Imagine being left alone for less than three hours and already being out of control’. ‘Oh why did the women in my life leave me?’. ‘My wife and eldest daughter on an airplane to see a play (I think) and the third in command is at school’. Which left only me with the fourth and fifth (or first and second – depends how you look at it) fast asleep.

Having all four seats in the kitchen to choose from I had no problem sitting down. It’s the decision thing that puts me under great stress. I have no problem taking orders I gathered the remains of my crumbling wits and somehow managed to get a plan in place. I would sweetly wake Osmo with the cassette of SPACE JAM (that’s it), and send HIM to tell TinTin about it. Then I would use the euphoria of the movie to dress TinTin (he would not mind if he’s distracted). I would keep them in front of the TV to the very last minute and then send them to the car. I would skip their pissing, brushing teeth, eating and combing their hair. I knew that these activities would open me up to potential second thoughts on TinTin’s side, and god only knew what Osmo would come up with. ‘Once I begin I must not lose the initiative’. The good thing of course was that you were not here, Galupe. You would never have let this fly. But with you letting yourself fly I would be forced to cut a few corners May the lord of the dirty underpants forgive me.

I knelt down by Osmo (‘Yafe Yimach Shmo’) and sweetly said ‘Osmo look what I’ve got’. Now that was a stupid way of putting it. If the kid was asleep he couldn’t here, and if he was bluffing, which he often does, he wouldn’t give himself up on such a vague prospect as ‘something for you’. ‘I have the SPACE JAM CASSETTE’ I continued to WHISPER. Now I could have sworn that the little basterd smiled before opening his eyes. ‘So he was bluffing’. ‘No time for a court martial now you fool, keep the plan in motion’. ‘Lech Tair et TinTin vetareh lo’. The kid was up in two seconds, in five he was next to TinTin (who was sleeping in his big bed). ‘TinTin Tireh ma kibalnu’. Tintin was sitting up before his eyes were open. ‘No time for feeling stupid’ I told myself (both basterds had been bluffing). ‘Why don’t you two go to your room to watch the movie and I’ll dress you while you watch’. They looked at each other. My heart missed a beat and then went into a frenzy. In my desperation I had said to much. Would they sense the urgency of the situation and crawl back under the covers? Why did I have to mention dressing them so early in the game. ‘OK’. I couldn’t afford to look surprised. I gathered my limp frame and in what I hoped looked as the most routinely manner led them back into their quarters.

Things went quite well from that point on. As I was dressing TinTin in the Dracula condom it occurred to me that the suite was un-pissable. ‘This is not good’ I told myself. ‘If he can’t go to the bathroom with this thing on, and I don’t plan to let him relieve himself now, there will be no happy ending to this day’. Osmo either read my thoughts or remembered a problem he had with that costume sometime in the past. ‘TinTin, Im ata tzarich Pipi az tevakesh mahganent shtiftach lecah et halavan hazeh, ve’az torid ad lepoh, vetashtin’. ‘Maybe you would like to try now to practice what Osmo just told you?’, ‘OK’. Twice in ten minutes, this couldn’t last. Of course we had to go through the minor pants-BEFORE-shoes routine, ‘but what’s that compared with the overall achievement of the past fifteen minutes’ I calmed myself.

By 08:35 I had the two of them in the car. Unfed, Unwashed, Uncombed, but fully pissed (empty bladders) and happy to be on their way, looking forward to coming home. When they saw me coming with the TV they became worried. ‘Where’s the cassette’ they both asked. I promised that the cassette would be home when they returned, now recalling that they would be out of the house until the late hours of the evening. ‘But we’ll be at Yoav’s ‘ TinTin protested. ‘Yoav has the movie at home’ I replied. This partially worked, but the kid was still down. Not a good state, as he could turn against his costume. ‘Zeh nachon Tintin’, Osmo replied (the angle), ‘Tuchal lirot etzel Yoav camah shtirzeh’ ‘Whew’.

I dropped them both off without incident, and rushed to the office. I got there just in time to set up the TV and start the workshop. The day was quite interesting. We laughed a lot, and actually got to know some of the people better. From my perspective that was the initial intent of the whole thing. Its very difficult to get people to participate in group dynamics, but hide that behind some other activity and you’ll get great results. I can tell you more when you get back. Right now lets pick up a few more tidbits from the day.

At 19:30 I picked up Suma and drove to Gadi’s. Gadi was out running. Very bad timing that turned out to be. While he was gone Osmo and Tintin were left loose on the grounds Osnat had lost all ability to watch over them hours earlier. There’s no problem with that as long as they don’t get to close to Nir The kid somehow came up with the idea that he would like to sleep over at Osmo’s. I knew I wouldn’t let Osmo down, and I knew that It had been quite a while since I competed for the single dad’s medal of parenthood so I agreed. The truth is that it really didn’t bother me, it’s just that it’s Nir that I don’t like very much. The child has the qualities of a mountain goat. he is harmless, but he’s also useless, a pest, jumps all over the place, has bad manners, is not on the obedient side and is just not cooperative enough for you to do a damn thing about it. On the up side he’s so harmless that Tintin can also manhandle him. With that being the case I had no issue. There would be very little chance that the grasshopper would even think of forming an alliance with Osmo against TinTin. That’s one thing I didn’t want because when Tintin looses his will to live, everybody looses their will to live

Now what could be a better closing story for the day than what Osmo shared with Nir on the way home (after dinner at Gadi’s). I’ll quote it in English: ‘This morning, when I didn’t want to wake up and my dad thought I was sleeping he gave me the Space Jam cassette to make me wake up’ So there you have it. He was bluffing, but the hell with that. I got through the day, they got through the day, everybody was happy and tomorrow Suma will almost burn the house down making Fimo pins. While I’m writing this letter after the house survived the Fimo episode, I would still like to stop here. It’s been a long day and (it’s actually Saturday night 23:00), and I would like to go get my boob-tube treatment.

I love you and miss you both, hope you’re having a great time. Tomorrow some good people might bring more food. If not Suma has money and we can all go to McDonalds.

Good night.

Bushy.