Freakadelics

Warm weather has arrived and with it some fairly strange antics here in HLC (Holy Land Central).

ASIDE from bizarros lighting off fireworks inside a church and instigating riots in Nazareth...

• Witnessed a genuine knifing over personal issues ($$$) today in Tel Aviv's Carmel Market. That the market is seedy and all mobbed up is no secret. But to actually watch one guy get angry and then run back to his cigarette vending stall (now if that isn't a tip off to less than kosher ties...), grab his knife and go use it...Pretty shocking ladies and gents. Nobody intervened and the two disappeared into the crowd. I exited stage left.
• The exit, however, only propelled me further into zanesville. Right there at the corner of Sheinkin - hip street with trendy shops & cafes and a happening scene a la East Village on a teensy scale - a group of earlock guys adorned in zitzit pulled up in their 1960's, magic bus splashed with images of Rebbe Lubavitch. They set up shop on the sidewalk playing bongos, dancing and generally conveying the impression that if we paganites also find god then we'll soon be merrily dancing on street corners just like them. I still say that "happy pills" are the most efficient prodders of "happy feet".
• THEN I bicycle cross town to pick up my little 'un from his friend Ariel's house where I hang for coffee with Ariel's Grandma Regina. She's a cool lady what with her high top red Converse, black leggings, oversized black tee shirts and semi-Goth eye make-up. She watches Ariel after school each day so that daughter Shiri can study pastry chefing. Smack between sips of sweet Turkish coffee and bites of Shiri's honey sesame seed cookies Regina lets it drop that there's a lice outbreak at the preschool. "We'll have to get out the Rosemary oil to ward off the little critters," she casually snickers. "Another cookie?"
• And of course I'm now itching all over, checked Raphael's scalp twice and plan to hit the natural remedy store tomorrow. Another perk of living in HLC: frequent lice outbreaks in school...I'll get into it another day