the ghost of israel past

i had a rough night last night. a couple of times my chest got the better of me; at 8am, when i needed to get up, i was unable to resist the urge to sink back into the mattress and the following hour was a medley of perfect sleeps and abrupt alarms going off.

if i was to arrive at the fedex depot along with my package i'd have had to leave at 9... it was a testament to how sick i am that it took me more than half an hour to get my shit together, and considering it would take an hour and a half to get there using public transport. i chose to go by taxi. it was going to be very expensive.

the middle eastern taxi driver that rocked up was pleasant, and kindly offered to make the trip worth both our whiles by waiting for me without the meter running to take me the next leg. he brought me to the depot fifteen minutes early, which was most fortunate as my package had arrived two minutes earlier than i had! for that i could ignore the speeding and shake off the strangeness of him removing his seat-belt as we left the highway. the woman at the counter saw that i had a taxi waiting and signed me out as fast as she could, which didn't matter regarding the taxi fare but would make a world of difference regarding the document signing.

as i broke open the seal and began to peruse the lawyer's instructions, the driver turned to me and asked if i'm israeli. how did he know? he noticed the hebrew in the page header. turned out he's an 81 year-old taxi driver who immigrated to canada 62 years ago, and the remainder of our time together was spent discussing my prospects for immigration - he was very sweet and supportive.

i was already in my hebrew comfort zone by the time i pressed the button at the embassy entrance. after a fair amount of waiting they checked me out, let me in, and explained to me why we could get the signing / notarizing done but not the binding. so after dragging myself out of bed and blowing $100 on a taxi, i'm still going to have to wait until monday morning before i have something to send and i'm going to be late for work after eleven days off...

... having said that, it could have been worse and i might have had to go in and do the signing etc. on monday morning, which would have taken even longer. so it wasn't a total waste, i scored an engaging drive and i began my day with a few very positive interactions:
1. the kindness of the driver even before discovering my origin
2. the kindness of the fedex woman at the depot
3. the portentous sensation of putting pen to paper and signing my signature over and over to turn fantasy into reality and transfer ownership of an asset that gave me incredible pleasure and desperately-needed stability for two years of my life, provided excellent support for the following two, and suddenly became a frightening liability a few months ago when i remembered that the israeli government (social security) fakes fines and can force me to forfeit my dearest (material) possessions based on those fines.

when i got back home i visited the ups store and tried to send a fax to my bank only to discover that i couldn't find their number, and as they're closed for the holiday that's going to cost me on my mortgage payment :(

---i picked up a subway lunch and returned home, arriving just before the cleaning lady. i quickly tidied up everything, of all things forgetting to deal with the ultra-disgusting trash cans containing the output of the past couple of days... what firstfallen used to refer to as "lung butter" :$

i went out to starbucks to drink coffee and use their wifi, but for some reason i couldn't connect with either my iphone or my laptop. i had the same issue with my macbook - what the hell??? why is it that everyone else can happily sit down and surf while MY gremlins muck about?! i put together a panel for my comics and walked home, using my phone for a back-and-forth email with megaman that i was hoping to avoid (ios7 and i are not friends). the conversation was uncomfortable because the man just doesn't know how to ask questions or make requests that make sense :S

when the cleaning lady left everything seemed great - only i have this nagging sensation that she didn't clean the floors. what she did do, though, was teach me how to keep the damned balcony door open! gosh, i feel like such a tool for not figuring it out before; granted it isn't an intuitive mechanism at all and it's certainly not where i would expect to find a locking mechanism.

speaking of tool: i haven't got that forty six and 2 cover out of my head. that little girl totally owns it!

i spent the afternoon napping and watching tedtalks: head games. seemed like the right thing to do. it's now holiday, and i'm in just the right mode to make the most of it. meaning i'm going to focus on getting healthy and try to get some "me" things done.

---the tedtalks: head games series is mind-blowing. they're old, and i've never seen 'em, and i'm really sorry i haven't!
dan gilbert: why are we happy?
temple grandin: the world needs all kinds of minds
are just a couple of examples of absolute must-sees!