50 years and a day

 by now the whole world has some idea of what's going on in israel, which means very little considering how in the dark we all are over here.

my wife and son were rushing out the door by the time i registered that the sirens were going, and that was 6.30am. we heard explosions. we came back, i tired to go back to sleep, and then we returned again at 7.30am. so i was still half-asleep the second time.

and the experience was hardcore - one of our neighbors suffers from ptsd and he and his partner have two rescue dogs that suffer from anxiety, and between the first siren and the second he was off to fight and in addition to the sirens and the explosions we had to deal with the two dogs freaking out.

i walked to the hospital for the blood drive, i was pleasantly surprised by how many people turned up and unpleasantly disappointed by the number of them with wet coughs (even one would have been bad enough, jesus). i was there for an hour and a half before everyone without type-o blood was asked to leave.

the afternoon was mostly quiet, with me constantly checking the news for the horrifying updates from down south, and our biggest mission was keeping mr smear calm (although gd herself has been terribly anxious). the next siren was while he was on the toilet before bed, so that was an experience, and we entered the shelter just before the barrage hit. after that i was reading to him (the story of cupid and psyche) in bed when the next siren sounded.

ugh.

it's weird being so exhausted after a day doing practically nothing, and i don't even want to think about the number of dead and wounded or the terrors visited on our southern border. it's scary how we got caught with our pants down, and we're praying that our armed forces get it together and take control of the situation quickly.