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Last night, for the first time in over a year at least, we had a complete (maternal) family dinner. My sister returned from America, my cousin flew down for the weekend from Amsterdam where he is currently selling miniature souvenir windmills and bongs or whatever, neither of his sisters had to stay at their bases over the weekend. My grandmother was naturally overjoyed at being able to see her grandkids instead of following them on Facebook. And dinner was fun, even when half of it circles around my cousin and sister's South America tales which I tend to tune out after a while. I'm also the proud owner now of my second llama wool scarf; I've never worn the one I already had, but it's one of the standard SA gifts and this one feels less itchy, so yay.
My sister also gave us some of the Dead Sea products she sold in mall carts in CA and DC. It's pretty mind-boggling to know how much these things sell for ($40-$80), when they're probably worth, like, maybe 20 shekels each, and that's a stretch. But good salespeople know how to pitch it, and around the holidays people like to throw money away, and it's just amazing, how much money my sister made. Selling ridiculous nail buffering products. When she was in DC I asked her what mall she was working in so I could send people over, and she said to forget it, that she'd feel bad overpricing my friends. It's not that it's all a big scam or anything -- not any more than whenever anyone else tries to sell you something -- it's just that the difference between what products are worth and what salespeople sell them for, always letting you think you're robbing them in broad daylight, can be a little stunning.
Something else re: my sister's return: it was a little weird for me, before seeing her. Because I kept feeling like this should have been a big occasion and that I should be super excited for it, and I wasn't feeling that excited. Not that I was unhappy that she was coming back, not at all -- I just felt kind of indifferent towards it. Because it was a big occasion for her, and a big occasion for my parents. For me, though? We'd hardly seen one another or hung out much together before that as it were -- we'd only see one another on weekends, and we're friends but we're not like soulmate sisters; we just kind of take one another for granted, I think. And I kept up with her Facebook updates when she was gone, and talked to her on the phone once every two months or so, but I can't say I really actively missed having her around. Not to mention, a year sounds like a long time, but I swear this past year has flown by me like a speeding bullet, it's insane.
Anyway, that's what I thought before I saw her -- I was feeling a little guilty at not being as excited as I felt I should be. But then I saw her yesterday afternoon, and it was almost a relief to see that I actually was happy about it. It was fun to see her. And now we'll see what happens, with her back -- I really do wonder what she's gonna do next.
Meanwhile, my grandmother's a little bit in love with Barack Obama, it would seem. One of the highlights of her week, she said, was seeing his speech in Cairo: "the way he speaks, the way he holds himself, the way he wove the Qur'an and the Talmud into his speech so beautifully, and the things he talked about that our government doesn't always like to hear -- it was like hearing a political speech by Yossi Beilin -- and so well mannered and comfortable. And of course, he's such a handsome man. And I am pretty much quoting directly here.
Modonna's supposed to give a concert here on Sept 1st, and I keep wavering on whether or not to buy a ticket. With Paul McCartney last there was no question whatsoever about whether he was worth 500 shekels to me. Madonna, though -- on the one hand I know a lot of her songs and the performance itself is supposed to be amazing, and I'm sure I'll have fun. On the other, I'm not this huge Madonna fan or anything -- I like her, but that's all -- and even after a discount, 400 shekels is still expensive. Thus, debating. We shall see.
For those of you who didn't hear/are interested at all, David Eddings died last week. I own 21 of his books; I started reading them in 6th grade, and they were the first real fantasy books I fell in love me, and really, one of the only series of this kind I've read; not like Narnia and HP that feature modern characters from our Earth, but the kind that sucks you into a completely independent fantasy world. The books were very much generic fantasy -- an orphaned boy discovering his destiny, wise old mentors and magic and kings, but I loved the characters, and the adventure, and the in-jokes and intrigues. Pawn of Prophecy was the first book I read that wasn't just a children's book, and it kicked my English vocabulary up a quite few notches. The first time I read it, I only understood about two thirds of the words, and the sentences were much longer than I was used to reading; I kept persevering because I wanted to know what happened next. I remember the moment I finally understood what the word 'grinned', that had appeared so many times in the book, meant.
When I first started writing fanfic at age 14-15, I used to skim over his books and look for interesting words that I could use, to widen my writing vocabulary. I still have a note I wrote: snapped, warmly, remarked, observed, commented, wondered, continued, sharply, smartly, grunted, whispered, inquired, requested, retorted, returned, demanded, stammered, insisted, mildly, bitterly, whimpered, admitted, murmured, corrected, sneered, pointed out, gasped; these books were my thesaurus before I knew what a thesaurus was. We didn't have them in English in my library, and I used to give my dad detailed lists (in those pre-Amazon years) of titles to bring me back, whenever he had business trips to the US. Twice, I caved and bought books in Hebrew, even though it meant having to suffer Silk being named Meshy and Velvet being called Ktifa. And when I'd finished with the Belgariad and the Malloreon, I went on to the Elenium: it was on a hot day in 8th grade when I'd gotten a migraine for the second time in my life. I'd holed up in my room, lights turned off, bucket next to my bed for throwing up, trying desperately to ignore the piercing pain in my eye and fall asleep. And after about two hours of this my dad returned from the US bearing with him The Diamond Throne with its beautiful purple shaded cover, and I was so excited about getting the book that I had to turn the bed lamp on, and had to start reading, and after a while I was so distracted I could hardly feel the pain.
I know he's not considered one of the best fantasy authors out there. The few people I know who've read his books dismiss them as "oh yeah, those books I was addicted to when I was fourteen", because they were fourteen and lame. And I can see some flaws, and I know how repetitive the characters and jokes got, the longer he wrote; I couldn't get through the last 2-3 of his books I got because the characters were so thoroughly recycled.
But I still loved those books, who were so constantly there, when I was growing up. I learned from them -- I learned English from them, way before TV and the internet -- and I learned to love fantasy through them, and they took away my migraines. Every year, I look forward to seeing what things people write for his book on Yuletide.
Anyway, I never really talk about those books, or even think about them anymore, but I just wanted to say that. Rest in peace, David Eddings.
(*Even though Leigh Eddings, his wife, only got credit for co-writing the last few books, she was there all along. I've kind of ignored her here, which is my bad, but she didn't just die, so. Two years too late, RIP Leigh Eddings as well.)
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My sister also gave us some of the Dead Sea products she sold in mall carts in CA and DC. It's pretty mind-boggling to know how much these things sell for ($40-$80), when they're probably worth, like, maybe 20 shekels each, and that's a stretch. But good salespeople know how to pitch it, and around the holidays people like to throw money away, and it's just amazing, how much money my sister made. Selling ridiculous nail buffering products. When she was in DC I asked her what mall she was working in so I could send people over, and she said to forget it, that she'd feel bad overpricing my friends. It's not that it's all a big scam or anything -- not any more than whenever anyone else tries to sell you something -- it's just that the difference between what products are worth and what salespeople sell them for, always letting you think you're robbing them in broad daylight, can be a little stunning.
Something else re: my sister's return: it was a little weird for me, before seeing her. Because I kept feeling like this should have been a big occasion and that I should be super excited for it, and I wasn't feeling that excited. Not that I was unhappy that she was coming back, not at all -- I just felt kind of indifferent towards it. Because it was a big occasion for her, and a big occasion for my parents. For me, though? We'd hardly seen one another or hung out much together before that as it were -- we'd only see one another on weekends, and we're friends but we're not like soulmate sisters; we just kind of take one another for granted, I think. And I kept up with her Facebook updates when she was gone, and talked to her on the phone once every two months or so, but I can't say I really actively missed having her around. Not to mention, a year sounds like a long time, but I swear this past year has flown by me like a speeding bullet, it's insane.
Anyway, that's what I thought before I saw her -- I was feeling a little guilty at not being as excited as I felt I should be. But then I saw her yesterday afternoon, and it was almost a relief to see that I actually was happy about it. It was fun to see her. And now we'll see what happens, with her back -- I really do wonder what she's gonna do next.
Meanwhile, my grandmother's a little bit in love with Barack Obama, it would seem. One of the highlights of her week, she said, was seeing his speech in Cairo: "the way he speaks, the way he holds himself, the way he wove the Qur'an and the Talmud into his speech so beautifully, and the things he talked about that our government doesn't always like to hear -- it was like hearing a political speech by Yossi Beilin -- and so well mannered and comfortable. And of course, he's such a handsome man. And I am pretty much quoting directly here.
Modonna's supposed to give a concert here on Sept 1st, and I keep wavering on whether or not to buy a ticket. With Paul McCartney last there was no question whatsoever about whether he was worth 500 shekels to me. Madonna, though -- on the one hand I know a lot of her songs and the performance itself is supposed to be amazing, and I'm sure I'll have fun. On the other, I'm not this huge Madonna fan or anything -- I like her, but that's all -- and even after a discount, 400 shekels is still expensive. Thus, debating. We shall see.
For those of you who didn't hear/are interested at all, David Eddings died last week. I own 21 of his books; I started reading them in 6th grade, and they were the first real fantasy books I fell in love me, and really, one of the only series of this kind I've read; not like Narnia and HP that feature modern characters from our Earth, but the kind that sucks you into a completely independent fantasy world. The books were very much generic fantasy -- an orphaned boy discovering his destiny, wise old mentors and magic and kings, but I loved the characters, and the adventure, and the in-jokes and intrigues. Pawn of Prophecy was the first book I read that wasn't just a children's book, and it kicked my English vocabulary up a quite few notches. The first time I read it, I only understood about two thirds of the words, and the sentences were much longer than I was used to reading; I kept persevering because I wanted to know what happened next. I remember the moment I finally understood what the word 'grinned', that had appeared so many times in the book, meant.
When I first started writing fanfic at age 14-15, I used to skim over his books and look for interesting words that I could use, to widen my writing vocabulary. I still have a note I wrote: snapped, warmly, remarked, observed, commented, wondered, continued, sharply, smartly, grunted, whispered, inquired, requested, retorted, returned, demanded, stammered, insisted, mildly, bitterly, whimpered, admitted, murmured, corrected, sneered, pointed out, gasped; these books were my thesaurus before I knew what a thesaurus was. We didn't have them in English in my library, and I used to give my dad detailed lists (in those pre-Amazon years) of titles to bring me back, whenever he had business trips to the US. Twice, I caved and bought books in Hebrew, even though it meant having to suffer Silk being named Meshy and Velvet being called Ktifa. And when I'd finished with the Belgariad and the Malloreon, I went on to the Elenium: it was on a hot day in 8th grade when I'd gotten a migraine for the second time in my life. I'd holed up in my room, lights turned off, bucket next to my bed for throwing up, trying desperately to ignore the piercing pain in my eye and fall asleep. And after about two hours of this my dad returned from the US bearing with him The Diamond Throne with its beautiful purple shaded cover, and I was so excited about getting the book that I had to turn the bed lamp on, and had to start reading, and after a while I was so distracted I could hardly feel the pain.
I know he's not considered one of the best fantasy authors out there. The few people I know who've read his books dismiss them as "oh yeah, those books I was addicted to when I was fourteen", because they were fourteen and lame. And I can see some flaws, and I know how repetitive the characters and jokes got, the longer he wrote; I couldn't get through the last 2-3 of his books I got because the characters were so thoroughly recycled.
But I still loved those books, who were so constantly there, when I was growing up. I learned from them -- I learned English from them, way before TV and the internet -- and I learned to love fantasy through them, and they took away my migraines. Every year, I look forward to seeing what things people write for his book on Yuletide.
Anyway, I never really talk about those books, or even think about them anymore, but I just wanted to say that. Rest in peace, David Eddings.
(*Even though Leigh Eddings, his wife, only got credit for co-writing the last few books, she was there all along. I've kind of ignored her here, which is my bad, but she didn't just die, so. Two years too late, RIP Leigh Eddings as well.)
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