Tel Megiddo

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A few quick pictures from our visit to Tel Megiddo this afternoon, or as it's known in English ever since an early Greek scholar mistranslated it - Armageddon (the actual name in Hebrew is "Har" Megiddo, or Mt. Megiddo). It's got a history 7,000+ years long including over 25 different conquests - history buffs can check out the link above for more. The ruins are from the site itself, the views out from the site are the fields of the fertile Jezreel Valley.
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Happy Passover

A very happy holiday to all celebrating

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Out of Time

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I'm quite literally out of time this week since my folks just got into town this morning, so here's a quickie Ruby Tuesday from me.

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I was out of shooting, or rather breathing, time when grabbing this photo too, since the alley it was lying in had a broken pipe and stunk to high heaven. I'm also out of actual packages of Time cigarettes, which I smoked for a few years before quitting my 17-year pack a day habit a decade ago (they were harsh and dry and I hated them, but they were half the price of the Marlboro Reds that I preferred).

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Reclining Man

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Untitled (or at least unlabeled) sculpture in the niche of an outer wall of local sculptor Dov Barda's home. I've always loved this piece, and others he has mounted outside his home, so I was delighted to find out that he was hosting an open house this past weekend. The pieces inside were absolutely wonderfully - many reminiscent of this style, but many others with more organic, fluid lines that seemed to flow and move under my duly admiring gaze. I would have taken photographs inside but it didn't seem all that appropriate.
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Better yet, I should have taken out another mortgage and brought one of them home with me. If I ever win the lottery I'll be back to do so before day's end.
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This photo is naturally monochrome, being a black statue against a white wall.
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Visit Aileni for more monochrome magic.
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PS My parents arrive for a visit in the morning so computer time over the next two weeks will be a bit scarce. I'll catch up with everyone eventually, but it may take a while.

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Around the world in 80 clicks - a motherhood journey

Hannah from A Mother in Israel tagged me for the latest meme circling the blogosphere. I don't do memes all that often but this one, started by Catherine of Her Bad Mother (a a wonderful and insightful writer - go check her out if you aren't already subscribed) and David of It's Not a Lecture (a new to me blog that looks very intriguing, I'll be back for a good read after I finish this post), definitely speaks to me. (As a small egotistical aside, I read the original post announcing the creation of this meme and was secretly delighted that it took only one day to arrive at my blog. Go me.) The idea is for mothers around the world to share five things that they love about motherhood.

I like this - this forced stepping back for a bit of self-serving introspection, taking time to not only live my life but to examine it and distill it, or at least the part of it that revolves around my being a mother, down to its essence. Motherhood can be full of lofty heights and stomach-churning lows, often spinning dizzyingly between the two over the course of a single day, with random stops at the utterly mundane.

Which of all these parts do I love most? The act of choosing seems an impossible task, but a few highlights did spring from my mind of their own volition.

I love the way my daughter, at nearly five and a half, still launches herself at me from across the playground when I come to pick her up each afternoon. I love seeing her grow and change and begin to claim her place in the world. She hasn't always had the easiest path to walk, and my heart swells with pride when I think of how far she's come and how far she has shown she can go.

I love the way my son, at age eight, still asks to snuggle on the couch - when he's not busy being Mr. Independent and making plans to go visit any one of a multitude of friends. His social life is infinitely more successful than that of his father and I and he is speeding towards self-sufficiency. I treasure these fleeting moments of little boyness even more for knowing that their days are numbered.

I love the chance to experience magic, actual magic, through their eyes with each new experience. To be the one to open new worlds to discover.

I love getting to know the people my children are becoming, both because of me and despite me, as I walk alongside them on their journey.

And I love what motherhood has done to ME - how it has made me more loving, more patient, more giving. Less selfish. More vulnerable. More accepting.

And just like that I've reached five, with so much still left unsaid. It's an impossible task of course, but I've made my dent in it.

Now it's your turn to make yours. To honor the international spirit of this meme I'm going to pass this task along to mothers in five completely different parts of the world, as well as to anyone else out there who wants to participate:

Meredith from Poppy Fields (France)
Vanessa from Daffodil Campbell (Maui)
Grace from Sandier Pastures (Dubai)
Elizabeth from Planet Nomad (Morocco)
Stacey from Is There Any Mommy Out There? (Pacific Northwest)

Playin', playin' in the band

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A Dixieland band that is.
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One of the more tongue in cheek traditions of this annual musical retreat is the Brass Band Ensemble. What is so tongue in cheek about a brass band class you might ask? (After you got over asking yourself why they have a brass band class at a folk music weekend in the first place, and the answer to that is I don't have the faintest idea. It's more than a bit odd.)
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What makes this particular brass class unique is its musicians. To attend, you must NOT actually know how to play any brass instrument. Only those who've never touched an instrument (or at least not since last year's class) can participate. Personally I sit it out but my son Itai, the eight year old trumpet virtuoso you see in the photo above, loves it. He positively flew back from lunch so as not to miss even a minute of instruction. The guy who runs it has a large assortment of old beat up brass instruments which he passes out to whoever wants to publicly humiliate themselves perform with the band in that evening's concert. They spend about an hour learning, sort of, how to actually play a note, or in a good year two, and then a few hours later they make their big debut. Shockingly, the sounds they made this year were actually (almost) recognizable as a song. I wouldn't go so far as to say music, but it did bear faint resemblance to a song.
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The whole thing is a scream, though I think seeing them all come out in costume is the high point of the performance...
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Visit Sepia Scenes for more of that old time music religion photography.
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