Living in Translation: The Israel Edition: An expat's take on culture, chaos, and confusion

I took a personal day today, as in, I ditched work but in a preplanned legit way, as in, anyone with the power to fire me was totally in the know.

But as it turns out, I do have a sickness of sort, the kind of malaise that can only come from having to dash to a bomb shelter at 12:40 a.m. with only a go bag and a go, dog! My little Frenchie did so well running to the underground parking lot; he intuitively sensed that shit.was.real. and kept his wee legs moving. If you know him at all, you’ll surmise how out of character it is for him not to protest when he’s outdoors. But that’s another story.

Back to the malaise — it hurts my brain, and soul, to know that someone was actively trying to kill me, kill us (I realize I’m exhibiting Main Character Syndrome since really, that “someone” wanted to kill Jews, of which I am not one), but you get the gist. I can’t get over how normal it is to flee during sirens only to resume ten minutes later whatever it is you abandoned. I’ve seen my neighbors leave a shelter dripping in their wetsuit to head back to the beach. I guess when you live with the threat of terrorism, you just go, eh. #shrug Still, the right to exist is not a given for Israelis; they, we, must actively work for it.

And so I’ve perfected a bedtime routine of sorts these days. You think brushing and flossing before bed is tedious? Here’s a short list of what I do, or rather, what I don’t do:

• forget to hang on the front door handle the go bag with my passport and my wallet full of cash, mostly US dollars
• forget to check that my phone isn’t accidentally set to silent so the Red Alert app can sound
• forget to have said app at full volume
• forget to sleep in only siren-worthy clothing (nothing shockingly immodest)
• forget to dress doggo in his harness, for ease of yanking should that be necessary
• forget to have my flat runners and eyeglasses by the bed
• forget to leave a light by the door to guide me in my middle-of-night sleep fog
• and this is the hardest for yours truly: forgo the melatonin, lest I be too slumbered to witness the bells of doom

The day before, the siren went off at 6:30 a.m. just when I was about to head out the door for work. In a panic, I froze, but the hot neighbor across the hall told me to follow him down the steps. God bless the hot neighbor, in more ways than one. But that is also another story.

Wednesday’s fun was brought to you by Hezbollah, last night by the Houthis. It’s a veritable house party around here with the H gang.

Anyway, I don’t want to belabor my siren/bomb shelter escapades of late. I trust the terrorists have more surprises in store for me, so lucky you, dear reader, you have a hefty saga left to behold. But really, this blog post is about the Druze and their amazing wrap. Chipotle’s got nothing on these grandmas and their drum skillet tortilla.

I had been wandering around in an inconspicuous shopping center looking for the Naot store when I noticed the Druzies had a Friday food stand going on. One wrap with hummus and tabouli please. Hold the whatever firey sauce. Toda raba.