It looks obvious

It is a mild winter in general, and this weekend was exceptionally nice. And if someone will start lecturing me about global worming I’ll have to hit him with a big stick:). We enjoyed the great weather, walking and playing in the near by lake. As usual, more pictures can be found here.

Technorati Tags: Tseela - Ronie - Rockland Lake - Global Worming

I wish it will be like this the entire winter

and here is the same in Metric:

If there is something in the American culture I will never be able to grasp is planning in advance restaurant reservations. This year I decided to be well organized and to make reservations well in advance to valentine day.  One, and if he is Israeli you can bet on it, may think that a month in advance isn’t going to be a problem.

You are damn wrong!!!

When call my first priority restaurant the lady simply laughed. I got only my third priority and at 6:30 PM and I had to give my credit card info as security.

Now you tell me, isn’t this crazy?

Today was the eighth and last candle of Chanukah, marking the end of the holiday season. I love this time of the year in NY when the city getting decorated and trees are being covered with light.

The controversy following the holiday season almost every year is amusing to me. Both sides lost perspective while trying to enforce their world view; while the debate becomes more ridiculous every year.

Those of you that read my blog often can guess that I would like to minimize the government involvement in one’s life as much as possible. Ideally I wouldn’t want the government involved in education at all. I do not think that the state should have a say in the values we teaching our children. However since public school are the most common education institutes, and they are going to stay for the foreseen future, I’m supporting vigorously the enforcement of the separation of church from state. I would not want my daughter to be forced to pray in school for example.  Nevertheless it seems like we are taking this separation into extreme. The separation, and the limitation, meant to force the government (and therefore the school) from forcing religious activities. Nowhere was it meant that children cannot come dressed with the Christmas colors.

The other extreme the demonstrations near wall-mart, protesting the chain decision to greet people these years with “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” are no less ridiculous. Wall-Mart is not part of the government and therefore can choose to mark the holiday any way they choose too. If they decided not to greet with “Merry Christmas” it is not because of separation of church from state but because they chain think its better business decision.

Having the windows at our apartment facing the Statue of Liberty makes the candle lighting more interesting event. The holiday marks the fight of the Jews to freedom, not only political freedom, but mostly the freedom to worship god in their unique way. The Jews fought for their right not to be integrated into the Hellenic culture, but to stay isolated and, in a way, fundamentalist.  Lighting the candles watching the Statue of Liberty emphasized that freedom is what’s make the US special.  

Bill Maher summarized the issue very well :

“Oh, it was joyful. I hope you had a Merry Christmas. Yes, Christmas. I hate religion, but all that "holiday" shit is so annoying, every time I hear it I want to go join the priesthood. And I don’t even like kids.”

 

  During the holiday we gave Tseela a present every day, making every candle lighting even more joyful event. Today as the last day of Chanukah we gave her dancing dress – a fairy custom. The happiness of having it was hour holiday gift. More pictures can be found here .

I love the City in December.

Today Tseela had Chanukah party in the kindergarten. This was her first performance, and knowing how shy she gets we were worried a little bit. However the teachers made wonderful preparation with the kids and we, the proud parents, enjoyed the show.

I Posted here one picture, more pictures can be found here. I also included here five short video clips from the party.

Technorati Tags: Tseela, Chanukah, Chanukah Party, Day Care, Video Clips

For someone that grew up in the desert, the idea of playing in the snow is odd. In my simple logic when its snow its cold and when it’s cold you better stay at home. Thankfully my daughter and my wife are much healthier, in this respect, than me. We had wonderful weather today, which only mean that the temperature was around 0 Celsius, so we decided to enjoy the city and central park.
Such a decision cannot be taken lightly, as we use to in the past. Beside the fact that Tseela need to approve the plan, which is not trivial at all, We need to get Tseela dressed. Getting Tseela dresses is equal to good training in the gym - its includes restraining her from jumping, running and do whatevershe like at that moment and more challenging is to figure the hell how this tithes thing works ( what can you expect from a man?)
Taking the subway, which is a daily routine, is an endless source of fascination for Tseela. So we got dressed, and went down to the Path train to cross the Hudson River and then took the train uptown to 59^thstreet. Being in a train with a 3 years old child can be devastating experience. They can be extremely demanding, overwhelmed and to loose their temper. Luckily Tseela is used for the train and her behavior is usually OK. We are also trying to use the time for conversation, telling her stories or preparing her for the event We are going to attend. I’m finding this not only very useful, since I have her attention, but very dear. When I’m picking Tseela from Pre-School it is the best time to get from her the information about her day.

The weather was indeed wonderful and the park was as colorful and a live as possible. One cannot impress upon the importance of such park in such urban environment. We walked through small street fair into the park, which was covered with snow. The image of the park in white is simply amazing. The park was full of people walking, running building snow man and obviously ice-skating.
We had to build a snow man of our own. In “We” I mean Tseela and Anne - I participated by standing aside and taking pictures. That is the most I’m willing to do with this freezing wet white substance.The activity of building a snow-man was divided fairly between Anne and Tseela: Anne gathered the snow and shaped it into snow-man while Tseela supervise the event. Both parts concluded successfully and Tseela started her journey into management life as she managed successfully another project.
The rest of the pictures from today can be found here.

Technorati Tags: Tseela, NYC, Winter, Central Park, Snow, Pictures