Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Chanuka, A Baby And Wild Bus Chases

It's been a while since I last posted so here's a quick little recap of the main events...

Chanuka came and went. I ate too many latkas and a lot of chocolate coins. 

The Freddie's welcomed an adorable baby boy into their family and we all gathered for his bris last Thursday.

After the aforementioned bris, I hung out with the Freddie's for a few days. Shabbos was filled with good food, lots of staring at the baby, playing with The Munchkin and of course, naps.

It was so much fun hanging out at the Freddie's that on Sunday I spent most of the day there under the guise of studying. Sadly, the time came for me to head back to Ariel for class. I packed up my stuff, stole some leftovers and headed out to start what ended up being a bit of an adventure... 

Things were going well until I accidentally got on the wrong bus. After a couple of minutes of debating I figured I should probably just ask the driver what to do but he was an older Russian man with a seemingly permanent scowl on his face.

Despite my better judgment, I made my way to the front of the bus and asked the driver if he went anywhere near the stop that I needed. There was a bit of a language barrier and he didn't understand exactly what I was asking. 

After repeating the question a few times, he asked me where I was trying to get to. I tried to explain that I needed to get to a different bus stop to get a bus going out of the city. After a little more poking and prodding I told him that my final destination was Ariel.

The bus driver smiled and slapped his knee "Ariel? Why didn't you just say so?" He told me to stay on the bus and that he'd let me to know when to get off. A couple of minutes later he beckoned me to the front of the bus and said "You see that bus? That's the one you want. Looks like he already stopped here but  get off and knock on his door, maybe he'll be nice and let you on.". I thanked him and got off to knock on the other buses door. 

The driver on the 86 shook his finger at me and refused to open the door. Seeing that the driver on the 86 hadn't let me on, the other driver pulled up and told me to hop back on the bus. "We'll just catch him at the next stop!" the driver said as he nodded at me enthusiastically. 

We then spent the next five minutes or so following the 86 and missing it by about half a minute at each stop. Things were not exactly going as planned and I wondered if I would make it to my class on time.

Suddenly the bus driver pulled out all the stops and sped past a bunch of cars as we were turning around a corner. The other people on the bus who had no idea that we were in the midst of a high speed chase rocked dangerously from side to side. The bus driver ignored their cries, completely focused on the task at hand.

We somehow pulled up right in front of the 86 and the bus driver told me to "Make a run for it!" I didn't need to be told twice, after a quick goodbye I got off the bus and sprinted towards the 86. The driver on the 86 stared at me incredulously as I jumped onto his bus just as the door swung shut behind me.

The ride to Ariel went by pretty fast and before I knew it, the bus was pulling on to my street. I had just enough time to grab dinner before heading up to the University for class.

The rest of my week was pretty anticlimactic compared to the high speed bus chase but I'm not too upset about that...

Thursday, December 18, 2014

The Mad Man Builds A Bed (And I Pretend To Help)

On Saturday night my parents took me to IKEA to pick up a bed for my apartment. We checked out all of the frames and tried every single mattress that they had on display. After much debating and a little help from the nice salesperson, I settled on the TRYSIL bed frame and a mattress that I can't actually remember the name of.

The Mad Man and The Crazy Lady drove me all the way out to Ariel on Sunday and spent a good couple of hours hanging out at my place. I fed them soup and cookies from the freezer (because I'm a good hostess) while The Mad Man put together the bed.


I was super helpful and took pictures.


The Crazy Lady told me to stop being lazy and help put my bed together.

Look how helpful I'm being!

Getting the slats on was decidedly the most infuriating part of the whole ordeal but The Mad Man figured it out.

Time for the mattress! Doesn't look like much all rolled up and vacuum packed but just you wait...

Still kinda lame looking..

 Getting there...

TADA! The long awaited finished product.


Unfortunately the directions clearly stated that the mattress should not be used for at least 72 hours so that it could reshape after being vacuum packed for who knows how long.

After 72 very long hours, I finally got to sleep in my new bed. Getting the sheet on was a little tricky and I was almost crushed to death by the massive mattress. The near death experience was worth it though because the bed is super comfy!

A huge THANK YOU to all those who made this possible, it is greatly appreciated!!!

Hope you're all having a fantastic chanukka! I know I am. :)

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Furry Crocs

Ariel's resident badass checking in.

Today I ditched school to hang out in the "merkaz". I took my imaginary motorcycle to get there but forgot my super cool leather jacket at home, which was unfortunate as it started raining while I was out.  Luckily I had an umbrella with me that I ended up sharing with a little old russian lady while we waited for the bus (like I'm assuming all badasses do).

A couple of days ago I noticed a blister beginning to form on the back of my heel. I tried to keep it clean and wear thick socks to prevent it from developing any further but it had a mind of its own and kept getting worse.

Yesterday it got pretty bad, I had a rough time hobbling from school and was extremely relieved when I finally made it and got my shoes off. As per usual, I took a picture of the disgusting wound and thoughtfully sent it around to a select group of lucky individuals.

The general consensus was, "that looks gross and infected, go to the doctor.", "you should put something on that" and the classic "Please never send me pictures ever again.". I didn't have any antibiotic cream or disinfectants to put on it but I did have a bottle of whiskey stashed away for a special occasion.

I deemed having an infectious wound on my heel as a "special occasion" and broke out the whiskey. Some for me and some for my foot. I don't know that it did much for my foot but I slept well.

This morning I embarked on an adventure to discover the center of Ariel and with any luck, find the doctors office. I successfully made it thanks to my navigator (a.k.a. Lorbles) and sat down outside the doctors office to wait.

A big burly man opened the door to the doctors office and ushered me inside. I explained that I had a bit of a blister on my heel and he said "let's take a look..!". I took off my shoe and proudly stuck out my foot for examination. He took a look and said "That's quite an infection you have there! Let's get you on some antibiotics...".

We chatted about this and that while he wrote out my prescriptions and he was excited to hear that I'm studying nursing.  He handed over the papers and then told me that I would need to do something about my shoes until the blister healed. Then he explained how to get to the shoe store that's right next to the pharmacy where they sell knockoff crocs for a whopping 20 shek.

I nodded (unenthusiastic about the prospect of wearing crocs) and thanked him. He eyed me suspiciously and promised me that they were great shoes. They even have ones with fur inside! He knows because he bought a pair and he loves to wear them as slippers around the house.

The thought of the big burly man wandering around in furry crocs was pretty entertaining. I promised I would check them out and then bid him farewell. The nurse stuck a band aid on my heel and I left to find the pharmacy (that's right next to the store that I did not buy crocs in).

Once again my navigator got me to the right place and I got the prescriptions filled. Made a quick stop at the spice store and then headed to the bus stop where I found the little old Russian lady getting rained on.

It's raining and thundering outside and since I already have a doctors note I decided to ditch the rest of my classes. I don't know why, but rain always makes crave freshly baked chocolate chip cookies so that will probably happen at some point today. I'll try to avoid "tasting" as many as I did last time...

Monday, December 8, 2014

Wildlife In Ariel

I bumped into this guy the other day while I was on my way to school.

Not sure what kind of animal it is but I was told that it carries all sorts of exciting diseases and that I should avoiding touching it. 

Pretty cute though, right?

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Possessed Printer

Today was a strange day. It started off normal enough, woke up, got out of bed and started to get ready to face the day.  I was making myself a much needed cup of coffee when I heard the sound of my printer coming to life.

Last night I had spent an hour trying to figure out how to make my fancy laser printer (courtesy of The Mad Man) print things for me, but had little success.  After countless failed attempts, I called my dad for help. The Mad Man listened patiently as I panicked and pouted my way through the problem and then happily guided me through the proper steps. In a matter of minutes the printer was up and running and I printed out the required papers before heading to bed.

Still half asleep I carried my cup of coffee over to the bedroom door to to stare at my printer in confusion. The printer whirred cheerily (between you and me, it was far to cheery) as it printed out a number of papers. I cautiously approached the machine to see what it had deemed important enough to bless me with, a paper stating that there had been some sort of error.

The printer seemed to have gone back to sleep so I shrugged and went back to getting ready for school. Twenty minutes later I heard the familiar whir of the printer, this time it was statistics papers that I had been desperately trying to print the night before. I guess I hit the print button a few too many times last night, because for the remainder of the morning my printer sporadically spewed forth a plethora of unwanted statistics pages.

Armed with a multitude of statistics papers, I left my apartment and made my way to the university. Things at the university weren't much better. We had group projects to present which took up most of the morning, then the next lecturer forgot her slideshow and intro to psychology was intro to psychology...

During chemistry a guy came in with some table legs and leaned them against  the wall of the classroom. A few minutes later he returned with a table top and proceeded to begin assembling the table. The teacher did her best to ignore it but after a few minutes gave in and asked the guy what he was doing. He responded that there was some event that he had to set up for and he had to set the tables up NOW.  There were talks of snacks and the teacher agreed to let him continue his job in return for some of the aforementioned snacks.

The random dude went about his business, carrying table parts in and narrowly missing hitting the teachers head with a table top. When the tables were put together he disappeared for a few minutes but reappeared brandishing a roll of al-bad to cover the tables with. The tables were covered and the guy left and did not return. Much to my teachers dismay, the snacks never appeared.

After a long and decidedly strange day, I think its time for bed.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

A Losing Battle

This morning got off to a great start. The sun was shining, I got a ride to school and despite the bleak forecast there wasn't a rain cloud in sight. I grabbed an extra sweater to wear under my fleece along with my umbrella (just in case the ominous forecast turned out to be right) and headed up to the university.

It rained on and off throughout the day but the sun continued to shine in between showers. My classes happened to end just as the rain was letting up and I managed to avoid having to take out my umbrella. 

My luck however, came to an abrupt end when the skies opened just as I was about to head home during my two hour break. Disheartened by the thought of battling my way home and back again for my next class, I sought refuge in my friends caravan. 

Two hours later, the weather situation hadn't improved much. My friend and I made a run for it and got to class relatively dry. All through class we listened to the wind howling outside while the rain pounded against the windows.

Eventually class ended and it was time to face the inevitable. I was going to have to face the rains. My friend gave me a warm thick sweater to help keep me somewhat dry and then sent me on my way. 

I began my journey armed with three layers of sweaters and a mostly functional umbrella. By the time I had made it off campus and near the bus stop I was already struggling with my umbrella. This should have been a sign to stop and wait for a bus or to try and catch a ride. But I stubbornly decided to press onward, fully convinced that my flimsy umbrella would protect me.

As I was standing at the cross walk battling with my umbrella, I failed to notice the massive puddle at the edge of the crosswalk. A car drove past the crosswalk and sprayed the entire contents of the puddle all over me. Effectively drenching me from head to toe in the frigid water.

After getting over the initial shock, I crossed the street and stopped to asses the situation. I was cold, soaking wet, my umbrella was proving itself to be incredibly inefficient and exceptionally unhelpful. Just as I was sure that things couldn't possibly get much worse, a gust of wind almost pulled the umbrella right out of my hand.

I held fast to my flimsy umbrella as I attempted to make my way down the mountain side. Rain and wind whipped wildly around me. Standing on the side of the mountain wielding my sad excuse for an umbrella and looking rather disheveled, I lost my battle. The top of my umbrella gave way and was carried off the side of the mountain by the wind. 
What was left of my poor umbrella.
With nothing more to lose I waddled home as fast as I could in my wet socks and underwear.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

University Professor Or Professional Comedian?

My intro to psych teacher is fairly amusing. She's either in the midst of a mid-life crisis or is a comedian on the side.

This is it. Today is the day. She's been waiting all her life for this chance, she's rehearsed her routine till she could do it in her sleep.
The expectant faces in the audience look out at her waiting for her to begin. She smiles nervously and taps the microphone to make sure that it's working.

The minutes fly by as she works through her routine, one perfectly timed line after another. The audience loves it. Roaring with laughter the crowd eggs her on. 
She smiles and tries to regain control over her new fans. The crowd finally settles down and the silence returns. The people in the audience are on the edge of their seats, eagerly leaning forward awaiting the rest of her act.

She lands another great joke and the crowd goes wild. She hears someone snorting with laughter and breaks into a wide smile.

Her students sit in an uncomfortable silence watching her in a mixture of bewilderment and amusement as she stands at the front of the room snorting into the microphone at a joke that she had made about her slideshow.

In the distance she hears someone cough and people shifting in their seats. She looks up from her microphone into the faces of her confused students, clears her throat and continues with her lecture.

Monday, November 3, 2014

The Best Kind Of Dinner

Today I decided that I was very much in the mood for some cookies. 

All day I sat in class paying very close attention to the teacher and day dreaming about cookies. 

After a quick stop at the supermarket I made it home and got down to business. 

I mixed them up in my fancy new measuring cup, courtesy of Lorbles.

What was left of the cookie dough after I tasted "some" of it...

No picture of the final product because I didn't want you to see how many of the cookies I actually ate.... 

And here ends the riveting tale of how I ended up eating cookies for dinner.

The End.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Party Animal

So I have officially survived the first week of university..! Yay me! It was a little more intense than I had anticipated but I guess its all just a bit of a learning curve.

I'm not a huge fan of note taking but thankfully, one of my classmates is. We have come to an agreement, she takes the notes and I type them up. The only flaw in our plan is that my typing skills in Hebrew leave much to be desired and so the whole thing is a painfully slow process. I'm hoping that practice makes perfect and I'll get the hang of it soon!

Most of my nights have been spent partying it up and living the wild life of a university student, doing homework and getting plenty of one on one time with my laptop.

Getting used to living alone has been interesting. I can't quite figure out how one person manages to use so many dishes... Due to the limited counter space I find myself constantly battling to keep the sink empty.

It's not all bad though. Pants have become unnecessary and more often than not, omitted entirely. Not having to wear pants is quite liberating.

I've also been having fun figuring out how to cook for one. The other day I experimented with my crockpot. I cut up a bunch of veggies and filled the crockpot up with deliciousness before heading out to school. I left it on low but was a little antsy to get home after class ended, hoping that it hadn't boiled over or caused any other sort of trouble.

When I got back and opened the door I was greeted by the mouthwatering aroma of the soup. All of my fears melted away and I ate way more soup than I should have for dinner.


I don't have any classes today so I've just been taking it easy and trying to get things organized. Digging through a duffle bag to find clothes was getting old so I finally unpacked it and got things put away.

Later today I'm going to head into Jerusalem to see some friends and then its on to the SunHouse for shabbos to see the Fambily! :)

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Eye See You

Lorbles accidentally left a bag of potatoes at the sun house.

Eye wonder why..?

Monday, October 20, 2014

Moving Out

The last few days have been a frenzy of running errands and packing. I somehow managed to fit most of my stuff into our van and The Mad Man drove me out to Ariel.

The Mad Man helped me put together the table and chairs that I got at IKEA and then returned to the SunHouse, leaving me to unpack.

Unpacking is about as much fun as packing, so its a slow going process.

I did however manage to put away a few of the essentials....

Am I doing it right?

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

The Naked Man(nequin)

The other day I went to eat my lunch and found a bunch of important people using the break room as a makeshift conference room.  There really isn't anywhere else to eat so they moved some papers around and cleared a little space for me to sit at. 

Due to the overcrowded machsanim and limited storage space they've been keeping some of the extra mannequins in the break room. Luckily for me, the place that they cleared off just so happened to be right next to a group of mannequins. 

I sat in my little corner trying to be as inconspicuous and unobtrusive as my new friends while eating my lunch and eavesdropping on the super secret meeting taking place in front of me. Things were going fine until someone sent me a particularly amusing text and I started laughing.

One thing lead to another and I accidentally inhaled part of my lunch and started choking. I caused a bit of a commotion and the meeting was temporarily interrupted while everyone turned to stare at me. 

I sat next to the naked mannequins with tears streaming down my face as I coughed away, attempting to (not so) discreetly dislodge the piece of meatball stuck in my throat. Someone thoughtfully handed me a cup of water which I promptly spilled on a mannequin before managing to get myself under control.  The rest of my lunch passed without any incidents and the meeting resumed.

The next day I arrived to find that the mannequins had been removed from the break room to prevent further damage, since someone had seemingly spilled water on one of them. I hear that they still haven't caught the culprit...

Later that day I discovered that the mannequins had been relegated to the machsan where they stood creepily in the shadows and watched my every move.

Thankfully this was my last week working in Azrielie so the mannequins will have to find someone else to bother.

I'd like to say that things will be going back to normal but I have a feeling that we're just getting started....

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Real Life Jenga

Life has been a little hectic lately. University starts in just a few short weeks and there's lots to be done before then. I'm still going through the onerous task of packing up my stuff and trying to make sure that I have everything that I need.

Work has been extra crazy lately but not for the reasons that you might think. Something (no one is sure exactly what) went down at the big branch in Tel Aviv about a month ago and my manager has been working there since then.

With my manager gone there have been a couple of extra shifts up for grabs and I'm not one to pass up extra hours. Things got really interesting last Wednesday when my manager called the assistant manager and asked her to send me to Azrieli as backup.

Unfortunately I was already at work and no one was available to switch with me so it was agreed that I would finish my shift and then head to Azrieli early the next morning. The assistant manager didn't really elaborate much but after much poking and prodding she told me that something had happened with the guy that worked in the machsan and that they needed help getting things organised.

Slightly unsatisfied with her answers I reluctantly agreed to stop bothering her and instead spent the rest of my shift speculating about what could have happened to the guy working there and why they would need me to help.

The next morning I hopped onto a train and made my way to Azrieli full of anticipation. I was surprised to find two other machsanaim from different branches were also there to help. What could justify bringing in three extra workers? What horrors waited for us deep in the dank underbelly of the stores?

My manager came to meet us and was happy to see that I had made it. She gave us a key and the three of us made our way down to the machsan. We arrived at the machsan and cautiously attempted to unlock and open the door.

Stacks of haphazardly boxes filled the room. It looked like an especially horrifying episode of hoarders. The two guys with me noted the look of utter shock on my face and told me that it had been even worse the day before, that they had barely managed to open the door.

There was obviously much work to be done so we got started right away. Entering the machsan was like a real life game of jenga. You had to carefully choose which boxes to try and move in order to get into the room and then hope that they missed your head as they inevitably crashed to the floor.

The stacks of boxes teetered and swayed as we attempted to tackle the mountains of clothes. We worked diligently, trying to stay alert so that we could avoid the boxes that seemed determined on hurdling themselves to the floor littering the already covered floor in layers of clothing.

After a couple of hours we were able to get some of the boxes out and were able to take a look around to better assess the situation. Many of the boxes appeared to have windows cut out of them to display the merchandise inside. We were speculating who would have spent hours cutting windows in cardboard boxes with a razor blade for no particular reason when my manager walked in to check on us.

We asked her about the boxes and she told us that upon her arrival at the store she was dismayed at the state of the machsan and asked the guy in charge to straighten up a bit. The guy wasn't a huge fan of his job so in an effort to look busy he spent hours cutting windows in the cardboard boxes. After my manager had asked him several times to stop wasting time and actually do his job he decided that he was done and on Tuesday morning declined to show up for work.

No one particularly missed the guy and seeing as there was now no one officially in charge of the machsan my manager was finally able to go in and see what was going on. She wasn't happy with what she found (boxes of stuff that came over a month ago still waiting to be unpacked) and immediately began making calls to see what could be done. Some fancy people came to inspect the situation and it was unanimously agreed that it needed to be dealt with, fast.

And that is why I have spent the last few days slaving away deep down in the machsan, unearthing treasures untold.

Seriously though, we found a box of stuff from last years fall collection and I got two nice button down shirts (for my brothers, because I'm such a nice sister...) for a whopping 17 shekel each!

Who knows what else we'll find.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

The Bus Stop Vigilante

This morning I was sitting at the bus stop when I noticed that the lady sitting next to me kind of smelled like roasted marshmallows. I was wondering why and how anyone would smell like that when I noticed a bit of smoke floating by.

As the minutes passed my concern grew, where was the smoke coming from and why didn't anyone else seem to be bothered by it? The bus appeared to be running late and I didn't really have anything better to do so I decided to investigate.

I walked around the bus stop and noticed that the garbage appeared to be the source of the smoke. A quick peek revealed a still lit cigarette happily smoldering away at the garbage in the bin. The amount of smoke emanating from the garbage was growing at a substantial rate.

My investigation garnered the attention of some of the people at the bus stop but they merely sat and stared at me with blank expressions on their faces. My fellow patrons, armed only with their blatant stupidity, were clearly unequipped to handle the situation.

Being the hero that I am, I quickly took out my water bottle and doused the burning bin with a generous amount of water. The cigarette sputtered before admitting defeat and the bus arrived to whisk me away to work.

And that is the story of how I heroically saved the patrons of my bus stop from dying in a horrible fire started by some careless idiot who couldn't be bothered to properly dispose of their cigarette.

Next time I'll try to remember my cape.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Crockpot Frenzy

The other day The Crazy Lady came home with an adorable 3.5 liter crockpot. I decided that I wanted one as well so yesterday morning we headed to the supermarket to see if they had any left.

Luckily for us they still had a couple of boxes on display. The Crazy Lady and I raided the display case and absconded with three crockpots (for assorted family members), and a couple of other pots and pans.

We spent the rest of the day running a bunch of other errands and picked up some other useful things for my apartment. Next stop was S&S's house to deliver one of the crockpots. We hung out with them for a while and I got some awesome (slightly belated) birthday presents.

Today I spent most of my day looking through my closets and packing stuff up in boxes. I'm not really sure how I acquired so much clothing (and junk in general) but it might be time to get rid of some stuff.... Like these vintage school shirts that I found at the back of my closet still in mint condition. But seriously, never been worn! (I did however cut the necks off of some of them because they told me not too and I'm kind of a bad ass....)


We're also experimenting with our new crockpot in the form of some tomato vegetable soup. So far it smells pretty good and I'm pretty excited for dinner.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

The Wine Festival

Last night my family attended the annual wine festival at the Israel Museum. There were lots of wines to taste so we split up into two groups to make sure we covered all of them. The Crazy Lady and The Mad Man started at the top of the festival while Timmy, Z and I headed to the end and worked our way back to the front.
Tabor's Adama II series was exceptionally good, with the Lehava being my personal favorite.
 Tishbi also had some nice wines to offer but their free chocolates really helped them stand out from the crowd. I enjoyed their 70% chocolate so much that the girl handing out the samples eventually stopped handing them to me leaving me no choice but to send in delegates. In my defense, they weren't very big pieces of chocolate...
When we felt that we had tasted most of the wines, we found The Parentals and conferred on our favorites.
Second (and some third) rounds were made and we re-tasted our favorites. After our last round some of us were feeling tipsier than others and the designated driver (The Crazy Lady) decided that it was time to head home.

Boy am I glad that I'm working a night shift...

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Randall And Friends

The other day at work one of our "office pets" was evicted after running across the assistant managers foot and failing to pay his rent.
Randall T. Cockroach
Later that same day we evicted a squatter from a pair of pants hanging in the store. The squatter (a black cricket who was mistaken for a cockroach and caused quite the ruckus) was a little more stubborn than his friend but we managed to get him out of the store.

I don't know about you but I feel like it might be time to call an exterminator....

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Waffles, Burritos And A Birthday

This week has been all about me. On Monday night my grandparents took us out for a delicious dinner in honor of my birthday. Unfortunately I was working a night shift and as such was unable to actually attend the diner.

I did however manage to time my break perfectly so that I could run upstairs to say hi and grab some food "to go". My performance gave a whole new meaning to the term "dine and dash" and I returned to my shift full of tasty food.

Yesterday The Crazy Lady took me out for a pre-birthday adventure. We started off the morning with some well deserved pedicures and then she let me pick out part one of my present (in case you were wondering it was a set of dishes). Lorbles decorated the house for the upcoming festivities and then we feasted on burritos for dinner (and washed them down with a bottle of my favorite wine).
A perfect ending to a rather perfect day.

Today I started the day off with birthday waffles, courtesy of my lil bro Frank. Then we packed up the car and The Mad Man drove me out to Ariel to sign the lease on my apartment. Everything went smoothly and I got the key so I can start moving in whenever I want.
The Crazy Lady made chinese fake-out for dinner and it was DELICIOUS (so delicious that I commandeered the leftovers to take to work tomorrow)!

This week has been pretty awesome so far and I hope that it only continues to get better. It might not sound like an exciting birthday to some of you but it was pretty perfect to me. Some of my favorite foods (there are a lot of them), a pedicure, presents and lots of love from my family and friends. What more could a girl ask for?

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Visiting The Mamamals

The Freddies have been visiting us in the sunhouse for the past couple of days. Today we went on an adventure to the zoo.
The Munchkins had so much fun looking at all of the animals!
And eating the ice pops that we had before lunch.
The Mad Man and The Crazy Lady had some fun too...
Can you spot The Mad Man?

We even got to meet some bears!
But my favorite part of the day was visiting the lemurs in the lemur exhibit. :)
The End.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

The Potato Fiasco

Last weekend I went to my friend Em's house for shabbos. She wanted me to have plenty of food to eat so when she placed her supermarket order online she made sure to get me my favorite vegetable, potatoes.

Not being a huge fan of potatoes herself, she was unsure of how many to get and settled for a generous 3 kilo. The supermarket got the order wrong and accidentally sent her 17 kilo of potatoes.

It didn't take long for her to notice that they had sent a few to many kilos and she called to have them come pick up the extra potatoes and to refund her money.

The supermarket was uninterested in picking up the potatoes but offered to give her a good deal on the extra produce. Tired and anxious Em agreed to the deal and ended up paying a whopping 50 shekel for all of the potatoes.

When I arrived at her apartment on Friday afternoon bags of potatoes decorated every surface in her kitchen. Every shabbos she makes extra challah to give out to her neighbors in her building. We went around the building and handed out challah and bags of potatoes to her slightly confused neighbors.

The menu was heavily focused around potatoes but even with the amount of potatoes we consumed, there were plenty left over.

I'm not sure if she ever finished the rest of the potatoes but I don't think she'll be ordering more of them any time soon...

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Sacrificial Offerings

The summer heat seems to be getting to the inhabitants of this sunny city. The mere mention of a sale sends them into a ferocious frenzy of flying shirts and hangers. 

Here's what happened about five minutes after I refolded all of the shirts on the table...
They're even striping the mannequins! They would have taken the pants too but couldn't figure out how to get them off (the shorts were around his ankles when I found him)....

Honestly its pretty terrifying. It's like they're preparing for some sort of imminent disaster but instead of buying food and water they MUST have ALL the clothing. 

Maybe we offended some supernatural being or the god of sales and the only way to appease it is to buy all of the clothes on sale and use them as a sacrificial offering. 

Whatever the reason is, the store is making money which means I get to work extra hours. Wooo!

Next week should be a little less on the crazy side. Although I suppose that depends on whether or not the sacrificial offering works.... 

Sunday, August 10, 2014

The Banana Incident

My lack of posting may have given the illusion that I've been extremely busy as of late. In an effort to keep that illusion alive, I will refrain from mentioning how much TV I've watched in the last few weeks....

Things have actually been picking up at work since the daily sirens stopped and people are starting to venture outside again. Life is slowly starting to get back to some semblance of "normal". Everyone is still on edge and anything sounding even remotely similar to the code red siren makes your heart stop for just a second. It's surprising how many things can sound like the start of the siren and how many songs have sirens playing in the background.

The most memorable thing that happened to me last week was what my family is now referring to as the "banana incident", I unwittingly ate some banana ice cream and almost died.

OK so I definitely did NOT almost die but when you hate bananas as much as I do, accidentally eating something banana flavored comes in at a close second. Never in my life have I felt so betrayed by something that I once held so dear. Why would anyone ruin the perfect deliciousness that ice cream is by adding bananas to it?! Why do people even like bananas? Bananas are gross and smelly and they have weird fake seeds.

Aside from the banana debacle the rest of the week was pretty quiet. On Friday I had a nice relaxing morning at the beach with my friend Sea and shabbos was pretty quiet. Timmy and I walked over to the Nemdy's for a  delicious lunch and a lovely afternoon. We ate, drank, blew bubbles, ran around in circles and then ate some more.

This week is going to be interesting. The new collection has already started to arrive, the first half came this morning while the second half is scheduled to arrive bright and early Wednesday morning. With one of the managers out of the country and a couple of workers out for assorted reasons, we're a little bit understaffed. Some of my coworkers were less than enthusiastic about working extra hours and being the good friend that I am, I graciously offered to take those extra hours off of their hands.

Tomorrow will be an exhilarating ten hours of organizing the machsan.
Woohoo.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

New Maid Has Four Left Hands

Blogging temporarily suspended for no particular reason.  
Here's a picture for your enjoyment.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

YooHoo, Big Summer Blowout!

Today was the last day of IKEA's big summer sale. Since I didn't have work and couldn't make money I figured I'd do the next best thing, spend money!

The Parentals and I hopped into the car and met Freddie and The Little Munchkin at IKEA for an exciting day of shopping. I got some essentials like a table, wine glasses and some dishtowels (you know, just in case I spill on the fancy new table). After a couple of hours of wandering around we realized that we were starving. Luckily, IKEA just happens to have a fine dining establishment where we had a delightful late lunch.

Earlier today I downloaded a new app on my phone to alert me about incoming rockets since the one that I had downloaded a few weeks ago wasn't really doing much for me (besides draining my battery). I hadn't "tried out" the new app yet and wasn't sure how accurate it was so when it started going off after dinner we weren't sure how to react.

The Crazy Lady was heading up to the top floor to move laundry when she heard the app on my phone go off. It sounds exactly like the actual red alert siren so she thought it was coming from outside and started to panic. I told everyone that it was just my phone and was about to delete the app for being so inaccurate when the real siren started going off outside.

After confirming that I had shut the app on my phone and that there actually was a potential rocket heading for us, we headed down to our bomb shelter. We heard a couple of explosions and waited a few minutes before dispersing.

I'm glad to know that the new app works and I feel a little safer sleeping in my tower, I doubt I'll be able to sleep through the siren on my phone and the one outside my window...

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Shakes, Sandwiches And Apartment Hunting.

Time sure does fly by when you're busy...

Last Wednesday we had markdowns at the store again. The managers surprised us with a new blender and sandwich maker which were promptly plugged in by the cash registers and put to use. I did not partake in the eating portion of the evening since it mostly involved things that I don't eat... 
Seemed like a fire hazard to me....
Shakes for everyone (except me :P)!!
Last week I began the arduous task of trying to find a place to live for the next year. The Crazy Lady was kind enough to shuttle me back and forth between the cities in search of the perfect place. 

There were many ups and downs, not to mention a plethora of scuzzy looking places, but we finally managed to find a nice place. A sweet older couple turned part of their house into a place for their son who lived there for two years before deciding to move to Tel Aviv. 

Since they were building it for their kid they really put a lot of effort into it and made it really nice. It comes with an electric stove top, fridge, microwave, washer and built in cabinets for storage. It's only a 20-30 minute walk to school and has a bus stop right outside for when I feel like being lazy. 

Due to the whole "situation" they cut back on hours at work for security reasons (and because during a war buying overpriced clothes isn't really a top priority for most people...). We got two shifts per person and are on standby in the unlikely event that there's a sudden influx of eager shoppers. 

I don't really have anything exciting planned... Anyone up for an impromptu trip to IKEA? ;) 

Monday, July 21, 2014

Chillin By The Dumpster

Living in Bet Shemesh has its perks, namely the generous 90 seconds that we get to run for cover in the event of a siren. Lately, its been quiet and siren free in our area. Sometimes the lack of sirens lulls you into a false sense of security so when a siren actually goes off, you don't expect it. Today was one of those days.

It was hot, humid and hazy out as I began to make my way to work. I was about three minutes away from the mall when a siren began to sound. My heart dropped to my stomach as I realized that for the first time since everything had started, I was outside with nowhere to run.

The sirens had become a bit of a routine, alert the people around you (since you can't hear the sirens in the store), make your way to a safe area or bomb shelter and check in with your friends and family while you wait until its safe to leave. You're inside and you're probably safe, mostly concerned about the whereabouts and safety of your friends and family, so there's no real panicking. But this time I was out in the open and there was no safe place to go.

I picked up the pace and did a quick survey of my surroundings. There were no walls to hide behind and the closest building was the supermarket at least a minute and half away. Time was ticking and I knew I wouldn't make it but I decided to make a run for it anyways.

I was entering the parking lot when I heard a commotion from what looked like a giant dumpster. I turned to see what was going on and saw an old man gesturing wildly at me from behind the dumpster. As I neared the dumpster I noticed a couple of other people already lying on the ground. The old man assured me that the big metal dumpster would save us, provided that the rocket land on the other side of it.

Time was almost up and there wasn't much to do so I joined the garbage crew behind the dumpster and waited another ten seconds till the siren ended. I didn't hear any explosions although the old guy was convinced that he had. He insisted on waiting behind the dumpster for another five minutes "just in case" and since he went through all the trouble of trying to save my life with a dumpster, I humored him and waited until he deemed it safe to leave.

I wished my dumpster angel goodbye and a safe remainder of the day and then continued my route to work. Despite the craziness, I made it to my shift on time. The rest of the day passed by quickly and quietly.

Tomorrow I have a day off and some tentative adventures with The Crazy Lady planned.
Hopefully my days of hiding behind dumpsters with strangers during air raid sirens have come to an end..!

Friday, July 18, 2014

Beyonce Pad Thai

Work continues to bore me beyond despair. So much so that when a customer apologized for knocking over a pile of shirts I asked her if she would mind knocking over another pile just so that I could feel like I had something productive to do, she declined and made an expeditious exit from the store.

I told another mother to give her kid free range of the store and even encouraged her to open the kids lollipop in hopes of some entertainment. The child turned out to be extremely well behaved and didn't make even the slightest bit of a mess. Which frankly, was a bit of a disappointment.

Home life has been quiet other than the 2am wake up siren the other morning. Hopefully things stay quiet and everyone has a safe shabbos!

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Taking Snacks From Kids

Having the parentals at home has been fun. I no longer have to worry about cleaning up cat barf/pee, washing dishes, making dinner or making food magically appear in the refrigerator.

Oscar was picked up from his doggy vacation Monday afternoon and Frank returned from his cruise ship adventures early this morning (with plenty of stories and dirty laundry in tow). The house sure is starting to fill up again!

Monday was a quiet, siren free day. Last night there was a siren while I was at work, the iron dome intercepted 4 rockets and my manager refrained from going on any shoplifting sprees. Aside from the siren, work was exceptionally boring. The (almost) nightly sirens sure have put a damper on business....

Some little kid opened a bag of 'extra crunch' chips while her mom was looking around the store. She said that I looked hungry and gave me a handful of chips. I was actually feeling quite peckish so I gratefully excepted her offer, only feeling mildly guilty of taking a little kids food.

Today I start work at noon so I'm spending my morning lazing about and thinking of all of the productive things that I could but most probably won't do.

Here's to hoping for another quiet siren free day!

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Welcome Home Dinners And Sirens

I spent the day preparing for The Mad Man and The Crazy Lady's highly anticipated arrival. We cooked and cleaned and then cleaned some more.

We made an "indoor" BBQ on our cast iron skillet. The food was delicious but produced a lot more smoke than originally anticipated. The smoke alarm went off and we opened all of the doors and windows. By the time our guests of honor arrived the smoke had mostly dissipated.
Doesn't it look so fancy?
We sat down for dinner and were chowing down on our burgers when the now familiar siren began to wail. Lori and I shoved the food into the oven for safekeeping (mostly from the cats) while the rest of the family ran downstairs. Once the food was safe we went to join the rest of the family in the bomb shelter.

The siren ended and we spent the next ten minutes reminiscing about earlier sirens and assuring my parents that we were going to be fine. When enough time had passed we went back upstairs ad resumed our dinner.

After dinner we waited as the parentals unpacked their suitcases and gave us our presents. Buzzy was super overtired so Lori&co headed home, the party died down soon after.

I think everyone is tired from their busy busy days. Hopefully tonight will be quiet and we can all catch up on some much needed sleep!!

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Washing The Porsche

Lori, Z and Buzzy came to join The Booger and I for shabbos. Lori and I split up the menu and went halfsies on the cooking so I didn't have too much to do.
There was a slight malfunction with my quiche and after adding too much salt, another half recipe of filling and then making more crust I ended up with four quiches of varying shapes and sizes.
They tasted pretty delicious when all was said and done.
Shabbos was nice and relaxing, there was lots of food (and more importantly, deserts...) and no sirens.

After shabbos there was a siren as Lori&co were leaving. They left the car smack in the middle of the street and ran back into the house to join us in the bomb shelter. We heard five booms and waited the obligatory amount of time before heading back upstairs.  Lori&co did a take two and made it home safely.

The Mad Man and The Crazy Lady are returning from there vacation tomorrow night.
The time may have come for me to tackle the mountain of dirty dishes in the sink.....

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Accidental Shoplifter

Work tonight was slow and boring so my manager sent me into the back to reorganize the entire machsan. Since it was so quiet, she decided to run over to the seamstress for a minute to pick up a skirt that she had dropped off yesterday for an alteration.

I had just climbed up to the top of the ladder when I heard a siren go off. I climbed back down and ran into the store with my arms flailing in an attempt to get everyone's attention. Loud music plays in the store throughout the day and drowns out the sound of the sirens so it makes things a little complicated. The flailing arms garnered the attention of my coworker and after yelling "azaka" (siren) at her she sprung to action and helped me herd the confused customers out of the store.

Outside of the store the siren blared and we all made a run for the closest safe area. We slid in just as we heard the first boom. There were several more booms and the walls shook a little. After five minutes of silence we deemed it safe enough to return to the store. 

Some overeager customers had beat us there and were already waiting by the cash register. Our manager arrived about thirty seconds later with her skirt in her hand and her cellphone ringing ever so persistently. Apparently she was getting ready to pay when the siren went off and accidentally "stole" the skirt in her panic to find a safe area. 

When the siren stopped and things seemed calm she opted to check on us before going back upstairs to pay for the skirt. My manager answered her phone and did her best to assure the seamstress that she would be there to pay just as soon as she was done checking up on us. The seamstress was clearly unconvinced and consoled herself by relentlessly calling my managers phone to demand her money.

Satisfied that we were fine and the store was still in one piece, my manager went to pay the poor seamstress the twenty five shekel that she owed her.

The rest of the shift was quiet and I got most of the machsan reorganized.

Here's to hoping the rest of the night stays as boring and uneventful as the end of my shift! 

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Getting Mooned At Work

The last few days have been a little hectic. Work, sirens and vet visits are blurred together in my mind.

Today we got a "mini" collection (about 1,000 items) at work so it was a busy busy day. I spent most of the morning in the machsan opening boxes and trying to keep stuff neat. When all the boxes were opened and unpacked I ventured into the store to see what I could do to help.

One of my coworkers was struggling with the mannequins at the front of the store. I know that changing the clothes on the mannequins is no easy task but her technique was highly ineffective (as well as highly amusing to watch). I stood by the cash registers watching her until an arm flew across the store and narrowly missed a customers head and decided that the time had come to intervene.

Unfortunately, I got called away to help someone with something else. By the time I returned to the store front my coworker had given up and stormed off to find something else to do leaving disarrayed mannequin parts strewn about the entrance. One of them was modeling off one of GAP's bestsellers, the birthday suit.
We somehow managed to wrest the mannequins into their new outfits and the display ended up looking really nice.

After my shift I headed home and grabbed my shopping list before Lori&co arrived to take Timmy and I grocery shopping. The store was only moderately full and we made it out in an hour and a half.

Timmy made us a delectable dinner featuring my personal favorite, steak.

In other news, the light bulb in the entrance bathroom went out a few days ago.
How many Polly's does it take to change a light bulb?
Just one, so long as it's my dad.....

Monday, July 7, 2014

Catch That Cat!

Last time I posted my parents were about to embark on their three week vacation. They made it to their first destination safe and sound and from the pictures that I saw, they're having a great time. Yesterday they headed to SwissCheeseLand to hang out with the Freddie's for a while.

I've been "holding down the fort" while my parents are gone. It's really helped me realize a lot of things....
*The people in my family have some sort of aversion to loading and unloading the dishwasher.
*Changing cat litter is by far one of the least pleasant experiences in the world.
*Food is expensive.

Aside from some minor bumps, things have been going pretty smoothly. Mostly I go to work, fold shirts, come home, find food to eat and watch TV before heading to bed. A strenuous and demanding lifestyle but I'm surviving.

Today I tried to take the cat to the vet. He wasn't overly enthusiastic about the idea...
After an hour and a half of chasing him around and trying to coax him into the carrier, we appear to have come to a standoff.
Can you see the contempt on his face?
The vet is closing in twenty minutes so I guess he wins this round.  But there's always tomorrow...

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Have You Tried Turning It Off And On Again?

I woke up bright and early this morning to get some stuff done before work. I was putting my finishing touches on my salad and packing my bag when my phone rang. Apparently there was a mix up with the schedule and everyone except me and the two girls working the night shift showed up at the store bright and early. Since I hadn't had a day off in three weeks they asked if I would mind taking today off and told me to go enjoy myself at the beach.

I didn't go to the beach but I did get some important things taken care of like finally managing to contact an actual human at the university. The lady I talked to was pretty nice but not very helpful. She instructed me to keep logging in and out of the site until it "worked". A strange strategy but eventually it worked, I thanked her for her assistance and moral support before hanging up. I'm about 90% sure that I'm signed up for classes but who knows?

The Crazy Lady and The Mad Man are embarking on their three week vacation early tomorrow morning. We're spending the day making snacks for the plane (snickerdoodles and pumpkin pie spice granola) and trying to take care of the last minute things.

Maybe we'll make some more snacks. You can never have too many snacks....

Friday, June 20, 2014

Harassing Security Gaurds

Wow. Friday already? How did that happen? I guess time really flies when your coworkers think that work is optional and your the only one that agrees to cover their shifts. On the bright side, more hours equals a nicer paycheck so I'm not too broken up about it... It does however make it hard to keep up with my blogging, and I'm sure you're all just dying to hear about my overwhelmingly exciting week!

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning were work work work. On Wednesday night we congregated in the store to mark down the prices of a goodly amount of the merchandise in the store. The giant sticker machine proved to be moody and temperamental. Wresting the sheets of stickers from the depths of the machine was harder than anyone had anticipated but after putting up a struggle we prevailed and emerged victorious into the store, faces beaming and arms in the air.

The stragglers (customers that come in ten minutes before closing time to "have a look" and not actually buy anything) in the store looked confused as we shared our heroic tales which were met with cheers by our manager (who was already familiar with machines temperament and understood the meaning of our success). After chasing the disconcerted stragglers from the store and closing the gate, the real party started. Food came out, music blared from the speakers and we went wild with our sticker sheets.

At around midnight someone decided that karaoke was in order and gave up her sticker sheets for the stores PA microphone. It was loud and awful but she certainly looked like she was having fun, until the manager chased her off the counter and turned the PA system off.

We stickered on until the manager called us to a halt at 1:30am and declared that it was time to pack up and go home. Everything seemed to be going fine until we realized that we were locked in the mall and didn't have the number for security. We checked all of the doors and tried yelling for help but to no avail. We were standing by the elevators when they suddenly started to move. After ascertaining that none of us had pushed the button, people began to panic.

Moments later the elevator arrived and the doors slid open to reveal an exceptionally irritated and disheveled looking man. One of the girls shrieked in his face. The man was not amused. After apologizing for the somewhat uncalled for welcome, the manager asked the security guard how we were supposed to get out. The disgruntled security guard walked over to the door and nonchalantly waved his card at it. A little green light came on and he told us to close the door behind us. Two cabs were waiting for us in the parking lot and we made it home without any further problems.

On Thursday morning I slept in a little and then made my way to work, coffee in hand. The big sale banners garnered the attention of our cities stingy inhabitants and we had busy but successful day. During my break I walked up to the computer store and picked up my shiny new laptop (courtesy of my loving and generous saba and savta!!). L&Z had brought Buzzy to the mall to run free and we all went to visit S&S when my shift was over where Savta taught Lori and I the proper way to make kasha.

Today has been full of cooking and cleaning (and stealing delicacies from the kitchen). The food smells (and tastes :P) amazing and I can't wait to spend the weekend catching up on some much needed sleep...!

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Adventures In Adulthood: An Interrogation And An Interview.

A couple of days after applying to university I got a call from the school inviting me to an interview. Z had some errands to run in ariel so he gave me a lift to the school and showed me which building to go to. I found the room and sat down to await my turn. I was the only one waiting and I began to wonder if I was waiting in the right place when another person showed up. The women sat down next to me and wasted no time in getting to know me.

Random Lady: "So, which other programs did you apply for?"
Me: "Uhhhh, just this one"
{Random Lady graces me with a look of shock and disbelief.}
RL:"But what if you don't get into this program?! I applied for three others just in case..."
Me: "I dunno, I hadn't really thought that far ahead. I guess I'll just have to find something else to do..."
RL: "Why did you apply for university?"
Me: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
{Random Lady seems unimpressed with my answer and proceeds to tell me more than I ever wanted to know about her life.}
RL:"I rushed into school when I was your age. But then, I realized that it wasn't what I wanted to do with my life... I'm married now with three children and I know now that this is what I want to do with my life!" {proceeds to gaze purposefully into the distance.}
RL continues: "Both my sisters are nurses. I'm certain that this is my path in life."
Me:"I'm glad you found your calling."
{I try to give her an encouraging smile and then busy myself with answering some highly time sensitive nonexistent messages on my phone}
RL continues to stare at me intently....
RL: "So, tell me more about you."
Me: "Well, my parents always taught me not to talk to strangers!"
RL: "Whaa?"
{The interviewer shows up and calls my name}
I wave goodbye to Random Lady and hurry into the room for my interview which went much more smoothly than Random Lady's interrogation.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Dumpster Diving And Wild Parties

It's been a while since the last time I posted and lots of stuff has happened... I won an award, danced in a music video, spent time with my friends and family and at some point drove out to the middle of nowhere to apply for the nursing program at Ariel University.

That last part might surprise some of you, and with good reason. I've never been a model student and the nicest thing my teachers had to say about me at parent teacher conferences was "Oh, does she still go here?" (at some point in tenth grade I deluded myself into thinking that attendance was more optional than mandatory. A theory that I held with unwavering faith throughout my high school years).

Nonetheless, I applied.

While I was awaiting a reply from the university, I kept myself busy on all sorts of adventures. I spent a shabbos at my friend Sea's house. A quiet shabbos walk turned into an impromptu dumpster raid when we saw a nice looking mirror leaning against a dumpster about five minutes from her house. They just so happened to be in dire need of a mirror and being the gracious guests that we are, Em and I dragged it back to her house as a (belated) housewarming gift.

The rest of the days passed in a blur, work, shavuot, more work and then shabbos again. Before I knew it, it was time for the big party.


It was fun and exciting but mainly, it was loud. There was a big stage (which thank hashem I didn't actually have to go up on) where they announced all of the people and stores that won awards. Our little store won the award for the best Gap store of the year despite only being open for three months. Our manager went up on the stage to collect our trophy and prize.
Then they read off all of the names of the star employees (and there were a lot of them!) and handed out fancy looking papers with our names on them.

When the ceremony was over some Israeli artist performed for us. I have no idea who he was but everyone else seemed to be really excited about it. The rest of the night passed by with lots of music, dancing and screaming. I learned that taking pictures of flailing dancing people in a semi dark room with wildly flashing strobe lights is not an easy task(hence the lack of pictures....).

I made it home early in the morning and got a couple of hours of sleep before waking up for a morning shift (lucky me!). Thankfully work was quiet and I mostly stood around contemplating all of the useful things that I could do until my shift ended.

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Got Any Milk?

It was a normal Sunday morning in the Polly household, The Booger was running late, Mr. Fat was being a nuisance and The Mad Man was in dire need of some coffee. The Booger made it to school on time, Mr. Fat was relegated to his box and The Mad Man set about trying to make himself a cup of coffee.

All was going well until he poured some milk into his mug and discovered that it was spoiled. A quick search revealed that it was the last bag of milk and with a sigh he began to pour it down the drain.

My little brother had a couple of friends sleepover the night before. One of them emerged from the depths of the basement and seemed surprised to find us standing in the kitchen. Franks friend stared at us for a minute and then remembered his manners, giving us a quick 'good morning' and 'thank you' before running out of the house to catch a bus home.

Just as the last bit of spoiled milk was emptied into the sink The Mad Man exclaimed "Boy, it's a good thing he didn't want any milk!".

Friday, May 23, 2014

Champagne And Video Shoots

Every year Gottex (the company that owns Gap, Nike, Berksha, Zara and a bunch of other franchises in Israel) throws a big party for all of its employees. The party is apparently the "event of the year" and a pretty big deal. Each chain picks an 'employee of the year' from every branch (I think there are around 60 branches total of all of the companies) and presents them with a certificate at the party.

I was chosen to represent my chain despite the fact that our store is fairly new (and one of the qualifications is to have worked with the company for at least half a year). When my managers first told me that I was chosen as the employee of the year last three months I was a little apprehensive but then they told me that there was a prize along with the certificate and lets be honest, who doesn't love prizes?

I was finally getting used to the idea of having to go up on stage in front of thousands of people to accept my certificate (and prize!) when I got the message that they were heating things up a notch this year. They decided to make a music video of the star employees to screen at the party. Yep that's right, in addition to having to go up on stage in front of thousands of people, I was now going to be in a music video. Perfect.

After receiving the "exciting" news, the week seemed to crawl by at a snails pace. I was absolutely dreading the whole ordeal. But despite my begging, pleading and fervent denial, Thursday morning arrived and I was sent off to Tel Aviv to confront my worst nightmare.

The train seemed to shoot down the tracks at hyper speed and I arrived in Tel Aviv in record time. There was supposed to be a van waiting for us at the entrance to the station but I was twenty minutes early and there was no van in sight. I made my way over to a nice shady tree and sat down under it to ponder my next move.

Just as I was about to give up hope, I noticed a girl decked out in full nike apparel. I asked her if she was also looking for the van and she said that she was. She sat down next to me and we were comforted by the fact that if the van never showed up at least we'd have each other. A couple of other people joined the crew and we sat around chatting about the music video that none of us had any interest in doing.

Eventually we realized that the van wasn't coming to us and so we set out to find it instead. After fifteen minutes of aimlessly walking through the giant parking lot, we found the van full of impatient people that had been waiting for us. Everyone clambered in and we set off for the studio. The drive wasn't long and we were hurried into the building and up to the studio.

First stop was makeup and styling. The stylist didn't actually have any clothing from gap so she left me in the clothes that I had come in (a dress that my manager loaned me for the day), but she added a scarf and vest for some extra "pizzazz".

After makeup and styling we were sent into another room for champagne, sushi and other snacks.

Everyone drank, ate and took selfies galore. My phones camera is a little lacking in quality and doesn't have a front facing camera. It clearly couldn't compete with all of the samsung galaxys and iphones so I left it in my bag for a majority of the time. As a result, I don't have many pictures of me...
The only picture that I was in, I'm not exactly a selfie aficionado.
They called us in in groups and had us lip sync to a parody of ke$ha's timber. I gave them my best "deer stuck in the headlights" look and they nodded sympathetically while saying "We'll work with it..".
The camera is blocking me but you can see my fingers holding the gap card on the screen! 
After the verses were all worked out we all had to dance to the chorus while lip syncing (yes there was a dance...). I tried to hide in the back but was too short and got moved to the front. I once again proved my incompetence on camera but there were lots of other people flailing around so hopefully I'm not too noticeable. We had a freestyle at the end and after repeatedly performing my one and only dance move (spazzticly trying to "raise the roof") I gave a wholehearted rendition of "run away as fast as possible" (by far my most effective dance move).

Despite the terror of knowing that hundreds of people are going to see the video and the fact that I have to go on stage to get the certificate afterwards, it was actually a lot of fun. I don't think I'll be doing anything like this again any time soon but I'm glad that I more or less survived. They wouldn't play back the footage for us so I guess we'll have to wait two weeks to see it at the party.