Punky brewster socks

Israel has many interesting, quirky aspects to its culture. One of the ones that I may discuss at some point is the fact that in Jerusalem at least, most graffitti is made by stencils. (Some are actually quite attractive, and you can read everything without a handwriting interpreter assuming you already understand Hebrew.)

Another thing is the way in which every time you go to the supermarket to buy stuff, you are given other things too. If you buy the equivalent of $100 of groceries, you may get 5 separate coupons to collect 'gifts' from the main register.Four months ago, Elana and I received a box of frozen Jachnun. Jachnun is a tastey Yemenite food made from slow cooked dough. It is also so heavy that 4 bites might serve as a meal. We haven't eaten it yet because you have to first defrost it and the place it in the oven 12 HOURS before you want to eat it. It's hard to plan a meal so far in advance. If you want it for dinner...you need to place it in the oven at 6am!!! I have had it twice since I have been back here...it is sometimes worth the wait. (There are places here called "Jachnuneries" which only serve Jachnun and the side dishes that traditionally get served with them.)

Today, I bought about $14 worth of cheese and juice. The cashier told me that we had a prize. I was tickled to be handed a pair of gloves that reminded me of Punky Brewster. Ah, the memories... She used to wear multicolored socks and other mismatched things. It turns out that the socks (which I originally thought were gloves) have little individual tubes for each toe. When I got home I had put them on Elana's feet while she was cooking. It was weird to trying to get each toe in its tube, but as you can see, it was not a wasted effort. Elana says it feels weird to have something on each toe...but I had to have a modeled photo for you to see... Isn't Israel great? (This is not an invitation for political comments.)