The day I realized Americans obsess over bathrooms

I ask you a question, are you distracted by issues engineered to cause enmity in America? I am not a fan of the bathroom drama because I think it's polarizing. A quick uninformed recap: Transexual people make a big deal about going into ladies bathrooms which I presume they've been doing for years, then everyone else makes a big deal as though they can actually make and enforce laws against it and I'm over here like... What is everyone even talking about? You do know we are the most privileged country in the world to have this many bathrooms right? America probably has more toilets than people. It's insane! And frankly, I'm not nearly as worried about everyone's safety in the restrooms as I am about our lavish waste. How many stalls do they make for the men's bathrooms that stand empty while all of us ladies with our little kiddies in tow cross our legs and stand and wait? Who thought up this elaborate bathroom scenario where my husband with three daughters stands within 20 feet of 20 toilets uncomfortable with every option. I'll stop here short of announcing that all of the public restrooms in America should be reconfigured. I'm no engineer but it's dumb. 

I don't see any outcry against homosexuals going in bathrooms with heterosexuals so all of the hooplah has a very hollow ring for me. I think sex designated restrooms are an archaic, ridiculous, weird, pointless exercise. If we are worried about transexuals getting beat up in the men's rooms or just feeling out of place and girls being targeted by pedophiles through the loophole, maybe we need to think bigger. Maybe we need restrooms for everyone with fully enclosed stalls. Maybe we need a little privacy, not a million special exceptions. Maybe we should conserve and think wisely. You know, the more elaborate we all get with our restroom expectations, the more we pay for whatever we buy at these stores. 

Here's the other thing, forget all about the sexual preferences and just picture yourself in Target on any random day. Ok who do we see? Moms with their kids (boring), dads with their kids(out of control), grandparents with their grandkids (going broke), goofy teenagers way over the top with the PDA and excessive junk food purchases, single young professionals buying keurig pods, a BIKER!? Wow, that is interesting he's with a little girl in a pink tutu. Let's hope she wasn't kidnapped! Ok now go in the bathroom. Who is there? All of those ordinary people. Now enter the dastardly pedophile. He walks in... Damn there's a scary biker in the ladies room with his little tutu clad beauty helping her into the stall instead of sending her in there alone because he's welcome to do that now. The pedophile looks for an easy target but his eyes meet the steely gaze of the biker. Game over. Let's try a different scenario. Lucky pedophile enters and finds easy prey but he knows a man or woman could walk in at any second. Not so easy as it was when only women were coming in here. Let's try again, pedophile gets caught in the act by me. I scream like a girl and men run into the ladies room without inhibition. After all they are welcome here now. Men are bigger scarier and stronger than me. And most of them are dying to be a hero. 

In conclusion, this is just about the dumbest argument I've ever seen America get into and I contend that the bathrooms will be neither more nor less dangerous. The danger could increase for older kids and teens but it will certainly decrease for toddlers and small children. As long as the men keep the restroom clean and start carrying pocket knives again like any self respecting American, I say come on in. Make the pervs squirm. And about the transgender movement. I have no idea why they care which bathroom they're in because I don't as long as it's clean. But come on in! What we really need is gender neutral bathrooms with fully enclosed stalls like Israel and a neutral hand washing area. 

I will clarify that changing into gym clothes at school is a whole different ball of wax. No boys allowed! 

Part 3 The rainiest day of my trip!

God has a way of just twisting my heart when I am failing. I've been failing to blog my awesome trip. I don't know why I'm struggling to be a blogger nowadays. I think I'm so busy reading books, staring at my lovely Hazel's chubby cheeks and soft toes and giving people dirty looks when they tell me she isn't a baby anymore that I just think I have nothing more inside of me. But then God shows me something beautiful and twists my heart and I panic and run start typing.

This morning Bart sent me a link to an apartment for rent. It had pictures of the view of Jerusalem and tears started running down my face as I looked at something that shouldn't feel familiar and special enough for me to cry over but there I was... wondering if I'd ever see it again. Wondering if I savored it enough. Wondering if my husband or kids would ever see it. But mostly wondering why the hell I was crying over an apartment for rent in Israel.

http://www.jerusalemproperties.co.il/property/rental14.shtml

 On the rainiest day of my trip we went to the museum and the Shouk. The Shouk is a local market, not geared towards tourists. People buy their meat, produce, treats, spices, pottery etc... there. I bought some Halva which is a pretty yummy mediterranean treat. It's a combination of ground sesame seeds, honey and other ingredients. I also bought a juicer but pomegranates are out of season in America right now so it's just kind of collecting dust. It seemed like a good idea at the time... I should have bought saffron but I didn't.

Eden was particularly fascinated by an open market and requested many videos. I should have had Bart being Vanna White with stuff more. That's the best part of these cheesy videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIq-Ww-BRhQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve2gsZPkuok

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2XghQ3DzMs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_c_MX4X8k0

The museum was... full of incredible artifacts and overwhelming. Our legs ran out of energy and our brains went into system overload before we were half done. Coffee was a great solution. The worst part was that I was sick of taking pictures and failed to take pictures of the amazing roman and greek sculptures there. The best part was that I did see the Dead Sea Scrolls which was wonderful but there was this mean little old man in there who would shriek every time I tried to take a picture which really just baked my cookies. If you don't want people to take pictures, post a sign, don't have a crazy little man shrieking at people like a cuckoo in Hebrew. Here's the best pic I sneaked.

The worst part through all of this was the rain. Jenny cut bangs for me right before I left and they were pasted to my forehead the entire time I was there. Sigh. We felt it was worth documenting with a "we are soaked to the bone permanently and our bangs are awful" expression. I texted it to Jenny who always looks perfect and she told us we looked great. Uh, yeah. Ok...

The next day we left for the desert. The entire Bartlett family and me. It was a rather hilarious and wonderful trip. I sat in the back of Barts car with her boys feeling like a small child. I watched them play a terrible pirate game on their ipads and listened to my ipod with my headphones all the while wondering where we were and how far we had to go. It was a bit like being a kid again... I had forgotten how that felt! It's good to get in touch with your inner child sometimes.

There is no way I will document all of that day right now... Soon.

Part 1 My Trip

When I was seven, I had sticky gooey hands, long scraggly fingernails and stains on every garment I owned. I drove my sister crazy. If a person had held my sticky hand and looked into my eyes and said "stop borrowing your sisters clothes and staining them, she's going to stand by you through some pretty crazy situations and you need to keep her on your good side" I might not have taken the advice but I know I would have believed the speaker. I always knew my sister would ride the roller coaster of life with me. I took that for granted. It was a vague nameless assurance in my heart. When I was 19 I was a slightly plump, aimless and sometimes blonde, sometimes not office girl. I wore borderline inappropriate clothes to my job at an engineering firm and had no plan for my future. If a person had grabbed my arm one pretty spring day that year and pointed at Jody as he stood at the front desk waiting for his job interview and said "he's going to ride the roller coaster with you and you'll have four kids together within the next 12 years", I don't think I would have believed such a forecast quite so surely. But alas, what we foresee never comes and what we never could have imagined does. Which brings me to the incongruous story of my trip to Israel. Through mutual acquaintances I became friends with Jen Bartlett about two years ago. My first definitive memory is sitting in the salon at Jenny's house having my hair done for the spring gala at school. Bart popped in from next door with little hair clips all over her head of wet hair and chatted us up. We discussed what we were going to wear and I darkly asked her if Jenny had already told her I was pregnant. Her face is always an open book so I had the amusing experience of dropping a bomb on her that ricocheted into a million expressions. I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the reactions of every single person I told I was pregnant with Hazel though so I guess that time of my life is crystalized in my memory for ever. Now, if at that point a person had told me that Bart and her husband Doug would someday fly me to Israel and give me the experience of a lifetime just for kicks I certainly would have thought they were crazy. But that's exactly what happened. She had moved to Israel for Doug's work when one day she said "would you ever consider coming to visit?" I said "yes, when Jody finally wins the lottery we'll be on the next flight." She laughed and said "no seriously, if Doug could get you a ticket with airline miles would you come?" I screamed and told her she had to be kidding me of course I would come. She kept asking me if I really meant it and if I was sure so I finally settled down enough to say that I guessed I had better talk to Jody. I found out later why she didn't believe me when I said yes. All of her family and two friends had already declined her invitation. I was stonewalled. I could not believe these people. Of course all of them had been on international trips and they knew what all of the trade offs of international travel were. I, on the other hand was a novice. So, Jody agreed to let me go without hesitation because he loves me like nobody knows how to except him. They invited him as well and at one point I thought he would come with me but then he decidedly declined... just like all of those other people much to my amazement. I like to think that many people declined because they thought it would be impolite to accept the free plane ticket. Maybe they didn't want to be ingratiating. I still find it all puzzling but fortunate for ME! I will admit, there were some difficult moments, weaning Hazel and tearing myself away from her made me cry quite a bit, but something just pushed me through it telling me it was now or never. So, the girl who's seen the ocean once got a passport and hopped on a big jet airplane. I got the best seats in coach because Doug flies all of the time and he bought my ticket. I was so excited I was like a little child. When our plane took off from my Newark connection I looked out my window and practically squealed to the flight attendant "Is that the Statue of Liberty????!!!!" He gave me a tolerant smile and said "yes it is." I was over the moon! A little bonus to my trip I hadn't even thought of. That flight was 6,000 miles. It flew by though. I slept some, read some and boom I was already landing in Tel Aviv. The world was lush, green and beautiful with the Mediterranean Sea glowing blue. I came to the meeting area and there was Bart. She told me later she realized she was about to cry just waiting and hoping I hadn't bailed at the last second (a ridiculous notion). And there they were with my welcome sign, immediately buying me coffee. They pumped me with so much coffee the first two days I was vacillating between arrhythmia and incontinence.

We got into their car and headed straight for Jerusalem. It's about an hour away. Bart and I were like little teenagers sitting in the back calling Doug our driver. I thought I was so funny that day but after being in about 30 taxis in my ten days there, I realized it isn't all that sensational to sit in the back seat and tell a driver to take you somewhere. (more on taxis later!) So we went straight to the Old City and walked through the market where Doug made me try my first fresh squeezed pomegranate juice. Amazing and unforgettable. Then we went down the Via Dolorosa. It was amazing. We saw the jail cell where Jesus was held. A very sobering and real moment for me. I was later to discover that it's simply amazing that it's still there because the entire city has been built on top of several times over. And significant locations almost all have churches built on top of them with little or no access to the actual place. It's a strange thing to go to an old part of the world; to see ruins where something beautiful was destroyed just to make a point and then built on top of and hidden for thousands of years. After that they took me out to lunch. And this was when I realized I wasn't just going to pal around with Jen and hang out with her and see what it's like to live in Jerusalem. They wined and dined me and I still have no idea why but it was impossible to say no. It was incredible and amazing and unforgettable. I had the time of my life. This was the lunch at the Moroccan restaurant. It was a five course meal. After that we went home and ran Harrison to his guitar lesson. I got to meet his teacher and his wife walked down to a cafe with us for coffee. Then we walked to the old city and sat in an outdoor amphitheater and watched the history of Jerusalem in holograms on the buildings in the dark. I loved it. I am amazed just retelling this that I've been blogging for an hour and have only gotten through one day. We tried to get a taxi on the way home but Bart was just waving down random cars instead of taxis so we wound up walking. LOL!