Diary: 3/24/2002

Dear friends and family:

This week has been both exciting and calming, busy and quiet. We feel a great sense of relief to finally be home, but are also nervous and apprehensive about all the work we have at hand.

Our goals for this week were to make the 3 major purchases of adult life: a car, a house, and a cell phone.

We found the cellphone first. You can now reach Debbie at (440) 570-7411 (Debbie *is* Information, Please).

After much deliberation, we decided again on a Ford Windstar. Any color but green.

Househunting was by far the hardest task of the week. We have seen many, but are as yet still homeless. Debbie's Mom (also known as "Memah" around here) has opened her house to us, and we are working hard not to over-run the place. Except for Joram, who is running every where much to the consternation of the cats, since they are usually what he is running after.

We are reminded of George Carlin's "A Place for My Stuff" routine:
That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff.

On Thursday, Debbie, Heather, and Isabelle made a small decision which hopefully will affect several small lives: They had their hair cut. To be precice, they had 30 inches of hair cut and donated to "Locks of Love", which takes the hair and creates wigs for children with cancer.

Sunday marked a return to one of our most beloved activities: Sunday School. Debbie's teaching position had of course been filled, but she offered to to substitute teach and was assigned this week to her old grade (first grade). This was even more fun because Isabelle is also in first grade! Meanwhile Heather had a full schedule with Jewish studies, honors Hebrew, and conversational Hebrew. Of course, there was confusion with French (is it "lo" - no, or "l'eau" - water?). But she will sort it out soon, we are sure. Meanwhile Joram was busy helping re-organize the library and making sure that all the bagels were good quality. Of course, that meant touching and/or biting them, but he takes his job seriously. In all it was wonderful to fall back into that old rhythm, and to reunite with our friends and community.

This coming week we will have a busy time continuing our hunt for a new home, getting the girls registered and into school, and celebrating Passover. As always, we hope that this letter finds everyone in good health and better spirits

Love,
Debbie, Leon, Heather, Isabelle, Joram, Meemah, Macaroni, and Peanuts