Odds and Ends

1. Last week I went from Sunday morning to Saturday morning, practically the entire week, without eating any refined sugar! I'm so proud of myself. Of course, I had a wee bit more aspartame than usual . . . no point in trying to change everything at once . . . but it wasn't even so hard, and I'm sleeping better than I have for a while. Haven't lost any weight but I feel good. Now for week 2!

2. Yesterday I had a dinner-and-movie date with my new-since-aliyah friend, Judy. Great food at the Ne'eman restaurant at the Malcha Mall, and then we saw "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" with Johnny Depp. I seem to be one of the only people I know who has actually read the book, and that was even before I saw the movie version with Gene Wilder! Regarding the Johnny Depp/Tim Burton version, I liked it. It was clean, in a Tim Burton wierdly darkly bizarro surreally kind of way. I wouldn't take a five-year-old to see it, but my 7-year-old nephew would love it. I didn't even mind the addition of a backstory for Willie Wonka, even though the way they wrapped it up at the end kind of made me gag over the sugar-sweet syrupy sappy stuff. This movie is not high art, but it was kinda cool, especially visually, and especially for people who have read the book. I had a few good laughs. It was fun.

3. Today I met some people for breakfast at Cafe Quiche, which is a lovely little cafe attached to the Museum of Islamic Art on Hapalmach Street. I'd never been in the building before. The Museum of Islamic Art is sort of an enigma to me, because I pass by it all the time and never see anyone go in or out (kind of like Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory, actually). When I first made aliyah and saw the museum, my first thought of course was "I wonder if any Arab country would have a Museum of Jewish Art, huh?" But then I just started wondering about the mystery of who patrons the museum. They change the banners about their main exhibits, so someone must go there. The cafe is under kosher supervision, so there must be a lot of Jewish visitors. Probably a lot of school groups, I imagine.

I should emphasize that I'm not not visiting the Museum of Islamic Art because I have anything against Islamic Art. Islamic Art interests me just as much as pretty much any other kind of art, which is to say, not that much at all. I keep thinking that as an intellectual person I should visit there once or twice, since it's sad to live such a short walk from an art museum and never go in. But it's one of those things I never get around to, you know?

But just FYI, the cafe is really nice. They have a pretty extensive breakfast menu and it's a nice place to sit.

4. R. is back!