Welcome to the War Zone, new readers driving in from the information superhighway! Did you have a nice Yom Ha’atzmaut? I did despite the fact that my shaved (not balding) head probably got too much sun yesterday. (Since it’s shaved. Not bald. Or balding. Do you hear me? Great, let’s move on.)
This isn’t my official holiday wrap-up….that comes later; however, if you missed out on 61 more things that I love about Israel on Jpost, be sure to check it out and share. And if you’re here for the first time, feel free to stay awhile. You might want to start with some of the favorite posts linked off to the right….if you’re feeling DANGEROUS. (I don’t know what that means.)
When we recently left our hero, he had recently discovered the price of sunscreen at Superpharm to be somewhere around the cost of 85 bajillion shekels. I ended up buying SPF 15 for the first time in years after wanting to be convinced that just maybe, “they’re all the same anyway.” Do I have any dermatologists among my readers? The claim that they’re all the same: Is this one of those classic old wives’ tales, like “chicken soup has medicinal value” or “falafel is a healthy snack”? And are the tales old or are the wives old? This reminds me of the smichut lesson from Ulpan when you have chaver Knesset chadash (new Knesset member) and you don’t know if the MK is new or if the Knesset is new. (Sorry for dorking out there…how many people just stopped reading?)
This is a critical thing to know (the SPF question) as Israel is located approximately 8 miles from the sun and summer is just around the corner. As I said, I found myself at a nice Shabbat picnic lunch last weekend and at a BBQ yesterday a bit ill-prepared. Not only should I now plan to carry sunscreen with me at all times (like an American with his/her bottle of Purel attached to keychain), somehow the weather always seems to warm up considerably ten minutes after I leave home wearing my fleece. How many years must someone live in Jerusalem before figuring out the weather patterns? If I need to bring a scarf and mittens with me when I go walking this weekend, I just want to know beforehand.
Just another summer evening in the hills of Jerusalem…Aside from the constant sunscreen, another seasonal fashion must is to protect one’s eyes, unless one wants to go blind. For those of you who remember this fun story, I haven’t really been wearing my contact lenses much for the past year and a half, both because of the doctor’s orders and also because they’re pricey. Which makes blocking the sun out a difficult (or impossible) task, unless you want to wear clip-on sunglasses. And if you do, you might want to pull your trousers up to your armpits as well (Dad, please do not do this.)
Or you could buy yourself some Dwayne Wayne eyeglasses from 1987. B’ima sheli, what the hell were those?
In order to deal with the Middle Eastern sun burning a hole in my corneas, I decided to get a pair of glasses. Not just any glasses, but transitional ones, meaning the ones which shift from regular glasses to sunglasses. B’kitzur, I settled on a nice little online eyeglasses place called GlassesUSA which it turns out is owned by a couple of Israeli guys. Very reasonable prices, great service, very friendly….what more could you want? I got them this last week and after the standard adjustment period, they’re great. By standard adjustment period, I mean the few hours after you put on your new glasses where you think, “Oh, dear Lord, this cannot possibly be the correct prescription. Did they pick up some Hadassah lady’s bifocals?”
As for transitional eyeglasses, they catch you off guard when you’re not used to them. I had to look in the mirror to make sure they had actually gotten darker and when I walked inside, I instinctively took them off, forgetting that I am blind as a bat without. It’s a couple of days later now and I’ve forgotten that I’m wearing them which I suppose means my eyes have adjusted. Either that or I have in fact become a Hadassah lady in which case I have bigger issues than my eyesight.
So there you go….their website was easy to use, they were delivered quickly…if anybody needs glasses, check out GlassesUSA and tell them Benji sent you. (At which point, they’ll respond WHOOOO???????)
And just for fun, here’s a take on going to the eye doctor from one of the funniest people on the planet, Brian Regan.
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