In the past week, 2 events stand out (apart from the obvious fact that I'm about to miss an important deadline at work).

The first was that S took me early from work one afternoon and we went to a forest playground near Bar Giora to have a bar-b-que with her cousins, who live in Beit Shemesh. We brought the mangal (small aluminium charcoal griller) and they brought the meat. I prefer lamb to chicken kebab, and the sausages were large, but tasteless. But I grill well, and everyone said they enjoyed the meal. After all the meat was cooked, they melted marshmallows over the hot coals. Their kids and mine played well together. Their oldest (a boy) is a little younger than R, they have a girl a little younger than E, and 3 younger boys so A also had people around his age. We stayed until it got dark and everyone seemed to have a good time.

On Friday late afternoon (we bring in Shabbat early), after we (me and the kids) had finished at synagogue, we were walking home. We had almost reached the traffic lights close to home. A had run ahead and was standing waiting at the corner for us to catch up. The traffic lights weren't working correctly, so only the yellow middle light was flashing in all directions. Suddenly 2 cars entered the intersection at the same time. Crash. The car coming from in front of us was turned to the left and ran into the signals in the middle of the road; the car from the left turned toward the corner where A was standing and fortunately stopped before coming close to A. A ran back toward us when the accident happened and fortunately wasn't hit by anything. One of the hubcaps from the car had circled around him though.

The new week brings the Olympics to our TVs. Fortunately we missed the Opening Ceremony, which mercifully was held on Friday night our time. With input from anti-Semite and anti-Israel Mikis Theodorakis, I'm glad I missed it.

Channel 1 is turning almost its entire programming over to the Olympics. I must admit I still enjoy watching Australia get Gold, as they have already done in swimming. (It's embarrassing to admit that I have difficulties remembering the words of the Australian national anthem.) We'll wait and see if Israel can do it this time.