No Chilling Allowed!

All we wanted to do this summer was hang out at the pool and turn the AC on full blast. But this summer, living in a usually sleepy suburb of Beer-Sheva, life is more about dragging the bikes out of the safe room, sirens at four in the morning (try explaining to Snow, the rabbit who lives there and usually gets ignored, why the surprise visit!) finding the local channel on your car radio (the one with the bad music and dumb jokes – that will broadcast the sirens) and figuring out who to carpool with on the way to work in the city. If you’re a mediocre driver like me, you don’t want to have to wonder what to do when the siren catches you on the highway and you have to pull over. You’d rather be with your buddy who can get hysterical with you. But that is not what’s freaking me out.

With a daughter in the army, a son who will be drafted to a combat unit next year, and two younger kids who I want a future for, it makes you think heavy thoughts. Like, is this the world we want for our kids? For future grandchildren? Will we even have a future? One thing I know for sure: we can’t keep living this way, innocent people in Gaza can’t either, and the cycle of hatred and violence just has to stop.  We’ve got to find a way to sit down and talk with the enemy, and YES! The enemy is the one you have to talk to, and reach an agreement with! So we, and our neighbors, can go back to the pool and complain about the weather. Sunscreen, anybody?