So, as I expected, as soon as my parents had arrived at the beginning of the month, I got too caught up in the torrent of family events to do any writing. The days leading up to Seth and Rachel's wedding were filled with preparations and lots of family together-time. We held a kiddush at the Kol Rina synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Nachlaot on the Shabbos before the wedding. The next Sunday I spent shopping for a suit at the mall with Avishai happily helping me out with an extra queer eye to find just the right style. He also loaned me a beautiful black woven kippah trimmed with blue to wear with my new threads at the wedding, and I thought it really made the ensemble.

It's very relieving to come home to find that the worst damage to my apartment was a month's worth of dust. No broken walls, no shattered windows, no holes in the roof, no looting. The physical damage all around town seems very minor: some broken glass, a foot-wide pothole in one of the roads, a dinged up building here or there. It's hardly noticeable compared to the road construction and crumbling ruins that are par for the course around here. People are wandering around the streets, hunting for spots where ketushas hit. I got home on Sunday night, and I've been staying inside mostly for the past couple days, delving into hermit mode in order to decompress from all the excitement of the past month.

The whirlwind is starting. My parents and Jonathan arrived in Israel yesterday, so most of the day was spent settling them down in their apartment and carousing about in the town's lovely restaurants with the collected Pearson and Siegel families. There's nothing like having the whole family together. Ashira provides us with endless amusement with her boundless energy. Jon and Rachel's brother Dan seem to be taking to each other instantly. Seth and Rachel only become more darling together as the awaited day approaches.