the shoe repair shack
The shoe shack, and music videos.
Today was kind of slow starting.
I wrote some letters on the computer, and Angie went to read in a little park nearby. Dov came by, and mentioned that his parents will be coming on the 26th. That means that Angie and I will have to find someplace else to stay the night before her flight back to America.
When I went to find Angie later, I couldn't locate the park that she had described to me earlier. I walked around for a while looking, and I didn't see her. I did, however, spot a sign for a shoe repair shop, and my left boot needs a new sole.
I approached the shady little doorway to the shack, and said "Shalom?" There was a dark old man sitting on a couch just to the left inside the door, who answered back. I showed him my boot, and tried to ask him how much it would cost ("Kama?"), and how long it would take (I spun my finger around on my wrist, with a questioning look). I couldn't understand a word he said, and he spoke only as much English as I do Hebrew, so conversation was a challenge, and involved a lot of body language. We quickly got off the subject of my boot, and I learned that he has two children, and one of them is a locksmith in Los Angeles. I thought he said that he married a woman from the United States, but I must have misunderstood, because he probably would have spoken more English if that was the case. I took off my boot and handed it to him. He examined it closely and got a piece of paper and a pen to write down "35". I took the pen and wrote down "25", then he struck out his "35" and wrote down "30". I took the pen again, and started to draw a clock to ask how long it would take, and he started to say something loudly, thinking that I was still trying to bargain. Eventually I determined that it would be better to come back after Yom Kippur, since he was too busy to fix the boot now.
On my way back to the apartment, I ran into Angie, sitting on a bench. We decided to go get some dinner, and went downtown to the Yemenite restaurant where I had eaten with Zev a while back.
That night, we drove to Tel Aviv to meet Ron and Missy at Cafe Basel again. We arrived about and hour early, and Angie went to wait at the cafe while I slept in the car. After a nap, I went to go wait with Angie. Walking to the cafe, I met Ron and Missy. We went on to find Angie, but she wasn't at the cafe anywhere. Missy, Ron, and I walked on down to the phone that Angie had used yesterday to call them, but she wasn't there either. I began to get a little worried, because there wasn't anywhere else that I thought Angie would go, especially if she was waiting to meet someone. Missy attempted to tell me how safe it was in Tel Aviv, and asked Ron to do so also. They said there is hardly any rape in Israel, because sleeping with another man's wife is one of the greatest sins in Judaism. I continued looking, and eventually found her walking back to the phone booth. She had been shopping in a book store.
Ron sings in a band called "Portrait". There are five people in the band. Ron needed to go to a video studio where some friends were editing video clips from one of his concerts into a music video. On the way, he stopped to pick up a couple of steak shwarmas and a bottle of wine as dinner for the studio guys. We arrived at the studip, which was a non-descript, industrial warehouse. A set of wooden stairs between chain link fences led into the main lobby, where we met Elan. Elan is the director for Ron's video, and was very polite - offering each of us something to drink before returning to work with the editor at the control panel. In the meantime, we shuttled over to another video editing room, where Yariv was directing the production of a video portfolio of commercials he had directed in the past. He is planning to use the video to help find a job in the United States.
Yariv is only 25 years old, and has already produced about 30 commercials. He started directing when he was in the Israeli Army - making movies about moral situations that sometimes arise in the military. For example, one of the movies was about an Israeli soldier who fell in love with an Arab person. He says that making movies for the government is great because you can have anything you want. For example, if you want 5 helicoptors, 50 tanks, and 3 jet fighters to come over the hill for a scene, you can have them! After the military, he went into more commercial stuff, and seems to be doing quite well.
We went back to the first editing room, where Elan and Ron were editing a tape from a recent Portrait concert. It's strange to see someone you know on stage in a video. At one point, there were lots of fireworks above, and Ron said it was so loud they couldn't hear what they were playing.
Afterward, Elan suggested we all go to the grand opening of his friend's new dance club. Lilac, also a director from the studio, joined us. We drove around for a while, but couldn't find the club, so we said goodbye to Elan and Lilac, and went back to Ron's place.
Ron lives in a flat located on the top floor of a building that his father owns. It is a very nice place, with plenty of room and even a large balcony outside. He has the type of house that I might have if I never planned to move again. There are lots of toys, pictures, and doodads all over the place. Approximately 33% of the total mass of Ron's possessions has no practical purpose. From the Cadillac tissue paper dispenser to the grammophone refrigerator magnet - they are simply there for fun.
Ron brought out some sliced watermelon, grapes, pita bread, and humus. We all went out and sat at a table on the balcony. Rons speaks excellent English, though not quite perfect. Once while we were discussing cheese, Ron said that the type of cheese we had at the cafe yesterday was made from goose milk. As I contemplated exactly how one would milk a goose, we determined that he really meant goat's milk.
We talked until about 4AM. Eventually Angie went to sleep on a couch inside, and I slept outside on an old couch on the patio. The stars shone clearly overhead and suburb noises echoed off the buildings down below as I slipped into dream.