Grumpy Old Parrot

I'm trying. I'm really trying. Particularly in view of Yom Kippur only having finished a few hours ago and with all the angsting I've been doing (to which you've all been privy) about the rifts within the Jewish Nation, and the ongoing strife and distrust between Israelis and Palestinians, and, well, all the other pertinent problems of the world. So I told myself, during one particularly long moment in synagogue yesterday when I was not fantasizing about crumpets, that I would turn over a new leaf as of tomorrow, and start loving my neighbour as myself. Treat as I would want to be treated. Do as I would want to be done by. That sort of thing. Start with myself, and then deal with the rest of the world.

I guess with all that food-starved idealism and pray-age, I hadn't counted on a few things spoiling my new direction. One such diversion was my sunglasses getting nicked at the pool today. Sorry, let me not be quick to judge! Temporarily misplaced. (Actually, one never can tell in this city. It is as likely that I'll never see them again than it is that a Good Samaritan- or, at my pool, a Good Moroccan or a Good Russian- will hand them in pronto, and they'll be waiting for me, all polished and tied with a bow, the next time I check with the lifeguard. )

Meanwhile, a girl cannot shade her eyes with her hair alone, so it was off to the local Sunglasses Shop before the early close to see if they could repair my spare pair, which had dismantled itself rather ungraciously one Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago. But today was clearly Jobsworth Day in this particular shop, and they wouldn't. Oops, couldn't. There I go again with the judgemental thing. Who knows, maybe they were also having crappy days and were irritated by lots of incidental nonsense so as to make treating me with a level of disdain normally reserved for trodden-in-dogpoo acceptable. Am I exaggerating? Probably. But their at-ti-tood sure as hell made my whole love-thy-neighbour operation infinitely more difficult. As did today's crop of dreadful drivers, the family stomping in the stairwell at 6am, and all the people on the main pedestrian mall. All of them. Yes, indeed, it was a great start to the year's campaign.

Anyway, if today was anything to go by, I'm clearly going to need much more than luck trying to keep this up for the next 364 days. So if you see someone walking around Jerusalem with her hands over her eyes muttering incoherently to herself, please be nice to her. Thanks.