November 26, 1972
More touring, this time to Megiddo. This is the excavation on which James Michener based “The Source,” as its history goes back to pre-historic times. Why Megiddo, you might ask? Because it’s raining, the south is flooded and in the north there’s fighting. Our touring left us muddy. But we really can’t just sit at home when there’s so much to see. My oldest son Ben especially enjoys following the arrow, the one that shows which way we should see a ruin. He just leaps like a little goat and we chase after him.
Muddy and wrecked, we went into Netanya and had the greatest meal in a French restaurant. The onion soup was like the one in Les Halles. Even with the kids in tow, the meal only cost $12.
Speaking of food, we’re going to our last cooking school dinner—Italian, so it should be good. The Chinese one—not exactly Chinese. My husband Abe also got tickets to see Ester Ofarim. I love her music.
Why haven’t I mentioned Thanksgiving, you might ask? Mainly because it was a non-event. I made a meal, but a friend from army days came over. By the time he left, it was bedtime for the kids. Oh well, leftovers.
On a positive note, I lost two dress sizes. Thank you, my cooking and kosher food.
And now for the family trauma, meaning, of course, Heskel’s arrival. Abe did take the kids to see him. I stayed away. But I couldn’t avoid him forever. However, I spent most of the time talking to his wife Doris. She says he’s the same and she thinks she can put up with it for one more year before asking for a divorce. She would have asked for a legal separation already, but she was afraid Heskel would take the kids. Her lawyer told her, if she came on this trip, she couldn’t come back and immediately ask for that separation, so she has to wait it out. At least she’s leaving early to see her mother in Switzerland. Then she’s hoping to go back to work as a nurse, which is her profession. She needs to get her U.S. degree, brushing up with a few courses, but Heskel won’t give her the money to go to school, such a winner.
Meanwhile, he’s complaining to Abe that we’re not visiting him as often as we should. Well, he already stopped Doris and the children from visiting me by lying about when they were to go to Abe’s sister’s apartment. Abe just informed him that we had our own lives, and they didn’t revolve around him. This is a far cry from when we were first dating. I told him I found his brother’s demeanor abhorrent and he told me, if I couldn’t get along with his family, maybe we shouldn’t get married. It took him a while to learn to deal with the great manipulator. No, folks, that’s not me. If it were, I’d never have lived all those years in Urbana!