After A Month

October 1, 2001-Gay or Military?

On the radio this morning I heard an artist/writer being interviewed about his time in Afghanistan with the Taliban. He said it struck him as a somewhat gay culture. It was totally male and had erotic overtones of the younger men serving the older ones. One example was that of the young men bringing coffee or tea to the leaders in the morning. I don’t know. Maybe living in dirty tents turns some men on, but it doesn’t do it for me. It just sounds like military life as it has been lived for eons.

October 2, 2001-Mini-Rebellion

They get a surprisingly good crowd here for Sukkot. Jack and Margaret took us to lunch afterwards. They are part of the glue that holds this place together. They’re Scottish. I was told in no uncertain terms that the drink is Scotch and the people are Scottish or Scots. I love their accents. She, a convert, is our soloist and he’s the bar/bat mitzah tutor and volunteer rabbi-for-life. Ten years ago she dedicated herself to learning to chant the service and has been doing it ever since. He is retired from Honeywell. This is his hobby and passion.

Before services this morning there was a disagreement about whether or not to turn the air conditioning on. It was really warm today and I know that David gets hot under his robe. I voted for A/C so the nay-sayer put it on low. The other man wanted the air on cooler and was getting nowhere, so he went out and bought a fan. David now has total control over the fan. I don’t know if they're being frugal or heeding complaints that it was cold during the holiday services. In any event, the air conditioning rebellion has been quelled for the time being.

Going Places

We went to Qantas yesterday to check out how our Aussie Passes worked and ended up booking a trip for Cairns (Great Barrier Reef) and the Center (Ayres Rock and Alice Springs). One of the major Australian airlines, Ansett, has gone under and Qantas is struggling to take up the slack. They just don’t have enough seats. Add to that the fact that planes flying to the center are very small and it became a problem finding seats for the times we wanted. There are also a limited amount of rooms at Ayres Rock so we were concerned about getting a hotel. We made a split second decision to hold the flights while the agent looked around for a better date. When she went back to check on our reservations there were no seats left on our flights at all. We were lucky she had them on hold. With airline seats going empty all over the world, this is a unique problem. Qantas’ international flights are not full either. We had to book part of the trip off the Aussie Pass due to the limited seating in that class designation. Thanks to the great exchange rate it only is costing us $US200 more. Plus, when all is said and done, we get the GST (government sales tax) back when we leave.

Toby