Getting Comfy

September 6, 2001-The Swing of Things

No more parcels today. I’m busy ironing shirts and slacks something I haven’t done in years. I decided to run all the t-shirts through a short rinse and pop them into the dryer to get rid of wrinkles. It worked, but now storage is an issue. We have to fold everything since hanging space is at a premium.

It was another lovely day, although windy. We walked to a shopping mall for lunch. I think I’ll be able to eat outside every day. We then walked home along the ocean. Since it was windy, there were a lot of white caps. Lovely. We’re going to Syd and Janet Bruce for Shabbat dinner after services tomorrow night. Services are always at 6:30pm on Friday. Saturday services are at 10 AM. I offered to bring the fruit for tomorrow night. We went to a fruit store where some items were unfamiliar. One was a custard apple. We bought one and followed the instructions the cashier gave us. It has lumpy green skin and is the size of an apple. There are about ten black peanut sized seeds inside that aren’t eaten. You cut it in half and scoop out the soft, sweet, custardy smooth meat with a spoon. It’s delicious.

As open a society as it is here, they seem to regulate things that we leave to the private sector. Australia passed a law allowing single women to be artificially inseminated. This included lesbians. The Catholic Church is now trying to repeal the law.

I finally got a manicure today. There is a salon on the lower level of the building. It was a marvelous manicure. My nails have never been better treated. It included a hand and arm massage, exfoliation, and hot towel wrap. The cost was the same as at home.

Bits of History

David went to some kind of ritual committee meeting last night. Down the hall from the apartment where he was meeting was a women's guild meeting. There were ten women who sat around and gossiped. I was the youngest. It was quite lively but I’m not sure what their function is. In the course of the evening I heard stories of how they came to Australia. Two of the women have always lived within two blocks of each other but never met. They grew up in London, moved to Melbourne as newlyweds, and first met when they came to Gold Coast. They now live two doors apart. They have the same last names but their husbands aren’t related.

A widow originally from Portugal told a touching story. After her family came to Australia she married her husband, a Jewish Polish Holocaust survivor. She enjoyed sharing his holidays and going to synagogue with him. She decided she wanted to study for conversion but her husband discouraged her. He’d lost his entire family in the Holocaust and was afraid for her to be Jewish. She prevailed. When she was officially Jewish she wrote to her older brother in Portugal to tell him the news. He phoned her as soon as he got the letter. “Why,” he asked, “did you convert? Our family has always been Jewish.” It turns out that they were Moranos, secret Jews who went underground during the Inquisition and never “came out” again. She remembers her mother lighting candles, possibly for the Sabbath, and putting it in the window. When she returned to Portugal for a visit she went to the church she attended as a little girl. There were Hebrew inscriptions worked into the patterns on the wall. It was a secret synagogue. When she told the rabbi in Australia what she’d learned he told her she was doubly blessed.

When the meeting of the ritual committee was finished, some of the people joined us. Somehow we got onto the subject of oddball funerals. The best story told was of a woman who died here and wanted to be buried in London. She was a world traveler so the family was able to use her accumulated frequent flier miles to transport her body back to England.

Tomorrow David will be tied up visiting someone who’s very ill in the Brisbane area. He’ll be picked up at 9 AM and get home at 3 PM. I’ll have our car to myself. I’m getting my hair cut in the morning, but will explore after that. I hope I find my way home. This place has literally dozens of shopping malls. They all seem to be busy. Most are multi-level and huge. That does not include strip malls. If they only had shoes in my size!

Toby