Sorry for the delay….
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4th and final official wedding photos
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Batch #3
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MORE WEDDING PHOTOS FRPM THE REAL PHOTOGRAPHER
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It’s amazing how simple things become difficult.
Washing hands after dinner require getting up, walking a few steps, standing on the good leg, washing then going back to sit, a very slow process.
Its lucky I am almost not in pain, the 1st step after I get up is bad, but the rest are just fine. 2 days with no pain meds, very soon after surgery is a very good indication.
So I spend my days half working half watching movies
Armored is not a must, Australia should be kept down under, duplicity should never be seen- hoping next movies will be of better quality.
When I pass by the pack of water bottles, I throw some on the couch so I wouldn’t need to get up again.
Gave myself a sponge bath today, never did that before (need to add to the yearly summary), since I cannot shower yet, must keep the stitches dry, I think I am allowed to shower tomorrow with some water proof bandages.
House hunting is not easy when you can’t really climb stairs, we have a potential house with is in the forest, my mom and Alla went to see it today and saw deer in the back yard!!! How awesome.
Physical therapy is easy so far and kind of boring, but I try to keep the schedule, it will be painful in days to come when the exercises becomes more intense.
It’s not easy finding interesting things to write about when you are stuck at home.
Knowing I would be stuck at home I arranged my 2nd east vs west games.
Last year it was a fundraiser , today I was hoping it would be just a fun event. I had 9 people enrolled which is less than what I hoped it would be, but only 3 showed up.
This time I intended the games to be Americans vs foreigners – but how can you split 3 into 2 groups. Greg who is Ukrainian born, but is an American now was the American group, jadira from south American and I were the foreigners, we just played backgammon and headed home. Someone else came after an hour and a half, saw that we were only 3 and drove away (what a bitch!). I was kind of depressing, but no time to dwell on that, at least I tried doing something fun, will consider doing the 3rd annual next summer.
I have seen ‘despicable me’- go watch it- a fun funny cartoon.
I think the trouble with crutches is that you cannot carry anything with you, since both your hands are taken, I think a new kind of crutch is needed with some kind of pocket or hanger, that would make my life a lot easier, I would be surprised if this is not already invented.
Ok its late, I’m taking my magic legs and going to bed, 15 meters away or less – will take a few minutes…..
The real wedding photos- batch #1
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The link has the wedding closing video
In this clip they were suppose to show people tired and drunk etc… but everyone looked sober J
Enjoy
p.s its on facebook , you tube did not allow because of the song…
http://www.facebook.com/gil.even1#!/video/video.php?v=475680327795&ref=mf
All I did was ask for chicken soup and I got some weird faces staring at me.
Since the beginning of time, chicken soup has been the ultimate cure (except for chickens of course, for them it cured nothing).
It’s not Tuesday about 24 hours after my surgery and I am feeling very good, pain is mild too non existing, I am on the couch, with a book the TV remote (with a DVD inside ready to play) my lap top, water, ice pack on my thigh above the bandagers and a pillow under my leg,,, all the essentials are here.
I also have a team of specialists taking care of me; a pharmacist (alla) a nurse (mom) a DR and a physical therapist (Alla’s sisters Inna and Rita) so no need to worry.
In the realm of normal outcome there were 3 possibilities for this surgery
1. Creating a hair line fracture to the hip- this is worst case- meaning I can’t stand for 8 weeks
2. Shaving off the bone and cutting the extra cartridge which means the fastest recovery but not the best long term result
3. Or shaving off the bone and sawing the soft tissue back together, which is a longer recovery then option 2 but better in the long run- since I need the tissue, and it doesn’t grow back
Lucky me it ended with option 3
So now I have 2 weeks on crutches, the slow recovery with lots of physical therapy and hoping to do a 5 k in November and a triathlon next July (if you don’t aim high you never get anywhere)
I kind of kept this operation a secret, not because I think it is a secret, I just didn’t want to think about it.
I started having pains on my left hip months ago, in the beginning I thought it was related to my turn muscle from last year, so I ignored it, later I waited more (while practicing to the 21 k run) which wasn’t smart, but it grew worse and worse, so I decided to check it (or more accurately, alla said enough is enough and booked an appointment for me).
The issue was quickly diagnosed as a labarum tare- meaning my hip bone is genetically bad (always blame the parents), it’s not the shape it should be, and because I am an active person (this injury is for active people), the bone pinched the soft tissue causing it to tear. There is no medication solution, for a while I took an anti inflammatory which just helped with the pain and prevented my continuous limping, but it only masked the problem and didn’t solve it. Unfortunately this problem has but one solution, shaving off the bone. I think they used a Gillette razor.
We didn’t want to schedule it earlier because of the wedding ,but didn’t want to wait too long since I am still damaging my hip which may lead to hip replacement if I don’t take care of it now. I sure don’t want a hip replacements, I like mine (usually) we are attached to one another so bone shaving it is.
I wasn’t nervous the days before, my new job at work kept me very busy which is for the best since just thinking about it would make me nervous, so I just didn’t. alla was worried for us both.
Lucky there is a very good surgeon for this kind of problem here in Cleveland. The best in the world is somewhere close to Denver, but I didn’t want the hassle of flying back with a bad hip.
An orthopedic in Israel told me that no one in Israel is good enough for this operation since its fairly new and you need practice with the new technique, so again we were lucky to find an experienced surgeon 15 minutes from home.
The morning of the surgery I was finely anxious, since I had nothing to do but think about it, I brought a book with me to the OR, but read half a page before they called me in. the room had a nice photo of green terrace in Malaysia and I was trying to focus on that, while they plugged me to the IV and all the pre op stuff. At some point the anesthesiologist came in and he was clearly un American, he asked where is my accent from, I asked the same back, but he has no accent- he said it was from Philadelphia, I meant to ask where is he from- I think somewhere between India and Persia, but I don’t know the answer, a few seconds later I was out.
They told me that they will take the breathing tube out of my throat when I wake up but I may not remember this, and I don’t. I woke up without pain- but still took 2 ‘Vicodin’s within the 1st hour.
A nurse came in an explained about the discharge process, the rehab exercises and what am I expected to feel. Both alla and mom were in the room at this time, since I was somewhat drowsy. I thought it was the medication causing that, but it was probably the nurse! Speaking in a monotonous voice, she gave all the info and was very efficient, just a little boring.
My meds now are Vicodine for pain- I took 1 last night, I can take more, but have not so far, since the pain is under control; Valium for muscle spasms which are the main cause for discomfort for this type of surgery, had 1 yesterday and 1 this morning, also a lot less than I am allowed to take, which means I am in good condition. And Naproxen which is what I took before the surgery, it eases the inflammation in the hip- this med I must take no matter what, so I do.
I slept the 1st night without pain which is great.
The major problem for me is #1
I didn’t know it before but I am allergic to be iodine(which is not a med, just iodine) I had more than a few scratches in the past, I don’t recall being allergic to that, so they gave me lots of Benadryl.
This caused 2 issues
The 1st dry mouth- that was annoying, I was thirsty nonstop, just because it was so dry, this feeling is almost gone. The 2nd problem was my relaxed muscles- it’s a good thing to have a relaxed hip- but there other muscles it affects
Going to the bathroom is a problem, which no one told me about, the muscles there do not listen- no need to go to details, but this was the main discomfort issues the 1st day, and it got slightly better as the day went by, I think it should be ok by now
Going to attempt it now, wish me luck.
Oh, one more thing, the chicken soup, the faces I got is because chicken soup is not a breakfast soup, and I was offered burkas instead (burekas is not a breakfast soup either, but never mind that), the soup was good.
More updates on day 3…
Imagine you are a stain, you were recently born, your mother is a patch of mustard from a burger and your dad is ketchup from the same meal. Not to be racists but you are a stain of color (yellow orange). Your new land is a relatively new, kind of nice polo shirt, and you make your home in areas which are not visible.
Now, being a stain, how would you feel if an approaching female, from an angle that does not allow her to notice you. So how is it possible that Alla would see this stain on me a second after we meet, there was no way for her to see, is that some weird freaky 8th sense that woman have?
I detected a vision problem recently
I seem to be unable to spot obvious items that are found in the fridge. A common misplaced item is eggs, I am unable to spot them.
I looked and they weren’t there. After several such occurrences lately I decided to recheck. Kids can you help me detect the eggs in the fridge? I have no idea how I did not see them, however this happens often, the last thing I misplaced in the fridge was a whole chicken!!!.
In good news, the wedding album is ready and the many many good photos and I will be bombing your emails next weekJ once I get them.
Recent workloads have caused me to miss 2 shows!!! I completely forgot them – the scorpions fair well tour and bon jovi….
No time to continue today, battery dying…
cheers
So, we entered New Hampshire, the live free or die state, I forgot that I had planned to ask a local what is the meaning of the slogan, well next time.
Right after the entrance we saw a big liquor tax free liquor store, where I loaded up on my personal booze, ice cream. We drove slowly because of the heavy traffic of bostoneers heading north (too many of them), until we went on a smaller country toad leading for the white mountains. We pulled over at a side pizza place, and surprisingly enough, had a soccer game on, I can on the 84th minute of the Spain Paraguay match, and the only goal that game was scored on the 83rd minute…I missed it by 1 minute! I am completely missing this world cup, such a shame.
I got a barbeque chicken pizza, something I recently discover and like a lot, and it was good. We kept going north till we stopped at north Conway, which was our lodging town for this trip. At the pizza place we saw an ad for a Bavarian chocolate haus, and the girls (we were 8 on this trip; with Irma and Debb in our car) really wanted to go, I cannot say no to chocolate, so when we passed by the store, we stopped. The house looks like a cute Bavarian house, the chocolate variety is not that big, but it was good enough. They had a nice sign saying “your husband just called, he said, it’s ok for you to buy whatever you want”. It was getting late, but the sun sets late, so we went to a water fall very close to mt Washington and did a little tiny hike to the falls. I like waterfalls. Then we went back to town to check in and go to dinner(pizza was at 4, chocolate at 6, this was already 8:30, we don’t stop to eat every 2 seconds, but the distances are just never ending…).
Oh, before that, we stopped for another little hike, which were supposed to lead to another waterfall. We got out of the car, put on our hiking shoes, put the stuff against mosquitoes and went in. Alla led the way and less than a minute after the start she jump high, due to a snake on the path just below her feet. The snake probably also screamed, but we couldn’t here, since none of us speak snake. The snake was perhaps 50cm long, tiny without clear marking of being poisonous, but hey, a snake is a snake, you stay away, and we did.
We kept walking another minute and hit a river, and the path ended on the other part, blocked by heavy vegetation. We walked the 2 minutes back, seeing the snake again.
North Conway is a ski town, but this is not ski season, but it is still a very nice small town, though bigger then a small town, it maintained the feel of a small town. We went to an Irish place overlooking the river. In this place all the employees had an Irish accent; I checked, the waitress said that all employees picked up the accent from the Irish owner. I waitress happened to be Polish. After eating Pizza for lunch, I settled for something Irish; a Gaelic Pizza, I don’t recall seeing this dish in Ireland; this Pizza has lots of potatoes in it and was good while all enjoyed a Pear and cheese salad , which looked and tasted better than what it sounds. After 2 days of driving, we crashed to sleep.
After a good simple breakfast at the nice lodge ( large green back yard, leading to a forest, and right there you have a little creek, and a pond in the back yard, a trampoline, tennis court and a hot tub which was closed for the day by the time we checked in) we drove to the mountain, parked, took a deep breath, took a before photo and began to climb.
The 1st leg is a 4 kilometer of mildly steep hike, not easy, but not that hard, with some steep parts, you walk in a forest of birch trees and some other kinds, we kept passing over the Tuckerman river, and it was pretty interesting (it also had some waterfalls). The wind was the story, this mountain was known to have recorded the strongest wind ever of 231mph on the top; today would average 40mph which is high; in the forest we were protected by the trees but we kept hearing the wind howling above us. After a couple of rest stop and lots of photos, we reached the caretaker hut, which marks the end of the “easy” part. We used an old style pump to fill up on water from the pure Tuckerman’s river which flows from the top of the mountain.
3 nights before, it snowed on this peak (which is notorious for changing weather and people getting stuck in freak storms), but today it was 90 at the valley and very nice weather for us due to the clouds, the elevation and the wind.
Right after the hut, it got real steep, literally stairs all the way up, but not regular hiking stairs, but more rocks on top of rocks, with a need for large steps to reach the next one. That was a very tiring effort, but the view of the river, the mountain and the quick moving clouds over the top were remarkable. After a very steep part we hit the tree line and the vegetation changed to bushes and small flowers, all the flowers that grew here, were growing just under rocks as a wind shield. We reached the beginning of a long ravine, which had a large patch of melting snow (yes, snow in July), the river was passing through the patch making it look amazing. At one point while I was busy catching my breath, Alla saw a large chunk of ice breaking. At this area the steps were higher and higher and we had to start suing our hands to climb. I was beginning to cramp, just warning cramps at this time but was getting worried. An older Bostonian couple of about 55 started the hike the same time we did, and we kept passing each other, it didn’t cheer me up J, they happen to have kids studding in the Cleveland area. We finally hit the shoulder of the mountain, and from there it was only 0.8 miles to the summit, not protected by the ravine any more, the winds hit us hard (the wind came in from the other side of the mountain and were not still in full potency, but if you stand up and don’t pay attention, they can topple you over. The hike from here is the hardest; it’s on sharp rocks half the time, and you really have to watch yourself, my right thigh was cramping and was getting out of breath, so I stopped often (once or twice after every step), I am in worse shape than I thought was, the rest of the gang had to wait for us several times. This last part took over an hour of slow slow slow climb, then finally we were there. On the top on mount Washington on 4th of July! The peak of new Hampshire (and the US north east), the hard but definitely accomplishable task was accomplished, 5 hours climb.
The thing with this mountain is that it’s a drivable mountain, there is a train that leads to the top and a road, that came from the other side. So you hike up and you see lots of people, the winds are much stronger and colder at the top, and the temperature was 56f (not including the wind); we walked up to the sign stating the height of the mountain which was swarmed by hikers and regular drive up tourists alike; I thought there should have 2 lines, with express for the hikers, move over car people!.
Lucky this mountain is not empty, there was a cafeteria on top and I had a much need new England clam chowder, which was lame for such a soup (this after all being the highest point in new England), and alla had a chilly was wasn’t very good either, but both were warm and that was the point of them. We got some souvenirs and went to the other side of the mountain, which is unprotected by the winds, and wooooowwww, you cannot even stand there, the winds just kick you back so hard. I quickly went back inside. We took the shuttle down, I don’t think I could have walked down with my cramps, even that was the original plan.
We drove back to town and stopped to gas up the car and the soul (got a Hershey bar and a cold drink), which I badly needed and then we went to the luge.
I did a luge once in Israel, forgot where and it was fun but short, so I wasn’t that excited about it. But this ski resort (no ski now) operates as a kind of water and adventure park. We took the ski cable cars up to where the luge begins and passed just above a family of wild turkey, which I missed getting a shot of. And luged down. The luge is plastic made, and resembles a water slide, but it’s a mile long and feels a lot faster; it sways a lot and I felt like the luge would come out of the slide, but it was fun. With another pick me up ice cream later I was feeling my strength returning. We passed by a ski store which was going out of business (or such that has that sign constantly up) and our cheap vacation became expensive as we both got skis and I also got a pair of ski boots. I got the beginner set, alla got a fancy shmency advanced pair (since well, she knows how to ski).
We went to another lodge which has the look and feel of a hostel (the good hostels), but had private rooms. The owner Steve, is a character; he cooks deserts for some restaurants in town, was very helpful wit directions and advice, discounts and all around a very nice guy- so when in north Conway, stop at the Nereledge inn on river street, ask for Steve.
We had a shower and went to (take a wild guess) eat at the moat, for a chance I didn’t have pizza , and got a lasagna while Alla enjoyed a burger.
This was 4th of july and the town had some events planned with fireworks and other stuff, but we crashed in, didn’t even stop for desertJ
Next morning at 5am we were on the way, its now after 5 pm and we are almost at the Ohio border.
We drove through the famous white mountain road (which should be traveled in the fall), now it’s all green, we saw some more wild turkey but did not see black bear or mouse, both are common in the area. Then drove through Vermont with its little towns (but officially we were never there, drive through does not count) , went through new York state to Albany, and from there, the high way all the way, and this way still goes on…
That’s it for today, and hour to go before we get home.
Cheers
A weird phenomena I notice here, when locals make a right turn, the street they turn on has 2 lanes, I am used to people turning to the near lane, this way you don’t grab both lanes while you turn, but here, they always turn to the far lane, not sure what’s the point of that, perhaps it’s an easier curve, well just an observation.
This will be my 4th fourth of July in the US (1st when I was 13, a Florida trip) and I never celebrated it in Cleveland, this year it not different; road trip.
We are headed to new Hampshire (#state 33) to climb mt Washington, the highest peak in the north east of the US. The Hermon is higher than this one, but it’s not close by.
So right now we are in east upstate new York. We left yesterday around 4 and hi horrible holiday traffic right away, some accident, took us over an hour and a half to drive 17 miles. That is always bad, but worse before a 14 hour drive…
But the weather is nice, we spent the night at Albany, arrived at 2 am, and now it’s around 11 and after doing a figure 8 due to a crazy GPS and wasting another half an hour back tracking.
I will tell you more about it on the way back, we haven’t done it yet.
Ok where were we, oh yes, we just took our upgraded car from budget and headed out to the saba well, for Alla’s first look at the wedding venue. That day there was some wedding of celebs, it was a closed venue, so we just saw the entrance, Alla liked the placed right away, so she would still get her first look of the whole place on the wedding night itself.
So we headed home and met the family, had a very nice dinner, swapped gifts, kisses, hugs and memories. Usually on my first night back I would go later to a movie or something with friends, but this night we just crashed.
Next morning I went to work and alla had her session with the hair dresser guy, she did not like the suggested hair cut, but for now nothing happened. Later that day mom, moti and Alla picked me up from work and we headed south, we stopped at beer sheva to meet my brother Yaron and his family and after a good shwarma dinner (after eating shwarma for lunch), we drove to the Massada to see the opera nebuko on the foot hills of the mountains.
Never been to an opera before, and the jet leg was kicking in, we got slightly lost in Arad (by following wrong verbal directions this time) so we asked someone who said she was going to the show, and you can follow me, we did we there is no trust in the world. My mom and moti called their friends who were at this show the night before to check, they called a hotel and impersonated as guests (good example for the kids (us) in the back) to get directions, then they called another hotel and impersonated there as well, apparently we had booked the entire dead sea hotels area. Finally we got there and with some time to spare. We were all happily surprised by the organization and the facilities, they had lots of booths to server coffee, various cakes and refreshments, and the entire area was made to look like ancient times with pillars and actors dressed in toga’s or posing with spears.
As I said, this would be my first opera, and I didn’t even know what was the story about, so we got the booklet and had a quick review before the show. The weather was great and the remoteness of the place add to the feeling. The show began and luckily they had sub titles on the side screen so I could follow along the Italian singers. Not knowing Opera, I didn’t quite appreciate the music and the voices, but it was impressive. The matching lights on the mountains, the horses on stage, the camels, the floating torches (small balloons with actual fire in them , which is used to heat the gas to lift the thing up, it doesn’t stay up for much long but it’s pretty). There were 4 acts, alla completely dozed off in 2 of them and I struggled hard to stay awake and somehow managed.
We had some celebs with the ex for former prime minister Barak (surrounded by secret service detail) and Noam shalit, who impressively attempts to maintain a normal life style.
I would sum that I enjoyed the opera, I do need to understand more Italian. The organization continued on the exit and at 1-2 am we left and drove 2 hours to the air port to welcome melita and ben.
Melita is the daughter of my grandmother friend. They escaped both Hitler and Stalin and the experiences they had should be in a book of its own, even if they prefer not to speak about more things. So Melita is my moms sister by experience, they came from Venezuela to the wedding. We welcomed them and they went sleep and so did we, it was 5:30 am.
Before 8, I was already headed for work, tough day and I was so tired. I think Alla went shopping that day, he had a more relaxed time and good to relax having just graduated. I think Thursday nights we met my friends, I am almost positive about it (note to self, blog closer to the events).
On Friday we woke late, took honey for a walk to the super market, then began the rush, we went to do a test run for make up for alla , then to visit Blooma (alla’s mom good friend) in Tel Aviv who quickly got a reminder of my diverse taste in food (I couldn’t eat any thing she served, I settled for something small, don’t recall what it was) , then rushed to meet the DJ (we were 30 minutes late) and spent a couple of hours completing the songs list for the wedding. From there we went to rosh haaian to research possible wedding photos location. We found that Tel Afek is closed mid week after 4, so we drove around looking for another spot, the photographer offered an industrial area, and I was shocked (my mom the same) I like nature!. We stopped to eat a great meal at avazi. Then went home to change for the batchlore \rette party
More on that in the next one,
We are about to enter new hempshire…J
