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This morning I took Hila, who had stayed by us both Friday and Saturday, to the regional high school where she had some meetings. Since the school is close to the college I went to my office to work from there. I got home about half an hour ago - 16:30 - and tried to get a headstart on what's become my daily report. There were few of us on campus, which was predictable. The semester hasn't started (and will probably only start via distance learning) so lecturers and students weren't there, and the relatively young mothers who make up a substantial part of the staff were home with their kids. They have permission to work from home, though I doubt that they can actually accomplish much workwise. For me, however, it was nice to get out of the house, even if the change was simply sitting at my desk. I actually got some work done, though not necessarily what I'd wanted, or intended, to.
I wasn't in a hurry this morning. I knew that I'd be the only person in my department (one of my co-workers is stuck, if that's the word, in India with her husband - they were supposed to return today) and Hila only had to get to the school by 09:30. Because of that we expected to sleep in a bit. But a siren at 07:30 brought us to our safe room for about ten minutes, and after the all clear I didn't fall back to sleep. While there we heard a couple of loud booms. Distinctly louder than what we've been used to. A bit later in the morning we learned, along with a photograph to prove it, that something substantial, either the missile or a large part of the interception, fell in a field only a few minutes to the west of us.
Throughout the day things were quiet, but about as soon as I got home we had another preliminary alert, followed shortly with a get-to-your-safe-room siren. Tzippi had a piano student at the time so the three of us went in the room, but it was only for a couple of minutes. Phil and Debbie were out walking and entered the shelter next to the kol-bo - yet another interesting experience of life in Israel.
Shortly after the all clear my 93 year old computer student contacted me. She needed something from the local pharmacy and wanted to know if I could get it for her. She asked if I was home and I told her I'd just arrived. She apologized and didn't want to "disturb" me, but I knew that she not only needed me to get to the pharmacy but also to check if what she needed was in stock. Over the years she's developed numerous computer skills, but today almost everything gets done via our phones, including getting a code that you have enter to prove you're you, and that can be rather daunting. It's less than a five minute drive to the pharmacy and happily there wasn't a line. I'd pre-ordered an appointment, but I was already back in my car a few minutes before the time I'd succeeded in arranging. And then, shortly after getting back home we had an additional alert followed by a siren. But at least as of this writing - 00:30 - that's the extent of this past day's "excitement".
I didn't catch much of today's news, and though there's nothing wrong with letting things happen without knowing about them, I readily admit to being a news junkie and almost feel guilty not knowing what happened today, even if it's more of the same.
Shortly after writing the above Tzippi got out of the shower and I went in. I barely started soaping myself when she told me that we had a preliminary alert. I suppose that I can forgive the Iranians for many things - but forcing me to take a super-swift shower isn't one of them. And what's more, in the end we didn't get a siren to enter our safe room so I could have continued to enjoy the hot water. So here I am, finishing this off, preparing to shut down (and shave and brush my teeth which I haven't yet done since I hurried out of the shower) and send this ... and we now have another preliminary alert. I won't send this until we know what materializes from that. As I write this we're hearing a few booms - more distant than what we heard this morning, but still somewhere in our vicinity. But we haven't received a siren that tells us we have to be in our safe rooms. And now, with the all clear for our area (or more to the point, a bit north of us) I'll finish up and click on Send, and hope that until the morning, at least by us, things will be quiet.
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