Not Everything in Israel is Glamorous, Exotic, or Holy

Take for instance cleaning. The buildings are made out of stone, inside and out. The walls are concrete on the inside and beautiful Jerusalem stone on the outside. The floors are lovely stone tiles, cold to the foot and always collecting fuzzies. Because of all the stone you never hear of a building burning down here, just maybe a stove fire, which of course can be dangerous. While it’s a little cold in the wintertime, I hear that I’ll really appreciate it in the summer because they stay nice and cool.

One of the problems with concrete and stone is mold. One night I was laying in bed reading and I looked up and saw mold growing over my head. I jumped up. I looked around the apartment and then noticed mold around the doorway, around the windows and of course, in the bathroom. Mold had come to stay. I opened a few windows because I could imagine the mold growing in my lungs during the night.

The next morning I went to Moshe at the hardware store and asked him what to do. Thank goodness for Moshe, what a nice man. He hand delivered after work a drying rack that I had bought from him. He has read my water bill and told me how to pay it. He figured out how to attach the bookshelves that fell off of the wall one night all of a sudden.

Moshe said, “bleach, it’s the only thing.” So I bought some bleach and mixed it with water and swiped the ceiling and walls and bathroom tiles. I have to say the place looked pretty good. But, to my complete disgust, the mold grew back. It’s me verses the mold now. Every month a new batch of mold grows back to replace the old. And now, I’m down to using straight bleach to combat my nemesis.

As I did today. The place looks great. Underneath my fingernails, it’s is the cleanest I’ve ever seen them. A little Van Morrison’s Moondance makes the job go much quicker. Only problem is, I have to vacate the apartment for a while otherwise I will pass out from bleach asphyxiation. Oh well, maybe I’ll stop to say hello to Moshe on my way to the Post Office, another excellent adventure.