Ted’s Aliyah, Day 8

Again, this is not MY writing, it is the only-slightly-deranged musings of my very talented husband, Teddy (Akiva) MacLeod.  If you like his writing, check out his art (sort of!).

Day Eight – Wednesdays with a Touch of Madness

I’m sitting outside a bank in Haifa while Tzivia Jennifer MacLeod is inside trying to extract some money. Sure, she’s probably NOT having the happiest time in the world, but I think I’ve got it worst. Twenty feet away from me is one of those buskers playing away on his cheesy, 60’s sounding electric organ. While I don’t mind the kitschy sound itself, (in fact, I really enjoy it), the guy keeps playing “Spanish Flea” over and over and over again. I think it is the only song he knows how to play.

That, in itself, would be fine, except for a few odd elements to his playing.

So far, he has run through the same song about five times already and I keep waiting to hear the chorus to the song, which I am now convinced that he has no clue how it goes. Whenever it is time to play the actual chorus, he bridges off into some Russian song, or sometimes I suspect he just makes up a few bars of something that could almost be “The Girl From Ipanema”, but not quite.

And if you think playing the same song over and over could get monotonous, every few minutes, he will try to mix it up, by switching the organ from Brass Horns to Harp Strings or whatever settings he has, to make it sound different. This is what he calls changing it up??? IT’S DRIVING ME INSANE!!!

(So we figured how to get the money we desperately need right now, without having a bank account yet, by using the “InnerNet” to wire money from our Canadian bank accounts to the nearby Western Union office here in Israel. A temporary fix, but what a production!)