"Air Raid, Bitches, Air Raid!!!!!"

I missed a hell of a gathering last night with my grad school buddies cuz I felt a little off yesterday...thought I could pull through and get some work done in the archaeology library, but after finding a comfy little nook, gathering together some books and pulling out my laptop...I passed out cold for two hours atop volumes II and III of Civilizations of the Ancient Near East.
Nonetheless, after collecting some material to take home, I promised a few friends that I'd meet them downtown that evening. As I sat waiting for the bus home, my advisor and professor, Dr. Wayne Horowitz, turned up and sat down next to me. You have to see this guy. He's from New York, but has been living, working, and raising his family in Israel for over 2o years. He's got wild, wolfman hair and a beard, and wears baggy pants and crinkled shirts over his portly stomach, so that when you see him walking through campus, you wonder to yourself how this hobo/hungover Santa Claus got through security. You are, in fact, looking at a well-known and well-published genius in the field of Mesopotamian studies. We took the number 28 to the bus station, discussing how he got into this field ("I went to Brandeis and studied Arabic...then classical Greek, then....."), finding a subject you're good at and making it your career (he quoted Good Will Hunting), Israeli mentality, and the difficultly of learning Akkadian ("You'll see what I mean this year in my class...it's like going to the zoo vs. going on a safari...it makes a lot more sense when you see the cuneiform in its natural habitat..."--we both giggle. "Nice analogy." "Isn't it?" He giggles like a little kid.) Where was he going? "North, as far as you can go before you're in Lebanon." "Oh.............why?" "Cuz I live there." Giggle. That made my day and took my mind off of wanting to puke for 20 minutes. When I arrived home, I worked on my paper, answered about a half a dozen phone calls and apologetically dodged my way out of drinking, and went to sleep under 7 or 8 blankets, feeling terribly sorry for myself.
This afternoon, however, it suddenly struck me that Shabbat was on its way and I didn't have any food or water in the fridge. So I threw on some clothes and hopped on the bus to Machane Yehuda, a market in the city where you can buy fresh vegetables and fruit for pennies, all sorts of pita, and cheeses, meats, and ready made eggplant salads and the like. When I arrived, the bustle of shutting down had already begun, and I shoved my way, Israeli-style, through the dwindling crowd, determined to get what I came for. Just as I was finishing up, I saw a religious man standing near a burekas cart and blowing some sort of horn in peoples faces, tapping on his watch. "Somebody punch him!" I murmured to myself, wondering how the hell he figured it was his business if people were still buying and selling goods so close to the beginning of Shabbat.
I went to my bus stop and waited about 20 minutes before I, like the others there with me, realized we'd missed the last bus.
And suddenly I wished I had never even bothered going out...
Out of nowhere came a piercing, eardrum-blowing noise...something to wake the dead, I shit you not. People put down their bags and covered their ears. Some guys waiting for a cab next to me exchanged "Aw, shit" looks. Necks craned upwards to the top of a nearby building to see where the hell this god-awful cacophony was coming from.
It was the Shabbat siren. Yah, that damn thing tore right through my brain. I'd never heard it up close before, and here I was, trying to flag down a cab, right next to it. I'm sure our friend with the stupid horn was dancing a little jig at this point. As for me, I resigned myself to the fate of one not about to hail a cab and escape this hell anytime soon and lit up a smoke with a sneer. "Yah, it's Shabbat and I'm SMOKING! HA!"
The nice thing about Shabbat though....the water in the Druzes' apartment gets real hot and you can finally take a loooooooooong, relaxing shower. And then one of them says to you, "Tal! I haf to shower before da work. You use all da hot woter?" And you reply, "Of course not, honey, but you're fine...you don't need to shower. Besides, aren't you already late?"