Re: This Sabbath

July 7, 2001

> Ruthie

>

> I hope everything was a bit more settled this Sabbath.

> As I am slightly sozzled I have a thought for you. Next time the

teenager decides to make his presence know in the wind up mode think '

I am a swan, I am beautiful, elegant and serene, I will not rise to

this bait, ' just glide through it and remember don't let Yeshaya see

you paddling like stink to keep afloat and if he really get you

uptight remind yourself you can always give him a good peck!!!!

Yup it was much better. Even though there was just the three of us

for Friday night dinner last night, it went fine. Admittedly DH was a

bit grumpy and " Out of it " and kept falling asleep at the table but

that's nothing unusual either for him or many of our friends (the

falling asleep on Sabbath eve bit! It's the day of rest, and by

, they're going to rest LOL ). After supper DH went up to bed

early (well, early for him, it was 11.30, but Sabbath meals start late

and end late at this time of year) and then Yeshaya fetched Zevi over

and the 3 of us played Cluedo until about 12.45 am. And had a pretty

good laugh too.

Today Zevi and another boy Yitzi came for lunch so that nicely

diluted poor deaf old MIL who tends to retreat into a world of her own

when conversations flow around her that she can't follow. Every now

and then she'd pipe up with a comment on the last conversation gambit

we actually managed to get thru to her by yelling, and which had long

since passed the rest of us by.

Before Yeshaya and Zevi came home from synagogue, Yitzi was already

here, as he went to another service. After the two of us had prepared

lunch, I had a lovely and very informative chat with Yitzi about the

general state of play with regard to his peers, including Yeshaya. It

was reassuring in a way to know Yeshaya is well liked by his peers,

and not considered a " lost cause " religously or socially by any means.

Yitzi told me, and I found this very shocking, about a small group of

out of town (Manchester mainly) boys of 15-16 who were so rebellious

and difficult that their parents had more or less done the " and never

darken our doors again " bit on them. These boys had drifted to London

(and in once case *driven* in his father's stolen car) and were now

the really bad element in the local Jewish teenage crowd. Smoking

drugs, not observing Sabbath etc. Yeshaya had told me vaguely about

such a bad element but hadn't gone into any details, except to say

that one of his school friends had got in with them and was now

smoking drugs etc.

Yitzi reassured me that Yeshaya and none of his peers had got involved

with these boys.

After lunch Yeshaya had invited about 19 (I kid you not) boys over for

a game of Risk so he warned me that if I wanted my Sabbath afternoon

snooze I had better wear earplugs! Which I did, and slept through

what was a tremendous racket. Risk is a very noisy game as all the

would be conquerors of the world yell a lot at each other. When I

woke up and came downstairs the living room was full of large and

rowdy teenaged boys lying all over my Parket Knoll recliners tipping

them every which way, and throwing my NCT cushions at each other, but

no serious damage seemed to have occured. They had also eaten their

way through several dozen packets of crisps and other snacks and drunk

several bottles of fizzy drinks. But all seemed to be having a good

time and were polite to me. I left them and walked over to my

daughter Tammy for a bit of peace (with her, her DH, and her four

kids!!) Besides Tammy and her DH lecturing me on how terribly

dangerous it was for Yeshaya to use his mobile phone so much, (brain

tumour wise) and how Tammy told off a woman in the street whom she saw

(shock horror) *using her mobile phone near her BABY!!!!!*, the visit

passed relatively peacefully. Tammy can be terribly opinionated at

times and is still persona non grata with Yeshaya since the

phone-rollicking she gave him last Saturday night at Azariah's. She

has a lot to learn about dealing with teenagers, and really expected

him to come running when she ordered him to " come over right this

minute!! " hehehe!

When I came back at about 8.15 pm. only about six boys remained and

they had done a creditable job of tidying up the lounge. They all

went out to synagogue for afternoon service. Yeshaya came in a bit

later on his own and we had a good talk about his view of life. Or

rather he talked and I listened LOL.

All in all Sabbath was survived with flying colours. Thank Heavens!!

Ruthie

July 7, 2001