Traffic in the Sky

I went wine-tasting in Woodinville today, with my mom and our friend Catherine (who also came to Palestine to visit me :) and her daughter Emma. We visited three wineries and Redhook Brewery. The first two wineries played 80's music. I remember... Whitney Houston-I Wanna Dance With Somebody Phil Collins-One More Night Jefferson Starship-Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now My Stefan drove us around like a good sport. He sat in the Scion reading The Hobbit. At the third winery, we'd run into our friend CPort, so Stefan came in to mingle. Just before we headed out, a couple in the winery asked Stefan where his t-shirt is from. It was the t-shirt my mom picked up at the Stars & Bucks in Ramallah. It had the knock-off logo with the words Ramallah, Palestine below it, and there was some Arabic on the back. My mom and Catherine laughed and replied, "We got it in Ramallah, in the West Bank!" and the couple was like, "woww." See, Palestine t-shirts.... I didn't foresee posting more than one Jack Johnson song on this blog...but here ya go. My parents got this surround-sound system installed and now my mom likes to play Pandora off our TV. I was lying face-down on our couch, recovering from all the vino, and this song came on. It was my favorite song from the album On and On. My friend Mitra burned it for me in high school and I used to drive around in my little black bug listening to it. I liked the "mm-hmm's," especially. Puzzle pieces in the ground, No one ever seems to be diggin. Instead they're looking up towards the heavens With their eyes on the heavens, mm-hmm. The shadows on the way to the heavens, mm-hmm. It's enough to make me cry, But that don't seem like it will make it feel better. The answers could be found, We could learn from diggin down, But no one ever seems to be diggin. Instead they'll say: Well, how could we have known? I'll tell them it's not so hard to tell, No, no, no, You keep adding stones, Soon the water will be lost in the well... I'm thinking of Jerusalem. New IDF Military College to move to East Jerusalem My pastors told me this might happen. The Lutheran World Federation campus sits on top of the Mount of Olives, and this new military school would serve as a pretext for expropriating more land from the church. This is what I did on a handful of Wednesday nights in Palestine. I'd take the 18 bus from Ramallah to Jerusalem, take the 75 bus up to the Mount of Olives, walk up the Mount past the Augusta Victoria hospital, and through the gate at the Lutheran World Federation. Every Wednesday there was a volleyball/potluck night with members of our congregation and friends. I'm terrible at volleyball, but I think I can get some good use out of all the footage I've taken....