So, as I expected, as soon as my parents had arrived at the beginning of the month, I got too caught up in the torrent of family events to do any writing. The days leading up to Seth and Rachel's wedding were filled with preparations and lots of family together-time. We held a kiddush at the Kol Rina synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Nachlaot on the Shabbos before the wedding. The next Sunday I spent shopping for a suit at the mall with Avishai happily helping me out with an extra queer eye to find just the right style. He also loaned me a beautiful black woven kippah trimmed with blue to wear with my new threads at the wedding, and I thought it really made the ensemble.

The wedding itself was wonderful. The locale was gorgeous, the ceremony was tear-jerking, the artwork that Rachel's mother did for the ketubah (marriage contract) and the chuppah (wedding canopy) was magnificent, the food was excellent, and the music and dancing were jubilant. I got plenty of opportunity to wow the crowd by spinning fire with a set of poi that Seth's (now former) roommate David graciously lent me. I consider myself quite lucky for that, since I'd feared that my plans for such a performance would be ruined with all my equipment stuck in Tzfat with the rockets whizzing by. Finally, the wedding was a precious opportunity to savor visits with the various family members who had come and to meet more of Seth and Rachel's friends.

In the weeks before the wedding, I'd heard some friends and family from outside the country wonder if the wedding would even still be taking place. I'm glad that we were able to prove to the world that it takes a helluva lot more than a war to stop this family from celebrating our joy.

I plan to write about World Pride week in my next entry, but for now I'll finish off by linking to Moshe Chaim's blog, which features a lot of reports from my fellow Tzfat residents on the experiences during the war.

It's very relieving to come home to find that the worst damage to my apartment was a month's worth of dust. No broken walls, no shattered windows, no holes in the roof, no looting. The physical damage all around town seems very minor: some broken glass, a foot-wide pothole in one of the roads, a dinged up building here or there. It's hardly noticeable compared to the road construction and crumbling ruins that are par for the course around here. People are wandering around the streets, hunting for spots where ketushas hit. I got home on Sunday night, and I've been staying inside mostly for the past couple days, delving into hermit mode in order to decompress from all the excitement of the past month.

With any luck, I'll have time tomorrow to give a good recap of the whole visit from Mom and Dad, Seth and Rachel's wedding, World Pride, and assorted other events of the past few weeks. But for now, I'll try to get to bed at a reasonable time.

The whirlwind is starting. My parents and Jonathan arrived in Israel yesterday, so most of the day was spent settling them down in their apartment and carousing about in the town's lovely restaurants with the collected Pearson and Siegel families. There's nothing like having the whole family together. Ashira provides us with endless amusement with her boundless energy. Jon and Rachel's brother Dan seem to be taking to each other instantly. Seth and Rachel only become more darling together as the awaited day approaches.

In the evening hours before dinner, I also went to an orientation at the Open House for people who are volunteering for World Pride. Most of it was just going over fairly uninteresting details, however important. But in the middle, we took a break to transport the eagerly-awaited program schedule magazines from street level to the upper floors where they could be stored in the Open House's facilities on the upper floors for subsequent distribution. We formed a great big chain of lezzies and homos around the building's spiralling stairwell, and passed bundle after bundle after bundle of programs hand to hand. It was a blast: a spirit of cheerful camaraderie pervaded the scene. Someone with a video camera managed to record it, and I hope the footage does it justice.

Oh, and if you're waiting for me to start writing about the Nokia 770 that my parents brought me, you'll just have to wait a while. I hope to really put that thing through its paces and report back thoroughly, but that will have to wait until life returns to the slightly more boring routine that allows me to indulge in my gadget-love at a more leisurely pace.

Finally, a status report on the adorable Avishai. On Monday night, we had an amazing dinner at Agas V'Tapuach, strolled through Geulah for a little window shopping, and then hung out at Gan Sacher again, chatting about our favorite movies. He left to visit friends in Ashdod yesterday, so we most likely won't have the opportunity to meet again till after Tisha B'Av, but we have plans this Sunday to go shopping for proper wedding attire for me. I'm hoping we can also get together before that, though.