Post Chashmonaim (5)

I spent shabbos with my first cousin and his family.
They've lived here almost four years, but next year they're moving back to Skokie.
My cousin has been traveling back and forth, making a living there and visiting his family one week out of four or something like that and that's no way to live.
The place is pretty enough, saw it mostly at night, but it's pretty enough. but it's in occupied territory. Morally it's dubious- two sets of laws, citizens and occupied. but mostly it's the pragmatics- assuming that the Palestinians don't really want peace, which is not an outlandish assumption, then a military occupation without settlements is somewhat sustainable, whereas a settlement occupation is not sustainable.
visited an old friend, i had last seen in 1981 when he tried to bring a rocking chair into my cab and we had nothing to discuss, which was a bit of a letdown. although he told me some gorelick stories which were okay. seems to me that he and menachem don't talk about each other at all.
as per usual, friday night was okay and once the sun rose it was no longer any fun being there. i think it was good going there to build a connection with some of my younger cousins, but my anticipation of it was such dread that it kind of messed up a few days there. i learned that my sister injured her wrist ice skating and my feeling towards that is that she should stop going on such excursions.
an e mail from my cousin (father's side, not mother's side) told me that my aunt turned a corner in terms of the white blood cell count, but i don't know what that means in terms of long range prognosis. i got some books to take to my uncle tomorrow night and my friend from america is coming with. hope it goes okay. but compared to my nervousness before shabbat, i am rather calm now.