NaNoWriMo: Day 4

Today was a really tough day.  I just could not get motivated at all.  But I still somehow managed to get to 10,028 words, most of which are pure junk.  Thank you for your insightful comments and opinions…they have helepd me to keep accountable (knowing I’ll be posting at night), shaped my thoughts, and slog through.   Two things: Questions, and then a little excerpt from the novel (which is only fair given how much you’ve helped out.)

1.  If you’ve flown to Israel, who usually greets you? Do they greet you in Ben Gurion with that wave of people?  If not to Israel, have you had any really awkward airport greetings, especially with people you don’t know?

2.  What is the goal of the Orthodox men who ask you to put on tefillin in the airplane?  Is it because it’s a mitzvah?

And now, a part my crappy, unedited novel!  Michael is on the plane to Israel and ready to meet his friends’ relatives, and hopefully, his future wife.

Michael finished the last of his Coke and licked the crumbs off the oily plate.  Genya [his best friend, short for Eugene] pulled down his arm.  “Hey, man, I’ll call them [his relatives that know this girl Michael can meet] tomorrow morning for sure.”  Michael waved his keys and headed off to his Maxima.  He drove back home, petulant.  Why did he just agree to go to Israel?  What if he met a girl there, best case scenario?  Then what if he somehow accidentally impregnated her and she demanded that he have nothing to do with the baby and he would have to stay in Israel to fight for his legal rights as the father and it took a long time to go through the  Israeli court system and he stayed there so long that the had to go to the army and he was in the Gaza strip on weekdays and on weekends he was fighting with his baby mama while his previous son sat in his Greco baby stroller playing with Cheerios, oblivious to the tension?  And then one day he was called into a particularly dangerous mission in the West Bank, protecting the secret house of the Prime Minister with the Mossad?  And then in the secret house would be the most beautiful Palestinian woman he’d ever seen, and his Zionist sensibilities would fail him and then in the background a headscarf would fall to the floor and nine months later-

“Mishenka!” his mom called, opening the garage door as he parked his car and wiped her tiny hands on her apron.  “I made zharkoye, come eat it before it gets too cold,” and she was right, he could smell the meat juices already.

Bon apetit!