Sure do!

Part Two

Esti
Dear Diary, Morah Nechama started picking on me I think. Like when she said that an American girl is more likely to be a chutzpanit, like was she checking if I'm listening? Trying to get me to make a chutzpadig remark? I mean like? Does she think my doodling means I'm disinterested and disrespectful towards the nevi'im? How about that her lessons are boring? And a bit of a quote from Alice in Wonderland here; "my interest in her lessons, lessens from day to day!" Besides, my doodling is just artistic expression, I'm a huge artist inside but it doesn't always come out, so the world doesn't know. Only when I'm bored to pieces by Morah Nechama, does some of it escape through the cracks of the pieces (really!).
Devorah Leah says that Morah Nechama didn't even realize there's an American girl [gehl] in class. Mommy smiles that delicious smile that lets you see the empathy in her gorgeous blue eyes and pats my hair "We know it's gonna be ok, right Esther'l?" It's impossible to be angry at her but I'm a little resentful. I mean I'm not Esther'l anymore, Miri and Pessi are your babies Ma!
Whatever, no kisses this time maybe next time, Esti!

Boruch
I'm on a high. I was b"h zoche to fulfill my resolution! NO HOTZAAS ZERA IN THE HOLY LAND, ZERO! It's been three days already and I'm totally clean! I mean after such a flight, with the stewardesses and the tiredness and the movies I stole glimpses of, c'mon. I'm a tzaddik! When I was misgabber and deleted all the movies and tv shows from my ipod I won the battle. Dude, now I won the WAR. Learning is good also, Bava Kamma is totally in, so is it keren, or contorted shen? Yeah! I haven't felt this good in a while. I'm away from home and all that kichsa, I'm not in Bardichev and all THAT kichsa. New yeshiva, new leaf, new life. Yanki Friedstein turns out to be a geshmakker guy, he's American b'etzem but his family moved here "due to extenuating circumstances" he says. I'm not the type of guy to press, I'm totally trustworthy, he'll tell me whenever he's ready (but I sense a good story when I see one) [everybody tells me everything eventually, they just sense that I'm that type, you know sensitive, caring]. He's a bit on the temimusdig side I think, like he has this sefer hachinuch that he brings to yeshiva every day and takes home every night (he chazers it before going to sleep). I mean I like sefer hachinuch and all (awesome hakdamah! What took Artscroll so long to think of translating it?) but to be so into it, with such an ehrlichkeit. Anyway, you should have seen him flip out when I nonchalantly [with great humility of course] remarked that I'm very close with Reb Tanchum Zeesha, he totally couldn't believe it. This shabbos there are seudos in yeshiva but it's only once a month, next week I think I'm going to go to the Yerushlaymer Rov and develop a shtikel a relationship with him, that way when I write a sefer I can get his haskamah. Anyway I need to find enough good kashas to write a letter to Reb Tanchum Zeeshe, and then he'll write back and it'll be totally cool to see all the glorious praises he'll heap on my head, cuz that's what you get in rabbinical correspondence! Yeah! I'm a rabbinic student and I correspond with Reb Tanchum Zeesha… I guess there are some benefits from Bardichever Yeshiva.

Yanki
Wow, Reb Tanchum Zeesha Wohlman! Can you imagine?! This Boruch is really something. He's like a whole big talmid of him, and he says reb Tanchum Zeesha once said that Boruch is raui to write a sefer on choshen mishpat. I think I detected a fair amount of pride when he said that, like he was trying to be an anav but it sort of came out, y'know. Hey big deal, we all do things like that sometimes.
I went to the kosel last night, I came back after eleven, to find totty in the kitchen feeding Pessi cereal and milk. "Hey Yank! Az zee vill yetzt frishtig zull zee hubben, she's bound to fall asleep soon anyway" with this real smile on his face. I can't stand it. Like all of the sudden he's chilled and calling me "Yank" even mommy doesn't really do that anymore, I'm twenty! And seeing him so content and taking care of the baby is just, I don't know. Why couldn't he just be a normal father to all of us? I know I just said I'm twenty years old, but I think I'm going to cry…

Tchebin wrote:

For me personally, that sentence was a trigger...

very talented author here, methinks (is this gonna replace Mexican Ransom if/when it ever ends?)

Very intriguing.

Looking forward to the next installments!

ZemirosShabbos wrote:

Mexican Ransom? How bout Simcha Pearlman?! OOH we need to bring Faigy Milstein in here!! Or maybe Yael Reed! Should ask Ruthie Pearlman- Wha-evah, we certainly don't need Turx!

Anyone available to translate the various Yiddish/Tchalmy sentences/phrases that this story is liberally sprinkled with?

Esti
Hi everyone!
I really shouldn't write to everyone if it's supposed to be a secret but I'm not being literal here just looking for an alternative to "dear diary", hey, that's the way I started last time and look where that got me. Anyway, just got back from Devorah Leah, she helped me choose which picture to use for the surprise, we're going to print it out as soon as totty comes home and then I get to scribble it up [ok, decorate it with my elaborate doodles] and it's going to be the most wonderful surprise ever! See, one of the benefits of writing a diary is that you don't need to tell secrets, you can release all your emotions about the "thing" but keep the "thing" locked up inside your heart. Devorah Leah says we look very handsome together in the picture, me and Yanki… oops! I just ruined the surprise for you diary dear, didn't I?
Last morning Pessi demanded lunch like m'hut zee neesht gekennt fardreyehn, she wanted lunch! She said she had already had breakfast at night. I was wondering how the tantrum would develop; Cutest thing!!!!!!!!! Miri steps in, she bends down (Pessi had gotten down on the floor already) "Pessi dee hust neesht gehat freeshtig! Yusht! Neesht! Yusht! Neesht! Yusht! Neesht! Neeeeeeeeeeeesht!!! And so on and so forth, as Mommy was busily shoveling breakfast into their mouths, it was funny: Swallow, "Neesht". Swallow, "Yusht!" they're super cute!!!!
<3 Ess T.

Yanki
Thursday morning as usual, while I'm waiting for Boruch to finish his Chimmish-Rashi and write down chiddeeshim on Shev Shmaatsa, or whatever it is that he does for like fifteen minutes after seder officially starts (I think he's like a workaholic, you know, like he can't be empty), I open my Sefer haChinuch, and. Woohoo! It's my birthday! You know, I didn't even chap! I'm still like waking up and recovering from that walk up the stairs. And hey, it's so nice of Esti. And so totally girlish, I know, who cares. So there's a picture of the two of us (in Gan Soccer by Yoni's switch), and the other side says "Happy Birthday" in huge cheery letters with like hearts and stuff scribbled in the background.
So one second, now I'm officially twenty one, and officially like tippiched l'chol hadeios, and like Boruch's still only nineteen? Baby.
(Am I supposed to be depressed about shidduchim? One second, lemme add another question mark. ?. Azoy.)

Boruch
Weird, strange, queer, eccentric, peculiar, odd, bizarre and weird and strange, and someone pass me a thesaurus quick. No, because it's so unlike Yanki, he's like so you know, adheres-to-rules type. And today he's trying to force me to look at a picture of his sister. Seriously. Remember I said that I'm on a high? Well I am still, I get up every morning at 5:30 and after a mikva am in Beis Medrash by 6:15 then after Shacharis I have this thing with chimmish-rashi and I learn most of the Haamek Davar as well [I like the Netzi"v, he was gevaldig], and I also use that time to jot random stuff down so that I can delve into them more later. Yanki arrives, right? So I try to hurry a little and finish up [but I only hurry a little cuz what I do is more important ;)] and Yanki opens his sefer hachinuch and suddenly he gets all excited, turns out his little sister wrote him a birthday card and stuck it in there [she knows where to put it, creative!] turns out her name is Esti and "Boruch, you have to meet her" what the gehennom? Is this guy serious? "She's only fourteen but she's… you'll like her, she's your type." Wtf wtf wtf!!
So of course I refused to look at the picture that he was trying to show me. When he got up to go to the bathroom a bit later, I confess I couldn't contain my curiosity. HOT. I like her, she reminds me of Barbie but really tzniusdig and eidel, y'know (her pose in the picture is so casual, you know, "I have no idea I'm pretty, just smiling with my brother" grr). If I look at Yanki's nose from a certain angle he looks just like his sister, I need to see her again. I have a feeling I will.
The arab janitor was looking at me strangely today. I guess they don't teach that staring is not polite in Qitab Ilm Al Baladiyya, k, I admit, he's making me a tad nervous.

Chani
Shabbos was beautiful, I love when Heshy dresses in the kaftan and dzhibeh that all Heeteroigeners in Yerushalayim wear. And comes home and smiles Good Shabbos to me, and gives his family his full undivided love and attention. During Kiddush he gets so emotional that he usually cries. Harry never cried Harry never experienced emotion. Heshy is a human being and yes. I love him.
He even shared a nice dvar torah this week after Kiddush [not the one about Alice before Kiddush- Esti just cracks me up sometimes!] about how Hashem created the world and still does every second, and that's why we rest on Shabbos to demonstrate our trust in his capability to run the world… he went on but Miri was flushing Pessi's "Cawkulk" down the toilet, so… Yah- had to run.