the adventures of queenie's sleeping bag...
My sister had a midterm exam this morning and she decided to go out with friends last night and not come back till late and be tired and be too sleepy to study. So she did what I usually do when I really can't and don't have the time to nap, but I need to anyway so that I have energy to stay up and study: she napped on my bed while I had the music going and was trying to clean-up my room. It's a psychological thing. You're so tired that you'll sleep through anything, bright lights and rock music, but the environment will keep you from going into deep REM. At 2:20 am (my sleeping pattern is still very messed up from the holidays), she flops on my bed with no instructions as to when to wake her up or if I'll be getting my bed back. I manage to get some mumbled answers from her and fix up the alarm clock next to my bed for 5 am so that she can get some rest but wake up and have a couple of hours to study before her test. I get her cell phone from her room and set the alarm on that for 5 am as well. I would have slept on her bed until she woke up, but she had notes and books scattered everywhere and I didn't wanna mess it up, also I needed to make sure she woke up and studied! (I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm her mother, I even set my cellphone alarm to 5 am, we had 3 alarm clocks in one room!). I've been wanting an excuse to sleep in my sleeping bag again. This is the sleeping bag that I bought and used for my Palestine trip and it holds a very special place in my heart. So I spread it out on the floor of my room and remembered the good times...
The summer program N and I were going to attend had rented a boy's secondary school and we'd be sleeping in classrooms, so a sleeping bag was needed. On our second attempt at entering the West Bank, we spent most of the day in a room where bag searches were being done. Just watching the soldiers open up each bag, search every sleeve, pocket and leg of shirts and pants, take samples from shampoos and toothpastes and pass empty bags through x-ray machines, then watch the owners of the bags refold and repack. Finally, it was my turn to watch the soldier mess up my clothes and belongings that I had so meticulously organized and packed. She got to my sleeping bag, took it out of its casing, unzipped it, padded it down, and sent it through the x-ray machine. She gave me a questioning, confused look. I had stuffed a flashlight into the casing as well.
"Why do you need a sleeping bag and a flashlight?" We told them we were going to be staying at the Novotel Hotel in Jerusalem, tourists that we are.
N and I had come up with every possible answer to every possible question that we could've been asked, and non of it was truthful. We forgot about the sleeping bags, and the flashlight. Luckily, I had just pored over a tourist guide to "Israel" the night before. Tourist.
"We're planning on visiting Soloman's pillars, camping out in the Negev desert. Y'know sleep under the stars, watch the night sky."
"You're crazy, you're gonna get eaten by mosquitos." Skeptic.
"That's okay, it'll be fun."
She was right about them mosquitos, everyone would joke that they were Israeli mosquitos, sucking the blood out of us. They call it "el hiss-hiss", although some say "el hiss-hiss" is another blood sucking insect, still Israeli. Every morning, I'd wake up with 2 or three bites on my lips, several on the rest of my face, and even more on my hands. The bites would be so bad, that I'd wake up from the pain they caused. Without any type of alarm clock except throbbing pain in my hands, I'd wake up at about 7 am every morning. On the bright-side, I always beat the morning rush to the bathroom. I'd almost suffocate during the night, zipping up my sleeping bag over my head, trying to keep out the hiss-hiss. And when I peek my head out to get some fresh air, they attack. You can hear them coming in groups...hisss, hisss.....
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Cirus, thank yo
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