Nextdoor

When we lived in Raanana there was the "raananalist". A mail-list run by English speakers for English speakers. For a while online you could get recommendations and find interesting tidbits (preferred American spelling, the rest of the world uses titbits) of Anglo life in the suburbs North of Tel Aviv. Over time it degenerated into a whole lot of moaning, some political, some religious and I lost interest. For a while though it felt like you did not have to live in Raanana, all you needed to do was read the raananalist and it was as if you were there. The whole 80% of life in the Holy Land in mailing list digest form.

Since we moved to the US, nextdoor is quickly becoming the new raananalist. Same thing but US based and therefore so much more noise. I love it. I enjoy that every day there are a surprising number of people who have lost dogs and cats (usually related to the spotting of coyotes in the area) and pretty much the same number have surprisingly found dogs and cats. But every now and then we get some wonderful posts. You can only guess what "Mouth breathing chicken" covers (he was posting for his wife, their chicken was making a wheezing sound, the post quickly degenerated into a treatise on the quality of locally raised eggs). Then there was the classic "Stolen Tortoise" post. Turns out it had escaped and was later found, but this was only after a long reply on how there is a lucrative trade in Desert Tortoise eggs and one should have 24hr surveillance as it is likely their property was being watched for a convenient tortoise robbery. The post signed by someone with the following qualifications: "Missing Persons & Sensitive Crime Investigations". I love California. There is a staggering number of people that do not stop at stop signs. As opposed to the raananalist, there is no problem with "lashon ha-ra" (the religious moderators frowned upon bad mouthing others), on our Nextdoor there are some very incriminating photos. 

The "For Sale & Free" section is useful and I must admit I have scored some interesting tools: A mini mill and a lovely original US made Porter Cable 690 for a fraction of their value (to me). Happily bwo shows no interest, which is great, because we would end up with another house full if she watched these deals. She posted once, but needless to say no one wanted the couch she got from the neighbors when they moved. No one would take it, not even for free.

She's hard at work crocheting mandalas on the patio.