Photo Friday (vol. LXXI) [mundane edition]

Yes, today's single picture couldn't possible be more mundane.  It appears to be our trusty family car with the way back and rear seat stuffed with... something.  See if you can figure out what that 'something' (actually two kinds of something) is:

Give up?

This is actually a picture of several hundred IDF reserve soldiers breathing a sigh of relief.

Still don't see it?  Let me explain.

Yesterday morning a chain of events, not unlike hundreds of similar chains of events going on all over Israel, led a fellow blogger and neighbor to give someone my cell phone number.

You still look puzzled so I'll back up even further. 

It seems that one of the issues nobody is likely to read about in newspapers or on blogs (except, perhaps this one) is that thousands of reservists who were called up in the past two weeks are suffering from a similar fate:  They only packed underwear and socks for a few days (if that).

Now we have a situation where all these reservists (and a lot of the front line soldiers) are in position and on 'round the clock availability... with no opportunity to launder their, ahem, undergarments.  Dirty uniforms and equipment are par for the course and nobody really thinks twice about wearing the same set of fatigues for a week or two.  But the stuff that comes in direct contact with your body is quite another thing.

So a bunch of people got together and took up a donation to buy several thousand pairs of socks and underwear from the discounted Shekem (I think it's called 'shekel' now) soldiers store system.  The problem is that the warehouse from which the stuff had to be picked up was in Beer Sheva.

Enter my neighbor, fellow blogger and bourbon aficionado Ben Chorin who mentioned to the guy organizing the great underwear airlift (it will actually be driven - not flown - up north today) that he has a friend (moi) who works in Beer Sheva and would probably pick the stuff up if you asked him.

So at 10:00AM yesterday morning my cell phone rings and I end up a link in the chain now known as 'The great underwear airlift of July 06'.

I know this is really mundane stuff to the rest of you, but I shared this story to point out the need to seek out opportunities to give.  There are plenty of larger organizations that are doing great work and they deserve your time, energy and donations.

But there are also little opportunities that nobody would normally think of that are equally important.  This one found me...and if you keep your ears open others might find you.

If you don't want to wait for that to happen, you can feel free to scroll way down the page on the right hand side and click the little orange and gray button that says 'spoil soldiers'.  You know... the one that looks just like this one:

If you click on it (the one down below... not this one) you will be taken to a secure paypal site where you can donate anywhere from one dollar up to your entire family fortune (please show some restraint) with the assurance that I will personally spend every penny on small, worthwhile projects such as the one described in this post.

Another example of how I spend your generous donations is the weekly cake and drinks I drop off with soldiers manning (and womanning) roadblocks along my commute to work.  These days they are largely reservists who are serving far from their family to keep Israel's cities safe from infiltrators.

Oh, and of course I have just gotten word that there will definately be another - even larger - underwear airlift... this one possibly to include undershirts as well... in the coming weeks.  I'm ready to chip in... how about you?

Anyway, that's it for today.  I hope you all seek out mundane opportunities to help and/or assist me with my own mundane efforts.

Shabbat Shalom.