Joe to Israel, 'Hey, you Jews...'

Greetings Stroock's Books commune. It's nice to be back in New Jersey. 

We haven't been to the gym in a couple weeks and need to get back, but have no idea what we want to do. Machine regime again? Weights? Running? We haven't done our hour long, four miler all year. We're not worried about restarting, we just don't think we want to do it. 

We haven't said much about The Weser the last few days. We've finished the readthrough. However, there was a formatting disaster, the formatting people's fault, not mine. I was so furious I damn near red-flagged myself*. It's actually not a huge deal and kind of works out for the best, but man was I pissed. This is why publishing dates are always decidedly vague. 

A European friend has been reading World War 1990: Nederland and says he loves it, but he finds all the Bravo/Charlie stuff difficult. We sympathize, we really do. And there was a tonne of that in Nederland. We had a hell of a time keeping it straight and worked hard to do so. Still there were a few mix ups. That's just how NATO militaries do comms. 

Joe's arriving in Israel this afternoon. Let's hope he doesn't get off Air Force One and ask, 'Hey, where're the bagels?' As we wrote that sentence we wondered, are bagels even a thing in Israel? Let's see...It seems yes, but with a different culinary tradition and a different kind of bagel. So if Joe wants a bagel and a schmeer**, he's going to have to go to New York, or Hymietown, as the Reverend Jackson once called it. Not Kosher. Click that link, people, we're begging you. Click. It. Now.

*Note humorless trolls and bored Karens. I did not need to red-flag myself. This is a joke. See, for example, the great Bill Mahr's important bit, 'Explaining Jokes to Idiots'.

*You want to get plain toasted bagel, cream cheese, with onions, capers and locks. You'll thank me. The best we ever had was at our old coffee shop, where we did tonnes of writing, run by an Irish/American guy and a Slovakian woman. Sean and I used to swap Jewish jokes.