Happy New Year!

So, it's New Year's Eve, and I'm chillin' in the Jerusalem apartment with the parents. Not that I'm complaining -- I have notoriously bad luck/bad timing with New Year's Eve celebrations, which in the past have included being hospitalized, falling asleep in a cab on the way home from the airport, and being stuck in a supermarket parking lot in the freezing cold. So being in a Jerusalem works for me.

To be fair, the past few New Years have been totally pleasant, often including going out and dancing to eighties music with Mary and friends, afterwards eating Mac and Cheese at 2:00 am to absorb the booze. Last year, I joined Kate at Mancini's, where she informed me she is going again this year. Hi, Kate! Happy New Year!

What have I been up to? Well, I had ambitions to do a chronological account, but that's clearly not going to happen, nor would be very interesting. Instead, I'll give pictures with captions!

Okay, so in continuing crazy-cat-person-ness, I bought some cat treats that I have been giving to stray cats. I made friends with a cat that lives in the Armenian quarter, near the Armenian Catholic church. Also, there was a cat in the Monastery of the Holy Cross that DEMANDED so serious loving:
We went to the Temple Mount and saw the Dome of the Rock, which I will talk about in more detail later. I just wrote a bunch about it and deleted it -- there's so much complicated history there, so it's hard to write about it, particularly in the flip way that I usually write.

I will say, from the Temple Mount, you can see the Mount of Olives and the Valley of Josaphat, which according to some traditions is where we are all going to go when the world ends:
I sat and looked at the view for a long time. Not bad!

Speaking of the world ending, I generally don't wear crocs, but there are some cases where I make exceptions:
Cute:
I wonder if I wouldn't rather go here when the world ends:
Or maybe here: