This is music to my eyes:

ON THE ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER (AP) - Israeli tanks and hundreds of troops moved in and out of Lebanon on Saturday, taking over a village and battling Hezbollah militants by land, sea and air as part of a limited ground campaign.

The soldiers - backed by artillery and tank fire - moved into the large Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras in several waves and took control, military officials said on condition of anonymity.

Hezbullah wanted a ground offensive, and they’ve got it. Meet the boys of the IDF, terrorists. Hope you survive the experience.

Israel is getting ready for (sigh) more prisoners:

Preparing for an extended ground operation: The IDF has started constructing a temporary detention center designed to hold the Lebanese prisoners that will be captured during army operations in Southern Lebanon, Ynet has learned recently.

A truck convoy carrying barbed-wire fences, containers, and mobile showers and toilets started unloading equipment at the Filon military base near Rosh Pina Friday, and construction works at the place are already underway. According to plans, the structure should be able to hold up to hundreds of Hizbullah prisoners at any given time.

An exercise in the difference between Hezbullah and the IDF. Hezbullah:

Kassem, who at first sight seem healthy, reiterated Nasrallah’s stance and tried his hand at psychological warfare.

“Over the last few days there were six attempts for ground incursions in Maroun el-Ras area, Aitaroun and other places. The enemy saw that the fatalities will be heavy and this caused confusion over the benefit of a ground invasion,” he said.

The IDF:

Israel ousted Hezbollah guerrillas from a stronghold just inside Lebanon on Saturday after several days of fierce fighting, the army said, as it bombarded targets across the south of the country.

Israel Defense Forces ground forces commander Major-General Benny Gantz said troops took the hilltop village of Meron A-Ras, where four soldiers were killed last Thursday, inflicting dozens of casualties on Hezbollah.

IDF troops took positions in the vicinity of Meron A-Ras, in southern Lebanon, on Saturday and carried out operations to detect rocket launchers and underground bunkers where Hezbollah militants are holed up.

This is why Hezbullah will be defeated. You cannot defeate a movement; true. You cannot defeat an ideology; true. But you can defeat an army, and that is what the IDF is doing: Defeating Hezbullah’s army.

May Gd protect the IDF, and may your enemies fall quickly, easily, and thoroughly. And may you enjoy the pizza that my readers are going to send you.

Whoopsie, there I go, bringing the Big Guy into this again. Well, hey. Sue me if you don’t like it.

That’s it for this edition of: Eff you, Nasrallah, and may you meet an Israeli smart bomb in the next 24 hours, or at most, 48.

Terrorist groups in Gaza are saying they agree to a cease-fire starting at midnight:

Militant Terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip have agreed to stop firing missiles at Israel at midnight Saturday, senior Palestinian officials said.

The unilateral cease-fire is aimed at ending an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that began June 28, three days after militants raided an Israeli army post, killing two soldiers and capturing a third, 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the officials said on condition of anonymity because the agreement was reached at a closed meeting.

More than 100 Palestinians have been killed since then in daily attacks by Israeli warplanes, tanks and artillery, and the militants have fired hundreds of homemade rockets at southern Israel.

The agreement was reached in Gaza City following meetings sponsored by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh aimed at finding a way out of the crisis in Gaza, the officials said. Several Palestinian militant groups attended, including Haniyeh’s Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have been blamed for many of the rocket attacks on southern Israel, the officials said.

Nothing about returning the kidnapped soldier, of course.

Thursday night, I was relaxing (or so I thought) with a Buffy DVD. Around 11:30 p.m., the fingertips on my left hand started tingling. Then tingling and numbness spread up my hand and arm, briefly through my left foot, and into the left side of my face, including my lips and tongue. I was probably more scared than I’ve been in my life, and started thinking furiously about whether or not to call 911. I have a habit of not jumping the gun on most things, so instead I went to the computer (on, of course), googled “signs of stroke,” saw that numbness was the number one sign, and dialed the phone that I had in my hand the entire time. I thought briefly about driving myself to the hospital, because it’s quite close, but all I could think of was that if I was having a stroke, and I passed out behind the wheel, it’d be even worse. I decided not to risk it.

While I was waiting for the EMTs to arrive, I packed the brand-new (much smaller) purse that I’d bought for Wednesday’s job interview. I packed my healthcare information card, my wallet, ID, a brush, and my keys. I wanted desperately to go upstairs and get a couple of things from the bathroom, but again, I was worried about walking up the stairs and passing out or losing locomotion too suddenly to do anything but fall. So I didn’t. But I did pack a book. (Patricia McKillip, Ombria in Shadow, one of my favorites.)

By the time the EMTs got here, my blood pressure was in the 150s over 90-something. It’s usually pretty dead-normal range. I’ve never had any blood pressure problems, in fact, which is why I was so shocked and nervous. But my father’s brother had a stroke, my father had high blood pressure, and my paternal grandmother–whom I look exactly like–was found dead on the kitchen floor one day, probably from a stroke. So I said yes, take me to the hospital when the EMTs asked, and spent Thursday night in the ER near a very noisy desk, connected to a machine that kept track of my heart rate, my respiration, and my blood oxygen content (that’s the one I thought was temperature, as it was 98 or 97 consistently). When I grew bored because they kept waking me up with their hospital noises, I’d play with the machine by changing my breathing. And learned quickly how to reattach the damned cables when I wanted to turn on my side and they fell off and made the machine start beeping.

Oh. And I learned to loathe, with a deep and lasting hatred, the IV stuck in my arm. They never put me on an IV drip, but they wanted that quick drug conduit just in case. After they drew blood, they only used it for dye for the MRI Friday afternoon.

I have more marks on me from the connector patches than the victims of the aliens from last season’s Invasion. They drew blood far too many times (the last time being five o’clock this morning), and may I say, I hope I never have to stay overnight in a hospital ever again.

I didn’t really fit where I landed, no matter where they put me. I didn’t have a stroke, but they had to treat me like a potential stroke victim, right down to giving me the “Life After Stroke” brochure, featuring a pleasant-looking sixty-something woman on the cover. (No, I’m not nearly that old, stop even trying to think that.) They gave me a liquid-diet breakfast first, followed by a real breakfast fifteen minutes later, and then put me on the Telemetry floor so I could have an annoying heart monitor attached to me for the rest of my stay. Wouldn’t let me take it off even after the doctor told me to go home–as long as I was on that damned floor, I had to keep it on, right up to the moment Woman with Wheelchair came to take me to the door.

The upshot of all my tests is that contrary to what you’ve heard, my brain is perfectly normal. It was an anxiety attack, apparently. I need to get back into an exercise routine and do other things to eliminate stress from my life.

I think I have to stop obsessing about the war.

I’m going to ease off for a while. I tried not watching the news for a long time last night, and discovered true inner peace while watching Monk.

Yes, I’ll still cover the major news. But I need to concentrate on some other things right now. Particularly a job. I had an interview, not a job offer, last week. Time to get back to work. Financial stress is not good for me, either.

Anyway. One more post to write about my hospital stay and I’m done. It’s going to be titled, “Things I learned in the hospital.” I wrote it this morning while waiting to be released. I wrote it the old-fashioned way—on pen and paper. I feel so—archaic.

Thanks for the good wishes. They were and are much appreciated. But geez, Jay, I feel like you wrote my obit there. I’m not dead yet, Blogson. Not by a longshot. I’m not even wounded, really. Well, okay, I am covered with holes from needles and spots from monitor patches, but still—doing just fine, thanks. Tig’s out on the patio, pinging me from time to time (Mrowr-rowr? Mrowr-rowr?) and Gracie is alseep on her tissue paper bed.

I’m going to watch my soaps. Didn’t have the time to watch them in the hospital yesterday. The nurses kept interrupting me for blood draws and other annoyances. They really need to get their priorities straight.

There’s now a place for the roundup of Israel rallies, Israel Rally Central.

And look! It has a neat graphic to include in your post!

There is a Solidarity Gathering in Richmond at the JCC on Monday, July 24th. The good news is we won’t have to deal with the anti-Israel protesters. The bad news is, we won’t have to deal with the anti-Israel protesters. Now that would be a great stress-buster for me, but it might lead to a disorderly conduct, which I probably shouldn’t get.

I’m home. Tig and Gracie are crying for attention, and I am going into the shower to wash hospital smell from my body.

Tell you all about it later, but it was not a stroke. It just pretended to be one.