Family Affair / The Shanis

The cast: Vardi (40.5), Hadas (43), Orian (9), Gali (7) and Phoenix (mongrel border collie, 12).

Vardi: After my paternal grandmother, Rose ("vered" in Hebrew means "rose").

The home: This is a three-story apartment building with gray stucco spray, no elevator and a clean stairwell (NIS 12 per month, via the house committee). They are on the first floor (on pillars), with a living room that ends in plastic blinds, three bedrooms, a kitchen and a work corner (at the far end of the living room). All told, 98 square meters. They entered in August 2005 (It's our first apartment), paying NIS 1 million (no mortgage) and then put another NIS 200,000 into renovations (including tiling, plumbing and three-phase electrical system), assisted by designers (Michal and Hila).

Design: Along the living room wall is a low bureau made from plaster, on which there is a television, opposite a decorative, dominant wall with a shelf for vases and ornamental objects. On the carpet are two red sofas (from south Tel Aviv), a cage that is home to Kaiti (a rabbit) and a dining table. On the adjacent wall are bookshelves (Aharon Megged, Meir Shalev) and reproductions by David Hockney and Andy Warhol. Hadas says she hopes to buy another picture (something pop-arty) from a store in Dizengoff Center. We head for the sleeping wing.

Sleeping wing: On the other side of the decorative wall are three rooms. In the master bedroom are a Modigliani poster and a view of Givatayim that seems to burst through a large window. Orian's room has pink walls, many Bratz, a computer and an orange desk. Gali's blue room contains a bicycle and a schedule for Grade 1A − on Fridays he has "Key to the Heart" (a program which teaches social skills), after engineering, arithmetic and sciences. Neither child's room has a television, despite the wall mountings for them. These are vestiges of a dispute.

Dispute: The decision to remove the televisions from the children's rooms was mine, Vardi says. Hadas, who describes herself as more open to the technological world, says that the TV will return to Orian's room next year. Vardi is skeptical.

More plans: Hadas would be delighted to replace the sofas with something from the Betili chain, and in general dreams of a bigger home with more storage space. Vardi does not share this longing. The efficient design of the present apartment suits him just fine, he says.

Livelihoods and occupations: Hadas manages a law office (Gabi Michaeli & Co.) in Givatayim (a 10-minute walk from home), working a five-day week, three mornings (Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday) and two afternoon-evenings. As the person in charge of the administrative management, she has two secretaries and a Web site to run. She has been with the firm for seven and a half years (my longest time in any one place) and is happy there.

Vardi: A self-employed accountant ?Hasson-Shani Certified Accountants), he works on Yigal Allon Street in Tel Aviv (medium-range clients). Theoretically he works a five-day week but in practice "as much as needed" and often brings work home. Commutes in the family 2001 Renault Scenic ("Basically, the car is with me"); sometimes Hadas gets to have it, he says. Vardi likes his job, the firm is a "dream come true" for him. He also plays handball.

Handball: For Maccabi Arazim, a Ramat Gan team in the national league (I'm the team veteran). He describes himself as a pretty tough defensive player, adding that he has two training sessions a week and one game (Wednesdays). Vardi: It injects adrenaline into your life.

The children: Orian is in third grade (the school is five minutes away), takes part in a roller-skating group in the afternoon, and wants to be a model. Gets to school with Mom in the morning, then goes to an after-school center (until 4:30 P.M.) and comes home with Maya (a high-school senior) or with Grandma Shula (Vardi's mother).

Gali: First grade, same school as his sister, with whom he goes to and from school. He is in a soccer group twice a week and one day will play for Barcelona (or for Hapoel Tel Aviv).

Vardi's bio: Born 1969, Kfar Hanagid (near Rehovot), he is the middle of three children, son to a Bulgarian-born father who arrived in Israel as a boy in 1948 and a mother from Argentina, who immigrated to Israel in the 1960s. When he was 6, the family moved to Ramat Chen, a Ramat Gan neighborhood. His father (who died in 1994) was the Lower Galilee distributor for the newspaper Maariv; his mother, a housewife. Attended Blich High School in Ramat Gan, did military service in the navy (on a missile boat), then worked as a gardener for the Bnei Brak municipality (Surprisingly, there is vegetation there) and was a handball coach. Just as he started university (accountancy, at Bar-Ilan), his father fell ill. Vardi assumed the burden of providing for the family: Alongside his studies he distributed newspapers in Galilee ("I knew every byway"). He met Hadas not long after receiving his degree.

Hadas' bio: Born on Kibbutz Ein Hashofet, 1966, she's the elder of two children. Her parents, now separated, still live on kibbutz. Her father, the son of kibbutz founders, is an agronomist and economist; her mother, who immigrated to Israel in the 1950s from Chile, is a librarian. Hadas describes herself as a survivor of the communal children's houses (For sensitive children it was hard). She attended elementary school on kibbutz, then a secondary educational institution (Harei Ephraim), but effectively stopped going to school in grade 11 and did a final year in Kiryat Shmona, as part of a program in which high-school seniors lived in remote towns. She did her army service as the secretary of a battalion commander in the Golani infantry brigade. She felt she had to get out (The framework was hard for me), married a friend and got discharged, forgot to get divorced (for four years). When she left (We did not accumulate any property), she moved to Tel Aviv, completed her matriculation requirements, studied history at Tel Aviv University (the most beautiful years of my life) and earned money cleaning homes − sometimes two a day (These days I don't have the strength to clean one square meter). Afterward she managed law and accountancy firms, in one of which she met Vardi.

The meeting: Early 1998. She was an office manager (highly regarded); he a young, just-certified accountant. They were part of a group that ate lunch together in a fast-food meat place, until one day they happened to eat alone. Vardi claims Hadas started up with him, Hadas doesn't deny it (I felt he would be a family man and a good father). Everything would have been perfect, had it not been for a small cloud.

Small cloud: She knew he was going to be fired but didn't tell him, because that would have meant violating her employers' trust. He was not angry when he heard about the dismissal (The truth is, they delivered me from agony), and surprisingly he found what she had done estimable (She was told to keep the secret). He found a different job, their relations grew closer and in January 1999 there was a wedding.

The wedding: At Ha'ahuza, a banquet hall on Moshav Beit Hanan, with singer Gabi Shushan appearing after the breaking of the glass. Six months later, they went on honeymoon to Spain. They became parents in a rented apartment on Gnessin Street. Orian was breast-fed for a year and a month, Gali for barely two months.

Education: Always in the neighborhood context, Hadas says. We did not come to live here in order to take the kids to special schools in fancy jeeps.

Daily routine: On the days on which Hadas works mornings, she gets up between 5:30 and 5:45 A.M. (I love my morning), has a cup of unsweetened instant coffee and a cigarette (L&M − she smokes 10-15 a day). She then showers, dresses, puts on makeup (foundation, eyeliner, mascara, pencil, hair wax, but no lipstick or rouge) and wakes Vardi and Orian at 6:45. Gali, a tough case, is woken up at 7 P.M.. There is no breakfast. Vardi makes do with a cup of instant coffee; Orian maybe has an Actimel dairy drink. Vardi takes Phoenix out (15 minutes) and helps direct Gali to the bathroom, Hadas makes sandwiches for the kids (yellow cheese, hummus) and leaves for school with them at 7:30. Vardi is in no hurry, not getting to the office until about 9.

Lunch: The children eat in the after-school center, Vardi − on game days − has couscous, rice and schnitzel (home-style food) in a cafeteria near the office (on other days, a sandwich), and Hadas refrains from cooking as much as possible (I don't have patience for the kitchen). As evening descends, she says, she buys a heat-up meal in a grocery store. In the evening they often order pizza and sometimes round it off with schnitzels from Vardi's mother. In any event, by 9:30 P.M. the children are asleep (after reading a book) and Hadas collapses in front of the TV.

TV: Hadas likes Towers in the Air and liked Connected, both Israeli series; Vardi goes for sports and 24 (my eighth season).

Missed opportunity: Hadas regrets not having tried to live abroad; Vardi doesn't.

God: They don?t believe − maybe in fate (both).

Peace: Two states for two nations (both). Orian believes there will be peace with Syria and Lebanon because we have a common border with them. With Iran, she says, we don't, so there will be a war.

Quarrels and making up: Of course! I am more angry than him,? Hadas says. Vardi goes back to the regular routine.

Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10?): Orian − 8; Gali − 10; Vardi − 9; Hadas − 7 (I think the concept of happiness is overrated).

	The Shani family at home in Givatayim.
	Photo by: (Reli Avrahami)