[as if in dreams] A newsletter from Joseph Zitt #019
PDF (More printable) Edition
(That is, either this is the PDF edition or that is a link to it.)
22 January, 2021
This is issue number nineteen of the newsletter.
It's been a moderately busy week. Fortunately, I think my news consumption will be levelling off.
Work continues on the film project. I've done a lot of juggling and tweaking of relevant files, and preparing for online meetings and research.
So, once again, no reviews, just the posts.
As always, please pass on the newsletter to anyone that might enjoy it. If someone passed this on to you and you like it, please subscribe! (And there's a link to unsubcribe, if needed, at the end of the emails.)
I'd love to hear any comments you might have on the newsletter and how it might be better. You can find me via email, Twitter, and Facebook.
Onward (balancing the Balrog?)!
This Week's Posts
Friday, January 15, 2021
The store-bought sahlab comes in a lidded cup, much like the yogurt with add-ins that I get each afternoon. I’ve never seen it before. I’m in a small supermarket off the city square, finishing up my Friday shopping. I’d been going to the larger supermarket in the Heart of the City, but that’s gotten complicated. I had signed up for their club card. It arrived in the mail a few days ago. It said to text a word to a phone number to get my PIN code. It took me a while to figure out how to send a text from my phone to a nameless number rather than to a contact. One of the jungle of apps on my phone can do it, but the field to enter the number is mislabeled in the interface. I think I figured it out, and sent the code, but never got a response. It should have happened instantly. If I go to the usual supermarket, they’ll badger me to get the card. I can show them that I already have but don’t have the code. I don’t feel like being looked at like an idiot again, so I’m at the other store today. The sahlab is in their dairy case. I get one, on a whim. When I get home and want a snack, I look at the package. Normally, things packed like that are eaten cold. Sahlab is better hot. The lid contains the usual mix-ins: ground peanuts, coconuts, and spice. The cup has the sahlab itself. I put it in the microwave for about a minute. I stare carefully as it turns and heats. I don’t know if this kind of plastic will melt or catch fire. It doesn’t. I take it out, peel the covering from the lid, and dump the flavorings on top. It’s pretty good. It doesn’t quite have the same flavor or texture as what I get in the shops, but it could serve as a stopgap. I’ll have to remember it. I may stock up on more.
Saturday, January 16th, 2021
I have to zip up my hoodie for the first time this season. I have trouble finding the slider and fear that it may have broken off sometime. I carefully run my fingers up that side of the zipper. I find it at the top, nestled against the collar. The city square is chilly. I probably should have worn warm socks with my sandals, too. I’m sitting with an espresso from the corner shop with the ice cream freezers out front. I’m working my way through another chapter of the music text. It’s a quick read, but I keep stopping to think. Fewer people than usual are out now. It may be too cold for many. Dogs and their humans go past occasionally. Last week, it was mostly terriers. Today, I see a lot of what I think are Labrador retrievers. In the quiet of the afternoon, I spot things I hadn’t seen before. A sign says that the city’s first bus station was here, next to the square. Or maybe the square itself used to be the bus station. A box that I think controls traffic lights has what looks like an abandoned monitor on top of it. That turns out to be a solar panel. I don’t stay downtown for long. It’s too chilly. I make myself a new heuristic: when the temperature drops below fifteen, wear socks.
Sunday, January 17th, 2021
The thunderstorm starts while I’m in the supermarket downstairs from the office. I hadn’t figured on that. I’m not dressed for it. While checking out, I wonder what to do. I have a long time to think. The person before me is paying for some of his purchase with a paper bag full of change. The cashier doesn’t complain. She pours it out onto a newspaper, separates the coins, and counts them. I know that my apple and yogurt will cost between six and eight shekels, depending on the weight of the apple. I have my ten-shekel piece ready. I head out and stand under the canopy at the exit. I’d rather not deal with the rain. It doesn’t look like it will be stopping soon. A corridor near the courtesy desk heads out of the store. I’m not sure where it goes. I double back into the store and follow it. It dead-ends at an elevator down to the parking deck. I figure that I can go down then take another elevator up to the office. This elevator only makes two stops: here on the ground floor (Level Zero) and Level Minus-2. I get off there. I figure that I’m within a few meters of the other elevator. I circle the outside of the one that I came down in. I don’t see it. I circle again, looking at the surrounding walls. Still nothing. I give up, head back to the store, go out again, and run to the door of the office building itself. I get wet, but not too wet. It’s still raining at the end of the day. My bosses give me a ride home. They tell me that there is a way to get from one elevator to the other on Minus-2. Someday they’ll show me.
Monday, January 18th, 2021
Only one checkout line is open at the supermarket at the Heart of the City. As I approach it, the cashier walks away. He’s in the midst of ringing someone up. A man stands between the checkout and me. He doesn’t have a bag or basket. His arms are full of groceries. While we wait, several more people get in line behind me. Some change their minds and go over to the self-scanners. I would use them but I have some meat that I’m not sure how to scan. This weekend will be a good time to make a cholent. I want to try out my new card. The text message with the link to the PIN code finally arrived yesterday. The instantaneous can take a while here. The man in front of me drops his groceries on the floor. Nothing breaks. He stomps out of the store shouting in what might be Vietnamese. I move up to where he was. I start placing my groceries on the conveyor belt. The cashier eventually returns. He speaks to the customer whose purchase was in progress. “So you want to cancel all this?” She nods. He moves her groceries to the aisle behind him and rings me up. He scans my card when he’s done. He never asks for the PIN number. Since it’s my first purchase with the new card, I get seventy-five shekels off. That’s good. I pack up my groceries and leave. Looking back, I see several customers waiting. No one has picked up what the shouting man dropped. No other lines have opened. The customers don’t look happy.
Tuesday, January 19th, 2021
It’s raining again as I head down to the supermarket. I try to get there underground. The elevator from the supermarket only goes to one other floor, Minus-2. The elevator from the office building goes there, too. I head out of the office and take the elevator to Minus-2. I go to an exit door to the parking deck itself. It’s locked. So is the other one. I see an open staircase. I take it down to Minus-3. When I get there, I realize that it’s useless for this. There’s no way up to the supermarket from there. Departing cars spiral up a corkscrew path, but there’s no space to walk along it. I get on the office elevator, take it back to the ground floor, and run outside to the supermarket. It isn’t raining too hard. I stop by the guard to get my temperature scanned. He doesn’t look up from his phone. He points. They’ve put up a scanner on a tripod mount. I scan my hand. 36.5 degrees. OK. I go inside to shop. I grab an apple and yogurt and stand in line. I look in my wallet. I don’t have a ten-shekel coin or a small bill, just a hundred and a pile of change. My purchase comes to 7.6 shekels. I count out coins, mostly half-shekel pieces, and hand them to the cashier. I’ve counted wrong. She needs another 1.4 shekels. The customer behind me asks, in a pitying tone, if she can help. No. I dig out the remaining amount and hand it to the cashier, then go back outside. I take a breath and prepare to run back through the rain.
Wednesday, January 20th, 2021
I pull up the hood of my sweatshirt as more rain starts to fall. The hood’s enough for now. The weather report said that we would only have a twenty percent chance of rain today. The rain now is only falling about twenty percent as hard as it was. It’s a vague dripping drizzle rather than a torrent. I guess they were right. The cats still wander about. The snails haven’t come out yet. Around lunchtime, a volley of thunder shakes the building. I’m immediately alert. When I last worked around here, in the Eighties, the sound of an explosion like that would put everyone on edge. Now, few react. Another similar clap of thunder a few hours later summons a hailstorm. It falls straight down, not at an angle like the rain. I finally have the opportunity to text my local family: “Gang! Gang! The hail’s all here!” It ends quickly. At the afternoon prayers, the building manager tells us that he had seen hail today the size of a falafel ball. Somehow, the floor of the atrium appears dry. I leave work early. I want to be home to watch the American inauguration. I walk through more moments of drizzle. Once I’m home, I see that the power glitched during the day. Some things have reset. Some haven’t. As I turn on the TV, I hear one more, smaller thunderclap and a few seconds of further rain. The clouds quickly give up and drift away.
Thursday, January 21st, 2021
It’s cold outside, but not too cold, damp but not raining. I get to work at about the usual time and continue with what I usually do. I’m rewriting a manual from several years ago. Not much in the program has changed, but the manual needs a complete overhaul. After I first read it last week, I had to ask my boss what the program actually is for and what it does. The website didn’t help much either. The overly technical writing assumes that you were already familiar with the obscure quirks of the operating system. If you don’t, as I wasn’t, it’s effectively technobabble. I mostly work on fixing the formatting of what I have. Once that’s done, I can start to rewrite it. I also shoot images of the program’s few screens. Just as I’m about to head out, the boss calls me into his office. He finally demos the program for me. When I note some oddities in the screen menus, he changes them on the spot. They’re better, but I now have to reshoot them for the manual. I miss the bus that I wanted to take, as well as the one after that. I could certainly walk, but the bosses give me a ride home. An alert on my phone tells me that the government will be changing the bus rates soon. Most will be reduced. The article says, with a straight face, that local fares around here will be lowered from 5.9 shekels to 6. I close my eyes for a moment and look again. Yes, that’s what it says. I put my phone back in my pocket. I’ll find out the new fare when it happens, but probably not before.
Colophon
(Unchanged from last week, except for this line!)
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