[as if in dreams] A newsletter from Joseph Zitt #021
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(That is, either this is the PDF edition or that is a link to it.)
5 February, 2021
This is issue 21 of the newsletter.
More steps forward on the film project this week. I got a good sense of what the most expensive part of the project would be. From that, I have a ballpark guess of what the budget of the full project should be. It’s a bit daunting, but I think I can do it. Crowdfunding, here we come.
So, once again, no reviews, just the posts.
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Onward (higher than a hog?)!
This Week’s Posts
Friday, January 29th, 2021
The bakery has set out a vat of stuffed grape leaves. I’ve never seen anything that wasn’t baked there before. I ask for a small container of them. They only have one size. They sell them by weight. The cashier puts some into a container for me, one at a time. I tell him to stop after five. He puts six in. OK. I buy them, along with a challah. I’ve already gotten most of my groceries at the Heart of the City supermarket. The chicken livers that I get are much cheaper than other meat. I hadn’t noticed that before. My favorite hummus joint is open on the city square. Customers line up at a table several doors down. A worker shuttles back and forth, taking and delivering orders. Delivery people have a different line, and apparently have priority. I get my usual hummus with tahini and a couple of pita to go. The price has gone up. It’s now 25 shekels rather than 22. I don’t have any coffee ready at home. I double back to the sandwich shop and get a large cappuccino. Two half-full bottles of ouzo sit on the counter next to cartons of regular, skim, and soy milk. I sit at a chess table and drink the coffee. The seat is a bit wet, but that’s OK. I eat the hummus when I get home. Even though I had a small breakfast, I’m full after half the order. I put the rest in the refrigerator to finish someday soon.
Saturday, January 30th, 2021
Few other people are in the city square. It’s late. The street lights have come on. I recognize many of the people who pass me: the father with two young girls, one on a scooter, one on a bike; the woman from the Sabbath cafe, huddled in a puffy coat against what she feels as cold; the much older woman, pulling a cart from one trash bin to the next, collecting bottles to redeem. I’m sitting at a chess table, reading a book on postmodern dance. On the way here, I stopped at a small food store that is open on the Sabbath. I’m eating Bamba with caramel filling and drinking a small cappuccino. I notice two purple tags stuck to the table. I realize that I’m at the same table at which I sat yesterday. A man on a bench far from me is speaking loudly in English on his phone. He’s trying to make some sort of business deal. He stops frequently and repeats more slowly what he has just said. My phone beeps to tell me that the Sabbath will be over in ten minutes. I close my eyes for a moment to rest them from reading in the now-dim light, pack up and discard my trash, and go home.
Sunday, January 31st, 2021
My work glasses fall apart as I take them off before lunch. Most of the frame stays in my left hand. The right temple lands on my desk. The glasses were cheap in the States. Five identical pairs cost something like seven or twelve dollars. I have several more pairs at home. I may even know where. But this is the pair that I keep at work, to use when looking at computer screens. One section of my trifocals is right for that, but it’s too narrow for me to see an entire monitor through it. I put the broken pair on to read screens during lunch and afterward, but they are off-kilter and slide off easily. At one point, I look at the break through my good glasses. The plastic around the screw that connects the temple to the frame has worn out. I try sliding the pieces together, but there isn’t enough plastic there to hold them in place. When I go down to the supermarket for a late-afternoon snack, I pick up some super-glue. At my desk, I carefully apply it to the hinge where the glasses broke. I fit the pieces together as precisely as I can and hold them in place for a minute or so. Some of the glue oozes out and bonds my thumb to my pointer finger. I put my glasses down and carefully pull my fingers apart, scraping the glue from between them. They detach from each other. Most of the glue comes off. The rest will wear away sometime during the week. I pick up the glasses and wiggle the connection. It’ll hold, though the hinge no longer bends. That isn’t a problem. The glasses never leave my desk. I give them one good tug to make sure the glue will hold, put them on, and get back to work.
Monday, February 1st, 2021
This bus driver flies over speed bumps. He slides around turns like a BMX biker playing bumper cars. I’m standing at the center of the bus, desperately hanging on to one of those handholds that replaced the straphangers’ straps. Plenty of seats are available. I can’t get to them. Every time I try to move, gravity shifts in another direction. I’m holding my phone in one hand. I would put it in my pocket so I could use both hands to navigate the handholds and poles, but my pockets never seem to be where my hand and phone hit my body. The driver slows slightly as he approaches bus stops, but not enough to make walking possible. He doesn’t actually stop at any of them. The overhead announcements call out their names, but it’s set wrong. It’s naming the stops in reverse order, as it would on a return trip. It’s good that I know where I’m going. The bus finally stops at the Heart of the City. I stumble off and walk on sea legs one block east to the gelato shop. I settle onto a bench with a hot sachlab to steady my nerves before heading on home.
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2021
My dietitian suggests that I change my afternoon snacks. I shouldn’t get the yogurt with the peanuts in the lid anymore. I’m to switch to low-fat, low-sugar yogurt, get the peanuts separately, and mix exactly twelve peanuts in with the yogurt. OK. At the supermarket downstairs, I get a container labeled “American peanuts.” I try them with the yogurt. They’re odd, with a sort of crunchy outer layer. I look at the packaging. It has warnings for high salt and high sugar. Apparently that layer is a sort of candy shell. I wouldn’t have known it from the taste. Today, I get a container of something with a name very much like the English word “almonds.” I know the Hebrew word for almonds, and this isn’t it. Still I’m curious. When I look inside, I find fairly raw peanuts, along with other things that aren’t nuts. At least it doesn’t have the warning stickers. I have yet to find dry roasted peanuts, like you find everywhere in the States. I already know that I can’t find fresh ground peanut butter, though I’ve heard rumors that a shop three towns over might have it. They’re another lost delicacy from the Old Country. I make do with what I can find.
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2021
This screen doesn’t tell me anything that I can use. It’s an “About” page, but it doesn’t show me what I want to know about this. There’s a form to fill out to learn more. I would do that, but the “send” button is obscured by a banner at the bottom of the screen talking about cookies. I would dismiss that, but the button at the end of the banner is covered by a hovering blob that wants to chat with me. I don’t want to chat with them. I don’t appear to have a choice. I click on the blob. A message tells me that they aren’t around right now, but I can contact them with the form that I was going to use in the first place. Charming. I hit the back button to get out of there. A window pops up asking if I would answer a brief survey about their site. I’m tempted, but I decline, though I might appreciate the challenge of writing a sentence entirely made up of four-letter words. I go back to the page from which I got to this one. I’ve lost interest in the item that the “About“ page supposedly was about. I try to retrace the train of thought that led me there. I’ve forgotten. If it’s important enough, I’ll remember later. I have other things to do.
Thursday, February 4th, 2021
According to the automatic translator, the text message from the Medical Center says “The cockroising lapheasure at its peak and the amount of the daily verb remains high!” Um, OK. Someone else who got the message says that the translator is telling her “The corona plague is at its peak and the daily verified number remains high!” That makes more sense. Apparently I’m the only one who got Finnegan’s wake-up call. The rest of the message says that they’re opening up vaccines to anyone over 16, so everyone should click a link for an appointment. “You are at the disposal as you need.” It’s been a week since my second vaccination, so I should be immune – except they’re worrying about mutations. The game of molecular whack-a-mole goes on. Several of my office mates have gotten both their shots. Several had the virus a while ago, none seriously, so they’re supposed to be immune. The numbers for the country are pretty good, but not good enough to let down our guard. Cases among people over sixty are half of what they once were, but cases among children have gone way up. We don’t know what’s going to happen next with the lockdown. All I can do is wear my mask, watch the news, and, apparently, keep away from the cockroising lapheasure.
Colophon
(Unchanged from last week, except for this line!)
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