[as if in dreams] A newsletter from Joseph Zitt #022
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12 February, 2021
This is issue number 22 of the newsletter.
It’s been a quiet week here. I’ve mostly been working and trying to gather materials and clarity for the film project.
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Onward (slithering through the slog?)!
This Week’s Posts
Friday, February 5th, 2021
The package on the counter at the sandwich shop is labeled “Grandma’s Hair.” I pick it up and take a closer look. It’s cotton candy. The bottle of ouzo behind the glass has more in it than last week. Either they’ve added in the contents of the other bottle or it’s a fresh bottle of the same brand. The worker is sitting under a canopy with friends, drinking from paper coffee cups. He trots back into the shop when he sees me enter. I’ve already had most of my lunch. I got a sandwich and an espresso at the cheap coffee chain in the Heart of the City. The sandwich was labeled “bagel toast” but it doesn’t resemble what Americans would call either a bagel or toast. It’s a large, round seeded bun with cheese and other things inside. The worker puts it in a press and heats it for a few minutes. I drink the espresso while I wait, lifting my mask to sip from it. I put the sandwich, in its paper wrapper, in the bag with my groceries. I stop at the bakery to get a challah. The vat of grape leaves is there again. I still have some left from last week, so I don’t get more. The ones I’ve had are wonderful, though, sweet and solid, without the edge of bitterness that I sometimes taste in the leaves. At the shop with the cotton candy, I get the sahlab. It’s as good as before, too dense to drink. I sit at a chess table and eat it slowly with a spoon. Most of the men are gone from the Friday backgammon session. Only the two players remain, staring at the board and drinking Tuborg. The clothing stores here on the city square are closed. The hummus joint is open. The coffee shops are serving people, but everything’s to go. Officially, things should change when the lockdown ends on Sunday. I suspect that they won’t. Everything will look the same as it does now.
Saturday, February 6th, 2021
I finally get outside well after dark. The street is silent, except for a group of children screeching and playing about a block to my right. I turn left and walk down the pedestrian street. I can still hear them about two blocks further away. It hasn’t rained since yesterday morning. The snails have retreated to wherever they go when it’s dry. One empty shell remains by the edge of the path. I greet the cats that I pass. One, lying in the middle of the sidewalk near the city square, doesn’t respond. It doesn’t move, even when I walk right up to it. It appears to be lying comfortably, but I think it may have died. I would call the appropriate authorities, but I don’t know whom. The sidewalk is brightly lit, so there’s little chance that anyone will trip over it. The main street is quiet, though some stores have reopened after the Sabbath. I get a sahlab from the gelato joint. The worker asks me something that I don’t catch. I look puzzled. A man at the far end of the shop calls out “Complete? Complete?” He pronounces it as in French. I repeat the word and nod. On the way home, I see that the cat is gone. I hope it walked away on its own.
Sunday, February 7th, 2021
The mirror has been on the porch for close to a month now. It leans against a wall, across from the cardboard boxes where the cats stay at night. I imagine that they use it for grooming, checking that their whiskers are straight and each hair is perfectly in place. In the backyard, the landlord has taken down the rusted swing set. A long wooden box rests on the ground where it was. It took him about a week to build the box, cutting down long planks retrieved from the spot across the road where the community puts its trimmed branches and large trash. As I head to work, I see a wheelbarrow filled with dirt near the top of my stairs. He may use it to fill in the box for planting. A contraption in the front yard may once have been a futon frame. I think he’s turning it into a table. He hasn’t touched it in a while. The pink tarp that covers it will probably stay there until the rains end. As I head out of the gate, a kitten runs in. It has been trying to jump over it, but can’t quite get that high. It seems annoyed that it had to wait for a human. It trots down the path and onto the porch. It stops at the mirror. It may be surprised to see itself. It darts away quickly, runs down the steps, and finds a comfortable place inside the wooden box.
Monday, February 8th, 2021
I have to tap in a lot of data to use the cafe’s app for the first time. I started to do so last night, but I was too tired and hungry. I just went home. Tonight, I have more energy. I give it another shot. I sit down at the other end of the city square and take out my phone. First, I have to select my home branch. Fortunately, it’s the nearest one. I then select what I want to eat from the menu. It’s smaller than their usual menu, without some of the items I’d hoped they’d have. I go for the vegetarian Mexican Bowl. This branch has no meat dishes. One that’s done, I have to register as a user. They need my first and last name, phone number, email, birthdate, and a password, twice. Then I log my credit card. I take it out of my wallet to enter the data: government ID number, card number, that three-digit thing on the back, and its expiration date. They send a code to the phone so I can confirm that it’s me. I don’t entirely trust the code. I suppose that one out of every ten thousand people might get “9999”, but I wonder if it’s a glitch. I enter it anyway. I have to click to agree to several things I vaguely understand. I look across the square at the cafe. I know the worker at the window from before. She speaks English, but is grumpy. I just click “agree” on everything. I finish the order and walk to the window. I ask the worker if I would pick the order up there or in back, as we did during the lockdown. She is confused. No app orders have come in. I start to worry. A device on the counter buzzes and prints the order. I got to the cafe faster than it did. I’m to wait at the window. I handle almost all of the conversation in Hebrew. I get stuck on one word, when she asks me if I want cutlery. I had been told the word several years ago. I remembered that it was an acronym, but had forgotten the word itself, since I hadn’t used it. I get my order fairly quickly. I start to head home but double back after half a block and return to the city square. I get a soda at a shop there and sit down at a chess table to eat. A cat jumps on the table and sniffs at the bowl. It jumps back down. I guess it doesn’t like vegetables. I eat the Mexican bowl as I watch people pass. It’s pretty good. But it would be better in Texas.
Tuesday, February 9th, 2021
I haven’t sat at this stone table before. Most of the tables have chess boards built into the stone. This has a backgammon board. The Friday players don’t gather here. They bring their own board and set it up on a chess table. I suspect that they chose the table nearest to the shop where they get their beer. I’m at the far end of the city square, near the cafe. I’m ordering from them again. I don’t plan to make a habit of getting dinner here too often. That could get expensive. I want to see if ordering the second time is easier. My phone or their server remembers the needed information. I order a grilled salmon sandwich. This time, I get the soda at the other shop on the way to the cafe. I stash it in my hoodie’s right pocket. I get to the cafe after my order has reached it. The worker at the front window sees me approach. “App?” Yes. “Yosef?” Yes. “Just a few minutes.” I shift to the side and wait. To my left, other customers order coffees to go from the cashier. To my right, a young girl repeatedly crashes her tricycle into the wall, laughing. A dog in the distance barks every few seconds. The sound bounces off of several buildings. They refract and filter it. A lower bark reaches me a few milliseconds before one a perfect fourth higher. My sandwich is done quickly. I go to the nearest table, the one with the backgammon inlay, and eat the sandwich. It is warm and delicious. Yesterday’s cat isn’t around. I suspect that it would be much more interested tonight.
Wednesday, February 10th, 2021
Lunch appears in a bag from a general Asian restaurant near here. The bosses have ordered in. It’s a coworker’s birthday. My eggroll is pretty good. It comes with a slightly spicy duck sauce. The salmon, however, is disappointing. It consists of little bits of salmon in blobs of dough. I think they’re supposed to be light and fluffy. They aren’t. Most of the bowl is filled with salad. Most of the salad is dry chopped cabbage. It comes with a salad dressing that seems to be a mishmash of miso and mayonnaise. I eat the salad. I suppose it has good fiber. The boss comes around and asks how it is. I tell him. He knows that I tend to tell the truth, but that I also tend to like things. His lunch was similar. The chicken ranged between barely cooked and burnt, without ever hitting the right point in between. The coworker across the aisle says that you just can’t get real Japanese food here. His son lives in Japan and has tried to find their food when he has come to visit. What there is doesn’t work. The bosses have ordered good food before. The usual shawarma is excellent. The best was roasted chicken with a lot of roast vegetables. We got that once. I will always remember it. When I go down to the supermarket later in the afternoon, I pick up a package of chopsticks to keep in my desk. None came with lunch. I won’t be caught without them again.
Thursday, February 11th, 2021
In the office kitchen, a coworker goes on an extended rant about Americans, vaccination, and capitalism. I don’t know a lot of the words he uses. I smile and nod vaguely as I make my coffee. I’d probably agree with what he’s saying, but I can’t be sure. After the afternoon prayers, several of us get into a discussion of the word “beyond”. One coworker thinks it means the same thing as “behind”. Another thinks that something beyond you is always in front of you. I demonstrate that that isn’t so by trying to reach an object that’s off to my left, more than an arm’s length away. And then I talk about how “beyond” isn’t always in terms of physical distance. I reference Buzz Lightyear. It helps. I get back to work on a project that I had last worked on three “Drop everything and do this instead” crises ago. On the way home, I pass a spot on the sidewalk where a mirror shattered last week. The glass still glistens ominously. I wonder if someone gets seven more years of bad luck if their foot further crushes a shard. I don’t take a chance. I walk in the street.
Colophon
(Unchanged from last week, except for this line.)
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