[as if in dreams] A newsletter from Joseph Zitt - 16 October 2023
A few drops of rain fall on me on the way to work, but don't trigger anything more. That's good. I have left my jacket at home. The kittens, dry and fluffy, are playing with their mother on our lawn. The other cats seem to have reverted to their usual colors.
I hear a few booms when halfway there. I stop and listen. Rather than the usual quick decay, these resonate, like muted gongs. I recognize them as the sound of large trucks, either being loaded or having their doors slammed.
I'm told that yesterday's boom without sirens was from a rocket that veered out to sea. It was intercepted, but no one had to take cover, except, perhaps, for some unlucky fish.
At work, two programmers come over to me with an English question. "How do you spell 'kindergarten'?"
I think about it. "I spell it with a 't'. But some people spell it with a 'd.'"
"Why do you spell it with a 't'?"
"Because it comes from German."
"English comes from German?"
"It comes from everywhere. It's like Yiddish. It finds whatever words it can, dumps them into a pot, and it all becomes chulent."
A lot of cultures have something like chulent: You take a cheap cut of meat (though you can make it vegetarian), lots of beans, potatoes or rice, and whatever else is around that isn't dairy. You put it in a pot set on a low flame or, nowadays, in a slow cooker, and let it cook overnight. It's a classic comfort food. For last Shabbat's lunch at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers, the dining hall was closed. The staff brought chulent to everyone. Good wartime food. Smart.
The rain starts again midday, right after someone in the office kitchen has microwaved some asparagus. We can't open the windows or the rain will get in. We are not happy.
A headline in the Times of Israel presents another English challenge: "Air Force flies ground forces commanders over Gaza Strip." I have to read it several times before I can figure out which word is meant to act as a verb.
I find that I occasionally have to reach for English words that I should remember, much as I have to reach for Hebrew. In a tip-of-the-tongue moment, I resort to asking Google Bard, "What is a word for an area for people to live, not for businesses?" It gives me an overlong essay, with bullet points, on the word I need, "residential."
A news article tells of luxury hotels hosting free scout activities for displaced children. I used to work at one of them. Even though the job wasn't a good fit and I didn't last long, I'm still proud of them.
Another article tells how to navigate in the country if GPS is down. The Powers That Be might jam it in some areas if enemy drones try to attack.
A headline on my screen reminds be that the vast majority of the country's produce comes from near the border, in the areas that attackers ravaged and burned and where we've evacuated many of the workers. The stores have plenty of produce now, but that may change.
There are rockets elsewhere in the country, but none close enough to trigger sirens here. TV footage shows our parliament calmly rushing to shelter when there's an alarm while they're in session. A boatful of Americans departs from the city that a friend is trying to leave, headed for Cyprus, so they can get flights home. Meanwhile, there are rumors that the American president may be coming here soon. Many people are excited. Some aren't.
I try to act and sound as if everything is normal. No rockets have hit my city in a few days, the stores are stocked, and the cafés are open much of the time. I continue to watch TV and try to work on my job and my film. But I'm always ready to sprint into a shelter. I'm aware that a thousand people in my country were killed in an invasion about a week ago. I know that hundreds of thousands are facing a dire emergency just about fifty miles (as the rocket -- er, crow flies) from here. And I know that sometime soon, we're about to cross the border with deadly force. In the long term, that is probably the best thing that can be done. But in the short term, in the next few days, things may get a whole lot worse.
The rain starts and stops again just before I head home. I put on a podcast about TV and try not to think about the news. The brick sidewalks here are slippery and shiny. The beautiful snails haven't come out yet. But I know they will soon.
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L'hitraot.