Joseph ZItt's [as if in dreams] 2024-07-26
Hi. I'm Joseph Zitt. I moved from the US to Israel in 2017. This is my newsletter about more-or-less daily life in my city in the shadow of war. You can select these links to subscribe or unsubscribe. There are more links at the bottom. You can also read this email online here. Here we go...
The move to the House of a Hundred Grandmothers is going pretty well. My biggest task at the moment is severely shrinking my library. The new apartment is almost exactly half the size of the current one, so I have calculated that I'll have space for eight bookcases to hold all my media.
A great record store is coming by in the middle of next week to get the CDs I'm offloading (about 80% of the collection). They seem excited about what I've got.
The largest English-language bookstore in the area will be coming by to look at, and hopefully take, the books (about 70% of the collection).
No one seems interested in the DVDs I'm getting rid of (about 90% of the collection). There's no market for American-region disks without Hebrew subtitles. I may end up giving those away to anyone from the relevant Facebook groups who will come by and take the lot. Or I may offer them to the next nearest retirement community, which caters to English speakers.
For both the CDs and books, I'll be getting credit at the stores rather than cash. That's fine with me. I can afford to do that, and it will come to more. The credit will establish, in a sense, a fund for purchasing stuff at their stores rather than spending physical, fungible money. That will be fun. I figure that I wouldn't get a whole lot for the collections anyway.
My priorities in handing off the collections would be first, to regain the space that they take up, and second, to give them a good chance to get closer to the hands of people who would appreciate them. They'll also support local businesses. Even for books that I have enjoyed and cherished but probably will no longer reread, it lets me imagine the delight of another person finding them in the shop.
The person who cleans my apartment is also helping me sort out the books and box them neatly. I know that, without her, I would be sitting among heaps of books on my floor, blankly leafing through them.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, I'll be traveling to Ikea (pronounced "ee-key-ah" here) to get much of the furniture for the new place. I would like to buy local, but that would be far more complicated and expensive. Their big July sale ends Monday. They don't have online ordering, so I have to go there, even though I've made a precise list of everything from their website. They're an hour away by bus, but they also have the classic Ikea cafeteria there (kosher, of course -- I understand that first dates among the ultra-orthodox often meet there).
Fortunately, I can pay a bit for Ikea to deliver and assemble the furniture (including eight bookcases, six of them with doors, and a bed) -- %15 of the price, with a minimum of 250 shekels (about US$70). I have assembled lots of their furniture over the decades, but the appeal of doing all that has worn off.
My first week of retirement has gone well. The biggest challenge is changing the rhythm of my days. A few decisions are relatively easy. I'm sticking with pretty much the same breakfasts that I had every day when I was working. And I'm trying to align my lunch and supper times to when I'll be eating at the House.
They're doing some renovations to my apartment. They have painted the walls (generic white, which is OK). They're also replacing the floors. While it had a nice parquet before, they're apparently putting something more slip-resistant in all newly-bought apartments. That makes sense.
I actually had a pretty dramatic fall a few nights ago. While we were working on the books, my cleaner was also vacuuming. At one point, she put the rod down behind me. I unexpectedly turned around, stepped forward, and tripped over it. With my mind switching speeds as it tends to in those moments, I was able to scan where I was headed, figure out the trajectory, give myself a slight push when one foot touched the ground, and fly further forward.
I landed comfortably on my bed. The cleaner was amazed. She then ordered me to sit down and stay put until she finished vacuuming.
I still have one retirement-related event to go. As is traditional, I'll be back at the office Monday at lunchtime. They're gathering for a "preydah," a sort of retirement party. That will be good.
It's been too hot to go out much, but I have done so every day anyway. A steady ninety degrees Fahrenheit feels more oppressive here than it did in Texas. I'm mostly keeping to the near end of the neighborhood's shopping street, more than I had before. And I finally got a library card, though I don't know if I'll use it much.
It's Friday, so I'll head over to the House for kiddush and supper in an hour or so. Shabbat shalom, all.
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Here’s an archive of past newsletters.
You can find me via email, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and, just out of inertia, X/Twitter. There's more about me and my books, music, and films at josephzitt.com.
The newsletter’s official mailing address is 304 S. Jones Blvd #3567, Las Vegas NV 89107. (I’m in Israel, but if physical mail comes to me at that Las Vegas address, it’ll get scanned and emailed. I don’t expect that to happen much. If you want to send me physical mail, ask me for a real address.)
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L'hitraot.