i
t took 3/4 hours altogether. We left home at 8 and were home before 9. I barely felt it. Ezi not at all. As always I taste whatever was injected into me – but it may well be psychosomatic. So get ready for more reactions.
december 27, 2020 – first vaccination Read Post »
Nobody believed in this lockdown. Everyone was desperate to get at much as possible in before it started at 5. groceries, street food, clothing, fun, just walking in the street. We had something we had to do there, and weren’t counting on the crowds and traffic jams so we wound up leaving the parking garage at 4:35. We should have been home in fifteen minutes, but it took forty. And we weren’t the last ones on the roads, not by a long shot. So now we’ll have to rush out earlier than we’d planned to get our vaccines.
It’s pretty clear that we’re counting on the vaccines to get us out of the lockdown after two weeks. There are already more than a quarter of a million people here who have been vaccinated for the first time, and our entire population is around 8 million.
If only the poor businesses can hold on for 2 weeks, we may be slowly coming around but I fear that even our favorite food, the felafel, may be in danger. We’re still allowed to do orders from restaurants, but street food can’t work that way…
So there are 150,000 unemployed and I have no idea how they are going to get back to work again.
December 27, 2020 – Dizengoff just before the lockdown Read Post »
So many things we could do is this last shabbat before lockdown! The beach, a bit of shopping, last-minute visits with kids, matbe just a visit with friends. So many choices, we couldn’t decide and stayed home except for a short visit to a visit to a nursery that turned out to be closed. We were simply paralyzed.
maybe with excitement – last night my sister-in-law passed on to Ezi another box of papers that belong to the previous generations and we spent half of last night looking at things like the front page of the newspaper declaring the independence of Israel, letters from a world war I prisoner of war camp, photographs of Tel Aviv from the 1920’s.
we were also thrilled to see grandchildren yesterday – one more delightful than the other – it is pretty remarkable how easily i’m moved nowadays!
maybe with expectation – among the many other things we’re doing tomorrow are our vaccinations. Ours are in the evening and we have no way of knowing how well the protection will be for a lymphoma-treated patient or how my allergy-prone body will take it, but the excitement is incredible.
so far 200000 people have been vaccinated in this country, and apparently the health clinics are working around the clock. Let’s just hope this will be our last lockdown and everyone will be vaccinated. When one of my ex-students came down with corona, we waited every day for her to update her facebook – especially since she had lymphoma when Ezi did. But she is healthy and back on facebook, and we are relieved.
december 26, 2020 – last day before lockdown and vaccine Read Post »
there was an article in HaAretz today (Hebrew) about a new book concerning the ceramics factory, Lapid, that disappeared a while ago. We used to have many many dishes and vases from Lapid but they were either broken or considered too provincial and old fashioned to preserve. In fact, the only thing I kept as a treasure was a little tile made by Elspeth Cohen, who was the star of Lapid. 
She was a very good friend of the family in those days, and I imagine that this piece was not her usual ceramic style. The kind of optimism Elspeth had here was shared by many people then.
december 25, 2020 – Lapid Read Post »
so a notice comes for a package waiting in the post office. it is very exciting, especially since the package delivered early this morning was only a special shampoo I ordered a while ago that I no longer need. THIS package will be worth the trouble of traipsing to the post office (where there is no parking), taking a number, and standing in line – because in all likelihood it will be Heather Ferguson’s necklaces that she sent from Canada so long ago! Yes, I think, and I’ll wear the necklaces and give one to each of my daughters, and maybe to one or two of my best friends. Anyway, this dreaming keeps me going for a while.
Of course the P.O. is crowded and I take the wrong kind of number at first, and when I realize my mistake, take the right kind, and see that I might as well go across the street to the university bookstore and buy a new keyboard before my number is called. I come back half an hour later and it is almost my turn so I stand in the middle of the room yards away from everyone else.
Suddenly my number is called, but as I step up to window #4, someone from before returns to the clerk to ask something, and a delivery man drops off a bundle of papers, and a man with a box steps in to complain, and suddenly I hear the number after mine called to a different carroll.
It is my turn to butt in and complain. Determinedly, I take my place at window #5 and show her my number. Yes, she says, and adds a few words. But she is behind her mask and behind a plastic window and there is noise from the crowds behind me and I can’t understand what she’s saying. It takes me a minute to realize that I have to show her my notice. “People wait so long, they forget what they came here for,” she shouts at me, and goes to the other room to bring the package.
But it’s only a slim envelope and I walk back a bit crestfallen. No jewelry for me. It turns out to be a book of Louise Gluck, “Faithful and Virtuous Night,” and since I was a bit disappointed by other books of hers I was not happy to see it. But it’s really good. Really. I read the first poem in the car as Ezi and I drove to buy a pair of shoes before the shutdown, and it captivated me like no other in recent years.
We’re going into lockdown anyway on Sunday so the necklaces will wait. And even if they arrived, my planned visit with Heather and friends on zoom wearing my Jools will have to be cancelled because I’M GETTING A VACCINE ON SUNDAY!!!
december 24, 2020 – post office Read Post »
4 elections in 2 years
3 lockdowns
2 vaccines
1 achla mess
december 23, 2020 – numbers Read Post »
12 kilometers on the Israel Trail today. There are parts I’ve erased from my memory already. I think I walked the whole section from the Hedera river to the Alexander river still asleep.
Actually, I was talking to friends most of the time. But it was gorgeous. Really.
But I woke up when we got to the beach for lunch.
It was a perfect beach – beit yanai, maybe? I’ll have to check with my partners. Suddenly I saw the seagulls, each one on their own post, and I realized that we were all individuals sitting together, watching the sea and eating our sandwiches and thinking very different thoughts.
From there we went to Gan Shmuel, one of the first kibbutzim, and as we drove in, Ezi whispered to me – “My grandfather built a silo here. ” He’d never seen it, he admitted upon grilling, but he had a picture of it, and described it. All this was new to me – but as we stood in the middle of the kibbutz he spotted it. 
For goodness sake, I’ve been married to the guy for over 40 years and knew that Ezi had built silos in Gan Shmuel – because he was working with concrete that had to be mixed and poured continuously – so he was working around the clock, but I had no idea about this silo.
It didn’t impress our instructor, either. He went on to show us things like the Etrog orchard and the spot where a weapons stash from the British rule here, and the graveyard, but never went near the silo.
I came home and looked up the silo – and there was a plaque with the history of the silo, but no mention of the builder. So now we have to find the photographs of the building of the site and send them to the historical society. Here’s the plaque
of the link in English translation. The Hebrew one doesn’t seem to work on this site. No mention of Gut. But the silo is very reminiscent of Arpad Gut’s work:
and in fact, here it is – among his photographs. His name forgotten by the preservation society.
december 22, 2020 – seagulls and silos Read Post »
with all the terrible news going on right now – new strain, increase in infection, elections in march, terrorism – you’d think there’s nothing to smile about. But no. There are always things to smile about.
Here’s one. Ezi has a bunch of friends on whatsapp from the old days, and one of them is the father of the news presenter on channel 13. As Ezi was figuring out what to wear for the hike tomorrow, I turned on the news to hear that she was going to present her parents being innoculated against the virus – live. So I call Ezi and we watch this little event. Ezi texts congratulations immediately and receives a little response in Aramaic to the tune of “the deed is done” and the other guys chime in to share their pleasure. I’m pretty sure he was embarrassed at all this attention of friends – more than the fact that he was on live tv.
What else can I laugh at? the fact that Seamus Heaney once said in an interview, “If we winter this one out, we can summer anywhere.” I’m one of those who barely lives in the winter – I’m the old lady in a puffy coat shivering in the corner of the room cradling my tea, while everyone else is in t-shirts celebrating with a glass of wine. So I’m always waiting for summer…
december 21, 2020 – always something to smile about Read Post »
