what with all the politicians changing places and creating new parties, I wasn’t surprised that my friend Rachel called to invite me to join her new political party – no name or platform – but she’s sure we’ll get more votes if we just keep quiet.
in fact, it has been suggested that we connect the vaccinations with the elections. we vote once and get a vaccine and then 21 days later, we get another vaccine and new elections.
december 30, 2020 – new political parties Read Post »
as much as i try to stay away from the post office, there’s always something that makes me drop by. Mailed packages are the worst.
Of course it depends on how the package is sent. Amazon gets delivered, and so do specially sent mail. This morning the guy who delivers our special mail called me and announced he was on his way – two minutes later a package from Heather – wrapped and rewrapped after customs – without the address on it. Apparently the address got lost in the rewrapping and until I called to see what happened, no one made any effort to find out where it belonged. But here it is – a treasure trove of necklaces that I will enjoy sharing with friends.
An hour later I got a notice of a package awaiting us in the P.O. and Ezi, hoping it is the achipor he ordered months ago, walked me the half a mile with great anticipation. “It’s lockdown,” he said, “no one will be there.” And indeed, there were only two tellers, and the usual take-a-number system.
Unfortunately, however, with only two tellers and many people happy for an excure to get out, the queue was not so empty.
What was in the package you ask? Another book by Louise Gluck. I promised to write about her for some encyclopedia and I don’t do things half-way. I read every single word.
which package did i enjoy more? You’ll soon see.
december 30, 2020 – post office under lockdown Read Post »
Use it on your zoom or wherever you’re celebrating – especially if you aren’t really celebrating.
We’re having a new years zoom poetry reading at IAWE. I may even read the poem, but the point is to celebrate what we do have, not what we’ve lost, that maybe things are getting better.
Certainly it is understandable that maybe people here are uncertain and worried. The musical chairs our politicians play before our repeated elections does not make it easier to feel secure. Many of us feel better with knowing there may be changes, but none of us feel secure.
As for the vaccines, I’m still talking to people who feel uncertain about whether they will take it. I tell them that they trusted Pfizer with their sex lives, why not with the rest of their lives.
december 29, 2020 – “we’re still here” Read Post »
“it’s in your mind, some poet just told me when I started to mention the crazy things going on in my body. And maybe she’s right. Because I really am all right. but suddenly something pokes at me from inside – here, there, somewhere else. a boring stomach ache, a sharp pain in the back of my head, a jolt from my side. Totally unlike any symptom we’ve been warned against. Clearly an imagined war going on inside my body. Nevertheless, it meant a day not doing the stuff I should have done.
But maybe it’s real. And which are the forces of evil, which are the forces of good?
december 28, 2020 – crazy symptoms Read Post »
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 »
