Wednesday, December 23rd, 2020

The coffee shop around the corner from the Sabbath cafe has a full takeaway menu. I’m only there for a hot drink, but I notice the menu on the counter. I ask about it, but fumble the Hebrew. The worker answers in English. “Yes, we have sandwiches, salads, other things. We have a menu in English if you want to see.” I don’t, but it’s good to know. That chain has a good inexpensive Israeli breakfast, but it wouldn’t really work as takeaway. I get a coffee and sit in a sort of park on the other side of the shop from the city square. It isn’t much. Wide brick sidewalks, with chairs and two picnic tables, run around the north and west edges of a parking lot. A planter runs down the middle of the northern leg. Beyond that, a low fence with an open gate separates it from another similar park, down a few steps, around another parking lot. I remember the coffee shop building, or another similar building in the same spot, from a visit here a decade or so ago. I shot video of graffiti on its walls. One set, in Hebrew, in flowing black handwriting on cement, says “Life’s what you make of it.” Another wall, or perhaps the same one but a distance away, says in English “This is not a rebellious statement.” I think the same person wrote both. All that is gone now. And I may be completely wrong about where the graffiti was. I look over at the coffee shop again and think of getting something to go. I don’t. I have food that I should eat at home. This place is in the same chain as the one at the mall. They probably have a full takeaway menu, too. I may get something there on Friday and join the picnic on the lawn.