Saturday, July 18, 2020

I head out for the afternoon. I’m not sure where I’m going. I’ve heard that restaurants may or may not be closed except for takeout and delivery. I head to the one cafe that is usually open on the Sabbath. It is. I check the news. There’s been a last minute change. Restaurants have another three days before they shut down, so the food that they have in stock won’t go to waste. About half of the tables on the patio are occupied. About half of the people at them aren’t eating. They’re just smoking. I think of moving inside, but I can breathe well enough. I get through everything in Hebrew, ordering a salad that I already know. I discover that I forgot to bring along the book that I’ve been reading. I look at Twitter instead. The salad, when it is delivered, is quite different from what I got when I ordered it before. This is better. I’m pleased. On the way home, I see that the bench with the Give-and-Take box is buried in clothing. So is the ground around it. It looks like someone just dumped three or four garbage bags full of clothes there. Some children’s books are sitting, spine up, in the box itself. A fruit juicer sits next to them. I’m tempted to take it, but I don’t drink much juice, and I’m running out of room on my kitchen counter. I stop at the ATM and at the ice cream shop. I get a small cup of gelato, mostly to break the large bill that I got from the cash machine. I procrastinate as long as I can there before heading out to complete the tasks waiting for me at home.