Saturday, May 9, 2020

Several parties are in progress in my neighborhood. Loud music blasts from behind stone walls, mixed with multiple voices. I smell at least two barbecues. Hickory smoke drifts from the one near my house, though not the one closer to downtown. I stop into an ice cream joint, one of the few places open on the Sabbath. I get a cone with one scoop of Snickers gelato. The temperature outdoors is a few degrees warmer than it was last time I got ice cream. By the time I find a bench and sit down, much of the gelato has melted and run down my hand. Time to switch to cups rather than cones. When I try to eat some of it, it collides with my mask. I’ve forgotten that I’m wearing one. A religious family with two baby carriages and more children that I can count are across the square from me. A few meters away, a toddler walks unsteadily along the brick wall of a long planter. His mother holds his hand and speaks to him in something like Russian. When he reaches the corner, he looks down and around, uncertain how to proceed. His mother lifts him in the air, turns him ninety degrees, and puts him back down. He continues walking. Two cats, one black and white and one orange, wander past them. A black cat darts in from the side. It runs up to the orange cat and puts its paws on its back. The orange cat, startled, leaps straight up into the air. The black cat flips over and lands upside down. They both recover and stand in place. Neither seems sure what just happened, They run off in opposite directions. The Give-and-Take box on my way home is covered with clothes and books. I don’t look at the clothes. Most of the books are for children. I take one cookbook: “Salads of the World.” It’s in Hebrew, but the words probably stick to a small domain of knowledge. I think I can hack my way through it.