Friday, May 22, 2020

I start coughing when I take my mask off in the square downtown. Someone has smoked something noxious nearby. I often like the scent of tobacco and other herbs. This smells more like someone lit a trash bin on fire. Maybe someone did. I do my usual Friday morning rounds: a challah at the bakery, espresso at the cheap coffee chain, falafel at my favorite shawarma joint. A delivery person pulls up to the doorway of the shawarma joint on a powered scooter just before I get there. He’s picking up five varied falafels for a family on my street. I hear the address but not the name. The shop had gotten the order earlier. Falafel should be fresh, so they hold off on making it until someone is actually there to pick it up. I have to wait. That’s OK. They make them one at a time. They label the bags that they put them in so that people can tell them apart. I admire the rider’s mask. It’s more rigid than most. It looks like it was designed for the contours of his face, and blends well with his black helmet. Downtown, only one in ten people or so are wearing masks. Fewer are wearing them in my neighborhood. People in my generation seem to be more likely to wear them. Of those whom I hear speaking English, no one else with a North American accent has one on. I know that the rules were lifted for the heatwave. I’m told that they might continue through today, even though it’s cooled down. I’m not sure, so I wear mine anyway, except when I’m eating. I get a large jar of pure peanut butter at the nuts and berries store. The small jar that I got there last week was the best I’ve found. It’s still not as good as the fresh-ground stuff I got in the states. I don’t put any in the quarantine stash. The commercial peanut butter, laden as it is with preservatives and other goo, is less likely to break down over time. Maybe my next JoeBowls will use a peanut sauce rather than tahini. I have a recipe. I head back to the square to eat my falafel. When I find a bench, I sit down, take off my mask, and start coughing. I get up and move to another bench a few meters away. The air is better there.