Friday, November 13th, 2020

It’s donut season. They always appear around now, about a month before Hanukkah. Since our national body clock is off, what with the lockdowns, late rains, and unripe clementines, I’m surprised to see them. I get one at the bakery where I buy my challah. I do my usual Friday rounds. I get groceries at the supermarket in the Heart of the City. They’re out of chicken breasts, so I get a turkey breast. I see that they have liver on sale. I pick out a package of it. I stand in the cashier’s line behind a man with only two items. The cashier takes a long time with the customer before him. As she does, a woman repeatedly appears next to him. She hands him more and more items. He has to put some down on a display to avoid dropping them. It takes much longer to ring him up than it would have for just the original two items. Heading out of the store, I realize that I have nothing on which to cook the liver. I go into the cookware store and ask for an inexpensive grilling pan. The worker asks me a litany of questions. Price range? Size? What kind of stove? What will you be cooking? I get a pan for only a little more than I had expected, since it’s forty percent off today. The cookware here is good. It’s worth the money. I get a shawarma from my favorite shop. I sit down in the square to eat it. The shops there are all open and busy. There’s still a long line at the shoe store. My boss comes past and sees me. He’s on his way to the shoe store. I warn him about the lines. Somehow, when he gets there, no one else is waiting. He sails right in. A few minutes later, the line reappears. I wonder how he does that. The table with the jars of jam is at the front of the square again. The sign is now clearer. They cost twenty shekels apiece. I go up to get one. The teenager behind the table says that they have grape and carambola. I pick up the second one and ask again what it is. Carambola. I have no idea. I get one. It’s in a flimsier jar than what I had gotten before. By the time I get home, the lid has popped open. Carambola has oozed all over the bottom of my shopping bag. I look it up later. I know it as starfruit. It tastes much better than I remember starfruit tasting. I spend the rest of the afternoon finishing the newsletter. As I’m about to send it out, the server goes down. I make dinner: liver, spinach, and, as a dessert, challah with the starfruit jam. I upload the newsletter and put on the TV. Later, I eat the donut with some cola-flavored seltzer. The season has begun. It is good.