Sun 14th Mar 2021
Picnic at Mandarine Beach again consisted of a box lunch, prepared by the redoubtable Etti in a jiffy. The decision to go was made at 11:30 and by 12:00 we were on our way., a plastic box of fish and vegetables for each of us, packed into the rich blue cooler bag, with some clementines, oranges, apples and sliced vegetables.
I called Ariel to check whether the kids wanted falafel from French Hill falafel, their favorite and the answer was a delighted yes. We made a short stop at Ariel and Lilach to sit on their balcony a while to the joy of Lilach. I had a spot of whiskey, we chatted about the upcoming elections and Ophir once again provoked us all by saying that he would vote for Bibi, thank goodness he doesn't have the right to vote yet. My declaration in favor of Yair Lapid wasn’t too popular either.
Ariel showed us the plans for the new kitchen they will be installing in a few months time. The basic idea, as far as I could see, was to free the space under the window for the dining room table and to move the cupboards from there to the large expanse of wall and fridge to the short wall at the entrance. The effect should be to give the whole place more light, although it has lots of light even as it is now.
A fresh sea breeze blew, the sky was clear, people with dogs on leashes passed our bench. We watched the sea and ate from our box lunches. We admired the dogs and kept saying, that would be the kind of dog that Noga would like. We especially considered one frisky King Charles Spaniel. He rean playfully with a tennis ball in his mouth until another dog ran up to him, a border collie whose white tail was hairy and waved in the air like a flag. The green tennis ball fell out of King Charles’s mount and went bouncing down the stepped embankment to the beach below. The King Charles spaniel was hesitant about jumping down the embankment, he thought about it, approached the steps, looked down and decided the steps were too high for his little feet and ran after his master and the border Collie..
Tue 16th Mar 2021
I looked at the new Tulip, as I sat on my balcony, facing the road to the Dead Sea. Now there were two, one a big, daddy Tulip, the other, rubbing its shoulder, a youthful offspring, aspiring to be as tall as its parent. Both had the same mauve color and were held up by strong green stems.
My plate of macaroni and meatballs in an orange sauce of curry and coconut and a few slices of jalapeno peppers, cut very thinly to spread the effect of their pungency through the plate. I didn’t want to have only one mouthful of hot pepper but I wanted each mouthful of macaroni and meatballs to have the sharp flair.
Fri 19th Mar 2021
Yesterday I parked the car about half a kilometer from the market, where my wife was making her purchases of vegetables for the week ahead. Every year at Springtime there's a fellow in the market who sells garlic, made up in attractive plaits, like the plaits of a woman’s hair.
We hang these on our balcony door, after taking down last year’s plait. We also hang one up for Avishai. These plaits weigh about 5 klos each. Ettie asked me to take them to the car, one in each hand. My arms ached, as I knew they would and the strings cut into my fingers as I covered the half kilometer to the car. As a consolation for my suffering I stopped to purchase a hot pita with oregano. In fact, I purchased three.
After I’d placed the plaits into the trunk of the car and locked up, I found a comfortable rock on which I could lean. I sunned myself, while munching a pita bread and observing the cars entering the building, where a lift carried them up to their final parking places. I found this a great contraption.
You leave your car and the lift does the rest. I think some 50 cars could be parked in this way, each with its own berth in the great metal building of about 8 floors.
What to do with one’s car after it has served its purpose transporting one to a destination is the problem of the 21st century. It’s got to be put somewhere out of the way. A creature left out.
At the shopping mall, where we went to purchase a new cover to protect the notepad, a parking place is available. They don’t even make a charge for leaving one’s car there to encourage people to do their shopping at the mall. Ettie went one way to I digital, a cute name for a shop that sells computers and computer accessories, and I went another way to purchase kuki dent to keep my false teeth from moving around in my mouth.
We could spend a long time in the mall and the car would wait, all alone for our return and would be ready to carry our purchases and us to our next destination which was home. But of course Etti had to stop for a moment, which turned into ten (at least) to purchase a cabbage and some cheese for some dish she was cooking up.