Expectations should be managed for this post. It's been a pretty shitty two weeks, from sky-rocketing Corona cases in Israel to world record-breaking diarrhea in our home.
Two weeks ago, things were generally good: The kids went to school and to all of their after-school activities, the Boss was starting to find a rhythm of work and leisure, and I had finally met some dudes to play tennis with.
Behind the scenes, however, things were bad: In about one week, daily Corona cases in Israel jumped to nearly 8,000. In a country of about 8 million people, that's 1 case per every 1,000 people, which is way worse than even the worst day in Trumplandia.
And then the lockdown started. Schools shut down, "chugim" (after-school activities) stopped, and the Boss started going crazy.
I also started feeling like absolute shit and, after three days, decided to get a Corona test just in case. The address was on the north side of the street, but as I drove there, I noticed a parking lot on the south side of the street with an absurdly long line of cars (see photo below). I joined it, confirmed it was the testing site, and waited over an hour for a guy in a hazmat suit to aggressively swab my throat and nose. As expected, the results were negative, but anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a huge wimp who gets sick easily and that obviously I had Corona but conquered it just like everything else I've conquered in life.
So, the country is in a state of lockdown and a "total" lockdown was supposed to start yesterday, but the streets are filled with cars, the sidewalks with dog-walkers, and the parks and playgrounds with shirtless, tan, six-packed 20-year-olds playing Hacky Sack with a soccer ball. On the first day of lockdown, we went to the kids' school where there were well over 100 people on the basketball/soccer courts. I overheard one kid sarcastically comment, "Mamash seger," which basically means, "Nice fuckin' lockdown."
Here are some other Corona Not Corona contradictions in this confusing country:
As cases continue to rise, the government can't decide whether it will allow religious gatherings, political demonstrations, neither, or both.
I see protestors everywhere with black flags and Israeli flags. I don't know what either means, so sometimes I honk and sometimes I don't.
My joke of a teacher's salary can not be publicly acknowledged, but my new computer charger cost over $100.
Obesity is low and physical activity is high, but kids here get ice cream every single time they go to the park. Some kids get two ice creams.
Fruits and vegetables are everywhere, and so is smoking in public.
3- and 4-year-olds know how to skateboard and ride bikes. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen. And while they're riding around, they have pacifiers in their mouths.
Israeli children surely suffer from nut allergies, but there are no discussions or policies regarding nut-free zones, and I happily slather peanut butter and honey on my kids' sandwiches.
There's this snack here called Bissli which is simultaneously the most disgusting and delicious snack you've ever tasted. It smells like curry, but it tastes like pancakes and barbecue chips. Flavors include, but are not limited to: falafel, hamburger, and Mexican.
The Boss is not happy. She used to have a few hours during the day to get some work done, make lunch, and iron my suits. Now, her days are filled with shepherding our children through the most ineffective Zoom sessions you've ever seen. It would be bad if everything were in English; it's really bad because everything is in Hebrew. Each day, she does six hours of parenting/schooling, six hours of work, and six hours of keeping the family afloat through constant WhatsApp vigilance, Zoom calls with our absentee landlord, upping our 1,000₪ ($300!) monthly credit card allowance, trips to the store to buy ant spray and medication for aforementioned diarrhea, researching orthodontia for Panini, and getting a car-wash. Thank god she has those extra six hours every day to get some sleep after she rubs my back.
Panini has embraced Corona Not Corona life. She was built for Zoom: She's organized and responsible, and she likes her space. She doesn't need things like the outdoors, friends, or laughter. Soccer, surfing, and "tzofim" (scouts) are on hold, but when school is finished, Panini puts on her sneakers, goes for pleasant bike-rides by herself, and scrapes the shit out of her leg on various neighborhood benches. Her Hebrew has tapered off because she's not socializing as much, and when she does go to the park with her friends, she spends most of the time playing with babies.
From 8:00 to 14:00, OG might as well be locked in a dark room with no windows, a toilet, and a bowl of mush. She is for sure getting dumber during the school day as it currently exists. Zoom was not built for someone with her attentional capacity, and the fact that everything is in Hebrew makes life utterly miserable for her. Her teacher is aware of the problem, but her solutions are a joke: Last week, she asked OG to go through a couple pages of a magazine and cut out every Aleph (the letter A). I told the teacher that OG is in 4th grade, not Kindergarten, and that I will be speaking with her administrator.
When school ends at 14:00, OG quickly transforms from a slimy caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly. She WhatsApps her friends in Pidgin Hebrew; sets up play dates for the remainder of the afternoon and evening; grabs her bike, some shekels, and a granola bar; and peaces out. She comes home, filthy, around 19:30, scarfs down some dinner, practices Pachelbel's Canon on our 1987 electronic keyboard, takes a shower, poops, and signs off at 21:00.
Broosevelt has forgotten how to read, write, and do math, but boy is he getting good at soccer. Well, not really, but he's definitely playing a lot of soccer. And he finally learned how to ride a bike. Broosevelt's two best friends are Ariel and Segev, both of whom are sick at soccer. Yesterday morning, we learned that Segev was playing soccer at the park with his dad and brother around 8:00, which is right about the time Broosevelt finishes watching an episode on the iPad and finally goes pee. I looked little Broosevelt in the eye and said to him, "You're suckin' down sugary Cheerios while Segev is out there training!"
A couple hours later, Broosevelt was kicking the nerf soccer ball around the living room, and he looked up at me and said, "Segev thinks he's gonna be better at soccer than me, but that's not gonna happen."
What Broosevelt doesn't know is that every Hebrew name means something. For example, Dov means "bear," Shai means "gift," and Aviv means "spring." Broosevelt may cling to the desperate hope that he will one day surpass Ariel and Segev, but he'd be wise to remember that Ariel means "lion" and Segev means "greatness." My son, whom I love dearly, is totally screwed.
Boni may have, or have had, Corona. She was indoors for almost a week due to the worst diarrhea this nation has ever seen. If the owners of the apartment we are renting were reading this post, they would be deeply concerned about the number of locations in which poop was discovered after Night 1 of Diarrhea. It's unclear how she got this awful stomach bug and why no one else in the family got it, but she will no longer be petting the stray cats outside our apartment and, if you'll allow me another Holocaust joke, she would not have lasted in Auschwitz for 48 hours. That said, the minute she was feeling better, she demanded a play date and was gone for more than three hours. And she got ice cream. Also, as I write, I'm realizing that Boni has, once again, out-smarted all of us by giving herself diarrhea so she could avoid sitting through all those pointless Zooms.
In addition to my successful bout with Corona, I'm continuing to do absolutely phenomenally. I had an entire phone conversation in Hebrew with a dude from the Ministry of Education. Sure, he had to speak super slowly, repeat himself a bunch, and say some words in English, but I definitely heard him say at one point that my Hebrew was "tov" (good). Furthermore, after hours of annoying of phone calls and emails, I finally got National Geographic to send me a magazine in English. Yom Kippur starts tomorrow, and I can't even think of anything for which I should atone.
Things are swell.
