Day 61: Shit or Get Off the Pot

I want Trump to die. Desperately. First I want him to suffer. And then I want him to die.

"Oh, I would never wish death upon anyone!" you say. Well, you're stupid. Would you have wished Hitler dead if you'd been around during WWII? Of course you would have.

"But Hitler's so much worse than Trump!" you claim. Ahhh, but now you've lost the argument because it's not about not wishing anyone dead. It's that you don't think Trump is evil enough to be wished dead. 

"Well then allow me to retort!" (Pulp Fiction). Trump is a lying scumbag piece of shit, and my threshold for whom I want to die is clearly much lower than yours. So let's agree to disagree, and let me speak my piece: I want Trump to die. I want Putin to die. I even want a guy who once cheated me in a tennis tournament to die. Just kidding: Putin's the man.

Let me be clear: I am completely anti-capital punishment because I do not believe the government should be able to end someone's life, even Trump's. Killing is killing. I also do not believe I should be able to end Trump's life, as much as I want to. All I'm saying is that I wish that fat fucker were dead because, well, he's a big jerk face and this country and this world would be better off without him.

Ya know what, I take it all back. Trump is not the problem; he's a symptom of the problem, and the longer he lives, the worse our never-great nation will get. So I actually want him to live for as long as possible because the longer he lives, the worse shit will get, and then real change will come because even though 30% of the country is ignorant beyond saving, a solid majority of America is not totally stupid and is ready for meaningful systemic change.

Shit or get off the pot, Trump. Die already so we can see what this Pence fellow is all about or get back in the Oval Office, tell some more lies, and let's see how high these flames will rise.

I feel like I need to shit or get off the pot too. Lockdown blows, and it's not even a real lockdown. 

Israel did an amazing job in March. With this lockdown, however, the government is so desperate for order that it orchestrated the following move with wireless providers: On the upper left-hand corner of your phone where the network name is listed as Verizon or Sprint or whatever, now it says StayHome. I guess the government feels that laws, police, and national solidarity are not as effective as hashtags on our iPhones. 

There was remote learning for two weeks and now it's Sukkot, a Jewish holiday commemorating the time Jews spent in the desert on their way to the Promised Land. So our recent mecca has been Park HaYarkon, a giant park in northern Tel Aviv, through which the Yarkon River runs. The park has, among other things, bike paths, basketball courts, soccer fields, outdoor gyms, playgrounds, lakes, botanical gardens, an aviary, and two outdoor concert venues, which have been graced by musicians such as Guns N' Roses, Lady Gaga, and Michael Jackson, whom I also might've wished dead had I known certain things sooner...

It's a five-minute bike ride from our apartment, so I stuff a couple basketballs and water bottles in a backpack, unlock six bikes, and off we go. Upon arrival, despite the current lockdown, we are greeted by thousands of people walking, running, biking, playing soccer, lifting weights, and playing not socially distanced 3-on-3 basketball. 

Talk about shitting or getting off the pot: I literally stand right next to the basketball courts watching these mediocre games take place because I so desperately want to play but can't "biglal ha Corona" ("cuz of Corona").

When I'm able to momentarily forget about the recent record of 9,000 daily cases in Israel, I can enjoy the park: 

50 Filipinos take over two basketball courts and run some pretty high-quality full-court games. Average player height is 5'5. 

20 Arab-Israelis, spanning at least three generations, play soccer together. There's lots of gesticulating.

Lefty Russian MILFs dominate their husbands in ping-pong.

6-year-olds and 80-year-olds rollerblade, skateboard, and bike around the skating rink.

Shirtless Israeli 20-year-olds play volleyball with a soccer ball and soccer rules on a ping-pong table.

Kids (mine included) climb through a hole in the fence and jump around on trampolines.

And everyone gets Corona.

The Boss is in a holding pattern. She's going, going, going, and getting absolutely nowhere. 

She buys groceries online, goes to nearby supermarkets to supplement, and gets fruits and vegetables from local farmers who come to our block twice a week, but there's never enough food in the house. 

She pays someone to clean the apartment, demands that I sweep the floor multiple times a day, and scrubs the toilet and bathtub herself, but she's always muttering about how we're "living in squalor." 

She works with all four kids during the day on their school work and Hebrew, but no one's learning a god damn thing. 

Whenever she has a free minute, she does work for her actual job, but she constantly complains about how much work she has to do.

Sisyphus should've just let the rock roll down the hill and crush him; the Boss should do the same.

Panini is generally friendless and purposeless, and, ironically, gets mad at me when I try to help. I show empathy and offer sage advice regarding how to cultivate friendships, and she says I'm nagging. I suggest she message her soccer teammates, and she stomps away in tears. Panini did make an amazing braided challah with raisins on Yom Kippur; she has been hanging out with our upstairs neighbor; she went to the beach with friends yesterday and saw a fox; and, at the time of writing, has been included on a group chat that may very well become her crew here. But I am still concerned that if she doesn't wipe her ass, get outside more, and meet some people to play with at the park, she's gonna be stuck watching Malcolm in the Middle with me for the rest of the year.

OG is actually cool with shitting and getting off the pot. As mentioned in previous posts, some days she sits around the house in her pajamas, reads for six hours, and forgets to brush her teeth. Other days, she's out with her friends for most of the day, rolls back home hours after dinner, eats some cucumbers, plays piano, showers, and falls asleep on the floor like a drunk teenager. Her Hebrew is finally taking off and I sense she's the cool new kid on the block, but her teeth are crooked and she doesn't shower enough.

Broosevelt is mostly shitting. He's still playing soccer with his friends, riding his bike, reading books, and playing piano, but dude is spending an increasingly problematic amount of time playing with and talking to his Legos. We also told him about Hitler and the Holocaust for the first time, and he would not allow me to break eye contact with him for the entire conversation. He listened to every word with great consternation and posed numerous, important questions and comments: "Hitler wanted to kill Jews?? But we're Jews..."

Boni shits three times a day, literally. Metaphorically, she's a flower ready to bloom, but there's no rain or sun inside our apartment, so she's stuck doing dance classes on Zoom, somersaulting on the couch, and eating her feelings. A cute little girl named Rotem is Boni's only friend in the neighborhood, but all Rotem wants to do is hug and hold hands, neither of which is allowed biglal ha Corona.

As usual, I'm the only one who's making the best of this situation in limbo. The other day, I forced myself on two young men playing basketball. Sorry, that came out wrong: I saw two dudes shooting around and I gently approached them when they were finished and asked if they would like to shoot around with me some time. We exchanged numbers, and one of them met me the other day for a work-out. He left after 25 minutes not because he was bored but because he couldn't keep up with my intensity. 

I'm getting way more muscular from all the cereal I'm eating, but OG is confused and said I was putting back on the Corona weight.

I'm not intimidated when I don't have a basic tool to fix Boni's bike and a random Israeli dad at the park fixes it in two seconds because he has a complete set of Allen wrenches in his kid's stroller. Fuckin' show off.

I wasn't insecure when I brought a half-full water bottle and semi-deflated soccer ball to the park and Segev's dad brought a camping stove and cute little tin cups and served coffee to all the moms and dads. (And I had no qualms whatsoever about pouring out most of my cup on the sidewalk when he wasn't looking because I don't drink coffee but didn't want to make him feel bad for not drinking his shitty concoction.)

I wasn't annoyed when I witnessed my beautiful niece, MP (Happy birthday btw!!!), do an outstanding job on her Bat Mitzvah. It's not like I came to Israel to engage in local culture and community; I'd much prefer watching masked ceremonies in Denver synagogue parking lots on Zoom.

Having said all that, I do have to describe last Monday, which was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jews. It was special. There are zero, and I mean zero, cars on the street, so friends and families bike all around the city (see OG and her friends below). And when I say bike, I mean bikes, electric bikes, scooters, electric scooters, skateboards, strollers, and other transportation devices for which I don't have a name.

It's incredibly quiet. Kids play, families kibbitz (google it), and birds chirp. It's extraordinarily peaceful, and as my family and I biked to the sea, along the boardwalk, and back home, I felt pride in the Jewish people for having persevered through numerous historical atrocities and for now having the freedom to genuinely enjoy a day of rest and reflection. I also thought about my dad and how happy he would have been to see my family and me on that day.

And then I remembered Trump and Corona and went home to take a shit.