shopping

Groceries

You can learn a lot about people when you go the grocery store. Well, perhaps that’s not right. Seeing them shop doesn’t tell you a thing about their life, not really, except for their attitude in a grocery-store, surrounded by ads, products, sales and other people. But I like to invent lives for them, as I pretend not to watch them.

There’s the man who’s losing his patience with his two young sons. There isn’t a woman around, and I assume that this man has already started his spring vacation from the office but his wife is still working. That’s why he needs to take the boys, who are on their vacations too, shopping with him. The man is large, tall and broad with a beer-stomach hanging over his belt, and his two boys look to be between eight and ten years old. Both have straight brown hair, not cut shortly but allowed to grow around their ears, and round faces, rosy with the fun of shopping. They run between carts, duck under baskets and then run back to their dad, shouting suggestions. He snaps at them, but it does nothing to dampen their enthusiasm.

There are two women standing together at the cheap, bad quality clothing section. The clothes aren’t folded very well, and the shelves look a mess. Still, one of the women is holding up a shirt to the other one, and they seem to be deciding whether or not it’s worth it. I can almost hear their conversation, even though I have earphones on: Should I? No, I shouldn’t, right? Sure you should, look how cheap it is! But do you really think it’ll look good on me? Yeah, I do, but who cares – look how cheap it is!

At the checkout line, there’s a young man with curly brown hair and fuzz on his cheeks. He’s waiting patiently in line, which isn’t surprising, because he’s too occupied with a loud conversation he’s having with his cellphone. He smiles a lot and laughs, and I like to think he’s talking to a buddy, laughing about the antics they’re looking forward to experiencing during the coming weekend. He’s also looking around a lot, keeps turning around from his cart to gaze at the aisles. I think he might have met someone here a week ago, at around this hour, and that’s why he’s here again this week at the same time. He’s looking for her, this woman he laughed and chatted with and didn’t have the guts to ask out on a date last time.

In front of me, in my line, there are two women – they have to be mother and daughter, but they couldn’t look more different. The one who’s leaning on the cart is short, tiny, and ancient. Her hair has that bluish tinge to it and is thinning, and her hands look like a map, veins representing mountains or streams and the liver spots representing dwellings. Her daughter is middle-aged, probably around fifty or so, and is tall and skinny. Her face is lined, too, but from care or hurt rather than from age. She has sad eyes, even as she acts with great speed: taking things out of the cart, moving it to the other side of the register, starting to bag the items and putting them back in the cart, and paying her bill. She speaks familiarly to her mother, and even though her actions point to an efficiency and brisk character, there’s a subtle tinge of tragedy about her. Maybe a death of a loved one – husband, or maybe even a child.

And then, finally, it’s my turn at the register, and I mimic the sad woman’s efficiency, trying to get my things out of the way as fast as possible so I can get back home and out of the heat of this sunny March day.

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A Town

It was a beautiful little town. No wonder, really, since it was the richest one in the state. Still, if you could forget about all the money that must have exchanged pockets in order to make the town look the way it did, you might just fall in love with it.

The best way to describe it would be old-town America. There are no high-rises; the tallest building in town is the bell-tower of the church, still tolling the hour to this day. There are just two main streets, really, both filled with quaint buildings, all low to the ground. Around Christmas-time, all the windows and doors are decorated with wreaths and big, red ribbons. The shops are varied, supplying the residents with everything they could want – from specialized yoga clothing to vintage fur coats; from good quality generic groceries to specialized health-foods; from magazines and sweets to books and toys; from sushi to Italian to Mexican to baked goods to good, old diner fare.

The town’s small train-station is quaint, no doubt about it. Standing on the platform, you can easily imagine an old steam-engine pulling into the station while men in suits and bowler hats and women in dresses in muted hews get ready to board it to go into the big city a few stops down the line. You can imagine parents sending their child off to the big city’s university in a train like that, with a steamer trunk loaded and a handkerchief waving goodbye out a window. Even today, the platform seems to contain ghosts of those people from other decades.

The town is beautiful, almost like a real life Disneyland.

Busy Busy Busy Bee

The last week has been crazy. I feel completely lost amongst the errands, orders, confirmations and packing that has to be done.

The next few days are going to be even worse. Tomorrow and Monday are going to be full-on packing days – going to college entails lots and lots [and lots] of packing. Tuesday early morning we fly to New York, arriving the same day in the afternoon. I’ve ordered my new mini laptop, I’ve ordered my new computer for the dorms, and more shopping will be done in New York. Saturday, August 29th is move-in day.

The next week or two are going to be crazy – chalk-full of outings, shopping, and once orientation week starts, lectures and registration processes. I’ll try to write as much as I can, but I can’t promise prompt or daily entries. This is too bad, because my stats are pretty pathetic as is, and I’ve been here a year. Still, hopefully once I get settles into a routine at Sarah Lawrence, I’ll be able to write properly, maybe even using my school-work and essays as entries or as ideas for what to write about.

For those who are interested, I already have my first course at SLC – this course is under the title of “First Year Studies” and the professor teaching me will be my Don, which is a kind of adviser. This class is for both semesters, and the one I got is this: Text and Theater. It’s a literature course that studies the texts of plays. The professor seems amazing so far [I received a very sweet email from him that he wrote everyone who will be in this class] and I’m excited.

I hope to be here as often as possible. I’ve been here almost a year, and I love my little blog.

To the Land of Great Bands

As my Victoria story doesn’t seem to be doing very well, I’m taking a one day [hopefully] break from it to give this announcement: I’m flying again. This time it’s with Mr. B. F. We’re going to London together for the second time; we leave tomorrow, July 14th and arrive back in Israel on the 24th. This will be a vacation of the proper sort – lounging in cafes drinking cappuccinos, taking walking tours and going shopping at the myriad thrift stores. Basically, rest and relaxation only with lots of walking around in between the two.

England is definitely one of my favorite places in the world. Not only has it brought the world bands like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Queen, it is also beautiful and can boast one of the greatest cities in the world: London. And London itself is probably my second favorite city in the world – second only to Los Angeles, which smells like home to me in many ways.

Now London has its fair share of problems, I’m sure. There’s the issues of constant traffic, the congestion charges, the occasional breaking down of one tube line or another – but for a tourist it’s a fantasy-land. Full of history, full of FREE museums, full of marketplaces, full of large and small and medium sized streets that are simply fabulous to discover – it is incredible.

As always, I hope to be able to write regularly, and might actually have more of a chance to this time as I’ll have more free “down” time, but cannot promise.

Halfway ‘Round the World

Flying is a journey that begins hours before it is actually underway with packing, passport gathering, and final checks of house and pets and luggage. Once the keys lock the door and the luggage is in the taxi, it is still only the merest beginning of the ordeal. Airports are no picnic, and the security in Israel is stricter than most places. Young, post-military-service men and women look at the passports in an  appraising, ask if you’ve packed your own bags, and explain that they’re asking because you might have taken something from someone that you deemed innocent but would actually be dangerous.

A few lines, machines, check-ins and difficulties later, the next part of the trip begins: the perils of the Duty-Free Shopping Area. While many are drawn to this most dangerous of all airport pursuits, my mother and I are not among those many – in fact, quite the opposite. While others might stroll up and down the lanes of various James Richardsons and Tommy Hilfigers and The-Tie-Shops, we huddle in the most remote of coffee-shops, sip our beverages, and try to hide from the too-alert-for-this-hour shoppers.

Next, of course, is the constant peering at watches and clocks, the straining of the ears to hear the garbled messages that come over the loudspeaker, and, in the end, the walk to the right gate quite a while before boarding starts, just so we won’t be late. Here, again, begins the process of tickets, passports, lines and shuffling forward one step at a time, until our feet actually set upon the cheaply carpeted floor of the airplane, and we find our cheaply leathered or upholstered seats. Setting our behinds down in those, we ready ourselves for the many, many, many hours ahead.

All this was just the beginning.

My LA Haven

This is the way it’s always been:

Once I enter the large wood-framed glass doors, whether they’re in the mall or next to Ralph’s, my world shifts subtly, becoming a place of beauty and opportunity and most of all, calm. My cares drift away, and I let myself go, knowing I’m in a safe place. I wander the carpeted walkways, the halls, sometimes going up and down escalators. I gaze appreciatively at this corner or that, checking also if any of the chairs in the nooks are taken and if I might have a chance of collapsing into one later.

As a child, my steps, guided by a parent’s or relative’s hand, led me to the section with the big “JR.s” sign above it. All the shelves were at reachable child level, there were dolls and games in a corner and there was the same hand that had led me before, pointing out titles and pictures, helping me pick and choose.

Later, as I grew older, I would venture into that section alone, looking for the taller shelves. I would find my heart’s desires there – whether they were embodied by girls who rode horses and lived in the country or by boys and their dogs or detectives or super heroes. When my hands were too full to carry any more, I would plop myself down on the floor and lean against the shelves or recline in one of the comfy chairs by the windows and wait until my mother and brother were ready to go and pay.

Today, I feel the echoes of these times with me whenever I stride confidently through the vast halls and floors of Barnes&Noble. I focus my energies on the Fantasy-and-Sci-Fi section and the Young-Adult section – for it often holds fantasy novels as well and some adorable easy reading material besides. Whenever I am in the US, most specifically my beloved LA, I beg to be left alone in the shop for a couple hours so I can make my purchases and buy myself a strong coffee and read, cracking the spines of the new books with joy.