Friday, August 21st, 2020

The direct bus to the mall no longer runs from my neighborhood. The nearest stop is about a ten minute walk away. By then, I’m already at the Heart of the City. I can get most of what I need from smaller stores there. I have to stop at the downtown pharmacy anyway. Even though the pharmacy at the mall is from the same chain, it doesn’t take prescriptions from my health plan. This one does. The cafe here, where I got the affogato, has the same brand as the mall cafe, but it’s not as good, and the workers are grumpier. I stop into my favorite shawarma joint instead. Then I hit a litany of shops: the produce store for apples, yams, peppers, and pineapple; the cheap coffee chain for an espresso; the pharmacy for my prescriptions and some medical gear for quarantined relatives; the bakery for pita and challah. They’ve changed the challah that they make. I had been getting their small sweet challah. What they bake now is larger, with sesame seeds or slivered almonds on top. I don’t recognize it at first. They look like pastries. I have to ask. The worker rattles off the possibilities. I don’t understand him. He sees that I look confused. “English?” he asks. That helps. He and another worker somehow ring up several customers at once at a single register. People shove their purchases and money at them. They bag them up and return the right change. I stop off at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers to bring the medical gear to my family there, then head home. The park on the way to my place is still open. I cut through there. Several dogs run toward me, sniff, then wander away. I think they smelled the challah, which is still warm. Once at my apartment, I drop my bags on the kitchen table, pour myself some seltzer, switch on the air conditioner, sit down at my desk, and close my eyes.