Well, And Water Flows

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting with A. B. Yehoshua’s 2004 novel, “A Woman in Jerusalem.”  But I certainly didn’t expect to be riding around with Yulia’s corpse in an army vehicle across an unnamed eastern European country, with the human resources manager of an Israeli bakery and a tenacious weasel of a reporter all stuck together.  I absorbed the curve ball and stuck with the progression.  Ahh, the mother doesn’t want her daughter buried back here in in the old country.  “All was for naught.  She insists the corpse be returned to Jerusalem.  Somehow the body never rots nor smells.

We are home alone.  Our daughter is off on a school trip for the next few days.  It should be romantic, and perhaps, it is.  But I feel melancholy, walking along this house, imagining what it will be like to be here without my younger daughter in a few years.  Half kidding, half serious, I type her, trying to reach her on the long ride up to the border.  “How’s it going?”  “Send photos!”  “It is so boring here, without you.”  This emits a “lmao.”

My township has a problem.  And fortunately, it does not affect me, directly.  Apparently, the aqueduct that serves New Paltz has some sort of contamination problem.   The town has no water.  We have a well, and water flows out the faucets just like it always does.  But I hadn’t thought of that when I went to Starbucks this morning.  Starbucks was closed with and impromptu note on the door.  I commented to another woman who was doing the same about-face as me, that I guess you need water for coffee.  She suggested there was another café down the street that was lugging water in.  They had coffee. 

I went off in search of Lagusta's Luscious Commissary but went to the chocolatiers of the same name instead.  “They’re up off Academy.”  I spun around and found Academy and was just about to park in a no parking zone when I spied the cop car sitting there in the adjacent parking lot.  You’ll have to get someone else today fella.  I parked back down on 208 and when I tried to put my quarter in the parking meter, there was a rather unofficial sign upon the head which suggested it was out of order.  Just let them try to ticket me, I thought, sending my virtual warning to that cop in the car.  I poked around but couldn’t find the café I was looking for.  Instead I walked up a set of stairs, to Grinds and Grains, where they grounded up a bag of espresso while I made small talk about maintaining a café business without any water, glad for a moment to consider someone else’s business challenges rather than my own concerns about the epidemic overseas.

Thursday, 02/13/20