We have begun to settle into a routine. ADC gets up first, and within an hour is in A's bedroom beginning his working day. I get up later, around 8, and workout (using the Johnson and Johnson 7 minute workout app) for about half an hour, the shower and eat breakfast. As I move from stage to stage, I wake up S (and again, and again) so that he is more or less on time for his classes. On Wednesday classes will end, due to the Passover break. I hope he will manage to keep to a routine even so.
The market has been closed. We were lucky to get there Thursday last week - over the weekend it began to sound as if the market would be closed only the following Tuesday, but on Sunday morning the police closed everything down, after the stall keepers had bought produce from wholesalers for 3 days of work! One of more infuriating things is the fact that the "rules" change every 48 hours or so, without any time taken to see whether the previous measures are working. Admittedly, what seemed like an overreaction at first - I believe Israel was one of the first countries to implement quarantine for people returning from overseas - has proved to be the right thing, but now is the time to wait for data before bringing the entire economy to a halt. At the time of writing, the official number of unemployed has reached 20%, and that's without counting all the public servants (such as the university admin staff) who are on half-time or less and being paid accordingly. I am very lucky to be self-employed in a profession where work is continuing, and even luckier that ADC is not taking a pay cut, since I can expect payments to be delayed whereas his salary will be coming in on April 1 regardless.
Going to the supermarket or the pharmacy has become an adventure, as it is one of the few places beyond a 100 m radius of one's home to which one is allowed to venture (one of the highlights of the weekend was taking newspapers to be recycled; there's a bin just at the 100 m mark in one direction). M and I arranged to meet "by chance" outside our local grocer, and it was good to see each other, even while keeping the appropriate 2 m apart. Other permitted reasons for leaving one's home include going to the doctor, donating blood, going to a demonstration and for women, going to a ritual bath (mikveh) if an appointment is made in advance. The last topic was the cause of some outcry: at first, going to a mikveh was permitted for both men and women. Now, all fully observant (and some just traditional) Jewish women are required to go to the mikveh after menstruation in order be purified and permitted to their husbands once more, so this seems a reasonable thing. However, men are not at all required to to to the mikveh, it's just a custom common particularly among the ultra-Orthodox religious groups to which our Minister of Health belongs. In general, many things related to religion were still being allowed last week, until the rules were tightened on Thursday once more - and it is not a surprise that the majority of new corona cases in Israel come from the ultra-Orthodox groups, (a) because their lifestyle is conducive to contagion; and (b) they have historically resisted obeying the secular government's rules if they infringe their way of life in any way. It is only now that the ultra-Orthodox leaders are finally saying that praying individually is as good as praying in a quorum, because it is a matter of life and death.
As for demonstrations - the political situation in Israel is becoming weirder and more surreal by the day. After 3 elections in less than 18 months, in which the Prime Minister (currently indicted for corruption and more) and his party received successively fewer seats in parliament, and after the head of the main opposing party (major campaign promise: we will not sit in a government headed by Bibi Netanyahu) received the mandate to form a government, somehow, at the last moment before the weekend began, on Thursday afternoon Benny Gantz abandoned all the promises he'd made to potential coalition partners (let alone voters) and agreed to join Bibi in a government in which after 18 months, he (Gantz) would become PM in turn. This is all under the excuse of the corona crisis requiring a national unity government. Gantz's party was composed of several movements, and two of them - those headed by politicians with past experience of the worth of Bibi's promises - have refused to continue in that framework and the party has broken up. The only thing that seems clear at the moment is that a government will finally be formed (so a budget can be passed) and that there will definitely be a fighting opposition. Without going into all the details, during the past week or so, there have been car rallies (one person per car, windows open) and demonstrations (local people or car drivers, each properly distanced) calling for the independence of the Knesset and the judiciary to be preserved. I hope that Israel is still a democracy in more than name when we are allowed out of isolation and quarantine.
Back to life at home: So far, there are no shortages that we're aware of, except possible of flour. But there is often a slight shortage of flour at this time of year, as the shops don't restock it in the run-up to Passover. We had to book a slot a week in advance, and a delivery will arrive on the day after tomorrow. We may order a second delivery even before we receive this one, just to be sure we get things before Passover (I've already ordered matzo, but you can't just eat that). Our main concern is fresh fruit and vegetables, as we tend to go through a LOT of that. This will be the first time we get them delivered from the supermarket, and I hope that they will be better than the local smaller supermarket's offerings Fortunately, we do have a very well stocked freezer, so if we are only able to buy very basic fruit and veg we will be OK.
A is still away from home, and still doesn't know what's happening to him, whether he will remain at his gap year (maybe running camps for medical staff's children?) and whether he will be sent home. He joined in the 2 Zoom meetings on Friday night, one planned with my family and one spur-of-the-moment saying the Friday candle lighting prayers together with ADC's siblings and their in-laws. The similar conversations at the beginning of each meeting, getting my parents and my SIL's mother connected to Zoom, were highly amusing! Next week I will speak to my mother even earlier, and hopefully things will go more smoothly.
Yesterday we Zoomed with friends in Baltimore, who seemed surprisingly calm. I guess if you are not in NYC, then corona still seems kind of remote? They are still allowed out of the house, and their favourite ice cream is still open for business, but take-out only. This is one of the things that the situation has caused: where in the past I would have just e-mailed back, now I suggested a Zoom meeting, just to see new faces and hear different voices.
ADC and S have completed the jigsaw puzzle, which is knitting-themed. I knitted while watching them work on it, and felt very meta. Over the past week I also weighed and cataloged all the yarn I inherited from my late MIL - over 2 kg of yarn, over 200 km of worsted acrylic, and unlikely that I'll need to buy yarn for baby gifts for the next few years!
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