I have seen one

 First off, a shout out to Ilana Lehrer whom I saw today while I ate lunch. I omitted her from the early edition and that unfortunate oversight should be mentioned. There, mentioned. Sorry.

Today was a full day of walking around and seeing people, some of whom I know. Let's review. After a morning of mourning and winging it, I went back out to meet with Z'iva, friend of families everywhere. She doesn't spell her name with an apostrophe, but I do, so there. We met for second lunch, at the King of Fries (a ceremonial title, I assume). I got onion rings, which makes all those potatoes turn over in their graves, but since homespun potatoes are tasty, you're welcome. The rings were similar to the frozen, bagged ones available in finer kosher supermarkets, with their minced onion filling and the crumbly orange crust, but these were served in a metal thingy and a paper cone so they were more fancier 'n stuff. They were mostly bland, like me (the french fries were salty, like me while the spicy sauce was sweet with flecks of red pepper in it, like me). 

Over second lunch, we discussed Z'iva's schooling and her school's recent camping trip. They stayed in tents with Bedouins so I asked it they were Bedouins and Breakfasts. She looked up from her fries and didn't stab me, so that's a win.

While there we saw the Buchsbayew family. Hi guys!

Then I looked at the fish and chips Z'iva bought and said "when life gives you lemons, eat some fish." Again no stabbing. I'm a success! Next guest on the show was a Papier who was visiting someone somewhere. This happens. People tell me stuff and I'm genuinely interested but I am unable to remember details. We wandered through Crack Square (neither crack nor a square, discuss). Saw the Greenbergs whom you might remember from such airports as "Newark" and airplanes such as "the one I flew in on recently." The goal was to hand Z'iva off to them for a rollicking good time, no doubt, but first we saw your master Greenbaum who was wandering his Tuesday away looking for a used book store. Most bookstores these days are unused so I wished him good luck. Z'iva left and I decided to wander up Ben Yehuda until I ran out of Ben Yehuda to wander up. 

In the middle of my saunter, i spied, with my regularly sized eyes, one Hope (don't call me at all) Goldstein. We schmoozed for a while, joined by a Max, and an Ashendorf, and, again a Greenbaum, and then Hope's roommate Hadassah, and briefly by another friend of Hope's to whom I was not introduced. All told, I ran into the entire population of Teaneck plus some from Monsey. I walked back to Chez Swidler with Hope in tow to hand off a package from home.

I had had enough of playing "see and be seen" so I went to the shuk because I knew I wouldn't run into anyone I knew there. The shuk, if you have never been, is a vibrant and exciting cultural melting pot. You hear all sorts of languages, including Hebrew, English with a Brooklyn accent and English with a Long Island accent. Fascinating!

I met up with the Oshins (remember the Oshins? There's a song about the Oshins) and our goal was to sit at Beer Bazaar and chew the meat. Alas, Beer Bazaar no longer has a back room (or did not want to admit it to us, or us to it) and the counter top plus loud noise was not appealing, so we bagged it and decided to find another option. Down the hill from the shuk was an intersection with approimately a million more restaurants but we chose Ish Tabach because of the promise of a seat. I had a shash-somethiing or other which is dough surrounding meat. The meat I chose was "asada" -- this refers to the inside of a cow, a very fancy choice. I put some chinchilla on it (I don't recall what that green sauce was called...like chilichongas or Jimmy Carter or Katie Couric or city jury/civic duty) and that was spicy. We ate and had some beers. I had a Moscow red beer which was sweet and had cola/bubblue gum overtones. and was red.

We spoke of covid, of real estate, of politics and of beggars who go from table to table (no farm required) asking diners for money. The food was delicious and I demured when enticed with the prospect of dessert. There's only so much one old man can eat, and I had eaten so much. That plus my nuts concern about nuts, and I chose the rocky road not tasted. I walked them back to their car and slid down Nissim Behar (why is it Behar in English, but Bechar in Hebrew?) and back to the Swidler compote.

Stay tuned tomorrow for such possibilities as

My lunch with Slaughterdale

Let's buy some headbands

Wall what do you know?

and

Keeping up with the Josies