Chana

Chana, for some reason, was offended surprised that she was not mentioned in the last two blog posts, so I'll make up for it by devoting an entire post just to her (although I'm not sure why she would have been included in a post about schools in Israel returning to in-person studies, but anyway.....).

When Chana graduated college last spring, she accepted a fellowship at her college in Online Education.  So, basically, she's got a job in THE field of the moment and, although she was one of the only people to work in the almost-empty department every day (job requirement, it wasn't by choice), she is working remotely here and it's going fine.  Since we're used to Shalom Shachne working US hours (approximately 4-midnight), it's all good.  She spends her mornings jogging or riding her bike and spends a huge amount of time developing a nefarious plot to make us all, umm, huge by baking tons of pastries.  Yesterday she made mini apple pies and apple turnovers, and last Friday afternoon got on a huge (there's that word again) baking kick and made a vegan lemon-blueberry loaf and coffee cake AND she and Ilana made the most adorable gingerbread cookies.  My favorite was based on this photo of SS and Shrek-the-hat-wearing-Horse 

And here's the cookie (yes, she probably does have too much time on her hands)

Today, Chana had a very big day (in Covid-19 terms, that is).  She went TO THE LIBRARY.  Today was the first day it's been open and it was by sign-up (and the 16 slots open over this week and next got filled in VERY fast.  I was very grateful I was on my computer when the email came in so I could snag her a slot in the very first time slot [super clean books!]. Only 4 people at a time were allowed in (one per family, masks and hand sanitizing required).  Each group got only 30 minutes in there, which was significantly cut into by the book return and checkout process.  In order to keep the process "no touch" (the librarians sat behind plexiglass with no openings), the librarians used each person's name to  open the patron's account and "check in" their book returns by having the patron read off the book names.  The books themselves were put into a box to be left for three days before library staff touches them).  The checkout process was similar-but-worse in that patrons had to read off the bar code on each book in order to check them out.  I guess this is the positive side of only being able to take out ten books at a time.  But it sounds like a LOT to do in only 30 minutes.

Overall, I'd say one of the "silver coronavirus linings" is this unexpected time with Chana.  She lives in the college dorm in Manhattan (job perk) and, since it's unclear when the dorm (or the college, for that matter!!) will open again, we'll hopefully have her here through the summer, at least.