Texts between the Moshe and I
On July 23, at 4:05pm, Moshe wrote:
Hi X, I passed Takaka yesterday but my phone had no battery and I moved on to the west coast :/
Enjoy your trip, maybe we’ll meet again in the future!
4:22pm – Hi Moshe! That’s cool, Takaka was a little weird for me somehow. I’m actually heading to an AirBnB in Westport tonight. I’ll be there for a week, so let me know if you’re in the area and want to hang out.
5:23pm – Seriously? I’m currently in a free campground in Westport and heading south tomorrow so we should meet tonight. If that’s cool with you if I can take a shower in your Airbnb that would be awesome!
6:09pm – Cool! I just got on the road, so i won’t be there until about 8:30, but i will text the guy and ask
6:22 – Sorry he says it’ll be too late at night. He says there’s a public pool with a shower – Pulse?
6:26pm – Ok thanks!
Emails between Dad and I
On July 22, 2020, at 5:18am, I wrote:
Hi Papa! I was staying up in Takaka yesterday, in the Golden Bay area, and there was a cute little lake a few blocks away from the hostel called Lake Killarney! So, of course i thought of you!
How are you? It’s been a while since i heard from you, and i hope that you and your wife are enjoying the summer! How is everything in MD? Are you able to go out and get some sun, or is it all under lockdown still? I hope you’ve both been happy and healthy! Have you been able to go to services?
I think I’ll stay here in NZ for another few weeks… Again! Seems like every time i think about scheduling a flight home, Covid gets worse over there, or there’s some sort of chaos. I don’t know, i worry about you guys! I’m doing well – i found a nice cheap place to stay in Westport for the next 5 days, so i’ll have a relaxing weekend, maybe spending time on the (cold and windy) beach or hunting for jade. I love you and i miss you both, X.
On July 22, 2020, at 6:28pm, Dad wrote:
Hi X,
Thanks for the Killarney Lake photo, and the news included.
I just sent you $75. Let me know if you need more.
Today and yesterday we had tremendous thunderstorms. Before that we had a week and a half of humid heat wave.
Did you receive my email and text msg from, I think, Friday? Before then, we didn’t have any communication between June 27 and now.
I am so glad to hear from you, and to know that you are okay.
On July 23, 2020, at 2:31pm, I wrote:
I’m so happy to hear from you! It’s great that those storms cleared the humidity out of the air, but it sounds like they gave you a show! I hope there weren’t any downed trees or floods.
I didn’t get either your text or email last week, sorry. My phone number is a NZ number now, so the old 240 number won’t work for texts, but i don’t know why i didn’t get your email. I can send you the new number if you like?
I just wanted to check in and make sure that you two are still happy and healthy! I know it can’t be easy under all these restrictions. I hope that you’re able to go out a little!
Thanks, i did get the $75, and it is appreciated. I’m still in my holding pattern – wandering through NZ, staying at hostels and checking the news from home often. The news is a little worrisome! Stay safe!
I love you tons! X
On July 23, 2020, at 1:25am, Dad wrote:
Hi X,
We are both healthy. My wife saw the dermatologist surgeon, and he spliced and stitched up her lower right ear lobe. She hasn’t worn an earring for years. She should be able to wear earrings in 3 months. The stitches get removed in 2 weeks.
In the last email, I didn’t say anything about the situation here.
It’s about the same as before – public buildings require mask, interaction with service requires mask, wash hands after shopping or office visits, restaurants open with spacing, churches open with spacing & also have zoom meetings.
Airplanes with mask. Hotels you must ask / and if open- reserve.
Some states (democrat influence maybe) are trying to push tests on as many as they can everywhere. I have been without any symptom. All the doctor visits (about 8 of them) and the Ben Weiser the dentist are satisfied to just take our temperature and question us at the entry. But this one gum-surgeon dentist insists that all his patients get an official test and in addition self-quarantine for a week regardless. I decided to postpone only this gum-surgeon, as I am not in pain and don’t feel decay where one of my crowns are off. It smells of politics to me, just sayin’.
Anyway, I am not on “lockdown” or as some call it “self-quarantine”. I go out to the grocery store once a week, pick up at the pharmacy once a week, take walks in a park twice a week (everyday around the apartments outdoors), visit a doctor every other week – you get the idea. I won’t hire someone to goof it up for me. I’m somewhat of a caretaker and I absolutely need my freedom of movement. Sorry for the “rant”.
I am not sure if the $75 will do much good. I had to pay a high income tax for the year 2019, because it was such a good year for stocks. It doesn’t matter that 2020 was a lousy year basically at the start of covid (job losses, stores closing giving me a 15% loss in investments), but my fiduciaries are doing a good job. The value is on its way back, maybe catching up by September to what I had in February, as each week in April-July there was a 1.5% gain in my investments.
Hold your head up high, daughter! We shall get through this.
Love,
Papa
Emails between Mother and I
On July 22, 2020, at 4:54am, Mother wrote:
Good morning, my Darling X!
I hope you have money for the internet, huh? I got this dream: we are with my schoolmate filling up the lottery tickets and I say: I will take this, you take that. Guess what! I won $12 and she won $110 000! My boyfriend tells me: why you gave her your numbers? I say: she needs the house, I do not need a house, I have one! Yes, it is a section 8, but it is luxury apartment building!
It reminds me that that they were talking about Leo can win the lottery in this new moon on July 20-23! X, if you can spare a dollar or two buy a ticket, try your luck, you need the extra money so much! Good luck, my darling baby!
I talked to my boyfriend, and he said: I hope she would ask for help before she is in the situation when she doesn’t have money for the internet after it is already not a situation – it will be a disaster! Please, be kind to yourself.
I tried to call your father on e-mail, he has not answered about three days. He usually answers in two hours. I hope he is alright. Can I send just a check to you personally if your account is not working? I put aside [how it is helping now?!] $1250 for you, so, after all the penalties you will have at least $1000 on your hands. Maybe, we can send you in the form of travelers check, huh? Maybe, it is the best way to deal with it, just you must have the address where you be receiving it. Nu, how to do it? Don’t be quiet, help me, X!
But your horoscopes are so good, all of them say. From your side, you are tired of them saying it and the situation is the same. What can I say?! Just don’t lose the hope, without the hope it is hard to push the tractor up to the hill. Love my precious baby, love a lot and some more,
Have a wonderful sunny day,
Love, Mother
On July 22, 2020, at 6:22am, Mother wrote again:
The last one I listened to about your horoscope, she said: you are worried about the documents because you do not know what is going on there. It will be untangled at the end of July so you will be able to breathe freely.
And everything about your papers, immigration “status”, or any other “status” will be clearer at the end of July and the beginning of August until August 6. The heavy Saturn [of hard labor and the discipline] is coming out on July 20 but good planets are coming in. Whatever you do for yourself in this period until August 6, will bring the fruition in November, December. The keyword: do! So many good things she spoke about [not only she, about three other people] about the good things which would happen in your life from now on. I am even afraid to mention. Yes! I am mention or not, they will happen anyway as it was in the case of your Sister! What I can do?! Things happen because they are written in the stars not because I want them to happen or not!
Good luck with everything. Yes, it tells: you will radically change your career [I do not know how, when Kiwis are not very kind on opening their doors to the new immigrants! but it is not up to my little brain to grasp].
It said: you all of sudden realized that you came to the end of your previous career, you know about it all that you wanted to know, and now it is boring for you. You feel you need the next level. Something you hold in the secret for a while – it would be public- and it will give you a new success [in society], new life, new direction. You will be popular to have a lot of new friends and admirers. Find ones who have a substance, can actually help you with your “papers”, who is kind to you, understanding you and not using the situation against you. And all other real [not fake] good things. You will see it, I better do not talk about it now. Be safe, healthy, happy as it is possible when you are in the foreign land.
Love my baby so much, and some more, Mother.
And still, I think it is a miracle that God holds you there, in the land far away from all the disaster Trump brought upon this land. At least, you are physically safe from covid19, do not have to walk around in a mask. I hate it so much! But I have not a choice – I do not want to go to the hospital or on a ventilator, so I am wearing it at public places, which are starting the moment I leave my apartment, just in the hallway!
The last week they opened the pool, but I wasn’t there yet: you must get a ticket for a day, each day a new ticket, no guests allowed to be in the pool. The ticket is for just two hours, no more than 20 people at once. 20 people! It is like soup there would be!
If I am going out, to groceries or post office, or CVS, I am taking the shower after to wash the germs out of my body and face. Try my best to not get it, it is a spook again here, but it looks worse that it was at the beginning, even in Maryland. But it is safe here. At least, I asked in the lobby, they didn’t have any cases in the building.
X, help me to send this money to you at least for your birthday! Also, I thought, you are self-conscious about it, but how much I owe you, huh?! You did me favors good as no one else would do, and I still didn’t pay to you for them, for cleaning up, for moving me here!!!! Think about it! You earned it! It is yours!
Love my baby. Love her a lot. Mother