The Stew

This is Reuven and Michael. Reuven is the cleaner at squint-central. Michael sits in the booth and works parking lot entrance and is a some times door guard during off hours. They wanted to know why I needed their picture and when I tried to explain, they looked at each other and shrugged and told me they understood, "we're part of the system" Michael nodded.

In order to save on city taxes, the owners of squint-central's building, pretend that our parting lot is public, even though only the building occupants can part in the lot. So Michael sits in the booth and pretends to be a parking lot attendant. This is not a high paying job. Yet interestingly enough he is what you could call a "Russian Optimist" (an oxymoron if ever there was one). Every "Boker Tov" is said like he really means it. He sits in the sweltering morning sun and yet always has a smile. He knows us all. He knows each company car and our spouse's cars. Sometimes, when in a more expansive mood, he wistfully talks of the old country where he used to be someone special. I like him a lot.

Reuven is a different kettle of fish. He cleans and mops the floors and wipes down the surfaces throughout our smallish building. He sweeps the parking lot from time to time. He is part muttering cleaner and part philosopher. I am usually in pretty early and often meet him in the elevator while he is rubbing down the inner panels. Yesterday, after our usual hearty morning greetings he posed this conundrum. "A man goes to see this famous Rabbi!". He asks the Rabbi, "Rabbi why do people live?" The Rabbi looks at him and asks back, "Tell me, why do people live?". The man shrugs and says: "I don't know". "Exactly, that is the correct answer", proclaims the Rabbi. All the time Reuven is rubbing down the elevator walls and shining the buttons. As the elevator doors close behind a most puzzled blackpetero, I could still hear him chuckling to himself and repeating "I don't know, Hah, I simply don't know".

When you put a whole lot of us into this Middle Eastern pressure cooker, turn the heat up to 80%, some of the ingredients are better cooked than others but in all, some days, it's not such a bad stew.