Maybe Give Florida Another Go

One full year has elapsed since Covid-19 altered our customary activities.  Had I not retired when I did, I would have functioned amid the medical fray, finding myself desperately in need of a vacation but limited to mostly a staycation, assuming they allowed their docs some periodic respite.  Even soldiers in modern warfare have some R&R provisions.  As a forced indoor cat, I probably did better than most.  My car counts as isolation, so a daily drive usually to nowhere became the norm.  For a while I went to stores but soon lost interest in being a consumer of anything other than food.  I never liked take-out, preferring a menu with the rituals of a waitress.  There not being many options for this, it became a special occasion, one whose absence became less bothersome as the months proceeded.  I had some destinations.  State Parks allowed fishing.  Two state beaches got visits without the deviants among us expressing their autonomy by endangering the public, as I saw in news reports from elsewhere.  I even ventured onto an airplane for my son's wedding, a much muted venture limited to puttering around my former campus and neighborhoods in St. Louis, eating outdoors twice, but not having the hotel amenities that add to previous short trips.  I also made three modest day trips, one to a Philadelphia's Italian Market, another to Ladew Topiary Gardens with grounds open but mansion closed, and another to a more distant state park while zipping briefly for coffee or pizza in the small town America that barely survives the nearby malls.  I even had a trip planned to the Everglades, but cancelled as the toll of Covid-19 peaked enough to make travel to the that part of Florida beyond prudent risk.  Now we have immunization, or will soon.  We also have places that depend on visitors trying to have their Second Act. Each day an airline or two tries to entice customers with air fares that undercut any other means of traversing that distance.  And Atlantic Florida being overbuilt, overscheduled by competing airlines, and without any need to transport cruise ship passengers, again emerges as an economical destination, though as safety improves, bargains have become more restrictive.

It's a place I never particularly sought out beyond making a trek to Disney World with the kids, something that has become largely obligatory one time, perhaps like the Hajj, for American parents.  My father lived in Boynton Beach for his final two decades, so a few trips worthy of Kavod Av got incorporated, though never truly what I think of as a personal vacation with that required element of escape for fun.  And I've been there in my professional capacity as a physician for two conferences.  It's not really the enticing destination where I would go to let my hair down let alone ride out my closing years like my father and some childhood friends have done, nor seek my adult destiny there, a venture taken by many friends as young adults.  Nobody who has done that seems to move on.  I found it a place where people like being catered to or having their entitlements reinforced, something that almost jeopardizes my pride of independence with the accomplishment that comes from doing as much as I can myself, mostly for myself.  

But a bargain is a bargain.  I have to look at the flights and places to stay.  What would I do if I were there for five days or so, or whatever length of stay qualifies for a discounted flight home?  The Everglades, which I have seen from the window of a small plane on a business related shuttle from Miami to Tampa, should be experienced at ground level.  I have a few friends there though with Covid still active, I don't know how receptive people are to guests.  When FB friends venture there and post photos, they invariably include gatherings of friends maintained over decades, and in far larger numbers, and likely in closeness, than my less gregarious nature has maintained.  There are beaches, but in the likely travel month of June we have wonderful beaches in driving distance. Hotels have outdoor pools there.  We have them indoors, though the outdoor ones are more likely to avoid suspension of activity by the regional health departments.  For parts of the area, there is a stronger Jewish presence than I have at home.  It would be pleasant to dine at a Kosher restaurant on some delicacy not readily duplicated in my own kitchen.  

Whatever is there that I might do, I think the strongest incentive remains being someplace other than here which has taken its toll.  My drive to nowhere to get me out of the house most days can be a drive to somewhere someplace else.  Check the airfares.  Check the calendars.  See who might be around.  But I'm ready for a more distant destination.

Without Laptop

My HP device was tried and true for its five or so years, meaning about $120 per year or $10 per month.  It failed twice, requiring some costly though cost-effective repair.  Once some settings went awry, the other time the hard drive reached the end of its life span.  It's terminal event was more ignominious, drowning in herb tea from a cup that got knocked over from an overfilled and off balanced desktop stand. Those Geeks at Best Buy were able to save its data but not its innards.

It had what I needed.  Ample ports, comfortable keyboard with visible letters whose keys responded to my multi-fingered touch.  I had personalized it with a sticker of an SLU Billiken.  If lost, as I would transport it to OLLI and often far destinations, it had a sticker with my name and address, though neither my phone number nor email contact which would have been more useful to an honest finder of lost objects.  It served me well until its abrupt end, surfing me through the world, enabling a few Power Point presentations, providing me a forum to articulate what I thought through social media responses, my blogs, or submissions for publications.

Among my many good fortunes has been a reasonable accumulation of wealth which enabled me to seek a replacement as soon as the Geek informed me of my pseudo-animate friend's demise.  While still at Best Buy I looked at replacements. I don't particularly like shopping there, though they have the best computer service.  Their selection of laptops, and even the option of an All-in-One, was placed by professional marketers who know how to make the expensive alluring but keeping the lower priced options either more obscure in the display or more typically placed adjacent to a gleaming model so the comparison becomes more obvious, even it the disparity in value isn't.  Staples did better.  It's where I had purchased my now departed device.  They had a very small display, which is good.  There are studies showing that people who choose from among a handful of options tend to prove more content with their selection than those who choose among dozens.  Too many thoughts of what could have been.  But I knew all that I saw fell short of what I had just lost, and the Staples Geeks did not distinguish themselves when I needed them.  Since Target had to be passed to get home, I stopped there too.  Mostly lower end Chomebooks, though I had to look up what a Chromebook was when I got home.  It's low price and portability would probably make it a useful second device for travel if I opted for an All-in-One desktop replacement.  Once home, my smart phone connected me to online Amazon and Staples, each reliable, though with an overwhelming array of choices.  By days end, I used the filtering devices to get something very similar to what I had both in features and in price.  Staples had a lower price but less desirable supplemental warranty, so I went with Amazon, paying the extra $50 for the item and securing a four year warranty that covers all unintentional mishaps. In my two decades of dependence on these electronics, this is my second unsalvageable liquid spill, the first being my first decent smart phone.  Worth the peace of mind.

These days without a real keyboard exposed me to a previously unrealized reality of our Covid isolation.  In the past, when I needed a keyboard with screen, our local library served as a good safety net.  I almost never had to wait for an available computer, though they limited each session to one hour and a total of three hours in any single day. While it was too public a place to log my finances on Excel, with a flash drive I could type away whatever I wanted to write on Word, keep my work in my possession, and transfer it to my home computer or pre-retirement to my at work desktop for further revision.  Alas, our library is closed.  My wife has a laptop which she offered to me but only used one time. It lacked a numeric keypad and the keys when pressed offered an insecure, maybe overused feel.  I could not type on it effortlessly as I could with mine, the library's, or my work desktop.  As a result, I only did a few time dependent essentials like renewing a medical license, but avoided creative expressions.  In the meantime I also obtained via online shopping a low end 10 inch tablet which replaced another tablet of similar generic vintage.  This one feels more substantial than its predecessor though less responsive.  I understand why it is of essentially disposable price.  Adequate for reading from the internet, maybe even pretty good for reading an e-book.  Not at all suitable for typing in anything more profound than a password.

So I found myself with the more verbal segments of my mind stymied a few days.  Fast and short tweets or FB responses dominated. My more weighty thoughts require longer words, more complex sentence structure, the ability to navigate between sources, a thesaurus to help me select a more precise word than my mind generated, and to copy and paste what I find via exploration.  All this had to be set aside, not really a form of vacation to be pursued with renewed vigor, but more like an illness that would require convalescence once Amazon delivered the replacement laptop and the salvaged contents of its predecessor restored.  In the midst of feeling deprived, though, an opportunity arose.  Without the keyboard, I resorted to taking notes on paper, jotting down fragments of my thoughts that could create more coherent compositions and sequence of thought than I have been able to do with keyboard alone.  It's how I was taught to think and transfer thoughts to paper.  Correction of composition was much harder with typewriter so having that outline has lost its importance, but these days with a note pad may have restored an important but overlooked skill.

I'm back.  New laptop up and going, though without a DVD drive which I use, but HP deemed obsolete.  My notes on what I want to write about some uneasy Jewish organizational relations appeared in my line of vision as I resumed my first Word initiative on my new device.  The days away were not a vacation from expressing what I think but forced some useful return to previous processes that I realize now had become underutilized.

Pesach Shopping

Will I qualify for a free whole Empire chicken this year?  Shop-Rite gives this bonus to people who spend $400 in preparation for their spring holidays.  Last year I made it.  Less sure about this year.  Passover shopping has a way of adding up, typically to the tune of $200.  For the past few trips to Shop-Rite I've been purchasing Kosher poultry and beef as it comes on sale.  I've not hit the Passover seasonal shelves yet, have planned some menus, not hosting a Seder with attendance that requires enormous amounts of food.  How much I will spend and what I will purchase remains uncertain as I prepare to fill my cart a little later.  I have enough meat.  I have spices, though to save freezer clutter, I did not freeze them this year.  My OU Passover Guide arrived, reviewed briefly.  Trader Joes is probably a better place to buy raw nuts for charoset and nusstorte.  Produce can wait until the last minute.  Semi-Perishable dairy is better obtained now.  I use a lot of eggs.  Get that with the produce.  Gave up the evil soda and commercial cookies a few months ago, but Passover Certified Coca-Cola and seltzer have been seasonal staples forever.  Usually get a box of coffee filters, some napkins, baggies and a box of storage bags.  And see if the shankbones have come in yet.  Take my time in the aisles.  Don't fret about forgetting anything.  There will be a second supermarket tour.  And keep track of the receipt total.

Did a Lot in a Half Hour

DST jolted my inner clock settings.  A reset will eventually come, just as if I had travelled to a different time zone, but it's still a work in progress.  In keeping with my commitment to better sleep for myself, I have my wrist vibrate signal set for 6:30 and except for the Sunday of clock adjustment, I have arisen whether I wanted to or not. As I move to daily dental hygiene as the day's first task, a glance outside the bathroom window still has gloom of night. Brushing and flossing and moisturizing forehead all done, it's downstairs for kcup coffee, some Martinson's at half-price on the last Shop-Rite venture.  But in direct site was a filled rack of fleishig dishes.  In indirect site on the table behind me sat milchig dishes needing washing.  I started the coffee.  Then I inverted the corned beef that has been curing, one day short of its St. Patrick's Day conclusion.   While the Mr. Coffee for Kcups did its designated task, I placed into the cupboard four plates and a mug.  The utensils went from the rack to a plastic container on the fleishig cutting board.  The frying pan went onto the cutting board too.  Then I moved the scrubbing pads to their fleishig receptacle beneath the sink followed by the rack and tubs into the under sink closet.  Now to make the sink suitable for the milchig tub and rack.  This takes a few steps.  Wipe off quartz counter, clean the drain particle catcher, scrub the metallic sink, place eggshells in the drain, replace the particle catcher, finally whirl the disposal while I rinse out the sink with the spray device on the sink.  Ready for milchig.  Transfer the tub and rack from atop the washing machine back to the sink and counter.  Then gather all the milchig items in need of washing, place in tub, fill with water, separating glassware for separate washing with a brush.  

Coffee pretty much done.  But before adding coffee mate and taking it upstairs, I put away the fleishig utensils and two now clean plastic containers I had used to store shabbos leftovers.  Almost ready for coffee.  Added powdered whitener.  But before heading upstairs, I could inspect the indoor starters for tomatoes kept in the living room.  I have six degradable cardboard cups, each with tomato seeds kept most for the last week or so.  All six now have sprouts.  The finger test confirmed that no additional moisture will be needed today.  They are all covered with yogurt cups or plastic to create a seed starter hothouse. All sprouts still appear too fragile for open air.

Now coffee at my upstairs desk.  It's not yet 7AM.  And I'm no longer dragging.

OLLI Intercession

I hoped it would have been a custom to use about half the week of each OLLI intercession for a small respite someplace else.  Covid undermined that the last two semesters.  I cannot even remember what I did instead during those two breaks from class.  This semester brought more possibilities.  I had cancelled a vacation to the Everglades at the peak of the last infection surge.  Maybe now.  My son and daughter-in-law now live in driving range.  I could visit them while enjoying Pittsburgh, where I've never really been beyond minor transit needs.  So I checked which week.  Alas, it coincides with Pesach.  No travel.

For OLLI it makes very good sense to select that as the transition week, irrespective of what else appears on public calendars.  As the curriculum goes to a Zoom format, there is are five and eleven week sessions. This week falls between the two fives.  As a medical student at the Jesuit SLU, the undergraduate campus had their spring hiatus based on a calendar to have it fall in mid-March, much like other universities in America.  The medical campus, though, followed a different calendar, selecting the Catholic Holy Days as the week off.  As a useful consequence, I don't think I ever attended Seder in St. Louis, though I have made arrangements to eat at WashU Hillel for the later days of Pesach.

Now that I know the OLLI calendar, what might I do instead of travel?  OLLI classes do not really absorb that much time, about four hours a week, roughly what one undergraduate class would comprise.  There is not much effort outside the class times, at least not by full-time university standards.  When classes met on campus, I would take two sessions on a single day, staying on site between classes.  This added time devoted to the OLLI experience, though very worthwhile socialization time.  And I had to travel round trip to do this.  So Zoom OLLI comprises a fraction of the time commitment of campus OLLI.  Even if I could take a trip for OLLI's off week, just getting to any desired destination would exceed the time I actually spend with the Lifelong Learning program.

Instead of a novel experience, this year's OLLI suspension  brings me parts of the familiar, maybe a few parts innovative, just as Pesach should be.

Tough DST Onset

In trying to improve my disordered sleep, at least my self-impression of it, I set my smart watch to wake me at 6:30 each morning a few months ago.  It has buzzed my left wrist daily to which I sit up, sometimes stretch, more often not, then head into the bathroom for habitual dental hygiene.  I've only resisted the vibration once or twice and virtually always have been upright before the reminder turns itself off about 30 seconds later.  Being truly smart, this watch adapted itself overnight with no help from me to the corrected springtime skipping the 2AM-3AM overnight interval.  It left 6:30 as my wake time.  My circadian rhythm did not.  My inner sense called it 5:30AM, leaving me with a mixed message.  As my sleep pattern becomes consistent with early awakening, I am often awake, or at least can perceive the clock and watch when I glance at them, at 5AM.  Not having to get up then I don't, but at least I sense that I am awake.  Some sleep experts would posit that I should arise.  This morning the vibration may not have truly awoken me, but I felt a long way from arising.  That's probably a good thing, one of the few objective measures that I have that my sincere attempts at predictable times in bed have created some physiologic adaptation.  Visiting a Caribbean island on Atlantic Time would have been a better way to assess the same adaptation, but for now, I think that my sleep may be less disordered than I perceive.

Attempt at Recovery

For a lot of reasons, to stay mostly silent for now, this has been a tough first half of the week.  I need some lab testing this morning, having been sent home from an attempted platelet donation due to inadequate Hb, something that has happened before but this time not a borderline result.  The past few nights have left me sufficiently sleep deprived, so much so this week that for the first time in a while my scheduled treadmill appointment with myself had to be cancelled.  I feel better today, still with some grief for the last three days, probably able to do a reduced treadmill session, and not terribly apprehensive about what today's CBC will show.  There are some good events on the horizon.  I thawed a small brisket, to be coated today with the curing salts and spices for a wonderful St. Patrick's Day corned beef next week.  The weather requires less clothing, no concern about my snowblower not starting, and an opportunity to proceed with the outdoors components of this spring's gardens. While my energy has taken a dip, and mood deteriorated past basic ennui though not all the way to despondent, I should be able to do those things.  My home state medical license lies on my desk, the one where I worked is renewable with some effort that I am ambivalent about pursuing, but it is not out of reach.  Even my Coronavirus immunization date has come through. And eventually a cheerful day will reappear.

Fluctuating Interests

If you have two dozen priorities you really have no priorities.  My list comes out daily.  Today's tasks number 69, taken largely as offshoots of my semiannual goals.  I cannot even come close to doing them all.  Very few will disappear for a week or more once done.  As a result, I am left deciding what among them I am going to do.  Artwork appears daily, never done.  Tidying kitchen and bedroom were once semi-annual home tasks, replaced by garden development.  New tasks emerge, some out of deadline such as medical license renewal, some out of interest like taking full advantage of my Curiosity Stream subscription.

I find myself less interested in FB.  Many of my FB friends have made themselves scarce or hardly ever interact with me verbally.  I find myself more interested in Twitter, though a little annoyed that one of my favorite posters decided I was not important enough a Jew to offer feedback on his comments.  Even there, I do not access anyone with hundreds of thousands of followers or anyone whose purpose is to provoke.  And pests who Tweet every few minutes around the clock get Unfollowed pretty quickly.

Writing has gotten more difficult, making me wonder how great a priority it was, though it is a stick to it task by which I measure myself.  I want to expand my circles, keeping me more focused on OLLI which meets regularly, and offering to be an Election District 8 Democratic Committeeman.  Interest in medicine and money languishes, though the essentials get done.  I am trying to learn photography skills via a Great Courses purchase, staying focused on the technicalities of using the camera devices and tinkering with the capabilities of my pretty decent point and shoot, but not yet immersed in the second half of the course on framing the different elements that the camera can capture.

I'm a little more inclined to write about me, either as furrydoc.blogspot.com in the morning or my Hakaras HaTov record in the evening.  Yet I cannot do the more sustained novel creation of my fictional template.  Gardening has gotten more serious, with indoor plantings done, container preparation paced appropriately, and as the weather warms a reasonable plan for an outdoors garden that will prove productive without overburdening me. 

My post-retirement life seems a little more focused on me, which has its favorable and unfavorable elements.  My interests tend to wax and wane, though my focus and ability to set priorities has never been better.

Pesach in Sight

Purim sets its own countdown clock to Pesach.  Shop-Rite has installed its seasonal aisle to reflect that, though I have not yet extracted any staples or goodies yet.  Yontiff with Seder begins at the most inconvenient time of Saturday night, though I've lived through that enough times to be able to adapt to the transition from shabbos.  And I've also lived through a previous Coronavirus Zoom yontiff.

Shul isn't on the agenda, though cleaning, shopping, meal planning and preparation is, all in a three week time frame.  Living room can be organized and vacuumed.  Dining room poses a little more challenge and kitchen a lot more challenge.  Fridge gets broken down by shelf with sponging and scrubbing at the last minute.  I have enough meat, having extracted some Shop-Rite price reductions as they arise.  I can never have enough eggs.  To save freezer space, I did not freeze the spices this year, so I'll see how much potency they lost.  I also don't know who will be coming for  Seder and who will need to connect electronically.

Work and preparation, yet it remains my favorite festival, one that reflects accomplishment both personally and historically.

Awaiting Vaccination

By state rules, I classify as Phase 1b, largely by virtue of age, on the state priority ranking for SARS-CoV-2 immunization. Despite having decent elected and appointed public officials, my FB friends from other states, whose officials are likely inferior to ours, have all received at least one dose of vaccine, some both doses.  I remain on a waiting list, bottom priority since I have the good fortune to remain in basically good health as my chronological age advances. By my own estimate I have moved up two places on the computerized queue, now languishing at  #74998.  Somebody ahead of me must have gotten Covid-19 and died while another ahead of me knew movers and shakers that I don't.  To usurp the turf of our local newspaper's entertainment critic, our state laid an egg.  Having met virtually all of our elected officials at least once, and chatted with many, they are as a group rather intelligent and dedicated, though really in over their head.  Their responsibility exceeds their resources, which lessens their authority.  From time to time an email appears to the tens of thousands of fellow seniors in limbo guiding us to pharmacies that administer these vaccinations.  We the People has shifted to the squeakiest wheel getting fixed first.  Within that 75K seniors like me, there are no doubt some alumni of Filene's Basement who have a lot of experience elbowing their way from the scrum to the alluring 70%-off merchandise in the bins.  Understanding that I may be the least in need relative to others on the waiting list, many with the chronic diseases or physiologic risk factors or lifestyle risks that I addressed daily before retiring from medical practice, I mostly have been waiting my turn, remarking on our Governor's Twitter posts with phrases that go for the jocular.  

Our officials added an Every Man for Himself cyberspace resource, linking pharmacies, some local, others national, with a presence in our state that have vaccine.  While I qualify as a 1b, I never get farther than entering my Zip Code before learning that no appointments are available. I stopped by my usual pharmacy, found it unusually filled to capacity with mostly female contemporaries, all waiting patiently in the SRO gathering, far more orderly than a Filene's Basement scrum. Somebody must either be getting through on the website or have a granddaughter who knows the system.  While my HS chums reconnected on FB seem to have found a pharmacy that would offer an appointment, perhaps residing in larger states and metro areas that have more pharmacies, their access seemed no more organized than mine, perhaps less as my small state at least has a list of people who both qualify and desire being immunized.

Perhaps most irksome to me personally has been my individual downgrade. At one time, not in the overly remote past, my institution would have labelled me essential.  Endocrinologists moved within the fray attending to diabetics whose chronic condition impaired their prognosis or who needed more insulin to adapt to dexamethasone.  Being at an inner city hospital, much of our community took the brunt of this pandemic.  The lady who makes sure we all get our mandatory flu shots would have sought me out, assuming I had the luck not to become among the many frontline stalwarts who got infected themselves. But off the payroll, an idle spectator, my communal value plummeted, perhaps along with any communal interest in keeping me alive more than anyone else.  So I wait my turn with patience and as much good cheer as I can maintain.

Return of JBS

Early in my cable subscription service, Comcast offered a channel called Shalom TV.  I watched it frequently, learning Talmud from Rabbi Becher, who later became an invited speaker at my shul, Rabbi Wohlberg whose congregation I would latch onto roughly quarterly until our Coronavirus pandemic, and a lot of other interviews with notables.  For some likely commercial reason, Comcast replaced this option with JLTV which ran reruns of Soupy Sales or popular but not particularly profound offerings on chic Israel or a few travel shows of Jewish roots in vacation destinations popular for other reasons supplemented by a few diatribes from people who go to different shuls than me.  

Shalom TV has been recaptured by Comcast in the renamed Jewish Broadcasting Service or JBS.  Talmud with Rabbi Becher appears before dawn but can be recorded.  There are consistently very good interviews, real Israel News, documentaries, shabbos services recorded from Orthodox and Reform congregations, a few repackaging of AJC podcasts, some basic Hebrew.  Rabbi Golub, who I just learned had a theater production background, has channeled this resource to become something of an on-screen Hillel.  Virtually nothing is trivial.  If a political or religious hardball is to be pitched, it is never misrepresented. The Rabbi takes the position that Judaism is for all Jews, something our Federations have tried to do less gracefully while our synagogues and increasingly Israel depend on creating segments.

Great to have it back.  Designated on my favorite channels, surfed each evening, Cable TV recorded assigned to capture a few.  I sit in something of a silo in a recliner as I watch, but witness what goes on outside that silo.  Great to have this back.  A real yasher koach to Rabbi Golub and to Comcast.