Clearing My Desk

It's a big desk.  Black laminate flat-top from Conran's, which probably no longer exists, measuring 72 x36 inches = 18 square feet of surface, nearly all occupied.  At hand, my laptop centrally.  Planning papers to my right, accumulated a bit more than optimal.  To my left mostly stuff better relocated to be replaced with better things to keep at hand.  Beyond reach to the right, stuff.  In my view occupying the entire far half more stuff, paper to write on, rulers to measure things.  DVDs that nobody uses.  My handwritten journals from thirty years ago when people recorded their thoughts and memories in script.  Those are personal treasures that stay there.  I had a fondness for maps, again made obsolete both as navigation aids and as devices to explore unseen parts of the world that I am never likely to visit personally.  I have a second stash near my other desk.  Perhaps consolidate them.  File cards in boxes, unused in decades.  Some real mementos, a bronze figure of the White House that I bought for myself for fifty cents on my first family vacation to Washington in the Kennedy years.  And next to it, a rock that my pre school daughter crudely colored as a gift to Dad.  Those are memories.  They stay.  At various time I thought I might dabble in art.  Have pastels, a full self-contained art kit in a wooden box, calligraphy starter kit, and drawing pencils, none but the drawing pencils ever used.  And lots of loose leafs which contain nothing but blank loose-leaf paper.

Drug companies when they were still permitted to leave logo items for doctors left me a variety of plastic clipboards which I still use.  And I use marble notebooks, one to record my physical data weekly, the orange one to record three worthy things that I did each day, Sunday through Thursday.  And I have pocket folders to monitor progress on active projects .  My desktop has two wire stands to allow me to insert things.  Each has important stuff, largely unused but not things to discard.  My calendar with Jewish dates and weekly Torah portions are at hand.  Instructions for an upcoming endoscopy are at hand, as are my expense records, recorded electronically on Excel each month but backed up by the handwritten data filed on loose-leaf paper which I then bind in small colored report folders.  Wedged between than I have three tubes of analgesic balms, two Voltaren, one Icy Hot, or generic equivalents.  And then at the far end, there's a box, a handsome wooden one with brass hinges, obtained as a gift, ideal for storage.  If there is anything in it, I long forgot.  And above it, tapes for a tape recorder.  I still have a usable tape recorder for microcassettes as well as a digital recorder onto which I still record my personal thoughts.  And there's a harmonica which I intend to learn to play, though it gets low enough priority that is just stays in place.  To my left, I have a DVD player. My current computer did not come with one so I bought an add-on.  Not nearly as good as the ones factory installed but at the edges of serviceable the few times I need it.  My pills stay to my left, placed in a weekly pill case with the labelled bottles kept downstairs in the kitchen.   There's a nonfunctioning tablet which needs to go to electronics recycling, an active tablet selectively used, an autographed paperback cookbook which i like to read.  I should keep it near my bed where I read it, but don't want to risk having an autographed book get overwhelmed by other stuff.  Two headphones, one wired, the other wireless are also on my left, along with Hebrew papers that need ritual disposal.  These are better consolidated downstairs with other papers needing ritual disposal.  And some plain recycling.  I keep a paper shopping bag for recycling on the floor to the right of my desk.  And there's a paperback on neuroscience, the guidebook for an OLLI course I took a few years back.  Still have a few more chapters to read of that one.  It needs a home other than my desk, but not so obscure that I will never seek it out.

Despite the plethora of stuff that I will never use and things that I might use that merit better locations, My desk remains a personal destination, even if the only usable part is where I place the laptop to be opened.  Probably the back half will remain a repository for the obsolete, though I would like to start using the many art supplies placed there. Instead, I need to make the front half clear, from the left side to the right.  I think that mostly possible.  It will need to be done in stages, progress assessed by a timer clock or by a regional plan.  I tend to do better with timers but think more by region.  Whichever, I have a growing will to make the desk in My Space, already a place I seek out, a place where I can accomplish to my ability.

Suddenly Fully Awake

Sleepig tracker helpful.  While I have been waking overnight on a chronic basic, those 2AM  awakenings have all had their element of drowsiness inviting a return to sleep.  Not so last night.  This time at just before 2AM I recall abrupt awakening following a dream.  No drowsiness at all.  It felt like the night was done and I needed to dive into whatever the day would bring.  I stayed in bed, still fully alert for more than an hour, then just got up, though not quite ready for morning hygiene and a new day.  My mind fully functioned.  

To my laptop whose blue light reinforces wakefulness, at least it did for a short time.  Then a modicum of drowsiness returned, and I returned to bed the rest of the night.

Nobody really knows what neurologic processes regulate consciousness.  For maybe an hour and a half, i had now drowsiness at all.  That transition from one sleep cycle to the next not only didn't happen, as I often experience, but the signal for it to occur at all disappeared.  

Leftovers

Big Shabbos Dinner.  One guest.  Lots of food.  Lots of dishes.  Wash as you go helped.  Still food two two meals beyond the dinner.  I want to have all fleishig dishes done, then begin accumulating milchig items, which have grown and which are better done by hand than dishwasher for many.  That means dealing with food.  Freezer Bags to the rescue.  Probably enough soup to fill two, both for freezer.  Salad would fill one.  Does not freeze adequately.  Turkey, two meals, one fridge later in week, one freezer for a subsequent shabbos.  Kugel, probably two freezer, one later in week.  Then wash the dishes used to cook them.  Then put all fleishig dishes away and exchange sink to milchig.

All within my capacity by end of day.

Pond of Frogs

 

Without jumping in to the politics of climate change, this winter and last have been unseasonably warm.  As the temperature warranted little more than a light jacket and my disposition would improve with some quiet outdoor time, I drove over to the nearby state park.  Usually I sit on a bench atop a hill, enjoy about twenty minutes looking over the retaining wall down the hill to mostly empty fields and a few trees, this time I opted for the alternate route.  It's purpose seems to be a starting point for hiking, but they also have an elementary nature center.  The display snake must have been at the vet or someplace other than its terrarium.  I sat for a while, looking out the big picture window toward three artificial pools.  They contained frogs.

I went outside, walked to the artificial ponds, and seated myself on the metal bench.  Lots of frogs.  Noisy frogs.  One a reddish orange, all others more gray than green.  They swam with frog-kicks.  Some hopped onto the rocks separating the pools, but only stayed on a rock momentarily before immersing in the next mini-pond.  Don't know if they have predators.  The Nature Center set up bird feeders around the pond, all seemingly untouched.  Didn't see any birds, just frogs.

Coffee Options

Each day pretty much starts with coffee, exceptions for Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av.  The Keurig machine has made me lazy.  I keep four different varieties around, generated more by what is most favorably discounted than what I like.  Current k-cups:  Martinson's and three varieties of Shop-Rite house brand.  I also have k-cup adapters which enable any ground coffee.  Currently open containers:  one from Starbucks, one Folgers variety, and one from Vietnam.  These adapters do not work as well on my current Keurig Express as they did with the Mr. Coffee generic that preceded it.  And I have to wash the adapter, so they don't get used very much.  

There are other ways to make coffee.  Percolator was once my default, vivid orange electric one on nights before exam in college, now stovetop.  Not very adaptable to a cup or two and takes a while to make.  Rarely use it.  I have two espresso makers, electric assigned to a shelf in basement, stovetop above my stove with a deteriorated gasket.  It may be better just to replace the unit than to try to pry off the hardened gasket and replace it.  Not used it in recent memory, don't have espresso grind coffee in my kitchen either. I like my French presses.  Great coffee.  Used too infrequently.  Even the cleanup isn't arduous.  And the Melitta cone which preceded the availability of k-cups still gets used.  An exclusive on Passover.  I like the coffee.  Don't like having to pour successive aliquots, then watching it drip into the cup.  Filters starting to get pricey, even the house brand.  It does enable me to use more premium coffee than my usual k-cups.

And then there's going out.  Expense rarely worth it.  Coffee shops really only have three options: dark, light, and flavored, as I eliminated decaf from consideration.  WaWa has more.  I like their coffee.  Mostly a treat to put in the cupholder of my car if I have a substantial drive or when I am on a road trip with either my own car or a rental.  But making my own is more economical absent a special circumstance.

Enough options.  Too many choices invites dissatisfaction with the one selected.

Filling a Briefcase

While devoting some effort to making My Space as optimal as it should be, I came across some briefcases.  I've always had a fondness for them, collected several of various types, not counting back-packs which are really more functional, and usually carried one back and forth to work.  It hardly ever got opened.  I don't really remember what they contained other than some pens and some folders and maybe a mini-cassette recorder for dictations.  I found one of my favorites, green canvas Eddie Bauer, neck strap replaced after the original plastic clip broke.  It was empty.

Now retired, I don't really need a briefcase, not that I needed one as much as I thought in my working days.  I still write with pens on paper.  And the pens should be multicolor, though I think I used to carry a single Bic with blue-black-red-green options in addition to a blue one and a black one with drug advertising logo.  And highlighters.  Probably only want yellow for my briefcase.  And post-it notes.  I already put headphones into it.

The smartphone carried in my left pants pocket has largely obviated any need for a tape recorder or small camera, let alone an extra cassette of 110 film or mini-tape cassettes.  A folder with loose-leaf paper on one side and non-punched paper on the other always comes in useful.  And a couple of small writing pads.

There's really not much reason to create this at all, as I have nothing to transport to my OLLI sessions, can slip earbuds in my pocket, usually keep a pen on me, and have ample access to paper while I am there.  My classes do not span a lunch break as they did in prior years, so no reason to pack food.

Better to just travel empty-handed but with selectively filled pants pockets.

Ten Places I've Always Liked to Be

1. Blood Bank

For decades I've been a donor.  There was an incentive initially, membership in the Blood Bank which in a Tit for Tat arrangement insured my household for blood products in exchange for a periodic donation whenever they asked for one.  Later they tapped me as a platelet donor.  Ever since I've been one of their reliable repeat donors.  There have been misadventures, one episode dizziness, some minor hypocalcemic symptoms, one major infiltration, and a few aborted donations with single arm plateletpheresis when the line failed.  I've been put on hold due to anemia and once due to a cruise that allowed me to disembark in Belize.  But whatever the outcome, I am invariably treated nicely and somebody who I don't know might get some longevity.

Initially platelet donors got an premium, maybe a hat, travel mug, fleece blanket, any number of t-shirts.  Enough to compete with a Blood Bank Museum.  And I got discount coupons for a brew pub.  None of that matters.  What matters has been that I am always treated professionally, never badgered, and invariably find myself in my most cordial disposition, from the time I arrive until I depart from the post-donor canteen.  It's a culture where people always seem appreciative of each other.  My visits there, whether completed donation or aborted, always leave me returning home having been to the right place.

2. Mercy Philadelphia Hospital ICU

For my eight years there, every consultation or follow-up that brought me there had importance.  I could make a similar comment about the ICUs of other places I've worked other than my residency.  There is something special about the challenges of patients brought to the physiological extremes.  Records to read, often lengthy and complex.  Answers from the lab still pending in a situation of forced anticipation of what they will be.  And even when there is no uncertainty, whether a new diabetic already controlled by my arrival, a person admitted for something else noted to have a calcium that needs attention later in the office, or funky thyroid tests that pose no harm, the people there want my expertise.  And grand people they are.  Nurses of top skill, residents working their tails off as I once did there, senior ICU physicians who amid the calamities that they do their best to remedy still offer some playful banter or insights of the working environment of medicine.  It's a place where I am always welcome, indeed always part of the team that called me in.

3. Chinatown Bus

It takes about two hours on the road to get from the pick-up to the drop-off points between my home town and mid-town Manhattan.  While the sponsoring company has had its episodes of instability, I've never had a regrettable trip, often valuing those 4-5 hours seated on the bus more than the comparable time exploring various delights of Manhattan.  Fare is reasonable.  Departures and arrivals have always been timely.  Once the driver had to exit a highway to refuel, filling the diesel tank to over $300 worth, but for the most part they drive fast.  While one driver, usually nationals of Mainland China who have limited facility with English, got suspended for racing a semi in the adjacent lane, the drivers of the buses that transported me always made good time without a hint of recklessness.

Usually I drive a comparable route, never with Manhattan as my destination, though someplace else in or through metro NYC prompting the travel.  As the driver, one not used to the bridges, tunnels, or volume of other cars, my attention goes entirely to safety and staying on my planned route.  Being a passenger, especially one with a seat next to a picture window in a soft high-backed seat, affords me a chance to look around.  I cannot see the road.  usually I select a seat on the passenger side which allows me to see buildings with company names.  WiFi availability on the buses makes the travel more intersting.  I like searching the names on my device to see what these usually high-tech enterprises do.  There are a fair number of warehouses off to the side of the Turnpike.  As the bus approaches and then exits the Lincoln Tunnel, I get to see some waterfront and some of the secondary structures of Manhattan somewhat west of the core sections of mid-town.  Exit bus, get my bearings, make sure I know where the pick-up for home will be, not in the same place for each trip.  Then some tourism or visiting a friend.  Then an equally peaceful return trip, more often than not after dark.  Same seats.  The return route ends a little differently than the outbound route started.  It takes me through some battered sections of my home town, places I would not ordinarily drive, especially after dark.  But it's interesting to see how the marginal neighborhoods get by with gas stations and places for takeout and small businesses that have closed for the day.

The bus station, while I wait for my wife to retrieve me, always feeling more rested and more accomplished than when I left early in the morning.

4. In my green swivel chair

It currently sits in front of my desk in My Space.  It probably always took that position, though until my retirement access to my desk needed some navigation through clutter.  Creaating My Space took priority once I no longer had to go to work daily.  The desk, really a black laminate flat top measuring 36x72 inches straddled across two low off-white metal file cabinets, all purchased at the same time at Conran's, for the purpose of being my desk, now serves as my daily destination.  I do not know if there is still a Conran's, the founder being a British interior design icon of the 1980s.  I also don't know when I got my beloved green swivel chair, though I know where I got it.  The DuPont Company used to clear surplus office furniture once a month.  Hundreds of people would go there on a Saturday morning, mostly small business owners looking for cheap office furniture.  The line grew quite long by opening.  The rule, raise your hand and it's yours for the specified price.  Browsers, which included me the first few times, fared poorly, as the good stuff would be sold in minutes, leaving a few electric pencil sharpeners or plastic trays for dawdlers.  I learned quickly to enter the door with a desired purchase in mind, go for it, and raise your hand without hesitation.  I needed a desk chair and I got one.

Unlikely I would have purchased one like mine from a store.  Swivel and recline mechanisms have served me well.  Spring cushion lasts forever.  I don't know when it was built, probably not long after World War II and likely purchased for somebody whose salary wasn't all that high.  Seat made of cloth the texture of burlap, a shade of green with maybe a hint of yellow in the dye.  It's frame is faux silver base metal, four pedestal base which gives it a tad less than optimal stability.  The armrests are a brighter green, maybe a shade deeper than a traffic signal, and with edges that have worn through the vinyl in a few places.  Yet always adaptable to my seated comfort, bringing me within arms reach or a quick swivel to anything on my desk that attracts me.

5. Trader Joe's

After a number of years, I've accumulated products that I preferentially seek at TJs.  Bread for sure.  Alternate over several kinds, but gravitate to their pumpernickel.  Risk having some staples withdrawn, as happened to me biweekly purchase of four top notch minichallot for shabbos motzi.  And cheese.  They list ingredients.  Without getting into controversies, I accept microbial enzymes or microbial rennet as a non-animal product, irrespective of who adds it to the huge commercial vat.  I'm not much for snacks, but sesame crisps, fruit bars, and TJ cheese curls often have a place in my cart.  Frozen tuna, if I can find two relatively equal size steaks of about a half pound each.  Almost like nutritious fast food once defrosted.  And best price on eggs, salad greens, and bananas.

Lots of places sell food.  TJ also sells wanting to be there.  Start with being among other shoppers who also want to be there.  Displays easy to locate, nothing shelved so high that an attendant needs to be summoned.  Never had a dysfunctional shopping cart.  Even at the height of Covid, when the number of shoppers inside the store at any one time was capped, the line never had aggressive customers pushing beyond their turn.  Once inside, shoppers do not clog aisles with their carts nor do vendors create aisle obstructions with delivery or shelving.

My state does not permit alcohol sales in supermarkets.  It is sold in other TJ states, and at an impressive discount.  Even without this inducement, I've never left TJ feeling irritated.

6. The UPenn Campus

I've had three sessions, an undergraduate experience, my specialty fellowship, and my children's time there.  And from time to time, I've returned to the campus for a variety of activities that could be completed in one day.  It's large.  It's diverse, which is what attracted me to attend as an undergraduate.  Yet from the Children's Hospital at one end to the Dental School at the other, it can be comfortably walked.  I always found quiet spots, from my dorm room, to a pond, to unoccupied nooks in their central and specialty libraries.  When hungry, I could go to a hoagie place as an undergrad or a lunch truck as a medical fellow, always within my willingness to pay what they charged.

A university depends on the diversity of its people.  As an undergrad, it bordered a scruffy neighborhood with hoodlums in training who would push people off the sidewalk when unsuccesssful at extorting a quarter.  The university took security very seriously as these incidents moved from annoyances to threats.  The campus had museums, worship, sports, an international center, people handing out leaflets or protesting some injustice.  I could be part of the crowd rooting for the Quakers.  Or I could read the Wall Street Journal by myself on a recliner in the Medical Library just an elevator ride downstairs from my department's laboratories.  But whether part of the pageant or self-isolated from it, I could always find for myself the best place at the right time.

7. Cruise Ship

There's a lot to do.  Time at sea.  Time eating. Time getting wet. Time exploring new places.  I've taken three cruises, the Western Caribbean, Alaska's Panhandle, The Adriatic.  Each with a different cruise company.  While none of these were the biggest on the Seas, they all had lots of people, some more eager than me to engage with other travelers, some less.  The crew originated from everywhere, often the only person I ever met from that native country.  Cabins are small enough to discourage camping out there for extended times.  Walk around.  Stop for food scattered multiple places on pretty much any route taken.  I like hot tubs, less attracted to pools, though they are warm and one had a Thessaloniki theme that I never quite figured out.  Array of food maybe too vast.  Attracted to meatless things not readily accessible at home, but hard to pass up pizza lying on a tray for the taking, croissants and similar breakfast pastries, or a tuna sandwich at midday when I'm used to eating nothing at midday.  I rarely attend shows, but always enjoyed whichever I watched on a cruise.  Ports of call bring me to places I've not been and likely will not return.  At home I have things.  At Sea I generate experiences and memories.  While I've been imprinted to be wary of people who are paid to be nice to me and to avoid people who indulge me, the liners do their best to hire people who are innately motivated to show their good dispositions and the pampering fits the job description.  So for a week I can be a sport and let people do things for me that I would do myself pretty much everyplace other than a resort.

8. Talley Day Park

Go To quiet time.  The park, part of the county recreation system, sits adjacent to my Go To library.  They share an access road and the few outdoor picnic tables and benches at the library face the park.  They have very different purposes.  The park is a small one as parks go.  Facing the main road, kids play mostly league soccer on an athletic field.  At the opposite end, farthest from the road, sit two fenced dog parks, one for small dogs which I usually find vacant, the other for large dogs whose owners sit on benches while their pets romp with each other.  I've been to the large dog section a few times while trying to improve my camera skills.  The dogs are fun to watch and will sometimes come over seeking attention.  My destination on nearly all visits, though, is an unfenced central field in the middle, surrounded by parking spaces.  A covered pavilion can be rented for birthday parties or similar events.  The county provides a couple of grills, kept fairly clean by users or staff.  A playground attracts mostly preschoolers.  My destination, though, is a seat at one of the metallic benches made of parallel rods.  Comfortable.  Usually no competition with anyone else for a seat.  I sit down, usually with some pre-determined expectation of for how long.  Rarely more than 20 minutes.  I will look at the cell phone screen but not do any exploration with the device.  I have taken pencils and a pad to draw, but I usually don't.  There are metallic picnic tables a few steps from some of the benches.  I've sipped a soda, ate a sandwich once.  Never brought any food from home there.  But mostly I sit for the allotted time, facing the playground, its activity having no material influence on my experience there.  I come for a few minutes of quiet time, not in my car, not reading anything, not interrupting another destination to be there.  And the quiet break that I seek always happens.

9. Standing in the surf

By now I've been to a lot of large salt-water bodies with waves.  Atlantic. Pacific.  Caribbean.  Mediterranean.  No water park wave pool comes close.  Some are places near where I lived.  Rockaway to visit the Great Aunts whose primary address was Beach 19th Street.  My first liking to waves.  Then the Cape and coastal New Hampshire while living in Boston.  Not very many of these trips.  Short rocky beaches, often chilly.  Then the Delaware Beaches, for some years with kids, more recently alone or as a couple.  Another Aunt lived near the Jersey Shore, which included a municipal beach pass.  Kids enjoyed it, even my infant son.  Great waves.  Lot of jellyfish.

And then distination travel.  Never vacationed with a beachfront as primary attraction until my honeymoon.  The two years later, bargain airfare made the visit to California too hard to pass up.  While Disneyland and Beverly Hills took top priority, my most enduring memory may be time on Redondo Beach in mid-June.  Not at all crowed.  Waves larger than anything I'd experienced at Rockaway, though not so powerful as to upend the young me.  Just pleasant crashing.  My job afforded ample income to sample many others, maybe one every two or three years, whether Virginia Beach with my toddlers as an alternative to Rehoboth or a once in a lifetime journey to Tel Aviv.  While standing amid the waves constitutes a tiny fraction of my time at each place, even those like Acapulco or Hawaii that would deplete their tourists in the absence of a beach, the attraction remains the same.  A few minutes at a time venturing about waist deep, watching for the next crest, positioning myself, having nature change that position, then feeling the undertow as the wave the just moved me invisibly receeds.  One of my favorite bodily pleasures, replicated over decades in numerous locations, but always with the same elemntal pleasure.

10. A brewery I've not been to before

Each brew sample intrigues me in a different way.  Few really warrant a second visit.  As a student in St. Louis, the Annheuser-Busch complex stood in walking distance from my apartment.  One afternoon I committed myself to a visit, only repeated one more time.  Tourists, and there were a substantial number even on a weekday afternoon, were shuttled on a tour, where the guide, a college classmate who I didn't know but dressed to be on display with A-B logo printing all over his conspicuous red and white pants, took the group around, pressing buttons that would turn on advertising tapes of Ed McMahon, giving the spiel that he memorized, and evading any serious inquiry about the products but reminding us how wonderful they were.  Amid this, tuning out the guide and Mr. McMahon, we could see the actual production and packaging of their beer.  A quick visit to the Clydesdales followed, magnificent creatures, then what any just of age visitor would wait for, a trip to their tasting room where each visitor was allotted two plastic cups of the brews of their choice.  Cheap stuff I would buy myself.  For me it was Michelob and one forgettable other.   One later visit, also A-B complex, this on a trip to Williamsburg with amusements at Busch Gardens.  A shuttle train brought us to the brewery, this smaller than St. Louis but without the hype.  

Craft beer then edged its way in.  Many varieties, each different, each personalized by a brewmaster.  What was available depended on what day you arrived.  Early Dogfish Head, a slew of different ones on a visit to Denver, a few very small ones near me.  The State of Delaware tried to promote its own industry.  Visit the requisite number, I forget how many, get the promotional passport stamped, and they would send you a glass stein with state decal, which I've still never used.  The project took me to numerous small towns in rural parts of the state, places I would never consider driving to without this incentive. Some were basically converted warehouse space with tanks.  But those were the ones where the owners conducted the tour, generating enthusiasm for their product in particular and beer recipes not yet created in general.  Each one with its liquid creativity to admire.

Setting Out Ingredients

When I watch a cooking show with a master demonstrating his or her creativity, they do not work with measuring cups or teaspoons.  Instead, all needed ingredients, are arrayed on the counter or other flat surface in small containers, usually porcelain, all premeasured, and in roughly the order they will be used.  While the TV stars usually only present one dish at a time for videotaped preparation, the reality is more likely that what they prepare is really one component of a larger menu.  That's a lot of porcelain mini-cups, certainly more than I have.

With an esteemed guest on the schedule for shabbos, I have generated the full menu, from Kiddush to start to Stuffed Monkey to conclude.  I will have a half day to assemble all the components, starting with an ingredient list, pared down to a shopping list. Non-perishables can be set around the dining room table, sorted by dish.  Turkey half breast out of freezer to its new temporary home on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.  Prep vegetables the night before.  Portion seasonings the night before.  Shop for perishables and other things I don't have two days before.  Make sink fleishig that morning to enable me to clean as I go.

Then for an afternoon, wearing a blue striped apron, I can function like a TV chef.

New Sleep Tracker

Sleep has not gone well, at least my perception of it.  Changed from fixed times to let your body tell you what to do.  Neither of them quite right, but generally I felt better with fixed times once performed faithfully over a few weeks.  Tried to revive my old sleep App still on the phone.  They wanted money.  Not worth money, so Uninstall.  Lots of apps to replace it.  First one wanted a promise of money after seven days.  Uninstalled quickly.  Next one let me see what their device calculates for free.  Put it next to my pillow.  Wife put it on shelf behind the bed, not realizing it was left on the bed intentionally.  Straightened that out.  Second night, recorded only one minute then shut off.  Finally, last night I got data.  The electronic assessment exceeded my internal assessment.  Sleep time was about where I hoped it would be.  Wake time underestimated.  I do not know how the App calculates the deep and light sleep levels, but I did better on the deep side than usual.  I assume they calculate REM by absence of movement.  They gave mine under 1% though I recall active dreaming, even a little of its content, not at all lurid but worthy of interpretation, near the completion of last night's sleep.  It was probably more than 1%, though with the phone closer to me but still a second person in bed, true lack of motion with the phone settled on the shared mattress may be hard to detect.

Too soon to make an assessment of the App and whether it will contribute to improved sleep.  I got up just a little past my arbitrary target time.  I felt poorly for sure, achy, a little stiff, a tad unsteady but not dangerously so.  With no vigor, I filled my obligation of dental hygiene, then started to perk up.

The purpose of sleep is to enable peak function the following day.  I've been functioning reasonably well, past my prime, not sure what optimal in my Medicare years really is.  Have been able to exercise with consistency on my morning schedule, do my eight-minute stretch program in the late afternoon, usually not grudgingly.  And most days my mind has remained adequately agile.  So sleep must be OK for its end purpose.  It's intermediate purpose of having me feel my best still has elements for a sleep tracker to identify, or perhaps a sleep lab.

Out of Beer

Apparently no beer on the top shelf of the refrigerator for shabbos dinner.  Cannot remember the last time that occurred.  Indeed, my consumption of suds has gone way down over a couple of years, now pretty much limited to a bottle on Friday evenings, and not every Friday evening with the regularity of challah.

Beer has its share of attributes.  I've not abandoned it.  At a time in history, some brewed concoction had a safety advantage over river water for drinking.  It probably tasted a lot different than what we pour out of cans now.  It also did not compete with soda. My father arranged periodic beer delivery when we first moved to our house in the 1950s.  A wooden case of 24 bottles of Blatz would arrive on a schedule.  New York State allowed beer sales in the supermarket which became very convenient, allowing advertising of sales and on-site selection of brands.  Despite consumer choice, my father had a limited array of preferences.  Wife and kids had soda, he had one bottle of his brew.  Despite the legal age of consumption in NY at the time being only 18, I did not join in.

Beer mostly became a special event beverage in college, a disposable plastic glass from the keg at a frat party mostly.  Even in medical school, now of age and in a city known for its immense brewery, beer was never something I brought home.  It could be had with a meal or at a pub alone or with friends, bought by the pitcher at a restaurant, sampled in the tasting room of the brewery tour.  It was not something to displace soda as the beverage of choice at home.  It started to change as a resident, then as a homeowner and young parent, wanting to minimize soda, I started keeping beer at home, initially six packs, later bottles of twelve became my preference.  And going out, one that I've not had before became my preference.  But at home, I drifted towards cheap, cold and wet with some foam, but not soda.

A transition point probably came with the emergence of craft beers in their many varieties.  Now Brewpubs became a place I would occasionally stop or seek out after my last office patient session.  It was often the dinner out place of choice.  Many were short-lived.  But having a package of twelve bottles at home, with preference for samplers, kept the bottles at hand.  They would last awhile, maybe just under a month.  Sometimes I would go cheap with mass market brews.  For a while, I filled one of two growlers until it got expensive.

But over time the purchases of twelve lasted two months instead of one, the growlers assigned to a shelf in the basement where they've been forever.  Soda has not returned, though.  Beer had just gotten expensive, the more intriguing small batch stuff exceeding what I was willing to pay.  It became a shabbos treat, never quite running out until this week.  For a while, the Blood Bank offered its donors a discount coupon for a regional pub.  Those few redemptions have been my only pub visits, deterred in part by price, in part by waning interest.

I do not know how much of a microcosm I am for the larger marketplace.  Maybe.  Probably on my next occasion to go to Total Whine I'll get another twelve bottles, or maybe cans as there are advantages to the brewers to packaging them that way.  But I'm not ready to set replacement of weekly shabbos suds as a gotta have.

Melatonin Assisted

Up slightly earlier.  Feeling more refreshed at day's start than I had been.  Don't know how much to attribute to a therapeutic trial of an OTC melatonin chewable at bedtime.  Since darkness had already appeared, my endogenous melatonin should have been synthesized and released.  Maybe it was.  After chewing the tablet, which invariably brings me to nap time on those Saturday afternoons when I've taken one, not a whole lot happened.  Falling asleep has never been difficult.  Staying asleep has.  Typically, my first middle of the night awakening will draw my eyes to a clock radio whose red numerals portray a time of about 3AM.  If that happened last night, I don't remember it.  Instead, I remember 6AM, using the bathroom, though not feeling groggy.  Next glimpse, 6:36AM.  Felt reasonably rested, so on to dental hygiene routine followed by coffee.  I'm definitely less than expected tiredness at first arising.  From the melatonin tablet?  Not what I expected but worth doing again.

Cleanup

Special dinner for My Valentine.  Buttermilk biscuits with butter.  Bean soup from a Manischewitz mix. Cucumbers with yogurt-dill dressing.  Seared tuna steaks with the interior still pink.  Maple glazed carrots.  Tricolor quinoa.  Oatmeal cookies in the style of Frog/Commissary z"l.  Italian pinot grigio.  Worth the planning and effort.  

And I did very well cleaning up as the preparation proceeded.  Measuring cups, mixing bowls, cutting boards all washed by serving time.  Beaters cleaned and put away right after making cookie batter.  Rolling pin washed and dried.  The baking sheet, used for both cookies and biscuits needed some soaking from both ends, but it got washed and placed in the dish rack to dry overnight.

Despite attention to keeping up, substantial cleanup awaits the day after.  The most difficult involves the leftover soup.  It was harvested by my wife, but in addition to the pot, I have two plastic containers not quite large enough to contain the remaining liquid and beans.  Searing tuna leaves a crusted pan whose restoration takes effort.  Small saucepans for quinoa and carrots usually clean easily but take up space in the dish rack while other washing items continue to soak.  Bowls still have biscuits and cookies.  Those get washed later.  We have wine glasses, soup bowls, plates and platters.  And some coffee cups, as I helped myself to periodic refreshments as I worked preparing the dinner.

It all gets washed, something that I find more relaxing than challenging.

Enjoying My Kitchen

 

Facebook's nearly daily anniversary reminders indicated that my kitchen remodeling project is but six years old.  The cabinet facing with new doors had just been installed and it appears that the overhead lighting upgrades had also been performed.  But the counters were still laminate along with matching backsplashes, now quartz and tile, respectively.  New sink. Flooring came last.

It was worth every dollar spent and every selection and installment imposition that came along.  It's been the space that gives me joy even amid the frustrations of trying to stay one step ahead of clutter.

Valentine's Day dinner ahead.  Use of oven dominates the menu, though not exclusively.  Tidy up as I go.

Different Churches

Two in one day.  My wife has taken a liking to choral music, serving as President of one ensemble and a dedicated singer in another.  A rarity, two concerts on the same day, one in mid-afternoon devoted to Spirituals joined by a fabulous children's choir, the other at night in conjunction with the local symphony with a few choral all-stars from a nearby high school added to the singers.  Each took place in a church, though with very different environments and outcomes.

First church very familiar to me.  It sits about midway between the central corporate and financial center of town and the main courthouse, a place of prompt resolution of business disputes which keeps my state in the public eye.  Getting to the church early, driving through a few streets that had a high crime look, though abutted by other impressive church buildings of noble history, I parked in good space, then walked a few blocks through the neighborhood.  There is a main street, once probably a place of valuable real estate, though not for a while.  Were it not for Sunday morning, those blocks would be largely abandoned as are the business and legal neighborhoods on the weekends.  Yet the church itself has maintained the integrity of its exterior and an aged handsomeness to its interior.  The concert took place in its sanctuary, a spacious though not cavernous room with two levels, likely remodeled a few times over its existence.  It's massive pipe organ was relatively new, funded with a massive capital campaign, though the pipes themselves visible from the pews did not sparkle.  Flooring, walls, windows all a little worn, lighting less than the brightness that modern fixtures offer.  Yet a space of heritage more than decline.

It serves a multiethnic neighborhood with people of African ancestry living nearby, and in this age of a robust African-American prosperous representation, some who probably commute from the suburbs.  Those of European ancestry seemed older, probably from the nearer suburbs, though a few still loyal to their church despite having moved to the tonier neighborhoods of the county as their salary increases allowed.  The choir itself has its base in the church but attracts from a broad area, more Caucasian in distribution than the church, even with a few from South Asia, though with the Middle and Far East largely without representation.  And the repertoire that the independent choir adopted reflected the heritage of a church committed to continuing on, adapting as needed to surroundings that were once better.

The night concert took place in a much different setting.  For many years, the regional symphony in proximity to the state university assembled a choir for a joint concert.  They also perform in a church.  Until this year, that church stood on Main Street, a multipurpose building of tasteful brick architecture, small parking lot ample for worshipers, too small for concert attendance.  It's location right on the main thoroughfare of a university town enabled me to transport my wife to the church while I stopped for a pleasant light dinner or a beer.  This year the symphony and choir relocated to a different church just beyond walking distance to the university.  No pubs to stop into. 

Huge campus though.  Ample parking, several visible wings.  Main sanctuary just inside a small vestibule.  Cavernous space. Plush in every way.  The Presbyterian cross suspended over the stage.  Modern acoustics.  And virtually all Caucasian, audience and performers.  The ad hoc chorus invited choral all-stars from a nearby high school.  Caucasian there too.  And amongst the people who checked folks in.  For a performance imprinted with the state university I would have anticipated greater diversity.  The music was fine, though perhaps a little unsettling that people of color did not seem attracted to perform as instrumental musicians or vocalists, nor attend as people seeking entertainment of that type.  Or maybe that environment.

Leaving the performance, the road home forced us back to the edges of the university.  Neon glitter.  Places to eat, get gas, shop a little farther along the road.  By comparison, the church seemed something of an island seeking separation.  And it succeeded.

Twitter Allotment

Went to reply to a message from a journalist, a mostly complimentary response, from a The Forward journalist on Twitter.  I had read his article earlier in the day, he missed a few things but not in the manner of journalism malpractice and I just wanted to offer a brief feedback.  Tweeted, or tried to, to be met with an automated response that I had exceeded my daily posting limit.  Well, that's 500 messages a day, or about one every three minutes around the clock.  I do not have the capacity to do that, and didn't, unless somebody introduced a bot to do this under my account.

I probably shouldn't be logging on to a forum so fundamentally malignant in the first place.  Under New Management has not gone well for them. 

Shira Extravaganza

Pleasant morning.  My own congregation has not given me pleasant encounters of late, so I've opted for ten shabbatot someplace else with a few contingencies built in.  This being a special shabbos when crossing of the sea is read from the scroll itself, beyond the telling from our Siddur every morning, our synagogue neighbors arranged a special presentation.  I went there instead.

Whenever I go there I leave with admiration of what is possible when you have a real community that doesn't play favorites.  Mine has become rather bimodal:  friends of a dominant individual and irritants of that Federation type, or the USY Clique on Medicare.  Irritates me no end.  Probably would still annoy me if I were assigned to welcoming half, but I wasn't.  This experience with our neighbors contrasted with that immensely.  They created a Saturday morning spectacle to be sure, and at the evisceration of all the parts of our liturgy beyond the pre-Bar Mitzvah Hebrew School curriculum, but to do what they did took a real commitment to assuring Kehillah, or community.

An old acquaintance, a prominent figure in the American Jewish whirl, once sent me something he had written for his many subscribers in anticipation of Passover one year.  He called it Danny's Four Questions.

1. What do I like to do?
2. What am I good at?
3. Who can help?
4. Why not?

A multiplex of worship, baby naming, congregational guitarist, short remarks from their Rabbi containing wit while at the same time acknowledging the importance of various participants and how the very essence of what makes Judaism worth seeking out appears in so many ways in what we read and what their members did.

The experience of their morning dedicated to the special portion scored a 4/4.  Their baalebatim or clergy seem to think more expansively than ours, and probably respect what their membership can really do more than the Influencers at my shul do.  I will have occasion to return.

Stir Fry

Tofu always seems like an economical ingredient option.  When I order it out, often as part of Chinese vegetarian cuisine, I always like what they bring me.  Yet when I make it at home, usually as part of an appetizer to a larger meal, my own preparation invariably disappoints.  I think it is like a background that has little culinary value in its own right but gets enhanced or ruined by what come with it.  I bought another box.  On the advice of the Moosewood Cooperative Cookbook, I froze the package.  A day before use I thawed it, then squeezed out as much liquid as advised by pressing between two plates, and later with my hands.  This supposedly alters its native texture to one more grainy, which it did.

Then to make something.  Lots of stir-fry recipes.  Basically cube the tofu, add some form of marinade ingredients, typically soy sauce or variant, with some seasonings.  I used tamari, some good salad dressing, and some Mexican blend of spices.  Sauté the tofu, set aside.  I had lots of veggies to use up.  Celery, scallions, baby carrots, half a broccoli crown.  My last onion had spoiled by I still had a red onion in reserve.  And some past-prime mushrooms that would otherwise go to waste.  Some garlic from the jar.

All sauteed in stages, with the carrots and broccoli parboiled first.  Then return the tofu, now a bit too crumbly to be served that way at a restaurant, and cover with some more of the marinade.  Heat for five minutes.

Well, it used stuff up.  It was edible, main course last night, leftovers as a side in a day or so.  My respect for Moosewood & Squirrel aside, perhaps the next experiment with tofu should be making it straight from the package, squeezing the water from a fresh cake of tofu, then preparing it.  Likely to be a lot less crumbly that way.  And the marinade would probably go better if I made it from a tested recipe.

My twelve Semi-Annual Projects include enhancing my proficiency in the kitchen, as well as my enjoyment of my time there.  This dinner, with all its many dishes to wash the next day, contributed to that, even if the dinner results themselves could have been better.

Chirping

Not a good night.  Smoke alarm needs new battery, first noticed when I awoke in the wee hours.  Not sure from the chirp whether the upstairs or downstairs unit.  I replaced one not long ago.  Transistor batteries not always easy to find.

Eventually just got up, took cell phone for scrolling which I virtually never do between 11 PM and 5 AM,  then back to bed, though did not doze off until the time I had planned to arise.  Gave myself another 45 minutes.  Now some coffee.

Cut Finger

Tried to salvage an past prime onion to make a stew.  Slightly slimy outer coating caused my good chef's knife to slip, landing onto the proximal interphalangeal surface of my left index finger.  It bled.  A few not quite soaked paper towels later, it still oozed, but within the capacity of a bandaid, which should help approximated the two edges of the gash.  Eventually it will clot.  Eventually it will heal.  In the meantime, I've lots of milchig dishes to wash so I'll need to get a set of vinyl or latex gloves like the blood drawers use.

Crock pot fully assembled, all ingredients added, seasoned, beef seared and placed atop.  On High for one hour, then Low until shabbos dinner.  Salad later.  By then my hand should return to full function, giving the chef knife a second chance.

Multicolors

When I outline my time, be it day or week, or even longer if my whiteboard entries with six months on the left and permanent on the right are included, the items are color coded.  I have ball point pens in red-green-black-blue-purple.  My highlighters occur in a different five:  blue-green-orange-pink-yellow.  Whiteboard markers only come in four:  black-blue-green-red.

I use them differently.  For letters on paper or on whiteboard: red identifies family, travel, or money, green my capacity as a doctor, which still has a few residuals in retirement, blue my home, black generic for all else, from care of my body to advancing my mind.

Highlighters have a different purpose, not really color coded.  Each Sunday, I outline what my desired accomplishments for the ensuing week need my attention.  If they are an intermediate step to a semiannual goal, those tasks get highlighted.  I pick a weekly color each Sunday.  For the individual days I pick from among the remaining four colors.

Had I done this electronically, the colors would expand from five to infinite.  I prefer five.

Out to Starbucks

When I want to have some undistracted time, just me and my laptop, I remove the device's charger and head over to a place that sells coffee.  For about $3 I can rent a table or sit on a stool at a counter, creating the merger of mind and fingers to articulate ideas, some to be shared later, most not.  Coffee Houses have long been places where ideas float around, a few of them transforming the world. Through most of the time coffee and its variants have been available at a price most were willing to spend, thoughts were exchanged between sips, usually in the form of conversation with another fellow also sipping coffee.  They would be penned later by some.  The contemporary coffee house continues a similar, though not identical theme.  People share tables for conviviality and conversation.  Others like me bring their laptops with keyboards or cell phones without keyboards.  Some type away on Word, committing ideas to language, but more create private time by checking their email or interpersonal time by calling each other, texting messages, or contributing their thoughts through their favorite interactive cyberspace forum.  For me, it's private time to type what I wish to express with no regard for any future recipient.

The coffee houses of Vienna, Italy, and England probably had more distinctiveness than the places available to me, which have become standardized.  Some are regional, a few independent, more national or global with a repetitive atmosphere that enables familiarity despite travel.  The coffee itself can be obtained more economically at home with a Melitta Cone or K-cup machine.  For being alone, though with a car instead of a device, any convenience store in a gas station complex will provide that.  The Coffee House adds ambience, part of the premium price.  The beverages come in two types, indulgent creations and basic coffee, which I always choose.  And customers seeking the $3 quiet time typically get to choose from four options: light, dark, flavored, and decaf.  All provide connection to the electronic universe and to a restroom when needed.  And all have some form of mini-meal that can be added, one usually more healthy than extravagant.

Needing a break, I headed off, choosing a Starbucks, not the closest to my home but near a pharmacy where I had a prescription waiting to be picked up.  Some line of cars at the drive through.  That never made a lot of sense to me, as the WaWa across the street for a quick stop had more varieties, a lower price and a fixings table that permitted customization.  The lot for indoor coffee at a table was far less utilized.  I got mine, a very large one.  To my distress, the additive table was no more.  The barista added cream or sugar at the customer's request.  The other places that I could have gone still put out honey, cinnamon, sometimes cocoa powder, sometimes ground nutmeg.  Not here.  I took my laptop to the counter, the place where I could stare only at my screen.  The surface really needed to be washed down to remove the droplets of sticky scattered over it.  I moved to a table and typed for a while.

Sipped maybe a third of the coffee, a bit larger and thirty cents more than I thought I had requested.  Closed the laptop, returned to my car, got my prescription at the adjacent shopping center.  The European experiences of prior centuries has swooned.