A Day Downstate

My indulgences are usually minor.  Not shallow, as some element of memory gets imprinted.  Time to put myslef on the move, if only for one day.  It divides into four segments, the trip to Cape Henlopen State Park, beach time, a brewery, the drive home.  Each offers a certain relaxation, a certain comfort that makes Day Trips one of those recurrent initiatives on my Semi-Annual Projects.

Before getting there, a little planning needs to take place.  What to bring, where to stop, whether to go solo or as a couple.  Full beach bag with most contingencies covered.  Car serviced the day before, including battery replacement, enough gas for a round trip, what time to leave and return.  Sunscreen before heading off. 

Then to the roads.  The drive to my destination takes about two hours, usually with one stop, typically at a WaWa to get what I will have for lunch if I plan to eat lunch.  These two hours are quiet time, me time.  When my wife accompanies me the radio plays classical.  When I go alone, the radio mostly stays off.  I pay attention to traffic and road signs.  EZ Pass means I need not stop for tolls.  Dry weather allows cruise control, set at approximately the speed of traffic in the middle lane of the interstate.  One bridge to cross over a canal.  Scenery changes south of that canal, from suburban sprawl to farmland and churches, isolated mini-mansions from people who have done well living outside the main commercial centers.  The highway bypasses the state capital but runs through our state's largest federal facility, an air force base complete with golf course to the right of the highway.  The interstate then changes to a two lane mostly divided road with periodic stoplights and a fair number of cross streets with only stop signs for the people on those streets to safely access or cross the main road.  At the roadside are gas stations, a series of car dealerships south of the state capital, a few places to eat, an occasional farmers market.  This being near the month's conclusion, the fuzzy wuzzies had patrol cars in abundance to fill their speeding ticket quotas and no shortage of speeders to pull over.

As I got to my only stop, it being Hoagiefest at WaWa, one of their annual events, I got a large discounted vegetarian hoagie which I put in my canvas beach bag.  Though past the midpoint, I still had not committed to which beach would be my destination.  I scrolled through my cellphone's Waze App, looking at the distances and travel times to Cape Henlopen or Delaware Seashore.  Cape Henlopen was a little closer and did not anticipate significant traffic, so even though Delaware Seashore had no turns and a consumer amenities at the beach, I stayed with Cape Henlopen.  The GPS took me though a route I had not been before, usually an attraction, though this time with one intersection whose ample cross traffic had right of way.  Eventually I safely crossed, making my way to the park's entrance.  As holder of a Lifetime Senior Pass, I got into the express lane, flashed my card to the gate attendant who immediately waved me in.  Then just following signs to the beach and choosing my preferred parking space.  Toting my beach bag, now with hoagie added, and lugging my sand chair made for some exercise, even though I made sure to do my scheduled treadmill session before leaving home.

Ordinarily, I begin at the men's locker in preparation for time on the sand.  I delayed this, opting to eat the hoagie before getting changed.  The wooden deck adjacent to the concrete walk had three wooden picnic tables, all a bit worn.  Two were unoccupied so I sat down, unwrapping my sandwich.  The roll seemed a bit smaller than the ones provided by the WaWa near my home, but the fillings were how I had specified them.  While I exercised before leaving home, I did not eat breakfast.  Typically the large hoagie provides lunches on consecutive days, but being hungry I ate both at the picnic table, feeling a little more full than optimal at the end.  State Parks have a carry-in/carry out rule, so they do not have litter baskets.  I took the sandwich's wrapper, squshed it to a small cylinder, the put it in a minor clearing amid the other items in the beach bag.  Then to the locker, swimsuit on, shorts in bag, same t-shirt and sandals that I drove in,  With sand chair in one hand, canvas tote in the other, I walked the wooden ramp toward the shore.  It eventually divides with a few steps downward on the left and a longer ramp sloping downward on the right.  There being fewer people on the beach left of the ramp, I opted for the stairs, then carried my stuff to a clearing not that far distant, comfortably back of the tideline.  I had remembered to exchange my current bifocals for a previous prescription, as once a wave tore them off my face and out to sea.  Chair set, I plopped myself down for an afternoon of pleasant sloth.  

Surf was definitely up.  High cresting waves with impressive breakers.  While Medicare pays for injuries and Social Security offers survivor benefits to spouses, nobody my age appeared to chance entering the water.  Neither did I.  Watching the waves break, wash on shore, the tide nudging closer to my chair and beach tote every few minutes would have to suffice.  I bought a transistor radio and ear bud.  Brought some chocolate wafers obtained at the Dollar Store a week earlier.  Floppy had shielding me from the not too intense sun, I simply rested.  The radio never has great reception.  Access to internet also inconsistent, and I am careful to either hold the phone or keep it in a plastic pouch, having my last one destroyed by an unexpected tide surge.  An electronic note to FB friends.  Took a video of the crashing waves, 50 seconds of film, but unable to upload it as a FB comment.  Had brought my next Torah portion to study, but did not open the leather portfolio which carried it.  Just time in the chair, minor use of my device, partly to access FB, partly to see if I could access Israeli radio from the global FM app, partly classical on the minitransistor radio.  As the tide reached my position, I moved the chair and tote farther from the shore.  Had to do this twice.

Not a lot to see.  No revealing swimsuits at this beach, unlike my experience at Florida's Atlantic last winter.  Very few gulls.  As the surf became more aggressive, only a few hardy or foolhardy people who appeared to range in age from late grade school to early college took a chance in the water.  Usually a flag is displayed at the lifeguard stand on surf safety, but I did not notice any.

While I remained physically idle, my mind more typically engages in something.  But this time it also shut down.  No reading.  Did not pay a lot of attention to the radio.  With a large lunch, even the chocolate wafers did not seem all that tempting.  I had set a time to leave even before I arrive.  The wristwatch indicated that departure time was nearing, just as peak tide required me to reposition my stuff one more time.  I gathered my things, put the sandals back on, folded the chair, and slowly returned to the locker.  Many fewer people on the beach and many fewer cars in the parking lot when I moved on than when I arrived.  To the locker, exchanged dry swimsuit for underwear and shorts, then back to the parking lot where I found my row on the second try, overlooking what should have been an easy landmark.  Sand chair in trunk.  Tote on the floor in next to the front passenger seat.  The a few minutes in the car assessing the next destination.

Still faulty internet.  Breweries near me brought up far fewer on my screen than expected, not even Dogfish Head's main brewery about ten miles away.  It is often a default destination on my way home from the beach, as it offers considerable variety.  However, en route, I also saw a sign for a brewery near the state capital in Dover that I might like to try.  I could not access their web site from the parking lot, however.  Stopping a the parking lot of the park's Nature Center, which has a building, I thought I might have a better web connection, but no luck there either.  To the exit, where I set Waze for Dogfish Head, but at the red lights accessed the site of the Dover Brewery.  Tours on hold.  Another trip.

The GPS guided me through some rural paths, fronted by a mixture of farmland and modest houses, until a few turns took me to the Dogfish Head complex.  I took some photos for later posting on FB, then entered their reception room.  Their company had been taken over by a bigger conglomerate, another pioneer in craft beer that approaches the volume of a mass brewer.  As a consequence, or maybe independent of this, the Dogfish Head bar offerings have gotten more expensive, now $10 for four three ounce samples, though still an immense variety to select the four.  Far more people were now sipping pints, four more ounces of beer for $3 less.  And their makeshift food kiosk has been significantly upgraded, but with my Hoagiefest lunch, I did not desire more food.  I chose my flight served in four mini-brandy snifters.  Big disappointment.  Two beers excessively adulterated with citrus and Indian spices, respectively.  Other two probably in keeping with German ingredient restrictions to malted barley, hops, water, and yeast both had an unappealing finish.  Unlikely I would ever order a pint of any of these at an independent restaurant.  Finished them slowly, then to the car where I reset Waze to get me home.  A little tricky to get from a small intersection without a traffic light, cross the highway's southbound lanes during a transient break in fast moving cars, then merge to the northbound lanes, again waiting for a break in traffic.  But once on the highway, a straight path home.

The only place that I would consider stopping, in fact consider each trip but never do, is the DQ associated with an Exxon station right before the road with a few traffic lights becomes a full limited access full speed highway.  Between hoagie and mini-beers, no interest in their Blizzard this trip.  Just home.  EZ Pass debited as I crossed the tolls, just the weekday fee of $1 for the highway and another $1 for the bridge.  Home.  A little sore.  Reasonably refreshed.  Adequately amused.

Committing to the Whiteboard

It's posted.  It will remain in my line of sight to my left from my desk and swivel chair for the next six months.  The left third of my Avandia Whiteboard now contains a list of my Semi-Annual Projects, of them.  They become the basis for my weekly outline every Sunday, daily task list created the night before, and end of week assessment every Saturday.

1. Entertain Three Guests
2. Submit Three Articles for Publication
3. Write first draft of an 80K word book
4. Serve on an OLLI Committee
5. Achieve my Waist, Weight, and BP Targets
6. Organize the Basement
7. My Space to its Completed Form
8. Hire Household Help
9. Arrange IRA Distributions
10. Visit France
11. Three Day Trips
12. Dedicate Evenings to Be with My Wife

They differ somewhat from the prior semi-annual cycle, but all fall within the SMART Criteria of specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time limited.  All take some effort, even a significant measure of focus.  Some need the cooperation of other people.  Yet all are worth pursuing, so I will pursue each of them.

Outdoor Herbs

Shop-Rite periodically sells small pots of herbs for $1.99 each.  At the beginning of the season I bought containers of basil and spearmint.  The mint thrives, the basil shriveled within days.  My own plantings have not done well.  Rosemary that I purchased from a garden center should keep my recipes fulfilled through the first frost, though I've not been successful at winter storage.  Those planted from seed have not prospered.  I have some dill and some parsley, though nothing like the cooks on TV snip from their portable containers.  Chives never flourish.  Thyme struggles.  Basil from seed has done well indoors, though not in my front door containers.  Oregano has some sprouts.  Spearmint from a previous year, often abundant approaching weed status, did not reappear in last year's container. There is some coriander which may be usable by summer's end.  And time will tell if the sprouting oregano progresses.

So as I unexpectedly rolled my cart past the herb selection, now at mid-season and again reduced to $1.99 per pot, I added mature chives and basil to my grocery purchase.  When I got home, I simply inserted each into empty larger pots, placed them outside for the upcoming rain to hydrate them, and will harvest some within the next week, while monitoring their progress.

Coffee Varieties

This week I can probably start each day with a different variety of coffee.  Some sales on K-cups left me with a supply of Martinson's, Breakfast Blend, Donut Shop Blend, and French Roast.  I have bags of Starbucks Verona Blend and Lavazza Italian Intense, and some coffee ordinaire, either Chock Full of Nuts or Folgers, I'd have to look.  And I have beans of a Hawaiian Blend which are probably long out of date.

To make them I have a Keurig Express, a k-cup adapter, two functional French presses, and a Melitta cone.  They can be lightened with powder, milk, or heavy cream.  And I have sweeteners and flavorings that I hardly ever use.

That's more choices than the coffee shops, which generally only offer three plus a decaf, though WaWa expands this.  There's the optimal number of choices.  From the coffee shop, I can get only one.  At home, over the course of the morning, more typically I choose two, sometimes a third later in the day, so there are advantages to the expanded options.  But unlike the coffee shops, I buy my k-cups cheap and on sale, so none of the blends approach gourmet, though my bagged coffee, always preground and on sale, does.

Coffee has become one of my morning pleasures, more a staple than a luxury, but elevated by the variety.  It has an element of function, fulfilled by Chock Full of Nuts or Folgers from a can, which I still keep available.  Cafeterias and diners around the world serve what their owners choose, regular or decaf.  And as a coffee novice learning to brew in my orange electric percolator during my college years, I was not selective either.  And in a sense, I'm still not very selective, defaulting to what I can buy for a discount.  But the various blends really are different in taste, though common in getting perked up for the rest of the day.

Conked Out

Our County sponsors an Ice Cream Festival each June.  They hold it at an historical mansion in what was once a ritzy neighborhood, near where my cashed-out synagogue stood and where one of our Senators still lives.  The site has ample acreage, its mansion turned into a museum.  The Festival has a $5 entry fee, but that includes a tour of the museum which usually costs about that, and a shuttle bus to transport people from a convenient parking lot.

It had been years since I attended, but I felt deprived enough of recreation to purchase tickets for my wife and me.  I did not anticipate a mixture of being shuled out from shabbos morning, over-indulged in in sweets at lunchtime, and physically wiped out by early afternoon, to say nothing of iffy weather.

I didn't last long.  The humidity got to me quickly, not made any easier by significant walks from my parking spot to the shuttle bus, the limited ability to negotiate the up slopes on the grounds.  I needed to sit down quickly.  Fortunately, there were places to do that.

The bus let us off at the entrance, where our e-tickets were validated.  We walked to an open field with mostly craft vendors and local authors with booths around the perimeter of that field.  No real interest on my part.  At the other end were small booths of larger organizations, just a couple, like banks and health insurers.  People really come to eat, ice cream being the main draw, but there were also multiple jumbo sized lunch trucks, options from a local brewer and a local winery, as well as multiple ice cream options. Some of these ice cream vendors came with trucks, others representing brick and mortar ice cream stores set up booths.  I sat at a table while my wife wandered, slightly annoyed as my screenshot which I had taken of the ticket also included a notice that I had exceeded my phone's storage allotment.  It had been my understanding that all photos would go to the SD card which could never be saturated by my amateur usage.  One more chore to call Samsung about this during the week.

I settled on ice cream from a mobile food unit visiting from our beach area a hundred or so miles south.  Very ample hot fudge sundae with two generous scoops of double chocolate ice cream.  After downing that, I headed toward the entrance past the vendors.  My wife stopped at the authors' tables, as did I, but the humidity and soreness from the waist down limited my attention.  As much as I might have liked to see the inside of the mansion, I really needed to get home and did.

Dragged myself inside the house, then basically horizontal until the next morning.  Some resting on the couch, some watching big screen TV, some in bed.  And still sore the following day, symptomatic enough for a naproxen tablet, though no longer exhausted.

Recovery begins with schedu                                   led treadmill session after coffee and Sunday morning's weekly planning.

DCF Gathering

Rewarding evening.  One of my defenses against post-retirement loneliness has been activity each spring to review college scholarship applications for the Delaware Community Foundation.  This organization has functioned for decades, engaging in direct and indirect philanthropy.  Some years ago they invited Robert Putnam, whose landmark book Bowling Alone, captivated me, as their annual guest lecturer, having published a more recent work on disparity in American culture.  Despite a fee for the lecture and a little more for parking, I had a captivating evening.  After the speech, not being important enough to have access to the speaker, I headed to the foyer where the Foundation had set up tables with sign-up sheets.  They have paid staff, but they also seek volunteers.  I made rounds on the available projects, deciding to help out with their scholarship fund.  A short time later, somebody contacted me to confirm my interest, then started sending me each spring about thirty scholarship applications to review and score among a number of categories.  Most came from high school students entering college, but a few came from people already in college seeking medical school admission.  Being the only physician on their panel, some of those went to me.  In subsequent years the number of endowed scholarships administered by the Delaware Community Foundation has expanded, along with two scholarships dedicated to current medical and law students.  

The initial year of my involvement preceded the pandemic.  We met in person at a downtown building which houses many of our state's non-profits.  After Covid sidelined meetings, we met by Zoom, so despite doing this for a few seasons, I never really got to know anyone other than the person in charge of the scholarship program, and she lived downstate about a hundred miles away.

I never returned to any of their annual guest speakers, all unlike Professor Putnam, unfamiliar to me.  Yet when they decided to have two early evening in-person gatherings, one near me, one downstate, I eagerly accepted the chance to meet some of the people I had only seen electronically.  The reception took place at a niche State Park, a place dominated by a building and grounds of historical rather than natural interest.  Despite living only a short drive away and having a lifetime pre-paid State Park Pass, I had never been there.  GPS directed me uneventfully.  Followed the paths to the parking lot where there seemed to be ample people who arrived before my wife and me.  It was unclear where the gathering would take place, as the lobby seemed vacant, not even a person at the front desk to direct people or call 911 should anyone appear dangerous.  We went upstairs, there being nobody in the other room on the ground floor either.  At the upper elevator door, a few people clad in black and white uniforms suggestive of the catering service mingled with each other.  The hall only went in one direction, so through the next entryway we found the person who hands out the name tags.  Mine came pre-printed.  My wife had to create hers with a Sharpie Marker.  Then into a small foyer where they had beverages, a choice of wine, several beers, and soft drinks.  Not clear whether open or cash.  Then into the next room where they had food displayed on a long table, much like my synagogue's Kiddush, surrounded by several chest-high round tables without stools capable of accommodating about five people each.  My scholarship coordinator had driven here for the occasion.  I'd not actually seen her since the pandemic.  Quick hug, introduced my wife, some chat about the scholarship process and how it meshes with the Delaware Community Foundation mission in some respects but holds a unique place in other considerations.  

Some nibbles.  Sufficient vegetarian options with vegetables, dips, a cheese board, bread assortment and small hoagie portions.  I recognized the caterer, an offshoot of one of the premier restaurants where we used to go for supper after the Medical Center Holiday party, though have not been for at least ten years.  Still attractive and tasty samples.  We went over to an unoccupied standing table.  Two women came over, one unknown to me who did not stay very long, the other known to me from my days of local medical practice and known to my wife through a Jewish organization.  We chatted, mostly about the Foundation for which she once worked.

Then time for liquids.  Quick walk to the bar.  White wine for my wife.  For me, the local brew, a bottle of Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, the recipe that brought them to prominence.  Back to the table to sip it.  I offered to pay for these, but apparently the DCF opted for an open bar.  Good Beer.

While in conversation, the organizers moved the crowd into the large room where the CEO would be giving his presentation.  He described philanthropy in its many aspects, managing money, approving proposals, creating a balance of projects, though primarily enabling access to better health, social stability, or communal initiative for those who did not already have these things.  And that's a lot of people.  By then we had reassembled to new tables.  My wife, myself, the lady we were with, a DCF Board member who turned out to be the mother of our State Senator, and a staffer from the DCF.  After the talk the CEO posed for publicity photos, then headed out toward the food.  I followed him to ask him questions about his talk.  What was missing was something very elementary in my medical world where we measure everything.  How does he know how successful a project really has been?  When they apply for grants, do those seeking funds have to specify in advance how they will determine whether their purpose was fulfilled.  Some things are easy to measure.  How many people apply for the scholarships.  How many kids from a neighborhood attend a community center after school.  Some things are harder.  When a health initiative is offered, how much healthier do people become?

There's another tough determination.  Not all projects succeed.  In some way it appeared to be like a stock which may be declining low enough to never rebound to profitability yet investors acquire those stocks because they believed in the company and retain ownership of their decision as well as the failing investment.  There is a time to move on.  As expected, he understood this, but grants have a life of their own.  Those who acquire them assume ownership, not just temporary stewardship.  This may be one of philanthropy's Achilles Heels.  

Back to the table with a little more food, but no more drink.  Some chat with the new people at my table, with considerable praise on my part for our State Senator.

Time to go.  Dessert tidbits on the way out.

The last evening reception I attended had been about three months earlier, another very pleasant evening with new people.  I don't get to do enough of that.  My synagogue has mostly the same people who segregate with their Besties.  I can make an effort to capture the attention of a different person at kiddush from one shabbos to the next, though with only partial success.  And I've not been invited to a cocktail party in years. This was the closest I've come.  And I found it immensely enjoyable.

Slow Getting Up

Need to resume monitoring with a Sleep Tracker.  Not a good start to the morning. Forced myself out of bed about an hour after the usual start of day time, and reluctant to do that.  Did not perceive myself sleeping badly.  A usual middle of the night wakening, but more than an hour until sleep resumed some two hours before my usual arising time.  Dragged myself eventually to dental hygiene, now coffee.  Treadmill will be delayed, though not cancelled.  Less sure about afternoon stretch, as I'm a bit sore.

Other daily tasks within my physical and mental capacity.

Yellow Cart

It sits behind the kitchen table.  A multitasker, a catch-all, an anchor occupying its space for decades.  Periodically it gets tidied, the next revision long overdue.  If I need first aid for kitchen mishaps, envelopes and name stickers to mail things, a few basic tools useful for kitchen repair that is where it can be found, if these can be found.  Kitchen ties, rubber bands, paper clips, pens, scotch tape, packing tape.  Pens, sticky notes, small pads to jot notes.  All there.  

There's a certain challenge to removing what should not be there to better enable access to what should.  More than two spools of tape, loose-leaf reinforcements when we don't have binders there, magazines that check in but don't check out.

I started sorting yesterday, making good progress.  Tackle the two monsters today, two organizers that don't organize.  Then decide on better homes for what should not be there.

Probably Doing Something Wrong

Not been able to get my thoughts accepted for publication.  What I thought was my best Jewish writing, really good analysis and expression, keeps getting declined by places I thought might like to have them.  And the responses all come with a no thanks, yet never an explanation how to make the articles more acceptable.

Perhaps I write what I write for my own analysis without regard to a reader, while the editors are entirely focused on the reader.  And to be fair, other than The Forward, I don't really read what they do publish.  And my word counts are too high.

There are regional writers groups where I can seek an editor.  Or I can see what my OLLI teacher can recommend.  Or maybe better, would be to pick the places where I have sent items and read some of what they accept, both in ideas and expression.

My semi-annual goals have always measured submissions, as I have no control over publication.  Still, I am disappointment that my effort, maybe my most passionate thinking, was not better received. 

Father's Day

While it was not my intent to isolate the day, my most significant others did it for me.  Each of the kids called.  My daughter had been traveling to Detroit to see friends but called from there.  She noticed that while visiting her in San Francisco, I had admired the Middle Eastern store with its bins of herbs, but opted not to buy sumac, the one that would be helpful for Middle Eastern cooking that I like to do at home.  I wanted my spices to have Kosher labels on the jars.  She found a not so small jar of Kosher-certified ground sumac and got it for me, slipping it to my wife to hand to me.

My son called from Pittsburgh.  We talked about his trip to Europe.

And my wife went out of her way to make dinner.  Salmon, ears of corn, a ratatouille, superb French bread, chardonnay, chocolate lava cake, and berries.  All I had to do was whip the heavy cream.  And not that many dishes the next day.

Unlike my birthday this year, I felt pretty good.  I created a weekly project list, one that contains more social interactions than previous weeks.  It also encourages me to rebound from some recent rejections and travails.  Kind of week I could use.  

Father's Day got it off to a favorable start.

Back Corner

From my swivel chair at my desk, I can get a 360 of My Space.  It's the one area in my house that I want for me.  It can get done to my satisfaction, though I may need some help.  I also may need to be ruthless about moving stuff that I don't really want here to another place in the house or discarding it.  I've decluttered parts before.  The file containers, though when done they are empty but from the exterior appear the same.  However, once empty, they can be refilled and the exterior will still look the same.

As I swivel in the chair, the back corner seems the zone that gives me the most accomplishment for effort.  Address this next.  Address it this week.

Semi-Annual Season

Final two weeks of my current semi-Annual initiatives.  About half settled on the next set of twelve.  

My Space upgrade will renew.  I did some, then it petered out, partly by distraction with other things, partly by inability to sustain interest, partly by a mentality of good enough as my desktop, lounge chair, big screen TV, and area to do stretching exercises were all sufficient.  Arrangements to Europe mostly complete.  In the next cycle I will go there.  Dedicated spousal attention could have been better.  That will renew.  Visited daughter.  They each visited me.  Don't think I want to go to the West Coast again in the next six months.  Could go to Pittsburgh, but not really a must-do that gets on my semi-annual projects.  Revocable Trust essentially done with a few loose ends.  In the coming year, I must take IRA distributions, so setting them up will be the obvious Financial Goal.  AKSE participation was a dud.  In fact, I conclude that my best intents were actively rejected by Influencers.  That will not be renewed as my Community initiative, though I've not settled on a replacement.  I read three books, my Self Initiative.  In fact, this is the one most likely to get completed each half-year cycle.  It is so reliable, that I have reassigned it the way I reassigned monthly expense review and gardening.  These are things that I will do anyway even if not targeted among the dozen semi-annual initiatives.  Replaced the Self component with three day trips.  I tend to do these reliably, as two trips to my state's beaches usually take place each summer.  But to have a Day Trip count, it has to include an activity that I would not otherwise do or a place I would not otherwise go.  I entertained guests as planned.  That renews as my Friends initiative, though I would like to expand the array of people I have over to newer friends or perhaps people beyond my synagogue.

My Health Goals will also renew.  Each cycle I have a conflict over whether to settle on performance goals with desired weight, waist, and BP metrics, or whether to do process goals like time and intensity on treadmill.  I opted for performance.  I submitted three articles.  That renews, though maybe to more prominent destinations.

The Frontier has been writing my legacy book.  I started.  I also began acquiring skills.  That renews with the added grit to make it happen.

Long Term was allocated to becoming more adept in my kitchen.  It didn't happen, nor were the attempts very fulfilling.  In my early 70s, Long Term isn't really that long a term.  My end of life provisions are largely set.  I still have a house that my survivors will need to deal with.  Long Term, or really what can I do in six months that plays out longer, will focus on divesting My Stuff, starting with the basement.  I have decluttered parts of it before.  Still, it contains objects that will never have a useful purpose to my wife or me, nor probably to any of my survivors either.  Clearing things out will eventually need to be done.  As much of the onus should fall to me as possible.

So that's the transition.  Community, Family, Purchase initiatives remain unsettled, but in two weeks those three boxes should be filled onto the master sheet, which can then be transferred to the black nylon pouch with pens, markers, and paper slots that I access each Sunday morning to outline the coming week in a way consistent with my aspirations for the coming half year.

Resetting Sleep Pattern

Returning to Eastern Daylight Time did not go well.  But neither was my rhythm still on Pacific Daylight Time.  Got up a little late, thought I was OK.  Retired at a typical EDT hour but did not fall asleep.  Nothing helped.  Went to kitchen and noshed.  Probably wrong thing to do.  Turned on laptop.  No new emails or FB messages.  Finally fell asleep.  Woke spontaneously at 8AM, quick snooze to 9AM.  Had considered going out for breakfast.  Not good idea.  Just coffee.  Hawaiian Blend picked up on sale at Sprouts.  Then adhere to my task list and see if it resets me tonight. 

Back Home

Some unpacking today.  A chance to readapt to Eastern Daylight Time.  Coffee from my own Keurig machine.  And it's a treadmill day, but later when my internal clock has reset a little better.

Travel had its fun elements. Visiting my daughter was its purpose, fulfilled.  Tourism wore me out but I can say I visited some unique places.  Stopping in at small mini-marts that were not WaWa's or having a rather large choice of which place to get something to eat brought a few moments of satisfaction, though not something I'd want every day.  I much prefer my house, with my yard, and a car that gets me where I want to go when I want to go there, though at the price of having many fewer places that I might want to go.

From the time I left my daughter's apartment until arriving at my house took about ten hours, half of it in one of those airborne cylinders, assigned to the middle seat both ways.  Tired for sure.  A little stiff.  But still remarkable to cross the American continent in that short a time.  Equally remarkable to putter around SF which attracts people from everywhere to settle on a one way ticket.

Worn Out

Still visit new places the way I've always done.  Settle where I am going to stay, usually a hotel, but sometimes stay with my kids.  Then I venture outside, walk the neighborhood, get familiar with the transit system or when I have a car, my own or a rental, drive around the area, noting the supermarkets or clusters of restaurants.  Not changed much in pattern from my 20s to my 70s.  Not changed much from one location to another.  Even on the Big Island, I would walk around Kona a bit, noting the breakfast places, where the Walmart and Walgreen's could be found.  And then see the sights for which the area is known.

Toured out in SF.  Been to Alcatraz, Muir Wood, Healdsburg, and Stanford this trip.  That's my fill.  Mission Street, the main walking distance thoroughfare, has charm one time, but its utility is really access to the cheap city bus that enables transfer to other places.  Been through the City By the Bay in multiple neighborhoods by public transit, by tour guide taking us through much of the city to eventually depart the city via the Golden Gate, and by private car with kids driving.  Seen the coast, seen wine country, seen the mega-university and its environs, visited a suburban house of my wife's cousin.

My last few trips away have mostly been a day or two longer than they should have been.  Mammoth Cave I cut by a day.  Airfare has gotten expensive, so it pays to stay an extra day sometimes to get a lower return trip fare, as is the case with SF now or Florida last winter.  DC a couple of spring breaks ago was probably right, three days at a hotel.  A full week seems too long to be away.  I don't take well to doing nothing now that I've been retired long enough for the novelty of doing nothing to have worn off.  While Florida's beaches and pools offered relaxation, and probably in the right amount, as did Hawaii, I also need to escape the resort element.  The big cities, though, don't seem to have that resort element.

With a day to go before my return home, I feel worn out.  Not exactly overextended, but a feeling that I've really completed what I came to SF to do.

Repacking

Transcontinental Travel.  I packed but need to fully redo this.  I think of California as being warmer than my home in the mid-Atlantic.  When temperatures are integrated over the year it is.  San Francisco does not get snow.  People probably own a coat.  They may not in San Diego.  And there are beaches and surfers, though San Francisco does not get swimmers.  At home we do.  So our winters are colder, but our summers are considerably hotter, and it's not even astronomical summer yet.

I packed t-shirts and shorts.  Modern electronics has also given us weather.com. I could see the SF forecast for most of my intended time there.  It's not really summer there, while here people plan their outings at the Delaware Beaches or Jersey Shore after Memorial Day.  My destination is more a glorious spring.  Better for long pants and polo shirts with an undershirt beneath.  And layering.  I am bringing a sweatshirt and a windbreaker.  And enough socks for daily use.  All in a carry on and a backpack.

Tampered

Every six weeks I replenish my supply of 42-omeprazole.  For a while I took it for symptomatic relief of GERD, becoming symptomatic again within a week or two during periodic self-directed suspensions.  An esophagogastroduodenoscopy, done for another reason, disclosed Barrett's Esophagus, shifting that daily pill of symptom suppression to a more essential intervention, one that falls within several Gastroenterology Society recommendations as a component of later malignancy prevention.  It made me less casual with its use.  My weekly pill case, set up every Sunday morning, ran out of omeprazole the following Wednesday so refill needed.

Normally I make a dedicated trip to Target, which has a pharmacy section.  It sells for $14.99, so I ordinarily opt for three small white plastic bottles with safety caps further sealed in a light cardboard sleeve.  On occasion I will purchase it someplace else such as a pharmacy or a supermarket if I have some other reason to shop there and the price is within $2 of what I usually pay, or sometimes even BOGO which gets me a three-month supply for a little savings.  In addition to the white plastic bottles, the manufacturer offers this medicine in three small boxes of 14 that the consumer opens one at a time, taking out a card with each pill in a metallic blister, then pressing out how many are needed.  Less spillage, but less convenient than just taking seven pills out of the white plastic bottle each week for distribution to a daily pill case.  But sometimes the retailer's shelf has only one option.

So on a major grocery expedition, needing another $25 purchase to qualify for some mega-discounts with coupons clipped from their weekly circular, it paid to get the omeprazole there.  The $2 increment above Target's price would more than be offset by savings from the qualifying food coupons.  They only had the three small boxes inside the one big box.  Tossed one into my cart.

A few days later it came time to fill the weekly white plastic container with each day's prescription.  My last small white plastic bottle had enough omeprazole tablets to get me from Sunday through Tuesday, so I took out the big box to remove the first little box.  The outer cardboard seemed unremarkable.  I opened it, removing the uppermost of the three interior boxes.  Normally these slide right out, factory sealed, to be opened by peeling the end flap from its glue.  This box didn't have glue.  It had a strip of scotch tape keeping it closed.  When I removed the metallic blister pack, the only pill it contained was the one next to the scotch tape, the other thirteen blisters were empty.  I thought about returning it to the store as defective, but extracted the middle small box, also sealed with a strip of scotch tape.  And on removing that sleeve, it also had a single tablet within its foil blister, the other thirteen had been either removed after packing or never filled by the manufacturer's automated packing process.  And the one pill still present was in the same position it had been in the top box.  I did not open the third small box, also sealed by a strip of scotch tape rather than factory applied adhesive.

The side of the box contained some information.  Manufactured in Israel, some code numbers, and an 800# consumer contact line.  Despite this being the weekend, I called it and an agent answered after a short time on automated hold.  Very pleasant person, same native language as me, not at all like the experience with customer service for my electronics.  I provided a brief description of opening their packaging, leaving the final inner box undisturbed should it need to be returned for their internal investigation.  She recorded the code numbers on the box and my own contact information.  Rather than return the box to the supermarket, she advised me to hold on to the product in case their complaint investigator would need it.  My expense would be reimbursed.  So it remained on my living room table, where I had placed it when I made the call to their consumer center.

Several days into the week, an investigator called my home, leaving a message with my wife, who told her I was not in, but neglected to tell me about the call.  Instead, I found an email from the investigator with a telephone number to contact her, which I did upon its receipt.  Another very cordial and informative conversation.  Again, I described my encounter, how I found the number to make the initial report, and how the packaging was still in the condition I left it when I made the first call.  She definitely wanted it returned to the factory or the investigating unit for inspection.  I assumed Made in Israel meant just that.  Images popped into my mind of subversives or malcontents with an agenda tweaking their Innovation Nation to create mayhem.  Harm a few consumers, or maybe harm the company to make a statement or to leverage some type of concession.  The daily news from the Middle East must have poisoned my perception.  It turns out that while the manufacturer is indeed an Israeli company, the factories that produce their sponsored medications are scattered all over the world.  My omeprazole was apparently made and packaged in Michigan.  She sent me an email attachment with a prepaid mailing label to take to the post office for priority mail.  

The next day, I gingerly wrapped the box in a sheet of plastic, then placed it in one of those flimsy grocery bags that my state no longer allows retailers to offer, then put that in a manila envelope.  I sealed it with packing tape, then placed the mailing label on the outside, skirting the perimeter with packing tape.  When I got to the post office, the clerk informed me that I could have just put it in one of their tyvek priority mail bags.  I still could, but I'd have to return home, reprint the mailing label, and affix it to the tyvek envelope.  While more secure in shipping, I opted to just take my chances in it getting there in the manila envelope.

A few days later my reimbursement came in the form of coupons.  Three scannable $5 coupons and two scannable $1 coupons for any Topcare product.  While I'm not at all eager to shop at that supermarket's pharmacy again, or anywhere else in that store, I'll do my best to redeem them.

As a prosperous consumer, though a cost-conscious one, I can purchase virtually anything I need without any personal deliberation and I can purchase pretty much anything I really want with no financial barriers.  I'm also a TV enthusiast of How It's Made, Modern Marvels, and Food Factory.  The wonders of manufacturing leave me immensely impressed, as in my lucrative career, I've depended upon the creativity of developing innovative products, particularly medicine, along with their widespread availability.  Yet I've never created anything unique myself, nor have I ever scaled up a product or process to enable widespread use.  I've had a few snafus in my professional time.  Synthroid sample tablets given to me by the company got recalled due to packaging misjudgment that threatened the potency of the individual pills in their blister pack.  Any number of popular medicines:  Vioxx, Rezulin, Propulsid, Redux all looked acceptable to the FDA expert committees until people started using them in substantial numbers.  And then there were the Tylenol tampering deaths which made us all more attentive to how packages are properly sealed for safety at the factory.  This lapse caught my attention.

I will likely never know what becomes of this incident.  Yet I have no reservations about reporting it and cooperating as best I can to make the transition from manufacturer, distributor, patient as safe as it can be.

Reddit as a Unique Jewish Resource

 

Dialog has been among Judaism’s most sustainable features.  Our Torah’s greatest heroes ask for advice, whether Avraham delegating the task of finding the ideal wife for his son or Moshe needing a resolution from God himself to assure fairness to the Daughtersof Tzelaphchod.  Our Talmud centers around the giants of our history posing dilemmas or queries to each other. Some as Hillel and Shammai were contemporaries who could present responses to each other.  More often, though, the sages lived centuries and miles apart, yet our Oral Tradition, eventually recorded for posterity, modifies these disparate ideas so that readers for all time will create a mental image of the most learned of men sitting across a table from each other, not only sharing their knowledge and perspective with each other, but with us as we study their legacy.  Sometimes we must study alone, but our most vibrant exchanges occur with a teacher or with a partner.  Minds intersecting, teachers of greater ability creating new peers has been among Judaism’s most enduring gifts to humanity.

Yet, accessibility has always challenged us.  At our Passover Seder we recognize one who does not know how to ask, and take the initiative to teach what we can.  But we also sidestep the reality of many who do know how to ask, ones who could be wise, but lack access to the conversation.  Even in Talmudic times, barriers existed in the form of fees or location or the immediacy of earning a living to support a family.  Later, access became competitive based on merit or wealth, far from universal, much like we have in our secular world where universities can only realistically accept a fraction of applicants.  And even when entry succeeds, we encounter masters who play favorites, nurturing some, excluding others, whether in the form of pay to play, clashing personalities, or yichus that generates entitlement by familiarity.  Jews take pride in literacy being nearly universal in all our scattered communities.  Bringing everyone into the dialog has lagged behind.

Our modern electronic connections, rapidly expanded in part by the urgency of pandemic isolation, has added an important element that our finest academies could not hurdle, one of maximum access, perhaps approaching open access.  Within months of mass closures, our venerable Jewish agencies began creating seminars for anyone with Zoom capability to join in.  Public leaders could be interviewed in real time by experienced questioners, with time left to answer selected inquiries by the international expert.  Where you lived, whether you could purchase an admission ticket or give a substantial donation, or which other affiliations you had no longer mattered.  Even a nobody like me could have his name introduced to the world by the moderator when my own question got selected.  Seminars were also conducted on a less grand scale on endless topics by local or regional experts, yet they remained primarily talking heads, still a long way from our traditional panels or chevruta formats that allow experts to speak to each other over distant locations and separated eras with a bidirectional exchange of minds between those teaching and those being advanced.

Our electronics also created Chat Rooms in real time and social media by minimally restricted posting, encountering disruptors of various types or posts of offensive content that no reputable editor would accept for a print edition.  Indeed, The Forward, America’s flagship newspaper of Jewish content, along with many others, had to discontinue its option of allowing readers to comment on its own articles online for lack of ability to maintain verbal derech eretz worthy of a dignified Jewish exchange. One very promising solution, however, has emerged.

Reddit’s r/Judaism originally came to my awareness by a feature article in The Forward.  https://forward.com/culture/478625/reddit-jewish-judaism-forum-r-judaism/ Once read, I signed up for access, enrolled in two subreddits, r/Judaism cited by The Forward and r/my home state, none others. Reddit assigned me a posting name, a short phrase so random, and used only for Reddit, that my anonymity almost certainly could not be breached.  While the site boasted tens of thousands of subscribers for r/Judaism on the entry display, then and now the postings never seemed overwhelming in volume or the number or subjects introduced for discussion, maybe about twenty in a typical day.

It’s easy to say what the virtual conversations are not, more difficult to delineate what they are.  They are not Talmud shiurim, though there is a daily link to the Daf.  They also are not Jews promoting their agendas, though there are some seeking some empathy or guidance as they lick their wounds, including some inflicted by Jewish sources.  There are really no people engaged in vendettas, whether political, ethnic, or other attempts at retaliation against thems who done me wrong.  Instead, we have mostly inquiry or invitations for conversation, that core element of dialog that our contemporary institutions have struggled to capture.  In some ways Reddit functions as a virtual Multiplex or a professional convention where several presentations appear simultaneously.  But unlike the cinema where a choice must be made on which movie to watch, which mandates which not to watch, the Reddit presentations can be accessed in sequence without disappearing.

What emerges seems to be the spectrum of interests that float around waiting to be displayed to people of similar interests, whether links to articles published in a variety of periodicals, notable art, queries about history, or how fragments of our literature play out in our daily lives.  But I don’t think we need an open forum to satisfy this.  Judaism in all its diversity really has three common end points that Reddit may have captured better than any other.  The compelling posts are more focused on what we have experienced, how we were treated, or uncertainties of upcoming new experiences for the poster that are not new at all to those able to respond.  What did I find bothersome, how can I best cope with what awaits me?

Common inquiries come from non-Jews.  People get invited to a synagogue or a shabbat dinner, completely new territory.  Proper attire, proper decorum, gifts, avoiding the innocent faux pas.  Many have no concept that congregations have non-Jewish guests frequently as members invite friends and professional colleagues to share their celebrations.  Many do not realize that our default is one of graciousness and tolerance.  Inquiries from converts or people in the process of converting or even contemplating conversion abound.  Amid their forum, they can expect to encounter people who have already successfully converted and others Jewish by birth who can reassure them that we regard our newcomers as All-In.  The curious include a fair number of Muslims, impeccably polite in their curiosity, seeking to clarify parts of our culture or belief that they had encountered in their own milieu but not in ours.  It is our chance to be the kind of friends that they haven’t made yet, and with rare exceptions those who respond rise to the occasion.

And within our own diversity, we have special challenges.  People often want to become more observant than they currently are, and often in difficult circumstances.  A fellow opened a discussion of trying to remain observant while living in a small American town, perhaps a university center or branch outpost of the corporation that employs him.  Within a few hours, dozens of responses came through from people not only sympathizing with the efforts he needs to gather, but from others similarly isolated geographically juggling parallel scarcities of Jewish living.  Sometimes we need a reminder that while Walmart brought Jews to Bentonville and NASA brought us to Huntsville, some Jews live as the Town Jew.  While many famous people, Soupy Sales and Edna Ferber among them, were raised as the only Jews in town, we think that as something of an historical relic.  As people in that circumstance relate their current reality, we realize that not everyone has a synagogue in proximity.  Moreover, not all Jews live in America or Israel, as we are scripted to believe.  Those in South America and Europe express different challenges to their aspirations as Jews.  And the Americans eagerly help out.

Antisemitism in America has become more overt, well publicized in both Jewish and secular media.  Yet for many of us, that’s where we see it.  Personally, we go to our workplaces each day, corporations or other agencies that take pride in their multiculturalism that make expression of ethnic animosity an enforceable taboo.  Then we shop for our needs at big box places, travel to other metro or resort areas where Jews are one more part of the mix, worship on Shabbos where we greet the guard who wasn’t there five years ago and is there now “just in case.”  Anti-Semitism is conceptually there, but mostly external to our lives and if present at all, a deviance from the accepted communal norm.  Some of the most poignant inquiries come from people living in areas where publicly expressed condescension of Jews, whether slurs, exclusions, taunts, or other unpleasant experiences are still within the limits of acceptance.  School children get mercilessly taunted by other students with school officials not wanting to set limits for fear of backlash from parents, or worse, accepting that community standard as a desirable offshoot of their commitment to their own local religious loyalties or traditions.  These victims do not have recourse, at least not accountability of those with rightful authority.  They either do not know about our Jewish advocates such as ADL or JCRCs, or be too isolated to access them.  Yet the stories that these people convey are also our surrogate stories, and perhaps never accessed by the agencies that can offer the most guidance.

Through these and many other requests for interaction, we passively receive the thoughts, or sometimes apprehensions, of people that rarely intersect with Judaism’s organizational infrastructure. For better or worse, upside and downside, our Jewish world has invested heavily in Leadership Development, assigning the movers and shakers special prominence, allowing choice of proteges for the future, creating programs, some such as Leadership Training Fellowship of my youth petering out, others more successful though presiding over an American attrition within our Jewish institutions slowly disconnecting us over decades.  But the anonymous, unrecognized people turn to Reddit.  Nobody on this electronic forum has power.  Nobody can manipulate either poster or responder.  Nobody has a title that requires submissiveness.  Nobody has to sit in the Eighth Row as Moshe did when metaphorically time-transported to Rabbi Akivah’s virtual class.  And my presence has value to somebody else who knows nothing about me but can still discern the breadth of my experience, familiarity with written sources, history, and organizational resources that they would find useful.  No agendas, no rejections.  Just people who have come to recognize the site’s presenting invitation, always appearing in the first dialog box:  No Such Thing as a Silly Question.  Or as the people who trained me professionally would say, continued when my proficiency enabled me to train the next generation, “the only dumb question is the one you wanted to ask but didn’t.”  And on Reddit, and arguably no place else in vast Jewish universe of ideas, do the inexperienced actually ask with no reason to fear a demeaning response. 

Yasher koach to the creators and to the moderators who understand fully what constitutes Derech Eretz.

 

Breakfast Out

It was sort of a new place and sort of a revival of a place of memory.  I drove past on our town's main retail thoroughfare, noticing a now open sign for a diner.  Though it didn't look anything like a classical diner, more restaurant along the side of the road, it had a familiarity.  It's previous presentation was a short-lived Italian place that I dined at one time.  Expensive and not as good a pizza as other places more accessible.  It failed, lay vacant through the pandemic and now returns as a diner.  Way back when, that building was almost a weekly destination.  I had just begun a new job, facing Board Examination renewal within the next year.  Between the rigors of work and distractions at home, I needed a neutral place to study.  I selected two, a real diner on that road, one of excellent breakfast but little for me to eat at other times, which remained my preferred breakfast destination until it swooned during the pandemic, then closed.  And the place I rediscovered.  It had been a 24 hour eatery.  Sometimes I'd get breakfast, other times a hoagie.  I could go after work or on a day off.  To both places, I would get a booth, review paperback and writing pad in hand, and study while I noshed.  And I passed.

The 24 hour option ended shortly after my exam.  Always a pleasant place to be, never hurried, never crowded, though never entirely empty.  It closed.  But after an interim repurpose it is back as a diner.

Like most restaurants these days, prospective diners can preview the menu online, which I did.  No longer having a strongly preferred breakfast option, I gave them a try.  My meatless menu choices are really few:  two eggs, an omelette, or pancakes and coffee.  Pretty much same prices as everywhere, perhaps a dollar or so less on the omelette, so I ordered that.  Usually when I go out for breakfast, I have my first cup of coffee at home, but this time I didn't.  Not many diners there before 8AM.  Greeted by the owner or manager, service quick, though the waitress seemed scripted.  Coffee came right away, though without spoon.  the handle of my knife stirred the liquid adequately.  Pretty good omelette with a slice of melted swiss cheese in the middle.  Toast a bit underdone,  pre-buttered with less than I would have offered myself if they brought individual packets to the table.  Hash browns of pre-shredded potatoes, suitable crust on the outside, soft on the inside.  And a lot of them.  Coffee refilled only once.  Basically an OK breakfast.  A counter for solo diners would have been better.  If large enough, the counter becomes the gathering place for weekly regulars who eventually recognized each other.  I prefer my hash browns to be have identifiable chunks of potatoes.  And coffee seemed to be rationed.  But it's a new place, decent experience, its future not yet determined.

Blackballed

 

Each spring, typically soon after Memorial Day, a letter from my congregation arrives.  It typically contains several pages, announcing the date and time of the Annual Meeting required by our By-Laws.  The meeting mostly has a predictable agenda.  Our budget needs approval by a majority vote of a quorum.  I can anticipate some nit-picking, somebody questioning whether we spend too much on Kiddush pastries or whether we could enhance revenue by a more assertive approach to securing sponsors of more of our Kiddushim.  Bupkis amount relative to the size of the budget.  Somebody will invariably remark about the declining fraction of revenue that accrues from membership dues, as our dues paying headcount has been bleeding a few members annually for decades, virtually without replacement.  Some disaffiliate for potentially preventable dissatisfaction, but never enough in any budget cycle to change congregational financial fortunes.  Our Membership VPs handle this as an accounting exercise:  One new member, four left, most often a reflection of our congregational Kaplan-Meier cumulative mortality graph.  I also have a small gripe, one probably noticed by nobody but me.  As our revenue becomes more insecure each year, it has been a while since there was ever a budget line for spending an amount to promote congregational advancement, whether a social event that better enables people to identify with us or inviting a guest scholar to teach us or an independent consultant to stem our attrition.  No matter how poor or cash strapped a person or organization is, some advancement allotment needs consideration as an investment in what we are and in what we aspire to become.  But the numbers will be teased a bit, as people make their statements.  It will be approved by a wide margin, though with a dissenter or two, also making a statement but not making a difference.

Some years we have a single big-ticket item that needs formal majority approval.  This year it is the contract for our incoming Rabbi.  Again, expect somebody who wished he had more authority and wisdom than he really does to wangle usually confidential numbers like salary.  I would like to know about performance incentives built into the contract, as they announce what is important to the organization.  But the congregation being financially strapped, and the incoming Rabbi among the long-term unemployed, I anticipate some form of low-ball package for him in exchange for the security of a regular paycheck, one of known amount that can neither be reduced nor enhanced.  Performance incentives, or even knowing what constitutes effort related excellence, is beyond the conceptual capacity of our influencers.  It will be approved.

And we vote on officers.  As in previous years, there is a board vacancy not filled, yet the Nominating Committee bypassed me when filling their positions.  Nobody would make a better contribution to the governance than me, apparently literally.  I’ll take that as a snub, or perhaps a blackball.  However, maybe I am too harsh.  Most of the people on this year’s Nominating Committee, appointed and chaired by the President, were the very people I personally advised him to put on it.  The kingmakers, the Influencers, the people who dismiss you with the wave of a palm, those familiar faces of past years, were not on it.  And I got snubbed just the same.  There was one new VP, the Membership specialist who I think a long way from anything specialist.  Pretty much everyone who appears on the roster, which will be approved unopposed, appears at Shabbos services, which contracts the pool from maybe 200 possible people to about 30.  And I do not know who they asked but turned them down, other than my wife, and who else like me is on their worse than nobody list.  But it does not strike me as the people who can implement a reversal of the inexorable waning of interest in signing on and then paying dues.

And since the people doing the nominating were people I asked the President to do the nominating, I can have some fun over the rest of the year needling them about the snub.

A Travel Week

Big Bird takes us across the continent at mid-week.  I'm not really all that eager to leave home, as much as I'd like to be with my daughter.  Some preparation needs doing, primarily arranging to park my car while away, or perhaps, since I am traveling at a reasonable hour, an Uber to and from the airport would be better.  Depends on how much the parking costs, though it is more convenient and secure to drive my own car, which has been my source of freedom since I got my first one.  

And what to take.  Pills set out.  I will take my laptop.  Use my cell phone as the camera, or see if I can revive my camera.  Take the fanny pack.  Take my leather portfolio, maybe put another yellow pad in it, or maybe a spiral notebook.  And the Torah portion that I need to learn.

Expect to wear t-shirts and shorts most days.  Good walking shoes and one pair of moccasins. My nylon windbreaker and UD sweatshirt.  A baseball cap to indicate where I am from.  And my good water bottle, emptied prior to entering the TSA inspection.  I remembered to remove the generic Swiss Army Knife from my keychain.

It is vacation, but it is also a distraction from some of the things I like doing at home.  

Shop-Rite Respite

Between some stocking up, some travel, and some annoying experience, I have no need to go to Shop-Rite for a while.  My freezer is full.  In less than a week, I will be away for a week.  And my last few sessions at my town's destination grocery for its kosher consumers have not endeared them to me.  I did not open the current weekly ad or download any coupons.  The coming week's circular arrived in yesterday's mail, not separated from the other weekly supermarket advertising that the postman delivers in a small bundle.  I bought bread and cheese at Trader Joe's, as I usually do.  As kosher meat got repriced with yellow-sticker discounts I bought some.  And to be fair, Shop-Rite usually has the best deals on frozen food.  For a while I can maintain reasonable nutrition and sensory fulfillment from my freezer.

They probably have a difficult business model, one with thin profit margins, competitors, worker shortages, and supply chain issues.  But as the end user, my need to use the cashiers to check out as they limit what you can take to self-checkout seems the biggest deterrent.  Front end cashiers and sometimes baggers were the norm until very recently.  They still are at Trader Joe's, Sprouts, and Super G.  Our Governor did not help by eliminating grocery bags for environmental reasons, so to avoid a cumulative surcharge, people like me bring their own.  Unlike TJ where the cashier pulls the items from the cart and scans, then bags, at SR the customer puts the item on a conveyor, then has to hustle past the cashier who deposits the items somewhat randomly onto the platform where the bags should go.  Since the larger orders go to the cashier, there is more sorting to do, done by the customer who can no longer see the price accuracy as items are scanned.  I usually try to keep three reusable bags on the platform at the same time, one for cold stuff, heavy stuff to be evenly distributed among the other two.  But sometimes by the time I get there, the platform is too cluttered for three, so I only have cold one other.  No doubt, the cashiers do not seem any happier than the customers.  So that's my biggest irritation, by far.

Availability of what they advertise each week could be better.  Selection of kosher meat has been scaled back, with niche products like lamb, duck, or liver largely eliminated.  The kosher deli and kosher certified bakery rarely have items sufficiently discounted, and usually of lesser quality than I can get from TJ.  For staples, I have ample pasta, rice, couscous boxes, and sugar.  Coffee rarely goes on sale anymore.

So conditions are optimal to give me a hiatus from major food shopping expeditions.  I once liked doing this recurrent chore, making decisions, planning menus, hunting for discounts, rearranging my freezer when I got home.  But the joy and challenge have given way to deterioration of the experience.  And they sell that experience as much as they sell what shoppers put into their baskets.

Vietnamese Grocery

My appointments took me to the concentration of local medical care where I donate platelets, have my innards scoped, and saw a doctor.  The area also has some retail, originally anchored by the large regional mall, but greatly expanded after the medical facilities moved in, making this a daily destination for large numbers of people.  Some of these stores have short half-lives, some more enduring, but many unique.

Signage for a Vietnamese grocer caught my attention.  I tried to stop by a few months ago, finding it under construction.  Its location did not make it easy to get in and out, either.  But after my doctor's visit, noting cars in their parking lot, I thought it worth another attempt at a visit.

Apparently their Grand Opening was just a week ago.  On entry, they were planning to have a small Asian take-out, menu on the wall though not yet operational.  The grocery itself appeared spacious with wide aisles offering attractive displays.  Impressive produce, all more visually attractive than a Shop-Rite display.  Prices on common American purchases mostly a bit more, but they also had fruits and vegetables not readily found at the American mega-groceries.  And this produce comprised a larger fraction of floor space than at American markets, so they must eat closer to the way the medical people nearby advise us to eat.  Meat in the back in a big case, slabs of beef, pork, less poultry.  Then fish.  Ample fin and scales varieties splayed over ice.  The self-serve pre-packaged case seemed dominated by shrimp, which must be an ethnic staple.  

Spices abounded in its own aisle.  Vacuum packages of whose seeds, cumin, coriander, pepper, to be ground at home.  Tapioca pearls of various sizes in see-through plastic packages.  Alas, none had kosher certification.  As I exited, up front, where American stores put their lawn furniture and air conditioners or other bulky high-priced items that need staff assistance to lift, they put 25lb bags of rice in its numerous varieties.

While the store is apparently new, and it is certainly attractive, there were not a lot of shoppers.  I was not the only non-Asian, but for people who will obtain their weekly staples there, it may be a limited clientele.  High salaried people from the medical facilities may stop by after work to assemble what they need for a special birthday or anniversary dinner, and will do very well with what they find.  For me, a pleasant self-guided tour, impressed with what the owner's assembled.