Prominent Guest

The guest of highest public prominence ever to come to my home as a guest might have been Chaim Bloom, the recently ousted Chief of Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox.  His mother and my wife have remained friends.  We have been dinner guests in their rather elegant home.  Chaim got an Ivy education, got interested in baseball, particularly the statistical basis of managerial decisions, and when offered a staff position with a Major League team, latched on.  After fifteen years in progressively responsible and visible positions with his original team, he was hired by Boston as their senior officer in 2019.

Baseball's goal is winning games, starting with each individual one.  Unlike football, there are a lot of games and a lot of contingencies, so weaker teams often have their afternoons of glory.  Success, though, is cumulative, qualifying for playoffs, becoming world champions.  Statistical data driving who to put in a line-up or when to go to a relief pitcher will change the fortunes some days but not others.  Who to have on the team and how much to spend to have their contributory talent determines seasonal outcome.  

Since Chaim's ouster, dozens of news reports have come my way, first press releases, then commentary.  These have engaged my mind considerably more than the daily American political blight, as they involve analysis rather than tribalism, though The Red Sox probably have done much to create Achdus in Boston that even their political figures cannot disrupt.  First, nobody seems to think that Chaim should have been given more time to produce a winner.  In the years prior to his arrival, the Red Sox were a more successful team at season's end than while he had control.  It's perhaps a bit like personal finance, where we know we need to allot a portion of our income when needed far into the future, but we also want to go away on vacation once this year and remodel the kitchen in two years.  Chaim inherited a pretty good now, but not a sustainable now.

To get the players that can perform to the satisfaction of the region's citizens and the current team owners, he could either generate that level of skill in a minor league structure or he could purchase people by trading his talent and money with other teams or bidding for them as free agents.  And to get the success that he had inherited, his predecessors had generated a very high payroll.  League rules, designed to keep teams in big markets from overwhelming teams from smaller markets, place a penalty on overspending.  This left Chaim at a disadvantage trying to purchase the players his team needed from other teams or perhaps even the open market.  His farm system had already been depleted, ranked near the bottom by many MLB analysts.  So his task on entry was really one of restoring future capacity by reducing payroll to enable acquisition of players by trading for them and by creating a better system to make their minor league staff sufficiently proficient to promote to their major league team.  And he did both very successfully, according to the analysts' reports of his tenure.  Payroll reductions will give his successor a place at the bidding table for top performing players and other slots on the team can be filled by lower paid players with skills enhanced by minor league experience.

No good deed goes unpunished.  To reduce payroll, he traded away top-salaried players or let them become free agents.  He did a lot better at future planning than he did at the trading market for current players.  Their highest potential star, a fellow destined for the Hall of Fame, now makes big bucks someplace else but performs appropriate to the high salary.  And what the Sox received in return pales next to what they gave away.  Chaim just had a measure of timidity, a hesitation to take a high stakes bet in a game where future performance does not always match past performance.  And over four years the access to the playoffs at season's end had been lost several times in a row.  The fans and the owners wanted a competitive team now.  They could soon have one because of what Chaim did, but people questioned whether he had the boldness and risk tolerance to follow through on the high stakes trades needed to bring that about.  They judged not.

Chaim as a teenager had been a Torah reader at my congregation, as had his younger brother, also a man of immense talent, though not a public figure.  For a while we needed readers to fill in for our Cantor when away or when we were between Cantors, something beyond the ability of our congregation's men to do with that frequency, then and now.  We had teenagers ourselves and their parents trusted our level of observance, so we picked them up at the train station Friday afternoon and returned them to the train station after Havdalah.  That was some twenty years ago.

On reflection, and maybe why the reports of Chaim's tenure capture so much of my interest, is that my congregation has a similar situation, one lingering much longer than what he both inherited and addressed while head of Baseball Operations for the Red Sox.  We effectively have the men with the skills we need right now, at least in the sanctuary, though the ability of the Governance is much more open for debate.  But we lack a farm system, both in our Sanctuary and on our Board.  We have a Dominant Influencer, much like the Sox have an owner and a hired CEO.  Somebody can execute each part of the service at the time it needs to be done.  But we don't have, maybe not even seek the promotability of a farm system.  A VP has a list of who read what Aliyah last year and recycles as needed.  The Gabbai responsible for shacharit has his pitching rotation.  The Haftarah inviter probably finds it easier to default to himself much of the time.  Two new people arrived by random circumstance, not by planned development.  And all, from the Rabbi recruitment to who might have a say in future initiatives must have the approval of the gatekeeping Dominant Influencer, which has the dual effect of  bypassing some of the best minds and generating resentment in the form of expressing their free agency by non-renewal of membership or more frequently the insidious adverse consequences never getting invited to throw their energies and abilities into the mix.  So next shabbos the parts will get chanted capably, there will be herring after the services but there will also be people who resent being kept outside the gate while programming decisions and participatory invitations that never reach them for things they can do remain out of reach.  Much like Chaim, my guest and my synagogues hired but transient extreme talent from decades ago, inherited and tried to correct.  

Seasonal Chill

Winter clothing gets exchanged each year on October 1.  That date is arbitrary but easy to remember.  It's a reasonable match to the weather, though never a perfect one.  This year the need for long sleeves arrived little before and summer shorts have not been worn since a heat wave crossed Paris during my visit there a few weeks back.  I keep a few out of season items aside in anticipation of a variation between calendar and forecast.  Some long sleeve shirts on hangers in the closet though the no-iron knits remain in the storage duffle until the change of month arrives next week.

I personally like the early chill.  Even with some rain, or maybe especially with some rain, there is an element of refreshment.  I have a couple of nylon windbreakers just right for this circumstance.  With the Holy Days and Sukkot, I spend more time in the synagogue, which also means a sports coat and occasionally my last properly fitting suit.  Sandals go into storage with other summer things in favor of sturdier shoes, as I am not anticipating vacationing in anyplace warm before next spring.  Bought a pair of New Balance cross-training shoes which will become staples, and need some minor repair on my disappointing Sperry Topsiders which also function as go with most things basics.

I never put outerwear into storage.  But I do at the start of needing some gather mine in one section of the downstairs closet.  They get arrayed roughly by how cold it must be to justify wearing each jacket or coat.  Each coat has a cap and gloves in its pockets.  The hats and scarves for very cold situations stay in an upstairs box, usually tapped into once or twice a season when only a Peruvian Wool Hat with ear extensions will do.

So just a windbreaker today.

Logistics

My brother-in-law passed away two days ago.  He had a variety of chronic illnesses, some major surgery which, while successful, had difficult convalescence.  Yet he rallied with some permanent limitations.  His limited longevity was expected but the time and circumstances of his passing could not be anticipated.

Thus, we enter a difficult YK weekend.  He lived about 130 miles away but he and his widow opted for funeral arrangements near the rest of their families.  His widow and the funeral director decided on a place and time, erev YK, which is a Sunday.  The yontif precludes Shiva and the shloshim gets halted by Sukkot a few days following.

As the person with the car and the mobility and some activities arranged previously, that leaves me with my share of tasks as well.  I have my big OLLI morning on Fridays.  For Saturday, I had agreed to lead Shacharit, one with a few Shabbos Shuvah insertions that I had not done publicly before but have familiarity with them.  My daughter arrives from the west coast sometime Saturday, arranged long in advance to be with us for YK but she will be able to attend her uncle's funeral.  I will retrieve her from the airport's arrival curb.  My son and daughter-in-law arrive from Pittsburgh on Saturday night.  They will have a car and can get themselves to the funeral.

I do not know where my sister-in-law and nephew will be staying, but a limo from the Funeral Director will transport them to the graveside service.  A kosher caterer will provide a meal of condolence platter which I need to retrieve before the funeral, deliver to my other sister-in-law, then transport some people to the cemetery.  And the weatherman predicts rain.

Some eating and memories at my sister-in-law's house, leaving early enough to assure that I can assemble a suitable meal before YK.  Then Kol Nidre Sunday night, with its various speeches.  I am Torah reader YK morning, something I've done proficiently before and have adequately rehearsed for this year.  Eventually shofar blowing.

My daughter will then need to be transported to the airport, not sure when.  But I'm the one with the car.

If I like anything about retirement, it has been my control over my time.  I have imposed a few timed tasks, when to get up, when it's lights out, my OLLI course selection with meeting times a huge influence on what I take, my morning routine, when and where I want to travel.  Occasionally I will get an invitation for synagogue, which I usually but not always accept.  And shabbos arrives at its determined time.  My life has enough structure with a few things to do each day, mostly in the mornings. Consecutive days of being at this place at this time to do this, once my daily expectation, has become infrequent.  Even traveling in Paris this month, the tour had its schedule, dividing each day into three parts, but I had enough opt in or out choices to remain in control.  For the next few days, I will need to conform to a series of externally created tasks with specified times.  I'm no longer used to this, but up to the challenge.

Short Story

Submitted.  Including a $25 submission fee. Once in a while, a journal or magazine to which I subscribe invites short stories from readers and others with the prize being seeing your name in print and your ideas broadcast to others.  I've entered two medical ones sponsored by The New England Journal in recent years.  To be sure, the ones the editors selected far exceeded my 1500 words in imagination and elegance.  Yet there was value to me in the few hours it took to compose, edit, and submit my own manuscript.  Much of what I write, the means of expressing myself, is descriptive, bordering on journalism.  Term papers are long gone and I've never had a published research paper.  But I engage in a lot of commentary.  Those 1000 word submissions created over a few hours appear periodically and generate a little comment.  Unfortunately, in this day of FB, X, and similar public forums, thought has been replaced by Tweets, those quick sentence or two retorts whose brevity and straightforward wording get captured in less than a minute.  Journalists seem to hang out on Twitter when not composing their own articles because of the brevity, and usually superficiality, of the comments, which often reflect the id of the typer. 

My current challenge arrived passively from a reputable and widely read Jewish magazine, which has printed my letters in the past, along with one tongue in cheek satiric photo I took near my workplace.  It had to be of Jewish content, less than 5K words, and with a due date.  Short story, fiction.  I rarely write fiction, though I've taken to assigning myself at least two novels a year since retirement, never falling short of that quota and often exceeding it.  But short stories are often difficult for me to read, as they are expected to be read in a single sitting, the length frequently in excess of my attention span.  Yet fiction may reflect the pinnacle of language.  It requires the author to transform his or her mindset to somebody else's, to tell a story with actions, physical descriptions, conflicts, and unexpected outcomes all projected on a narrator other than himself.  In effect, giving the glory of language to people who do not exist in reality, yet would be recognizable if they did.

The writer, or verbal storyteller, also has to have motivation to organize and convey what he thinks.  Frequently the stories are tangential to an author's experience, or a real encounter fictionalized.  But sometimes the subject is somebody else's experience either witnessed or imagined by the storyteller.

For me the Jewish subject was easy to choose.  People designated as leaders often do not put optimal treatment of people ahead of the objectives of the institutions they are trained to lead.  Some very good people who could have been contributors, or often were contributors, become ideological sacrifices.  No shortage of these incidents to expound upon.  And I did.

Off it went to an electronic submission service along with a credit card authorization.  And there it is likely to stay until dismissed by the magazine's editor scanning the first paragraph some time after the due date.  But somebody, maybe a professional, maybe a writing hobbyist like me, will compose a tale that merits a broad audience.

Lab Results

Patient portals are great.  Lab drawn yesterday.  Results available to me today.  Not ideal numbers, if fact a gradual progression of a few things, enough to want me to act.  But nothing very dangerous.  I still think I am over medicated, as I never quite feel well, though rarely feel badly.  I can still donate platelets.  I can still modify my diet.  See what the doctor recommends when she calls, then set up appointment.

Doing Big Stuff

I'm feeling fuzzy after Rosh Hashanah, though very functional.  It's a transition date, conceptually from one year to the next on the Jewish Calendar, now 5784.  My Hebrew calendar, gift of AKSE, has taken its place to my right on my desk.  And I have the list of Semi-annual projects on the whiteboard to my left and the daily task list to my right.  Each has big stuff and quick do-its, though my whiteboard has mostly big stuff.  Writing a book, writing articles including one with a looming deadline, the trip to France with just a few returning loose ends, the spaces of my home that I want to upgrade.  Stuff that takes a sustained effort, a schedule, milestones.  And then there are the quick daily checkmarks, taking my weekly health measurements, checking on my plants, doing some laundry.  Do it and it's done, but these tasks will return and not advance me a whole lot for having completed them.  It's the grandiose ones, hard to do, broken into segments that all have to have time allotted, then sequenced, that give real satisfaction.  And I need the New Year to focus on them more effectively.  And maybe some external deadlines.

Next High Holy Days

The Holy Days are my demarcation point, or more accurate part of a larger demarcation point, the transition from summer to fall.  It's a change from a few months with few appointments to the remainder of the calendar year with many.  OLLI, Yom Tovim, doctors appointments, football games I want to watch, all needing me to be in a place at a set time.  This year all begin within proximity of my grand experience in Europe, OLLI and football while away, Holy Days and Doctors on return.

I'm not terribly enthused about what awaits.  I opted to sit out AKSE's High Holiday Honors program for the second consecutive year.  There have been incidents in which I cannot frame the encounters other than having been treated poorly by people of influence.  I never thought I would report one of these encounters to their President in the way I would fill out an incident report for the ADL or my medical center, but I did.  But I also took the view that I will not use hurtful speech in response.  I will withhold money, which is my response for opting out of their High Holy Day honors, with this year's invitation a lot more expensive activity than an Ark Opening.  I am the YK Torah reader again and should be in optimal form.

Ordinarily I focus more on food and on guests.  Daughter coming for YK, though after shabbos dinner.  Very simple prefast dinner.  For YK I like to make my own round challah.  OLLI classes in the morning make this unrealistic but I can make a honey cake.  There are elaborate recipes that challenge me, but with more restricted time, a simple one this year.  Wife does the rice kugel as her annual contribution to our festive table.  I make carrots, though Mesorah Heritage Foundation sent me a card with blessings for other traditions like beets and cabbage.  Carrots are easy.  I found an economical porgy, so this year a whole fish with its head on and eyes inviting us to eat it.  And a simple chicken.  Also found a Tabachnick's chicken soup with noodles that can be warmed in boiling water.  And shabbos style baked chicken breast and purchased round challah.  So it will be a full festive meal, though less my effort than other years.

I've not yet unpacked my main suitcase after two full days home.  Do this while honey cake bakes.  And usually for RH I put some effort into appearance.  Suit first day.  Sports coat second day.  Nice shoes, polished.  White kippot.  Beard trimmed, hair groomed, nails filed.  But still tacky smartwatch not really suitable for shabbos.  Maybe I'll wear one with a dial instead.

The Holy Days, while officially ten, really extend most of the month of Tishrei.  We have a command to be happy on Sukkot, and I try.  The time for guests to come and this year to be somebody else's guest.  Effort into constructing and decorating the Sukkah.  Some pageantry of the Lulav.  The season typically ends on a more satisfying note than it begins.  

And by then I've learned things at OLLI and know how my team's seasons are likely to play out.

Post-Vacation Reset

A traditional, though not always accurate purpose of vacation has been to return with the rest and vigor to work more effectively on return.  At least some of that is true in retirement.  I have things I want to do, in fact need to do, that have drifted this past summer.  And some that haven't drifted wore me out.  These ten days away, far away in France with its very different culture, separated me from nearly all my semi-annual projects.  No writing, no books, OLLI started without me, exercise informal as my daily step tracker far exceeded what it registers at home.  No finances, no home upgrades.  All can and did await my return.

On the plane home, saturated after a few hours of some rather relaxing Wellness Videos on the screen in front of my seat and periodic surfing the plane's progress map, I took out a small folder I had placed in my backpack, removed a sheet of loose-leaf paper, and jotted down in a mostly unorganized way the things I need to do between my return home and Thanksgiving.  Medical care, as in lab testing and doctors.  I suspect I am over medicated.  I also found the very large amounts of walking challenging, not tolerating long flights of stairs or up slopes very well.  My legs got tired, but sometimes I also needed a chance to catch my breath.  Hearing from the loudspeakers at the airport and plane could have been better.  I only took one Naproxen tablet and felt better within a few hours.  So medical care is priority.

Holy Days arrive within a few days of my return.  I practiced my assigned YK portion adequately, though not a lot.  While away the assignment expanded to the full morning's reading, which I had not photocopied in advance, so I'll need to polish that.  Very simple meal preparation for RH, more elaborate for the sukkah, where I intend to have at least one guest.  Sent out one annual greeting to an old friend.  Should do two or three more.  And daughter visiting for YK.  

I projected out to Thanksgiving.  I have a manuscript due before Sukkot.  And if I am going to ever write the book I dream of writing, I need to be maniacal about writing sessions, which I have not been.  Before Thanksgiving I need to touch base with the financial advisor on my mandatory IRA distributions which take effect in the next calendar year and wife's mandatory Social Security benefits, both of which will change our cash flow significantly.

Also need to complete the year's gardening.  And I've not abandoned some help with making My Space optimal, purging books, and even hiring a biweekly cleaning crew.  

Did vacation energize me?  I think it did.  I feel less dragged, more rested.  Will I be kinder, more cordial, more cheerful?  At least at the beginning.  But first unpack.

Observations on France

Have now been here about five days, enough to appreciate what I find appealing and what less so. Paris definitely conveys a very charming ambience.  People pretty much all live in apartments, nearly all less than ten floors.  Balconies seem common.  Penthouses seem common.  A business as the downstairs tenant seems the norm.  There are a lot of cars, but there are also advantages to bicycling and not all that powerful motorcycles or motor scooters.  The government will subsidize an expensive bicycle.  Apparently the streets are cluttered by commuters who travel less than 5km to work.  I presume they have parking arrangements.  Considering the very limited utility of a personal car, I saw very few auto rental agencies on the streets our tour bus traveled.  Doubt if any tourist would want to do that.

There is a vast subway, easy to navigate with their signs, long walks between transfer stations.  There are also a lot of buses, though speed very limited by other vehicular traffic.

Streets lined with small retail.  Probably more eating places per capita than any other place I've visited.  Restaurants with sidewalk seating, stands selling fruit on the outside and small groceries on the inside.  A lot of pharmacies, no American mega-chains.  A lot of small shops selling clothing, styling hair.  I did not encounter nearly as many places of medical care as this very large population would require.  Likely consolidated into a few very large regional centers, much the way America has become.  Yet to pass a hospital.  And heritage is everywhere, in the world-class museums, historical sites, monuments to the victims of their many wars and to their ruling megalomaniacs.

Charley Hebdo seems to have changed policies.  Gendarmes in public attractions position themselves outside with Uzi's or some variant.  French tradition gets serious transgressors Blonaparte.  Any museum or public building has metal screening and x-ray detection of packages.  No Open Carry here.

Population very diverse.  Large African presence.  Slavery here was a pittance of what it was in America.  Yet French West Africa and Caribbean colonies created some attachment to the Mother Country.  The Black population is largely French by birth.  The Islamic presence, often in its militant form, is also rather large.  Many originated from the colonies of Algeria and Morocco with descendants native French, but there is also a large immigration component. I would have expected a larger Indo-Chinese presence than what I encountered, as France also once colonized that part of the world, whose inhabitants later had some very compelling reasons to relocate.  Despite the EU's open borders with member states, I do not see a lot of settlement here from other parts of Europe.

Lifestyle different.  Was referred to a department store near where we were touring.  Couldn't find it.  Have yet to see a supermarket on a par with where we shop in America.  There are interesting tacit agreements that people maintain.  Garage doors of shops generously spray-painted with graffiti.  The buildings themselves are not.  Apparently no laws require this.  Helmet laws for bikes and motorcycles don't seem to exist. Litter far less than American cities, at least in the Northeast.  People walked their dogs. I did not see any carrying gloves or scoops, yet I encountered no dog waste.  People seem to be willing to be decent citizens even if not mandated by public law.

Admittedly, France is a big place with agriculture that we could see from the plane, tourism that extends far beyond the confines of its capital city, probably some industry, two great universities that have a much lower profile than regional universities in America seem to have.  Much of this seems foreign.  

Would I want to be a Parisian or any other kind of Frenchman?  It's a pleasant place to be, for sure.  And the absence of American style antagonism adds to its attraction.  While I don't like seeing Uzi's on peace officers, the ability to act vigorously and unequivocally to public threats is why we have government.  But we also don't have people who feel a need to protect themselves with personal weapons.  And I've not encountered a violent criminal element either as witness or on the news.  And from every professional survey I've encountered, the French now have the most effective health care system in the world with universal accessibility and high quality outcomes.

But I also like having my own house, a car that transports me over great distances at will, a Walmart, Shop-Rite, and IKEA all with ample parking.  Having the dominant language of the world as my native tongue gives me tremendous advantage.  So while the antagonisms and indignities of living in America are ever present and largely unwelcome, giving these things up to live as French does not seem the optimal trade-off.

Foreign

 

Settled at our hotel in Paris.  Difficult transfer from airport.  Basically sleep deprived from flight, which in America we would call a red eye.  Not fully adapted to the six hour time difference.  And coffee deprived with an absence of more than 48 hours.  Cannot get SIM card to work in cell phone.  T-Mobile contact told me they fixed it but didn't.  At least I learned how to change a SIM card in my current phone.  One more T-Mobile demerit.  Consider a different carrier after the Holy Days which start shortly after I return home.

Paris, and I presume the rest of France, definitely differs from what I have become not only used to but dependent upon.  Not being able to have portable access to FB in my pocket is definitely a hardship.  Had a mishap with my new camera, not permanent damage.  Hotel room a bit cramped, though probably larger than a cruise ship would have offered.  Even the dogs that people walk on the sidewalks appear UnAmerican.  But no panhandlers or homeless people bedded in storefronts thus far.  That's probably UnAmerican too.

Mostly adapted.  Pâtisseries where we had lunch last night and breakfast today were top-notch experiences.  Walked the perimeter of my hotel.  Charm in one direction, in the other a small enclosed park area with an iron fence.  Architecture probably from some era just before Art Deco.  Or maybe since Art Deco originated in Paris, what we have here is the precursor to Miami's South Beach buildings or NYC's Chrysler Building.  I saw a few penthouses, but mostly fronts with carved design.  Streets are rather wide for a city.  From the air and from the highway that connected the airport to town, the buildings had more of a Soviet look.  Tall rectangular structures, plain boxes of about 10 stories, mostly white or other neutral shade placed in clusters.  No external architectural features. Probably where most of the people can afford to live, or maybe why there appear a dearth of homeless people.

Not a lot of traffic on a Sunday morning.  For all the great Cathedrals people come to Paris to see, I did not encounter anyone walking to a local church for worship, let alone a church itself. I would have expected more of the small businesses to be closed this Sunday. One lantzman, a young fellow with a white kippah, who did not seem too concerned about being attacked.

Our hotel seems to survive with tourist contracts, a mixture of tour groups and a fair number of airline staff assigned to this hotel fort their rest period.  Various tours have signs or tables.  People in corridors or elevators with airline uniforms.  Hotel seems American.

The Work of Retirement

My wife and I first toured a part of Europe for our 41st anniversary, delayed by about a year.  I had just retired, planned the cruise in my final working months.  Lovely time, welcome vacation, time to be with my wife after a career that often left me too tired after a trying day at work and a tedious commute home each night.  Retirement is to do the things that you didn't get to do when work obligations dominated.  For a lot of people, that meant high grade travel.  For us timed when it most needed to be.  The Cruise of the Adriatic, real vacation, favorable intro to retirement possibilities.  

Now five years later.  Anniversary #46, second trip to Europe, this one without the ship but a single city so we do not have to move with our luggage on a tour bus every few days.  And we get more far more time in Paris than any cruise, river or sea, would afford its passengers at any port stop.

From early retirement to now settled retirement, seeing the world previously unavailable to us didn't happen.  Airplanes took us to visit the kids in distant cities, partaking of the sights in their areas while there.  My car enabled a few overnight trips, only one requiring a hotel stay to divide the driving to more than one day.  And my wife and I could be with each other as much as we want now.  But after 46 years, I go to My Space early morning and after supper, while she has her activities from high level choral singing, to a weekly Torah portion column that needs completion every Thursday, to a fondness for movies and a TV channel that I avoid on the big screen.  We meet up at supper and at bedtime.  Unlike work, we have no nudge to do anything different, including the grand travel.

As we prepare for our tour of Paris and environs, the perspective over these five years has shifted dramatically.  The cruise was a respite from work.  The upcoming tour is not a respite as much as the work of retirement itself.  While the foreign environment will likely be energizing, so will the relative novelty of being with each other from breakfast to the sightseeing itself to whatever activities we choose to do together after supper.  There is some agenda taken by the tour company, but other parts of the time away that become joint choices, where to eat, what else to see when Paris displays itself as the City of Lights. 

All this a clear demarcation from our daily routines, which really are not part of retirement's agenda, to some arduous travel which is.  Planning, airport, customs, hotel, tour appointments, return.  The Work of Retirement.  But like most directed efforts, it has its own enrichment.