Concluding Vacation

This time a short getaway.  Leave Monday, return Friday.  And not very far, less than three hours of mostly highway driving.  One major misadventure, but mostly what times away strive to be.  Relocations from home.  Experiences not readily duplicated at home.  Escapes from the routines of home., 

Not a resort or major international attraction this time, yet still with features of a vacation.  We stayed at a hotel, a very ordinary chain.   Not the most expensive or luxurious, but not No Frills either.  Ample parking, Wi-Fi included in the fee.  I would not select a site, at least in the USA, that did not have these if I had a car in my possession, either mine or a rental.  I've come to expect a pool, in fact, use the presence of a pool as a filter on my online hotel searches, if I will be staying more than three days.  This one had a hot tub as well.  Breakfast buffets have become an expectation of family-style chain operations.  Some more elaborate than others.  I have mixed feelings about these.  I like the convenience, particularly as it allows my wife and me to keep different sleeping schedules.  Cruise ship buffets are over the top.  Motels trade fancy or imaginative for convenience.  Coffee, pastry, bagel, and egg will get me started.  Though I do not include breakfast in my hotel search filters.  Often I prefer to go out to a diner that serves breakfast, one with a menu and waitress, one with people who live nearby opting to have their own breakfast there.  Breakfasts are rarely expensive.  Pillows are usually fluffier than mine, and more of them.  Mattresses often firmer.  And activity more tiring.  I rarely experience serious insomnia at these places.

Vacation is partly about being someplace different, but also doing different things.  Over an adult lifetime, I've had the good fortune to vary the experience, though I can certainly understand other people who work all year to get their two weeks of fishing, camping, or golf as their annual destination.  I've been to resorts, geological wonders, cities of international or historical importance, cruise ships with days at sea dedicated to indulgence, and theme parks that attract visitors of global representation. Each selection unique, while I am the same person wherever my travels take me.  I seek out the new, whether from the buffet at a casino, the selection of on-tap drafts, an exclusive store to gawk at items far above budget, or a National Park creature that I wish I could pet.

Wonder does not always appear on the travel brochure.  On my current trip to a bedroom enclave outside my Nation's Capital, my car takes me through many habitats where people live and work.  Despite the proximity to one of the most cosmopolitan centers in the world, what I found just beyond common commuting distance was the preservation of agricultural land.  I found a lot of repurposing.  Historical buildings in the center of town made into restaurants, surrounded by a rim of upscale homes purchased by people of means and imagination for their potential.  Then a rim of where people like me work, shop, and attend school.  Not a lot of churches considering the population density.  And then a rim of homes which I found on Zillow for about $2.2M.  Lots of them.  Enough to make me wonder how so many people earned or inherited so much more money than I was able to generate.  Vacations tend to make me wonder how my life might have turned out differently had I lived there.  Could I be an islander, a pioneer, an immigrant who will never return to the starting point, a person who sails the ocean while the family sees him a few times a year?  At my hotel, native Spanish speakers dominate the staff.  It would be unthinkable to withhold courtesy or kindness from anyone I've met, though not unthinkable to vote for people to represent me who might be a bit harsh to those we know only by a TV news site presence.

I'm probably more polite, perhaps more considerate, as the guest of another place than I am at home.  I know the people who serve me depend on financial tips, so as a prosperous person, I make sure the waitresses and hotel housekeepers get recognized for what they have done on my behalf. 

Still, my travel is limited to a few excursions a year, mostly minor, occasionally major.  Airports are visited infrequently, maybe once a year since I retired.  A lot of people have their travel as an imposition, dependent on airport lounges and bars that I only gawk at, working on their laptops as I gaze downward over farms and towns.  My travel has become recreational, theirs is not.  My destinations never fail to generate some measure of wonder.  Even the small excursions generate neighborhoods to drive through, history to reconstruct, somebody's imagination to create the menus that I read.  And in retirement, I do this in the right amount.  I chance to be my Best Me, the Best Guest I can be.

Leesburg VA

On vacation.  A sorely needed time away.  I was willing to drive about six hours.  My wife preferred half that, so we opted for a bedroom town of DC Metro, Leesburg.  The nearest public destination seems to be Dulles Airport, where the Metro seems to end.  Leesburg, as we pursue Day 2, has shown its multiple faces.  It seems a bit far for people to commute to the core of DC, though people probably do.  Many large and small employers ring the district. No doubt, the airport employs thousands. We found some history, a central old downtown which offers formal and self-guided historical tours.  There are Civil War sites, including a minor battle nearby.  I was surprised that the Potomac, which separates Virginia from Maryland, was the resource for the defeated Union soldiers to escape.  Since this battle, known mostly to locals and some Civil War buffs, was too small to appear in textbooks, it did spur the creation of the now very large military cemetery system.

Surprisingly close, we find some agricultural land, much of it quite large.  There are vineyards, open mostly on weekends to those seeking their periodic respites from DC.  Some microbreweries have emerged.  There is a large Factory Outlet Complex.  But mostly, Leesburg has become a bedroom city.  Small malls with places to eat, bank, get prescriptions filled, and serve as tasting room outlets for wineries, one that I visited today quite distant.  There are chain motels like the one we chose.  Supermarkets.  Medical care.  

I suspect the population has some economic diversity.  Loudon County is one of the highest income counties in America.  We drove past a few real mansions, a fair number of McMansions, prosperous housing developments where the engineers of aerospace not too far away probably live.  And a lot of more dense housing, townhouses and apartment complexes of a few stories.  No skyscrapers.  But no slums either.

And as something of a bottom line, vacation for me.  No appointment obligations other than those I self-impose.  The hotel's breakfast buffet shifts its times a little earlier than I would have chosen, the pool and hot tub opening's a little later.  There is an exercise room with a treadmill that I've not successfully operated and a recumbent cycle which I used as a surrogate, as exercise is more reliable when scheduled as an appointment with myself.  Same with pills.  I have two Torah portions to learn, one reasonably secure though not yet fluent, the other first beginning.  Those are performed irrespective of where I am or whether OLLI is in session.  Since food preparation is my daily task, one that I like doing, I still appreciate a few days of paying somebody else to do it.

And new experiences.  While not much for Shopping Outlet Complexes, the one here far outstrips what we have at home.  I suspect this place also employs hundreds.  We have vineyards, though not on the scale that distributes through Loudon County.  And our microbreweries and boutique independent coffee shops don't approach what we have sampled here.  

Leesburg, whether as resident or visitor from DC, seems a good place to hang out, especially as a young, prosperous professional.  As newlyweds, we lived in a place with abundant places to eat and visit.  To some extent we did.  Now we do what we usually do pretty much daily, but for a couple of breaks a year, it's good to seek out a place like this, a place where people of imagination create unique blends of things to eat and drink, while recognizing which parts of their historical heritage needs preservation and display. 

Old Friends

My FB notifications left unread now reach past 100 as I get to the midpoint of my third week off the social media platforms.  The company really wants me to sign on, keeping their site as exclusive as they can.  To do this, they entice me with emails of who else has posted.  None of those emails notify me of a product they think I ought to know about, a home team to which I am loyal, or a political position that I share.  No.  Those hundred messages are all from Old Friends.  People from high school to whom FB has enabled me to reconnect.  I like the people.  I appreciate the platform despite the many valid reasons to let it lay fallow for a few weeks.  It is where I find Old Friends.

That leaves me with other places to connect with Old Friends.  Live places mostly, but some personal email too.  Live is better.  The limitation of live is the relative paucity of people and places to meet them.  OLLI has tapered off since the semester began.  Fewer people hang out in the central gathering area.  I no longer have a day that keeps me there beyond my one scheduled class.  People have been arriving closer to the announced starting time.  It would be interesting to ask the staff whether they use fewer K-cups at their complimentary Keurig machines.  I do not see a lot of people there.  Those at tables keep to themselves.  And the first half session has concluded, so people in those classes, two for me, are on site less.  

My other gathering place is shabbos morning.  There I always have old friends to approach or approach me at the conclusion of services.  The experience of the worship, sometimes engaging, sometimes not, poses something of a barrier if the purpose of attendance is camaraderie.  There are handshakes and greetings during services.  While sincere, they are also formalities, pretty much devoid of any language interchange that connects people.

I have no recreational buddies, one old friend who I can expect to man the deli counter at Shop-Rite if I go there early enough, something not often compatible with my OLLI obligations.  I don't belong to any clubs.  The senior physicians' program disappeared when its champion withdrew.  

But my wife remains steadfastly my dearest, most dependable friend.  As she should be.

Try Not to Respond

 

Now off FB, X, and Reddit more than two weeks.  FB notices have passed 100.  Only one moment of FOMO when FB emailed me that a very good friend received a comment from one of the HS popular kids who usually does not comment.  Did I miss a condolence?  That would end my hiatus.  My wife shares that good friend.  She reports that he was engaged in significant travel.  That does not need a response from me.

While the economic business model of social media depends highly on emotional provocation, as does televised media, podcasts, and now political figures, often it is better to stay on the sidelines.  

עֵ֥ת לַֽחֲשׁ֖וֹת וְעֵ֥ת לְדַבֵּֽר  as Kohelet observed.

Sometimes not commenting means don't care, as in the many lures to sell me things that come in my email feed. Sometimes I do care.  Respond and React are not the same.  The political messages intend to provoke my reaction.  Responses need to be more reflective.  And as Conflict Entrepreneurs get more sophisticated, responses also need some rationing.

One making rounds this week from a number of sources is an accusation that if I vote my way instead of their way I don't care about Israel and I am a defective Jew.  Very easy to get into that playground mode of Am Not:Are Too.  But merit as a Jew, unlike merit as an Evangelical Christian Nationalist, is not about how you vote.  It is about a vision for how you would like things to turn out with respectable ways of bringing the vision about.  It is about not having victims. It is about either not making enemies, or at least being very selective about which ones.  The essence of Judaism is about how you treat people.  The Conflict Entrepreneurs really missed the boat.

I vote for the candidates they publicly demean, though unsuccessful taking me with them.  I also eat kosher, observe shabbat, share my treasure in ways that make Israel stronger and make Jewish institutions secure.  I don't steal, either property or the genevas da-as of ideas.

While internal conflict is part of Jewish history, so much so that our Talmud was the first enduring document to include minority positions with their reasoning, disconnecting people usually turns out badly.  

Always respond thoughtfully, but also selectively.

Preparing a Class

It's been a while since I conducted a class for anything.  At one time I did this professionally, some semi-formal like topic reviews for residents, other times highly structured like Medical Grand Rounds.  For a few years I ran weekly sessions on Jewish topics for teens.  But once retired, these largely evaporated, except for two sessions over a few years for my congregation's dedicated adult learning day. And I've given two sessions for a group of senior physicians.  A small cluster returns.

My congregation has a movie series where people watch a designated film, then a few days later people discuss what they saw.  My turn to lead the discussion, which I see more as what I might do on resident work rounds.  Question and response format, with me generating the questions and maybe prodding responses.  A few short PowerPoint items, perhaps.  Maybe half a dozen slides to give some background to the film.  All done the day before.  Goal:  interactive, perhaps even Socratic.   And on Zoom.

Later I anticipate a more formal presentation to the congregation, a return to the day of adult learning.  Based on my professional background, the committee that arranges this asked me to pursue a topic.  This one will be powerpoint.  This one live.  The topic itself did not strike me as particularly exciting.  A list of diseases that people of my ethnicity might inherit.  Monogenic, a small straightforward list with a little science.  I've seen some, but most never will.  But it is the offshoots that generate interest.  What about common polygenic disorders and how prejudices among the medical community distort what we really encounter?  What about our sister community, geographically and genetically a little different but from a medical genetic outcome more diverse?  And how we address the problem.  In America a few advocacy groups handle a limited number of conditions.  In the other place, a concerted and systematic approach by a national health service.

Then many months from now, I move past the synagogue to conduct a session at OLLI.  My synagogue has largely excluded me from its creative process.  OLLI values this much more.  A Zoom course I have taken prepared its approach to the coming semester.  I thought a different set of lectures would be better so I sent a proposal.  Everyone else in the class will discuss a famous person who happens to be from and shaped by NYC.  My presentation will be the outlier.  No famous people.  Just the unique people who have historic legacies.  The Bowery Bums, the city workers, the chefs, the nobodies who thought they could make it there, pushcarts and newsstands now found nowhere else, the Chefs, the diplomats. Few famous, all recognizable.  But importantly, unique.

While I prefer to be reflective rather than having the limelight shine on me, I do tend to think in an analytical way that should be offered to others.  I kinda look forward to each of the upcoming efforts.

Ready for Vacation

When working, I usually had a clear idea of when a vacation might be due.  In fact, I often did not schedule one, let alone plan one until my daily performance had already begun to suffer.  I've done many different things.  Days at the regional beaches when my children were little.  Days at major cities, sometimes by car, sometimes by plane, sometimes linked to my professional travel.  A resort or two.  Three cruises.  Some National Parks.  Israel tour.  Drives through states in my home region.  Visiting relatives.  Linking to weddings of friends and children of friends.  I've been to a lot of places over the years.

In retirement, the need to find new scenery remains, but the internal prod that tells me this has become overdue is no longer there.  I was on a once in a lifetime guided tour of Paris within the last year.  My activity schedule has a spring break for which I afford myself a short trip.  And in the winter I often head off by myself for a few hours drive to a place with a major attraction as centerpiece but also some time enjoying hotel amenities and local brewpubs or wineries.  One of those spring break escapes not very far off, this one without a centerpiece attraction.

But I'm really starting to anticipate a desire for something more elaborate.  Not quite the splurge of that Paris tour, but a week to a new place or new experience.  My wife knows that I am ready to plan something about four months hence and asked for her preferences.

I'm open to largely anything that takes place someplace else.  The internet should serve as a resource for filtering options, but it just seems too vast, too unselected.  I started accessing state tourism office sites.  Every state has one.  And there are national parks.  And resorts.  And cruises.  While I do not want to travel overseas, America has neighbors to the north and to the south.  Really a blank canvas in a way.

And there are activities as well as places.  Fishing, golf, camping. Or a sports camp or a writing gathering or a cooking school Never actually went on a vacation with an activity in mind, other than a tour of wine country in a few places, with wine the destination in one.  Maybe a few days at a cooking school.

And people.  Maybe fish in the most racist municipality in all of George Wallace country.  Been to Amish country and Hasidic towns many times, all on day trips.  Not visited Hutterites.  Really not visited rural people or ranchers.  Passed through many places where people vote much differently than me, but never engaged them.  

Vacation not only lures with places, but what I might like to experience.  Surf the state and provincial tourism options a bit more.

Making Lasagna

My kitchen.  A place I like to be. Few things bring me more personal satisfaction than making supper each night for my wife and me.  Or periodically an elegant dinner for the relatively limited number of friends that we have acquired.  It's food.  It's not all kitchen.  I have to think about what to make.  For guests or special occasions.  It starts at my desk where I search recipes in cyberspace and fill out a menu grid, then sample what might be possible in the living room where my Kosher cookbook collection fills more than one shelf.  It entails a survey of the weekly Shop-Rite ad which hints at what I can make economically.  There is usually a two-hour expedition to the store itself, aisle by aisle.  America has food abundance.  I have the good fortune of ample funds to purchase pretty much anything that I can imagine as useful for a satisfying meal.  Often too much, as the contents of my limited freezer need some juggling.

Most meals are simple.  Something from the freezer.  Pierogies, crunchy fish, faux meat packaged as a heat-up entree, fish fillets thawed a day in advance.  Meat for shabbos, more often than not poultry, thawed two days in advance.  And a vegetable.  Sometimes perishable like a sliced tomato or cucumber.  Often frozen like corn or green beans where I can extract as much as I need, then boil.  Sometimes the vegetable Shop-Rite puts on sale that week.  Simple, but with a modicum of which of the many options should I take.

Along the way, I have a few signatures, or at least go-tos.  For shabbos cholent.  For guests, a roasted turkey half-breast or chicken cacciatore, one needing little effort, the other requiring many steps.  Desserts, a nut cake or a honey cake, one basic recipe with variants.

For suppers at home, I have two that require preparation, Macaroni and Cheese in the style of Horn and Hardart, which was my Automat staple, and Lasagna taken from the first cookbook judged worthy of the Artscroll Jewish publishers.  Each needs some targeted purchases.  Lasagna offers me more room for experimentation.   Each lasts four meals, one out of the oven, one the following night's supper, and two rectangles cut cold, wrapped in foil, and frozen for a supper each of the next two weeks.

Lasagna has a spinach base, so I need to get frozen spinach when on sale and keep it in the freezer until the day before.  I usually get the cut variety, but have gotten the leaf form.  They thaw waterlogged, so I take a fistful at a time, give a good squeeze, placing a handful at a time into the mixing bowl until all has been drained.  For a while I tried using a colander.  My hands extract more water.  Then a tub of cottage cheese.  Most come as one pint but the Shop-Rite house brand comes as 24 ounces, which seems to leave me more filling to work with on assembly.  Cottage cheese comes in a number of different forms.  Large or small curd, reduced fat or full fat.  After baking, the curd size doesn't matter.  Small mixes more easily.  And always full fat.  The purpose of cheese of any type is its sensory pleasure, which comes from its lipid elements.  And brand on sale when I go shopping.  An egg is needed for binding.  Dump into the bowl after the spinach, blend with a fork.  Then seasonings.  The Artscroll recipe calls for oregano and black pepper.  I vary this.  Oregano seems to work best.  The half teaspoon given in the recipe comes out unnoticed.  I use more, but since I never measure it, I don't really know how much more.  Black pepper is not noticed at all when served.  I look at my spice collection and pick one.  The Middle Eastern spices don't do especially well, despite Lasagna being a Mediterranean preparation.  Season salts and Asian spices are better.  But the options and my selection make each preparation a little different.  

The real variation from batch to batch comes from the cheese that is added to the cottage cheese filling.  The Artscroll recipe calls for mozzarella.  It is easy to find kosher-certified mozzarella.  And it is a staple of Italian pasta recipes because of its melting qualities and texture.  As a semi-soft cheese in its kosher formats, I find it difficult to shred with a processor's shredding disc.  More liquified mozzarella, really more of a paste, mixes easily with the cottage cheese in the prep bowl.  I have found cheddar a better option.  Table-K cheddar is easy to find and reasonably economical.  It shreds easily, which makes it better for the upper topping.  I will most often use some form of sharp cheddar, either by itself or in combination with mozzarella.  For flavor, I have used acceptable additions of blue cheese and Monterrey jack, but cheddar and mozzarella seem to offer the preferred texture and taste.

The lasagna is layered and topped with jarred spaghetti sauce.  There are several brands that are kosher-certified and go on sale.  The jars have become subject to shrinkflation, now containing 24 ounces when they used to contain 26, which is what the recipe calls for.  I find the 24 oz usually adequate but sometimes pull a partially used jar from the fridge to supplement.  The vegetarian jarred spaghetti sauces have their own variants.  Marina, basil, garden tomato.  The varieties without texture perform better.

So with just a few variable ingredients, the sauce, cottage cheese style, topic cheese, and spices, I can get a lot of different minor combinations from the same recipe.  Not having any reason to standardize what I do, and indeed a lot of reasons not to, each batch comes out unique but never dramatically so.  While I vary these brands, I do not do formal experimentation with the combinations or write them down.  Instead, I will purchase the cheese in a half-pound brick without earmarking it for lasagna.  Spaghetti sauce is purchased without lasagna or variety in mind, so I choose what is in the pantry.  Oregano is a constant, a small handful crushed.  Other herbs and spices vary from none to a shake or a few grinds of black pepper, to something in my spice collection that catches my attention when I see what I have available.

However I make it, the end result is usually good.  Sometimes a little overbaked.  More often just right. The underlying purpose, basically the enjoyment of my kitchen and the challenge of preparation is always fulfilled.

Up on Time

Eventually, I prefer the late sunsets of Daylight Savings Time.  This third morning of the new clock settings I resolved to depart my bed at the specified time that I plan to keep permanent until either the next clock adjustment or time zone travel.  It was a struggle, but I am up, dental routine completed, newspaper moved from driveway to the front door, first k-cup of coffee brewed, and morning pills swallowed.  I need that coffee to serve its intended purpose, though that typically happens after the second cup.

I have two sleep trackers, one a smartphone app, the other a feature of my smartwatch.  They agree with cumulative sleep times, differing only by 8 minutes.  The phone breaks down the components.  About half it called REM or deep sleep, the other half light sleep or awake.  I know I was awake far in excess of the 49 minutes its highly fallible method calculated, as I could check the red numerals on the clock radio with some regularity for about 2 hours at about the mid-point of my nightly sleep session.

However, the first step of sleep regulation, with few exceptions, is a commitment to Up on Time.  For the first morning of DST, I did that.

Attracting Me Back

No sign-ons to FB, X, or Reddit for a week.  All but FB has given up on me, or understood my value to them accurately.  FB does its best to entice my return.  The icon on my mobile app reads 32 notifications.  It increases by a few each day.  Reddit has 4, constant since day 2 of my respite.  Twitter has zero.  We do not miss each other.  

FB also sends messages to my email box.  People who I know, people who I care about, have continued posting in my absence.  FOMO, they anticipate.  I must know what these dear people expressed.  I don't think I missed any birthdays.  I don't know when the next FB Friend's birthday arrives.  There are two that I remember this month.  Each worthy of a special day with a generous greeting that likely will not arrive, but also not generate resentment in its absence.

I'm not ready for my Next Act there.  Perhaps when I go on vacation in another two weeks.

Soreness

After extension of a three day scheduled treadmill recovery time an additional three days, my sessions have resumed.  OLLI classes begin at 9AM most mornings, so to complete my program in time I need to start walking at 7:30AM.  Then I will have a half hour to dress and brew coffee into an insulated mug before I head off.  What I've not done well has been on the nutritional end, eating a reasonable breakfast before driving off.

My legs have gotten a bit sore with no meaningful reversal from my every third day off.  I am still able to complete my eight minute stretching session twice weekly without serious myalgia, though a bit of stiffness.  

While on the extended hiatus, prompted by soreness, I took a naproxen tablet night and morning but have suspended that.  I am reluctant to resume, though I tolerated the pills adequately and felt less pain.  I do not think the earlier exercise time has created the soreness and it has enabled me to not skip a session on days that I return home late.  

Just put up with this, a few more days, then reconsider the NSAID.

Still Unopened

Midweek on social media avoidance.  Still not opened FB, X, Reddit.  My phone apps tell me how many messages await.  FB has 6, same as yesterday, which is only two more than the day before.  They really want we opening this, even sending messages to my email identifying who among my FB Friends has posted something their algorithm as spokesman for their advertisers thinks I should at least look at.  Didn't bite.  Reddit app on my phone lists 4, same as yesterday.  The note in my email when somebody has commented to something I have posted, even sharing that content by email.  Deleted without opening.  X probably doesn't want me to know.  I've taken down  the icons from laptop's home screen.  Have not unistalled the apps from the smartphone.

I do not really feel tempted to peek.

Did Instead

Third full day without signing on to X, FB, or Reddit.  I am accessing my email less, but still more than the three times a day anticipated.  

I did my usual activities, those things I would have done anyway without a social media restriction. Up on time, treadmill on time, on-site OLLI session in the morning, Zoom session in the afternoon.  I had a decent lunch.  Made a trip to Trader Joe's for a minimum of things.  I'd have done all of these and still engaged in my usual allotment of social media.

The purpose, though, was to focus on things that had been neglected.  After my OLLI class, I began to tackle the final section of the main bathroom closet.  I did not time the effort.  Some minor sorting.  Things that go to the basement, things that go first level.  Plastic bags are now inside a single plastic bag.  Very little discarded.  Two large bags of health and grooming supplies that will need sorting.  Finished the book I was reading, the third of three in this semi-annual project, the one on a Jewish theme from a bound book.  I began composing an article on Loneliness.  Target 900 words, edited and submitted for publication.  Sometimes you just have to start.  About 300 words, most not worthy of appearing in print for strangers to read.  Really, not that much progress.

I made a list of the Daily Tasks that I am most likely to make excuses to languish.  Most still languish.  I did a good job reading, though.  Tackling two very long articles in The Atlantic, two difficult ones in The Forward.  I would like to comment on one or two of them as Letters.  And I still have time before I make a semi-special supper.  I also feel pretty decent, which will enable me to work some after supper.  

Focus remains a challenge.  There are some articles on how to improve this.  It will take more than just eliminating a common distraction like social media.

Being Frivolous

Fun has never been a high priority, at least since my teens.  FB friends who learn that I have never been to a rock concert think I have missed out on some of life's most meaningful experiences.  I have never sought anything from a designer or patronized an exclusive store.  My two professional massages were gifts.  Not a chance that I would seek one out on my own, not on a cruise ship, not from a storefront franchise.  I've not had my hair styled, just efficiently cut after it's been overdue. I've never gone skiing or snowboarding, just snow tubing one time. Meals out are expensive for assigned special occasions, though never extravagant or at a place so exclusive that telling somebody I've eaten there would create an impression.  Some things are just frivolous, not worth purchasing.  Yet I have my own targeted amusements.  I have a liking for a day at a water park.  Linking one to an amusement park is even better.  On a cruise liner's chocoholic buffet, I arrive at the announced starting time, usually an hour when I would ordinarily be asleep.

Some things merge the utilitarian with the indulgent.  My insulated mug, obtained for free from a pharmaceutical company when they were still allowed to gift promotional items to doctors who might prescribe their products, served me quite well.  It has been many years since the companies got together amongst themselves and discontinued these items.  My mug still keeps coffee warm and it fits under the dispensing spout of my Keurig machine, but the seal between its plastic lid and insulated bottom has gotten loose.  Technology on these items has also advanced.  My original thermal travel mugs had plastic inside and out with a vacuum between layers.  My daily one has plastic on the outside, stainless steel on the inside.  The lever atop the lid moves across the top to allow coffee to flow, but does not always stay in the intended position as it sits in the car's cupholder.  Maybe time to replace.

As with most things, technology has come to the marketplace.  These travel mugs insulate more effectively, typically about five hours of hot, and about sixteen hours of cold.  Inner surfaces remain stainless steel but the outer part has transitioned to metal, usually a painted surface with fine texture in a variety of colors.  The shape has changed.  It is still possible to buy one that fits snugly in the center holder then expands upwards, but more cylindrical designs have taken over, presumably to capture better thermal retention properties.  Some have one diameter to fit in the holder, and a larger cylindrical shape above the holder.  Others are just cylinders.  Some have handles, though a two-cup car holder can really only accommodate one handle.  And the lids, while still plastic, seal tightly. Most have a more sophisticated and secure mechanism to keep the mug in its sippable and closed positions.  Moreover, the market for cold has expanded, so many have straws that attach to a male end on the underside of the lid to allow a straw to collect liquid while the user sips from a plastic lid segment that rises and lowers to allow consumption or seal.

Creative designers and patent attorneys have to be paid, so the modern mugs have gotten considerably more expensive.  Some coffee shops or iconic thermos brands offer their own logos at a premium.  It is not a trivial purchase anymore, though whatever the consumer selects should be durable.  

I went to several stores, mostly places I thought would discount them.  Poor selection, low quality at all of them.  I looked online.  Again, surprisingly limited selection, much harder to sort on Amazon than sorting shoes or shirts.  And while expensive, not so costly as to qualify for free shipping.  Some local stores only had the types with a straw.  Target had a fair selection, though priced above what I would be willing to spend for something useful, but not essential.

Finally I found the selection I needed at a Marshalls at a price acceptable to me.  I saw one just right.  Had it not only come in pink, I'd have purchased it.  As much as strive for gender parity in my professional world, and critique my synagogue for slouching on this, some things are just effeminate.  Teal green or battleship gray would be at the cash register.  But not lady pink.  Eventually I found a stainless steel travel mug, right size, right top, right price.  Selected that.  And for the same price, I selected a second one, smaller volume, more cylindrical, name-brand, semi-mechanized top.  Took both to the register for roughly the same price one at Target would have cost.  And I paid cash.  Not perfect in design like that pink one, but either will keep my morning coffee hot longer than it would take to drink it, most at OLLI, but also on some half-day travel.  

Everything has a downside.  Both are too tall to fit under a Keurig machine, so I will need to fill a cup and pour it if I make the coffee that way.  Or better, it might be a good excuse, once a day, to make better coffee in a French press or Melitta cone, then pour it into the insulated cylinder before heading to the car.  And since I know what the ideal option is, I can keep my eye out for one in a more acceptable color.

Hot coffee, good coffee, the best I can make at home, is not frivolous.  Coffee shop prices can be if coffee is the product being sought, not frivolous if I am paying $3 to rent space for undistracted Me Time or camaraderie with others who see the coffee shop as a non-alcoholic Publik House.  The mug, judiciously chosen, adds to the enjoyment.  To-Go, Starbucks or WaWa's cardboard option just doesn't match the pleasure of liquid still hot an hour later.  A quality insulated mug, one that should last years, or for me two new ones, searched through several stores for the best buy, should keep the morning coffee worthy of a slow sip in the OLLI Lounge, the classroom, or on the Interstate.

Don't Sign On

This is the week for no Social Media.  No Reddit, No Twitter, not even FB.  I checked the March Birthdays, as I would be willing to wish old friends a wonderful special day, but there are none this week. Reddit icon removed from opening screen.  X never on it.  FB stays, as I need some discipline not to open it.  Email stays.

Despite rationing these things, I never set a chess clock or electronic equivalent to measure when I am signed on.  It's likely more time than I would have assessed by unmeasured impression.  I think I can shun this for a week.

So what do I and everyone else crave from these sites?  The designers of these programs know that.  Twitter is basically a wasteland where people of prominence pitch their political opinions.  It is also a place where The Atlantic runs articles that I have read for others to comment upon whether they have read it or not.  It may also be where a lot of lonely people seek the illusion of connection.  I will occasionally get a message that somebody decided to follow me.  I open their profiles, which invariably show them following 4K people, which may not all be real people, but only have 40 people following them.  There seems something desperate about that.  Or at least unlikely to make a lonely person less lonely.

Reddit will be a lot harder to shun this week.  It is a platform where I am helpful to people that I do not know.  I should be helpful to people I do not know.  And the designers notify me of comments based on my posts in my email inbox, which I have started deleting unopened.

FB was fine when I first enrolled fifteen or so years back.  It reconnected me to people from my past.  I acquired some tolerance for people who went on trajectories I would have avoided, or acquired ideologies very much in opposition to mine.  Its program algorithms were pretty effective at picking out things I liked, from my favorite comic strips to places I've been or regret never having been.  But I am overwhelmed by the unwelcome, while the friendships of people from my fondest past have mostly ebbed.  Very little is stimulating.

So without this for a week, or indefinitely might be better, what replaces the time allotted to it, or more accurately,  frittered by it?  Glancing at my whiteboard where my semi-annual projects appear in the left column, I've never denied myself a chance to pursue any because of social media.  Though it has been an interruption at times from what I should have been doing instead.  But sometimes signing on to FB or Reddit is a reward for a noble effort in something on that project list.  There are times when I go out to a park or out to a coffee shop to escape the attraction of my laptop, or even bring the laptop with me for a pre-determined purpose.  I may be able to do more of those things.

First morning off the X, FB, Reddit going OK.  No withdrawal symptoms.  No dramatic urge to migrate to email.  No refocus to my big personal initiates either.