Scheduling Myself

It's been a good year, or maybe half-year.  My semi-annual projects appear on course less than two months into the current cycle, and did mostly well for the previous six-month block.  Some projects easy, sure things.  Others need slow but steady.  Those have done better.

There might be many inflection points, though not overt tipping points.  I enrolled as a research subject for my state's flagship university.  It required a measure of physical activity that I could not have completed a year ago.  Some intense exercises to my right quadriceps and brisk walking over a half hour.  What enabled this was my commitment to a treadmill schedule and YouTube stretching video.  I set times to do these things, essentially appointments with myself.  I know the scheduled days but left flexibility with the times. Now I have a fixed time, rarely violated in the absence of another conflicting place I need to be.  And whether OLLI, synagogue, or doctor visits on schedule for the morning, I make an effort to walk on the treadmill first.

My personal writing has done better, though acceptance for publication has not. I get more submissions.  Enough shots on goal will eventually get through the net.  I have a fixed time to sign onto Word.  I've also tapped into the wisdom of experienced writers who do the same.  One that I admire sets a daily word quota, another writes a regular column with a word target.  I use a timer.  My intent had been 90 minutes five days weekly.  I find that my mind only focuses for about a half hour at a time.  But starting at a fixed time most days has made all the difference. 

Even recreation and personal learning get timed.  I watch YouTube after supper, usually with one long video and a few shorter.  Curiosity Stream gets watched on my smartphone before retiring for the night. I question the wisdom of this, as the blue light screen may disturb the sleep that follows, but a Curiosity Stream video remains a second tier priority.  Even sleep times, really in and out of bed permissions, have gotten fixed times.  My smartwatch tracks sleep stages, really the surrogate markers of sleep stages.  Middle of the night wakening remains unresolved.

While comfortably adapted to the unscheduled life of retirement, I realize there are advantages to a work model.  For forty years I went to work.  I did tasks assigned and undertaken voluntarily, irrespective of how I felt, either about what I was assigned to do or my self-assessment of energy.  The clock ruled.  I met deadlines.  I had times to do payroll and pay taxes.  Hospital time took place at predictable hours as did patient office encounters.  I expected myself to leave the house on time and not return until the expected tasks that should not wait until the next day had been done.  Scheduling has become harder, or more correctly, easily postponed with little immediate consequence.  But as my exercise schedule yielded its benefits over about a year, those small but consistent efforts accumulated.  My YouTube videos, plant maintenance, shabbos observance, and monthly financial review have all done better when a time is assigned to do them. I've done less well with house upgrades.  They just don't have the same priority as my health and mind, but they are reasonably finite tasks, though large ones.  I follow a timer, just don't show the same performance consistency that I have with other personal semi-annual initiatives.  No barrier to adding these to tasks I schedule myself to do.  Small consistent performance.  Large projects progress to completion.

Landscapers

Ramit Sethi who made his fortune guiding people to handle their money in the most sensible way has some reservations about owning your own home.  When he runs the numbers on the true value of home ownership, he includes real costs, down payments, mortgage, taxes, upkeep, insurance.  It does not always give the best financial return.  Sometimes lifestyle prevails.  I like having a space that is mine.  Mortgage paid off long ago.  Only one other borrowing episode to replace asbestos siding with vinyl.  Other than purchase costs, and selling costs which have not yet happened, we still have those expenses that never disappear.  Insurance on autopay.  Taxes just boosted significantly following countywide reassessment.  Upkeep never ends.  Some outlay to the plumbers periodically.  And the pest inspectors who seem to do well at keeping us free of six and eight legged vermin, frustratingly incomplete with sending the mice on a one way ticket.  We have an electrical contract, about $30 a month.  They inspect our systems for us twice a year, tell us what is wrong, which is usually more than what really needs repair, then gives us an estimate for them to fix what they say we ought to fix.  We get a second electrical, plumbing, or heating estimate from reputable contractors that always undercut them, sometimes even advising us not to undertake the project yet.  And then there is tree removal.  Infrequent but costly enough to have a place on my spare credit card that gives 2% credit for my next airfare.

And then we have the landscapers.  Some things are simply beyond my capacity, others within my capacity that I really prefer paying somebody else do.  I still have several lawnmowers, including one that probably runs.  My lawn gets mowed weekly by a different, more limited landscaper. It gets fed a few times a year by Lawn Doctor so it will grow faster and need more mowing.  But twice a year, the forest primeval that has become my yard needs control.  Trimming hedges which brush my head with dew or the previous night's rain when I walk out my front door.  A perimeter of plantings along the back yard.  I rarely go to the back yard, but look out the window frequently. My garden disabled a few times with herbicide.  Gutters that have sprouted their own vines in the growing mixture that settles there.  No shortage of things to do.  Impressive bill each time, but our grounds appear well tended whenever they finish multiple tasks.  Just something the hangs at the interface of needs doing and want done.  Either way, beyond my level of skill.  In my senior years, my physical capacity to do these things has long passed.  

Portions for One

It's been a while since I lived alone for more than a few days.  Approaching my 48th wedding anniversary.  We've been apart for a few days at a time, mostly business trips.  Even our hospitalizations have been few, local, and brief.  Over that time, raising kids brought transitions.  They were around, then they weren't.  Sleep away camp for each, first one, then both.  College.  First one, then both, never to return as part of our daily household once they as they pursued their careers.  Now their children, one arrived, one soon to arrive.  One a five hour drive, the other a five hour flight.  Our daughter needed Mom's assistance and support, as a sperm bank mother who also lives alone.  

I dropped my wife at the airport, anticipating a five-week separation.  I will visit the other coast with them in about three weeks, but the logistics of her apartment require me to stay somewhere else each night.  Still, we can eat our meals together while we share newborn care that week.  Safe arrival of wife with daughter confirmed.

That leaves me living by myself for a few weeks.  I started immediately upon returning from the airport by making our bed.  My wife usually does this.  Tomorrow night I need to put the garbage bags and recycling in their proper bins, then wheel each to the end of our driveway.  Another wife task.

My experience living alone is considerable, just not recent and never in a spacious suburban house that can absorb me with chores.  Unlike my student days, I have few pressing deadlines and no externally imposed exams.  I also have little desire to seek recreation as an escape, or maybe supplement, to assigned work.  My semi-annual projects get pursued whether or not my wife occupies our house.  Some of those initiatives, though, move through stages better with the assistance of a second person.

The list of twelve lies to my left on a whiteboard held to a file cabinet with a magnet.  Writing to create and submit.  Might consider a day trip.  Not going to invite any friends for Shabbos dinner, though I would consider an unlikely invitation extended to me.  Exercise, sleep hygiene, and prudent eating continue, though the eating part may need some decisions.  And household upgrades, those decluttering or restoration projects, do not need a second person's help at their current stages.  My wife's car could use some attention.  I can do that.

Food will likely require some adaptation.  Supermarkets do not focus on sole occupants of homes.  Bread comes in loaves of more than a pound or as rolls or bagels in packages of six.  Maybe move half of each package into a separate bag which can go in the freezer.  Eggs come as a dozen.  In recent years, I have only made myself one at a time, but I could expand to two.  Or I could use four as a quiche or as a cake.  Veggie burgers or Beyond Beef can be separated into individual patties.  Frozen vegetables are easily apportioned.  While I usually buy potatoes or onions in a sack of 3-5 pounds, they are sold individually.  I have the option of buying one or two.  Same with apples, oranges, and bananas.  I've not seen milk sold in an 8 oz carton in a long time.  I use almost none.  Snacks, those munchies the doctor prefers I not consume, come in big packages.  So does cereal.  So does the ice cream that I buy.  A 48 oz carton will last a long time.  It may pay to spend a bit more per ounce and opt for a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Or buy a package of Klondike Bars or Sandwiches instead of a carton.  Cereal, another munchie rather than breakfast food, comes in a big box.  Coffee, my most common beverage, has many single serving options.  K-cup by far the easiest, but I also have an individual Melitta cone and a one-cup French press.  Oatmeal now comes prepackaged as individual servings.  I know how to portion pancake mix to make a single large flapjack.  I won't go hungry.  I won't waste.  What I create in the kitchen still needs clean-up.  That does not change much whether I cook only for myself or for a couple.  I very rarely eat out, though I did that more often as a student.  My kids' generation orders take-out and delivery.  I rarely do.  Might I go out for a slice of pizza more often, or go to a coffee house, or the brew pub?  Not on the plan, but it would not surprise me to default that way.

I know surprisingly few people who live alone.  My wife's in-laws are widowed, her sister never married.  Some folks from the synagogue, mostly widowed.  We once had bachelors, though most have passed away.  Almost no divorced people.  They seem pretty self-reliant.  Never asked any of them if people invite them over for Shabbos or even Seder and Thanksgiving.

On day 1, I foresee the challenge of self-reliance.  Not having my wife with me at supper or in bed will not be devastating, knowing she is alive, active, and being infinitely helpful somewhere else.  Our modern communication devices keep us in touch.  I don't see myself compensating for a few weeks of relative solitude by doomscrolling on the cell phone or laptop.  I have a firm concept and a realistic commitment to pursuing my semi-annual projects.  I'll probably make more of an effort to find some people time each day, whether at a store or synagogue, to make myself more interactive in my wife's absence.  But I really do not need significant surrogates to animate my empty house.  Just some minor adjustments to living by myself as I once did successfully.

On the Turnpike

My car has offered me freedom since I first acquired my own in my mid-20's.  At the time, I lived far from my relatives while attending school.  My univercity's city had vestigial public transit, only a bus system.  The rail line would appear decades later.  To visit my father in one city, my girlfriend in another, and my future in-laws at their home in another, would take me two days as a solo driver, though a marathon through performance with shared driving.  By myself, I would only drive long distances in daylight or not much past supper during winter's darkness.  That remains true today, after 47 years of marriage, as my wife defers the driving to me.

My car has remained my freedom.  I go anywhere and everywhere around town at whim.  Commuting during my working years got bundled into my work.  Adjacent cities, maybe a radius of 150 miles, get visited with little planning.  I've also done longer trips, those needing an overnight stay, though never two overnight stays.  This task offers a challenge.  I have destinations.  A resort, different city, wife time someplace where we've not visited before, the National Parks with auto rentals, wine country east and west.  

Until recently, as I reached my senior years, the territory traversed often captured my interest more than the arrival to a destination.  Crossing into states I'd not visited before.  Mountains.  Farms.  Roads that have no route numbers.  I've stopped for coffee at convenience stores, wondering why somebody or their ancestors opted to settle in an isolated place.

Interstates have become the mainstay of destination connections.  There seem to be two genres.  Some states, particularly NY and PA, have created dedicated turnpikes.  The NY State Thruway and Pennsylvania Turnpike each came about by intentional design. Not always what everyone regards as intelligent design.  The Highway Departments determined where the exits best belong, often scores of miles apart.  These connect to smaller roads, also operated by the state, to let visitors get to attractions or rural state colleges, often located a considerable distance from the limited-access highway.  Tolls support them.  So do franchise fees paid by businesses to market their travel services at designated rest stops.

The other format developed in a less planned manner.  Roads already existed connecting places that travelers were already visiting.  These thoroughfares received federal dollars for improvement.  The upgraded, high-speed roads include more frequent exit ramps.  Instead of dozens of miles, their town connections are usually a few miles.  Towns each have their history, but most came as a consequence of federal land parcels, towns created by railroad construction, or land grants to establish educational institutions.  These have an element of free enterprise cooperating with government.  As a driver approaches each off-ramp, the Interstate Highway System posts a sign with where drivers can find a place to eat, stay, and refuel as needed.  Most of these services come from regional or national corporations which either own or franchise the individual businesses.  As a driver, I could get a sense of what convenience stores operated over that region and gasoline that sells regionally as well as nationally.  The hotels are nearly always national, but occasionally an independent inn in a more remote area will pay a fee to have its motel on the interstate sign.

The hotels have figured out that motorists overestimate or underestimate how much distance they can safely cover.  Reservations can be made by cell phone from the convenience store or gas station before the anticipated stop, or we've just stopped and asked for a room. Sold out rarely happens.  Drivers need little more than a bed and some coffee to enable the next day's drive.  Since most interchanges have multiple gasoline options, the price stays regionally competitive.  Along the way, signs indicate attractions.  I've found a few wineries or distilleries to lightly sample as I stretch. I've made spot decisions to stop at a university I've seen play sports on TV.  The wineries in particular often situate their vineyards a few miles from their interstate, enabling a few minutes of leisurely motoring without traffic or teamsters getting their rigs as far as possible before union or ICC rules force them to drive off to where they can sleep in their modern truck cab for the required hours.

As I get older, my tolerance for time behind the wheel has ebbed.  To attend a vital family event, I drove five hours along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, coming and going.  I found the drive tedious, probably a consequence of central planning that the less planned interstates avoid.  Monotonous scenery.  State rules limit billboards, which often provide quick visual respites that benefit drivers.  Few buildings to see from the roadway.  Tunnels, four of them, offered welcome relief.  Since the Turnpike connects secondary roads, I exited once time in each direction to find a place for lunch.  These regional centers, small towns that function independent of metropolitan areas, each had convenience stores and familiar name restaurants a short drive from the interchange with easy access back.  While the state franchise fast food at the rest stops, it does not sponsor lodging.  Most of the regional towns will have the familiar motel chains or motorists can identify them online by either exiting or letting a passenger access the options on the cell phone.

I found the driving tiring, something I had tolerated much more easily during my school years, driving a similar route and beyond.  The thrill of getting there, those stops at wineries or shopping malls instead of regional convenience stores, did not happen.  No family eateries like I encountered often at Interstate Exits, which I drove from the airport to the western National Parks.  No bridges with gorges, no railroads running parallel to the interstate.  Just a conduit to get me to where I wanted to be as quickly as a car can cruise control at speed limit.  Something planned by bureaucrats and technocrats.  Functional.   Beauty and meaningful visual interest not included in the plans.

Weekly Circular Store Shelf Mismatch

 

Grocery shopping did not go well.  As a kosher consumer, Rabbi of my shul, the Orthodox one, two Rabbis ago, now some 25 years ago, cashed in some friendship favors with the head of a local supermarket chain.  One store in the Jewish population center would create a kosher meat department, deli, and bakery.  As a result, those of us who once schlepped 45 minutes to independent Kosher butchers in our magnet city's Orthodox neighborhood, filling our freezers to capacity every couple of months, could now buy what we needed mostly for supper in a much more convenient way.  Supermarket business is notoriously competitive and at low profit margins. Having all the people with kosher homes shopping there to the exclusion of other grocers, made the friendship pay off for everyone. Well, not exactly everyone.  As local Kosher oversight committees around America made similar arrangements for their observant Jews, the independent kosher butchers closed their shops in all but the places of highest Orthodox presence.

I also had my transition, as did my Jewish community.  We have become older.  Parents of late teens and college kids at the start of the project became empty nesters.  Rabbinical transitions and animosities among key players took its toll.  Kashrut attracts older people.  As actuarial realities and sunbelt migration play out, there are fewer kosher consumers.  But those who remain, continue our personal loyalties to that particular store, despite a selection of beef and poultry far less diverse than it once was.  The misdeeds of Rubashkin's Agriprocessors ended economical kosher beef.  Its substitute suppliers keep us afloat with ground beef, cubes, and minute steaks.  I've not seen liver in years and briskets only near the Festivals when people make big dinners for extended families.  The deli has become a pawn as key people who truly have not been treated well by dominant local Jews, protect their turf.  Yet our loyalty to that store in that location remains firm.  I seldom make a purchase from the deli, deterred by expense.  Same with the bakery, which rarely offers anything baked in store for what I am willing to spend.  Indeed, the store's hechsher has the logo of the departed Rabbi, not the current mara d'atra of my synagogue.

What I seek out as specialty kosher for my basket, though, is a pittance of what I put in my cart each week.  The economics of food processing has made available every imaginable mass-produced edible with a factory-applied kosher insignia from one of several international supervision agencies.  My full cart has kosher, but not locally supervised.  The same packaged stuff available anyplace.  But I shop at the place where I can also purchase kosher raw beef and chicken, though I rarely prepare either other than for Shabbos and Festivals.  Even my kosher Thanksgiving turkey I buy someplace else.  My Rabbi and his supermarket CEO chum called it right.  Kosher brings loyalty.  So do better prices, which this store seems to have.  And top tier employees, where they seem to struggle.

Every Wednesday, the postman delivers a packet of supermarket advertising.  It contains circulars from about a half dozen competing markets, each of colored newsprint, about eight pages long.  I extract the one from my grocery, recycle the others.  I take it to the desk in My Space, extract a page from one of those 8.5 x 3.5 pads that I harvest from periodic non-profits solicitation envelopes, take out a pen, most commonly a red Flair pen, and begin my review of the coming week's supermarket promotions.  The page from the pad has a logo with lines for writing on the front, blank white on the right.   On the front, I note what I definitely will purchase. Either it's a deal too good to pass up, or I need it.  Typically that fills a little more than half the sheet.  On the blank reverse, I write those items that I will consider as I shop.  That list fills an entire column, then a third or so of the next column.  After I am done, usually two sessions spread over a half hour to get through all eight pages, I write on the front what must get because I am running low, irrespective of its inclusion in the weekly sale circular.  The circular and shopping list then get clipped together with a home on the far reaches of my desk until ready to drive to the supermarket.

Short essential list:

1. K-Cups; House Brand #36
2. Stovetop Espresso Maker
3. #2 Pencils which I buy each year
4. Papermate stick pens, which did not write last year
5. Spiral Notebook purchased each year
6. Chex Mix
7. Tastykakes

Essential has a context.  I have enough stationery.  My doctor thinks I snack too much.  Have enough coffee pods to last a while.  But my stovetop espresso maker failed some time ago from a deteriorating gasket that I cannot easily replace.  Essential becomes things I will eventually use which can be obtained at a price low enough that I will not anticipate a similar bargain in the near future.

 

I entered the store expecting to purchase little more than this, as I did not want to spend a significantly greater amount of time there to explore the much larger number of items on the back side of the sheet.  This store puts its advertised circular bargains right near the front entrance.  I put two boxes of Tastykakes in my basket.  Usually they have sale K-cups there, but not this week.  I wheeled my cart to the coffee aisle, taking a box of 36 for my cart.  School supplies just entering the Back to School season, though school will not reopen for another six weeks.  I found a minimal pile of spiral binders, wide rule 70 sheets each, my usual Back to School annual purchase. I put one yellow and one red cover in my basket.  No advertised pencils or stick pens.  A sign pointed to a supply at aisle's end.  None there either.  Looked at cereals and snacks without finding Chex Mix.  Wouldn't even know where to find the espresso maker, the one item that would add to my enjoyment.

Near the front door they keep a customer service area.  In this computerized era, the clerk can type in a number and find it.  I waited my turn, a short wait.  The young man greeted me, though he looked like his coffee break might have gotten overdue.  I asked him to get me a circular, then I circled from the ad what I could not find.  No pencils or pens in stock.  Chex Mix with the snack aisle, where it was not when I went back to look for it.  He did not even have the espresso maker listed in his store's computerized inventory but he told me which aisle it would be in if and when the store stocks it.  Rainchecks for pens and pencils.  No Chex Mix to be had.  And the Espresso Maker exists only on newsprint received by a few million households in my metro area, not in the store or even in the inventory of what the computer can affirm as present on site.  Rain checks have to be generated by their computer as it includes a UPC code to scan for the discount.  Phantom items like my desired stovetop device have no way in modern grocery retailing of providing me the discount, even if the item appears on their shelves past the expiration date of the weekly circular.

So basically, the best and brightest of the grocery world lured me into their store expecting bargains that they were not able to fulfill.  In my younger years, the 1970s or so, an age of emerging consumerism where people read Consumer Reports and watched interviews of Ralph Nader on talk shows, we called this Bait & Switch.  Advertise an item at a low price, not have it, consumer gets similar item at full price or does other shopping in store.  It was at the time part of strategy to squeeze a few dollars from each shopper.  Most merchants offered rain checks, handwritten vouchers to purchase the advertised item at the sale price later, but it required the consumer to wait her turn at the customer service desk.

Unavailability of advertised items still occurs, though no longer part of profit enhancing strategy.  Replacing it seems more the growth of businesses to massive proportions with centralization of shared tasks, dependence on technology which never runs glitch free, multiple satellite outlets, serving millions of consumers, all in a competitive but oligarchical environment with a few similar enterprises trying to make their branch store the one I find most attractive.  My grocer has hundreds of stores, but rather than being centrally owned, they are regionally owned and franchised by a central distributor.  Somebody has to decide what will go on sale in what region each week, tell that to the staff that advertises those decisions who prints and mails the weekly circulars.  Then somebody else has to secure a supply of those thousands of different products, obtain them from suppliers in an era where expected distribution does not always happen, bring the products to the individual sites, and record it for the clerks who interface with the customers to call up each individual item by current supply and location in that store.  Plenty of steps to break down, and as I learned, they do break down.  There was no Chex Mix even though the computer said there was.  

Sometimes the merchants can anticipate iffy supply.  The circular will say "where available, no rainchecks."  That way they can advertise Kosher Chicken everywhere but only stock the stores which have enough Jewish customers to buy enough of it.  Back to school, Valentine's Day, and Christmas have seasonal items which will run out and not get restocked as the targeted events pass.  But the items I wanted, especially the espresso maker, did not have that restriction.  Still, I could not be assured that my store will ever have it or that I can receive the advertised discount if it ever appears on their shelves.

Retailing in America, at least stores, have earned the shopper's skepticism.  They invite you to get something at a good price that you cannot have, after making an effort to drive there, bring your own shopping bag, and looked on the store's shelves for more than you came for.  Electronic shopping doesn't have that albatross.  Circulars from Amazon do not arrive.  Even unsolicited pop-ups are rare.  People sign on when they know what they want to purchase, though the browsing options are ample and easy to use once a category gets selected.  Shoppers learn of discounts once ready to select.  A blue shirt may have a different price than a lemon yellow shirt.  I looked up the espresso maker, known in e-tailing as a MokaPot.  No shortages.  But not at the price my grocer advertised, either.  I guess, like some of our political candidates, they dedicate themselves to they/them but rarely to you.

Best Efforts that Fail

Not gone well.  Disappointments. Been a slurry of rejections for not only good efforts but in addition what I think generated good achievement.  Outcome as the arbiter of worthiness can pose a mental trap.

We got a mixed message from Torah this summer in the story of Pinchas.  He engaged in a very questionable act of vigilante violence at the end of one of the few weekly Torah portions left as a cliff hanger.  We return the following shabbos, or really the following Monday, to learn the consequences.  He gets rewarded.  His reward confirms the merit of his boldeness or of his violence.  Good outcome=Good Decision that caused it.  We get another message on Mitzvot.  We do them irrespective of reward.  Performance is worthy in its own right.  Outcome=Luck.  We can do good deeds for the right reason, but no reward comes our way.

As my recent spate of unfavorable decisions, over which I think I have little control, reaches my mail or email, or synagogue experience, my mind shifts between bad luck and performance lapses.  It's hard to tell.  When I am successful, which I have been more often than not, I give myself credit for my diligence, forgetting that decisions in my favor by Admissions Committees and employers and my fiance all had their element of luck, though never pure luck.  And my disappointments, if chalked up to ill fortune, lose their chance at reversal.  In many ways, failure now becomes the foundation for immense success.  It all depends on how it gets pursued.

Selling Virtue

From time to time, I devote my analysis to a single article.  One from The Forward on a pundit's suggestions for reviving a defeated Democratic Party invites a paragraph-by-paragraph assessment.

His Op-Ed; My Thoughts

https://forward.com/opinion/756508/what-democrats-fighting-trump-should-learn-from-germany-hitler/

In the final years of the Weimar Republic, the German left was paralyzed by ideological divisions, by a failure to persuade broad swathes of the populace that it was capable of guiding the country out of its economic and domestic turmoil, and to neutralize the snowballing popular appeal of a budding despot — Adolf Hitler.

Weimar had power.  If Germany was not functioning, they owned that non-function.  

Today, the American left faces a similarly perilous moment. Since Donald Trump began his second term in office, the Democratic Party — shut out of power in both chambers of Congress — has been flailing around in search of ways to thwart his dismantling of the country’s democratic norms. And with the MAGA-fied Congressional Republicans marching in lock-step with Trump, he has repeatedly outmaneuvered the fractured Democrats.

The real problem, though, is they were voted out nationally for cause.  Donald Trump was not an unknown, as Hitler was by comparison in 1933.  American voters replace failing leaders with some frequency in our history.  We have had states seceed to protect their cultural norm of slavery.  We could have elected at that time a President who would compromise on this or a President who would say Good Riddance and salvage some of the prosperity of cotton diplomatically with a prototype of two two-state solution.  Lincoln and Roosevelt could only sell virtue if they could also sell competence.  Bill Clinton sold competence.  Trump's message, right or wrong, is that of a problem solver in a time when problems are large.   

We’ve seen a version of this movie before, in a different setting, with different players, and with different social, economic and cultural conditions.  Parallels are inexact, of course. But there are so many similarities that they warrant an examination of why the German left — and in particular the Social Democratic Party — failed to stop Hitler.Let’s go back to November 1918, with Germany losing World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicating, revolutionary upheaval erupting across the land, the leftist Social Democratic Party (SPD) taking over governance and trying to launch Germany’s first democracy under tumultuous circumstances.

From the founding of the Weimar Republic until its death in 1933,  the German left was fatally divided over the nation’s direction. The SPD was the strongest force on the German left. The German Communist Party also had mass appeal, but favored revolution and a Bolshevist-style regime over cooperating with the SPD.

The SPD itself was riddled with dissension — torn between pragmatic reformism and revolutionary Marxism. A faction called the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) split from the mainstream Social Democrats over ideological disagreements.a

And today we have a party divide nationally, though not state by state.   AOC is not a statewide official.  The Berne and Sen. Warren are, but they function as two of a hundred.  Neither occupies their Governor's Mansion.  Democratic Governors, functioning in states where people have graduate degrees, work at the forefront of commerce, medical care, and technology, have to sell competence and stability.  They fix roads, make sure there are enough insured patients to get their doctors paid, have adequate public transit.  And they have predictable failures that generate resentment, the DEI, their campuses, the decline of institutions of social engagement.

In early November, 1918, Independent Socialist Kurt Eisner led a revolution in Munich, overthrowing the Bavarian monarchy and proclaiming the People’s State of Bavaria. Eisner was assassinated on Feb. 21, 1919 by a far-right nationalist. Radical left-wing factions, including anarchists and communists, seized the moment and proclaimed the Bavarian Soviet Republic. This regime was short-lived, crushed within weeks by radical-right Freikorps paramilitaries and forces loyal to the central government in Berlin.

We have a certain failure of Democratic Presidents to restore order, even when public sentiment runs in that direction.  It takes a lot of forms from Vietnam/Racial violent gatherings, torching cars after a sports event, going to the Walgreens for cough syrup and finding it locked and the first two scarce salespeople do not have the key. This year, Jewish students chased across the college quad with bullhorns while College Deans and the invariably Democratic elected officials of those states and municipalities let it happen.  People fundamentally want to live peacefully.  It is the other folks who are troublemakers.  

The chaos, bloodshed and terror during the brief reign of the Bavarian Soviet Republic traumatized many Germans, weakened the left, and strengthened conservatives, monarchists, and far-right extremists like the German Workers’ Party, soon to become the National Socialist German Workers’ Party — the Nazis.

They sold themselves as problem solvers.  And people with the strength to bring order and prosperity about.

Although Germany’s political landscape was badly splintered, the mainstream Social Democrats — backed by trade unions  — were a prominent player through most of the life of the Weimar Republic, leading, or being a part of coalition governments. Their power began to wane as the Communists gained  traction on the left, while nationalist and conservative factions surged on the right. The Social Democrats’ decision to support Centrist Chancellor Heinrich Brüning — despite his use of emergency decrees — was seen by many as a betrayal of democratic principles, further eroding their credibility. By the time Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933, the SPD was politically isolated, morally exhausted, and institutionally sidelined.

Nearly a century later, the echoes of Weimar reverberate in Washington. Since Trump began his second term, America has witnessed a spree of executive overreach that has undermined democracy: mass pardons for convicted insurrectionists, an assault on birthright citizenship, extortionist tactics against higher education, law firms and the press, and a gutting of civil protections.

The question remains, can you sell virtue when competence lags?

Democrats, still reeling from Kamala Harris’s narrow defeat and locked out of Congressional power, have struggled to mount a coherent resistance. There have been bright moments: Sen. Cory Booker’s marathon floor speech galvanized activists, however briefly, and state attorneys general have eked out temporary restraining orders against some of Trump’s more brazen orders. But the party’s broader response has lacked urgency and imagination. Sometimes the Democrats’ flailing for relevance produces moments too easy to lampoon, like Chuck Schumer’s boast that he had used a Senate rule to strip the title “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” from Trump’s $3.3 trillion spending package.

It really wasn't a narrow defeat.  The margin was small in each swing state and nationally.  However, that small margin was maintained very consistently in each jurisdiction.  A plurality of 50% + 1 is an electoral approval for the majority to implement what they proposed.  My Jewish world conveys many illusions of its success.  I get newsletters from local Chabad, some of the dearest people around, showing photos of their events. The pictures look like SRO crowds.  When I attend a few, there are maybe a dozen participants.  My shul, a non-egal place, promotes women's participation.  Women read four verse aliyot, men read the others, but they create a promotional illusion of parity that isn't accurate but reinforces belief in gender equality.  Nor does it advance the capacity of some very talented women.  Cory Booker and Schumer had their fifteen minutes, or 24h of fame, but were fundamentally ineffectual people who put themselves on display.

Much like their Weimar counterparts, many of today’s Democrats appear trapped in the belief that the system’s norms will somehow correct themselves. But Trump flouts the norms on a daily basis, leaving the Democrats clutching a rulebook that has already been shredded by America’s 47th president.

One can argue that many norms were shredded before that.  Moreover, they are replaced with new norms.  One need only read an etiquette book from the 1960s and one from the 1990's, often revisions of the same code by the same author.  Early etiquette books did not have chapters on safe sex, which partner supplies the condom, or when female or minority employees should be assertive.  The emergence of anti-Semitism from the Sewer might be Trump 45, it's eruption on elite campuses certainly is not.  New taboos of microagressions correlate a lot more with social media and phone technology than they do with who holds office.  Abe Foxman, probably my favorite Jewish advocate, used to insist on taking advantage of the rules, whatever they happened to be.  

The Democratic Party needs to restore its connection with the masses, shed its aura of elitism, learn how to speak in a language that resonates beyond Beltway bubbles. An anti-Trump resistance movement has spread across the land over the past few months. Why aren’t prominent Democratic politicians at the front of these marches? Of course, there could be security concerns. So why not come up with some novel, creative ways to embed leading Democrats directly in the beating heart of resistance?

This one I almost agree with, though they may be handicapped.  I think one historical element that needs an answer is why the Red Wave predicted in 2022 did not happen, but came with consistency, if not a vengeance, two years later.  The elected officials were already in place.  The culture of identity politics, many would say pandering, had been established.  Closure of hourly earners from the American Dream had been settled.  Yet in 2020, Americans voted a Democratic majority and largely held it amid the culture wars already in place.  What changed is that they didn't own the problems once they were given their governing mandate.  They didn't just have elites, not that it mattered.  There is no greater collection of elitists than the current Cabinet.  What the voters said, I think, is that they botched their chance to govern fairly.  They protected a President, who I met many times as my Senator and admired personally, even though he wasn't up to the task.  By 2024, Harvard and Columbia where my parents wanted to send me and where I wanted to direct my kids, had corrupted liberal education outside the quantitative sciences.  Their supporters sought vengeance for petty verbal comments they perceived as infractions, such as saying there were only two genders or equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.  In short, my party governed poorly when given the chance.  Neither side has virtue to promote.  Instead, they are asking voters to judge who can bring us closer to the life we'd like to have.  A few human sacrifices along the way?  The pro-Hamas and pro-Ayatollah crowd, part of a Democratic base as the primary voters in NYC exposed, don't seem put off by the concept of Human Sacrifice to meet desired ends.

Here’s an idea: a rebirth of whistlestop tours. Recruit fifteen or so Democrats — potential presidential candidates plus a roster of other politicians and even non-politicians who are admired by Americans and have shown an ability to connect with people on a gut level. Have them board a train that would be christened the “Democracy Express.”

All depends on who gets a ticket to ride.  Needless to say, every losing candidate had high profile endorsements.

Just imagine this list of passengers aboard the “Democracy Express,” going from city to city, town to town across the land, talking about issues that resonate with all Americans: JB Pritzker, Andy Beshear, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, Cory Booker plus proven crowd draws like Bernie Sanders and AOC. Add a couple of fresh faces, like Jon Ossoff, the young senator from Georgia, and Becca Balint, Vermont’s representative in the U.S. House. Make a show of a united front — with baseball caps and T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Democracy Express” handed out at every stop.

What this exaggerates is the reality of how few statesmen we have in the public arena.  Princess Di engaged the world, in large part because the future King, or his shadchan, opted for a charming lady too young to have a searchable past.  All the people on that train carry their assailable, searchable baggage.  I think the public abhors entitlement, as the 2016 results reflected.  The Dems have done much better with people like Princess Di, who come as unknown talents.  Jimmy Who, that nice Senator from Illinois.  I'd replace a couple of People of Entitlement with people of widespread respect.  Gov. Schwartznegger, Abe Foxman, NIH director Collins, maybe my own Senator Coons, Sen. Kelly, Gov. Stein, David Brooks or Bret Stephens from the NYT.  They need to restore respectability and sell wisdom, which still has a market to replace the illusion of virtue, which does not.

And as head of this delegation, why not Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington who made Trump squirm in the front row of a church service by asking that he “have mercy” on LGBTQ+ communities, undocumented immigrants, and others who felt threatened by his policies. In a way, Budde was a founder of the anti-Trump resistance. So she would deserve her own compartment on the “Democracy Express.”

Maybe she would.  But so would Rabbi Buchdal or Rabbi Wolpe.  Or the Dalai Lama who cannot vote.  But you also need people who build their congregations, not just inherit what somebody else created.

Defending democracy requires more than integrity—it demands strategy, daring, imagination, a unity of spirit, and the courage to call authoritarianism by its name.

I'll end my commentary on The Forward's op-ed with something I keep on my whiteboard in my line of sight from my desk chair.  It comes from an anthology called Jewish Megatrends.  Its editor, Rabbi Sid Schwarz of Clal, distilled his vision of Judaism into four core elements.

1. Chochma=Wisdom
2. Tzedek=Righteousness
3. Kehillah=Community
4. Kedusha=Sanctity

While the public votes for perceptions, usually scripted ones, of what enhancements they might experience based on who they offer power, the core virtues never disappear, even if their absence are not dealbreakers.  Each of the R Schwarz' elements has an illusion and the real thing.  Demeaning trans, Jews, Muslims, The Other Party in the name of Sanctity is the illusion.  And as Torah emphasizes by putting Mishpatim right after the Ten Commandments, making people's lives as decent as you can, that's Sanctity and Tzedek.  That's what the battered Democrats have a chance to promote.  But the cast of characters on Terry's train doesn't seem up to that challenge.

Disposables

Trivial repairs.  My name brand casual shoes, GH Bass and Sperry have not done well.  I tend to keep items indefinitely.  My Thom McCann K-Mart shoes last until they wear out.  Their low price makes them disposables, but they fit well while I have them.  Rockports and LL Bean indestructable.  New Balance too.  My dress shirts when worn for work, will eventually have sleeve ends that fray.  And ties have a loop in the back to capture the thin end.  It will sometimes separate.  I can sew it back, but usually don't.  In my mend collection or two pair of staple long pants whose belt loops have separated.  My attempts at home repair expose my lack of skill.  A tailor could mend them easily but I wear each infrequently enough to not justify the costs.  Same with leg hems that have separated.  

Moving clothing manufacture overseas has brought us American consumers to a branch point.  Price has come down.  So has much of their durability.  While repairs are possible in principal, they are not alway worth the cost.  And for my GH Bass bucks, which need only a heel cap that I could do myself if I had the part, three shoemakers cannot get the part, nor will the company sell it to me.  The agent who responded to my inquiry suggested I buy another pair from their wonderful collection.  Let me see if the more reliable Rockport has something akin to that.

End of Scout House

If I were asked to design the optimal shul on a yellow pad, what would I create?  Something very close to where I have attended Rosh Hashanah the past several years.  The sponsors announced the end of its thirty year run.

I do not know its origins that far back.  Most of the participants hold membership at a sizable Conservative synagogue, the one where my wedding took place many decades ago.  That era brought the  Jewish catalog and its corollary, the Havurah Movement.  Conservative congregations have undergone many different types of transitions.  Women have acquired worship parity in most places.  Intermarriage has brought to their membership large numbers of people who have their church as their childhood imprint.  Education and literacy have become bimodal.  Some families seek the trappings of Judaism, others delve into its many facets, achieving knowledge of culture and history.  They spurn after school Hebrew schools for their children in favor of all-day, all-Jewish environments.  Many gain skill with challenging parts of liturgy, from leading services to reading the scriptural portions as they get recited publicly.  Rabbi's are caught in the middle.  They need to have casual worshippers not feel burdened, let alone intimidated, but want to offer their most dedicated followers the abiltiy to partake of tradition.  

The Jewish Catalog, now more than fifty years past its initial publication, described this divide, along with ways to address it.  One approach adopted by many large synagogues, usually championed by a member or two rather than the Rabbi, was to separate portions of the congregation who found the abridgments to the sanctuary experience an irritant, and let them worship elsewhere in the building the way they preferred.  The synagogue of my wedding had such a contingent.  Once a month, a subgroup would separate themselves, conduct a full liturgy and Torah reading and supplemental materials, give their own sermon, basically make themselves self-contained without hired clergy.

This reached its extreme on the Holy Days.  Many congregations have let this season become a caricature of what happens in the sanctuary the rest of the year.  People who pay full dues but only come on these few days expect a pageant.  Big donors come to the Torah either rehearsing the blessings in advance or reading a transliteration.  Women appear in the finest that summer clearance at the Outlets offer.  English readings, to make sure the Christians and others of limited Hebrew facility don't get overwhelmed.  A Rabbinical sermon, usually of quality and pertinence, but without excessive references to scriptural and Talmudic underpinnings.  Lots of people there, except kids who the Trustees vote to herd someplace else in the building to maintain solemn decorum.  Those who come those days leave impressed with the work that went into it.  Those who worship with the congregation every Saturday morning register that experience as Judaism Lite.

What the subset prefer is the Orthodox service without the inconvenient Orthodox restrictions.  Liturgy in its entirety chanted by individuals with expertise in doing this.  A sermon with sentence structure and content worthy of a college graduate but also peppered with a foundation of sacred source.  Kids running around with preschoolers being coached by parents to kiss the Torah during its processional. No rabbis, at least not hired for the purpose.  A service dependent on the abilities of those who prefer to attend there over the more formal, and often cathedral-like experience of their central sanctuaries on the Holy Days.  And with gender parity of participation.  Many women have acquired impressive skills.  With families, sometimes multigenerational, seated with each other.  No physical barriers separating men and women.  And an ample parking lot, as spaces can be at a premium when large suburban synagogues conduct their Holy Days services.

A group from a vibrant congregation with observant members dedicated to Conservative rules acted upon their preferences.  Thirty years previously, they created a committee to make their preferred worship environment happen.  They rented a building, a regional mansion repurposed as a meeting venue.  The organizers handled the many logistics.  Security of location, invitations, assigning fees to worshippers to meet expenses, chairs, securing an Ark, borrowing two Torah scrolls and setting each to the portion that will be read from it.  Most difficult task, a recurring one, to find people with needed skills to lead the various portions of liturgy, which can be daunting for the Holy Days. Indeed, Judaism has a side hustle market for Cantors and others with this skill to get paid in the thousands for doing this in congregations, hotels, cruise ships, and other places that do not employ a full time Cantor or music director.  Here, they needed skilled volunteers.  Many worked months to master the Musaf Service, the morning's most challenging portion.  Shofar Blowers needed to create all three sounds without side noises.  Torah reading's musical sound differs on those days, so people prepared to perform with the Holy Days tune had to be recruited.  Sermons were easier to invite, as the group creating this had its share of professors, rabbis who did not have their own pulpit, and others both knowledgeable about Jewish sources and experienced at public presentation.

While the project had its core participants from one synagogue wanting an experience differnt than what their home congregation offered, this stand-alone Holy Days was made available to anyone willing to pay the nominal fee.  That brought a slippery slope of people who did not want to pay full annual dues to an established shul but still wanted a Holy Days experience for much less.  Probably some took this option but most attendance came from the synagogue members who initiated the project.

My wife and I, along with adult children when in town, began attending for Rosh Hashanah quite a number of years ago.  We probably traveled the furthest to get there.  This could be an invitation to take pot shots at my own congregation's activities, but I'll refrain, except for two annoyances.  Our congregation follows the traditional liturgy, engaging a professional cantor, either by payroll or per diem contract.  We do not permit the participation of women, other than to maybe introduce a prayer.  We have a volunteer male choir, which performs well but becomes one more audience focus. My home synagogue has another tradition.  The President chooses a person, or sometimes a group, to honor each day of Rosh Hashanah.  These individuals are announced in advance, for which many of us make a donation to the synagogue's General Fund in their honor.  I've only once found any named individual enough of a personal irritant to not write a $36 check, but my wife overrode me on that.  What I dislike is the pomp that makes two long services even longer as people give testimonials to the honoree and the honoree gives words of appreciation of his own.  While congregations need their own traditions, and honoring men and women who have given added effort to the synagogue's well-being need recognition, to say nothing of the shul needing a few extra bucks, I will drive a bit to a traditional service like the Scout House to avoid this.

Even though we were not members of the dominant contributing congregation, the people at the Scout House always treated us inclusively.  My wife became one of their prayer leaders. I got an Aliyah with some frequency, an honor that would bring me a bill for a few hundred dollars if I wanted one at my own shul.  They figured out that I had reasonable facility with the Hebrew and the choreography of the service. The organizers occasionally tapped me as Second Gabbai for the Torah reading.  And the Musaf Leaders and Shofar blowers were predictably awesome.  A regular participant has a disabled daughter, or more correctly, a disabled young adult worships among us.  Using an electronic device, she also acquired here task each service.  The people there have that blend of smart and kind, something that has largely disappeared from much of our public discourse.  The value of  being smart and kind together enhances as it becomes less frequent.

The long run of this service is about to conclude.  The reasons are several and cumulative.  I think the inflection point would be the original Conservative shul hiring a new young Rabbi, a rising superstar, who everyone at that shul admires.  He is sensitive to the religious variations within his congregation.  People who used to come to the Scout House have been opting for their home shuls instead.  A few key individuals have left.  One died a few years ago.  The organizing couple responsible for much of what came to be, downsized as empty nesters a few years ago.  They sold their McMansion within walking distance of the Scout House in favor of an upscale downtown condo.  

The neighborhood around the Scout House, while always expensive, has gotten out of reach for most people early in their professional careers.  These were our Musaf leaders and shofar blowers.  Congregations around the area will pay for their skills, a boost to young families trying to pay mortgages.  Obtaining the required talent, other than sermon speakers, had gotten too precarious.

So for many reasons, the leaders who sustained the experience opted not to organize it for this year.  I will miss much of it.  The drive, while long, has never been difficult.  I like hearing these very talented women, most of them young, leading services expertly. The people who deliver sermons are uniformly adept at it.  The equal of any congregational Rabbi.  Over time, I've come to know the people.  A fellow doctor who I knew from his online presence, I got to greet in person each year.  A widowed friend found a widowed mate.  They've appeared the last few years.  People I knew from the past who have moved away share enough of my attachment to designate the Scout House as their Holy Day destination.  My sister-in-law lives nearby.  She gets a visit from us after the First Day.

It's an experience my home shul cannot duplicate.  Yet my home shul has always performed above threshold.  The irritants, while there, are not deal breakers.  No reason not to import some of the Scout House legacy.  It would form most of what I would put on my yellow pad, imagining the optimal shul.

Tile Repair

Some things they never taught in junior high shop.  The New York State Regents required all tween boys, 7th and 8th grades, to take a half year of shop, while the girls took home ec.  It would not be open to intergender elective for another seven years, when girls started not only opting for shop but winning awards for things they created.  I went involuntarily.  The requirement had a purpose, though a stereotypical one.  Girls would manage the household.  Boys would do the handyman stuff around the house.  Boys who really never got the hang of grammar or fractions might find their talent with their hands.  Starting in 9th grade, an industrial arts program's availability might be to their liking.  We needed and still need plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics, and flooring installers.  In those days we also still needed TV repairmen.  It would not take that many years for the price of TVs to become disposables by a combination of plummeting price, solid state design, and performance enhancements.  We learned how to use tools, some requiring real safety precautions.  First year wood shop, second year metal.

At the risk of second guessing educational experts who probably had our interests in mind though with a element of groupthink, I never owned electric tools other than a soldering kit, sander, and a hand drill.  Everything else in my basement and garage runs by hand.  Saws, hammers, tape measures.  I created nothing from its elements, not wood, not metal.  I assembled many things that others made: bicycles with instructions written by people of a different native language than mine.  A lot of shelves and bookcases.  Painting.  Quite a lot of that in my young parental, new homeowner years.  I glued broken things together, mostly with superglue that also caused fingers to adhere to each other.  And to be fair to the Regents, I did master staining and varnishing items I bought with unfinished wood.

Big projects got pros.  They never taught us tweens how to fix a faucet that dripped, let alone how to install a disposal unit.  Even the smallest electronic installation was worth the electrician's fee to me.  Extermination of pests never made it to the NY State curriculum. My guess is the principals objected to bringing experimental roaches into their classrooms, not even live mice for biology labs.  It wouldn't even cross my mind to replace a broken window myself.  

Meanwhile, those kitchen skills the girls learned, I more than mastered.  I can do hand sewing.  While I once bought a used sewing machine at a moving sale, I never used it.  Yet if I had committed myself to sewing from a pattern using a machine, I'm confident that I could teach myself how to do it.  Clothing alterations, even hems, still go to a local tailor.  

Now I find myself with a nudgy repair that I should be able to do but don't know how.  My house, approaching sixty years of age, lived in by my wife and me for 44 of those years, has held up rather well.  A few plumbing leaks, new siding, some mice, replacement of the air conditioner and roof on  predictable life spans.  Now I find bathroom tiles separating from the floor where it abuts the wall.  Not a lot of tiles.  Only seven, and I've lost two.  One inch tiles.  We have cleaners mopping those two floors on alternate weeks.  I fear that they will start losing some of the loose tiles.  

Like modern handymen, I looked up what to do online, then went to a tile store.  Replacements for the two missing tiles will require a larger purchase.  Not an exact match but close enough.  I looked at my collection of adhesives which I keep together in a first floor closet in a bin.  Nothing specifically marked for replacing tile.  Internet said apply with Thin Mortar.  I went to the tile store to inquire about adhesives.  For floor replacement, thin mortar is what the tilers use.  This emporium deals with contractors.  They sell Thin Mortar in forty pound powder bags.  Online tells me that other adhesives may suffice, some in small quantities at Home Depot.

For now, I lifted up the loose ones, seven tiles from one bathroom with two squares unaccounted for, one beige tile from the main bathroom with none unaccounted for. They now sit in a fold-lock sandwich bag in a safe place.  Let the cleaners do their next mopping.  Glue what I can easily glue back.  Try to find a small sheet of off-white one inch tiles to replace the missing two.  Perhaps just replace the floor tiling in the smaller bathroom.  I have two other floor projects worth doing, so maybe do this one as well.

For now I want it quickly patched.  Significant skill not yet needed.

On the Move

International Travel, or at least bucket list travel, has taken hold among my friends.  Synagogue President off to Madagascar.  They have unique beaches, probably a local culture, vanilla trees climbed by lemurs, but it's a schlep.  Another fellow off to Bulgaria.  I suppose Rick Steves has complimentary observations about the place.  Another on a cruise of the Seine, another in Alaska, both more typical of where prosperous Americans seek a change of pace in their healthy senior years.  Another HS friend posts daily FB photos from Italy.  And not Rome or the Vatican, but the countryside. Another has travel plans to Vietnam.  I did my utmost to avoid subsidized time there.

My own desire to explore the world in the safe tourist mode will need to remain dormant this summer as we anticipate our first grandchildren in different parts of America.  There are a few distant places I might like to experience.  My ancestral towns of Europe, Australia's cities and Outback, the Orient.  My favorite teacher, the Señorita, once took a group to Spain as she immersed us in Spanish culture over the nearer and more accessible Mexican one.  I've never had much desire to explore Iberia other than its Golden Age Jewish quarters.  African Safari?  Maybe in my younger years, not now.  And I'd still like to see the aurora.  It came in proximity of my home for one night, but I missed it.

My last few travels, those to unique places, have exposed some downsides.  I very much liked a week in Paris, more mixed review of the guided tour.  I'd probably have chosen different activities.  Some were spectacular.  Don't think I benefited much from a cooking demonstration and definitely did not want to pay through the nose for the illusion of entertainment at Le Moulin Rouge.  Road trips have become more my speed.  Mammoth Cave a spectacular place.  The drive there interesting but tedious as the lone driver.  Tennessee, another great place to get to and to be at.  NYC brought me to places on Manhattan Island I'd not visited before.  Getting there and back as a driver to Jersey would have been better delegated to some form of public transit.  Pittsburgh and back, an expensive Turnpike, discounted by EZ Pass.  SF, vacation the first time, work or visiting all subsequent times, with recreation carved in. And cruises.  Just get there and make a plan for each day, while eating at whim.  The suitable replacement for Grossinger's with a daily element of tourism.  

This summer, I will just have to admire everyone else's explorations.

 

Friend Suggestions

When Facebook enticed us, for me 2009, it offered a chance to reconnect forty years after receiving our HS diplomas.  I promptly requested Friends with HS and Hebrew School acquaintances, a few folks from college, and but a handful of personal relatives and people from my town.  Most requests initiated by me were accepted, though girls who marginalized me in HS sometimes declined.  That list settled at about 100.  The algorithm has changed dramatically over the ensuing fifteen years, so maybe about ten of those hundred appear on my feed over a year, not counting birthday notices.  A few died along the way.  But Facebook's business model has clearly shifted from connecting old friends with each other to separating subscribers from a portion of their money, or maybe enraging them in some way.  No new Friend requests have come my way, and I've not offered to connect with anyone else.

Despite this, as I scroll through the messages that the algorithm concludes might keep me preferentially on their screens instead of Twitter's, I can expect to come across a banner of a couple dozen suggestions to initiate new Facebook friends a few times a day.  I scrolled through them.  No doubt, others get their banners with my picture, scrolling past without action, much as I do with my list.

If we have a lot of mutual friends, indicated under the photos, they are probably people from HS, as that is where my FB Friends derive.  If only one or two, which is most of them, they could be anyone's acquaintance or relative.  And many indicated no mutual Friends.  Occasionally a public figure appears.  My own posts early in the FB longevity, included occasional Likes, even verbal responses, from a few men of professional fame, though not recently.  Still, public figures pop up.  One recent one, a sleaze of political notoriety, listed a mutual friend.  She shares that man's political opinions, but I can attest that she is not personally deplorable.  

FB gives the viewer the option of deleting suggested people so that they do not reappear as suggestions, and hopefully my photo gets blocked from their suggested people.  This public blight was one of the few that got my deep six.  He's not appeared since.  There are a few others along the way, people I know locally who I regret forcing to share a communal space.  They get the FB request to make their profile disappear from my suggested contacts.  There aren't very many of those.  It wouldn't really matter, as neither of us would initiate contact with the other.

That leaves me with my ten or so.  All fondly remembered from decades past, though for most I am probably closer to them on Social Media than I was in the Ramapo Senior High School building or school bus.  And there's a secondary ten, people who used to show up more frequently, people of amiable presence and nimble mind worthy of a few sentences exchange.  The FB algorithm has done me a disservice, reducing their frequency on my screen. 

While their business model depends on my staring preferentially at their screens, FB has rightly become rationed time.  None of my current Semi-Annual initiatives require any Social Media.  More accurately, it is destructive to all these intermediate goals.  So putting an array of potential Friends expansions that nobody wants really doesn't keep me glued to the screen or the sponsors for any significant duration.  I'm content with my hundred or so reconnections from fifteen years back.  The ten active, the ten less frequent, and the eighty dormant.