Protecting Prime Time

Like most people, or maybe not, my usual days divide into segments.  The majority of people, certainly me until retirement, had fixed obligations.  We needed to check in at work by a certain time and make provisions to get there.  Some people returned home with predictability.  To keep in good form, we needed to allocate sleeping and wake hours, often aided with an alarm clock.  Once at work, many of us had assigned tasks that did not take into account our natural rhythms, those parts of the day when alertness or creativity peaked while other hours were better suited to activities that required little input from our highest CNS centers.

In retirement, most days belong to me.  Over a short time, I've learned to restore structure that my work obligations once imposed.  Awaken at a fixed time every morning.  Avoid my bed thereafter until a specified time each night.  Lights out at a predictable time, modified to my wife's needs.  I can create environments at home.  My Space designed for focus and comfort.  Bedroom kept as dark as possible every night with a little coolness to enhance sleep.  

Between wake and sleep, many other activities appear.  Exercise on schedule. It traditionally has been what I make excuses to avoid, so that gets a priority right after coffee, even though it requires little mental agility. I remember to take my twice-daily medicines if I set the pills in my line of sight to where I will be, usually at my laptop sipping coffee in the morning or in the kitchen preparing supper in early evening.  Stretching at midday.  YouTube and reading after supper.

Other tasks occur less often, though still scheduled.  Weekly YouTube video created every Monday afternoon.  Weekly aspired task list done at my desk first thing Sunday morning, then selectively transferred to a magnetic whiteboard on the refrigerator.  Weight and waist measured every Monday morning, then recorded to an Excel sheet.  Shabbos dinner needs two minitasks:  defrost meat Wednesday afternoon, defrost minichallot Thursday, and one larger task, cook in time for sundown.  Every Thursday morning while my wife attends to one of her ongoing projects away from home, I tend to clutter in our family room.

All these items get done.  Most are finite.  Most are stand-alone, at least superficially so, though exercise fits into a grander aspiration of continued health and stamina.  Timing adapts to a blend of convenience, avoiding excuses to shirk what I should do, a desire to feel accomplished at the end of each day.

It comes with its downside.  Some highly prized aspirations such as expressing myself, engaging with others, and grappling with ideas, attending OLLI classes depend on my daily rhythms.  The brain has its best times for thinking abstractly, learning new things, and converting concepts to words that can be shared.  I think my optimal mind time fits with the majority, peaking at mid-morning with secondary surges with my first cup of coffee and an hour after supper.  These are the times to seek cognitive flow.  Too often, though, this time gets pre-empted.  When it occurs, distractions too often interrupt those demanding efforts.  Moreover, I'm not entirely certain when my mind functions at its peak.  Maybe when I am exercising, but changing the exercise slot risks not doing it.  For sure, the sorting of family room papers competes with mental prime time because I can count on my wife being away while I work on this.  A better approach, I think, one partially initiated, would be to isolate mental time and creative time just as I do the smaller chores, and as I do when I create my weekly YouTube video.  9-11 at my desk, first half hour thinking on paper, the rest expressing new thoughts and editing old ones.  Then a second effort after supper, 7:30-9PM.  Less TV, or maybe more rationed TV.  Big chunks of protected time for the projects that require undivided attention.  Without getting into my often challenged attention span, the scheduling that I've done the last two years has turned out well.  I need to implement more on a grander scale.  And take advantage of what nature set as cycling abilities.

Back to School Sale

Not attended school in a long time, yet each summer's Back to School sales promotions with in-store displays captures my attention.  It usually gets a small portion of my money.  Lest I emerge as a senior relic, past my IRA's Required Minimum Distribution age, the AARP itself acknowledges this special retail season.  My children have careers.  Their children are infants.  No schools to attend, not for me, not for my descendants.  Yet, stationery and office supplies have always not only captivated me, but gave excuses to find homes for things I didn't need, and won't need.

Right now, my desk displays stick pens in multiplle colors, some click pens.  Pencils both mechanical and wood.  Two cartridge pens.  Three zipper loose-leaf binders.  I use some of these, not others, yet I've always had a fascination with pens.  Pharmaceutical representatives once distributed them to me in quantity, always with the logo of something they wanted me to prescribe stamped to the barrel.  Some were even mid-end in quality.  I use three bound notebooks regularly.  One tracks my Daily Annoyance, one three Daily Achievements, the third my exercise progress.  My desk has things I do not use.  Rulers.  A slide rule of another era.  Two three-hole punch devices to adapt plain paper for a three-ring binder.  I have typing paper.  Art supplies.  Pocket folders, some with clips, others just the pockets, some from stores, others harvested from meetings I previously attended, serve some useful purpose.  Clips and rubber bands get used, though more in the kitchen than in My Space.  I keep three razor edged letter openers, but do not open envelopes at my desk.  Instead, I use them to take copier paper and slice each sheet in half to create each day's Task List.

So while not in school, and not under pressure to appear stylish, each summer I check out the displays.  The process of resupply has changed considerably.  Sunday newspaper ads no longer arrive.  My favorite stores for stocking up have liquidated.  I could always enter a Christmas Tree Shoppe in August and find a few things to take to their register.  Target remains active.  While the store's chain has swooned with little that I want to purchase, each summer they stock their seasonal section in the way back of their stores with yellow bins.  I can expect teaser prices on pens of some type, yellow pencils, marble books, spiral books.  I anticipate needing a new spiral book next month.  Walmart also promotes heavily.  It can be a treasure hunt.  Among my favorite pens were there mulit-color package of Magnatank liquid gel pens.  Only the purple remains, the other lost to use or leakage.  Apparently sales or user feedback did not justify Walmart maintaining them.  Perhaps they still exist on eBay.  I could always use more dry-erase  markers, as my two whiteboards have become productivity and scheduling hubs. There only the Expo brand will suffice, preferably with the thin barrel.  And I can never have too many Bic hi-liter pens in multiple colors.

What advertising still exists also promotes Back to College.  When I designed My Space, I sought to create the dorm room that I could never afford to have.  Color TV, stereo, comfortable reading chair, swivel desk chair, optimal desk lighting.  I spent a little extra on this, though my stereo is a low-end retro without turntable, and my recliner a major disappointment, offset by being better off not occupying it too much at the expense of desk work.  Target and Boscov's supply the college crowd.  Mini-fridges, storage items, irons, coffee makers, small microwaves, stylish backpacks.  I have my optimally stocked house with all the things I need to function.  Big refrigerator, Keurig machine, high-end iron, built-in closets.  My Space has elements of a dorm, but the rest of my house does not.

Fortunately, most of what I now purchase over the summer classifies as consumable, even if I do not wear much of it out.  It takes a long time to deplete the ink of a Bic Cristal, though I succeed with the black one about once a year.  Highlighters last until they dry out.  Pencil cases sort my writing implements by type.  Paper seems inexhaustible, other than notebooks which get filled up.

While I have enough supplies, I anticipate buying some more, looking for discounts.  I don't really need or crave any.  Instead, the Back to School season announces a reset, even though my renewal time has been the medical world's July 1 rather than Labor Day.  The close of summer still has its reset.  The Holy Days.  Resumption of OLLI.  Football.  Target and Walmart and The Christmas Tree Shoppe z"l have all convinced me to stay ready.  

 

Living Spaces

My children and their friends live differently from me.  As much as I enjoy going to a big city periodically, and have lived in a few, my upbringing took place in a free standing suburban house designed from an architectural template.  My adult life had its base in an even larger home, ample bedrooms, basement, garage, attic.  And it filled with stuff that will eventurally find its way to some blend of dumpster and estate sale.  A small city sits a few minutes drive, accessed primarily for synagogue and OLLI.  A major city, where I can travel for free with my Senior Transit Pass makes for a periodic but random visit, usually to visit a museum or historical site.  The city has things that my town does not, but not alluring enough to want to be in proximity.  Even in my time in three major cities, my focus always remained school or work, never trendy places to eat.  Even for shopping, when I had a car, I drove to a suburban mall.

My children attended school in NYC and StL.  They settled and now have families in central parts of SF and Pittsburgh.  Their pre-earnings and early career homes were compact apartments, as were mine.  Not a lot of stuff.  Higher incomes, and now children, did not change that much.  Each lives near a main thoroughfare with short walks to places to eat, most inexpensive.  Supermarkets lie a little farther away, but are not the regional megamarts that send me their sales fliers in the mail every Wednesday.  The streets appear neat, though hardly scrupulously clean.  Parking is scarce, driving requires less distance between cars for longer stretches of time than I am used to.

While my son has a town house with ample interior space, very drivable to suburbia, the SF and NY environments of my daughter and her friends require more adaptation.  I've stayed with her and house-sat for friends on both coasts.  Space utilization requires thought.  Two bedrooms, one bathroom.  A recent stay in Brooklyn had me walking up four flights, as it lacked an elevator.  The apartments, carved from houses, all had strategic designs with nooks dedicated to workspace, a wall transformed to an entertainment zone, kitchens dedicated to food preparation and storage, though not always eating.  That takes place in another nook.  A massive dining room table with two leaves and a breakfront in a separate formal room cannot happen.  I stayed at a duplex in NYC with two outdoor patios, each accessible through sliding glass doors and modified as expanded living or entertainment space.  No yards exist, but planters can be placed outside to nurture culinary herbs.

Despite the limited space, by my standards, the people can do most of the things that I do, though without dedicated rooms.  They all have large flat TVs, internet access, cooking, small modern appliances, washer/dryers standing atop each other in a converted closet instead of next to each other in a laundry room.  What they cannot do, that I can, is accumulate stuff and stick it somewhere.  As a result, the smaller living spaces that I visited seem more selective in what they display.  A few pictures.  Strategically placed flowers.  Shelves with books sharing space with knick-knacks.  Area rugs on wooden floors in lieu of wall-to-wall.

Perhaps the biggest difference is where you walk or cycle to.  From my house, a walk usually has an exercise purpose.  In SF or Brooklyn, or even Central West End St. Louis, a walk has a destination, even if not predetermined.  It may be specialty coffee, the library, the subway station, or a haircut.  Shops along the sidewalk, few with the recognizable from anywhere national chains.  Sometimes green grocers set up produce outside their entrances.  During the daylight, people walk from place to place, sometimes block to block.  Cars some by, speed depending on traffic and traffic signals.  Architecture usually has some variation, gingerbread pastels of SF, elegant townhouses and midrises of another era in the Central West End, reclaimed shells in Pittsburgh.  Parks and schools with playgrounds interrupt the commercial and residential sections.  Churches seem few, but imposing where they occur.  

Despite my multiple rooms, as an empty nester, I use very little.  Clutter has kept the cars out of the garage for decades, though I do appreciate my driveway.  A few blocks from my daughter's SF apartment, there are small single-family houses with downsloping driveways into single-car garages.  I have a place where I write, surf a laptop, watch YouTube on a big screen, and listen to a stereo.  Bedroom serves mostly sleeping and closet, not requiring much space.  Rarely entertain in the living room.  Family room is now for my treadmill, something that would fit into My Space if I could get help moving it upstairs.  Spacious kitchen and formal dining rooms remain used frequently.  And multiple bathrooms all get used.  So my kids and their city friends do not seem to be at much disadvantage for living in places that require judicious decisions on what to place where.  They still get to do the things I spread out to do.  And they have more purposeful destinations nearby.  

Overscheduled Week

Retirement usually offers ample, maybe excessive, time flexibility.  Appointments are few.  During the academic year OLLI classes require me to be at a certain place at a certain time.  Shabbos comes every Friday night.  Saturdays are more flexible depending on what synagogue obligations I've undertaken.  Doctors' appointments and prepartory lab testing appear on my schedule more than they once did, though not in a burdensome way.  And I have special events:  birthdays, anniversary, Seder, Thanksgiving, Mother's Day.  But mostly not much needs entry in a scheduling grid.  I can travel when I want, mostly.  Shop at times I choose.  Find time at My Space and in my kitchen.  I've committed to doing things, but mostly control when to do them, sometimes at the expense of accountability.

So with some trepidation, I look to a rare upcoming week where other people impose my activities.  My children and grandchildren who live a distance away will each be coming my way a few days apart.  Very high priority.  I will have an overnight trip for one, have to prepare a luncheon for the other.  At mid-week, other events appear.  An organization to which I have done important things sponsors a semi-annual reception.  It is my chance to meet the remarkable students that my committee has awarded scholarships.  As that early evening gathering concludes, my synagogue holds its annual meeting.  I contribute or reap very little from that event but as a Board Member and frequent contributor of skill to their ongoing worship program, I probably ought to go, at least via Zoom.  While I do useful things for them, I create nothing, unlike the scholarship committee where my analytical input has transformed how the committee decides which applicants to award.  

The next day I have a doctor's appointment with my most irritating practice.  They are tracking a few things, not always in the most expedient way.  Appointments for office and procedures are at a premium, so I take what I can.  For this encounter, an online visit, I know what I want to accomplish.

Then travel the next day, leaving me about 24 hours with daughter and granddaughter.  They will have traveled from SF to NY a few days before, so should be rested.  I do not desire much tourism.  From there, I drive home in time for a pre-shabbos barbecue at the synagogue.  I have mixed feelings about these events, as the last cookout I found problematic.  Shabbos services the next day, with my wife a key participant.  Then Fathers' Day where I make my own special dinner.

These events of specified times add up.  They come with the opportunity cost of what I could be doing instead, but seeing kids and scholarship recipients offers high value.  A doctor's visit by Zoom takes less than a half hour.  The synagogue activities disrupt a bit more, though not having to make Friday night dinner at home offsets what I would usually find myself doing.  Even travel slows down from the norm.  When I go to NYC once or twice a year, I center it around attractions of a tourist destination.  Focusing on people this time reduces some of the decision stress, though I still do not know where I will park my car near my destination in Brooklyn.

The cluster of events forces me to immerse myself in other people.  Less time at my laptop, more holding grandchildren and shaking hands.  Not that much more in my car.  Less with myself, less checking off what tasks I've completed each day.  Probably a beneficial reset for the more usual weeks that follow. 

Paper and Pen and Mind

They made me take typing in 9th grade.  Manual typewriter.  Office model that could not be stolen easily, though the Junior High did not chain them to the desks.  I typed poorly.  Fewer Words per Minute than most, but also fewer typos than most.  I peeked at the paper, something the teacher discouraged.  It became a useful skill.  When my mother typed my term papers, the Greeks became Freeks.  When I left enough time to type them myself, using high grade erasable paper, my spelling upgraded to flawless.  In college I moved up to an electric typewriter, which I still have in its case, placed in a nook in My Space.  I cannot remember the last time I used it.  And then came Word Processing, which transformed not only how I typed and edited, but how I thought.

My typewriter served me as a tool.  I composed what I wanted to express, except for the briefest of letters, on paper.  Sometimes a canary-lined pad bound but tearable at the top, other times with loose-leaf paper removed from a binder.  I'd also had index cards that i could sequence to create a more coherent composition.  But most of my prose needing submission started on lined paper in my own marginal handwriting.  Before even opening the typewriter case and plugging the machine into the outlet, I'd proofread the text.  Then typing became a chore intended for presentation.  Thinking always took place on paper first.

Not everyone did this, even back in the day.  Journalists often carried portable typewriters to their assignments.  They typed their reports on-site, transmitted them to their editors and proofreaders, who amended sentence structure, spelling, and grammar.  Often the editor enhanced readability, a hint that maybe the best thinking and expression took a hit when typed.  Then onto the typesetters.

Word Processing and computerized editing changed that.  Now available for 30 years, I and undoubtedly a majority, now think and type, bypassing the pen altogether.  Editing for presentation still takes as much effort as composition, but most output never has public readers as its intent.  Is the thinking that goes into creation as discerning when ideas go directly to keyboard?  Some studies and YouTube Videos suggest not.  As a result, the sales of pocket notebooks and desktop journals have increased.  Personal planners with 7-rings and removable pages still compete successfully with computerized personal productivity programs.  There are elements that the computers have not yet matched.  The electronics excel at reminding or carrying over individual tasks.  It does not do as well in creating priorities or sorting goals.

While I do my best to go from mind to keyboard to create compositions, respond to the written work of others, and generate emails, some mental tasks still seem to perform better with a pen and paper.  Every night I take out a marble composition book to jot down three of the day's accomplishments.  My exercise attainments goes into a written log each week.  Every day I write something that annoyed me into a spiral notebook, then turn back one month and six months to see how the untoward experiences of those days have largely resolved.

I've tried electronic planning. Todoist doesn't even come close to a writing pad.  Weekly outline every Sunday, color coded by type of task.  Every evening, that weekly outline gets reviewed with the next day's intended activities transcribed onto what is effectively a half-sheet of blank computer paper.  My six month projects appear not on a screen but on a whiteboard in my line of sight to the left of my desk.  Not only does it enable me to think, to discern, but my handwriting remains recognizable as mine.

I've never abandoned pen and paper.  Perhaps I should use them more.  On my last Amazon order, I included two pocket notebooks.  The first went into my cross-chest carrier, along with a mini digital recorder.  I can generate thoughts portably, in airplane or in coffee shop.  Ideas and reflection still require thinking, pausing, and transcribing.  Not very different than how the best of my teachers taught me how to create and record.  Predictions of the computer making paper obsolete just did not materialize, and for good reason.

Choosing a Place

At one time, though a number of years ago, at least one coffee outing a week took place on schedule.  Every Sunday morning I would slip my black nylon pouch which contained my weekly planning supplies and head out for coffee.  One place dominated, a local shop that offered a choice of three blends and a table to customize with sweeteners, lighteners, and spice shakers.  Then I would spread paper, pen, and markers across a table.  By the time the last drop got sipped, I returned to my car with two completed lists, one enumerating projects for the week, the other with initiatives for that Sunday, all coded by color.  Sometimes I'd order a pastry, mostly not.  I changed the destination occasionally, preferring Einstein's across the street when I had a Bagel and Schmear coupon, or the Starbucks around the corner.  My local shop had the advantage of offering the coffee in a porcelain mug.

I don't remember how long ago I last did that.  Now My Space serves the Sunday mornings.  Coffee brews over a k-cup.  Colored pens sit in empty spice jars in my line of sight, colored markers in a frosted plastic box from a back-to-school sale on my left.  Very little need to visit a coffee shop.

When Starbucks became a ubiquitous international destination, its founders modeled its locations on a European coffee bistro, a meeting place dating perhaps to the 18th century.  Coffee could not be obtained as easily in that era.  Now with mass marketing of coffee, or beer for that matter, we still have a social need for a coffee house or pub experience.  Coffee houses became places to exchange ideas, pubs to connect with a community.  In America, pre-Starbucks, perhaps the local diner or taverns close to big factories served that gathering function.  Each had an element of convenience, but Starbucks strove to create an experience.

And for a while I could go to the local places that offer specialty coffee, run into somebody I know with predictable frequency, and complete some work that I brought with me.  

I rarely seek these places out in recent years.  When traveling, coffee from WaWa fits in the cup holder as I drive.  Overpriced coffee from an airport kiosk replaces what I would have made at home were I not pressed by schedule.  I purchase a beverage at those places, not an experience.  Every few months, though, I want a break from my house.  For $3.50 or so, I can rent a table which allows me to type on my laptop or outline ideas on a writing pad.  The coffee, flavored as I like it, gets sipped.  It does not serve a social purpose but a carved out half-hour to sit alone with my mind in creative mode,  free of the distractions of My Space.

I still buy experience, but a different one than outlining my week on a Sunday morning.   My local options have not changed.  Large franchises:  Starbucks, Einstein's, Panera, Dunkin, and the small regional chain.  Some give you a disposable cup to fill, much as WaWa would.  Others have an attendant taking customer orders.  Things to eat while sipping the hot coffee have accelerated in price, with only a Dunkin Donut remaining close to my price point.  Starbucks and Dunkin now sell coffee more than experience.  Attendants at Starbucks have lines of cars awaiting their turn at the drive-in windows.  People inside, at least at suburban locations, have become the exception.  They removed the cream thermoses and spice shakers during the pandemic, never replacing them.  Dunkin just pours hot liquid splashed with something white.  Tables have an IKEA look, chairs of plastic.  Not a place to do best thinking.  

Where to go?  The biweekly cleaners had come.  I could close the door to My Space, but I found the bustle a distraction.  After they finished vacuuming the upper landing, I headed downstairs with my cross chest travel pack for a morning of coffee.  Front door obstructed.  I left by the back door.  Panera maybe.  They have porcelain cups, adequate seating, quiet nooks.  I drove past their strip mall.  Einstein and Starbucks not the respite I sought.  Local shop, perhaps.  Finally, after driving in a loop, I returned home to find the cleaner's van still in front of my house.  And I wanted to do some mental activity.  Nearest option, Dunkin.  

As a company, there are a lot of them nearby.  While they once had Fred the Baker getting up at 3AM to create luscious donuts for the morning rush, the CEO retired him.  Making and selling coffee is much less labor intensive.   Coupons for coffee and donut discounts used to arrive in the mail or as a newpaper supplement frequently.  These have faded into consumer history.  I drove to a strip mall, squeezed my Toyota into one of the few remaining spaces, and headed inside at mid-morning.  Menu on a flat screen, donuts in a case, store promotions more for cold drinks than coffee.  I picked a French cruller, standard coffee, handing the counter lady a $20 bill.  I kept $15 in change, leaving the unspent 50 cents in the tip jar.  They had processed me through efficiently.

I placed the cardboard container on the flimsy table, pulled the tiny white plastic tab back and took a sip. A paper bag, recyclable if not soiled by residual donut fying oil, held the cruller.  I took that out and ate the first bite.  Then another sip.  From my travel pouch, I removed a pocket notebook and pen.  Bite of donut, sip of coffee, two ideas entered into notebook.  Repeat until donut fully consumed and page of notebook filled to capacity.  Majority of very mediocre coffee remained, its white plastic travel top still on, and kept reasonably hot by the engineers who designed the cardboard coffee mugs.  Accomplished my purpose, which was writing in the notebook.  Got a pretty good donut as a bonus.  Coffee, the excuse for making the side trip, mostly an afterthought.

Gathering spots, which Starbucks envisioned, have fallen from grace.  Britain still has pubs.  Maybe major cities, European and American, have espresso bars.  The few times I treat myself to a happy hour beer, it never looks like Cheers.  No people interacting with anyone else other than the person who accompanied them.  I go to parks frequently, invariably the oldest person there.  Kids play on swings and slides, parents keep them safe.  People who walk their dogs sometimes let their pet interact with other visitors, never interact themselves.  My favorite diner closed, but at its peak, the people at the counter seemed recognizable every week, a mini-community of each other plus the waitress, if not including me in the chatter.  Since the pandemic, OLLI no longer has people sitting in chairs or at tables talking to each other during the half hour that separates class sessions.  People seem mostly content with their screens, small for phone and laptop, giant for TV streaming.  

There are still some events that attract throngs.  Sports stadiums, political rallies, Yom Kippur, Pride Parades.  People come in part to enjoy the event, mostly as witness unless a direct participant.  Meeting random people rarely makes the agenda.  Even the candidates who work the crowds, grabbing as many hands as their reach allows, want those present to meet them, not a desiring public servant seeking to acquaint with the people.

So my coffee excursion did not fulfill Starbuck's vision as a gathering place.  I had a task. whether weekly planning on Sunday mornings gone by or introducing myself to my new pocket notebook just delivered by Amazon.  The cruller made writing in the notebook more pleasant, the Dunkin coffee and the plastic chairs contributed little.

Best Hours

Retirement mostly allows me to choose what I do when.  No commuting times, not many scheduled meetings, few appointments.  That's not to imply lack of schedule.  One reason for a very successful last couple of years has been to assign times for certain activities.  Up at the same time each morning.  Treadmill as close to 7:50AM on scheduled days as I can get it.  Big mug of water consumed every morning as soon as I go downstairs, which usually follows dental hygiene, then coffee goes into that mug with a splash of creamer.  All goes to My Space where I select three priority activities for the day.  Email follows, not before.  While coffee brews and I sip water in the kitchen, I head outside to retrieve my wife's newspaper.  I also wash some dishes.  The mornings are subdivided into times for specific activities.  Some of these assignments do not always serve me in the best way.  It is convenient to take my blood pressure when I make coffee, before exercise.  However, assessment of where my blood pressure ranges requires that it be taken at different hours, which I try to do.  By 9AM, my Daily Task list has a few items crossed off.  Other than treadmill, none of these activities are things I might make excuses not to do.

Deep work, focus with a timer, has not adapted to scheduling quite as well.  Some hours link to creativity or perspective.  In my working years, mornings generally found me more engaged than afternoons, though I did some of my best reflective work closer to quitting time.  There may be a difference between my motivation to perform and what I accomplish.  Some tasks require mental acuity, others require attention to routine.  

I think my higher CNS centers do best after a second cup of morning coffee.  I can compose new thoughts and express them in the best way.  That 9-11AM window has very little structure.  During that time, I should be typing, not shopping for groceries, and certainly not scrolling FB.  That's time best suited to create something from a blank screen or page.  Yet it has not acquired an inviolate protection of my schedule the way the scheduled treadmill efforts have.

In the afternoons, tend to read and respond.  The Atlantic now has a section to invite reader comments after each article.  So does eJewish Philanthropy and Moment Magazine.  I guess their editors figured out that Twitter, where journalists prefer to interact, has repelled enough readers, myself among them, that they need to offer a more acceptable forum.  I read and respond, mostly early afternoons.  My thinking prowess seems a little diminished from its peak, but still adequate.

That mid-day segment, 11AM to 1PM seems something of an ebb for me. OLLI classes during the school year cluster during that time.  When not engaged in classes, struggling to stay attentive, I gravitate to my activities that do not require much mindfulness.  That's the time to go to the supermarket or scroll FB.

Late afternoon becomes another lull, a time for my mind to retreat.  There are studies which show doctors are least attentive in those hours and make more faulty decisions than they do before lunch.  I find myself struggling to express myself in an articulate way at that part of the daily cycle.

The evening restores an element of routine, though perhaps not the best routine.  I make supper, one usually planned much earlier.  I'm not very creative but don't have to be to boil some pasta or sautee some garden burgers.  Then eat, PM medicine, and return to My Space, though this time surfing YouTube instead of actively engaged at my desk.  It's not dead time.   I choose videos that add to my knowledge.  I often read the books I am tackling.  But I do not engage in expressive, creative work in a meaningful way after supper, other than planning the activities for the following day and checking off what I did that day. I have a late-day routine, less rigid than my morning one, but there is a set time to shut down the laptop and phone.  At the end of the day, I read some more, rehearse any Torah readings I have committed to performing in the near future, and recap what went well and what did not over the course of the day.  Then lights out at 10PM unless my wife needs to keep them on to read.  

I think there are parts of each day best suited to different tasks.  Identifying that slots suit what activities has a lot of uncertainty.  For jobholders, assignments determine them.  I retirement I have control.  It's still not clear if what I choose to do at different times enhances or undermines actual performance.

The routines at the beginning and end of each day have served me well.

Donating Whole Blood

Regular blood donors are a dedicated group.  We mostly do not know each other, but invariably greet each other when one of us wears a Blood Bank insignia cap or t-shirt to a public event.  Platelet donors have a special dedication to their contribution to public wellness.  Not everyone can donate.  The recipients of this blood component comprise some of the most ill but recoverable patients in any hospital.  For decades, I had served as a donor.  The donation process challenges the donor.  Extraction of blood with return of the red cells takes about two hours plus another half hour to confirm screening for eligibility.  For some, both arms get immobilzed, leaving the donor with little to do but watch a movie or two episodes of Queer Eye on a flat screen that the staff moves in front of the donation recliner chair.  Arms and other joints can get sore at the end.  In my decades as a donor, I've had a few misadventures, including infiltration of the red cell return into the soft tissue of my upper arm, which left quite a bruise.

My days as a platelet donor have come to an end, not because of safety to a recipient, but because of my own age-related inability to remain immobilized for two hours.  Some other physiologic symptoms prevent this, including a periodic need to use a restroom with little advance warning.  My medical care has taken me to a variety of specialists, including a hematologist.  I've had iron deficiency in the past, which limited my ability to donate anything, but at least with platelets, they return the RBCs.  With iron levels now corrected and stable, I thought I'd give a unit of whole blood, which takes far less time to collect.

Options for doing this far exceed platelet options, which require dedicated machinery and trained staff at a large center.  For whole blood, I could visit a more convenient location.  With the approval of my hematologist and very acceptable CBC and iron levels, I made a donation.

It took place just a few miles' drive.  The regional medical center had taken over the large building where,, as a young homeowner I purchased my best furniture forty years ago.  The furniture industry has not been kind to its merchants. This one folded.  Its building was repurposed twice, now as a satellite of a comprehensive medical system.  The Blood Bank, a separate entity, occupies a suite on the second floor and collects basic blood products twice weekly.

They checked me in.  Decent BP and acceptable Hemoglobin on their often inaccurate desktop hemocytometer.  I asked the nurse if she had a record of how many donations I had given.  Some time ago, the Blood Bank sent me a card that I had reached 90.  They've sent me lapel pins as a reward for 25 and 50.  I aimed for 100.  Her records, accessed on her computer, put my donations at 103, gallons at 19.  No acknowledgement of the milestone.  I don't know how they compute gallons for platelet donors, though I was a whole blood donor for many years before they notified me unexpectedly of my eligibility to give platelets, something rarer and more valuable to the blood banking system.  I had a few health changes since my last donation, which should not change eligibility.  I noted that on the intake form.  She had to make some phone calls to confirm that my blood products would remain acceptable to a recipient.

She set me in a chair, one more like a dental chair than the massive recliners used for platelet donations.  A quick puncture, one readjustment halfway through, and a pint or so filled a plastic collection bag.  She bandaged the puncture site.  Rules require that whole blood donors drink something in the canteen and stay for 15 minutes to be sure that dizziness does not occur.  I sipped a zero-sugar Sprite, which tasted odd, while the stopwatch of my Casio 168 counted up 15 minutes.  I then arose.  I could tell that some volume had been removed but I felt functional.  A quick restroom stop outside the collection suite, then the elevator to the first floor.  With minimal lightheadedness, I sat down in a chair in the medical center's entrance lobby for a minute or two before driving home uneventfully.

Feeling OK, I did another errand.  Outside my front door, in warm weather, I grow culinary herbs in pots.  Rosemary has been a staple, a plant that has not survived local winters, whether planted in an outdoor bed in the backyard or in a pot that I bring inside to avoid a freeze.  It has been hard to find this spring.  My trusted garden center ran out, but told me of an expected shipment.  I headed over, finding two trays of rosemary, robust in appearance, among their herb display.  I handed the agent a $5 bill, then headed home.  It will soon outgrow the small plastic sales container, so I transplanted it into the larger plastic planter where I grew last year's rosemary bush.

Then some tasks at my laptop in My Space.  I could still feel a bit off, not wanting to do household chores, including making supper.  With my wife's permission I orded a pizza, a large one from a local shop nearby. It did not cost that much more than Domino's or Papa John's and bakes more delicous pies. In my online order, I had them add anchovies to half.  I'd not had them in a long time, like them better than my wife does, and thought the saltiness would help with my mild volume depletion symptoms.  I drove to the pizzeria, prepaid online when ordering, and returned home.  I ate quite a lot, five of the eight slices, three of the four with salty anchovies.  I began to feel a little worse, but a recliner chair eased the symptoms.  Then I lay down on the living room couch.  At 9:10PM, that Casio 168 let out a faint alarm, reminding me to count Omer, this night 42, completing six of the seven weeks.  I took the sheet with the daily count and blessings to a better-lit part of the living room.  Now as I arose, I could sense more severe orthostatic symptoms.  I did the nightly count, which only takes a minute.  Feeling more lightheaded, I sat down in the nearest chair for a minute or two, them moved across to the couch where I could be more supine.  That alleviated symptoms.  While I have a blood pressure device in the kitchen, I did not want to get up again or bother my wife to bring it to me.  Staying horizontal would suffice.  It did not take long to zonk out.  Two hours later, almost an hour past my usual bedtime, I awoke, feeling strong enough to go upstairs, but with a stop in the kitchen for some ice water first.  I drank the contents of the insulated bottle, maybe half a cup, took another half cup of tap water after that, then refilled the bottle for the refrigerator.  I headed upstairs feeling better but still depleted.  At 2:30AM I awoke thirsty.  Maybe from sacrificing a pint of blood, maybe from three anchovie slices.  I no longer felt lightheaded.  By now the water in the thermos had chilled.  I drank some, then returned upstairs.

I awoke to a clock radio alarm, still not quite right but not ill.  Dental hygiene, then some more cold water downstairs.  A drizzle had hydrated the herb pots overnight, including the new rosemary.  I had no significant symptoms while retrieving the newspaper from the end of the driveway.  However, I thought it prudent to reduce the intensity and duration of my scheduled treadmill session.  Unless overtly ill, it never gets skipped entirely.  I performed OK, though a full intensity session would have been burdensome.

Today I must focus on recovery and extra hydration to replace volume.  I met a few goals with the donation, reaching the 100 contribution milestone and visiting a place I'd not entered before.  Pleasant staff.  Somebody should benefit from the packed RBC and plasma that my blood should provide.  However, the volume loss took its toll on me.  And I'm a bit annoyed that in a world of automated systems, the Blood Bank had not notified me of my 100 donations, irrespective of whether they offer a tangible recognition as they did for 25 and 50.  Probably best to let the younger donors take over.

Seasonal Clothing Exchange

Living in the mid-Atlantic, weather cycles.  It freezes when the calendars say it should.  Water to the outside faucets shut down to avoid expensive plumbing repairs.  Having reached a stable height and weight decades ago, and for many of them needing to look presentable at work most days, a lot of clothing has accumulated.  As much as I donate unwanted, and sometimes ill-fitting items to Goodwill or to the charity bins in store parking lots, I still own more garments than I actually wear.  Twice a year, typically October 10 and April 10 with modifications for shabbos and yontif that might appear on those dates, I transfer winter to summer.  Last fall, I packed a duffel, a carry-on, and a box that originally carried 90-kcups with shorts, polo shirts, and t-shirts.  Maybe some summer pajamas too.  At one time I used a plastic clothing storage bag, one with a vacuum port to suck out the air.  Those never held the vacuum, often tore, and did not transport easily from My Space to the bedroom when the exchange date arrived.  If I even have another of these, I would have to look for it somewhere in the recesses of My Space.  

Despite doing this twice a year, I don't really know if I have more winter stuff or summer clothing.  Winter items have more bulk, but I probably own fewer of them.  T-shirts, which fill that K-Cup box, come my way in various ways.  Sometimes I see a logo that I like in a store at a great price.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles appear on many.  Often, I receive one as a promotion, donating platelets, or doing some group charitable effort.  I have my favorite universities that tell others where I have been.  Not so many souvenir t-shirts from where I have traveled.  When I buy one of these, which I often do, they become gifts, rarely additions to my own wardrobe.

Collared polo shirts have also become a staple, short-sleeved in summer, long in winter.  The long-sleeved variety have very few logos, but the short-sleeved options include team emblems and university swag.

Shorts get stored in a plastic cubby, one occupied by a neatly folded pile of cashmere items slowly accumulated as bargains get too good to pass up, though rarely worn.  Shorts get worn every day.  Mostly solid, some plaid.  My inventory includes significant cargo style representation.  These were once more popular than they are now, but I find them useful.  I also wear long slacks in all seasons.  Those stay in my closet, even the rarely worn woolen ones that need dry cleaning.  They just do not take up a lot of space.  My dress clothing does, most of which I wear only to synagogue.  Anything wool goes to the back of the closet, lighter fabrics I wear, then hang by a loop on a downstairs over the closet hanger.  Eventually I will have about three on that rack, which I rotate for synagogue wear, though increasingly I attend in shirtsleeves with a long-sleeved dress shirt and tie.  But often I will wear a plain upper quality collared polo under a light jacket.  I never go to services wearing just the polo.

Among my shoes, only the sandals are really summer seasonal, and not often worn. I have boots and insulated shoes for going out in the snow, rarely worn.  Those stay in the closet.  

This year, I may move winter coats upstairs to the closet in My Space.  They take up considerable room in the lower hall.  I will leave the all-weather raincoat for summer use, one midweight jacket, and my full collection of nylon windbreakers.  Sweaters stored in my bedroom mostly get exchanged, except for one light cardigan and two cotton sweaters, which will come in handy for football season, which begins before the fall exchange. Sweatshirts, mostly logo type, serve the transition well.  The hoodies can go to storage, though.

One key decision involves whether to do this semi-annual project as one big effort or a series of smaller exchanges.  While most things I take in a few-minute increments, this one goes better if just completed in a few longer sessions.  Once done, I have what I need at hand for six months.

Do I ever travel to someplace warm when the weather freezes at home?  Not often.  My wife likes to more than I do.  A few items off to the side for seasonal transitions will suffice.  I regard swimwear as non-seasonal, as travel during any season usually takes me to places where my hotel preference includes an indoor pool.  Same with sleepwear.  Flannel lounge pants are my preference.  Socks I wear most days, irrespective of season.

Investing an hour's time, maybe a little more, makes things easier for me over six months.  I can check weather, see what I need to do that day, and extract a few suitable times.  The stuff in storage just stays there, not even thought about.  No new shopping needed.  Some tasks are just worth the effort of doing once but doing well.  That enables other warmer weather activities.  The garden, fishing, drives to beaches and parks.  The real attractions of living in a place where seasons change.

They Hauled It Away

My once beloved naugahyde recliner has begun its final destination to a landfill.  I do not know how long I've had it.  It's metal tag stated Barcalounger, made in North Carolina.  They are still made but no authorized dealers near me.  A search of the internet indicates that the company folded or sold off in 2011.  I had purchased this chair in the early 1980s, either right before or after birth of my children.  They selectively gouged pieces of the cushion, dislodged and lost a support cross-piece from the leg lift, but bear no responsibility for its final demise.  When I created My Space upon retirement, I transported this special chair to the room's center.  Its recliner mechanism no longer allowed it to return to a rocking chair position.  For cosmetics, I purchased a generic navy velour recliner cover.  Every night I would retire to that chair, turn on the big screen TV and end most evenings leaning back, calves up, eyes on the screen.  Over a short time, the support mechanism of the seat began to give way, sounding a quick pop each time I entered the chair.  Time for a replacement.

Furniture stores still exist, though the ones with the Jewish names and salesmen, local pillars with memorial plaques in the area's synagogues, have largely disappeared from my area.  Some regional chains have taken over.  Department stores with furniture sections are fewer.  Now we have Amazon and Wayfair, places that give immense selection.  I shopped at the regional ones first.  They deliver and assemble.  They do not cart away the old chair, a service that would have given them an advantage over etailers.  Some online providers arrange assembly for a fee, others leave that to the customer.  My experience with their assemblers has not always gone well.  Still, I could not begin until the Barcalounger vacated the space.  

Junk hauling has gotten easy to access but expensive.  Quotes of about $140 to remove the broken chair.  A call to my weekly trash hauler gave me a quote of $50, which I authorized in a minute.  Challenge, getting the recliner down a flight of stairs.  While it had bulk, it did not have much weight.  I could drag it along a flat surface, which I did.  Out of the study, into the upper hall near the steps.  A neighbor helped me guide it downstairs, where it sat in the living room until the day before pickup.  Then I dragged it out the door, with some guidance from my wife, followed by a solo drag along the walk and the driveway.  It sat at the edge for two days, tolerating a drizzle.  On my scheduled pickup day, the sanitation truck hauled it to its final resting place.

To fill the big center void in the middle of My Space, I first harvested a bean bag chair from my son's room.  During his childhood in the 1990s, an amorphous seat filled with foam pellets, not real beans, could be had for a tiny sum.  Each child had one.  Rarely used.  When I sat in it and tried to rise, I can understand why they preferred real chairs.  In my bedroom, I keep a leather recliner with ottoman, purchased on amazon.com, assembled by myself, intended for reading, rarely used.  Easy to carry.  Rather narrow.  Fine for reading, though less comfortable than reading in bed, not very suitable for watching a big screen TV.  A replacement recliner has become a high priority, as I sat in my dear Barcalounger multiple times a day, despite its structural faults.

In the weeks that followed my decision to replace the Barcalounger, I had visited most of the regional furniture stores.  Had they assured me that they would remove it, I'd have purchased the new one there.  But left to my own, Amazon and Wayfair provide better seating with more selection at less expense.  Wayfair offers assembly for a surcharge, Amazon I'm on my own to find a handyman.  Presumably Wayfair screens its contractors, though my experience has been mixed.  For the living room sofa, the assembler did fine.  For my desk chair, he used a drill attachment instead of tightening the screws with the Allen wrench provided for assembly.  The screws dislodged.  I replaced them myself, making them permanently tight with the proper tool, that Allen wrench.  However, I knew where those screws went, even after two of them fell out.  That allowed me to just insert them and make them properly secure.  Starting just with the chair components and an assembly manual, probably one without writing to enable assembly in different countries, I probably would not have succeeded.

The etailers allow considerable customization.  Price, under $500.  Rocker mechanism.  No electric inputs.  Microfiber or faux leather.  Neutral color.  No nailhead style.  Favorable user reviews, if available.  I'm looking forward to using their filters to search for a personal match.  Then order, wait a short time, and let the assembler have at it.

My life expectancy is much shorter than the longevity of my late Barcalounger.  That was American-made in North Carolina, came assembled and delivered from a furniture store, probably one with a Jewish name, maybe Levitz z"l though perhaps Van Sciver's z"l.  Mass-produced stuff from Asia has enabled an inflation-adjusted economy, but expectations of durability have evaporated.  The low price makes them almost disposable.  But as I learned, disposing does not come easily.

Staying on Schedule

For most of my 70-something years, I've pursued what interested me.  In school, I had a class schedule and assignments with deadlines.  I attended, turned in my term papers, and took exams.  Work became less scheduled.  I had office patients most days and people who needed hospital attention.  Consultations and admissions came randomly.  Phone calls mostly got squeezed in.  Pharmaceutical and insurance representatives stopped by mostly on their schedules.  I accomplished what needed doing but enjoyed the autonomy of what I would do when.  Retirement carried over that imprint.  No pressure to time most things.  When I enrolled in OLLI, classes met at specified times, and I had to allot transit time there and back.  Synagogue services commenced at announced times but few people arrived at the beginning.  Like most in attendance, I calculated how much time I wanted to be present, knowing that concluding prayers and kiddush occurred at reasonably predictable hours, then adjust my arrival to suit.

Our modern age exacts a price for that flexibility.  Once retired, there are no times that need an alarm clock, let alone acquiescing when tired to meet somebody else's leverage over me.  Social media, emails, cell phones can absorb whatever blocks of time their addictive nature imposes.  No set meal times.  Minimal commutes.  The onset and conclusion of Shabbos each week sets the weekly structure.  

And for a while, I drifted along.  Not feeling particularly well, accomplishing few of the semi-annual goals I write down every December and June, getting too absorbed in FB, then descending into Twitter, I realized that some structure would enhance things.  And a commitment to stopping what I should stop.

Each half year I include physical goals, usually stated as a desired waist circumference and weight which never achieve.  It won't get fulfilled without a system.  Thus, exercise now has a set time and intensity, one that I fully respect.  Stretching also has a time.  Measurements not attained, but I feel better. 

After endless interrupted eveings, I took control of sleep.  Set time to turn off screens, review what I did each day, turn out lights, and get up the next morning.  This has also been regimented.  Dental first, then weekly weight, then downstairs for some sunlight in the form of retrieving the newspaper from the end of the driveway.  Water first, then brew a k-cup in the same mug.  No email until I finish the coffee.  Treadmill if on tap that day right after coffee.  Crossword puzzles in the morning.

My week has creative activity built in.  Make a YouTube video every Monday afternoon.  Make dinner for Shabbos every Friday, with defrosting on Wednesday.  BP taken twice a week and recorded immediately in an Excel log.

Some things do not take well to appointments with myself.  For those, I have a timer. Housework fifteen minutes, reading twenty-five minutes, writing twenty-five minutes.  I learned to avoid zero minutes.

Social media got the heave-ho on Rosh Hashana.  FB gone, or at least my responses gone.  I will share my writing or videos onto my site.  The algorithm will do anything to get me back, going so far as to clutter my email with notices to look at what the people I care most about have posted.  I almost never bite.  Twitter gone.  Reddit selective to responses where I can help somebody else.  Just divesting this has freed up blocks of time I did not realize I had.  Sometimes I use it well, other times not.

This process of small upgrades has taken about two years.  Results display as mixed.  I feel better with sleep and exercise assurance.  My library of videos now exceeds 100, my writing much more than that.  Public recognition for any of this nil.  Expanded friendships perhaps starting to slide from my FB exit.  My Space largely completed, other house projects in different stages of making progress without renewal.

Yet, I benefit from a sense of what to pursue when.  Keeping promises to myself, the essence of this change, has rewarded me unconditionally.

Defined Tasks

Returned from a brief vacation, three nights at a ski resort quickly defined as a sacral injury while snow tubing.  I had my laptop and cell phone with me, along with a list of what I hoped to accomplish for the week, created a few hours before leaving home.  I did some, including a few important things.

Once home, partly on the mend, other activities await.  Part of the purpose of this vacation was to defer doing those items.  Now back at home, my Daily Task List has returned to its excessive length, though with priorities defined by importance and designated as three Musts.  Many things don't have clear endpoints, do them and they are done.  Those that do got my attention as I return to My Space.  

My home had some minor water damage noted a few weeks ago.  Call the home repair expert.  Done.  Shabbos approaching.  Defrost what I need for dinner.  Cooking mostly done before I left.  Just defrost and heat before candle lighting.  Frozen items thawing in fridge.  My indoor plant watering protocol got modified.  Water them, keeping them outside if the temperature will not freeze them.  Done.  Unpack.  Almost done.  Read an NEJM Case of the Week and claim CME Credit.  Done.  Review things I will need to do for an MRI scheduled next week.  The Radiology Office sent me a list.  Read and understood.  Normally I make a video every Monday.  Postponed by travel, now completed and watched.  Return to my stretching and treadmill sessions.  Modified by injury by done.  Review commentaries for Torah portion that will be recited on Shabbos.  All four read.  Take BP and record it.  Done.  Select an e-book or audiobook from the library.  Done and briefly started.  Submit my course selections for Osher Institute.  Done and tuition paid.  Make sure my Medicare Plan F premium autopay went through.  It did.  Make sure a snafu with a restaurant credit care purchase got resolved.  It did. Register for an upcoming synagogue event.  Done.

It seems like a very productive time my first day home.  It's deceptive.  My Daily Task List runs two columns in four categories.  I cannot do everything on the list.  Sometimes choosing what not to do matters more.  For my first day home, I performed things that require no analytical thought other than mastering the Journal article and making my weekly video.  They are otherwise well defined tasks.  Make a call.  Send in a registration list.  Walk on a treadmill. Take my blood pressure.  Water plants.

Lurking on the list, with some hope of at least starting before bed time remain the challenging items.  Creative writing, reading the ebook that I just selected, restoring my violin case from a recent infestation, doing some of the mulit-step home upgrades.  End points for those have less clarity.  They should take priority, but some days, like today, dispatching the nudgy items that won't crop up on tomorrow's list seem's the best path forward.  It makes for a good day.

Upcoming Respite

During my working years, excessive frazzle periodically became not only apparent but limited my professional effectiveness.  I knew I needed time away and usually place away.  Someplace mostly reachable by air.  Retirement has modified that feeling considerably, though my wife and I have taken vacations, including two overseas.  Each time, though, it seemed more a desire to break the routine or seek an adventure, not a desperate escape.  Two times I've gone away on my own for brief overnight stays.  Seven years into retirement, a mostly peaceful time, that frazzle has returned.

It's hard to tell why.  Recent months have seen the arrival of our first two grandchildren.  That meant some traveling.  It meant living as house guests of our children.  It meant being at home without my wife for most of a month.

Some of my recreation and social engagement have broken down.  While I attend the senior division of my state university, as I have done for years, the classes did not connect as well with me.  My synagogue annoys me, even though only a couple of individuals are really direct irritants and I engage in my share of activities.  I do this as a consumer of somebody else's programming, though, never as a creator.  

My own development of systematic routines has gotten effective.  My Space nears completion.  I have times to express myself in writing and in video.  Exercise gets done on schedule with improvement in well-being.  Some of my medical aging could be better, but none out of control or needing drastic intervention.

Even though much perks along, annoyances are more petty than disabling, for the first time in a while that feeling of needing an escape, some private time with my wife and me, has returned.

My model solution might have been a short cruise.  Show up, eat when you want, visit a port, see a show, splash in the pool.  Not realistic.  No drivable ports this cold season.  In another age, my youth, I likely would have reserved a room at a Catskills kosher resort.  Show up, overeat with no menu restrictions, watch some kitsch entertainment, go to the pool.  Those places are no more.  There are still resorts with activities, just not with the dining options of Royal Caribbean or Grossinger's.  Some Search Engines brought me to a few within an acceptable drive.

The last few times away, I've returned home thinking I stayed one day longer than I should have.  After consultation with my wife, we settled on a resort, one intended for ski enthusiasts, which we are not.  Aquatics in place.  Maybe some snow tubing.  Don't know about dining.  Close enough to population centers that we could find a brewpub or winery.  Three nights should be about right.  Without air travel, and with only three days, I can overpack a little, cover most of my recreational contingencies.  No sites to tour or museums to visit.  Not even spanning Shabbos. Just some overdue couples time.

Breakfast at Kitchen Table

My treadmill appointment with myself has gone admirably well for an impressive time.  In order to keep on schedule, I have established set times which I've assigned top priority.  Success with this includes rest days, every third day.  On those days, my Daily Task List has included Breakfast Out, a reward to myself.  I never go, not for months.

At one time, going out for breakfast, while not a reward, had a useful purpose.  Originally, I would take a review book to study for upcoming Board Exams while I ate.  Later, it marked a weekend day off, one to sit at a counter with a familiar waitress serving mostly familiar men.  I could not duplicate either of my two customary orders, blueberry pancakes or poached eggs with shredded potatoes.  I would sample a variety of different places over time.  In retirement, those mornings, not yet pre-empted by a treadmill priority, would often frame my day.

Economics and shifting personal choices took their toll.  The place I gravitated to closed, but not before the expected waitress retired.  The IHOP next door never provided a good experience.  They didn't have a counter for solo diners like me.  Prices rose.  Another place that I kinda liked had me staring at TRUMP in a star in my line of sight, though they made simple eggs and potatoes quite well.  Other diners seemed to slather the toast with some kind of spread in place of butter packets of the real thing.  And my own coffee in my Keurig machine often surpassed what they poured from their carafe.

Despite Out for Breakfast on my to-do list periodically, I've largely opted to stay in My Space sipping some extra coffee or making breakfast in my kitchen instead.  Assembling a nutritious breakfast has gotten easy, thanks to corporate ingenuity and some planning on my part.  Eggs are one of nature's fast foods.  Even with outrageous price increases, they remain obtainable.  Cooking takes minutes.  The restaurants used to serving eggs Benedict poach theirs better than I do mine, and never break a yolk with over easy, but I can do the basics with few glitches.  Most, but not all, do hash browns better, but I can periodically find kosher latkes patties, which I can fry in the pan before adding the eggs at the end.  My refrigerator has real butter.  My bread supply usually includes English muffins or bagels, as well as reputable sliced bread.  None of that Wonder Bread in my house.  I invested in a good toaster.  Occasionally, I have something from Morningstar Farms to keep my kosher breakfast looking like it has a classic breakfast meat.   Once in a while I'll create an omelet.  I sometimes have mushrooms at home, usually have cheese in the dairy drawer.  The restaurants roll and fold better than me, though. Not professional, but filling and satisfying.

Making pancakes has gotten easy.  Mixes require a half cup powder, a slightly smaller amount of water, a fork to stir, a pan to heat the batter, and a spatula to flip.  They come out better than the ones they make at all the diners that have survived my favorite one.  In my refrigerator, I keep real maple syrup and a bottle of commercial pancake syrup.  The additives in the commercial mix, while probably best thought of as adulterants, keep my flapjacks fluffy.  I presume diners make their own batters, though maybe some also use a similar commercial mix.

Other delicacies I can only make at home.  When salmon goes on sale, I make gravlax.  It takes a few days to cure, with some personal but brief attention needed morning and evening.  Once made, I portion it to half pound sections, keep one refrigerated, freeze and then thaw the others.  I slice it adequately.  The price of smoked salmon has become prohibitive, even as lox pieces.  Restaurant prices exceed what I am willing to spend on breakfast.  When I have gravlax in the fridge, I keep bagels and cream cheese at home to make the classic sandwich.  Not as good as when I could buy real lox, and bagels came from a bakery instead of a mass produced source, but still a worthy breakfast, or sometimes lunch.  While I could put some of the gravlax with eggs, either a mixed scramble or an omelette, it never seems worth the trouble.

The food industry has made cereal easy.  I've not eaten cold cereal with milk in ages, and don't miss it.  But I like hot cereal.  Farina, oatmeal, sometimes Wheatina.  Farina and Wheatina I cook on a stove top.  Takes minutes, needs some attention as it cooks.  Then spoon into a cup, usually add a pat of butter and eat.  Oatmeal has gotten easier.  A variety pack often goes on sale.  One packet, half cup water into a cup, then microwave for 90 seconds.  This needs watching as the microwave needs to be stopped a few times as the mixture starts to boil over the cup.  Fast and good.  Minimal cleanup if I don't overflow the cup, nuisance cleanup when that happens.  Sometimes I have grits at home, rarely make it.  Occasionally order it out.

I'm not a juice enthusiast.  At restaurants, orange juice seems expensive.  At home, it needs to be purchased in an amount that will spoil before fully consumed.  I keep oranges at home frequently, but don't eat them with breakfast.  I usually have apple juice, but prefer to boil a cupful, add sweet spices, and drink that as a snack beverage.  Juice is not part of my breakfast.

The one item I cannot duplicate are buttermilk biscuits.  Pillsbury are expensive and lack the kosher certification I insist upon for home.  Trader Joe's are kosher but expensive.  I periodically make biscuits, using milk with vinegar as the liquid.  I suspect my baking powder is long out of date, though probably adequate for everything I bake except biscuits.  Mine just never become fluffy like the ones served at restaurants.  They must have recipes, good ingredients, timers, and experienced chefs.

Making breakfast at home never seems intrusive.  Driving to a diner, other than the one with TRUMP inside a star in my line of sight, mostly does.  Since I go alone, intending to sit at a counter, usually by myself since my default diner closed, there does not seem an element of camaraderie to offset the cost and inconvenience of getting there.  I will usually bring a pen, turn over the paper placemat to its blank side and jot notes to myself, but I could do that at my desk.  When will Go Out for Breakfast lose its place on my Daily Task List?  It probably won't.  On occasion, I just want to be someplace other than my house.  At one time that came in the early morning.  As I learned that the early morning offers my top energy and mental hours, I have become very committed to being either in My Space or on a treadmill those times, not in transit.  Might I grab lunch out instead?  A slice of pizza, a hoagie to eat one half out and the other later in the week at a park?  Might already be doing that.  Cannot duplicate either pizza or hoagie at home.  Food is only one component of where to dine.  But for breakfast, it appears that any incentive to seek out a diner for either food enhancement or escape from my home no longer applies.

Finishing It

Slow but steady usually prevails.  My Space approaches its finishing touches.  I hauled the vacuum cleaner upstairs, then ran it over the green shag rug that covered the room's hardwood floor since we move in more than forty years ago.  I do not know the last time it had been vacuumed, or was even able to be vacuumed.  I have an area rug, a round one that once occupied my office, a treat to myself for passing Endocrinology Boards.  It had been vacuumed a few months back, the first time since retiring, then again.  I have a placed what I want around the entire perimeter, leaving the entire central floor clear.  With some minor arrangement, I could probably make this into a Man Cave.  Maybe beer dispenser.  Maybe pool table.  Maybe round bistro table with two chairs, but I really want to discourage eating here.  My many diplomas stay packaged.  I want a place to be me, not to display me.  I've made my briefcases all functional.  A few final decorative, really functional decisions remain.  Should I replace the lounge chair?  Maybe move it a little forward.  Replace desk chair?  I have a special place for my swivel of another era, purchased at a DuPont Company Surplus Assets Sale for a few dollars.  It leans back too much.  It's tilt adjustments seem stuck.  I could replace it, but I really like sitting in it at my desk.  Might I be more productive at that desk with a fully functional chair?  The rear windows have curtains also left by our home's previous owner.  I don't dislike them.  They are lined and fit the window well, maybe even custom made.  Those windows need blinds.  When I go on Zoom, the light from the windows distorts the Zoom video of me.  That's the last definite purchase/istallation of My Space.  Then I can declare it done.

Working for 15 Minutes

 
Two-Minute Rule. A staple of productivity.  If a small task can be done in two minutes or slightly more, just do it. Despite my assorted annoyances with my current low-end smartwatch, it has an easily accessible two-minute countdown timer.  In that time, I can wash all four of the coffee mugs that fit on the outer holders of my dish rack.  If I want to wash utensils, I can do about two place settings before my wrist buzzes.  Watering my aerogarden takes less time than that, even if I have to fill up the two-liter harvested juice jug with fresh water.  Refreshing the potted herbs outside my front door takes a little longer.

Indeed, I can time most any task.  Not how long it takes to do, but how long I am willing to work on it.  My semi-annual projects for this cycle include things that have a lot of steps.  Slow and steady wins the ketchup race, the commercial from my childhood taught me.  Repurposing my adult son's bedroom will take many hours.  Boxes everywhere.  Paper dating back to grade school. Crammed dresser and nightstand drawers.  A desk that he rarely used but was my pride to provide it for him.  Electronics long gone obsolete.  That gets fifteen minutes per session on my timer.  I shoot for two sessions per week, but if only fifteen minutes at a time, I could do more without feeling overwhelmed.  And with the ability to sort things that he may treasure, his awards, birthday cards, special clothing.  Fifteen minutes of sorting or washing or discarding at a time gets it done over about three months.

My own bedroom gets only ten minutes at a time, two or three sessions a week.  I've already been able to vacuum my half.  Surfaces have started to appear functional, sorting just a few sections at a time while discarding very little.

My Space only gets six minutes at a time.  Not that I am unwilling to allocate more of my attention, but after six minutes something stymies additional progress.  But I can see more than an end point.  I recently recaptured my beloved Lands End Canvas Attaché, an indulgence purchase early in my career.  The Eddie Bauer cloth attache sits next to my desk chair.  It holds recreational items, mostly art.  And next to that I store a leather briefcase, purchased for $60 with the intent of looking upscale professional.  It's rarely been toted anywhere.  The cloth ones with neck straps captured the market due to better utility.  The leather one with its dual handles lets me see what I once aspired to have.  Six minutes at a time will bring My Space to what I had envisioned as what I would really do with a personalized part of my house, right down to my display of collegiate coffee mugs from the many campuses I've visited.  My many diplomas sit wrapped and in storage.  My Space has no reason to morph into a monument to myself.

My projects also include expressing myself in various ways as I move into the years of limited anticipated longevity.  Can I write a 90K word book?  If I set my timer for 90 minutes and write 750 words, it will add up.  

Other goals, or really systems to reach those goals, do not adapt as easily to a timer.  My treadmill sessions have a count-up timer, 30 minutes.  I set the intensity.  Stretching has a program of 8 minutes spread over 16 half-minute exercises.  I plan to host three dinners to challenge my creativity, social skills, and kitchen expertise.  Pulling this off requires steps, some like stove or oven times dictated by recipes.  I guess I could surf or read cookbooks for soup or dessert options using a timer, but this type of task I tend to work until the step has been completed.  I like going on day trips, having done one of the three intended for this cycle.  The timer does not aid in completing this.  Rather, I pick a day, destination, starting time, and return time, then do it as a unified effort.  Once every November, I deal with my IRA.  This includes allocation to charities working with my financial advisor, then a few weeks later, depositing the rest of my mandatory withdrawal in my checking account or a different investment account.  The timer doesn't properly segment everything.

But a third of the way through this semi-annual cycle, I've done rather well, even on my manuscript.  The short bursts seem productive, not at all stressful. Visible progress appears.  It makes for a good system to bring difficult initiatives to completion, something that has chronically challenged me.

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.