Shabbat Pageant

Too much.  Over the top.  My personal connection to Friday night services, known as Kabbalat Shabbat, has cycled considerably over a lifetime.  As a youngster, primarily 1960s, we belonged to a United Synagogue Affiliate, a member of the Conservative Movement.  While the suburban Reform congregations showcased Friday night as the demarcation between the commuting work week and respite, the Conservative synagogues held their traditional services on Saturday mornings.  Friday nights became special events, attended more for the specific event than the sanctity of Shabbat.  My congregation, now defunct, had programming that would violate many of the Shabbat restrictions.  We held Bat Mitzvahs on Friday nights.  A choir would perform liturgical melodies with organ accompaniment once a month.  Programming included guest speakers of community prominence of panels of members doing presentations from campers showing the dances they learned to honoring the graduating High School Class to hearing what a local Civil Rights leader had to say about recent initiatives or legislation.  The services were timed for 8PM, competing with That Was the Week That Was and The Flintstones in the pre VCR era.  My family essentially only went to announced events.  The evening served as much a communal as a worship function, starting late enough so that men could drive home after a long week in the trenches, eat a more elegant dinner than other days, and still get to services.

My two years as a camper, Friday night served a different purpose.  Our parents were told to pack white outfits:  shirt, long white duck pants, while suede oxfords, to be worn on Friday nights.  We assembled for services, rather late due to Daylight Savings Time, then a meal in the communal dining room with singing before Grace after Meals.  Finally we assembled to a public space for Israeli Dancing, with most campers getting the gist of the steps before the summer ended.

College brought a variant of that in a way, recognizing that Friday night was traditionally university date night.  The classes ended, exams over.  Shower, put on a clean shirt and sports coat, services timed to candle lighting, but always quick and efficient.  Then to dinner with chicken soup and roast chicken.  The dining room always attracted a lot more people than the sanctuary, but services remained similarly attended on Friday nights as they did on Saturday mornings.  Commencement done.  Friday nights generally history for me.  Saturday morning became the anchor of communal Shabbos with Friday night reserved for unwinding, some weekends taking medical call, and a meal with kiddush and motzi.  Friday at home, Saturday at synagogue.  However, at our Conservative synagogue, services still began at 8PM where they remained for decades.  Eventually, the Conservative Rabbis, noting marginal attendance, opted to move Kabbalat Shabbat to a pre-dinner hour to enable them and maybe some congregants to have more of an uninterrupted home Shabbos experience. Rabbis sang songs or hosted dinner guests.  Congregants watched Dallas and Wall Street Week.  The Reform Movement kept Friday night as its centerpiece, including periodic programming.

This turned out very useful for me the year I needed to recite Kaddish for my father.  I had taken a new job that required a substatiantial commute.  By the time I returned home on Fridays, the week and driving had taken its toll.  Most of the year Shabbos had already begun.  Chicken got seared and baked before I left in the morning.  My wife finished the meal preparations and lit candles before I returned home.  Then dinner, then Kaddish.  My only realistic option was our local Reform synagogue.  Despite the sad reason for attendance I liked going there, not missing TV at all.

The Reform Movement had issued a new prayer book shortly before.  It offered their rabbis considerable flexibility of content from week to week.  While this congregation had a much different format from my traditional one, the choreography of the service remained fully recognizable.  An usher with name tag handed out a program as people entered the sanctuary. I selected a seat towards the back half, a place that I sought out most times.  They had an organist accompanying their cantor, both people of musical talent.  Periodically their choir participated, but usually not.  A woman lit the candles, irrespective of whether Shabbos had already begun on the clock.  This honor went to a board member or a Bat Mitvah girl, one of their few retentions of gender roles.  Then the service, a mixture of readings and familiar tunes.  Most weeks their Rabbi delivered a message, though sometimes a guest spoke.  Towards the conclusion, children under age 13 came to the Bimah where the cantor chanted Kiddush and the Rabbi blessed the children.  Ill acquaintances blessed, the departed memorialized, and the service concluded with their organist playing the tune to a hymn that varied between weeks while the congregants sang.  Then everyone assembled in an adjacent room for snacks.  It had predictability despite the variances in weekly content that added interest.  Even on special Shabbos weekends, whether partnerships with African American congregations for Martin Luther King Weekend or an invited guest of special accomplishment, the format avoided elements of public spectacle.  After my year of Kaddish, the fondness for the experience remained, so that I continued to attend periodically.  Eventually their Rabbi or their Board opted to move the time from 8PM to 7PM.  That largely ended my Friday nights there, and the few times I ventured out, their attendance seemed at least a third less than it had been.  The format remained unchanged.

My Traditional congregation has Friday night services timed to pre-dinner. Getting there and back, approximately 20 minutes in the car each way, puts my attendance in competition with Shabbos dinner.  I opt to have a pleasant meal with my wife.  I do not know if they assemble the required ten men each week.

And then we have events, times designated to venture beyond the ordinary, yet stay in bounds with fundamental purposes.  My congregation sponsored one of these, a multipronged extravaganza designed to tie different elements of the larger Jewish community, celebrate a milestone anniversary year for our synagogue, and perhaps right some wrongs that left us as victims.  

It had been a tradition for many years that our umbrella agency, The Jewish Federation, would designate one Friday night a month for one synagogue in our county to host the others.  Population migration has brought a significant number of Jews outside the reasonable driving distance, but pandemic normalized Zoom has enabled electronic access.  This is acceptable to all congregations but mine and Chabad, where electronic prohibitions on Shabbos are maintained.  Moreover, Chabad officials do not drive and their sanctuary is too small for a communal event so they have not participated in these geographicallly expanded Shabbatot.  Moreover, our clergy do not drive or ride in motor vehicles on Shabbos so their participation has been limited to our host years, though our officers have been full participants.  While liturgy, acceptance of women, and Shabbos restrictions vary among the county's synagogues, it has been the custom that each host showcases itself.  If only the Reform affiliate allows an organ, all congregations and their clergy accept that under the banner of Achdoos, or communal unity.  Experiencing each other in their own way serves as the foundation of this annual program.

Congregational fortunes have their own life cycles from creation to closure.  Mine started 140 years ago, the incentive for celebration.  In that time it has experienced internal history from locations, mergers, membership growth, programming adapting to the expectations of different decades.  In a much more compressed time, maybe my 70 year lifetime, organizational Judaism has experienced attrition.  My Bar Mitzvah synagogue, class of '64, building cornerstone '54, closed in '06.  My dear congregation as a newlywed, where I only worshipped for one year, swooned from 400 members to 29 over about 25 years.  They had a benefactor.  Like my Bar Mitzvah congregation, they ran out of people before they ran out of money.  My congregation faced a similar trajectory.  Declining and aging members without replacement.  No tycoons created in the 140 years of our existence.  We opted to sell our building which will keep us financially solvent until the actuarial realities catch up with us or an unanticipated influx of younger members find our traditional ways sufficiently attractive to pay annual dues.  With diligence and an interim location, we rented more suitable digs to call our own.  Weekly attendance of about forty makes our sanctuary appear reasonably full.  Accommodating hundreds, a possibility in our previous building, cannot happen.  In the interim, the kingmakers and shot callers from the Federation had to field objections from different leaders who found some host congregation customs or locations unacceptable.  As a result, they relocated this annual Shabbos of Unity from fractious sanctuaries to a central auditorium that serves the entire county, with Zoom links for those synagogues too distant.  One congregation would be named host.  Since Siddurim, or prayer books, are themselves sectarian, our communal brass decided to homogenize this with a more generic prayer book.  And then there needed to be a recovery from Covid restrictions and emergence of in-person worship.

My congregation's turn in the limelight arose this year.  It didn't happen.  Important people of other congregations found our customs unacceptable and vetoed closing down their Friday night activities to come to a central place.  Important people rule, up to a point.  Attrition has occurred with leadership very much in place.  Walking away, the easy default.  Challenging for a better outcome, more difficult.

Our synagogue has a milestone anniversary this year.  Not a typical one like a centennial or one with special Jewish significance like 13, but a three digit year that ends in zero brings an opportunity for hype.  We could use some hype.  Events aimed at those already inside.  The Dominant Influencers decided what we might like.  They think they know, though in 25 years I've never actually had my preferences or vision solicited.  If gathering on Shabbos could be more robust, create a dinner or festive event.  I attended a spectacle.  Admittedly, the Rabbi put in full effort and talent to reversing the affront that marked our initial turn as the focus of Community Shabbat.  Invite everyone who's anyone.  A singing troupe.  Elected officials with their time at the microphone.  A place for Rabbis of all Congregations to lead a prayer.  A barely teen to light Shabbos candles just in the nick of time, while not pre-empting a video our Senator created to be shown just after candles were lit.  We have no instrumental music on Shabbos.  That is part of our Shabbos.  But the show must go on so guitars from the ensemble accompanied our prayers.  Our High Holiday Choir.  Our closing prayer fixture to lead a few verses that overlapped Friday night with Saturday morning.  Shabbos as pageant, maybe with a tinge of parody.

All executions went well.  A few hundred people now know who we are, though not quite in the same way I thought we were.   Good food awaited those who stayed to its conclusion, which I did.

Interestingly, the part I found most meaningful did not occur in the auditorium.  I've met the Governor, Congresswoman, and live Senator before.  I've met everyone who performed other than the ensemble director.  My more meaningful interactions occurred with people I see too infrequently.  A very capable officer who mostly ignores me at shul, cannot ignore me by Zoom Board Meetings, who saw me exercising on the JCC treadmill.  There's a story behind that which I conveyed.  An old friend whose class I attend every week at the Osher Institute, a Dominant Influencer at his congregation on a different tier than ours.  Some words about OLLI.  Another fellow who I've not seen in decades, a contemporary recently widowed.  He had served as president of an agency at a time when I found it most contrary to my concept of what Judaism should aspire to.  He did too, but he had an obligation to his agency.  Never any ill will towards him, as he provided a sympathic if ineffectual ear when I needed it.  No attempt to bridge the decades of separation.  Just small talk for a few moments and glad to see we both appeared well in our late life Jewish obscurity.  I may have reservations about the experience, but those handshakes and greetings with a rugulach in hand confirmed what I knew all along.  The worship and showcasing must take a back seat to good will and kindness among the people who make an effort to be present when they could be home streaming whatever has replaced Dallas on TV.  Thinking back to late Friday nights of yore, my year of Kaddish always included some greetings afterwards.  My childhood congregation invariably brought the Bat Mitzvah of somebody I knew or public school person familiar each weekday but friendly for fifteen minutes after services.  Places where people of title, Dominant Influencers, become subordinate to the quietly talented sharing a handshake and a one liner.  Shabbos has its inherent formality.  People who prepare in advance their time at the Bimah or Torah Scroll.  They acquire merit for the effort.  But you reach long milestones by people remembering how well you treated them.  

Safe Deposit Contents

No greater incentive to review my most vital documents than referral by my cardiologist to an oncologist.  While my visit and lab work that followed do not seem desperate, I probably should have reviewed my will and Advance Directives periodically without this external prod.  They are housed in a safe deposit box at the bank where we maintain our checking account.  My last trip there was not long ago.  I deposited the title of my car which the finance company mailed to me after my final payment.  Eventually, I or my Executor will need to sell that car. On that visit, I did not look at any contents, just placing the title atop other items already there.  While we've rented the box for more than forty years, the original branch closed a few years ago, forcing us to rent a new box at the branch near us.  New location, box number, and keys.  Prior to dropping off my title, I had never signed in at the new location.  At the old location I only visited every few years, not looking at its contents more than once or twice previously.

So what did I find there?  Mostly important stuff along with small expensive items.  In a plastic bag sat a few clipped hairs from our first cat who died suddenly and prematurely.  And a gold ring with a ruby that my late father valued and gave to me.  I've never worn it.  Some jewelry of my wife's, including her engagement ring.  The expensive watch that my wife gave me for our 25th anniversary.  I think I only wore it to special occasions twice, and did not recall that it had been stored there.  It sits in an outsized box that I did not recognize.  Opening it took effort, but once opened I recognized that watch immediately.

Papers included appraisals of that jewelry and other pieces.  The box also had a VCR cassette labelled A Tour of our house.  No doubt also related to documentation of expensive items like furniture for future insurance claims.  I wonder if we should do this again, this time with a CD and images in The Cloud.

Other papers referred to our house.  The Deed.  The Surveyor's map of property lines. Our original mortgage documents, long since satisfied.

And papers needed as our lives reach their conclusions.  Wills, Advance Directives, Revocable Trusts.  Those things taken home to copy so that my home strong box will have copies to share with my financial advisor and our doctors.  Then return the originals.  Once returned, I expect that safe deposit box to remain dormant and unaccessed indefinitely.

Herb Pots

My morning task has become retrieving the newspaper at the end of the driveway.  I do this in night clothes, irrespective of the weather unless I have some reason to dress first thing in the morning.  I do not read the newspaper most days, though my wife does and I once had a great fondness for many different newspapers.  A of these dailies have gone extinct, including the Herald-Tribune to which my sixth grade class qualified for a cheap subscription.  Most still print every day but with much reduced local reporting, victim to parallel depletion of paid advertising.  This morning, as nearly every morning except Saturday when the local paper discontinued that day's print edition, I went to the driveway's end, this time dressed in anticipation of our cleaning service visit.  Rain fell steadily, though not enough to create big puddles on the driveway or adjacent lawn.  I found the paper wrapped in plastic, tied at the top, with a coating of water.  I bent down, shook the drops off as I picked it up, then deposited it at my front door to enable my wife to read about what's new.

Today's forecast predicts a much heavier downpour as we enter the first week of spring.  Outdoor activities did not appear on my Daily Tasks, other than to begin preparing my herb pots that I keep a few steps from my front door, their bottoms resting on grassless peat moss applied by our semi-annual landscaping service.  Those herbs had largely failed last summer while my indoor aerogarden herbs have flourished.  I don't know why.  Rosemary had some straggly needles, hardly enough for meaningful culinary use.  Even spearmint, a dominant weed if not contained, produced only a few sprigs.  Chives, thyme, dill, coriander went nowhere.

Reasons for crop failure would generate a long list.  Old seeds, inadequate pot drainage.  I don't think the lawn service sprayed herbicide on them as their placement near shrubbery shields them from the grassy areas.  Maybe too little sunlight, though I have had better growth in previous years.  The soil has not been enriched in any way for a while.  

One recent afternoon I inspected each pot.  The soil seemed tamped down.  I don't remember if I used potting soil or topsoil.  The latter is easier to work with but most online herb pot advice recommends potting soil that comes pre-enriched.  I took a small hand trowel, loosening each upper layer, digging down the to the drainage layer beneath, one made of small stones or broken pottery.  I will confirm drainage before planting this season.  The soil layer for some appeared thinner than when I first established most of the pots a few years ago.

When I watch cooking shows, another activity much reduced in frequency over time, the chefs all have culinary herb access.  I do too as an aerogarden, with some components woefully overgrown and underharvested.  But I really want to be able to go outside my front door to snip leaves that enhance what I create in my kitchen.  That will require a little more attention than in seasons past.

Extra Coffee

Rationing coffee consumption has taken effort.  I became an enthusiast, if not an addict, early in college.  The main cafeteria offered a Bottomless Cup with free refills for 10 cents.  I would add a pastry, most often a bow tie, for another quarter.  Frequently a friend from around campus would bring his breakfast, usually more substantial than mine, to my table.  We would chat about any variety of topics until the clock nudged us to our first classes.  Later, I bought an orange percolator, an electric one of questionable legality in the university dorm, where I would add some caffeine in preparation for intense study as key exams approached.

Coffee has taken many routes since then.  An introduction to specialty coffee worthy of a premium at a unique shop within walking distance of my apartment.  Free coffee provided by vendors or employers.  Technology advanced.  I still have a stovetop percolator, though my beloved orange electric one is no more.  Technology brought us Mr. Coffee drip machines, Melitta cones, k-cups, and Starbucks.  Instant coffee, the staple of my parents and my intro to coffee as a teen, still appears in my pantry though as an additive to baking, never as a beverage.  

For sure, the many variations of coffee attracts me.  It has for more than fifty years.  It also has its physiological effects.  Studying for an exam, a safe boost when needed, if not needed too often.  Awake in the morning to perform the day's tasks, that's probably the reason for its global popularity.  Conviviality, whether at the university cafeteria or at a lounge or a reception.  Legitimate purpose.  Adverse effects crop up too.  Sleepless after those evening receptions concluded with dessert and coffee.  Withdrawal symptoms when deprived on religious fast days or mornings when I need to leave in a harried way to get coffee when I arrive or en route.  And that's without getting into the many reports of long-term benefits or harms.  Despite the advancing sophistication of science, these observational studies seem to segregate into results that pitch the sponsor's fondness for or aversions to my preferred morning stimulant.

Incessant of injudicious consumption had to stop.  I imposed some form of rationing, though a lenient one.  On days at home, two k-cups worth, with the Keurig Machine set at 8 ounces.  When I deserved a treat, I could go to a coffee shop at mid-morning.  On mornings with OLLI classes, one cup of coffee from my k-cup plus some to take to OLLI in a thermal mug.  One class mornings get 10 ounces made in a home Keurig machine poured into a 14 ounce cylinder with a sipable top.  Two class mornings entitle me to a little more.  I fill a 16 ounce thermal mug with water, then pour that into a French press prefilled with two coffee measures of specialty ground coffee.  Wait four minutes, depress the plunger and pour into the now empty mug.  Sip during and between classes.

While I've been faithful to this limitation, I've also used access to extra as a reward.  A superlative effort at my laptop or enhancing my home in the morning entitles me to more coffee at late morning.  This is usually fulfilled at a coffee shop, as the attention to details of brewing that the baristas offer enhances my entitlement for a job well done.  Infrequently, the reward comes from the Keurig machine.

My good faith effort has its lapses.  Rarely do I purchase WaWa or 7-Eleven coffee, though they offer tasty options of major variety and let me customize.  Travel changes that.  On occasion I go out for breakfast, maybe twice a month.  Coffee and one refill become part of that experience.  And that's added to the eye-opening cup I make for myself before leaving home.  Fortunately, evening receptions where coffee is served have become infrequent.  While suppliers indicated that decaffeinated coffee tastes similar to its raw prototype, it registers in my mind as deprived, adulterated coffee.  Maybe because I remember an Organic Chemistry Lab module where we had to extract caffeine from tea.  Very artificial with exogenous chemicals.  I avoid that even at the risk of a night's insomnia.

Those fifty years since the college cafeteria have taken the coffee industry on a forward path, whisking me along with it. I enjoy the variety, availability, and ease.  But for my own safety, I set limits.  My adherence to self-created restrictions plays out as mostly beneficial, with only a minimum sense of deprivation.

Staycation

My last OLLI class before Spring Break.  I came home mid-morning, worked on a monthly financial review, then declared Vacation.  First initiative, treating myself to a donut at a new donut boutique, one for me, one taken home to my wife.  Spring Break in progress.

Being retired, time off gets more difficult to delineate.  My life has minimal fixed appointments.  OLLI comprises the majority of them each week, though now only five distributed over three days.  Periodically I need to visit one of my growing roster of medical providers.  These seem to cluster with long lulls between encounters and the diagnostic procedures they want me to have.  Shabbos is sort of a  fixed obligation.  Dinner preparation Friday, Services Saturday morning.  I don't skip a dinner that demarcates my Shabbos.  Services I give myself periodic mornings at home in place of synagogue.  

For the most part, my Vacations separate themselves from the rest of my time by travel.  This makes both fixed appointments and ongoing chores largely unavailable.  It also forces me to seek new experiences.  Unfortunately, my last two journeys as a couple ended in significant medical problems.  I really don't want to be in my car for hours at a time in both directions, nor do I want to deal with airports or rental cars.  As much as I like wineries, hot tubs, and museums, most of these can be had at much reduced expense and enhanced safety using my house as home base.  A Staycation this time.  The risk, of course, is being sucked into errands that would not crop up while on the road.  Our next scheduled housecleaner service would be one of these.

Still, I think of it as mostly an ME week, a chance to do one to three things that I want to do more than I should. While I could delegate the cleaner to my wife, I really should keep myself on-site that morning. At the end of the week, I have a commitment to the synagogue. There remains my exercise schedule, something I try to maintain at hotels if possible.

Things I like to do.  While I won't have a hotel, I have accumulated two JCC Day Passes.  So the steam room, sauna, pool, and gym of a resort remain available to me one time that week.  I had a grand breakfast a couple of years ago at America's largest buffet.  One morning for that, one of the days that the treadmill has the day off.  As tempting as it is to try an adventure to NYC by some inconvenient but discounted public transit, I need to meet somebody there next month.  I'll travel as a couple by driving.  But I can and should do one day trip to Philadelphia, picking out a special attraction.  Wineries not on my radar this week.  St. Pat's Day come and gone, so no compelling reason to seek beer either.  A new restaurant opened nearby, maybe see if it meets its hype.  I like slices of pizza and tuna hoagies.  Maybe pick one as a treat.

And that OLLI Class time, and the travel time to get there and back, can be designated Writing Time.  Fishing probably ought to happen once.  Putting Green and Driving Range are near the OLLI campus.  Those can wait until classes resume.

But one inescapable reality.  My FB Friends all seem to take themselves to the air.  The algorithms pick out stuff that will keep you fixated on the screen, if not create a feeling of I want that too.  At the moment, I don't.

So my ten days of largely unscheduled time has begun.  It feels a little like Vacation, even in the absence of travel.  

Pesach Season

My invitation to do one of the Pesach Torah readings arrived.  The one selected I've done before.  It comes out on Shabbos this year.  I'm indifferent to making a commitment but I cannot defer a decision too long. Somebody else read that portion last year.

Other parts of the Festival are more difficult to bow out.  In many ways, my personal concept of a year centers around Pesach.  In the Jewish Calendar, the first command given to us as a people was to set the solar calendar to begin two weeks before Pesach.  For me, it has always brought a transition.  My birthday this year coincides with the First Seder.  Past my prime, but still able to prepare and execute the Festival with the right pacing.

The weekly Shop-Rite ad arrived in the mail.  It has a section on Pesach food, though the display aisle has had items for a few weeks.  I saw what's on sale.  A gefilte loaf.  I usually make one for Seder.  If discounted enough, I buy two.  Jarred gefilte fish too expensive.  Matzoh meal I use all year round.  The price comes down this season so I stock up.  Good deal with the coupon next week.  Macaroons.  Goodman's brand the best buy.  Usually I get four.  They no longer come in cans, something once very useful for portioning and freezing the chicken soup that I make in quantity.  I don't think I will get farfel this year.

The big dinners, two Seders and a yontif at the end is when I am most likely to have guests.  Shabbos, First Seder right after Shabbos, yontif Shabbos, and Sunday at the end.  This poses a challenge, though one I've experienced before.  It means I cannot poach pears for First Seder desserts but can for the final shabbos dinner.

Menus are almost programmed.  The Seder ritual specifies most items.  Charoset allows some flexibility but simple almond, apple, wine, with a splash of cinnamon has become quick and easy.  The entrée of default has become a half turkey breast, easy to season and roast.  Salad has a few ingredients.  I make a matzoh kugel, though I have a lot of potatoes, so maybe a potato kugel for Seder and matzoh kugel for closing shabbos.  Asparagus comes on sale.  So do chicken parts, thus from scratch chicken soup with matzoh balls.

Moving dishes upstairs from the basement should go easier this year, as I organized them better last year.  Moreover, the newly hired housecleaners will do their thing a few days before, in anticipation of the carpet cleaners who come for their annual shampoo a few days before.

I approach this spring, with the equinox still a week off, a little beaten down.  Pesach remains a challenge for me, an obligation to other people at home and at the synagogue.  I pull it off each year.  No reason not to rise to the occasion when this year's Festival arrives.

Registering

Worrisome lab work, results with the potential to reduce longevity, brought me to a specialist.  Despite my familiarity with possibilities and likelihoods, mostly in my favor, I fretted over the encounter.  I drove to a big place, a suite that comprised the entire third floor of the building's west wing.  Chairs everywhere.  Quite a lot of doors.  Stuff hanging on walls, with a small display case for awards that members of the medical group have received.  

My turn at the reception desk came quickly.  Insurance cards.  Driver's license to confirm that I am really me.  A clipboard with registration forms and a pen of the type they discount at back to school sales.  No practice promotional logo.

I took my clipboard, then headed to a chair with arms in a place largely unoccupied.  Demographic data straightforward.  Name, address, birthdate as medical facilities now use that to confirm identities.  Emergency contact.  That took some thought.  My wife came first.  Back-up?  Neighbor or Friend.  It reminded me of how few close people I have.  I named a friend who could rescue me in an emergency.  Who to discuss what to do if I couldn't engage in decisions myself.  My wife.  They needed a backup.  I have two children, both physicians.  One is a clinician, the other a researcher.  One can drive to my side in five hours.  The other can fly to my side in five hours.  They have different personalities.  I wrote the name of the more distant on the line.  A reminder that this specialty has patients who sometimes do not do well.  I might become one of them.  I have an advance directive.  I think I know where it is.

Next page, About Me.  Have I ever had?  Our electronic record keeping has distilled all responses to yes/no, ignoring context which often matters more than yes/no.  I have had a right upper lobe walking pneumonia,  no subtlety by X-ray.  I remember slight pleuritic pain, and I probably had a fever which is why they did the film.  I think I took a course of antibiotics.  I remember where the x-ray had been taken, at a facility that went belly up some time ago after private equity purchasers milked what they could of its assets.  So I have had pneumonia.  When the blood bank screener asks if I have ever had a problem with my lungs, I say no. No reason to deprive some really sick people of platelets that they need.  It healed and subsequent chest x-rays have been normal.  My cholesterol is controlled.  Do I have kidney disease?  By current criteria, I have minimal CKD of minimal clinical consequence other than a reluctance of my doctors to prescribe anything that might upset that stability.  Anemia?  It's been treated.  Covid?  Took a course of Paxlovid.

Surgery?  Appendix they care about.  Mucosal tags and arthroscopy and wisdom teeth they probably don't, but EHR record keeping still gives that a yes.  

Family?  I know very little of my relatives' past.  There have been malignancies.  There have been cardiovascular events.  My siblings, my closest genetic contemporaries, are not in my loop.  My children keep their adult medical situations private.  I know how long my parents and grandparents lived and their cause of death.  A few more Yes responses on the checklist.

My Review of Systems, a very cursory checklist.  A pittance of what I used to solicit from patients. HEENT OK, though I think they could figure out from my age that hearing decline and cataracts are in evolution.  CV, pulm, GI, musculoskeletal, hematologic all had some intrusions.  None limiting but all an invitation for the doctor to expand our interview when she thinks it helpful.

Medical parts done.  Statement of financial obligations signed.  Clipboard returned to the front desk for somebody to type my responses onto their computer forms to remain in cyberspace for perpetuity, though with some privacy protections.  I kept the pen, with their permission.

This introduces serious medical care.  Perhaps their registration form, carefully considered by whoever designed it, hints at what their new patients like me want out of the assessment, and later the treatment.  I think everyone, including me, wants the doctor's talent.  Usually that entails technical decisions that extend life when it is threatened, or at least ease discomfort.  But as I filled out my answers, an emotional component became apparent.  I've been through my share of illness.  Until now I've prevailed.  In my Medicare senior years, I've accumulated fewer people that I can count on than I might have anticipated in the years I was more fully engaged with other people.  My children remain available from afar.  My sibs no longer are.  When I needed to identify a backup person, I chose a friend over a neighbor.  Friends are few, though not absent.

Some diagnosis remains.  A chance to recoup my resilience exposed by my past medical history and my current array of symptoms.  I remain fully functional despite them.  I conveyed to my medical care team a few things they needed to know, some they probably didn't need to know.  Those fifteen minutes with the form, pondering that Yes But which an electronic data set cannot capture, enabled an overdue interview with myself.  It left me with a different impression when I returned the clipboard than I had driving to their office.