OLLI Intercession

For at least several months I had anticipated this particular week.  The Osher Institute calendar allotted this week as spring break.  Last year I went to Newport, toured mansions, drank at wineries, dined at brewpubs and toured some childhood haunts in the Bronx that I don't really remember on the way back.  They were a glorious few days.  This year I left the destination to my wife whose enthusiasm for the week away does not measure up to mine.  I wanted to go to Pittsburgh as I had not been there before and it was just the right distance from home.  But alas, to my great disappointment but also my safety, there has not been an OLLI for a few weeks, no resumption foreseeable, and therefore nothing particularly special about this week with a pre-scheduled OLLI hiatus.  I'd still like to have gone away, and maybe choose a surrogate.  Pittsburgh must have some destinations that can be accessed from cyberspace, which is still open.  Our liquor stores are open, largely because the state does not want the alcoholics showing up in our ERs ingesting scarce hand sanitizer from the wall dispensers to mitigate withdrawal symptoms.  There is a Pennsylvania wine shelf at the megastore.  My GPS would tell me which Pennsylvania wineries would have been en route to Pittsburgh.  No brew pub fare, but I could settle some menus for Pesach fare, which I would have had to do anyway even if I could have travelled.  If I don't mind a lot of time in my car, I could still drive for the intended 300 miles, then turn around, but not really worth the effort.  These trips also have quiet time.  That I can still do at home.

Did Instead

Like the majority of citizens, I am not an essential worker, though I once was.  That leaves me largely confined to home with a brief respite each day to enjoy the mobility of my car and maybe keep my distance while I cast my fishing line which invariably stays more than six feet away from any bass.  There was an era when my life went from one beep to the next.  I probably would have craved the large open blocks of time then, though the times I had these opportunities, I rarely took best advantage of them.

Now everything is a big block of unscheduled time.  Unfortunately I've never developed any passions which I would pursue in any spare moment.  I am left instead with a list of semi-annual goals, weekly subsets of activity that bring me to those goals and a daily task list, some purposeful, some not.  This becomes the surrogate for focus, which I've never been able to generate unassisted. 

This week marks the midpoint of my half-year's efforts.  I have engaged in some Democratic activity though not in the sustained useful way I had hoped.  I read my Jewish book and listened to a novel on cd's.  I am reading a classing by e-book.  My audio nonfiction book from the library had defective discs but when the library resumes business I can get another.  Garden ready to plant this week.  Treadmill intensity improving.  I am at the distance goal, doing OK with the speed goal.  I am also creating set times to be on the treamill and keeping these appointments with myself.  I fell a little better, though legs a little sore.  I've been on one road trip.  This was the scheduled OLLI break when I would have gone on the second trip.  The pandemic caused a delay, though I hope not an outright cancellation lasting another three months.  I've dabbled with friends but not really nurtured any new ones.  I don't want to settle for e-friends.

The storage areas of my house could be further along.  Key advancement in making the basement functional on tap for this week.  No excuse for not doing this.  Dabbled with cleaning service.  I want the house vacuumed and scrubbed down periodically but I am not willing to pay $2500 a year to have somebody do this and I do not find this a high enough priority to do it myself.   This one probably will not reach resolution.

My original interest in learning about physician burnout has waned.  I have resources that I've not pursued but no serious mentor.  I'll give it some attention later.

Wedding getting iffy, at least the grand celebration.  I can drive to St. Louis if air travel becomes unrealistic.  I had planned to schedule a major trip but not take it this half-year.  I could still do that.  And my enthusiasm for getting my expense report for the past year on an Excel table has petered out a bit.  Have more than enough time, not enough motivation.

So I could have done more than I have so far.  But what did I do instead?  I've slept more.  I've expanded social media a little too much, maybe having to put the brakes on this.  I've thought about myself and what I'd like my legacy to be.  And I choose a few items each day to pursue and have done reasonably well pursuing them. 

Virtual Judaism

Synagogues closed but the things synagogues do have not disappeared.  Mine has had some communications that reinforce my pre-coronavirus impression of mediocrity.  Didn't attend parsha and pizza before.  my convenient excuse was that I don't want to shlep there on Wednesday evenings but the real reason is that I am content reading the four learned commentators whose presentations I review without fail on Thursday.  Never been to our Rabbi's presentation.  Maybe I should have tried it out.  Looking at shabbos online, I never attended Kabbalat Shabbat there before and have no idea why they need a Hazzan from a hundred miles away to conduct it, or to do Havdalah the next day.  If I weren't a congregant, my thought would be doesn't the Rabbi have the capacity to do that without assistance?  Having been there, it's not a definite yes but perhaps should be.

I go because I like the people, not because I like the insights that are imparted from pulpit or bimah.  No people, no desire on my part to choose my own congregation over another.  I would skip shabbat periodically because I did not want to be there.  A minor remorse would appear but subside by Havdalah.  Unavailability has remedied the remorse.

As worship and learning no longer are dependent on site, reports are starting to emerge on attendance increasing, becoming more diverse, and including a fair number on non-Jews, mostly curious people but a few malicious types intent on disruption.  Eventually coronavirus restrictions will run their course.  Will the synagogues be more inviting or less.  At the moment mine registers as less.

New Treadmill Landmark

In the past, when I set up my semi-annual projects each June and December, I include a Health category.  As Covid-19 spreads globally, as physicians ramp into dedicated fireman mode and regain some of the public respect that had atrophied, maintaining health has come into better focus amid the threat.  Traditionally I have included a weight target, typically 155 lb or just under a 10 lb reduction.  While this would categorize as a SMART goal, it has failed to materialize over enough half-years that I changed the metric this cycle in the hope of making it more Attainable.  Instead of the end point being weight, it has become treadmill setting:  duration 25 minutes, speed 3.5 mph, incline 3%.  Except for speed, I made it with months to spare.  And I feel generally good having done this, despite an ingrained yetzer haRa that creates a variety of excuses for skipping a session.  With Covid-19 restrictions which have eliminated OLLI attendance, my main competitor for treadmill time and energy, I'm walking on pace as scheduled.  There are other impediments, mainly recurrent lumbar pain which has prevented being on the treadmill first thing in the morning but by mid-morning that excuse has evaporated.  My legs seem to tolerate the time extension.  My breathing has not been a barrier at all and there has been no hint of angina.  And with the progress has been the psyche boost of measurable accomplishment.  I could use that psyche boost.

My Kind of Shabbos

For the first time since post-op day 1 of my appendectomy about seven months ago, I let the whole day go by without getting dressed.  While not quarantined and usually itchy for an outing, that did not happen with yesterday's shabbos.  Shul is closed.  The Rabbi sent some insights electronically during the week, none worthy of college level literary analysis.  I had read my usual four on-line commentaries on Thursday then made some special effort for shabbos dinner Friday.  Shabbos came and went.  I did not miss shul.

It was my intent to take the month of February away from my synagogue, a rare occurrence with a five shabbos leap year February.  It was not to be, as I had agreed to a Torah reading one shabbos and had Yahrtzeit the final shabbos that month.  March brought new obligations.  When I skip shul intentionally, it is usually purposeful, needing a respite in some way, though maybe with a residual sense of remorse.  When kept away as a public health measure, my absence transforms to the right thing to do that weekend.  I didn't miss the experience at all, now over two consecutive shabbatot.

So what did I do instead?  No car.  I've already given up going to stores on shabbos, though not driving to shul or to parks or museums.  Watched TV, big screen, Roku streaming of Nat Geo Wild.  Sports had all been cancelled.  Listed a short while to WRTI, the regional classic station.  Looked at possible recipes for Pesach.  And read about a quarter of the Book of Ezekiel.  I had started this a few weeks back on Sefaria, the online compilation of Jewish sources.  But with the computer off limits for shabbos, I retrieved the JPS translation of the Tanach and read chapters 24-36, where the tone changes from vengeance against Israel to future redemption.  God is just not a real flattering persona in that book, which may be partly why I have enjoyed reading it.  This one is appropriate to college level literary analysis.

I napped a lot.  Washed the milchig dishes as I used them.  Took some things off the kitchen floor to more suitable places.  And most importantly, did what I should do more, asked myself periodically what is the best thing I should be doing for myself right now?  It was not going out, getting into street clothes, sitting on a chapel chair wondering why shul evokes flashbacks of Hebrew School, or watching a sporting event on big screen TV.  It was some sorely needed time with myself.  That's shabbos.

Indoor Cat

Like most people with this pandemic, staying home gets priority, though not exclusivity.  For the first time since retiring I miss being a doctor amid the fray, tending to the diabetics whose illness poses a special risk.  Young persons sport perhaps, though I'm probably in a better position to handle the personal risk than those with young families.  An infection, though, would put me out action quickly and my age puts me in a raised mortality group.  So I'm mostly an indoor cat.

I could go fishing.  I will go fishing later today.  And I could uses a few minor purchases, none so urgent as to be done today.  Good weather for planting parsley in a container.  My writing and the thinking that makes it possible has not done as well.  I've done some work around the house.  Not much has elevated my spirits, though.  Nor have I undertaken my many listed tasks that could be checked off the list but have languished on the list for months or longer.

Yes, fishing later today and parsley in container.

Of Similar Mind

My tablet and cell phone sign-ons begin with a news feed that I typically will scroll through.  As something objectionable appears, usually an unwelcome news source, I drag it rightward out of sight and it never appears again.  My blog must have a mystery reader with technical skill:

https://furrydoc.blogspot.com/2020/01/culling-my-news-feed.html

Since then I decided to scroll past people who would be nebbishes were it not for yichus.  To the sidelines go the squibs about descendants of the Queen, though I still have some admiration for her grandson Harry who is probably not a nebbish, and the germ line of President #45 who I judge to be without personal merit. 

So it has been every morning until today.  I tried to drag the stories but they remained on the screen.  However, three new vertical lines appeared in the lower right corner of each entry.  I opened one and found a menu.  It allowed me to Deep Six by news source or by subject.  Off to oblivion went Fox News first.  I wouldn't even open a recipe or sports score without feeling manipulated in some way.  To oblivion went the reputable places that would not let non-subscribers read the item even if I opened it.  No more NYT, WSJ, WP.  Subject blockage got pretty specific.  I would have to eliminate each Royal individually but at least I got started. 

Presumably the geeks did this more for their benefit than mine.  There's probably a buck to be made selling very specific consumer preference information.  But for now I can focus on news feeds from CNN or about physics or recipes adaptable to Kosher.

Pesach Approaching

Purim never got me all that enthused.  I heard Megillah, sometimes even did part of the public reading, and chuckled at the spiel jokes which squeezed out some people's creativity.  I would munch hamantaschen for the next week.  But personal immersion would have to wait for Pesach, that time of transformation.  The house got vacuumed, the carpets shampooed.  Food restrictions made me creative and an obligation to provide for a family seder kept me dedicated.  I become a planner and a doer. 

Realities of the calendar make this year's festival either a special challenge or a Pesach orgy depending on how well I absorb the tasks.  It comes after daylight savings time so ritual meals might be on the late side.  It also starts at mid-week putting first seder Wednesday night, second Thursday. Then Shabbos the following day, Yom Tovim Tuesday/Wednesday nights, then Yizkor on Thursday and the next shabbos the following evening.  And my birthday comes out during Chol HaMoed.  And First Seder needs to be transported to my in-laws.  That's a lot of meal planning. 

Meal planning has an interesting upside.  Shop-Rite has an array of food available, most expensive and with the health consequences of endlessly processed food.  By forcing menus, shopping can be more targeted.

I start with Seder, then shabbos Pesach.  Some comes essentially defined.  There's the Seder Plate with only the Charoset getting a recipe.  Chicken soup with Matzoh Balls.  Variable from there.  And with the Second Seder starting rather late, the meal will be less elaborate, largely a continuation of the First Seder.  Shabbos poses a challenge, preparation coming during yontiff.   Simple but different.

By the closing days, I'm shuled out, kitchen and dishes beaten, and just want to do kiddush and count Omer.  Started exploring some recipes while my anticipation is at a peak.