Failed Meals

Three of my last four attempts at special dishes all failed in some form, all attributed to inattention or cutting corners on my part.  Cholent was great, Kosher beef cubes from Trader Joe's of better fat content than what Shop-Rite sells.  But cherry pie, macaroni & cheese, -lasagna all came out notably flawed.  For the pie, I used Crisco instead of half butter like I usually do.  Getting the portions for a double crust did not go well, nor did the added water.  As a result the crust was too short with the taste of the shortening, crumbly, not pasty like usual lapses.  For the M&C I added too much flour to the roux.  For the lasagna, I used mozzarella primarily, forgot to grease the pan before adding the first layer, and overbaked it.  Hard to take out of pan, edges burnt, topping more of a crust than that gooey coating which should have been more like pizza.  

Since this is one of my hobbies pre-retirement extending forward, I take these lapses as either loss of interest or loss of capacity on my part.  It's probably more inattention.  But the cholent was terrific, and I'll have occasion to make the others at some future time.

Summer's Demarcation

I'm not quite ready to relinquish my summer.  Ordinarily the close of summer energized me as I looked ahead to a new school year, the fall Holy Days, building a sukkah, college football at least once in the stadium, colorful leaves, and a brisk chill.  It's been arriving earlier.  Schools now open a week or two before Labor Day.  The Holy Days appear this year about as early in the secular calendar as they can.  College football can wait, but the West Chester game remains cheap entertainment if they allow spectators this season, even cheaper if they don't.

Since my semi-annual segment starts in July, summer comprises the first third, a preparation for those performance SMART goals.  I did pretty well with the preparation.  The time to Thanksgiving focuses more on execution, which can be a lot more challenging, but I seem ready.  OLLI commences this week informally, formally next week.  I know how to make a YouTube video, now I have to make three of them to fulfill the goal.  I just began my third book, an audio novel.  My writing could be better.  I've committed to travel, two more minor day excursions and one more grand.  While getting ready to entertain guests by serious housekeeping, I'm ready to invite some.  The Family Room has some plans for completion.

Decent summer.  Ready for a terrific fall, even when it arrives a little early.

Dining Room Chairs

Our dining set gets used every week, at least the table and chairs.  It has been an ordeal in some ways from its initial purchase about forty years ago.  Unknown to us, the Van Sciver Company, a seemingly stable small regional chain of furniture stores, was about to go under.  We ordered our set, paid the deposit but it never came.  After a while I complained to our local paper's consumer reporter, who investigated my inquiry.  His response was the delay was caused by customized seat covers.  No way.  It was caused by Van Sciver not paying its contractors.  Eventually the set came, with the seat covers as ordered.  The breakfront got filled quickly, extra leaves put away for use when needed, which has been hardly ever, and we have shabbos dinner there pretty much without fail, along with most of our fleishig meals over an extended time.

We've never had a problem with the table, the breakfront needed repair of the doors which had come off alignment.  However, the chairs have been a challenge.  Some have back pieces that shattered needing professional repair.  The glue has come undone.  I replaced all the seat covers myself after teaching myself how and ordering some very sturdy fabric.  The screw alignments have some faults and screws fall out.  It might be easier to replace them all, but we invariably opt for repair.  This week, too many cushions had come loose, so I took and inventory of missing screws.  There were nine.  Off to the hardware store, purchased at a price well above what I expected for standard hardware, and before you know it, eight of the missing nine had been restored, though not all screwed into their sockets fully and for the ninth I couldn't locate the socket which had been covered by fabric.  Three screws anchors the cushions adequately, so project completed.

Supper Planning

My wife tends to the cat and makes sure the two Waste Management bins get wheeled to the edge of our driveway each Thursday evening. We each do our own laundry, though hers includes the bedding and mine includes the towels. Most other household chores fall to me, some done better than others.  Our dishes get washed every day. And we have supper every evening, almost never having to acquire it by going out or ordering a pizza.  When I do the shopping, or perhaps even when I read the Thursday Shop-Rite ads and log the digital coupons on Sundays, it is with menus in mind.  Some standards like Macaroni & Cheese in the style of Horny Hardart or Lasagna last four meals, two the week made, two the following week. Quiche, another staple fairly easy to make, lasts two. Shabbos Dinner is usually set as a chicken breast seared, then baked with some accompaniments or a crockpot melange known as cholent or dfina or stew depending on cultural origins.  A crockpot shabbos meal gets half frozen for another shabbos.  The availability of phony meat, from garden burgers to ersatz chicken supplies other meals, determined by what's on sale as I move my cart along the frozen cases.  And the freezer also has its share of fish, easily portioned, thawed the day before, pretty much nature's fast food.  We eat pretty well, especially in the evening, more often than not either without a lot of effort on my part or an investment of effort for later.  Just have to remember to thaw the fish, though some authorities claim this can be compensated by longer cooking.

Not very fast food but convenient just the same have been add-ons.  I like making kugel but it is a multistep process, though good for more than one meal.  More typically baked potatoes go with everything, wash and in the oven.  Frozen potatoes I only get when on sale, those have to be turned mid-heating.  Rice, barley, quinoa, and couscous take little effort, kasha a bit more with addition of mushrooms or bow pasta. Vegetables come fresh or frozen.  Easy to slice a tomato or an avocado.  Adding a variety to cholent, some fresh, some frozen, takes little effort.  Vegetables need only be boiled, sometimes peeled.  Squash can be sauteed if small, baked if larger.  This is generally more spontaneous than planned, though I know what is on sale for produce and incorporated into supper menus.

I like making desserts, though just not very often.  Apple Walnut Pie a la Fish Market in the fall at peak apple harvest, but generally labor-intensive desserts are for special occasions like birthdays, Thanksgiving, or Seder.  More often there is no dessert, or minor munching on ice cream or a banana.  Meals don't need much afterthought if given forethought.

Performance Quotas

Since retiring, there is very little exogenous pressure on me to do things.  I have to create those myself.  Some projects have gone well, some languished.  I get things in on deadline, but can procrastinate a lot, maybe an inner mechanism that serves me well for enough things that it has been ingrained.  The exceptions have been reading, where I stay ahead of schedule and housework where results can be seen.

Perhaps what brings success in these are performance quotas, structured in different ways but measurable.  For long works, I will set a timer and read until the timer runs down or to the page beyond that.  If parts of a book or article are sectioned in shorter ways, I will read to the end of predetermined section that day.  Same with New England Journal.  The personal rule is two articles a week, which I have recently maintained, aided perhaps by CME credit.  For Medscape, today I will read this or write this.   The tasks are defined and paced resulting in high completion results.

For housework, pacing the big projects is harder.  I will do milchig/fleishig dishes right now, perhaps.  But creating My Space, making the Living Room and Family Room functional, and creating walking paths in the basement needed more than quotas.  The timer did less well on these.  Setting regions went better, sorting papers for save or recycle sometimes offered better results.  Not very different from learning anatomy where you can look at a region or you can master a system.  What seems to emerge as the common theme is the specificity of what constitutes a successful effort.  When I know when I'm done, I am able to get done.  Those things where intermediate steps are less observable, my gardens, entertaining visitors, organization participation tend to be less effectively pursued.  I need to do better at making as much tangible as possible.

Day Trips

Getting away for a while takes some planning not to mention expense.  Getting away for a day takes little forethought and minimal expense, which is why it shows up in some form on all my semi-annual lists, usually as an initiative of three over six months.  I've done one this cycle, need to do two more.  However, I've already been to most of the places within round trip driving range that I really want to visit.  Or maybe not yet.  

Our electronic wizardry allowed me to draw a circle of 150 mile radius from my home address.  It takes in all on NJ, DE,  DC as well as the majority of PA + MD,and portions of CT, NY, WV and VA.  Quite a lot of places I've not been to in the past.  Museums, historical sites, nature, maybe some friends to visit, or some amusements.  I only need two places but I also need two days.  Shouldn't be too hard to complete this semi-annual initiative.

It's Not Quite Daylight

After months or more of sleep disturbance, middle of night awakening multiple times, it's been a very favorable summer.  My study and implementation has brought regular sleep times, an air-conditioned room, a new pillow, and periodic tracking of pattern.  My sources suggest I likely only have a variant of normal commonly encountered in seniors.  And I feel notably more energetic.  My wrist alarm buzzes each morning at 6:30, and I heed its signal.  What has changed this week is the light through the windows when I arise.  I depend on the distinction between day and night to get me going.  These past two days have encountered a very dark gray, not at all the light that resets my internal clock.  Perhaps overcast weather, perhaps shortened daytimes though we are still about a month away from the equinox.

It has not changed my commitment to my wrist alarm.  I still feel good in the morning, ready to go make coffee.  And I have plenty of artificial light to guide me.  But I wonder if the gains I made in sleep hygiene this spring and summer might encounter a setback as we get closer to seasonal clock adjustment.

Staying on Track

There are activities that get me to my twelve semi-annual SMART goals and those that deflect me from them.  As the first third of this half-year approaches, I need to assess what could have been better and what the distractions were or where the commitment on my part may not have really been there.  My monthly expense review has gotten a few days overdue, as it usually is.  Doing it requires a block of time dedicated to doing it and a small amount of spousal assistance which comes promptly.  I just need to set aside that block of time and do it, but it always gets done.  My exercise schedule goes along admirably though the intensity has been scaled back a mite.  I continue to shop in a way compatible with weight control.  The scale remains favorable, the weight circumfrence barely budged.  I've incorporated BP monitoring, not nearly as consistent with it as the exercise and sensible grocery cart.

Writing, both book and articles has hit a snag.  I have authored several pieces but only one I would call. worthy of what I am capable of doing.  I've tried to meet deadlines with topics chosen by writing contests.  Those have not gone well.  I'm hoping to enroll in an OLLI course on non-fiction writing in the coming semester to try to improve this.  The fiction work has lagged.  I set a specific time to do this but more often than not do something else instead.  To be fair, that sonething else usually comes from my goals but I may not have enough determination to compose a full fiction opus.

My gift certificate for B&H Photo will be tied to my intent to enter the universe of YouTube producers.  I've learned how, have a sense of gear, done some trial runs.  Much less neglect than my book writing. Need to make some decisions of what to purchase but dry runs will be from equipment at hand.  I still want to be able to upload three by year's end.

Reasonably determined to travel someplace new by year's end in the form of vacation.  Air travel has been largely to visit people.  Two leisure travels have fallen through the past couple of years but I really want to go someplace as a tourist by year's end.  Time to decide where, though Covid uncertainty and some steep fare rises may change this.

Reading my second book.  An ebook which I'll call Jewish.  Read a traditional non-fiction work.  That leaves me with audiobook and fiction.  I really don't like audiobooks for literature so I may do another non-fiction audiobook, then and ebook for literature.  My reading quota always gets completed.

Can I have three guests this half year?  I've been diligent at getting the lower level of our house of suitable appearance.  As we approach the Holy Days and sukkot I can start seeing if anyone wants to come for shabbos, particularly as we get to Standard Time and shabbos starts earlier.

Related, the Family Room decluttering shows visible progress.  I do about a half hour at a time, separating paper keep, paper recycle, cloth, and stuff.  I wonder if it might come to fruition more reliably if instead of short bursts done frequently I just allocate two days to do that and nothing else.  

OLLI begins.  It was my intent to latch onto a committee.  I still might.  However, even in person they discourage being on site other than to sit in a classroom for that class.

And I've not ignored day trips.  Took one, want two more.  Should be able to do that, covid or not, as I did with peak covid restrictions in the past.

So one third into the half-year, for the most part on track.

Go to Dinners

Some suppers reflect special occasions: Birthdays and Anniversaries, Valentines Day, guests over, Thanksgiving, Seders.  Some recur like shabbos.  And some just need meals.  Like busy people everywhere, some convenience matters.  I use electric appliances.  Rarely buy premade meals but I also don't make my own ice cream.  As phony meat becomes more prevalent, I will get some on sale.  Easy to store and prepare, adequate taste and versatility.  But amid convenience, I have my staple meals created de novo. Macaroni & Cheese replicated from Automats of days when I found Horn & Hardart my NYC lunch destination.  Dairy Lasagna with thawed spinach.  Cholent in its various forms assembled early Friday morning, good for shabbos and half frozen for the next shabbos.  Pan seared chicken breast for shabbos.  Maybe a package of Hebrew National Franks boiled or broiled.  Quiche now that I know how to  make easy olive oil crust.

They have a few things in common.  All are suppers.  Most last two meals.  Most require multiple steps with assembly.  All are forgiving on recipe variations.  All give me a sense of having accomplished something worthwhile at the end of the day irrespective of how the previous hours played out.

Worth the effort.  Each time they come out a little different, except maybe the hot dogs which vary with what bread and toppings are at hand.  And the beverage options create their own variety, though less so since I've banned the evil soda from my refrigerator and some of the more unique beers have risen in price beyond my limit.  Still they make good meals, some effort, big reward.

Harvesting My Gardens

In anticipation of a special anniversary dinner, I went out to see how much of it I could contribute from the bounty of the gardens set as a semi-annual project last cycle.  One tomato plant flourished.  That became salad.  No cucumbers yet.  Lots of basil that became pesto.  Parsley became garnish.  Thyme leaves enhanced glazed carrots.  Flounder came from a fisherman more skilled than me.  

And there will be more tomatoes as one plant has produced fruit to abundance.

Gardening is here to stay though in a different form.  The herbs except for sage and rosemary did better in a pot.  Those two stay in the backyard, as my sage did poorly in the pot.  The rest of the backyard beds seem better suited to vegetables.  Tomatoes need more room.  See what happens to cucumbers.  Maybe try eggplant and peppers from the nursery instead of from seed.  Beans were a disappointment.  Soil analysis next spring I think, with targeted enrichment.  Now that I've added depth between the surface and the weed block, I can reconsider root vegetables, maybe beets that don't grow very deep.  

And I have enough herbs to keep me going through Thanksgiving.

Auditing a Course

One of the fringe benefits of OLLI enrollment is the chance to audit a course from the main campus.  I've never taken advantage of this but would like to this semester, as many courses are online so I don't have to schlep to the main campus, find parking, and plod over to an academic building.  They provide an electronic catalog that let me whittle the choices down to about 2000.  Not really wanting to enroll again in intro to anything or take nursing curricula, I narrowed it down to three:  two on biological data, one on genetics.  With the yom tovim coming up on Wednesdays, I would miss three classes on two of the courses, but I don't get exams or grades.  Genetics has a textbook with a bit of a price deterrent.  One of the statistics seminars meets on Tuesday afternoons once a week.  That works well.  It is led by an adjunct professor whose main gig is head of biostatistics at our regional medical center.  He has a Chinese name but American graduate degrees so his English must be OK, or I can drop out if it's too burdensome.  That may be my best bet, as I may also have an overlap conflict on Mondays with another course.  Think it over, but real college but without exams seems like an attractive option.

Liquid Pleasures

Staring at a bunny whose face protrudes through flowers.  The decoration of a coffee mug that my daughter gave me many birthdays ago, my birthday nearly coinciding with Easter that year.  Inside this mug remain a few more swallows of Costco medium roast coffee, a best buy on their K-cups, now that the need for bifocals induced membership renewal.  Once finished, another cup of coffee of a different variety will follow, and perhaps a third later, but that's my ration.  At the end of the day, or perhaps with supper, I will have my choice among several potent potables.  Beer tends to go best with shabbos dinner.  High volume soda no longer goes in my shopping cart except on Pesach or when needed for a colonoscopy prep, rarely purchased from a convenience store either.  Seltzer with a zetz of flavoring has largely replaced this.  I do not miss the excessive sweetness at all, despite the scientific certainty that the amount of sweetness each company places in their 2 liter PET bottles maximizes the hedonic response of my subconscious.  Soda is no longer one of those liquid pleasures.  Coffee has moved to the top of the list.

Other liquids never made the cut either.  Soup is convenient, economical, unrestrained in its varieties, yet never really among my culinary delights.  If socially acceptable I would devour the matzoh ball without the chicken soup but culturally they remain a unit.  Tea and soccer captured other parts of the world, most of the world, in fact, though are second tier for me.

Liquid pleasures take a tactile form too.  There are salt water waves stimulating skin, fresh water or chlorinated pools providing cooling on a hot day and pleasant resistance to muscles, shower streams of multiple adjustable patterns, intensities, and temperature levels at different occasions to relax or invigorate.  Never had a mud bath.  Have been in a hot tub with moderate pressure water targeting my most sore area.  And we have rain of different intensities, sometimes an annoyance to be shielded with an umbrella, sometimes better to get soaked and achieve pleasure in drying off.

There are also visual pleasures.  I like seeing the waves break and watching fish or marine mammals, preferably live but often in captivity.  Casting my own like to be retrieved empty-handed defers liquid pleasure until one day I hook one, to be released for being such a good sport.

Not to neglect olfaction, I know when my coffee is brewing, when I drove past the massive Anheuser-Busch brewery, or when chicken soup is homemade.

And hearing participates too, the waves of the sea, the faucet, the flush.  All liquid.  But for me, it's a gustatory stimulus primarily.

Scrolled Right Through

One of my better decisions seems to have been to leave each day's access to FB and Tw to chance, in the form of a virtual roulette wheel.  The virtual marble has been settling in Even=No the last few days but this morning came of 17=Go For It.  I did.  No messages.  Upon scrolling nothing approaching a profound comment.  There were anniversaries to be acknowledged, as August has become the most popular wedding month, my own among them.  The usual political statements.  Pictures of cute animals and cute kids.  The vast wasteland hardly ended with Newton Minow's assessment of early television.  It has been repackaged for our day and for our amusement.

FOMO?  Not at all.

No Messages

As I have accepted the verdict of the electronic roulette wheel for whether I engage in social media that day, ODD=yes, EVEN=no, I still start by checking any messages on both Twitter and FB.  Usually FB has some from the night before, rarely important, but I still like to wish people a Happy Birthday.  FOMO has mostly disappeared.  There just isn't anything to miss out on.  Yet I anticipate at least the FB corporate board has an interest in trying to engage me in some way.

Not this morning.  I scored a virtual Goose Egg.  Zip from Tw and FB, only one email from a weekly Parsha commentary that usually arrives a little later in the day on Wednesdays but today got transmitted overnight.

Do I feel electronically bypassed?  Well, partly yes and partly no.  I have a lot of things better to do than check messages.  The impulse to respond often detracts from more gratifying but more effort laden projects.  But wanting to be left alone and being left alone are not the same, any more than solitude and loneliness are not the same.  It would have been better to have a message or two, accept today's roulette spin of 12 as a day to not engage in social media, then wade through the things that offer me the day's feeling of accomplishment.

Major Trip Perhaps

When I compile my twelve semi-annual initiatives each December and June, I make sure to include a couple that stretch me to the edge of the SMART acronym, or more accurately the middle A=Attainable.  These rarely get done but set the framework for difficult things that will reach fruition.  They tend to be resource heavy, either in time, physical or mental effort, or expense.  Yet they have to remain A=Attainable.  My Wanna/Should for this cycle seems to be taking a major trip to a place I've not been before, something I actually fulfill every few years.  

All worthy projects begin with somebody's imagination, this time mine, so where might I like to go and how realistic or worthwhile might such an undertaking be?  I've started the imagination part.  A good starting point seems to be checking out what the pros do.  Guided tours exist everywhere.  We traversed Israel efficiently that way.  So it becomes a matter of dividing up the world and surfing the web for tours, to see where they go in each locale and how much they charge.

Dividing the geography turns out to be a little harder than planned, or at least more extensive.  There's the USA which for my purposes can be divided into National Parks, Cities, and everyplace else.  There's Europe which isn't that big big but has a lot of countries each unique in its own way and some with personal legacy.  Asia is quite big. the Far East being very different from Islamic Asia or Russia.  Africa for me is wildlife.  Australia is where I might find the roaming electron but more likely to find kangaroos.  And Sudamerica has fewer places, more landscape than cultural or historical destinations, though undoubtedly those exist as well.  Finally, the best merger of new places with hedonism may still be a cruise.

Lots of options, a few foreseeable obstacles, not the least would be getting my wife to accept this let alone create a joint project of planning.  But worth the effort. A=Attainable.

OLLI Course Selections

Among my area's finest opportunities for seniors, which now includes me, has been the Osher Institute, acronym OLLI, where we can take courses and until Covid, mingle with peers.  As an offshoot of the state university, though at a separate campus, it is staffed by university officials who have far exceeded the call of duty in their attentiveness and capability.  Fall semester begins on Rosh Hashana, which affects my course selection, as the Yom Tovim cluster on Tuesday-Wednesday which affects what I can select the first half of the semester, but there is ample opportunity to sign up for my comfortable pace of three courses each week.

Scouring the catalog, I tend to pick out titles first.  I want to improve my writing skills so a course on Writing and on becoming more proficient with Word go to the top of the list.  Now that I have some experience, I've also taken on the legacy of the SCUE Course Guide from college, eliminating those taught by instructors who have given me reason to avoid their courses.  I like history.  I like discussion of events.  While it invites pooled ignorance from uninformed but opinionated peasants, myself very much among them, these sessions can be satisfying places for people like me who derive a certain challenge and satisfaction from tossing around ideas.  One discussion course needs to be among those selected.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I have a lot of peers who like to keep their minds engaged.  As a result, some of what I rank most highly will be oversubscribed, though fairly apportioned by lottery rather than first submission or who complains loudest.  

There are courses, curricula, and people.  Provisions are being set to allow in person attendance, a high priority for me if it can be sustained.  I like the course material and experience to be sure, but for seniors no longer strutting daily in the pageant of our workplaces, being among people has become a very high priority.  Even with the return of a mask mandate, sitting in a lounge of modest social distance still generates a certain amount of banter.  There are comments that guide conversation, a cordiality that really does not duplicate as well on Zoom, which imposes a restraining element of formality.  In person is better.  With prudent precautions, the health risk at present seems acceptable.  It also imposes upon me some welcome preparation, assembling my loose leaf and lunch in a backpack, having me drive there, maybe taking in the putting green at the Porky Oliver Golf Course a short drive away, parts visible from the campus.  As much as I gravitate to My Space, sometimes shared space is better.

Beverages

Been resupplying my liquids of late.  Having divested myself of the evil soda some months ago, now limited to occasional 7-Eleven style indulgences but never from the supermarket in 2 liter PET bottles, I still need hydration.  A few staples have replaced this, water not directly among them though all are really water dominated.

Coffee has its ration, mostly two cups a day, sometimes three in a morning.  Bulk K-cups have and advantage over 12 pod packages in price.  Christmas Tree Shop offers best compromise between selection and price, though Costco offerings are better quality, now that I am a member again.  I keep one can of standard ground coffee around.  Last sale was Maxwell House, mostly phooey, though endeared as a brand for their Haggadah sponsorship.  Lavazza went on sale.  Too finely ground for French Press but ideal for Melita cone drip.  And I still have bean coffee in the pantry.  I took my burr grinder to the basement for Pesach, never returned it, though I do not see any advantages to self-grinding at this point.  I particularly like Sprouts beans which I grind in the store for drip/French press interface, though only when on sale.  Good but too pricey.

Carbonation comes from variants of club soda in one liter bottles.  Often on sale at Shop-Rite but mostly Trader Joe's offers stable price.  These are calorie free, mostly with just the right subtlety of flavor.  I thought I would mix it more with other things, particularly plain club soda with alcohol spiking, but I have not.  I really want mostly the fizz but without the sweetness and chemical adulteration of mass market soda.

Alcohol gets its own category.  To some extent this has been a soda replacement, though limited to one serving either at 4PM while I work on something else in My Space or with supper.  I have been keeping on hand 1500 ml bottles of port and sherry, the large company commercial varieties, generally apportioned in a wine glass.  Some beer is usually at hand.  For some reason the price of beer has accelerated to where craft beer now exceeds my willingness to spend that much for it at Total Whine.  I've given up the growlers altogether.  There are good mid-sized breweries that keep within budget, particularly Moosehead & Squirrel and some of the European or Mexican brews.  Big mass American options are more for getting buzzed than enjoying their beverage merits, so other than occasional Yuengling I've not bought any.  Never been one for spirits.  When tonic water goes on sale I will get a bottle and mix it with two quarter cup measures fizz and one of gin.  Did vodka once, again more notable for buzz than taste.  Colored spirits are a rarity, though I have some on my shelf.  Usually as hot toddies, one quarter cup spirits, two of boiling water with a shake of sugar.  For cold days and typically after supper.  But never more than one serving in any day.

Interestingly, wine is not a regular beverage but needed for Kiddush and a beverage for special dinners, never a thirst quencher or something to keep on hand.  Unlike port and sherry, it has a more limited drinkable longevity so it's not really kept on hand but targeted for specific occasions.

I also accumulated a large collection of Celestial Teas herbal varieties.  For a while I would have these after my coffee ration or later in the day when too late for caffeinated liquids.  Not since the warm weather, though.  

So the all artificial everything can give way to liquids of better value and better sensory experience.  Doubt I will ever resume soda beyond Passover certified Coca-Cola.

Slippery Slopes

My congregation has its share of challenges, not the least among them getting the Torah portion read each shabbos.  I do not know whether we acquire the necessary minyan at other times of scheduled reading but shabbos is by far the lengthiest.  While the cycle repeats each year, the composite of 5852 verses really prevents anyone from knowing the whole thing to chant weekly without substantial preparation.  The Festival portions are much shorter and pretty much repeat so people can master some of these with annual repetition but not the shabbos portion.  There are skilled people who routinely chant an entire shabbos portion weekly, usually for a stipend, typically hired by congregations for that purpose.  However, when our hired reader takes his week away each month, we are on our own.

A few stalwarts can do a lot, a few like me a column or so.  Our novices have not developed, leaving the crew of limited capacity.  One person capable of a few columns relocated, leaving us pretty thin.  Eventually the readings would not be covered.  After a few close calls it happened, with a request from the person making the assignment to read from the book, which I am not willing to do.  

As Covid took effect and our services became virtual, they also became a variant of Junior Congregation, a major abridgement, almost an illusion of Holy Day worship.  I agreed to pre-record the Yom Kippur Torah reading in advance, learning it with some effort.  When I came to record it and asked for the scroll to be opened and filmed, I was told by the former President no-can-do.  It had to be read from the machzor with the Torah on the table but not open to its place or the camera positioned to record me moving the yad as I chanted.  Derech Eretz prevailed, but I did not take well to the experience.  It devalued my effort, my assertion to strive for correctness over expediency, and I think it showed disrespect to the congregation, irrespective of my own skill and effort.  I resolved never to do that again, and I won't.  I just found the experience hurtful, an assault on the traditions that we maintain.

Covid cancellations hopefully occur once in a lifetime and are beyond control.  Accommodations are needed, striving for least harm, but I understand the need for expediency sometimes.  Having this as the new norm as our talent fails just doesn't make it.  I won't do that again and I meant it.

The person assigning readings has an unenviable task under our circumstances, and as a woman, she cannot be a personal reader of default.  However, this situation had its near misses; it was foreseeable.  There is a governance with Nominating Committees that thought somebody other than me should be on it.  They include VPs of long tenure, committees for Ritual and Education, a Rabbi of long tenure, all of whom got the thumbs up of the annual Nominating Committees.  A contracting congregation is theirs to address.  They have the option of continuing with slippery slopes.  They don't have the option of lubricating me and offering to push.

There's an oft cited Mishna in Pirke Avot where the chief sage Yochanan ben Zakkai who kept Judaism viable in its darkest days, praised his most promising students.  In public the Rebbe would assert that Eliezer ben Hyrcanus would rise to the top, though off the record he confided to an assistant that Elazar ben Arach would achieve the most renown.  Elazar ben Arach became a minor contributor to law and analysis in the end.  For family reasons, he accepted a position as Rav in Emmaus, a resort town.  While he had the hope of elevating the people there to a more scholarly Judaism, the reverse happened.  To maintain expediency and cordial relations, instead of the people becoming more like him, he became more like them.  But at least his tomb seems to have been identified.  Some compromises just drag you down with no realistic prospect of reversal.

  

Readjusting

Took a few days to visit my son and daughter-in-law at their new home in Pittsburgh.  Good to see them settled a bit, renting a pleasant starter house while they seek a purchase.  Son has real job, earns enough to pick up the tab twice while we dined together.  Pittsburgh itself creates loyalty to the people who live there though I think it my be a better place to be from than to go to.  It has a grimy history but a civic resurgence. And our hotel was optimally located and more than pleasant.

I return home tired, though.  Two drives of 300 miles each tried my attention span, even with rest stops at about 100 mile intervals. Not at all used to daily restaurants, nor desire them, even though all differed from what I might seek from a restaurant at home.  While away I did very little toward my semi-annual projects, though I could have.  While devoting a lot of effort to staying upright during my waking times, that failed at the hotel.  Treadmill effort incomplete.  Took a book but read less than I could have.  Took a lot of pictures, though.  Wrote nada, though the hotel had a full computer and I took a flash drive, so I could have.  Suspended by FB and Tw limitations.  

As I got back home, I flopped into bed, not disturbing the made bed with neat bedspread.  Just napped, set timer to read more from the book that was being discussed at my medical alma mater's reading group later in the evening.  Later half-heartedly unpacked.  Attended the session, outlined the rest of the week, had two slices of pizza, and set my cell phone sleep tracker.

Next day has arrived, week outlined. Day's activities extracted from week's initiatives, recorded, and organized.  I'm ready to resume those twelve things I set out for myself a month ago, and a couple more that came my way.