Getting Away

Still have suitcase to fill and overnight kit to find, but hit the road later this morning for a two night escape to metro DC.  Checked the Smithsonian and Library of Congress sites.  Visiting days now highly restricted.  Mostly Thursday to Sunday for Smithsonian and after April for the LOC.  Zoo and parks always open while cherry blossoms can be admired on a casual stroll.  And some isolated together time with my dear wife.  Not easy to do that at home.

fb assessment

A series of daily on Facebook Roulette kept me off the site except to check messages for a few consecutive days.  Then #31 landed in the virtual slot, allowing my return.  My perspective was different when navigating after a few days away.  When I signed on about ten years back, the allure was connection with friends from childhood who had drifted apart.  We had missed out on some forty years of living, new geography, careers, families.  There were also new people, those not at all close in high school but more visible and accommodating in cyberspace.  I never knew what any of them thought about political issues, religion, or even our school.  Forty years usually exposed interests from cooking to travel to music.  I knew who the extroverts and introverts were.  That rarely changes once established.  Yet I had no sense of people's wit, little of their humor, little of friendships maintained in reality.  This was different than the office, where I probed into people's lives for their benefit.  Here I probe, or more typically they volunteer, for my own curiosity, with no obligation in return.

Eventually my Friends List, or really contacts, grew to about 100,  A few got snoozed or even eliminated, but most just drifted on the list.  If my synagogue has attrition, so does my Friends List, though more remaining inactive than disappearing from the nominal census.  The sponsoring site seems to have transformed over those ten years as well, from a platform serving users to a money generator enabling companies to pitch their products or candidates to pitch their positions.

I knew that the people I most like responding to no longer appeared on my screen when they posted.  It is possible, though unlikely, that I antagonized them all.  Far more likely is that the Geeks created algorithms that reduced my interactive list to ten, and not the ten I would have selected if asked to vote on the Friends most valued for their minds and wit. 

On my day back, I did some counting.  Starting from a random place on my screen, I counted the next 20 posts. I did this about five or six times.  With each series of 20 less than ten came from my friends list.  The majority were companies trying to sell me something, organizations to which I subscribe or sometimes not, local political figures who had a message to convey.  But not personal voluntary disclosures of my friends.  And there weren't more than fifteen unique people when all the series of twenty were combined.

My best conclusion, though not the only possibility, is that the company really did redefine what a customer is.  As a nascent offering first generating popularity, uniqueness and attractiveness to potential users like me prevailed.  As it became a more mature company, I was no longer a valued customer but a target for messages from payers.  Who I wanted to interact with became subordinate to who the Geeks wanted me to interact with.  

FB was always a time sink, but initially one of justifiable allure.  Once the allure has dissipated, as seems the case, I can ration my participation more easily.  And FB Roulette seems a way to do it if I only want to restrict access by half.  Or I could go to Calendar 5/0 on.  Or I could just drop it, but there is still merit to wishing people well on their milestones and condolences on their losses.  It still enables that with efficiency.

Right Amount of Coffee

K-cups have transformed my morning experience, well worth the expense though I'm less certain about its likely environmental downside.  With variety options sorted in a revolving rack, and with scooped coffee that can be brewed in a k-cup adapter, each morning cup can be a little different.  I've hardly been out for coffee since the pandemic.  Even WaWa which offers the most variety, has challenged its price elasticity, now limiting this to a justifiable indulgence or traveling convenience.  But K-cups are the way to go, suspended for Passover, though technically with some effort or expense, they don't have to be.

Coffee at my desk in My Space has become the norm.  While loyalty to the core principles of sleep hygiene has made me less tired when my wrist alarm makes me woke, I still seek the boost of my first cup of java from the Keurig facsimile.  And the second cup.  It's that third cup later in the morning that seems to be changing the ritual.  It goes well with my OLLI schedule, not as well with my shabbos schedule.  And unless traveling or left over from the morning, never past 1PM.  

I experience it as part taste, which is why the ease of variety has become so attractive, and partly medicinal which is why it needs some restraint from excess.  My current pattern seems sustainable, the way to go after much trial and surprisingly little error.

Preparing for Vacation

Being retired, it's sometimes difficult to recognize parcels of time as vacation.  I have my routines which have helped enormously to define how I approach each day.  Sometimes, though, a selective escape resets the days every bit as much as allotted vacation time did in my working years.  That respite approaches in the coming week.  OLLI classes go dormant for a week.  My monthly Medscape submission's deadline comes that week, but I will send the article to the editor a few days in advance of my week off.  Some light travel, tourism, and pampering has been scheduled, some of it prepaid.  Taxes prepared before vacation begins, though it can be submitted to the IRS the week after.  Purim completed.  Wife's concert and last synagogue obligation at the beginning weekend, then a full work week to focus on recreation.

Travel only entails two hotel nights and about a two hour drive.  EZ Pass reduces road frustration.  Gasoline has gotten expensive but down from its peak.  Seasonal clothing in transition so maybe better to pack the day before departure when the weather at our destination gets forecast.  In any case, laundry up to date, or will be by departure.

What might I most like to do when there really aren't any have to do's?  Putter around new city, take a Metro, maybe design menus and invite guests for Passover.  Some return to my Adult Coloring Book usually offers relaxation.  Maybe an afternoon or two of fishing.  Caught up on my reading, mostly.  Don't expect to read much.  Not caught up on writing, but vacation may not be the best time for my most challenging personal initiative which more approximates work.  Seasonal gardening can begin.  Haven't listened to music in a long time.  Largely weaned myself off TV, returning would undermine the concept of vacation.  I already get enough sleep.  Treadmill's monthly three-day recovery hiatus coincides with travel dates so don't need to go to hotel's exercise room.  Avoided one with swimming pool to save money; won't miss that usual hotel amenity this time.

Some time be a little different.

Run of Evens

Facebook Roulette has largely established itself as my most successful mechanism for controlling the time sink of social media.  Odds, I'm a participant, Evens I check messages and greet people for their birthdays.  Other social media have come under control.  Twitter essentially gone, Bari Weiss and KevinMD have redeeming intellectual value without becoming excessive, Reddit Judaism enjoyable and controlled.  I really didn't know how FB would turn out until this week when the first thing in the morning spin came up an even number for several consecutive days.  I followed my rule.  I don't miss not being there.

In Circulation

As Covid eases and the weather warms I have more reason to venture outside, which means interacting with other people.  OLLI will find me physically present two days a week instead of one.  And I like to sit at the table, mask off, while I sip coffee before class or sometimes nibble complimentary paper bags of popcorn afterwards.  As my annoyance with my synagogue, and probably all synagogues, I might find myself there more frequently.  The library has opened.  I relax on a metal bench at Tally Day Park or a green wooden one at Bonsall Park.  During OLLI's intercession I have a two night getaway planned.  

I feel more in circulation.  With it, I am starting to feel more cheerful, though a long way from fully so.  While I despise pretense, perhaps I should take advantage of the circumstances to focus just a tad more on image, appearance, and cordiality.  Less clothing rewearing, maybe.  Comb hair, perhaps even cut.  Keep beard more attended. Resume wearing a tie to shul.  Little things.  Things that I will notice more than anyone I meet.

Outdoor Planting

While the US Senate thinks they can control the clock, they really cannot control the seasons.  Not sure yet if they can control the climate favorably but the cycles of nature proceed.  My gardens, a semi-annual project, must adapt to outdoors reality.  It's probably time to plant some of the beet seeds I bought and to purchase some lettuce seeds, each frost resistant.  To enhance harvest, this year I plan to plant sequentially rather than all at once, but I don't know how I will maintain the records.  Indoor eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes all seem to be sprouting.  Sage and rosemary did not survive the backyard winter, so they will be relocated to the front, which means I will need at least one large new container for the rosemary.  Mint containers, peppermint and spearmint, look bedraggled but have a way of self-restoration with benign neglect and some water on my part.  Got a front container cherry tomato plant which is best started indoors, and fairly soon.  Landscapers lopped off most of the branches which had obscured substantial corners of the two 4x4 ft beds.  So I'm mostly ready to go, a little this week, a little next week.

DST

Our Senators rarely agree but for whatever reason they concurred that year round Daylight Savings Time would benefit America.  We changed our clocks last week.  My wrist alarm makes me literally though never figuratively woke at 6:30AM as it did before and I arise for my morning routine.  That includes retrieving the newspaper from the end of the driveway, done in darkness this week, in early daylight last week but still darkness in January.  I would take out recycling to the bin on the way to get the  newspaper but this week I cannot tell which bin has the green top until a little later in the morning.  Mere annoyances for me with involuntary clock urgencies pretty much masked by retirement.  If I were a kid, though, January DST would have the usual school starting time in the dark.  Nurses and surgeons expect that.  In fact, keeping patients groggy by waking them overnight to take vital signs that aren't worth waking and lab draws that might be has ingrained itself into health care.  Farming and Shabbos go by lunar and solar cycles.  School times, commerce, and to our detriment perhaps sleep schedules are often more clock than nature dependent.

Inter-time zone travel has gotten common enough in America that we change our clocks a lot with little detriment.  However, we do it individually rather than all together as we do for public clock changes.  As alluring as it might be to have time after work to play tennis or maybe enhance commerce by spending money, this may not be what evolutionary biology set as optimal.  And it's not nice to fool Mother Nature.

Filing

It took a while.  Weeks.  Maybe even months. A few sustained sessions.  But I come to the next stage.  All my papers that got scattered in the living room or stuffed in boxes now have homes in labelled files.  Some are duplicates but that can be fixed later. Next step, ready to begin today or in the coming week, will be to take the manila folders and sort them into categories of hanging folders.  Then find file drawers for them all, keeping those needed at hand, putting the dormants into never-never land.  And all before the carpet cleaners appear to get us prepared for Pesach. 

Purim Sparkled

Communal Judaism has not brought me joy in quite some time.  In clique-think I must be inferior or damaged in some way if I do not love being in synagogue, shuckling with the men, and taking delight in the Rabbi's wisdom.  Enough experiences accumulated to think that maybe they're right until another experience comes along unexpectedly to challenge that.  It came my way for megillah reading and Purim shpiel.  The room sparkled.  My anhedonia, even my experience generated cynicism took a reversal.  I chuckled at the jokes, admired the wit and dedication and creativity of talented people.  The room, while not large, was full.  I saw what I lacked and possibly cannot acquire with the relentless quest for mediocrity that gets rationalized as our shul's minhag. But it really need not be that way.  I miss the ironies, the challenges, expertise that is more real than assigned by title.  And I saw it happen in one evening.

Judaism is not inherently dour.  Spirit comes in myriad forms from delving into the complex, searching for an answer but really only finding two more questions instead, those instantaneous quips, questions that seem odd but have a basis if you can think beyond the concreteness of a Hebrew school imprint.  It has not only a measure of the absurd but teachable absurd that leaves you advanced from your starting point.

It can be had.  As much as I feel disheartened, even despondent, from a service at my congregation, if I am the only one who realizes what could be, I need to be the one who at least makes an effort to generate what could be.

Filing Papers

 It took days, maybe weeks.  All papers in living room with a few minor exceptions now lie in a labelled file folder.  The categories are diverse from banking statements to charitable donations to birthday cards.  But they are all in folders.  Some folders are duplicates as I found it easier to make a new one as I looked at each paper than to find which folder already existed.  Next step would be to group them in hanging folders.  Those judged never to be needed again, like accounts I no longer have or receipts from prior years go in an obscure place in one of five filing units.  Others go closer to the front, probably in the filing drawer of my desk in My Space.  I would like sorting to be a joint effort with my wife, if possible, so we each know where to find things.

Then vacuum living room in time for Pesach rug cleaning.  Then invite guests which is the ulterior motive for ridding the living room of papers.

Out to Breakfast

Regular exercise with periodic increases of effort deserves a reward, especially when I've achieved the ability to distinguish before and after.  This being a day of scheduled treadmill omission and a late OLLI class, I treated myself to breakfast.  I used to do that a lot more than I do as covid restrictions made the outing unattractive and mornings of platelet donations have been suspended for insufficient donor hemoglobin readings.  Not many incentives.   Moreover, the experience has deteriorated from when I did this with more regularity.  Recently I went to a previous place that I had shunned for not wanting to look at a star with TRUMP across its middle.  Food largely the same as a few years ago, prices higher.  New places nearby disappoint.  So for this outing back to my tried and true, though with a not up to baseline food preparation a few months back.  Committed myself to their best, or at least most reliable.  Blueberry pancakes, whipped butter, and commercial syrup washed down with coffee.  Prices considerably higher, pancakes notably with less of an airiness, probably real butter and same syrup.  Weak coffee.

The Great Resignation has taken its toll on restaurants.  Loyal laid off, sustained by government checks, then returning to the workforce but in establishments that offer more stability.  Once busy grill close to empty.  A single waitress on duty who remained efficient.  Counter closed and south half of restaurant similarly closed.  Takeout shelves that tempt with pies and cookies empty.  Pancakes slightly better than what I could make at home, though Pearl Milling Company, nee Aunt Jemima mix, enables pretty light fluffy pancakes at home with little effort.  And I make better coffee at home.

But as much I enjoy different food and no cleanup in exchange for not that much money, going out also means I acquire time away with myself.  I purchase a meal, but also rent space at a table.  I brought a writing pad and pen, jotting thoughts of ideas I would like to commit to my computer's hard drive and maybe share via cyberspace later.  That went well, and may have served a more important purpose than the calories which can be obtained in other ways.  A pad of paper, yes.  Distractions, no.

Pesach Menus

Purim has not yet arrived but I'm scanning recipes for Pesach, which coincides with weekends this year.  Two seders, shabbos Pesach, and a Thursday night yontiff.  Some dishes are tried and true, others more of an adventure.  I could make chicken soup or warm up packaged certified broth, then make matzoh balls.  My own is always better though not always worth the effort.  As much as I'd like to try Sephardic or Mizrachi Charoset, the standard Ashkenazi mix of apples, almonds, cinnamon and kiddush wine is both easier and more economical than securing certified dried fruit.  As guests dwindle in number and beef becomes prohibitively expensive, turkey and brisket have given way to chicken at both ends of the Yom Tovim.  Kugel starts with a matzoh base, sometimes lasts the entire festival, sometimes gets replaced at the end by potato kugel.  And some type of nut cake for dessert at each end of the week.

As a consequence of targeted suppers, it becomes a week of fleishig each evening, mostly scrounging for meals earlier in the day.  Yet one of my more fulfilling challenges, a blend of planning and execution with tangible results.

Different Approach

Shabbos in recliner in My Space with a small break for an early lunch.  No purposeful activity other that to look at the various lists of projects and intents that I keep, survey what has gone well and what can be done better.  I'm not yet ready to abandon anything that I set out to do.  Minimal TV.  Did not bother getting dressed, even. No shower.  Chewed a melatonin tablet early afternoon to reinforce my attempt at a day's reset and redirection.  I'm reset, beginning with DST, for which I've had ample pre-sleep.  

I would like to try to work more with a timer, as that has added structure to where it was absent.  Starting with iTouch watch I set when I am not permitted in bed.  Writing projects get 40 minutes or so per session, house projects 25 minutes or so.  Exercise, already on a timer, has reinforced what I can do when I force my activity into a specific time block.

Social media is not yet out of hand.  Reddit on snooze, Twitter probably gone, and Instagram never was.  That leaves the FB sink.  What has been successful in the past was a spin of the roulette wheel early in the morning.  Odd number, contribute to FB that day.  Even number, just permitted to check messages twice that day.  I adhered to it, don't recall why I abandoned it.  Today's #5.

And pick the big writing and home project for the week, allotting extra sessions.

Sounds like a plan, an improvement over what I do now.

Hard to Entertain

When I created My Space I included a share of amusements.  Stereo, big flat screen TV, filled bookcases, a laptop that can access worldwide, tape recorders, art supplies, a short wave radio.  Other than the laptop, I rarely use any of them.  No Netflix movies, no classical music or jazz on WRTI, rarely use my recliner to read books. I have been challenging myself with crosswords of late, and occasionally teach myself to draw something.  If I want to see a football game, much less since the pandemic, I access it on the TV while reclining in the lounge chair, but overall I do not seek a fraction of the entertainment that I could tap.  It's not that I lack pleasure.  It just seems to generate internally from the things I set out to do rather than come my way externally.  I just don't seem to need to seek out entertainment despite its easy availability.

Creating Routines

While I thought I preferred my schedule to look free of time slots, as I designate more times to do specific items, I have more completed tasks to check off my list most days.  My iTouch watch is not a great timepiece, though it is stylish.  It does make me Woke, buzzing my left wrist faithfully at 6:30AM seven days a week with a rare lapse when the battery depletes overnight.  I get up as it is still buzzing for its thirty seconds, drift over to the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom for some dental care.  Coffee comes next along with retrieving the newspaper from the end of the driveway while the k-cup brews.  That's a great opportunity to empty the kitchen recycling box when I go outside.  Weather is not an object.  Then usually some dishes to do from the previous night and check the moisture of my three chia plants.

Take coffee upstairs, review the task list, making any quick additions, then turn on the computer.  Check email and FB messages, then enter a furrydoc.blogspot.com thought and for the last few weeks work on that day's Washington Post free crossword.  Read my daily two chapters of the Book of Mormon, completed this week.  The rest of the time is mine to piddle at the keyboard until about 8:30AM when I return downstairs for my treadmill obligation.  Then something to eat, then get dressed.  Now more unstructured time until my scheduled OLLI classes which take place at mid-mornings the middle of each week.

Time remains unstructured until 4PM when I have been breaking for a mite of alcohol, varying between port, sherry, and since returning from what I learned on the bourbon trail of Kentucky, some spirits on the rocks.  All measured, all with a main purpose of demarcating my day.  At about 5:30PM I make supper, eat around 6:15PM, retire to My Space for more unstructured time plus planning out the next day while identifying three achievements to enter into the orange marble composition book purchased for that purpose until returning to bed, though not to sleep around 9PM.  

Many of these set time routines have been introduced since my retirement, as working imposed its own set of time obligations.  While each of my current designated times contributes relatively little to my most important initiatives, other than faithfulness to the treadmill, they define the times that do not require structure to select the more important items for their defined work on times, often with a timer.  As a result, I seem to flounder less and focus more.  It's been a clear upgrade in getting the most of my waking time and feeling a little better about the things I've done.  Also less harsh on myself for what I have not done.

Completed two Books

Among my repetitive semi-annual initiatives have been reading and writing targets.  There are conditions attached to each, such as submission of articles and types of books.  Writing usually gets written, iffy on submission.  Reading always exceeds target, as it does this cycle.  Never complete two on the same day until now, to the best of my recollection, since early grade school when books were short and could be completed at a single sitting.  But yesterday I finished both The Book of Mormon and Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic on the same day.  The scripture took months at two chapters a day.  The poems and illustrations took days at ten pages per sitting, or really lying as I read it in bed.

Most Mormons probably have not read the text of their sacred text, even though it is written in most of their native language.  I've been making an effort to pace myself through the sacred Western texts, leaving only Chronicles of the Old Testament unread while completing the New Testament and the Quran in their English translations, four chapters at a time for the NT, two per day for the Quran.  Each took months and my level of recall wouldn't come close to that of a clergyman whose training would interrupt the text to explore established commentary and presumably assignments or exams to assess understanding.

A Light in the Attic comes from the library's juvenile section.  Some arbiters of morality left over from Old Dixie who control school libraries thought this volume should be removed from the shelves, though the poems have probably been read to their own kids at bedtime with some delight.  Why they targeted this children's classic got my attention, so I signed it out and read each of the poems plus an additional twelve added since the original 1981 edition.  One poem references our Darwinian forebears.  Another couple include naked bodies, either washing each other's tushes while crammed in a bathtub or unable to get to the closet to pick out clothing due to a clutter of birthday gifts blocking the path.  Neither prurient and probably something that would make little ones chuckle, as they undoubtedly have for forty years.  A more serious observation, mine though likely not the censors, was the unflattering way aging was described.  Old people were largely stereotyped as impaired geezers who appeared physically in decline, and sometimes emotionally.  The book had a couple of verses dealing with death, sometimes vindictive death.  Unlikely that any child tackling this from their school library would incur lasting mental trauma, though.

I still have a couple more books in progress, but don't think I really want to finish the Old Testament by plowing through the two Books of Chronicles.  Some political reading may be overdue.  I enjoy George Packer's analysis in The Atlantic so took his book The Last Best Hope from the library for admiration of his writing and thinking ability.  And for a second banned work, Art Spiegelman's Maus, another classic that caught the wrath of the Christian Right after being widely read for forty years with mostly admiration.

And then there's my own writing which needs to be more consistent but is greatly enhanced by the breadth and elegance to which I engage in what the masters have assembled.

Rationing Social Media

It seems rational to ration. And this is the week I will start doing it, or already have.  Reddit is on hiatus even though I like responding to r/Judaism.  Twitter is utterly toxic, nobodies gathering around celebrities that would walk the other way in person.  A pool of ignorami.  Bari Weiss' Common Sense I've limited to my response to what she posts as the daily read, one time, ask that comments on my comment after the first two not come to my email.  And I do not engage in virtual conversations with other responders. KevinMD I try to respond twice a week.  Thoughtful articles, thoughtful feedback. 

That leaves me to control the ultimate time sink FB.  It shouldn't be as difficult as it has been.  Most of the connections I value most have disappeared, presumably by an algorithm that placed ads for some schmutz that I neither need nor want ahead of the people I'm happy I was able to reconnect to from now a half century back.  Not a lot of thought is exchanged.  Birthday greetings, condolences, a goot shabbos.  But little thought and with the people I'd most like to have lunch with in person screened out either electronically or by their preference.  The fun of the first few years has long since waned.  When I announced that I might like to go to Florida soon, nobody in Florida seemed eager to meet me there for real.  It's because FB in the end, isn't real.

Having done this a few days, successful for all but FB, I think I can limit my access or at least my response when I have access.  One more challenge.

Intercession

 

OLLI's mid-semester break comes at just the right time for me this term.  Wife's organizational obligations take a hiatus just at that week. Passover still a few weeks off.  I don't really need another vacation, and doubt that I will just a few weeks hence, but it's a chance to do something a little different if not challenging either alone or even better as a couple.  And preferably something that I cannot squeeze in at a different time.

After some early thought, I think I am willing to fly three hours and rent a car or drive maybe six hours.  That could take me to Florida by air, which seem the best air values.  By car I could get to Kitty Hawk or possibly to Boston.  Haven't been to Montreal in decades but it seems out of range for that time frame.  Could go to Montauk, never been to the very end of Long Island but I have been to Orient Point on the North Shore.  And then there is the option of visiting friends.  I have some in Florida, some in New York, one in the Berkshires.  Beach would be nice.  I could splash in an indoor pool up north.  As much as I like Boston, and even miss living there slightly, I don't really want a cultural immersion this time.  Nature would be better. New Hampshire, even Lake Winnepesauga is not that far north.

For all my time in school, I never really got away for spring break other than observing Peach, and some years not even that.  Would never consider spending my father's money on lavish entertainment.  Still imprinted to be a little hesitant to spend my own money that way, even when ample.  There has to be a purpose to travel beyond my own amusement.

And I've not been to my father's grave site since shiva in 2009.  Can get to Paramus and Elmont for everyone else any time, much harder to get to Florida.

Maybe check with some folks who live there.

Trimming Branches

While another snow storm could occur, for the most part we've not had either a big snow or freeze problem this winter.  Garden preparation, one of my twelve semi-annual projects, now moves to its next phase.  I've planted the indoor vegetable, some more successful than other, but with a chance to correct what did not go well.  As the season warms, I will need to offer my raised backyard beds more sunlight.  that means some serious removal of branches, thorny and smooth that impede sunshine to the corner squares.  They also make tending to weeds and harvest difficult.  I really want to have a stellar garden this season so the more I do, planning and execution, the more pleasure the effort will bring.

Adventuresome Shabbos Dinner

Been taking the easy way out of late, or maybe not.  Roasted Turkey half-breast.  Chicken cacciatore takes preparation and last a while.  I've made it many times, tried and true.  Sticking chicken in crock pot with whatever I have at hand has been done by my balaboosta ancestors long before earthenware was heated electrically.  I needed something new.

Found a Syrian recipe for Tabyit.  Not too hard.  Not too straightforward.  It has a few steps.  Had all the ingredients but the tomatoes on hand.  This couldn't be too ancient a preparation if it depends on New World ingredients along with spices that needed transport from the Far East.  Soak rice.  Prep onions and tomatoes.  Make stuffing.  Stuff chicken and secure closed.  Make sauce.  Stick chicken in rice and slow cook as long as I want.  I can do that.  And boil a broccoli crown in time for candle lighting.

Kitchen Tidy

We got a bit out of hand.  It's been my most enjoyable work space, supplied with what I need when I need it, or as close to it as happens at home.  It's something I spent serious money on to make it a place that sparkles.  Periodically, including now, it needs some attention.  A recent serious ceiling water leak needs repainting that I can probably do myself.  I wash the floor before Pesach each year but should do it now as well, if I can create visible tile surface.  The hood filter needs replacement and the tile beneath it washing.  And that's before I put anything away that should be put away.  Avoid the Pesach rush.  Do it as a principle project today or at least soon.

Eduroam

 

This week OLLIs computer maven arranged to be on site to enable tuition paying OLLI seniors like myself electronic access to the full array of what UofD offers.  The library alone is worth the effort.  So I brought my laptop, arrived before my in-person class, and tried to sign myself in as a guest.  Did not go well.  Then I tried to sign in using last year's user name and password.  Welcome to U of D cyberspace.  I still don't know how to get my messages on their email address but the U of D world has otherwise let me in.  Puttering around the library.  Electronic versions of my usual subscription medical journals at a click.  Books.  Haven't tried the maps, pictures, or museums but should.  Did not have to bother their expert after class.  Just took a bag of complimentary popcorn over to a table, snacked on it while sipping what was left of the WaWa coffee not permitted in the classroom, and went home.

Disillusioned

Made my first Shabbat morning visit to Beth Tfiloh since the pandemic, and since their senior Rabbi's retirement.  Not at all like what spurred me to make an hour and a half trip each way to experience the upside of what Shabbos morning could be.  The morning reminded me a lot like an observant Conservative service of the 1970s with a mechitza preventing their eviction from their parent OU affiliation.  They have an incoming Senior Rabbi who will be having an Installation formality next shabbos.  I do not remember Orthodox clergy getting publicly installed.  They had Riffraff, two of them, each summoned to his Aliyah with a lyrical baritone Ya-amod cubed, the type the Cantor would do at a Conservative Bar Mitzvah.  As much as I abhor the interruption of the weekly Torah portion with those InterAliyah Sound Bites, something that never happened under the direction of the Rabbi Emeritus, not only have they been introduced but as designated Squaw Work to make the women have a bimah presence.  At least the Emeritus, a master of Divrei Torah, took his turn this shabbos.  Great start but ran aground making his central point.

Well attended men's section, or perhaps the illusion by scattering people with seating distances, sparsely populated women's section.  Nice kiddush though, including meatballs and cholent which I did not have to stay pareve.  Helped myself to cookies and rugelach, though.

The New Senior Rabbi needs his chance to make his imprint.  Also needs his chance to make mistakes.