A Travel Day

Visiting Pittsburgh where my son and daughter-in-law recently purchased a house.  Guest room saves a lot on hotel, which means I will be the sport for meals out.  Last time I went as a tourist, eager to see a new city.  This time I come as a visitor to maximize family time with only Tree of Life Synagogue or its current format and Flight 93 Memorial as designated places.  

It's a long drive, likely with one or two stops in each direction.  Gas tank filled.  Pennsylvania EZ Pass transponder filled.  Taking very little recreational gear.  Camera.  Cell phone.  Chargers.  Pen and pad.  Brief outline of what I want to do while there but no colored pens or weekly planning pouch, even though I will be there on Sunday.  Limited clothing.  Were it not for the synagogue visit, I might have left all long pants and collared shirts and undershirts home.  

At the end of each month I take a three day treadmill break.  This month four days, which hopefully will contribute to some knee and ankle healing.  But mostly, a few needed days away without mail delivering notices of NJ EZ Pass toll violations assigned to the stolen plate of my last car, dinners to assemble each evening, TV shows to record and then watch or delete months from now.  A few days of different routine.

Not the Best Format

First Hartman Institute Seminar after being favorably reintroduced to what the organization does.  Not Rabbinical Junior College, but also not Chevruta.  I signed up for a Zoom seminar, signed in along with about 55 others.  It was on textual basis of Jewish history.  I did not last the whole session.  Ponderous talking head, an expert one, who would have done much better with this topic engaging a discussion than taking us through some small lettered print on a screen.  Not even sure her premise was correct, but format did not allow for challenge.  Maybe would have done better as an interview with two people discussing the topic with each other.  Just not a good format for what they did.

Medicine Routine

Just swallowed Lisinopril 20 mg + Amlodipine 5 mg + HCTZ 12.5 mg with a swig of Costco K-Cup coffee.  This pharmaceutical blend, taken in the morning, has kept my self-monitored BP reliably at therapeutic targets with no discernible adverse effects, unlike the last time I had introduced HCTZ.  To enhance compliance I found a small daily pill case which is kept adjacent to the coaster that provides the platform for my coffee mug.  Statins and PPIs do better taken in the evening.  Those go in another weekly white plastic pill case, kept on the kitchen table where most of our suppers are eaten.  Make it easy and it gets done.

Extra Snooze

Out of bed delayed a bit.  Sleep hygiene has several components, occasionally in conflict.  Go to bed at same time each day addressed with a clock and a light switch.   Up at same time each day responds well to an alarm, for me a wrist buzz with an iTouch Slim, along with a commitment to arise when the signal denotes that time.  More complex is dealing with Middle of the Night Insomnia.  Sleep hygiene guidance advises limiting the tossing and turning to a short time, though I usually do that longer.  Then go to another room to read, watch TV, or some other activity that requires minimal mental engagement.

This morning I not only awoke nearly three hours before the scheduled morning buzz, but I felt wide awake.  An hour of mind shifting did not make me less awake, so off to the recliner in My Space.  I set a Netflix show with a lot of pictures, silencing it while I leaned back and watched.  Drowsy within minutes, apparently asleep before the 25-minute episode concluded.  Slept through the iTouch Slim, awoke 45 minutes after the scheduled time, but with ample rest.  Few minutes back to bed, then move ahead with my day.  Probably better than if I had just stayed in bed, dragging myself out at the buzz.

Watermelon Gazpacho

Half-price watermelon too good to pass up, but also too big to use.  It sat on my kitchen island too long.  I made about a third of it into watermelon gazpacho, maybe use some more for a picnic and try to find space in the refrigerator.

Watermelons seem to have gotten into high-tech consumer design in their own way.  They apparently come from enormous farms in Mexico, transported in bulk, though there's probably smaller scale farming just a county or two away from me.  Those black seeds that we used to spit out are no more, which makes running through a blender for gazpacho a lot easier.  The rind has gotten much thinner.  The shape remains oval, though less elongated than the watermelons of years past.  Hard to assess the sweetness once blended with other things but the final soup was not particularly sweet, in fact not distinctive in taste at all.

Blending the watermelon in a standard blender did not go well.  The large chunks never reliably nudged their way to the four tine whirly blade.  Food processor would have been better with

a broad base and wide blade.

First time I ever made this.  There were a lot of recipes, all with watermelon as the dominant source of liquid, though amounts vary.  Mine had tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers but these also vary.  Olive oil and vinegar seem constants.  Seasonings are essential.  But my recipe came out something of a pink gruel.

With peak tomato season approaching, I think the traditional Spanish tomato gazpacho has enough advantages that I would choose this when I host guests for dinner.

First In, First Out

No particular reason to not like being at shabbos services.  I served as ba-al shacharit, successfully introducing a kedusha tune that I liked and had not been done before.  Each time I do this, I try to offer something not entirely identical to the last time I did it.  And we got our needed tenth man just in time to try this out.  Competent Torah reading.  Haftarah done well, though too many times by the man who assigns them.  Very good D'var Torah by a long time contributor not seen in some time.  Musaf engaging, closing prayers approaching a cliche, though for the right reason.  As other people did their things, I thought about Big Tents and Gated Communities, which I watched on JBS by a Jewish master this week, wondering if that would be a topic to explore for Medscape Endocrinology perhaps or a presentation at AKSE now that sermons are done by congregants.  Alas, we show the characteristics of a gated community, though the officers would protest if confronted with such an accusation.

By the close of services, I no longer felt engaged.  Put my tallis in its bag, books in the rack, last one to complete this.  Took my 15 ml scotch in lieu of wine as I always do.  First into the room with gefilte fish and cookies.  Finished them quickly.  A few hellos, no engaging sentences, or even full sentences with both subject and predicate.  Then first home, still thinking about Big Tents and Gated Communities to commit to writing over the coming week.

Making Rugulach

Ingredients set out.  Butter and cream cheese need to reach room temperature.  Filling ingredients mostly on the counter.  It's been a long time since I made this, last time and this for a specific occasion.  Used a cookbook last time, internet via FoodTV star this time.  It's not the most important task for today but the one I want to do the most.

Sand Chair

Making an effort to get away once a week.  Mostly successful at it.  NY last week.  About two very glorious hours in a sand chair at Cape Henlopen State Park this week.  Pittsburgh next week.  A few other outings as the summer moves along.  

I don't trust my Toyota Scout GPS for mostly good reasons, especially when familiar with the area.  This time it would have gotten me to the State Park, if not the beach itself, a few minutes sooner, but led meter astray afterwards to a winery that could have been more easily approached.  To the park, I followed the signs posted by the state highway department instead, got there uneventfully, changed, and schlepped a substantial striped sand chair and beach bag with light lunch onto the sand.  It being a hot midday, a lot of other people wanted to stake their sites as well, leaving me with a small hike to enough of a clearing to claim my couple of square meters.  Set up chair, eat peanut butter & jelly sandwich, sip water from insulated mug, take out sunglasses, put cell phone in protective pouch.

Check email, but it was my good fortune to find a place where internet doesn't invade.  Photographed waves instead, still and motion.  After a few minutes of supine semi-awareness, it was time to try the surf.  At most beach trips, only a few hardy or adventuresome kids challenge the waves, but it being hot, amateur and master bathers spanned a larger sampling of ages, including a few seniors like me.  Having lost my bifocals in the ocean last year, I approached with great caution.  T-shirt, Flyers cap, left on beach chair.  Glasses, iTouch Slim digital watch, and cell phone into the insulated lunch case, which still had a protein bar for later.  Since high tide approached, my own sand stake lied not far from the water's edge.  I nudged in a few steps at a time.  Given last year's misadventure, I took no risk of getting knocked down again, advancing toward Europe, or really New Jersey, only so far as to let the crest of a breaking wave get waist high for a few minutes.  It felt rather refreshing.

Then some time back into the sand chair to read a couple of e-book chapters, eat the protein bar, enjoy the surf one more time, repositioning my place a little to accommodate the approaching tide, more supine relaxation.  Enough sun, roughly two hours of it, reasonably protected with SPF 50.  Packed my things, folded the chair, got some exercise returning from the water's edge across the width of the sand to the boardwalk walkway to the bathhouse.  Civilian attire back on, then some exercise toting stuff to the middle portions of the parking lot.

I had decided to visit either a winery or brewery on the way home.  The parking lot had internet so I scanned for where.  Had enough of Dogfish Head, a minor detour from the path home.  They had advanced from tasting room proud to show off the creativity of their brewmaster to more of a minipub, charging $8 for a total of 12 oz suds in four 3 oz miniglasses.  I opted instead for a winery that I had not heard of before, Salted Vines.  I thought it was en route until instructed by the Scout GPS to head in the direction opposite home.  And quite a lot farther than I wanted to drive.  I stopped at the beach outlets, another downstate destination, but stayed in the car.  I requested the GPS to find our state's more venerable, enduring winery, Nassau Vineyards, which it did, though not by the simplest path.  Got there.  Usually you stop at the tasting room, pay a fee, and sample.  Some barriers to doing this.  I toured their mini-museum of wine culture, but on returning to pay the tasting fee, the attendant was nowhere to be found.  Another time.  I headed directly home, not stopping at Dogfish Head as a consolation prize either.

I knew the way home, arriving at about the time the GPS predicted.  Left my stuff in the car overnight.  Got out my souvenir beer glass from a prior trip to the Yeungling Brewery, pulled the tab on a Yeungling Black & Tan can, poured a dark brown liquid with just enough foam and bubbles to make me less thirsty, and unwound.

Agreed to Shacharit

It had been my intent to shun my synagogue on Saturday mornings with a few exceptions, primarily my wife's participation or a personal invitation extended to me.  All set to begin occupying space in sanctuaries someplace else this shabbos when an invitation to do shacharit arrived.  As much as I'd rather be someplace else, or maybe no place else, I kept my word to myself and accepted. I'll try to learn a new tune.  I'll focus on cordial rather than candid.   

Nursing Animosities

My personal friends are few, though invariably interesting.  A few highly accomplished, a few quirky, a few outspoken.  All stand for something.  Some have had big crashes, much bigger than my own professional or social fluctuations.  All provide me something stimulating to talk about when I am with them.  We'll leave the perfunctory Good Shabbos, Nice Tie for the Torah processional.  My friends discuss medicine, Judaism and its culture, the vagaries of our politics.  And there's our families, pretty much all turned out well.

In face meetings are few.  Synagogue has become a place where I am mostly cordial to everyone, candid with a few, social with almost none.  My closest friend, however, is of synagogue origin, almost parallel mindset as put off by mistreatment of people, more common in that setting than any presiding Rabbi would admit.  We like to move the furniture around, ask what if, and when offered a title of responsibility sometimes try to do what we imagined might be possible but may not.  As a consequence, we get some opposition, his more vociferous than mine as his ventures can generate some negative transference reactions and negative consequences.  There is an upside and a downside to boldness.  He found himself the one in isolation to the governance, basically evicted from it, soon departing.  He had a business that went on hard times as well due to some malfeasance from above.  The two events left him suspicious of authority.  We share a disappointment with our synagogues, but while he departed, I remain, sit quietly, express myself without much suppression from my higher CNS centers though politely, and on Saturday mornings more often occupy space or add to the male minyan count than benefit a lot from my personal presence.  His expression was absence from synagogue but all in on our local Kosher agency that provides Kosher products to our region.  As a result, when I see him in the last couple of years, it is almost always attending to some activities in the Kosher departments that our Shop-Rite has provided.  And as is our custom, our chats are pretty direct.

He found a friend in the now departing Rabbi, the director of the Kosher agency, and a devoted friend to have.  I liked the Rabbi personally as well, but saw his role as advancing our congregation, my Jewish commitments, and my Jewish mind, none of which really happened.  I keep a more stringent Kosher than ever, acknowledge and restrict activities for Sabbath and yontif, but find my Jewish presence more a personal one than as part of a kehillah.  Our Rabbi, his friend though more of a business deal for me, announced his departure, a nominal promotion to a larger more stable congregation in a community with a Jewish majority.  I asked my friend who the next supervisor of Kashrut would be.  He indicated that the Rabbi would continue as the supervisor, at least for the next few months.  Then the vitriol started

My friend has his bogeyman, the congregational President who eliminated him as a toxic VP who generated too many congregational complaints.  If this individual dispatched my friend, he must have worked behind the scenes to make the synagogue a toxic work environment for the Rabbi.  Since I really only associated the Rabbi as a hired professional, not as a friend, I did not really pick up on any directed toxic work environment.  He had reasons to do job hunting as the predicted longevity of our congregation would not take him to retirement age, but did not pick up on board relations as being less than professional and supportive.  As my friend related, there were clues, a closing contract with a lot more specific provisions than prior contracts that had him vigorously represented by somebody Archie Bunker would identify as a Sharp Jew Lawyer.  I did not know the sermons had to be submitted in advance for editing.  That may be why they have gotten more meaningful the past couple of years, but my friend saw it as an unwelcome assault on professional autonomy.  While I did not know about this, English comp would definitely benefit from having to go through an editor first.  

But the former congregational VP who done my friend wrong now has an enemy's imprint, one probably not deserved.  Yes, anybody looking at our synagogue with detachment would identify obvious elements of leadership failure, excessive comfort zones, and resetting the standard as mediocrity.  That is a lot different from the more nefarious Jewish canards of a few control freaks assembling together to consolidate and exert power to exploit the vulnerable.  Probably not the reality, or at least not my reality.  Stephen Covey in his 7 Habits identified people whose focus was either exacting revenge on enemies or shielding themselves with an impenetrable barrier.  Either way, the enemy always seems to control what happens, even when he really doesn't.

 

Inviting Paricipants

It was one of Judaism's periodic public fasts, a sunup to sundown food deprivation with some enhancements of our assigned daily prayers.  Torah is read in the morning and late afternoon, with a section of Prophets in the late afternoon as well.  To fulfill this, a Minyan, or ten men, need to be in attendance.  This being a summer Sunday, that was unlikely to assemble.  In the morning it didn't, or so I am told, not being there myself.  The announcement of the service at a well attended special event Saturday, including the desire of a prominent man to recite Kaddish memorializing the anniversary of his father's passing, did not generate sufficient interest.  Around midday, I received a phone call and text message, neither of which I answered immediately.  Could I join the minyan in the evening so that the Torah reading and Kaddish can proceed?  If physically present, I always agree to help out.  Enough invitations delivered personally generated more than enough men to attend.  My synagogue had its scheduled service done in its entirety that evening.  My friend memorialized his father in our traditional way.

Most of our congregational activities come from a few insiders broadcasting what's in the trough they constructed, asking for hungry snouts to sop up what's there.  Some will, but fewer than will respond to a personal invitation, either to sample the contents or even to help build the trough and decide what goes in it.  That doesn't happen at my shul, where comfort zones prevail.  There's an element of paths of least resistance, or from my medical framework, I'd even say laziness.  For a thriving enterprise, the broadcast announcements for participants are fine.  For a declining one like ours, being acknowledged personally as somebody whose participation is valued makes all the difference, as we learned from yesterday's AM/PM gradient in being able to attain the obligatory minyan.  

In another era, a pharmaceutical company needing practical advice in keeping a teetering product viable asked for user opinions, an invitation extended to me personally by the company's office representative.  I provided mine, for which I received $400, which I donated to a small Tzedakah Fund run by somebody I had met.  He sent me a “Thank You” note with something he had recently written, an article on how to enhance the meaning of our upcoming Passover Holiday.  Danny, the agency head, posed his four questions:

1. What am I good at?
2. What do I like to do?
3. Who can help?
4. Why not?

For a congregation of scientists, that element of curiosity has largely remained dormant.  If our President were to ask each committee chairperson to tell him who they purposely invited onto their committees in the last two years because they had knowledge or insight that would enhance the work of their committee, I think the null hypothesis would prevail.  I was asked onto a nascent health committee to assess covid reopening based on my professional background.  Or as my friend asked, what am I good at? Who can help?  This time Me.  But my sense is that we function by a corrupted version of the Pareto Principle where 20% do 80%, mostly by default.

Ironically, it wasn't always that way.  There was never a lot of accountability, at least not at parity with my professional expectations, but there was more outreach at one time.  We had an initiative with rewards to develop Torah reading capacity.  My suggestion to revive this to the appropriate VP was offered a negatory in one minute.  When your tush gets epoxied to the Comfort Zone seat, it's much easier to take the crew and see if they will do this year what they did last year.  At least those are invitations, but never an outreach to what might challenge even the experienced reader a little more.  Eventually that approach takes you to the senior citizen version of the USY Clique, where we seem to express ourselves a little more starkly each passing year.  You never really determine what your pool of people really likes to do, has talent to contribute, and would be reticent to turn you down.  But our Nominating Committees and Chairmen whose purpose is nominally to engage people, or even function as talent scouts, encloses themselves in their comfort zones.  They make do.  Trying to enhance seems too much trouble.  There is no why not or what might be possible.

Many of us ran small professional practices where we had people who did not pay their bills.  There's a literature on collections that any of us who did this know quite well.  The highest yield to achieve payment is to have somebody call or meet the person in arrears and directly ask for the overdue fee.  When my medical organizations embark on a project, they don't broadcast that they are forming a committee.  They assign a chairman who seeks out the best composition for the project, based on skill and temperament.  That's how you move ahead. That's how you imagine excellence as your destination.  My congregation has not gone that route in a long time with results that reflect complacent officers who broadcast when they would do better inviting.

Acting Professional

This can be a very productive week ahead, or one that gets piddled.  On Sunday's I mark the fixed projects on a whiteboard in the kitchen where my wife can coordinate.  Most days I have one or more entries, something highly unusual.  And that doesn't include those amorphous initiatives that, while time-bound to encourage completion, do not have appointment dates dedicated to pursuing them.  Each month, my finances are done on the 17th, Jewish donations on the 20th, selection of a topic for my monthly medical column submission also on the 20th.  I want to go to the beach.  That needs an assigned day.  I selected a day to order a replacement sofa.  I committed to a gathering next Saturday, allotting a whiteboard entry for that and to make what I plan to contribute.  And best news, perhaps, I feel ready to do them all, along with exercise, writing, and house upgrades that are understood activities that do not need a whiteboard slot.

Sofa Moved Out

An empty space in our living room corner.  Big empty space which for the past 35 years less a few days for reupholstering was occupied by our floral camelback sofa.  Frame broken.  Seam split in center crudely basted.  One rear leg bent, keeping the seating surface from lying truly parallel to the floor.  As we removed pillows and cushions, we could see the original gleaming gray color of the second upholstery.  The exposed areas showed ample wear.  Off to the truck and gone.

Within a short time a replacement will be selected and installed.  Then we can have guests.  A shabby centerpiece sofa still allowed me to sack out this month as it has for hundreds of months.  It's presence, however, has been the barrier to extending invitations to guests we would like to have join us.  Clutter gone.  New curtains.  Soon new sofa.  Soon the guests we've been hesitant to invite.

Unable to Read

 

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Went to the Beth David Cemetery in Elmont NY to visit the family grave sites, one of my current semi-annual initiatives.  It had been a long time since my last visit.  While the extended maternal family chose their eternity at that site, my destination was my mother and maternal grandparents, though I also try to ascertain the new arrivals.  I knew about my second cousin, a woman born just two weeks after me, who succumbed to a smoking generated malignancy.  I found her site off in a corner.  The widow of somebody else entered since my last time there.  And I found, somewhat unexpectedly, the resting place of my maternal grandmother's sister and her husband.

The place is huge, an estimated 250,000 burials.  It is also largely computerized, so the main office can tell which block and burial society but not locate an individual grave beyond that.  Some hit and miss is required.  And not planning to spend a lot of time there, I know I did not encounter quite a few seen on prior visits.  

There's some larger Jewish history to be gleaned.  Traditionally, when Jews settled in a new place, their first communal need was for a burial site for which land was purchased.  A Torah Parsha in Genesis describes the first such purchase, at an outrageous sum even then, but it establishes ownership and permanence.  As Europeans populated NYC, land was also purchased, using agents known as Burial Societies which purchased blocks seen in the cemeteries today, then sold portions to consumers in the form of society memberships.  Our family joined Adolph Ullman, which has a stone arched entry noting the society and the Ullman family graves as you enter the arch.  My family's locations are scattered, though not entirely random within the assigned block.  My cousin lies at the very edge as new space became scarce, though still available.   Some had large monuments with family or multiple nuclear family names with foot stones for the individual sites.  My grandparents and mother had their own headstones, as did the vast majority of the Adolph Ullman Society burials.

The three people I sought out had each been interred there more than fifty years, all dying within ten years of the others.  When my children were six or so years old, before their Hebrew School enrollments, I took them there  individually for their first Hebrew reading introduction.  Both are named after people interred there for their first names.  After a day at the Statue of Liberty and a Kosher lunch out, I drove them to Beth David, found the sites of my mother and grandparents, then had them read their names off the matzevot.  The knew their names but not what it looked like in writing.  They knew they were named to memorialize an ancestor, which is our tradition, but this made the ancestor more tangible.

Nature proceeds, even in cemeteries.  New people that I once knew enter.  Those I didn't realize were there for eternity appear as I walked from the Adolph Ullman arch to the other side of the tract where I parked my car, scanning for familiar names as I traversed the area.  Plants also grow.  My parents and grandparents arranged for yew plantings which keep people from walking over the remains.  The fee also included perpetual care.  My children, now early career adults, could read their names on the monuments.  Natural growth of yew shrubs over the ensuing decades no longer allows that.  The family names peer above the yews' surface.  The individual names are obscured by vegetation.  Even moving those shrub's upper branches to read and photograph took some effort.

One other common tradition is to leave a stone found nearby an individual grave atop the monument as a sort of marker that the site has been visited.  We did that.  Other matzevot of our extended family also had a few stones, most small.  I do not know how long a random rock will stay there, probably no more than a season or two, so we were not the only ones to visit our relatives.  Don't know who stopped by or when, but it's reassuring that the memory of and obligations to our forebears remains ongoing.

Not Missing Facebook

Not posted for not quite half the month thus far.  Shared two stories of meaning to me, but do not recall what the first was.

Not wished anyone a standardized Happy Birthday.  Not opened notifications, even to read my friend's daily selection in Critica. And nobody seems to have missed me.

I don't feel deprived.  I don't have a hankering of any type to go back and tell somebody about the ordinary things and sometimes special things that I do.

Don't miss the political statements.  By now I have the hang of who supports what.

If anything about my hiatus amazes me so far, it has been how much unoccupied time has been recaptured.  I do not really know how much time I spend logged into various social media but the sponsors do.  Judging from large swaths of time this week that I've had to redirect, some in very gratifying ways, some in more obligatory ways, and some largely idle, it was a lot more than I would have estimated.

I don't plan to return now that I appreciate how anti-gratifying much of that recent experience has become.  In these two weeks, a few real electronic conversations have come my way, usually my comment with a thoughtful response from somebody I do not know except though presentations that captured my interest.  Real meaningful exchanges of ideas.  Something FB could have been, maybe even once was, but went for the sponsors instead.

Guest Space

We're almost ready to have guests.  Living room and dining room essentially done except for sofa replacement.  Kitchen suitable for meal prep, almost.  Lower hall done to my satisfaction, though not my wife's.  It took a while, but it's sort of done.  Maybe a call to 1-800-GOT-JUNK or competitor.  A tour of Wayfair.  But I am ready to be the place to be for shabbos dinner.  Clutter removed.  Wood polished with Pledge wannabe.  Pictures dusted.  Nook desk workable.  Some books on table, but those are of interest.

Ready to go.  Almost. 

Touring Costco

My k-cup supply could use replenishing.  Butter has gotten too expensive at the supermarket.  Haven't gotten lox in ages, as the price has become prohibitive and salmon to make my own gravlax has not gone on sale. And my Costco Card was nearing its expiration.  Haven't been to a Costco in a long time.  Were it not for the bifocal discount, the membership fee would not be worthwhile, but while I have it, I can see what bargains await.  I ended up getting five things.

1. House brand K-cups
2. Omeprazole
3. Nutrigrain Snacks
4. Gravlax
5. Beyond Burgers

Each discounted below what I can get other places.  Butter sold for three pound units.  Discount not enough to justify that quantity.  Real smoked salmon well above what I was willing to spend.  Munchies not notable bargains and I shouldn't be eating them.  Don't need any clothing, didn't even look.

I did consider some things for the kitchen, bright ceramic bowls mostly, but I don't really need anything there.  In many ways, Costco promotes want more than need.  Electronics at home are ample.  Satisfied with phone service.  They have attractive desk chairs, but I really like the one I have.  Not a whole lot of kosher specialties like whitefish or frozen shabbos dinners or frozen tiramisu that I find hard to pass up.  Not really much generated in the way of want.  Other than the gravlax, what I bought are all things I would have purchased anyway at the supermarket.

No reason to return until my bifocal prescription needs revision.  The card can lapse.

Sharing Tasks

Cooperating, and its subset committees, has not been my childhood imprint or adult acquisition.  I make my list of things that I will do and I do them, primarily for myself.  I do them well.  I can be pretty harsh with those who seek the minimum, who never shimmie up past the low-hanging fruit.  Yet as I look at what I want to do in the months ahead, my own best effort won't generate optimal results.  To get my estate plans firmed needs spousal assistance.  So does visiting the kids.  I want to have guests over.  My wife remains on better terms with people, I handle the  logistics and kitchen with better expertise.  She functions better as hostess.  I have some petty travel on my agenda.  I can do it all myself, except maybe the two picnics, but should I do it all myself?  Visiting cemeteries, probably.  Beaches, maybe?

And I want to make the first floor of my house, inside and out, fully habitable.  But I'm not all in on this. Two person effort, even if one is hired, would be better.

And then I have my All In, those one person tasks.  It is time to tell My Story.  It is time to make My Space the reality that I once envisioned, and still do.  All In means ownership.  Not shared.

Begin.  Both the shared and solitary undertakings.

Democratic Endorsements

Having been booted from one representative district to another by the need for our state legislature to create districts of reasonably uniform population, I still retained my committee position in the new district.  We met via Zoom with other districts to hear from those holding statewide office who desire the party's endorsement.  Only one incumbent personally present, a very sincere State Treasurer who has done some useful things.  Our Congresswoman and our AG were represented by their campaign managers.  It would have been better to have a Chief of Staff present instead.  Our Auditor, recently convicted of some not entirely petty misconduct, though not a felony that would have made her ineligible to hold office, stayed away, but her primary opponent made a compelling case for why she would be a better replacement.  I agree with her, as the 10th district unanimously offered our endorsement.

My newly assigned district seems more like me.  The housing patterns bring us people dominated by Smart America, those university educated professionals that make the world sparkle.  We live in attractive neighborhoods which we keep free of litter.  We desire good schools.  We desire honesty.  Don't know how many have defected from their childhood religion or retained it.  We express ourselves in writing or by personal protest, but looting flat screen TVs from K-Mart is not part of our protest protocol.  Yet we are highly sympathetic to Just America's causes, though repelled by its tactics.  Our Treasurer expressed it well.  People who don't yet have pensions would benefit from having one.  Create one for them.  And she did.  Don't begrudge state employees benefits similar to private employees.  It expands Smart America.

AGs rep took a similar approach.  Harsh on predators who shoot us, steal from us, or who profit from drug supplying whether street people or corporate conglomerates.  Easy on the petty offenders who don't pose a public danger.

The congresswoman's manager had a bit more of a Progressive agenda than the Congresswoman herself seems to convey.  I think she is also fundamentally part of Smart America, one who knows the hot button issues, is aware of the damage recent federal directions will create, but really only offers making a statement with the illusion of making a difference.  The difference will need to be made by voters elsewhere. 

Good Meeting.  I'm part of Smart America and now more fully immersed among similar minds.

Axing Social Media

Facebook came to me with great interest.  I was visiting my son, who had accepted a post-college research position, really a stop-gap activity until he could pursue a more permanent career, at NYU.  It had been a while since I abandoned going to the 7-Eleven for the NY Times.  Too high a fee and too little newsprint in the Outer Provinces.  But in NYC, what a deal!  And while reading it I understood why I had targeted obtaining a copy as a Sunday morning institution for so many years.  That morning's edition contained an article on the emergence of Facebook as a means of reconnecting with old friends.  At forty years post high school and with a reunion scheduled near my hometown just a few months hence, I never lost my interest in the people I once knew.  When I returned home, I enrolled in FB on my PC, reacquainted with more people than I could expect to see in the flesh that coming fall, catching up on forty years of old times.  People not very close to me in the 1960s evolved into people of accomplishment in the first decade of this century.  They had careers.  They had families.  They had pets.  They had religious and political stances, some predictable, many unexpected.  We bantered about old times.  As our children entered their marriages and careers, we shared that.  And geography.  As the scheduled reunion arrived, I now had FB as an entry to conversation and catch up. 

Back home. More nominal friends, a few finding me.  It was social media.  And then organizations of the welcome type found their way to my screen.  Medical sites.  Sports teams.  Subsets of my alma maters.  I had begun a new job shortly after, so lots of stories to tell and stories to hear.  No trolls for another election cycle.  

The unwelcome really nudged its way in rather insidiously about four years into my enrollment.  My new-found HS acquaintances had used up their pleasantries.  Too many became sloganeers who would share whatever unflattering photo or distorted comment of officials or even people they opposed.  People who I knew as congenial in person felt no need to be with their fingers on a keyboard.  As mid-decade with its toxic electoral cycle using FB as a forum, those common pleasantries of favorite football teams, sharing once in a lifetime travels, displaying culinary talent, all became subordinate to pitching your candidate or cause, which is probably OK until it becomes excessive or makes a turn from promoting your preference to vilifying the other.  

Limping along from there, some seven years have plodded on.  The corporate mission has changed from giving me a chance to connect with people of intersecting interest to disconnecting me from a portion of my money.  The people whose posts about career, family, travel, and kitchen rarely kept me in the loop of their activities or thoughts.  In its place came people I hardly knew from my youthful past, people who had little better to do than sit at their screens and type, unrestrained by either a clock or a desire to go outside to sample the rest of the world.  While I still have nominally about 100 Friends, I really only receive posts from about half a dozen, and not the same half a dozen I would have put on my priority connect list.  I made a commitment to never unfriend a HS classmate, and I haven't, but unfollowed a few.  I'm even pretty tolerant of those who sought me out, though those people do get Unfriended once they attack me or get too focused on frumkeit which I don't share.  

There still being a vestige of scientist in me, I did a series of counts on where unsolicited posts originated.  I looked at twenty consecutive posts, starting at a random point, counting how many came from people on my Friends List.  About half, replicated many times.  And how many of those were their own comments rather than Shares of some type?  Hopelessly few.

Time to depart.  I have been a FB Anti-Nazir in the past, with various schema.  I would stay away for a week.  Invariably my email would alert me to messages I had to read.  The company hires psych majors from the best schools who know how to keep customers looking at their screens and no others.  Mostly I resisted the bait, checking messages so not to overlook people's birthdays, even though my own greetings to them is pretty much templated.  I look at these interludes much as a do a vacation, time away with the intent of returning with a different perspective.  That never happens.  I've spun a virtual roulette wheel.  Odd numbers, I sign on to FB that day, even numbers including 0/00 I don't.  It works well, signing on a little less than half the days.  Downside, regretting the days I signed on that siphon me from other things I should be doing instead, with no real satisfaction of being there.

It's really time to exit.  I'm about a week into it, checked messages twice when alerted, regretted doing even that.  Deleted FB App from my phone.  Now, I have exited certain social media permanently in the past.  Twitter has been gone about a year.  Sermo, the physicians site, I abandoned shortly after retiring, more prompted by a change in their corporate format than any desire not to be among fellow physicians of diverse world and professional views.  The company just ruined the site.  Same with classmates.com where I reconnected with a fair number of old acquaintances.  Worth free with advertising subsidy, not worth monthly fee.  FB fulfilled this niche better and with no fee.  I don't miss any of them.  Probably wouldn't even remember my sign-in passwords for any of them.  

I wonder if these social media have life cycles like people, organizations, or businesses do.  There is a nascent idea, a period of growth, one of stability, one of decline.  Places I used to like to shop are no more. The congregation of my bar mitzvah completed its life cycle.  My current congregation is at the end of its life cycle.  We can debate about America.  What implodes the business and organizations is the loss of their attractiveness to people.  Those Reverse Roach Motels where they only check out.  

Looking at what FB Friends posts I receive, I cannot really tell if the people whose minds I value most opted out and just aren't posting anymore to anyone, or whether they are still active, but the corporate algorithms separate me from them.  But either way, that interactiveness that I learned about from the NY Times had its years of pleasurable reality.  It's not there anymore.  I don't find interactive at my synagogue either.  No response or separated from the responses that exist makes its own statement.  I made a proposal to myself to avoid FB this month.  Anti-Nazirs are usually time-bound in their vows.  But for now I'm seeing FB as a resource headed in the direction of Twitter and Sermo.

Fixing What's Wrong

When I tabulate my monthly expenses on or about the 17th of each month, a Comcast bill on autopay takes a significant cut.  I put it in the Entertainment column of the Excel spreadsheet, though I'm hardly entertained.  For that sum I have landline telephone, an ISP with my email address, and cable TV.  People who need to reach me largely call that number.  Organizations do it from their wired phones, people reach me from their cell phones.  Yet I prefer to call others via that telephone access.  I never really logged how many calls I receive and from whom, or how many I make.  Mostly relatives and those who want money.  Virtually no idle chat, while exchange of serious ideas uses other forums.  I'm on the internet all the time, often idly so, enough times purposefully so.  It's failed twice via hacking.  Xfinity did their best to undo the damage.  Most of my monthly fee goes there.

And then TV with streaming.  When I sign on with my Roku/TCL unit, I get a message that they are now connecting to my entertainment experience.  Most of the time I don't really want to be entertained.  I seek out documentaries.  But it is still learning.  It's not exclusively to Comcast, as Netflix also gives me options of what to watch.  Indeed, in recent months I've been watching more series on Netflix.  But it still came as a major annoyance to get blocked by Comcast when I wanted to browse.

Instead of connecting to my entertainment experience, the screen asked me to authorize that I want to be there.  I typed in the six code numbers onto a nearby laptop.  This has happened before.  Normally I would receive a terms of agreement to click and my entertainment experience would ensue.  Not this time.  The PC said success.  The TV gave me another set of six code numbers.  After a few cycles of this, I called the customer line of Comcast.

The NEJM had an op-ed in a recent issue trying to separate work that requires thinking from work that is repetitive or process oriented.  https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2202511  In medicine, the ease and repetitiveness of the Electronic Record has shifted medical care from expert analysis by physicians to data entry with processes and pathways.  Comcast took a similar approach.  When I called the customer service number, there were steps to get to a human being, one who reads from a script, as after telling my story, they ask me what I just told them.  When I called back for the umpteenth time, they have no record of what I told them last time.  Just an algorithm to unplug this or move to a different screen and click that.  After about six tries when I tried to sign on I did not get to my entertainment experience, blocked by recurrent code numbers to type in as before. 

Eventually they sent a technician, one with considerable experience who went through his motions concluding that my barrier was not with Comcast but with my TV. At least he is a person and could tell me what he thought.  And he listened to what I told him and watched what I showed him.  I could buy another TV.  So I called the TV TCL line, where they took me through their steps, including resetting the TV.  No better.  He concluded that my TV was functioning much as their factory intended.

So now I am the patient who cannot breathe with a cardiologist blaming the lungs and a pulmonary doc blaming the heart.  So I sought Google as the arbiter.  Sure enough, I was not the only person with a TCL/Roku unit who could not implement their Comcast subscription.  And there were solutions proposed, a message board with Comcast reps messaging in to Private Message them, but no solutions.  

Locally we have an Xfinity store, one used to having exasperated, even irate customers who wonder whether they should upgrade to former customers, traipsing in.  I spoke to the site manager.  He informed me that they have a TV specialist who deals with this and would ask him to call me.  When he did not call in a reasonable time, I tried to call the store back.  In the modern age, they have no phone number, just a central toll free number that takes you back to processors when you really require a thinker.  So I drove there, to find that the manager I spoke to was on vacation this week.  While the manager thought it was Comcast, the person filling in thought it was the TV, giving me two options.

1. Buy a new TV but only Samsung or LG that does not have to go through Roku.  Cost $400
2. Get an additional cable box for the current TV so internet would not be required.  Cost $8.50/mo

We settled on a middle ground.  Wait for the boss to return from vacation and see what their best expert could do.

In the meaning, electronic peasant me went back to the TCL site where they offer advice on what to do from their end.  I followed it step by step.  Clicking on the series of pathway, I reset from factory settings.  No risk if the alternative was to buy another TV, though I had already done that the last time the TCL rep ran me through the procedure.  Then another pathway to check for a MAC number.  I do not know what a MAC number is but I had one.  Then try to get back on Xfinity.  Another code number to authorize on my PC.  But this time, it took me to a user agreement, which I accepted, followed by a return to the world of streaming TV.  Elation.  A binge of viewing come nightfall.

I still solved this with process over thinking.  Perhaps Comcast, medicine, and everyone other than me is right.  Reasoning and expertise are overrated.

Timed Tasks

Doing pretty good setting timers, of which I have several, for 18 minute and 18 seconds, mostly.  Sometimes 22 minutes and 22 seconds, which offers a compromise for aerobic treadmill benefits and protection of injured joints.  Rest and internet surfing does well with 25 minutes and 25 seconds.  But 18/18 best assesses my ability to sustain interest in what I am doing or defining an escape point for activities I must do but don't really want to.  This is not Flow, which I also experience for a few things, but the timer defines sessions to pursue my Daily Task List, and with considerable success.

Another Glorious Fourth

Our newspaper opted not to print on the Federal holiday.  Not enough print readers.  Not enough money to pay enough staff to make it happen.  Don't know what stores are open this Fourth of July.  WaWa has begun its Hoagiefest.  Pharmacies usually open.  Department stores vary but no interest to going to any.  Parks often have their big day.  And Torah gets read in places that can assemble a minyan on Monday morning.  There are fireworks in some places, though fewer as pyrotechnic safety experts have participated in the Great Resignation.  And wife sings in a concert this afternoon, my only really desired destination for this holiday.

Fourth of July has always been a demarcation point ever since I entered the medical world.  Promotions from one stage of student or resident traditionally commenced on July 1, though for the last twenty or so years the transition really occurs about ten days earlier.  For many, the holiday is a day on call, the first of many days they will work when everyone else seems off.  For me it is a more generic time landmark, conclusion of my last set of six-month initiatives with a few days to get acclimated to the next set.

And it's been a good start.  Three of my projects require making my house more habitable, two directly, one indirectly.  And I've been doing that.  This being the first Monday, I get my baseline anthropological measurements, as I have substituted weight, waist, and BP targets for the treadmill intensities I pursued last time.  One project has already failed.  The Anniversary gift I wanted to spend money on exceeds by far the amount I had intended to spend.  There will still be a gift, just one of better enduring value.  

I've not undertaken them mental challenges yet.  They await, though not for very long.

Happy Birthday America.

Abortioned Out

It didn't take long.  We all knew which sides we were on.  We might have been blindsided by the Supreme Court ruling fifty years ago, but half a century is enough to entrench our positions.  This time the reversal of the last ruling had two weeks of advance notice.  But we all know who is on what side, what they intersect with when they vote, how they blighted the basically good concept of organized religion for many, myself among them.  I know the different positions.  I know what Shimon ben Gamliel indicated makes for good law:  emet, din, and shalom.  I also know that we've really opted for winners and losers here.

I still think defined access creates the best law but that's not what  people seem to vote for.  And votes matter a lot more than FB posts that express rage.

I have the good fortune to be able to think through what comes at me, accept being on the losing side if not the minority itself, and let the grandstanding end.  It won't end, but I don't have to look at it.  I control which screens I turn on.  Always.

Visiting Assateague

We got there and back.  Cussed at Toyota GPS much of the time.  I just assumed we would go to Ocean City and cross into the park.  Not so at all.  While the resort sits adjacent to the island, the bridge does not connect the two popular barrier islands of Ocean City and Assateague.  Instead, access is only from the mainland, which explains why the formal address locates it in Berlin MD.  We made it.  Functional visitors center with helpful agent.  Then some more driving.  Assateague is divided into three parts:

1. State Park
2. National Seashore
3. Virginia Park 

On crossing the bridge, a branch point enabled entry to the Maryland State Park or the National Park Service Seashore.  Slow vehicular line, but they accepted my National Park Senior Pass with identity confirmed by Driver's License.  It did not take long to encounter the wild horses along the road, with a few photographic traffic stoppages along the way.  There is only one main road with a beach access at each end, camping in the middle, and some historical sightseeing at another branch point.  To get our bearings, I drove to the end.  Distal beach must be the more popular, as there were no more parking spaces this day, maybe some people getting a head start on their Independence Day Weekend.  We drove back to the near beach.  Ample parking there.  Changing rooms were private but very few.  Not a real long walk to the shore along a wooden pathway that the horses seem to prefer to the sand as their latrine.  Very clean, not very crowded.  Cool surf, explaining why virtually nobody took advantage of the waves of modest intensity.  

I had chosen this day because the weather forecast for Ocean City indicated no rain.  About a half hour before my intended departure from the beach, a downpour commenced.  Back to the car, admired and photographed some more horses, checked the internet for the nearest winery which was something of a schlep but along the route home.

Windmill Creek Vineyard's Tasting Room sits in a converted farmhouse of minor historical recognition, furnished with era pieces, including a treadle sewing machine like my grandmother used.  Vineyards to the left, small cornfield to the right, in case they wanted to expand into bourbon.  Two food trucks outside.  Reform Synagogue, Temple Bat Yam, unexpected for that area though by website description slightly more members than my current congregation and unlike my congregation, with its own building, made a suitable next door neighbor.  The winery offered a choice of Sweet or Dry Flights, each with 5 two ounce samples in plastic cups.  A little pricey, but my wife and I shared a Dry selection.  We were directed to a table, though I much prefer to banter with the staff about their winery and their vintages.  Not this time.  I had a sip and swish of each, no threat to my fitness to drive home.  Did not particularly like any of them.

Since the winery sits just off the main north-south highway that brings us home, once I got there I no longer needed a GPS.  Arrived home a little tired, glad I got a day away, and chilled the rest of the evening, a fitting close to the half-year of current projects, which included three trips to Maryland.