Sukkah Guest

After a few weeks of irritations and rejections, feeling mostly let down both by people I know and by those who really have no obligation to me, I judged it time to move onto new people.  OLLI provided some, as it always does, though more reacquaintance than new friendship.  Same with attending synagogues other than my own, though at RH services I expressed my appreciation to their Torah reader, who I had never approached in all the years going there, for standing aside so that somebody else once a member but now a visitor could have his turn. 

When I created my current semi-annual projects, I included having three dinner guests.  Periodically I would jot on a scrap sheet who I might like to have and for what reason.  The sukkah is designed for guests.  It's construction, sometimes its expense, exceeds the capacity of everyone to have one.  I also have non-Jewish friends who lack familiarity with the tradition.  I went that route last year, and again now, with a relatively new medical friend with second degrees of connection suitable to my wife agreeing to join us for shabbos.

If anything energizes me in my retirement years, it has been planning and creating special dinners, which usually follow an occasion to justify the effort.  And so I began just as soon as my invitation was accepted.  Start by confirming guests' dietary restrictions.  Then a sheet of paper divided into eight rectangles for the individual dishes.  I always make challah if shabbos or yontif, a different bread if not.  I like making bread, always edible, not always elegant appearance as it too often flattens on the second rise.  There are different sections for appetizer and soup, though I wonder if both are really needed.  I find the soup more versatile, both in its selection and in its ability to introduce the rest of the menu.  Always a salad and if I make one needing a dressing, I make my own.  Entree for outside guests has been in recent times whole roast chicken.  The NYT made Mark Bittman's process for this publicly available.  It's been flawless the two times I made it, and there are different variations.  Whole Kosher chickens are readily available, though they take up a lot of room in the freezer while waiting to be used.  Precut chicken is also mostly available and stacks with other things in the freezer.  It combines easily for chicken cacciatore or doro wat. And as much as pastilla, or Moroccan chicken pie challenges me, its steps are more tedious and outcome too uncertain to place on a guest menu.  I usually make a kugel, though with some of the more liquid versions of chicken, a layer of rice beneath will work better.  And there is a vegetable.  And I invariably make some variation of cake for dessert.

While American food gets imported from everywhere with most of the world's climates represented, seasons remain important to me.  Gazpacho or other cold soup in the summer, apples in the fall, root vegetables in the winter, and asparagus for Seder in the spring.

While cookbooks have become obsolete, the online recipes being far more plentiful and individually searchable, I've never lost my fondness for the books.  I've also acquired my own favorite things to make.  I like phyllo.  Apple cake and nut tortes can complete any meal.  Slabs of beef have gotten too expensive, even for guests, and don't always have the reliability of preparation of poultry, but when on sale, I like making pot roasts.  Salads have drifted to mostly multicolor Israeli salad or cucumber salad.

I also like to mingle ethnic origins of what I make.  My ancestry, genetic and culinary, is Eastern European, though the Hungarian and Polish contributions differ.  I find a place for Middle Eastern, less for Far Eastern or African or British.

So, I've begun.  Eight rectangles.  Jewish apple cake for dessert for sure, all else open, but jotted my favorites in each category.  Surfed my favorite cookbooks.  Sampled Sukkot menus on the web much less plentiful than menus proposed by food mavens for other occasions.  And not get so focused on the food as to neglect other means of making our guest as welcome as we can.

Wakeful Night

For all my efforts with sleep hygiene, difficulty falling asleep once tucked in and lights out rarely challenges me.  Some form of internal clock awakens me with no prompting at 3-4AM in a predictable way with variable success in returning to sleep, but something that nearly always happens prior to the wrist buzz as 6:3z0.  

Last night differed.  My day began with my dissatisfaction with my synagogue experience articulated more graphically than optimal.  I went on my way, doing good things the remainder of my usual wake times.  I walked on the treadmill after helping with a yahrtzeit minyan, began writing my monthly paid column, returned to OLLI for some quiet lounging followed by my scheduled class.  Then home and more writing.  Then a quick reheated supper followed by a quick run through Shop-Rite for a few items needed imminently for shabbos and Rosh Hashanah.  Then more writing leading to actual submission of a pretty good Jewish article, though I suspect not quite what its destination most likes to publish.  Then editing another Jewish article, this one needing considerable word reduction, or consolidation of thoughts.  As I juggle themes of resentment, at the start of my day, I find it hard to detach myself as a storyteller, but I tried.

As my usual time to call it a day arrived, I found myself not the least bit tired.  More accurately, my mind seemed energized, engaged in thought, though not really Mental Flow.  Some TV to distract me, something mindless, in this case David Letterman interviewing Howard Stern on Netflix.  It engaged me enough to surf the web while I watched to get some biographical background on Howard Stern.  Then some more attention to my monthly medical column.  A try at sleep unsuccessful, so more TV and some artificial inducements with a timer to limit my time awake and at screens.  Finally, around 1:30AM, still wound up without entirely satisfactory explanation, it was lights out.  The internal clock woke me about three hours later.  Usually I will use the bathroom, grudgingly hobbling there and back, eager to try to resume sleep.  This time I walked there with full energy, not at all inclined to give the night's sleep its second act.  Horizontal until I no longer wanted to be horizontal, rising an hour before the daily morning wrist buzz.  Dental hygiene, coffee, both basically time shifted by an hour, feeling not the least bit draggy.  Back to the medical column, accessing the core article on which it is based, typing my commentary, shifting back and forth between published contents and my own thoughts about it.  Coffee not quite finished, still warm enough.  Morning medicines swallowed.  Still not at all sleepy despite drastic reduction in my usual sleep hours.  Accomplish what I can.  Expect to have my back-up internal clock reset me by midday.

Catchup

Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot take a Mon-Tues pattern this year.  Sunday preparation, whether cooking or completing a sukkah, then Yom Tovim.  Wednesday arrives with a slew of tasks that would have ordinarily been done Monday or Tuesday but were unsuitable for yontif.  I've measured my weight and waist.  Treadmill depends more on date than day of week, so it's a post-RH go today.  Crosswords got behind, but I don't really need to catch up.  My daily writing is more of a resume than catchup.  I reviewed my email and FB right after sundown.  These could have all waited.  Engaging in commerce can wait, never urgent, not really catchup.  My plants can depend on nature without me for two days, but I really need to check on them today.  

Still, benefits of RH aside, it still feels like I lost two days.

High Holiday Honors

Each year the chairman of my congregation's High Holiday Committee, which really isn't a committee anymore like so many other things there, send out participatory invitations for the men, which contain a financial solicitation.  This year for the first time, it included check boxes for amount, all in excess of what I want to give.  Indeed, considering the decline in attendance by a few men each year accumulating over many years, they probably should be paying me to help out.  I've been dissatisfied, declining my annual invitation to serve as Yom Kippur Torah reader.  In exchanged they requested that I bind the Scroll at the end of the reading and write a three digit check for the honor.  I really don't want to be more than a spectator, and certainly not a donor.  Yet the person who doles out these tasks, labelled Honors, has never been among the officers who have so callously bypassed me and dismissed me, probably the underpinning of my resentment.  He means well, likely gets more complaints than thanks, and there are a lot of Ark Openings to be filled and only men qualify.  I wonder how many respond by asking for placement on his Do Not Call List.  That's my inclination too.  They understand withholding a donation more than any verbal expressions of congregational negative transference reactions.   My check won't bounce, but I really don't want to create entitlement for what has really been a problematic relationship.

Working With a Timer

I will work on this for 18 minutes and 18 seconds.  A lot of cleanup of a room can be accomplished in that time.  Exercise takes 25 minutes and 25 seconds, as does my goof off break.  Writing assignments take twice that 50 minutes and 50 seconds, with my mind usually petering out before that.  I rarely achieve Flow where time of performance disappears.  While do it until completion seems a better way to accomplish tasks, my interest fades more often than not somewhere during the task.  A timer makes for decent compensation unless the activity is both short and finite.  

My new GloryFit smartwatch has a timer, something its iTouch Slim predecessor did not.  Smart phones, tablets, PCs all come with timers.  It's utility has expanded far beyond keeping track of what's in the oven.  But still, it would be nice to occasionally enter a state of Flow.

Overtasked

Motivationally challenged, perhaps.  My daily task list appears unusually long, so diverse that I really don't want to select any one thing to actually do.  It might help, I think, if I choose something that has an end that gets a checkmark by the end of the day and does not get recycled to tomorrow's daily task list.  There are items like that but most things that contribute to my semi-annual initiatives are not those one and done efforts.  Still, I need to have the task list shorter.  The best way to do that is to tackle those most finite.  Exercise is measured by time and by effort.  So are my wt, waist, and BP measurements. Some efforts are timed, particularly cleaning parts of the house.  But when the list gets too long, the choices appear overwhelming.  It becomes like a food menu that has so many options that you are never fully content with the one you chose.  See how many I can do, but opt for the ones that once done do not propagate beyond today.

Rosh Hashana Prep

The High Holy Days begin in about a week.  I'm transitioning the year less enthused than other years.  I will still send off annual greetings to two old friends.  I will prepare dinner suitable for the occasion and for sharing with my sister-in-law the following day.  And I will also need to work my monthly Medscape submission around the days when the electronics shut down.  Maybe take some clothing to the dry cleaners.  Seems easier to prepare food and stuff than it is to prepare myself.  There are services to attend, people to greet, likely some top-notch sermons presented by experts.  I still have a week to perhaps enhance my own connection to this annual transition.

Some Minor Consumerism

There are items I need.  Things like dishwashing soap, pants and eggs.  There are things that I kinda need like coffee and seltzer in lieu of wretched soda.  And there are things that I want but really don't need like most of the food my doctor discourages or the link bracelet I often wear on my right wrist.  Another category might be things I really don't need but want until I have them, after which they shift into need.  A cell phone or 55" big screen flat TV would be among these.  And within needs there are gradients of want.  While I need a shirt, its Phillies logo moves it into something that I want.  And most things from freebie tables are probably momentary wants, rarely needs, though I do appreciate some of the totes and logo umbrellas I've acquired that way.

So time to surf amazon.com as a few items that I already possess have shown need for upgrade or replacement.  Could use some semi-casual shoes.  Found suede chukka boots both in my size and on sale, a rare match in any store.  I probably needed a new pair of daily shoes, or really every other day shoes to enhance their longevity.  That hybrid of kinda need and want, though only want at a favorable price.  My cell phone needed urgent replacement.  T-Mobile ripped me off for a screen protector which promptly cracked.  I needed a new screen protector.  And while I was there, since free shipping needs a minimum purchase, I found a suitable case, which incidentally comes with its own screen protector.  Into the cart.

My smartwatch, an iTouch Slim has begun to fail.  I retrieved some more traditional dial watches, two of three in need of new batteries.  Watch batteries a lot less expensive at amazon.com than at Walgreens, so into the cart.  But I really like my iTouch better, though we could quibble about whether it can be worn to shul as it goes on and off electronically with hand motion.  I wear it.  Despite the inconvenience of having to charge it, which I don't with my traditional watches, I liked its slim appearance and greatly appreciate the ability to set a wrist buzz to assign the fixed awake and retire times required for optimal sleep hygiene.  Alas, its charge barely lasts a day.  

As technology improves, that same expenditure gives more features.  I selected a GloryFit model, larger square face, though I found the slim face more unobtrusively stylish.  What sold me were the doodads, the ability to select a hundred or more displays, nearly all in color, compared to my iTouch selection of three monochrome fonts.  This model offers me the weather, a sleep tracker that is probably inaccurate, an oxygen and blood pressure read, also not to depend upon.  Basically, it's part watch, part toy, and at almost the same price as the one it replaces, which makes it somewhat disposable if its use disappoints.

All but the chukka boots and batteries have arrived.  Cell phone in its case.  Cracked screen protector replaced, with four more on standby in anticipation of this protector serving its purpose by eventually sustaining a replaceable injury.  GloryFit watch charged, playing with the settings.  Minor gripes already, the temperature reads as Celsius, though I programmed Imperial units.  I do understand metric units, though.  Indeed, it would be better for Americans to just use them like everyone else.  Choose a different watch face later today.

Outspoken

Some invited feedback to my congregational in-crowd.  An earful.  Not what they expected.  They heard resentment.  They heard condescension.  And they also heard why.  They get complaints.  They don't get too much why.  And from one of their best unique and accurate thinkers.  Blunt beyond candid.

Recreationally Challenged

My weekly task list contains a series of recreational items that I'm really not committed to.  There's the outdoors of fishing and gardening.  There's the indoors of arts and literature.  None other than writing  has any desire on my part for acquiring proficiency.  They are more means of transient pleasure, perhaps escape.  All can be done alone, indeed, most need to be done alone.  They get propagated from week to week on my weekly plan, then to my daily task list.  Rarely if ever done.  Focus on the writing.  Schedule the others.

Touring the World on YouTube

My Space has a few go to items.  A great desk chair.  A recliner that probably should be replaced, perhaps with a barber chair.  I type at my laptop.  I watch a 55" flat screen TCL television.  Until recently, I did not know that the TV accesses YouTube, something I would more commonly open on my cell phone in bed to acquire sleep sounds or maybe listen to a symphony in anticipation of a night's sleep.  Having YouTube on a big screen changes the perspective.

I like to visit places, poking in neighborhoods as I travel, stopping along the way on longer trips at a local coffee place in preference to a turnpike rest stop.  I will often visit a local college, maybe getting a logo coffee mug to add to my collection, now mostly assigned display and not drinking.  I can do these things on a screen.  Any college or any town that I can think of has a resident or student who has filmed their experience.  The towns largely don't offer much, mostly the same drive through, or less, than I would have done as a visitor.  The college tours seem more substantial, some official tours to attract students, some assessments of student experiences, mostly favorable but a few highlighting anti-Semitism or other campus liabilities.  There's even a series of youniversity that has a vlogger giving tours independent of the formal administration recruiting.  My own college selections would probably have been different had this resource been available to me.  

And there is still my fondness for Jewish music and for orchestral pieces there at a quick search.  And my on new channel, dr. plotzker's mind, where I am probably the only one who watches.

Vicarious, for sure.  But available to me in an instant.

Making Mac & Cheese

Horny Hardardt's Automat, of blessed memory, was my destination on most visits to Manhattan.  Insert the right number of coins and the window would pop open exposing some treat to relocate to my tray.  They had a unique macaroni & cheese, made with ziti rather than elbow, a creamier sauce than the stuff served at the school cafeteria.  It came in an oval green porcelain ramekin baked individually.  I sampled other H & H goodies over the years.  Chocolate milk gave way to some very good coffee.  There was a cake that I liked.  But the mac & cheese imprinted the indelible memory of good eats.

The Automat long closed.  The fondness for the food endured, with recipes now available on the internet.  My minor variations, as it is dumb to buy cream for just a few tablespoonfuls, though more realistic when made in restaurant quantities, has become one of my often repeated kitchen efforts whenever kosher certified cheddar goes on sale, as a home quantity uses about 12 ounces of the stuff.  It was once an effort, now tedious but not that hard, especially with a food processor's grating disc to prepare the cheese.  I also have to buy two quarts of milk, far more than my wife or I use for anything else.  All else, we usually have around the house.

I've learned to set out ingredients.  Any tubular pasta will do.  Ziti and penne or variants work the best.  Elbow just seems phony for this.  Boil, drain, leave in strainer.  Shred cheese and leave in a separate bowl.  Measure milk and flour.  Cut the desired amount of frozen butter.  The tomatoes which make it characteristic come in a can, with or without chilies.  Open the can.  Add desired amount of salt, sugar and pepper to the can.  Now all set.

Melt butter.  Add flour to make a roux.  Whisk for about five minutes.  Now the hard part.  Add the measured milk and whisk.  It will take about ten minutes to become thick.  Preheat oven.  Cooking spray to a lasagna pan.  Then just keep whisking.  Try not to add cheese prematurely.  When clearly thicker than it was, add the shredded cheese to the white sauce, keep whisking until it smooth, add the tomatoes and seasonings from the can while whisking some more, then add the cooked pasta.  Pour into the prepared lasagna pan.  Into the oven for 45 minutes.  Sometimes additional browning to make it look more like the Automat is desired.  Broil for a minute or two.   Out of oven.  Wait about five minutes for sauce to become less runny.  

Now have four meals.  One for day of preparation, one for next day, then portion into two more servings for storage in freezer until needed for meals the following week.

Eating out of Freezer

Overstuffed.  Good thing I delayed purchasing the box of phyllo for baklava that I want to make for scheduled guests.  As it is, I had to remove an ice cube tray and most of my frozen cold compresses to cram all the food I bought into the freezer.  

The freezer makes for fast food, or really easy to prepare food since I virtually never buy prepackaged meals.  There's kosher meat when it goes on sale.  Two whole chickens and a quarter turkey breast take up a lot of space and have become special occasion entrees.  I've accumulated beef, stackable in the packaging, though for shabbos and other special occasions.  For more daily fare, fish is probably nature's fast food.  It comes frozen at sea.  I almost never buy at the fish counter anymore.   Also comes in crunchy fillets.  Just thaw a day in advance, season, and mostly made in skillet or broiled.  Lots of meals that way.  The next level are ersatz meats.  Beyond Burger or Gardein products go directly from freezer to skillet.  Frozen vegetables go on sale.  Pour the desired amount into a dish and microwave, or pour similar amount into boiling water for a few minutes.  While I prefer fresh vegetables, the added convenience, versatility, and long usable life of frozen makes it worth keeping some around.  And it comes in flexible plastic bags that can be positioned in nooks.

We keep one or two cartons of ice cream in the door shelf.  Ample butter and Earth Balance which makes the best pareve butter substitute for baking.  And some leftover phyllo, just enough to try making strudel, though not enough for baklava.  And we have easy boil pasta, in the form of ravioli or pierogies that make for a quick meal.  And frozen Tabachnick soups that we should eat more frequently than we do, but goes on sale periodically.

As we get to the festive eating of the Holy Day Season, it is my intent to consume some of this a meal or two at a time, several times a week.  Menu planning mostly done when I open the freezer door, though Holy Days and guests get more thought.  But I really need to re-freeze some of my cold compresses.

Washed Kitchen Floor

My kitchen should sparkle.  I invested in it.  New cabinets, sink, lighting, flooring, backsplash.  Being a home's hub for food and mail invites insidious accumulation of stuff and of grime.  Nice vinyl tile floor, faux stone, hadn't been washed in ages.  It was time to do this.  

Found a ringer pail.  On last half bottle of Mr. Clean.  Bought a new mop.  Recruited wife as assistant.  Our tile measure one foot square, which makes it easy to designated zones of 6-8 squares to mop at a time, starting with the far wall, then working towards the front door and family rooms.  Move tables and carts and stuff from one designated zone, mop those squares, move it back, then clear another zone.  I think I did five sections.  About halfway through, I went to Shop-Rite to treat myself to a donut.  The floor now looks much better.  

As I relocated items to expose the floor, it became apparent that some things probably have better homes than my kitchen.  I've never used the sewing machine that I bought at a yard sale decades ago.  Electric wine chiller and opener never used.  Milchig salad spinner not used in a long time.  They occupy a nook away from walking paths so there's no urgency to relocate them.  Our microwave cart has a great lower closet.  It its filled with cookery advertised thirty or more years ago as dedicated to microwave use.  We never use them but could deploy that storage space with door for other things.  A long time ago I dedicated a big plastic tub for my shoes.  Almost never wear any of the ones there, but should.  And the cabinets could use some degreasing.

The lighting remains top notch.

Fab 5 Projects

The Fab 5 went to Japan.  My Netflix binge, two episodes while tethered to a platelet apheresis machine, the other two the following day at home.  Their people upgrades:  a divorcee who created a hospice program that became too all consuming, a gay young adult who had studied abroad and met a British partner, an early 20-something woman with artistic talent and no confidence, and a man whose marriage had become more of a living arrangement.  My challenges are far less, but the Queer Eyes remain helpful in each of their five spheres to those less floundering who could still benefit from their perspective.  

So what might I request of them, or more accurately what would a friend or spouse request of them on my behalf?  

Bobby upgrades the environment.  I'd like less clutter.  My Space has become fully defined, a pleasant sanctuary, though in need of cosmetics.  A more functional family room would be nice to have.  Maybe a fireplace that can safely glow in the cold months.  And a kitchen that has what I need when I need it but is free of the largely unused.  Bobby does the design and the work.  I can at least do the work.

Antoni runs the kitchen, teaching people how to sustain themselves if really basic, or entertain others with food specialties.  I do quite well here.  Techniques I can learn on my own.  Menus I commonly create.  Occasions to implement them could be increased.

Jonathan does the hair.  When I go to the barber, they ask me what I want them to do.  Jonathan decides what it seems best to do and does it.  I don't think any of my barbers, or occasionally one that might cross over to stylist, really wants to style with a blank slate.  My haircut, businesslike when done, Wild Man from Borneo for the final few weeks before the next one, doesn't really define me in any way.  It's not my best way to make a statement, if I even need to make a statement.  We'll stay businesslike and just wonder what else might have been possible.

Tan does appearance.  It is his input that I wonder most about.  I don't really have a look.  Summer t-shirts, shorts, and for the last couple of summers sandals most days.  A baseball cap with a logo that makes a statement if the t-shirt does not.  In the cooler months, long pants, casual shoes, shirt that I can wash and fold at home, some having logos.  Knit cap, windbreaker, sherpa jacket, or winter coat depending on weather.  For dress, which is usually synagogue, dress shirt, dress pants, maybe dress shoes.  I don't really have casual chic.  Tan would probably want me to have this type of ensemble while the other four find places for me to look that way.

Karamo deals with culture, which I think is a euphemism for upgrading people's insecurities or other psychological baggage.  I might offer him the most to do.  Shedding lingering resentments.  Restraining critical comments.

So that's what the Fab 5 would focus upon.  They're not coming.   I could do most of this without their help.

Summer's Close

Labor Day Weekend.  It's been a mostly good summer, more glories than travails.  My semi-annual projects transition at the end of June.  Did OK.  Got to visit my son.  Celebrated an anniversary.  Made it to my grandparents' cemeteries.  Tidied the house sufficiently to begin having guests.  Tended to some of my medical needs.  Able to resume platelet donations.  Ahead of schedule on my programmed reading.  Started making a YouTube series of Dr. Plotzker's Mind.  Just a talking head, but always pensive.  My expressive writing could be better.  Went to the beach twice, as planned.  Celebrated a 90th birthday with a neighbor.  My Space has an emptier look, though far from its visionary ideal.  

Labor Day makes for a good demarcation point.  I watched a little college football, but nothing to get me mentally engaged, as the first few weeks tend to be programmed mismatches to give the underdog team and incentive and the dominant one confidence. Probably attend a college game this fall.  I do not exchange clothing until mid-October, but long pants and collared shirts become the norm.  OLLI classes begin right after Labor Day.  Then some minor medical care, with the big medical care closer to Thanksgiving.  There are always the Holy Days which have not really enhanced my spirits as the Rabbis say they should.  Fall always invites a day trip or two.  Garden harvest, not much this year.  Garden cleanup, too much this year.  Get the snow blower ready later in the season.  Do my best to get the fireplace usable.  Fall also has its element of thinking ahead to when the season has elapsed.

The Lazy Days of summer, not all that lazy for me, move along to a more businesslike few months.  I think I'm ready.

Hematoma

 

Platelet donations have had some recent misadventures.  For a while my hemoglobin did not measure up to their standards.  Lab testing showed iron deficiency, for which I added a multivitamin with 18 mg iron and set up a GI investigation.  A few weeks later, the Blood Bank of Delmarva's desktop hemocytometer displayed my Hb at 14.7 g/dl, which is wrong, as were some of the previous borderline low ones.  It all comes out in the wash.  They prepped me for a donation.  The left antecubital vein has become less of a standout than the right, but still easily accessible for an experienced phlebotomist.  They accessed it, assigning it the afferent arm.  Shortly into the donation it clogged and could not be successfully repositioned.  I was sent home.

Back in less than three weeks for another go.  Due to some elbow pain on squeezing with my left hand, I opted to have the left are as the efferent side to receive the RBC's after the machine extracted the platelets and plasma.  No problem.  Set Netflix to Queer Eye visits Japan.  All systems go.  Felt good squeezing with my right hand.  It seemed to take longer than usual.  With seven minutes to go on the second episode of Queer Eye the TV streaming failed, leaving me alone with my mind and a digital clock that I could see on the far wall.

Like many places, the Blood Bank seemed short-staffed, especially in the cavernous bleeding room divided by the type of donation and the machines required for them.  After checking up on me with less frequency, my last encounter was receiving one of their white blankets as prolonged donations usually leave donors a bit chilled.  My nurse disappeared.  Ordinarily, the collecting machine would signal some type of violation, for which an attendant would check the screen, push a button, and the sound would go off.  No signals, so nobody came by to check me.  I glanced at the bag of collected plasma to my left. It appeared pretty full.  My right hand became sore from squeezing the inflatable ball for so long.  And then my left anterior elbow began to get sore, and then more sore.  The machine finally signalled, bringing the attendant over.  He checked the time, estimated another two minutes, then came back to close off the afferent line.  I mentioned the pain at my left IV site.  He lifted the bandage to find a pretty impressive infiltration hematoma.  I did not really need any more of the few RBC's not already returned, and they weren't going into the antecubital vein anyway, so he shut down the line, removed the needle, called over a more experienced colleague, and applied a compress.  The afferent line was then removed and compressed in the more conventional way, while a freeze gel pack was placed over the injured antecubital fossa.  Pain resolved as soon as the needle was removed.  Swelling took a little longer.  By the time they put the final sterile compress on, the swelling had greatly diminished, discoloration started, and I went on my way to their canteen for coffee and two oatmeal raisin cookies, then home.  And-they gave me a new t-shirt and a discount coupon for a beer at our nearby Two Stones Pub.

Ancestral Resting Places

This set of semi-annual projects includes a very finite one, visiting all three cemeteries where my grandparents and parents spend eternity.  Two of three now done, both as day trips.  This began at the time of need, as my father's younger brother fell victim at the Battle of the Bulge.  His grandfather joined a few years later, then my father's parents about ten years after that, one each beside their fallen son.  Then about fifteen years later, my father's brother-in-law whose name my son carries, then finally my father's sister.  Six in all.  This place, known as Cedar Park and Beth El has been better maintained than Beth David, a much larger place just outside NYC where my maternal relatives are buried.  We found our way to the main building, in the process of having a major annex built.  Helpful attendant gave us clear directions to the plot, able to park our car nearby without making that street unavailable to other cars.  

They had rules.  For our section, a family marker, ours engraved with both surnames.  Only foot stones in front of each family marker.  My uncle's from 1945 was the only one raised above the surface of the grass, and in pristine condition.  The other five markers were placed flush with the ground.  No overgrown and unkempt yew trees anywhere.  Some family markers had them adjacent to the granite and were kept in an attractive conical trim.  Our site did not.  The grounds overall look more as a park.  Maintenance people were at work as we came by.  While they mowed regularly, the exit shoots of the mower discharged clippings onto the graves, which settled selectively over the markers.  While the markers were flush with the ground, sod and roots from the adjacent grass crept around the perimeter of each foot marker.  Thus on arrival, the only marker I could read was my uncle's.  

My wife and I removed grass clipping from each of the five obscured stones.  Some clippings settled and decomposed in the carved lettering itself.  With the blade of my Swiss Army knife, I made an attempt to trim the sod that had crept over the edges of each marker, but this task really needed a better tool, either a razor knife or scissors.  A brush to dislodge the clippings that had settled in the lettering would have made them much more legible.

I returned to the car, left a message with my cousin in Florida, the eldest surviving son of his parents who were buried there, that we had visited and did our best to offer some maintenance.

That leaves one more, that one a plane ride away.  I have tickets to complete this semiannual project.