Some Alone Time

Several years back, I started treating myself to a few days of mini-adventure.  While I offer my wife a chance to join me, she has other things she wants to do.  Moreover, my two or three day outings sometimes challenge my determination.  I've visited Pennsylvania State University and surroundings during their deep freeze, not to mention some hazardous return driving.  I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not much campus, as they closed much of it, including the museums, in response to cold weather.  The town of State College offered some pleasant poking around, entering stores to warm up, buy a thing or two, while my glasses fogged from the abrupt temperature change.  And some nice brewpubs which I'd expect at a university center.

Another year I went to the Poconos, snow tubing at Camelback, refreshing myself at Aquatopia Indoor Water Park, driving around a bit, enjoying a somewhat isolated hotel.  Seasonal temperature rise that trip.

Maybe time for another, one of perhaps the same distance.  Something a little too far for a day trip.  I thought about eastern Long Island.  Have been to Hyde Park.  And there's Atlantic City, which is really more of a day trip unless I want to take advantage of pampering in a major Casino Hotel where rates plummet in January.  And there's Kalahari Water Park in the Poconos, though I don't know what else might be nearby.  Baltimore is more of a day trip.  Washington is a place I'd much prefer to visit with my wife in the spring, and perhaps lacks some of the novelty and even pampering that I seek for these couple of days.  Or maybe even Penn State again, this time with the campus more functional.

As a place to go, Long Island has some attractions.  Even out of season, though, staying there far exceeds any of the others I considered.   Snow tubing someplace other than Camelback would be another option.  While fun to slide down the snow, there was a lot of waiting in various lines to do it,  

I think I have to first decide whether I want to tour new places, or just have a few quiet days mixed with amusements and creature comfort.  Not an easy choice.

Restoring Sleep Predictability

At 1:40AM I arose.  Not only awake, but not the least bit sleepy, maybe about 3–4 hours after lights out.  Trying to return to sleep based on the clock would be a lost cause.  I went downstairs to the kitchen, being a little thirsty as well, poured half a cup of raspberry-lime seltzer, then tackled some dishes.  Mostly mugs that had accumulated but also my tall tangerine Swarthmore Latte cup and the beer glass that I bought myself on a tour of the Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville quite a number of years ago.  I returned the dry mugs done that afternoon to the closet, repositioned the ones that needed to dry more completely, returned a couple of dinner plates to the closet, and washed another load to include the Latte cup and beer glass, though I no longer had room to wash the porcelain mug with the seltzer and find a drying spot for it in my milchig rack.

Maybe TV would be better.  Netflix had a documentary on cats, amusing maybe, entertaining or enlightening, didn't seem so.  And The World According to Briggs on YouTube.  Looked at live TV.   By now the show times were within a few minutes of transitioning to the 3AM listings.  Another try at sleep seemed possible, so I shut down TV.  On returning to bed, I checked email, for which there was none.  Something taboo for me between 11PM and 5:30AM.  A personal transgression.  Cell phone off.  And successful return to sleep.  Biological clock nudge at 7AM.  Upright at 7:30.

Despite the wee hours, while really not very long, I did not feel sleepy in any way.  Everyone is familiar with restorative naps.  I wonder if there also might be a parallel restorative wakefulness, a break from sleep and the subconscious mental reframing it entails.  Despite the discontinuous nature of last night, I do not feel sleep-deprived.  Yet, as a matter of health, longer duration sleep seems more desirable than last night's discontinuous segments, so I'll see what the sages of cyberspace offer as remedies.

Six Months Ahead

They are set.  All twelve semi-annual initiatives.  A few carryovers, a few new directions.  All begin with resolve.  One might be a little loose on the SMART criteria, but all others overtly tangible and measurable.  I avoided projects of process, though some might be interpreted that way.  Primarily all have performance end points, I either accomplished them or I didn't.  Here they are.

Community:  Meaningful AKSE contribution.  This may be performance, though by the end of the half-year, I should be able to identify what those unique contributions were.

Self:  Read three books, distributed by fiction, non-fiction, and Jewish as subject and by traditional, audio, e-book as format

Friends:  Entertain three different guests on three different occasions in my home.

Health: Weight, Waist, and BP end points.

Mental: Submit three articles to editors for publication.

Long-Term:  Enhance kitchen skills.  This is really performance and hard to measure.

Frontier: Complete the first draft of my book that is good enough to attract recognition.

Home: My Space as my sanctuary.  This is hard to measure, but I could take Prof. Covey's advice of creating a conceptual final result, then pursuing what I do towards that end point.

Purchase: Complete travel arrangements for delayed anniversary trip to Europe.

Family:  Dedicate two sessions weekly to be with my wife.  This is really a performance goal.

Travel:  Visit each of my children.

Financial:  Place the appropriate assets in the Revocable Trust to avoid future probate.

That's twelve, allotted to what have become renewable categories.  Transfer to the whiteboard in my line of sight visible at a glance from my desk in My Space.  All very doable.  All within my current frame of motivation.

Movie & Chinese

Of Christmas traditions, movie and Chinese restaurant are latecomers, perhaps now too much of a calendar cliche nearing the end of its run.  I'm not a movie devotee, though I like last year's West Side Story reprise and this year's The Fablemans, both Spielberg creations of high visual quality.  One a classic story, the other perhaps a little too autobiographical.  The experience of going to the cinema has changed, in some ways for the better, in some ways a deterioration.  I remember something of an auditorium with a lot of people.  You paid your ticket, picked any open seat, watched a few previews of upcoming films and a few ads to induce you to purchase something of high markup from the snack bar, then waited for the feature, or for those of us old enough to remember, a cartoon or Three Stooges short movie before the feature.

It's much more stage now.  Far fewer people, multiplex format that gives a choice of smaller theaters with different movies playing at staggered times.  The seats are reserved.  Our row and the one behind us was filled, most of the theater was unoccupied.  Seats resembled high-end living room loungers that fully reclined, with a tray in front for the snacks.  Endless previews, no short feature introduction, and seating much more spread out.  Certainly better acoustics.  Lobby and snack bar empty.  No functioning ticket office.  Everyone reserves and prints their tickets from their devices.  In effect, you go to see what is on the screen, not to be among your classmates and neighbors as in days of yore.  People have good lounging recliners at home, reasonably big flat screens though not on the scale of the cinema or with comparable acoustics, microwaves that make decent pop-corn, two liter soda bottles with ice cubes in the freezer.  If being among friends or crowds doesn't add to the experience as it once did, then home viewing has a lot of advantages.  The marketplace may be expressing that personal preference for a lot of people, as the relative reduction in the number of fellow Jews who went out this freezing Christmas may indicate.

Chinese restaurants seem less plentiful than they once were.  The Covid-19 pandemic may have inflicted a mortal wound to some.  A few have become more Asian than dedicated American adaptation of Chinese.  Most are now small storefront takeout.  Ambience once required Oriental waiters, probably hard to find as the younger generation excels in STEM which draws many to some very lucrative opportunities that their parent's businesses could not match.  And restaurant staffing expenses have gone up, as has the price of food.  Our default Chinese restaurant must have had staffing limitations, as they shifted to takeout only this Christmas weekend.  Poor experience at a more upscale place last year.  I really didn't want to extend to more upscale Eastern Asian.  Indochina and Japan and Korea just aren't what Jews seek on Christmas.  We settled for a buffet around the corner, once cheap, now less so.  Once a Jewish destination on Christmas.  This year a mixture of many ethnicities, all looking for a place that's open primarily.  Wide variety of options, none excel.  Not all that hungry.  The real Chinese restaurant on Christmas really isn't that of dabbling from a buffet, a good deal of which I could make at home.  It is selecting something vegetarian that I would never make at home for lack of ingredients and patience.  One selection by my wife, one by me, a big bowl of rice, some tea in a pot with small porcelain cups that have no ear to grasp.  Some offer cocktails or beer from China.  And a Beckoning Cat at the front register, even though that really may be of Japanese origin.  Buffet just isn't really the Jewish Christmas cuisine or experience.  This may be my last year to seek it out

The real Christmas experience for Jewish doctors like me really isn't movies and Chinese.  It's being on call.  Giving colleagues special family time.  Reassuring patients in the hospital, if not making key decisions while services are less than full scale.  Bantering with nurses, cafeteria attendants, and housekeepers who would rather be home celebrating Christmas but either lack seniority or have empty households, yielding the special day to colleagues who have children or more plentiful extended families.  Petting the antler wearing German Shepherds that make security rounds with the hospital's Constables.  That's a much better Christmas experience than anything a Spielberg extravaganza or Wing Wah can offer.

Chicken Cholent

Assembled.  Chunks of onion, potato, celery, carrots at the bottom.  Seared chicken parts make the next layer, Then a half cup rice, can rinsed white kidney beans, splash of corn, and two chicken bullion cubes.  A shake or two of black pepper and poultry seasoning.  Can and a half of water using the can from the kidney beans.   All into crock pot on high for one hour, then low.  Stir mid-afternoon.  Serve at usual supper time.  Fridge overnight.  One more meal this weekend.  Portion the rest for future shabbatot.  Easy Peasy.  Chicken needed trimming, carrots peeling, celery washing.  Searing the chicken sets off our smoke alarms.

Small effort early in the morning enables a lot of other things during the day.  And my Daily Task List has a lot of other things.

OOB Mid-Morning

Illness recovery not as complete as I thought.  Last two days I functioned largely normally until bedtime.  Then coughing, wheezing, hard fought expectoration.  But no rest.  I had not taken any medicine to bring about the fairly normal days.  My Go-To generic NyQuil.  Cough suppressant, sedative, decongestant.  Off to the recliner in My Space, some gentle TV, then a night's sleep in the chair.  Awoke at what I thought was a reasonable arising time, not quite 6:30AM but still tired.  Returned to bed, still able to breathe without cough or other interruption.  Back to sleep in no time.  Wife had set radio, I noticed it was on momentarily but slept through WRTI's daily SouzAlarm, a feature played at 7:15AM each morning to prod people who needed to head off to work.  But I was warm and oblivious.  Next glimpse at the red numerals of the clock radio: about 9 AM, then 10:16AM.  Still wanted to avoid being left out in the warm, but got up, proceeding to some hygiene and coffee.

The illness has played havoc with my sleep patterns, something carefully nurtured over about two years.  I'll have to let the respiratory disruption resolve more completely, then reconsider how I'd like to reset my daily sleep-wake patterns.

Assessing Congregational Committees

Declining religious congregations usually have some means of changing their direction, not always, but definitely sometimes.  There is a literature on this, as well as ample online resources, usually from consultants to Christian churches which I reviewed for a PowerPoint I once gave for AKSE Academy on synagogue life cycles, but applicable to synagogues as well.  Do what you did that got you the way you find yourself pretty much invites continuation on the downward path, not always at the same rate, but not reversal to an upward path.  Restoration generally requires revision of internal structures, schecting a few Sacred Cows, and rehinging some sanctuary doors so that they swing outward instead of inward.

Some years back, maybe about twenty, our congregational officers sort of figured this out.  Board Meetings start with an assessment of income and expenses, always in the red.  Seasons end with a decision on a dues increase to offset the deficit, essentially fewer people paying more per family, until they max out and either depart or ask for a personal dues reduction.  The focus has always been on attracting more members, something that never really materializes in a way that augments revenue.  And clergy understandably want a raise with each new contract, though never take any measure of responsibility for membership attrition.  So the President, one with a day job in the financial industry, got the Board to authorize $3500 for a professional synagogue consultant to scour our policies and operations, then advise on how to best reverse our membership decline, financial constraints, internal operations, and public perceptions.  A senior consultant from Jewish Learning Venture did his analysis, wrote a report which was made available to the Board, if not to all congregants, then proceeded to Step 2, an Implementation Committee, which I was on.  We met two or three times with a facilitator, the daughter of a macher from the other shul across town.  As we conversed at small round tables distributed in our auditorium, I was not at all convinced that many people actually read the text of the report.  The facilitator realized that so she summarized it for us.  There are always external faces and internal revisions.  Recommendation externally, be what we are, which is Traditional, full liturgy, with clear gender distinctions.  Everyone knew what we are and a place that had already gone egalitarian decades before did it at the expense of reducing their liturgy to accommodate limited ability of their members to perform the full spectrum of Jewish ritual.  The internal face proved more difficult, as it involved taking a path other than status quo.  The consultant focused on our committees, a loosely structured collection of people doing different things with little formality, little accountability of the chairmen, which never changed, and repetitive submission of some very trivial activity reports to the Board as required each year if they were submitted at all.  

While our Implementation Committee met, I do not know if minutes were ever taken.  Not much accrued from our expense.  We have the same religious orientation that we did before, surviving two more sets of clergy.  Committees are loose, but at least we know what they are, as during a three day post-op lame period, I assembled a comprehensive list extracted from a mixture of weekly shabbos bulletins, monthly newsletters, and by-laws which mandated a few assemblages of people, though some defunct even then.  The President received the list, copied it onto our annual message to the congregation presented every Kol Nidre, and modified slightly from year to year, more activities disappearing than new one's coming aboard.

In my medical world, committees are the place where work gets done.  Hospitals need to make sure staff physicians are qualified so there is a Credentials Committee.  There are multiple pharmaceuticals that do the same thing, therefore a Formulary Committee minimizes duplications.  Residency programs require Education Committees.   In my Medical Society, I served on the Planning Committee that arranges the program for each annual meeting.  Synagogues have standing committees for Education and Ritual oversight, but also ad hoc Committees to select Board Members or recruit new clergy.  Places that sparkle and places that languish differ by the ability to bring talented, energetic people into projects.  That is where our congregational consultant assessed us, when we had maybe twice as many members as currently pay dues.  All the more reason to get people engaged.  People who have a defined responsibility tend not to leave.

Our current President, experienced with operations of a congregation elsewhere that had different internal operations and different outcomes assumed office.  He started by inviting people to volunteer themselves for a committee, providing not only the list of what they are, but a tab on the bottom to send in, so the committee chair could initiate contact.  I took the invitation, selecting my two from a list.  While we can argue whether volunteers are the best way to go, usually adequate if technical expertise not needed, then proactive invitation is better, the President responded, told me my selections both had the same chairman who would call me.  YK to Hanukkah is tad over two months.  No contact from the chairman.  The President did follow up with me.  So I asked him obvious questions that I'd expect an oversight officer to know.  Who's on these two committees, what do they do?  Other questions are better offered to the chairman, the important one being what would he like his committee to do but hasn't had the people to carry it forward?  Have either ever submitted a report to the board?  This is where formality and structure drives output.

I sort of know the answer.   I suspect the President does too.  Some committees have names but no people, no defined roles, no interest on the part of the chairman in doing anything different tomorrow than yesterday.  In some ways, like England in 1831, a place with Rotten Boroughs that sent men to Parliament but had no voters in what was really an abandoned geographic center.  Cleaned up by the Reform Act of 1832, but despite its obvious need, there was a lot of support for voting it down despite the tenuous nature of how Britain functioned at the time.  As I look at the committee list, keep my ear to the ground for what is happening, or at least what is disclosed to me via bulletins, we have our share of mostly harmful non-activity, from Nominating Committees that opt to keep spots vacant than to invite a few more people, including my wife and me.  I guess they assume Nobody is an improvement over us.

There's a certain blend of laziness, complacency, good enough, adaptation to routine.  That may be why the Consultant, who did the best he could, really couldn't change a culture.  That was 200 members ago.  They want new members and new participants, but as I found out from my volunteering initiative, perhaps not really me, or perhaps me as useful when they need bimah skill, but a nuisance with a nimble, challenging mind.

Head Cold

NyQuil, or generic equivalent did its job the last two nights.  It's cough suppressant qualities enabled some sleep with a hacking, largely non-productive cough which has accelerated over two days.  Serious nasal congestion.  No shortness of breath or pleuritic pain. No fever.  Some paroxysms of sneezing.  Not taken a covid test, later today.  But first some coffee, then a shower hot enough to make the bathroom and me each steamy.  All upper respiratory.   Perhaps even bacterial.

A couple of errands need attention.  Treadmill maybe, but likely skip today.  Usually these are self-limited.  Ride out today.  Call doctor if worse in the next day or two.

Seasonal Affectiver Disorder

It's been a few blue weeks.  Time in Florida didn't bring much reversal, except for the face time with old friends.  Retuning to a couple of setbacks in my lingering professional liability case and one more assault with my stolen license plate, now involved in a hit-and-run, just added more sadness than new irritation.  Fortunately the feeling of depression clearly preceded these and has no precipitating cause.  I will have to gather documents to show the insurer that the car they seek is not mine.  One more nuisance, but easily achievable.

Hanukkah begins.  Still have gifts to get.  Some cooking involved. This usually cheers me a little.  See if lighting the fireplace for the first time in many years offers some reversal.

I really want to avoid restarting the SSRI, which I never really took for depression.  From its calendar correlation, I suspect Seasonal Affective Disorder, which usually runs its course.

New OLLI Catalog

Within a week of the last semester's conclusion, the course catalog for the spring session has already become available online.  They won't accept registration for a while, though.  First the calendar.  Spring Break the last week of March.  Pesach yom tovim put me out of commission on consecutive Thursdays following the Break.  I also anticipate endoscopic studies the Tuesday before the Break.  So Thursday classes probably best skipped this semester, unless really compelling.

By now I have my favorite teachers, those people who always engage my mind and prompt me to expand with a question.  Sometimes I will opt for those courses even if there are other subjects of more interest.  I've learned to avoid instructors or classes with aggregate lecturers where I think agendas are being pitched.  Surprising number of these.  OLLI does not have a good way of flagging them, and even if they did there are people who want to sit in those echo chambers so they can nod their head with each Power Point.  I had my share of those classes, anticipate what they are likely to be, and register for something else. 

I am willing to take classes early in the morning, before the lunch break, and after the lunch break, though not a late afternoon class or a Friday class after the lunch break.  On Friday's they will often have a noon speaker.  Recently they have been on Zoom.  And late Friday afternoon, also on Zoom, they have some quasi social Zoom events.  I am willing to look at my screen.

For the actual classes, though, I much prefer in person.  People of my age, the post-retirement but not quite End of Life cohort, really do better when we are around people.

So a leisurely review of available in-person classes will get undertaken shortly. 

Irritations

Back home for two days and irritations accumulating.  Note from attorney handling a case for me that we have a trial date in about a year and a half.  I was hoping for a dismissal instead.  Note from car insurer that a claim has been filed against my car.  It has never been in a collision.  I was nowhere near the collision on the date of the collision.  Bet I know what happened, but we'll see how good their investigators really are.  Now getting more toll violations from car that has my stolen plate, after a lull.  Very likely the toll violations and the collisions, each assigned to me in absentia, are intertwined.  And some residual irritations from my trip to Florida.  Also people who should have gotten back to me but haven't.

I understand a little more each day why so many people want to replace the underperformers among us, done in the most visible way by voting them out, though sometimes by voting with our assets and shopping someplace else or changing doctors or responding to those many ads which tell us we will do better with a different insurance company or with that law firm on cable TV that really will represent us in the most vigorous way.  We don't really have very good advocates.

Or as Hillel advised us:  If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

Pleasant Chill

First night's sleep in my own bed after a mostly pleasant week in Florida.  Restful, but having my every whim accessible to me isn't the inner me.  I prefer retrieving the newspaper from the end of the driveway in my nightwear with warmer clothing needed for longer stays outdoors.  Unpack today.  Treadmill at reduced intensity later, as exercise equipment not available at the place I stayed, though I had my share of slower walks of similar distance to what my treadmill program would offer.  Restaurants all pleasant, mostly mid-priced, but I prefer the challenge of assembling supper for my wife and me each evening.

As much as I liked the four cruises I've taken, all mixtures of leisure and sightseeing, and my times in Puerto Rico, Arizona, and Hawaii with similar hotel based lounging and touring, Florida was distinctly less than that.  It was more doing what natives do, less having to go to work.  Really being part of the sprawl, doing things that pleasant weather enables, sharing the cluster or mall based restaurants with people who access them daily rather than a few times per lifetime.

It will probably take a day or two to restore the normal cadence of activities, though I much prefer these to the mostly leisurely warm days that I just had.

Returning Home

Completing a week in Florida.  Pleasant time.  I needed the break more than I thought I did, though don't anticipate needing another for some time.  Ate out.  I prefer what I create in my own kitchen from things I bought at Shop-Rite.  Walked to the beach across the street.  That was pleasant, though I didn't stay there for very long.  Dunked myself into the pool outside our front door a few times, again, never for very long.  It's still better than a JCC or Y membership where I would have to drive there, change in a locker, and mostly stay indoors except for the summer at the JCC.

I much prefer my sedan to the SUV rental, though I got used to driving it in a day or so.  Within about three days I knew where the important things were: gas station, WaWa, where to eat, how to access the highways.

Just over half a month remaining in the calendar year.  Much shorter checklist than the things I needed to do before vacation.  One final Medscape column.  My Semi-Annual Projects.  Two Torah readings.  Return to treadmill schedule.

My sleep pattern remained unchanged by the change in location.  There must be some internal, involuntary signals.  Did not take any of the diphenhydramine that I brought along.  Less beer than I would have had going out to dinner at home.  If they didn't have something unique or regional, which most of the places didn't, water would do.  About the same amount of coffee that I'd have at home, mostly gas station varietals, though some with restaurant breakfasts that seemed especially good.   Starbucks around the corner, no attraction to me whatever.

I'm very much looking forward to returning to the many things that I usually do.

Seeking Experiences

Penultimate day in Deerfield Beach. I've purchased no material goods to bring on my return trip, not a cheap T-shirt or a coffee mug.  Nada.  Came for experiences and got experiences.  Met with a cousin who I've not seen in decades and with a friend who I've kept in touch with for many decades.  Visited my father's grave site, completing my Semi-Annual Project of visiting all family cemeteries.  Self-toured the Everglades.  Slept late.  Lounged at pool, jumping in a few short dips.  Walked a block to the beach, mostly sitting at the shore, but wading in twice.  Deerfield Beach differs from Downstate Delaware.  Smaller width.  The town or state built barrier rocks, presumably to avoid flooding.  Even the places we dined at had a uniqueness not readily accessible at home.  I know of no pâtisseries.  Here we had two.  The breakfast places were each a little different than where I would go at home, more in ambience than menu, though I am used to more extensive griddle options.  We don't really have small restaurants with seafood dominant menus, though our beer selections are a lot more varied.  Only ate at one large chain, and that to be with my dear friend, whose house I got to mostly tour, along with my cousin's home.  These are different, inside and outside, from mine, though admittedly I prefer mine as a place to live.  

The scale of the area is also part of the experience.  The shore runs for hundreds of miles.  The population may be among the largest suburban sprawls in America with massive housing developments, mid-rise condos on the beach blocks, and shopping centers spread out with shops catering to any imaginable whim, or even legitimate need.  Nothing seemed grimy. The Everglades followed a single road, but that road ran 38 miles, encompassing multiple habitats.  Yet the two visitor centers seemed far more compact than other National Parks I have visited.

There is also a Jewish presence, part obvious with Chabad style Menorahs prominent in many locations, though much hidden.  Synagogues come up on a list.  I didn't go to one this shabbos, none notable from the roads as I drove past.  Kosher restaurant before I head home, another experience difficult to duplicate.

And maybe the ultimate experience, shirtsleeve, beach weather in December.  Not something I'd want all the time.  I'd probably not really like living in one of the many housing developments of restricted access with rigid Home Owners Association Rules and fees.  As pleasant as the week has been, I still think I like my own norm better.

Post-Election Assessment

My Democratic Representative District Committee had its post-election meeting.  The sponsored candidates all prevailed.  No discussion of vulnerabilities or things our district can do to improve the fortunes of neighboring districts, though we have two years for that.

Most of the discussion involved the process of voting.  The state's elections staff underestimated the attraction of early voting.  Much like the Sooners rushed before Oklahoma formally opened, we had a big line waiting to get in, though we had more decorum than those settlers.  The location kept most of us queued outside the front door.  The people of European ancestry were almost exclusively an older group, those of color a bit younger, with a brisk mid-day mostly tolerable.  Had it been colder or serious precipitation, there were no reasonable provisions for those most eager to vote that day.  The Community Center seems a big place that could manage that type of attendance better.  One Election Day venue included a Nursing Home where voters were screened for Covid risk.  Nobody knows if the brow thermometer denied anyone with a borderline, or even high temperature their rightful franchise.

Machines malfunctioned.  Response of Republicans, fire election officials.  Response of Democrats, investigate and correct the snafus.  There are party differences in real issues.  But there are party differences in how people are treated and misadventures are remedied.  I'm a Democrat.

Take with Me

Pre-Travel.  No checked baggage.  Clothing in suitcase.  Other stuff in backpack.  What to take depends on a blend of what I'd like to do while away and what I'm likely to do while away.  Laptop goes on the trip.  It's my connection to the world.  Torah photocopies go, as I really need to squeeze in some practice.  I took drawing pencils.  I don't know if I will do any sketching but they don't take up much room.  I had to look for these but found them.  Harmonica doesn't take up a lot of room.  I'd be willing to buy some drawing pencils in Florida, wouldn't be willing to buy another harmonica.  Bunch of chargers.  The bulky one for my laptop.  Phone charger, wall and car.  Good camera battery charger.  Need waterproof case for my phone.  Spare glasses.  Travel documents.  I keep a full set of planning pens in my backpack with a notepad.  Semi-Annual planning grid should get worked on while away.  Smallest umbrella that I have.  Fanny pack, the leather one.  Earbuds.  My medicines.  Filled the pill case this week. Take the bottles of each in backpack, partly to fill case for coming week and partly to avoid challenge from TSA.  Sunglasses, though I could get some at a place in Florida.  Car cup cell phone holder, though mine is clearly deteriorating.

I'm ambivalent as to how to allocate the week.  Three visits:  cemetery, which is the incentive to make the trip, visit friend, visit cousin.  On trips to DC and Mammoth Cave, the destination was tourist attractions, whether public buildings or unique nature.  Florida is more mixed.  Everglades day trip likely as unique nature.  Maybe intercoastal waterway.  There don't seem to be public museums on the scale of those in the northeastern cities.  There's culture, be it Cuban or Art Deco of Miami, or a Kosher restaurant.  There is relaxation, hard to come by in DC with it's very basic motel or Kentucky spent mostly in the car with a few targeted stops for the University or distilleries serving more as respite than recreation.  Florida has welcome weather, a beach, a pool, probably outdoor lounge chairs.  We have beaches at home, though more a day trip than a block or two walk, without the option of departing for lunch and heading back later.  I cannot remember the last time I went to something resembling a resort.  The cruise ships, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Phoenix in the last decade or two, so having that element of resort mingled with places  to drive to seems the right vacation mix for now.  

I'm not mentally in vacation mode, but still have a couple days to get there.

Farblunget

Confluence of a lot of things in a short time.  Shabbos at sundown.  Wife's birthday tomorrow, so prepare special dinner today, which takes planning.  It's a treadmill day after my monthly three day respite.  OLLI.  Short window for getting kids' holiday gifts to Pittsburgh before they leave for Japan and to San Francisco before we leave for Florida.  All the wrapping done.  The essentials of dinner under way, though I will need to make sink and its tub fleishig as soon as the milchig dishes dry.  There are a lot of fleishig dishes with more to come right after shabbos concludes tomorrow.  Birthday card signed and post-dated.  I thought I might need to make a quick stop at TJ, but found enough bread to get us by a few days until we leave town.  All Florida reservations made, visits with cousin and my friend not yet complete.  Then I recite Kaddish for my father tomorrow at shul with yahrtzeit candle the following Sunday night.  Donation sent.  My Pennsylvania medical licensing requirements for renewal seem complete. Fill out forms before I head off, see how much they want for a renewal, then decide my willingness to pay, which is very little.  And then follow weather reports for Fort Lauderdale and make packing decisions.  And then, with a little luck and minimal loose ends, some vacation.