Specified Times.

Final weekday of OLLI's spring break.  I only really remember my travel day at mid-week, a day selected partly based on weather, which turned out ideal, and partly it's being mid-week.  Had OLLI been in session, I would have had a single Zoom class originating downstate a short distance from my Fishing Pier destination.  Very pleasant travel, lovely long overdue walk through downtown Rehoboth Beach, simple lunch of extra large pizza slice, and pleasant drive along a tony part of Rehoboth that never really caught my attention previously.  I remember my scheduled treadmill sessions Sat-Sun-Tues with end of month hiatus.  And I went fishing, once locally, once on my trip.

My upcoming Torah reading is taking shape, a partially satisfying accomplishment.  I made my statement about where my congregation needs to refocus.  This gave me less satisfaction than I thought it would.

And there were some successful patches.  My car Info Screen looked odd.  The agent at the Toyota dealer assured me it's appearance was normal.  I tinkered with it, finally convincing myself that he's right.  And the online U Penn 50th Reunion access seems fixed with some expert help, not easily obtained, partly from the Alumni staff office and partly from my wife.  

My decision to forgo overnight travel this break was based on proximity to Passover that needs its own preparation.  Menus, cleaning, non-perishable shopping all ahead of schedule.

And there are things I might have liked to do but didn't.  I didn't eat out, not breakfast or lunch other than the quick slice of pizza while on the road.  I did go for coffee on Monday.  My mostly daily stretch program gave way to recovery from soreness.  It only takes minutes, done faithfully with a set time to do it, and likely a significant contributor to my recent uptick in self-assessed well-being.  My Space did not get the attention I would have liked, but my spring gardens and herb pots did.  I wrote an article on my Reunion experience that could be submitted.  I did not get around to editing a languishing one for submission.  Did not do any elegant eating, as pre-Passover is focused on consuming space occupying packages of things.  While I've completed my book quota for this half-year's initiatives, I started another which I hoped to complete by the library's three-week return date.  I renewed it instead, but set a schedule for reading the rest of it up to the footnotes by Pesach, and will likely get there.  I made a couple key financial decisions.  Thought I would spend more companionship time with my wife than I did.  And did very little to advance my upcoming major travel.  That really doesn't need time defined by a spring break.

Even the trip downstate could have been done while OLLI classes are in session, as I have two days weekly without classes.  OLLI forces me to be someplace at a set time multiple days a week for consecutive weeks.  Nothing else does, other than maybe shabbos dinner.  I have created a few appointments with myself, treadmill at 8:30AM on scheduled days, more recently stretch video at 4PM.  Those timed structures are rather important.  Sleep-wake has a semi-timed pattern though without the consistency of an OLLI class that begins at 9AM and I have to get myself there.  The things I would have liked to do this break but didn't in all likelihood still would not have been pursued within the timed OLLI structure, though.

As the break slips to its conclusion, Pesach arrives with its own imposed schedule of ceremonies and worship attendance.  But I think the week taught me has been the importance of assigning times, whether the trip downstate, some of my responses to my synagogue officers all done by setting a time to do them, and even my recreational writing where I now set a Focus Session on my computer.  I need the "I am going to do this at this time", easier when OLLI is in session than when it was on hiatus.

Late Coffee

As a reward for finishing my month's treadmill program, I allotted a morning's coffee and treat at a coffee/sweet shop that I pass every day but only have been to twice.  Not great coffee as coffee shops go but still a small novelty and reward for me.  I have to drive a little out of my way to get there, as access can only be had from the northbound side of a divided road, while my direct route would take me southbound.  Still, a treat, one anticipated overnight.

Treadmill done, and at an increased speed.  Good way to complete the month.  Got dressed and drove over.  No cars in their lot.  Drove to the door.  Don't open until noon on weekdays.  Guess they don't depend on people buying coffee.

So by 10AM, I've not had coffee.  While I could slip in a K-Cup, today was earmarked as a coffee change of pace.  Best option, probably percolator which I rarely use.  Next best, which I did, Vietnamese coffee in a French press.  It's really ground a little too fine for that but good enough.  Slight unwelcome splash onto my counter as I poured, maybe a small splash onto my clean cargo pants too.  But it's good coffee.

Resume Fishing

My rods occupied part of my living room.  I might have gone fishing once last year at Bellevue State Park, my closest option.  Though the better spots, Beck's Pond, White Clay Creek, Lum's Pond, and downstate all remain unvisited.  They seem farther than I really want to drive for the joy of casting without a bite.  

I inventoried and harvested my rods.  Deep Sea to the car, small pond to car, mid-size to car.  Fly rod, second light rod, and bait caster stay in living room for now.  Have a plastic tackle box in the trunk.  And with OLLI off for a week and few appointments, a trip downstate with all three rods has become a must-do, with a few other hedonisms of being downstate tossed in.  A lunch perhaps, coffee at a specialty shop in Rehoboth, a brew at the original Dogfish Head site, or perhaps a winery or Dogfish Head Brewery on the return.  Learn the Palomar and nail knots before I go.

Knew Surprisingly Few

 

As my college class prepares to commemorate our 50th commencement anniversary, an array of activities has been offered to us as we join UPenn's Old Guard.  While they know where I live, sending me the periodical Alumni magazine on schedule and asking me for money, I've not had success interfacing with the alumni office to receive the mailings of the upcoming events or to post my own profile for the curious.

My entering class had about 1800 students distributed over several divisions, Arts & Sciences, business school, engineering schools, nursing and a few others.  Some students matriculated in the Evening Division, older people already in the workforce.  We all graduated together, appearing on a unified Alumni roster on the 50th Reunion website. I do not know how many of those first arriving at freshman move-in day earned their intended degrees.  No doubt some dropped out, others transferred to other schools, some from elsewhere transferred in.  There were a lot of people at Commencement ceremonies, with the baccalaureates all seated together.  We stood as a group as somebody important, whether President or Provost or designee, announced that we had earned our degrees, a ceremony repeated some thirty years later for both of my children.  My Commencement filled The Civic Center, of blessed memory, while it's demise made Franklin Field the venue best able to accommodate my children's classes.

Unlike my high school class of 400 where I could at least recognize the majority by name, the University experience was much different.  Some introductory lecture courses would have 400 individual notes in a students taking individual notes in spiral notebooks with the UPenn seal on the cover, purchased a few at a time from the University Bookstore.  The few post introductory courses that freshmen sometimes take populate with upperclassmen.  Once past freshman year, the individual courses attract students across multiple years, in contrast to high school where we all moved forward as a single class.  As freshman, we nearly all lived in one of two places, a large men's Quadrangle or a women's dormitory whose architect thought it would be cute to fashion as a blend of fortress and prison.  The people I got to know either shared classes, lived nearby in the dorms, or came to the Kosher dining room for supper each evening.  Once past freshman year, the people mostly moved out of freshman housing, distributing among some new high rises, fraternity/sorority buildings, some private apartments within walking distance of campus, and a handful like me staying in the Quad.  Many had kitchens, so even the nightly dinner at the Hillel dining room became less of a gathering place.  I suppose part of the purpose of a large university is to have the students circulate among many diverse students, distributed among ethnicity, religions, academic interests, geographic origins, and year of graduation.  Casual encounters become plentiful.  Close friendships become few.  Sustainable friendships that endure fifty years past graduation measure in the single digits, unlike my much smaller high school class where they probably reach double digits.

Accomplishment and geography take its toll as well.  A mere handful of my college classmates became public figures, though many others achieved more limited public recognition in what became their areas of expertise.  Even the people that you knew from the dorm, lab, or dining room went their own ways once their diploma was issued.  People lived everywhere, worked for enterprises from the corporations of household names to solo professional practitioners.  That semi-cohesive collection of freshmen transformed to social entropy.  Again, this probably falls within the mission of the finest universities, which take justified pride when they gather promising young talent from innumerable origins and redistribute their newly educated graduates far and wide.

How few people I actually got to know from my class became too apparent when I reviewed the list of deceased members of my class.  This list, alphabetized, identified by their university division attended, and displayed in two columns, ran a considerable length, though I did not count the total.  Fifty years generates its actuarial mortality.  Not everyone reaches three score and ten, the approximate age of people who received their undergraduate degrees fifty years previously.  Undoubted others also passed away under the radar of the Alumni Office that tracks this.  

I scrolled through each column, encountering a lot of unfamiliar names before the name of somebody I knew, more often casually than well, registered in my mind as "yes, he/she lived upstairs from me" or I knew from a mutual activity.  For some, I had seen and remembered a previous death notice, usually from the University's Alumni Magazine which lists brief obituaries by class towards the end of each issue.  When this magazine arrives approximately each quarter, I go to the Class Notes first to reacquaint with people I once knew who achieved more than me.  Then I hit the obits, my class first, then earlier and later classes whose members would have overlapped with me on campus.  Finally, the Faculty Obits.  I make a mental note, one that apparently comes quickly out of mental storage when I see that name on a necrology list again, even years later.  Some on the Fiftieth Anniversary memorial list are new notifications for me.  

As I identified the familiar deceased classmates, I took advantage of what our World Wide Web makes so readily available.  Typing their names for Google more often than not guided me to a verbal snapshot of what they were in life, usually as an obituary, most often Legacy.com or the local newspaper from the city in which the graduate had settled.  Nobody I searched that way had their own Wikipedia entry, though many, particularly the physicians, had information about them from sites that bring information to patients about the doctors they might like to see.  These people all had careers of some type, Nearly all had descendants.  A UPenn undergraduate sheepskin, either the document or the acquisition of knowledge that generated it, moves its holders in countless productive paths.  Indeed, the Admissions staff, whose uncertainty created months of anxiety for many of us at age 18, had to project decades to assemble a class of 1800 whose promise will be fulfilled.  The cumulative lifetime accomplishments of our departed classmates confirms that promise.  It also exposes a measure of failure, the inability of most of us to connect with more people of talent during our short times on campus than we actually did.

Our landmark graduation approaches.  We enter UPenn's Old Guard.  It's a distinguished group, the majority still within the actuarial survival curves.  And while we got to know a fraction of the people that we could, for those of us who can return to campus, we can make our best effort to meet a few more.

OLLI Intercession

Each semester, the Osher Institute offers a suspension of classes.  In the fall, this coincides with a long Thanksgiving Weekend, Wed-Sun.  In the spring, we get an entire week, Sat-Sun, which just commenced.  People do all sorts of things, from getting out of town to taking that special cruise to some movie or eating out time.  Others find OLLI their principal source of personal engagement, not really looking at this week off as an opportunity but as an interruption.

I had been using the week to make short overnight trips with my wife.  Not too much driving, less than three hours each way, but always with some mixture of leisure time and noteworthy must do at the new place.  We've been to the Poconos, which doesn't have a lot of must-do, and to DC which does.  This year, the break falls too close to Pesach, a time dedicated largely to spring cleaning.  No overnight trips, though I had considered a few days on Long Island.  Unfortunately, it's a much more expensive destination than the Poconos and a little farther, though with enough to do and see.  The hotels there seem to build their pools outdoors, probably based on economic calculations, though a little unusual for a region that has its warm weather limited to less than half the year.  But for me this year, it's stay home with one day trip.

At one time, I'd have earmarked a day with the Chinatown Bus in NYC.  In the past, I'd take an 8 or 9AM bus, arrive before lunch, have lunch, often a Kosher one, then either meet a friend or visit a place that makes NYC an international destination.  Perfect for OLLI intercession.  Alas, that daylight travel, at least economical and easy bus travel is no more.  The buses leave too early, return too late.  Getting to Philadelphia where buses are hourly and of nominal fare requires transportation or high-priced parking, as those buses no longer depart from the 30th Street Station but a more difficult location near the Historical District.  I guess that makes economic sense, as tourists coming to Philadelphia or NYC as their primary destination can make an easy side trip to sample the other.  But too disruptive for me.

That leaves my day trip to a place I can traverse by car driving myself in a single day, perhaps 100 miles or so.  Downstate in my own state seems my best option.  Fishing.  Either leisurely breakfast out before I go or lunch that I would not ordinarily obtain for myself once there.  Some form of amusement.  And the rest of the week with Pesach preparation, some early season gardening, or those same breakfast-lunch samplings accessible to me every day but never sought out.  

As retirement has become my new norm with OLLI as the most reliable form of social engagement, that shield from Loneliness, I don't really welcome that week-long suspension of classes.  I've not deprived myself of anything I want to do, so I do not really need the week to capture any missing experiences.  But while this free block of time is externally imposed rather than sought out, I need to seek out something a little different as well.

Continuous Sleep

For the first time in recent memory, perhaps a few years memory, middle of the night insomnia did not present itself circa 3AM.  I remember not falling asleep easily, estimated by Sleep Tracker at just over an hour. Usually my sleep latency, the time from lights out to being asleep is relatively short.  But my next awareness came with a wrist buzz.  The smartwatch sent its alert at the programmed 6:30 AM, prominent enough for me to notice it.  I still thought I needed more sleep, but got up momentarily for the bathroom.  Not long after, at 6:45, the music from Sleep Tracker, which could begin anywhere from then until a half hour later depending on other signals built into the program that I don't understand, turned on.  I felt almost awake, not yet 100% but not deprived enough to challenge modern electronics, so I completed the night's sleep interval.  It estimated I had been asleep about 6.5 hours, but its rare continuous nature caught my attention.  Since the purpose of sleep is to enable activity the following day. Whether this made a difference should play out later.  For now I feel adequately rested, maybe a notch or too shy of optimally renewed, but fully functional.

Setting Out the Gardens

This year I did not include gardening on my Semi-Annual Projects.  It is not all that unusual for me to do something a few years, or intend to, like making my bedroom optimal or following TED talks, that I just do them without creating a special initiative for doing them.  Gardening has entered that sphere.  Every suburban homeowner needs to find a place for a few tomato plants and some flowers.  I've had two 4x4 plots in the backyard, located conveniently near the house, though at the expense of optimal sunlight, where I've grown vegetables and herbs.  Last year I moved the herb garden to just outside my front door.  My backyard deck contains three boxes just right for some flowers.  Landscapers trimmed back the rose bushes, so they should be ready to bud and flower with little or no input from me.

Living in Zone 7a, it is too soon for outdoor plantings but not too soon to ready the soil.  My mistakes over the years have been many, but usually different mistakes each year.  Thus far, I have begun tomatoes as indoor sprouts, planting ten of them from a recently obtained packet.  I planted five each of pepper and eggplant from seeds obtained in previous years.  Not sprouted yet.  Give it another week, then buy new seeds.  One mistake has been not adequately delineating the square foot markers that make my 4x4 beds into sixteen separate one square foot units.  I marked one bed with string.  I also found an unused area next to the deck.  It might be just right for rosemary, or maybe even better, I've not been able to grow carrots or other deep roots in the beds due to a layer of weed block.  The unused area seems deep enough to try some carrots and beets there, keeping the rosemary in front with the other herbs, though rosemary has thrived in my backyard in prior years, and far better than it did in the front pot last year.  Maybe I could do both in that space, or use it for the root vegetables and plant the rosemary right next to it.  But conceptually, I still like having all my herbs in the front and vegetables in the back.

What to plant?  I went to the seed display at Lowes.  Must have tomatoes.  Four plants overwhelms the backyard beds, so maybe only one in each of the 4x4s this year.  And I am determined to have my own peppers and eggplants.  Lettuce has not done well in my hands.  Vines have, cucumber and zucchini, but there are limited places to plant them as they spread out.  Pumpkin has been a lost cause,

My herbs do OK, though never as well as what the ladies on those TV cooking shows take from their window boxes each episode.  The seeds last over several years.  I only need one good sage plant, maybe two basils.  Dill has been inconsistent, but I really like dill.  Separate pot for that this year.  And mint is almost like a weed.  It disappears from its pot each winter, only to return with no effort on my part in the spring.  I rarely use it though.

I'm not a dedicated flower person, other than roses which grace my shabbos table in season.  The small deck boxes get zinnias and marigolds.  Maybe do different ones.  Last year the flowering was limited.  Need to enrich the soil in those areas, I think.

My garden's downfall has always been pests.  Invertebrates infest fruits, furry ones like beans.  I've never used netting, and there have been years of reasonable harvest, so I'll likely just take my chances.

And with a little luck, supplemented by an increment of diligence, my kitchen where I really like to hang out and create, will have some homegrown edibles.  

Coffee's Good

Some preparation for endoscopic studies changed my intake and activities for three days.  Due to a failed procedure and some bothersome delays on the repeat, I was especially meticulous for the preparation.  Three days before I began a clear liquid diet.  Coffee became black, with a splash of sugar.  Three 10 oz servings each of three mornings by k-cup, even finished three of the varieties, including two of them from a large box, though with enough of the final variety to tide me through the upcoming start of Pesach when the Keurig K-Express machine goes dormant for a week.  On the day of the procedure, no coffee, which may have been why I dragged a bit the rest of the day.

Coffee now restored.  K-cup instructed to fill 8 ounces, did not pay attention to which blend.  Zetz of generic coffee-mate stirred in.  Taking pleasure sipping it from one of my favorite cups.  It's good.  And when it's done, I'll make another cup.

One of the offshoots of this distraction, Sat-Sun-Mon-Tues, has been the diversion of my energy and my focus.  While glucose feeds the brain, and the soda supplied that, the body runs on a more varied array of caloric sources and a much larger total number of calories.  My weekly weight, a Monday morning ritual, ticked downward to a new low.  So now I know how to get my weight down, though not in the healthiest or most sustainable way.  The laxatives, spread over two evenings, sapped my strength, interfering with sleep the night before the procedure.  I just did not have the energy or mental acuity to do anything of substance that required analytical thought, memory, or sustained attention, which is the majority of my Semi-Annual projects.

While my checklist of the undone has grown, the colonoscopy behind me literally and figuratively, a very successful one well-worth the postponement of my personal productivity, I think I'm ready to resume the sustained effort and volume of work it takes to get these tasks moving toward fulfillment.

Fueled by coffee first, some calories later, and a very long written Daily Task List to extract the priorities.

Disposition Upturn

As I begin my endoscopy prep and anticipate Pesach, I've also noted a small upturn in my disposition, perhaps my demeanor as well.  I feel more connected, loneliness periodically interrupted with decent conversation.  Upcoming medical care guarantees some interaction, competing I think with the few minutes of anesthesia for the highlight of that day.  A few days after, I have my first annual meeting with the Delaware Community Foundation to review scholarships that they manage.  Synagogue, my common irritant, can go on hiatus.

As much as I like OLLI, I also take advantage of each semester's intercession, usually travelling somewhere.  I think I'll go fishing on the Cape Henlopen Pier unless the weather makes that ill-advised.  Beyond that, I have some 50th Anniversary college activities, then a few days on the West Coast.

My physical health seems on the upswing as well.  Arthritic symptoms not burdensome.  I miss very few treadmill sessions, with the duration and intensity mostly advancing with a few health related retreats.  I've incorporated an 8-minute daily stretching routine, following on my big screen in My Space at a reasonably set time every afternoon.  I don't feel more flexible, but keeping up with the schedule makes me feel a tad more accomplished.

Self-expression has not gone as well, at least in the public sphere, but I am starting to get more specific about dedicated sessions to pursue fragments of those Semiannual Goals that I set at the close of the last calendar year. 

So feeling more the way I'd like to feel.  7 Habits Physical, Emotional, Social spheres all better, Mental lagging behind slightly but remediable.

Endoscopy Prep

Took my last methycellulose tablets.  They worked rather well for their purpose. Minor diet modifications under way.  Stocked up on clear liquids to drink for two days.  All laxative pills at my desk, purging liquid to be reconstituted when needed.  Not enthused but know it needs to be done and is overdue.  And I get a few minutes of oblivion thrown in.

Faulty Phone

I've had my device less than a year.  It replaced a phone damaged by an errant wave at the beach which served me mostly trouble free for four years, which replaced another damaged by water.  This one seemed as close as I could get to a 1:1 exchange.  It had a C-port so I purchased a new charger and cord, then to Five Below for some more cords and a suitable car adapter.  

This week the ability to recharge it started to fail.  With my charger and cord, obtained at the time of phone purchase, it would sometimes turn on, sometimes not, sometimes charge, sometimes stop charging after the initial screen indicated the charger had been recognized.  My wife's charger refreshed my phone reliably.  I therefore assumed the fault lied in the wall charger or cord, so I bought a new charger and brought in my cord from the car.  No recognition of the phone with that charger either.  In my car, the USB-C cord connected to the car's USB port or into a USB adapter seemed to work, the C-C cord inserted to the car adapter's C-port gave the same result as the c-c cords in my house to the wall adapters.  I put my wife's phone, which also has a C-port into both of my C-port chargers, and with each of my c-c cords.  Her phone charged instantly. Must be my phone. Or maybe not yet.  

Solutions to most anything can be found with a web search.  First, my situation had been recognized by others, many others, including places offering to fix that problem for a fee, one an easy drive from home.  And also a few algorithms, not successful, at least the easy ones weren't.  Took the Samsung to its place of purchase.  T-Mobile store no help, in fact, I'd call them anti-help.  They sell phones and saw an opportunity to sell another.  Told me I had no warranty even though the device was less than a year old and it came with a warranty.

Samsung has a site.  Accessing it not easy, Not yet succeeded.

Since my phone charged on a USB-C cord in my car and on my wife's charger, I took the cord inside from the car, plugged it into a wall device with a USB port and five minutes later it is still charging.

Teachers and professors over the years put a lot of effort into teaching their students how to approach an unknown, this time my phone not accepting a charge in one situation but functioning in another, in a methodical way that explores each possibility.  I'm out of possibilities.  But I'm still ahead of the agent at T-Mobile who had no interest in figuring out which part could be remedied, defaulting to her interest of selling a new phone that the customer may not really need.

South of the Storm

As I try to do each morning, I retrieved the newspaper from the end of the driveway so my wife who reads it can stay warm.  I wear night clothes even in the coldest, wettest weather.  I've not had to make an exception for snowy weather, as there's been none this winter.  My snowblower never got upgraded for the season but I know where my snow shovels are and have the business card of a snow removal contractor.

National weather forecasting indicates a noreaster, a big one, with serious snowfall to remind everyone that daylight savings time begins while winter weather remains a possibility.  It will fall comfortably north of me, something of a relief as I have a rare important evening outing that I've been anticipating and a meeting tomorrow that I would not like pre-empted by snow clearing.

But definitely significant wind chill as I retrieved the newspaper.

Two Half-Nights

It doesn't take very long to adapt to Daylight Savings Time, now in its second day.  Much like traveling to a different time zone.  Sleep times are affected first, though not for many nights.

My Sleep Tracker has helped improve my rest, for all its inaccuracies.  Some things it just doesn't seem designed to do, particularly measuring my middle of the night insomnia, those wakeful times, and it doesn't always measure sleep latency, or time from entering bed to falling asleep in the best way either.

Trying to adapt to DST, I followed the clock, which had not yet become my biological reset, entering bed at the desired time, probably falling asleep in a reasonable time, though not the seven minutes on the tracker.  I awoke five hours later, fully awake, engaging in some timed maneuvers with my smartwatch to return to real sleep.  I must have about an hour later, then awakening spontaneously, though not entirely refreshed at a reasonably desirable clock time, which by then was probably also my biological time.  I thought I would stay in semi-sleep until the tracker which has an algorithm for sounding within a band of preset time, signaled me to get up.  WRTI radio set by my wife got there first.  My first inclination, wait another fifteen minutes for their Souzalarm, which is a rousing march of some type aired at 7:15, which is also the end point of my tracker algorithm, but I just told the tracker to end the night's recording, look at its overnight statistics, and go on to dental hygiene followed by weekly weigh-in and coffee.

While the tracker offered its measurements, my internal assessment is that I really had two half-nights of sleep, each pretty decent.  First portion, falling asleep to awakening five hours later, second portion resuming true sleep probably an hour or so later and waking spontaneously close to a customary wake time.  Each seemed adequate when combined, neither adequate by itself.  And I don't really have a good sense of what transpired in each session except for maybe a fragment of a dream in the second half.

The purpose of sleep is to enable the next day.  Off to an OK start.

Can I Get it Done?

Things languish incomplete.  Having a finite end point helps, the S in SMART goals.  And for the most part I do.  Carving big projects into sequential steps may require thinking skills that I lack.  And then timing the sequential activities so that each has an end point often seems elusive.

Converting My Space into My Best Space can get done.  I created zones.  Probably should do the biggest zone first, that's the back area.  Then the most important, that's my desk.

My desire to write a book inches to plans to write a book, then advances to scattered writing with a timer.  What I need there is a plot to write about, not neglected but not settled, and dedicated times to do nothing else but write, another partially successful intervention.  What I need there is a barrier to what else I could be doing instead.  

My desire to create three articles for submission, one down, takes a similar pattern.  There's the writing, which I do, then the submission where I'm too timid or unaware of best destinations.  Maybe I need a coach, or maybe I need to play lottery and just send stuff already written.  Just Do It and learn later may have a place here.

I also have initiatives that I fully accomplish.  I've read my assigned selection of books ten weeks into the half-year with proper distributions of traditional, e-book, and audiobook along with the distribution of fiction, non-fiction, Jewish theme.  Getting to my kids takes a mixture of planning and real travel, all ready to pursue.

Somewhere along the way, since each half-year's initiatives have similar themes, are the psychological underpinnings of the selections, something I may not have been entirely candid with myself exploring.  Some is the challenge of doing the project.  Some are better relations with people.  Some is probably as much a quest for missing recognition as it is for the satisfaction of the achievement. That may be a better motivator, to be looked at as somebody worth looking at.  To be a formidable, capable person.

Now in the middle third of the semi-annual cycle.  Direct attention to My Space and my public expressions.

Pesach Looming

Of all the Jewish Holidays, indeed demarcation points on the annual calendar, Pesach stands out.  It has a preparation deadline with considerable challenge to meet it.  I never made a formal checklist, but I know the lower level of the house gets cleaned, things that really should be stored in the basement like my good fleishig salad bowl and blender that occupy space in the dining room need to be relocated.  The refrigeration requires some type of transformation, eating up the edible, discarding what should not be eaten so that the contents can be emptied and the interior washed the day before.  Shopping changes.  Purchase of Passover edibles and usables creates an impressive Shop-Rite tab.  The supermarket offers an inducement, spend $400 over the month and they throw in a Kosher chicken usually priced at about $16.  I've made the cut the last two years, never used the chickens, and this year plan to economize, or at least be more selective of what new food I bring home.  I use a lot of eggs, better purchased at Trader Joe's, and depend more on fresh produce where Sprouts often has an advantage over Shop-Rite.

I anticipate some elegance in the kitchen.  Two seders, shabbos Pesach where I try to have guests, and this year my birthday comes out on yontif.  Plan menus, then try to do focused shopping.  Sinks get scrubbed, oven self-cleaned, microwave adapted, floor washed.  Dishes get hauled upstairs from the basement, then washed before being used to make Seder.

I'm very indifferent to synagogue.  Each yontif day is a weekday.  I do not know if the newly appointed Rabbi will have moved in to officiate by then.  I should try to make it easy for him if he has, or at least use this as a chance to get to know him, having been mostly excluded from the hiring process which I found held too close to the vest by the Influencers.  Part of the demarcation if he is on site, perhaps a place to minimize my presence if he is not.

I feel more obligated than eager this year, but as the preparation moves along, I usually manage to get more emotionally engaged.  And once completed, I always feel accomplished.

Did Instead

It was a session I did not want to attend.  From a highly manipulated Rabbi search, a choice emerged from the Influencers who needed a rubber stamp.  Trust suffered in the process.  Respect on my part suffered from this and other synagogue situations as well.  I did not want to be part of this meeting.

In its place I allocated the time to proceed with a project that really will bring me pride.  I set a semiannual initiative of making My Space the optimal person environment.  To work on it appears on my Daily Task List but outlining what actually needs to be done to make it a reality has never gotten its completion checkmark.  In lieu of the meeting, I resolved to sit in my desk chair, one of the favorite places I always like to be, with a clipboard and blank loose leaf paper.  I turned on all the lights for maximum illumination.  Then in red pen, I noted 26 separate zones of My Space that I could tackle one at a time.  Completely actionable.  I transferred the list to my computer, but kept the handwritten one on the desk for now.  Ready to achieve this by the end of my anticipated half year.

And it took less time to do this than allotted.  So, I resolved to complete an article I had started.  Done and submitted.

While these very specific accomplishments brought satisfaction, they really occurred as an escape from resentment.  That needs to be addressed as well.  My Be Bold project for the coming week.

OLLI Break

Osher Institute scheduled its Spring Break the final week in March.  Ordinarily, I schedule a few nights away, having gone to the Pocono's one year and to DC last year.  No major driving or planes for this one. Travel may not fit in as well this year.

The weeks leading into this week off have more than the usual obligations.  This week Purim and some synagogue activities.  Next week the Voices of UD meetings.  The following -week my somewhat overdue endoscopic studies as well as the first meeting for the Delaware Community Foundation Scholarship Program.  And probably need to squeeze in some Passover shopping and other preparation before other shoppers deplete Shop-Rite's supplies of the hard to find.

So by the time classes suspend, either I will look back with accomplishment or have to deal with whatever the GI endoscopists find and with Passover which begins the week classes resume.  So what might I do under more pressured circumstances?  A day trip for sure.  Maybe fishing at a downstate pier.  Maybe the Chinatown Bus to NYC.  But only one day.  Passover cleaning can be paced a bit more than in prior years.  Maybe visit with a travel agent for visiting Paris with my wife.  Maybe begin the seasonal gardens.  Maybe choose my art:  watercolor, pastels, pencils black and colored, neglected violin, neglected harmonica.  Or seek the more audacious.  Not really a blank canvas of time, but one with a lot of area to fill in with things I most want to do but not want to do enough to have incorporated them into busier weeks.

Rediscovering Minesweeper

In the early days of PCs, Minesweeper came as one of the few pre-installed programs.  It had a dual purpose.  Amusement of course.  And I got good at it, though not as good as my school age son.  It also developed skills that enabled quick decisions and clicks of a mouse.  The mouse has given way to a pad on the laptop, occupying less room and freeing a port.  Clicking with one or two fingers to replace right and left clicks seems an improvement.  Simultaneous clicks, rarely needed with the mouse, and not needed at all by me, were not missed.  And I could play Minesweeper indefinitely, an undesirable time sink for sure, but also a needed confirmation that in theory at least I had the capacity to focus on a task for a considerable duration.

Out of curiosity I did a web browser search for Minesweeper.  Still exists, Still free.  It's navigation has been adapted for a laptop pad, using the space bar for marking a mine and clearing squares that could be cleared.  Not nearly as intuitive as double-clicking a mouse.  I never completed the long puzzle.  And it remains a time sink but still a reminder that I can focus my attention on a single challenge for a long time.  I just have to focus that attention on more valuable initiatives.

McKenzie's Closed

My history for this particular site goes back a very long way, at least to my son's infancy if not before.  The establishment sits on an expanded road divider a short distance from the state line, my home being on the other side.  It got its start, at least to me, as an enormous salad bar known as the Grande Salad/Saloon.  To this day I've not eaten at one quite this large, advertised as sixty feet in length.  For a very modest sum people could help themselves to full satiety with a mixture of healthy and medically ill-advised.  I remember needing an escape while my wife still engaged in maternity leave.  We bundled our son, just a few weeks old, into his car carrier and drove to The Grande Salad for lunch one weekday.  No other infants but lots of other people.  And the shopping center that would attract people to the area had not yet been fully built on the northbound side of the street.  The modest price and over-abundance of food did not seem a very sustainable business model, though perhaps offset by the Saloon element and labor savings from not needing waitresses or cooks to individualize patron requests.  It closed not long after.

Still, it sat in a prime location, one with an expanding shopping center across the street, some nearby well established car dealerships, an expansion of suburban housing across the state line, and easily accessible from both northbound and southbound highway, as few businesses at the time were.  The site did not stay vacant that long, soon refitted as McKenzie's Brew House, a brew pub that entered on the ground floor of public interest in craft beer.  And they made pretty decent beer, in a state that still maintained a state monopoly on alcohol retail with limited ability for residents to purchase the newer brews on their own.  It became one of our destinations when we wished to eat out.  Not the closest place, though never burdensome to drive there.  They had their brew tanks visible through glass.  At the center stood an enormous bar, usually occupied by young working people who had not yet acquired a current significant other.  And tables, lots of them, with a patio as well.  On Sundays they had a brunch with make your own Bloody Mary.  The waitress would bring a measured portion of vodka in a highball glass followed by a trip to the bar where various fixings were laid out to customize the Sunday morning eye-opener.  The menu, brunch and dinner, always had ample choices within our dietary limitations.  Waitresses not always the most efficient.  But when I needed to go someplace reliable or take a visitor out to eat, McKenzie's became the top choice.  It remained so for decades.

This weekend I found myself a little stir-crazy, needing to go someplace I've not visited for a while.  I drove to the Whole Foods, now established in the shopping center across the street from McKenzie's expecting to get a Danish or a scone to snack on, but mostly to not be in my house.  Lunchtime on a Sunday would be prime brunch time at the restaurant, yet the parking lot appeared mostly empty.  I glanced over on my return trip, noticing that the McKenzie's features were no more, though the building structure seemed the same.  New signage, Now Open.  Crown Tavern.  McKenzie's is no more.  I don't know why the transition.  Owner retirement, Covid effect on business, too much hassle to run?  Don't know.

When I arrived home, I checked the online menu at Crown Tavern.  Also, beer focused but with very little on the menu within my dietary customs.  Not a suitable replacement.  While I enjoyed every meal I ate at McKenzie's, it never fully became my default place except for the very rare occasions I was expected to take guests out.  And their overhead must have been overwhelming.  Yet it served as a destination for decades, one not easily substituted.

Boldness

It's the middle third of my semi-annual initiatives, that time when it is unclear whether to look at what was accomplished, what still needs to be accomplished, what can be accomplished, and what might be better abandoned.  I'm not ready to abandon any.  Some needs focus.  But some needs boldness.  I can make My Space what I envision it, but I need the boldness to articulate and exercise that vision.  There is a meeting time in my Urgent/Unimportant box that will get redirected to sitting in My Space with a clipboard as I swivel around the room and make a read plan for what the end point should be and how to best pursue it.  Europe will not happen this semi-annual cycle but I could access a travel agent.  Attention to wife has been less than projected.  That I can correct but need to be bold in defining and doing this.  Now have dates to visit daughter.  Can make airline reservations which affords commitment. Visiting son done by car, so more flexible.  Money, or my money is now part of a revocable trust.  House needs to be put in trust.  Not sure about wife's money.  And I have to pay the attorneys.  Some emails to financial advisor to complete this.

My respect for synagogue baalebatim has not been restored for good reason.  Approached the President on this.  Set up meeting.  Books should be completed this week.  I still expected to have guests for dinner but need to be bold about inviting them.  Pesach is good opportunity.  

I have been assertive about my health.  Taking medicine.  Exercising on schedule and starting to increase intensity.  Sleep tracker has helped with insomnia.  Lingering endoscopic studies on calendar.  Loneliness correction needs some boldness on my part to engage.  Give it a go with strangers when I visit another congregation for Megillah reading and with OLLI during the week.  Maybe go fishing if weather permits, though not yet important enough to declare a time to do this.

If I learned anything from the two audiobooks in progress, Get It Done and One Bold Move a Day, it's that my real goal of expressing myself, mostly in writing, is to attain a measure of recognition for doing it.  One of the authors struggled with this, declaring this her Unicorn Projects, the high end that could not happen without audacity.  Audacity added to my Daily Tasks, shoot for one a day.

While I want to get proficient in my kitchen, I need to make it physically functional.  Some of that is forced on my by Pesach, as is creation of menus and executing them amid a number of restraints.  Enhancing kitchen skills is a vague initiative, not fully a SMART goal.  Pesach gives it better definition.  Spare no effort on this.

Some has gone well.  Some really needs some assertiveness.  I think this week I'm ready.

Self-Help Audios

My semiannual reading quota requires an audiobook and a non-fiction book.  In the past TED Talks have prompted me to the speaker's book, which it did this time as well.  From public library's Hoopla Service Get It Done by a native Israeli Kibbutznik, now professor at U Chicago Business school who does studies on goal setting and completion.  Roughly ten hours of listening, now about half through.  Fortunately read by a paid reader who seems a native speaker of American English.  Includes a lot of studies to affirm her recommendations.

The other book, also audio, is about half that length.  Prompted by a talk by the author sponsored by a synagogue that I occasionally visit.  While directed at women, her work One Bold Move a Day also examines goal setting, completion, and the assertiveness it sometimes takes to have accomplishments that exceed original expectations.  It seems to be read by the author whose vocal manner can seem soporific but with pacing I manage to stay awake.

Now a third of the way through this half-year of pursing initiatives allocated to a half-year, my progress on some things good, on most things less than I had hoped, my commitments less than when I compiled the list and settled on the projects.  If I do less than original aspirations, I should at least understand why the shortfalls occurred, and maybe have less underperformance.

Creative Ventures

Each day my Daily Task List has entries for:

1. Harmonica
2. Fishing Knots
3. Coloring
4. Drawing
5. Watercolor

The harmonica lies to my right on my desk, coloring pencils and a new painting kit received for Hanukkah in the living room, watercolor supplies from my last OLLI course in a box on the floor of My Space, clear nylon fishing line and some soda straw segments for nail knots on my desk, drawing pencils in my line of sight on my desk.  Rarely I will teach myself to draw an animal guided by instructions accessed on the WWW.  My desk also has oil pastels and a calligraphy kit, both within my line of sight, neither used.  I should put a couple of fishing hooks nearby, as tying a hook or lure to a line is something worth acquiring proficiency.

All recreational.  All mostly enjoyable when I do them.  What I seem to lack is the intrinsic motivation not so much to engage in the activities as much as to exert the effort to enhance my skill with any of them.  A few moments of pleasure awaits.  The dedication to growth through these elements of recreation just hasn't been there.  So I do something else, also with an element of pleasure while engaged but with some satisfaction that accompanies advancing skill.