Tackling Hebrew

After watching a TED talk from the founder of Duolingo, I thought this might be the time to learn some modern Hebrew.  I've become proficient, though hardly mastered, liturgical and Biblical Hebrew.  Repetition at services with commentary from the Rabbi and glancing at translation when I did not really want to follow the Hebrew text added vocabulary.  When I do a Torah or Haftarah reading, I always review the translation, if only to have the chanting of the Hebrew text make sense to those in attendance who have auditory comprehension of the language.  But conversational Hebrew, not even close.  I've been to Israel and had to gesture when asking directions.  I've downloaded Israeli FM Radio on my smartphone but haven't a clue over what is being said.  And now that Israel is at war, messages in Hebrew that I cannot read appear in my from Twitter and FB a few times a day.

Duolingo seems to be a hybrid of educational enterprise and hi tech company.  They have an underlying purpose, enabling people in economically disadvantaged regions to enhance their employability by learning English mostly, or in other places Spanish or French as a parallel language to the dominant one.  Having now been a tourist in a few places where English is not the lingua franca and on cruise ships, employment in the enterprises servicing the tourists is difficult if there is no ability to communicate with English speakers.  But Duolingo offers other languages including Hebrew.  They also have incentive systems borrowed from other social media companies to keep people attracted to their screens.  They advertise consecutive day streaks in particular, along with countdown clocks.

Getting started had its bumps.  Sign on easy.  Since many language learners really don't start as true newbies, they try to assess baseline skill.  For Hebrew I had pretty much all the introductory vocabulary understood.  Grammar and sentence structure was not seriously lacking.  So I did OK, not a new learner.  The exercises are a mixture of reading and translating from one language to another.  And they include writing.  Now big snafu.

They read a sentence and asked me to type it.  My keyboard is not set for Hebrew.  I just tried to move on.  After two sessions their algorithm declared me unprepared.  It terminated my session.  It cancelled my consecutive days of learning streak.  No incentive to come back. 😠

I sent Duolingo customer service a note.  No response.  A not entirely friendly email the next day, not assisting me but taking a poke at how my consecutive day streak had been lost.😠

There is a rational me that controls the emotional me.  The best adaptation would be to just enable my keyboard to type Hebrew.  It's not straightforward, but probably within my capacity.

Mingling

Weekly planning usually occurs on Sunday mornings at my upstairs desk where I keep pens and highlighters of multiple colors.  Yontif postponed this session by until Monday, though I knew I had a special opportunity to assuage senior loneliness by immersing myself in different groups on consecutive days. 

1. Sunday: Simchat Torah Services at my synagogue
2. Monday: Platelet donation at Blood Bank
3. Tuesday:  OLLI Class
4. Wednesday: Philadelphia Endocrine Society
5. Thursday: Morning minyan at my synagogue
6. Friday: Two OLLI Classes
7. Saturday: Services at my synagogue

And toss in a flu shot at my pharmacy.

Mostly mixed result, colored perhaps by strains with people scripted differently than me about atrocities in Israel.  By I did my best to keep cordial and to interact, if not mingle.  Candid, not fully friendly comments are still forms of interaction, which is really the week's agenda.

Scorecard:

Simchat Torah experience somewhat above expectation.  Not a lot of me there, about 18 or so.  Hakafot shared with women, who were much less in number.  Songs selected by Cantor surpassed the Hebrew school ditties that I had come to expect.

Platelet donation proceeded smoothly.  Screening questions changed a bit.  My trip to France within the previous month did not disqualify me.  I watched Netflix home design show, actually four half-hour episodes.  No clogging of line, one minor reposition of needle.  Quick stop at canteen for my usual.  Afterward, stopped at Cabela's.  Saw nothing to buy.  Opted not to go out for lunch.

OLLI Class caused some friction.  I am not overly fond of the way the instructor presents the class.  Teaching us about "good people on both sides " amid asymmetric intentional atrocities while using the Muslim Brotherhood talking points did not reflect well on his intellect.  And his not well received analysis extended the class twenty minutes past closing time.  But I did make a YouTube Video of what I thought and he will not be happy with at least one of his student feedback reports.

Before driving to Philadelphia I had a very stimulating session at OLLI given by an expert.   I tried to extract more of his expertise at the end, creating some discord in the process.  But the Being with People initiative did not come until the end of the day.  I had not been to a Philadelphia Endocrine Society session live since Covid, and not at all in a couple of years.  I even did not pay my annual dues last year, but resumed this summer.  The live sessions had been reassigned to a less accessible location, but are now back to a place to which I am used to driving, as long as it is not very often.  My Waze App meant well, anticipating rush hour bottlenecks.  It tried to bypass one near my home by directing me north for two entrances to access the interstate.  Then manageable traffic.  Ordinarily it would take me to a main road that goes pretty much directly to my destination, though with a lot of traffic lights.  Instead, it exited me just past PHL Airport, directing me through some thoroughfares I do not remember ever driving on before.  I got to see the remotest of the PHL parking options and large swaths of the airport at its farthest reaches where private corporate and other non-airline jets take off and land.  Eventually return to the interstate, this time with a lot of other cars.  It took me to a highway divide where I had to change lanes on short notice, then through Philadelphia's Historical district, a place of very slim one-way streets, but at least in a recognizable grid. Got me to the parking garage where the gate failed.  After a few calls on the intercom, an employee let me in, providing me what would turn out to be a defective ticket trying to leave.

Not many people that I knew at the meeting.  A couple of old friends, friendly greetings to some new introductions.  Beverage server lives near me, taking the same roads and bottlenecks, so we had a short chat about that.  Outstanding lecture on hypoparathyroidism.

Route home by Waze also not what I expected.  Were I to commute by car to Center City, I'd probably get used to it, even in the dark for much of the year.  One time, I had to keep my attention focused on traffic, stopped delivery trucks, and some interstate access points that the civil engineers could have considered better, but once on the highway past a rather long and eerie on-ramp, getting home went smoothly.

Morning minyan takes place every Thursday at 9AM.  I was curious about who would go.  The usual suspects, those inner circle men and one other.  I was seven.  We got nine, but needed ten.  The new Rabbi really wanted to repeat the Amidah and read Torah that morning.  He summoned the lady in the kitchen, declaring it a fast day due to Israel atrocities and obviating her the task of making coffee or setting out donuts.  In its place she was placed in a sanctuary seat.  Then he repeated the Amidah, read Torah, did kaddish, all the parts that our tradition requires us to have ten men.  Nobody said anything.  At the end, the President asked me a few things about my trip to France, with another fellow joining in.  I had scheduled a flu vaccine that morning, so excused myself.

While I got to Walgreens in time for my appointment, the line at the pharmacy counter was long. The pharmacists and technicians seemed overwhelmed by volume, not only at the counter but also the drive-thru, and what was coming their way from online customers.  These folks were not trained by Disney MBAs who understand enough throughput to keep lines flowing.  My turn came, my deltoid got injected, and I roamed the aisles for the next fifteen minutes as the pharmacist had asked me to stay on site for safety.  Then home.  And a Zoom course on thermodynamics followed.

Friday morning I have two OLLI classes, the National Parks first, The Common Man to follow.  I made my own coffee, keeping it hot in a thermal mug given to me by a pharmaceutical company in the days when they gave doctors various reminders of which drug the companies wanted us to prescribe to the max. I got there just as the first presentation was to begin.  There is a half hour break between the two morning sessions.  I sat at a table for a while, sat on the patio for a while.  Did not mingle.

For shabbos morning the two casting directors assigned me two parts.  I would lead shacharit, which I do frequently.  And I would chant the Haftarah, an invitation that is rather infrequent.  I prepared the Prophetic portion to decent fluency.  The morning worship I do not prepare at all.  Instead, since I am already fluent, I select two tunes to insert that differ from what I had done the last time, usually the last two times.  And so I did.  Rabbi read Torah.  And when the Rabbi reads Torah, a congregant gives the sermon about the Torah portion.  Despite being a participant, I did not feel inspired.  A few handshakes along the way, mostly of a protocol variety.  Kiddush banter makes or breaks the morning experience.  I drove home broken.

When corporations and other employers try to boost morale and engagement of their staff, they take a number of approaches.  Look at the good our organization has done in its history would be one direction.  It seems to give a transient boost.  The strongest, though, comes from testimonials people receive as feedback for the benefits their personal efforts provided.  My congregation approaches zero.  There are influencers who matter and consumers who don't.  I'm a consumer.  I could say the same about the Endocrine Society.  As much as I enjoyed the session along with the minor adventure of driving each way, I wasn't a contributor.  But platelets, while often physically uncomfortable in the donation chair squeezing a rubber ball and watching Netflix, the people at the donor center are really appreciative of having donors who come on a regular basis.  I never see the platelet recipients, only sample pictures of kids on chemotherapy, but I know somebody somewhere is better off for the three hours between leaving my house and returning home.

While the intent was to be with people more than in most weeks, and I succeeded, those experiences mostly made me a taker.  The challenge is not only to be a person of genuine value, as platelet donors are, but to matter beyond the protocol handshakes.  I did in small ways.  Leading worship offered some thought and effort that made our synagogue a place where traditional services are executed by men of proficiency.  At the flu shot, I chatted with a lady behind me in line who may have been less lonely from the interaction.  I challenged the teachers at each of the OLLI sections. That might have advanced their perspectives on their subjects beyond what they would figure out for themselves.

So it is not so much inserting oneself into the herd as having that herd take a better form because they let me in it.  I think it did.

Meeting New People

Shabbos brought me to a different environment.  We have a secondary congregation, one which permits my wife and many other very talented women to enhance worship with their skills publicly displayed.  She usually goes alone, at one time leaving early to attend a pre-service class of outstanding quality with their now retired Rabbi.  His successor, a young man of immense potential, does not conduct a class before services so she gets to leave a little later.  I really did not want to be at my home congregation but I had stayed home the shabbos before.  Ordinarily my wife makes the 45-minute round trip alone, but this time I opted to go with her, driving each way, having lunch with her sister.  I even completed my scheduled treadmill session right after coffee, to allow enough travel time.

Sometimes you have to experience upwards.  If I want to enhance my wardrobe, I tour the upscale men's department.  If I want to upgrade my home, I visit a restored mansion.  And if I want to experience what shabbos might be at its best, I sidestep the Chief Influencer at my home congregation to be with different people.  Works every time.

The shabbos morning my wife seeks out is really a parallel service of a large USCJ congregation.  Over the years, the USCJ affiliates have struggled with their top-down leadership models.  They are still highly dependent on clergy for performance, abridgment of liturgy in response to congregational feedback or attendance data, and to some extent a need to have events, including a Bat Mitzvah this shabbos in the main sanctuary.  There is a grassroots, though.  There is also a large building with places other than the main sanctuary that have Torah scrolls and seating.  This congregation had that critical mass of talent intersecting interest, creating their unabridged, really less abridged, option.  And talent was on display.  No Rabbi.  No Cantor.  Each portion prepared and executed by a member of their subset minyan, all done expertly.

Having been there before, though infrequently, there were people I knew, though very few by name without a prompt from their congregational name tag worn by few, and virtually none as people with jobs, families, or avocations.  It is customary to shake hands with those who were honored or performed, which I did.  Roughly the same formality as shaking hands with my Senator, which I've done many times.  And the same formality of handshakes at my home congregation with people I do know.  It's protocol.  Occasionally sincerity, though usually protocol.  The service proceeded through its specified portions.  They gave me Aliyah #6, the longest one of that parsha, followed by the next longest, which kept me at the scroll for a while.  My wife did the Haftarah with great expertise.  The Sermon was by a congregant, some controversial content that a Rabbi would probably not tackle.  And the service ended.  Talesim folded.  Books returned to their shelves.

As we came in round tables with red tablecloths and chairs filled the kiddush area and extended out into the lobby.  A few sky blue tables where people could nibble while standing stood in small nooks at the edges of what the caterer had set up.  The main service had a bat mitzvah, with all in attendance invited for a buffet luncheon.  Making my way to their auditorium, as the main service and mine concluded at about the same time, I placed my maroon velvet tallis bag at one of the many empty spaces, the first at its table.  My wife put hers next to mine.  There were probably a couple of hundred worshipers that shabbos morning, maybe forty at my chapel, the rest in the main sanctuary.  The caterers were pros.  They set up multiple stations, three for serious eating, one for beverages, one for dessert, and one for ritual.  I started with kiddush, selecting about 30ml of grape juice, then washed hands, and took a slice of presliced challah.  The line to the food had begun to accumulate at all stations.  To promote community, the congregation created name tags for their members, kept in an alphabetized rack along the edge of the wall.  People with black lanyards and a tag were members, including the fellow behind me on the food line.  I commented on the elegance of what they had, the building, the volume of members, the diversity of ages of people present.  Very different from my usual surroundings with a forty seat chapel area and everyone on Medicare.  They had increased membership by a hundred or so households, mostly young families, attracted by their new Rabbi.  Kiddush food itself was actually very similar to what we serve on an expanded sponsored kiddush.  Bagels of different types, better than what we have locally. and pre-sliced.  Small portions in plastic of soft cream cheese, though no lox.  Fish bins with tuna and whitefish salads.  Egg salad.  Three salads, lettuce with beets, caprese, Caesar, all pre-dressed.  Roasted vegetables.  A sweet noodle kugel.  Two lines per table, Army style, moved quickly.  By the time I returned, the other seats at my table had occupants, also with full plates.  The two men next to me had suits without name tags.  Nobody with a name tag had a suit.  They were each guests of the Bat Mitzvah.  One lived in a different suburb, the other about a hundred miles to the west.  Both shared my awe with what we experienced before us.  After finishing my plate, which took a while, my wife escorted me to the dessert table where two people from our service were at an adjacent stand-up table.  She introduced me to them.  I had contacted one earlier in the week to offer a name for their misheberach list.  He had a car identical to my wife's, model and color, not sure about year.  He was apparently a journalist, an editor in the regional Jewish media.  Desserts not a lot different than at my home kiddush.  I took a cake and a brownie.  Then onward to my sister-in-law's.

Meeting new people often goes better as a visitor.  At my own place and at Chabad, I recognize everyone there most Shabbatot.  A few I keep my distance, a few I seek out for conversation.  Which depends pretty much on prior experience.  Few approach me.  Visitors are infrequent, and Rabbi has dibs on approaching them.  But as I relearned, different environments assemble different people.  Friday night on a cruise ship will invariably bring worshipers with their stories to tell, whether Messianics or couples from places where we share mutual acquaintances.  Visiting this synagogue brought me into proximity with some very skilled women who could thrive there but would be sent off to prepare kiddush at my place if the Women of Influence would tolerate unfamiliar women in the kitchen.  People had name tags, which could be an icebreaker.  Some people were dressed to the nines.  Those are Bar Mitzvah guests.  Small talk comes easily:  hometown, the food, relation to the hosts for the visitors.  For their regulars where I am the stranger, I become the figure of curiosity.  

Though I know everyone in my sanctuary, I often find it a place that makes the underlying loneliness so common to seniors more apparent.  People have already told their stories, watched the teams during the week, and don't often seem to do interesting things or have thoughts of anything really worth either an amusing or even an inquisitive response.  Not so when I worship among the less familiar.  I'll have to go again, next time as one of their volunteers.  And be more assertive to take better advantage of my own place's experience and people.

Making Lasagna

By now I've accumulated my staple dishes, those things that I make once and serve multiple meals, usually with the help of a freezer.  Macaroni & Cheese in the style of Horny Hardart, crock pot stew, chicken cacciatore, often a turkey, and lasagna in the style of Artscroll.  Most have multiple ingredients, are made in large cooking utensils, require measuring devices, and have multiple ingredients that need to be set out and often mixed in an appliance.  Every one of them worth the effort with enjoyable products that repeat over several dinners.  Every one of them requires several sessions at my sink to wash all the equipment used, then was all the dinner dishes used to consume them along with the rest of those meals.

So it went with my most recent lasagna.  Not a lot of ingredients.  Some oregano and black pepper.  No measuring spoons, just a palm estimate. Spinach.  I used to drain in a colander.  With experience I just squeeze out handfuls from the thawed bag and dump into the bowl as I go until there is no more.  Pour out the residual water and place the plastic packaging into the kitchen garbage container.  Rinse my hands. An egg.  Crack into the bowl, mix gently with a fork that will be a multipurpose utensil.  Three types of cheese.  Cottage cheese just gets dumped into the mixing bowl with the spinach, egg, and spices.  The tub and its lid need washing before either recycling or repurposing.  I used a blend of mozzarella and cheddar this time.  A pound of mozzarella.  Get out a plate, a knife, the food processor with its shredding disc.  With a sharp knife, bisect the square of cheese so it fits in the processor's feed tube.  Shred each half, transfer to mixing bowl.  Moist mozzarella does not shred cleanly.  It made a sticky mess with strands adhering to each other, which is why I shredded it before the cheddar.  Using mostly my fingers, transfer that blob to a stainless steel mixing bowl.  Then clean off residual mozzarella from the processor and its disc, putting that into the mixing bowl.  Shredding cheddar goes more easily.  It comes as a rectangle that fits into the processor's feeding tube.  On same plate, with same knife, cut about two thirds of it and shred.  That cleans the disc somewhat.  Leave the shredded cheese in the processor bowl.  Then separately, with my hands, move about half the mozzarella and half the cheddar into the mixing bowl with the cottage cheese.  Normally I blend all the ingredients, which becomes the filling, with a fork and some effort.  No go with the sticky mozzarella.  My right hand and its fingers made a much better blending too.  Squish a few minutes and I had a reasonably uniformly distributed mixture of cottage cheese, mozzarella, cheddar, and spinach with the egg, oregano, and black pepper along for the ride.

Lasagna needs a lasagna pan.  I have two.  Picked the older uncoated one.  Spray with generic Pam.  Now some sauce.  I had one partially open.  Usually I use a new jar, sometimes run a little over, so the extra is always good to have.  A layer of sauce on the bottom of the lasagna pan.  Arrange noodles, it takes five to cover the pan.   Then half the cheese-spinach mixture over that.  When less experienced, I used to spoon it out.  Now I take about half out of the bowl with my hands and spread it evenly by punching it down with my fist, much like I often do with an olive oil quiche crust that does not roll well but comes out as a blob.   Then some more sauce.  This I spread with a fork.  Another layer of noodles, rest of cheese-spinach mixture, punch down.  Then about half the remaining sauce spread with a fork.  Then another layer of noodles.  Then another layer of sauce, which used up the jar, forcing me into the reserved partially used other jar.  The top with rest of mozzarella.  By now, sitting in the steel bowl, it was no longer shredded in an easy to distribute way.  I made little balls of about three quarters of it, patterned it evenly over the sauce surface, then distributed the rest of the cheddar whose strands did not adhere to each other.  Then the remaining mozzarella into little balls, distributed in any gaps.  Since the noodles are not precooked, it needs some liquid.  The now empty sauce jar got about a third filled with water, then poured over the now assembled lasagna.  Cover with foil, bake at 350F for 80 minutes, remove foil halfway.   It was good.  Always a little different each time I make it, as I vary the types of cheeses, their proportions, and the flavor of jarred sauce with each preparation.

With experience, I was able to minimize dishwashing.  No measuring devices.  Not a lot of forks and spoons.  One sharp knife to cut the cheese.  Food processor did not use the chopping blade.  The disc was a sticky mess with mozzarella residual in the cutting grates.  It emulsifies easily with dishwashing liquid and washes away with rather hot water.  A sink spray works well.  The clear plastic fitted feed tube pusher had ridges on its surface that coated with mozzarella.  Little scrub, hot rinse.  Processor bowl housed mainly shredded cheddar.  Not hard to wash.  Processor top posed the biggest challenge.  Its injector molding gave it different areas with narrow plastic channels where both types of cheese accumulated.  I had to dislodge some of these with a sharp knife, then wedge the kitchen cleaning pad into small surfaces pretreated with detergent, then was away with hot water by sink spray.  The cheese got dislodged adequately this way.  The steel bowl had only mozzarella which did not stick tenaciously to it.  Simple wash with detergent and rinse.  Plate on which cheese was cut, just ordinary dishwashing.  And glass bowl that house the mixed filling took some effort.  The cottage cheese and spinach particles dried.  Before it could be scrubbed clean it had to be soaked.  While it had only broad, round surfaces, no channels like the processor top, getting it fully cleaned took a few steps.  And a quick wash of the cottage cheese container and sauce jar before they go into the next recycling pickup.  But all done.

Much of this effort has gotten easier over time with experience and with some experimentation.  I probably will not use more than half mozzarella again.  It's just much harder to incorporate than is shredded cheddar, and harder to clean up.  No colander, no measuring cups and spoons. Always have some spare sauce available.  Maybe a little less water at the end.

My wife and I eat about 25% per meal.  From the pan the first night.  Second night, take another quarter, put in second small frying pan and heat in oven.  At same time divide the remaining half into two rectangles.  Wrap each with foil, label, and freeze for the following week.  Then wash the lasagna pan.  We have four very good meals.  Some cleanup required, but with experience and planning it has become less excessive.

Degreasing

Have some serious cleaning that I need to do, while I am still motivated to do it. Efforts to engage a cleaning service have not succeeded. Gone are the days of Cameo Homes of the 1960s where everyone's mother could tap into a network of thorough and personable cleaning ladies from Spring Valley who would come each week for a fixed sum, lunch, and transportation round-trip. Now we have crews that have websites with their own logo cars who are done by lunchtime.  They follow a checklist in lieu of the homeowner guiding what needs to be done most. To degrease kitchen cabinets  and appliances on my own I have baking soda. For some sturdier objects with serious buildup, the online sources recommend ammonia. None for sale at Shop-Rite or Target cleaning sections. Went to Lowe's. Online said they had it. Did not find it on shelf. Went to customer service. They looked it up, but I had to spell it for them. It has two M's. They directed me to aisle and shelf, just what their computerized inventory list said. None there. All stores have chemical concoctions, toxic blends done by graduated chemistry majors who probably did not excel at Science Fair. Lots of glass cleaners. Lots of all-purpose cleaners with big mark-ups at all stores. No ammonia anywhere. They have vinegar with the cooking products and at Lowe's, where they had industrial concentration vinegar not suitable for a salad.

Why? Online tells me there is an ammonia shortage. Has been since 2022. Supply chain and regulatory problem. I assume the P&Gs and DuPonts who need it to blend with other products can still get it, though at a premium that they recoup on the end products. Small consumers like me that want their tea kettles and chandeliers to sparkle have to use the more toxic stuff.

My Teams

It's been a good season.  Phils are competitive in post-season.  Iggles difficult to beat. Mizzou at its highest national ranking and most consistent performances in memory.  Not so sure about UPenn.  U of D ranked in its football class.

Red Smith, the iconic sports reporter of the NY Times, commented that while sports doesn't move the world, how people choose to allocate the time that is most theirs says a lot about the people.  And we fill stadiums, support sports networks, pay pro athletes handsomely, and buy the products we see advertised during our games.

And Red Smith flourished in a more congenial world than we have now.  Or sometimes not, as his long career spanned a depression, a world war, civil rights antagonisms including integration of sports, and Vietnam.  

In our fractious time, a decade when people provoke each other, seeking constant one-upmanship with the person next to them, our home teams may be the last bastion of common purpose.  We seek to best rivals, for sure, but we also recognize the excellent talents of stars from all teams.  Those no-hitters get a cheer, even at the expense of our own team.  While viewing the games, we don't particularly care about an athlete's ethnicity, only his performance.  And while we work hard but fear for our longevity with our companies, they accept the transient nature of their team affiliations, either displacement by a better talent, graduation from school, or the free agency of athletic mercenaries.  The players are really like us, though usually more so.

There are rivalries, for sure.  A few approach toxic:  Yankees-Red Sox, Cowboys-most any other reputable NFL squad, Harvard-Yale, Oklahoma-Oklahoma State.  But no credible threats to personal safety.  Despite this, stadiums ban weapons and items like umbrellas that can be converted to means of assault.  And we have a safe space where the many open carry advocates never seem to sue to keep their pistol with them in their skybox.  

For a few scheduled events, several a week in most major cities, people don't have to be prodded to be good municipal representatives.  They already are.

Gardening's Late Season

This has been a dud of a garden.  One cucumber, A few tomatoes.  Pretty decent string bean growth.  Green vines and leaves everywhere, overflowing to square feet not intended for them.  Edibles minimal.  My outdoor pots of herbs did not do any better, except for rosemary which thrives.  And I took down my aerogarden, disinfected each component with diluted bleach, and started over with six new herbs.  Even my chia triad is down to its last basil.  I don't know the reason for such poor performance.  For sure, I am not dedicated to tending each planting, going out to the backyard a couple of times a week to week and nourish.  I'm not even committed to harvesting on schedule.  Tomato plants take up more than one square.  They need a cage, not the commercial plastic stakes, to keep them upright.  And beans need regular harvest.  No clue as to why peppers, eggplant, and so many variations of lettuce never produce anything to bring to my kitchen table. Root vegetables unrealistic as weed block beneath the soil would not allow unlimited downward growth.

Culinary herbs in outdoor pots have more promise.  Basil grows.  Chives less so.  Parsley a great disappointment.  Dill and sage seem to do better in my vegetable garden.  Mint, which grows like a weed because it fundamentally is a weed, died in its pot overnight, suggesting some infestation or exposure to an herbicide from our lawn crew.  Mint has to stay in pots for containment.

Chia in my hands only grows basil reliably.  The hydroponic aerogarden also grows basil reliably, so abundant a root system as to crowd out the other five plant cylinders.

The mid-fall season still leaves me pumpkins to check on, but it's really time to uproot what will no longer grow.  Square foot has 32 squares, clean eight a day.  There is a supplemental section that can be turned over, as uprooting everything there is unrealistic.  The deck has three flower boxes that can have their plant remains removed.  For the pots, protect the rosemary indoors this year when it gets a bit colder.  Harvest what can be salvaged, maybe some basil, sage, and parsley for shabbos dinner.  Pluck everything else.  Plant something in the two remaining chia pots and add some diluted fertilizer.  And see how the new aerogarden herbs turn out.  Replace the dead bulb, consider getting their fertilizer pods which worked better than what I use now.

It really becomes how committed I am to having my own sources of herbs when I want them and the sensory superiority of produce from my own garden.  I am willing to do some effort, though not an extreme, focused amount.

Rev Moore Book

For an unclear reason, I've taken a liking to recent Russell Moore podcasts.  He interviews a variety of people whose work I read, often in The Atlantic, where his articles also appear.  On a recent Atlantic Festival, he was the one being interviewed.  While I thought he did better as the interviewer, he discussed his latest book, Losing our Religion.  It was something I wanted to read, in part because I could relate not only to its title but its subject as he discussed it, and the insight of the writer.  After the Atlantic Festival, I searched my local library holdings, found it at another branch and our library system, and put a hold on it.  To my surprise, even as a new book by a popular author with some recent publicity, the library retrieved it for me in three days.  It took about a week to read.

Rev. Moore has an interesting background with occasional parallels to my own, which may be why I find his media presence so compelling.  He was raised on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, Southern Baptist imprinting which remains.  His life and childhood began long after American Civil Rights laws integrated workplaces, schools, and public accommodations, though with a previous generation that preferred that previous time, maintaining some of it in his religion's ideology and even current practices.  As a teen, he was very much part of their equivalent of the USY Clique, engaged in the activities that the Church provided.  He committed himself to studying for the ministry, though he never really fit the model of a Church Centered person that Stephen Covey described in so demeaning a way in his 7 Habits bestseller.  Russell, which is what I will now call him, attended one of his state's universities, then one of his religion's seminaries for both ordination and PhD.  He bridged several roles, preacher, scholar, advocate.  But he also seemed committed to his own independence of mind and speaking what he believed to be truth even when leadership would not receive the message in the generous way the messages were intended.  Very much the opposite of Covey's description of Church Centered individuals who salute and do what their pastors tell them to do and believe what their pastors tell them to believe.

After time on the pulpit and as seminary faculty, he accepted a role with the Southern Baptist Convention as their interface, though not exactly scripted spokesman, to the general public.  And there our parallels, and also diversions, with my own Jewish tradition begin.  The central umbrella group does not always reflect the sentiments of the constituency, which can never be unanimous.  The parent organizations, whether the Southern Baptist Convention or the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the umbrella of Conservative Jewish Synagogues and its constituents, has an interest in not only setting policy for its religion but exerting a certain discipline through a blend of authority and entitlement.  And when their public resists, the recourse of the individual members is to vote with their feet.  There are other places to go, or sometimes just disaffiliating without an alternative destination is what the disgruntled former members choose.  The religion parent has its metrics.  They can count people.  They can count congregations.  They can count money.  They can count trends in their seminary enrollments.  As in my medical world, you can only improve what you can measure.

And like the United Synagogue or its Rabbinical Assembly division, the Southern Baptists found a gap between their desire to have membership defer to the demands of the clergy and the willingness of the people to accept those orders.  In Conservative Judaism, that focal point was intermarriage, addressed in the 1960s as various forms of shunning.  For the Baptists, that focal point was expansion of rights, even fundamental respect for, groups that had previously accepted their subordinate places but no longer do.  While Russell grew up in an age when civil rights law was generally obeyed and women could become respected members of their medical, legal, scientific, and religious communities, the leadership of his religion was scripted in a much different tradition.  They did not have to be respectful of racial minorities, minority political parties in their communities, or even the talents of their own women.  And they have the organizational authority to mold it as they wish, even if it becomes smaller.

My Conservative Jews responded to their attrition differently than Russell's Southern Baptists.  Yet they have the same dilemma, where to cede to popular sentiment and where to stand by principles, or sometimes opportunities, even if negative organizational consequences.  For the Baptists, along comes a political savior, a wretched individual, but one who when given power will protect the racism and misogyny of established tradition.  And those who defy the political protector, even if protecting the wrong things, will be shunned, even excommunicated.  And so Russell, a devoted member of their tribe, a man trained in the fundamental theology of Christ and the social needs of the organization, found himself defending not only his own beliefs, but the doctrines of the Church which the leadership had assaulted through misconduct.  You can't fight City Hall usually means acceding to more powerful forces for most, but relocating for some.  Russell held his ground.  His talent allowed him to express himself in his podcasts, articles, and now a book.

And what the book instills, or at least my read and generalization, is that organizations whose people of authority debase it never really lose the merit that underlies their creation.  Evangelical Christianity still seeks to bring out the good in people even when their top brass act in their most hypocritical way.  Conservative Judaism protects our traditions and reconciles with our participation in the secular world even when the Rabbis' litmus tests prove destructive. True, even as I personally shifted in the direction of Orthodox.  The Catholic Church, for all its detestable activities through history to this day, still sponsors educational institutions, art, premier medical centers, including places where I am proud to have studied and worked.  The contemporary Republican Party with its allegiance to a blight of an individual still advocates for its share of laudable initiatives like patriotism, individual initiative, and centrality of our family units. But I still vote Democratic, which has better appeal amid its liabilities. He advocates expressing disapproval of the ethically wrong elements like racism but protection of the redeeming elements like the messages of Scripture.  And sometimes advocating for the good requires some blend of keeping your distance but keeping forums of expression available.  That's what Russell seems to have done.  That's why his work connects, even though our theology differs considerably.

Not Tired

Don't know if I'm on a productivity roll or the illusion of one.  Yesterday I spent mostly engaged with mental activities.  I did some laundry and prepared my newly scoured and disinfected aerogarden for planting.  Did a scheduled treadmill session. Other than a short drive with an aborted attempt to get discounted lunch on the WaWa ballyhooed app, I went nowhere.  Instead, I wrote, provoked some folks on Reddit, but mostly read.  And read quite a lot.  Several chapters of my current e-book.  A very long article on the inappropriate response of the political left and supportive university denizens to rationalize recent atrocities against Israelis by Hamas.  Made more than my usual Tweets, less than my usual FB comments.  Did well on crosswords.  Listened to a wonderful seminar from the Hartman Institute.  Made a video for my YouTube Channel.  Looked up two people, one of recent acquaintance, one from the very distant past who had done interesting things since our HS days.  A mental day.  A very satisfying mental day.

At the end of the day, I dozed while watching a documentary on the Smithsonian Channel, but likely only napped to the early stages of sleep.  In bed, I stayed awake, got up, read some more e-book and the long essay.  Still not able to sleep when returning to bed, but lights out.  Eventually sleep cycles took over.  My smartwatch tracker records six hours, but my recollection of the last glance at the red numerals on the clock radio and the numerals at wake time is closer to four.  Got out of bed and on to dental hygiene twenty minutes before the smartwatch alarm buzzed, then coffee, and now laptop.  No messages overnight.

Despite what seems like sleep deprivation, I do not feel the least bit drowsy.  It is a treadmill day and a morning OLLI class.  While the mental activities left me satisfied, today may be better diverted to more of a mixture of chores and recreation.  I also do not feel irritable, not annoyed with anyone or anything.  By the end of the daylight hours, the sleep deficit should express itself as fatigue with a return to my more customary surly self.  But for now, at least until treadmill time, some more reading and thinking.

Staying on Task

Semi-Annual Projects.  Weekly Agenda.  Daily Task List.  All interrelated, though not all really subdivisions of the others.  My laundry or the dishes is never part of a larger plan, though on certain days it might be a daily task.  And all twelve Semi-Annual Projects require multiple steps.  So as I filter my effort from the grandiosity of what I thought would be good to work on in June or December to what I need to do today I reach a daily branch point.  I could either be working on it or I did it.  That distinction is not always clear each day, but at the reckoning when one six-month cycle moves to the next it is.

As I mark each day's aspirations each morning I put a designation at each task that I regard as finite, I can tell when I have or have not completed it.  Sometimes, but not often, I put a different designation for those which when done will not reappear in the following week's outline.  There are so few of these that I largely stopped isolating them.

I think my mind defaults to working on it, as most daily efforts are components of a grander aspiration.  It may be better to assess in a framework of I did it.  This does not always delineate easily.  I can tell when I've read a NEJM article or washed the fleishig dishes or completed the desired treadmill session.  Figuring out other things like whether I have read enough of the book I am currently reading or reached out adequately to an old friend does not have as clear an end point. But I think I did it makes for a more satisfying end of day review than I worked on it.  

Dubious Expert Advice

Middle of the Night Insomnia affects a lot of us.  Despite my best faith effort to standardize my sleep times with widely accepted Sleep Hygiene rules, my first awakening comes with the red numerals on the clock radio behind me displaying approximately 3AM, sometimes earlier, rarely much later.  To be sure, it's never anywhere close to my aspired wake up time.  The books, and the professor whose seminar I just took at a modest fee to support the sponsoring organization, advised arising if not back to sleep in twenty minutes or so.  I set my smartwatch timer for a half hour, extend it once or twice a little beyond that, affirm my intent to enjoy the warmth of my down comforter for that interval, and avoid thinking about the last day's events or next day's agenda.  Never back to sleep before the wrist buzz.  Eventually I do get back to sleep, and frequently find myself restored to some respectable stage of the sleep cycle, I don'ttts know which, when the buzz from the smartwatch awakes me with intent.  If not really asleep I get up.  If sleep cycle interrupted I wait a while longer for the morning radio to blare its 7:15AM Sousalarm March feature, then get up almost always without fail

But the professional advice is not to do that.  It is to get up and do something relatively mindless.  Laptop and cellphone screens off limits, big screen TV OK.  Reading OK.  Studying not OK.  My default is a documentary on the Big Screen in My Space while I lean back on the recliner.  Nature shows.  Geography or geology shows.  I've exhausted most of the history shows.  Podcasts sometimes, though they tend to keep my mind too engaged for what I am trying to achieve.  Eventually I get drowsy, probably a little sooner than I had if I had stayed in bed, but not that much sooner.

Having now done this for consecutive nights, my observation is that I feel less rested when the intended wake up time arrives.  I still arise from bed, head to the sink for morning dental hygiene irrespective of how I feel, go downstairs where I successfully brew coffee in the Keurig Express, which I then take upstairs to sip at my desk.  I have the function to do a few petty chores, whether watering the indoor plants or retrieving the newspaper for my wife, and doing a few dishes still sitting overnight in the tub in the kitchen sink.  But I mostly really need that coffee back at my desk.  It washes down the morning antihypertensives and PPI.  And by about half the coffee consumed, adenosine receptors adequately blocked, I am reasonably ready to do a few of the day's projects outlined the night before.

Do I feel better or worse in the mornings when I follow the expert advice?  My assessment is worse, at least to the completion of that coffee.  That may not be the goal, however.  The purpose may be a more sustained ability to function for the duration of nature's daylight hours with the morning ookies the price for being able to do that.  I'm not sure yet if that will play out.

Testing a Friendship

The workplace is where you meet people.  Unless you own the enterprise or have been given hiring authority, generally the people you encounter are not of your own choosing.  We used to have a small amount of experience with this in our first year of college when somebody in the housing office assigned us a dorm room and roommate.  This may have been done randomly in some places, or perhaps with intent to force interaction between people of different backgrounds.  A scion might need to share space with a student of need, an athlete with a bookworm.  And dorms have other rooms with other pairs of people that you have no choice but to accommodate when using the lavatories or attending dorm events or even sharing the elevators.  We used to have a military draft which mingled people of different backgrounds very effectively during World War II, much less so in the Vietnam era, and not at all now.  The dorm experience of my era has now given way to people choosing to live with their camp or HS friends, or opting for a homogeneous ethnic dorm with a hotline for every microaggression slight.  That delays our need to adapt to people we would likely not have selected on our own to the common missions of where we work.

My workplaces over a forty year career have been a few.  People leave.  New people get hired.  Residents complete their training and move on to be replaced by new graduates that The Match assigns.  We accumulate a lot of acquaintances with a subset of a few who become friends. 

“Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.”

― Benjamin Franklin        

That way work gets done, everyone benefits.  Some of the familiar persists when the sharing of work ends.  Business objectives move along to really holding a few people in special esteem.  Keep in mind that nothing is really permanent.  Couples divorce.  Kids run away or get disinherited.  Friends cheat each other.  But for the people you seek out in the workplace to bounce ideas off each other because of the respect they have earned, when the business deal is no more, the caring about them and the regard built in the best of times remains.  

A bit of a strain arose, not a personal spat, not even an interactive one, but a rift in what we believe and how we are scripted.  As we got into the closing days of Sukkot Israel came under attack.  I am a Zionist, for sure, but I also believe in standards of conduct.  And what Israeli voters have done to themselves does not exactly conform with what I aspire for the place that would be my default homeland if ever I were displaced.  I'm just not a hardball player.  The State has had its share of turmoil, more external than internal.   But it is the safety net for people like me, and certainly my not too distant ancestors, who got caught in systemic murders for being Jewish.  And there is also the need for sovereignty.  Of our Festivals, Sukkot has a universal message, applicable at least symbolically to the traditional 70 Nations of the World.  And ours is one of the seventy.  We need sovereignty, and for the last 75 years amid many challenges we have maintained it.

On a Festival that keeps the observant of us off electronic media, our State of Israel was attacked, and in a way that had no rules of restraint.  People celebrating, people no threat to anyone, were rounded up.  The infirm, the minors, women tending to their families, celebrants.  Whoever might be there for the taking.  Armed Gazans just gathered them or killed them outright.  They house their weapons in hospitals and mosques then complain that other military no longer respects the sanctity of healing and worship.  I once visited West Point with the Scouts.  We saw a parade.  As cadets were displaying what they had learned, the announcer summarized their curriculum as the Honorable Profession of Warfare.  There was nothing honorable at taking hostages or tossing grenades into civilian bomb shelters.  War is by definition destructive, but since international agreements after World War II, nations realized they could stop short of ruthless.  We saw ruthless, a complete denial of betzelem elokim, the image of God that would describe humanity in the Torah passage scheduled for the following morning.

Much to my surprise, my physician friend, a very capable professional who would not hurt anyone, starts posting distorted photos of Israeli soldiers maiming children.  I've met IDF soldiers.  They understand betzelem elokim.  But for the safety of the public, the military sites co-mingled with the population have to be deactivated, whether or not children are placed there knowing that the IDF will not shoot them dead or gather them into a cage indiscriminately.

It's the difference between success by character and success by technique.  The two sides are not equal, as the President of the United States affirmed in his international message a few days later.

But am I willing to Unfriend anyone, particularly a person who has much to admire professionally and personally.  So far I am not.  She knows what a hostage is.  But like many of us, she also knows who is in her tribe and what expressions of loyalty keep her in good standing.  The President described this attack as evil.  Taking an honorable person half a world away and create incentives to do things that are beneath my expectations of a friend reinforces the evil.

                                                                         

Barely Looking

Very few things in recent years bring me to my state's concentration of shopping places.  There's very little I need to buy other than replenish food periodically.  Clothing I have in excess, winter and summer, though I just invested in a good pair or New Balance cross-training shoes and a new whiteboard, both supplied by amazon.com.  And I bought new deck furniture from local stores this summer.  For my trip to France I got a new camera online and from local stores two cross chest security bags.  But I need very little in the way of stuff.  Within a few minutes drive I have a Target, TJ Maxx, and Lowes plus a small hardware store that always makes it easy to get the little things for the house that I need when I need it.  Home Depot and Walmart are a little farther.  The best place to buy wine is near the Home Depot, while the best place to buy beer is next to the small hardware store.  I no longer carry a Costco membership.  Eating out is a rarity, and when I want breakfast or a slice of pizza, places a short drive from me are adequate.  

I almost never find myself in proximity of the main gathering of retailers, mostly when I donate platelets.  To be fair, some of the places near there are sufficiently unique and of interest that I consider stopping there before heading home, just a short extra drive from my usual highway entrance.  A Vietnamese market had opened, a place I would tour one time to see what they had.  For sure, things I could not get near me, but very little suitably Kosher.  And there is the region's only Cabela's where much of my fishing supplies come from.  Some off-price high-end outlets, Saks now gone, Nordstrom's hanging on.  A few places to consider eating, hoagie place, milkshake place.  And a Container Store, a place of inspiration though priced above what I am usually willing to spend.

So I had completion of a platelet donation, ending just at lunchtime.  Coffee and Oatmeal cookie in the Blood Bank's canteen satisfied any appetite for lunch, even a good hoagie or cheap but large Costco pizza slice.  Opted for Cabela's, just a brief tour.  I had not been there in maybe a year.  Easy to get to.  Ramp back to highway home just past their entrance.

Not many shoppers in their parking lot.  Entered.  Hunting on the left, fishing and camping on the right, clothing on either side of the center aisle.  I don't need anything, though a sufficient discount would create some interest in another pair of jeans or cargo pants.  No good discounts.  Good deal on Bass Pro Shop logo mesh baseball caps, but I already have a surplus of baseball caps.  Decided not to look at the game fish in their aquarium, nearly all Kosher with fins and scales.  Right face, then continue the perimeter.  If I needed, or even wanted, another fishing rod/reel combo, they had some.  Did not look at hooks or lures at all.  Glanced to my left where they keep the camping supplies as I headed to the door.  Still no interest in lunch, no interest in storage ideas for my home.  Got on highway.

Didn't need anything.  Didn't want anything.

Seeking Chabad

I made a reservation to be at Chabad for erev Simchat Torah.  There are times I prefer to be there.  I've never been mistreated there. I don't even know if it's possible to be treated poorly there, at least if you are male.  In our modern era where everyone slights everyone else, such places are rare. They have their ingrained customs, a few of which exclude me, though I've never felt excluded.  In many ways just the opposite.  Their legacy Rebbe z"l insisted that people be brought closer than when they arrived.  And his shlechim who I've met never disappoint.  Kindness has a very high value there, as I learned in other settings.

I particularly seek out erev Simchat Torah.  They have a mincha service for which I am helpful to their minyan.  Then they have a small buffet in their rather large sukkah, though the requirement to be in the sukkah has passed by then.  They do not charge for the meal.  I eat judiciously, though their Rabbi sometimes nudges me to help myself to more.

What attracts me, though, comes between the meal and the formality of maariv services with its hakafot, where the Torah scrolls are paraded though the sanctuary and, weather permitting, outside while songs are sung and the men, only men, dance with the scrolls.  Many also lift up their kids in lieu of holding a scroll.  Yet that is also not why I target this evening for being there.  Before maariv, their assistant Rabbi sits all the children in a line, boys and girls together, approximately by age with the youngest on the left.  He poses them a question, usually asking what type of activity they will assign themselves going forward to perform the required mitzvot more consistently.  He starts with the younger children.  Questions of this type are fairly easy and answers plentiful.  They will help mom with shabbos dinner or say the traditional prayer on arising every morning, or be nicer to their brothers.  As the kids get older, many already performing what is expected of them, the answers get harder.  What do I do now that I can do even better, not correcting what I am neglecting, though there is some of that.  Everybody can donate a little more to tzedakah, or maybe the same total amount but giving on a set schedule.  They have a study curriculum in school.  They can add some study not required of them in school.  And they can be a little more patient with their younger sibs or more helpful to their parents. I think of my answers as he goes, keeping them to myself.

While each child announces his or her upcoming resolve, the very personable Rabbi cheers them on and makes his share of quips that cause the parents, or observers like me, to grin a few times.  In some ways the event reminds me of the final minutes of Art Linkletter's House Party, where he would interview four school age children during the final few minutes of his daily show.  They would say the darndest things, which became the title of his book.  

I have a synagogue too, one that does not generate frequent grins considering the regularity of my attendance.  Simchat Torah is a festive time.  Chabad seems more predictably festive.  And they have kids.  And they exude kindness, not out of obligation but from imprint.  I've never been treated poorly there.  It's the place for me to be as we approach the very end of our Holy Day season.

Past the Alarm

Some divided research conclusions have explored how well, or even whether, we can change our sleep patterns.  Fundamentally people are programmed to be diurnal, get up in daylight, retire for the night when it's dark.  Many religions, mine among them, time what we are expected to do when by these cycles of day and night.

In our modern world we have rush hours morning and evening when people accommodate their working times.  Marketers know when prime time is to maximize media advertising revenue.  And for a lot of us who struggle to be asleep when we think we should, a variety of chemical time readjustments are available for purchase.

But we still have people who work the dark hours, sometimes as rotating shifts, sometimes as their careers.  And we take care of our little ones whose internal clocks have not yet been settled.  We party to the wee hours sometimes.  And whatever time it is in my house, it is shifted by 12 hours someplace else.

I have the good fortune to have been primarily a day worker with some periodic after dark responsibilities.  Now I am past that, retired, with few external impositions of what I must do when.  That makes my wake times something of a box of hours to be filled with activities largely of my choosing.  I want to be productive, but I also don't want to be dragging myself to my next undertaking that I might find more enjoyable if fully alert and energetic.

I thought I would expand that box of wakefulness by forty minutes, twenty at the start of the day and twenty at the end of the day.  My sleep would be the same, I thought, as I don't actually sleep during all the dark hours allotted for it.  What I wanted was two more twenty minute sessions of work time.  I could do some very useful, or at least pleasant things in twenty minutes.  And I have resources to assist me, unlike hour hunter-gatherer ancestors our Rabbis who depend on looking at the sky.  My cell phone has a sleep tracker app installed, which includes a wake-up time.  My smartwatch can buzz my wrist at a time coordinated with its cell phone app.  Just set the alarm and get up when it nudges me.

The end of the day is a little harder to regulate.  I can use the clock to decide whether I am in bed or out.  Coordinating rigid lights out time with my wife whose biological clock is shifted later than mine has less consistency.  And when watching TV, my own internal clock often goes on snooze.  So while I can get that twenty minutes of bed is off-limits time, I cannot necessarily make it productive.

So work with what I can, the morning.  Set the smartwatch for the desired time.  Got up at the buzz for a while.  Then middle of the night insomnia returned, wakefulness when I didn't want to be awake.  The buzz started coming right as I returned to effective sleep.  That left a dilemma, force myself to arise at the signal or follow my internal signal to not interrupt those deeper stages of sleep that are often elusive.  So far, I've compromised.  Sleep through the wrist alarm but listen to the radio behind the bed.  Arise after the emcee plays the daily march.  That leaves me reasonably awake.  It also leaves me without those extra twenty minutes of focus each morning, which was the purpose of resetting the sleep times.  And I really want those twenty minutes at each end of my day.

Thanksgiving Menu

Thanksgiving has been another demarcation day for me over many years.  In school it was not only a long weekend, but an appetizer for the much longer school break to follow, though perhaps also in college that needed reminder that finals needed some intense study after the long weekend.  In my medical years, since I covered everyone else for Christmas, I could count on Thanksgiving off.  As a homeowner, leaf raking took place at maximum intensity that weekend, time shared with kitchen chores.  And it was my turn to plan and execute one of my two annual elaborate dinners, using the inspirations of my growing cookbook collection, later the skills from Food TV.

Now in my later years, an empty nester, guests are fewer.  Somebody else deals with the leaves in the form of mulching with the weekly mowing.   It is a long weekend from OLLI Classes, and maybe still a prelude to a longer university hiatus where I manage to take a short trip most years.  But dinner, its planning and execution, keep it one of my annual calendar landmarks.

My guest list numbers six, a number to match my dining room chairs.  I might even add a leaf to the dining room table, something I've not had to do for many years.

Menu planning started by cookbook browsing, but will become more focused.  The format is largely set.

1. Motzi
2. Appetizer
3. Soup
4. Salad
5. Dressing
6. Turkey
7. Stuffing
8. Cranberry Sauce
9. Sweet Potatoes
10. Vegetable
11. Dessert
12. Beverage

Since it is not shabbos, the bread need not be a challah.  I have my favorite, but I also do not like to repeat individual dishes, unlike many families who have their classics.  I've always made loaf bread for Thanksgiving, but there's no reason I couldn't make bialys or rolls instead.  The appetizer offers some leeway.  I've stuffed vegetables, made samosas.  Imagination prevails here.  Soup tends to be chicken based, a chance to clear my freezer of carcasses.  Add something easy like noodles or rice.  Could make harira, something not suitable for Seder.  Or a fish soup.  Salad has greens most years.  This needs a vinaigrette, homemade.  Or Israeli or Eastern European salads go well, with the dressing part of the recipe.  For six diners I get a whole turkey.  Simple preparation, carved with electric knife.  The stuffing is baked separately, always bread based.  Cranberries are obtained as a fresh package, then boiled with sugar.  Some years I create a flavored additive.  Sweet potatoes also allow me to surf through recipes.  There are a lot of ways to make these.  In November Shop-Rite usually offers a five pound package at a significant discount.  For the vegetable, I like to use one that is green but can be influenced by what is on sale.  Carrots are for Rosh Hashanah.  And dessert tends to have apples, though not always.  Apple cakes can be made pareve.  Or a honey cake with more additives than the no frills variety I typically make for the Holy Days.  And wine.  And a bottle of the evil soda.

Cleanup takes two days, also part of the challenge.  In addition to creating the menu, Thanksgiving is also the time when the kitchen becomes mine.  I have everything I need, cooking utensils, oven, crock pot, knives, mandolin with nearby first aid kit.  Appliances with mixers, choppers, processors.  Workspace.  A sink prepped as fleishig before I begin.  Gratitude, which is the essence of the celebration, includes appreciation for a fully working fleishig kitchen capable of creating something that guests would have difficulty duplicating on their own.  And some gratitude for my own physical capacity to do this and for the ability to have some fun creating the menu, devising what could be a complex game plan for preparation, and relaxation as I clean up and ease into shabbos the following day.

But now, some kitchen organizing and some recipe exploration.

No Messages

FOMO.  My interactive electronics, other than telephone with my kids, shut down for shabbos each week.  From candle lighting Friday until the specified conclusion of shabbos on my congregation's weekly newsletter the internet gets placed someplace else, with rare exceptions like needing Waze to get where I need to go.  Festivals extend that.  These last two days.  When they begin on Wednesday night, or on rare occasions Saturday night, that extends to a three day internet free hiatus.  But mostly two days.  They can cluster a bit, like they do each fall for Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah, plus the Shabbatot between them most years.  FOMO more at the beginning of this season.

I find myself in the middle.  Sukkot with its two days off ended, extended about an extra hour as I was having dinner with friends in a sukkah when the Festival time concluded.  I had left my cell phone in the car's cell phone holder, covered with a baseball cap to deter thievery.  When I returned to my car, Festival fully concluded, I just drove home.  No FOMO at all.

Into the house, supine posture on the living room couch, then see what I missed for two days.  Not exactly Nada, but nothing of any importance that would cause me any hesitation about setting the phone aside again next weekend.  All emails but one, some three dozen of them, from commercial or subscription sources, those automated messages that just go out from places that think I might want new tires or have an article that I have to read, or a FB friend had posted a message of some type not really directed at me personally.  Only one real notification, a message from an old friend wishing me a great Sukkot.  The FB notification bell read 14.  Majority were Likes of something I had posted about the Sukkot festival or something else.  Reminder that a Hagar the Horrible strip was open for view would never get opened, nor will a couple of real FB friends making one more post to share guidance from somebody else who shares their political hashkafa, which never gets opened lest I offer a false impression that I buy into something like that.  The text icon had only one message, that I am due to schedule platelet donation, which I already knew. My initiative to block unsolicited political messages over the past month seemed pretty successful.  Reddit r/Judaism, no messages.  They were all off for Sukkot too.  And Twitter, now appropriately Rated X as a public blight, had no responses to any of the few things I had posted.

So, it appears that much of cyberspace is very expendable.  We've probably known that for about a hundred years, ever since a personal telephone in the home became an American population norm.  When it rings we answer it.  Mostly still do.  For a long time, we wondered who might have called while we were away, mostly rationalizing those missed chances to chat with the largely correct assumption that people who really needed to reach us will call back.  Then we got answering machines and caller ID, so the compulsion to answer every ring before it stopped ringing became much less, though for many of my era never fully disappeared.  And in business and medical care, we accumulated secretaries, answering services, and beepers so there would never be FOMO in that setting.

While postal mail is never urgent, many of us are scripted to look out the door for the mail carrier.  Birthday or holiday cards could be open on arrival or deferred.  Letters, bills, bank statements all had their envelopes opened. Same with IRS refunds, and for those of us applying to schools that year, their correspondence was eagerly awaited each day. Solicitations for money, maybe not.  The nature of postal mail has shifted.  There are no letters, maybe a few greeting cards, no postcards of friends on vacation, bills on autopay and therefore either not notified by mail or already paid before the notices arrives.  Instead, we have a few periodicals, some by paid subscription, some a benefit from organizations where we hold membership, many unsolicited.  But mostly the daily mail is from somebody who desires a portion of our accumulated treasure, sometimes for a worthy cause, sometimes to enrich themselves.

And now we have things beyond our telephone calls that really are interactive.  Personally I don't care who or if anyone responds to my FB posts.  At one time when most of my Class of '69 enrolled, who is doing what today had more urgency than it does now.  Birthdays and anniversaries come while I am away on shabbos.  At one time a belated greeting went out, or if I remember I could be the first to convey my best wishes.  Now I'm just not part of FB that day.  Somewhere between sign-up and a fair number of years ago, notes from my friends mostly petered out in favor of pitches for things for me to buy or to believe in.  Those things don't seriously compete with shabbos or yontif when I am electronically away.  And the posts really haven't generated faux conversations for a considerable time

Some users of Twitter and Reddit try to handle their posts as dialog.  I don't.  I write what I want, let the readers do with it what they want.  No reason to respond to most whether shabbos or not.  

Some use their text messages as a conversation.  Good way to collide with something while driving.  And even if not driving, it's never as good as a telephone call for personal interaction with exchange of ideas.

So for two days periodically and one day every week, I have cyberspace rest.  No FOMO, as I am really not part of this global conversation in real time.  But in exchange, I get fifteen minutes of real interaction, those few minutes selecting who I want to talk to at kiddush or who might want to talk to me while we nosh on a mini black & white cookie and some babka.  Those only happen when the cell phones have been set aside.