Protecting Herbs

While the winter solstice does not occur for a few weeks, frost has arrived.  I exchanged seasonal clothing a couple of months ago.  Snowblower needs to be made functional, though we've not had snow justifying its use for a few years.  Frost has arrived.  While my herbs grow better in the backyard beds than in pots outside the front door, there are enough advantages to the portable pots to sacrifice some abundance of leaves.  Indeed, spearmint and peppermint will overwhelm vegetables when placed there.  The mints become dormant in the winter, re-emerging in the spring.  The basil, rosemary, and sage all need to be replanted.  With the frost, I've been taking the four pots inside in the hope they will survive the winter.  None are really flourishing but have enough leaves for garnish use, and rosemary enough for culinary use.  They still do better in the sun, so for the next few months when we have a thaw they go back outside the front door, with a freeze they return to the lower hallway.  I do not know if the abrupt changes in temperature moving between inside and outside will have an ill effect.  I know that leaving them outside will guarantee they will function as annuals. 

Talmud Class

My first Talmud class in many years.  As a student, now 50 years ago, the Hillel Rabbi, who to this day I regard as my Rav, offered students an introduction to Talmud.  We had a monograph introductory text and xerox of Mishnah in translation.  I attended a few weekly classes, the oldest student there amid some undergrads, and enjoyed being there.  The class included the content of the Mishnah, but more importantly it focused on how to tease out text to elaborate not only on what was expressed but on challenges that each text invited.

Then a very long gap, decades.  My congregational rabbi now retired, decided to have a Talmud class at a long table in the synagogue library.  Artscroll's multi-volume Talmud Bavli had been mostly issued, with a few volumes to go.  This class attracted about ten men on a weeknight, all solidly experienced at Jewish liturgy, reasonably experienced at Torah, and familiar with Jewish law and how it is derived.  While not beginners like at university Hillel, only a few of the men at the table, with no targeted exclusion of women, had previous significant experience with Mishnah or Gemara as primary text.  I did not.  Artscroll produced a useful format.  The page in Hebrew/Aramaic was a reproduction of an actual Talmud.  The English translation tried to stay within that format as best as the editors could accomplish.  So we read from our xeroxes while the Rabbi retained the original printed volume in front of him as we read the original text from the big print in the center of a page, then the translation, followed by a discussion of its implications.

As much as I enjoyed it for the hour or so devoted to it, studying Talmud text this way was not something I would want to do for hours at a time as they do in yeshivot.  Our group of about ten was suitable for a small seminar, the type that the mostly professionals in our group had come to expect from previous university experience.  We all knew that the pros practiced with a personal study partner, sometimes of comparable ability though often of highly disparate experience, depending on the more capable partner to advance the junior partner.  More like a tutor than a peer.

The Artscroll Talmud Bavli sat on the library shelf, all volumes eventually translated and displayed, for many years.  It would be interesting, I suppose, to pull random volumes off the shelf, open to a few random pages, and have a Scout with a fingerprinting Merit Badge figure out who, if anyone, had even opened that page in decades.

Our new congregational Rabbi is an authentic maven of all types of Jewish sources, including Talmud.  He opted to offer as his first series, Tuesday evenings twice a month to study Talmud together.  In the years since I last looked at Artscroll's Talmud, we now have cellphone access via Sefaria.org.  We also have Zoom classroom options.  The Rabbi or his Influencers and Planners, from which I was excluded, opted to begin with a hybrid format.  It is tough to classify the mission of the class as anything but pluripotent.  Those attending live at the synagogue slurped on spaghetti with sauce before the session, bringing a social element to the program.  As a Zoomer, I was kept in the Waiting Room by the host until the discussion was ready to begin, maybe an hour after the announced starting time, though it is likely they may have capitalized on men in the flesh to have a maariv service before the pasta and sauce came out.

Notification was ample.  I had mixed feelings about enrolling, as the Influencers have labelled me a mere consumer without any role in the more fulfilling parts of project design of this or anything else congregational, something I would be dishonest with myself if I denied at least a minor element of resentment.  But the new Rabbi has made being part of the synagogue more fulfilling, totally devoid of Hebrew School flashbacks that had irritated me so, that I owed myself a sampling.

I registered for the Zoom option a few hours before the class.  Within an hour, the secretary acknowledged my interest, forwarding me the class materials.  I read all the English sources in their entirety in two sessions before the announced starting time, something that a fair number of others in attendance did not.   Despite my upper tier literacy, I found them a little difficult to follow.  There were three pieces, ranging from 1 to 3 pages each, a page of footnotes that required navigating on a computer screen.  The connection between the annotated comments and its original source found difficult to correlate.  

While cooling my fingers in the Zoom Waiting Room, those live finished their suppers and somebody let me onto the screen.  The agenda sent to me included schmooze, as connection is a purpose of a kehillah, one that I give my congregation a very mixed and sometimes unflattering review.  Zoom was not part of schmooze, and once in the room nobody really greeted me, nor did I take the initiative to offer a shalom to anyone else.  Attendance seemed about twenty, half live, half zoom.  The people the project attracted had the usual people in attendance but also a few whose presence was less ubiquitous and the dominance of Influencers that give me flashbacks of USY Cliques of my 1960s did not overwhelm.

The session began.  Questions were provided by the rabbi in advance to help focus our attention.  This is mostly a good thing, but with its limitations.  If a doctor looks at an X-ray with no hints, he will see what is on the X-ray.  If he is told that the patient has a cough, he will look for things that cause a cough, overlooking the fractured clavicle.  If a visit to the art museum presents a painting, the viewer will look at the painting's features.  If the painting has a title, like a Biblical figure, confirmation bias and attention shift take over the viewer will describe Abraham's beard or something about the city in the background being pre-devastation Sodom.  Having questions to answer while reading adds focus, but at the price of often helpful mind and imagination wandering.

Talmud is traditionally studied as a partnership, called Chevruta.  The pairs may be of comparable experience or one may dominate the other.  But for that type of learning to be effective it has to be sustained in increments over time, so that sophistication of analysis can progress.  One or two times often leaves you with a setting of pooled ignorance where nobody is really proficient but everyone is a Dunning-Kruger who thinks they are.  And that is largely what I found.  Breakout groups of two to four are easily done in person.  They are possible on Zoom but we did not go that way.  Instead, we had two dominant men among the ten with very little questioning or challenging, which is really how Talmudic study advances, even in a one and done setting as ours.  If subsequent session are still ten people on Zoom pooling their druthers, it may not be my best option for advancing my own proficiency.  And since the social aspect did not materialize on Zoom enrollment, my tenure with the group may need to be reconsidered after another class or two.

Since the Rabbi has the expertise, I think the medical model or law school Socratic method of teaching a group of that size works better for the format they have chosen.  People read the material in advance.  The expert poses a question.  People respond, either voluntarily or by calling on somebody randomly.  Others, including the expert then respond to the response and take the discussion in a new direction.  Or if you want to have Chevruta, then do that, but definitely not the illusion of Chevruta or a discussion group of ten with negligible individual expertise.

Finally, would I have chosen the topic and literature that began the series?  It was interesting, maybe a bit esoteric.  It also wandered a bit.  The original translated passage and its literary expansion were challenging to compare and contrast, as they likely had different purposes.  I think a better topic, one that comprises my past experience with Talmud, would be to select a practice of familiarity.  It could be shabbos, tfillin, why we sit for certain portions but stand for others.  All things for which we already have a personal frame of reference, for which we know the outcome of the discussion.  Then work in reverse, start with the Torah reference and follow the passages of Talmudic discussion that generate not only our current familiar practice but often purposefully reject advocates of other alternatives.  I think that would be much more rewarding than short literary adaptations of Talmudic passages, particularly those for which there really is no end resolution.

So that's my initial encounter.  I bring interest for sure.  I also bring with me a mixed expectation based on a synagogue familiarity.  Dear Therapist of The Atlantic fame realizes people come to these programs with their story already written, as do I.  Her writers usually express themselves as I'm Trapped.  I am not trapped.  OK experience for now, probably not OK experience indefinitely.  I want them to change, to which she usually responds, no you have to change.  Up to a point I'm willing, but Influencers being external to me, eventually the decision to continue becomes a very binary Y/N.  For another week, I can leave it as a Y.

Driving to PHL

Airports link places, usually places with lots of people, though their cities place them mostly in the parts of the area with least density.  My airport, PHL, gets me away to places I would prefer to be instead, at least for a short time.  Then it enables my return to where I want to remain for a much longer time.  I rarely drive there.  For ten years, I drove past it twice daily as a commuting motorist, exiting at the ramp just beyond to reach my office, not paying much attention, rarely inconvenienced by traffic that a hub like an airport would generate.  As a flying passenger, maybe twice a year, I would mostly drive that same highway, exiting one ramp earlier to park my car at a lot with a per diem fee.  At other times I would pay a driver, either a scheduled shuttle or in the internet age, an Uber.  Airports and its transportation have their market forces.  The Blue Shuttle van became too expensive, especially if two passengers travelled, lost market share, and has been no more for a long time.  There is a shuttle, an executive luxury company, also charging per passenger with limited time availability, at a fare that is not competitive with the convenience of just paying the parking lot.  The parking lots have changed as well.  In pre Website era, I would just drive up at my convenience, press a button at the gate, take my stamped ticket and find a parking space.  That just show up is no more.  Now the lot closest to mine wants a reservation with prepayment, all done through cyberspace with scanning a coded square copied to cell phone as adequate for entry and exit.

When I went to school, my father would have to schlep to EWR or LGA to retrieve me.  He was an experienced city driver, one whose daily commute exceeded mine in time and distance.  He always seemed happy to see me, never hinted of inconvenience.  And for two years, I would drive twice a year to the airport lot at STL.  Easy drive on secondary highways, little traffic, few turns, readily available lots, now totally obviated by a Metro that connects STL with convenient parts of the city.

As my own children attended school and now one lives on the other coast, I find myself as their airport transportation when hosting them.  As much as I try to accommodate their needs as my father did mine, I really do not like sitting behind the wheel to reach either the arrival or departure gate.  To be fair to the airport, they did what they could to ease the ordeal.  For departures, it's an exit off I-95, or even the exit before the designated Airport exit, follow a mostly straight road with no turns, follow the signs to departure terminals.  No major mergers.  Get in the right travel lane one letter before the letter of the desired gate and finally pull to the curb under the sign of that airline at that building.  Traffic has been mostly self-directing, though airport police will assist at peak times.  Drivers know they need to let their passengers off expeditiously, stopping only long enough to help with luggage and a final hug.  We all know somebody behind us wants that curb space and yield it quickly.  The exit back to the highway home is in the far left lane past the terminals, so I just mosey across the road from the far right to the far left, never encountering cluttered lanes to my left as I try to do this.  Then follow signs to the highway.

Picking guest up requires more savvy, though greatly aided by modern technology.  The airport designated a waiting lot, dependent on somebody in the car having a cell phone, which the passenger also needs to have.  They also need to know each other's phone number or have it in the phone's memory.  There is a plane arrival board, listed by departure city and time of arrival.  It will designate whether the plane has landed.  The driver can call the passenger, or the passenger can call the driver and tell where they are and what they are wearing for easy location.  Then just drive to the arrival terminal, look for clothing or waving arms, pull up to the curb, get in, and go.  Only one way to drive from the lot to the arrival section.  Then back to the left lane which goes directly to the highway.  Not hard to do at all.

When I travel myself, airports always appear more chaotic than they really are.  At PHL I have a shuttle from parking lot to terminal and back, always crowded with other shuttles, taxis, and now Ubers.  At other airports where I have no familiarity with layout, ground transportation has too many options, from subway, taxi, shuttles of various types with limited drop off points, to minibuses to car rental locations.  I leave those to the local pros, much as the most experienced cruise ship captain defers to the local tug pilot in a visiting port.  But at least plan which form of transit in advance.  Always have gotten where I need to go, not always without some snafus.

Giving Tuesday

Holiday season has arrived, with its pluses and minuses.  Turkey partly eaten, partly carved and frozen for subsequent meals.  Thanksgiving fleishig dishes nearing completion of hand washing.  Kids' Hanukkah gifts wrapped.  Black Friday was once a day in which I would get up very early, pick my bargain from the plethora of store ads that accompanied the Thanksgiving morning newspaper, and make a bee line for my selection, usually a gift for my wife's birthday that follows the holiday by about a week.  No interest in this day for a few years, though this year I drove my daughter to the nearby Farmer's market where I indulged myself in a slice of pizza and a piece of crumb cake, then picked up a few bags of candy at their dollar store.  Cyber Monday of no interest, but it probably beats people scouring the stores, large and small, for just the right gift while they crowd the parking lots.  That brings us to Giving Tuesday.

Already every organization that I ever visit or donate to, other than my synagogue, has automated its request for contributions on that day.  My email teems with reminders that tomorrow has been earmarked for supporting non-profits of various types.  Social agencies, the arts, alma maters, advocacy groups, even political candidates.  There is a lot of money to share and mostly good causes to share it with.  And it helps that people are now starting to consider reducing some of their tax burden next spring.

My own Tzedakah process has been semi-automated for decades.  On a certain day each month, I give a fixed sum.  The destination is set in advance for some agencies, others vary over the course of the year.  I think it's a better system than a single day each year with reminders from worthy causes, and a few questionable ones, dominating the subject line of my email Inbox.

Somebody Else's Party

Elegant receptions are few in my senior years, not that I miss them.  They are an opportunity to upgrade my social skills, a lifelong struggle.  I do OK with the preliminaries, seeking out people I don't know or haven't seen in a while, and getting them to talk about their kids or the like.  The bartender always has expertise to impart about firewater.  The DJ or server always seems to be eager to disclose how the music is selected or what college courses the income from their serving job subsidizes.  Some people have a past, some have a future.  Most have interests, with guests selected from people with overlapping interests.  

Once seated at a table, though, my interest in people largely ends.  Sometimes I choose a table and others take the remaining chairs.  Sometimes the host assigns tables.  In either situation, I can expect my wife to sit next to me, unlike home where she sits across from me in my line of sight.  Round tables for eight or ten have too large a diameter to speak across, leaving me conversation with the person next to me, unless I want to go table hopping.

And so I found myself recently.  Good time mingling at the alcove which contained food and drinks where people gathered to exchange greetings.  Not a great time after that.  The host and hostess were lovely people, emerging friends from my synagogue who invited everyone who's anyone from the synagogue, assigning us to tables by some combination of algorithm and judgment.  And I sat next to the person at my table who I would most choose to sit next to.  And each synagogue table had at least one A-List and B-List couple, which is a lot better than clustering all the Influencers together.  But once seated it was a themed event, with me as spectator.  

This being a landmark anniversary celebration, the evening started with a biographical slide show.  It's good to learn more about friends.  I now know their ages, a little of their work history, their parents, the sequential arrival of their children, and the origins of their passion for Israeli dance expanded to other forms of dance.  One of the great joys of seeing patients in the office and at the bedside was the need to get them to talk about themselves and the skill I acquired in getting them to do that.  And the stories often intrigued me.  This evening these engaging people selected what they wanted to disclose about themselves, more factual history than things they aspire to.  I knew he had a brother who is a cardiologist.  I did not know they were twins, and still don't know who is the older.  I had known he made his living designing office space for medium to large enterprises.  I did not know that he started in a family furniture business.  I knew they had children but not that all three were boys.  I still do not know where their kids live.  And I knew he chose our town for retirement relocation in part because he had a close relative nearby, a man I knew very well who sat next to my wife at my table.

His wife's background seemed mostly new.  Her entry to Israeli dance, her role as dance instructor predating her marriage, a little about her parents and younger sister.  Her role in our synagogue is much more a background one.

The guests divided into synagogue people and dancers, with significant overlap, plus a few relatives.  As much as I like listening to music, including what accompanies dance, I am not a dancer.  I did find myself unexpectedly in awe of a few really expert ballroom dancers, none of whom I knew from the synagogue, but the circle dances of Jewish origin left me outside this time.  At a Bar Mitzvah or a wedding, everyone can enter the circle and stomp in the direction of motion.  With accomplished dancers, the steps were more programmed and the people dancing knew the choreography.  I was an outsider for sure, yet also an outsider to conversation as the music and dance floor spectacle dominated.  

That left me with food, a few words with the young man next to me, a few words with my wife next to me.  Food was fine.  Nobody from any of the other tables came over to me, nor did I seek out anyone from other tables, most of whom were closer friendships and more interesting people than anyone at my table.  Quick shift from party to business obligation in my mind.  I very much like observing people, though I much prefer engaging them.  I saw who a recently divorced friend sought out on the dance floor.  I learned later that they had been childhood acquaintances, each attending solo and each seated at separate tables.  I looked at the others who had come solo, including the man next to me and a few others from synagogue at an adjacent table.  Most of them stayed quietly at their tables until their turns for the buffet.  My turn to the buffet came, one of silence.  I surveyed what was Kosher enough and what was obviously fleishig unkosher, noticing who from my synagogue restricted or didn't.  But however assessed, by the time the pretable wandering ended, I had shifted from participant to observer.  And while observing what is around me has its element of satisfaction, it really ends the party for me.

So I ate first a full plate of what is acceptable from the buffet, then from the dessert table.  I really wanted to go home long before I actually did, despite being amid very cordial people.  Being amid is not the same as being immersed.

Sidetracked

Thanksgiving break has arrived. My OLLI Classes have suspended, In college Wednesday would have been a travel day.  I think public school still had classes on Wednesday but intercity travel, particularly air travel for family to assemble, was much less common than now.  Instead, Thanksgiving break has become a multifaceted demarcation point.  For some it is time off, for others seeing people not seen in a while.

My own interlude may need to focus on getting back on track.  Since my trip to Europe at the end of he summer, many of the other things I intended to do over this semi-annual cycle have found their way to the back burner.  I've done virtually no public writing, little focused reading, not been pursuing the home upgrades I thought I had aspired to, not engaged with friends as I might have.  Much of this purposeful activity found its way to screen time, those Twitter sinks or Reddit where at least my contributions are useful to other people.  I have had guests, even devoted some attention to the kitchen as I will for Thanksgiving, but at the cost of other things.  So the Did Instead wasn't nearly as valuable as what I had set out to do.

Some things have retained consistency.  Exercise goes mostly on schedule.  I get medical care largely as I should.  I have paid attention to finances and age related transitions.  But too much has gotten sidetracked with inadequate return on effort.

Thanksgiving, wife birthday, a couple of receptions, Hanukkah.  All purposeful.  Screen time, not adequately purposeful.

Returning to Twitter

Twitter, now formally X but for most of its history probably Rated X as toxic, has settled into its new management. Yet with a war in progress, probably a just war to send the modern Amalakites who exploit whatever weaknesses they can identify without regard to consequences, I find myself lured back to commentary.  The service thrives in large part because of the vile nature of the people who display where mental reasoning bottoms out without an editor denying them their functioning SUBMIT icon.

But I have my ideas, too.  And I have the same SUBMIT icon as anyone else.  Needless to say, even as social media goes, my life hardly focuses on X as my forum.  I much prefer the more dignified Reddit where I know nobody, but also cannot tell who is either a public figure or personally accomplished.  Even FB puts me into connection with people that I know.  None are the best without conviction, none are the worst overcome by Yeats' passionate intensity.  I know them personally.  On X, I know many virtually, as they are often public figures with high profile positions, though none personally.  Some really are Yeats' the worst, but a few are also his best.   By now, a successful product of Smart America, I can tell which.

And like my FB personal friends, I have some conviction short of passionate intensity.  But I still have an intellect with sensibility.  My own perspectives may only generate a handful of reads and an occasional response, but it is a forum where I have at least enough conviction and intensity to report what I think to the few viewers that come by.  And with the world fraying around us as Yeats' worst spread their passionate intensity, I need to take ownership of my mind and my SUBMIT icon.

Turkeys

Thanksgiving and Seder have been my two most anticipated annual events for most of my adult life, at least my independent adult life in homes that I could call my own with kitchens that I controlled.  Since I covered the hospital every Christmas for my medical colleagues, I could always count on Thanksgiving as a free day.  Most years everyone assembled at my in-laws for both Thanksgiving dinner and Seder.  While living several hours distant as a medical resident, I tried to secure vacation time to allow the travel to their home for these holidays, succeeding about half the time.  Eventually we settled about an hour's drive away, raised my family, bundled everyone in the car.  As my in-laws became less able to prepare dinner, I began doing it, transporting the food to their home twice a year.  Once my sister-in-law became the sole occupant and my wife and I adapted to being empty nesters, the two elaborate dinners relocated to my kitchen and dining room.

Thanksgiving still has turkey as its centerpiece.  Seder once did as well, though with few people there are better entrée options, particularly things that my sister-in-law would not be able to obtain on her own with limited mobility.  

Turkey comes in a number of forms now, likely a commercial adaptation to smaller gatherings with families geographically scattered and smaller households.  While nothing beats that glorious whole roasted bird, bronzed skin as the olive oil coating and seasonings transform in a hot oven, it is not always practical.  Turkeys are now sold just as breasts, though at a premium per pound price.  I've not seen the legs sold separately, at least not for kosher turkeys.  No doubt, the booth operators at State Fairs around America purchase those legs, which they deep-fry and sell in large amounts.  I have seen turkey cutlets, boneless dark meat.  For four guests or less, and even for some Shabbat dinners with just my wife and me, I will purchase a breast half.  Very easy to make, just oil, season, put in a roasting pan or even a very large skillet, and let it roast for 90 minutes.  Carve with electric knife.  Eat what people can eat, give the rest away to guests or freeze for a subsequent shabbos.

But I still prefer having more people, enough to justify the Big Bird, my anticipated circumstance this Thanksgiving.  Turkey, even kosher turkey, was once an economical option.  It sold for under $2/lb, usually Empire frozen, mass-produced.  And they salted it before freezing, as kashrut requires.  Supermarkets would give them away if you bought enough other things at that store, or drastically reduce the price as a loss-leader to sell more profitable stuffing and pies.  Not so anymore.  Price now about $3.50 or even $4/lb, which would make a 15lb bird about $55.  And the selection has faltered the past few years.  While it is tempting to assign blame to the supply chain failures since the pandemic, kosher turkeys are raised and slaughtered in just a few places that do not require international shipping or sophisticated rail transit.  My main supermarket, Shop-Rite, has only frozen kosher turkeys, and at a look at their freezer, far fewer choices than they once offered.  Most are quite large, in the neighborhood of 18lb.   I only saw one under twelve pounds, something more appropriate to a small gathering.  Trader Joe's has better stuff, in a private arrangement with Empire.  Their turkeys are not frozen, or once were and pre-thawed by the retailer.  Virtually all are of uniform size, about 15 lb. And they sell out fast.  Last year they were all gone before I was ready to purchase, so this year I got one as soon as they went on display.

I moved some things around on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator to accommodate its bulk.  It will stay there until Thursday morning when the plastic wrapping can be cut, usually a fair amount of liquid drained, and a roasting pan prepared by scattering some past prime vegetables around its perimeter.  Place a rack in the middle.  Put in turkey, maybe put something in the cavity.  Coat with olive oil, season with whatever catches my fancy Thursday morning, pre-heat oven, and make it the final dish that needs the oven.  Some food mavens recommend rotating the turkey periodically, which I do as well.  But mostly it's set the timer and wait for it to reach its conclusion, check the thigh temperature for completeness, then let it rest.  

It's gotten more difficult to obtain, more expensive to purchase.  But still the Thanksgiving dinner of choice.

Overextended

This week the organized Jewish community has arranged for a rally on Capitol Hill to protest the rising Anti-Semitism that become more visible as Israel responds to the massacre of its people a month ago.  I went to the last one a few years back, greatly enjoyed the experience, and wrote about it for the local Jewish magazine.  Organizations run shuttle buses, a 2.5h ride each way, though a very pleasant one in a modern coach.  I really wanted to go, but learned of the sponsored bus too late to reserve a seat.  It's just as well, as my weekly list of what I need to accomplish and want to accomplish has reached a record of nearly three columns of items.

Something of a challenge to put I want to do, or even separate what I need to do from what I aspire to do, into categories.  I have a medical test that needs minor preparation.  Memorial prayer for my father next shabbos requires me to attend services.  OLLI classes five days, watch the recording of the class I missed last week.  Shopping for Thanksgiving dinner.  Having a kitchen repair.  There is a big advantage to having my kid's Hanukkah gifts purchased and wrapped before they arrive for Thanksgiving.

And then there are the things I need to maintain health and keep my mind agile.  Eating judiciously, exercising on schedule, reviewing my test results, tracking my health measurements.  And my means of expression:  writing, weekly video, blog, thoughtful social media comments, reading things to which I have subscribed, daily reviews of accomplishments and annoyances.  

And then I need to upgrade portions of my living space and insert some recreation.

It's a rather long list.  And I would have gone to DC for the day if there was still room on the bus.

Morning Routine

Everyone's day has to start somewhere.  Clocks were reset a few days ago to keep the onset of daylight in the vicinity of most people's alarm clock settings at the expense of early evening darkness.  People are used to remaining active for at least a few hours after nightfall though less internally programmed to arise before dawn.  And as visitors to airports figure out, it is always Happy Hour somewhere on earth, keeping their pubs occupied irrespective of local time.

My day does not really start with an alarm clock as much as an inner sense that I ought to get up.  I have made attempts at fixed wake and sleep times, deferring to the Sleep Hygiene guidance of experts but my internal programming never quite resets as the gurus predict it would.  So I make a commitment to myself each morning to limit my dawn awake time in bed to a clock setting, 7-ish most mornings, and rarely betray that personal commitment.  

Productivity experts, and I'm a sucker for experts, looking mostly in reverse at people who they identify as successful, then teasing out what they find in common about them, largely conclude that people who achieve notable things most days in their daily box of daylight have some predictability to how they start.  Follow them and you will become like them is probably a fallacy, but the findings seem to give an advantage to those who begin each day with some predictable activities.  So my day begins with the electric toothbrush and a floss placker. On Mondays I step on the scale.  Then downstairs to my Keurig -Express, selecting a porcelain cup from my collection and a pod from a rotating rack that usually holds four choices.  Brew 8 oz.  While the water makes its way from the reservoir to heating element, through the grounds, into the cup, I wash a few dishes left over from the night before.  I check the progress of plants in the Aerogarden and chia pots that sit in the living room.  On Mondays I take the yellow tape measure that dangles near my downstairs desk to record my waist circumference, then head outdoors in nightclothes irrespective of weather to transport the daily newspaper from the end of the driveway to the front door where my wife can take it inside for reading, which is essential to her morning routine.  And if the recycling box needs to be emptied into the biweekly recycling bin, I do that at the same outing.

Coffee in hand, it's upstairs to my desk in My Space.  Since my day was outlined the night before, another common habit of successful people, I review it.  Take the morning pills from the daily pill case set out every Sunday, wash down with coffee.  There are opinions to wash amlodipine with a different liquid but my serial BP's have been therapeutic with the way I do it now.  Laptop on.  Messages next:  email, FB, Twitter, Reddit has been my usual sequence.  Then on Monday and Tuesday do The Atlantic Crossword, the only days within my capacity.  Next a blog entry.  Sometimes I can do this in one sitting, sometimes not.  But I always select a theme for the entry and usually begin before moving on to the Washington Post crossword puzzle.  At 8:15AM on dates not divisible by three, I return downstairs for a treadmill session, the duration and speed determined before I start.  Knee and ankle braces to the right joints, running shoes that I keep next to the lounge chair, then exercise with a countdown clock.  It feels good to complete it each time.  Remove shoes and braces.  Usually more coffee, then back upstairs to crosswords or blog or maybe delay slightly to do more dishes.  

That's about two hours.  I've still not gotten dressed, still not had anything seriously caloric.  But several days a week, I need to depart the house for an OLLI class or shabbos services so I close the Morning Routine box, get dressed, and start the parts of my Daily Task Lists that make most days unique in their own way.

Wine with Dinner

Getting tired of making dinner, it had been my intent to use up leftovers last night, then go out tonight.  My wife has an obligation tonight so we shifted days to going out last night.  Most of our options, as we require vegetarian, are a few regional and national chains which this era of restaurant tech makes things efficient, as we can preview menus in advance.  Italian always has pasta, so we went that route.  

As much as I welcome the evening off from KP periodically, cheap evening outs have largely disappeared, mostly because the concept of a treat also includes a serving of wine or beer that I would not have available to myself at home.  About $8 a serving, one serving each.  While our choice offered house bottles for $20, which would have been a better buy, I did not want to drive home with a partially consumed bottle of wine in my car, even in the trunk, though in another era I once did routinely.  Our legislature has been grappling with a bill to make driving home with leftovers illegal.  The merits of that are obvious, the downside also obvious.  Had I purchased a bottle, would I have poured myself the same glass that I purchased individually, or might I have topped it off?  And if I couldn't take leftover wine home, would I get my moneys worth by having only minimal leftovers?  

In my younger years, as newlyweds we lived in a place that had a lot of students some quite wealthy, and a lot of faculty, all prosperous.  Lots of great places for supper, many walking distance from our apartment, but for special occasions I drove to someplace more elaborate.  Wine by the glass had not become available everywhere, so we would get a bottle for those special evenings.  And I would top it off, but keep myself still within safe driving limits, with about half a bottle in the back seat for later.  

My permanent home did not have quite the plethora of whim outing places, we grew our family, and went out less. In addition, I became interested in what I could do in the kitchen.  As a result we went out much less.  I became more interested in craft beers as they came onto the market, something usually served as an ice-cold pint in a tall glass, as I only ordered a selection that they had on tap.  My wife preferred wine, leaving a glass the best option.  Those bottles that we ordered previously essentially stopped, more for economic than liability reasons.

But at home, where saving leftover wine for the following evening had not legal implications, I still purchased a bottle for each elaborate dinner I made myself.  And I almost always drank beyond what would be safe driving.  So trying to duplicate that at an Italian restaurant, even if a better buy, would probably be unwise.  Paid a little extra per ounce, and we each got our glass, but it added about another third to our final tab.  Which is why going out for dinner is relatively infrequent as I reach my senior years.

It Made Me Different

There has never been any ambiguity of my Jewishness.  There has been unease on my part with many of the organizations that claim to represent me, even look out for me.  Encounters with some of the people who claim authority have not always gone in a way that generates my full respect, let alone my loyalty.  Yet my a la carte Judaism, my personal observance, my consistency with tzedakah in the protocol I set up thirty years ago in response to a very adverse personal experience has been unflappable.  I am old enough to have known Holocaust survivors.  My most accomplished relative, a cousin of my mother's, Ivy League PhD in Chemical Engineering, retired from the C-Suite of a company that was willing to hire the most educated Jews when his preferred chemical conglomerate at the time was not.  My own exposure to anti-Semitism has been a few snide remarks from classmates, decent people, one unfamiliar with Jews, the other more familiar than he desired to be.  Certainly over my adult lifetime, there have been events that tied me more closely with other Jews, most notably wars involving Israel, and perhaps the need to allow exit for Soviet Jews.  Yet for all this, now spanning some fifty years, I've never felt threatened, nor have I ever classified any group as permanently beyond any desire on my part for generous relations.  Until this month.

I learned of the orchestrated attack on Israel from our Rabbi who announced only that there had been an attack.  The day was both shabbos and Shemini Atzeret, one of four days each annual cycle when we memorialize our departed relatives and martyrs who died at the hands of enemies largely because they were Jewish.  Some have been individually targeted, as the Sages of the Roman era whose story comprises the Machzor Text of the Yom Kippur Martyrology or the eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics or the lynching of Leo Frank that prompted the Anti-Defamation League that still offers us advocacy a hundred years later.  Others have met their end in a less selective way.  Marauding Crusaders expanding beyond their Pope's mandate, grass roots pogroms, systematic extermination by Nazi initiative, and terrorism in Israel and elsewhere, all of which slaughter whoever happens to be present on a bus, school, or synagogue.  The ones that happened before my lifetime become part of the history that I study, those during my lifetime, register as small criminal events that will happen from time to time.  And there are usually non-Jewish parallels of larger scale, Biafra, Rwanda, Cambodia.  All generate empathy, none outrage, until the current large scale massacre on our Yizkor Day.

Safe Americans whose troops have a presence many places, many justly, many more questionably, frame my concept of legitimate armed conflict.  There are people in charge because they have the training and experience to be in charge.  There are rules. What the world saw, and I saw with everyone else of the Hamas October 7 attack, looked very different.  It was orchestrated as a one time spectacular LOOK at US, not very different than 9/11.  Make the one big splash when you can because the capacity for sustained action just isn't there.  Invite retaliation.  And since people who do these things are always fundamentally weaker than the nations who respond to their Day of Infamy, they can expect the sympathy of underdogs.  And nobody tolerates childhood deaths, or attacks on places of sanctity, make sure the mosques, schools, and hospitals house military capacity as real armies would not just barge in to profane them.  And so the attack went and they called our bluff on the response.   All calculated. But not entirely correctly calculated.

The only protective response from the victims would be to call that bluff and let public opinion go where it may.  Simply put, buildings immune from attact lose their protection when they become a source of military operation.  Hostages only have value if they can be traded.  Don't sacrifice them but keep the price of that trade very high.  And if military people hide behind children they will have to decide the value of their own children as collateral damage, unintended by the Israelis but human sacrifices in the mission of "River to Sea."

None of that really changed me.  There are evils that need eradication.  Slavery, concentration camps, overt violation of pacts intended to create a sustainable peace, piracy and the sovereign states that protect the pirates, unprovoked bombing of cities, atrocities inflicted by invaders.  All appear in my textbooks that my esteemed teachers thought I should know about and learn how to think through.  And sometimes to eradicate evil, soldiers need to march, bombs need to fall, hospitals and undertakers need to be paid overtime.  There is a public good for not having Naziism as an acceptable alternative ideology or having slavery assigned to the history books forever, whatever the human cost.

No, this did not change me.  What did was the response of different segments of the public, a few weeks of people exposing their minds, their ids, and ugliness that comes out of them.  The attempt to rationalize events in America, in driving distance to my secure home,  really has little analysis beyond dispicable.  The sense that there are no restraints to achieve an end, people can be made into pawns and wantonly sacrificed.  I encountered hoards of groups, people attending universities that would have rejected any application I might make to attend there, promoting the indefensible but finding a rationalization beneath these people's inherent intellect, though maybe not beneath their inherent character or scripting.  My medical career introduced me to the concept of Sentinel events, those that prompt an investigation by an irreversible adverse occurence, and Never Events, those that any reasonable person should be able to avoid.  There is no justification for elected officials or students smart enough to get admitted to those schools joining a celebration of people across the world being captured, sumarily executed, harvested for later leverage, physically violated, all while defenseless.  There is nothing celebratory about this.  It is a Never Event and a Sentinal Event.  Trapping Jewish students in a room because they are Jews or making the Kosher dining room where the get their food inaccessible is a Never Event.  Driving a car into an "Israel school" whether properly or erroneously identified is a Never Event.  And peopole who should have a public education comparable to mine, a religious foundation  parallel to mine, I feel floored by the willingness, indeed eagerness, of these people them to defend them when they perform these odious responses,

This changed me in a very substantial way.  As I learned about Sentinel and Never Events, their investigation was always directed at improving processes, in having patients receive their needed care with maximum safety.  Unmasking errors was never had a punitive intent, no matter how eggregious a situation was revealed.  That is part of the dignity of medicine.  The response to the Israeli attacks moves me to reconsider whether some things really need a punitive approach.  Israel's government acted to their Day of Infamy as a sovereign state accepts its responsibility to "provide for the Common Defense" from our Constitution, though they do not have one.  Some Never Events can be avoided with better processes.  Some need expression of power.  Protection and Revenge differ considerably.

But in response to the anti-Semitic uprisings, my own perspective has shifted from a person of tolerance to one who now ranks people as unworthy.  Revenge no, punitive absolutely.  Law firm senior partners have already made it clear that those top students who cheered the physical harm done across the world could not work at their law firms.  That is what I cheer.  My own alma mater lost funding of major donors.  In no uncertain terms we derived considerable personal success from those universities.  They made us decent, respectful people.  And it is imperative to insist that the current generation of deans will insist that their current students be worthy of studying there. Delaying somebody's career is justice, not revenge.  Some actions are outright criminal.  They should be defended by a personal attorney, not mobs rationalizing violations of law for their cause.  Locking students in a room or running a car into a building is not civil disobedience.  My mind has become punitive, a step backwards from where it had been.

And I've not even gotten to my next set of votes.  The President, who I have met many times as my Senator, showed me that we share the essence of character, though the consequences of what he thinks far exceeds any impact I might have.  My Congressional deleagation has said nothing, particularly the leading candidates who want to obtain the two seats being vacated in Congress.  This may change my vote, particularly when a leading candidate touts her Progressive bona fides.  Their positions on this need to be compatible with my own sensibilities.  I am different now.  Propriety moves upward in my rankings, expediency downward.

Perhps the biggest transformation comes in my assessment of people.  Hamas made their agenda public.  It's a genocidal, uncompromising bottoming out of human dignity.  I understand that, support its victims to do whatever they need to do to dispactch them, and accept the undesirable innocent harm that they hoped would keep the bigger army at bay.  But they can only do what they did in their devastating way one time, then they can only be on the defensive.

That is not the case with the unmasking of American and European anti-Semitism.  That is not one time.  That is a daily contribution to my News Feed.  They will never run out of resources if it only takes a few to target a Jewish institution, deface Jewish property, taunt children at school, or make people in public authority timid.  Eradicating that is unlikely to happen.  Even marginalizing it has become more challenging.  The best option may be some very negative consequences to the very people who claim to be in the relentless pursuit of justice.  Make a statement, make a YouTube video, keep Twitter vile.  But deface property and a person who never saw himself as a criminal will obtain a lifetime criminal record.  Deans of Law Schools and Medical Schools really need to deny certain people whose presence demeans those honorable professions their chance at entering those careers.  Hate laws need to be made more explicit and judges need consistency in expressing public outrage with prison time for people who never expected to be inmates.  

I've shifted to punitive, much the reversal of what I have been taught about the best way to make the world bettere.  In that sense, the attacks of October 7 have diminished me along with everyone else.

Early Shopping

Hanukkah arrives the second week of December this secular calendar year, about average for its occurrence.  Thanksgiving appears almost as early as the American calendar permits.  My children will be joining us, one a long plane ride away, the other a short drive.  That gives me an incentive to get their Hanukkah gifts purchased, made, or otherwise obtained and wrapped before they arrive.  Three people, two female, one male, four gifts each making twelve.  The other eight for my wife can come later.  Not having to ship them allows me to spend a little more on the gifts themselves, as I've always worked within a fairly rigid budget since starting this tradition as a newlywed.  I start by making a grid of three squares.  Then, since I usually acquire a gift or two on summer travels, this year two, I enter them.  Next I decide where to shop.  For this project I like to think about the three people, what makes them unique, what might I be able to get them that they would not purchase for themselves, that stays within budget.  It need not be new.  The Goodwill store has things within holiday budget that would exceed price guidelines new.   And I try to shop at a few places that I would not seek out any other time of the year.

Still, I begin with an overview.  Alas, Christmas Tree Shops that I could depend on for at least one gift each has bitten the dust.  And Target and Walmart not quite right for the recipients.J

I started at TJ Maxx, the one near me, though the Marshall's/Home Goods a little farther afield has a far larger variety of options.  My son is a sports fan, so something with logo, his childhood team, not where he lives now.  Something edible always works.  So does something wearable.  And something for his use in the kitchen, as he grew up as my sous chef.

Daughter likes the interesting.  That will bring me to a Farmers Market, often one trip to Amish country.  Not much for jewelry.  Edibles not worth schlepping across America.  No liquids or sharp things for the TSA to confiscate.

Daughter-in-law likes cats and she likes writing.  And she has pierced ears.  And she has been to a lot of places, far more than I had at a comparable age.

And then wife.  Oy.  She has a birthday a few days before Hanukkah.

So on my first outing at TJ Maxx, leaving empty-handed but with ideas, I learned that I need to increase my budget slightly.  Sports logo stuff plentiful.  Kitchen stuff plentiful.  Cheap jewelry, not the best place to get this.  Unique crafting, a real zero.

My route home, small detour, exposed me to other retailers.  That complex, no.  Burlington Coat, easy to get stuff.  I really dislike the store experience.  Five Below, always good for one thing per person.  Supermarkets?  Not really.  Ulta, perhaps.  Dying mall, no. Lowes/Home Depot, usually good for one gift.  Goodwill?  Not yet.  Farmer's Market?  Already know what I want to get there, at least at the one near me.  Farther, there's a more extensive Farmers Market and a Ross which keep me within budget.

I still have time, but really want the kidlets taken care of before Santa brings up the rear at the Macy's parade.

In a Combative Mood

My disposition stands at the edge of belligerent.  Annoyed at trifles.  Ready for some conflict, though not really for destructive conflict.  Just the type that keeps me sharp and lets me express what I think.  

No particular reason why.  My schedule today got disrupted by a medical test scheduled amply in advance.  Slept poorly.  Coffee delayed until after test.  I'm just ready to fight about something.

There are some benefits to being disagreeable, as discussed at some length by Adam Grant in his Thinking Again.  And I have outlets for being disagreeable.

With schedule already disrupted, I'll go ahead and irk somebody while I catch up on coffee, then treadmill.

Treadmill Hiatus

Sometimes it's the small victories that mean the most.  Exercise does not come naturally to me.  It makes me tired, often sore.  I rarely find it recreational.  Over the years, now decades, I've had a number of schemes to keep me at it.  A one-year participation on an athletic team in college which harmed my grades.  An after work jog with good New Balance shoes through a very pleasant path as a resident. JCC gym membership as a young adult.  Always a chore, never a destination.  To be fair, I did feel better the months that I engaged in physical activity.  And I really don't remember why the lapses occurred.  I've purchased exercise equipment at yard sales, now adding to clutter in my basement and garage.  I've purchased a bicycle.  I've had a garden which I found enjoyable but did not accelerate my heart rate.  Neither did fishing, though I had to walk from the parking lot to the water.

I bought a treadmill, used episodically.  The elevation mechanism broke.  Otherwise it works well.  As a senior, though, exercise became more like a prescription, self-prescribed but put on a schedule with a set time to perform.  I chose to stay with that treadmill.  If I had to leave the house to get someplace else like a gym, there would be an excuse not to.  It's much harder to rationalize not going downstairs to my family room, especially if I need not get dressed into street clothes first.  I put running shoes and braces for my right knee and ankle next to the treadmill.  A suitable timer for each session attaches to a magnet in the kitchen.  The treadmill itself has a timer that counts up.  I prefer one that counts down.

And so, I've done a good job, now spanning a few years.  Unless physically unable, I am on the treadmill at about 8:15AM on scheduled days.  Dates divisible by 3 are days to let muscles recover.  And the final three days of each month, modified for 30–31 variations, are designated restoration, like leaving a field fallow.  I look forward to these.

As the new month begins, I'm not exactly eager to resume, but those 22 min/ 22 sec at 3.1 mph, my most customary settings no longer get excuses.  I am there at roughly the appointed time.  After coffee.  Sometimes postponed to midday if I need to be someplace else before 9AM.  And when the timer counts down, there is a transient satisfaction, though probably not a full dopamine surge.  

I've struggled to add intensity, though when I do extend the time or speed I tolerate it.  However, it registers more as a disruption than a new norm.  I don't really like the treadmill time, but I think my consistency with doing it has only benefits, no downside.