Postponed Trip

Among my most valuable senior discounts has been regional rail travel.  I have a travel free card from SEPTA, the system that operates near my home.  In my wallet, I carry an MTA card which discounts NYC transit by half.  NJ Transit which connects the two will accept my Medicare card for half off.  That makes home to NYC a no work proposition.  Drive to a SEPTA station, authorize $2 from my credit card to park, and I'm off for a cheap afternoon in Manhattan.  If I really wanted a lot of time in the Big Apple, I would either take Amtrak which will set my credit card back a lot more, both for transit and for local parking.  I could drive the NJ Turnpike to near NYC and finish the trip on the PATH commuter train or NJ Transit.  Driving seems a chore, EZ Pass gets debited each way.  I will need to park in NJ.  A lot of irritation, but more time exploring NYC attractions.

I opted to go cheap and easy, at least one time.  My miserliness comes with a significant downside.  Schedules are limited and inflexible.  SEPTA has a direct connection to NJ Transit at its main transfer point in Philadelphia.  To get there, I would have to leave home at 7AM to get a regional commuter train to Philly, then a half hour layover once in Philly, then transfer to SEPTA Trenton and a short walk from there with minimal layover to NJ Transit Trenton.  Same returning.  Easy to get back to Philadelphia from NYC, but big layover there until I can get onto the commuter train home, the penultimate one for the evening.  And winter standard time puts much of the trip home, and at the end of NYC, in the dark.  I would arrive home around 9:30PM.  So, fourteen hours in transit for about six hours of amusement in the Big Apple, or maybe even a little less.  Hardly worth it as tourism.  It may be worth it as an experience, as a challenge to convince myself that it is possible.

Travel of all types has its unproductive times.  Airports require a lot of preparatory effort.  Getting there by car, either my own with an expensive parking fee or by Uber.  Lugging stuff.  Lines at check-in and TSA screening.  Sitting at the gate.  Retrieving luggage at destination.  Finding ground transportation.  At least the distance traveled justifies a multi-day experience at the final stop.  Road trips are also multi-day, though sometimes that means an overnight stay for each day's drive before even arriving at the desired location.  And at least public conveyances allow the passenger to bring items to occupy or even advance himself during waiting time and transit.  Don't think I want to tool around NYC with a laptop in backpack.  My travel cross-chest carrier would allow a tape recorder, radio, cell phone, pens, and pads.  Books and my magazine subscriptions are now portable.  So if I travel for eight hours to get six hours, the transit time has useful possibilities.

Rain forecast.  If confirmed the day before travel, that would postpone the adventure.  The rails are mostly indoors.  NYC attractions usually require some emergence from underground.  Postponed, but not fully shelved.

Vacuuming

Floor surfaces in my house could use some attention.  I mopped the kitchen's synthetic tile floor.  A two person job with furniture repositioning.  Most of my floor surfaces, though, are carpeting.  Sturdy synthetic nylon.  Most installed when we moved into our house in 1981, with a few more recentm additions.  By the advise of most experts on home maintenance, once in book, now online.  The vacuum with rotating brush head should be allowed to clean and restore this flooring weekly.  I use my bedroom and part of the living room and the exposed parts of the family room's Berber carpet daily.  As a reward to myself for passing Endocrinology Boards I treated myself to an elegant round rug for my office, since relocated to My Space with retirement.  I step on it daily.  About once a week I do my various loads of laundry, taking the dried clothing to the living room for folding.  Residue from the carpet finds its way to the surfaces of the clothing I had just laundered.  So I got out the vacuum cleaner to make long overdue amends.

It is not like the carpets never get cleaned.  In anticipation of Passover, we arrange for formal carpet cleaning of the living room, dining room, upstairs landing, and stairs.  In order to do this, the cleaning service has to vacuum all the surfaces first.  The bedroom and My Space have neglect exceeding one year,  I made the vacuum cleaner, a modern Shark Model with YouTube access guiding me in its use, fully functional.  Empty bag.  No suction without an empty bag.  Learned how to put the rolling brush in carpet mode.  Create Zones.  Easy:  upper landing, always kept clear, and my special area rug.  Hard Zones:  my half of the bedroom which needed subzones as I moved stuff covering the floor to expose carpeting, then vacuumed, then moved some selectively back to expose another section of the royal blue velvet pile.  Did this three times.  Slightly winded but done.  Wife's side of bedroom a lost cause, no carpeting exposed beneath clothing, books, and assorted surface priorities that she has.  Still, one-person job.

Living room: two-person job.  Moving and replacing a lot of furniture, creating sub-zones.  The area near the room's entrance had its carpeting tamped down daily with contributions of outside walking ground beneath the carpet's surface to its lower pile.  I vacuumed each zone in two directions.  Between the moving and replacing of furniture, negotiating the vacuum's excessively long cord, and long swaths of surface, each cleaned in two directions, I found this unexpectedly tiring.  But accomplished in a way that I could discern an improvement when this part of the project was completed.

That leaves me with two more sections.  The dining room will be fairly easy.  Mostly chairs to move and replace.  Finally, the stairs, walked upon multiple times daily.  This one needs the tools.   I found most of them.  Family Room judged lost cause.

Those are the carpeted surfaces.  There are other surfaces, including our tiled entry hall.  This might be better cleaned with a Swiffer Kit, which I own but need to make functional.  Laundry Room with kitty litter dragged by Priscilla the Cat into the adjacent powder room and across the living room surface.  Vacuum without the brush beater, followed by mop or Swiffer.

Having done this, and also recognizing some exceeds my capacity for doing more than on rare bursts of determination, I will need to engage a professional cleaning crew.  And sooner rather than later.

My Food Is Your Food

Well, maybe not.  One of our regional heroes is an obscure Franciscan monk in the modern lineage of St. Francis of Assisi.  The current Pope adopted his name, though like all Popes he lives in splendor.  Our regional Brother does not.  He wears a hooded brown gown.  He lives simply.  But for more than forty years he has created, headed, and expanded an agency that centralizes our reach to the city's poor.  His agency provides a small amount of child care and default housing, but its central mission has been to offer meals.  For 2022, they served more than 100,000 meals.  I had the pleasure of meeting this friar many years ago when a departing medical executive opted to have his farewell reception at the agency's dining hall.  My children's Bnai Mitzvah generated sumptuous leftovers, which I transported there the following Monday.  For the Brother to accomplish this, he needs generous partners.  No group has adopted mandatory sharing of our prosperity than our Jewish community.  As community groups are solicited to take their turns providing meals, my synagogue has three sessions scheduled in the late fall every year for decades.

While this initiative should generate overflowing support from dozens of members, it doesn't seem to.  Instead, it reinforces our congregational culture, consisting of a series of fiefdoms or cliques run by and content with its few dedicated participants.  If we have good, we need not seek more than good, that view illustrates.  We can get the food cooked and served with the people we have.  They announce from the sanctuary and newsletters a few sabbaths in advance that they could use some baked goods.  I make a contribution, Kosher and in my oven, for two of the sessions, but have never been invited to join the other ladies in the home kitchen of the chairman.  

Maybe the Brother would not want me there any more than the event chair or perhaps even our Rabbi and Rebbetzin would.  There are cultural divides, perhaps even theological ones.  When I host an event at my home, kitchen experience displayed to the max most times, my kitchen output is always plentiful and elegant.  Take as much as you want.  Since we have two Challahs for Shabbos, the guest takes one home. Understandably, the friar feels this approach detrimental.  His dining center is a place of default, not celebration.  The goal for him is part rescue of an immediate situation but also a look to a future where his current consumers can become prosperous donors, able to create, enjoy, and share their own abundance.  My food is your food, eat what you like that prevails in my dining room, does not always serve people dependent on others in the best way.  The friar limits portions.  He looks at his project as a means of temporary subsistence.  While friendships and camaraderie among regular patrons likely develop, he stops short of full satiety, fearing dependence at the expense of personal growth.

While my synagogue and I each place a high value on Kosher, that same stringency is not required for the non-Jewish residents of our city who depend on the dining center for their daily, or even periodic, lunch.  And we are told that congregational members contributing food to feed these people do not need to maintain Kosher in any way.  Much of the food is prepared in the chairwoman's kitchen.  I never inquired about its kashrut.  The food is acceptable to the recipients who need it.  Yet when I contribute, the food meets the standards of my Kosher kitchen.  Should I be willing to serve a hungry person food that I would not eat myself?  Probably not as food.  Were I to give a financial contribution, there would be no restrictions on what the recipient might opt to purchase.  As a practical matter, the mission of the assigned sessions is to provide nutrition on the terms of the recipient.  It would probably not be good congregational policy to restrict baked goods donations to those made in Kosher ovens, or even with Kosher ingredients.  My food is your food, with strings attached.  Your food is not necessarily my food.  Sometimes I am the caterer, maybe a server.  Not the diner.

Our tradition has a tale of some Smart Alec asking the sage Hillel why Hashem permitted poverty when an omnipotent God could have provided adequately for everyone.  Hillel responded that God did that so people could rise to the occasion by sharing part of their larger portion.  So that is what we do as a synagogue and I do as a peripheral volunteer for that project.  Judaism seems to prefer middles.  I bake something Kosher, varying the output.  It is always created at my peak ability.  Always something that would be a little pricey for people at economic fringes to purchase from a bakery.  Always something that I've had before, both from my kitchen and high end commercially, that I especially regarded as a treat. So I share some food, restrained by the Brother's judgment on keeping his project one of nutritional default.  But in absentia and with anonymity, I also share a piece of me.  Imagination of what to offer.  Experience as a limited foodie.  The Brother cannot restrict that.

Scouting November

Must dos.  Should dos.  They are not the same.  While totally bored at a volunteer activity Halloween morning, I took a multicolored pen and writing pad out of my cross-chest carrier, then headed to an unoccupied room with desks and chairs on the second floor.  Setting the pen to its green option, I began jotting down all the tasks for the month that would commence the following day.  Twenty-two items with three added later.  The only truly mandatory on the list seems to be keeping a cardiology appointment made more than six months earlier.  I think I have symptoms to discuss, and never leave the exam room without either the doctor or her NP thinking I should return for a test of some type.  Changing the clocks to Eastern Standard Time probably counts as mandatory, assigned to a single night.  I suppose Thanksgiving is another fixed appointment that cannot be changed, though I did cancel dinner on short notice two years back when my wife took ill.  Other things have deadlines in November.  A synagogue dinner.  A short-story writing contest that I am willing to fork over $25 to have my submission turned down.  Baking a treat for the charitable organization that my congregation supports.  My wife's choral group has a concert I need to attend.  Some things will happen irrespective of my participation.  The Election.  I voted early and will know who got elected in due time.  Flu shot would be a good idea.  My Osher Institute classes continue through November.

Mostly, though, things that I want to do dominate the list.  I will need to withdraw the minimums from my two IRAs, but it does not have to be in November.  I've not had a big snow accumulation in a long time.  My dormant snowblower could use a revival, but if that does not happen, I could hire somebody with a plow.  My gardens ought to have the seasonal vegetables uprooted in preparation for next spring.  Not much happens if I neglect that.  I've scheduled a platelet donation, one of those fulfilling tasks put on hold for two months due to illness.  Some travel:  Philadelphia and NYC.  Nothing happens if I stay home.  I'd also like to take a not too far overnight trip in December.  Could make choose a place and make reservations.  Hanukkah comes late this year but I still like to have gift selections made before Black Friday.  The Jewish community is running a course for which I have registered.  Two of the four evenings are in November.  I'm surprisingly indifferent to the curriculum.  

And then I have things that I aspire to accomplish, though nothing happens if I fall short.  I need to submit some of what I have produced for publication.  An Osher course teaches how to build a Web Site.  I always wanted one. Launch by Thanksgiving.  Home upkeep has exceeded my capacity and my wife's interest.  I convinced her we need a pro.  Now to find one.  And I've not used my fireplace in many years.  This winter.  And we won a raffle.  My wife and I need to select non-profit recipients by year's end.

While not showing up for the cardiologist appointment or my wife's concert would have some negative consequences, as would the penalties for neglecting my IRA, nearly everything else registers as elective.  Enriching to me in different ways, worth pursuing.  A month to do these things seems ample.

Voted a Week Early

My Zoom class concluded several minutes before its scheduled 2PM end.  In late October, the day's weather allowed comfort with a long sleeved shirt but no jacket.  It seemed like the right time to vote, exactly one week in advance of the formal Election Day.

My state permits early voting up to ten days in advance.  Each county has at least one location.  Mine has several, though a pittance of the number of polling sites that the state will monitor on Election Day.  Each early voting site must agree to remain open all ten days except Sunday at all specified hours.  Very few communal agencies can make that commitment.  As a result, lines become long.  The day before, I had driven past the site.  Parking in the center's lot was unrealistic.  No spaces appeared open along the sidewalks of the street on which the location stood, though I didn't sample the cross streets.  An elementary school sits next door, one that would be letting its students out while I waited my turn.   I opted to return later in the week.  This time I anticipated that I would have to park a block or two away, finding a side residential street with its own median and legal parking in front of a modest suburban house.

After locking my car, I crossed the street at an intersection with crosswalks but no traffic lights or stop sign.  Gaps in traffic and inability to drive very fast along a road that a lot of motorists occupied as they sought their chance to vote assured my safety.

No ambiguity to where this site was or what it was for.  Campaign signs for every candidate on the ballot enticed the undecided.  I was not undecided.  The community center has a small frontage.  Beyond it stands a handsome brick school, now vacant but with its sign still legible in cursive over its front door.  To the left facing that door, visitors could read the cornerstone:  MCMXXIV.  The building's centenary.  It had one fluorescent light visible in an upper-floor window.  Several windows had air conditioning units protruding to the outside.  Its purpose or its occupancy was not readily deduced by the many voters who entered the queue, which extended to the side of the building opposite the cornerstone.  It appeared about the same length as the one I had driven past the day before.  But parking space established and no competing obligations the rest of the afternoon, I affirmed that I would not be deterred from expressing my electoral preferences by any hint of impatience.

I latched myself onto the line's rear, behind a lady who kept to herself the whole time.  Two couples, likely contemporaries of mine, entered the line behind me.  Our conversations, which would last the entire time it took to reach the voting booth, began with me trying to set my smartwatch's stopwatch.  Its black screen reflected the afternoon's direct sunshine.  I could not see it, though I knew how to enter clock mode blindly.  I could not enter stopwatch mode.  Instead, I noted the time:  2:17 PM.  While I had to stroll the width of the abandoned school with other voters filling that distance, I took little assessment of who the other voters were.  I know the catchment area of that center.  Mostly suburbanites like myself and the other two couples.  The district has its demographic diversity.  The Center itself offers community based programs to a population less well-off than me.  Wage earners in retail, security, civil service, healthcare.  People of African, Hispanic, and Asian ancestry live nearby, while those with advanced university degrees who work as professionals in large corporations live a few miles away, mostly to the west.  The two couples behind me fit that description.  We quipped about kids, schools, and other places we had lived.  They were each business people who sold or merged with larger entities.  One handed over the keys to a private equity firm after having built the business over decades from start-up to 400 employees.  Not different from my tale of finding solo medical practice unable to compete with larger institutions, forcing me to seek and accept employment at one.  They wanted to be near their kids.  I wanted to be a healthy distance from mine, just as I preferred settling in a place where it was easier for me to visit my parents and in-laws than for them to visit me.  

The line plodded forward.  Periodically, an official from the state Elections Department would venture along the line, asking us if anyone needed to sit down due to frailty.  None of us took her up on the offer.  Slowly we got close enough to read the carved concrete above the front door with the center's name, then onto a small front concrete patio leading to the glass front doors with benches for those who needed rest on the side.  Not long after, our turns arrived.  The identity station had three workers for four polling booths.  The usher pointed me to a most personable official in the middle.  She took my drivers license, had me sign an electronic form on a screen, then announced my name as the next voter, as she handed me a paper with a list of contested offices that I would need to insert into a window once at the voting screen.  The booth monitor held the black privacy curtain at booth #3, which I entered. Paper inserted, error response, re-inserted, followed by a screen with each candidate for each office.  Democrats listed vertically in the left column, Republican list just to the right of that.  All offices but one were contested.  And farther to the right of the screen appeared isolated names of independent candidates or fringe parties.  Irrespective of their worthiness, their placement on the election screen disadvantaged them.  This time I voted straight party.  Touch each name in the column, watching the box with my candidates' names transform from white to traffic light green.  It questioned me a few times if I wanted to review my selections.  Confident that I voted for the best people from President at the top to County Council President at the bottom, I asked the machine to give me the confirm vote option.  Another electronic box to touch, this in a somewhat lighter shade of green.  I pressed that box with my index finger, so at least one list of hopefuls could rest assured that each of them at least appealed to somebody.

As I exited the curtain, I encountered a table with I Voted stickers.  I peeled one off, adhered it to my forehead, confirmed my watch time as 3:25PM.  The line took about an hour and ten minutes.  And my new acquaintances told me about an attractive restaurant right near my home that I had never visited.  Checked out their web site when I arrived home.  As expected, school would be letting out just as I exited the voting location.  Having parked about two blocks away, I strolled to the intersection where the school crossing guard with neon yellow vest stopped the traffic to allow me to the other side of the street.  While I did not really know the way home from that side street, I drove along its length.  It intersected with a main road.  From there I knew the best route to my house.

The designated Election Day will arrive.  My house sits about a twenty-minute walk or three-minute drive from the border with a swing state.  Media, particularly TV, originates in the megacity on that side of the border, putting me in the unwelcome advertising cross-fire.  My old HS friends reacquainted on FB some fifteen years ago.  In the end, we vote the same way, though their postings of their preferences always make me wonder whether we derived the same level of analytical skills from the classes we shared.  I've minimized my time there as a result.  And that's before we even get to paid candidate advertising, most highly dependent on innuendo of some type.  And I no longer even sign on to Twitter, as much as I have made an effort to follow mostly reputable journalists.  With my ballot submitted, I become immune to external influences.  Not the ads. Not the signs stuck into the lawn sod outside the polling place I just visited.  I'm done.  Polls with posted results showing who you favor always ahead on YouTube.  No bandwagon for me to jump aboard.  Just tune in again when the real public preferences counted and reported.

The Darndest Things

To the best of my memory, the first book I ever read cover to cover must have been Art Linkletter's Kids Say the Darndest Things.  I was a new reader, probably in second grade exiled to a school annex at the local Firehouse, as my district could not keep up with new construction that suburban migration to my district required.  TVs showed images in Black & White at the time.  Art Linkletter's House Party had considerable popularity.  It ran in the afternoons.  My mother wouldn't miss it.  When I returned home from school it would be airing.  At the end, Art Linkletter added a signature segment.  Each day he would interview children about my age selected from the local schools.  He asked each a question or two, presumably unrehearsed.  And those kids responded in the darndest ways.  He compiled favorite responses to create a short book, which I read in paperback.  YouTube has captured some of those sessions for anyone with cyberspace access who might like a chuckle, long after this classic has faced into the history of American public media.  I've never forgotten those sessions or those kids or that book.

Without knowing it, being much too young, one of our Chabad Rabbis recreated a version of this, which is why I earmark every Simchat Torah evening to attend there in lieu of my own shul which essentially has no children.  Simchat Torah and Purim evenings depend on children for the vitality of the festivities.  In the evenings, we got flags to wave and engage in minor sword fights with the sticks.  For those who returned the next morning, and a many did even when it meant missing school, hijinx continued.  Friends would bring squirt guns.  The Cantor could expect some kids to tie his shoelaces to his tzitzis.  He could be a good sport in different ways, adapting prayer melodies to what the DJ's then played on the Top 40 or the sounds that introduced our favorite TV shows.  Congregations of 70-somethings, mine and too many others across the USA, cannot generate that controlled irreverence which Simchat Torah and Purim require.  We are scripted to decorum.

Chabad seems to attract children who attend on Simchat Torah with their parents or grandparents.  A few Lubavitchers have large families, but most in attendance seem to be Jews attracted to the Chabad environment without adapting its Orthodox observance stringencies.  Each year about thirty pre-Bar Mitzvah children attend.  There seem to be some women nominally in charge of the group, maybe volunteer parents, maybe teachers in their Hebrew school.  They assemble in the sukkah for the last time, that repast between Mincha of Shemini Atzeret and the onset of Simchat Torah.  Some cake, some salads and spreads with crackers but never bread to put them on, liquid refreshments adult and pediatric.  The Rabbi has prepped the children in advance.  They will each be asked, one at a time, as they sit in chairs lining the front of the sanctuary what they will pursue in the New Year to enhance their Jewishness.  

Their two minutes in the spotlight arrives as they parade in with flags, taking their seats in roughly size order.  While adult women and men take seats on different sides of the sanctuary, the physical barrier known as a mechitza is temporarily removed, largely to enable dancing with the Torah Scrolls that will be taken out of the Ark at the front of the sanctuary when the children's interviews conclude.  

Each child has his or her prepared answer.  They will give a coin each day into a tzedakah box.  Some will recite the Modeh Ani prayer on arising or the Shema on going to bed, almost never both.  Some will begin lighting candles every Friday night with their mothers.  Some of the older ones will add the Psalm of the Day.  Other's will begin making Challah at home.

While all seem laudable, all seem to miss some of the essence of what being an optimal Jew entails.  Nobody over several years has ever committed himself to having lunch at school with the classmate who always seems to be alone.  They put coins in the tzedakah container's slot, but never consider where the accumulated money is best donated, let alone why.  Some might be old enough to have cell phones.  Nobody has ever committed to leaving it off from candle lighting Friday evening through Havdalah on Saturday night.  And if anyone ever announced that he would not join his father at the Pornhub screen until after Havdalah, the Rabbi would be able to begin his sequel to Art Linkletter's best seller of the 1950s.

Judaism has its identifiable trappings.  Observances of all types. Who has the most stringent standards for Kosher, Shabbos, Study?  Mezuzot on all doors.  Coins in the tzedakah box.  Who puts on their tefillin every day and wears tzitzis under their shirt?  Just what the kids pledged themselves to do.  But it's not only kids.  Reddit as its r/Judaism has many participants, primarily young adults of secular Jewish background, who seek to strengthen their Jewish identities.  They pose to the more experienced Jews how they should go about it.  What books might they read, what videos would enhance their quest, maybe pledging to read the weekly Torah portion in translation each week as primary text.  Should they buy tefillin, or maybe put a mezuzah on all the doors of their apartments. Those elements particular to Jews.  What too often bypasses them may be the realization that many people across the globe do things that are honorable but no longer uniquely Jewish because we have succeeded in bringing to the world standards of conduct, days of respite to our calendars, advocacy for ourselves and for others who we can help move forward.  Those are missing from the r/Judaism requests, as they were from the kids as they announced to their adult audience what they might like to pursue.

When I respond to the r/Judaism seekers, I will recommend written resources for their learning, while discouraging primary Bible readings.  From our earliest reading years, we learn from the wisdom of those who have gone before us.  We read physics texts, not the lab notebooks or research papers of the people who wrote those texts.  The seekers need to read commentary of people before them who have proficiency to share.  The primary Bible sources are not ignored but put in context.  That is Chochma, or Wisdom, one of Judaism's pillars.  We have Tzedek or Righteousness expressed in many ways.  As Kindness.  As Generosity.  As Respect for boundaries of our traditions, whether in our diets or our calendars.  So turn off the cell phones, designate an empty jar to put spare coins into so they can be donated periodically, don't demean people, be a friend when friends are scarce.  Not overtly ritual but Jewish.  The Chabad kids sort of have Kehillah or Community, the r/Judaism seekers understand they need to be part of one.  But methinks they are too quick to gravitate to a synagogue.  Jewish gatherings are sometimes social, sometimes for advocacy, sometimes for communal learning.  The r/Judaism adults have much too restricted a view, the Chabad kids have exposures directed by parents.  Chochma, Tzedek, and Kehilah have a common destination.  We recognize the intersection of these as Kedusha or Sanctity.  Making Kiddush on Friday night contributes to sanctity, but Holiness is never stand-alone.  It is mindset, communal, behavioral, sometimes avoidance of immediate druthers.  The kids at the Rabbi's House Party interview may get there.  So might the Reddit explorers.  But they will have to think about what to strive to become Jewishly in a more expansive way than I heard at Erev Simchat Torah or read on the Reddit app.

Halloween Treats

As voting time approaches, the price of edibles will likely sway its share of voters.  Not all prices rise uniformly.  The steepest are those related to intellectual property, followed by those highly processed products that require ingredients from around the world available at the factory for assembly or mixture.  Candy fits both criteria.  Hershey's has distinct recognizable brands, as does its few competitors.  Chocolate, coconut, sugar all need extensive transit to get to central Pennsylvania or wherever else Hershey and Nestle have built their facilities.  That can make for an expensive Halloween.  I don't have that many kids come to our front door, but those who seek a sweet need to get one.  

Each week I look at the supermarket ads, which invariably promote packaged candy in their weekly circulars.  Very high prices this year.  My GoTo place for packaged candy has been the local farmer's market which has a variety store at one end.  They sell Hershey products, though an unpredictable assortment.  When they cost $6 if you buy three, I would get myself a bag of chocolate nugget variety pack, KitKat, and Almond Joy.  As prices rose, $6 became $7 for three bags, still undercutting the supermarket.  I used that as an excuse to stop purchasing any for my own use, but for Halloween, that's a best buy.  Slight glitch this year.  The market only opens on Friday and Saturday.  Our Yom Tovim this season all include Fridays and shopping on Shabbos I gave up long ago, unless traveling.  After getting my biennial car inspection and registration renewal, I made a small detour to a Walmart not far from the state's DMV.  No bargains on candy there either.

I am a very proficient kitchen maven.  My Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies in the style of Frog/Commissary, two pioneering Philadelphia eateries of my young adulthood, always bring favorable reviews.  I make about four dozen at a time.  Not that hard with modern countertop appliances.  I made a batch about a year earlier for my synagogue's project to feed folks down on their luck at a soup kitchen.  I also made rugelach for another session, roughly the same number.  Ghosts and goblins and witches would find either of these tasty and unique.  Alas, people have become less trustworthy in the current generation.  As a grade schooler doing trick or treating, lots of families put some baked goods and loose candy in small goodie bags to distribute, along with a penny or two for the UNICEF cartons.  The charitable redemption of a basically problematic holiday is long gone, as is the stature of the UN Agencies.  In my children's day, medical facilities started offering free x-rays of the holiday loot to detect surreptitious razor blades or paper clips inserted into fruits or candy.  For decades now, most parents will discard anything in a child's bag that is not factory wrapped.  I understand.

While the Hebrew calendar this year is unfavorable to shopping at the Farmer's market, it is also the year of my biennial bifocal update.  Best buy has been Costco.  The discount from what the chain opticians charge more than offsets the membership fee.  In addition, I get to shop from their megastores until the membership runs out without renewal a year later.  As an empty nester, a prosperous one, I really don't need anything edible in the quantities that Costco purchases require, nor do I really need any stuff.  Not electronics, appliances, furniture.  Close to nada, though a clothing item attracts me as does some often expensive food delicacies like lox, herring, and kosher-certified cheese.  But Costco is open every day.  The bulk packaging can expand my options of what to offer costumed kids.  Maybe candy.  But maybe something of greater nutritional value.  Oat bars, lunchbox-sized pretzels, granola for some of the older children who can handle the almonds.  Their goodie bags or repurposed pillowcases need not return home with zero nutritional value.  I might even pay a little more to fill those bags with something tasty but worthy of feeding to a child.

Most of my infrequent visits to Costco have a purpose, whether bifocal purchase, eyeglass frame repair, or I just want a cheap slice of pizza or a sundae.  That does not preclude browsing.  So the kids get something for them, I get some delicacy or related splurge for me.  The salvage of Halloween.

Consecutive Days

This fall, Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot occupy Thursday-Friday.  Add shabbos, which makes three consecutive restricted days three weekends out of four.  While our Rabbis regard these as special times to escape daily obligations, I kinda like what I do most days.  No electronic devices for three consecutive days, three weekends out of four?  That's a lot of FOMO.  The purpose of Yom Tovim and shabbos might be separation.  They have a measure of compensation for what will be missed.  Special dinners.  The preparatory efforts for shabbos each week and the Yom Tovim as they arise.  A completed sukkah.  Special liturgy.  An OLLI schedule that omits Thursday and Friday classes this semester.  But nine days of separation all in the same calendar month seems a lot.

I don't really miss the laptop when it is off.  Social Media really does get too absorbing.  It needs a break. Not much happens if I don't do crosswords for a few days.  FB, Reddit, and email avoidance challenge me more, though they shouldn't.  I've largely abandoned Twitter.  It's a detriment to me.  Minor withdrawal symptoms but don't miss it.  FB has a few contacts with friends, offset in a big way by unsolicited posts that the psych major Stanford alumni think will keep me on their screen instead of somebody else's.  Reddit might be a little harder, as I make contributions that others might find helpful, though few make contributions that I find helpful.  Setting these aside for shabbos each week is not hard.  Three consecutive days generates minor withdrawal, though never overt FOMO.

These three day breaks never really become Me Time, though.  I have guests or am a guest.  But some Me Time gets carved into those three days.  Social Media is not Me Time.

Rosh Hashanah with its social strains but new horizons completed.  Some sukkah inspiration ahead.  Then the concluding days.  The designers of the Hebrew calendar anticipated folks like me would be Jewish saturated by the end of this.  They scheduled the subsequent month to be devoid of special days, but nicknamed that month Mar Heshvan, or Bitter Heshvan, due to the absence of designated times other than shabbos.  I think of it more as respite.

Board Discussion

My Zoom access malfunctioned.  I could not see myself on the screen, though I appeared on the attendance list of participants.  Perhaps others could see me.  This distracted me somewhat from our Board Meeting's agenda as I did connectivity troubleshooting while other people spoke.  For the first time since I joined the Board, I said nothing the entire session.  This is a good thing, especially since I had nothing of substance to contribute. Multitasking never turns out well.  I did not multitask.  I shifted between tasks, listening attentively without concerns of what I ought to say.  At my next meeting, I will likely have much to say.  The week after, I am featured speaker.  Any opportunity to restore Zoom to its full capability cannot be set aside.

So, as more a spectator than participant, what did I hear or sense?  Very little served as a forum where issues are raised, discussions ensue, people challenge each other's perspectives, and votes resolve divides.  That did not happen.  In its place, I heard announcements of what had already been decided.  I heard The Clique commenting amongst each other how wonderful they all were.  One piece of adverse news, the departure of what had been a lifelong member.  Not our fault, unavoidable.  Announcement of our Rabbi's proposal to expand connections within our congregation.  Where can we take this?  There are lots of places to take this.  I heard none.  We need more members.  Why do we need more members?  To generated revenue, of course.  Never a recognition of how much our newbies add by their efforts once among us.  Mostly Hear Ye, Hear Ye.  A pro forma evening in the congregational Echo Chamber.

They need to either have the Rabbi stay for the whole thing or plant a mystery shopper who can have coffee with the Rabbi and President.  I heard, or at least sensed, what might be.  It wasn't.

Credit Card Failure

Gas tank not yet empty, though it would be when I return from dropping my departing daughter at the airport.  Gas stations are plentiful.  The pumps work on Sundays.  All fully self-service.

On my way home from a small outing, I pulled into my usual station.  Following what I've done every few weeks forever, I inserted the Bank of America card and removed my gas cap.  When the pump screen asked me to lift the nozzle and select an octane grade, I pushed 87.  Instead of allowing BP gasoline to flow, the screen thanked me for shopping there and wished me a pleasant day.  Maybe a pump problem.  I pulled one pump ahead, where a motorcycle had just refueled.  Same cheery good wishes by the dispensing algorithm, but not gas for me.  Maybe the station had some snafu.  I drove to another station a mile away, inserted my card, waited for approval on the screen, and pushed the octane grade appropriate to my Toyota.  Thanked again on the screen, wished a pleasant day, but no gas.

Then I drove home and called the Bank of America card's customer service number.  Irritating automated menu, but eventually I got to an agent, told my tale, waited patiently on hold while she investigated, until the triplet buzz of a disconnected signal arrived.  I called back, told my story to the next agent who had to investigate.  He transferred my call to a Merchant Service desk, which asked for a number.  I typed my card number, receiving a response that my information was invalid.  I retyped it.  Still invalid.  They transferred me to a place that could not proceed.

Maybe my card's chip had a malfunction.  I drove to a much larger station, tapped the card, and this time did not get as far as an approval.  While the other two stations were small neighborhood operations not manned on Sundays, this enterprise probably made higher profit margins from the convenience store than the pumps.  I went inside, handed a twenty-dollar bill to the cashier, and a one-dollar bill to a hungry panhandler.  6.5 gallons later, I had my gas gauge reading enough fuel to last me the week.  I do not know if the panhandler got himself a snack or would hold out for enough donations to get himself a more substantial meal.

Back to Bank of America's helpline.  Despite being a conglomerate with every expertise on staff, the agent really had no interest in investigating the glitch.  I've gotten tampered OTC medicine in the past.  Their helpline took great interest in their customer's plight, sending me a mailer to return the damaged pills and a coupon to replace them.  Bank of America has had some adverse publicity for disinterest in the needs of customers.  Though I've had this card going on forty years, my offer to send it back to them for investigation was rejected in about one minute.  They are not perfectionists.

While traveling a month ago, I had a similar encounter in a rural area of another state.  That time, the pumps just rejected my card.  Two pumps at the first station, one at a larger place anchored by the regional convenience chain.  The cashier could not get the card to work at her desk, at least for filling my tank.  Twenty-dollar bill enabled enough gas to proceed to my next destination.  At the hotel, I called the card's carrier who assured me that my card was still valid.  At the restaurant for dinner, I used it, as I did for gasoline the remainder of my road trip and beyond.

While the professionalism of the agents, their willingness to explain and explore a problem, let alone show any curiosity about it or experience with it, fell below what I had come to expect in my medical world, I am not harmed.  A new card will come in a week.  I have a debit card from my bank which I use only for ATM withdrawals and a second card which has a premium-for-use feature that I use only for charges in the thousands like air travel or major home repair.  And I can keep a little extra cash in my wallet.  It is tempting to just get another card, though snafu's over forty years of relying on them for my credit needs have been few.

If they as employees are not curious about what happened, at least I am.  Type Credit card does not work at gas station onto a Google search and lots of references appear.  Apparently selective malfunctions when acquiring gasoline, without limiting effects on other purchases are well-documented.  Most of what Google retrieves are testimonials posted to Reddit and other public forums of expression.  Why it occurs selectively at gas stations is less well-defined, but the interface between the pumps and the banks takes a different path from most purchases.  At least I wanted to know why.  That curiosity apparently is not a contributor to promotion from entry-level customer telephone agent to a position of more responsibility by some credit card companies.  Getting me a new card, mostly automated, is the retail path of least resistance.  Especially if it keeps me with their company when defecting after decades is still tempting.

Wrist Jolt

Behind my bed sits a vintage clock radio.  Modern in its day.  Red numerals.  Wake to an audio blare or to whatever AM or FM station had been preset.  I never liked it, but those red numbers behind me remain my official command to arise each morning.  Though that now happens silently.  The NFL offers a two-minute warning.  My current smartwatch signals a ten-minute warning in the form of a fifteen firm buzzes across my left wrist.  

Being smart, and a good buy at $40, it multitasks.  That includes a passive but ongoing assessment of the sleep it is programmed to terminate.  Home Sleep Trackers have been a great disappointment, at least the two Apps I've downloaded to my smartphone.  Highly inaccurate.  Prone to failure. Annoying to have the device next to me.  This watch may not be any more accurate, but it doesn't intrude.  It records a sleep time, has a mechanism for deciding when I am in REM without access to my eyeballs, and thinks it can decide when my nightly nap is light or deep.  Then it gives a time summary at the end.  Unlike the phone Apps, it does not offer a running timeline so I can match which stage at which hour.  Mostly, the morning wrist buzz occurs during light sleep, confirmed by the electronic bar graph of sleep stages.  However, apparently nearly every morning I have a deep sleep interval preceding that.  One electronic jolt occurred during that interval.  I could tell the difference.  The intensity of that buzz could terminate deep sleep.  The bar graph that morning had the blue deep sleep color as my final interval on awakening, a rarity.  

With considerable focus on professional sleep hygiene recommendations the past year or two, I might not need the dawn reminder, as my intrinsic sleep cycle ends my nightly session on its own at about the same time each morning.  Still, I like to see what happened before that.  My smartwatch records a doze-off time, probably accurate.  I try to keep that constant, though less effectively than I manage the arise time.  It will record nocturia X 1 as wake time.  It does not really capture middle of the night insomnia, which that clock radio's red numerals usually capture at about 3AM.

Yet it is reassuring that a simple electronic device can keep me reasonably on track for what has been a chronic vexing challenge.

Wandering Costco

I did not take a cart.  Despite a new corporate policy to confirm active membership, the door greeter accepted a quick flash of my card's COSTCO in bold red letters, waving me in without scanning any bar codes.  I had no intention of buying anything other than maybe a soft ice cream sundae at the snack bar on the way out.  With their kiosk ordering, I would not need confirmation of membership maintenance for that either.

On a mid-week mid-afternoon, few shoppers crowded the aisles.  My intent for going at all was to secure a quiet hour away from the distractions, or maybe allures, of My Space with its abundant neglected projects.  Nothing that I needed.  Costco's immense success, however, depends on a network of psychology grads who understand how to create want that transforms to need.  Bling in its most glittering forms greets shoppers at the entrance.  TVs with the biggest screens on display.  They were not set to broadcast Fox News or ESPN, but they all had brightly colored images on their flat screens.  Beneath the displays with prices in bold black numerals, shoppers could eye small stacks of very big boxes far too bulky to fit in a cart, which I opted not to take for myself this visit.  Much smaller, encased in thief-proof glass that sparkles from periodic Windex rounds, people could ponder how to display their material success with baubles that reflect ceiling LED light in the most dazzling way in the store and God's light when worn outside.  Cell phone displays were muted.  So was a section with eyeglass frames lining a wall next to a counter where experienced opticians will offer the best deals in bifocals.  I keep my membership exclusively for this benefit.

Continuing the main aisle.  Appliances to enable the homemaker's leisure.  Washing machines, refrigerators.  All better than what we likely have at home right now.  Hectic work schedules and smaller houses and condos have changed what we do in our homes.  We prepare food, we entertain ourselves, sometimes we work.  As kitchens become the hub for families and empty nesters, aisles of enhancements challenge one's credit card restraint.  Cookware, countertop appliances, display baskets, storage of the most attractive design.  Our square footage, or maybe even a whole room, allotted to our side hustles require soft chairs with high backs that swivel us from our desks to our shelves, then glide us across the room on casters.  Writing implements in colors. Shredders.  Papers to remind us of our failures to go paperless.  

Bling attracts the eye.  Pampering soothes the other body parts.  Bedroom decor, new lighting for the bathroom, made more sybaritic by other products awaiting us on their shelves.

Turning right brings me to clothing, men's for me.  Long pants as autumn approaches.  Light jackets.  Sweatshirts in green with an Eagle on the front.  Shirts in piles, some needing ironing, others in easy care synthetics.

One must traverse half a warehouse of stuff to arrive at what most people place in their carts.  Food.  Lots of food.  And mostly beyond Family Size.  For this tour sans my own basket, I started with the freezers.  At previous membership intervals, I could not pass up Kosher-certified tiramisu, my wife's favorite dessert, though modified with whipped cream where the mascarpone should be.  Not in the current frozen collection.  Neither was anything else, except for some packages of Beyond Burger which would be a challenge to stuff into my already occupied home freezer.  I like things I would not buy at Shop-Rite.  Best buy on lox slices.  I still have one chunk of homemade gravlax at home.  And cheeses with at least a Tablet-K.  Those are hard to find, so while my membership remains active, I'll have to return.  Big boxes of snacks that I don't need.  Did not enter the cosmetics, pharmacy, or bakery this time.  By now mid-afternoon.  A snack maybe.  Too late for pizza.  Not hungry enough for a sundae.  Just head home.  No money spent.

I'll be back.  Having scouted the place out, there are more wants than needs, by a significant multiple.  Eventually my gravlax will need replacement by commercially smoked and sliced lox.  Not had some of those cheeses in a long time.  Maybe tiramisu will return to the freezer.  And maybe my kitchen experience will get its next enhancement.  And depending on the time, pizza for lunch or sundae on the way out.  

No Appointments

Almost no appointments today. I have times assigned to myself.  Wake time done.  Dental hygiene done, Treadmill shortly.  None take very long.  The rest of my day remains unscheduled.  Nearly all should do's. Few must do's with none to please somebody else.  Future projects await.  Those need progress, some in small steps today, others in larger accomplishment. Deadlines not imminent.

Today's Daily Task List runs two columns, loosely prioritized.  Some purposeful as components of Semi-Annual Projects, others more recreational.  Segments for work.  Segments for leisure.  Optimism as first cup of coffee nears completion.  Next, treadmill.  Then no more appointments, not even with myself.

Holy Day Planning

Leap year on the Hebrew calendar.  It time shifts things.  Virtually no double portions for Shabbos Torah readings.  The various Festivals appear late on the American calendar.  Hanukkah starts with XMas.  The High Holy Days do not arrive until October.  They still need some attention.  As in recent years, I was asked to read Torah on Yom Kippur.  It requires minimal attention.  The person doing the assignments has an incentive to recycle who did what they did last year, or the previous ten years for some, much to the detriment of the congregation.  There's a certain sameness to the experience at my synagogue, though some newness at the alternate minyan we attend first day Rosh Hashanah.  I prefer some novelty, some notion of that people thought about how to make an experience better.  While in my capacity as Board Member, the Ushermeister asked my participation, and I offered him places to assign me, he hasn't.

There are parts of the HH experience that do not depend on the synagogue, some of which I control, others I don't.  As a courtesy to my sister-in-law, we visit her after first day of Rosh Hashanah.  Our children sometimes visit, a high priority accommodation.  And we can expect a Sukkah dinner invitation.

My personal traditions continue their expressions.  I've written to a college friend each HH for more than fifty years.  I connect annually to two others.  RH Dinner has its ambivalence.  It is usually special but not ornate, though if my children are joining us, I will need to expand the menu, or at least the quantities.  I like to make my own spiral challah with raisins.  There is always an apple with honey.  Usually a first course, if only gefilte fish from a jar.  As empty-nesters, chicken breasts for two, as host, maybe a whole roast chicken or a brisket.  Carrots are the traditional RH vegetable.  Wife makes rice kugel each year.  And my honey or apple cake.  Getting to erev RH services sometimes needs some planning.  Some years we don't make it.  

Wife leads services First Day at the Minyan where that is permitted.  Then an afternoon with my sister-in-law, now last surviving sib.  This year accommodate the kids as they set their own schedules for long distance travel and worktime juggling.  And Tashlich.

Sukkot is more my preferred Holy Day.  We ordered our Lulav and Etrog.  Sukkah construction right after YK, weather permitting.  One evening as somebody else's guest, another for my guests.

Simchat Torah evening I designate with Chabad.  They conduct a program for their kids, with their assistant serving as a modern Art Linkletter getting them to say the darndest things.

In all, the designated days span the better part of a month.  Mixture of fixed activities and traditions.  Some challenging, other parts chores to get through.

Preparing a Seminar

My turn arrives in one month.  This OLLI class runs about twelve sessions, with a different person presenting each time.  I gave my brief overview in the first class.  The instructor schedule assigned my class as the midpoint.

By now, I should be pretty proficient at this.  My mental, medical, and Jewish journeys have taken me to the podium many times.  Some informal, like medical residents presenting a case.  Others quite formal, like Medical Grand Rounds or presentations at my synagogue's AKSE Academy.  Progress has moved ahead from Kodachromes created by medical illustrators to PowerPoints made by me.  Sometimes I create a written script.  As proficiency accumulated, I've let the PowerPoint written slides serve as my prompts.

Rarely do I start with full familiarity.  I have a grasp of the medical topic or the background for a Jewish topic.  This time I have the basic concepts of what I want to convey about NYC, the OLLI Course topic. Fifteen minutes each about city workers, vagrants, vendors, and diplomats, though the vagrants merit more time with a reduction in the time allotment to the others.  I like history, and often sort my remarks in their historical contexts.  But I chose my current topic, a deviation from the other eleven this cycle, because everyone in the class has a bimodal connection.  As Seniors with some childhood connection to Metro NY, we all had reason to putter around The City in our youth.  We all have events that periodically bring us back, whether tourism, Broadway, or relatives.  Then differs from now. Who comprises the audience matters considerably.

I am making slow but steady progress, not far behind my completion timeline.  Keep it interesting, keep it relevant.  Work on fluency.

I've done this many times before.  Struggle a while.  Then it gels.

Quasi Work

My personal calendar gave me a challenge.  Returned to OLLI, the senior division of our State University for the first time.  By the vagaries of submitting course preferences, my schedule played out to three courses on Monday's, first, second, and third sessions.  On Tuesdays I only have two classes, first and third sesssions.  On Wednesday, only two, first and second sessions.  Due to Holy Days falling Thursday-Fridays this season, I opted not to enroll in any courses those days.  The class schedule has its quirks.  My middle class on Mondays, the one I desire most, only runs the second half of the semester, and is on Zoom.  My first class on Wednesdays only meets the first half of the semester.  And the final course on Tuesday, for which I am presenting one class, only appears via Zoom.

Tuesday and Wednesday drive-in for the in person classes, then drive home seems straightforward.  Monday proves more challenging, with a Zoom course sandwiched between two traditional classes.  I opted to create a faux work day on Mondays, at least until the final class adjourns.

I got up at my usual time.  Instead of dental hygiene, then coffee, I inserted dressing.  The day before I made a checklist, what to wear, what to take in a small backpack.  Laptop, charger, leather writing pad, the secure chest travel pouch I bought last year, a radio, a thermos of coffee, a lunch that I would make at home, the Torah portion I am preparing.  Since this would be my first day on-site, I needed extra time to pick up my ID badge, so off to the car a bit early.

I arrived well in advance of my first class.  While there I filled out some forms for access to the University's computer services and parking at the main campus.  Sipped coffee.  Then class.  An excellent lecture on the history of airline safety.

Downstairs to the lobby after class to being a 2.5 hour unstructured block.  Started with a stroll outside to the patio to work on the Torah reading.  Minor imperfections.  When I do this, I wear a kippah that I keep in my pants pocket, this time a blue suede one from a Bar Mitzvah.  I opted to leave it on the rest of the day.  America in general, and campuses in particular, have accumulated people who think it OK to verbally accost anyone they can identify as Jewish.  We are oppressors of everyone who has not thrived in America in their minds.  

But I really intended to work on some other projects.  I extracted my laptop, its charger, and my good leather portfolio from my backpack.  In order to have an outlet for the charger, I had to settle for a high table with high chair along one of the walls.  Plugged in.  Refill my insulated mug.  Ready to work.  The University has its own Wi-Fi.  I saved it with my ID and password onto this laptop last year.  Despite having forgotten both prompts, it connected me.  To connect with the University library system, I will need a more sophisticated entry point which requires renewal.  But once online, I could surf.  Not productive surfing at all.  E-mail, social media.  I thought a little about things I might like to write, but didn't write them.  Read a presentation from a Substack to which I have a subscription, but did not respond.  Returned to my backpack to retrieve my sandwich.  Too soon to proceed to the cafeteria.

Eventually I packed my electronics, took my lunch back to the patio, where I ate it.  An old friend of 40+ years happened by.  We each had covid in the last year, so exchanged notes. Not a lot of work got done, creating some minor guilt.

Early afternoon class, an excellent intro to the Big Bang.  Kippah still on.  No apparent reaction from anyone else.

Home right after class.  I had two top notch sessions, OK lunch, satisfaction of planning what I wanted to do, no serious focus on doing it.  A lost opportunity.

There will be a Monday of this type each week until my half-semester course begins.  The 2.5 hour chunk of time needs to be allocated in a more specific, accountable way.

Fall Reset

Return to school has come and gone without me.  As I toured Tennessee in late August, Virginia Tech, U of TN, and Vanderbilt had already moved in for the fall semester, leaving me unable to find a parking space near the bookstore at two of them.  When I returned home, Labor Day weekend got set aside with a higher priority, surviving highly symptomatic Covid-19.  I missed the in-person first week of OLLI.  Practicalities for my Designated Driver forced my follow-up EGD from the fall to the winter.  My vegetable garden did not have significant yield.  The Holy Days come late on the secular calendar.  It's been a tough transition.

While delayed a couple of weeks, I'm sufficiently recovered to engage in autumn activities.  This being a Presidential year, I voted in the local primaries, will learn more about the candidates, national and local, on my screens this week, and affirm that my preferences are sound.   I am ready for my mid-September Torah reading, then begin polishing the YK reading.  I have to greet electronically three old friends.  My kids plan to visit for RH.  I will need to assemble challenging dinners for RH and the Sukkah.  OLLI invited me to give a presentation which will need priority focus.  Exercise collapsed with travel and illness.  That needs restoration with judicious pacing.  

The final quarter of the calendar year brings a reconing of my semi-annual initiatives, some going well, others disappointing but salvagable. 

And throw in some recreation, fishing, maybe golf, drawing, photos.  Football has not engaged me as the NFL and colleges resume, but I should consider a live game.  And perhaps a day in NYC.

While our calendar year begins in January, our activity transition remains in proximity of Labor Day.

Voter Misgiving

Real Vote.  First one of the election season.  A primary.  Other than school board elections, my state only votes for anything on even numbered years.  My county has a dominant party, at least where the population clusters, so the primary determines who will hold office in my own districts, statewide, and in Washington.

Open seats this round.  A lot of them.  Term limits give us a new Governor.  There's a certain musical chairs to vacancies with our Lt Governor wanting to be Governor, Congressman wanting to be Senator, term limited County Executive wanting statewide office, state senators wanting statewide office.  Then their slots need to be filled. My state rep decided he was in over his head.  No shortage of people wanting his place.  New County Executive.  President of County Council wants to serve as County Executive, so her position becomes vacant.  It was a long ballot, though not an onerous one.

As a voter, I have become different.  The October 7 attacks by Hamas happened over there.  The responses of different American constituencies happened over here.  Some of the alliances made me very uneasy.  I voted Jewish.  I met or knew all the Jewish candidates.  The Governor wannabe was the most capable.  The other two I trusted.

Fundamentally, people have two generally valid ways to select representatives.  One is whose proposed agenda matches my preferences, the other is who would I hire.  My inclination has been to go the latter route.  I know that no candidate is a clone of mine.  During a term of office, events of various types will arise.  The person who can handle the twists and turns succeeds better than the rigid ideologue.  There are exclusions.  Fists in the air with river to the sea is an exclusion.  Not that I fear the outcome, but I can anticipate other policy branch points.

After due diligence, I came to the poll with a single remaining dilemma.  One candidate, the favorite, had proven herself a capable state legislator with a personally progressive agenda.  She would set it aside to secure majorities for legislation that she sponsored or that others sponsored but she found merit.  No question of her competence as a crafter of law.  That's fine for the senate of a small state, one of about two dozen people.  It may be very different as an at-large representative in a body of 435 much more diverse individuals and regional interests.  Her very real skill at creating alliances may be overwhelmed.  I can see her posing with The Squad, voting with that group, people who I would evict from my party were it practical to go that route.  As I tapped the icon on the screen, I sure wished that the man who opted for the state capital instead of Capitol Hill, a person highly capable and in alignment with my mind, would have selected a DC career instead.  Alas, he has a physician wife, newborn son, young step children and preference as an executive rather than one of a large body of people.  He got my vote for Governor.  The capable state senator got my vote for US Rep, though with great misgivings.

The tally will not happen for a few more days.  Then a general election, where surprises are few.  At least for this particular office, we can have a do-over in two years.

Recovering from Covid

Covid took something out of me.  As I reach the final 24 hours of my Paxlovid prescription, one more foil blister tonight and tomorrow, I still don't feel great, but functional.  The breathing improvement must come from viral control.  Its trajectory suggests medication driven.  Sleep better.  Fatigue could be better.  Most distressing, perhaps, my mind has not reclaimed its pre-illness acuity.  If I were to do a formal Montreal Mini-Mental I'd probably score OK.  Some of the Executive Function elements of focus and organization still seem lagging.

We are in a primary voting interval in advance of the formal election day.  I have the capacity to vote.  A non-profit that values my input wants some of it.  I can respond, though organizing my presentation seemed more difficult during illness.  The response will get edited and sent later today.  I can do household tasks, though with less stamina.  And I set up my new smartwatch from the written and app directions.

Focus has challenged me.  Creativity has not gone very well.  The ability to edit and revise my work before submission still seems less capable than before the illness.  Motivation to do creative things has not recovered in a meaningful way.

I am assuming the deficits are from the Covid virus.  They could also be from its treatment, trading one immediate respiratory rescue for a longer-term but more subtle lapse in cognitive function.  For now, neither is disabling, just less than it was not long ago.

New Smartwatch

 

My first watch, gifted to me at about the age when I began to read words and equate times with TV shows, had Li'l Abner's countenance on the dial.  I did not know who Li'l Abner was, but at the time the adaptation of the strip had just reached Broadway.  Within a short time, that comic which appeared in the New York Daily News, Sunday's in color, would become priority reading.  I learned that the Presidents of the decade include reading it in their morning schedules but for very different reasons.  I do not recall if that was my last watch with a popular theme on the dial. 

All subsequent watches served a more utilitarian purpose, to let me know the time.  I needed to know this for a variety of reasons, initially to not miss my preferred TV shows or when to return to class after a break.  As standardized tests became pervasive, doing my best on them required a certain amount of pacing.  The room in which I recorded answers with a No. 2 pencil did not always have a clock in easy line of sight.  No sponsor ever prohibited a watch, some even included this it its things to bring to the exam.

I always bought cheap watches, Timex or similar generic.  Some had leather straps, some metal expansion ones.  Each would leave an indentation on my skin.  All had a plain face with Arabic Numerals.  Sometimes all 12, sometimes only 12-3-6-9.  I do not recall any with Roman numerals, though there might have been.  I rarely had to get a new band.  The watch would usually need replacement first, sometimes by a baseball smashing the crystal, more often by the wind mechanism failing.

When digital battery watches came out, I took an instant liking to them.  They were cheap, almost disposables, at least the on sale brands that I bought from the local discount stores, probably beginning in the 1980s.  Numeric dials were fine, but I especially liked the accessory buttons that set a timer or an alarm or backlit the numbers.  Those have short lifespans, though I learned quickly how to change the button batteries.  Despite their utility and economy, few stores sell them anymore.

Like most innovations, what we now call Smartwatches carried a high price tag as novel products.  Once patents expired and mass production moved to Asia, a very functional product could be had for a song.  E-commerce transferred their availability from my usual stores to Amazon.  My first one took some effort to set up, but served me well.  Its vibration mechanisms began to fail after a couple of years.  The charger eventually malfunctioned.  I ordered a replacement that looked like its charger, but they are not interchangeable.  It did not fit.  Just as soon spend the $40 and have a new, slightly upgraded timepiece for a couple of years.

It arrived.  Not easy to use.  Came mostly charged, or at least enough to program.  This was easy for a 20-something, not so easy for a septuagenarian.  Even putting the band on took some effort.  Reading one sentence at a time in the manual I got the app onto my phone and the Bluetooth to recognize the watch.  Could enter my age, email, height and weight.  Choose a dial face that I can change later.  I did not have to set the time.  I assume it will reset if I ever cross time zones, as I did on the road trip. My pulse is nice to know when finish my treadmill sessions, now on hold due to illness.  And I really find the countdown timer useful for all sorts of things, from the kitchen to coping with insomnia.  And for only $40, almost disposable.  I think next time I need something from Amazon, I'll add a new charger that fits my old watch, though I really don't know if the failure comes from the watch or from the charger.  Then I'll have a spare.

Too Much Driving

As much as I like road trips, I've probably driven my last one.  The route took my odometer up some 1880 miles over a week, traversing five states with two destination stops and two overnight motel rests.  My one-day behind the wheel capacity now seems to be a bit over 400 miles, considerably less than in my 20s when school took me from the East Coast to school in the midwest about twice a year.  If my sleep pattern as a Senior is interrupted in my own bed, the motel beds do not do much better.  

In some ways, long drives have gotten easier over three decades. GPS far outperforms maps and written turn directions. The Interstate Highway System is reasonably complete and sophisticated.  At each interchange there are separate signs for lodging, food, and gas to be found nearby.  At the end of the ramps, signs indicate which direction the driver needs to turn for the chosen service.  Smartphones have made setting up hotel reservations on short notice straightforward.  The gas stations have affiliated convenience stores for coffee and refreshments, sometimes more substantial food.  And all these places are economical, with gasoline costing less than at home and quick overnight motels less expensive than the places I booked for my intended destinations.

As I drove along the Interstates in Virginia's full north-south dimension and the eastern half of Tennessee's east-west dimension, there were places to stop such as state parks, wineries, or mini-historical sites, each providing brief rest to those who need to move on, though perhaps more of a destination to people who live near those places. 

Modern automotive advances also make these journeys easier.  My smartphone will read an audiobook as I drive or I can set Bluetooth to music.  Radios have channel selectors that find local stations.  Cruise control can be used for large sections of highway.  Speed limits have gotten higher.  Virginia made the scenery visible from the highway attractive.  TN and WV did not.

The drive sometimes has its hassles.  I like stopping at universities as the break option, visiting the bookstores, often purchasing a logo coffee mug.  I didn't do well this time, as we visited close to moving day and signs for visitor parking were few.  My long drives are always to some pre-determined attraction, this time Nashville and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  This always raises an important element in the analysis.  Was the effort of getting there, whether a substantial time on the road or airport irritations, justified by the purpose of the trip?  For the western national parks it always is.  It usually is to visit an international attractions such as Niagara Falls or a unique city like Charleston.  Nashville and the Smokies seemed less so.  A lot of driving for a garish few blocks of loud country music and a park with limited geological uniqueness, to say nothing of the mostly annoying town that supports it. Parking provided by hotels, but something of a ripoff and ordeal when dealing with the municipalities.  I think of Gatlinburg as rural, but parking fees may keep the town afloat. I avoided the expensive flat rate lots.  In Nashville and in Gatlinburg, each city has automated parking validation by card, with a mechanism I delegated to my wife, as it was not obvious to me.  Meters were better.

Travel also brings you to people.  They were invariably pleasant.  Our weekend at the Park coincided with a national convention of Jeep owners, thousands of them, so I got to chat with a few briefly about their interests.  With the Grand Ole Opry I expected people wrapped in the Cross and the Flag.  While it attracted almost no people of darker complexion, and some Gospel elements were built into the music, the experience seemed less sectarian than I expected.  And The Hermitage, plantation of Andrew Jackson, offered much insight into the era and its economics, the estate required much walking.

While I considered driving all the way home from the park, about nine hours, safety concerns prevailed.  I left the final three and a half hours, much through populated areas, for the following morning.  I arrived home at mid-day, unpacked after some rest in my own bed, then picked up a few things I would need to make supper.  I'm tired.  

While I needed different scenery, which is what I got, the strain on me this time might have exceeded the benefits of the two destinations.  And my wife, as passenger with a chance to amuse herself with her cell phone for hours as I drove, did not seem to tolerate the travel very well either. She developed a fever, testing positive for Covid. Likely our last multiday drive.