Next to my desk chair I keep a green canvas Eddie Bauer case. It once served as my briefcase during my working years, toted from car to office most days, rarely used. In retirement, it has been repurposed, still infrequently used. I call it my Recreation Case. It contains a leather portfolio, a cheap cardboard folder with loose-leaf papers, and various things that make marks on papers. These include colored pencils and a calligraphy kit in the main case, with pastels and a watercolor tin in the subordinate compartment, along with a tape recorder that does not reliably allow the microcassettes to function. I have other sources of recreation, including two harmonicas with an instruction manual for beginners. My living room contains fishing rods, with two kept in the trunk of my car. That trunk also holds a good putter and driver, along with some golf balls. I keep the yard sale complete set of clubs in the garage, along with some functional bicycles. In a corner of my bedroom lies a once restored violin that could use a new bow. I have a variety of cameras, used primarily for travel, and like many others, made subordinate to my ever present picture-taking capacity of a smartphone. My living room grows herbs as do pots by my front door. Vegetables and a few flowers grow in my backyard. All of these would classify as personal recreation, though none vigorously or even reliably pursued. Instead, I seem more drawn to my kitchen, the challenges of preparing special event dinners. I also engage in various forms of personal expression, now mostly on my computer, with writing and a weekly YouTube recording serving partly a recreational need but also a means of keeping my mind agile when the mental challenges of my career have been set aside.
Friday, May 17, 2024
Recreation
Next to my desk chair I keep a green canvas Eddie Bauer case. It once served as my briefcase during my working years, toted from car to office most days, rarely used. In retirement, it has been repurposed, still infrequently used. I call it my Recreation Case. It contains a leather portfolio, a cheap cardboard folder with loose-leaf papers, and various things that make marks on papers. These include colored pencils and a calligraphy kit in the main case, with pastels and a watercolor tin in the subordinate compartment, along with a tape recorder that does not reliably allow the microcassettes to function. I have other sources of recreation, including two harmonicas with an instruction manual for beginners. My living room contains fishing rods, with two kept in the trunk of my car. That trunk also holds a good putter and driver, along with some golf balls. I keep the yard sale complete set of clubs in the garage, along with some functional bicycles. In a corner of my bedroom lies a once restored violin that could use a new bow. I have a variety of cameras, used primarily for travel, and like many others, made subordinate to my ever present picture-taking capacity of a smartphone. My living room grows herbs as do pots by my front door. Vegetables and a few flowers grow in my backyard. All of these would classify as personal recreation, though none vigorously or even reliably pursued. Instead, I seem more drawn to my kitchen, the challenges of preparing special event dinners. I also engage in various forms of personal expression, now mostly on my computer, with writing and a weekly YouTube recording serving partly a recreational need but also a means of keeping my mind agile when the mental challenges of my career have been set aside.
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Rating My Courses
OLLI has concluded for the semester. An entirely satisfying selection of seven subjects. There are many ways to sort my seven. Six in person, one online. Five morning, two afternoon. One lecture, six with DVD or other video format. Six with a single speaker, all men, one with rotating presenters. Two dependent on discussion, all with question options. Two held downstairs in a large room, four upstairs in smaller rooms. Only one in a room with windows.
So that's my composite. Instead, the courses are assessed individually, what went well, what needs review. I did mostly well. By now I have experience attending and only sign up for teachers who I know can present capably. And this semester they all could, though sometimes they lack expertise with content of the individual DVDs that centerpiece the courses.
It is a lot easier to show a video for a third of a weekly session, then use that as a basis for expansion than to write a dozen lectures with power point for each class, though the people who go that route invariably do it well.
What I find missing is that multidirectional discussion that has made my medical immersion sparkle. Sometimes the patient's situation is pretty mundane and encountered most days. But one unique aspect stands out, one twist in presentation around which a whole new discussion takes form. Common in medical rounds. Very rare at OLLI. Even if the question is more intriguing than the video everyone just watched, it gets answered rather tersely, usually by the class instructor. It very rarely becomes a new path of inquiry in its own right.
We now have hybrid courses, where some participants attend in person while others watch the proceedings remotely. Anybody can watch a PowerPoint or view a DVD from anywhere. It's the same Great Courses disc whether you purchase it for your PC or watch it communally. What you cannot readily duplicate is interaction. Q&A with the instructor goes mostly OK. Reframing that interaction to students with each other mostly goes poorly in that format. Still, the remote option enables people who live far away, or maybe live nearby but could not realistically enroll if they had to drive another half hour each way to get the campus, or have frailties. Zoom has enabled many beneficial upgrades, but at a price of interaction.
Over two days I filled out the evaluation forms for all seven of my classes. Different formats, though many recurrent themes in the assessment. There is a committee that tabulates the feedback. It is less clear what they are able to convey to the individual instructors. Comments that take diametrically opposing or irreconcilable views would also be expected. But they have a chance to look at all seven on mine.
Sunday, May 12, 2024
Schedule Struggles
One laudable personal achievement post-pandemic has been the introduction of routines, primarily morning, but really extending much of the day, into the post-supper times. I have a wake time with few deviations from it. Sleep time has not established itself quite as well, but close enough to create something of a box of time for my waking hours. Every day, with some modifications for shabbos and yom tovim, I start with dental care, make coffee which I bring upstairs to My Space, retrieve the newspaper from the end of the driveway for my wife irrespective of weather, wash some dishes, then retreat with my coffee mug to my desk to begin the day. A blog effort, some crosswords, FB notifications while I sip the first cup, invariably brewed in a Keurig Express machine from pods obtained from a Shop-Rite discount. Then treadmill if scheduled that day, time dependent on when my OLLI class begins. On-site at OLLI completes most mornings.
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Political Event
For a mere $100 a ticket, a Benjamin by electronic transfer, I could meet the candidate while he could amass the money he needs to purchase media time. My wife and I each bought a ticket. His campaign selected a Mexican restaurant with a patio, a time in proximity to Cinco de Mayo, the celebratory day of Mexico and a partying day of people of Americans with Mexican heritage. This is apparently a small local chain, this branch a newly opened one in a recently developed shopping center that aspires to become upscale.
Monday, May 6, 2024
Shiva House Trends
This week our house needs to observe Shiva, that Jewish mourning rite where the immediate family of the deceased stay mostly at home for the seven days following burial while people come to console them. Customs have evolved over time. In the 1960-70s era of the passing of my mother and my grandparents, it functioned as something of an open house. Neighbors would drop by randomly, share memories. On Sundays, aunts, uncles, and cousins living in different parts of metro NYC would drive over. There was always food, often brought by neighbors who shared our Kosher guidelines. Appetizing stores or sections of supermarkets could prepare trays of deli, dairy, or pastries for visitors to munch on. A minyan assembled each evening for afternoon or nighttime prayers.
Over time, or perhaps over geography, customs shifted. Corporate bereavement policies allowed only two or perhaps three days, which included round trip travel when needed. Few people tapped into their vacation time for the full seven days, so a three day official home mourning became more common, though my wife and I observed the traditional seven days, the literal translation of shiva, for each of our parents. The open house format waned in favor of formal visiting hours to coincide with evening services, conducted by a clergyman or congregant experienced at leading this. Living room and dining room seating was often inadequate, particularly for prominent families that attracted dozens of visitors at the limited times. Chair rental became a necessity. There was still food, though fewer caterers, and outside Jewish enclaves, virtually no appetizing stores. Still, supermarkets had a familiarity with this and provided mostly dairy options and baked goods.
It's been a challenging year for my household. My wife lost her older brother, with the funeral on erev Yom Kippur, so there was only a Meal of Condolence, which traditionally follows burial, without shiva. Her sister passed away shortly after Pesach with shiva at our house. And we have attended a few other homes as visitors to the mourners, people who create the required ten men, or in some traditions ten people of both genders, to allow the mourners to recite the prayer most associated with public mourning. Arranging food has been my task. For my brother-in-law, with the funeral conducted in a suburb with prosperous, observant Jews, and two sections of large supermarkets to accommodate them, I had difficulty assembling a suitable meal. They made hoagies of deli meats, but I had to cut them into portions and arrange them on a platter. For my sister-in-law, our small kosher section could not assemble a pareve pastry platter. Instead, I went to the Dollar Store, bought two plastic trays, then a few hours before guests arrive, I will return to the Shop-Rite bakery to purchase my own pareve selections, then display them on the trays. I will get some fruit as well, wash them, and display them.
I do not know why the demand for this service has dwindled. In addition to shiva, homes also sponsor gatherings for circumcisions of newborns, always held in the day, with either some late morning snacks or a small luncheon. For our children, Millennials from the 1980s we could count on a local kosher caterer both times. They are no more. The synagogues which have kitchens and Sisterhood volunteers have not filled in that vacuum, at least in my community.
Shiva will go on. While it would have been simpler just to arrange for catering, I am fortunate to have the capacity to fulfill this part of the observance.
Thursday, May 2, 2024
Counting Omer
Mid-spring. About halfway through. Pesach mostly completed with the last few boxes of dishes still to be transported downstairs and a few appliances returned upstairs. Mother's Day. A languishing legal matter awaits resolution. A talk for the synagogue to be prepared. The outdoor gardens. My monthly expense reviews. Semi-annual plans for the second half of the calendar year. Other things already completed. Taxes. Flourishing aerogarden, less flourishing chia pots. Been on a small vacation. Osher Institute courses nearing completion. Made it to the putting green but not to the driving range. Casted my fishing line in a very unenthused way.
Amid the spring projects comes the nightly Omer Count. The Festival of Shavuot, unlike the other Jewish Festivals, does not have a specified calendar date. Instead, it occurs on the fiftieth day after the Second Seder. During that interval a nightly count through 49 days, that is 7 weeks, takes place with a blessing before each count and a short benediction following it. The daily count has few rules, but must be done after dark, so I set my timer to 9:10PM, though I may need to reset it a little later the final week. There are rules for missed counts, some compensatory, some really better termed also-rans. The count is both by days through 49 and after the first week, by week plus days. No synagogue or communal effort is required. This is entirely my project, though it has a dedicated number of people who make the nightly count part of their spring duties, as I do. Organizational Reminders appear online. I subscribe to Chabad, but the Orthodox Union has a reminder service as does an independent but less reliable Homer Omer which posts a Simpson's themed cartoon on Facebook most days through the count.
I find the need to do this, while taking not more than a minute or two each night, offers an anchor for the many spring projects that also take multiple small steps but have a destination. The Omer's destination is the Festival of Shavuot, anticipated one night at a time. I might have expected it to function as a count-down to goal, much like the clock running down to the end of a football game. But like Hanukkah, it is designated count upwards. It makes the destination grander, perhaps. The count is purposeful. Our seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot is not empty time. It is acknowledged time. The many spring projects, from preparing my upcoming talk to nurturing my outdoor plantings, do not really have specified milestones, and sometimes not even firm end points. Those weeks that define when Shavuot gets celebrated have their progress chart. Unlike my garden harvest, the Festival always arrives.