Who Can Help?

In 1999 a pharmaceutical company invited me to a conference in sunny Miami Beach at a hotel that I could not afford to stay at to help them assess a product that I prescribed with some frequency but had come under regulatory scrutiny.  They gave me an honorarium in addition to hospitality and transportation.  I assigned the money to an acquaintance who runs a charitable organization.  He responded with a note of thanks but included something he had written for publication in the near future.  With Passover approaching, he composed Danny's Four Questions.

1. What do I like to do?
2. What am I good at?
3. Who can help?
4. Why not?

I revisited this 25 years later when I attended a reception for a charitable institution.  The host was a synagogue in my county where I had not been in at least a decade.  The drive, just after prime commuting time, went well.  Since that time, their Rabbi who I knew had retired and passed on, a few successors came and went, including one that generated some discord.  This year they settled on a very worthy man who I knew well, a Rabbi of admirable accomplishment and ability.  I had been meaning to attend a service there, but this charitable event arose first.

Their synagogue sits in a sparsely built area, apparently zoned for places of worship, as I rode past some churches nearby.  After parking my car and walking up steps into an impressive entryway, I took my event ID badge, hung my winter coat, and wandered around in this large public space.  Like many suburban synagogues, they have a sanctuary.  I estimated 200 pewed seats, eight rows with sixteen cushioned seats per row.  At my last visit, I remember a raftered ceiling, which has since been revised.  A movable partition connects the sanctuary with its fixed seating to an open multifunctional space.  No doubt, on high holidays or bar mitzvahs or VIP funerals, some movable seating will get set in that area.  For this evening, a dairy buffet table had been placed in the center, beverages in a far corner, and round tables with about eight chairs each surrounding the central food placement.

My interest, though, had me wandering their oversized foyer.  A Holocaust Torah set to Mincha Yom Kippur's reading appeared in a glass case adjacent to the sanctuary entrance.  At the short wall connecting the doors to the worship area on the right and the all-purpose area to the left, the congregation had placed a table with neat stacks of papers filling most of its surface.  People could get this year's Jewish calendar with the congregation's name printed on the bottom.  What attracted my attention, though, were two invitations, both very different from how my synagogue solicits engagement from its members.  One stack towards the left of the table's surface contained vignettes of  five families their outreach committee thought the congregants might be able to help during the winter holidays.  I assume they are Christian, but there are needy members of synagogues too.  For each household, the members were listed individually with suggested gifts the Temple might fulfill.  Clothing sizes provided for each individual, ages and clothing size for each child.  All mothers seemed to wear plus size clothing, which sells for a premium.  One was apparently pregnant.  They needed basic clothing, but maybe a candle or other pleasantry thrown in.  The children also needed clothing, but the gift lists included a few recreational items.  Christmas and Hanukkah largely coincided this calendar year.

When I make a donation for my mother's Yahrtzeit each winter, I divide my remembrance three ways. One third goes to the remnant of what was my childhood congregation.  While that shul has closed, the current version had the courtesy to import the names on the memorial plaques, including my mother's, to create smaller uniform brass memorials in their rather posh new sanctuary.  Another third goes to a memorial fund named after one of my mother's friends, which supplies Kosher meals to the observant needy of my childhood county.  And the final third, supplied by check with a note of appreciation, goes to a project run by one of my high school friends who belongs to that congregation.  She collects toiletries for the homeless on behalf of the congregation.  No doubt people donate shampoos from hotels or maybe trial size cosmetics.  I provide my friend money to pursue her project in the best way.

My congregation does not excel in ministry to the poor, though we do not ignore it.  Three days a year we supply food to a soup kitchen and employ our congregants in its supply and preparation.  I'm sure the people who eat there appreciate the security of a daily lunch.  But it's less personal than holiday gifts customized to individuals, adapted to their unique needs.

The other paper, a single sheet printed front and back, lay in a short stack front and center on the table's surface. It contained a form.  People come to the congregation with skills obtained from other parts of their lives.  People enter the synagogue anticipating new connections with people they do not already know who can engage them, including creation of new talents or enhancement from novice to proficient.

The Congregation divided their personal engagement or contribute abilities form into six categories that their President, Board, Committee Chairs, and Rabbi might tap.  If only they had a database of who had what skill, now easily retrievable in our digital age.  They would like to know about:

1. Business Skills
2. Creative Arts & Technical Skills
3. Religious Proficiency
4. Educational Experience
5. Social Engagement Ability
6. Anything Else 

They have people among them who have managed small businesses or done public relations.  People might be members of the IBEW, work as decorators, or act in regional theater.  Every synagogue needs people to lead services and sometimes give a sermon.  Hebrew Schools need not only teachers but sometimes aides. Babysitters enable parents to attend events that they might otherwise have to skip.  Congregations need people proficient in the kitchen and to interface with organizations external to the synagogue.  These people float around, though not always visibly.  Identifying and engaging them apparently has high value to that synagogue.

Within the form, people are asked to estimate their proficiency.  As Danny's Four Questions hint, what you like to do is not always the same as what you are good at.  The Temple makes that distinction.  People can be Expert, Proficient, or Novices.  They can also be Enthusiastic irrespective of real ability.  Sometimes gung ho fills the need, but some projects are better performed deferring the Walter Mitty's to people of training and experience.

One of the joys of wandering through entryways, whether the synagogues, JCCs, schools, or libraries, the organizations set out on their tables what seems most important to them.  My message as a visitor that evening is that this place takes Engaging more seriously than my synagogue, despite having Engaging on its letterhead banner.  Our method is a few key individuals filling their inner circles by people they know about and won't give pushback.  It is unlikely that any Committee Chair in recent years ever solicited talent from somebody they heard about but did not know, though maybe they have an informal grapevine.  It's a method that gets you by but never advances untapped potential.  You just have to be acceptable to a Dominant Influencer or two.  It is probably more expedient than inviting talent or maintaining a database to call upon people who already possess skill or want to advance what they already have.  And it has become our core culture, one that creates stability at a price.

 

This congregation's showcasing what they do internally to draw in the less engaged or find the people who lurk unrecognized made a very favorable impression.  So did their listing of five families and the individuals within each household, intending to enhance them in some way for the Winter Holidays. I exited this synagogue, where I had not been in decades, knowing that their new Rabbi, who I have known for decades, will continue to make them what they aspire to become.  Engaging and Embracing.

Appointments Done

Each Sunday morning I enter the week's appointments on a white board magnetized to the refrigerator.  The places I need to be get entered by day on the left in a marker coded to the project.  Along the right column in pale blue appear commitments for ensuing weeks, though rarely more than a month in advance.  Beneath my list, my wife pens hers, in black ink.  The majority of days have something entered.  During the school term, I anticipate OLLI Mon-Thursday every day.  And Whiteboard appears in black letters next to the S for Sunday.

This week, though, one week before resumption of the OLLI semester, I find my appointments stacked early in the week.  Eagles on Sunday, successfully earning the NFC title.  Platelet donation and family birthday on Monday.  Doctor and charitable reception on Tuesday.  Then no entries through the second half of the week.  A rarity.  Even my treadmill sessions suspend for three days at the end of each month.

Things that matter most usually do not have a fixed time to do them.  Expressing myself, tracking my health, sorting out finances, reading, recreation.  Few of these have assigned times on my white board, though some are habitually allocated to certain days.  Weight on Mondays, YouTube creation on Mondays, Shabbos services on Saturdays, Stretching on Mondays and Thursdays, Parsha review on Thursdays, Shabbos dinner on Fridays. These all continue, though without the whiteboard entry.  Just notations on the weekly outline that I create Sunday mornings and on my daily task list.  

What appears on my refrigerator now and for the rest of the week are blocks of minimally interrupted time to engage in the best way.

JCC Membership

For the second January in a row, I attended the Open House at my local Jewish Community Center.  For decades, I paid annual dues, enjoyed the many programs, used the facilities, enrolled my children in the programs, attended classes and events.  Some negative experiences arose, but I don't recall if I dropped my membership in response to them or just let the affiliation lapse as rather hefty dues became less cost-effective relative to use.  I've not paid membership fees for a very long time.

Now as a frequent responder on Reddit's r/judaism platform, people separated from their Judaism, or seeking entry, frequently ask how to enhance their personal involvement.  The majority of responses suggest reading a book or watching a video.  No objection to those, but Judaism depends on kehillah, or community.  Synagogues form the anchor, but they can intimidate the unfamiliar.  As an alternative, I will often suggest they consider their local Jewish Community Center.  They put no religious demands of shabbos or kashrut, have people around of minimal background, indeed many not Jewish but who like working out in the gym.  Some like the iconic 92nd St Y in Manhattan have abundant Jewish programming with resources to invite prominent guests.  Mine used to have a loftier selection of intellectual content, but has adapted to the clientele of Seniors and youngsters, with a relative paucity of adults in their prime years.

At the Open Houses, aimed primarily at revenue enhancement from new memberships, I spun the freebie wheel.  Each landed on Day Pass so I now have two.  They also have two lesser obligation options, a Summer Membership entitling people to indoor and campsite activities for about $400 and a try it out one month trial for $125 or so.

As a Senior, would I use the entitlements of membership?  I have done very well on my home treadmill, though it has limitations.  However, I need not get dressed or drive anywhere, park the car, get changed in the locker room when I exercise at home.  That's a big incentive to staying on schedule.  Their gym has weights, which I do not.  Their treadmill's incline functions, which mine does not.  And they have a steam room which I like, a hot tub, a sauna, and a pool, which all require additional time in the locker room.  Redeeming the day passes will immerse me in these for two days at no cost.  Used for sure.  Payment of one month would guide utilization more accurately.  I suspect that I do so well on my home treadmill over a prolonged time because it requires no preparation but will falter once exercising requires travel, even if more effective exercise.

Might I make friends?  I could use more friends.  The global pandemic largely tanked personal interaction.  Board and committee meetings are electronic.  Seniors at OLLI no longer congregate in the lounge or gather in the cafeteria.  My synagogue remains live of shabbos, though not all do.  When I am at the JCC, usually for a synagogue-sponsored class or mincha service, but even for the two Open Houses I attended, there did not seem to be very many people around.  However, the parking lot had ample cars, so people must be physically present somewhere in the complex, just not readily interactive with me.

And classes, guest speakers, and related mental boosts have followed the least common denominator pathway of so much of my other Jewish engagement.  I have OLLI as my upper-tier mental challenge, and that's without even taking them up on their offer to let me attend one mainstream class each semester at the University's main campus for a very nominal surcharge.

It's about money, perhaps.  More than perhaps; likely it's about money.  For $400 a year, I'm probably in.  For $1000 a year as an empty nester, probably not.  JCC Membership, and other Jewish affiliations including synagogue are often price elastic.  Neither a $400 or $1000 payment would change my financial situation very much, but I'm scripted to seek value.  A monthly trial might be, but it won't expand to a large annual commitment.  Use of the facilities for a summer might be worth $400 to me one time, then reconsidered.  My goals for membership would entail enhanced fitness, but at a personal imposition that I am not likely to sustain.  And personal engagement for which I have better options.  My membership lapsed some time back for legitimate cause.  No compelling reason has emerged to justify a Second Act, at least for me.

Have I misled guidance seekers who visit r/judaism when I advise them to seek out their JCC?  Probably not.  The organization can create connection, especially for young folks who do not require sophisticated Jewish immersion, which remains available to them elsewhere.  Like all organizations, the JCC has its niche.  A decent value to some.  For me, it remains price elastic.

Priced Beyond Good Will

 

There was a time, probably pre-pandemic, though certainly through the bulk of my final working years, when Sunday morning would begin at a coffee shop.  Brew HaHa dominated, though at times I would vary the location to Einstein's, Starbucks, or Panera, mostly near each other.  My agenda mostly included some quiet time to plan the upcoming week.  I kept a black canvas zippered pouch with my supplies:  colored pens, colored highlighters, my semi-annual projects grid, a pad of 8.5 x 3.25 in paper culled from some fundraisers that send them in the mail, and a cardboard of the same size harvested from the back of a used up pad.  With pouch in my hand, I walked over to the counter to order my brew for the morning.  Typically they came in four varieties:  dark, blonde, flavored, and decaf.  Mostly I ordered dark, though I could be swayed by the morning's flavoring.  When given the option, I preferred a large porcelain mug which I would sip on site.  I put the pouch where I claimed my seat, then took the mug over to the fixings stations.  Half & half most weeks, cinnamon or nutmeg, on occasion brown sugar or cocoa.  Then I returned the ready to drink coffee to the table.  From the pouch I extracted five colored pens of which I had several brands:  black, blue, green, red, and purple.  Then my semi-annual grid, a page of the pad with supporting cardboard, and two highlighters in different colors.  As I nursed the morning's coffee creation, I planned my desired pursuits for the coming week and for that Sunday.

I could make coffee more economically at home, but too many distractions.  The pandemic changed my Sunday mornings indefinitely.  No longer working, I needed less quiet time alone.  I created My Space, designed for me to sit with my thoughts, though with everything I needed, including that pouch, within arm's length.  I had purchased a Keurig Mini-Express, a vast improvement over the Mr. Coffee generic K-cup unit that eventually failed.  I had K-cup varieties of my preference and mesh inserts to fill with my own ground coffee.  I had two workable French presses.  No need to go out for coffee.

My personal habits also changed for the better.  At a specified time two mornings out of three, I walked briskly on a home treadmill.  That time coincided with the times I'd be whiling my Sunday mornings at a coffee shop two weeks of every three.  And having committed to this physical activity on a priority schedule, I felt more energetic.  Some time later, I abandoned my SSRI which also improved my perceived well-being after a transition.  The coffee outing had lost its purpose, maybe even destructive to more important activities.

I didn't stop going to the coffee shops altogether, except for Starbucks, which got more expensive and, more importantly, withdrew my ability to choose my coffee additives myself.  However, weekly planning shifted to Sunday mornings in My Space, followed by a treadmill session if scheduled that day.  Periodically, would still feel a need to sit in a public space, even if tending to myself.  Brew HaHa and Panera still enabled that.  The time would be mid-morning.  In retirement, it need not restrict to Sundays.  Both places offered porcelain mugs, though I preferred Brew HaHa's service at a counter to Panera's self-serve kiosks.  Brew HaHa had another advantage.  Other people I knew also liked to go there.  Every few visits I could update with an old friend, usually a person of mental substance.

The coffee prices inflated, more noticeably as my attendance at the coffee shops declined in frequency.  I have enough money.  And the purpose for going there was never the coffee, which I could make easily at home.  That $3 or so served as temporary space rental, a place at a table for a half hour where I could type on my laptop or jot thoughts onto a paper pad.  I almost never purchased anything to eat, or an overpriced beverage with foam additive.  I rented space for about $3.

Might coffee be price elastic?  Despite my ample funds, might there be a threshold that negates my demand for either the coffee or a seat at the table?   Maybe.  Starbucks got the heave-ho at $3.25, part price, part forcing me to use a disposable cup, partly taking my freedom to customize away.  If it were $2.75 would I tolerate the irritations?  Probably not.  I go there for the experience or for quiet time to type away on my laptop.  I can still write, but with a lesser experience.

Panera kept the price more stable but also changed the experience.  I don't mind the kiosk.  The edibles remain very tempting but those clearly are price elastic.  As much as I like quiche or coffee rolls, the price rises eliminated them from what I order.  Brew HaHa remained the wild card.  For purchase of coffee, maybe at the upper edge, for purchase of an experience still acceptable.  For good reason, when I go there they seem to have more customers than the other places.  Yet each time I walk through their doors, maybe every couple of months, that coffee price rises another 10 cents.  I do not even consider the pastries.  

I did my Sunday planning at home.  Walked on the treadmill with slightly increased intensity and duration.  A reward seemed appropriate.  I drove to Brew HaHa, taking a writing pad with me.  A short line.  While waiting my turn, I looked at their beverage menu.  My size coffee $3.35.  It was $3.10 at my last stop there not very long ago.  I had more than enough cash, but not sufficient need for the experience of customizing my coffee and jotting my thoughts onto the yellow pad I brought with me as I savored a special dark roast that I do not recall having previously.  I guess the coffee and the experience are price elastic.

Gift Honoraria

Some honoraria and minor awards have accumulated.  Gift cards for serving as a research subject.  Minor awards for OLLI contests.  I've not redeemed any of them, but carry a $50 Bill with a portrait of US Grant in my wallet.  Not every place accepts them anymore.  A Target card.  Some Barnes & Noble cards.  Now an Amazon $50 voucher sent online from a research project.  Plus a $25 Visa card as a rebate for replacing my tires last year.

I don't need any stuff, or particularly want any stuff.  Not that there isn't stuff that I like owning.  My fondness for pens knows no limits.  I bought two cartridge pens from Amazon in the last year, one to replace the first that malfunctioned.  I have multiple sets of daily and weekly planning pens that I rotate.  They have five colors:  Black= Most tasks; Blue=My home; Green=professional; Red=Financial; Purple designates which tasks each day have identifiable endpoints.  I would perhaps like a set of Flair pens in those colors.

In the past I have purchased harmonicas, which I almost never play.  Perhaps I would return to my childhood violin if I had a functioning bow.  They run about $40.  Or a new instrument.  For $50 Amazon could introduce me to a recorder, bugle, or bongos.  Mandolins, ukeleles, and low end guitars exceed budget.  All but the violin bow exceed any serious desire to acquire them.

In retirement, I have enough clothing.  Anything suitable as office or synagogue wear has been replicated many times over.  One pair of jeans, perhaps two, seem worthy of repair of one and replacement of another.  I have shirts, daily pants, shoes to excess.  Though I really like the white New Balance shoes I bought there last year.  Maybe a parallel pair in black would get worn to different places than where I currently wear the white ones.  

There are logos.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Eagles, SLU, Mizzou.  Some of my cards channel me to Barnes & Noble which sponsor enough college bookstores to create irritating markups for mugs and t-shirts.  The cards together would not subsidize one of those black and maple chairs with the university seal that we sit on while waiting in the Dean's office.

Perhaps Judaica.  My home is already fully functional.  I bought an Atarah for my tallit online many years ago.  I forgot if the purchase came from Amazon or a site dedicated to Judaica.  And Amazon gave me the best price on a Mezuzah Klaf to replace one damaged from my office.  But I don't need anything.

Finally my kitchen.  When I need something, or see something that would enhance my performance there, I just buy it on sight.  I added a set of milchig storage bowls on sale at my usual supermarket.  My milchig mandoline failed, a super flimsy item.  I could justify replacing that if I had more occasion to slice vegetables used in dairy preparation.  I seldom do that.  Cookware I have to excess.  What I need for entertaining I have to excess.

Plastic cards sit either in my wallet or in the containers with which they were presented.  An online card is a first for me.  That I need to redeem lest it float in cyberspace, never fulfilling what the research grant that purchased it intended for their subjects to enjoy.  I need to make a decision.

Organizing Spices

My milchig spice grinder needed refilling.  The evening before, I had tried to season halibut fillets to pan-fry for supper.  Some olive oil to coat, a splash of salt, and a few grinds of pepper on each surface.  It needed little more.  To get the waning volume of peppercorns to grind, I had to shake the grinder a few times to redistribute those on the bottom.  Seasoning was scant but adequate.  I have a pareve grinder and ground pepper in its tin, but what I did would suffice for supper.

This morning I opened the closet with milchig dishes.  The salt shaker and pepper mill sit to the right of the plates, lowest shelf, in my line of sight.   I could see the near depletion of the peppercorns through the transparent plastic grinder.  All my spices have homes in the pantry, a middle shelf to the left.  My system for dealing with seasonings could use a big revision.  Basically, I pull out what I need for various recipes as I need them.  For Thanksgiving, my biggest annual preparation event, I will go through much of the collection.  As I locate a spice jar needed for a recipe, I relocate it to the dining room table.  When all accounted for, each seasoning gets placed with the recipes that require them.  My storage system is not entirely random, though.  There are shelves for the more expensive and frequently used spices.  On the back ledge I keep meat seaonings, poultry and beef, premixed blends apparently taste tested by food scientists who create a hedon index before scaling up the combination for mass production.  I use Old Bay for many fish preparations.  That has a dedicated conspicuous place.  Most though, get used, then returned to the spice shelf towards the front.  Things used hardly at all end up eventually towards the back, where they should be.

Among my collection, a very significant selection of flavor enhancers, I have pure spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, but I also have blends such as zaatar and masala.  My shelf intermingles them.  And they are not alphabetized or sorted by sweet/savory collections.  So I found myself needing a peppercorn refill but no ready means of locating them amid the other bottles.  I didn't even remember what brand of peppercorns I bought or when I purchased them.  So began my spice repertoire treasure hunt.  I took a few bottles out at time, placing them in random order first on an empty portion of a wire overdoor shelf, then onto the kitchen table.  While I didn't capture anything I didn't already know I had, I identified duplicates and tastes that I should introduce more.  Some bottles were ancient, probably far enough past prime to not enhance any recipes in a meaningful way.  I found blends that I've underused, Italian, Jerk, Chili Lime.  The peppercorn bottle, plastic house brand, sat along the side of the collection.  The bottle was larger than most but without a distinctive top that would have identified it without having to read that bottle's label.

I took it from the pantry to my kitchen workspace.  Not wanting to do this again in the near future, I filled the milchig grinder about two thirds of the way up, replaced the top and returned it to its home in the milchig closet.  Then I took the fleishig mill, a wooden one that I've had for many decades with a means of setting the fineness of the grind, and filled that about halfway to the top.  Peppercorn bottle, still about half full, got returned to where I had found it, though considering how long I expect it to be before either mill requires refilling, its optimal home might be a different location.

For the spices now on my kitchen table, I did some sorting.  Rarely used go in the back, blends towards the front.  Bottles of waning supply to the front, though for each of those I have a fresher duplicate.  While my system is really a non-system of locating what I need when I need it, do I need to create a better one?  Probably not.  I do not prepare that many immense menus.  Seder comes from a different collection of seasonings.  Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Wife's Birthday, Thanksgiving.  I try to have dinner guests about five times a year, usually Shabbos or a Jewish festival.  For those, menus prepared two weeks in advance and recipes set on the dining table two days in advance, I can just go on my periodic spice search.  I probably should throw out those long past prime or unlikely to ever by used again.  That would create more room.  If a recipe ever mandates what had been discarded, it can be replaced and the date of purchase put on the bottle with a Sharpie.

My kitchen serves as my hobby.  Seasonings are essential tools, whether from recipes or for daily suppers, where I decide what to add to a bowl of spaghetti as it boils or to my salmon croquette mix as I put the substantive components in the mixing bowl.  Random is not ideal.  Placement of the spices in storage should make more sense.  Yet organizing them seems a low-yield effort.  Locating the peppercorns took 10-15 minutes and enabled a census of what I already had.  It will not need repeating for another year or two.  The elegant dinners always require hunting for what the recipes specify, though I make occasional modifications. I will return what I took from the closet to the kitchen table back to the closet in a more thoughtful way.  Reconstructing my system seems not worth the effort.

Shopping Experience

Going to the store was once pleasurable.  When I had little money, there were treasure hunts.  When I needed something, I could find something suitable, then assess if the price justified a purchase.  Now I have ample money but need very few things. And not even want many more things.  My favorites of the various places I lived have largely gone belly up.  Korvette's as a teen, Sears and Venture in my St. Louis time, Filene's, Caldor, and Lechmere in my Boston years.  The Dry Goods, later morphed to Value City as an adult.  Now only Boscov's remains, a regional place rescued from bankruptcy, a place to find a treasure most visits.  And Marshall's and TJ Maxx, and Costco, all places designed to go exploring without a list. Walmart exists, but about to exit from my shopping destinations.

Walmart had been operational for 25 years before I discovered one near me.  Cheap, diverse items.  Nothing great, everything good enough, with a few favorites.  My local store enters with Mens to the right.  T-shirts, sometimes a hat.  Other clothing better at Boscov's or TJ Maxx.  Shoes, they often had my difficult to find size.  Always good enough for maybe three years.  Watches cheap.  Never had better gel pens than their Magnalites, which have disappeared.  Fishing, the place to be.  Unfortunately my last two ventures, one with a single target item, the other more amorphous, at two different locations did not pan out.  For Holiday shopping I roamed every aisle, picking one of a potential fourteen items, which I put back, not wanting only one item.  A short drive from there, Marshall's completed most of my gift purchases, and with a much more visually inviting store staffed by more impressive employees.

While repairing my home, I confronted a major misadventure.  Though some diligence and risk enabled me to complete the task, I could have also done it with a different tool.  Project done, I still considered getting the tool, as it was economical and versatile.  I drove to my Walmart, about nine miles from home, on a Sunday afternoon.  Men's section on the right.  A suitable t-shirt with my favorite logo got the better of me.  I walked onward.  Housewares.  Nothing that I needed.  Jewelry department, nearly empty.  Stationery.  Was looking for a multicolor Flair Pen set with the five colors I use for my daily planning.  They had other colors.  Fishing off in a far corner.  The plethora of rods that once lined a wall were now clumsily stacked in a corner.  Lures, sinkers, hooks not easy to sort through.  I came for a tool.  Its location was not obvious.  After sorting through some automotive products, I arrived at an aisle where DIY enthusiasts might shop for what they need.  Everything stood locked in glass cases.  Screwdriver, hammers, drills.  Everything that would be strewn around my junior high shop class tables needed protection from theft by Walmart.  I found four employees, wearing sky blue vests.  None had the key that would open the locked case where I could see the electric tool through the window.  None knew which colleague had the key.  None looked overly busy, though all declined my need in a polite way.  Finally, a lady in blue vest owned up to having the key.  She showed me the tool.  Box already open, looking like it have been returned by a previous shopper.  I asked the clerk its cost.  She had to look it up on her smart phone app.  Four dollars more than the online price I had looked up the week before when my home project floundered.  I thanked her, as she returned the tool to the shelf and locked the glass cage.  Then I still had to pay for the t-shirt.  I also have my favorite Walmart snacks that my path to the register will force me to cross.  Expensive, not suitably appetizing.

For a single item, I scan and pay myself.  What had been a dozen self-scanners on my last visit there six months ago had been winnowed to four.  Still, there were many fewer shoppers than a year or two ago.  I waited my turn, paid by credit card, insert only, no tap option, and proceeded to my Toyota with my new t-shirt and receipt.

Retailers seem to have a natural life cycle. Great idea to begin.  Customers catch on.  Parking lots fill.  Stores become less clean, hire whoever they can get at minimum wage, become visually less attractive, and as America learned from Sears and K-Mart, can never be too big to fail.  Walmart's founder Sam deserved every billion that he earned.  He provided a visionary shopping experience for customers, though maybe a bit heavy-handed with suppliers.  His proteges learned his Walmart Way, but forgot some of the elements of what the shopping experience in the individual stores should provide.  I do not know if Walmart will descend to K-Mart.  On my road travels, I can always depend on getting snacks there, or replacing a lost item or new battery.  Never big purchases. And in places like Idaho, there are firearms departments to rival Cabela's. It is unlikely though, that I will drive nine miles again to seek out who has the key to allow me access to what I should just be able to pull off a shelf to look at.  There are no unexpected treasures at the two Walmarts near me.  TJ Maxx, Marshall's, and Boscov's, all much closer, leave me more satisfied, even when I exit empty-handed. 

Correcting Errors

After a semi-debacle trying to make a pizza at home, my FB friends urged me not to give up.  Big mistake, not pre-heating the stone.  Second mistake, not having a tool to transfer the pizza from the prep board to the stone.  So I gave it a second try.  While I like primary ingredients like yeast and flour, I opted for commercial dough, which I thawed.  Not wanting to open a new jar of spaghetti sauce, I had half a jar of salsa, already seasoned.   At Shop-Rite I bought a half-pound buffalo mozzarella, committing me to a Pizza Margherita.  Olive oil is a staple. I had bought mushrooms at Aldi.  Basil leaves grow nicely in a chia pot in the living room.  Instead of a board, I would use an inverted sheet pan to spread the dough and ingredients, then transfer with a spatula onto the hot stone.  

Ready to go.  Stone in oven set at 500F.  Dust inverted sheet pan with flour.  Take dough out of plastic wrapping.  It could have spread better.  I kneaded it a little, and stretched as best I could.  Tossing is a skill I do not have, but transferring between fists spreads it out somewhat.  I never created a circle, more a rectangle.  Pour olive oil onto the crust surface, and spread with the back of a tablespoon.  Contents of salsa jar, mild version, just enough to coat the crust, spread with the same tablespoon, leaving a small edge.  Next, the block of mozzarella.  I put it onto a plate, creating even slices with a sharp knife.  Those got distributed evenly over the pie's upper surface.  Wash and slice five baby Bella mushrooms and distribute them.  Take four basil leaves, chiffonade, distribute.

I opened the oven, slid the rack with the hot stone out enough for the transfer, then took the inverted sheet pan with the pie to that level.  It did not transfer smoothly.   The topping, cheese, mushrooms and some sauce went plop onto the hot stone.  The dough folded a little.  I eventually moved the partially folded dough onto the hot stone, transferred as much cheese a mushrooms as I could back onto the pie, and closed the oven.

Fourteen minutes later, my timer went off. I returned to the oven to find something of a mess. I had a pizza, only slightly adherent to the stone. But I also found baked-on cheese with burnt edges on the stone. The dough did not remain flat. It rose significantly during heating, particularly on the parts that had no topping. Carefully, I removed the stone from the oven  onto my stove top, remembering to turn off the oven.  I created three pizza pieces, a half for me, two quarters for my wife, one to eat for supper, the other to save.

Despite the mostly misadventure, the meal tasted pretty good.  The dough could have used another minute or two in the oven.  The cheese atop the pizza melted just right.  Salsa, even mild, seemed a little too peppery for optimal pizza topping.  The mushrooms cooked well.

That left me with a messy pizza stone to clean up.  I could throw it out, as I am not eager to make a subsequent attempt.  However, some soaking last time enabled the burned on ingredients to come clean from the stone, so it now sits in a tub, half now, half in a few hours.

Despite a culinary result far inferior to what any professional pizzeria would offer, the economics don't make a lot of sense.  The dough just under $2.  Half a jar salsa $1.50.  Mozzarella ball $5.  Half box mushrooms $1.  Whether Dominos or local, a pizzeria would charge about $15 for a better product.  A frozen pizza from the supermarket would be about a third less than I spent on ingredients and would transfer to a hot stone uneventfully.  Doing this myself for the effort and cost does not seem justified.  There are other things I could make instead.  Leave pizza to the pros.

Nightly Supper

From The Atlantic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/01/weeknight-dinner-never-easy/681210/

The writer, a young career woman, lamented disruptions that creating a suitable supper for her family every evening imposes. It likely does, but prioritizing a set time for everyone to assemble around a table at has benefits that are hard to recapture.  I'm an empty nester, the one who came home from work later than everyone else.  Sometimes supper awaited me, other times the onus of creating, or otherwise acquiring something for us to all eat together fell to me.  Later, as cable made Food TV readily available, I took a liking to the kitchen.  In late career, I allocated an annual bonus to remodeling it, mostly in a cosmetic way.  Now supper creation has become my challenge, one that I seem to meet most nights with an element of accomplishment.

The author's ambivalence is hardly unique to her generation.  In my childhood, we did not have the means to eat out and ordering online would take decades to become available to everyone.  Instead, fortunes were made by suppliers of TV dinners.  Banquet, Swanson, Stouffer's.  My mother, who did not work outside the home, popped them in the oven.  As a student, I went to a cafeteria most evenings.  Then as a wage earner with a kitchen and a family that progressed through its stages, supper came mostly from our stove.  We never ate Fast Food for supper, but would go out on occasion for a pizza.  Still, my family like her family, regarded supper each evening as our primary meal, both for sustenance and interpersonal cohesion.

Like the author, we have reached the modern age.  Preparing supper has never been easier.  Unlike the author, I have evolved a repertoire and a planning mechanism, which she has not developed.  The anchors have become the weekly Shop-Rite ad and my freezer.  Shabbos dinner creates a fixed point.  It has limited repertoire.  Chicken parts, beef cubes, occasionally ground beef.  Friday night is usually the only time of the week in which I will prepare meat.  Chicken is mostly seared and baked, enough for two meals.  Ground beef becomes a meat loaf, two meals.  Beef cubes become cholent, two meals this week and a portion frozen for a subsequent shabbos.  Thus I have 2/7 suppers done.  The template also includes a starch and a vegetable.  Near East Couscous or rice goes on sale, boil water, add contents of box, and sit on stove a while longer.  Or bake a white or sweet potato in the oven.  Boil frozen vegetable or make a cucumber/tomato salad.  

In my freezer I have pierogies, ravioli, fish that had been frozen at sea, garden burgers, a couple packages of plant based meat in various forms.  Fish is nature's fast food.  Thaw the night before.  Tuna steaks need only seasoning and a few minutes in a hot skillet.  Ravioli is boiled.  Perogies have differnt options for cooking.  My refrigerator has swiss and American cheese.  Two pieces of bread and grill on the stovetop.  My refrigerator has eggs and milk.  Quiche takes minutes to assemble, providing meals for two nights.  Sometimes I put extra effort to plan ahead.  Macaroni and cheese in the style of Horn & Hardart has been recaptured as a recipe.  Assembly is tedious, requiring a béchamel and precooked noodles.  The concoction gets baked in a lasagna pan.  Two meals this week.  Freeze two other quarters for single meals each of the next two weeks.  Same for spinach lasagna, recipe from the first cookbook that the upper tier Artscroll publishers ever authorized.  The Shop-Rite ad is useful.  When the ingredients go on sale, particularly the perishable kosher cheeses, that becomes my kitchen project.

And not to forget my pantry.  Spaghetti is quite versatile.  One third of a box, boil, strain.  In olive oil, sauté garlic that I have chopped.  Sauté sliced onions, mushrooms if on sale, some parsely from my indoor pot.  Mix in a bowl.  Often enough for two meals.  In the pantry I keep canned salmon.  Modern small choppers make this easy.  Onion, maybe celery into the chopper.  Add salmon and spin once or twice. Add egg, spin again.  Into bowl.  Bread crumbs or matzoh meal for consistency, spices chosen at whim.  Pan fry as sandwich sized patties.  Enough for two meals.

None of this seems physically taxing or mentally difficult to plan.  Restaurant once a month or so, pizza once a month or so.  Take-out never, fast food never.  We eat pretty well most evenings.

And for guests, shabbos, Seder, Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah,  I do a little more. Same for special events wife's birthday, anniversary, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day.  Expanded menu.  Planning a week or two in advance. Coordinating various courses with stove top and oven requirements.  It is those skills utilized for weekday suppers that enable executing the more elegant preparations.  

Studying Anti-Semitism

An extensive article by staff writers at the JewishTelegraphic Agency profiled a fairly recent project sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League to study the efficacy of different approaches to combating anti-Semitism. 

https://www.jta.org/2025/01/06/united-states/everyone-has-a-plan-to-fight-antisemitism-few-have-studied-what-actually-works

Some brief background.  Anti-Semitism, either hatred of Jews or resentment of Jews, has been around since antiquity.  Assigning definitions remains unsettled, but like Justice Stewart's assessment of pornography, you know it when you see it.  Through history, it has had overt, even deadly expressions.  In America, this has been mostly subtle.  Our Founding Fathers created a policy of tolerance, continued by our immigration processes which at one time did not restrict entry of healthy Jews, mostly from central and Eastern Europe, arriving at a few ports in massive numbers.  While American anti-Semitism has never been deadly, with a few isolated exceptions, America has had its pockets of anti-Jewish sentiment.  Some displayed a public face with Klansmen and American Nazis carrying placards or hotels posting signs indicating that Jews could not obtain rooms there.  Titans of capitalism sometimes operated under conspiracy theories of Jews having surreptitious methods for controlling the world.  Others set quotas for access to elite schools or prime employment, though almost never zero representation.  Amid overt or tacit hostility, episodes of welcome appeared, some more sincere than others.  Tammany Hall in the early twentieth century solicited votes from newly franchised Jewish citizens, often asking them to identify their Rabbi who could help with organizing them.  As growing American industry, financial markets, and professions expanded at about mid-century, college educated Jews had acquired valuable talent and energy to propel these enterprises forward.  At the same era, the face of anti-Semitism shifted.  The Dixie bigots never disappeared.  But there arrived a new presence in America.  An Islamic element, wealthy and influential by control of essential oil markets, took the position that dhimis like Jews should never have sovereignty.  Anti-Israel became the marker of Anti-Semitism, an intersectionality that once again threatens Jews physically, not just in America but everywhere from Munich to Israeli buses to American public places.  In the past year, as Israel tries to contain very real threats and American Jews in alliance with most of our national elected officials  decry this return of animosity, that previously contained Anti-Semitism has gained popular support among American progressives and minorities.  The Internet has offered everyone parity of expression on their preferred platform with little prospect of negative consequences such as loss of employment.  Even when adverse consequences can be applied, leaders of our great Universities have been reticent to enforce protection to Jewish students and other members of the visibly Jewish public.

In response to a deadly anti-Semitic event, the kangaroo trial followed by the lynching of Leo Frank in Atlanta in 1913, a group of philanthropists banded together to found what became a legacy Jewish agency, now known as the Anti-Defamation League.  At the time, and today, public unflattering stereotypes of Jewish people in public forums abounded.  This era also brought into existence many public service agencies, Jewish, secular, sectarian, economic.  Unions gained prominence.  The Scouts, NAACP, our Federation system for pooling and distributing donations, Lions Clubs, and many other sources of philanthropy and advocacy trace their origins to that era.  As we advanced forty years, Jewish acceptance in America had become established, though African-Americans and other minorities had not done as well.  Advocacy through the ADL expanded for all groups that had been treated poorly, a source of core values, but later a source of friction as allies with more success found areas of divergent interests.  And that is a quick summary of a hundred years of advocacy.

Next an anecdote.  My state university offers courses to seniors through its Osher Institute affiliation.  During the pandemic, I enrolled in a Zoom series on contemporary issues.  Each week, the three organizers would invite somebody of personal or organizational prominence to present their activities for about an hour, then open Zoom to questions. Among those presenting was a representative of the local ADL chapter, either the director or assistant to the director.  She focused on her organization's educational efforts that spanned over a hundred years, a source of great pride to her. Two questions came from the audience that stayed with me, as the presentation took place just after the pandemic's peak but before the October 7 massacre with its outpouring of Anti-Zionist public canards.  One question went something like, if you are so experienced at this and doing the same for a hundred years, why do we still have Pittsburgh and Charlottesville?  Do you have alternative activities that may be more effective?  The other question came from somebody more familiar with the ADL and how it has engages in its advocacy mission.  How has the agency's directions changed as leadership passed from Abe to Jonathan?  Both very legitimate questions.  And she groped for answers that a group of highly educated seniors retired from some very upper-tier professions realized she did not have.

While educated people have an advantage over the ignorant, the most educated around attend universities whose admissions offices turned me down.  There are imprints, scripting, opportunism,  In other spheres we have warning labels on tobacco and alcohol products, public service announcements, and people collecting outcome data.  Education did not reduce smoking and smoking-related illness in America.  Taxation and restriction of opportunities to smoke in public places did.  A good law will outperform good intentions every time.  Drunk driving injuries have declined because of enforcement of laws, not because people with DUI were forced to attend classes.  It is likely the same with prejudice.  It was OK to deny black people restaurant seating in Alabama when the law permitted it, taboo when there are real penalties for people who try.  And with the change in mandated behavior comes an acceptance of the new behavior as the right path.  Smoking bad, drink judiciously, everyone gets seated at every restaurant in America.  Sometimes it is best to force people to do what they should be doing without being compelled by laws and penalties.

The JTA article, reprinted in The Forward where I read it, poses a similar question to those at the Zoom ADL seminar.  How effective is education as a tactic to deter anti-Semitism?  Do some agency heads like Jonathan at ADL or Ted at AJC, both with extensive political backgrounds in the Democratic Party, come to their current responsibilities with imprints that Abe and David, their predecessors of very long-standing tenure did not have?

That becomes the heart and soul of the extensive JTA analysis.  ADL, for all the sacred cows that it has protected from its shechita knife, engaged somebody who asked the same question that the person at the Zoom seminar asked.  If we are so good at this, why can't we avert the cycles of anti-Semitism in whatever form we find them?  Maybe the focus on public education has become that beaten dead horse.  If it needs replacement, what should the more efficacious approach be?

While headquartered at the ADL, something like this requires a wide net of collaboration with independent thinkers whose careers do not depend on saluting the sponsor.  Across America and beyond, there are institutes, universities, publications, and other organizations that conduct objective research on anti-Semitism.  Findings can be a great resource, the justification for changing direction.  Or when legacy organizations have been around forever, inconvenient discoveries can be resisted with the full structure and force of the agency.  The ADL VP profiled had begun assembling this network, though the role of the ADL, or AJC as a parallel advocate with comparable vast resources, seemed a bit amorphous given the scale of the project.  Some institutions were mentioned.  One that was not is one to which I donate, Indiana University's Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism.  These scholarly enclaves have existed for a considerable time.  Their faculty, as most are university subdivisions, have bibliographies, tenure, and grants.  However, any alternatives to mass public educational efforts have not been very well publicized, let alone adopted in a coordinated way by our legacy advocacy agencies.

Best practices research, now a pillar in my own medical profession, has produced copious guidelines for how to manage a wide variety of medical challenges.  They are presented with a scoring system that includes the quality of the data that generates the recommendations and the strength of expert consensus.  I think that would also be the model for social policy, whether creating best practices for policing to avoid some of the unfortunate incidents and for assessing the impact of interventions to mitigate anti-Semitism.  It is not likely that blaming Jews for the woes of other populations will disappear, but they can be marginalized from the public sphere in a better way than what we experience now.  I think enough evidence has accumulated that defaulting resources to public education has not brought the desired outcome.  What might replace this, with a better outcome as the end in mind, remains uncertain.  The research already exists, both in how to recognize best practices and how to assess alternatives in an objective way.  Coordinating this effort seems more nascent.

Cleaning the Basement

 

Our electronic library permits four checkouts a month.  Use it or lose it for that month.  As the New Year transitioned, along with my twelve semiannual projects, I opted to merge book with project.  Ebook on decluttering.  Lots of options from the library search.  I settled on a popular one from Europe, as the incentive to include a purge of my basement lay on minimizing the need for my survivors to rent dumpsters, as the family across the street did.

A few days into reading the book, maybe a third of the way through, I am still reading pages of rationalizations for doing this.  Most I could have figured out.  How to do it comes in small quanta, but I am hoping the chapters I read in the coming week will be more explicit.

My projects are always based on SMART criteria, as is this book.

1. Specific:  A workable basement suitable as a storage area
2. Measurable:  Decided to work by the clock, forty minutes a week in one or two sessions
3. Attainable:  I don't know how many minutes are really needed or what external resources will need purchasing or hiring.  40 minutes/ wk * 25 weeks = 1000 min = 17 hours.  I guess if I hired a pro it would take about two full work days.
4. Relevant:  What I don't do will default to my survivors
5. Time-bound:  My initiatives are in six month segments

With the New Year underway, I've done my first weekly allotment.  Depending on where I start, either papers dominate or stuff dominates.  I found my first need for external help.  Old carpeting in rolls has attracted vermin.  With another person, I can lift them.  Maybe my usual trash carter will take them for an added fee.  I found bags of unsorted papers and others of semi-sorted papers.  Random sample dates.  All more than 14 years old.  I found a few keepers like my daughter's college graduation program.  Some minor harvesting, others to recycle bin.  

Financial statements in bags and boxes are long past their keep dates. Those get shredded. My county offers two days a month when they will accept two boxes per visit of papers for shredding. I need to box as I go and keep my eye on the calendar. Commercial outfits like Staples shred by the pound. What I've captured weighs a lot of pounds.

There is stuff.  I bought things for my kitchen that never left the purchase boxes.  I found a bread maker that I last used decades ago.  There is a printer not quite ancient enough for a museum but too old to function for usual home printing.  The state offers self-drop-off electronics recycling.  I expect a few trips there.  Some old floor lamps too dangerous to revive.  Old paint from the pre-Y2K era.  There is a collection system for these.  I do not know if they have a volume limit, but they collect twice a month.

There are sentimentals.  I do not think I need to retain my children's school work.  They can have their own kids and start mementos from precious young talent in their own houses.

My children each had apartments in driving range before seeking education and careers at airplane distances.  They make enough money to buy themselves better stuff than they dropped off here.  New homes for the stuff they dropped off, if possible.  Or landfill if that's the better option. Or yard sale.  Estate sale as last resort.

In the opposite corner, I have baby furniture.  Safety standards have changed considerably since their 1980s acquisition.  Landfill for those.

I don't yet have a good sense of how much clearance 17 hours of effort will produce.  Nor have I yet established a willingness to dispose of items linked to memories or what I've accomplished over a lifetime.  Swedish Method tries to reconcile these.   Still have the majority of the book left to read.

Revelry

New Years Eve almost requires sitting in front of the TV to watch the descent of the big glass ball over Times Square.  A transition ritual  About forty minutes worth for me.

While Guy Lombardo of my younger years conducted a nostolgic, lyrical Auld Lang Syne, the people who paid enough, or were important enough, to attend the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom live all came to party.  The less well-off but more bold packed the streets nearby, waiting for the ball to drop.  They wore hats, kept in motion, danced to themselves.  Cheer and revelry abounded.  It remains today, fifty or more years later.  Our flat screens display NY Eve and Fireworks around the world through each time zone, though Eastern Standard Time still dominates.  Every city, LA, Vegas, Miami, and NYC have people intent on being entertained.  I saw these forty minutes as something of a freak show.  Singers with millions of albums sold to other people, whose words I had to watch on closed caption as not discernible to me in my native language.  People, nearly all young adults, bouncing as best they can in the square foot allotted to them.  None of this revelry engaged me.  I am in the business of clock watching on New Years Eve.  My desire for entertainment, hedonism, or revelry of any type just hasn't been there, if it ever was there.   My hair doesn't get let down.  I do not bounce.

Still, the people on my screens have neural circuits.  Many usually in force lose their inhibition.  Or maybe not.  Perhaps they are the ones who purchase those performer albums and shuckle in private at home or at whatever replaced the disco in our contemporary public.  Maybe the brain evolves.  There were no grannies on those screens, but Guy Lombardo's dance floor needed to sell space to matronadults of wealth accumulation.  

As a community, for civic cohesion, perhaps we need a specified time like NY Eve.  A time when mostly young adults can release energy, sway to musical sounds even if they also need closed captioning to grasp the words.  I watch for forty minutes, sip some bubbly, and retire for the night.  They see the year as demarcation. However, they also plan for months to immerse themselves in this revelry.  They need money to travel to NY or Vegas.  Venues that compensate name talent while offering food, tables, and alcohol all charge admission, requiring most in attendance to save up during the year.  They not only enjoy themselves but impress others with their best duds and most garish accessories.  That means some planning and some shopping.  Revelry has its frivolous end point but its serious preparation.  The old year, a monument to what they were.  The new appearance, the aspiration to what might happen.  Always beginning at what is possible.  The peak of thrill, if only for the brief ecstasy of anticipation.

That's them.  And there are a lot of them.  There is only one me.