Made the Trip

 

Shop-Rite has largely abandoned its previous Kosher commitments, mostly for understandable reasons.  Skeletal fresh poultry, almost no beef.  Trader Joe's has added steaks, ground beef, and sometimes cubes.  This mostly suffices a couple of empty nesters.  But I really got spoiled on my visit to Baltimore.  Seven Mile Market is apparently the largest dedicated Kosher market in the USA.  I could find anything on my visit.  Its distance makes it impractical for the few things I'd get.  Much closer sits a project similar to our Shop-Rite agreement, of blessed memory.  It serves a much larger Orthodox and Conservative group of kosher consumers.  The GPS set the trip at 45 minutes to cover the thirty miles, including a bridge crossing.  

The challenge to my driving skills aside, I found the scale of the surroundings intimidating.  This supermarket probably has twice the square footage of my local Shop-Rite.  It sits at the edge of a shopping complex with its two entrances separated by 0.4 miles.  The parking area and the store just seemed vast.  People take their carts from dedicated sections where the previous shoppers left them.  Apparently they economize on gofers to harvest the carts back to the store's entrance.  Not seeing any at the entrance, I went back to the parking lot to retrieve mine.

Knowing that the store was immense, I started at Customer Service to inquire which sections contain the kosher products.  Unlike my local store which had cases of meat with other meet, a bakery, and a deli case with other deli, this Shop-Rite consolidated their kosher offerings as effectively a mini-store within a store, though keeping the baked goods with other baked goods, but labelled as kosher-pareve.  I walked in, where I greeted the attendant.  As I conveyed my story of my local arrangement shutting down, he responded that he also lived in my town for two years during the early days of the agreement.

I came for beef and found quite a lot.  Big slab of raw pastrami.  An eye roast, beef cubes.  I even found a veal chop at a price acceptable to me, something I've not had for years.  They had prepared stuff.  I got a chicken pot pie.  And a salami and a tube of kishke.  A few other things not available to me at home.  The kosher nook even had a tzedakah box, a tradition at kosher shops.  I added a dollar.  As tempting as the meat cases looked, I did my best to limit purchases to what could fit in my freezer.  All fit into the single insulated bag that I brought with me.  $149.  As I added to my cart, I also considered when I might use each item.  Beef cubes, Rosh Hashanah which spans Shabbos and Sunday.  No guests coming, have to be able to get to services.  Crock pot of cholent or stew will satisfy that.  The eye roast:  guests in the sukkah.  I bought a slab of beef:  subdivide for three shabbos dinners.  The pastrami:  guests, as we have no upcoming birthdays.  Tub of  chopped liver, that's mine.  Turkey slices, weeknight dinner probably.  

Waze took me through places I'd probably not choose to drive on my own.  Interestingly, when I first came to the Philadelphia area as a student, then borrowed my parents' car to visit my girlfriend the last two years, many of the highways I use now had not yet been developed.  The NJ Turnpike exited me near Cherry Hill, followed by a drive past strip malls and auto malls, into some parts of Camden where you try not to stop, then across the Ben Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia.  I've not driven across the Ben Franklin in decades, and can't remember the last time I took a bus from Philly to NYC that crossed it.  Yet the highways on the NJ side had a familiar look.  The shopping places had greatly expanded with chains that did not exist 50 years ago.  And the life of the roads also showed deterioration with partial repairs.  I remember transitions from one numbered route to another that required drivers to express some chutzpah to claim the lane they needed.  On the route from home to Shop-Rite, it spared me the dangers of Camden itself, but skirted it more closely on the way back.  Waze's algorithm returned me home by a route better maintained, roads more suitable for modern highway driving.

I am hoping that my purchases will last from about the Holy Days through Thanksgiving.  Shop-Rite and Trader Joe's offer enough for ordinary uses.  Now that I have a few hard to obtain treats, though, I have to invite more guests.

Substandard Encounters

Elul has arrived.  This sixth month of the Hebrew calendar serves as an intro to the Holy Days that approach the following month.  Our synagogues have their usual cloth adornments changed to white ones.  We are reminded to reflect on our missteps, things we did that caused harm to others or to the community or to ourselves.  An abundance of these.  We also have people victimized or treated in a less than dignified way, not just by individuals but by our Jewish institutions working within their customary formats.  Often justified in the name of Achdoos, or public solidarity.  Nobody caused these things, but often nobody takes responsibility or ownership of them.

I have my own gripes, accumulated over a lifetime, too often under a Jewish banner.  Some worth pursuing, as my untoward experience often reflects customary practices that need to be reconsidered.  Our synagogues and federations make great whipping boys.  They populate with officers, the best and brightest, chosen for some mixture of obedience and deficit of contrition.  People who think that if you resent your experience, there must be something inferior about you.  Probably no better way to account for the institutional attrition, aging without optimal generational replacement, that plagues so many places less robust or secure than a generation ago.  Malice rare.  Insensitivity without accountability too common.

My own recent encounters probably illustrate the underpinnings as well as anything else.  At synagogue, I only serve on one committee.  Nobody invited me to it, but the chairmen tend to function with sign-up sheets.  This one they accepted me.  I'm not at the core of the mission, but I can be very useful.  My ability to explore other organizations' experiences with similar projects and tap into experts has its place.  And I've been invited to each meeting, attend nearly all, and contribute.  No invitations to be part of the any committee activities between meetings.  I could not attend a recent meeting due to travel.  Before the meeting, I sent the chair a note to include me in the next project.  I returned from vacation to find a follow-up note.  I had been excluded again from something I wanted to do.  Blackballed?  Not an unreasonable conclusion based on who did get some of the assignments that I expected.  I don't know.  Pursue it?  Probably I should, as it violates some dearly held principles.  

As kids, later as an employees, we each brought a few strengths.  Even if you brought no strengths, once on the team you were part of the team.  The weakest athlete in gym class or camp still got to play his one at-bat, stand in right field, do five minutes on half-court basketball, or get pinned faster than a Prom Queen on the wrestling mat.  A Bar Mitzvah kid, irrespective of achievement, got his morning in the limelight, with public appreciation for what he was able to accomplish.  It also broke down, into exclusionary USY Cliques.  There were also places where you had to earn entitlements.  Scouts had ranks and they had merit badges.  Boys needed neither to attend a camping weekend.  Once there, though, the marginal kid still received responsibilities for cooking, cleanup squad, a chance to hold the flag.  Being a member and being treated unconditionally were core values, with leaders committed to enforcing them.

Later in the workplace, once hired, once part of the group, people not only received responsibilities but trust.  I had the good fortune to work in a high-end profession.  Everyone took call on scheduled weekends, everyone got assigned to present a conference or two each year, everyone got assigned a committee or two.  

Much of my Jewish experience has been more conditional than that, places with gatekeepers, places that judged people as useful or not.  Inherently important is a very different mindset.  In my younger years, I used to chant High Holiday Torah reading for one of the days, which varied from one year to the next.  Only machers got aliyot, all men despite gender equality policies of that synagogue, all dressed in Brooks Brother's suits.  Same men for each occasion each year.  They hugged each other when they completed their blessings.  Despite my flawless, expert chanting, I could expect two handshakes each morning.  I was useful.  I remember that decades later, long since transitioned to a different synagogue that values different things.

I'm still a HH Torah reader, though always Yom Kippur.  Initially this occurred for practical reasons, as my wife and I attended elsewhere for Rosh Hashanah, where she could function more as a participant.  Now that we have returned for all the Holy Days, I expressed an interest in swapping my YK reading for one of the RH readings.  Too much trouble for the person doing the assignments.  Forgive me, but  a few years ago I gave part of my assigned reading to another newer member who had joined our Torah reading rotation for many a Shabbos.  He deserved an invitation.  My thinking of him, not the VP considering how to make our services more inclusive and honoring a decent man not yet honored.  He had to learn it de novo, but succeeded.  Often filling the same assignments by default bypasses people who deserve better.  Despite my wanting a new challenge, I was again rejected but defaulted to what we've done before. Purposeful disruption sometimes has advantages over established practices.  Insensitivity to my skill, my willingness to expand that skill, and a different perspective of being part of my congregation's RH experience.  Pursue it?  Maybe.  After all, the Rabbi has a responsibility for advancing the participants, even when his VPs slouch a bit.

As we get into the services of the Holy Days, an individual has the task of bestowing honors on as many men as he can invite.  Most require no advance skill.  The vast majority entail opening and closing the Ark where the Torah scrolls are housed at specified times in the liturgy.  Other men get asked to lift or tie a Torah scroll or open the ark when those scrolls are removed or replaced into it.  When our congregation had far more people, it was easier to standardize.  Most years I received notification of which page my Ark opening would occur.  Two men ascend to the front at the same time.  I knew who my partner was.  As families left my congregation, the remaining men would have more than one opportunity to perform these over the course of several services.  My invitations eventually shifted from Ark openings to more visible tasks.  And I opted out a few years back.  The honor, or more recognition, became less authentic.  This serves as the school or camp rule that everyone, or at least the men, all get their At Bat.  It is designated an Honor.  I'm not sure it is.  It was not earned.  It's more of an entitlement of that male phenotype and membership that comprises the team roster.

For a few years I've declined these invitations.  Not because I object to being recognized as a team member, but because I have a different sense of what it means to honor somebody.  An Ark Opening is more of a Certificate of Attendance.  During the Holy Days I like to be more of a contributor than consumer.  My wife and I donate to the fund for the two people bestowed with real annual High Holy Day Honors.  These go to two people or organizations that made activities of the synagogue happen, the creators or designers or sometimes yeomen.  I do some of the Torah reading, in part because I know how, and in part because those present need to sit in a place where the effort and expertise have value.  We honor others by recognizing their talents, their uniqueness, and their willingness to have everyone contribute and create.  It requires sensitivity, something not conveyed with optimal consistency in my Jewish world over an adult lifetime.  An Ark Opening hardly compensates for rejection, not only experienced but expected along the way.

We can show up.  Woody Allen quipped that 80% of life is showing up.  And that may be how many of the key people measure the success of effort.  Attendance at events.  But Judaism in its most alluring form also has a rhythm.  It's a chance to not have a sign-up sheet but to seek out what people at their best can do and invite them to contribute, design, and create.  I've found that too restricted, even sometimes stifled by key people. But the Honor comes from letting people perform, seeking them out, creating those dialogs where spirit prevails over groupthink. 

So Elul, with its preliminaries, will move one day at a time to Tishrei, the cluster of Festivals, the chance to engage.  A chance to take account, correct some of the insensitivities, to reconsider the talent in place, who you've sought out, who you've made more important than they were, and who you kept on the same list from last year.  

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Missing Stuff

One great frustration has always been losing stuff, or really misplacing it, or more frequently having my wife move my things to wherever it might fit at the moment to accommodate visitors or prepare for the cleaners.  Sometimes my fault too.  I bought a VLog kit with an Amazon honorarium, used it twice to make brief movies of my grandchildren and never saw it again.  While I own lots of shoes, a few are versatile to many situations, including gray suede chukka boots.  Very few places they could be, though not in the closet with the rest of my shoes.

Sometimes I stumble on a cache of moved stuff.  When purging my family room of clutter, I happened upon a cardboard box wedged under the edge of our oak coffee table.  I removed one item at a time.  Women's clothing.  Also a variety of my stuff.  Stationery supplies, swag taken off tables at expos, handyman stuff that I'm surprised I never had to go back to the hardware store to replace.  I found a pre-inked stamp given to me by my hospital, complete with name and degree, intended to clarify who provided a marginally legible signature.  I removed the protective plastic cover and pushed the rubber surface onto scrap paper.  Out of ink.  No surprise for an item probably not used for fifteen years.  But it's mine.

What struck me about that box was not so much its contents but how unsorted it was.  Having like things together.  There is a place where paper hole punchers go and a place where a tube of plaster filler goes.  Those homes are different.  My desk, among my most protected places, has stuff that I would use at a desk.  It does not have paintbrushes or torn wallets that I've not gotten around to discarding.  My closet has designated places for dress shirts, pullover shirts, sweaters, and long pants, the latter organized by jeans, casual pants, and dress pants.  While it does not eliminate decision fatigue the way only having khaki pants would, it saves me from a clothing hunt when I try to dress in a way appropriate to my activities.  When I need to wrap gifts, the supplies are only in two places.

I've taken to sorting rooms as recent Semi-Annual projects.  My son's bedroom last cycle, our family room this one.  These spaces are not mine.  I am not the principal user of either.  But orderliness for myself also helps the user, whether my son who has not occupied that room for 15 years or my wife who sits on the family room couch as her prime space.  Most of the stuff there is not mine to discard, but enough is to recapture what is mine.

I found the VLog Kit in a laundry basket.  Not found the suede shoes.  Handyman stuff will go to the basement.  Not sure about the best destination for Expo tchotchkes.  But none of this stuff will get assigned to a random box.

Class Selections

Submitted.  My request for seven classes for the upcoming OLLI Semester.  I had seriously considered letting the next semester lie fallow.  The last couple terms had imposed a few strains.  I especially liked one course.  The others left me unenthused.  To be fair, I got closed out of one, the instructor took ill in another, and was judged inadequately qualified to enter another at mid-year.  

The fall catalog arrived online first, then as a printed brochure, which I did not use. While the University offered 435 courses total, this time it offered electronic screening by time, location, and subject.  I created a paper grid of fifteen squares, putting the five days horizontal and the three class times vertically.  I generally do not enroll in courses that begin at 2:30 PM and try to keep Friday afternoons free to prepare shabbos dinner when standard time returns.  I asked the program to list all courses each day at the local center.  I've mostly found the live experiences superior to watching on a screen, though some of the selections simulcast by experts who live in another part of the state have been excellent.  For each day, I placed the classes to consider further in their appropriate grid box.  

How do I cull classes?  Partly by topic, partly by prerequisite skills, partly by my willingness to sit through 75 minutes.  The professor matters more each year.  Experience has generated automatic exclusions.  I also do not particularly take well to classes where we watch a video for the majority of the class and engage in a discussion afterwards.  Despite these restrictions, I had ample options Monday through Thursday.  Friday morning contained a class that I could not take the previous semester.  And they offered violin lessons late Tuesday afternoons, which made the exclusion of late classes less than absolute.  Finally, I went to the Online options, selecting only ones with known top teachers.

With the grid filled, I next focused on how I want to spend my week.  I insist on one day off, usually two.  Having a late morning course followed by a break for lunch, then an afternoon class mostly has not gone well.  Certainly not more than one day weekly, and then to accommodate the weekly violin lesson.  

Finally, what do I like to learn?  Most of my educational experience and professional continuing education has involved lecture formats.  That has changed somewhat as on-demand videos expand options and much Medical Continuing Education for license renewal can be obtained from written text followed by questions that confirm the person read the material.  Indeed, I read quite a lot.  Three subscriptions, four Torah commentaries online each week, a quota of books each half-year.  I watch instructional YouTubes, several daily, so adding a DVD in class often feels like excess.  

What I do not do enough is engage in conversation, challenge ideas, perform with an audience, or get feedback on my work.  As I looked at each grid, I rationed the lectures which would have me absorbing presented material but expanded classes that would force me to create.

I came up with seven;

Lectures:

1. History of Advertising, conducted by a neighbor
2. The Federalist Papers, led by my favorite prof.
3. Delaware Landmarks, led by a committee familiar to me.

Doing:

1. Non-fiction Writing
2. Acting on Stage
3. Folk Guitar
4. Violin

I do not expect any to be over-subscribed.  It will require me to declare Tuesday as a work on-site day, due to a gap between my late morning class and mid-afternoon violin session.  I've done this successfully before.  Pack lunch, bring laptop and leather portfolio, then find a quiet room with a tabletop.  It helps immensely to know in advance what I will pursue over two hours of unstructured time.

The University recognizes that some students will regret their choices and assignments.  Within limits, corrections are possible.  I look forward to a few months of mostly daily structure.

Winery Experiences

What makes for the ideal visit?  America's proliferation of wineries in my adult lifetime has made sampling them part of my itinerary when I travel.  Sometimes they cluster, as in Napa, Finger Lakes, or Long Island's North Fork.  Other times the home states have established wine trails sorted by state zones.  I've pursued these in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Missouri, and a few others, usually not as my primary travel destination but as attractions near where I intend to visit.  

Experiences vary widely.  Most tout their vintages in some way.  For a fee that has ranged from complementary to high enough to decline and move on to the next place, a patron can sample 4-6 pours of 30 ml or so.  I've had them served in stemware most frequently, but also in small goblets and on occasion in disposabtsle plastic cups.  At some wineries they owners choose which, with samples of reds or whites on a list.  Other places offer a large sheet of the available wines with brief descriptions.  The taster selects five and the attendant either brings them all at once with instructions on the order or lets the visitor drink one, then the next gets poured.  Most vineyards or tasting rooms remote from the vineyard have something resembling a bar, usually with a wood base, from where customers place their requests.  Many will then ask the taster to pick a table to which a server delivers the selections.  Others continue the sequential tastings at the ordering site.

Most have plantings visible from the parking lot, if not the building where the vintages get poured.

Over the years, I've established my own preferences.  There is the wine itself, but there is also the experience of being at the winery.  The liquids all come with a description of what makes each glass special.  They don't all come with expert people.  I could probably sample a couple of tastes at a large liquor store.  The winery, though, needs access to the attendants.  I greatly prefer an employee, if not the vintner, explaining to me the history of each vineyard, which grapes grow especially well, when the harvests occur, whether the winemaster graduated from a university oenology program, how blending is done.  That and more constitutes the experience.  Many places also offer tours, usually of the production facilities and equipment, occasionally with brief excursions onto the fields.  That's what makes stopping there pleasurable.  The wines have tasting varieties, registered on a personal mental scale that gets forgotten in one minute.  Things the attendant conveyed about the individual winery or the geographic circumstances that enabled the products that I taste will get retained in my mind much longer.

So my own preferencss, now with considerable experience.  I much prefer being at the bar, standing up, with the attendant pouring the next glass as I finish the one already poured.  I then get to chat with her, it's more often a woman.  The vineyard.  What's it like living in a place often remote from an urban center?  I have no preference between me choosing five and the winery staff assembling their own list of which five would make a good themed selection.  I'm confident that they thought it out, while my selections tend to be more diverse, even random, with a white or two and a red or two and a sweet selection.  Stemmed glasses are the way to go.  Often I will purchase one to take home, though I am running out of room in my kitchen cabinets where I store them.  Plastic cups detract from my experience.  I like the brief tours, but don't find them essential.  I tend not to enjoy tasting rooms off-site from the vineyard, though these have enabled me to sample wines produced in regions I am unlikely to ever visit.  I could duplicate this aspect at a liquor store.  Do I need rinsing water or neutral crackers?  At my level of proficiency, I think they add little to the experience.

There's the taste.  There's the more composite experience.  I think the experience of being there matters more.