Every Contingency

Overnight trip upcoming.  By car.  With wallet and credit card and enough cash.  To a major city with retail options exceeding what I have at home.  I should be able to put my worldly goods in something more compact than my airline carry-on. Clothing for the next day.  Grooming needs for the morning. PJs.  Even my laptop with its charging cord.

But over an adult lifetime of short trips, my ability to plan sensibly has yielded to the what-ifs and what else might I like to do while away.  Some things I never take, especially stuff that's not mine.  My two checked-out library books stay home.  When I complete the return drive, I may not go directly home, as I have a synagogue event to attend.  A casual one, but not t-shirt and shorts for a kabbalat shabbat gathering.  I will need to drive home in something I can wear there.  And I will need an extra outfit in 

case I spill something on what I would have worn in either direction.

My grooming kit is largely set from previous longer travel.  It takes some room, and I probably won't use more than a comb and dental supplies which can fit in a TSA quart-size clear plastic bag, much smaller than my dopp kit.  Spare glasses can stay in their usual car compartment.  I need them most when I need to drive home, though I always exchange my good pair for a more expendable set when I risk losing them at a beach or amusement park.  Neither of these destinations planned.  

Even though I will only be with my daughter and granddaughter for about 24 hours, they may want to eat out.  Need something suitable.  Bought a VLog kit to record the little one.  Have to take that.  And there are things I work on.  Laptop.  Mini-recorder.  Moleskine clone.  Some pens.  Maybe a small portfolio with paper.  Transistor radio?  Can stay home.  My medicines I will transfer to another case.  Two pills at night, seven the next morning.  No reason to take two weekly pill cases.  Prescriptions I cannot easily purchase while away, though nothing will seriously happen to me if I miss those pills for one dose.  Or maybe not work on stuff for two days, other than what I can directly perform on a laptop and cell phone.  Charging cords?  I keep a car charging cord, so I could charge the cell phone en route or use that charging cord in my hostess' port that she uses.  And VLog charging cords part of the package.  Same port as cell phone. Maybe leave smart watch home and wear the more functional Casio 168, which needs no charging.  Cell phone can do pretty much the smart watch tasks that I use.  Count down timer mostly.

YouTube has ample short videos of how to best pack.  Most are based on experience.  None addresses my fears of not having what I need when I need it, let alone the easy ability to compensate.  I'll overpack as usual, but try to show some restraint.

Learning a VLog

My two grandchildren, each not quite a year old had scheduled visits.  With a $50 Amazon gift card as an honorarium for serving as a university research subject, I spent the majority of it on a VLog kit, anticipating not only my grandchildren's encounters but some other summer travel.

It arrived the day before the order tracker indicated it would.  I unpacked the plastic Yamaha recorder, two sham moleskines, and a package of purple highlighters that comprised the rest of this Amazon submission.  The VLog kit on the screen looked very portable.  It had a backlight and a microphone.  Its wand could stay handheld or it could be extended for placement on a floor.  It all came compactly packed in a not fully hard case with a zipper.  It stayed as I received it until my son and his wife escorted my grandson into our living room.  I really did not need this to take a photo of his adorable face or a short video of him crawling in our lower hall.  

As we schmoozed in our living room, I unzipped the case.  It had more parts than I expected, along with instructions printed on the front and back of a single page with print too small to discern with my bifocals.  I handed it to my son.  The illustration enabled me to unfold the tripod base.  Extending the tripod from handheld to free-standing took longer.  I placed the phone horizontally in its adjustable receptacle.  I do not know if will take the phone in its vertical dimension, but the receptacle rotates so I can position the phone that way.  The backlight came in a separate compartment.  Attaching it was not obvious, but I deduced where it must fit.  By rotating the phone, I could get the bottom of the light to fit in a portion of the stand.  It had an on/off switch that did not seem part of the instruction sheet.  It worked.  I remembered to turn it off.  That's as far as I got before they had to leave for their five-hour drive home.

Later in the afternoon, I decided to tackle the rest.  It has a remote control that I will need to pair with the phone.  It also comes with two microphones and a receiver.  All ports are USB-C which makes it easy. Cables included. Everything seems to come pre-charged.  The microphones have a special instruction sheet.  The exposed side seems to be Chinese or Japanese.  When I open the folded part and turn it over, English appears.  Larger print than the main instructions.  I checked the transmitter.  It fits into the charging port of the phone.  Each microphone has a clip.  I cannot tell if these also need to be charged, but I will do that before I travel to meet my granddaughter in a few days.  I'll pair everything before I go to sleep tonight.

It amazes me how inexpensive these adjuncts to a phone have become.  I have no interest in creating professional YouTubes, but would like a more sophisticated record of the people most dear to me and of the places I visit.  Everything fits in a small case easily transported in a carry-on or backpack, though perhaps not my briefcase.  Not especially user-friendly, since I have to repackage everything to transport it.  Reading the instruction's miniscule print did not go easily.  But by my next trip in a few days and mini-vacation in a few weeks, I should have this upgrade ready for use. 

Overscheduled Week

Retirement usually offers ample, maybe excessive, time flexibility.  Appointments are few.  During the academic year OLLI classes require me to be at a certain place at a certain time.  Shabbos comes every Friday night.  Saturdays are more flexible depending on what synagogue obligations I've undertaken.  Doctors' appointments and prepartory lab testing appear on my schedule more than they once did, though not in a burdensome way.  And I have special events:  birthdays, anniversary, Seder, Thanksgiving, Mother's Day.  But mostly not much needs entry in a scheduling grid.  I can travel when I want, mostly.  Shop at times I choose.  Find time at My Space and in my kitchen.  I've committed to doing things, but mostly control when to do them, sometimes at the expense of accountability.

So with some trepidation, I look to a rare upcoming week where other people impose my activities.  My children and grandchildren who live a distance away will each be coming my way a few days apart.  Very high priority.  I will have an overnight trip for one, have to prepare a luncheon for the other.  At mid-week, other events appear.  An organization to which I have done important things sponsors a semi-annual reception.  It is my chance to meet the remarkable students that my committee has awarded scholarships.  As that early evening gathering concludes, my synagogue holds its annual meeting.  I contribute or reap very little from that event but as a Board Member and frequent contributor of skill to their ongoing worship program, I probably ought to go, at least via Zoom.  While I do useful things for them, I create nothing, unlike the scholarship committee where my analytical input has transformed how the committee decides which applicants to award.  

The next day I have a doctor's appointment with my most irritating practice.  They are tracking a few things, not always in the most expedient way.  Appointments for office and procedures are at a premium, so I take what I can.  For this encounter, an online visit, I know what I want to accomplish.

Then travel the next day, leaving me about 24 hours with daughter and granddaughter.  They will have traveled from SF to NY a few days before, so should be rested.  I do not desire much tourism.  From there, I drive home in time for a pre-shabbos barbecue at the synagogue.  I have mixed feelings about these events, as the last cookout I found problematic.  Shabbos services the next day, with my wife a key participant.  Then Fathers' Day where I make my own special dinner.

These events of specified times add up.  They come with the opportunity cost of what I could be doing instead, but seeing kids and scholarship recipients offers high value.  A doctor's visit by Zoom takes less than a half hour.  The synagogue activities disrupt a bit more, though not having to make Friday night dinner at home offsets what I would usually find myself doing.  Even travel slows down from the norm.  When I go to NYC once or twice a year, I center it around attractions of a tourist destination.  Focusing on people this time reduces some of the decision stress, though I still do not know where I will park my car near my destination in Brooklyn.

The cluster of events forces me to immerse myself in other people.  Less time at my laptop, more holding grandchildren and shaking hands.  Not that much more in my car.  Less with myself, less checking off what tasks I've completed each day.  Probably a beneficial reset for the more usual weeks that follow. 

Paper and Pen and Mind

They made me take typing in 9th grade.  Manual typewriter.  Office model that could not be stolen easily, though the Junior High did not chain them to the desks.  I typed poorly.  Fewer Words per Minute than most, but also fewer typos than most.  I peeked at the paper, something the teacher discouraged.  It became a useful skill.  When my mother typed my term papers, the Greeks became Freeks.  When I left enough time to type them myself, using high grade erasable paper, my spelling upgraded to flawless.  In college I moved up to an electric typewriter, which I still have in its case, placed in a nook in My Space.  I cannot remember the last time I used it.  And then came Word Processing, which transformed not only how I typed and edited, but how I thought.

My typewriter served me as a tool.  I composed what I wanted to express, except for the briefest of letters, on paper.  Sometimes a canary-lined pad bound but tearable at the top, other times with loose-leaf paper removed from a binder.  I'd also had index cards that i could sequence to create a more coherent composition.  But most of my prose needing submission started on lined paper in my own marginal handwriting.  Before even opening the typewriter case and plugging the machine into the outlet, I'd proofread the text.  Then typing became a chore intended for presentation.  Thinking always took place on paper first.

Not everyone did this, even back in the day.  Journalists often carried portable typewriters to their assignments.  They typed their reports on-site, transmitted them to their editors and proofreaders, who amended sentence structure, spelling, and grammar.  Often the editor enhanced readability, a hint that maybe the best thinking and expression took a hit when typed.  Then onto the typesetters.

Word Processing and computerized editing changed that.  Now available for 30 years, I and undoubtedly a majority, now think and type, bypassing the pen altogether.  Editing for presentation still takes as much effort as composition, but most output never has public readers as its intent.  Is the thinking that goes into creation as discerning when ideas go directly to keyboard?  Some studies and YouTube Videos suggest not.  As a result, the sales of pocket notebooks and desktop journals have increased.  Personal planners with 7-rings and removable pages still compete successfully with computerized personal productivity programs.  There are elements that the computers have not yet matched.  The electronics excel at reminding or carrying over individual tasks.  It does not do as well in creating priorities or sorting goals.

While I do my best to go from mind to keyboard to create compositions, respond to the written work of others, and generate emails, some mental tasks still seem to perform better with a pen and paper.  Every night I take out a marble composition book to jot down three of the day's accomplishments.  My exercise attainments goes into a written log each week.  Every day I write something that annoyed me into a spiral notebook, then turn back one month and six months to see how the untoward experiences of those days have largely resolved.

I've tried electronic planning. Todoist doesn't even come close to a writing pad.  Weekly outline every Sunday, color coded by type of task.  Every evening, that weekly outline gets reviewed with the next day's intended activities transcribed onto what is effectively a half-sheet of blank computer paper.  My six month projects appear not on a screen but on a whiteboard in my line of sight to the left of my desk.  Not only does it enable me to think, to discern, but my handwriting remains recognizable as mine.

I've never abandoned pen and paper.  Perhaps I should use them more.  On my last Amazon order, I included two pocket notebooks.  The first went into my cross-chest carrier, along with a mini digital recorder.  I can generate thoughts portably, in airplane or in coffee shop.  Ideas and reflection still require thinking, pausing, and transcribing.  Not very different than how the best of my teachers taught me how to create and record.  Predictions of the computer making paper obsolete just did not materialize, and for good reason.

Strangers Responding

I posted requests on Reddit's r/long island and FB's Visit all 50 States.  My wife accepted an abbreviated vacation this summer, with more arduous travel vetoed for now.  We opted to visit Long Island, a three hour car trip.  I had been to various parts many times, though always purposeful.  Weddings, Bar Mitzvah's, Funerals.  Visiting my grandfather's siblings, including an outing onto Rockaway Beach.  Stony Brook as a likely place I might attend.  Tourism only occurred one time when my daughter, who then lived in Queens, suggested Father-Daughter Bonding for Father's Day.  She drove me the full length of the Island's North Shore, a very pleasant afternoon, though a lot of time in the car between my round-trip drive home and the east-west dimension of America's largest island.

This time we go as pure tourists.  No intention of visiting anyone, though I know people who live there.  While residents of Metro NY flock to their beaches, I have suitable beaches readily accessible in my home state.  This time we go to get away from home, seek out places unique to the geography and culture of where we visit.  Museums, history, mansions, unique sites, wineries.  Sources for destinations on The Island abound.  YouTube videos, I Love NY, a variety of agencies to promote local tourism, Trip Advisor.  I looked at all of these.  From them I could stake out the Gilded Mansions repurposed for public use, the distribution of vineyards, enclaves of the nouveau riches of today that might still let a peasant couple gawk from not too close, historical lighthouses, ferry access when an escape might be needed.  Like much data, it comes as a mostly unsorted jumble.  So I asked people who had familiarity on social media platforms, each trusted from prior use.

People responded very quickly, about a dozen each on FB and Reddit.  It made it more of an annotated list, places to give priority when time is limited.  In this era of social media trolls, the generosity and candor of those who responded did not surprise me.  As much as I ration FB, the assigned days to sign on usually bring me to the Visit 50 States site.  I live in an obscure state that people want to cross off their list and in a multistate area where travelers want to check off 4-6 states on their road trip.  If somebody asks what to do nearby, I guide them.  Often they will post with traveler information, where they originate, ages of kids, elderly people in car with them, pets.  I can adapt suggestions to that.  What might a grade schooler like to visit, maybe where kids go on our local school class trips?  Have they ever been on a subway.  Ever seen Amish or Hasidim who live in isolated enclaves?  My familiarity can be very helpful, something a generic YouTube or vlog cannot easily duplicate.  That insight I offered to posters' queries about where I live now and in the past was reciprocated to me that afternoon.  

Reddit, at least when used in my judicious way, has never displayed the toxicity of FB, nor the incessant insertion of advertising or news feeds chosen by an algorithm to make me irate enough to stay logged on.  I ration which days I access and mostly what I access.  People share my interest in Judaism and Jewish cooking.  Many have less experience than me, so I try to be as helpful as possible to people going to the synagogue for the first time or seeking resources to learn more about Judaism.  I have had inquiries about a potholes on the roadways and a library misadventure.  My questions got many informative responses from civil engineers and librarians, as did my request to enhance my few days on Long Island.

If there is a message from this experience, both as benevolent contributor and reciepient, social media need not be the electronic cesspool that users so often encounter, one dominated by trolls and conflict entrepreneurs.  There is business model that capitalizes on exploiting pushing people's buttons, one where some regulation would enhance public experience.  Most users, though, when give the chance, come to these platforms with a measure of good will.  We find people who seek information, reassurance,  guidance through a dilemma, or recovery from an untoward experience.  Strangers, whether with names on FB or avatars or Reddit, reach out when we can.  We want the other people to have good experiences when they visit our places, whether geographic or places of worship, or from the recipes that challenge them in their kitchens.  The users come through on this, creating the expanded communities where people benefit each other.  Nothing demeaning, nothing malicious.  

To get to these generous people, though, you sometimes have to wade through and set aside some of the odious posters, more on FB than Reddit.  Like many people, I read about the downsides of these platforms.  Anti-Semitism, neonazism shielded by anonymity, attacks of people's appearance at vulnerable times in their lives.  I experience very little of this, though enough to exit all platforms for six months, to ration my presence on my return, and to write off of few platforms as places to not enter.  But as a selective tool, people can connect to some very fine people ranging from HS friends who share lives in retirement, experts in various subjects, the people who root for the same teams as you, and people who you will never meet who serve as gracious advisors.  It's a challenge to stay selective and not get rattled by the people you'd rather avoid.  I haven't since my judidious return, and won't meet any of them either.

Choosing a Place

At one time, though a number of years ago, at least one coffee outing a week took place on schedule.  Every Sunday morning I would slip my black nylon pouch which contained my weekly planning supplies and head out for coffee.  One place dominated, a local shop that offered a choice of three blends and a table to customize with sweeteners, lighteners, and spice shakers.  Then I would spread paper, pen, and markers across a table.  By the time the last drop got sipped, I returned to my car with two completed lists, one enumerating projects for the week, the other with initiatives for that Sunday, all coded by color.  Sometimes I'd order a pastry, mostly not.  I changed the destination occasionally, preferring Einstein's across the street when I had a Bagel and Schmear coupon, or the Starbucks around the corner.  My local shop had the advantage of offering the coffee in a porcelain mug.

I don't remember how long ago I last did that.  Now My Space serves the Sunday mornings.  Coffee brews over a k-cup.  Colored pens sit in empty spice jars in my line of sight, colored markers in a frosted plastic box from a back-to-school sale on my left.  Very little need to visit a coffee shop.

When Starbucks became a ubiquitous international destination, its founders modeled its locations on a European coffee bistro, a meeting place dating perhaps to the 18th century.  Coffee could not be obtained as easily in that era.  Now with mass marketing of coffee, or beer for that matter, we still have a social need for a coffee house or pub experience.  Coffee houses became places to exchange ideas, pubs to connect with a community.  In America, pre-Starbucks, perhaps the local diner or taverns close to big factories served that gathering function.  Each had an element of convenience, but Starbucks strove to create an experience.

And for a while I could go to the local places that offer specialty coffee, run into somebody I know with predictable frequency, and complete some work that I brought with me.  

I rarely seek these places out in recent years.  When traveling, coffee from WaWa fits in the cup holder as I drive.  Overpriced coffee from an airport kiosk replaces what I would have made at home were I not pressed by schedule.  I purchase a beverage at those places, not an experience.  Every few months, though, I want a break from my house.  For $3.50 or so, I can rent a table which allows me to type on my laptop or outline ideas on a writing pad.  The coffee, flavored as I like it, gets sipped.  It does not serve a social purpose but a carved out half-hour to sit alone with my mind in creative mode,  free of the distractions of My Space.

I still buy experience, but a different one than outlining my week on a Sunday morning.   My local options have not changed.  Large franchises:  Starbucks, Einstein's, Panera, Dunkin, and the small regional chain.  Some give you a disposable cup to fill, much as WaWa would.  Others have an attendant taking customer orders.  Things to eat while sipping the hot coffee have accelerated in price, with only a Dunkin Donut remaining close to my price point.  Starbucks and Dunkin now sell coffee more than experience.  Attendants at Starbucks have lines of cars awaiting their turn at the drive-in windows.  People inside, at least at suburban locations, have become the exception.  They removed the cream thermoses and spice shakers during the pandemic, never replacing them.  Dunkin just pours hot liquid splashed with something white.  Tables have an IKEA look, chairs of plastic.  Not a place to do best thinking.  

Where to go?  The biweekly cleaners had come.  I could close the door to My Space, but I found the bustle a distraction.  After they finished vacuuming the upper landing, I headed downstairs with my cross chest travel pack for a morning of coffee.  Front door obstructed.  I left by the back door.  Panera maybe.  They have porcelain cups, adequate seating, quiet nooks.  I drove past their strip mall.  Einstein and Starbucks not the respite I sought.  Local shop, perhaps.  Finally, after driving in a loop, I returned home to find the cleaner's van still in front of my house.  And I wanted to do some mental activity.  Nearest option, Dunkin.  

As a company, there are a lot of them nearby.  While they once had Fred the Baker getting up at 3AM to create luscious donuts for the morning rush, the CEO retired him.  Making and selling coffee is much less labor intensive.   Coupons for coffee and donut discounts used to arrive in the mail or as a newpaper supplement frequently.  These have faded into consumer history.  I drove to a strip mall, squeezed my Toyota into one of the few remaining spaces, and headed inside at mid-morning.  Menu on a flat screen, donuts in a case, store promotions more for cold drinks than coffee.  I picked a French cruller, standard coffee, handing the counter lady a $20 bill.  I kept $15 in change, leaving the unspent 50 cents in the tip jar.  They had processed me through efficiently.

I placed the cardboard container on the flimsy table, pulled the tiny white plastic tab back and took a sip. A paper bag, recyclable if not soiled by residual donut fying oil, held the cruller.  I took that out and ate the first bite.  Then another sip.  From my travel pouch, I removed a pocket notebook and pen.  Bite of donut, sip of coffee, two ideas entered into notebook.  Repeat until donut fully consumed and page of notebook filled to capacity.  Majority of very mediocre coffee remained, its white plastic travel top still on, and kept reasonably hot by the engineers who designed the cardboard coffee mugs.  Accomplished my purpose, which was writing in the notebook.  Got a pretty good donut as a bonus.  Coffee, the excuse for making the side trip, mostly an afterthought.

Gathering spots, which Starbucks envisioned, have fallen from grace.  Britain still has pubs.  Maybe major cities, European and American, have espresso bars.  The few times I treat myself to a happy hour beer, it never looks like Cheers.  No people interacting with anyone else other than the person who accompanied them.  I go to parks frequently, invariably the oldest person there.  Kids play on swings and slides, parents keep them safe.  People who walk their dogs sometimes let their pet interact with other visitors, never interact themselves.  My favorite diner closed, but at its peak, the people at the counter seemed recognizable every week, a mini-community of each other plus the waitress, if not including me in the chatter.  Since the pandemic, OLLI no longer has people sitting in chairs or at tables talking to each other during the half hour that separates class sessions.  People seem mostly content with their screens, small for phone and laptop, giant for TV streaming.  

There are still some events that attract throngs.  Sports stadiums, political rallies, Yom Kippur, Pride Parades.  People come in part to enjoy the event, mostly as witness unless a direct participant.  Meeting random people rarely makes the agenda.  Even the candidates who work the crowds, grabbing as many hands as their reach allows, want those present to meet them, not a desiring public servant seeking to acquaint with the people.

So my coffee excursion did not fulfill Starbuck's vision as a gathering place.  I had a task. whether weekly planning on Sunday mornings gone by or introducing myself to my new pocket notebook just delivered by Amazon.  The cruller made writing in the notebook more pleasant, the Dunkin coffee and the plastic chairs contributed little.

Treadmill Respite

Every month at the end I offer myself three consecutive days without treadmill sessions.  Those days are 29-30-31 or 29-30-1, depending on the month.  They are welcome, they are needed.  Often I find myself sore, mostly legs, as most recent months I push myself to a new walking duration or up the speed by 0.1mph.  Many months, including the one currently transitioning, have setbacks, days of illness or injury.  I do my very best to avoid any zero days, mostly succeeding.  But a drastically reduced session rarely resumes at the full level of where I left off.  This allows me to reset at sessions 5-10 minutes below where I had exercised previously, then resume to full sessions, usually by month's end.

Those three days pass rather quickly, often with recovery more functional than complete.  Back still a little stiff, knees still needing local care, if not a couple doses of naproxen.  The new month invariably begins, filled with some optimism of reaching another new level when the new month concludes.

I have been fortunate that limitations have been mostly orthopedic, not cardiovascular.  I had some symptomatic volume depletion following a blood donation this past month, one that reduced this timed walk to five minutes.  I've also over-extended, feeling energetic enough at 25 minutes to push for 30.  Additions of two minutes go un-noticed, even reset the new normal.  Additions of five minutes bring soreness. This creates a branch point, endure or cut back?  I mostly choose the prudent option and reset my sessions downward.

Having now done this for a couple of years into my 70's, I definitely feel more energetic, maybe adapting to a basal level of lower extremity soreness.  Good decision to allow some healing each month.

Best Hours

Retirement mostly allows me to choose what I do when.  No commuting times, not many scheduled meetings, few appointments.  That's not to imply lack of schedule.  One reason for a very successful last couple of years has been to assign times for certain activities.  Up at the same time each morning.  Treadmill as close to 7:50AM on scheduled days as I can get it.  Big mug of water consumed every morning as soon as I go downstairs, which usually follows dental hygiene, then coffee goes into that mug with a splash of creamer.  All goes to My Space where I select three priority activities for the day.  Email follows, not before.  While coffee brews and I sip water in the kitchen, I head outside to retrieve my wife's newspaper.  I also wash some dishes.  The mornings are subdivided into times for specific activities.  Some of these assignments do not always serve me in the best way.  It is convenient to take my blood pressure when I make coffee, before exercise.  However, assessment of where my blood pressure ranges requires that it be taken at different hours, which I try to do.  By 9AM, my Daily Task list has a few items crossed off.  Other than treadmill, none of these activities are things I might make excuses not to do.

Deep work, focus with a timer, has not adapted to scheduling quite as well.  Some hours link to creativity or perspective.  In my working years, mornings generally found me more engaged than afternoons, though I did some of my best reflective work closer to quitting time.  There may be a difference between my motivation to perform and what I accomplish.  Some tasks require mental acuity, others require attention to routine.  

I think my higher CNS centers do best after a second cup of morning coffee.  I can compose new thoughts and express them in the best way.  That 9-11AM window has very little structure.  During that time, I should be typing, not shopping for groceries, and certainly not scrolling FB.  That's time best suited to create something from a blank screen or page.  Yet it has not acquired an inviolate protection of my schedule the way the scheduled treadmill efforts have.

In the afternoons, tend to read and respond.  The Atlantic now has a section to invite reader comments after each article.  So does eJewish Philanthropy and Moment Magazine.  I guess their editors figured out that Twitter, where journalists prefer to interact, has repelled enough readers, myself among them, that they need to offer a more acceptable forum.  I read and respond, mostly early afternoons.  My thinking prowess seems a little diminished from its peak, but still adequate.

That mid-day segment, 11AM to 1PM seems something of an ebb for me. OLLI classes during the school year cluster during that time.  When not engaged in classes, struggling to stay attentive, I gravitate to my activities that do not require much mindfulness.  That's the time to go to the supermarket or scroll FB.

Late afternoon becomes another lull, a time for my mind to retreat.  There are studies which show doctors are least attentive in those hours and make more faulty decisions than they do before lunch.  I find myself struggling to express myself in an articulate way at that part of the daily cycle.

The evening restores an element of routine, though perhaps not the best routine.  I make supper, one usually planned much earlier.  I'm not very creative but don't have to be to boil some pasta or sautee some garden burgers.  Then eat, PM medicine, and return to My Space, though this time surfing YouTube instead of actively engaged at my desk.  It's not dead time.   I choose videos that add to my knowledge.  I often read the books I am tackling.  But I do not engage in expressive, creative work in a meaningful way after supper, other than planning the activities for the following day and checking off what I did that day. I have a late-day routine, less rigid than my morning one, but there is a set time to shut down the laptop and phone.  At the end of the day, I read some more, rehearse any Torah readings I have committed to performing in the near future, and recap what went well and what did not over the course of the day.  Then lights out at 10PM unless my wife needs to keep them on to read.  

I think there are parts of each day best suited to different tasks.  Identifying that slots suit what activities has a lot of uncertainty.  For jobholders, assignments determine them.  I retirement I have control.  It's still not clear if what I choose to do at different times enhances or undermines actual performance.

The routines at the beginning and end of each day have served me well.

Spending My Gift Card

As a research subject, a common pursuit in retirement, many projects offer honoraria.  I donate the money but redeem the gift cards.  For several months I've had $50 entitlement to the endless array of stuff that Amazon offers, but the e-card remains unused in some part of my email Inbox.  It's not that I've not purchased anything on Amazon since receiving the gift from the University's research grant,  I have.  But I paid with my own Visa card for a few items I felt I needed.  These freebies go for the more frivolous desires.  I've bought a violin bow in the past. And two ink cartridge pens.  I have a fondness for pens of all types. Don't remember what else.  Frivolous occupies space without being used much.  As a senior, I have enough things, so many that minimizing clutter creates a challenge.

I have enough clothing.  Dress clothing only gets worn to synagogue these days.  Ties once attracted me by the designs they have and the statements they make.  That age has long passed.  I have bought watches, a retro and a smart watch, but did not use the gift card.  By now I have a collection of art supplies that remain dormant.  Good stationery was once something I found attractive, but has become obsolete with electronic communication.    Musical instrument.  A flutophone, if they still make them, will not bite into that $50 very much.  I have unused harmonicas.  I think a mandolin would sell for more than $100.  Bongos probably in budget.  Ukelele maybe.

I like retro electronics.  Tape recorders, small boom boxes.  Those are better obtained used on eBay.  I have enough Judaica.  At one time I found fragrances indulgent.  Jade East and Hai Karate could be found on tables at my favorite discounters.  Those iconic scents may still exist, and probably within my gift card's limit.  And some barbershop classics, though I have some of these

What about logos?  My alma maters. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Swag of all types.  I have clothing, coffee mugs, beer steins.  I like to get them either as souvenirs of a campus visit or a store display.  I don't think I'd acquire them on Amazon.

YouTube influencers know that dedicated Amazon consumers abound, mostly young people in their acquisition time of life.  Video clips of 15-30 minutes reveal all sorts of gadgets, many creative electronics, that they might find on Amazon.  I watched some.  The majority omit the prices in the presentation.  Whatever I get will be within budget.

While I have no incentive to ever redeem this gift, or really a minor earning on my part as the research project occupied me for about two hours, I don't want it to languish. Nor do I want my effort to redeem it to occupy a lot more time than earning it did.  Surf the Amazon site and those YouTube videos a bit more, then set an evening to just make a purchase.  It does have to be something I would not have indulged myself with my own income.  

 

Travel Preferences

OLLI Spring Semester concluded. Shavuot observed.  A time gap follows until classes resume after Labor Day.  That leaves three months, largely unscheduled, months of opportunity for exploration.  Some fixed points, or semi-fixed points, appear, but not many.  A rendevous with daughter and granddaughter on their travels.  A scheduled doctor's appointment.  Father's Day.  Our anniversary. Tisha B'Av in late July this secular calendar year.  No pressing household chores.  Outdoor gardens need little maintenance.  No pets to arrange care. Mostly possibilities.  Three months of possibilities merged with priorities.

While the current price of fuel has spiked, getting away from home periodically remains a priority.  My wife and I clashed on how this should play out.  Programmed with no hassle suits her.  Minor adventure with new experiences falls high on my radar.  When I set my current semi-annual projects six months ago, I included air travel as an initiative.  Wife sorta OK with that until we arrive at a destination.  Then a thumbs down to car rental and multihour drive.  We discussed cruising.  Conceptually fine.  Europe no.  Canada sold out for the peak of our summer.  Road trip of any type requiring overnight motels along the route has not gone well the last few times.

We diverge on political overtones.  Scenery and marvels of nature and much of history has been populated by people who vote differently than we do.  I just want to have new experiences.  She wants to restrict who benefits from our money.  

So we worked out a pact.  For the peak summer, we would travel by car for a few days.  The air travel would bring us to our grandchild who lives in a place that votes more like we do, but with some nature and resorts.  Not irreconcilable differences.

Big trip the following calendar year, special personal milestone, contingent on health.  A reasonable accommodation to each other.

Shavout Experience

Of the Jewish Festivals, Shavuot often gets treated in a subordinate way.  People look forward to the High Holy Days, a time when synagogue dues get paid up to enable large attendance.  People shop for new clothing to greet old friends not seen since last Rosh HaShanah.  We hear Shofar.  We eat apples and honey. We return to school.  Sukkot has us entering sukkahs.  If we do not have our own, the synagogue has one or we are likely to be invited to a friend's sukkah for dinner sometime in the week.  Hanukkah coincides on the calendar with the more widely observed Christian holidays.  We Jews claim our stake to the season.  We shop for gifts, light candles, eat latkes.  After we put our menorahs back to year round display on a shelf, we transition to the next calendar year.  Winter vacation gives us a break from school or work.  

Then a long winter.  By Pesach, we could use a renewal.  Clean house.  Hard work exchanging dishes.  Expensive outlay for suitable food.  The preparation shares elements of engagement and annoyance.  But then Seder arrives.  For many the first elegant meal with gathering of special people since Thanksgiving.  A week's break from school gets inserted somewhere, usually before Pesach for college spring break hedonism, better timed to the Easter culmination for lower grades.  Pesach, like Rosh HaShanah and Hanukkah, serves as carved out time. 

Shavuot often seems anticlimactic.  We anticipate the others spontaneously, awaiting their mostly festive experience.  Anticipation of Shavuot, though, has more formality, one commanded in Torah.  Every night after dark, we count the Omer, 49 days, seven weeks, both counted each night with a blessing.  I have to set my timer to remind me at 9:10PM, go downstairs where I keep the log of what number arrives, spend two minutes doing it, then return to what I was doing.  It registers in my mind as obligation, even intrusion, more than anticipation.  Its place amid the secular calendar which can vary between years, does not have the consistency of the other Festivals.  More often college has ended but public school has not.  Schedulers of graduations and class trips do not always accommodate their observant Jewish students, forcing some priority choices.  As school years conclude, friends are as likely to scatter as they are to gather.  Shavuot lacks a visible ritual.  We celebrate Torah, the core of Jewish existence, with more obligation than revelry.  The synagogue experience, while only two days, often seems long with additions of Hallel, Akdemut, Ruth, and Yizkor, all just as the weather sometimes becomes hot.  And all while too soon for the youngsters to head off to camp, their real source of anticipation.

As this Feast of Weeks nears its arrival, I have faithfully completed the Omer count.  It is tradtional to spend the evening of onset learning, often late into the night.  Some find this energizing, others add it as another extension  of burden one more night.  I focus on food.  Shavuot has its classical foods.  Blintzes and cheesecake.  Meals are traditionally dairy, with a variety of reasons to justify this tradition.  I will be a synagogue participant, though a minor one, chanting a portion of the Book of Ruth with its delicate, enchanting melody.  Most years, I have a guest to share dinner the second night when no competing synagogue activities occur.  Menu preparation and execution challenge my creativity and organizationsl skills.

The Menu:

1. Kiddush in the manner of Manischewitz
2. Challah made by me, with its elements timed to do some before services, some after
3. Blintzes with cottage cheese and raisin filling.
4. Vegetable soup.
5. Asian Cucumber Salad.
6. Coulibiac, a Russian fish pie in puff pastry, requiring a few different steps. 
7. Lecso to honor my Hungarian heritage.
8. Austrian Linzertorte to avoid the cheesecake cliche, which they can have at synagogue.
9. Kosher white wine.
10. Herb Tea.

All within my capacity.  It takes a step-child of a holiday and brings it a little closer to the others.  I'm long past graduations, not past summer vacation.  Shavuot retains its significant seasonal intersection.

Historical Synagogue

My twelve semi-annual projects often include a quota of day trips or other visits to places I've not been before.  One opportunity came my way unexpectedly.  The American Jewish Committee, among my favorite advocacy groups, invited me to a special luncheon in Philadelphia.  The local chapter has a memorial endowment to honor an esteemed historian of American Judaism.  Lunch would be kosher, priced at $36 for the entire event.  They announced the two guest speakers.  The Mayor would offer her remarks on the role of Jews in our city.  Another esteemed historian, this one a retired Reform Rabbi of local prominence and protege of the endowed professor, would follow with a presentation on the role of Philadelphia's small contingent of Jews in the American Revolution, as national preparations proceed to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this summer.  I reserved a place.

With attacks on places where Jews gather becoming distressingly common, many of our agencies have avoided announcing the location of events until the day before, and then only broadcast by email to those registered to attend.  It would have to take place at a site the Mayor could easily access, either near City Hall or the Historical Area.  My email directed me to Mikveh Israel Synagogue, the city's oldest.  I'd never visited, though I knew of its historical prominence in the development of American Judaism.

The day arrived.  As a senior, I have an unlimited pass that gives me free access to SEPTA regional rail system, provided I do not cross any of Pennsylvania's borders.  The transportation will only cost $2 for parking at the train station a few miles from my home.  I checked the schedule two days before.  Take the 9:36AM commuter train, which will bring me about seven blocks from the synagogue.  From there, I could either take a bus or the subway to within a block of the event, or just walk the distance.  The train pulled into Marcus Hook station a few minutes late but arrived at Philadelphia's Jefferson Station uneventfully.  This terminal has its own attractions.  The City Hall complex can be seen to the west.  Tunnels take visitors to what they designate as the Fashion District and the famous Reading Terminal Market, which serves an array of ethnic cuisines.  The Convention Center sits just beyond that, and Philadelphia's small but active Chinatown another block in the direction of the Historical Area.  I opted to walk, it being a pleasant mid-morning.  

Market Street.  Once the city's main thoroughfare.  Addresses read North or South depending on their direction from Market Street.  The surroundings near the train station have long since lost their elegance.  Iconic department stores, many of Jewish origin, have closed.  Their repurposed buildings now anchor retail chains that die in parallel at regional malls.  I strolled onto the Historical Area.  The green next to the Independence Hall Visitors Center sponsored a national Prayer Day.  A young lady did a dance on the lawn waving a flag with each arm.  I captured a video.  In one direction I could see Independence Mall with a group of Amish teens in traditional dress heading to their timed tour.  A class trip of grade schoolers followed.  To the north, I could see the Constitution Center and the Mint, each requiring a telephoto of my phone camera.  Franklin sites sat across the street, largely without tourists at mid-morning.  As I reached 4th Street, I turned left.  Address given to me 44 North 4th.  Mikveh Israel should be in the next block.  I didn't see it.  Finally, I reached the Windham Hotel, unsure if I had passed my destination or had yet to reach it.  I entered the lobby, inquiring of the Concierge.  I had passed it.  Rather than sitting beside the sidewalk, the synagogue occupied a nook with a tiny path creating its front entrance.  In this era of synagogue attacks, not being noticeable from the street has a security advantage, one enjoyed by my own congregation.  

I entered a modern brick building, its name in block signage over glass doors that ran most of the synagogue's width.  Two men in suits stood at the entrance, not the uniformed officers whom visitors to American synagogues now encounter first.  I proceeded to a registration table, the first one there.  I showed the AJC official my driver's license.  She then handed me my name tag, placed alphabetically right below the Mayor's.  I peeled the adhesive, then attached it to my shirt.

History had a full display, as did current worship practices.  Glass cases displayed notes from Presidents, Washington first, Trump front and center, Lincoln's in his own handwriting with his personalized Humble and Obedient Servant closing, FDR's typed and signed.  Displays of artifacts from the colonial era and beyond.  Judaica used at various times in the synagogue's history.  As the main game in town from its 1740 founding until mass immigration 150 years later, many of their Baalebatim occupied prominent places in Philadelphia's history, as they do today.  Portraits of these men, all men, lined the walls above the display cases.

One room had a more temporary exhibit.  A member secured a collection of portraits and other photos of diplomats from around the world assigned to 1930s Europe.  They came from South America, the Far East, different parts of Europe.  As Naziism took hold in Germany, then moved to France and eastward, the need for Jews to relocate became apparent.  These diplomats offered exit visas.  One bishop, later known to the world as Pope John XXIII, offered phony baptismal certificates to many.  The exhibit had a display case of books about that era in Europe.  The display's curator, who must have spent considerable time assembling this, personally guided me through the various items.  In modern contentious times, good will still lurks, its abundance uncertain.  Courage may be more scarce.

Too many historical synagogues, from Europe to the Caribbean to the Lower East Side, now function more as museums than as places where Shabbos services take place.  Mikveh Israel remains an active synagogue with a black sign with movable white letters at the entrance announcing prayer times and the name of its Rabbi.  I entered the sanctuary.  It is modeled in the Portuguese style of its origins.  A central table stands in the middle, the Holy Ark on what I think is the east wall.  Behind the central table is a seating area, marble and cushioned, with an ornate patterned rug.   I assume the Rabbi and president sit there.  Worshipers occupy pews running the length of the sanctuary, each facing the center.  The room has four entrances, two to the north, two to the south of the center.  This synagogue follows a tradition of separate seating for men and women.  The latter occupy the back two rows on each side and enter from separate doors.  Unlike most American orthodox synagogues, they do not have a physical barrier to obscure women's view of the proceedings and the genders' view of each other.  The women's two rows of pews sit slightly elevated from the men's.  

Books for worship sit in holders in front of the seats.  Their Siddur has a prominent Sephardic Rabbi as editor.  Their Chumash remains the iconic Hertz, that staple of American synagogues for fifty years, until largely displaced by the emergence of Artscroll.  One person must have been a VIP.  Immediately in front of the central table, at floor level, sat a wooden chair with Kohen Hands decorating its back.  Its protection by plexiglass suggests its antique and fragile origin, as well as its historical significance to Mikveh Israel.  Nearly all synagogues I have visited, including my own, have a wooden box near the entrance where those without their own kippot can borrow one, or if a Bar Mitzvah that day, take one home as a souvenir.  This congregation instead had a box of fedoras that men could wear during worship, along with a supply of prayer shawls draped over a rack.

I did not see their kitchen facilities, but AJC assigned me to Table 8 in the middle of their dining room.  The space could accommodate a significant crowd.  I do not have a sense of how many people attend services, how many Bar Mitzvah celebrations they host, or whether that space enables rental income to offset membership dues.  Along the far wall were washing stations, a series of taps and common sink with two-handled lavers set on a stone ledge.  It is customary for people eating a meal to wash their hands with a blessing before blessing a loaf of bread.  This luncheon did not include bread, probably for the convenience of the observant people in attendance.  Tables were set with white tablecloths and dark cloth napkins.  Literature from the AJC sat over each plate and seat.  The caterer arranged a buffet, two lines of identical dishes.  Salmon poached or grilled as the entree, three salads, two sides.  Beverages and dessert display stood waist-high along another wall.  As a nobody, my table would offer me similarly obscure eating companions, with the partners in the Center City law firms seated at tables closer to the lectern from which Her Honor the Mayor would address the group.  I met a few new people, including an Irish woman from the NYC Embassy and a high school friend of my wife. 

The Mayor has a lot of official duties.  She came to us to speak, not to eat, but she waved at my table of Nobodies as she headed to the front.  More of a Jewish-Black partnership pep rally presentation, though with one compelling story of friends reacquainting decades after fleeing the Holocaust.  The educational session did not disappoint.  No bread for the meal meant no Grace After Meal, so I headed home as soon as the moderator opened the floor for questions to the guest Rabbinical scholar.

Center City Philadelphia in mid-afternoon seemed less populated than I expected.  The Day of Prayer in the open space next to the Visitors Center had moved along in its agenda.  Pastors now occupied the stage, one speaking, though not audible to me, while other late-career men in suits sat on the stage waiting their turn.  The discreet signage of the morning had become more explicit.  Along Market Street a revisit to the same storefronts of places I had no desire to enter.  Seven blocks west of Mikveh Israel, I entered Jefferson Station for the SEPTA train home.  A very pleasant day, well worth the $36 luncheon, probably worth deferring other things I could have engaged in at home.

Did my minor adventure yield what I sought?  Mostly it did.  Often, getting there surpasses the destination.  This time historical Mikveh Israel remained the centerpiece.  In an era where synagogues come under attack, where places like my home congregation with a lesser but still significant legacy struggle with attendance, I found it gratifying that a place could live through much of the history of America, contribute to it, and revel in a display of artifacts and portraits of people.  It had an area for worship, a Beit Tefillah, and a library, or Beit Midrash, each smaller than I'd expect.  But it served more as a Beit Knesset, a place where people of prominence from the Founders of the Colonial era to today's Mayor can assemble.  The synagogue reflected stability, if not growth.  And as a meeting place, people of all social strata could admire the displays, eat a luncheon catered with care, and wash hands at a station next to a person who you do not know but who left a civic imprint.  It seemed a place where Social Capital, bonding and bridging, has remained in continuous progress for more than two hundred years.  Absolutely worth devoting a portion of my time to share it with the synagogue and with the event's AJC sponsor.

Donating Whole Blood

Regular blood donors are a dedicated group.  We mostly do not know each other, but invariably greet each other when one of us wears a Blood Bank insignia cap or t-shirt to a public event.  Platelet donors have a special dedication to their contribution to public wellness.  Not everyone can donate.  The recipients of this blood component comprise some of the most ill but recoverable patients in any hospital.  For decades, I had served as a donor.  The donation process challenges the donor.  Extraction of blood with return of the red cells takes about two hours plus another half hour to confirm screening for eligibility.  For some, both arms get immobilzed, leaving the donor with little to do but watch a movie or two episodes of Queer Eye on a flat screen that the staff moves in front of the donation recliner chair.  Arms and other joints can get sore at the end.  In my decades as a donor, I've had a few misadventures, including infiltration of the red cell return into the soft tissue of my upper arm, which left quite a bruise.

My days as a platelet donor have come to an end, not because of safety to a recipient, but because of my own age-related inability to remain immobilized for two hours.  Some other physiologic symptoms prevent this, including a periodic need to use a restroom with little advance warning.  My medical care has taken me to a variety of specialists, including a hematologist.  I've had iron deficiency in the past, which limited my ability to donate anything, but at least with platelets, they return the RBCs.  With iron levels now corrected and stable, I thought I'd give a unit of whole blood, which takes far less time to collect.

Options for doing this far exceed platelet options, which require dedicated machinery and trained staff at a large center.  For whole blood, I could visit a more convenient location.  With the approval of my hematologist and very acceptable CBC and iron levels, I made a donation.

It took place just a few miles' drive.  The regional medical center had taken over the large building where,, as a young homeowner I purchased my best furniture forty years ago.  The furniture industry has not been kind to its merchants. This one folded.  Its building was repurposed twice, now as a satellite of a comprehensive medical system.  The Blood Bank, a separate entity, occupies a suite on the second floor and collects basic blood products twice weekly.

They checked me in.  Decent BP and acceptable Hemoglobin on their often inaccurate desktop hemocytometer.  I asked the nurse if she had a record of how many donations I had given.  Some time ago, the Blood Bank sent me a card that I had reached 90.  They've sent me lapel pins as a reward for 25 and 50.  I aimed for 100.  Her records, accessed on her computer, put my donations at 103, gallons at 19.  No acknowledgement of the milestone.  I don't know how they compute gallons for platelet donors, though I was a whole blood donor for many years before they notified me unexpectedly of my eligibility to give platelets, something rarer and more valuable to the blood banking system.  I had a few health changes since my last donation, which should not change eligibility.  I noted that on the intake form.  She had to make some phone calls to confirm that my blood products would remain acceptable to a recipient.

She set me in a chair, one more like a dental chair than the massive recliners used for platelet donations.  A quick puncture, one readjustment halfway through, and a pint or so filled a plastic collection bag.  She bandaged the puncture site.  Rules require that whole blood donors drink something in the canteen and stay for 15 minutes to be sure that dizziness does not occur.  I sipped a zero-sugar Sprite, which tasted odd, while the stopwatch of my Casio 168 counted up 15 minutes.  I then arose.  I could tell that some volume had been removed but I felt functional.  A quick restroom stop outside the collection suite, then the elevator to the first floor.  With minimal lightheadedness, I sat down in a chair in the medical center's entrance lobby for a minute or two before driving home uneventfully.

Feeling OK, I did another errand.  Outside my front door, in warm weather, I grow culinary herbs in pots.  Rosemary has been a staple, a plant that has not survived local winters, whether planted in an outdoor bed in the backyard or in a pot that I bring inside to avoid a freeze.  It has been hard to find this spring.  My trusted garden center ran out, but told me of an expected shipment.  I headed over, finding two trays of rosemary, robust in appearance, among their herb display.  I handed the agent a $5 bill, then headed home.  It will soon outgrow the small plastic sales container, so I transplanted it into the larger plastic planter where I grew last year's rosemary bush.

Then some tasks at my laptop in My Space.  I could still feel a bit off, not wanting to do household chores, including making supper.  With my wife's permission I orded a pizza, a large one from a local shop nearby. It did not cost that much more than Domino's or Papa John's and bakes more delicous pies. In my online order, I had them add anchovies to half.  I'd not had them in a long time, like them better than my wife does, and thought the saltiness would help with my mild volume depletion symptoms.  I drove to the pizzeria, prepaid online when ordering, and returned home.  I ate quite a lot, five of the eight slices, three of the four with salty anchovies.  I began to feel a little worse, but a recliner chair eased the symptoms.  Then I lay down on the living room couch.  At 9:10PM, that Casio 168 let out a faint alarm, reminding me to count Omer, this night 42, completing six of the seven weeks.  I took the sheet with the daily count and blessings to a better-lit part of the living room.  Now as I arose, I could sense more severe orthostatic symptoms.  I did the nightly count, which only takes a minute.  Feeling more lightheaded, I sat down in the nearest chair for a minute or two, them moved across to the couch where I could be more supine.  That alleviated symptoms.  While I have a blood pressure device in the kitchen, I did not want to get up again or bother my wife to bring it to me.  Staying horizontal would suffice.  It did not take long to zonk out.  Two hours later, almost an hour past my usual bedtime, I awoke, feeling strong enough to go upstairs, but with a stop in the kitchen for some ice water first.  I drank the contents of the insulated bottle, maybe half a cup, took another half cup of tap water after that, then refilled the bottle for the refrigerator.  I headed upstairs feeling better but still depleted.  At 2:30AM I awoke thirsty.  Maybe from sacrificing a pint of blood, maybe from three anchovie slices.  I no longer felt lightheaded.  By now the water in the thermos had chilled.  I drank some, then returned upstairs.

I awoke to a clock radio alarm, still not quite right but not ill.  Dental hygiene, then some more cold water downstairs.  A drizzle had hydrated the herb pots overnight, including the new rosemary.  I had no significant symptoms while retrieving the newspaper from the end of the driveway.  However, I thought it prudent to reduce the intensity and duration of my scheduled treadmill session.  Unless overtly ill, it never gets skipped entirely.  I performed OK, though a full intensity session would have been burdensome.

Today I must focus on recovery and extra hydration to replace volume.  I met a few goals with the donation, reaching the 100 contribution milestone and visiting a place I'd not entered before.  Pleasant staff.  Somebody should benefit from the packed RBC and plasma that my blood should provide.  However, the volume loss took its toll on me.  And I'm a bit annoyed that in a world of automated systems, the Blood Bank had not notified me of my 100 donations, irrespective of whether they offer a tangible recognition as they did for 25 and 50.  Probably best to let the younger donors take over.

Key Ingredient Hunt

My wife's favorite dessert has long been tiramisu.  It gets ordered after a meal out.  When I had a Costco card, sometimes I would find kosher-certified tiramisu in their freezer.  Never headed home without a box.  It can be hard to find from commercial sources.

For kosher tiramisu to follow a dairy meal, home preparation takes planning and effort.  My first attempt brought me to the beginning of a learning curve.  I bought spongy ladyfingers from the supermarket's bakery section.  Kosher certified.  As I dipped each into a bowl of strong coffee, the sponge dissolved in my fingers.  I thought about making my own lady fingers, but never did, though I have the needed piping bag and tip.  It makes a project more arduous.  I'd much rather substitute Linzertorte for dessert.

Mascarpone with kosher certification seems more readily available.  The Orthodox Union products site lists many suitable brands easily found at the places I shop.  Heavy cream has a presence on most supermarket refrigerator cases, though I sometimes need to buy more than my tiramisu recipe requires.  I use the extra up within a week or two.  The barrier remains suitable commercial ladyfingers. OU Kosher offers a product search.  Ladyfingers brings up a few entries, including the house brand from the supermarket bakery of the store where I get my prescriptions filled.  I saw them.  Basically sponge cake, the kind that dissolved on dunking once before.  They only list one other brand, one from an Italian producer, Vicenzi.  I've used these before and they work superbly, holding their shape with a generous dunk.  Availability has been inconsistent.  The company website indicated that the nearest places that carry them require a drive of about 7 miles, near the auto dealer that sold me my current car.  Two stores, one a megamart, the other more of a boutique.  No places closer.  The last time I bought them, I found them at Wegman's, a megamart known for specialty products.  They were not in a place with other lady fingers.  A customer service agent misdirected me when she typed ladyfingers into her inventory list.  I had her type the brand, which was located not with baking supplies or cookies, but with Italian specialties.  On return for the next tiramisu ingredient gathering, I returned to Wegman's.

At the early lunch hour on a Sunday morning, a parking space needed its own hunt.  I drove a few aisles, finding some openings at the far reaches.  While my local preferred grocer, the bastion of kosher near my home, has deteriorated over the last few years, Wegman's had quite a throng shopping there.  Prices a bit higher than where I shop, but clean store, well-stocked shelves, conspicuous signs of what appears on aisles, and specialty items from bakery to produce, and ample in-store cafe.  I went to my usual shelves.  No luck.  I went to customer service.  She searched for lady fingers.  My brand not there, even though the company website indicated it was.  I asked for kosher ladyfingers.  Using her thumbs to navigate AI on her cell phone, she identified a different brand as kosher.  Then she directed me to their place in the store.  Right across from the donuts, as she said they would be.  I examined the box.  No kosher agency mark, my criteria for a kosher product.  

Being a bit hungy, I toured the eat-in options.  More than I wanted to spend on a quick Sunday snack.  My online search offered one other store, almost around the corner from Wegman's.  Green Grocer is small franchise, with many fewer products, but mostly selections of items beyond the mass market.  I walked the perimeter of the store.  Mostly specialties.  Barrels of coffee beans at $15.99 per pound.  Meats, cheeses.  I looked at the baked goods area.  No luck.  Being a small operation, they do not have a dedicated service kiosk.  Instead, I asked the cashier if she could do a product search.  I handed her a paper with the brand of what I sought.  She did not need to look it up.  Instead, she walked over to the right shelf, pointing it out to me.  I took a package.  While there, why not get mascarpone?  She pointed out the cheese section.  I found mascarpone, two brands kosher certified.  One had tubs of twice what I needed, the other brand the right size but priced well above what I usually pay for this.  I paid for the ladyfingers in cash, then drove home, almost ready to make my wife's favorite Mother's Day treat.

Once home, my culinary quarry safely on a flat surface in the kitchen, I attempted to see what my real ladyfinger options were.  St. Michel company site would not allow me to query them without a product bar code.  The FAQ on the kosher status of their ladyfingers listed ingredients that would be acceptable to me, but made no mention of a certifying agency.  Typing kosher ladyfingers as the search led me to their product, just as it did the agent at Wegman's.  But kosher-certifed, with a few sentences generated by AI, lists only Vicenzi.

In this era of widespread certification of consumer products, I wonder why this common treat and versatile ingredient so rarely attracted manufacturers to engage one the common kosher agencies.  Not Goya, not Savolardi, not Pacelli, those brands easily found at supermarkets.And Goya, at least, has many OU-certified products, so they are familiar with the certification process and its benefits to their company.

I still need an 8-ounce tub of mascarpone.  Other ingredients, other than fresh whipping cream, largely sit in my pantry.  While making this special treat for my special person takes some effort and planning, even the hunt for the key ingredient adds to the accomplishment.  Maybe I should learn how to bake my own ladyfingers.

Changing Watches

My smartwatch, a Tozo S3, bare bones edition, sits to my left next to the laptop.  Its charger occupies a USB port, its magnetic terminals adding electrical refreshment to the dormant device.  Replacing it on my left wrist sits a much simpler timepiece, a new Casio 168, purchased through Amazon for just over $30, not that much less than the far more versatile Tozo S3.  I had taken a liking to digital watches since they first entered mass market use in the 1980s.  I have a small collection, most costing less than $10.  They share some features.  All tell time well enough.  All have a stopwatch and the ability to set an alarm.  Most have a chime that signals a new clock hour.  All have a backlight.  In its early days, some of these came with calculators of limited utility,  I never bought one of those.  Straps are mostly cheap, either plastic or woven synthetic cloth of some type, though my new watch has a more attractive silver band with a link pattern and a clasp that allows custom adjustment.  I have replaced batteries in previous ones, but in view of the minimal price and significant longevity, these are really disposables.  To my disappointment, upon changing the battery of my favorite previous relic, it still did not run.  

Two smartwatches later, I've returned to my comfort style of a small rectangular display with a single alarm set to remind me to count the Omer each night.  Why the modernization reversal?  And in this era of smart phones that do it all, with omnipresence almost mandatory, why wear a wristwatch at all?

My two smartwatches did some very useful things, though I wonder how well.  My two devices tracked my steps.  With the first one, I mostly admired my daily achievement of 8000 steps.  With my current one, 4000 steps typically appear in the display when I retire for the night.  My activity has not changed.  I like the sleep feature.  It records pretty accurately when I fall asleep each night and when I arise in the morning.  Mostly it captures those nights I depart from bed to use the bathroom.  The awake duration on the morning report varies considerably, and likely inaccurately.  As a senior with the common circadian rhythm of 3AM awakening, it rarely captures that in the tracker.  But once awake, I cannot restrain myself from that dopamine hit of looking at the display on the dial.  The time.  How I've done with sleep thus far.  I can expect a composite number Sleep Score that I don't understand, supplemented with bands of orange for REM, lilac for light sleep which comprises most of each night, and blue to indicate deep sleep.  These come in their expected sequence.  My staring at them likely delays my return to real sleep, even if the device fails to detect that I am awake but still horizontal.

The more significant incentives to replace this occur closer to dawn.  I like being able to set multiple alarms, including a wake time, 6:50AM seven mornings weekly.  The designers anticipated the difficulty people have keeping promises to themselves.  They programmed ten-minute snooze alarms to take over passively.  It became too easy to feel my wrist buzz, not even look at the display, but remain confident that another signal or two will find me more motivated to arise.  Between looking at the screen at night and having reassurance that I had some protection from not doing what I should do, even as basic as getting up when I should, the convenience of the device introduced a feature that harmed me.

I used other features.  The countdown timer provided a great incentive.  The Two Minute Rule is one of the staples of personal accomplishment.  If a task takes less than two minutes, just do it.  With a quck touch, I can choose 1-6 minute countdown intervals.  Great for cooking.  The device allows me to set any interval.  It let me challenge myself to pay attention for 20 minutes or to read for 12 minutes or take a mid-day break for 33 minutes and 33 seconds.  Only one countdown at a time, but enormously useful.  Easily replaced with my cell phone which has a built in timer and apps for kitchen timers and other forms of countdown.  But this might be the part of the smartwatch I used most, other than telling the current time.

It has a heart rate tracker, or really a pulse tracker.  The accurracy may not be what a real medical heart monitor could do.  I've checked my heart rate at the end of a treadmill session both on the watch and on the machine's grip pulse counter.  The machine invariably gives a higher count than the watch.  The very predictable daily range of 55 on the low side and 106 on the high side for each 24 hour interval adds to my skepticism.  My pulse must exceed 110 at different time in a day when I have a scheduled exercise session.  And my watch offers an oximeter.  I do not know how it works.  Mine has never read under 97%.

Some features I don't use, either for lack of knowing how, lack of need, or not wanting to constantly pair with the company's app.  I could listen to music.  The weather feature often fails.  While I could change the display format to dozens of options, I've picked only two.

Somebody did a landmark experiment on choice.  The investigators took college students to ice cream parlors, letting them select any cone they wanted.  Half went to a local shop with ten choices, others went to a nationally distributed chain that offered thirty.  The kids made their selection.  Not long after, the professors surveyed those young folks on their experience.  Those who made a choice from ten expressed better satisfaction with what they selected than those who chose from thirty.   More choice correlated with regret over what they might have had instead.

Despite finding my smartwatch useful, I also found it distracting.  It told me about my sleep, both in real time and in review.  I think it also deprived me of some sleep.  Setting a timer to work on something kept me focused, but for relatively short intervals.  The device overloaded me with things it could do that didn't really need to be done.

My new retro 1980s or early 1990s classic arrived from Amazon.  Sleeker in appearance, limited in function.  It forced choices.  I could only have one timer.  Set at appointment, Omer, or wake time?  I had to choose.  It does not count down, only up.  If I travel across time zones or semi-annual clock changes, I have to do that myself.  But with its small discrete display, I look at it less.  When I awake at 3AM, I no longer anticipate the duration of wakefulness.  One dial, light gray background, thin black numerals.  Nothing garish hits my retina when I want to know the time.  I left the hourly chime ON.  I only notice it when both awake and idle, never when I am engaged in an activity.  And it need not be recharged periodically.  It better matches the purpose of having a wristwatch.  

There will emerge times when the smartwatch will have a temporary Second Act.  Days of multiple appointments.  Days of deadlines, where the ability to set multiple alarms or time work intervals better enables me to meet obligations.  But simple suits me better.  Too many choices, too many functions, intrude.  Probably why Casio still sells so many of these 168 classics long past their apparent obsolescence.

A Me Day

Sometimes I feel too programmed.  Not that I lack autonomy.  I don't.  For Pesach I have considerable latitude of what I prepare for Seder.  I also make binding commitments, like making those two Seders or showing up at synagogue for services.  I enroll in the senior division of the state university each semester.  That only entails four courses per semester, each 75 minutes long.  It's only about half the time an undergraduate would spend.  But I still have to show up, and if not an online course, I need to transport myself there and back.  At least the undergrads can walk from their dorms to where they need to be.

Part of my success in retirement has been considerable voluntary scheduling.  I arise at a set time, return to my bed at a set time, exercise and stretch on a schedule, have a reasonably fixed time for taking my medicines and for eating, though what I eat and wear each day I've chosen not to regiment.

An appointment-free Saturday came my way.  Not exactly.  I still needed a treadmill session at 7:50AM, which I did.  Most Saturdays would find me in synagogue most of the morning, often with something to contribute.  The congregational creators, from which I have been excluded, opted to have a Friday night dinner with service in celebration of Israel, that very productive land to which I have an attachment despite some recent, justifiable world criticism.  I rarely attend these Shabbos dinners, finding a supper with just my wife and sometimes a guest or two more authentic.  I prepare dinner, which adds to satisfaction.  But this occasion seemed one to attend.  

Between Pesach and shabbos assignments, I had gotten shul'd out.  In response, I designated this Saturday a Day for Me.

Sometimes these periodic Saturdays still play out as Shabbos services, just at a place other than my own.  A large modern Orthodox congregation in a city about an hour and a half distant had been a quarterly destination pre-pandemic.  Mostly, I would make a day trip of the effort.  Services until mid-day, then a city museum or other attraction before driving back home.  I've not been there in some time.  It became less worth the effort when their long-time Rabbi of national renown retired.  Other times, I designated Saturday as a respite from shul, a needed break.  Mostly a day trip would take its place.  During my working years, taking a Saturday for myself had some therapeutic benefit, a personal reset not available to me on other days.  In retirement, and with an unlimited SEPTA pass, I can designate most days of the week suitable for an escape.  And I have.  But shul'd out requires my change of pace occur in lieu of shul, as this one did.

My day of self began with a Saturday routine, making coffee, reviewing how I had done with the weekly plan I assembled the previous Sunday morning, then doing my obligatory time on the treadmill.  All the while I considered where I might like to go, what I might like to do.  At one time, my willingness to drive exceeds what it does now.  Three hours each way creates an much bigger radius of where to go than my current hour and a half.  I chose a place about fifty miles northwest of my home, a town, or really a vicinity, which I have visited a few times a year for these types of escapes over many decades.  There are types of places a like to go.  Farmers Markets, breweries, wineries, museums, local tours.  By now, I've been to most of the attractions offered by my destination, though a respite day need not introduce me to something I've not done before.  With gas tank filled the day before, I had no distance restrictions.  At 9:30AM, I drove off, following my usual route, though still without a destination.  About halfway there, I opted for a local farmer's market where I've visited a few times before.  I can attend better markets far closer to my home, but this one has the advantage of other things to do nearby.  Since it sits in a tourist area, one that attracts people from New York three hours away, traffic can get challenging on a Saturday.  With a little motoring aggression that those New Yorkers will recognize, I secured my right of way at a few crowded intersections, and once parked safely, I showed similar assertiveness when crossing streets.

The Farmer's Market had little that attracted me.  At prime time, I needed to park farther from the main building than I usually do.  A separate brick building steps from my car offered Amish-style crafts with Amish attired women attending the customers.  I looked around.   Good deal on logo mugs.  I resolved to return for one when ready to drive off.  The main building had places to get baked goods,sandwiches, craft boutiques, meat and cheese vendors.  In the basement, walkable by ramp, sat an emporium that sold souvenir type items that tourist coming to think they were having an Amish experience might want to bring home as gifts.  With mid-day arriving, and nothing that I really wanted to buy, I walked across the street.  I expected to sample three brick buildings selling Amish crafts, but they were all interconnected by hallways.  Attractive stuff, tastefully displayed, and at acceptable prices.  Another time, maybe in the late fall when I need to obtain Hanukkah gifts that my recipients living elsewhere would not easily obtain for themselves.  Quick reality check.  With Amazon and Etsy, everything can be obtained everywhere from a laptop.  I walked outside to an adjacent building.  A small food court, mostly baked things and ice cream, a place frequently cited by visitors' YouTube podcasts of their tripd to the area.  I bought an oversized custard filled donut.  Taking a chair at a shelf style seating area, I got confectioner's sugar over myself, the table, and the chair, but it was a yummy treat.  A wipe with a napkin brought the powdered sugar to the floor, where it became hardly noticeable.  

Cars driving along the street let me along with a few others get safely across to the Farmer's Market parking lot.  I re-entered the original building, selected an oversized porcelain mug, handed the Amish young lady my Visa Card, which she processed, before wrapping my possibly fragile purchase securely for its trip home.

Next stop, a winery.  Pennsylvania allows tasting rooms, places rented or owned by a vineyard, sometimes in another state.  These places offer tastings of their sponsoring vineyards' vintages at a fee.  I much prefer to visit an estate.  My Wineries Near Me request showed nearly all tasting rooms, with the nearest vineyard a half hour's drive.  I had been 3once before, recalling a pleasant place that required some rural driving to reach.  By now, some rainfall had begun.  Instead of setting Waze, my usual GPS, I followed the directions displayed by the winery's app.  It lacked audio but displayed the turns with large enough images and distances that I could get there safely.  It stood on a high hill.  When I arrived, the tasting room appeared full.  Not having a reservation at mid-day Saturday, they accommodated me in a back room, eventually joined by a brand new father tending to his six-week old son while his wife partied someplace else.  I chose my five wines.  The attendant brought me a wooden rack holding six test tubes, the one on the far right with water.  As I sipped from #3, an attendant approached me about my car.  When I arrived, I had nudged the trunk release.  After closing it, I neglected to shut my own door.  The rain now soaked part of my front seat.  They closed the door for me, but I would have to place my nylon jacket atop the bucket seat to keep my pants dry.

As I started my journey from the Farmer's Market to winery, I drove past a Sheetz convenience store, almost at the corner of the road I wanted to take home.  It being one of my favorite road trip breaks on other travels, I decided that on the way back, I would stop there for lunch.  Sheetz and WaWa have a regional rivalry, this store being at the junction of where one takes dominance over the other.  I programmed Waze to get me there, appreciating the audio.  The sandwich menu falls short of what WaWa offers, a place I visit frequently at home when they have sandwich promotions.  I chose a hoagie with a disappointing pretzel roll option, definitely less of a sandwich than what a WaWa would have sold me.  The super-sized drink cost less, though.  Intending to eat only half the sandwich, I found myself not adequately filled and not wanting to take the rest of this mediocre sandwich home.  I ate the rest, tossed the wrapping, saved the majority of the soda and unused napkins.  

Returning to my car, now with a brisker downpour, I headed to the route that I planned to take home.  On my day trips to Amish country, I usually return by a different route than the one that got me there.  The roads have a variety of numbered cross streets, mostly rural.  With a GPS and destination, I can always get back on track, so often I will enter one of those streets that I do not recall driving along previously.  The GPS has an algorithm preference for highways.  On these Me Drives, I often ignore the female voice telling me of an entrance ramp, then redirecting me later, but not before trying to backtrack me to the highway.  I chose a street to sample, but did not find it.  Instead, I took a rural road, one with a name instead of a route number, through a state park. At one time I used to visit this park for its fishing, though not in a long time.  Winding roads, not much traffic.  Before long, I returned to familiar home territory.  For the final leg home, I entered the usual roads, only to find a key bridge closed by flashing police cars.  The other drivers in my blocked lane courteously took their turns making U-turns.  I knew the alternate route to my house well, following that path uneventfully.

Home.  Away for some seven hours, about half of it behind the steering wheel.  I had set out for a day of multipurpose.  Escape.  New experience.  Some amusement,  Scenery.  Taste buds. New places, even if only from the car.  Mostly accomplished.  I returned more tired than expected.  A measure of annoyance from my own carelessness of not closing my car door, but also some appreciation to the winery attendant who minimized the wetness that the car's interior would acquire.  A stop at a favorite roadside convenience store, even if the meal fell short of what I might have eaten elsewhere.  And an alternative to my more customary Saturday morning place in my synagogue's sanctuary.  A welcome time to myself, despite those elements that could have gone better.