Staycation

My last OLLI class before Spring Break.  I came home mid-morning, worked on a monthly financial review, then declared Vacation.  First initiative, treating myself to a donut at a new donut boutique, one for me, one taken home to my wife.  Spring Break in progress.

Being retired, time off gets more difficult to delineate.  My life has minimal fixed appointments.  OLLI comprises the majority of them each week, though now only five distributed over three days.  Periodically I need to visit one of my growing roster of medical providers.  These seem to cluster with long lulls between encounters and the diagnostic procedures they want me to have.  Shabbos is sort of a  fixed obligation.  Dinner preparation Friday, Services Saturday morning.  I don't skip a dinner that demarcates my Shabbos.  Services I give myself periodic mornings at home in place of synagogue.  

For the most part, my Vacations separate themselves from the rest of my time by travel.  This makes both fixed appointments and ongoing chores largely unavailable.  It also forces me to seek new experiences.  Unfortunately, my last two journeys as a couple ended in significant medical problems.  I really don't want to be in my car for hours at a time in both directions, nor do I want to deal with airports or rental cars.  As much as I like wineries, hot tubs, and museums, most of these can be had at much reduced expense and enhanced safety using my house as home base.  A Staycation this time.  The risk, of course, is being sucked into errands that would not crop up while on the road.  Our next scheduled housecleaner service would be one of these.

Still, I think of it as mostly an ME week, a chance to do one to three things that I want to do more than I should. While I could delegate the cleaner to my wife, I really should keep myself on-site that morning. At the end of the week, I have a commitment to the synagogue. There remains my exercise schedule, something I try to maintain at hotels if possible.

Things I like to do.  While I won't have a hotel, I have accumulated two JCC Day Passes.  So the steam room, sauna, pool, and gym of a resort remain available to me one time that week.  I had a grand breakfast a couple of years ago at America's largest buffet.  One morning for that, one of the days that the treadmill has the day off.  As tempting as it is to try an adventure to NYC by some inconvenient but discounted public transit, I need to meet somebody there next month.  I'll travel as a couple by driving.  But I can and should do one day trip to Philadelphia, picking out a special attraction.  Wineries not on my radar this week.  St. Pat's Day come and gone, so no compelling reason to seek beer either.  A new restaurant opened nearby, maybe see if it meets its hype.  I like slices of pizza and tuna hoagies.  Maybe pick one as a treat.

And that OLLI Class time, and the travel time to get there and back, can be designated Writing Time.  Fishing probably ought to happen once.  Putting Green and Driving Range are near the OLLI campus.  Those can wait until classes resume.

But one inescapable reality.  My FB Friends all seem to take themselves to the air.  The algorithms pick out stuff that will keep you fixated on the screen, if not create a feeling of I want that too.  At the moment, I don't.

So my ten days of largely unscheduled time has begun.  It feels a little like Vacation, even in the absence of travel.  

Specified Times.

Final weekday of OLLI's spring break.  I only really remember my travel day at mid-week, a day selected partly based on weather, which turned out ideal, and partly it's being mid-week.  Had OLLI been in session, I would have had a single Zoom class originating downstate a short distance from my Fishing Pier destination.  Very pleasant travel, lovely long overdue walk through downtown Rehoboth Beach, simple lunch of extra large pizza slice, and pleasant drive along a tony part of Rehoboth that never really caught my attention previously.  I remember my scheduled treadmill sessions Sat-Sun-Tues with end of month hiatus.  And I went fishing, once locally, once on my trip.

My upcoming Torah reading is taking shape, a partially satisfying accomplishment.  I made my statement about where my congregation needs to refocus.  This gave me less satisfaction than I thought it would.

And there were some successful patches.  My car Info Screen looked odd.  The agent at the Toyota dealer assured me it's appearance was normal.  I tinkered with it, finally convincing myself that he's right.  And the online U Penn 50th Reunion access seems fixed with some expert help, not easily obtained, partly from the Alumni staff office and partly from my wife.  

My decision to forgo overnight travel this break was based on proximity to Passover that needs its own preparation.  Menus, cleaning, non-perishable shopping all ahead of schedule.

And there are things I might have liked to do but didn't.  I didn't eat out, not breakfast or lunch other than the quick slice of pizza while on the road.  I did go for coffee on Monday.  My mostly daily stretch program gave way to recovery from soreness.  It only takes minutes, done faithfully with a set time to do it, and likely a significant contributor to my recent uptick in self-assessed well-being.  My Space did not get the attention I would have liked, but my spring gardens and herb pots did.  I wrote an article on my Reunion experience that could be submitted.  I did not get around to editing a languishing one for submission.  Did not do any elegant eating, as pre-Passover is focused on consuming space occupying packages of things.  While I've completed my book quota for this half-year's initiatives, I started another which I hoped to complete by the library's three-week return date.  I renewed it instead, but set a schedule for reading the rest of it up to the footnotes by Pesach, and will likely get there.  I made a couple key financial decisions.  Thought I would spend more companionship time with my wife than I did.  And did very little to advance my upcoming major travel.  That really doesn't need time defined by a spring break.

Even the trip downstate could have been done while OLLI classes are in session, as I have two days weekly without classes.  OLLI forces me to be someplace at a set time multiple days a week for consecutive weeks.  Nothing else does, other than maybe shabbos dinner.  I have created a few appointments with myself, treadmill at 8:30AM on scheduled days, more recently stretch video at 4PM.  Those timed structures are rather important.  Sleep-wake has a semi-timed pattern though without the consistency of an OLLI class that begins at 9AM and I have to get myself there.  The things I would have liked to do this break but didn't in all likelihood still would not have been pursued within the timed OLLI structure, though.

As the break slips to its conclusion, Pesach arrives with its own imposed schedule of ceremonies and worship attendance.  But I think the week taught me has been the importance of assigning times, whether the trip downstate, some of my responses to my synagogue officers all done by setting a time to do them, and even my recreational writing where I now set a Focus Session on my computer.  I need the "I am going to do this at this time", easier when OLLI is in session than when it was on hiatus.

OLLI Intercession

Each semester, the Osher Institute offers a suspension of classes.  In the fall, this coincides with a long Thanksgiving Weekend, Wed-Sun.  In the spring, we get an entire week, Sat-Sun, which just commenced.  People do all sorts of things, from getting out of town to taking that special cruise to some movie or eating out time.  Others find OLLI their principal source of personal engagement, not really looking at this week off as an opportunity but as an interruption.

I had been using the week to make short overnight trips with my wife.  Not too much driving, less than three hours each way, but always with some mixture of leisure time and noteworthy must do at the new place.  We've been to the Poconos, which doesn't have a lot of must-do, and to DC which does.  This year, the break falls too close to Pesach, a time dedicated largely to spring cleaning.  No overnight trips, though I had considered a few days on Long Island.  Unfortunately, it's a much more expensive destination than the Poconos and a little farther, though with enough to do and see.  The hotels there seem to build their pools outdoors, probably based on economic calculations, though a little unusual for a region that has its warm weather limited to less than half the year.  But for me this year, it's stay home with one day trip.

At one time, I'd have earmarked a day with the Chinatown Bus in NYC.  In the past, I'd take an 8 or 9AM bus, arrive before lunch, have lunch, often a Kosher one, then either meet a friend or visit a place that makes NYC an international destination.  Perfect for OLLI intercession.  Alas, that daylight travel, at least economical and easy bus travel is no more.  The buses leave too early, return too late.  Getting to Philadelphia where buses are hourly and of nominal fare requires transportation or high-priced parking, as those buses no longer depart from the 30th Street Station but a more difficult location near the Historical District.  I guess that makes economic sense, as tourists coming to Philadelphia or NYC as their primary destination can make an easy side trip to sample the other.  But too disruptive for me.

That leaves my day trip to a place I can traverse by car driving myself in a single day, perhaps 100 miles or so.  Downstate in my own state seems my best option.  Fishing.  Either leisurely breakfast out before I go or lunch that I would not ordinarily obtain for myself once there.  Some form of amusement.  And the rest of the week with Pesach preparation, some early season gardening, or those same breakfast-lunch samplings accessible to me every day but never sought out.  

As retirement has become my new norm with OLLI as the most reliable form of social engagement, that shield from Loneliness, I don't really welcome that week-long suspension of classes.  I've not deprived myself of anything I want to do, so I do not really need the week to capture any missing experiences.  But while this free block of time is externally imposed rather than sought out, I need to seek out something a little different as well.