Bored and Prosperous

Covid-19 has greatly diminished the number of places we can go.  For much of the spring I would go to a state park, fishing gear available, and have some solitary time casting into the pond, reeling back and calling it a day when my line snaps after the hook latches onto an immovable object.  Or I planted my garden.  As the summer became more humid, air conditioning became more essential, though I made two trips downstate to the beaches.  More recently chores, not the moving ahead type, have gained traction.  I edited a book for a friend, repaired a driveway crack, and sent my July and August tzedakah donations on time, all productive things and transiently satisfying, but all done at home.  I needed to get away, and do when I go to Shop-Rite or Trader Joe's.  I have no interest in coffee shops, dining out, or picking up a slice of pizza or a hoagie for lunch.  I tour Boscov's, TJ Maxx, and Marshall's near me, sometimes the New Castle Farmer's Market, but like Georgy Girl, I'm always window shopping but never stopping to buy.

My fortunes may have changed this week.  I needed a putty knife to repair the driveway.  Best price and easy was the Dollar Store, which has remained open since the start of the pandemic as they sell food.  Not being in a hurry and knowing where they keep the putty knives, I leisurely traversed each aisle.  Total charged to Visa:  $21.   Other than the two putty knives I didn't really need anything.  But it's school supply orgy.  I had to get multicolored pens, ball point and liquid gel styles, I can never have enough ear buds that break within a month but for $1 they break no faster than those from Five Below for $5.  Needed some flossers, saw bandanas, two for a dollar, that would make for adequate Covid-19 protection, or at least not get me thrown out of places.  I can be a real sucker for Dollar Store snacks.  But in keeping with attention to weight, I limited this to one box of granola bars.  No creme filled cookies, chips, candy.  Interestingly, a lot of the lower priced edibles that I would expect a hechsher did not have one, like sugar wafers or boiled peanuts or some of the mincakes.  No loss.  I also did not pick out a birthday card for my son, but I still have time.  What they offered for 50 cents or a dollar just did not match my concept of what the recipient might find amusing.

Shabbos came and went, followed by a productive Sunday morning at home.  I needed to get away again, this time opting for Walmart.  Wending my way through the aisles, starting with mens wear, I came across Phillies and Eagles logo face masks, sold in packages of two for $14.  I could use a new face mask, and was planning to go back to Boscov's soon to get one that looks like a cat's face for $5.  I really don't want to spend $14 on myself for something like this, but since I am visiting people in St Louis soon, I would be willing to spend that much on a gift that they cannot find there.  Later, I found masks ordinaire, $4 for two, which I bought for myself.  I'm a sucker for back to school but more restrained since retiring.  I started recording at the end of each day three favorable occurrences on the back of my daily plan.  Maybe it would be better to record this in a marble notebook.  For 50 cents I can't go wrong.  And I got a dozen pencils too.  I looked at expensive stuff, taking a liking to desk chair but I did not see a price or an unopened box.  I don't need a desk chair.  I don't need to replace my keurig maker, but if I did, they had one for a good price.  They also have the best price on licorice, one strawberry, one black.  Walmart's probably a better place for me to bring a credit card than Total Wine.  I feel a little more fulfilled knowing I could get anything I wanted but restrained in what I chose to buy.  

Weight Measurably Down

Like most adults in their mature years, maintaining health has been a priority.  I take my medicines daily, though I am not shy about suspending one that may not be needed or is suspected of symptomatic adverse effects.  Missed treadmill sessions nearly alway have a valid justification.  I measure my weight, waist circumference and BP, recording them weekly.  Treadmill goals are set and usually met.  More recently I've incorporated some semblance of sleep hygiene.  All these efforts have shown benefits.  For the first time my cholesterol is on target with the LDLC declining from 188 untreated to 68 with faithfulness to rosuvastatin each evening.  By systolic BP has declined from 155 to about 130 once amlodipine was introduced as a supplement to lisinopril. Only the weight has been refractory to my best efforts, yet at the last two measurements it has declined by a kg and my waistline by about an inch.  Moreover, I no longer feel the need to be voracious.

What brought this about is uncertain.  I made a small modification to my eating, putting myself largely NPO or at least calorie free from 8PM to 6AM.  Have done this before with minimal effect, though this time I've been doing it long enough to become more habitual.  I've not had the munchies in a while.  Perhaps more significantly, as the grocery shopper, I've changed the purchases.

Manufacturers and retailers know where the big production efficiencies and consumer preferences lie.  TJ big bag of crunchy, oily ridged potato chips are a best buy, SR house brand chips are a bargain at the regular price, and my very favorite since childhood, Wise Potato Chips goes on sale every few weeks at just the price I am willing to pay.  I last put a bag of any of these in my shopping cart a month ago.  Cookies have to be cleared out.  TJ buckets of Cat Crackers or Cinnamon Letters last a long time, though I've stopped buying them.  Nabisco and Keebler have to be cleared off the SR shelves with too good to resist sales, and sometimes they make you buy two to receive the discount.  A package lasts only a few days.  While kept on the kitchen table, they are not a destination in themselves but I am at the kitchen table enough for other reasons that I will help myself to 2-3 at a time several times a day.  Not bought these in a month.  Tastykakes have been my weakness as have the more nationally distributed Drakes Cakes for most of my adult life.  They go on sale.  Drakes was easy to discontinue; the size of the Yankee Doodles or Yodels just got too small.  Tastykake is a whole other matter, especially for $1.99 a box.  Two boxes of bargain have become one box of bargain with no more than one serving a day.  And to my benefit they seem to be going on sale less.

Bread remains my biggest challenge, since I don't really have the option of not buying any.  I have shifted away from sliced bread to bagels which are never part of binges.  As commercial mass market sliced bread has gone up in price, I am now more willing to pay extra at TJ for their pumpernickel and other healthier options, though soft sliced bread has been something of a challenge not to overeat as my last comfort food.  

The scale gives me good news, though.  I probably did the right thing.

OLLI Online

Since retiring, classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, acronym OLLI, have been the centerpiece of my week. Can't say that I've made friends there but I've engaged with a lot of people. It has become one of the few sources of conversation that I have.  While my enrollment takes me to four classes, usually distributed over two days, my time on site includes idle time in their lounge where my contemporaries drift in and out, occupying nearby seats, or their very tiny library where I could read the NYT, though I usually don't, or type out my next article on the laptop that I often take to campus with me, which I do.  When my classes span mid-day, most days, I pack lunch and a large travel mug with the day's allotment of coffee, some of which usually finds its way to a classroom carpet when I knock it down from adjacent to my chair in class. OLLI is the experience and the preparation as much as it is the classes.

My last semester's class selections had been a little bit of a disappointment.  All interesting in their own way, none provocative in any way, which may be a prerequisite for future courses.  As they got cancelled while in progress due to Covid-19, my guess is that I probably preferred the refund, which eventually came, to the class stimulation which this semester did not come.  Yet I was also no longer exchanging banter with anyone, receiving the fast quips from others who are my equal at creating them.  Travel mugs stayed in the closet in lieu of my ration of three cups make individually at the time I desired them.  Planning lunch, let alone when to eat it and with whom?  I sort of miss that.  Now, at home, if I want lunch at all I know where the peanut butter and the jelly jars are, what kind of bread we have at home that day, and I eat it, without the orange or cookies I would have included in my thermal lunch sack.

On site classes for the coming semester have been transferred to a remote format.  As many of us have learned from parallel experiences, some things are gained while others are lost.  It has been great enrolling in seminars with the premier experts of the world as guest, something unavailable to me in the prior era when you had to register, pay and show up.  Twice they have accepted and submitted my question to the expert.  Little gets headier than those 5 seconds of fame when your name is announced to global listeners.  Yet the seminar ends when the Zoom host signs out, and the question is never selected by the expert recognizing your raised hand but by a moderator who already knows the question even if the expert does not.  Amid the formality, those in attendance also don't get to interrupt at the moment an insight or dubious comment arises.  Those things all happen in live class sessions, add immeasurably to the information imparted and don't get duplicated by a screen.  Those of us who attend professional society conventions where we watch the invited Plenary Lecture in a cavernous ballroom on monitors scattered through the space are well aware of this, maybe even more so later in the day when we attend a smaller seminar with a lesser professor and especially as we wander through the research posters in the Exhibit Hall chatting with selected people who conducted projects that capture our fancy in some way.

We've probably known since kindergarten that curriculum is really a subset of education.  We had to learn the colors and maybe even the letters, but we also got creative in the sandbox and engaged in conflict over who got to use the plastic shovel first.  Post-retirement education is no different.  We select our classes, do our darndest to pay attention, engage in some interchange, then go to the common areas and exchange notes from where we might go on vacation to what we watched on Cable TV the night before.  Keeping a vibrant mind into our later years is partly focused study, but it is also the experience of personal interchange.  

I sift through the course offerings, not a whole lot different than previous course offerings.  Instead of a global fee, we now pay a la carte per selected course, so I expect to take three.   In the past I've timed them to minimize separate trips to campus or to create OLLI and non-OLLI days, something less important when my car is not needed and I don't need to assure interclass slack times to engage with other people.  It's a more utilitarian look at curriculum in the absence of some parts of the OLLI experience that are probably more enduring.

Monday Morning

It's not a work week.  Since retiring, it's never a work week.  Yet time is best allocated with a structure.  There are things I want to do today and do within six months, but the unit of planning from Biblical times seems to be seven day cycles that prevent all the days from being continuous.  It starts with Yom Rishon, or the first day which we have adopted as Sunday and climaxes at shabbos, then resets.  For American culture, the first day is really Monday and the day off is Sunday, though the climax may be Friday evening when work suspends.  Farmers might look at it differently.  To be productive, to be able to review how successful that weekly block turned out, that time clock has to begin and end somewhere.  On my calendars it is Sunday.  In my working mind it was Monday, and has remained so through retirement.

I preferentially stack a few things for Monday; measure weight and waist circumference.  Other things go on a monthly checklist, the days the oil in the car gets checked or the day I donate to a Jewish cause or pay my cell phone bill.  But for the most part it is a week that gets planned out on Sunday with serious implementation on Monday, not that I fritter away Sunday or devote Sunday to psychological enhancement of the days that follow.  I just think of a work week as it has always been, from my earliest school years to my final day's employment.

Go Get Coffee

My day and my week get outlined first thing Sunday morning.  Prior to retiring, that brought a very peaceful start to my week as I packed my black nylon zippered pouch and tablet onto the front seat and headed off to the nearest Brew HaHa.  At a price acceptable to me, really more for renting space at one of their tables for 45 minutes than for the coffee, I would get mostly a porcelain mug of dark roast, on occasion Huckleberry Creme instead, remove my pens, markers and pad, using the quiet time to collect my thoughts or follow my semi-annual outline to what might constitute a gratifying week and a productive Sunday off from work.

Retirement brought a commitment to creating My Space at home.  Mission accomplished after a few months.  Ever since, my first destination after tooth brushing has been my desk, with its customized lights and more writing implements than I can possibly use.  My zippered pouch sits at eye level to my left and gets used on most days, though I keep a set of colored pens, markers and pads to my right as well.  Transitioning away from the Brew HaHa on Sunday morning was not abrupt, but by the time Covid-19 suspended their operations, I had pretty much made my Keurig K-cup machine the source of daily coffee, including Sundays.   I've not been to a coffee shop at all since the pandemic, don't really miss what I did there though a late weekday morning at Starbucks became an escape to tote my laptop and write an article or blog entry away from the distractions of home.  Planning gets done at my desk in My Space.

As serious infection risk has eased, the shops are again opening.  Earlier this week, late morning, I decided to visit one for the first time since the pandemic.  Brew HaHa, Starbucks, Einsteins all straddle the same corner, as does Dunkin Donuts which gives a less Bohemian opportunity.  I drove around, ready to stop, then as I was driving, I thought of something I wanted to do instead and drove back home.  Saved about $2.50.

If I really wanted to resume the quiet of a usually paper cup of coffee made by the pros I could, but as my aborted quest indicated, what I could do at home has greater allure than what I can do at one of their tables.  I have distractions at home, but have gotten into routines of when to drink coffee, what kind, and what to do while I am drinking it.  Eventually I will resume Covid-19 restricted day or overnight trips and that morning of quiet coffee with my pad and multicolored pens will return, though very temporarily.  My current practice of me time with my planning tools and a porcelain mug of k-cup coffee seems the preferable option to those 45 weekly minutes at the Brew HaHa.

The First Rise

My anniversary dinner coincides with Shabbos dinner this year.  Normally, this is the only day that we consistently go out for dinner, ready to spend a little extra on elegance, but between Covid-19 and shabbos, some form of elegance at home seems the more inviting option.  No Zomick's mini-challot out of the freezer for this.  I arose at my usual time, did basic FOMO catchup, then downstairs to begin what I hope will become a dinner worthy of the education.  To my surprise, I had not used the good stand mixer since Pesach, so down to the basement, schlep it upstairs, wipe the bowl and beaters, and begin.  Recipe? sort of yes but with a catch.  All kosher cookbooks have a challah recipe. Though not identical, they are variants, usually uniform in proportions of water and flour.  Some call for sugar or honey, most call for oil.  The number of eggs vary as do the final instructions for coating the prebaked loaves with egg white, egg yolk, or whole egg.  I pulled a book not used in a while, sort of followed the quantities adapted to a more empty nesters appropriate one loaf rather than two, though by now I have enough familiarity to add more oil and sugar that what the book specified.  My dough came out a little too sticky but smooth from the dough hook, so I only had to supplement with flour and knead slightly.  Into an oiled metal bowl with a towel over it, affording me a two hour respite while it optimistically rises.  Ordinarily I try to do the dishes as I go, and I will later, but I had a rack of milchig ones from yesterday to finish first.  Let them dry, put away and convert sink to fleishig.  Now I have plenty of egg shells to clear the disposal, something not available earlier in the week.  The cookbooks never remind the baker to separate the challah portion, something I invariably remember to do with no prompting.

Menu also calls for a bread pudding, kept pareve, which I also vary from basic principles.  Have potatoes so it's a potato kugel this shabbos.  Vegetable could either be fresh green beans or cauliflower.  The green of the beans probably makes a better presentation.  I have minute steaks.  I also have a variety of fresh herbs.  Sage and Rosemary in the backyard garden.  Mint and parsley in the front containers.  Basil and thyme indoors.  Some for salad, some for kugel, and maybe some mint in bread pudding.  Anniversary dinner deserves wine, red from Spain sitting in my car a few days.  And a card, also sitting in my car, to be filled out before shabbos.

Having recently crossed the two year retirement threshold, I find myself a little recreationally challenged.  I like writing or expressing my comments to what others have written.  But I also value time in my own kitchen.  More so now that I no longer follow recipes literally but can put my thoughts to what somebody else has written in a cookbook, just as I can with online remarks.

Online Seminars

Today I've registered for three sessions from three different sources.  Since Covid-19 glued our retinas and their brain connections to our flat screens, a few new parts of the world have opened up.  In the past I would attend Grand Rounds or a Rabbi class or go see a visiting distinguished guest brought to town by a philanthropic organization.  Usually the only option was to attend live, but there have also been archives of yutorah.org or outorah.org that bring renowned scholars to my screen at my discretion, though I always accessed solo.  What Covid-19 forced upon us was that merger of multiple people accessing an invited guest of prominence at the same time.

Today, I am scheduled to hear from a senior UN official at noon, a distinguished author from The Atlantic at 2PM and our Rabbi's class at 6PM.  Real time allows for questions to a person of accomplishment that would otherwise not have been possible.  It is not just the ideas these speakers opened for me but the queries of others who may have heard something a little different or uses that same presentation to ponder a different path that makes these sessions sparkle.

A lot of what I access has Jewish content, very little has medical content, though.  This is probably quite different than what I would do live where medical education provides easy access. This new menu and how I select among what comes before me might redefine my own intrinsic interests.  I don't access anything reflecting overtly partisan politics, though many of the seminars offer outstanding analysis of public issues that will ultimately need to have political office holders implement enduring responses.

For me, it's ready access to upper tier minds and achievers.  It's also expanded access to people I don't know but probably would want to know if circumstances were different. The merger of mental and social.  It's been forced upon us but will likely remain after the public health threat has faded into world and medical history.