Acting Rammy

As much as I adhere to sleep hygiene recommendations, including a fixed waking and out of bed time, I found myself wide awake more than an hour earlier.  Not being the least bit tired, even eager to get on with my day, I arose, engaged in hygiene, planned my week as I do each Sunday, and hopped onto the treadmill at a faster speed that was prudent much earlier than usual.  I reduced  the treadmill speed by 0.2mph, went on with my most important task of opening the determination of my monthly social security benefit which fell beneath expectation, drank coffee, and moved onto the mental portion of my day. Whether distracted by my irritation and need to appeal the social security verdict, which will make a permanent impact on my discretionary spending options, I did not recover any semblance of attention span.  My half generated ideas from the previous week stare at me, unable to refine them.  I lack t he ability to create purposeful sentences let alone link them in sequence.  Physically I feel restless, rammy, maybe approaching a funk.  Setting the timer for finite down time has not restored me.  I feel a little impulsive, like I want to be in motion but not in thinking mode.

Rain hasn't helped.  This would have been a good planting day.  I did look up planting schedules and seed placement options for my front door pots.  Not a good camera day.  I'm too restless to read or even watch my DVD on electronics which requires some attention or to listen to a Modern Scholars topic in progress.

I know I will need to address the social security appeal, enlisting my financial advisor, but I will also need to recover documents that led me to think I would qualify for more than they offered.  Best to create a fixed time dedicated to this later in the week.  But for the rest of today, I need to be as finite and specific as I can be, working with a timer, doing some of the DVD, and isolating one partially written essay for completion. This may be a reminder that when I set out my weekly pill container, resuming half strength citalopram at mid-week was probably a wise choice.  Likely I saw this restlessness, often with an abruptness to my personality bringing me to the edge of sarcastic hostility, as something generating insidiously for a while but affecting me more now.  I will have to isolate and define activities in order to do them, though I've been in this circumstance before. Planning my time away with a defined date  can help.  By week's end, I will have a proposed time away.   Social Security payment has priority but it also allows me 60 days to assemble my case.  Some focus on my deteriorating disposition, even with some pharmaceutical assistance, looks like the best option for reversal of my current funk.

Expressing What I Think

Social Media's availability has certainly created its share of trolls.  That's not what I really wanted to say, because snarky people of limited intellect have been around since the early days of language.  What's different has been the expansion of the audience into cyberspace.  People's expressions of what they think has not changed. My own skill at articulating what I really mean has these ongoing faulty meanings which never get fully resolved.

Like everyone else, I have experiences, thoughts, positions, and reactions that need to be transformed from cerebral storage into written expression.  Sometimes I care if I have somebody else to receive those articulated ideas, sometimes not, or at least not right now.

As my semi-annual initiatives have moved along roughly halfway through this allotted calendar segment, my self-expression goals have lagged behind some of the others.  As I think of a topic I wish to develop, I jot it on a dedicated sheet of paper for storage in a dedicated folder.  I've accumulated fifteen subjects, written and sent to editors only two.  Partially written quite a few more.  It is that barrier from partially expressed to suitable for a reader which has stymied me this past quarter.

I currently struggle over two themes.  My Jewish experience over a lifetime has failed to reach it's potential.  In the world of machers, if I don't have a favorable experience with their organization there must be something inferior about me.  It's probably not true, and may underlie why the exit ramps of Jewish affiliation seem as congested as they are.  In no uncertain terms, whether my sense of being rebuffed is accurate, it is my conclusion.  And organizational attrition speaks for itself.  Putting this form of 2+2 into a few paragraphs has met many revisions, even though the concrete personal examples are plentiful and easy to describe.  I have been using real examples of exclusion, hoping to assemble them into a unifying principle with neglected but possible remedies, but the cohesiveness of expression has not been forthcoming.

Like many others, I find the political transformation from thought to enhance public outcome to sloganeering intended to create loyal tribes distressing.  But do I engage in that myself, though in a more dignified way?  And what intersectionalities do I have?  Where did they come from?  This essay, using the White Board in My Space, filled out with values on one side, implementation on the other, has gone better than the other, though not entirely coherent.

My language skills being more than adequate, the gap between idea and expression may be in an uncertainty of what I want to convey.  I'll struggle with some drafts and editing, but I really seem to have the motivation to merge the conceptual to the articulate.  A struggle to be sure, but one that is gratifying once completed and submitted, no matter how much self-editing these projects entail.

Staying On Task

While wishing I felt somewhat better, though coping adequately, these have been a pretty decent past few days.  Pesach concluded and I transformed the house back to chametz consumption.  My tasks for doing this were a mixture of defined and paced.  Boxes went to the basement, chametz utensils came upstairs in roughly the urgency with which they would be used.  A trip to Trader Joe's accumulated favorite chametz items including their brand pumpernickel and bagels.  Lastly I toted to the garbage bin those plastic bags that had protected our Pesach supplies from a year in our basement and made the fleishig kitchen island functional.

Another day this week I isolated neglected writing to my day's priorities, taking an idea for a composition, writing a wandering set of paragraphs, then scratching half the essay in favor of something more coherent and worthy of sharing in a publication.

Yesterday I assigned to gardening.  Preparing outdoor beds took some work.  Each needed three types of soil upgrade, which also required me to find a spade, pitchfork, and rake amid the randomness of my garage.  But with some challenge to my breathing, muscles, and stamina, each 4x4 foot section now has a layer of soil conditioner, organic compost, and top soil ready for the herbs and vegetables that should flourish better this spring than in years past.  I learned that some gardening should be made easy.  If I want culinary herbs for meals, grow them outside my front door in containers.  My main earthenware pot broke but its pieces should enhance drainage in the remaining pots if I scatter them at the bottoms.  The pot of spearmint survived the winter, now with abundant tiny leaves that should grow to mint julep size by Kentucky Derby weekend.  The large broken pot has been replaced and prepped.  Yesterday I created zones for four different herbs and will use the fragments of the broken earthenware to define the zones.  Potting soil had run low so that got replaced.  And I spent some time reviewing the contents of my garden folder, deciding which herbs go in which containers, though it remains too cool to plant any other than parsley.

After three great efforts at focus, home transition, writing, and gardening, I now find myself without a unifying daily goal.  NEJM needs some catchup.  Have some Delaware Community Foundation Scholarship applications to review, and it's never wrong to have another focused writing day, but taking care not to let that devolve into expressing myself excessively on social media.  Despite having twelve semi-annual initiatives, the days seem to go best when I isolate one or two.  

Getting Outdoors

Pesach came and went a little earlier in the secular calendar than most years.  With a good deal of effort, and some pacing to adapt to my advancing years, our house has returned to chametz.  With this Festival comes spring, warmer weather, snowblower away but to be extricated in late fall so its function can be restored more effectively than this winter.  My outdoor rosemary and sage seeds, planted in transplantable cups before Pesach and placed outside have not germinated but the pots froze one day when I checked on them  Restoring sage and rosemary to my backyard herb garden has not yet reached a lost caused, though growing them from seed might have.

As Chol HaMoed reached its closing days, I afforded myself a few moments in my car and at my clipboard to anticipate what spring might enable.  First, I toured Dick's Sporting Goods store.  They had bicycles, fishing gear, golf clubs, and baseball bats.  I already have fishing gear, a putter and driver, a Schwinn that still functions sixty years after receiving it as a birthday gift updated with a safety helmet.  I had been nurturing my front door pots through the winter, mostly herbs.  One broke, replaced with another and the broken earthenware further fragmented as drainage stones for the other pots.  I went out to purchase all the seeds that I need.  My backyard beds need some layering.  Appropriate bags purchased and transported by hand truck to their sites of use.

Already I have walked a few trails in two state parks.  I photographed the outdoors using techniques I learned from this winter's Great Course on photography, purchasing a tripod to enable even more.  It's been a while since I've gone to see the Blue Rocks.  If the pandemic eases to allow stadium attendance, I could add that to this spring's outdoor activities.  Even a day at one of the State Park beaches could find its way as an outdoor activity before the summer solstice brings about the next season.

Getting outside has been an annually underperformed initiative, maybe best added to my daily task list in some form.  It can be better implemented, and should be.

Treating the Aches

In 2019 I developed an oligoarticular distal arthritis which lingered in some form until this day.  I took anti-inflammatories, splinted errant finger joints and tendons, squeezed the ball for platelet donations with my more functional left hand, and submitted to a variety of unrevealing testing conducted by a very capable personal physician.  It largely ran its course, though cycled, leaving me with no disability but a small residual discomfort in my right fingers.

Current aches are different, more consistent with the approach of threescore and ten years in just another week.  They distribute more axially, have not been migratory, persisted unchanged for months, and have more of a point focus in the part of my back least accessible to applying Ben Gay or similar atomic balm. I have a pleuritic component, my Hb has ebbed just enough for the blood bank to declare me ineligible to maintain my regular donations.  Other than being tired, which I attribute to disordered sleep, I do not feel systemically ill.  Other than a CBC, there has been no medical investigation, though I am due for periodic lab testing next month.  

As a more immediate pursuit, it would be better to have less discomfort, self-assessed at about a 2/5, more annoying by its persistence than its severity.  I took a naproxen, and plan to stay on a bid schedule this week.  I could ask my wife to goop my back with Ben Gay bid.  Not long ago I purchased a tube of Voltaren on sale, finding it useless on my hand though the suggested qid schedule could not be realistically maintained.  The current joint involvement, though mild, is widespread so internal therapy offers a better prospect than topical which may remain useful for the most bothersome areas.  Give it a go.  Stay on schedule.

Winding Down Pesach

Last few hours before yontiff. Not yet craving chametz but a day to wind down Pesach. Maybe package and return to basement Passover items that will not be used any more this Festival to save me some trips to the basement Sunday. Should take inventory on what I did or did not use. Can package the salt, dishwashing liquid, and coffee filters still in unopened boxes and keep the already open ones to use up during the year. Hardly consumed any Coca Cola, which is a good thing, but it only comes out as cane sugar based once a year, so buying a little extra has its benefit. Seemed more fond of club soda than in years past, though have not made myself a wine spritzer this holiday. Over purchased macaroons. Bought two packages of rather expensive and marginally edible Vita Lox. Goes on next years do not buy list. The upside of too much generosity at Shop-Rite was qualifying for a vegan turkey that I think I'll make for my upcoming birthday. Used about three boxes of matzoh. Usually I give one away but no kids visiting. Did not open the farfel at all, still have some from last year too. Make a kugel or two during the year, maybe stuffed chicken breasts for a couple of shabbatot, and treat myself to periodic matzoh brei.

It was a fine holiday from a culinary perspective which runs parallel to its logistical perspective. Made the right amount of brisket, converted some ordinary chicken breasts into a terrific stir fry that made three meals. Only one milchig supper, grand matzoh brei with Tabachnik's potato soup. Babanatza lasted each meal. Nusstorte provided a learning curve that will take effect next time I make it.

Shul remains closed. I didn't miss it. Our Rabbi declared Hallel and Yizkor as congregational destinations along with Tuesday afternoon mincha and a part kabbalat Shabbat with Cantor doing a Torah reading. This does not appeal to me at all. Our liturgy and festivals have Biblically prescribed times. Half-Hallel would be recited today. Yizkor would not. In defense, there is a Pesach Sheni for those indisposed at the appointed time, but it is a month later, not time shifted. But I think what's offered looks too much a blend of contrived, manipulated, and even phony for me to sign on. I'd rather respect the appointed times, do my best with them and skip those I cannot attend, but modifying my own activities as the specified times require. My wife feels differently. I'm more attached to Pesach from Coronavirus, less attached to my congregation.

As we ease past one Festival, we move with anticipation to the next. My iWatch has been set to buzz at 9PM nightly for Omer. I am attached to the Omer, a responsibility to be fulfilled irrespective of how I feel. Hair grows uncut until Lag B'Omer on day 33. It has its own culinary challenge, this one dairy, which can be rather elegant. It lacks the visual ritual though. People traditionally study long into the night, but again my congregation reminds me more of Hebrew School than Chavruta, so I've not been going. Perhaps shul will be open by then. I anticipate being a month past Covid immunization by then. If not my shul, than another. I think I am ready for formal live congregational assembly, with its ritual, its sounds, the sincere good will of those present. Emerge from Pesach now, emerge from isolation and cobbling together what has been a mostly unappealing Jewish experience perhaps to coincide with commemorating Torah.

Electronic Misadventures

Not being a Geek, I depend frequently depend on their expertise.  It's been an electronically difficult few weeks.  My laptop crumped, victim to a cup of spilled herb tea.  There remains a place for gratitude.  The experts at Best Buy were able to capture my data, including my Microsoft programs.  Moreover, while replacement poses an unexpected expense, I have the resources to meet it with no impact on my lifestyle.

The Amazon replacement came promptly.  Making it function went easily.  Being a modern version, it lacked a built in DVD drive that I use for my library CD's and for Great Courses.  No problem.  They only cost about $25 from a variety of online sources.  I picked one from Walmart, which turned out to be partially good fortune.  It came ahead of schedule.  Despite my best efforts, I could not get the computer to recognize it in the USB port, let alone get it to work. The device came with a small folded card of instructions, written by somebody who learned English as a second language or somebody who could send something to a printer for mass distribution without being hassled by an editor first.  My wife made some headway but in the process corrupted the Google Chrome access which started presenting Hide History as its search results.  I couldn't get rid of it.  A computer that fully functioned in cyberspace stopped functioning.  I installed, then uninstalled two Media Player programs. Fortunately, when I purchased the laptop I included a comprehensive warranty.  A phone call to the Amazon warranty carrier eventually got me to somebody who could get me back to Chrome as I was used to using it.  He could not get the DVD going. One final try.  Walmart contracts with an organization called WOW electronics to provide this product.  They had a customer service number which I called.  Nobody answered the phone.  Their automated menu offered to take me to customer service but the best I could do there was leave my phone number for a callback.  None over the next hour or so. Before going to Walmart, I needed to generate the receipt from the electronic purchase.  No problem, just print the email of the transaction.  Unfortunately, my printer didn't print, as the printer had not been installed on the new laptop.  I thought I could do this, following instructions for downloading.  I got our all-in-one ready for scanning but not for printing.  My wife, who has done this before and knows the side traps, got it done with some effort.  But a printed receipt got stuffed into the packing that came with the DVD drive.

Since I only had the device a couple of days, I checked out return policies, after slamming the product on Walmart's online review, though I was more than generous with Walmart itself which made the purchase easy and delivered ahead of schedule.  Apparently a product purchased at walmart.com could be returned to a local store, which I did.  I would have expected the young lady at Customer Service to have more familiarity with online returns but she got by.  My DVD which had no use to me went into a box, shipping label generated, and my credit card will get it's refund when the product arrives at the warehouse.

It's been at least months, probably early fishing season, or maybe during my visit to metro St. Louis for my son's wedding that I last entered a Walmart.  In person shopping has taken a big hit.  Aisles were cluttered, shelves had major merchandise gaps, staff was hanging on in the hope that they could move onto another place that pays more without acquiring skills that would make most of them worth more.  Might Walmart in person have another DVD?  Not only didn't I see one, every person I saw in their computer section worked in a different department.  They had a great price on a flash drive, which I needed, so I got that.  A trip to Walmart is never complete without a stop at the fishing aisle.  Saw some braid at a good price, but another time.  I stood on a not too fast moving line with a ten dollar bill extracted from my wallet to pay for the flash drive.  My turn came up, with the attendant motioning me to a scanner.  I scanned the flash drive, then inserted the $10.  Instead of giving me my change and a receipt it dispensed two five dollar bills.  Next I inserted my usual credit card in the usual way but the screen informed me it could not be read.  No better on the repeat.  It asked for another card or for cash.  I put in one of the $5 bills, took a single out of my wallet, inserted them, and watched the machine process my receipt and a few coins change.  Not a great shopping experience though I wonder if the shoppers, including me, really deserve any better.  Maybe not.  Or maybe that's why online shopping has begun to nudge out on-site retailers.  Touching a product pre-purchase has an advantage but My Space where I navigate through my laptop appears far more orderly and the people I encounter online when I need assistance seem to have gotten more out of their schooling than the people whose aid I seek in the local stores.

I still need a usable DVD player.  Amazon had one that I liked so I put it into the cart.  To get free shipping I need to spend another few dollars, so this may be an opportunity to buy a tripod or a kittel with the remaining $55 in five dollar bills that I harvested from cash change the second half of 2020.  Much to my surprise, amazon.com includes kittels in their inventory, exactly the $55 I have to spend, but I think the tripod would be a better way to get me past the free shipping shortfall this time.