Snooze, Unfollow, Unfriend

Like most of America, if not the world, the recent police homicide of George Floyd, has opened avenues of introspection for some, reflex rhetoric for others.  With few exceptions only a real schmegeggi would not be able to figure out in advance who will try to defend the outrageous and rationalize the unthinkable.  Add to that the American phenomenon of post event riots with property damage in great quantity and personal injury in lesser quantity, one dating back my entire adult lifetime, and it becomes very easy to identify what the people you encounter value.  The American Electoral College left us with somebody despicable and with previously decent individuals climbing aboard.

Amid this disruption, there is a surprising amount of consensus.  Policing standards need more professionalism and accountability.  Crime emerging from legitimate protest needs to be addressed.  Amid this consensus, I've encountered some pretty ugly perspectives from people I know, mostly not know well, but who now skirt my concept of despicable. 

Since most encounters are on Facebook, I snoozed a person today, somebody who had sought me out, and snoozed another a week ago.  Neither are evil, though neither are particularly erudite or analytical.  I followed the algorithm to review my friends list, some deceased, now numbering 92 individuals and for some reason two duplicates.  Those were the only two on current snooze.  My indefinite unfollow list is a little longer and only includes two that I know personally.  It's an interesting collection.  One was just a nudnik posting something every 10 minutes while awake.  A couple are folks who just annoy me posting in the manner of a jingo pageant.  About three I would call toxic.  The number unfriended ever I can count on one hand and the number unfriended of people that I know personally is zero.  All to date are people who pitch an offensive form of the Orthodox hardball.

The irony to this has been that I maintain some portions of classical Republican ideology on economics or on social options but harming individuals is not on my radar, nor is it on the radar of some revered Republican minds that I've encountered along the way. All political stances have their intersectionalities, sometimes undesired, but some of the unacceptable gets stamped by me as absolute.  And my Jewish learning and respect trends Orthodox, attracted by elegance of analysis, though I usually seek hesed (kindness) and hain (graciousness) elsewhere.

Facebook and Twitter are great assets for conveying thought but some of that reasoning or faulty reasoning can be toxic.  Stephen Covey named one of his early 7 Habits "Begin with the End in Mind."  While I expect a Blue Wave in the next voting cycle, it takes more than that to reach an agreeable end point within the preponderance of overwhelming consensus.  Richard the Lion-Heart, that magnanimous individual had a concept of smoothing out long-standing Norman-Saxon animosities. In order to do that, he had to divert from his generous innate character, hanging a few, exiling a few, and marginalizing a few.  I have an obligation to use my own forums in the best way.  Furrydoc.blogspot.com has no oversight but no readers but no restriction on access.  It's self-policing.
Facebook poses the more difficult decision.  The two snoozed this week have some redeeming value, and I will not unfriend anyone who I know personally in the absence of hostility to me on their part, which has only happened once in ten years.  The bigger challenge will be who to simply unfollow as somebody who impedes how I think my forum is best utilized.  Some surgical excision of selected individuals,  not the meat cleaver implemented by that Presidential public blight who I need to help dispatch.

Late Life College Mindset

While driving to a doctor's appointment, a top tier cardiologist who I had not seen in a year, I wondered how she would approach me in conversation.  Coronavirus had kept her and her group underworked for months but retirement has kept me underworked for just shy of two years.  How do I cope with not having to show up for work or not having the income that I once did?  As I pondered this while driving safely on the day that coronavirus restrictions were first lifted in a serious way, I saw stores that looked open, though not the ones I typically entered.  The medical building also appeared largely empty.  Yet other than missing my anticipated spring break trip and postponement of my son's wedding, I did not live very differently during the restrictions.  I dined out barely at all, gave up coffee other than made at home, minimized shopping, kept shabbos and yontiff someplace other than shul and really missed none of this.

In effect I had become almost a facsimile of the college student I never really had the chance to be, one with some discretionary money, not burdened by exams or lab courses or grades that will direct my future.  As soon as I retired I created My Space with nice desk, a big screen TV, and a stereo, though with CD player replacing the turntable.  I read books, take courses at OLLI, have a paper due each month for Medscape.  I could eat out when I wanted, had a car to take me where I wanted, spend a little extra on coffee or beer.  I exercised more, took a break when I wanted, read more, expressed an ambivalence for shul by sometimes going voluntarily, sometimes grudgingly, sometimes not at all, rarely enthusiastically.  My Space not only exists and functions, but it is largely personalized with some mementos in my line of sight, good lighting directed where I want it, a white board to my left with multicolored writing to inspire me.  In effect a freedom that arrives late in adulthood, sacrificed for other things more out of fear than greed early in adulthood.

I had to declare a major then, some area of expertise to master.  Now I don't.  I've already mastered a few things, probably more than most college students will in their declared major.  Eventually my classes will resume.  For now it's the eclectic upgrading my mind, socializing more in cyberspace than in person, and with the resources of time and funds to use late adulthood to my best gratification.

Anthropomorphics

Even though this six month cycle, I set my goal on treadmill performance, I did not ignore the previous health tracking.  Weight and waist size get measured weekly, recorded in a log along with treadmill performance.  As BP has required more medication, I've added BP readings to the measurements and the recording.  While weight has not changed in a few years, waist size has, reflected in suits, pants and shirts that really no longer fit, indeed need to go to donation for dim prospects of ever fitting again.

Like most people whose physical enlargement catches their attention, I share a frustration of correction being refractory to expected, though never extreme, interventions.  The interventions, at least on the dietary side, never achieve consistency.  My ability to do 25 minutes on the treadmill with reasonable consistency doesn't change the measurements but I feel accomplished when each preset session reaches its conclusion.  

This month I set my goals for the next six months, invariably including at least one related to my health.  Bodily measurements seem a lost cause.

Ready for Drug Holiday

My daily medicines number six but only four by prescription. Nose and tummy I'm on my own.  Flonase is largely innocuous, which is why it has become otc, and for me very effective.  I do not look cushingoid but you never know the subtleties of bone effects.  My sinuses are fine.  Having run out about a week ago, rhinitis has remained largely in remission, or at least acceptable to me without treatment.  I had intended to get another bottle, but they didn't have it on my last trip to Shop-Rite so I started my Drug Holiday here.

On my last resupply of Omeprazole, Walgreens had extended release capsules in lieu of the tablets I usually take.  Remarkable improvement in symptoms of chronic esophagitis.  Now a month into this, I wonder if healing is sufficient to suspend it.

Citalopram was intended to take my aggressive edge off and make me more focused, which it did.  Periodically I feel dragged out, not mentally sharp.  This sensation is returning.  Time to suspend this a while and hit the reset button.

Rosuvastatin may be more problematic.  It works well, having failed other statins.  My compliance has approached 100%.  I am also a bit achy though not in the classic locations of statin myalgia.  I have a cardiology appointment upcoming so I'll keep it going in anticipation of her wanting another lipid panel.  Once done, suspend the pills a week and see what happens to the muscles.

My antihypertensives stay.  I have no cough from the ACE inhibitor and no adverse effects that I can tell from the calcium channel blocker.  The BP effect has been inconsistent though clearly lower since the calcium channel blocker was added.  Those stay.

Filling my weekly pill container can be a little like the Roach Motel where the medicines check in but they don't check out.  Overt side effects are usually apparent, subtle ones less detectable until a comparison without the medicine becomes available.  Hypercholesterolemia and hypertension are generally permanent.  Things being taken for symptoms often are not.  Time to suspend what is expendable and reassess.

Making Milchig

Shavuot appears at an awkward time, Thursday night through Shabbos.  I've kept current with the nightly count of the Omer, nearing its completion.  Dairy meals are traditional, one that I have maintained.  This requires a surprising amount of preparation, starting with a moratorium on fleishig.  Final fleishig meal last night, all fleishig dishes in some stage of washing, with sink to be converted back to milchig by day's end.

I like cooking dairy.  Maybe I could have made it as a vegetarian, though not a vegan.  We'll start with a quiche pre-yontiff.  Then for the Holiday, a lasagna, blintzes, a challah, and a linzer torte.  Maybe get a bottle of white wine and replace my supply of beer.  Ordinarily I would go to shul, but we're on suspension for Covid-19.  My general disenchantment with public worship takes a little break on Shavuot.  I kinda like Akdamut, even if a little long, the interrupted Haftarah, and Ruth which is of just the right length and always done well.  Enduring Yizkor is the price for this, importance connects on an intellectual level but never executed well.  Personally I connect much better with individual Yahrtzeits.

But a few day's mastery at the stove and oven with antecedent preparation makes for a proper culmination of the Homer Omer.

Recovery Day

About the midpoint of Memorial Day Weekend.  It's not really a day off for anybody, since those who are essential workers in a Covid-19 environment still have work that is ongoing and those of us idle are still idle.  For me, though, it seems at least a physical recovery day.

After being shelved from the scheduled treadmill sessions I am back in action, and yesterday for the first time I was able to complete the program at the level at which I had left off.  That left me a little sore, particularly in the calves, though respiratory and cardiovascular benefits seem to not need that every three days respite. 

Memorial Day Weekend starts the summer mindset.  Our SDS Weatherman predicted it to be warmer than what I experienced retrieving the newspaper from our driveway but I still attired myself in classic summer garb. 

It's also a scheduled day for full attention to gardens.  Indoor plants seem on schedule.  Outdoor containers could use some minor attention.  Focus on backyard beds this afternoon if it warms up and dries out a little.  I've not weeded yet but will need to this week.

Summer may be as much a mindset as a calendar designation.  I'm on my way, and today for the first time this calendar year look the part.

The Homer Omer

We are into the final week of the interval between second seder and Shavuot.  Lag B'Omer has passed.  My beard has been self-trimmed.  The traditional haircut did not happen as barbers are on furlough due to coronavirus.  My count with the bracha remains up to date, helped by a timer that alerts me to when it is late enough to count the next day.

I've been doing this for years.  There is a command d'oraita to perform the daily count to establish when the Shavuot festival occurs but there are plenty of mitzvot aseh that I don't do.  Supposedly the daily count adds to my spirituality.  Probably Rabbi jive.  It hasn't.

What it has done is provide me with a very tangible and easy daily task that has to be done at a time when more often than not I'd prefer to do something else.  Some flexibility exists to the exact moment of the daily count so I do not have to interrupt what I am doing, but this count nearly always represents my final daily task each day.  And I'm up to the challenge.