Writing, for me, has always been hard work. The right words come to me a few at a time and only occasionally in a flow. But inspiration always eludes me when I start out in the morning. That’s why, when I sit down at my iMac, before I get to work, I begin by plowing through my emails, spending the mandatory minute or two on Facebook, and then heading over to YouTube to see what goodies await me. Usually, I stay away from anything that might upset me (think, U.S. politics), but once in a while, curiosity gets the better of me, and I soon regret my folly.

The morning in question found me watching a video that contained a clip that had ‘gone viral’ the week before. Political activists will sometimes masquerade as TV journalists, going around and posing some fairly simple questions to random passers-by to gauge their reactions. Here was some duffer being asked what he thought was the most important issue in the Virginia gubernatorial race? (Asked the same day as the election.) You are free to guess his response, or maybe you don’t want to know. (My best advice: go with option B.)

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Closer and Closer

I was confident it was absolutely, positively, with a cherry on the top, certainly going to happen. Nothing short of some cataclysmic occurrence would prevent my appointment for surgery at Hadassah-Ein Kerem from taking place. We took the long ride out there the week before for our pre-op meeting, and even though the young lady in the admissions office was utterly confused and sent us to the wrong place, causing us to start all over again, we did indeed meet with the hospital staff we needed to see: a nurse, the surgeon, an anesthesiologist, and, just when we thought we were done, another nurse.

The first nurse is there to make certain that you are in fact alive: height, weight, blood pressure.  That was easy. The anesthesiologist is there to scare you to death. Would you prefer general anesthesia or an epidural? Do you understand the risks involved? Do you understand that there is a statistical possibility that you might die?  He also left me with the following dilemma: Do you want general anesthesia or an epidural? You don’t have to decide now. Which was good because I had no idea. The surgeon, the Russian lady who had examined me two months before, I guess needed to review my case before wielding her scalpel. The second nurse was there to make certain we understood what to expect after my procedure.

No question, I would be out of commission for who-knows-how-long, leaving Barbara to do everything around the house. Maybe I should take that into consideration and get things done before hand, vacuuming and dusting so that our apartment would be spic-and-span, making sure that our freezer was packed with Shabbat victuals to be effortlessly removed and placed in our microwave to unchill when the time came. And that is what I did.

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If you were to ask me, Fred, what do you think you’re really good at? I would answer, quick as a flash, being creative and thinking deep thoughts. Other things? Not so much. If you mentioned the word ‘handy’ to me, my response would be to sing, because that’s what I do:

Mandy
There’s a minister handy
And it sure would be dandy
If we’d let him make a fee
So don’t you linger
Here’s the ring for your finger
Isn’t it a humdinger?
Come along and let the wedding chimes
Bring happy times
For Mandy and me

(In a better world – and boy do we need a better world – if you googled ‘lyrics to Mandy,’ you’d get this version, written by Irving Berlin and performed by the inimitable Eddie Cantor, instead of some drek by Barry Manilow. But I digress.)

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Part 2 – I Can’t Deal with This

I’m asking you to envision the following situation; you’ll see why as we go along. It was a Tues. (Aug. 31 to be precise) at about 1:15 or so in the afternoon, and I was sitting on the couch in our living room. Once I finished my glass of cold brew coffee, I would have shifted to a horizontal position on that self-same piece of furniture, going into couch potato, pre-nap mode, preparing to tackle the NYTimes crossword puzzle.

Based upon what I have just described, do you think I would have been interested in getting off the couch, finishing my coffee in one gulp, going upstairs to put on my shoes, and leaving our apartment lickety-split? If you are the cautious type, you might want to say, I don’t think so, or Probably not; whereas a more decisive individual might declare, Not a chance in Hell or No way, Jose. So what transpired that caused this unlikely scenario to come to pass? Let’s take a deep breath and go back a week in time.

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Part One – Where the Boars and the Hyraxes Play

If no one is going to show up for my Shabbat morning kiddush, well then, dangburn it, we’ll just have to pick ourselves up and have it elsewhere. That’s kind of an exaggeration for effect; we had planned weeks before to spend a few days with The Levines on their mountain top, where the boars and hyraxes play (knowing full well that by the following Shabbat in Ma’ale Adumim we’d be back to normal, the whisk(e)y would flow, the coffee would be poured, and the herring would be served).

To be on the safe side, even though we had just gotten our third COVID shot, on Monday, we went down to the parking lot under our mall to get tested (in and out in the blink of an eye – actually a swab up the nose). By Wednesday, we knew we were good to go; time to pack up, remembering to take the three bottles of rosé I had bought for them, the pound of Starburnt – I mean Starbucks – Sumatran coffee that Barbara had brought back from The States, and, last but not least, their copy of the new JSPCA calendar (photos of cats and dogs – no bathing suits required).

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It started out without any long-range plan or fixed agenda. Michael and I would leave shul Shabbat morning, and I would, on occasion, invite him over for a shot of whiskey – an offer he was not going to turn down. It started to happen more and more often, until it became a regular occurrence. At some point, Ezra decided to tag along, and, at some time thereafter, during my Thurs. morning shopping excursion to the shuk, I would pick up a container of fake cream herring. (Let me explain: the herring is real enough, but the ‘cream’ is actually mayonnaise. Don’t ask; you don’t want to know.) Now if I’m having whisk(e)y and herring, I’m going to need some coffee to go with it, and if I’m having coffee, the least I can do is offer some to my guests. Or ‘guest,’ because by this time, the Hesslers were off to sandier pastures in Beersheba (see one of my previous posts).

Then someone we know began promoting the services of Farm to Family, which is not in any way a farm, but an on-line site that sells all manner of good things to eat. And there on page whatever of their site were the offerings from MordyZ Fish Delicacies, including real, genuine, actual, authentic, Ashkenazic creamed herring. Perhaps I’ve died and gone to Heaven? But no, Heaven has come to our apartment on Hakeren, here in Ma’ale Adumim, here in The Land. Not so long ago, Irwin decided that we were having too much fun without him. Would he be welcome to join us? Of course. There are other occasional guests, like Gil (lots of cold brew coffee), when he and Natania are with us, and The Levines – although Richard will eschew the whisk(e)y, the herring, and the coffee.  Perhaps I should mention that I have added to my repertoire mixing cocktails – like White Russians, Boulevardiers, and Negronis — to the delight of those assembled.

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More to come; I’m just getting started. Does that sound like sort-of-a-promise to you? That perhaps I haven’t exhausted the topic? It does to me; and I should know because I’m the one who wrote it. I concluded a recent article on Beersheba, Nor Any Drop to Drink, by saying just that. Then I began my most recent article, What Do You Do When You’re All Alone?, which took me f-o-r-e-v-e-r to write. Now it’s a few weeks later and my memory groweth cold and fades away like morning dew. Usually, Barbara takes reasonable notes during the AACI study trips, so I have something to jog my memory, but this time she didn’t. Not only that, but the few bits of information I had put together are not much help. Still, I will carry on, as the song goes, On a wing and a prayer, trying to reconstruct enough of what we witnessed and share it with you, my small but discerning audience.

Part of the blur in my brain relates to the singularity of the trip’s focus. As with most of the AACI’s study trips, there is a heavy emphasis on social action, whereby we meet with individuals and groups that are trying to make life better for folks in their community. All of this is inspiring, but it’s easy to lump everything together into one humongous Tikun Olam blob – as in, I can’t remember who said what and who’s doing what.

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It didn’t start out that way, my being all alone, that is. Au contraire, mes amis. The weekend before my Barbara’s departure saw our apartment bulging at the seams with friends and family. First to arrive were The Levines, Barbara and Richard. They showed up on Thurs. June 17, timing their visit, as they often do, to coincide with a folk music performance somewhere near us (or at least nearer to us than to them). They had originally planned to head back on Sun. to their little house on top of the mountain, but then they were invited to a wedding in these parts the following Tues. eve., so that they would stay with us until Wed. It just happened that Natania and Gil (with Liel is tow) announced their intentions to accept our hospitality for the same Shabbat, which would make seven of us in our apartment. As you will see, that was just the beginning of the fun.

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There are times when someone asks you something, and you wonder whether it’s only because the person can’t think of anything better to say at that moment. At least five times during the pandemic, I was asked if I was ‘doing any plays.’ Umm, we’re all in lockdown; you can count the number of current theatrical productions on the fingernail of one finger – and that’s on a good day. We can’t even sit down for a cup of coffee and you’re talking about filling a theater. So no.

Once we got past reminding my interlocutor of the state of the COVID world, and to head off any further questions on the topic, I usually went through the motions of reminding one and all that, after being in the chorus of about a dozen productions with Encore!, I had announced my retirement once and for all before I wore out my welcome with the company. I tried in different ways to explain what I meant by that remark, but what I can say now is that I don’t want to be like Albert Pujols.

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