Life in Galut: I'm Getting Closer to My Home.

Newsbriefs from the Ozarks, this time with Mark, Don, and Mel.

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Dear Ones,

There have been a some developments here in Alma that are worth mentioning.

First, our home health aide is coming every Monday instead of every other Monday. Thanks for this change goes to my brother who pays for the service. The main impetus for the change is the need for Mom to shower more frequently. It isn’t unusual for her to have “digestion issues” once or twice a week, so waiting to take a shower every other week creates an unsanitary and unhealthy situation. Meanwhile, our aide, Rikki, is still unvaccinated so we test her every Monday morning.

One night, a couple of weeks back, Mom fell in her bedroom again, but this time I was able to get her off the floor and back in bed without the help of paramedics. She wasn’t hurt. Nevertheless, I hope this doesn’t become a habit. Overall, I’m trying my best to keep Mom up during the day as this seems to keep her asleep at night rather than getting up in the small hours and needing my attention. She’s sleeping better, so I am sleeping better too and that’s a very big blessing.

The other big change is that Mom’s dementia has gotten a bit worse. Her “buffer” has shrunk a bit. Sometimes she asks me the same question every five minutes. I have a lot of patience for that, so it really doesn’t bother me when she asks me what day it is over and over again. Also, Mom is having trouble watching CNN these days. The war in the Ukraine scares her. When we watch the news about it, she thinks the war is happening down the road in Van Buren. Combine that with her inability to remember things very long, and CNN’s style of repeating it’s news every 15 minutes, and the situation is that Mom is constantly hearing news about the war for the first time ever over and over again. And she becomes frightened and doesn’t feel safe. So, our media habits have shifted to only watching the news on the BBC and PBS.

And we’ve upped our time watching time on Hallmark. I’ve learned that Hallmark has several channels. The one we watch is Hallmark Mysteries and Movies. The mysteries are about a librarian / bake shop owner / college professor / crossword puzzle editor in a small town who helps the hunky police detective solve murders. They flirt with each other and will probably end up dating. There may be a chaste kiss.

And we also watch about two episodes of Star Trek every day. We’ve worked our way through Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Next Generation. Currently, we’re watching Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Discovery. I would tell you how many episodes of Star Trek we’ve watched (I keep track in my diary), but it’s embarrassing.

The Doctor is giving Sarah Silverman an impromptu exam.

I had a surprise last week while I was watching Star Trek: Voyager. Sarah Silverman was a guest star in a two part episode. Basically, she played Sarah Silverman as an astronomer in 1990s LA. (including a bare midriff and a VW van). I’m looking forward to starting Star Trek: Picard and the new series that was just announced, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

I’ve started a newsletter for my synagogue’s Friday night Shabbat Gathering chavurah. It’s an outlet for me to write about Jewish topics in a short form. I’ve written a couple that I feel good about. If you’re interested in taking a look, you can read it here. It’s a combination of “low and high.” I’ve written about the different ways to get wax off Shabbos candlesticks and I’ve written about the meaning of the song Kol Ha’Olam Kulo.

I’ve taken two more courses from Hadar. I took a follow up class on the Sefat Emet, a book of Torah commentary written between 1870 and 1905 in Poland. Each class focused on a particular parsha (portion of the Torah) and looked at what the Sefat Emet had to say about it. I would take a third class if it were offered. Sefaria offers the Sefat Emet in English, so I intend to incorporates that in my weekly study. The other class I took this semester was a general class on the weekly parsha and it was good too. And I would take another course on this. Coming up, I’ve registered for two classes on Passover that I’m looking forward to. (I can’t believe Passover is so close.)

To prepare for Purim, I ordered some hamantaschen from Green’s Bakery in Brooklyn. I got my favorites: prune and poppy. I also got a cinnamon babka, but that didn’t last very long.

My Yiddish studies continues on Duolingo. Recently, I’ve surpassed 300 consecutive days of study. I’m moving into the realm of words that don’t exactly have an English translation and that’s exciting.

I found out something interesting about the Jewish population of Arkansas. I moved here from Madison where there are 3,000 Jews in the city, not counting the college students. In the entire state of Arkansas, there are 2,200 Jews. I’ve been forging some relationships with Jews up in Northwest Arkansas as it has a Jewish population that a bit more dense than down here near Fort Smith. Basically, Jews up there in Northwest Arkansas are easier to find.

Winter here was, of course, mild compared to those in Madison or New York City. Nevertheless, Mom and I were iced in for three days. The ice was so bad around here that it built up on the KUAF’s tower and took down the station for a couple of days.

My chess game is not improving. I’ve plateaued somewhere around a general level of incompetence. I’m still playing about twice a week with my buddy from college and regularly lose to him. These games turn out to be good lessons for me. I’ve also started taking a chess course from the “Great Courses” curriculum that my buddy recommended to me.

Speaking of my buddy… he gifted me a brand new laptop computer and it is a serious game changer for me. Suddenly and dramatically, my digital life has improved. It has a wide screen, a new processor, enough RAM, an SSD, and a great graphics processor. And it’s running Windows 11. For the first time in years and years, I can open more than one app at a time. Thank you!

I promised to keep you up-to-date on the newfangled psychiatric service I’m using, Cerebral. (You may have seen the ads on television.) Anyway, it’s turned out to be a huge dumpster fire. I could make you a list of everything that’s gone wrong so far, but that isn’t necessary as everything has gone wrong. Due to my situation of being a shut in with Mom, I need to have a psych provider that is willing to work with me remotely. Given the level of meds I take, that’s a problem because the provider typically needs to look into my eyes every now and then and see if anybody is still home. Cerebral isn’t the only service that will manage me remotely, but there aren’t a lot of choices and I feel locked in, at least for the time being. One of the annoying things so far is the unavailability of a therapist for my case. Well, that isn’t such a huge deal as I have someone in my life who’s much better than a therapist, someone I’ve worked with for more than 10 years, someone who knows me and my struggles, someone with whom I share a common philosophy. Bill is our mutual friend. So there. Overall, I’m feeling OK as long as I get some sleep. When I don’t get sleep, I’m pretty bad off.

Well, that’s all for now. Be well. Stay safe. Let me know how you’re doing.

All my love,
brian.