I missed Manu the minute he got out of the car. It was so nice to have him here. It would be nice to have more of you here at the same time.

It would also be nice if my car that could hold six people were in such repair that I would trust it to for a thousand or ten thousand miles. It has another issue. It loses oil, very much oil. The problem is the timing cover gasket. Might as well replace the timing chain at the same time. “It's not that expensive”… except that that comment was just directed at the chain, not the whole damned operation of replacing it and the gasket, etc.

That's another thou toward the car that I've driven just a bit over a hundred miles at the moment. This I guess will put me at north of seventy a mile. I always think the next repair will give me something I can drive around in.

I expect there is still a gas can sitting in the middle of my lawn on the Meadowpark side.

What I had wanted to do yesterday was mow the lawn and paint the basement. I went to pray. I came back. I did mow the lawn. I ran out of gas at one point and brought the can to that point to fill the mower. I continued mowing. I came inside when that was done, but before I had cleaned up.

It was just shy of 11:30 and your mother was in front of her computer. She is apparently on the Congregation Agudath Sholom e-mail list. She told me that Norine Krasnogor's funeral would be at noon.

The immediate plan shifted, and we made it to the cemetery with five minutes to spare. Some of my clothing is getting kind of shabby, so we figured we'd roll a trip to Macy's into the outing. That store is a shadow of what it was. It did not have the clothing I was looking for.

Ms. Krasnogor, whom I had known personally, apparently had a very long shadow. I always enjoyed chatting with her. I hadn't been aware of how much she'd done. She was an artist, turned mom and activist—apparently much work to support and bring Soviet Jewry out of Russia—and then lawyer. In her last iteration, as I knew anyway, she was turning again toward her art. She was working on a statue of Woman last I spoke to her.

I did not know she was sick, but had not seen her around. I did see her daughter at synagogue on Saturday morning, but did not engage. The daughter I'd met was on her own near the railing at the top of the stairs, in a mask. I did not engage.

I thought about it, but the mask turned me off. And then I thought at the funeral that maybe she was there to talk to a Rabbi because she'd just lost her mom, and I realized I maybe could have made a difference, and didn't make the effort to.

On the other hand, she was in a mask. It is possible this was because her mom was still with the living and she didn't want to bring a disease home.

The cemetery is being taken over by invasive vines. They are all over and a real nuisance. I am fighting them in my yard. I am engaging with them at the Young Israel. I should take some loppers along and free the trees at Congregation Agudath Sholom.

But for now, I just go to pray.

I did go to Macy's. I bought three cutting boards in their “Backstage” area, which is kind of the super discount section of the store. It's in the area that used to have a restaurant and chocolatier. The world is a sadder place for not having the old great retail establishments.

We came home exhausted. Both Sharleen and I slept.

I managed to go through more than a can of paint priming two walls in the basement, but did not get to the painting part.

Progress was made.

And now I really do go to pray.

Have Fun, Play in G-'s House (with an appropriate sense of

), and Learn Something.

miss you loads, and have enough beds, and soon will have a basement. I will have enough room for the beds, mostly.

And this week's agon, done. It's automatic in the keeping of Shabbat.