1/20/24

Saturday, January 20, 2024 

In bed at 9, awake at 4:15, tired but unable to sleep, and up at 4:40, with a badly aching right wrist.  8°, high of 17°, sunny & windy day, wind NW at 15 mph, 8-16/27. wind chill -12 to +3°°.  Sunrise at 7:18, sunset at 4:47, 9+29.   

Treadmill; pain.   The wrist pain has become a troubling problem, extending up into my forearm and a bit into my hand.  It's quite painful, and makes typing on my laptop difficult, anything requiring the use of my right hand difficult, although it aches even doing nothing.  I'm also having some RP, CPP keeping me off the treadmill all morning.  3:15 p.m., 31:19 & 0.70, watching a debate (of sorts) between Noam Chomsky & another about Israel & the Palestinians.

I'm grateful to be alive.  I'm glad that I am breathing and that I don't have to think about it, that my eyelids blink, my heart beats, and my GI system digests and extracts nutrients from the food I eat without my conscious participation.  I'm grateful that I can see and hear and taste and feel not as well as I once did, but well enough to enjoy most of what I see, hear, taste, and feel.  I'm grateful to be sitting on my recliner listening to Geri on her piano, playing softly, beautifully.  It's such a blessing, one song after another from one of her songbooks.  I'm grateful to be able to pet Lilly with both my hands, scratch her behind both ears, rub her back, and massage her shoulders, to feel her with my hands and give her pleasure.  I'm grateful that I can bake a loaf of bread, cook a pot of soup, or fix a couple of "bulls eyes" for breakfast.  

Park Avenue synagogoue, Menachem Rosensaft, ICJ & Gaza.  I watched a one-hour program from the schul featuring Prof. Rosensaft on Shabbat morning, January 13th, speaking on the proceedings initiated by South Africa against Israel for violation of the Genocide Convention.  An honest, fair presentation.  He believes South Africa's case to be bogus in terms of a legal case for genocide because of the absence of the essential element of intent.  He further believes the proceeding was initiated as a means of attacking Israel's treatment of the Palestinians since the 1948-49 Nakba and the 1967 war and subsequent occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.  I suspect he is correct in this judgment.  He offered no opinion on whether the IDF may have a liability for war crimes or a crime against humanity, both of which differ from the crime of genocide.

Trip to Metro Market:  Brrrr!  12°, wind chill 1 below zero.  Worth it to get a loaf of cracked wheat bread, apple fritters, and some muffins for Sunday morning.