The third prayer

View out our window Saturday morning at the Lion D'or Hotel in Haarlem

     Saturday was a long day. We woke up in Haarlem at 6:29 a.m., a minute before the alarm was set to go off. Caught the 7:36 No. 300 bus to Schipol airport at the train station across the street — the airport bus leaves every 10 minutes, on the sixes, which is kinda embarrassing when you're from a place where there can be two hours between trains.  

Note the little golf hole.

     At the airport I admired and participated in, once again, a tradition invented by the Dutch at that very airport — urinal targets. Cooked up by an airport custodial official to reduce "spillage," it was estimated that cleaning costs for Schipol bathrooms fell 8 percent afterward. Perhaps a dubious figure, in my estimation, but one cited in a captivating 2017 Washington Post article that gives the little images as an example of "nudge"economics: getting people to do the right thing by gentle persuasion, as opposed to, say, punishment. The piece quotes University of Chicago Nobel Prize winning economist Richard Thaler talking about the targets — I also saw a housefly used. One does tend to aim for the target.

     We boarded an 11 a.m United flight to Chicago. Airline problems are so commonly dissected we forget to notice that they usually work just fine, and are still a wonder. Here the flight was completely unexceptional — at one point I marveled, six miles up, 500 miles an hour, into a 100 mph, 50 degree below zero headwind. "A lot quicker than walking," I said to my wife. Three movies — "Singing in the Rain," "Eighth Grade," and "Bohemian Rhapsody" — and we were back in Chicago. As the plane taxied to the gate, the windows flecked with rain, the first we'd seen on our entire trip.

     O'Hare, as usual, was less impressive than the flight to it, or the urinal target for that matter. The passport control line to enter the country filled a room, and was worse because I knew it was coming. Open borders my foot. At least the huge line moved quickly. They're remodeling Terminal Five — so maybe it'll resemble those sleek and pristine European airports at some point in the far-off future. Right now the place is a maze of construction barriers and exposed conduit. As we snaked through the room, I juxtaposed the billboard boasting about Chicago being a "world class city" with the ripped up ceiling and the hundreds in line. It's an empty boast when we can't even put on a good face for visitors who have just arrived. (I spoke with a Dutch engineer on the plane, here for the first time, to spend 10 weeks working on coffee roasting technology in Lincolnwood. I gently suggested that Lincolnwood is perhaps not the best Chicago has to offer, that he not spend all his time there and, perhaps, make his way to the Art Institute. He hadn't heard of the place, but seemed willing to give it a try). A United official shouted to the mob that, contrary to the instructions they received, they'd have to retrieve their bags in the process of missing their connections. 

     At least American Taxi worked well, as always, a new electric car pulling up a few minutes after I ordered it. The skies were overcast, the familiar highway now felt odd. One of my favorite parts of vacation is that decompression back into your life, and after almost 10 days away, everything was satisfyingly strange, even new. "Nice house" I said, as the taxi pulled up.

     We emptied our suitcases, threw the laundry in the machine, stacked up our pile of presents for relatives and helpful neighbors. I hurried across the street to retrieve Kitty who, as always, was a much appreciated houseguest. We were delighted to learn that the first neighbor who had sat for four days later asked the second if they could have her back for one night, as a birthday treat for their daughter.  A dog of love.

     Saturday was Rosh Hashanah, so after a nap and a shower, we drove — "Nice car!" I said — over to my sister-in-law's in Skokie for dinner. We brought toys from Tivoli Gardens for the grand niece and nephew, plus Dutch chocolate and weird Danish licorice — spheres wrapped in lemon-flavored chocolate, purchased at a shop that resembled a jewelry shop in the basement of a swank Copenhagen department store, with two pretty clerks seriously handing us various orbs to sample.

     Before dinner, there were three prayers — over the wine, the bread, the apples and honey for a sweet new year, 5784 for those keeping track at home (not that anybody does, beyond the holiday, except for weddings and bar mitzvahs). The Hebrew rang a little melancholy, having been through Anne Frank's house the day before, and noted the brass "stumbling stones" in front of houses noting where residents had been rounded up and sent to their deaths — three-quarters of Dutch Jews died in the Holocaust, a much higher percentage than in Belgium or France.. You can't see the little animated film at the end of the tour, plugging the need to vigilantly protect democracy, and not think about our own orange fuhrer, still a growing threat.

     My brother-in-law, Alan, said the prayer over the apples, and added something I liked, quoting his friend, Rabbi Menachem — that at Rosh Hashanah, while we ask God to inscribe us into the book of life, it is actually we ourselves who do the writing. We whose acts and thoughts make the coming year a good one. Or not. We save our own lives, Alan said, by doing what we love. "You write yourself into the book of life for a good year." he said and I smiled,  thinking, That's a plan.