March 29, 2024

Sunday Routine | Jane Eisner: Running on Israel Time

EIGHT IS LATE I usually wake up at around 8 o’clock. That’s late for me. I’m a really early riser during the week. We’ll walk the dog, an 11-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel with the very inventive name of Charlie. We go to Riverside Park; it’s so wonderful. Especially in the mornings when there’s always lots of other dogs around.

TABLE WITH A VIEW I’m one of those people who needs to have their breakfast cereal and their coffee in the morning. We have two chairs and a little table set up by the window in our living room that overlooks the river, and it kind of feels like we are on a balcony. And we’ll turn on the radio, and read the paper, watch the boats go by. My husband keeps a pair of binoculars by the window just in case there’s an interesting bird that goes by. He’s a bird-watcher.

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

KEEPING UP WITH ISRAEL After breakfast, we will do some work for an hour or an hour and half or so. I need to keep abreast of things in Israel, and Sunday is a work day in Israel, so it’s a chance for me to read the papers online and perhaps be in touch with people that are working for us there.

HITTING THE PAVEMENT Usually at about 11 or 11:30, we go for a run in Riverside Park; usually for about an hour, maybe a little less. We feel so lucky, because in that time you can run through so many different environments. One area will be wooded, and one manicured, then we go down to run along the river, so that has a different feel to it. We don’t bring the dog — he would really slow us down. He’s getting old; he’s really pokey.

EXPLORATIONS We often take a nap on Saturday afternoons after synagogue, which I think is the most luxurious thing in the world. So for me, Sunday is more of a day to kind of do things, and be more active. At this stage, we’ve got memberships at a few museums; we love the parks; we’ll go to a street festival. This Sunday we have tickets to see a play, “Lucky Guy”; it’s our anniversary gift to ourselves.

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

A NOSH Sometimes we have some lunch at home, or maybe we are meeting my daughter and son-in-law somewhere for lunch. Sometimes they will come to the West Side, sometimes we will go to Brooklyn where they live, and sometimes we meet in the middle.

EVENTS, HERE AND THERE Sunday is also a big day in the Jewish community. So I am also often doing events on a Sunday, like a few weeks ago, moderating a panel at the Jewish Community Center. And it might not be here; I might have to go somewhere else. In a couple of weeks, we have a Forward Association board meeting on a Sunday.

DOG AND DINNER We will need to come back at some point in the afternoon to walk the dog, probably by about 5. Then maybe we will get ready to try to cook dinner or go out for dinner. We both do the cooking; it’s mostly vegetarian. Some of that is by design — it’s how we like to eat — and some of it is because I have to buy a new set of meat dishes.

TV OR PREP I would like to say that I routinely watch different things on television, but I’m so behind that I’m seeing older episodes of “Downton Abbey” on Netflix. But occasionally we watch something. More often than not, we are kind of getting ready for the next week. The one thing I always really try to do is get a head start on the reporting for my editorials.

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

READINESS My husband works out of town every other week for a small biotech company in the Midwest, so he flies out very, very early on Monday morning. So for him Sunday nights are often really kind of just getting ready for his week, and for me as well. Usually we take the dog out around 10, then after that go to bed. It’s never as early as I wish. And I read in bed some. We’re asleep usually by 11.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/nyregion/running-on-israel-time.html?partner=rss&emc=rss