Tag Archives: aging

Boot Camping: Day 3

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I am in new territory.
I don’t cook. Not because I don’t want to, because I don’t, but because I feel like it’s time I’m constantly trying to use in other ways. Protein shake, dry cereal, bit of fruit, that’s all food, and it’s adequate to me.
Enter this two month challenge to better myself and on the third day, I find myself compiling a taco soup for lunch. Finding spice packets before noon is not in my wheelhouse, yet I have glass to-go containers cooling with portioned scoops of soup awaiting transport to the fridge or work, whichever comes first.
I actually have lunch ready for today. Like…a LUNCH, not a pre-packaged item from within a tiny big box store cardboard box.
Weird.
And now the word “lunch” doesn’t look right. Lunch. Ha! Weird word, lunch. Did I spell it right?
Yesterday was officially a Rest Day for the boot campers. No exercise mandates and I was relieved because frankly, Monday was a bit much. Things like Stations, and Repetitions, Assessment Base Levels, Measurements, Sprints. Whew.  Arms are sore, ego’s bruised, thighs still slap together; not terribly successful as I can see and it’s been a FULL two days.
But for some reason, on the second evening of self-imposed improvement methods, fearing I wasn’t trusting the process enough but still restless, like I was cheating the program.
I wouldn’t call what I did strenuous, but I practiced yoga for a full half hour and grabbed my kid’s Beat Saber goggles so I could feel cool for ten minutes or so. It’s a great game and strangely magnetic. My Bubs won’t play it for days on end until I pop in to ask its whereabouts, and suddenly he’s all in on together-with-Mom time, though it’s a solitary endeavor.
We’re in the  same room, I take it as a win.
My point: even when I’d been given down time, Day Two felt too soon for that. I mean, I’d cooked, TWICE, in one day, so exercise seemed like the lesser of the two evils.
Here it is Day Three, still an hour to go before I need to hit the office, my kitchen still smells like taco seasoning, the counters are buried beneath a dozen cooling bowls of various shapes full of soup I’m not sure I want to eat — except for the first portion, of course, I’ve earned that — and I’ll be cleaning dishes for an hour, and I’m stupidly proud of myself.
People can change. For two and a half days. I’ll check in with myself again this evening, see if the transformation is going to stick until morning, especially considering I have an outdoor workout with the rest of the boot campers this evening…in the dark, drizzly, forty degree weather.
Middle-aged but willing to try new things. Feels like an accomplishment, yet I won’t go so far as to establish myself in the Old Dog/New Tricks category.

Day One of Training for “Aging, an Epic Saga”

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Oh, sweet goodness, it’s May — birthday month — and I’m feeling exceptionally old.
My bat wings are fully formed, my Grandmother’s jowls are burgeoning and ready to drip from either side of my single-haired chin; I maintain a feeling of youth through inhalations of caffeine and re-readings of Calvin and Hobbes, and yet all of that equates to a Crap Fest.
Ugh, aging sucks.
In an effort to continue bolstering a sagging attitude, lowering butt, and to stop looking upward at every opportunity in feeble attempts to scaffold the dwindling elasticity of a droopy countenance, I’ve incorporated a trainer.
Now, on this first day of the third day of the fifth month, I’m weighing foods and counting calories. I have wellness-geared apps on my phone to aid the process. The trainer is on standby with prompts and smiles while I repeatedly clench my butt to perch above the couch cushion, again to bolster…things.
Supposed to fast for 18 hours a day at my age…recommended by nutritionists, scientific minds, medically trained pros. I did that today as well, minus three hours. I made it to 15, felt faint, called it a win.
It’s Day One, this Third Day of the Fifth Month of the 50-plus-ist year of my Life.
Threw on some short Lycra pants seen only by my dogs and bent over to touch my bare toes…sure, I felt a stretch but mostly I recognized that it’s time for a pedicure and to shave the winter coat.
Log dinner calories, participate in Fight Club at 7:45, down two Aleve at 9 with the remaining 34 ounces of water I need to drink today to fulfill my hydration schedule for today.
Pee at 11.

Aging sucks.

Ironic Aging

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Age brings intolerant complacence.
I have examples.
The other day my hair dryer died. Just stopped. Without missing a beat, with my hair damp on the right, dripping on the left, I simply unplugged the beast and with a quick lean to the left, dropped the useless junk into the bathroom trash can.
Turned out to be a hat day.
Later, my electric toothbrush crapped out.
As did a space heater.
Three losses in one morning.
Technology mounted up and over the edge of the trashcan before I stopped to consider that perhaps it wasn’t the appliances so much as a blown fuse.
Five minutes later I retrieved misjudged electrically-fine paraphernalia from the bowels of waste and removed my ballcap.
With the accoutrements rehoused, only then did I consider my blasé attitude.
Shouldn’t I have been angry? frustrated? put out? Everything crapped out, I thought, yet it bothered me not at all.
Because I didn’t care? Because I didn’t want to worry about frizzy hair ever again, because I have a huge hat collection?
Maybe because Amazon delivers replacements nearly as quickly as a trip to the city and its claustrophobic forays up and down retail aisles.
Nah. It’s because I’m aging.
And I don’t have time to care about small stuff.
Another example: the next day, I determined I was sick to death of oozing toothpaste, it’s weirdly squeezed housing quietly exuding gelatinous white paste from a seemingly closed, half crusted-over opening. And the backup tube, the non-leaky one, well, it had been clamped in the middle so many times it resembled an ocean floor sea creature, weirdly shaped, deformed, and innocuous.
And I was sick of it.
So both tubes went straight into the space recently evacuated by misunderstood electronic items.
Again, because I’m aging, it’s out with the old.
Ironic.
No anger, no bitterness, just get rid of the stuff that bugs. Complacently.
Because I’m intolerant.

Ironic?

Remodeling During the Middle Ages

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A book club friend discussed remodelling her kitchen. She’s tried three times for the perfect green tint for her kitchen island.
“Will you try again?” I asked her, to which she replied, “Eh, it’s good enough.”
Pause.
“Twenty years ago would you have gone after the elusive perfect tint? Would you have tried again?”
“It’s such an odd color,” she thought out loud. “It’s the perfect color in the hallway, it makes me so happy, but in the light of the kitchen, it isn’t quite there.”
“Close the windows in your kitchen. Maybe try some blackout curtains,” I teased.
She laughed, preceding a discussion of window blinds and how infuriating they could be. So difficult to clean, never to be white again, certainly.
“I clean them in the tub,” remarked the third of us.
“Me, too!” exclaimed the fourth. “I use a Clorox bath and wipe each slat.”
I died inside, thinking the tedium of that task would bore me to tears.
“How do you dry them?” someone asked. “I hang them, let them dry.”
How quickly conversation devolves when you age. Our topics of conversation are now domestic, never discussed during book club before. Usually we talk about kids and how fun it is to be away from them for a while — how we love them, love them so, but boy, a tiny bit of alone time is a beautiful thing. Racy jokes; smutty books; silly indulgences when the kids are asleep. Where do we eat next? We’re foodies, I tell you. And if the restaurant includes a bakery, well, let’s go there two months in a row.
I returned the conversation to the original topic, this observation of aging ladies. “So, would you paint the island again, if you were younger?”
To which she paused. “Maybe,” she said after consideration. “Probably,” she affirmed a moment later. “But now, the current color will work. I’m not worried about it.”
“But will you peruse the color swatches next time you head to Lowe’s, just in case?” She considered the question. Her brow lifted, her eyes cast downward while she thought. “Yeah, probably,” she conceded, sadness in her tone. She’s had an ongoing project, adding two closets to the interior of her home. She used dead space to create storage, a brilliant solution. But with the construction came the decorating, with paint, lots of paint.
“I try to do the walls, for the feeling of achievement, but then there’s the trim.”
We groaned. The trim, ugh. Talk about tedium.
“I listened to seven audio books while I worked,” she added, her eyes wide, disbelieving. “Seven!”
Because one can’t read when painting, they must have it read. A great arrangement, if one enjoys the reader. Usually the kiss of death is an author reading their own work; authors are writers, not actors, an important distinction. “But no, not this time,” she assured me. “He’s really good.”
Giving in on projects was certainly an aspect of aging I had not considered until my onset of ripening. I didn’t know my arm skin would fall to sweep the floor, either, though I had visual cues all my life; my grandmother’s arms, when bare, were a spectacular harbinger that perhaps a few chair dips wouldn’t harm my triceps.
Did I do those dips? Heck no, those are work. They require things like moving a chair, clearing a space, doing the dip. Moving a chair exposes dirt; clearing the space requires a dust mop at least, a warm sudsy bucket of Pine-Sol Rain is preferred; doing a dip means sweat, which means a shower, taking more of my precious middle-age-lady time when I have this singular day away from the job each week to play out the rest of my life, the house stuff, the teenager and all of his stuff, bills, pets, and the ever expanding pile of laundry tames and beaten into submission.
Sometimes Tuesdays can’t come soon enough because Mondays leave me exhausted. Then I do it again seven days later.
Seems I am truly gerbil-like.

Bucking the New Year Resolutions

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I decided to get the New Year Resolution — eat less, exercise more, blah blah blah — out of the way before 2020. It’s December; why ruin a perfectly good January with self-loathing and guilt?
So I went to the gym two days after Christmas, stepped on a treadmill, started running at a good 4.6 mile clip, got distracted, and was thrown four feet backward by my own feet and automated machinery.
Yes, the treadmill bucked me.
I’ve seen the videos on America’s Funniest, and on YouTube — I think there’s an entire section set aside for just such inanity, and I’ve now spoken to one other person in the flesh who’s also been tossed aside. His empathy did not add salve to my bruised ego, but it’s good to know I’m not the only one in the Yukon Isle to have been bested by technology.
Interesting: after a thorough inspection and a good but slow walking couple of turns around the gym to show people that ignominy will not set me scampering towards the car to nurse wounds — “Can’t stop me, I got no pride left, I’m not hurt; ignore the whimpering” — I realized I made a seven-point landing in my escapade.
Seven.
I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t counted the giant bump, contusions, and road rash myself. Seven. Must be a record.
Plus, I broke three fingernails.
When I make a resolution, folks, I do it big.
Now I’m done with this pesky Take Care of Myself nonsense, and I’m on to the Don’t Wound Myself Further Until I Get Better Insurance portion of the year.
Aaaaaah, 2020…gonna be a slow, safe, steady kind of year.

(Fake) Challenge Accepted!

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Last month I talked with a girlfriend, commiserating about aging and bat flaps on our arms and things popping in the middle like dough freshly baked.
It was a difficult conversation that left me depressed and eschewing food for at least an hour.
She said, “I workout.”
Me: “Me, too.”
She: “I do the Barre Method.”
Me:(Having followed suchly-named videos on YouTube) “Me, too.”
Quick Barre Exercise primer: I don’t have a barre de ballet anchored to any floors within my domicile. Without such equipment, it is recommended to use a kitchen chair — too squirrely; I was chasing it more than bending uncomfortably from it — or countertop. Check! I had one of those and I was quickly grateful to be a terrible housekeeper. The sticky whatever on the granite helps with grip when I’m hanging precariously from the edge to squat and lunge as though I’m going low enough to actually use the muscle. It’s an ignominious position, thankfully without video evidence.)
She perked up, energized by complicity in self-torture.
She: (leaning forward conspiratorially) “Don’t the little ones just kill you?”
Me: (Thinkng, “Little ones, I don’t know what those are…the big ones aren’t so great…” but not wanting to appear to have missed anything) “Yes, they’re awful.”
She: “And doing that for an hour? Isn’t it torture?”
Me: (At last we were on the same wavelength with abuse, but never having pursued a video playlist of any titles over twelve minutes, the “hour” confused me. Resenting 12 whole minutes of activity, I had moved down to ten; regretted that choice immediately, I lowered my standards to four minutes and complain through all four) “An HOUR? Are you CRAZY?”
She blinked, confused.
She: “How long do you exercise?”
Me: (Lying but fingers crossed so the lie didn’t count) “Probably twenty minutes.”
She: (blinking repeatedly, staring blankly, figuring things out) “…and you do the Barre Method?”
Me: (doubting entirely my existence) “Ya-huh.”
She: “And it only lasts twenty minutes?”
I pondered. Each video master I scrolled through had indeed used the word “Barre” in their title, but as for the word “method,” I was less certain. Plus, each of the probably-dozen videos I had used to tweak my intense muscular stature had ended with verbiage like, “After a quick cooldown, start this video over and work through it two more times…”
And I remember laughing, “Duh, why would anyone do THAT??” Then I walked toward the shower on spaghetti legs, breaking my own shoulder patting myself on the back for putting in a good four minutes of “burn.”
NOW I knew why instructors insisted on using the Replay button, because that is part of the METHOD.
Dang.
Me: (strictly for clarity) “You’re telling me there’s a different video with a more precise name using ‘Barre’ and ‘Method’ in the same tag line, then?”
She: (sensing weakness, using derisive eyebrows) “Uh…yeah.”
Me: (finger pointed to the sky in proclamatory fashion) “I shall find said video and follow it to the letter.”
She: (wrapping the last of her sandwich, checking her watch, readying to scurry) “Great. Let me know how it goes. Dare ya.”
I know she was laughing under her breath; I disliked her scorn. Thus, perhaps I created her flippant ‘So long,’ misinterpreting her words, but I heard NOT  the Dare portion, instead I heard: “I challenge you!!!”
Oh, ho, nay nay, my friend. I am not one to take a challenge lightly, unless it involves wild boar or machetes. Those I can discard. YouTube video, though, I got.
After work, I went to the house and immediately changed into a comfy tee over the work pants o’ the day — they’re work pants; who cares? — and sought out the aforementioned, appropriately researched Barre Method video — a startling 39 minutes, the queue read! What the…
A woman with a purpose, I hit Play.
What the what the…
The LITTLE ones?! Holy Scrap Metal, Batman, the LITTLE ones number in the hundreds — literally, one HUNDRED pulses — MORE THAN ONCE, thus equaling nearly a thousand, by my count — of ceaseless down-and-up, clinging to the countertop, ready for a thigh muscle to pop, donedonedone with further torture of already ravaged muscles.
And squats, lunges, butt-clenching was NOT ENOUGH, because she continued with ARM exercises, with WEIGHTS, and then that mean, mean strange lady who ROCKED her own Lycra ensemble forced me to lay on the FLOOR and make my ABS bend, a lot, for an excessive number of reps. EXCESSIVE.
Then she tasked me with flipping over to hover over my elbows, lingering painfully in a PLANK position for FAR TOO LONG.
But I did it. It wasn’t pretty, and form was nonexistent, and though I felt like I did, I didn’t lose blood, only a bit of vision, and that, only momentarily, but I followed that crazy instructor lady for all 39 minutes.
While recovering on the tile floor, wishing I would vacuum more (not really; housework–yuk) my dog investigated the pooling sweat around my head before climbing me like some sort of small mountain in his territory to rest bodily upon my chest. Instinctively, I started to pet him but the sweaty palms and Pekingese hair were a poor blend, thus he abandoned me quickly, though I barely noticed what with fading in and out of consciousness.
After a half hour or so — could have been a day, I don’t know — still recumbent and perfectly happy to never rise, I reconsidered my earlier conversation and THAT was when I recognized the difference between Dare and Challenge. It’s minute. One is flippant; one is downright insulting. Both should be ignored.
I showered to wash away the pain and dog hair, then fell asleep wishing for new friends.
For four days — 4, my friends! — I moaned like a toothless weasel after each breath, each twitch, each movement of any part of my being. And once I’d recovered enough to use the gas pedal without fear of harming other travelers, I drove straight to my “friend’s” office and soundly told her, “Haha! I did it! ‘Tweren’t nothin’!”
(I used those words, in indignant fashion, with a curt nod and quick gloat.)
Then she responded, “Sweet! We should do it together sometime.”
I could not back away from that nonsense quickly enough.
“Look at the time!” I answered, anxious to round out the convo and hit the streets. “I’m late for work, see you soon!”
I haven’t heard from her again.
I’m sticking to four minutes. It’s my sweet spot of time lapsed on exertion.

“Fast,” the Misnomer

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Lately I’ve been listening to ladies my age who talk of new habits in response to old-ing up.
Old-ing up stinks, have I said that a million times yet?
Two of my friends — TWO — talked about fasting for eighteen hours a day. EACH day. And EVERY day. FASTING.
Two ladies, slightly older than myself, fasting for good health, including better sleep, less bloating — yes, the conversation took a turn downward — and weight loss.
“What about the air bag?” I asked, repeating it in response to the quizzical looks.
About six months ago, I woke with an airbag around my belly. I can run into countertops with no fear of pain. I bounce off and walk away in whichever direction the airbag commanded.
No bruising, either, which is nice…unless the coloration is below the turn of the fold…not going to look for confirmation.
I meandered off topic, without even encountering a table top or other middle-range surface I could come across.
But give up ten to twelve hours of caloric intake, which is my favorite hobby? I mean, eating is fabulous. All the noshing, and the “what’s next?” aspect of each bite…good stuff.
I firmly shook my head “no” and forgot about my friends’ newly found health and sleep wellness. Because…I need to eat, repeatedly, with zeal and an open ice cream container.
Sometime during a night, asleep and vulnerable, my subconscious took over and that very next morning, I didn’t eat breakfast. Oh, sure, I drank three cups of coffee, but without food. Coffee sans nosh.
Before I realized, I waited until noon to finally eat my pitiful tiny lunch and that night I didn’t eat after 8pm. And though I may have slipped a few times about the noon rule, I forced upon myself the nothing-after-eight thing, no matter what. I was strong! I was strict! And I was up early, about an hour early each morning, invading the refrigerator’s personal space.
I figured ten hours — TEN hours! — of fasting…that’s a lot.
Before I knew it, I skipped breakfast entirely — no calories but coffee creamer until noon! This is a thing I found inconceivable. (Hopefully I used that word appropriately — since “The Princess Bride,” I’ve questioned proper use of the word.)
Quizzically, I realized that once I’d ingested the first bite of lunch, I was full quickly.
Whaaaa…
I’m entirely confused about this stuff.
Because now I actually DO fast for 18 hours. It took a few weeks, but I am an “intermittent faster;” it was a slow process to fast.
Not sure I like it.
No reduction in the air bag, sadly, which encouraged my puerile need to pack as many calories as possible into my six hour window. Five minutes until six o’clock equals three mini Tasty Kake donuts…if you’re counting or want to join me.
Now that I’m a few weeks into this denial and Adulting for Better Digestive Practices, my friend said the next step is to skip every other day — in other words, go along in the world for 24 plus 18 hours without caloric intake…
Blink.
Blink.
Nope. No, thank you.
Plus, I refuse to let my subconscious mull this one over either.
Sigh.
I miss grazing, that’s the truth…but I guess sleep is kind of nice, too.

Hair Styled

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I have a cowlick, a noticeable, swooping, obvious, swooping bang thing I’ve wrestled forever to stay where I want it on the front of my face.
An when I tap out, let the cowlick win, well, I have a collection of hats that come in handy.
The last few years, a hat is out of the question because of that danged old full-time job thing. The public frowns on a librarian looking from beneath a billed brim, I guess.
It’s understandable, probably. I mean, librarians can look pretty creepy as it is, but then throw an upward peer from beneath a delicately fabric-covered cardboard face-awning and yeah, that could draw the shivers.
Each morning I wrestled with my hair dryer and a round brush in the bathroom at work every morning and silently swore while begging the bangs to lay down, to look rakish, to be even slightly attractive.
Really, I was surprised every time when I hadn’t knocked myself cold from trying to coordinate my own two hands, a brush in one, the dryer in the other; like cats in a bag.
A few weeks ago I went for my semi-annual haircut — that’s all the time and money I’m willing to give the tresses; they don’t like me; I’m not fond of them — and the stylist, who is a friend, finished our conversation/haircut by styling the bangs the “wrong” way — not fighting the cowlick, but acknowledging it and accepting it for itself. 
And she did it well, so I didn’t look quite so weird to myself as I usually do when I halfway try styling them that way in the privacy of my bathroom mirror.
Okay. Skip to today.
I have allowed the ‘lick to stay. I don’t fight it anymore — with age comes resignation to hair stupidity — and I’ve reclaimed the hours of life normally have wasted on fighting the unnecessary battle.
It stays in place.
The ‘lick.
It barely moves, even.
And I sleep on my right side, the preferred path of the hair-fall, so in the mornings, I don’t even need to touch my round brush.
I’m flummoxed.
And happy.
And so, so angry.
But here’s the rub: no one has mentioned my loss. Hair: Won. Me: Not.
And no one noticed.
This tells me one of two things: the change is so imperceptible that they see the glowing personality from within radiating from my eyes and they are so delighted to be in my presence that they bask in my aura, its glare obscuring the slant of my bang. Thus, understandable that no one would remark upon the change.
OR.
It looks ridiculous angled from the “wrong” direction and everyone is simply ignoring it so as to hurt my feelings.
EITHER WAY.
Don’t care. I’ve reclaimed five stressful, struggling minutes each morning. That alone is an enormous blessing and I’m just fine with it.
PLUS, I get to sleep a little later now.
🙂

 

Pants 101, years too late

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Finding clothing for the “mature” — ugh, I hate that word — is a struggle.
Not that I ever had a fashion sense, but I still want clothing that I like, and that is difficult. The process of shopping has become a clearance-rack pull-and-go, in which I go to the section with items of my approximate size (there’s no standard sizing for clothing, am I the only one who believes that?), scan quickly for tolerable patterns/colors/textures and go to the checkout.
I know. It takes years to finesse the procedure, and it’s not for everyone — like anyone who truly cares about how they look — but it’s expedient and virtually pain free.
At Kohl’s the other day, a rack declared Vanderbilt “Amanda” pants were on sale, the declaration coming in the form of copious quantities of said slacks ready for perusal and purchase.
A long, long — longlonglong — time ago, I had a run-in with Gloria’s pantaloons and vowed never to return to the maker of the crime, thus I’ve avoided her brand entirely.
BUt here I was, in the midst of the fifteen minutes I’d allotted to the tedious procedure of procuring textiles and Amanda was essentially all on offer.
Well. What to do?
Because I was NOT trying things on.
And AManda seemed like she was popular at one time; she was in abundance once, but now shoved to the side for whatever new popular trend was over on the Rich People Racks.
Poor Amanda.
I grabbed three of her — a navy, a gray, and a maybe-brown? — in two different sizes, because, hey, I don’t know how Amanda fits, and went straight to the register.
Oh.
If you haven’t heard of Amanda’s pants, you should. So comfortable! Who knew?
I feel I’ve maligned Gloria and her subsequent style designs for far too long.
And I am sorry.
I have a new friend! Her name is Amanda. She’s a little shy, she was booted from the elite group and ended up in my closet, so poor, poor Amanda.
But dang it, I really like her.

Moral: Oldish dogs can change their minds. Under duress. Under a ticking clock. Under revulsion for shopping. Still. Changed my mind. Go me.

Gentle Yoga: an Oxymoron

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A new yoga studio opened upon the prairie for us plains dwellers who wish to contort into unsavory positions whilst listening to the coyotes’ toenails click upon the weeds-in-the-cracks sidewalks.
Wednesday’s program was duplicitously titled “Gentle Yoga.”
Silly me, I didn’t believe yogis to be liars. Especiallyl when they are so kind, so thoughtful, with such soothing, low timbred, magical voices declaring positively how wonderful I am.
I believed her, which was Stage 1 in her nefarious plan.
We started with meditation so soothing I nearly fell over out of my cross-legged position, and that would have been especially embarrassing since I might have domino-ed about eight ladies.
After rousing from the 15 minute muscle-relaxer, emotion-numbing, self-esteem-building small talk with myself, we stood up, which normally is not an issue. Seems I was deeper into the trance than I realized, and tipping women from standing? That might have caused injury only 911 could have healed.
So we stood and we twisted a little; pivoted on a toe or two; bent and flexed.
It was nice, but not worthy of discussion. Nothing hurt, nothing popped out of whack; I was just relaxed. No biggie.
Then we laid upon our mats — which made me realize a little Febreze was in my future — and, on our backs, we were instructed to shut our eyes and begin envisioning.
Okay, we were too envision our bellies, pulling toward our spines, forming a well that fills from a gently flowing waterfall upon our concave flesh wells.
I only realized I was glad I’d visited the restroom a half hour before, and that water can’t fill a bowl that’s turned upside down. Water flows down the sides of convex objects, such as my gut.
That hurt my feelers.
Once upon a time, I could eat junk food, bloat like a gallon of rancid milk, and wake the next morning unscathed.
Now, with years tacked onto the ever-less-resiliency of my burgeoning figure? Not so much pooling as melting outward, like an amoeba. Bits of me try to run off, phalanges of skin pooching out, trying to bridge a gap between myself and Anything to get away from their original owner.
So I was envisioning water, “pooling,” but not in my belly cauldron but instead on the floor around me, and also violently wishing for another bathroom stop, just to “be sure” rivulets didn’t form into tributaries, if you know what I mean.
Plus … PLUS! ….the yogi insisted we students not twist ourselves into pain.
“Stretch! Take a hot shower, relax, drink water.”
Did I obey? Heck no! Did I tell you there’s a delightful Chinese restaurant just down the coyote-fur-covered sidewalk, four squares away? ‘Cause that’s where I went.
And then I went to bed.
No hot shower…no shower at all, actually, gross…and no draughts of water, no stretching of anything except the truth that I may not be the yogi I once thought.
Because the next morning? Well, I’ve been discouraged from using the word “pain,” so I’ll say my thigh muscles are still “vehemently tender.”
The next class is on Monday.
I may or may not go, mostly because the Chinese restaurant is closed on Mondays, so really, what’s the point of even going downtown?
Aging stinks.