- fitness!

The fitness studio is only a few blocks from my office. Do you think I remember the complete name for this studio? Not on your life! This information disappeared through the holes in the colander I have for a brain in a matter of a few minutes or a 100 yards. Take your pick.

It would appear that I have more than my physical fitness to squawk about. The upside is that I worked up something of a sweat and that I actually got off my cherubic behind to take my daily constitutional. One has to strike while one is up to it. One never knows what's around the corner with this body of mine. It's a behemoth task.

On my walk, I saw purple salvia straining their necks for sunlight, a freshly painted house whose front door position had been obviously altered to appease the Feng Shui gods and, a smiling pit bull straining the leash, and consequently the arm of it's teenaged master.

Across the street, a lady on the wrong side of 50 did battle with the sidewalk. Another office drone like myself, her tennies matched her suit. There's a State building a couple of blocks away and their majestic walkers can be identified by the ID tags hanging from their necks. Usually, I encounter them in droves of three or so, and I have to walk on the road to get around them for there is power in numbers; I have yet to see them yield to the single pedestrian. Maybe i should stick out my elbows when I walk, like Oprah...

The foot

The foot isin't broken. While It wasn't able to bear weight for a few days, it allowed my middle-aged body to gain weight. Curses! Of course, I wear it none-too-proudly, like a girdle. Now that I can almost fasten my walking shoe - the real pain is in the still-raw abrasion on top of the foot - I am determined to go back to walking the streets surrounding my office building.
Apparently, in an effort to make me more productive at work (okay, just plain productive) I am supposed to be on the lookout for 'something positive' that I have never seen. Iam supposed to appreciate my surroundings. I've been walking the same streets, the only things that are not constant are the new batch of fellow humans with whom I share the sidewalk. I tend to avoid my fellow humans. I fear eye contact. I fear being approached, being asked for anything. Don't ask me for directions, that is, unless you want to end up in Timbukto.
Soon the leaves will be falling, I guess that will be something new...

Just call me Igor

Yesterday, a part of my desk that is not 'securely fastened' fell on my bare foot. I was on the phone at the time so I had to stifle my scream. There was a bloody abrasion on the top of my foot. I'm sure that area has a particular name, I just don't know what it is.
I walked around the office like Igor in Young Frankenstein for the rest of the day.
Today is another matter. I can't put the bloody thing on the floor. It won't bear my weight. I have resorted to hopping on my left and then balancing by putting my right heel on the ground. It's a bit tricky and were it not for the current purplish color of the darn thing I wouldn't have made a doctor's appointment for this evening. All expeditions away from my desk have been cut to the minimum. I've had my lunch delivered to my desk, my green tea heated up. I am a lazy git! My tummy is swelling up from inactivity. I'll probably gain a few pounds from lack of exercise.

Colon Blow

“Colon Blow,” a prerequisite for a colonoscopy, a necessary evil when one reaches or passes the half-century mark. I was prepared to suck up the day of starvation and drink a gallon of the foul-tasting stuff, and endure the ensuing violation at the doctor’s office. After all I did lose 4 lbs. And I don’t care what age you are, 4 lbs is 4 lbs.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the fierce abdominal aches after the mini-operation. I thought that the doc had somehow blasted through my colon, but no, I had developed an ulcer.
And so it goes, hardly a decent healthy day for me since January 1, 2008. I’m now being treated for an H Pylori-induced ulcer. Fortunately, the doc handed over the meds, satisfied that this Dr. Mom was not a hypochondriac, I didn’t have to do a blood test for old HP. Apparently, there was a notation in my file from years back that the little bugger was a regular inhabitant of my own stomach or maybe duodenum.
The meds consist of two antibiotics, one acid reducer and Zantac. What a delightful cocktail. I’m now on week three of four and my mouth tastes only of metal. Doc tells me that I that I have to go on Prilosec for one full month after the cocktail is done. Oh, and did I mention, that yes, I got a yeast infection.? Oh joy! Thank God for flagicil or whatever it’s called. The inventor of this one-pill-therapy deserves a gold medal. I well remember the 7 days of sticking a gooey white mess up my vajayjay. Yeugh!
And so it goes. Today is Good Friday. Life could be a hell of a lot worse!

Like Hell

So, my bones ache down into their very core. Two days ago I spent less than three hours helping a friend pack her books and some othe stuff. I don't remember lifting a lot of boxes, but my muscles feel as if they had a work out. I bet if that doctor on Oprah got a hold of me, he'd say I had the body of a 70-year old. Actually, it would probably be closer to 80 seeing as my friend's sister was the one who actually lifted all the boxes I packed to store them in the garage. I remember advising her that one was particularly heavy - it was full of hard backs - and she said it weighed nothing compared to what she herself had packed earlier. She whizzed past me carrying box after box from bedroom to garage. This woman is 68 years old, and a smoker.
Today, I walked to the mailbox, the far one, near the post office, in an affort to resume my daily walking habit. I feel like hell.