It was just four months ago that I woke up to the New Year’s challenge and vowed to get my mojo back at the gym.
Driven by a vision of a svelte body, Michelle Obama arms and the Ruth Bader Ginsburg workout book, I promised to hit it hard at the gym least five days a week.
Visiting adult children across the country, I’m always trying to figure out the perfect formula.
How much time is too long? Too short? What’s the best Where? And the best What?
Until last month, I mostly worried about earthquakes, tsunamis and getting nuked by North Korea. They were splendid prompts for worry since they fall in my specialty area – things I can’t control.
But now, with the flu epidemic going full tilt, I have shifted focus. Natural and political disasters have taken a back seat to the new random terror: H3N2.
When January hit, I was feeling pretty self-righteous about my workout routine at the gym.
“No New Year’s guilt trips for me!” I said.
That was before I received a Christmas gift from my daughter: “The RBG Workout” book. In it, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s personal trainer lays out (in excruciating detail, with sketches) the 40-minute workout that the 84-year-old Supreme Court justice does twice a week.
As I extracted my pre-lit Christmas tree section by section from its overstuffed bag in the garage and dragged each piece into the living room, I had an epiphany of the non-religious kind.
The story of my life from childhood on has been marked by an evolving series of Christmas trees.
Briefly as a teenager, I lived in Texas. You would have thought that my time there, during the years most girls learn to shop and
These days, it feels like random jewels of information are flying at me from all directions – on Facebook, TV, over lunch, in an elevator and always during those “find a buddy and walk” excursions.
So I’ve taken to carrying a notebook or scraps of paper (deposit slips and gum wrappers will do) or enlisting the “Notes” section of my phone to capture them all. Quick! Before they drift into Neverland.
“Sounds like a plan!” you might say. But not.
Thanks to my Depression-era mom, I run every purchase through the same drill. Do I really need this? Or do I just want it?
I can’t say it’s saved me a ton of money, but it sure has made me a more creative thinker. Through years of diligent practice, I’ve learned to rationalize – no sweat – the necessity of just about anything. This was my downfall when I bumped into the Amazon Echo.
I couldn’t resist. After writing a (pretty bad) poem that spoofed the elaborate strategies for perfect eclipse viewing, I am myself headed to a spot two hours south of Portland, Oregon along the Path of Totality.
When you’re grounded with foot surgery, what could be better than a compulsive genealogy project?
Chocolate, probably. Or binge-watching The Crown. Or ordering Pad Thai online.
But I’m happy to report that I took the high road and wrote the story of how my dad’s family came here from Czechoslovakia at the turn of the 20th century.