TODAY's QUOTE It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like. ~ Jackie Mason Yesterday's Entries 2001: Blowing in the Wind TODAY's READ Arranged Marriage On DVD The Sopranos EXERCISE 30 min at Curves FOOD Breakfast: Cheerios TODAY's WEATHER Absolutely beautiful
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SWEATIN’ WITH THE MAYOR 8 February 2004 The nice thing about living in a small town ... or maybe it’s the weird thing ... is that your elected officials are not only accessible, they are generally folks whose kids went to school with your kids, who were in the same parent nursery school with you, and who served on the same PTA committees that you did, who attend the same parties that you do, and who probably live in your neighborhood The difference is that while you (i.e., me) stayed in the same rut, they moved into positions of government in the city, county and/or state, but they are still your neighbors, some of them are your friends, and you still see them in the farmers market. So it was that I gazed across the circle at Curves this morning and spied the mayor, huffing and puffing and sweating with the rest of us. I’m sure that would never have happened to me in San Francisco, definitely not under Willie Brown’s administration and probably not even under Dianne Feinstein’s (Willie, of course, would not be admitted to the all-female Curves). In my absence over the past seven months, Curves has grown and the camaraderie has definitely built up. I joined the Davis Curves the day that it opened and by the time I had my accident, I recognized a few faces, but it didn’t seem to have the same party atmosphere that I find now. Of course today was only my second time back, but I can already feel the difference in the dynamic. There are contests, games, birthdays posted on the wall, valentines hanging up, "stuff" for sale, t-shirts to buy, and a "ring-mistress" who stands in the center of the circle and kibitzes with the exerciser. Just a lot more fun these days, it seems. There were a few people that I recognized yesterday. My co-worker and I hadn’t made plans to go together again, so she wasn’t there, but the choreographer/costume designer for the Davis Comic Opera company was there. She’s also a nurse and commiserated with me on my shoulder. "A dislocation is the hardest thing to heal," she said, encouragingly. "The only thing worse is a fracture." Well -- since I had both.... It felt good to be working out again, but I had the same reaction I did the first time. By the third time around the circle, even though I didn’t use my left arm at all, the machines that work the upper body started making the shoulder ache. This is either very good, or very bad for the arm. I’ll keep going and keep track of whether it gets better or worse. I also discovered, later in the day, that sometimes being politically correct can yield unexpected benefits. I’ve been in a Scrabble marathon with a friend for what seems like forever. We play game after game of Scrabble on line (which is really kind of silly, since we live 2 blocks from each other!) It’s been great fun since we seem to be pretty evenly matched in both our word manipulation and tenacity. On our most recent game, she was ahead of me by 40 points and I looked at the board and found my best move to be a 3 word triple-word score that would give me 27 points. But even though it was an OK word according to all the dictionaries, it was a racial slur and I decided I just couldn’t use it. I just didn’t feel comfortable using that word. I found a nice acceptable (to me) word which I thought was 19 points. Only it turns out that it used all of my tiles and, unbeknownst to me, when you do that you get a 50 point bonus, so my 19 point politically correct word turned out to be a 69 point winner instead of the 27 point ethnic slur. Sometimes it just pays to follow your heart instead of your head! As I write this, it’s midnight and we have just returned from the Bay Area, where
we went for dinner with The Lamplighters old tech crew. Lovely evening with lovely
friends. I have come home with scratchy throat and burning lungs and hope that I can sleep
this pre-cold off. |
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
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Weight Lost to date: 44.8 lbs
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Created 2/4/04
