The Olympics were literally breath-taking at 4 p.m., looming over the pristine deep-turquoise grey of the Sound like giant, white-tipped waves of purple-heather-blue-gray. Normally one sees such colors only in dreams.
From the interwebs (from Carkeep Park):
Your goggies would love the dog park up there – well fenced and full to the brim with fun.
Breathtaking. Thanks.
This is a good idea! One step more just one step more. Im going to do just one step more today. Thanks Karen
One other sort of related thing in my saga is that both at my old house in Champaign and our new house in the Chicago suburbbs, there was an older woman going around the ‘hood w/ a walker. In Champaign, I started out walking too (in like 2005 or maybe 6?) and always admired the lady there as I presume she had something happen and was told “exercise” and she was out there all the time w/ Mr. and her walker, crusing around the neighborhood. When we moved, I had enjoyed some improvement through hard work but was out running and encountered another woman out w/ her walker so, as I zoomed by I gave her a thumbs up and said "lookin’ good!" and she laughed, which is, after all, the best medicine?
woah, 7.4 is awesome!! Good job!! You should take yourself for a walk as a reward!!
Ooops, make that Carkeek Park (love the name.)
You’re very welcome.
Thanks!
*** That’s funny, I suddenly feel this…urge to go for a walk… ***
Ever considered the idea she walked to your new neighborhood??
jediabetic mind trick
LOL, gray hair vs. white hair, 2 different people!
That’s funny. I love it when kids running around Greenlake give me a thumbs up. It’s like they’re saying, “Hey, I can run circles around you but I still recognize you as a fellow exercising human being doing the best she can with what she’s got at the moment.” I’ll challenge them to races sometimes just to see them laugh.
The ones who bug me are the ones who look me up and down with a harumph of, “Ewwww. How did she let herself go like that. That will never happen to me.” I give them a warm smile and think, “Oh, just you wait…”
Believe it or not, children, I used to be a trim, muscular, aerobically awesome martial artist who could do 200 sit-ups, kick the crap out of the heavy bag, break boards (easy, right?), stretch my legs out in front of me in a vee while sitting on the dojo floor and lean forward to put my chest nearly flat on the floor between my knees, my forehead on the floor and my arms out in front of me on the floor out past my feet (fold in half flat, basically), run 10K (usually 5K to 7K but one very memorable 10K), bike up steep hills (before bikes had a hundred gears), spar credibly with men six inches taller and 50-lbs. more muscular, do forward rolls from standing back to standing (on a gym mat, of course), etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wV49Q9mpUI
There is a lot that can happen to a body in thirty years, especially if you throw in microscopically shattered tibias from stress fractures, auto-immune disease, a bout with melanoma, another foot surgery, clinical depression and a truly stupid career choice that’s nearly impossible to undo when you realize (too late?) the cost to your health (sitting for sixty to seventy hours per week is NOT the best way to stay fit and trim – who knew?!?)
So I go to the grocery store with friends or family and politely insist on being the one who pushes the cart, “Please? It’s my walker!”. Someday I’ll probably be the lady with the real walker galumphing slowly around the neighborhood and that’s fine with me. As long as I’m vertical and breathing and still trying, that beats the heck out of giving up.
Clairol!
Jean, you might be giving those kids some inspiration. Just because they are younger doesn’t mean they are in good shape. Back when I first started running, I was 24 and thin but couldn’t even make it to my corner. When I finally started adding some distance and started running on a bike path, there was a guy that looked like he was about 90 out jogging several days a week. He was moving at a snail’s pace, but I would think, “if he can be out here doing this, so can I.”
The “ough you just wait reminded me of the parking lot scene from Fried Green Tomatoes – I hated that movie, but love that scene!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b9Z3MYo2M0
I am the one the one out gallivanting around my neighborhood with a walker thanks to neuropathy. Everyone looks at me and asks “knee or hip?” because they think that must be why someone my age is using a walker.
Awwa, I love “Fried Green Tomatoes”, but of course I read the book twice before the movie came out – I was already in love with Fanny Flagg’s prose and forgave the movie it’s shortcomings.
I never like it when Yankee’s try to put on a Southern accent or act like grand Southern ladies of a certain age – poor dears, they just never get it right no matter how hard they try – they talk too slow in all the wrong places and they can’t possibly conceive of how a Southern lady can cut you to ribbons without ever saying one single overtly mean word or having so much as a wrinkle in her brow – it’s an art-form as esoteric as any known to human kind and takes decades to perfect.
Kathy Bates did a pretty good job and Jessica Tandy was heartbreakingly sweet – such an amazing pair of actresses.
The parking-lot scene still makes me laugh out loud. Gotta love “the menopause”.
That was probably my mistake - I didn’t read the book. I always thought the books were better than the movies because you could get so much more detail that wasn’t in the movie. Of course now that I am older, I should try watching it again. If I had to pick a favorite scene out of all movies, that one would be my favorite!
It’s in my top twenty, for sure. My favorite scene is the opening scene of “Rear Window” which I believe is the greatest masterpiece of American cinema, bar none.
If you ever watch it (or watch it again), after watching it all the way through, go back and notice that the opening scene sets up the entire film in a brilliant way. But I digress…
Congratuexcellentations on the lowering of your A1c!!! It most clearly shows you’re doing SOMETHING right, and that is no mean achievement!!
So let me share a virtual hug, and a happy dance (which you don’t really want to see – I’m a BAAAAD dancer!!)
Thanks! I like bad dancers – the badder the better. 