A Different Kind of Lockdown in Everyday Ramblings

Out front yesterday morning. It looks the same now after it all melted and then came back overnight. We are in for the deep freeze for at least 5 days. We have warming shelters set up all over the place, but one frets about congregate settings and those with drug addictions.

Unexpectedly Kes and Most Honorable have way more snow than we do. After their full week without power last February one can only hope that they don’t even get a flicker of an outage this time. They have been redoing all the power lines around here because we are on the same grid as the hospital so I think we’ll be okay unless trees come down.

The crows have been hanging around here, just south of downtown more often and it is wild just before sunset, the trees are full of crows. Hundreds and hundreds of them.

I have been teaching since June of 2013 and this is only the 2nd time, I have taken a full week off, maybe the third if you count the recovery after the terrible fall year before last. I have taken random days here and there, particularly during the year I had my mouth redone but it is a thing, yoga teachers not taking time off.

This year it is easier because we are mostly teaching online so we can record classes in advance. Several teachers I know have done that. Our superpower is our consistency.

It’s feels like an incredible luxury. I retired from work, but I never stopped teaching. Although I have a bunch of prep work to do to settle into the new year and teaching in all this uncertainty, I have made the conscious effort not to do that this week.

My one exception is continuing ed. Learning what is new is science that melds with what those yogis have figured out all along. I watched a well put together and fun webinar (over 2 hours, which is why I didn’t watch before) about strength training for older bodies and how much load and velocity we should use.

The curve of how much muscle mass we lose as we get on a bit is sobering. The scientist that taught the material featured his mother who returning from a serious hospitalization from sepsis and an allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics came back at 70 and can now lift 50 lbs. of butter into her Costco cart for her daughter’s bakery.

I carry 30 lbs. of cat litter from the car, but it is a bit of an effort.

Now I am watching a webinar on heavy lifting at home. It is hard when it is clearly not safe to go to the gym. Maybe, maybe this year? Between variants?

I loaned one of my 15 lb. dumbbells to Mrs. Sherlock so we could both lift heavier. You can also add resistance bands in the mix to up the load incrementally.

Not to worry, my focus is still yoga, I have no desire to turn into a bodybuilder. There are 3 kinds of results you can get, the first is strength, the second, building mass and the third is muscle endurance. The kind I want is strength to do the activities that present themselves during the day…getting out of the bathtub, lifting a bedspread out of the washer, and yes, carrying the cat litter.

I decided to spring for HBO Max. I loved the book “Station Eleven” and I just started that. On Christmas I watched “The Matrix Resurrections”. It was a little long but who can resist a woman in her 50’s kicking the proverbial… and I loved Bugs. This was a rare occasion where I listened to a rather complete spoiler and still wanted to see the movie.

And there are some Gardeners’ World specials that just dropped as well. It is not so much sugarplum fairies dancing in my head as tulips and iris. :) Bulbs and rhizomes.

Also, I stared the 32-hour audio book of the Outlander series.

So…plenty of stuff to keep me busy as there is not going to be a lot of going out around here this week in the land of ice and snow.

One good thing about the pandemic is that we have all learned how to better manage cabin fever, at least those of us with privilege and longer lockdowns.

Chocolate helps.

Last updated December 27, 2021