Back on that Horse in Everyday Ramblings

I took this in a hurry as I was rushing off to a meeting, but you get the gist of another of the painted cats to celebrate the anniversary of the movie Coraline. This one for some reason is called “Perfect Weather for Gardening”.

Yesterday I had a big breakthrough in that I went to the gym for the first time since the pandemic started so it has been 4 ½ years. I had a very specific goal. I wanted to use the leg press machine. Unlike goblet squats the leg press supports ones back as one builds strength in all the muscles of the thighs. Something I need and my back has been a bit sore lately.

I have been a member of this gym for 29 years. Wow. Not this specific one. I joined as an all-club member in Oakland California when I was working there, and a brand-new gym opened two blocks away. I used to go down there and workout with a gorgeous younger colleague of mine. One of only a few other women who worked where I did. We had so much fun.

And I had a crush on a good-looking Peruvian colleague of hers that used to come down to the gym and tempt me with his beauty. We had a thing going on that wasn’t a thing if you know what I mean. He would read Pablo Neruda poems to me in Spanish and had a photo of Vincent Van Gough’s painting of a bedroom hanging outside his cube. A few years later I saw that painting in person in Paris.

Sigh. In other ways that was a challenging time in my life, but these memories are good. Reconnecting to the gym here feels good. If I am going to get stronger or maintain the strength I have, which I clearly wish to do, I need to use heavier weights than I have here at home.

And now I have a standing League meeting on Wednesdays for the next nine months or so and I will be walking a block away from the gym on my way home. One thing I did notice that was different was way more people, men and women were using the weight room than before. There was hardly anyone on the cardio machines.

I am hoping that if I don’t stay long or take a class in a confined space and practice good hand hygiene and boost my immunity with vaccines (I am getting my boosters on Friday) that I can stay healthy. It is a risk. I know that.

Mrs. Sherlock is still weak and has a sore throat but is slowly slowly getting better. She is coming off this having to cancel her hiking trip with her friends to Eastern Oregon and getting ready to make the big move. She is renting a nice condo with a yard with an option to buy. The owners moved out last week and refurbishing is going on.

One of my students has moved to a rental in a suburb of Seattle that is still somewhat rural and yesterday she took class on her deck, and we had a rooster crowing periodically. That’s a first. I have said this before but wow, practically everybody in my world is downsizing.

After a year, I am so grateful to be back in my own place. Even if I, shamefully, haven’t fully unpacked. Maybe now I have made it to the gym, the next step in my umbrella list of goals is to get myself unpacked. I did give my extra boxes to Mrs. Sherlock just before she came down with Covid.