Even Though in Everyday Ramblings

Always nice to get a slightly different perspective. Moonset, sunrise, a minus low tide on Sunday. Such a gift our clean public beaches are here.

I am home now. Happy about that. After the displacement, coming home to my own place, also such a gift. My cat sitter raved about the new floors. She is a big fan.

One of my morning students just managed to get through a week where she had all the floors in her condo except her bedrooms redone with the same luxury vinyl. The hardest part was coordinating getting both her toilets placed back in with plumbers being so hard to schedule these days.

She managed to get some veterans from a local charity to get one of the toilets back in the same day (for a contribution, very creative) so she was able to sleep at home all week. She is happy, particularly now that it is over. We are happy to have her back in class.

Today I put the garden to bed. Pulled out all the annuals and mulched a bit. A big rain is on its way, (I still had cornflowers so I brought some of those home), but we will get a break on Friday so on the way home I gathered up a bunch of dry maple leaves. The oak leaves that fall from the huge oak in the garden are a bit acidic and I hope to balance the mulch with beautiful colorful maple leaves.

It was a big push to get everything done so I could get out of here last week. I found myself pretty physically tired yesterday. I did teach both my classes, but I only did one set of upper body weights on top of that. There was no there there.

It has been a year since I did long extravagant walks on the beach. I could feel that year this time. I find it hard to believe I am getting on to 70. Old dog hips mostly. Well, helping Most Honorable with leaf pickup at their place on the way home and sitting for hours on the train, car and bus were factors too.

I think the heart meds I am taking may be encouraging weight gain. Well, eating too much is generating the weight gain, but the meds are encouraging the eating too much. Or at least not helping. Mrs. Sherlock and I have had long discussions about the new class of weight loss drugs. Not that I am considering them for myself, but I am considering what they do to us culturally and how it feels living in a not thin body now, that it is considered cheating if one uses the drugs and lazy, gross, and slothful if one doesn’t.

Even though a bazillion dollars has been spent on creating food that we cannot help but crave. Even though certain of us in the world have access to an absurd amount of abundance while so many of us don’t. And even though the science behind the new drugs has shown that making healthy choices about food is not a question of willpower.

Now that the food producers have effectively disrupted our natural inclinations and created dysregulation to sell us more stuff while pushing us to look a certain way that is unattainable except for a select few (and I will venture almost impossible to maintain even for those select few) with a high share of resources, the cognitive dissonance seems impossible to ignore.

I hope for the young women coming after me, that some balance is restored and the amount of suffering my friends and acquaintances struggle with over our weight, perceived attractiveness and health was an anomaly. Because the trying to figure it all out with ineffective and costly solutions currently available that we all take so personally, just sucks.

Hmm. Apparently, I have feelings about all this.

I hope to get around and note this week. Time management is a thing. I still find myself reveling in not having to work. At least not at a job that was such a sinkhole in so many ways. I guess there are some benefits in being close to 70 after all.

Happy Halloween.