Eyes and Thighs

I've been losing weight slowly. I've been getting stronger slowly. And apparently while all these wonderful signs of physical health are progressing along, I'm on a collision course with the reality of getting older.

Evidence for the court's consideration.

When I use to get a stiff back or sore muscles years ago it was for a real reason. I'd unloaded a six-month supply of snacks for the early childhood department at my church from the back of my car. I'd mowed the lawn, pulled out a couple dead shrubs and spread out 15 bags of top soil into the flower beds. I'd hauled food supplies upstairs from the camp cellar and then spent 16 hours prepping and cooking on a hard tile kitchen floor to feed 200 campers. I'd singlehandedly hauled an antique kitchen cabinet, complete with a porcelain table top down a flight of stairs. All valid reasons for some muscular discomfort.

Nowadays reaching the wrong way for a bar of soap in the shower can have me wincing and gnawing on anti-inflammatories. Turn in bed? Proceed with caution. Reach down to get a book off the bottom shelf? Surely there's a book on the top shelf that could satisfy my literary interests. Drop the TV remote on the floor and find myself considering reaching down to get it? Hey, this info-merical isn't all that bad. An hour with D_wn my personal trainer and the next morning even if I don't feel any pain when I first wake up I end up limping down the stairs to get my coffee just in case something decides to go out on me willy-nilly. This is all up for me because more than a week ago I went on a cleaning spree in our house and my hip and legs are still a little achy. Whether it was the dusting or polishing that put me over the age, I really can't say but I intend to avoid them both in the future as a safety precaution.

If I hadn't been doing core-training for the past several months who knows...the vacuuming might have left me in traction.

Pathetic.

Oh yes, and I just returned from the optometrist. No, I take that back. I don't have an optometrist. I have an opthalmologist which is another indication that I'm getting older. I've come to the conclusion that given the realities of aging and the increasing odds that when something finally goes wrong it will require a major overall rather than a minor tuneup, I just head directly to the big guns these days...the opthalmologists, the pariodontists, and any and all medical professionals who have given their entire lives to train in a miniscule and confined area of expertise in hopes that they will just so happen to be skilled in treating the precise bit of real estate on my body that ultimately decides to go out of whack. [As a point of reality, I enjoy excellent health and am extremely grateful for it...this is nothing more than silly nonsense, which is in actuality my particular area of expertise. As if I need to tell you.]

I was talking about my appointment at the opthalmologist. It seems I need stronger glasses. Computer glasses; formerly known as reading glasses, yet another clear indication Bob Dylan knew what he was talking about when he sang "the times, they are a' changing." With glasses designed for a specific task, the doctor mentioned it was important to know as near to the exact distance that the computer would be from my eyes to create the best prescription and without hesitating I crossed one leg over the other knee, placing my hands on the invisible keyboard across my bent leg and confidently said "Right here" and so I'm happy to report that in 10 days I'll have a pair of glasses perfectly set for viewing my laptop 24 inches away...e-x-a-c-t-l-y.