the retirement dance

FFP is up before me but I must really be sleeping because before I know it he has gone to the club and come back again. Chalow is due to get her shots and annual check-up today. So, I crawl out of the warm bed, put on some sweats, get her on a leash and take her to the vet. Then I go work out. I do forty-five minutes on the bike. The knees feel better warmed up. Maybe the cold contributes to the ache. Getting old.... I would normally do weights on the lower body today but I do some upper body instead (I did neither yesterday) to give the knees a chance to feel better about it all. I'm glad I still felt like doing the bicycle. I started a new book while biking to nowhere, too. (Limbo and Other Places I Have Lived, a collection of short stories by Lily Tuck.)

When I get home, I'm determined to get right in the shower and get clean because I've decided that sitting around in stinky sweats isn't good for the soul. (Although, on reflection, I think it probably is good for the soul if you can adopt the right attitude.) However, I first have to go get Chalow and pay $115 for her visit. (Hey...I think my check-up is cheaper but then I don't have to be registered with the city or have a rabies vaccine.)

I do get in the shower when I get home. My sweats missed the laundry, though, FFP having put in a load while I was gone. Nevermind I'll make another load, mix darks and whites, put it on cold wash and rinse and go. I get clean. My clothes get clean. I spend time on the laundry. I eat some breakfast (two pieces of super bran toast and a half of a grapefruit). Before long FFP and Gayle are cooking lunch. (Gayle keeps the books but eats with us, take-out or her cooking, sometimes when she comes to work on our books. She also usually brings La Femme Nikita, her dog, so she can run around in the backyard. Which explains the two dark figures streaking across the backyard while I ate breakfast. I knew it was black cat from unknown parts but who was chasing it? Niki loves the backyard here. Gayle says she gets excited when she turns the corner on our street.

Chicken Parmigiana and steamed vegies. It's there, it's good and in spite of the proximity to my breakfast, I eat it. Then I clean up the pans and stuff. You can fill your day with little things like that and with making yourself cups of coffee and cleaning the coffee machine and such. It seems I spend time sorting the mail, carrying things from one room to another, etc. But soon things will be straighter and all will be easier, n'est ce pas? Oh and I fold clothes, too, and move things from washer to dryer, consult on where we might have filed the tax returns for our personal taxes. I am cleaning off surfaces now, sorting and organizing things where they can be cleaned out again, later. I find a photo taken by an automatic camera on the London Eye. Yep, I alone seem to have posed.

And...voilà, it's five o'clock. How does that happen every day? Anyway, I'm in a better mood about it all.