In Fantasy Life, I wake up, Good To Go, ready to sit at the computer and bare my very soul in words that the Swedish Nobel Committee is reading approvingly as I write.   In Real Life,  back pain wakes me up. I go make coffee, text with a friend, think about the crap I have to do today which I subconsciously put up with, so I can avoid writing.

I had one project, to get the Weight Watchers mobile app working on my Smartphone. I accomplished that and also reset my page on the online site, so I can track my Weight Watchers SmartPoints.  It’s another activity I’ve been avoiding, thinking my post surgeries weight gain is going to manage itself, disappearing on its own.. It hasn’t yet..

Writing wise, there’s a poem I wrote and will publish today. I will try to do more, allowing for the back pain which comes when I sit for extended periods, say an hour or so.

Being an adult sucks, sometimes.

Time sure flies when you’re procrastinating. Not that I planned to be away this long. We  had several  dramas, “incidents and accidents”, to use Paul Simon’s marvelous little phrase.  My stepmother Dorothy fell at the Y and cracked her coccyx, AKA, “tailbone”. All in all, it turned out as well as you can hope for when a ninety year old falls. She just won’t be back at the Y til she’s healed a little more.

Then we had to deal with the final legal details pertaining to my brother’s estate. Part of the legacy was an envelope full of packets of stamps, mostly “Forever”, but some 42-cent  Christmas stamps from several Christmases ago.  That was so typical of my brother; to have a bunch of stamps.

The following week Dorothy’s Persian cat was acting odd, sort of lethargic with no appetite. I took Dorothy and Sugar to the vet, left Sugar for a work-up while Dorothy and I went home.  Turns out Sugar has  “the sugar”.  Yep, feline diabetes. She is not on kitty insulin yet, but she started a special diet.

During all these singular events, I continued with physical therapy for my back, twice a week. It was actually a workout disguised as physical therapy. It was tough, but I actually enjoyed it. This comes from a man who enjoys swimming 2 miles straight through. At PT I became very familiar with a device called the Total Gym, the apparatus for which Christie Brinkley and Chuck Norris do an infomercial.  The Total Gym is a serious piece of exercise equipment, sturdy and well-made. The particular exercise I performed was pushing my body weight with my legs while leaning back against the backboard. Serious stuff.

Going to physical therapy and doctors’ offices has reaffirmed my belief that I am an extremely fortunate 65 year old.  I’ll take my repaired rotator cuff and fused spine at L4/L5  any day over what I see my contemporaries  (and younger folks) enduring.  Specifically I see weight problems that put strain on joints; a man, crippled by Multiple Sclerosis, who gets in the pool and treads water every day. I am incredibly lucky.