Health and happiness shows

Wednesday 8/21/24

I got some B-12 supplements. I'm not quite a vegetarian now, but I'm not very far off and it seemed likely I wasn't getting enough B-12. I didn't really think I'd ever be an almost-vegetarian. My plan is not to eat red meat ever again. I won't eat pork either. Gave up chips, gave up bread, gave up skim hot chocolate from the Starbucks. All on the same day back in the winter. Just done. And I was.

Time to account for some things on the fitness front. Yesterday wasn't much. 1000 stairs ran at City Hall, 100 push-ups, single plank. Monday was 3000 stairs at City Hall, 100 push-ups, three planks. On Sunday I walked three miles, did 100 push-ups, and complete five circuits of stairs inside of the Bunker Hill Monument. Saturday I walked the same and did the same amount of push-ups, and completed ten circuits of stairs inside of the Monument. It was the first time I'd done ten since COVID and the shutdown of the Monument. I did those ten circuits in sixty-five minutes, too, which is good. A woman I went past--this was around circuit number four, and she didn't know how many times I was doing it--said, "You're a king man." Not "You're a king, man." I sort of tried to hear it as, "You're a Kingman," as in Dave Kingman. Kind of an odd thing to say, isn't it? A king man? Today I walked five miles, did 100 push-ups, and completed five circuits of the Monument in twenty-eight minutes, which is also pretty good. Sunday marked 2961 days, or 423 weeks, without a drink.

Sports aside: The Red Sox beat the Astros 6-5 last night and it was exactly like I was saying the other day: laborious. A fight all the way for any win. Nothing coming easy. Sox jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first, and by the end of the inning it was tied. Sox went behind in the second, then up by one in the fourth, tied again in the fifth, before the Sox scored a run in the eighth and held on.

The older two kids start school tomorrow--third grade for Lilah, fifth grade for Charlie. My buddy Amelia doesn't go back for her second year of preschool for another couple weeks, I think. I sent them all a message via my sister. I'm thinking they won't share my enthusiasm, but let's have a good attitude! I liked these things. A crisp apple, books, recess in the fall air, the smell of freshly sharpened pencils. That's good stuff! These simple delights. But they're not really so simple though, are they? Not when you understand them. Not when you look back on them.

It's important as adults to find our versions of these things--call them extensions of them or updates. I'll tell you: At some point I will be back in Rockport and I'll step outside on an early September morning and there will be an early version of that autumnal ambrosia in the air. The future will seem open. All of that life ahead. And I'll feel something of what I felt back on those first days of school like the one Charlie and Lilah will have tomorrow. Days like that are treats.

As for myself: I'll do a lot better tomorrow. I promise. Things will be heating back up on here soon enough, too.