I finally made it back to the gym after a week away. I didn't actually go anywhere though. It was a week that was "bookended" by runaway dogs. In between, the house got cold and after I shoveled out my storm doors to the rough basement housing vital equipment, I found 6-8" of water submerging the controller to my oil burner. Ugh. The sump pump had failed and/or the drainage pipe was frozen. The plumber arrived a few hours later and managed to pump enough water out so he could inspect the oil burner. Eventually it restarted. But I needed a new sump pump and it was advised that the galvanized drainage pipe should be replaced with PVC. Galvanized pipe just rots from the inside and eventually collapses on itself.
Also, the oil burner was suffering corrosion from the perpetually moist environment: my house is on wetlands even though we are uphill from the main road and lake. Our wetlands sit in a pocket on the hillside, and my property contains the old "community well for the neighborhood" from the 50s. Now everyone has their own private well, but mine is only 30 feet deep because there's an underground spring and we're probably sitting on the aquifer. The next day, different plumbers arrived to install a new sump, remove the old galvanized pipe and replace it with a larger diameter PVC, replace and repair the corroded parts of the oil burner.
Meanwhile, because it had been fairly cold, I had run through the firewood in the house and had to get more from the woodpile outside. Which meant chopping through the icy crust, shoveling up the snow and pulling up the corner of the tarp to expose the stacked wood. I'm glad I still have my old hand truck to drag. The snow and icy crust is so compacted and hard that the cart barely dented the surface. The next day, Friday, I had planned to go to the gym. Plans thwarted when the dogs start barking furiously at 6:30 AM. I'm not a morning person and hadn't planned to get up until 8. I stagger out to the living room expecting to see a cat or something in the yard. The dogs bark at cats a lot.
Outside the front door is a tall skinny cop and the guy from the wildlife rescue. He has a giant hoop net and a stick with a loop on it for catching strays. They ask me if I'm missing a dog. Obviously not because mine are in the window barking their fool heads off. They tell me that a dog that looks like mine was running down the main road. Like mine? Just like the white one. Yeah, he's escaped before but since he's in the window, obviously not him. They said they thought maybe I had 3 dogs now. Nope. But I DO KNOW of someone with a white husky who lives not far from here. Just then, the white husky tears down my driveway, stops briefly to mark my hedges and takes off again. "Saul, is that you?"
The cop and the wildlife guy run after him. The cop comes back and asks if I have dog treats. Of course I do. I give him two strips of chicken jerky because they are my dogs' favorite and I imagine every dog loves them. I see the cop pull off pieces and toss them to the dog who greedily snaps them up. Then I go back to bed. And I oversleep, take the dogs to the park late and have such a wicked headache that I bail on the idea of going to the gym. Later, I text the wildlife rescue to ask if the dog was caught. Yep, it was Saul and he was returned home safely.
I couldn't get warm but I wasn't in the mood to exercise. Bad sleep was giving me vertigo. Instead, I went to the gym and sat in the sauna for 15 minutes and then a long hot shower. It's an indulgent exercise in self-care, a term I've never used before, but somehow seems appropriate now. I'm finally able to brush and floss the side of my mouth that has stitches, but the gums are still so sensitive. No doubt not brushing or flossing that side for a whole week wasn't great oral hygiene. The gums are very tender, so brushing and flossing is now a tentative and tedious nightly ritual... but better than wearing dentures!
Today, I got to the gym late. It's been unusually warm recently but there's still snow and ice everywhere. (The only thing more slippery than ice is wet ice. I really appreciate having the YaxTrax grips on my boots for traversing the dog park every morning.) There's a familiar big guy on elliptical #1 so I get on #3. Later, Wind Breaker arrives just as #1 vacates. Machine #3 isn't bad though. I get my pedaling done but nowhere near 2.8 miles. At least I managed to do pull-ups! My arms were a bit tired from ramming the ice chipper into recalcitrant slippery patches next to my car doors in the driveway this morning. It's warm enough that they'll dissipate and leave muddy patches instead.
Step machine was routine. Another round of pull-ups. I look at the cross-trainers: there's six of them but #2 and #5 are occupied and I don't like the spacing. It's flu season, people come to the gym sick and I'd rather not be pedaling breathlessly right next to anyone else. Especially since I tend to really get into my tunes and sing along (to myself so no one else can really hear me esp since I have a terrible singing voice), which means I'm breathing hard. I could get on one of the many Expresso Bikes but they're situated so the glare from outside smacks the consoles dead on, making them impossible to see. There's two Octanes. I've used these lateral elliptical machines before although I think more recently than 2023. (I do a search of my "notes" and 2023 comes up as the latest. WTF? Seriously, two years?)
Another round of pull-ups and then off to the Aerobics Room. There's a couple of HS kids there, each doing their own routine. I do mine and then, happily, I'm done. It's only in the shower that I realize I've lost an earring. They're tiny little hoops. Ugh. It's always the same ear too, I surmise, because that ear lobe (the right one) is a tad thicker than the left. Which means it's at a greater risk for losing the back. I've lost this earring before, which means this isn't a tragedy -- just super annoying. I have several pairs of this particular style, but when I go home, I swap the remaining one out for a more traditional stud.
Meanwhile, I've kept the bird feeder stocked with sunflower seeds. My friend who lives the next town over atop a big hill, has bluebirds! She says it's the dried meal worms. It's not. Because I've added the same meal worms to my feeder and I don't get bluebirds. I just get very aggressive starlings fighting with the house finches and chickadees. She's got a different ecosystem and has to worry about hawks swooping in to snack on the songbirds. During the summer, she also gets tiny little frogs wedged into the siding facing the towering oaks outside her porch. I have big leopard frogs, bullfrogs, and the unseen ever trilling peepers, but they stay in the ponds and streams behind the house...
24 February 2025 12:26-2:20
Monday — All Cardio
Really Late Balmy 50°F Cardio
Precor elliptical #3
Program 3
Time: 30 + 5 (5???
Distance: 2.77
Cal: 303
Avg Hr: 188-74, 143
New FB: 45-158
HGPU 15
Matrix StairMaster (R)
Manual timer 8+2 cool down
Minimum 5 minutes
Speed 5 (48) / 2 (33) / 1 (29)
Steps 433
Floors 27
Cal 65
Hr n/a. FB 117
HGPU 15
Octane #1 (left)
Program Manual 1 / 5-width
Time: 13+2 (strides 1552)
Distance: 1.14
Cal: 85
Avg Hr: 123, max 188
HGPU 15
20 Hip Bridges
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
DeadBugs 20 x 5
Piriformis stretches
Child’s Pose
Cat/Cow stretch 12
Child’s Pose
Fire Hydrants 30 x 2
Bird Dog Planks 60s x 2
Push-Ups 25
Arm rotations 20
Air Squats 25
Neck stretch / Eye yoga
