Tuesdays troubles …
Tuesday dawns cool and partly sunny in weather casters vernacular. Odd use of words. Partly sunny. I guess that means a little more sun break outs than it would if it was partly cloudy. This’ll be a laid back day, I am still sore from my rehab session yesterday, but I am noticing a bit more strength.
The hardest part is the walk from the parking lot to the clinic. There is close in parking, and valet parking, but I am too cheap to pay a valet, and I don’t want to join the circle of cars slowly circling the lot waiting to pounce on an empty spot, and being annoyed at the surplus of handicapped spots with each circuit. So I just park in the far in of the lot and walk the block and a half to the door. It is uphill and by the time I hit the clinic door inside the huge building, I am puffing like a steam engine.
Once inside, I take my monitor pouch that is laid out on the table and walk to the back where Bruin Hilda ties the straps on, puts the monitor in the pouch, and snaps the leads on to the patches on my chest and side.
Now it is 20 minutes on the recumbent, which goes well, five minutes on the arm crank, and 20 minutes on the treadmill. The “effort” is adjusted higher each visit on the machines as well, but if it gets to be too laborious, you can adjust the effort downwards. But you WILL do 
twenty minutes. The machines are tied into the monitor, and they know if you cheat on the time.
But back to the moment, as I sit at my studio window and watch the breezes rustle the tree leaves, and the cardinals flit around the bird bath. It is a peaceful time, and by the middle of the second cup of coffee my mind can turn to the day’s evils. I will have to run into town today because I forgot to stop at the pharmacy yesterday and pick up some new glucose test strips. Maybe I’ll stop at the grocery and pick up the fixins for a country breakfast this weekend. I am allowed to blow my diet once a week … and Sunday is my day … and I have a hankering for sausage gravy and biscuits, scrambled eggs and hash browns. And maybe a grapefruit. If I am going to be a piggy, I’ll go whole hog.
Actually, I am off of pork and pork products. It is ersatz sausage I get these days, made from turkeys. It seems to satisfy the soul as much as the original hog did, but doesn’t tickle the taste buds as well. But such is life.
And maybe I’ll mow. That seems to be what I do best. Seated on my riding mower like a grandee, waiving at the passing neighbors and workmen. It’s a hard life, but someone has to do it.
Rusty's Armory 