As I have shared with you, we are in Phoenix with our kids and have experienced quite a few new things this week. First of all, my daughter drug me to her aquatic exercise class yesterday morning. So not only did I show up in my old lady bathing suit, (you know the one with the skirt, but try to disguise it by getting the loudest print available) but it has been over 30 years since I have shown my face at any type of exercise class. It was embarrassing enough to walk up with her introducing me to her friends who have a collective weight of probably 200 lbs total from the 4 of them, but when I realized that I was the only one there that had skin so white that it glows in the dark, well…lets just say that this is one of the reasons I hide in cooking classes and art class. I never have to show up in a bathing suit. After reminding the instructor that I was almost 65 and had been years since doing anything but walking back and forth between the fridge and the table, I felt fairly certain that she would make it easy on me.
It started off well. Actually it started off great. Under water no one can see the hail damage on my legs, nor could they see parts of me that weren’t meant to be seen until I am laying dead on a table being examined by the coroner. The warm up began and we were off. “walk in a circle ladies and after each lap, walk it a little faster each time around. Ok, this is good, I’m a fast walker anyway, so I had this…smiling to myself, I thought, how hard can this be? I found out after about 5 more minutes. We were instructed to do jumping jacks up out of the water. Ok, I’m still doing pretty swell. Then when she told us to dog paddle with our arms coming out of the water like we were pushing a weight up and out, I almost drown. I fumbled back into the water, swallowing water and Jodi reached over and pulled me up. After a minute of coughing the water up, I imagined that surely we had done enough jumping jacks and swam back and forth that it must be time to QUIT!. But no, it had only been 15 minutes. Now came the part of the class where the wheat is separated from the tares. Teacher tells us to come grab hold of the wall and alternately swing our legs up out and over the side of the wall. You have got to be kidding me. Is she crazy? I thought the last time I had to get in this position was during labor. But here I was, trying to lift up my leg, when I happened to look over and see Jodi doubled over laughing so hard at me that I got ticklled, thinking what a sight I must look like. When we both caught our breath, we rejoined the class and I decided that maybe I should juist modify what I attempt (like the teacher suggested I do), rather than try to keep up with the other ladies. After what seemed like 4 hours, the class was finally over.
By nightfall, I could barely walk. This morning, I had to be pulled down the stairs and Randy had to put my shoes on me. Jodi just informed me that tonght we are off for a family adventure. I was hoping for either a movie where I could just sit in the dark and eat popcorn or maybe a trip to the ice cream store. No such luck. We are walking a mile to the Ranch House where the Wednesday night farmer’s market with food trucks arrive so the community can eat dinner on the lawn while the kids feed the ducks in the lake. I realize that this sounds fun, but this means that not only do I have to inch my way down on the lawn, but then I have to get up off the lawn. If I succeed at being able to do this, I am going to reward myself and come home and have a huge slice of the strawberry chocolate cake I just made. It’s funny, I never remember having sore muscles from baking.
In the morning, Jodi has told me that the best thing to get me un-sore is to go back to the class. I’m not proud of the look I gave her or what I was thinking. The only reason I am going along with this is that one day she will be the one taking care of me and I want to be sure that she remembers to bring me cookies in the retirement home. She says that she’s not worried about having to do that as she doesn’t think I will live very long anyway. The way I bake everyday and never exercise, I probably won’t live long enough to be any trouble. Just for that, I’m going to go to her silly exercise class after breakfast, as soon as I finish my 3 egg omelet with extra cheese.
Tomorrow if I survive the class, I will celebrate by coming home and finishing the rest of the cake. So much easier on the ole body.
Chocolate Castles as wel 