Wednesday - Guinness Book of World Records is first published (1955)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Another hat trick: drug store, library, and supermarket in one outing. Excitement was watching an event unfold at the supermarket. When attempting to get my shopping cart, I was blocked by an older couple with their cart absolutely in the middle of the space needed by everyone coming and going. She was trying to fix something over her eye and he was being unhelpful. I started to kindly suggest that they could move aside a bit but chose instead to indulge in being retired; I just paused believing that being interrupted would make their problem worse and that the delay would end. Just then a belligerent old badger in one of the store's electric carts yelled from the doorway, "You're blocking everyone, you idiots, get out of the way." Despite the unnecessarily unpleasantness, the problem resolved.

Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Dinner on the patio of grilled salmon and my huge green salad of our gardens cukes and tomatoes. Adult conversation was diverted when I told DW my old badger encounter including that he was wearing Red Sox PJ bottoms, seriously diminishing his authoritarian aura. So we talked fashion - the current generation walking about in PJs everywhere. We'd recently learned that kids show up to class in "dress" PJs. They aren't what they sleep in; that would be ratty t-shirts and whatever. DW reminded me that I used to wear PJs whose tops had a collar and lapels like Ricky Ricardo wore in I Love Lucy. Terrific diversion from any discussion of reality.


onebyone - I'm inclined to believe the Glucose Goddess because of her compelling name. Who'd have thought that calf raises would do some much good. Yay for another reason to get more veggies on your plate.

maryann – For that price, I do hope your DH's "bespoke suit and the accouterments" included a top hat. Congrats for surviving a visit to the Cheesecake Factory.

Readers -

Good Morning, Coaches.

OP day yesterday. After arms weight training I went on the climber for 30 mins. Today will be legs and then the same climber. It was tiring but great. I did laundry, organized and slept well. The biggest challenge came with the evening AA meeting and the birthday cake that was pulled out at about 8:30 pm. Frosting is my thing. I can always rationalize scraping the frosting off several pieces of baked good. I used my resistance muscle and thought of DH who has said "No" to town food - his achilles heel. Three cheers for a team effort.

BBE: The luxury of retirement is allowing life's dramas to unfold with being in the middle of them.

Last night's adventure was a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, performed in the park nearest to my house. Perfect. It was a short version, only 90 minutes long, so I was home early enough that it didn't disrupt my evening eating or bedtime. The weather was amazing, the production was creative, and the energetic cast added to the fun.

Exercise: 50, 1550/1800 minutes for August
Weigh-in: N/A, goal for August is 82.1

Fall-like
 

Coaches

Our temperature has.cooled.down. The mornings feel like September. September is close but not here yet! Summer will return a few more times but it's moving on for sure.

I was supposed to so something today, but didn't. I'm just hanging around the house. Tomorrow I'm going to go to Newmakeit and work on my mentorship ceramic project in the morning. I need to make 29-6x6 tiles. Doesn't seem so hard.

Foodwise I made chicken soup with wontons. I made the bone broth in the instant pot last night and used half for my soup today. It's all gone. Tomorrow I'll use the other half of my broth for chicken stew.. I did finish off the ice cream. It was a.small.amount and I am glad there isn't any in the house again.
My knee is almost back to normal again. Wow. What a scare that was. The reward for losing weight would be to prevent that kind of thing from becoming a regular consequence e.od the weight I carry now. Of course it wouldn't be just that; it would gradually get worse. I don't want to find out what that would be. It's a good.motivator to stay on track. I'm sorry I had the ice cream today.

Bedtime!

Thursday - Ten suffragists are arrested while picketing the White House (1917)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Picked up the (barely still 9 yo) DGD from Fourth Grade. She still talks to us like a little girl even though the first-day-of-school pictures that her mom posted on Facebook look like a teenager. Shocker: She doesn't get any books; everything they read is online! She carries a small laptop provided by the school back and forth to school every day. A school without text books doesn't fit my image of how the world works. She is enough aware of the world to excitedly tell me that Taylor Swift is engaged "to some football player." Glad she's keeping up.

Was pleased that I now have decent bottoms to wear while sleeping which I had ordered from disliked Amazon because one click of a button is as much "shopping" as I want. Note, they're not PJs, they're lounge pants. I practiced wearing them at dinner outside last evening to see if I felt like a lounger instead of an under-dressed man. They lounge well. As my reward for shopping, I relegated two items from my active wardrobe to the fabric recycle bag. A more fashion conscious person might be embarrassed when his clothes go directly to recycle. I savor that they're fully used.

Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Dinner on the patio was chicken tenders. DW resorted to chicken tenders instead of chicken breasts because the breasts have gotten too big to divide in half for two servings. It's the age of monster chickens. The tenders were, in fact, tender enough to cut with the edge of my fork. Evening snack include a thin slice of watermelon from a full sized melon. It was more tasty than the small sized melons that we usually buy because they're the amount of watermelon we want. There's a bunch of watermelon in my immediate future.


onebyone - Do admire that you make your own bone broth. Laughing that you find making "29-6x6 tiles. Doesn't seem so hard."

Joy (gardenerjoy) - I join you in appreciating a performance that ends early in the evening. I had planned to just skim by Percival Everett but I'm mesmerized; can't put it down. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry when, on Jackson Island, James forgets to 'translate' and says "hilarious" to Huck. Were all the readers in your book club able to easily understand the written dialect?

maryann – Kudos to your role model, "DH who has said "No" to town food - his achilles heel."

Readers -

I'm back from my Maine adventure. I had so much fun, primarily since BFF was with me and we laughed a ton as we have a similar sense of warped humor and know how to set each other off. We each have one exhausting kid and we commiserate about that too. We were on the third floor so got some exercise each day by climbing the stairs multiple times. When we got there, the leader stated "you're the fifty year olds!" as we were indeed the youngest by 10 -31 years. I always find group dynamics and social interactions fascinating, and most of them knew each other so that was all quite interesting. I tried intro to pickleball and now have a clue about it although the scoring seems confusing. We played in a bocce tournament-which went on a little too long-and the 89 year old was once again on the winning team. There were a few old Mainers there who were quite excellent at bocce, We also did country dancing,I did the singalong and BFF did a craft. Plus lots of time on the beach staring at the ocean. We got in as far as our calves. I forget how strong the ocean is each time, you really have to brace yourself to not fall. The food was so-so and we both fell into panic over eating as it was 3 squares at certain times and then no snacks, which is not conducive to healthy eating, but it was only for a few days. The lobster dinner was lovely. i always make the mistake of eating the biggest part first and then I'm disappointed at the little bits after;)
Folks were quite welcoming and encouraged us to come back next year. I slept poorly the whole time and even last night couldn't get to sleep until late and that can prime your appetite too unfortunately. I came back up a pound but definitely got exercise walking around etc. I am now quite determined to get back on the healthy train. Wave to all!

Good Morning, Coaches.

Yesterday I logged my food and trained t the gym for an hour. Yeah! My struggle is to not weigh myself. I have committed to at least a three month project. I need to let go of control before I sabotage myself.

This is much to be done outside at the Riverhouse and my hy house. the problem is the heat. My training happens during the coolest part of the day so that leaves this weekend. I can totally do that. They put the chandelier in the foyer of the Riverhouse and it is stunning. https://ibb.co/YF5LZM7j.

The food is tricky because I need to fit in over 125 grams of protein which means I am cutting out fruits and veggies - my source of fiber. Today I will commit to salads..

Curly: What a fun weekend. Sign me up.
BBE: It is good schools are one to one. Poorer districts have yet to catch up. Be prepared to have all your expectations of what school is be rocked. Had I continued to teach, I would have thought long and hard changing my goals and assignments to prepare your DGD for the next 20 years.

Today's adventure was my annual mammogram. I got the results back in less than two hours -- all clear! So, it's nice not to have to worry about that for awhile.

My scale reading was unexpectedly up this morning, but I think I'll just ignore that and see if it takes care of itself. I can do more in a day or two, if it doesn't.

Exercise: 50, 1550/1800 minutes for August
Weigh-in: 83.05, goal for August is 82.1

Friday - Portugal recognizes the independence of its former colony Brazil (1825)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Spent the day putting together some notes for an email exchange with my brothers trying to remember our childhood. Am finding that our memories show that we were raised in completely different families, albeit in the same place and time. Experiences differ and memories fade differently.

Lunch was my much loved tomato sandwich. Made after I put two slices of bread in the compost because of white spots. These days I don't eat bread with visible mold. In my younger days, I believed that my gut would win the battle with a little mold. Now that I've learned the word 'microbiome' I'm less blasé. I note that there are a zillion products to feed me probiotics without much information about what biotics my gut needs.

Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi. Fell into an afternoon snack of roasted pecans because I was sure that eating would reduce tension from trying to write. It didn't. Dinner on the patio included a few last green beans from the garden. Entertainment was a worker ascending a ladder, totally alone, carrying an eight foot stretch of rain gutter to attach to the house under construction at 7pm. Do hope he was paid well for such derring-do (which I've always apparently misspelled as 'daring-do').


Joy (gardenerjoy) - Good news that one more body part doesn't need medical attention. Ignoring small scale fluctuations sounds Beck like to me.

maryann – That chandelier is stunning. You seem to be making a zillion design decisions at the River House. By the by, today in 1911 is the day that "Ishi, considered the last Native American to make contact with European Americans, emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California." Is that noted out your way?

curlyjax - Welcome home. What fun to be the youngest in a crowd of active people. Days of laughter sound rejuvenating.

Readers -

I got sucked into the lure of grilled cheese and tomato again at work. At least its on a panini grill so not soaked in butter. I told myself I was off sugar but stumbled on that too. At least I got some exercise in at work and took a walk later in the day as well. More plans made; I talked to DS and determined I'll come help him move stuff on Tuesday-he's going to just move his mattress Monday, which is going to be a super crazy day as its the holiday etc. That way, we can get the car stuff finalized at an insurance agency on Tuesday, we'll take the rest of the stuff to Somerville, and he can get a parking permit online hopefully. Then later in the day yesterday, DD brought up that she wanted to go to a concert before she goes back to work. We looked it up and discovered there's one in NYC next Thursday. So I booked a hotel and train tickets (which we'll split) and we're going up for 24 hours. Fortunately a friend of mine goes up all the time to visit her DD so I got great info from her. And then I'm going to visit my aunt etc the week after. We're also 'going to Aruba in November and need to plan that. I'm spending all my vacation hours this fall I guess! assuming we can get our passports in time. I've warned DD that this is IT for quite awhile.
I'm off today as I'm taking DD for a follow up doc appt in the middle of the day. I'm feeling like there is a lot to do/plan and a bit stressed about everything, even the good stuff.
Maryann-that chandelier is just gorgeous!
Gardenerjoy-how great to have good news, and delivered so quickly too.
Bill-it's always interesting what sticks in people's minds. Great idea to do this now.

My day has a bunch of worries in it.

A friend just found out that his post-surgery PSA is way higher than it should be (meaning, probably, that they didn't get it all).

Dear Niece hasn't communicated in over a week. She used to at least answer my Thursday text that says "How about lunch tomorrow?" But she ignored that, too.

Dear Brother just had a doctor tell him to go to the ER for admittance to the hospital. That's weirdly good news. He has cellulitis. He's had it in the past, but so long ago that his current records don't show it, so he had a hard time getting his medical team to respond appropriately. A few days of IV antibiotics in the hospital is what fixes it, so I think he's glad to finally have that as the plan.

When he's feeling a bit better, I'll drive down with the travel chess set that we used as kids. He has a modern travel set with a rollable silicon board, but it's larger than a typical hospital table. The travel chess set will fit on one of those.

That's probably not today, so I want to make sure that I get in today's exercise and follow my food plan so that I can be in good shape if I have a disrupted day over the weekend.

Exercise: 60, 1670/1800 minutes for August
Weigh-in: NA, goal for August is 82.1

BillBlueEyes: I forgot to say yesterday that my book club did struggle some with the dialect in James (and in Huckleberry Finn for the folks who read it, too). I think it was a little easier for the few members of the book club who grew up in small towns in Missouri.

A book I started reading
 

Good evening Coaches

On Monday when I was at Sunnybrook I found the book A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. I think this is one of those books that everyone reads, right?

I didn't expect it to hook me, but it did. I like stories about travel. I could have spent most of the day reading that book, as I didn't do anything today, but I didn't. I think I'm just bringing this up because of reading previous Beck posts about Huckleberry Finn - another one of those books that everyone reads. Hmmm I'm not even sure why I am writing this either so I will move on.

Basically I have not been able.to get myself.to do anything this week. I've been in low gear nursing the knee (seems pretty healed now) and just not motivated to do anything.

Tomorrow DH is picking up a van to move the stuff from his two lockers into one new locker at a different location, but still.nearby. I've promised myself to work on the apartment all day with the exception of a break at.noon to visit the Mill Pond Gallery to see the work of two art friends and what they've been up to in their week-long residency.

Guess that's it.

Maryann: that's a gorgeous light fixture. Is it old?

Curlyjax: I'm happy your time away with BFF worked out. I'm in happy you spent time laughing. I love laughing!

Gardenerjoy: I'm sure your brother will smile when he sees you arrive with the chess set. I'm glad he's doing ok and I wish your friend well.

BillBlueEyes: I gasped that DGD was entering grade 4! Wow. I can't understand learning without books to lead through. The tactile nature of paper isn't there at all either. One of the comments I often get from younger people who are trying clay is that they love to feel the material in their hands. That they find it soothing. I like to hold books and find them soothing. But if I.didnt do that would I feel the same? I'll never.kniw.

Saturday-Jawaharlal Nehru's Report officially requests independence for India (1928)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Emailed my notes about our childhood to my brothers. That's the hardest part of writing for me - declaring that I'm done. Have no idea how the great writers like Ernest Hemingway decided that a novel was completed. It might have been easier when a novel was shipped to a publisher who committed it to hot type for printing. Can't easily change words molded into lead print.

Had an unusual visit from the (5 yo) DGD and our DIL. Her school doesn't start until next week and she's done with her summer camps. So mom and tyke have spent the whole week together going places. DW had volunteered our house as a place to go - giving us an extra visit with her. At one point when she was getting too rambunctious, DW offered her a snack. A handful of grapes calmed her down a bit. At that age, food does solve problems.

Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Lunch was a tomato sandwich; dinner was a previously-frozen vegetarian lasagna. We happily ate indoors due to a half-inch of rain that made gardener DW so very happy.


onebyone - The Appalachian Trail is indeed the ultimate . I cherish telling folks that I've walked the knife edge on Mount Katahdin in Maine where it ends. I join you in believing in the power of a holding a printed book. Good news that the knee is pretty well healed.

Joy (gardenerjoy) - What a cheering thought to arrive at your DB's hospital bed with your childhood travel chess set. I'm a believer that happy events support healing.

curlyjax - Sounds like you're beating the bureaucracy of the MA Department of Motor Vehicles. A trip to NYC is a much happier thought. Look forward to hearing a good hotel recommendation.

Readers -

DD and I got into a kerfuffle in the am , partly because she was hangry and quite sleep deprived. Her appt went well though and we managed to both be in better moods after. I went to the cafeteria during her appt as I was hungry, and found a small thing of just tuna (plus some mayo) which was perfect, instead of the muffins etc. On the way home we stopped at our usual post hospital haunts and I succumbed to a stuffed huge cookie, telling myself this is it! DD zipped back that way for a hair appt while I took a nap, then I brought her to the T stop so she could go to https://www.stanthonysfeast.com/index.html with some friends. I wish I could go, it looks really fun! Next year. While she was gone I felt a bit depressed looking around at the house which is even MORE cluttered than before I left, and I decided to just watch tv and eat terribly;) I went to bed to await the call from her to pick her up from the T, which was quite late-we got home at 2:00 am. But I know she's been feeling depressed and bored after surgery, so I was a good sport about it. This one time!!
I'm going to the new gym this am for a 10 workout and to sign up officially for a month. I hope it isn't just me-I forgot its labor day weekend and a lot of folks will be gone. I like small groups but don't like all the attention on me. Then its the usual Saturday clean out the fridge and dump run, groceries at some point, laundry etc and firming up our plans for Aruba. DD found her passport and thankfully it hadn't expired- now I have to find mine. It looks like it will be a beautiful sunny day which always uplifts my mood.
Onebyone-I'm with you on the relaxing feel of a book. I've read other things by Bill Bryson- he is a fun writer- but not that. I haven't read Huck Finn either!
Gardenerjoy-hope DB is feeling better.
Bill-cool that you've walked the knife edge. It will be so fun to see what your brothers wrote. I'm wondering what the finished product will look like- is one brother editing them all?

I'm looking forward to a visit with my brother after my usual midday vigil.

The usual Saturday challenge with food will be even more challenging. But it can be planned, so I'm off to do that....Okay. Done.

Exercise will also be a challenge. Fortunately, I only need 70 minutes to complete my August goal. I've been averaging 60 minutes a day. So, if all I manage is 10 to 30 minutes today, I will easily finish tomorrow. I'm going to plan to do that this morning so I don't have to worry about it later in the day. If I have my usual second exercise session, that's great. If I don't, that's okay, too.

Exercise: 60, 1730/1800 minutes for August
Weigh-in: NA, goal for August is 82.1