Back to Aqua Fit

On Saturday I went back to Aqua Fit class after a rather long absence.

I think it was the winter. All of a sudden when it's cold out, a class in the pool is a major time investment. You can't just run out into the parking lot with wet hair and a sun dress and go about your life. You must dry your hair, get dressed, all that jazz, and before you know it an extra hour has passed.

So on Saturday I had to talk myself into it. Here is your hair dryer, here is your swimsuit, you're going to like this, go.

And I did like it! Until this morning.

That was when I woke up and hurt!

It felt as if I had been in Body Sculpt class. It's funny, I have seen discussion threads on MyFitnessPal and whatnot, about whether to take this class, about whether it is more than just fun. Which, it is fun to be in the pool, let's admit it.

It does do you good!! Take it from me.

Plus you can use someone else's shower and you do not have to squander your own hot water.

Plus, after class the other day, I sketched the street corner. That is it above!

Howard liked it and put it for sale in our gallery.

I liked it, too. I love this side of town, near the gym. The houses have such personality and I love the power lines. It was all great fun. Even if I was a little sore afterwards.

I went back this morning.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring!

Me, the mermaid

I have been doing a new class at the gym, Aqua Fit.

That is not exactly our LA Fitness class in the picture but it may as well be. That is exactly what it looks like. I remember a year ago or something I glanced at Aqua Fit while it was in progress and I saw this big group of men and women of all ages and races and shapes and sizes advancing in the pool like an army, smiling and laughing, hefting these weights. I thought: I should try that! Finally I did.

You get to be in a pool which is fun. I love swimming. So if the teacher is late, as is often the case, no big deal. I've learned enough of the exercises so if the teacher doesn't show up, which is often the case, no big deal. If you get a lazy teacher, no big deal. Unlike in Zumba, where a lazy teacher drove me crazy.

So. I have been doing this Aqua Fit off and on for about six weeks. And this is the truth: Things fit me that did not fit me before that.

No kidding, I bought a pair of pants at the Temple Beth Tzedek sale and they did not fit me then and now they do! And there is nothing else that could have done this for me aside from Aqua Fit. I have made no other lifestyle changes, God knows that.

Perhaps it is just that I am going to the gym three or four times a week because I enjoy this class. Perhaps it is the nature of the class. Oh, who knows.

There was one thing weighing on me. This is great now that it is summer and you feel like jumping into a pool. What about winter?

Then just last night that question was resolved. This other gal in the class, she and I were hanging out in the pool afterwards, paddling around and looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows.

She said: "Just wait till it's winter and it's snowing outside. This will be awesome!!"

She is right!

I just needed someone to point that out!

The important thing is, it's fun, and it works. On top of everything else the class is easy as pie. It is not like Boot Camp or even Pilates. Pilates feels great but it is work, I will tell you that. There have been Pilates classes where I have rolled over on my mat afterwards and thought: I am ready now to audition for the Alvin Ailey. I am a superhero to have gotten through this class.

Aqua Fit on the other hand is a walk in the park.

Exercise does not have to be miserable!

The birthday bunny

My birthday was yesterday and it was good.

Howard gave me 96 Crayola Crayons and a bottle of ...

... and a WBIG TV T-shirt. That is all you need in life if you ask me. Aside from some Leonard Pennario records of course. I tried out the crayons and I sipped some Jagermeister and today I wore the WBIG T-shirt to the gym.

Other things happened too. My family was so nice to me. The people at work were so nice to me. My Facebook friends were so nice to me. People are so sweet, you know?

And another thing about my birthday, I got to go swimming! At a real beach. The water was cold and I was the only one bold enough to go and dive right in. But I did.

That is the greatest, to go swimming on your birthday. I make birthday resolutions the way people sometimes make New Year's resolutions. And one resolution is to go swimming more often, inside or out. Even if it is just at LA Fitness. Swimming does not do me personally much good. I could swim every day and not feel a thing. But it is relaxing.

So beautiful to float in the water and look up in the sky. To do somersaults and flips in the water. I got water up my nose once and it reminded me of when I was a kid.

Nice time all around. Nice day. Nice start to the next year of my life.

Here is another resolution I am making and I do not want anyone to get irritated,  but I would like to try to write something every day. I did that for a while and looking back I am happy I did. If you write something down every day, no matter how dumb, it does something for you. You have to look at your day and say, something happened to me today. I had some thought about something. And you search your memory of the day, and you write something down.

It does not take long. Once you have your thought it takes five minutes. Above is a painting of me by Finnish artist Albert Edelfeldt of me writing down my thoughts. He had trouble doing the painting because I was through with my task so fast. As Merlin tells Arthur in "Camelot": "Do not worry too much about what women are thinking. They don't do it very often."

Ha, ha! That was when you could be politically incorrect. Long story short, I liked all the trivial things I wrote down. In the past when I was writing every day, or most days at least, I would write down so many conversations with my mother. I would never remember them now if I had not written them down. And all these things I bought at garage sales, I would never remember where I got them, had I not written it down. How prudent of me!

Anyway, I am going to be writing more often. If you are a Facebook friend and it comes up too often and vexes you, block me or something, I won't be offended.

This is going to be a good year.

I just have a feeling.

Of cabbages and kings

Thank goodness, I could finally access my masterful photos from my phone and illustrate my market adventure. Cabbages, pictured above, are so under-appreciated!

Tonight I made Asian Chicken Salad from Rachael Ray. I get the Rachael Ray magazine because I got a deal on it. Listen to me, talking like Donald Trump. I negotiated like Trump and got a good deal on Rachael Ray and Eating Well and Better Homes and Gardens.

I am starting to like Rachael Ray even though one day at the gym I got into a conversation with the girl on the next elliptical machine about how we worried that Rachael Ray was putting on pounds. Perhaps she has lost some since then, who knows. Perhaps you have to take her recipes with a grain of salt. That was what we were discussing.

Meanwhile I do like the magazine. I love the puns in the headlines for one thing. I have inherited Leonard Pennario's love for puns and word cleverness. There is a story announcing that from now on, in many cases, they will be calling for just plain olive oil instead of Extra Virgin. The headline: "Oil Change."

And for a special page on beets: "Beet this!"

Things like this make you smile, you know? Anyway back to my cabbage. Here is my friend Jennifer at the Clinton-Bailey Market selling cabbage and other greenery.

I bought a giant Savoy cabbage from Jennifer and it is just so pretty I do not know how I will ever do it justice.

Jeoffry does not care what I do with the Savoy cabbage.

Oh, to sleep so sweetly.

With no tough decisions to make!

A Bill of Divorcement

Today I went to the gym where I rode the elliptical machine and watched "A Bill of  Divorcement."



YouTube gave me a choice of one from 1940 and one from 1932. I went for 1932. And it absorbed me from the word go. Plus it is only an hour and six minutes long. A great gym movie.

I knew next to little about "A Bill of Divorcement," and that is the way I like it. Yesterday I started watching this Joseph Cotten movie "Love Letters." It seemed interesting but first this guy from Turner Classic Movies got on and introduced it. And he told too much! I think there is this egghead attitude that knowing the plot shouldn't spoil it for you, you are above that, you can appreciate the artistry. But I do not want to know what is going to happen! I do not even want to know the first thing!

So that annoyed me, that this guy just told me too much. Plus I had just watched "Portrait of Jennie" on my last two trips to the gym. The gym has sure gotten interesting these days! But I think I was getting a little tired of dour Joseph Cotten. On the other hand, he was great friends with Leonard Pennario and I love him for that, plus let's admit it, Joseph Cotten is handsome as hell, so I was going to see "Love Letters" through. But for some reason today YouTube froze up on the video and would not let me continue watching it. In effect it gave the movie the hook for me. Hence, "A Bill of Divorcement."

I divorced myself from "Love Letters"!

"A Bill of Divorcement" was pretty good. It stars a very young Katherine Hepburn, or as Pennario called her, Katie Hepburn. She looks wonderful, with beautiful gowns that fit her perfectly. And John Barrymore is in it too. The music is by the great Max Steiner, who wrote the music for "Gone With the Wind." I got the feeling as it went on that the movie was based on a play. It just had that feeling. That is all I will say, just in case anyone else wants to watch it and does not want it spoiled.

If anyone watches it, let me know what you think.

I feel as I am in a movie club with myself!

'The Wicked Lady'

Every once in a while I have a gym epiphany, a turn of fate that makes going to the gym easier.

Here is a new one.

Other people no doubt knew this but I had not given it a try. You can watch movies on YouTube while on the treadmill! Or the elliptical machine, as was the case for me.

All kinds of old movies are on YouTube. And old movies are better than new movies in most cases. I just saw that a movie I love, "I Know Where I'm Going," is on YouTube, complete. Pennario loved that movie too. We discussed it. I think of Pennario in relation to a lot of movies, I have to say, because he loved movies so much.

"I Know Where I'm Going" is a bit too good for the gym so for my first gym movie, I am watching "The Wicked Lady," an outrageous 1940s black-and-white yarn starring Margaret Lockwood and James Mason.



I guess you could call it a melodrama. YouTube suggested it to me based on I don't know what, but you know YouTube, it knows you better than you know yourself. At first I doubted that, and I was ready to give the movie the hook. But it would have been too difficult on the elliptical to find something else, and I thought, this might get better.

And it did! You had to catch on to it. It is an 18th century drama and the first thing that happens is, this lady  Caroline is ready to marry this gentleman named Ralph, but her friend Barbara sweeps in and steals him. That was where I thought, oh, come on. But then everything just got weirder until you could not take your eyes away. Highwaymen got involved. There is Lord Jackson prowling the woods.

You get some pirate-speak. "Arr, this is not a matter to be decided with clear heads and dry throats."

The relationship between the ladies and the highwayman is worthy of comment. This one lady says of Jackson: "It would be an honor to be held up by someone as bold and handsome as he." They all seem to know that if you kiss the highwayman he will probably be merciful to you. And sure enough! You see him robbing these ladies and one says, "I will give you a kiss."

He kisses her and says: "Arr, I'll take no more from you."

It sounds hilarious to write about. Actually it is a good drama. Anyway there went 400 calories, before I knew it. I am waiting to see how this all shakes out. If anybody knows, do not spoil it for me. I have not even looked at the comments on the video.

I am counting on this to get me through one more workout!

Pretty in pink

Remember a few days ago when I had to approach my Zumba teacher with the nerdy request to turn the music down? And she was so nice about it?

I went to a different gym once since then and I wish I could have asked the same question.

It is strange because I have begun going to Zumba more often than I had in recent months. Last week I, um, went five times, I think. It is a good time investment, you know? I feel better. I sleep better. I can get up earlier to do Pennario work.

But Zumba changed a little in the months when I was not going as often. The clothes are more aggressive, more street-like, and the tunes are louder. This gal at the Sheridan Drive L.A. Fitness was blasting this stuff. I mean, it hurt!

There was not much point in taking the matter up with her. I do not go to that gym much and I ended up leaving before the final stretching, that was how deafening it was. Meanwhile this is embarrassing but I had to Zumba way in the back where all kinds of people in the gym could see me. Ha, ha! In my retro, un-hip, hot pink, un-threatening, un-street-wise Zumba pants. See that picture up above? That is not me but that was my exact outfit. It looked exactly as dopey on me the way as it looks on her. With everyone else in the class trying to dress like, I don't know, the Goodyear Boys. Ha, ha!

Speaking of which, not to change the subject, but that reminds me...

Isn't it about time Zumba clothes began showing up at garage sales?

This fad has been around for a while now.

This summer, I will be on the alert for used Zumba clothes.

It has to happen!

Ominous evening at the gym

Last night I had Parish Council meeting and so I stayed downtown after work. As long as I was downtown I worked in a class at the downtown L.A. Fitness. I keep wanting to say Buffalo Athletic Club because this is the stentorian building with the marble steps, where Leonard Pennario used to go. But now it is L.A. Fitness.

The class was called, I believed, Body Works. Something different, I thought.

That was for sure!

It was a lot like the old Body Sculpt classes you used to have. Only it seemed it was more work. You had to hop up and down risers, doing squats and lunges (words I hate) and lifting weights this way and that. There was a long sequence of exercises and we went through it three times, upping the number of reps (another word I hate) every time.

Luckily the teacher has a sense of humor, and got us through it. Plus, a camaraderie quickly built up in class because it was so much work. By the end of class we were all commiserating and talking.

And this one guy, his T-shirt soaked in sweat, said to me, "Wait till Thursday."

What's Thursday? I said. All I could think of was Thursday is when I am getting my piano tuned. But that is another story for another day.

He said, "That's when it hits you."

And a nearby woman chimed in and agreed. "You'll feel OK tomorrow," she told me. "But then Thursday it will be different."

Downstairs in the locker room I was combing my hair and trying to recover myself enough so I looked decent for parish council. And this other gal in the class came up and started talking about ... guess what?

Thursday!

She said that last Thursday she had a cold and stayed home from work. But the big reason she took that sick day was this class! "I was on the couch all day Thursday with a heating pad," she confessed.

Oh, no!!

Today, just as the one girl predicted, I am feeling OK. But now I am worried.

What will tomorrow be like?

Is this heaven? No, it's the gym

I worked late today and decided I did not have time for the gym. I would be too late for Zumba class which began at 5:45 p.m.

However! Somehow I took the exit automatically and my car homed toward the gym. And I soon saw why.

Everything was charmed!

First, I scored this great parking space that miraculously opened. Second, this handsome gentleman waited something like a minute and a half to hold the door for me. Why, thank you, kind sir! He smiled at me as if to say, Welcome to L.A. Fitness!

As I walked in the sound system was just kicking in with the title theme to "Flashdance."



I am sorry, if they cannot play Leonard Pennario that is the next best thing. It cracked me up.

Next what happened was, I was walking toward the locker room and there were these tables set up promoting some concern or other, I do not know what, but they had this big boxer that wore a sign saying "Pet Me." This was the dog boxer...

... not the other kind.

This being a gym I must make that clear!

I could not believe my luck. I had assumed the boxer would be a blind person's dog, one that you could not pet. So I hugged the boxer dog and petted him as he looked up at me with his sweet serious eyes.

No one was in the locker room. I dressed in comfort in my Zumba clothes. I was a half hour late for the class but what the heck, there was still a half hour to go. Zumba was fun. I looked skinnier than I had looked last week. As class was ending and I was leaving I thought the teacher called over to me, "You sneaked in when I wasn't looking!" But I do not know this teacher. I thought: She could not be talking to me.

I did some weights and then I went to the locker room to get my stuff. And the teacher appeared! She said, again: "You sneaked in!" Then she said: "I was so happy to see you! I always love when you come to my class."

I stood there in my conspicuous neon Zumba clothes, smiling, delighted.

What a wonderful hour at the gym!

No wonder my car led me there!

When I left I hoped to pet the boxer again but he was gone. I wondered for a second if I had dreamed him.

Everything was just too perfect, you know?

You've got to wonder.

I know squat

Tonight I went to Zumba class. Our teacher was wearing a shirt that said in big letters, "YOU DON'T KNOW SQUAT."

By the end of the class I knew squat.

Hahaha I am seeing online there are all kinds of inspirational quotes about squats, such as ...

And...

It is funny, what good it does you to move around after a day sitting at your desk. On the way to the gym I was vexed because my brakes were making a noise and I am thinking I will have to go in and get a brake job. Once I walked into the gym and went to Zumba class I forgot all about my brakes. And when I came out to the parking lot and remembered them, it did not seem as bad.

Brakes, schmakes.

So what?

So I spend a thousand dollars, big whiz. Remember that when you were a kid, you would say "Big whiz." Haha.

My car is getting to the point where it is this or it is that. All little things, nothing that will strand me, but I have to start thinking of if I want to get a newer car, one that will give me less trouble. My CD player has been kaput for some time, which is torture because I have Leonard Pennario's "Virtuoso Showpieces" sitting right there all ready to go in the slot in the driver's side door. The sun roof kicked a while ago. All kinds of things are not working and so decisions must be made.

But not today. That is a nice thing when you can say that no decision has to be made today.

It can be postponed!

Gotta dance

Yesterday I had a very long day at work so I chilled out afterward by going to Zumba. Our cat Jeoffry had been under the weather so I found myself apologizing to him as I backed out the door in my pink Zumba pants.

"Jeoffry, I'm sorry, I'm just going to Zumba," I told him. "I'll be back. I'll leave class 15 minutes early."

I actually said that!

The good news is that Jeoffry got over what he had which, that is a story for another day. Also I liked Zumba class a lot more than I thought I would. I had kind of fallen off the Zumba wagon because it had become too much a hip-hop, shake-your-booty, backwards-baseball-cap thing. I mean, I can take a song or two of that, but I do not want it to be the whole class.

It seemed it had become all this monotonous stuff with someone yelling something over a beat. Once I kept track and there were something like 10 songs in a row with absolutely no tune. Some of the words were too trashy. The "songs" were too dumb. I picked up that snotty habit from Leonard Pennario of the sarcastic use of quote marks.

Also, as you can see in this picture ...

... nobody wears those cute neon-colored Zumba clothes I used to like. It says you do not take yourself too seriously and now I think Zumba takes itself more seriously.

Anyway I had not been to Zumba in a while.

But you have to do something, you know? I missed the exercise. So yesterday there I was. And it was better. Not as bad as I had been remembering. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging, pendulously, back the other way.

Plus we had a great teacher who never stopped the class. I hate lazy teachers who stop the class. It ended up this teacher was imported from Clarence for the evening, my luck. But anyway, good class, and it made me feel good. I will try Zumba again.

I will report!

The yoga yo-yo

That is me! I am the yo-yo.

I have always been kind of conflicted about yoga but I find myself going because there are more yoga classes than Pilates classes. But here is what is funny: Whenever I find myself going something happens to make me wonder.

Remember the time my mother seemed to know, magically, that I was planning on buying yoga clothes and going to yoga? Today was like that.

I got into the car to go to yoga and the radio goes on and there was Mother Angelica...

... and she was talking about Eastern religions. She was joking around about how everyone is suggesting you do Buddhist this and Hindu that but oh, the Rosary, that is so old-fashioned. I started laughing because I got what she was saying. Then I caught my breath.

Oh, no! What about my yoga class??

It is uncanny, how this happens to me.

Obstinately I went to my class. And for a while everything is fine. Half way through the class, I am thinking, this is cool. The teacher is just droning on with her loud instructions, and there is no mention of this New Age gobbledygook. This is great! I can go with this.

And then, just as we are all balancing on one toe, or whatever,  the woman goes: "Set an intention for this practice."

Set an intention? I am in the gym, not in church!

My only intention is to look like a supermodel!

And it just went from there. Now I am thinking again that I have to stay away. I just cannot stand for this kind of thing. Once again, I am tied up in knots.

It is tough because I sort of enjoy yoga. That is not I in the picture above but take my word for it. I like to stretch myself this way and that. I think it dates to my love of playing Twister when I was a kid, plus working on my Pennario project I am used to stretching myself.

But you just cannot ignore these signs, you know?

All I can think is that my mother, being no longer around to supervise me in person, has somehow got Mother Angelica on my case.

How do they always know what is going on?

Spaaaaaaaahhhhhh

Remember the gym and the pool and the hot tub? Today I indulged. 

It is funny, the social skills it takes to use the pool at the gym. You have to walk out in public in your bathing suit. You have to finesse sharing someone's lane in the pool. Not everyone can do that which is why the pool is never as crowded as you think it will be. Not even in Buffalo, where people like to talk. Not even on a rainy Saturday.

I was the only girl in the pool! It was me and four or five guys. They were all nice and I did lazy laps. The only thing missing was, I wished I had a bathing cap. I am in the market for a retro bathing cap (see picture).

 I kept looking out the tall windows thinking, this is amazing, this place is two minutes from my house, I feel as if I am in this hotel. Except for if I were in a hotel people would be showing up with all their kids and their kids would be doing cannonballs and making all this noise. So this was better.

Then --- ahhh, the Jacuzzi. It made me think of California. Leonard loved hot tubs. It made me think of when I was in California on a break from my job and I didn't have to go to work, I mean go to an office. So I sat in the gym Jacuzzi and just enjoyed myself. For one brief shining moment I did not have to be anywhere. It was an amazing feeling. One of the guys who was swimming joined me and we made small talk about how great this pool is, how great it was that although it was this rainy Saturday hardly anyone was here. 

You can be in a hot tub only so long so eventually I had to get out. "Enjoy the rest of your day," he told me.

Which, I did! I wrote a lot and I cooked a lot.

A perfect Saturday afternoon!

Wheel of fortune

Yesterday I went to the late yoga class at the Buffalo Athletic Club. I have kind of fallen in with taking yoga now and then despite my reservations. It is OK other than when the teacher goes into that gobbledygook where she asks you: "Set an intention for your practice tonight."

Ahem, an intention?

My intention is to tone myself up!

Then there is this further goofiness where you fold your hands and "seal your intention." Yeah right as Leonard Pennario used to say. This is when I fuss with my socks and sneakers.

Other than that I like this teacher and between this and the Pilates classes I have been taken I am getting stronger and stronger. Last night I was able to do the Plough pose ...

... which I could not do the other day.

I also did the Wheel!

I did not expect I would be able to do it but I pushed my hands into the mat as the teacher said and all of a sudden there I was, floating up there in the Wheel pose. From my upside-down vantage point I surveyed the room and I noticed that no one else was doing the pose. I was the only one! I freaked out seeing that. What did they know that I did not? What if my back snapped? What if I hurt myself?

Why was I up here in this crazy pose and nobody else was?

It actually did not feel bad. All my classes have been paying off and I think I am a little stronger. But I was happy when the teacher said to get down from there. "Enough of that!" I said.

A few minutes later the teacher tried leading us in a split.

"No," I told myself. "You are not going to do a split. We have never done a split. We are not going to start now."

Because all of a sudden I worried I would be able to do it. Heck, I'd done everything else!

Now when it is time to go to the gym I kind of worry.

Who knows what the next class will bring?

Oh, no, the Crow

I went to PiYo class today where they tried to make us do the Crow. That is the Crow up above.

Will someone tell me why you would want to do this pose?

I mean, it is all on your wrists. I do not want my whole body supported on my wrists. Although I do admit it looks pretty entertaining. And you do kind of look like a crow, you know?

Entertaining as it was I resisted it.

No Crow for me!

It is kind of fun, this class. The teacher pads among us, saying, "Beautiful." The lights were off and all we had was the light coming in the glass block windows from the Cardio room. If I could not do a pose I would sit there and plan out my writing on Leonard Pennario.

At the end of the class the teacher is just kind of sitting there with her hands folded and her head down acting as if it is this sacred thing, and so you do not bother her.

It was like that once when I went to a yoga class at the Tri-Main Center with my friend Michelle. This hippie was leading the class and at the end she brought us through this long meditation. You were supposed to lie and close your eyes and not look up. But I looked up! And this teacher was sitting there just blissing out, sitting there crossed-legged among all these dozens of candles.

That was a great hippie scene! I do not know if I will see the like anytime soon, But in the meantime I think I am making good progress toward my exercise goals.

As the crow flies!

The gym at the end of the universe

Last night I went to a Zumba class at an unusual gym. It is the Buffalo Athletic Club at Eastern Hills! I almost never go there.

I used to go to that gym all the time back when Howard lived on Transit Road. I had this routine, after work on Fridays I would go out to Transit and decompress by going first to the Salvation Army out on Transit and next to the BAC. Hundreds of times I went to that BAC because this routine carried over a few years.

Then after I converted Howard into an urbanite our routines changed and I never go to that particular club any more. And here is what is funny: They remodeled that Eastern Hills BAC a few years ago and now when I go I no longer recognize a thing there.

"Well," Howard said, "it was a long time ago." And it was.

We are talking, ahem, a decade ago! Before Leonard Pennario. Before everything.

But still. When I say I went to that gym hundreds of times, I mean that literally. It is amazing that they remodeled that place so thoroughly that absolutely nothing is familiar. This other time when I went, a few months ago, I had to ask where the locker rooms were!

I don't even remember where I used to park or even how I used to get to the darn place. Transit Road changes constantly and so different buildings surround the gym than used to.

End result, as we say here in Buffalo: I really enjoyed my trip to the gym yesterday. I love newness when it comes to the gym. Different gym, different class, different teacher. The teacher this time was Patti and here is something I loved: She had hurt her foot and so another teacher was teaching the class, and Patti was Zumba-ing while sitting on a medicine ball!

That is the kind of commitment I admire.

Zumba must be done whether or not you can walk!

One other neat thing, on the way out they gave me a gift of free yogurt. An 8-ounce serving, too. I must have had that lean and hungry look.

A memorable evening!

Having a ball

On Sunday I was a little under the weather and so today I exercised with the medicine ball.

I notice on the Internet that a medicine ball is usually pictured as little.

But the medicine ball I have is big! And that is the kind of ball I learned was called a medicine ball. That is a phrase I love! Other people can call it a resistance ball or exercise ball. But I will henceforth call it a medicine ball. Hahahaa... in the picture above, I love how in the background you see this dog snoozing. The dog has no use for exercise!

Back to the ball.

I found this one impossible video. I did it a few days ago and today too.



It made me feel like such a weakling! But then that is what a medicine ball is for, to make you strong and healthy.  Plus there is something about exercising with a ball. It feels like play!

Even if you are failing and falling all over the place. I was kind of weak so there were times when I just kind of lay there. But tomorrow I will be stronger!

I long to be able to balance on the ball like a seal.

And do this.

But like my book on Leonard Pennario ...

Great things take time!

Ow, ow, ow!

I went to Pilates class today. My body just felt as if it wanted it so I said, "OK, body. OK."

Wow, was I ever sorry!

We did all those exercises pictured above and then some. Thanks a lot, body, for wanting that!

I have been out of the Pilates loop for a while, just the way I have been out of the Leonard Pennario loop. And I found to my horror that I could not even do the Roll-Up. That is where you lie on your back and have to sit up with your legs flat on the floor. Son of a sea cook, I could not do it! I would psych myself into rolling up ...

... but then I would have to grab onto my legs just to pull myself up. Not good, not good! It will come back to me in a few weeks but still.

The teacher, Jill, said encouragingly: "We are doing this later in the workout so you can see how your body performs when it is warmed up ... or, maybe, exhausted."

I was certainly in the exhausted category.

After that I went to Albrecht Discount  on Sheridan and they were remodeling! Dust and dirt and cardboard boxes were everywhere. Most unsettling.

I said, "I hope you're not changing things too much. I like things at Aldi the way they are."

The one workman said to me, "We're just trying to make things so that whatever Aldi you will walk into, things are the same. Like at Walmart."

 I bought some Goldhen eggs and fled.

But now a few hours later I am feeling good. I have my Goldhen eggs plus I have the aching muscles that prove I had a really good workout.

I am ahead in the game of life!

No, no Namaste

Today I went to PiYo downtown which is short for Pilates/Yoga although technically I am not allowed to do yoga. A lot of the class is Pilates so it is not too bad.

I figure I can get away with it as long as they do not get into New Age speak. Besides which there is no way that what I am doing could be construed as praying in any way, shape or form. There is not a thought in my head while I am doing these exercises other than my Leonard Pennario book and whether or not I look fat.

My cousin Katie does my PiYo class with me on the next mat. She always looks great in these black outfits. I wear a variety of Goodwill clothes and some look better than others.

We had to laugh at a few things including but not limited to when the teacher told us, "Relax your nose."

Hahahahaa!

And I always wince at the end if they hit you with that "Namaste."

Who do they think I am, this person?

I am not allowed to say Namaste!

So I look away and pretend I am busy rolling up my mat or something.

La la la la la la la.

Still no yo

My muscles are all going to be hurting tomorrow thanks to Father Gabriel Amorth, Chief Exorcist of the Catholic Church.

He was responsible for the most painful Pilates workout I have ever had!

Today my schedule was weird so I had trouble scheduling a gym visit. I have been thinking I need some stretching and toning as opposed to brute-strength fat-burning, i.e. Zumba, which is what I usually do. And I saw this yoga class that would fit in nicely with my schedule.

I know, I had reservations about yoga. However. It just so happens that recently this one very conservative Catholic priest I respect had said yoga was OK as long as all you were doing were the exercises. So I thought, perhaps there is a future for me and yoga after all!

However.

Every time I find myself on the verge of doing yoga, something happens. And what happened in this case was that just to check, I Googled "Catholic Yoga."

And what bounced right up at me but this story!

I know, people think I am crazy for taking what this guy says seriously. They make him out in the photo to be really creepy and strange. In the comment section, which I had to go on and read, everyone is mocking out the Catholic and this exorcist in particular. One commenter called him "a drooling old man."

Um, hello?

Faced between believing the, ahem, Chief Exorcist of the Catholic Church, an educated and experienced man in his 80s, and the average person who comments on sites like this, I am sorry, I choose the exorcist. You do not get to be Chief Exorcist of the Catholic Church for nothing. Being the authorized biographer of Leonard Pennario I understand something about brilliant Italian men in their 80s. I would go with them over these people whose comments I am reading.

These commenters, they sound like demons, you know? Peek into the comment section and it is like opening the door to hell.

Anyway, no yoga. Instead I went for the Pilates class that followed.

Wherein the teacher absolutely killed us. The teacher scheduled to teach the class, Jill, was for some reason not there. I never realized what a walk in the park Jill is until this evening.

After my Pilates class I went to Zumba class just to get my old self back.

Again, may I state my appreciation for a religions that says no to yoga but has no problem with Zumba.

I am in the right place!