Tag Walking

All In The Family

Michael 7 Comments

My cousin and his wife are out walking. They are in Italy right now. Or maybe Germany. Could even be France or Switzerland. You see, they are hikers and are wandering around the Alps on this trip. I’m not sure when they started hiking. When I remember those childhood days of visiting him two whole states away I attribute his current walking prowess to his wife because as a 10 year old I seem to remember reluctance on his part to cross the street on foot. Now the two of them have even adopted a portion of the Appalachian Trail to keep it free of litter and debris.

I wish I could be like them. In my more agile years I had often trekked through various state, county, and local parks’ walking and hiking trails. I even had a hiking merit badge in the Boy Scouts. (Oops, they don’t use “boy” in that organization’s name any more. Something about not being inclusive. Someone should mention that to the Girl Scouts. But I digress.) I liked to walk. I still do. Now my walks are more along the line of up and down the sidewalk in front of my building and a half mile is as much trekking as I do at one time. I remember walking a half mile from the parking lot to the trail head in some of those parks.

Walking might come to me genetically. The hiking cousin takes his walks to the extreme but everyone else in my family is quite comfortable lacing on a good pair of walking shoes and hitting the pavement for a few miles close to if not daily. My daughter has taken her pavement pounding to the extreme in that she sees her daily two mile walk as just something to do between tooth brushing and showering and runs for her “real” outdoor exercise, a bad habit I might have instilled in her before she was even born. Fortunately I saw running for the folly it was and after a few years and a couple half marathons I returned to the peaceful pace of multi-mile walks. She on the other hand never met a marathon she didn’t like and has run the local marathon (half-marathon version) for seven consecutive years and shows no sign of breaking that streak.

BootsI’m quite content with my daily strolls at distances now measured in yards rather than miles. I do it with a cane and I do it slowly but I do it. I figure if I keep that up every day or at least almost every day I can still outrun heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and crippling arthritis even at my slow pace. And if they get too close I’ll just beat them away with my cane. It’s one of those good sturdy aluminum jobs so I should be able to put a decent dent in bad fortune with it.

If I keep up with that routine, if I ever get to the Alps I might not have the stamina to hike my way around them but I’ll still be strong enough to make it from the parking lot to in front of the fireplace in the lodge. I figure that’s just the right distance for me!

Cramming for Finals

Michael 9 Comments

I have a test next week. I haven’t taken a test for years and frankly I’m a little concerned. I have just over a week to study up as much as I can for my stress test next Friday.

Yes, you read that right. A stress test. Go ahead and laugh. Here, I’ll even help. A guy asks his friend’s wife where he is. “At the bar. Studying.” “Studying? What kind of test can you study for at the bar?” “His urine test of course.” Ha. Ha.

But this is different. I think I really do have to study for this stress test. Stay with me for a while. There are two basic types of stress tests. One is an EKG/exercise test and one is a exercise/rest/perfusion test. The common factor between the two is the exercise part. Walk on a treadmill until your heart rate is elevated to some specific level or you fall over, whichever comes first. Maybe it’s not put quite so cavalierly by those administering them but that’s basically how the stress is induced during stress tests.

I’m not worried about getting my heart rate up. I know I can walk far enough to get my heart pumping. I’ve been walking again these past few days now that it is nice again here in the until recently frozen northeast. But the problem is I’ve only done that recently and only outside. I might be a bit out of shape from not taking advantage of the treadmills in the exercise room but that doesn’t concern me either. No, what has me wondering about how I’m going to do with this test is that darn treadmill.

Treadmill

Image: Freepik

I can’t work treadmills. That’s why I hadn’t taken advantage of them during the cold weather months. I can’t walk on them. How, you ask, does one say he can’t walk on a treadmill? Because I fall over. I walk with a cane. The reasons don’t really matter but what happens if I don’t is that I tend to tip over. Really. I also wobble and waver. Walking in a straight line is not one of my talents. And yes, I was once stopped at a random sobriety checkpoint, and no, the nice officer didn’t understand that either so don’t feel bad if it’s not making sense to you. On a treadmill I won’t have my cane so I’ll have to hold on to the rails and when I do that I can’t swing my arms and when I do that I lose my balance and when I do that I fall over. (The only person I ever knew who actually fell over during a stress test was a friend of mine who ended up being prepped for coronary bypass surgery minutes after hitting the floor.) (His problem had nothing to do with not being able to work a treadmill. He just had a bad heart.) (True story.)

So, that’s why I think I should study and put a few miles on my sneakers on a treadmill. So I don’t fall over. I’m not worried they might mistake me for one needing emergency open heart surgery. I’m worried they might say they can’t get any useful information out of my test and either a) chemically induce the stress (not pleasant), or b) give up (not an option). Since this is part of my ongoing kidney transplant evaluation you see why Option b) is not an option but Option a) is still not on my “things I’d love to be doing instead of falling over” list.

This is one test I really cannot afford to fail. But I’d be just fine with a C. So I’m thinking I have to study.

 

Working It Out

Michael 5 Comments

Every now and then I get it into my mind that I should go back to work. Most of the time that happens when I’m asleep in the form of a dream (or nightmare if you will). Some of the time it happens when my every so often disability recertification comes in the mail. In the past few days both of those things happened. And then I thought, if I had to, what would I do?

I couldn’t do what I used to do or I’d be doing it. Whatever it would be it should be something that I don’t have to think much while I’m doing it. I had a lifetime of thinking. I’d want something mostly brainless.

It shouldn’t be anything that requires a lot of sitting. I spend so much time sitting during dialysis (so I can “live a normal life” while I’m not on dialysis) and after dialysis (so I can recover from dialysis) that standing is actually refreshing. But it couldn’t be anything where I had to stand for more than a half hour at a time. I’m good on my feet in one place for around 30 minutes and then I fall over. Sometimes it’s a little more, sometimes a little less, but 30 minutes is a good starting point. Or more appropriately, stopping point. Limited standing would be good.

The local dollar store had a sign up for a part time cashier. I love dollar stores and it would be a financial plus for them since my little salary would certainly turn into dollars spent there. But I’m certain they don’t have half hour shifts and I’m just as certain they wouldn’t take kindly to me teetering, tottering, then toppling a few times each day, ADA regs notwithstanding.

HelpWantedA great standing job would be TV weather person. They only stand in front of the big screen for 2 or 3 minutes then it’s back to checking the weather app on the phone to prepare for the next segment. I can do that. I even already have the app on my phone. Two actually. The one that I wanted and downloaded myself and the one that magically showed up the last time my phone automatically updated itself from wherever it automatically updates itself. If I would be willing to move I can probably do it without either of those apps. I’m certain that in San Diego I can go on air and say “tomorrow will be warm and sunny,” and be right 362 days of the year, 363 on leap years.

A short period standing job would be good but would more likely still have to invented. What else is out there to do? Driving. I like to drive and I know my way around town. I could drive something, but not for a cab company, or worse, an app based ride hailing service. I wouldn’t even pick up a hitchhiker back in the last century when thumbing on the open road was right between VW bus and Greyhound as the most popular means of interstate travel. Depending on the kindness of strangers is not my idea of gainful employment.

Limo driver might work. Oh the people who climb into the back of a limousine are just as strange as those crawling into the back of a taxi and then they aren’t nearly as strange as those crawling into the back of a taxi. You can tell that by the way even though some limos have glass partitions between driver and passages they are rarely bullet proof. Car lot courtesy van driver is another stranger driver job I can get along with. Again, they are still strangers but the people I would be working for are holding the strangers’ cars hostage. The problem is that sometimes those drivers double as lot attendants and that means clearing cars of ice and snow in the winter and washing them year round. That makes it all much too much like a job.

What else? I thought I’d find out and check some ads. I was still interested in possible jobs but not that interested that I wanted to open up a browser and check a real job site. I discovered that there are still want ads in the paper. A lot of them are for security guards. That wouldn’t work for all kinds of reasons. Security guards either sit a lot (see above), stand a lot (see above), or walk a lot (not even considered enough to be included above). No to guarding.

But I found a job in the paper that seemed ideal. It was titled “staffing assistant” and the responsibilities included “reviewing and recommending job applicants, and making staffing recommendations.” I figured I could review my background, recommend they hire me, then further recommend my job to be home based and with no additional responsibilities.”

Now we’re talking dream. No nightmares need apply.

 

A Cheesy Story

Michael 5 Comments

Yesterday I made a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. For me that’s a rare treat. I used to do a grilled cheese, with or without tomato soup, almost weekly for years. And years. And even some more. Now I make one a couple of times a year.  I have a complicated relationship with grilled cheese.

Grilled cheese doesn’t hold one of those warm, fuzzy spots youth’s memory. I’m sure my mother made them but I don’t have a real recollection of them. I do remember eating grilled cheese at my elementary school cafeteria. Mostly I remember them being greasy.

I remember in college grilled cheese hitting a new level. There the cafeteria put ham or turkey with it! Who knew? And, I discovered with the help of some aluminum foil and the iron my mother insisted I have in my dorm room that I could prepare a nutritious and alcohol absorbing pre-weekend snack. Even considering the food service’s meaty additions, college level grilled cheese was more utilitarian than culinarian.

I remember making grilled cheese for my daughter. But I can’t say they were the things of lifelong memories. They were mostly things that could be thrown together quickly between her dismissal time and band practice.

Throughout my childhood, my young adulthood, and my adult me’s child’s childhood, grilled cheese was just there. It wasn’t until many years later that grilled became more than a pasteurized processed cheese product between two slices of bread.

In March of 2015, after a 4 month long hospitalization, I was admitted to rehab to learn how to walk again. For the next several weeks I went through physical therapy seven days each week working to the day that I could shuffle my own way out of there. To make a long story short, eventually the day came when my doctor said I could be discharged soon. But first, for lack of a better way to put it, I had to pass several tests. Among them I was to prepare my own hot lunch. I was given two to pick from. I don’t remember the other choice but I picked the grilled cheese sandwich.

GrilledCheeseIt took a while, but eventually I had the required pasteurized processed cheese product, two slices of bread, and a stick of butter on the table in front of me. I assembled them into a reasonable sandwich like fashion and placed it into the medium hot pan on the very hot stove. About 4 minutes later I divided the sandwich into two triangles and passed one to the occupational therapist who had been watching my poor imitation of Jeff Mauro. Three days after that I was propelling my walker to the entrance of the rehab unit where, per hospital policy, I was transferred to a wheelchair to the outside world.

Now every time I make a grilled cheese sandwich I think of those days in that unit, trading half of a sandwich for my freedom. And that’s why I now make grilled cheese only a couple if times a year. Yeah, I guess it’s not that complicated.

 

I Got Nothing

Michael 7 Comments

When I sat down to write this post I realized that I really didn’t have an idea for this post. Not that I had one and forgot which I’ve done and have written about. Not that I had a bad idea for a post which I’ve probably had more times than not but wrote about anyway. Not that I had an idea but had written about several times already and even I knew that one more time wasn’t going to be a good idea. No, when I say I really didn’t have an idea, I really didn’t have an idea.

It’s been a decent enough week. I’ve felt well so I used some of that energy and did some shopping. Most of the time a good shopping trip will end up with fodder for a good blog post and sometimes just the act of shopping ends up blogworthy (which I’ve also already written about fairly recently). This week’s shopping was pretty much that. I went shopping. Bought a couple of shirts, some kitchen stuff, a canister of that newfangled spray on sun-screen. But it was all fairly normal. No weird sales signs, no clueless sales clerks, no inappropriately dressed fellow customers. Well, there was that one lady in the bathing suit with a cover-up masquerading as clothes. How could I tell there was a bathing suit under what outwardly appeared to be a cover-up? Maybe the dripping water that trailed her like an ill-trained puppy. But since I’ve done more than a couple of posts on fashion rules for the real world I couldn’t see putting yet another together at the expense of the nonfashionista and her screaming need for attention.

Since the last post I’ve spent a lot of time at the pool. I’ve switched from morning walk to morning swim at least on non-dialysis days for my exercise. In fact, it’s worked out quite well for me. Last summer, actually last summer, last fall, last spring, the summer before last, and so on and so one and etc. I’ve spent most of my exercise energy on walking. Also covered in several posts. But since I’ve started on dialysis I’ve been slacking on the sidewalk shuffle. If you’ve never had dialysis I’ll add in my prayers tonight that you never have to have dialysis for one of the things they don’t tell you when they stress that you’ll only spend 7% of your week on the machine is that you spend about 40% of your week recovering from that time. Walking just a mile or two the morning after dialysis isn’t just out of the question, it’s not even a question. Period. But swimming seems to be a different animal. I’ll swim a lap or two then climb out of the pool and rest in a comfy lounge chair under the morning sun. After a few minutes rest (ok, after about 20 minutes rest), it’s back in for some water calisthenics. More rest, more laps. More rest, some wading. I get exercise and a killer tan without having to stop for a rest when I’m a quarter mile from the nearest park bench. But hardly blogworthy.

And we’ve had Father’s Day. It’s the rare holiday that goes by without a mention of it by me. I’ve even invented my own holidays just to get a post idea. Maybe not invented but certainly given more weight to National Name Tag Day than even its proponents did. But everybody knows about Father’s Day. Not much I could add to it. I could talk about my gifts but they wouldn’t hold your interest as much as mine. I could talk about dinner and the fabulous glaze we came up with for the grilled salmon but then when the cook book comes would you still buy it? Or I could talk about how we narrowly escaped the severe weather than muscled its way into the festivities just as the grill was cooling. But how many weather posts can one blog present?

No, I just have to own up to up. I got nothing. So if you were expecting to find something here to pique your interest, go to the search page and plug in your desired topic. Chances are you’ll get something back. Till then, I’ll try to work on something more substantial for Thursday.

Have a great week!

 

That’s a Bargain!

Michael Leave a comment

There’s something very satisfying about finding a great buy. I’ve run into quite a few lately. No, not at the used car dealer, not on a call from a broker, not even at the dollar store – and you know how much I love the dollar store. The bargains I’ve been running across have been at the meat counter.

Really, the meat counter. Everything we’ve heard this summer says meat is the last place where there should be bargains. Droughty conditions are still responsible for less than the traditionally fatted calf not to mention the somewhat older steaks on the hooves. Bird flu is dropping chickens like clay pigeons. Pigs seem to be making a comeback but bacon prices are still playing the yo-yo game. Meat just isn’t on top of the specials lists.

One of the effects of not going to work every day is having lots of time on one’s hands. And I still have to get my exercise in. At this stage of my recovery walking is the best exercise I can take on. But with temperatures in the 80s and 90s a casual walk around the neighborhood could mean a sudden case of heat stroke, or worse. The answer is daily walks around the local mega-mart.  A trip along the perimeter is quite a healthy distance and I get to pass produce, bakery, deli, fish, meat, dairy, and the as-seen-on-TV section. With the exception of the tele-specials it’s almost like shopping at a local farmers market. I can buy just the veggies and salad fixings I’ll be using that day, I can get fresh rolls every morning, the fish monger is laying out his catches of the day just as I’m passing buy, and at the meat market they are marking down all the stuff left from the day before. I’m saving 30 to 40% from the regular price because they want it out of their refrigerators and into someone else’s. Mine will do.

If you figure the regular weekly shoppers are picking up a few days’ worth of meals on one trip, they are ending up with the same day old product at home in a couple of days. I’m buying what I’m going to be cooking in a few hours. And saving a bundle doing it.

Yeah, I know it’s a little over the top for just a couple of dollars but it gives me something to do before the noon news comes on. You have to make a little fun for yourself somehow. What better way than a good hunk of meat, fresh veggies, and a gadget that lets you make a bowel out of several strips of bacon. That’s a bargain.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

You Give Me 15 Minutes, I’ll Give You … You Know

Michael Leave a comment

This week among the junk mail was a notice of “Big Savings!” from a local car dealer. Right there with their tire specials, tune-ups specials, air conditioning service specials, and brake specials was their “Signature 29 Minute Oil Change” now at a special price. Isn’t that special? I don’t know why but it made me think why 29 minutes, why not a half hour? And then I thought even more. Whatever happened to the 15 minute oil change?

Surely you remember the 15 minute oil change places. There were lots of them and they were everywhere. I remember going to them. I also remember they always took more than 15 minutes. They spent at least 15 minutes on asking you what type of oil you wanted (if I knew that I’d do my own oil change), do you want your old filter or may they discard it (yuck!), will you be needing new windshield wipers today (I hope not, it’s a convertible and the top is down), would you be interested in joining their savings club (here’s a brochure you can read while we huddle around your car), and do you have any coupons (why do they always ask about couponS when they (the couponS) always say “cannot be combined?”). Then a squadron of oil changers descended on your vehicle checking tire pressure, topping off windshield washer fluid, cleaning headlights, checking coolant, transmission, steering and brake fluids, examining air filters, and changing the oil. Then another 15 minutes of post-change summary included the status of your fluids (always due for something), air filter (always dirty), windshield wipers (always worn), and tires (holding up pretty well and aren’t you lucky because we don’t sell them here).

Well, I’ve come up with some things that really do take only a quarter of an hour and make you better for them! For instance, in 15 minutes or less you can start an exercise program. You’ll notice general health improvements in most low to moderate impact exercises including walking. After a few weeks you may want to increase your activity time to 30 minutes but that’s still less time than it took to get a 15 minute oil change!

Staying with health, in less than 15 minutes you can check your blood pressure and pulse, and breathing rate and oxygen level at home. Every day if you want. Even young, seemingly healthy people can have high blood pressure and never know it. For a few dollars and a few minutes you can buy and use a blood pressure monitor that measures your pressure and heart rate. Another inexpensive tool is the pulse oximeter to measure how much oxygen is in your blood and you do it bloodlessly. This little thing does it by clamping onto your fingertip. Learning how to measure your breathing rate is easy. You probably already have everything you need – a watch with a second hand and your lungs.

A whole world of 15 minutes or less is right in your kitchen. A hot breakfast of ham and eggs or a bowl of oatmeal takes about as much time as it does to toast a bagel and find the cream cheese. You can make a whole light dinner in 15 minutes. Boil your favorite pasta in water for about a minute less than the package directions instruct. While that’s going on sauté sliced green peppers, and broccoli in olive oil, then add some spinach to wilt. Toss in your cooked pasta, top with shredded parmesan and you have a delicious pasta prima vera. If you’re willing to use a pre-made pizza shell or store bought dough you can shape, top, and bake a pizza, then let it rest for a few minutes while you make a small salad for the side and you have another dinner in half the time it takes to get one delivered. For something more fun, season one pound of ground beef with salt and pepper, add just a drizzle of olive oil, and splash in a couple of squirts of hot sauce.  Shape into four patties, grill or broil for 4 to 5 minutes on each side for medium and let rest for a couple minutes. While the patties are cooking, slice a few potatoes, toss with oil, and roast in a 400 degree oven for 12 minutes turning once. As soon as they come out, season with salt, pepper, paprika, Cajun seasoning, grated cheese, or whatever you and 3 friends feel like. Dinner for four and you didn’t give your guests enough time to talk about you.

And the ultimate less than 15 minute activity – reading this blog twice a week! Even a lengthy post like today’s takes maybe 5 minutes. Do that twice a week and you still have time to make a comment, smile, laugh, cry, or curse at your screen as appropriate, and/or scratch your head and wonder “who is this guy?”

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Walk This Way

Michael Leave a comment

This is it.  Today is the last shopping day before Christmas.   We know tomorrow is only Christmas Eve but you can hardly count that as a shopping day.  Christmas Eve we’re going to relax.  Even if it kills us.  And don’t forget, Christmas Eve is a Saturday this year so every clueless male in America, maybe in the world, (as opposed to almost every clueless male) will be at the mall still unsure of what to get for his wife, mother, girlfriend, daughter, secretary, AA, paramour, clerk, grandmother, personal assistant, or Aunt Whatshername in Mineola. 

However you want to count, there are only two days until Christmas.  And each is going to be filled with people filling sidewalks, and stores, and restaurants, and bars.  Probably especially bars the later it gets but that’s a different post.

All those people out there and sometimes it seems not a single one of them schooled in the pedestrian law of walking in public.  Even He of We sometimes gets a little distracted when allowed to push the shopping cart and wanders down a different aisle than She of We.  But what we’re talking about here is different.  Many people are distracted in stores but add the glitz and the shimmer of the holiday decorations and even those never distracted lose focus.  And the extra traffic isn’t helping.  We think part of the problem is that nobody ever puts that cell phone away.  It wouldn’t be so bad if people were talking on the phone while trying to wind their way through the cosmetics counters at the department store.  No, they are texting while trying to wind their way through that maze.  Add three shopping bags, two trailing children, and a clerk spraying fragrance samples on passersby and oncoming traffic doesn’t stand a chance.  But we digress.

As long as we brought it up, what it is with people and their shopping carts.  First of all, a shopping cart is not a suitable substitute for a wheeled walker, particularly if you don’t use one with which to walk under normal circumstances.  Both of We have informed our children that if any of them sees either of us hunched over a shopping cart, arms resting on the handle about the elbows, propelling it forward at a pace a that would cause a snail to die of boredom, we are to be shot and/or sent directly to the nursing home at the bottom of their lists.  If you are one of those please leave our blog now and nobody will get hurt. 

A shopping carts are proliferating.  Once found only in supermarkets these little wheeled obstructions are now in almost every store across the globe.  Clearly someone is making a killing in the shopping cart market.  Hopefully whoever that someone is has gotten a killer Christmas bonus this year.  But given that shopping carts are flourishing so, we’d think people would be able to drive them better.  We find carts left at the end of aisles, in the middle of aisles, with children left to guard the last of the boxed fruitcake, blocking the animated Christmas hats (sorry, we’ll probably not get to that topic this year but we have it on our list for next year’s holiday posts), and left in the line to the checkout counter with a note that the driver has made a quick trip to housewares and will return at 1:30.  Those actually pushing carts often have their eyes either glued to the top shelf as they pass by at warp speed or on their latest text.

Once shopping is done at Store #1 it is traditional to leave their cart in their custody.  Clearly we must be unaware of some “winter rules” that allow people to keep that cart for their entire shopping day.  He or We was out just yesterday in a local mall and he noticed someone pushing a cart from a store in the shopping center two miles away.  Curious, most curious.   

Eventually even those people will finish up for the day and head to the car with their holiday haul.  Our advice to everybody who ever pushed a shopping cart through a parking lot is to please remember that most cars are bigger and heavier than your shopping cart.  One should not consider playing chicken with a family of four in a minivan loaded with Christmas presents on Christmas Eve Eve.  Not a good idea.  Our second piece of advice is once you empty your packages into your vehicle, please return you cart all the way to the cart corral.  Parking is already at a premium this time of year (we know, we already did that post).  Don’t make it worse by just leaving your cart in the spot that used to be your car.  Walk the extra 50 paces there and back and put it where it belongs.

As long as we’re walking out in the parking lot please watch where you are going.  Every mall and shopping center, every mega-mart and restaurant now have those striped lines from parking land to sidewalk land urging drivers to stop for walkers but not saying anything to the walkers.  It’s true every state now has a law that drivers must yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk.  That’s in a crosswalk, not approaching a crosswalk, close to the crosswalk, or anywhere in the same parking lot as a crosswalk.  It’s still a good idea to look both ways before crossing.  We understand looking both ways may mean not finishing the text but the life you save may be your own.  Make it worth the effort.

Two more days, each an adventure in negotiating through the aisles of the Christmas sale remnants, fighting your way to the checkout counter, and dragging it all across the parking lot to your car, if you can find it on the first try.  

We suggest you relax on Christmas Eve.  Even if it kills you.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?