October 2017 – lynn monahan

I may have mentioned this before, I have young-looking genes. I know this because I have always been told I look a lot younger than I am. My mother apparently has the same gene. A friend of mine at our senior dinner (yes senior in high school) said to me “if you could guarantee that you look like your mother at that age I’ll marry you” – well it went something like that. Stupid boys, but compliment to my mom and her young genes that a high school boy thought she was hot.

So in my late 20’s people thought I was late teens, late thirties, late 20’s and so on. Remember the post where I said I could get a rich man because I had a young face? Well those types of statements are based on my past experience with comments received throughout the years. Soooo many comments about how old my son is and how young I look (he’s 35 next month! Yikes!) One time he was so pissed because someone thought we were a couple. He was highly incensed! He was probably like 22 at the time. Great compliment for me though. I don’t think much about how old I look because I’ve always assumed/taken for granted that I look younger. I mean I look like I look but I’ve just thought other people think I look younger.

There’s this program through our health insurance where you can earn points (and cash and prizes) for doing particularly healthy things. Who doesn’t like cash and prizes ya know? So I sat down and signed up for it last night. It takes you through a whole bunch of questions about how healthy (or unhealthy) you are. Then you can sign up for missions (i.e. goals) and get points etc. I sat lazily on my chair and lied about how active I am. HA! Not really, I was pretty honest. Honest enough to get an age estimate based on whatever I entered of 65. SIXTY FIVE! An outrage.

This morning when I got to work a few of my floor mates were in the conference room happily chatting around a fresh loaf of Irish Soda bread, still warm, that Carol made and brought in. Somehow that Rally thing came up – perhaps because I was showing how many steps I walked today as I walked to work, showing off my steps that my phone actually logs (not my broken fitbit) Anyway, I then shared the story about signing up and how the age came back I was 65.

Dead silence. Everyone nervously looked at each other or in Sidney’s case eyes to the floor. I scanned the room and realized nobody knew how old I was but no one was saying “you don’t look that old” – NO ONE. So I had to say “I’m not that old!! Come on…!!! Sidney said he knew better than to say anything or ask. Carol just said her age came up as one year younger. That’s it. Even after I said I’m not that old still noone said “you don’t look that old” 65? Really? Do I look 65? WTF?

It’s not that 65 looks bad – at least not now that I’m only 6 years away. Someone 65 is my age but doesn’t it just give you/me a stomach ache? I was sharing my story with Robin who works downstairs who I know is close to my age – I asked her to be honest and tell me if she knew how old I was. Stupid question and you know she was never going to be honest. She guessed 55. So in reality probably thinking low 60’s. But then she told me not to worry, she just got test results back that said she has the metabolism of a 99 year old. HA!

Resche, another floor mate, recently said he liked my new glasses. Said they made me look young and hip. I said 35? He said ehhh no. 45? He just walked away.

Well I guess the past few years of stress and lack of sunscreen has taken it’s toll. I mean I am excited about retiring…which is not that far away…but looking like retirement age? I just thought I’d still get that “you don’t look like you’re old enough to retire” thing.

Some say you should wear your age proudly. Having never that experience of looking older than I am it is a new experience. I am not sure it’s going to be one I’m going to embrace. But I’ll give it a go…

xoxoxo

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I’ve been trying for weeks, or at least a week, to start a blog post. I have come up with a plethora of reasons not to write one, not to mention normally I wait for something to say. I can’t even pretend to have something to say. I got nuthin. So, there ya go.

But then…but then…I’ve had this ongoing exercise debacle so I’m going to share that story and as long as we don’t bring up the Pittsburgh Steelers or Mike Pence I should get through this blog without being extremely negative. Stupid Ben…five interceptions….seriously…

I have always tried to incorporate exercise in my life.. I’m not consistent, but I try. Even when I lived in Miami 1980, I remember finding an exercise class at some high school gym and learning step aerobics for the first time. I have gone to exercise classes and various gyms throughout the years. Up and down.. and I have been really trying to get back to “up” these days. It’s hard to get started and it’s REALLY hard to get re-started. It’s way too easy to get off schedule.

I didn’t join the YMCA here – I talked about it and although I went a few times, the hurricane disrupted my rhythm (and bank account) and so I thought I’d just figure out how to use a video and work out at home. I’ve worked out to videos for years. Hard to believe but I have been pretty disciplined with those, on and off,,,I’ve just been off for a very long time. And now I have this great selection of yoga videos and one Jane Fonda video. But I lost my video/blue ray DVD player in the storage wars. For weeks I’ve been pricing DVD players on Amazon. It’s as much as a YMCA membership. I couldn’t justify it.

I knew that I needed to exercise in the bedroom because the floors are tile out here in my other room and are fakewood in the bedroom, so softer in there for exercise. I also decided I needed a rug in there because that would be good for yoga. Right? (the rug was more than the DVD player) Then I found my Chromecast gadget that I got 7 years ago when I first thought of cutting the cable. (finally a storage war save) It’s a neat gadget that will cast what is on your computer screen to your TV. After I remembered I had that (and surprisingly found it right away) I thought that would be perfect. I can leave my computer set up where it usually is and I can cast to the TV in the bedroom. Perfect right? No extra cords, no space issues. Finally a solution.

A Chromecast gadget works on wi-fi. My wi-fi has been very spotty since the hurricane. It cuts out almost every night around 9 pm. I couldn’t do the video cast because the wi-fi wasn’t working consistently. So I finally called my internet service provider. They came out the next day to fix it. All of this so far has taken weeks, maybe even months. I actually ordered the rug before the hurricane and it was delivered during hurricane week while I was in Virginia…Actually I wanted to order it in August but delayed my order because they were going to deliver it when I was in Pittsburgh so I ordered it after I got back from Pittsburgh after Labor Day, and then they ended up delivering it when I was away in Virginia…anyway anyway – this gives you an idea how long this whole getting-back-to-exercise has been going on.

Right after the cable guy left my house, I put the Jane video in and tried the Chromecast. It didn’t work of course. Why would it? But I kept up the momentum and called the support line for Chromecast. I was on the phone over 45 minutes with their experts trying to figure out what was wrong, who then connected me back to my internet provider who couldn’t even find an account for me and while I was on hold it starts working. I hung up on them. And even though it is now 9:30 at night I was so excited I decided to do my Jane Fonda video using my computer, casting to the TV in my bedroom. Like magic. It was a long time coming and I was ready to get back into it. It’s impossible to do Jane without smiling and being taken back 30 years.

Less than half way though my first do-wop dance routine the sound quits working – the picture doesn’t sync with the sound anyway when it was working although now there is no sound and is very jerky and disjointed and very blurry. So between running back and forth to the kitchen to turn the sound up – trying not to quit just because the sound and picture don’t match up even remotely close, I got through it. I then decided to see what I could find through Netflix, and give up on the Chromecast idea (not sure why this never occurred to me before). I switched the bedroom TV to the Amazon Firestick which takes forever to load (I hate that thing, except when it works) and decided to just buy an exercise DVD through Amazon and play it on the TV, without having to worry about a DVD player, a computer, a battery, or an HDMI Cable. The Firestick bootup process is so slow to load had I not recently gone through menopause and find that I’m mostly zen (due to lack of hormones) I would throw that damn Firestick through the window or at least step on it multiple times crushing it to a pulp while yelling obscenities. I calmly waded through the maddeningly slow “app” found another Jane video and bought the dam video online thinking that now I’ll have two Jane options if and when I get the system working. Turns out I bought the exact same Jane video.

You may be thinking, why don’t you play the DVD in the computer and hook the computer directly to the TV? Well first of all I couldn’t find my HDMI cable and the computer doesn’t have a battery anymore so I have to unplug/replug whenever I move it to. It’s annoying to say the least since it takes so long to reboot. I also don’t have space in the bedroom beside the TV to put the computer to plug it in and I don’t have an open plug. But determined, I bought an HDMI cord this past weekend anyway, in anticipation of one day getting everything to work. I could also buy a battery for the computer to make it more convenient to move the computer around, couldn’t I? And then I wouldn’t have to worry about the plug situation. The battery cost about as much as a new DVD player or as much as a YMCA membership. The HDMI cord was only $7.

In the meantime, while exercising, the carpet that I bought specifically for exercising (and it’s adorable) was sliding around so realized I needed an under rug non-slidey thing. The carpet is 3×8 (like a runner) – the under slider thing I got turned out to be like 2×3..maybe. Very small. I figured it would still keep it from sliding. I was wrong. I also realize where that piece of underthingy is, it’s a lot softer under my feet so I really should buy a bigger one that fits the whole carpet. I also don’t want the carpet to wear unevenly. So now I don’t want to use the carpet when I exercise and decided that until I buy a bigger under carpet padding thing I should just roll the carpet up and exercise on the wood floor.

Here’s your visual: