hey jud

Lately at the gym, during the part of my aerobics workout where I'm struggling to keep myself going, I always seem to hear the same ad. Perhaps because I'm in such a receptive frame of mind, it calls out to me from the gym radio. The ad is for something called a carb blocker, all natural, with no side effects. If you take it, the claim is you can eat all the carbs you want without having to exercise to keep from gaining weight. The tagline for the ad says, 'It sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Well it is.' ...pause... Then I chuckle, finishing the sentence in my mind with 'too good to be true'. Then I chuckle again and finish my aerobics.

When I ran out of reading material on our recent LA trip, I happened to pick up a book called 'The Piano Shop on the Left Bank'. It reinforced my joy in playing the old piano that has moved with us from East to West Coast and back again, and my love of Paris. The story was full of information about the mechanics of how pianos work, their history and differences, and the art of tuning them. What made the facts especially fascinating was the Left Bank setting and story of the rituals required for someone to become, first a customer, and then a part of the neighborhood culture surrounding the piano shop. I kept wondering if I'd walked unknowingly past such a shop and rueing my lack of spoken French, a prerequisite for joining such a neighborhood institution. Now it's off to take both piano lessons and French lessons before my next trip to Paris. There's no limit to dreams.

I am inspired! Enough to easily last a year and probably much longer. Yesterday at the Y, the two 'Franks' returned, one after some surgery following a stroke, and the other after having cataracts removed. Back to their usual regimen of some treadmill and then the weight machines, everyone was buoyed up by their usual banter and incredibly happy to see them return. Both are due for another round of surgery in a few months but until then, they're regulars again in the gym. Now if that wasn't enough inspiration already, afterwards in the locker room I heard a funny scraping noise when the woman in the shower next to me finished. It was the scraping of the walker she was using to get to her locker to get dressed. She wasn't in the fitness center with us, so apparently she'd been down to the pool for her workout.

That's it then. No more posts from me about struggling through aerobics, or lame excuses for not getting to the gym. The images from yesterday's workout will be there to remind me of exactly what I need to do.

A tree today, enjoying the sun and just waiting for the green of spring.