Comfrey of Bliss

I hied myself over to visit Madame this morning. I encountered obstacles at every turn, enough to try my patience. The street we normally take to get to the grocery store, where I buy Madame a fancy latte, is down to one lane because they are building sidewalks. It will be very nice when they're done, but right now it's very inconvenient. So I took the work-around detour for that. Then when I set off again on the street that goes to Madame's, it was squeezed down to one lane for tree-trimming! Finally I arrived at Madame's location, only to find that they were putting up a giant pavilion in the middle of the parking lot, and all my normal places to park were blocked off. Grr mutter mutter, says I, tramping uphill to the door with my coffee in hand. Never mind--it's more steps for me, so it's all good. I think the pavilion was some kind of employee appreciation day thing, because I saw people coming out of it with little trays of mac and cheese and whatnot in hand. It hardly seemed worthwhile. I turn up my nose at the idea that institutional mac and cheese is any kind of token of esteem.

I found Madame in what the call the "Bird Room," for the obvious reason that it has some birds in it, although I don't think the residents pay a bit of attention to them. She was seated at a table of her own, with a picture and some colored pencils, and one of the staff was encouraging her to color the pictured flowers. She expressed her disdain for this activity, and was pleased to chat with me over coffee instead. I was there for over an hour, but rather hardheartedly declined to stay for lunch. When they came to announce it was mealtime, I let her go to the dining room and took my leave. I was just not able to face those damn meatballs one more time. I wanted to go home. I avoided the tree-trimming traffic jam by another detour, but remembered just in time that the street I was headed for was also blocked for construction, and made a sub-detour. This is spring in Michigan--all the roads have to be fixed before it starts snowing again.

Tonight I drove the Sparrowhawk to the gym again, and this time, I participated. It's a good workout even if you don't have Parkinson's! It's been a long time since I punched a heavy bag a million times or so, and I quite enjoyed it. Then we did various exercise stations. On the pushups, my arms just gave up at a certain point, and I literally could not push myself up off the floor one more time. Oof. Also my lungs started hurting again. I am very deconditioned and perhaps not quite completely well yet. I remind myself that I did all right for someone who is 75. I gave that punching bag a thrashing. Holy smokes, I am tired now.