Walk, eat, drink, party
For the last three and a half days I was at a work conference in Orlando. I actually left early Sunday morning. The reason I left was so I could drop off my Mten Mini to a guy that lives in Port Charlotte that was going to buy it. He had plans to go on a group ride later in the day so I really went out of my way to accommodate him. Not only did I drop it off at his door, I did it before I dropped off Elsa at Babcock Ranch, meaning I had to backtrack 25 miles to do so. In retrospect it wasn’t great decision making but at least the Mini is sold. If I could sell my Sherman S things would be even better.
This was my second work conference in roughly a month. I’m never a huge fan of these type of events. Rivers of people, sitting in meetings and eating a lot of food that I normally stay away from just leaves me feeling subpar. I did try to counteract it a bit by getting to the surprisingly well equipped gym a couple times during my stay. I also brought my One Wheel but did not get a chance to ride it as I was involved during evenings with the work crew doing social events that included yes, more eating and drinking.
I left after lunch on Wednesday, fueling up for the long drive home with a large coffee. The drive back went through various periods of torrential rain and felt very long. After picking up Elsa I did not pull back into my driveway until after 5:30 PM.
After throwing laundry in I wasted little time before running out to the grocery store. I had to buy items for the fantasy football draft party that I am again hosting for something like the 15th or 16th year in a row. I put far less effort into it than I once did but it still requires a lot of work, especially when it’s just me, myself and I handling it. The good news is it’s a Friday night. Most times the party winds up being on a weeknight which makes the next day at work rather miserable. I am debating if I want to skip volleyball and get the house rearranged tonight or do it all tomorrow.
For some reason last night I got motivated to try to do a back lever, something that was a goal of mine 10+ years ago. It’s highly strenuous move that requires a lot of practice and strength to do. Even when I was at my peak calisthenics shape I couldn’t do it fully so just trying it out of the blue was a guaranteed failure and potentially injury inducing action. I tried anyway.
The sensible thing would be to try the movement with either a half or even full tuck of the legs to ease into it. I abandoned good sense and left my giraffe length legs out there, fully extended. It didn’t take long until my supporting muscles in my back/shoulders gave out. I dropped to the floor but as I did my momentum combined with my socks on the slippery laminate flooring resulted in my rolling onto my ass. It was funny, if I do say so myself. Is this the sort of movement I should be trying at 56 years of age? Nope.
Last year I was talking about how my tv watching habits had shifted drastically since the move. I used to watch much, much more, fed by my recording of shows on the DVR. For various reasons that habit faded away and has remained that way. There have been a number of things that were once mainstays in my day to day that have become blurred, lost importance or disappeared entirely from my life. I wish I could say the path ahead of me is crisp, clear and vividly defined but I would be lying.