Survived the car-free month

see more

Made it through 30 days of being car-free -- well, almost car free. I did take the car to visit the mechanic, and I drove it yesterday because I wanted to buy a heap of stuff from the store and I couldn't carry it all home on a bicycle. Ordinarily, I would've waited until the month was up, but I needed the stuff for this month's challenge.

My thoughts on going car-free for a month:

• It's doable, in large part because I made a point of buying a house in a walkable neighborhood.
• It takes planning and organizing, skills that are not among my strong points. If I want to go to the library, the grocery store, and Home Depot, I have to figure out my route and make sure that the lights are working on my bicycle.
• I was limited in how much I could carry home at one time. Therefore, I shopped more often. Even though I bought fewer items each visit, I still bought more things because I was in the store more.
• Going car-free is great if you have a monthly pass and access to a train or light-rail. It stinks if you take the bus. I didn't know this before, but I am an elitist. I hate riding the bus. I don't like the bus drivers and I don't like the people who ride buses. One woman I rode next to, Ms. Contagion, had a long conversation on her cell phone describing in detail how sick she was and how she still had to go to work. (I really hope she doesn't work in a restaurant.) On another bus ride, Mrs. Sharp Elbows squeezed in next to me. She kept jabbing me in the ribs. Finally I worked my arm in between us, so she couldn't actually hurt me anymore, but it was still uncomfortable. Note: I only rode the bus a couple times. There might be intelligent, charming, polite and healthy people out there riding buses. I just didn't see them.
• Going car-free is a terrific way to work in exercise into your day. I love having exercise become part of my commute.
• Having a car-free commute saves a ton of money. A lot of people told me that they could ride the light rail, but their car got good mileage. I don't think they've actually sat down and ran the numbers. By taking the train instead of the car, I saved over $300 a month. Granted, my car is an SUV, so it doesn't get fantastic mileage. But even if a car does pretty good with the gas, it's much cheaper to take the train.

Will I continue to take the train to work? Definitely. Will I use the bicycle to do my shopping? Most of the time. Am I ready to toss the car keys away and walk everywhere? Not yet. But I think I can do a lot more without driving.

Site du jour: A family decided to get rid of their car and go car-free. And they're not living in a particularly walkable neighborhood.

It's Boxing Day -- not Kickboxing Day

Quote du jour: Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.
- Kin Hubbard

I've never found a good explanation for why the day after Christmas is called Boxing Day. Even Scopes found it hard to explain. All I know is that it means I have to clean up wrapping paper and do some extra dishwashing.

Wait. It also means I have to go back to work tomorrow? Already? Jeez.

Something tells me that if I found a job that I loved to do and looked forward to every morning, I wouldn't have that reaction. Just a hunch.

Job hunt update: Got some nibbles, but most employers aren't really interested in hiring between Christmas and New Years. Still, I've updated the résumé, dusted off the interview outfit, and posted my latest info up on Monster. (Surprisingly, that's still a highly popular job site. I'd have expected a more tech-specific site, but that's where a lot of employers still look.)

Exercise update: I've been Suzy Slacker all week. Luckily, this blog is a guilt-free zone (or I'd have a lot to say to myself on this subject). Instead, I'm going to focus on getting something done exercise-wise every day this week. It's not that I'm incapable. I'm just totally unmotivated. Pretty sure I don't need to be motivated to exercise; I just need to be capable.
Plus, if I get up and work out this week, I'll end the year on an up note, which is always a good thing.

Winter is coming

It's dark outside.
It's too dark outside.
Therefore, it is entirely logical for me to think that it's too dark to:

• Exercise yes, that includes the elliptical in my bedroom, the one that is currently sulking from neglect


• Do yard work no, even if the sun is up for part of the day. Hey, it's going to get dark soon. No sense starting something I can't finish, right?


• Clean my house okay, so this one takes more rationalizing, but bear with me. It's cold outside and therefore unless I want to spend all my money on heating bills, it's going to be cold inside. Therefore, I think I will spend the rest of this month curled up in bed huddling under the covers.

I do realize that work is needed on the attitude front. On the plus side, I have been doing well on the car-free front. Not that I had much choice, since I had to take the car in to see Mr. Mechanic. I will have to drive today, since I can't pick up the car from the mechanic and also hie myself to work. (That's one drawback to taking a commuter train that doesn't run in the middle of the day.)

Exercise du jour: 4 miles of walking a day. I can, I can, IcanIcanIreallycan.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Can't go forward, don't want to go backward. Will tread.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!


Quote du jour: Nothing will work unless you do.
- Maya Angelou

Feel a bit up in the air. Can't concentrate on exercise because I'm spending a lot of my time focusing on getting a job or fixing the one I've got. Going to see the manager of the department today to see if something can be done. Sent 5 résumés out last night. A couple of the jobs were pretty good fits for what I can do, another was a long shot, one was 'meh' and the last one was sent to a former co-worker whose new company might need somebody.

Exercise du jour: I will aim for 4 miles of walking a day. I know, I know, it's not pushing myself to do this. This week, maintenance is all I am asking of myself.

Would it be okay if I were assertive? Or I could just impersonate a doormat if you'd prefer

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Good: Legs not so swollen up, can walk without limping. Still don't know what the heck I did to earn that.
Bad: I don't know if I should even ask a doctor about it.

Remember a few months back, when I was talking to new recruiters every day? Every time it was the same routine:

1. They'd describe the job and ask what rate I'd expect.
2. I'd say the rate would depend on whether or not I'd have to pay for health insurance.

The responses fell into three basic categories:

• Most recruiters said "No insurance and oh my that's a high rate Merry."
• Some said "Welllll, we have a sort of reimbursement plan and oh my that's a high rate Merry."
• A rare few said "Oh yes, we offer health insurance and that rate is a bit high, but we can deal."

This job I'm at now, the conversation fell into the last category "but of course there's a waiting period." The waiting period is now up. And... they don't offer health insurance.

So I send them an email saying, essentially, "WTF?"

They sent back an email saying "let's chat." I was not interested in anything they had to say unless it was in writing, so I suggested email instead.

Now I get an email from them saying "Oh gosh! Turns out that when you first spoke to the recruiter we did offer health insurance, but by the time you got an offer from the company, we'd changed our policy. Still, since we're such nice people, we'll up your salary by an additional $300 a month so you can buy your own insurance."

Huh. Now I've got to sit down and figure out whether or not that's a good move. I'm not even sure I could get health insurance -- surely being overweight is a bad mark in the eyes of an insurance company?

Site du jour: Jennette Fulda wrote a post on insurance for the self-employed. I found it clear, comprehensive, and depressing. I think the best thing to do would be to marry a rich old man who had no close relatives. Preferably one who is Canadian.

How hard can it be?

see more

“In a sense the car has become a prosthetic, and though prosthetics are usually for injured or missing limbs, the auto-prosthetic is for a conceptually impaired body or a body impaired by the creation of a world that is no longer human in scale.”
- Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Yes, I thought up another 30 day challenge. It occurred to me, since my car is having difficulties, that this might be a good month to try going car-free. This might be considered making a virtue of necessity: my mechanic doesn't work weekends, so with my work schedule it's awkward trying to get the car to him right now. I'm going to try to work another week of four 10-hour days, so maybe I can drop the car off Friday, pick it up next Friday. Aside from that, I want to see if I can go without driving anywhere at all for a month.

What I've discovered so far is that I'm getting a lot more incidental exercise. Just shopping for groceries or picking up a DVD from the library involves walking or cycling for several miles. On the down side, I have to plan a lot better. Because it gets dark so much earlier, my bike ride had to be cut short yesterday when I found out that the batteries in my bike lights had quit working. Even so, I managed to cycle for about five miles. It's not much, but it's a start.

These 30-day challenge things seem a bit cheesy, but I've noticed that they get results. The other day, I was running out of steam at work at the end of my 12-hour stint. I picked up a packet of M&Ms to give me some energy, but I couldn't finish them. The first taste of chocolate was great, but after that I didn't enjoy the experience. It tasted as if I were eating wax flavored with a lot of chemicals. Probably I was. Maybe going a month sans car will lead me to automatically reach for my bike helmet instead of my car keys.

Site du jour: SuperMarket Sweep blog. Last weekend in San Francisco there was the 6th annual Supermarket Sweep race, where participants go to local grocery stores -- on their bicycles -- and haul food back to donate it to charity. The winners hauled 845 pounds in 2 hours. (It was a father-and-son team on a tandem. They had a long line of grocery carts, filled with groceries and linked together, that they hauled up and down S.F. hills.) Makes my little grocery run (1 pannier) look pretty wimpy.

Exercise du jour: This week, I'm aiming for 5 miles of walking a day and 15 minutes ellipticalling at night.
Most emphatic FAIL.
Yes, I did walk about 2 miles, what with my commute to the Max and the trek down to the cafeteria for the morning coffee, but other than that -- Pffft!
My legs felt swollen at the start of the day.
It only got worse as the day went on. I couldn't even touch my toes. (No, that's not normal. Usually I can almost touch my palms to the carpet.)
Don't ask me what the problem was today. I don't know. I didn't exercise at all yesterday, neither did I feel sore from the bike ride the day before. I'm pretty sure that starting my cycle wouldn't cause my hamstring muscles to throw a hissy fit. On the walk home, it was so bad that I was limping. Noticeably.
I think this is a sign that I should chalk the day up to Whatever and try again tomorrow.

Wake me up when it's December, 'k?

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Good: Thanks to the lack of car, I got a lot of walking done this weekend just from Getting Things Done. To wit, walked 7-1/2 miles this weekend.
Bad: Might not get any exercise at all this week.

The next seven days are going to be hellish. I don't get paid for hours I don't work, so I'm going to try to work three 12-hour days this week to make up for the loss of money from the holidays. Plus which, I'm going to be spending money, flying home for Thanksgiving and then on to Southern California for a family reunion. The odds of healthy eating, regular exercise, or enough sleep occurring this week are, unlike the woman typing these words, extremely slim.

Site du week: Eco Cat Lady has a great post on why Alarm Clocks are the Root of All Evil.

Getting crafty

Confession du jour: I'm trying to learn crafty things like crochet. (Yes, I know this photo shows Cary Grant trying to knit. Stretch your imagination a bit, okay? I defy you to produce a photo of a hunk crocheting. Must be something only women do.)

I figure that spending three hours a day commuting by public transport should provide the ideal time and place to learn this craft stuff. For one thing, you can't throw the tangled yarn down and run out the door screaming. Not while the train is moving, at any rate.

If all goes as planned, I will be able to do a bit more serious exercise today. Since I worked four 10-hour days, I get today off. So I have the time to exercise... presuming I don't spend it doing chores. Are chores more important than exercise? Clearly not. Well... unless you want to be able to find clean clothes, eat off clean plates, have the electric bill paid before they cut it off... pish! Trivial things like that.

Exercise du jour: I'm figuring two hours of ellipticalling: one in the morning, one in the evening.

Note: I don't know how this will go. I've been extremely lax on the elliptical lately, so this might prove too much for Damn Knee. Six weeks ago, this would've been an easy goal to do. Let's see what happens.


Photo courtesy of Noelle Noodle.

But baby it's cold outside

see more Monday Through Friday

Quote du jour: I was so cold the other day, I almost got married.
- Shelley Winters

Quiz du jour: Reader, I married him, a quiz about lines from well-known books in English literature. Some of them I could identify the book, some I could only identify the author. A couple, alas, I knew them not.

Exercise du jour: 4 miles walking, 15 minutes ellipticalling.
Sigh. Yes, again. Let's see if I can do the full stint this time, even though I hab a code and hab to sneeze before I can breed through my nodz. (Yes, having a cold does make me type like that. What? It doesn't affect your spelling?)

Done! With the help of drugs, so I won't qualify for any Olympic records (I'm sure Nyquil^TM is on the proscribed list), but it's done!

Every family has its own internal language

Quote du jour:
Me: What's this potted plant?
Mother: Oh, Cathy gave me that. It's to replace that plant we had by the front door, the one that died when the weather got below freezing. I forget the name... something that begins with 'P'...
Me: Hibiscus?
Mother: That's the one.

Site du jour: In case you missed it, A Mouse in France wrote a series of posts on how to avoid getting computer viruses. And since she deals with that sort of thing for a living, this is straight from the horse's mouth, as it were. (From the mouse's mouth? Whatever.)

Exercise du jour: 4 miles walking, 15 minutes ellipticalling.
Sigh. Yes, again. This will become a habit eventually. I just wish I had a precise definition of what 'eventually' means in this case.
Done. Finally. Actually, not quite done. I skimped on the walking (2-1/2 miles), because my body decided that since everyone else was sniffling and sneezing, it should join in the fun. Slowest 15 minutes of ellipticalling ever, but I got up and did it anyway, so I'm putting the star up.

Oh, gift me a break

see more Monday Through Friday


Quote du jour: I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.
- Shirley Temple


Exercise du jour: 4 miles walking, 15 minutes ellipticalling. It shall be done.
It has been done. That 'just 15 minutes' thing still works.

"Oh good. You still work here."

see more Monday Through Friday


Not the best way to start the day: "Oh good. You still work here."
- A co-worker, when I walked into the office one day last week. Turns out the company's been playing musical chairs, a.k.a. reorganizing.

Not the best way to end the day: That night I drove home by back roads, going 60 down dark, narrow roads that don't even had a shoulder if you need to pull over. I turned into the driveway, shut off the engine, and only then noticed clouds of steam rising up from under the hood. Half an hour later, the car was still steaming. Can't see any loose hoses, but there's a definite smell of antifreeze. Thankfully, I can get around without a car if I have to.

Goal for the week: I'm thinking that I might try working four 10-hour days this week. The manager told me that this was an option, and I'm wondering if it will work out better. I get more done when I can concentrate for long periods of time. Plus, I'm spending three friggin' hours a day commuting. Would be nice to only have to do that four days a week.

On the down side, doing this means that I will have less time to exercise during the week. Therefore, I have to take a walking lunch break. Also, I will have to make it an absolute rule to use the elliptical every night. That's going to be hard. I don't mean physically, but mentally. By the end of the day I'm usually worn out and want "me" time -- I want to relax, put my feet up, and be self-indulgent. The trick here is to try to persuade my inner slug that using the elliptical is a form of self-indulgence.

Exercise du jour: 4 miles walking, 15 minutes elliptical. Yes, I know it's the same goal as before. When it gets easy, I'll up the workout. (It's easy enough physically. The challenge here involves time and discipline.)
Done! Actually did 5 miles walking.

The Internet is making it harder for me to be a slacker

Here I was, spending time on the Internet because it was too dark and cold and gloomy to get off my ever-increasing bottom and get on my bicycle for a short 4-mile ride. (But it's so dark! It's so cold! It's so glooooooomy!)

Then I had to go and read Lynne's blog about her ride from Eugene to Beaverton.* (For those of you from elsewhere, she rode 136 miles that day. For those of you from somewhere with a more sensible measuring system, that's 218 kilometers.)

Damn. It's much harder to look my conscience in the eye and tell it that I can't do my simple get-the-chores-done ride.

Done! 4 miles on a bike

*Sorry, Julie, but even though I'd love to stop in for a visit, it ain't gonna be by bike.

The magic of 15 minutes

Quote du jour:It always seems impossible until it's done.
- Nelson Mandela

Thanks to the amazing MessyMimi, I now know that today is National Cliché day. And it is a cliché that you can do more than you think you can.


When I absolutely positively cannot in any way Get Up And Exercise... for some reason, I can almost always still manage to get on the elliptical for 15 minutes. Can't manage half an hour, 20 minutes is still too long. But just 15 minutes, well, the bar is set low enough that the weary brain can grasp the concept and see it as doable. As often as not, I find that once I'm going, I can go a little further.

Exercise du jour: Yes, another 4 miles walking, 15 minutes ellipticalling. (Merry, when are you going to change the routine? A - when it becomes easy.)
Done! I'm claiming the star even though I did 30 minutes ellipticalling and no minutes walking. I figure I deserve it on humanitarian grounds, for even though I had a rotten day and really wanted nothing more than to crawl into my home/cave at the end of the day, I got on the elliptical machine. Of course, I wouldn't have done it if you -- yes, you right there, don't look away -- hadn't had faith that I could do it. The guilt of letting you down, well, I was ready to get up there and go through the motions to placate that guilt. Then, once I was going through the motions, it was easy enough to put a good tune on the headphones and get some real exercise.
I think the formula is Friends + Guilt + iTunes = Workout.

Why You Should Exercise Every Day

Hella long Quote du jour:

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts show
that, after just one day of not exercising, your body loses some
of its ability to respond to insulin (Metabolism: Clinical and
Experimental, July 2011). Inability to respond to insulin is the
cause of most cases of diabetes that has the potential to cause
premature death in one of every three North Americans.

HOW SUGAR DAMAGES CELLS: After you eat, blood sugar levels
rise. If they rise too high, sugar sticks to outer cell membranes
to destroy those cells. That's why diabetics suffer from damage
to every cell in their bodies, leading to blindness, deafness, dementia, heart attacks, strokes, impotence, and damage to nerves, kidneys or liver. To keep blood sugar levels from rising too high, your pancreas releases insulin which drives sugar from the bloodstream into cells. Exercising every day helps to keep sugar levels from rising too high.

HOW CONTRACTING MUSCLES CAN PREVENT DIABETES: Resting muscles cannot draw sugar from the bloodstream without receiving large amounts of insulin. However, contracting muscles can remove sugar from the bloodstream without using insulin. This effect is maximal during exercise and is gone completely after 17
hours.

ONE MISSED DAY OF EXERCISE: In the study from the University of Massachusetts, after just one day of sitting, people had higher blood sugar levels after a meal, decreased ability to respond to insulin, and higher insulin levels. The more food they ate on the day of not exercising, the higher their blood sugar levels, and the less their bodies responded to insulin. This study shows that just one day of not exercising increases a person's risk for the side effects of diabetes.

HOW TO EXERCISE EVERY DAY: Many people become injured when they try to exercise every day. The most likely cause is that they do not understand the hard-easy principle that every knowledgeable exerciser should learn. You take a more intense workout on one day. The next day, you can expect to feel sore. That is when you must put very little pressure on your muscles. That means to run, dance, skate, cycle very slowly or lift lightly until the soreness diminishes. Only then should you move faster and lift heavier. You can tell that you are headed for an injury if you feel soreness that is not symmetrical and it worsens with exercise. Stop because continuing discomfort with exercise is often a sign of impending injury.

- Dr. Mirkin

Okay, I have a plan. Yesterday started off pretty good, with me drinking like a fish. I drank about three liters of water in the morning, but I slacked off in the afternoon only to find Mr. Headache coming back for a visit.

So today, I'm hitting the bottle every hour from the moment I walk in the front door to the last-minute frantic dash for the exit at night. And I'm going to exercise.

4 miles. 15 minutes elliptically. It shall be done, damn it.
It has been done. 30 on the elliptical. And it was good. The drinking plan seems to be helping.

Back to the routine

Quote du jour: Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
- Yeats (attrib.)

Why does a headache leave you feeling as drained as if you'd indulged in an orgy of debauchery? If I'd known I was going to have a hangover, I would've gone out on the town, damn it.

Oh well. Another day, another dollar cliché exercise goal.

Exercise du jour: 4 miles walking, 15 minutes elliptical.
Semi-win. Did 3 miles walking. Yes, the headache came back. I am nearly positive that it's caused by dehydration. The workplace humidity is kept unnaturally low, to make the products feel better. They do provide extra drinking water stations to make the people feel better, and a round-trip walk to the closest one is a 1/4 mile walk, so it's not too bad. So long as I remember to keep drinking. Slacked off this afternoon, and lo! The headache returned this evening like an old friend. The kind who owes you money and sits around on your couch drinking your beer and watching shows you hate.

What, I'm supposed to share all this candy with little kids whose mothers dress them funny?

I mean, there's all this candy just lying around the house. How much sugar do little kids need, anyway?

And I've just gone 30 days without tasting anything sweet. Surely my stores of sugar, fat, and artificial ingredients are dangerously depleted.



Well, it won't hurt if I open the bag, just to air the chocolates a bit.

And maybe one leeetle bite won't hurt. Just to test that they're all right. For the sake of the children.

Oh dear. Maybe I'll turn out the lights and hide tonight.

Exercise du jour: Only 2 miles of walking today, and 15 minutes elliptical.

Update du 7:35 a.m.: Okay, so I was kidding about eating up all that chocolate. Last night, I actually ate one piece. Tasted okay. This morning, I woke up with a fierce headache. It's been coming and going for the last few days, so I don't think it was caused by the chocolate. But I don't think the chocolate helped either. Not sure if I'm going to get the exercising in after all.

Last day of the sweet-free challenge

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came -
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.
~George Cooper, "October's Party"

Last day of the 30 days of no-sweets. I managed to avoid eating any sweets, but there was that little tug toward the pastries whenever I went shopping. I realized that I eat a lot more sweets than I'd thought -- just in small quantities, but they do add up.

Doing this helped me eat more fruit. I used to combat the late afternoon slump with something chocolate -- now, I reach for an apple.

I did cheat a couple of times. I mean, if you're at a party celebrating something, it's hard to refuse a glass of champagne. Well, three times to be accurate, but I didn't count the last one. The glass of red wine tasted like cough syrup. (I did check the label, and it's a brand that I had enjoyed previously. Maybe it was a bad batch. Or maybe my tastebuds have modified themselves.)

Tomorrow, I'll try a little chocolate. Be interesting to see how it tastes.

Site du jour: I liked Amber Adrian's suggestions on how to reduce your level of cranky.

Exercise du jour: Raking. And more raking. One of the drawbacks of having six mature shade trees (twice the height of my house) in the backyard. Maybe I'll try to picture all those leaves as money. Then I'll be raking it in.

Photo of a copper beech in Belgium courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Heading toward Progress

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Quote du jour: When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.
- Yeats

I'm feeling old and gray and full of sleep this morning... if I sat down by the fire I wouldn't be reading, that's for sure. I think this week has been better. Managed to get some kind of exercise in every day, even if I'm falling down on the eating healthy veggie stuff from home part. I'll work on that next week. Progress is being made.

Yesterday I managed to drive to work with hardly a wrong turn at all. (This is along very convoluted back roads rather than the congested freeway.) At one point, I came to an intersection. The road sign told me that I had to choose between taking a right and heading to Newberg or turning left toward Progress. I chose to head toward Progress.

Site du jour: Suldog has a good post on incarnation. "...putting great wealth into your hands would be akin to granting a meteor the ability to tap dance."

Exercise du jour: I am going to fit in the 4 miles of exercise and 15 minutes elliptical. That's not too much to ask. I can do that.

Oh, hell no.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

This company I'm now at has a morning culture. Not all businesses do.

My last company, like many start ups, had a late-night culture. People would straggle in at 9, or 10(ish) and stay until 7 or 8.

This place, after 4:15, is a desert. After 5, it gets creepy. So I started getting there at 7:30, and all was good. There were people there, people I needed to check in with, and I got to leave before 5:00.

Then, they sez, "Well, you clearly like to get here early. Why not come to the 7:30 meeting that deals with your project?"

[FYI: If you don't have this kind of culture, know that it is common for companies to stage meetings at times like this when they're trying to coordinate with teams on PST (Pacific Standard Time), EST (Eastern Standard Time), and Bangalore time, which is 12 hours off of (ahead? behind? whatever) PST time.]

The last company I worked at, I attended a similar meeting. After Daylight Savings kicked in, I ended up having to go to a meeting at 5 in the friggin' a.m. Me, of all people. Luckily, I could log in from home before. This time, I'm a lowly peon and must come into the office if I want to access my computer.

So far, I've been making it into work in time for the 7:30 meeting. (Which involves my heading out the door at 5:30 a.m., not that I'm complaining bemoaning my fate more than any non-morning person.) I've been making it.

Then today, they sez to me, they sez: "Hey, instead of the 7:30 a.m. meeting, why not come to the one on Thursday instead? Much more useful for this project."

"Okay," says I. "When does this one meet?"

And they tells me, "6:00 a.m."

Exercise du jour: Still going to try for 4 miles walking, 15 minutes ellipticalling.
Done. Well, good enough to warrant a star. Walked not a step, but did 30 minutes ellipticalling. Plus, I got an okay to phone in to the 6 a.m. meeting instead of getting up at 4 to try to get there, which methinks deserves a damned star just on its own.