The Physical Needs Attention

I am up and at 'em ready to go this morning. It's a Monday, lots to do but before I do anything I'm doing my centering meditations AND getting started on my steps. AND I wanted to get stuff done at the pull-up bars at Mar Vista Park too.  First thing I noticed was how much warmer it was out there. Summer truly is just around the bend. And I did my walk the long way around through McLaughlin to Mar Vista Park. And then to the pull-up bars. I did 12 last week in 2 sets but that's bicep backward style. Today I tried to do bicep forward. And I could only do 3 clean reps. I did halfway reps on the other 3. And struggled mightily to at least get 10 in no matter how many times I kept pushing. That was a bit of a punch in my gut. I guess I'm not as strong as I used to be, not as strong as I thought. I guess I had let myself deteriorate in a couple of years haven't I? I guess I have to work on it again don't I. Sigh. To say I was disappointed is putting it mildly.  But at least I now know what to focus on. I guess I had neglected my physical body much more than I thought. And I got somewhat of a wake-up call. But at least I am starting to wake up and now I have some work to do. I have to re-invent my body all over again. I have every confidence that I can do so successfully and in a very short amount of time. To that end, I went home, worked on those Covid vaccine reports. I had to do it 3 times. One for the dashboard that the CMO sees, one for the HRSA survey. And then another report due today for a grant, which meant having to aggregate the data from the past year. I got the first 2 done fairly quickly. And then I walked to Mar Vista Park again. Tried to do pull-ups again. But this time I could sense my upper body muscles were already fatigued. Gotta go slow or I will end up hurting myself. While at the park I saw all this VOTE HERE signs and just because I was curious I walked over to the gym to see what wa going on. Of course I knew though. The big elections for LA City Mayor, the Governor of California and all the other government officials were on the ballot. I had a vote-at-home ballot but I figured why not vote here in person. Now. Which was exactly what I did. And which was how I ended up with an I VOTED sticker on my chest very much spontaneously today. I went home and finished my last report for the day. Which meant I had actually done quite a bit even for a Monday. That alone made this day already a pretty good one by mid-day. That I could take a walk to the park, try to do pull-ups, exercise,  and then do my civic duty by VOTING, all quite spontaneously is pretty cool even by my standards :) By 5 pm I was already finishing up the last of my 15,000 steps for the day and chowing down on some nice shrimp salad and split pea soup. I'm thinking do I need more protein if I want to pack on some more muscle? I don't think so. Just gotta keep doing reps is all. Hey I wanted to be youthful again right? Before long I was already thinking about when the Johnnie pick-up was. Of course Lisa wouldn't pick up her phone. I just went on over to her house around 6:45. On the way there I had the presence of mind to do some energy protection stuff around myself. You never know what mood she is going to be in, particularly if she spent the bulk of the weekend at her parent's house. When I got there mom and son were watching the movie Grown-ups. Yep, they were watching a movie. It was big enough of a surprise that the TV was on at all. But watching this movie? See.. you never know with Lisa in what state of mind she is moment by moment. As it turned out she finally came around to having Johnnie clean up before we left. And then of course, she got around to something that might have bugged her earlier in the weekend. This time it was Johnnie's art materials. She was in "organize" mode again which does not bode well. She does that to release nervous energy, release anxiety. And true enough at some point she got overwhelmed and frustrated and then she directed anger at ME. Something about not helping her and about me being like most men. I didn't bother to process that. It was simply Lisa being Lisa and merely a prod that Johnnie and I should get out of there as fast as we could. So I helped him clean up and off we went. No need to stay and get yelled at LOL. We were back into my apartment and my sense of normalcy in no time. I saw an apology text from Lisa when I looked at my phone. This time, I didn't need to be upset. Just let her antics roll off my back. Johnnie and I actually ended up watching the last half of the movie Avatar which we started more than a week ago. Johnnie really did like the movie. Monday is all done. I sure got a heck of a lot done didn't I?