If you remember your Bible at all, you know it says again and again that our days are numbered, that only God knows what those numbers are, and that our earthly demise can come unannounced at any time.
Of course, sometimes we wish we knew just how long we actually have to live. I mean, if we knew we only had a few months left, we might cash in the CDs and probably wouldn't worry about doing winter maintenance on the lawnmower.
Despite the fact that mortality remains a mystery, there's always someone trying to make a science out of predicting how long we have to live, whether by examining the length of lines on our palms, reading the stars or looking into a crystal ball. Now, some high-tech geeks have gotten in on the act with an online tool.
When you go here, you'll find a panel that asks you questions about when you were born and how healthy your lifestyle is. When you fill everything out, it supposedly tells you the exact day you should die.
There are some bugs I should warn you about. Mrs. Muley and I figured out that when it asks you about your "medicine status," it doesn't want to know if you take prescription pills. It's asking if you abuse your body with harmful drugs. The reason why we figured this out is, when we checked "yes," it had us dying fairly quickly. And when Mrs. Muley's 77-year-old mother tried it out and answered in the affirmative to the drugs question, it told her that she should have died back in 1986, a fact that she found both comical and a bit bracing. When all of us changed our medicine status to the negative, however, the program changed its tune and gave us all much longer lives, even raising Mrs. Muley's mother from her early grave.
What did it tell me? Well, I am supposed to die on Saturday, September 18, 2049, which means that Mrs. Muley will have to teach 6th grade Sunday School by herself the next day. As far as Mrs. Muley goes, she is expected to shuffle off this mortal coil on what would have been my 98th birthday, July 11, 2058. That will leave her almost nine years of wild widowhood in her 90s to go out and party without me.
You'll probably either think this is too morbid to mess with, or you'll take it with a big grain of salt, as I did, and have fun with it. If you fall into the latter category, let me know what the mystical cyber swami tells you.
Showing posts with label Aging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aging. Show all posts
Friday, January 11, 2008
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
No Pain, No Brain, Again
As I am writing this, rivulets of hard-earned sweat are coursing down my ruddy face. No, I'm not being mugged, and I'm not listening to rap lyrics (sort of the same thing, don't you think?), but I've just completed a nice long jog around campus, and I'm trying to cool off here at the public computer terminals in the Student Center.
I have begun the folly I begin about this time every year. You see, about six or seven years ago, I was someone who managed to lose about 55 pounds through nothing more than eating a sensible diet and running and lifting weights every week. I was thrilled at my success and my theretofore missing self-discipline, and physically I felt better at 39 and 40 than I did at 22.
During the following years, I managed to stay on a maintenance program that kept my metabolism high enough that I could pig out every now and then and not worry about gaining weight. I was never quite as faithful to the regimen as I was at my time of lowest poundage, but every week I managed to run three or four times and lift weights at least once. I mean, I was not in fear of answering my doorbell and seeing Richard Simmons beckoning to me with a forklift.
In the past few years, however, something has happened. That resolve I had seven years ago started gradually to slip away. I ran and lifted weights less and less, and although I still ate fairly healthy, I pigged out like someone with only a higher metabolism should.
The bottom line is, I'm now about 20 pounds above my "maintenance" weight, and about 33 pounds from where I was at my leanest, and where I'd love to get back to if I could. After a spring that saw me gradually exercising less and less, I've told myself (for about the 10th week in a row) that I've got to get back on the fitness schedule. No ifs, ands and butts.
Of course, I always end up doing these exercise comebacks the wrong way. It would be best to start a stepped-up exercise program in the winter, or at least in the early spring. That's when the weather is too cold to do a lot of yardwork (freeing up spare time), and on days when it's not actually freezing, the weather is so cool outside that it's a pleasure to go and run.
But do I take advantage of that, like an intelligent person would? No. In the winter and early spring, I'm indoors all the time, relaxing or working, and a bathing suit hardly ever gets put on. So, those extra pounds aren't as much of an embarrassment. Besides, I can hide out in nice wram sweaters, and no one seems to notice.
But when summer approaches, the sweaters come off, and I realize that in a matter of a few short weeks I will begin escorting my kids to beaches and pools and water parks. I WILL BE SEEN IN PUBLIC LOOKING LIKE LUMPY RUTHERFORD FROM 'LEAVE IT TO BEAVER.' So, I put on my shorts, run out into the humidity and heat of a late Texas spring, and begin huffing and puffing.
I know that I don't have the metabolism I did even a year ago. Then, I could run around this 500+ acre campus, and not have to stop even once. The only time I would stop was if I felt like it, or if I needed to remove a dog's teeth from my leg. Today, I must have stopped a dozen times. Instead of daydreaming and coming up with ideas for blog posts, stories and poems (which is what I used to do), my mind was focused instead on, Okay, I'll keep running to that big tree up there, and then I'll walk for a bit. No. No. I'm not going to make the big tree. Okay, I'll stop at the far side of the driveway. No. No. How about the near side of the driveway?"
But dang, it, I did it. More than 30 minutes, and this is my second day in a row. I feel good, especially since I also lifted weights at lunch. The only thing that is possibly a little troublesome is that the coeds I passed on the jogging trail, who normally are in iPod brain control mode and don't even notice me, seemed yesterday and today to be looking at me with a combination of shock and horror. I imagine they saw this 40-something guy, sucking in air like a broken bellows, and wondered if--eww, gross!--they were going to have to put to use their CPR training on a smelly heart attack victim. Of course, what they might really be thinking behind those horrified glances is
Rapist. Rapist! But thank goodness, an out-of-shape rapist I can easily outrun if it comes to that!
I've cooled off now, in body if not in mind, and it's time to go home. Maybe since I exercised today, I can eat a big dinner and have some of that cheesecake for dessert. Hmm...
I have begun the folly I begin about this time every year. You see, about six or seven years ago, I was someone who managed to lose about 55 pounds through nothing more than eating a sensible diet and running and lifting weights every week. I was thrilled at my success and my theretofore missing self-discipline, and physically I felt better at 39 and 40 than I did at 22.
During the following years, I managed to stay on a maintenance program that kept my metabolism high enough that I could pig out every now and then and not worry about gaining weight. I was never quite as faithful to the regimen as I was at my time of lowest poundage, but every week I managed to run three or four times and lift weights at least once. I mean, I was not in fear of answering my doorbell and seeing Richard Simmons beckoning to me with a forklift.
In the past few years, however, something has happened. That resolve I had seven years ago started gradually to slip away. I ran and lifted weights less and less, and although I still ate fairly healthy, I pigged out like someone with only a higher metabolism should.
The bottom line is, I'm now about 20 pounds above my "maintenance" weight, and about 33 pounds from where I was at my leanest, and where I'd love to get back to if I could. After a spring that saw me gradually exercising less and less, I've told myself (for about the 10th week in a row) that I've got to get back on the fitness schedule. No ifs, ands and butts.
Of course, I always end up doing these exercise comebacks the wrong way. It would be best to start a stepped-up exercise program in the winter, or at least in the early spring. That's when the weather is too cold to do a lot of yardwork (freeing up spare time), and on days when it's not actually freezing, the weather is so cool outside that it's a pleasure to go and run.
But do I take advantage of that, like an intelligent person would? No. In the winter and early spring, I'm indoors all the time, relaxing or working, and a bathing suit hardly ever gets put on. So, those extra pounds aren't as much of an embarrassment. Besides, I can hide out in nice wram sweaters, and no one seems to notice.
But when summer approaches, the sweaters come off, and I realize that in a matter of a few short weeks I will begin escorting my kids to beaches and pools and water parks. I WILL BE SEEN IN PUBLIC LOOKING LIKE LUMPY RUTHERFORD FROM 'LEAVE IT TO BEAVER.' So, I put on my shorts, run out into the humidity and heat of a late Texas spring, and begin huffing and puffing.
I know that I don't have the metabolism I did even a year ago. Then, I could run around this 500+ acre campus, and not have to stop even once. The only time I would stop was if I felt like it, or if I needed to remove a dog's teeth from my leg. Today, I must have stopped a dozen times. Instead of daydreaming and coming up with ideas for blog posts, stories and poems (which is what I used to do), my mind was focused instead on, Okay, I'll keep running to that big tree up there, and then I'll walk for a bit. No. No. I'm not going to make the big tree. Okay, I'll stop at the far side of the driveway. No. No. How about the near side of the driveway?"
But dang, it, I did it. More than 30 minutes, and this is my second day in a row. I feel good, especially since I also lifted weights at lunch. The only thing that is possibly a little troublesome is that the coeds I passed on the jogging trail, who normally are in iPod brain control mode and don't even notice me, seemed yesterday and today to be looking at me with a combination of shock and horror. I imagine they saw this 40-something guy, sucking in air like a broken bellows, and wondered if--eww, gross!--they were going to have to put to use their CPR training on a smelly heart attack victim. Of course, what they might really be thinking behind those horrified glances is
Rapist. Rapist! But thank goodness, an out-of-shape rapist I can easily outrun if it comes to that!
I've cooled off now, in body if not in mind, and it's time to go home. Maybe since I exercised today, I can eat a big dinner and have some of that cheesecake for dessert. Hmm...
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