Healthy
Living is Hazardous to the Health
I was doing pretty well. Eating and drinking whatever I liked. Enjoying playing
music. Staying up late. Then I made the mistake of going to the doctor. He said that my
lifestyle was killing me. Well that didn’t sound too great, so I decided to make
changes. No fried foods. No more staying up half the night playing the blues (unless it
pays a lot). Nothing to drink but water, juice, and milk. Seemed like enough changes to
me. Well the doctor said that I was having a good start, but that I really need to start
exercising. Well there was no way that I was going to the gym with my schedule, so I
decided to start doing my favorite thing and ride my horse more often.
I have an old trail safe mare that I can ride, but I wanted a little bit of
adventure. I hadn’t ridden my younger Arabian mare all winter. She has always been
spirited, but pretty well behaved. Except that day. She is a little tall for a slightly
overweight (though very good looking) woman to get on, so I led her up to my mounting
block after saddling her up. Everything was great. I held on to the saddle horn and reins,
put my left foot in the stirrup and started my mount. What I wasn’t anticipating was
a flock of stray chickens arriving while I was in mid air. She took off at a gallop. I
somehow couldn’t get all the way on at a full gallop, so I planned to jump free of
the horse and try again. Well, it didn’t
work out so well. My watch was caught on the saddle horn. So there I was, galloping full
speed, left foot in the stirrup, right foot hanging in the air, left hand attached to the
horse. The watch finally broke and I dismounted, though somewhat ungracefully. I landed on
my feet, but I think that 2 of my toes might have been cracked. One day maybe I’ll go
get them x-rayed. Well, I got my husband to hold the horse while I tryed to mount again
and had a successful ride. I woke up the next morning with my entire right side hurting
from the jolt.
Ok. Maybe I should try a safer exercise. I took my dogs for a nice little walk. My
hound is very sweet and wouldn’t hurt a fly. My lab is very protective of me. He is
also oversized. He weighs in at 110 pounds. Well as I was about home, the neighbor with
her children and her two small dogs came walking toward the house. He made a lunge for the
closest dog. I could just see in my mind, the dogs fighting, the children getting hurt,
and me getting sued. So I made a grab for my dog’s collar. He is so big he
didn’t notice that I was trying to hold him. He was determined to protect me from
these menacing monster dogs (which were really just pups). Pretty soon I found myself flat
on my left side, skiing along the red Georgia clay, big dog in hot pursuit of the smaller
dogs. As the smaller dogs ran away, my dog was satisfied and stopped. I, still holding to
his collar, limped over to his pen and put him up. Now I was equaled out. Right side
broken up, left side scratched and bruised. Ego crushed.
One more try. I would hike in the woods alone. This seemed like the perfect plan.
The only incidence with this episode was a twisted ankle and a near heat stroke.
I spent this weekend laying around and being lazy. Healthy living is going to kill
me if I keep it up. I think that tomorrow, I will go to Dairy Queen and get a Blizzard.
| free web hit counter |