Bikini Ready
Dear Diary,
This eldercare thing can get pretty hairy. I just try to imagine what I would like to experience if it were me hanging out, living in the moment… eating two lunches and three desserts (because I claimed I couldn’t remember what they tasted like). I could pretty much shout any (censored) thing with my “outside voice” that came to mind, i.e. “that woman’s an idiot” or “she’s not very attractive is she” or this one– a classic, “I’m not doing exercise class because who’s gonna see me naked?” O.K. folks, that attitude is not gonna cut it when I’m leading my killer abs work out hour, with you grannies and pappy’s. Alzheimer’s or no Alzheimer’s you are gonna have a strong core (need this to prevent those pesky hip fractures) and a nice butt, because I have an unswerving “no junk in the trunk policy”.
May I also mention, that I hope all you mommy’s out there are doing the same. Did you work out today? Let me go on record as saying: If I’m going to take care of everyone and their mother and THEIR mothers’ mother, then you can bet your tootie I’m going to be on some kind of device, sweating it out most days.
Work-out music selection is always the biggest dilemma for me. I am so tired of Frank. Oh how I loathe doing bicep curls to “Luck be a Lady Tonight”.
I prefer a little more up-beat approach, say, Icky Thump by The White Stripes for leg lifts and then on to Instant Karma by U2 for abdominals. Hey…they like it. I don’t blast it or anything as annoying as that. It’s always played at a nice soothing level for optimal results both physically and spiritually. My absolute fav exercise is for fine motor… focusing on agility of the fingers. For those of you who wish to try it at home I’ll walk you through our specific exercise. We start with tapping our thumb and index fingers of both hands together at a nice pace..tap, tap, tap. Then we move on to the next finger we’ll call it the “bird” finger and the thumb and so on until all fingers have been tapped. Next we do finger circles, twirl the thumbs, then the index or pointer finger and then…
Just at the moment Beyonce starts singing, “if you like it then you’d better put a ring on it” we start twirling the “bird finger” in unison. As were doing our aggressive finger circles and I’m shouting over Miss B (cause you have to play Beyonce a little louder) “come on people, work it harder, get the whole arm into the game now!”. I glance up to see some possible new recruits and their loved ones watching with amusment our upper-body work out. We keep going exercising the “bird finger” because, 1. you never know when you might have to use it and 2.I love this particular exercise.
The new folk later decided to join our club…shweeeet! Did I say “our” club. This is what comes with six days a week with “my people”. I have people!
Welcome to My sandwich generation! Known for it’s tenacity, creativity and slogan “no whine with meals”.
Time to give mommy a bottle!
A
