Walking in the leaves...and letting someone else rake them

I hate to admit it, but my plan to lose 12 pounds before I see my cardiologist again in January is in danger of falling on its face.  

The reason, of course, is that I have not walked seriously in some time - I have walked the odd two miles sporadically, but not religiously.

I told my sister that the worst feeling I ever had in my life was standing on Dr. Mansoor's scale in the summer and seeing a number I do not even want to put in print.  I was embarassed nearly to the point of tears; it was like a physical pain.

I swore to him that I would lose 12 pounds by the time I came back to the office, and he said, "From your mouth to God's ear.  You are the only one who can do this.  Dr. Cheema and I saved your life.  Don't let us down."

How can I argue against that?  On the bright side, I would be dead and, thus, I would be spared seeing the look of disappointment in his face; on the dark side, I would be dead.  Period.  

Being that I am not looking forward to either possibility, I will stick to my diet and exercise plan religiously from here on out, even through the upcoming holidays.

As I typed that last paragraph, I was already fully aware of the fact that my friend, Leslie, who comments here as Druid 451, will hound me incessantly - for my own good - and I accept that.   

Back to the subject story of this post.  

Today, my sister hatched a plan for me to find that old walking religion again.  She will sit in her car by the river every day, while I hike the two-mile trail - one mile out, and one mile back.  

She will get a lot of reading done, while I sweat my brains out to build a better body.  I will constantly remind myself that nothing can possibly taste as good as being alive and slim will feel.  Plus, it will save six people from heart attacks as they struggle to carry a fat person - dead weight, if you like - to their grave.  

Forgive me, but I have to ask how I could live with myself after being responsible for six deaths.  The guilt would kill me, except for the fact that I would already be dead.     

Okay, returning to the post, to my happy surprise, I found that I was not as out of shape as I feared after a summer when I did not walk at all.  I made the walk in 30 minutes flat!  

In my defense, I have to say that, even when I first started walking again at the end of the non-walking summer months, I never took more than an hour to travel that distance.  That was an accomplishment, especially when you consider that I feared I might soon see dead relatives at the other end of the road, motioning for me to "come on" as they stood there, bathed in soft light.  

Still, walking two miles in 30 minutes is far better, and I find myself wondering if I can get it down to 20 minutes...but, yet again, I digress.

Was I tired as a strode back to my car door?  Hell yes, but it felt amazingly good to move that fast for that long a distance.  Truthfully, my first thought as I climbed back into the passenger seat was that if Superman is really able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, at the very least I could make it to a porch roof.  With a running start, I might be able to clear a small garage.  

It was fun walking along the trail, and listening to the leaves crunch beneath my sneakers, and even more fun when I considered my new Superman-like capabilities back at the car.  

It was even more fun still when I noticed that I was moving a lot faster than the school kids who walk that trail every day as a part of their gym class.  Some of them were walking along like they had shoes of lead on their feet, while I was wearing old, beat-up sneakers of glory!  

Back on the trail, I had thought a few times that I really should be home raking the leaves in the yard.  I even thought I might make a start on that job when I got home, but I knew I was not serious.  I cannot lie to myself; I always know the truth.  As my mother used to say, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and some all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool yourself."  

The raking is not so bad, it is the bagging that gets tedious.  I have always loved yard work, but I liked it better when I could leave the clean-up part of the job to Daddy.  That man was amazing with clippers and bags!

When we got home, I noticed that Mia, the pit bull puppy who belongs to my neighbor and friend, Paulie DiPietro, was again running around in what she considers to be her part of my yard.  I wonder if a universe exists where a puppy, or even a grown dog, could possibly understand the irony of the fact that, at one time, what is now Paulie's yard was part and parcel of our yard?  

Returning to the thread of this exciting post, Mia all but lives in the huge flower bed on the north side of my house (I converted it to a flower bed years ago, when both Daddy and I got sick of mowing it...a slight incline made pushing the mower uphill a real pain in the backside).  

Anyway, a rubber ball and several dog biscuits are always stored in the side garden, ever ready in the event Mia needs a snack after a morning spent playing with the bright orange rubber ball.  

I was just about to call out to Mia, when I noticed a flurry of leaves coming in her direction.  A closer look revealed that Paulie was out blowing away the morning's leaf downfall...even the leaves that had landed on the sidewalk!  There will be no bagging boredom for me this year.

Moral of this post: Often times, if you are a good neighbor yourself (I never complain about noise coming from Paulie's place late at night, or about Mia constantly being in my yard), and chances are good that your neighbors will respond in kind - unless they are a particular neighbor of Leslie's, in which case they will continue to be miserable!