Day: January 1, 2018

My Dog Keeps Me Alive

Fandango10 Comments

Were it not for our dog, I’d probably be dead by now. Or if not dead, a lot less healthy, and/or significantly heavier than I am at the moment.

That’s because I walk our dog three-to-four times a day, and doing so results in an average, according to the health app on my iPhone, of around 12,000 steps, or almost five and a half miles, a day.

Of course, being retired now, I am available to walk our dog, which my wife and I often do together, every day. But when I was still working, I was typically able to walk our dog only at night and on weekends, leaving most of the walks to my wife. As a result, I was averaging somewhere between 4,000 to 5,000 steps a day BR (Before Retirement).

Without our dog and these walks, I’d would be unlikely to clock in much more than a thousand steps a day. I know this because a couple of years back, my wife took off for a two week cross country drive with our dog. I couldn’t join her because it was a really busy time at work. So I was left home alone with our cat, an indoor cat who doesn’t need (or want) to be walked.

During that two week period, I averaged just under 1,000 steps a day. I also ate a lot of junk food (e.g., foods that are either microwaveable or deliverable), which my wife makes sure is kept to a minimum when she’s around.

So yes, I owe my life, or at least my relatively good health (for an old fart like me), to our dog, without whom I’d be spending much more time sitting on my ass and getting hardly any exercise.

Oh yes, and to my wife, who does what she can to make sure I eat healthy meals.

Now please excuse me while I go walk my dog.

Conversation About Drama

Fandango3 Comments

 

72F31045-5C6F-4A0E-A96E-A6E737E1082BThis month there are two daily one word prompts. One is from WordPress, like today’s one-word prompt, “conversation.” The other is something cooked up by Linda G. Hill called Just Jot it January (or #JusJoJan). Today’s #JusJoJan word is “drama.”

So, I thought my first post of 2018 would be a one-word twofer. Let’s have a conversation about drama, shall we?

I enjoy a good drama. At the movies. On TV. In books. Even as flash fiction on someone’s blog. But not in my real life. I try, as best I can, to keep my life as free of drama as possible.

Of course, sometimes drama in life is unavoidable. Shit happens. People do or say stupid things. Drama happens.

So what can you do to escape drama? Well, if possible, don’t get involved. If you’re not a party to the drama, get out of the way. Or if that’s not possible, maybe just lend a neutral and sympathetic ear to those immersed in whatever drama is taking place.

But sometimes you’re an actor in a drama that is playing out. Maybe at home with family, maybe at play with friends, or maybe at work with coworkers or your boss. What you want to do is to minimize the drama as much as possible.

How, you ask? Well, my first bit of drama avoidance advise is to determine if you, yourself, are the source of the drama. Are you the constant? Are you creating it? If drama is always swirling around you, you need to change your behavior, your perspectives.

And whether it’s you at the center of the drama or if it’s others, you need to think before you react. Maybe follow that old trick of counting to ten before you say or do anything. And you need to figure out a way to rein in your emotions. Don’t feed the drama, tamp it down.

So there you have it. Fandango’s words of wisdom regarding removing drama from your life. If you need more drama, read a book, go to the movies, or watch TV.