A little coordination goes a long way

It seems these days that anything requiring coordination is giving me grief.
The first thing is the ‘Indiana Jones’ LEGO X-box game. Robin and I have been playing it together the last few days. I’m not sure if it is a relationship-building exercise or a relationship-destroying one, because it is very frustrating for my talented husband to play with me, as it turns out. He gets to be Indiana Jones and I am one of the other characters from the movie (his sidekick). We run around, blow things up, fight bad guys, build things, solve treasure maps and little puzzles, and jump and swing on rocks and buildings. All this with 4 little buttons and 2 toggle switches that you play with your thumbs.
Compared to this, the heart surgery I helped with last summer was child’s play. Inevitably it comes to a difficult move where my little lego man was to swing from a hanging vine, onto a building and then leap in sequence across obstacles and I end up killing myself repeatedly and killing Indiana Jones, too. I asked Robin last night if he thought I’d improved, and he said it was hard to tell.
The second coordination problem is our truck. Now, I personally don’t believe I have a very significant coordination problem, but since we got our pickup this summer it has been a steep learning curve for me in driving standard. The curve has plateaued recently which means that I’m still driving as badly as I ever did. Depending on your point of view, one could say that our recent truck issues are related to my skill in driving.
Last night I was on my way to work when suddenly the truck made a horrible grating noise and then the stick shift moved all by itself and the truck stalled. I managed to pull off the highway and coast to a stop on a side street. It wouldn’t even turn over. I popped the hood and there was a funny smell and everything looked okay, but I knew that was it. I called my boss on my emergency-only cell phone and since I was so close to work, she sent the secretary to come and pick me up. After work I called my brother Sam and asked him for advice. Get it towed home, he said. I called BCAA (let me advise getting a membership- it is one of the best investments I’ve ever made) and the secretary drove me back to my truck to meet the tow truck.
He hooked it up and on the way back to Kelowna we chatted about alternators and solenoids and the weather and families. When we got home he pulled into the parking lot across from our apartment. I jumped out and looked over at our apartment. I could see Robin sitting at the table, looking out the window at us. It was dark but the tow truck lights were flashing and I stood there as the driver unhooked it, thinking how I was going to explain this one.
When I got in he asked, “Was that our truck that the tow truck brought in?”
To make a long story short the truck is still parked there and hopefully my dear brother will be able to fix it for us.
The third area of coordination that is a nightmare is my aerobics class. Today we jumped around and did a move called the grapevine step. I shouldn’t say ‘we’, actually, because I never got the hang of it. Not only were all the people moving their feet in this complicated step, but they were also doing something with their arms. I struggled to keep up but for the entire class I felt like I was going the opposite way from everyone else, stumbling over my own feet. At one point we were marching across the room while waving weights over our heads in some kind of pattern and I heard the instructor say to the class, “Why don’t you make it worth your while and use heavier weights?”
I realized I was the only one with 3-lb weights; everyone else was carrying 5 or 10 lbs. I gave it my best shot, but by the time I was done I had to limp home.
I don’t know if there are any things you can do to improve your coordination, but I’d like to try. I’ve been reading a book about mathematical puzzles and I am struggling everyday to stretch my mind and figure out how to do them. Most of the time I can barely understand them. (And anyway, why would it be fun to try to solve a math problem that no one has ever figured out before?)
Well, I’m going to keep at it. More LEGO X-box tonight, if Robin can put up with me, and I’m going to keep up with the aerobics.

A new year, a new challenge

Along with my requisite two dozen new year’s resolutions, my resolution to get fit and lose weight involved joining an aerobics class at the local rec center. Over Christmas I ate lots of tasty treats and it was just too darn cold to go running, and well, honestly, I’m a bit bored of running alone and the slightest bit lazy. Robin and I just got cable in our apartment and a world of marvelous sedentary delights were opened up to me. He had to teach me how to use the remote control and navigate through the channels, but now that I’ve got it, it’s tons of fun to watch various shows and movies and news and cartoons. I don’t watch a lot, but I definitely am not utilizing my time as efficiently as I used to.
I remember a time when I wouldn’t watch a movie without knitting or flashcards in my hands. I still can’t handle reading a novel- it has to at least be in a foreign language to stretch my mind.
But all that aside, I had my first class on Monday. I walked over to the rec center and into the big room and there were about 30 ladies and 1 lone man. Most of them looked like retirees- and most of them looked deceptively out of shape. I say deceptively, because by the end of the first 5 minutes I realized I had my work cut out for me to keep up with them.
The instructor had bright red lipstick and she bounced around in tune with the music, yelling out instructions for left, right, two steps this way, two steps that way, etc. etc..
I was concentrating so hard on trying to perform the mirror image of her movements at breakneck speed that I almost crashed into the lady behind me. The deceptive flabbiness of all the older ladies had caught me off guard. They were all wearing lululemon pants and sweat bands and they all had towels they wiped their faces with every now and again.
By 15 minutes I felt like my legs were going to fall off. I looked at the clock and realized that there was still an hour to go. At 30 minutes we were allowed to stop for a brief water break. The older man came over to me and said graciously,
“Don’t worry about keeping up; as long as you keep moving you’ll do fine.”
I wondered if it was obvious that I couldn’t keep right and left straight.
Towards the end of the class we did some stretching and as I bundled up to go, dripping with sweat, I realized I would either die, or get in shape.
Today was my second class and right now I’m sitting with a hot water bottle on my sore legs and trying to relax my shoulders so they don’t ache so much. There were less people in the class, and I was smart enough today to wear my stretchy leggings, so I didn’t stick out so much. The instructor had us run laps across the huge room, waving weights over our heads (at least that’s what I was doing), and at one point I realized I was struggling to keep up with a lady who looked old enough to be my grandmother. The embarrassment was complete.
In front of me was a lady who was about 80 lbs, wearing a teeny tank top and even teenier shorts (if you could call them that). I could see the bones on her back sticking out. As soon as the music started, she was off like a little energizer bunny. She looked like she had springs in all her joints, and during the water break she jogged on the spot. I was dying.
I stumbled home today and did housework and got groceries and went to a staff meeting at work and made a lasagna that turned out runny, and watched a bit of tv with Robin and now I’m contemplating going to bed, even though it’s only 7:30. I’m determined to keep it up with the class, and I’m determined to improve the coordination thing. I’ve heard that most women struggle with right and left more than men (hence the reluctance to drive standard in a lot of women), but no one seemed to be having more trouble than me in today’s class. I believe it can be overcome, though. I’ll keep you posted……