Sunday, January 06, 2008

Quiet Weekend

S has, uncharacteristically, decided on a weekend on his own. This freaked me out a bit yesterday, and he had me come over and comforted me. There were a bunch of different things going on: wanting to spend time with him, of course, and a bit of worry about what might be going on. There was also a couple of old things rearing their ugly heads...an image of being grounded and all the kids in the neighborhood playing outside came to mind, so the fear that I was being left out of something. Then also a memory of when I was in high school. I had a job at a car dealership and my father came to pick me up one Saturday. The boss told me to stay until the owner of the dealership called in which ended up being 15 minutes later than usual. My father was angry at me for not being ready on time. So I'm worried a bit that S will call on me and want me to come to him and I will not be available for some reason.

That last is not really a reasonable worry since I've never experienced that from S, but obviously I expect it from other experiences with my father. Anyway, I'm trying to let go of all that today. It does nothing but waste a perfectly useful day.

Instead, I'm going for a walk at the Berkeley Marina. It's been awhile since I've been able to do that. It's been raining for most of the weekend but it seems like we might have a bit of a break this morning. Let's hope it holds.

I'm in training, you see...for Hawaii. There are all these things I've planned that I really want to do that require a certain level of fitness: surfing, scuba diving, kayaking. An interesting piece though, I have to talk to the scuba people because they say that extremely overweight people (I'm assuming they are meaning to say obese which is the category I fall in) are not recommended for scuba. It's a bit annoying. I did some reading on it and it seems that there is concern that "the bends" may be more of a problem for heavier people, and it does require a certain stamina and cardiac fitness to be safe. But here's what annoys me: they put this warning on the tour that I was looking at...the one that's supposed to be safe for a 12 year old with no experience to do. Which means we won't be diving in deep water and none of us will be certified...essentially, I think, we'll be snorkeling with scuba gear. So, yeah, I'm annoyed. Still, I will talk to them and I will talk to my doctor, etc.

RE: my training. I'm trying to find good low-impact aerobic videos (if you have recommendations that's great). I watched one yesterday with Gay Gasper...she does the weight training video I've used in the past from the "For Dummies..." series. It's good, but she's annoyingly skinny and they do this split screen thing during the workout portion that I think would give me vertigo. So back to Netflix for it. In case you are wondering, I often preview videos before I do them. It's just my preference.

On a seperate note, I've started reading Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone. I'd never wanted to read it before, but I picked up for cheap with this sense that I should read it. I'm finding it very readable and good. I'll keep you posted.

Hope you all are having a lovely weekend.

4 comments:

Jessica said...

why did he want to be alone? was he trying to punish you for something? that would make me crazy...

Cody Bones said...

Spins, I've been a certified PADI diver for 25 years, and I have a few advanced certifications as well, so I feel comfortable giving advice (Don't I always). Scuba diving is a very exhausting sport. To begin with, It's the gearing up that can start to tire you out (tanks and weight belts), and add to the fact that you are swimming the whole time underwater, it's quite the aerobic workout. In regards to the 12 year olds, most 12 year olds are in better physical shape then the adults. I don't think weight will affect diving very much, it's more along the lines of aerobic fitness. Your absolutely doing the right thing by walking and trying to get into better shape. I'm confident that you will do wonderfully. Please remember to stay calm, breathe normally, and enjoy the whole process. Good luck, and please let us know how it is.

Charby said...

I agree with Cody, being only small and slight, just putting on the wieght belts was enough to totally and utterly drain me, and i very nearly collapsed when it came to putting the full gear on for the 4th time that weekend, in fact without E there's no way I could have carried myself to the lakeside.

still you'll love the whole underwater experience, I did, and I cant wait to get out and do it some more, but next time i'm certainly going to work on my fitness (like you're doing) for a while before hand. its definatly a fit-persons sport!

(actually having read this through, i think I sound quite patronsing... hope you get what I mean anyway!)

Aravis said...

I hope you had a nice, relaxing weekend to yourself. :0)