The nose has it.

All our dogs have had different ways of going for a walk. I think it's because they had or have different values. Some dogs are really into running, and thank heaven none of our have been, because the humans in this house were never fleet of foot and are not likely to become so soon. But there are other differences to note. For example: 

1) Large Guard Dog (Tralfaz): The late Tralfaz was by breed a farm dog, meant to tow small carts and protect the herd--making him a guard dog, not a watch dog. His walking habits reflected this: straight line, watch everything, be suspicious of deer and squirrels and any other critter but not immediately aggressive. Walks with him were usually brisk, of varying length.

2) Medium Retriever (Nipper): Nipper was a fuzzy, fun-loving chap, the kind who would love to go on a hunt and retrieve things. Not having been trained as a hunting dog, though, he would probably freak out at the gun and grab the dead duck and eat it. Walks were very brisk, but with long stops to smell what there was to smell, and could be quite long. 

3) Medium Retriever Redux (Izzy): Izzy is a sweet mush for the most part, with protective instincts but a scientific interest in smelling every blade of grass along the sidewalk. Walks are slow and include many stops. 

The fact is, Izzy's walks are not great exercise because he stops constantly. Ants outpace us. Every walk is a snurffin' sniffari. I mean, it's better than nothing for me (who leads the majority of his walks), but it's not taking excess weight off either of us. 

But it doesn't much matter to me about the exercise. Since I work at home, any day that isn't tempting by its pleasantness would probably be a day I stayed in and gathered dust. Having a canine companion guarantees I am going to be outside however lousy the weather is, and I think on the whole that has done me a lot of good. Not that it always felt good, mind you. 

So thanks, fuzzy friends, for keeping me moving, not letting me become a potted ficus. But seriously, can we move someplace warmer?  

HELLO?

A dear friend called me the other day, which is always nice, but he called me from the gym. Gym noise, combined with the toll that time and Meniere's syndrome have taken on me, made for a good deal of trouble hearing him. 

I'm no gym rat. I'm not even a gym flea. I've gone to some gyms, like the ones they provide in hotels, and if those have music it's usually gentle stuff, suitable to climbing steps at a reasonable pace or knotting yourself up in yoga or dying in a cable TV drama. But his gym had a lot of peppy music blaring. Combined with the sound of weights smashing and machines whirring and people yapping, it sounded like an entire Chuck E. Cheese -- with birthday party -- rolling down a hill. The only thing missing was the screaming of children (which you'd hear even if the party was stationary). 

 

"WHAT'D YA SAY? YOUR WIFE WANTS A TEA COURSE?"

Sometimes I think the apogee of the telephone was in the 1990s, when we had caller ID and few people were running around with mobile phones. This era was the peak because: 

• You knew who was calling. 
• You could answer or let it go to the machine. 
• If you didn't know who was calling, and it turned out to be someone you wanted to speak to, you could pick up when they started to leave the message and pretend you just got in. 
• If someone was calling you from the gym or Chuck E. Cheese, it was probably from a payphone near the door and not near the speakers. 
• No spoof, spam, robot, or other modern annoyances of the telephonic variety. 

Sure, having a cellie on you all the time is convenient for making calls. But if it's so great, why does everyone want to text now? 

Well, to answer my own question, texting is convenient. You don't have to connect with the other person to get your message across. You can text right on the toilet, something people would not like to know and don't have to -- but would if you were calling. ("What's that echo?") And it's noncommittal -- you can drop out of a text conversation without warning and pick it up later (or block the other texter if things went sour). 

There is, however, the problem of multiple topics breaking out in a text chat, but that's an issue for another time. If there's a takeaway to this blog entry -- and why should this one be different from the others? -- it's to remember the irritation of background noise when making calls. It does your callee no good to hear your voice through construction machines, bowling alley pins, or the cop telling you to recite the alphabet backward. That is all.  

Motivation.

The older you get, the more you value every day in which you do not have to interact with the Medical-American community. 

It's discouraging in so many ways. The medical community wants us to eat nothing but water, really -- flavorless vegetables, flavorless fish, and that's about all. They call it the Mediterranean Diet or the DASH diet or the MIND diet or whatever—we always know it will mean no fat, no salt, no flavor. They may sell this as stuff that Greeks and Japanese eat, but I really wonder if the recipes they recommend are authentic. The people in the so-called "blue zones" wouldn't live that long if so. The food would bring them to despair. 

Of course, exercise is at least as important, or maybe more important, than diet. We seem to be broken into two sections in our society -- a small group that LOVES exercise and can't wait to get that cardio going for hours, biking or hiking or kickboxing or just running like a crazy person. And then there's everyone else, who wonders why we invented all the great machines if we have to make ourselves do work anyway. First we make machines to save labor, and then we make machines to do labor on? 

Well, to be fair, for most of the latter machines are used to hang clothes. 

You just need to get motivated, I know. For years I was into morning exercise. Made me feel awake. But I think I accumulated a variety of injuries that are starting to show up now, in the Check Engine era of life. 

Everyone needs something to motivate them. 

And that brings me around to this weekend's project: replacing a toilet bowl seat. The old seat looks like it has a horrible stain, but it doesn't -- there's a spot on the seat that has been worn through, exposing a brown surface underneath. Well, you know I cannot allow anyone in the house until this is fixed, so I stopped at Lowe's and seized some precious Moments. 

Yes, Moments by American Standard. I think the name comes not from those magical times of tranquility, alone with your thoughts on the can. I think it refers to this being one of those slow-close seats, that take a moment to drop. Not like the regular seats, that could slam the lid down on your Little Friend. The slow seat gives you time to get everything in the clear. 

Replacing a toilet seat is a job so easy that even I can handle it without worry. Of course, I will have to clean the toilet too -- putting a new seat on a filthy toilet is like trying on shoes with filthy feet. But cleaning sounds a lot like "exercise" as well, so I guess that brings me full circle -- like the circle of a toilet seat. Or the circle of diet and what becomes of the food you ate. It's all connected, my friends. Just like your digestive system, your toilet, and the plumbing. The circle of pipes.

Aisle be passing by.

I would like to thank Gloriam Marketing, a Catholic PR firm, for the following chart.

A better explanation of Catholicsthenics I have not seen. It would apply, of course to any Christian church that has kneeling, and to a lesser degree to anyplace humans congregate that involves the dreaded aisles. 

Getting past seated people is no fun in movie theaters, which is why people often like to sit on the end of a row (as in Mass as well). It is better to be put upon than to be embarrassed as the put-uponer. This is complicated by people carrying enormous buckets of popcorn and a soda large enough to hydrate a derby winner, either of which may be worn by the put-uponee if things go sideways (literally). At least that's one peril one hopes to not see in church. Church can have its entertainment value, but please -- no snacking. 

Aisle passings are even worse at live theater or sporting events. The immediacy of the performance makes everything more dramatic. You don't want a view of some guy's butt as he passes by to cause you to miss Hamlet stabbing Polonius (oops, spoiler!) or a thrilling game-tying steal of home plate. You can't get those moments back. 

The worst has to be the airplane, though. Crammed into a seat not on the aisle -- perhaps at the window or, God love you, the center -- you had better be able to contain your bodily fluids for the length of the trip. Otherwise I promise the aisle seat will be occupied by a large human who does not want to get up to let people in or out and will definitely make that opinion known. With almost zero headroom, you couldn't even leap over him. It makes for a travel experience packed with grumbling, recriminations, and discomfort. 

I usually think of people who enjoyed the COVID lockdowns as being kind of loony, but when I think of aisles, it makes more sense. 

Anyway, I showed the illustration above to my wife, and she thought it would be great to incorporate such workout techniques into Mass officially. She thought the choir could start with something cheery for stretching and warmups, then sing a dirge at the end for cooldowns. You'd shower after church rather than before. I think I'll mention it to the Cardinal; like me, he could stand to take off a few pounds.  

Bath or shower?

Commercials sure like to show gals soaking in the bathtub. I wonder. My mom always considered it akin to stewing in your own filth; she was a shower-taker exclusively and encouraged same among the rest of the family. My wife has no interest in baths -- she just wants to get clean, not make a big production out of it. (She saves the big production afterward, for her hair.) 

Me? I used to like a good bath sometimes. Like, when I'd worked out too hard and everything hurt. Or when I drank too much and had one of those killer hangovers, the kind where you have stopped feeling nauseated but want to sweat the remaining booze out of your pores. A bath could be very therapeutic at times like that. These days I don't drink and barely exercise, so I pretty much stick to the shower.

I do remember a bed & breakfast we stayed in years ago in which the bathroom had no shower. It had a huge clawfoot tub with shower attachment on a hose, so you could wash your hair and I guess spray off any filth you'd been stewing in. I loved it -- as a moderately big guy it was great to be in a tub that fit me so well. (Shower/tub combos always skimp on the latter.) My wife wasn't so keen for reasons cited above, but she did admire the decor. 

The last one to use an actual tub in our house was the dog. Izzy had gone beyond the friendly confines of the backyard, into an area where runoff goes from the pond, and became blackened from the chest down. Of course it was very cold outside, so there was no bathing him out there; I had to de-mud him just enough with old towels to get him inside to the bathtub where I could do the rest of the job. Normally he gets a good scrub-down once a month at the groomer, but here his perfidy resulted in an unscheduled and more thorough bathing. Puppy, thy name is mud!

I guess I would tell the would-be homeowner or apartment hunter that it's always good to have a tub in case of such emergencies. You never know. One time when I was a kid, Mom and I picked up a big feast from a restaurant and drove it home -- or rather, not all of it, because a loose lid led me to a bath of chowder in the passenger seat of the car. Fortunately it was not hot enough to cause serious burns, but getting into the tub back home and letting the cold water do its thing may have saved me from worse injury. 

Well, one way or another, you gotta get clean sometimes, a sometimes a bath is the way to go. Just don't forget the ducky, and the soap. 

Deeper memeing.

Hello, pals! Just a few memes here to keep your strength up as you face the weekend. Be careful out there! 

Too dark?

I hope so! Enjoy your day.

Dog countdown.

Sometimes it would be nice to have mild superpowers when dealing with dogs. Nothing major, like being able to speak with them or magically ball up the shed fur and roll it in the neighbor's yard. No, maybe like being able to see a glow on the ground ahead where something of interest to the dog lies, so you can slow down for him, or pull him out of the way before his nose gets it. It might save some unpleasant encounters. On windy days like we've had this weekend, it would be a safety feature -- my dog's nosedar gets screwed up when it's blustery, and he'll sometimes reverse direction so suddenly it can twist me like a corkscrew. Wait! I missed something! Damn it, kid, don't break formation! If we went past the target, we'll bomb it on the way back! 

But the best imaginary superpower would be to see how many steps are left before the dog has to 💩.

Under normal healthy conditions -- that is, the dog has not been sick or stuck inside a long time -- dogs always have to walk around a lot before they do the deed. People think they're looking for the perfect spot, le bon endroit, just as Flaubert always sought the precise word, le mot juste. But I am convinced they need to take enough steps to get the missile loaded and ready to fire. It would be helpful to have an idea how many steps are left, especially when time is short or the weather is lousy. It would help me to have patience, knowing when the ordeal would end.

This would be great to know for ourselves sometimes, actually. As WebMD notes, "Exercise helps constipation by lowering the time it takes food to move through the large intestine." You could just check your number before you hit the treadmill. You wouldn't need Metamucil anymore, and thank heaven you'd never need to even consider something like this:

Yes, it's real. I had no idea they had 
competitions.

But alas, my number-viewing superpower is just a pipes dream. I'll just have to be patient with little Izzy as I await his hitting the magic number of a morning. It's usually not too onerous -- he's what we used to call a regular guy. 

Total commitment.

Unlike the other guys, Phil never neglected leg day.

 

Laff away your gut!

When my doctor says, "You ought to lose weight" I say "Har har HARDY har har!"

Why do I say that? It's obvious that with my back and my general shape I am not going to go to the gym to flail around on the weight machines willy-nilly. If someone were to ask me, "How do you perform a standing dumbbell cobra with alternate arms?" my answer would be to hire a guy.

But you see, my plan is to laugh my way into good shape! 

You may laugh at that. Good! It's good exercise. Hey, I've got science on my side here.

While doing some research for work I came across a 2006 study from the London International Journal of Obesity. It's called "Energy Expenditure of Genuine Laughter." According to these chucklesome boffins, "Genuine voiced laughter causes a 10–20% increase in EE [energy expenditure] and HR [heart rate] above resting values, which means that 10–15 min of laughter per day could increase total EE by 40–170 kJ (10–40 kcal)."

That's great! I can just laugh my way to health. I love to laugh; I love to read and watch funny stuff. And I'm not talking about the sarcastic ha-ha I do when I look at "news"papers or the clapter that follows feeding the crowd some bit of political stuff they like. I'm talking gut-busting laughs that make me crawl to get tissues as I try not to knock over any beverages. Damn straight that burns calories!  

Now, you're probably wondering how long it will take for me to hyuk hyuk all my lard off. Let me do some math here.... If we take the old formula that states 3,500 cal (or kcal) = 1 pound, and 15 minutes of laughter burns 40 calories... 87.5... per hour, 21.875... round up to 22 (close enough).... 

Looks like if I laugh around the clock for 46 days straight I'll be in excellent shape.

Um.

Hm.

Ah.

I wonder how many calories you burn by crying?

Monday Odds & Ends.

Feeling a little scattered, so I loaded it all into the blog shotgun and am firing it on this page. Yes, it's the old Random Thoughts fallback today....

🐕🏃

Since we lost Junior Varsity Dog Nipper, my Fitbit thinks I died. Or maybe went into a coma. I have not hit 10,000 steps in almost two weeks. Senior Varsity Dog Tralfaz simply doesn't need or care about the kind of exercise that Nipper demanded. Fazzy is content to plow through the snow in the yard, and boy do we still have a lot of snow. More coming today. My main exercise is plowing through the snow to pick up after him or make sure he doesn't get to the street without a leash. Two feet of snow makes for a tough slog. And Fitbit gives me no credit for extra effort.

🐳📚

I've got a great idea for a novel -- it'll be the biggest thing since Scarlett, the 1991 Alexandra Ripley sequel to Gone with the Wind.  

Think of it! The injured Ishmael, the lone survivor, is reunited with Queequeg, who turns out to have survived the destruction of the Pequod as well, by floating to Nantucket in a barrel. The two band together, determined to avenge their sunken pals and bring Moby-Dick to justice. The only person who believes in them is Phyllis McSnord, the Boston socialite who found Ishmael and nursed him back to health. Her heart yearns for him -- but is his too full of vengeance to love? It's a revenge novel, a buddy novel, a romance novel, and a sailing novel all in one! 

Of course, there are some issues. I've never sailed on anything but a cruise ship, a ferry, and a catamaran. I've never even been in a rowboat. So the research might be a little daunting. Plus, I'd probably have to read the original Melville novel, and if I could get through college with an English degree and avoid that chore, I'm certainly not inclined to take it on now. All right, never mind.

🧰🍽

So I fixed the dishwasher. (He said casually, as if a minor accomplishment, hardly worth mention.) This actually occurred a week ago, although the problem went back to my last column of miscellanea in September. To fix the broken flap on the part of the dispenser that stores the Jet Dry, I had to buy a new dispenser, take out a dozen screws to access the interior of the door, gennnnntly unplug the wires leading to the old dispenser, force the part out without breaking anything, put in the new one, plug those wires (seriously, they are so fragile) into the new unit, reassemble the door, and pray that the new dispenser would work and that the hollow door wouldn't fill with water when I ran the thing. So I have avoided mentioning this until the dishwasher had been run enough times to confirm that it is working and I did not break it. Ha! 

📕😨

Been working on very PC novel, targeted at the youth. When I say it's very politically correct, I mean it. The author has used mathematical precision to bring in all preferred groups (ethnic, sexual, people who use weird pronouns), and the characters smack down each other for the slightest hint of un-PC or white supremacist behavior. Anything that happened before their tender little lives is racist garbage. 

Do kids really live this way? Life as a perpetual chase to be PCier than thou? What a drag, man. And this is supposed to be light reading, not a serious drama. If you hear about college-age folks feeling stressed these days, look at the sheer panic they live in, terrified of getting caught out by someone being bitchy, tagging them with labels of uncleanliness, online where all the world can see. Forget the pandemic; this is what's scaring the youth to death. 

For the record, my preferred pronouns are Youse, Dem, Dese, and Doze. 

🍠🌮

The problem with chips is that once you start eating chips you can't stop eating chips. Corn, potato, vegetable, tortilla, silicon, poker, doesn't matter. It's the first chip that gets you. The only way to win is to not play the game.

Updates and downdates.

Today I have some brief updates to items we've posted on this blog. In a way it's that old standby of the newspaper columnist, the Brief Observations, but in another way, it's not -- it's partly a Return to the Well. But some things do need updates, especially when an apology is in order. Thus we start with:

1) Apology to Chinese hand sanitizer

Last month I trashed a bottle of hand sanitizer I bought at Target, the "Scentfull" Winter Wonderland stuff. I thought it smelled like "some cheap 70's cologne with Tabasco mixed in". Well, as time went on and I was obliged to use it to fend off Chinese Death Virus, I came to appreciate its balsam scent. It actually does smell like a pine tree -- an artificial version of a pine tree from some weird planet that's like Earth but not exactly the same, but a pine tree nonetheless. So I don't hate it anymore. Sorry, hand sanitizer from China. But I still hate the government under which you were made. Anyway, speaking of health:

2) FitBit

I'm having much better luck with the FitBit I got for Christmas, the one that gave me a nasty rash on my wrist. I tried it again when the rash cleared up, only I wore it a lot looser and switched arms at night for sleep monitoring. This way I didn't have plastic tight on my wrist all day long. So I have been rash-free for the last couple of weeks. At first the thrill of getting 10,000 steps a day was a good motivator to keep moving, but then it started to wane, and now the software itself doesn't make a big deal about 10K steps. Seriously, I was getting fireworks on the little screen and everything. Now I'm mainly wearing it as a watch and to find out how poorly I slept last night. Maybe it will help with fitness in the long run. Except for...

3) Pork rinds

My wife was a pork-rind fan in college, because smoking and drinking were not unhealthy enough on their own (just kidding, honey!) (not really!). But I had never tried them. I remembered they were supposedly a guilty pleasure of George H.W. Bush, but I knew little else. Well, the delightful Mrs. K got me to try them, and I thought they were great -- the consistency of shrimp chips with a great bacon flavor. Just what I needed -- to like another snack with 90 calories in a half-ounce serving, along with 2g saturated fat and 12% of my daily sodium. Why can't I ever get that excited about a vegetable? Especially since all this lard can lead to...

4) Back pain

Had a scare this week following something that happened last week. I was taking down some Christmas stuff (believe me, it's still not all put away) when I decided, as we manly men will, to reach over a wing back chair to get a stocking hung at the top of the window rather than pick my way around the chair to get it. At that moment I felt something pull in a muscle on my left side. More than a week later the Back Revenge set in (a.k.a. Pay BACK Time), and I woke up feeling like I'd been questioned by the Inquisition. Well, I didn't expect that! Fortunately it seems to be fading, but for a day there I thought I was going to have to crawl back to the hospital, after I finally finished paying that little vacation off. Of course, I might wind up there anyway for frostbite, because it is:

5) Freezing cold

Ten degrees and breezy this morning; with windchill, -7. As I write it is colder here than in Anchorage, Oslo, Moscow, Helsinki, or Reykjavik. Which means it is time to take out... the Porta-Igloo, the Huge Lands' End Coat That Walks Like a Man.

I've had this thing for at least eighteen years and it hardly shows any wear. Why? Because it's so warm and well-insulated that I only wear it maybe three or four days a year. Today is one of those days. When I would commute to the city it was a major help, but I was always nervous about wearing a light-colored coat on the subway. Still, it was a matter of survival. And it never got all messed up. I think people believed I was the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and kept their distance. 

Off I go with the crazy dogs! Keep warm and Chinese-virus-free, my friends!

Fitness resolution! With steroids!

Hello, fellow kids, and welcome to 2021! No more loafing around, moaning about how bad things are. This is a new year! Time to run around and get fit while we moan about how bad things are! And look what I got for Christmas. 

My wife gave me an Inspire 2 FitBit, that step-counting marvel that can help you track heartrate, sleep quality, calories burned and consumed, water drunk, and alert you to calls and messages on your phone. It's a marvel! And it also tells time! Which is nice, since the watchband just broke on my wristwatch.

So on day one, which was actually December 27, I set it up, strapped it on, and went about my business. I wanted to see how active I am on an average day with no particular extra effort. As it is, I finished with more than 8,000 steps, which made me glad. They say you should walk 10,000 steps for baseline exercise each day (or do they? Well, it's better than most of us get). I did not have the thing on at the start of my day, so maybe I did walk 10,000 steps -- could not tell. 

On day two I was welded to my desk to meet a deadline, and yet by bedtime I had about 9,500 steps. Awesome! I figured that the next day, when I had more liberty, I would pulverize the 10,000 goal. FitBit's little screen would blare at me: "HOLD ON, COWBOY! YOU WAY TOO ACTIVE!" And I would laugh! "Ha ha! I am just warming up!"

And indeed, thanks to a sudden desire by large dog Tralfaz for a large walk, I had more than 4,000 steps behind me by nine a.m. I was going to RAWK this one!

And then this:

While I was working my wrist started to itch. Naturally, I had a lovely red rash around it where the FitBit lay. So this is where the steroid portion comes in -- corticosteroid gel, to get the itch to stop and remove the rash. And FitBit went onto the charger. 

Three days later I still have the stupid rash, although less red and not so itchy. FitBit says this probably came from wearing it too tight, and I think that's true -- you're not supposed to wear it as tight as a regular watch. The plastic doesn't breathe. I've worn my share of cheap-ass watches with plastic bands, but I usually take the watch off when I get home. You're supposed to wear the FitBit all the time -- to bed as well. You can even wear it in the shower. Got to count those shower steps!

When I was out and about yesterday I wanted a watch to keep track of time, so I put it on my right wrist, which felt very weird. Late on New Year's Eve I started to fear a rash was developing on my right wrist, so I took it off. It may have just been dry skin from winter air and dangling the dogs' leashes around that wrist.

I don't know about this whole thing. I would like it to work out, but I'm depressed. Like Rodney Dangerfield, I feel like things happen to me that don't happen to normal people. I never had any real skin problems, hardly any acne, for which I am grateful, but now this? And winter skin so rough I could sand cherry wood with it.

Well, I did get something in my stocking to help with that: 

Yes! MAN LOTION! By MAN STUFF, INC.! It works well and smells -- well, like something that wouldn't embarrass a manly masculine man's man. As they say, "NO GIRLY-GIRL SCENT: If smelling like roses isn't your deal, skip the unisex hand and body cream. Man Lotion has a fresh, clean scent – never overpowering – with no strong, lingering odor." But I may be too manly for it -- I actually broke the pump while unscrewing it. Too much man for Man Lotion to take!

But this kind of thing doesn't work on rashes. Only dry skin. Wah! 2021 sucks! 

Just a-walkin' the dog.

Everyone who walks his or her dog has favorite routes. In countries it might be a good country road; in cities maybe you look to avoid nasty blocks or veer toward the coffee place with window service. Here in suburbia, and in my general state of fitness, we have but two small preferences: 

1) Sidewalks if possible;

2) Ability to return home alive. 

With the dog park closed -- well, we think it is, because the main park is closed, although the dog park looks open, but anyway is probably full of Chinese Death Virus Zombies, or so my wife thinks -- I'm walking the dogs more that I had been a year ago.  Here are my well-drawn maps of our favorite paths around the neighborhood:

Rand McNally wishes they had a cartographer with my mad skillz, don't you think?

That last big triangle, as I've noted, was one I haven't done with either of the dogs since my back went bust last February. The hypotenuse (c) is a very steep climb; the (a) side is a sidewalk-free road with blind curves and not one I like to walk with a large dog except when very few people are driving around. Large dog Tralfaz and I used to walk it every Sunday morning when the weather was cool. Maybe we can try it again before it gets snowy.

I have a friend who lives on a cul-de-sac that is the end of a long road. Every morning walk with her dog has to at least begin with the same ol' sidewalk, and the dog is bored with it. It's not like she has time to drive the pup somewhere else and walk around before work; she's doing the best she can. Her only other choice would be to go running through her neighbors' backyards into the wooded areas, and she's a nice person and probably wouldn't do that. Or perhaps she just would hate to have her reputation ruined among her neighbors. 

Anyway, if we ever move, I hope it will be to a place where there are multiple trails outside the door for dog walking. Bored dogs without enough exercise can be real trouble while you're trying to work, even if you work from home as I do. Remind me to tell you about the dinette floor sometime. 

These plants are made for walkin'.

If every day was not strange enough already, with Chinese Death Virus and unprosecuted violent mobs and Florida Man running amok, we have weird holidays to keep us on our toes. Worse, we sometimes have a confluence of weird holidays that seem to go together, but seem to not as well.

What I mean is, today, July 27, according to the fine folks at Holiday Insights, is the day we celebrate Take Your Pants for a Walk Day, Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day, AND Walk on Stilts Day. Three walking-based celebrations, but no obvious connection. Or IS there?

Here are the descriptions of the days:

Take Your Pants for a Walk Day: "It's an easy day to celebrate. Simply go for a walk. Unless you are wearing a dress or a skirt, you probably are wearing pants. So, by definition, as you walk, they come along."

Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day: "Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day is a great day for you and your houseplants to get some exercise. It will be good for them. It will allow you to bond with your plants, helping them to reach their maximum potential. Along the way, you can get your houseplant accustomed to your neighborhood!"

Walk on Stilts Day: "Stand out in a crowd by hopping onto a pair of stilts. If you are about to mount stilts for the first time, begin with a pair that is short... low to the ground. Once you've mastered your first pair of stilts, you can easily graduate to taller and taller ones."

If you celebrate holiday #2 with pants, you're also celebrating holiday #1. Way to go! If you wear a sun dress or kilt, or even shorts, you're letting down the side. Now get some stilts. I especially do not recommend walking on stilts in a kilt.

It might be tough to try to enact all three holidays together. Here's a little girl I saw online who seems to have the houseplants thing down, though:

And look! She's got pants!

I currently have only one potted plant going, or rather plants; back on June 13 they looked like this:

But now the cherry tomato plants look like this:

I ain't walking them anywhere.

But if I do walk, it will be in pants. So let's celebrate, and Sing the Praises of Pants!

Oh the pain, the pain.

Correspondent Mr. Philbin inquired about the health of my back. As you may know, over the course of last year I developed a case of sciatica pain so bad that when I woke up in the morning it felt like someone was using my left flank to sheath a sword. The burning, cutting pain ran all the way down to my left foot, that noble appendage made famous by poet Christy Brown. Some mornings it was indescribable agony. On other, better mornings it was just describable agony.

So, at long last, I started physical therapy.

It's really not too bad. I have been going twice a week, with a series of three stretching exercises to do each day in between appointments. And I do them like my life plus a million dollars is riding on it. The appointments themselves are fine, sort of exercise-plus, where I do the same ones I do at home plus a few with their equipment plus a few invented to annoy people, plus a nice heating pad, and at the end, I get beaten up. It's great!

Overall it has helped. Some mornings I don't even have to hold up a hand for the dogs to talk to while I gulp an OTC painkiller before I take them out. I no longer spend a good deal of time making horror movie background yelps while easing down the stairs. It definitely is on the mend.

I'm not sure it's as good as my therapist says, however; she tells me the problem spot, based on my muscle reactions during therapy, has gotten much smaller. I think we are split on that decision. She is the professional, I admit, but it's my sciatic nerve. We may have to agree to disagree.

And oh, that sciatic nerve. I was on the table yesterday and she knuckled that puppy like she wanted to cut off the blood supply to my leg. I can see how a brief description of these activities could lead to prurient thoughts among the more adolescent readership, but believe me when I say nothing erotic occurs; it's like the opposite of that. It's like a movie you'd show a teenage boy to get him to stop thinking about sex. It just means mucho, mucho pain.

Afterward I feel better, because who doesn't feel better after someone stops hurting you? But I'm not the kind of guy who likes to pay women to hurt me. The high copay hurts enough.

I'm not a tough guy like my dad. He would gash himself at work and literally walk around bleeding for a while before he bothered to do anything about it. I don't think I heard that man cry out in pain once in my life; just a grunt when something was wrong at the level of broken bones. That's not me. I think I have a reasonable reaction to pain -- meaning, while on the table, I almost gave up the secret plans.

But I just gritted my teeth and held on. I mentioned when this all started that I know people who gave up on physical therapy because it hurt, and they were sentenced to unrelieved misery and hampered mobility as a result. I may give up the secret rebel base, but I'm not giving up on PT.

As Benevolent Oaf Mongo posted, "You'll benefit in the long run, even if your wallet doesn't!" I've seen my wallet; it's a tough old piece of leather, but I'll be damned if I give up before it does. Bring it!

The Nipper workout.

My younger dog, Nipper, is the fittest guy in the house. Why? Because he's three years old. But that's not all! He also has this weird idea that exercise can be fun. I know -- crazy, right?

So since I know nothing about fitness, I thought it might be useful to you, the reader, who is clearly reading this and not climbing a mountain or biking across the wilderness at the moment, to get the Nipper Exercise Plan into your life. It's easy! And it's fun! Well, he seems to think so.

Every morning before breakfast, you must either drag some human slob along on a brisk walk, stopping only to inhale the lawns and sidewalks and intersections of busy streets as necessary. But of course, on some days that doesn't work. Nipper's scared of garbage cans, as I've mentioned before, so trash days are out. You might even have some reasons to skip the roadwork yourself. But that's okay! Because Nipper's Twenty-Minute Backyard Regimen is just fine for keeping him in shape, and you can try it too! Here's just a taste of the first five minutes, just so you get an idea:

First: Find a backyard. It's helpful if it's your own, but it doesn't really matter. Then, follow this plan to the letter, devoting the time allotted to each step:

0:00 - 0:10: Run like maniac into yard, barreling down into the tall grass at the edge, crashing into anything in your way. Ignore pain! Ignore stiffness! Ignore the human telling you to calm down and hold up!

0:11 - 1:45: Sniff everything you can possibly get your nose into. When you run out of things to inhale, walk a little farther. Make sure you get to wherever ticks and burrs may be found; it's important to get these things stuck on you. Ignore everything else; this is you time.

1:46 - 2:10: Stick, to it! Grab that miscellaneous stick and pull it with everything you've got! Really builds muscle... especially since it's a tree root and not going anywhere.

2:11 - 2:27: Miscellaneous trotting around.

2:28 - 3:30: Stick time II! Find a loose stick on the lawn and chew that thing to splinters! Healthy, too -- fiber!

3:31 - 3:32: Watch as a ball bounces past. Human is trying to engage by throwing ball. Ignore it; finish stick. Don't worry; human needs exercise, too. He can go pick the ball up. You're helping him!

3:33 - 3:34: Mad dash to human, who now has stick-like object instead.

3:35 - 4:00: Leap in air as high as possible to reach object while human keeps pulling it upward. What a great workout for both of you! Get those paws in the air! Slam into human occasionally! Okay, this is getting annoying! Demand stick! Must have stick! He threw it! Dang!

4:01 - 4:02: Mad dash after stick.

4:03 - 4:40: Mad dash back to human, but do not release stick! THIS IS NOW TUG TIME! Great anaerobic workout for you both. Pull him all over the yard! Yank, twist, spin -- your main object must be to get that stick. Secondary object is to plant human on his rear end. Don't let up!

4:41: You got it! Now let him get hold of it again for another set of reps!

4:42 - 5:00: Resume tug!

As you can see, this workout provides benefits and occasional injuries all around. If you send just $39.99 to frederick_key at yahoo.com today, I'll make sure you get the complete Twenty-Minute program, plus our free bonus pre-chewed Frisbee and freezable first-aid pack. How can you afford not to sign up today? Join the millions of happy puppies in backyards across this great land, getting fit the Nipper Way!

The Corpse Pose was a little too on-the-money.

Lisa's first attempt at starting a Water Yoga Class was also her last.

Start training!

That's right, folks, it's time! I know Thanksgiving is ten days away, and you're saying, "Ten days! How can I ever get in shape by then?" Relax! Your old uncle Fred has done the research; you just have to do all the work.

Get ready.

Let's see how some of the pros do it.

For example, take Joey Chestnut, world-record champ, who ate 74 hot dogs (with buns!) in 10 minutes last Fourth of July. He begins his training two months in advance of the contest. It's so brutal that after his first practice he doesn't hold his second until a week and a half later. As quoted by ESPN: "It takes about two months to really know where I'm at, where I'm peaking, and my body's pretty much a hot dog-digesting machine."

But it's too late for that! You don't have two months to prepare!

Ah, that's all right -- cool your cranberries, pilgrim. Unless you have to eat your whole Thanksgiving dinner in 10 minutes, you don't need to achieve Chestnut levels of food inhalation. Of course, if your family is planning to go out for the Black Friday Doorbusters on Thanksgiving night, you may indeed only have 10 minutes. Next year start training in September.

Perhaps the distaff side of the sport of gourmands will yield something less brutal?

How about Molly Schuyler, who ate a record 501 chicken wings in at Wing Bowl in 30 minutes last February?

Normally, she says, she and her children eat a healthy diet. But the morning of the competition she drinks about three gallons of water to stretch the stomach. Put it another way, a pint being a pound the whole world 'round, she puts 24 pounds of water in her gut. And that's her equivalent of doing stretches in the outfield.

Are these the methods that will help you get through the turkey, gravy, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, fruit salad, rolls, green bean casserole, candied yams, apple cider, creamed onions, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream?

Of course, you ought to bear in mind that competitive eating is not without risks. While you're devouring an entire turkey in 12 minutes, you might choke on a bone, you might have a heart attack, you might choke on your own vomit, and basically, you might die. Even drinking gallons of water to prepare can lead to water intoxication, which sounds silly but can throw your salts out of whack and -- you guessed it -- kill you. So maybe you should just eat what you can next Thursday and not go for Olympic gold here.

Of course, your Aunt Sally's green bean casserole might kill you all on its own, but that's a chance you'll have to take.

Eau du chien mouillé.

It's been rainy this week.

View from under the umbrella.

I'm not complaining, I'm really not. They have scorching temperatures out west and lots of places here in the northeast are getting flooded. Out in Laos they have "hundreds missing" following flash floods and a dam collapse. All I have are luxury problems. 

In fact, Sophomore Dog Nipper really seems to like the rain. On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings we got drenched during our routine morning exercise (either a walk or playing in the yard, depending on presence of garbage cans) and he had a blast. He could not have been wetter if he had been snorkeling in the Caribbean. He smiled at me like the world's happiest dog. Maybe he was at that moment. 

In the yard, though, he picked up a little passenger:

Yep, stuck his wet self into the tall grass on the verge and came out with a wet bee that did not look like the world's happiest bee.

I wanted to gently de-bee him with the umbrella, but that scared Nipper and he dodged and weaved. He would like very much to play with (i.e., destroy) the umbrella, but doesn't like it waved at him. After some minutes I managed to brush the bee off with a ring toy, and he and the bee parted ways with no further acrimony.

After that, my only problem is the wet dog. He would love very much to eat a towel, and goes into a kind of frenzy at drying-off time. Despite my best efforts, you can only get a dog so dry with a towel anyway. He was still soggy for hours. And you know, there's a reason Glade doesn't make a scent called Wet Dog.

Well, at least he had fun.

If it's too dry where you are, I hope you may get some of this life-giving rain. And if you're being flooded, may you get a chance to dry out. We all must live in the middle of extremes, even the dogs.

Health food?

Sometimes if I'm running around and I know I will miss, or more likely, delay a meal, I might grab a protein bar to sustain me. I have no illusions; I know these are essentially candy bars with added protein. But they keep me going and keep hunger pangs at bay, so I don't feel quite so bad about it. I do, however, think that the proprietors of these candy bars ought to be more honest. 

Such as chef Robert Irvine. 

I got one of his Fit Crunch bars at Walmart. Right off the bat, we can say that nothing that tastes like birthday cake can really be good for you. And while it does have a lot of hunger-quashing protein -- 30 grams, or 60% of an adult's daily value -- it also has 16 grams of fat (21% DV), 8 grams of saturated fat (40% DV), 21% of your daily sodium, 6 grams of sugars...

"My goal is simple," says Chef Irvine on the package, "I want to empower people, through food and fitness, to thrive every day."

Okay, well.

Look, I know a lot of these kinds of things, like gorp, start off as healthy survival food and turn into calorie bombs for the indolent. You can eat these protein bars for a quick boost, but don't be convinced it's healthy eating. I sincerely doubt Irvine, famously fit himself, would eat these regularly. He might say he would, but then, he has a distant relationship with the truth. After abusing loser restaurant owners who reached out for help on Restaurant: Impossible, he wound up closing one of his own restaurants. And dumping a spouse after hitting it big, a la Alton Brown (or serial dumper Bobby Flay), doesn't speak of his willingness to put others' needs high on his list.

I'm not saying he's a real bad guy or anything; he has done some fine events for the military, and is the principal for the Robert Irvine Foundation to support military personnel and their families (although the financials don't seem impressive). Abusive or not, I'm sure his show saved some family businesses. Some folks need his variety of pants-kicking. I've enjoyed some of his TV appearances. But I will say that he's not someone who can be trusted. Expecting Fit Crunch to be a good food for fitness is an example.

As for the Fit Crunch bar itself, meh, it was okay. I did feel a little sick later that day after eating it, but I think that may have been caused by the hunger that prompted me to eat it in the first place. And I won't blame the bar for the old filling that popped out of my tooth the next day.

Anyway, never take my advice on fitness, unless it's "This doesn't work because I tried it" or "Do the opposite of what I normally do." I'm untrustworthy because I fail, not because I lie.