I'm getting old

Or at least I'm getting the ailments of age. To be precise, arthritis.

I've been aware of this for a while. The lower back, definitely. But I now know of several other areas affected.

See, yesterday I took the train to Tacoma to meet with a general contractor concerning work to be done on my new-to-me house, and as it wasn't that far from the train station, I walked.

Well, thirty years ago it wouldn't have been that far. Three miles, basically. A forty-five minute walk. At twenty I was walking 16 miles to visit friends, up big hills, with no problems.

At fifty, it's a different matter. There were some hills, nothing major, and I felt them. I was noticing the exertion, big time. It took me the better part of an hour to start to recuperate, and I was still feeling it that evening. And today, well, my hips hurt. In an arthritic manner. I'm really glad the contractor was willing to give me a ride to the train station, walking back just wasn't going to happen, and arranging for a cab would have required calling 411 and getting Tacoma directory assistance and not knowing the name of the local cab company, and I really wanted to avoid that if I could. I need to add the cab companies, and the ride information line for Pierce County Transit, to my phone/address list I've been making for Tacoma.

It's now 25 hours since I finished that walk, and I'm still feeling it, aching hips, unhappy knees, sore feet; I'm not doing that again.

Pity, that. What a difference thirty years makes. Actually, what a difference ten years makes, which is when the arthritis started kicking in.

On the good news, I'm back down to 180 lbs., which is my low weight for the last twenty some years. Now to see if slightly smaller portions will drop the weight further without feeling overly hungry; the height/weight charts say I should weight more like 160 lbs, which I haven't weighed since before I went to grad school in 1987.

Anyway, that's it for now. Just like living with my disabilities, I get to live with arthritis, and balance things out; Ibuprofen would take care of the pain, but at the expense of mental functioning, so I deal with the pain during the day and take Ibuprofen prior to going to bed.