Little did I know that when Drop Thrill asked me to Q at the Ballroom I’d be coming off of one of the more stressful weeks I’ve had in a while.

We drove down to Orlando (the middle of the scrotum of America…) about 10 days ago so the M could be with her dad through his hospital stay. This put me in charge of the 2.0’s. One of whom is doing virtual school, the other, who is 4, just needs someone to interact with. With the M gone most of the day, the all to familiar but also unfamiliar surroundings, and crappy bed, my energy sapped by the end of the day to the point where I couldn’t get out of bed early enough for even a light jog.

We returned on Saturday (after driving through some heavy storms and slowdowns) and it took a couple days to recover from the experience.

I was feeling absolutely dead this morning, but I got up and got my ass to the ballroom.

The gloom

Drop Thrill and a few other PAX were already waiting when I arrived with a couple other PAX on the winding road behind me.

YHC looked around and saw familiar faces (some of which I hadn’t met, but I knew them from name-o-rama’s posted to slack). I had to very loudly issue the disclaimer as the mumblechatter was quite strong with some of the PAX, *cough* Destiny *AHEM*.

The warmup

A quick mosey around the N side of the parking lot and up to the crosswalk in front of the school.

15x SSH
10x Low Slow Squat
Some deep leg stretches for 10 counts
10x Tappy taps
10x Imperial walker
10x Hillbilly walker

the thang

Two sets of 11’s starting with the 3 benches and running about halfway down the parking lot road (55m or so).

First set:
Dips x10 and BBSU

Second set:
Step ups x10 each leg and Squats

When the second set was complete everyone gathered at the crosswalk. We had about 10 minutes remaining. PAX would run a lap around the parking lot (not in the parking lot). At some point they would need to do one pushup per lightpost they passed, whether all at once or stopping at each was up to them. Most PAX chose to save them for the end.

With 6 minutes remaining we lined up in south side of the parking lot for the Doji. Start by standing straight up. Using your L hand reach behind the R shoulder and ‘scoop’ with your fingertips, as you come around the front of your body, step into a deep forward stance with your R knee at 90º, and your L leg straight out, both feet parallel and about 45º off the direction of travel. Shift your stance to L forward stance while scooping behind you with your R hand, when you come back around, step forward staying very low, into L forward stance and push ahead with your L hand open, fingertips just at the shoulder level. Scoop behind w/L going into R forward, then step forward with R and push with R.

PAX then made their way back to CoT but there was still a minute left so everyone got into the Al Gore position while YHC expounded upon how my father in law was a pretty active guy, but eating kielbasa for breakfast every day can still clog your arteries.

cot

A lot of announcements this morning.

For one, check out the “Rumor Mill” section of the newsletter. If you see something in there that piques your interest, reach out to the leadership and ask if you can get involved. There’s probably something you can do!

There’s a blood drive every 8 weeks (next one on 5/6) for… eternity.

Sign up for the FM Care Center!

And more!

Lots of prayers about jobs and health (physical and mental) this morning.

nmm

After last week I’ve naturally been reflecting on the Queen quite a bit lately. I didn’t say much about this during this morning’s Q, but everyone’s body is a bit different. Some people can eat Hostess snack cakes and never gain a pound, and other people can eat nothing and still look like YHC (I’m not in the latter group, trust me, I eat things).

We’ve all seen the stories of people who live into their 100’s. Some of them say drink a gallon of water every day. Others say have a bump or two of whiskey every day.

Really all we can do is be vigilant. As Destiny pointed out in CoT today, get your damned checkups. Go do the blood work. If the doctor tells you to lay off the bacon, lay off the bacon (you can still BE it, metaphorically). I think everyone’s body tends to handle the available food sources pretty well (God made us incredibly resilient creatures, “anti-fragile”), but even so, the wrong kind of stress for long enough is going to wear down the system and it’s going to break.

There’s going to be a higher vegetation to anything else ratio on a daily basis for everyone. I’ve said this in my household many a time before!  However, buy in from the M was difficult to achieve.  After a 4x bypass in the family history, the M is on board.

It’s always a pleasure to Q. Thanks, Drop Thrill, for inviting me back out.