Laborious

Today is Saturday of Labor Day weekend. It's a long one -- my daughter's off from school Friday to Tuesday, and my wife took a day of vacation, and is off on Monday. I, of course, am just off.

Last night, I read a page on the SmartHome site, which is where we'd gotten our X10 system, about finding problems such as we're having. They said It's easy to find; I said yeah, right. But I did what they said. Standing in the den, which is the room that's between where we normally keep the remote and the garage where the switch receiver is, I tried the remote, and it did not work. I unplugged the water softener (at the back of the den) ; no effect. I turned off the power switch for the TV breaker bar, and then unplugged it; nothing. I unplugged the cordless phone; nothing. I turned off the room lights - and it worked. Several times, I turned the lights on and off; when they were on, it didn't work; when I turned them off, it did. Then, lights off, I plugged the TV bar back in -- and it didn't work.

So the good news is, it's sort of replicable. And they do sell filters to put on the power for offending devices. But for the lights? Hmmm......

This morning I was at our neighbor's house in my pajamas. She'd asked us to look after her dog while she and her son were away overnight. My pajamas look like baggy shorts, so I thought the heck with getting changed. Went over, let the dog out, and then just sat on their deck, enjoying the weather. My daughter complains a little that since we had the kitchen extension built, with its vestigial deck, we don't use the deck any more. I point out that we never really did; we get much more use out of the square footage now than we used to get. But, sitting there, I had to admit: she had a point.

Yesterday my trainer came over to do some stretches with me. When I think of stretches, I think of the kind of thing you do when you get out of bed, and you're a little sleepy. Her stretches were things like Cross your left left over your right, keep your left foot flat on the ground, take your left elbow and put it over your left leg. For each one, she had to help -- and even then, I was just the vaguest replication of what she wanted. Still, not only is she an athlete and body builder, she's also a therapist, and she's worked with people in much worse shape than me. Disabled people, people who've lost functionality from strokes. She says she can get me back flexibility that I thought long gone, and I believe her.

But it isn't going to be painless!