Granny Busts A Hip. Again.

Spent a day farting around with Mr. X, my 50-year old gentleman friend who has a fitness addiction, and the physique of a gymnast*.  We are both cyclists, although he’s a bit more serious as both a commuter and a long-distance rider.

He’s currently sporting a boot on his left calf, due to a bone fracture acquired during one of his weekly roller hockey bouts.  Me?  A knee brace, due to a gentle mis-step while dancing on a Honduran bar during a foam party.

Since we were both feeling pretty gimpy, we decided to bag our usual bike ride, and just take in a matinée.  Even giving in to using a car for the five-mile trip…

By the time we were done with a late lunch, the sun had emerged, and it turned into a gorgeous day.  So we played with his bicycle collection!  He’s got a recumbent, a tandem and even a recumbent tandem!  Mostly, though, i wanted to play with his kickbike**.  Taking it out for a spin through the residential street where he lives, i eventually got the hang of it – knee brace notwithstanding!

Decided to try his recumbent bike, too, as i’ve never ridden one.  As i was playing with that, he got on the kickbike to play around a little, too.  With his broken leg in a boot…

We farted around with his entire fleet for a bit – and if anyone had seen us out there, we’d have certainly looked insane…

While yakking with The Girl this morning, i was filling her in on my day out… explaining our varying degrees of decrepit which didn’t quite deter us from farting around on the wheeled toys.

The Girl:  You crazy old folks!  Always*** falling down and breaking bones…

this image, and more happy hippie gear, can be found here

* Six-pack.  And i’m not talking about what’s in his fridge…

** Not entirely a euphemism

*** This is not the first time i’ve been ‘walking wounded’ over a stupid dance-related injury, or worse – being an eeejit on a playground.  The Girl has seen me limping more often than walking…

In your own skin…

During a moment of exhaustion reflection on the dive boat last week, i realized that i was the second youngest person in our group.  Only the 40-year-old woman – married to the oldest man, aged 70 – was younger.

One of the most accomplished divers is 68 years old – she’s logged over 650 dives, and takes the most remarkable photographs!  She loves sharing her ‘finds’ underwater, and is a lovely coach and mentor.

SCUBA is a hobby that can last a lifetime.

Even more important, however, is the fact that we were all quite comfortable together in the barest of bare essentials on that dive boat.  Men AND women.  Not one hard-bodied supermodel in the bunch, yet not an ounce of apparent self-consciousness.

No whining about saddlebags, poochy guts, baggy boobs.  “Doing the Dance” to wriggle into our wetsuits and dive skins when the dive master called “Five Minutes!”, there wasn’t enough room on the boat for privacy.  It was a floating co-ed locker room.

There are many reasons i have gotten sucked into this activity.  But being around adventurous older women, who couldn’t give a fractional shit about being thin enough, trapping a man, or what they look like* in a bikini?  Sheer delight!

Here’s to shedding meaningless societal constraints, and living your own life!

* The technicolor diveskins serve two purposes.  In warmer water, a thicker wetsuit isn’t necessary for warmth, but having a 1mm “skin” to protect from reef rash, stinging ‘fire coral’, and other scrapes and scratches is nice.  The colors?  When you’re in gear, and underwater?  Everyone looks alike.  A distinctive ‘skin’ can help your buddy keep track of you…  Plus they’re just big damn fun!