Put Your Right Foot In

 

 

 

My mother had this great idea: “Come with me to senior exercise class,” she said one morning while I was visiting her.   “All the other mothers will be SO glad to see you. We’ll have such fun!” She was very excited, so I smiled and agreed.

Three of the women waiting in the main room of the community center were the mothers of my friends from high school, and they were all in their seventies at this point.  The other six women in the group were in their eighties. (This was twenty-five years ago, when my mother was seventy-three, long before she had dementia.)

The group “leader” was almost eighty; she used a cane to walk over and welcome me with a warm smile…and ask if I had my doctor’s permission to participate in their exercise class.     I was pretty sure my doctor would approve…the most strenuous activity was “The Hokey Pokey.”

You put your right foot in…you take your right foot out…you put your right foot in, and shake it all about.

Then you do the same with your left foot, then your right arm, then your left arm.   And for the grand finale: You put your whole self in…you put your whole self out…you put your whole self in, and shake it all about.    Everyone sang along with a loud recording of The Hokey Pokey song.

At the end of the forty-five minutes of stretches followed by hand waving and foot stomping, we concluded by marching in place, then holding onto chairs for balance while swinging our legs (one at a time) and tapping our feet until we were “glowing”—ladies didn’t sweat then, they glowed—from all the exercise.

Afterward, in the spirit of camaraderie for surviving The Hokey Pokey, we filled my car with other “glowing” seniors and went for donuts and conversation at Daylight Donuts.   Some even splurged and had a cup of hot cocoa, too, with whipped cream!   These ladies really knew how to have a good time.

August 6^th is “Wiggle Your Toes Day.” All of the exercises above can be adjusted to include toe wiggling, or you can do my current favorite foot exercise, “The Alphabet Exercise.”   Lie on a mat or sit in a chair and stretch out your legs. Point the toes of both feet and simultaneously “draw” the letters of the alphabet, A-to-Z. And if you’re ambitious, do it again to really get those toes, feet and ankles going.

Do this on August 7^th and 8^th, too, for Happy Feet.   If it wears you out, August 9^th is Book Lover’s Day to relax and curl up with a good book,  and August 10^th is Lazy Day.    Donuts are optional.

Advertisement

Better Red Than…Not Red

 

Gorgeous Julianne Moore didn’t use her adult picture for the book jacket, but her child picture. Brava!

When my parents married—more than sixty years before he developed Alzheimer’s and she slipped into dementia—they were both vibrant and creative people. They both were also attractive brunettes, and their first child, David, was also an adorable brunette. In fact, in college when my roommate met my brother, she swooned and said, “Wow! He looks like the actor, Tom Selleck.” Then she paused, looked at me and asked the usual question, “So where’d you get red hair?”

Growing up, I got that question a lot. My brother had me convinced I was adopted until my mother put an end to that. Then as we got older, he answered the question with a zinger: “We’re not sure, but our mail man has red hair.” That got him some laughs, but was more than a little awkward for me because my boyfriend was the son of our mailman.  As it turned out, it came from my paternal grandfather and my great-Aunt Addie Lee, who both had wonderful red hair.

Redheads account for 13% of the population in Scotland, 10% in Ireland, but worldwide less than 2% and predicted to eventually disappear. Bees have been proven to be more attracted to redheads; and rumor has it that Hitler banned marriage between redheads to avoid “deviant offspring.” A Russian proverb states, “There was never a saint with red hair.” BUT according to the British Journal of Cancer, men with red hair are 54% less likely to develop prostate cancer than brown- and blonde-haired men.

The beautiful and talented actress Julianne Moore is a red head.  Among her many movie credits and awards, she received the Best Actress Oscar for her role in STILL ALICE, inspired by the true story of a woman’s struggles with early onset Alzheimer’s. Moore also wrote a fun, triumphant children’s book in 2007 titled FRECKLEFACE STRAWBERRY. Boy, do I wish that book had been around when I was a child; I would have used it to smack my brother! Fortunately, I learned to love my red hair, and as it turned out, our daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren all have beautiful red hair.

There was never a more beautiful baby than my redheaded daughter …unless it’s our redheaded grandchildren!

Yesterday, November 5^th, was National Love Your Red Hair Day. Actually, I think the entire month should be a Tribute to Red Hair, but here’s a compromise: Nov. 7^th is Book Lovers’ Day, and Nov. 10^th is Young Readers’ Day ~ in both cases, you might read Julianne Moore’s book for a fun crash-course in freckles. Spoiler Alert: No, you don’t have to cover freckles with a Magic Marker or a body stocking, and it’s true that A face without freckles is like a night without stars!

“Ruadh gu brath!” (Scots gaelic for “Red heads forever!”)

A former high school student painted this 3’x4′ portrait of our daughter.

30 years later, one of Molly’s GED students painted this portrait of our grandchildren.