Tag Archives: Pilates

Discipline’s the Thing

18 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by in personal, Snark

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Warning: Gratuitous Cat Photos

The Howling Assistant attempts to build her core

The Howling Assistant attempts to build her core

As the Howling Assistant will attest, Pilates can be brutal. Here she is, stuck over her blubberous expanse of belly. To be fair, she was very sick as a kitten and as a result seems to gain weight no matter what she eats.

She watches from the sofa every morning while I collapse in a heap of quivering, cat-fur-accented jelly. At least she’s entertained.

The Cat Family Folk Portrait

There was entertainment in abundance in Pawtucket yesterday, where I spotted a new genre of folk art I had not seen before. By the time you strip off the layers of weirdness, you’ve moved through appropriation, jokiness and Post Modernism to sincerity and then I’m not sure quite where you end up. I’ve seen the “historic portraits with cats and dogs” genre before, done well and done poorly, but never anything quite so home-grown as this. I have to agree with my friend that the carpet’s pretty wonderful, and the details captured in he Hitchcock chairs are well-observed. Art’s a curious thing, and observation. It pleased me to find this, and I hope in some way it will please you to see it. We’re strange creatures; enjoy the ride.

Fewer Words

11 Tuesday Feb 2014

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unknown artist, A Country Woman, , Pen and black ink and watercolor on laid paper laid down on a contemporary(?) mount, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. B1975.4.46

Gentle readers, I am indeed posting less often. I don’t have less to say (take pity on Mr S), but I have less time.

I have a new routine, which includes a morning workout and more cooking in the evening. That workout takes up the time when I used to write (and sew—I’m behind there, too). But I need to get stronger, because in about three months (83 days according to the countdown app) I’m getting a new left hip. Yay!

Three years ago, I got a new right hip and I love it. Even though it took a while to get used to (which was really about bone growing around the implant so it wouldn’t be so cold in the winter), the lack of pain was a terrific change.

18 months ago, my surgeon told me plainly that it was just a matter of time before the left one would need to be done. We spent some time looking at the x-rays in January, and it’s a fine thing to see the bone lumps that thunk and clunk as you move. Oh, that’s why climbing stairs is noisy and painful… But stronger I must get, so for while, more Pilates and fewer paragraphs.