In Nova Scotia we had to walk up a steep mountain trail about half a mile each night to get to dinner, and back down again later to get to bed, usually a bit woozy with wine. The woods are dark and deep down this trail, and bears come round once in a while but apparently are easily scared off. I never met one myself. The first time I I tried to climb this damn trail I had to stp three times to catch my breath. By the time I left, I could stride all the way up without a stop and still be comfortable. I gues it leveled out some or sompn.

There is so much to do in the real world, I've never understood the whole shtick of getting onto an exercise machine to act as though one is doing something.

My cousin once lived in New Haven, Connecticut near the Sound, and in order to clear his m ind between his day job and his sculpture studio he would go out rowing in a single-seat sculling shell he had. He would lift it up and put it on his head and walk over to the shore with it to launch it.

A neighbor of his stopped him to ask what that darn thing was and he explained about the shell, but the neighbor seemed puzzled. He explained how good the exercise was with the sliding seat and so on, and the neighbor seemed dubious. Then the penny dropped and his eyes lit up. "I get it!" he said. "It's a rowing machine that FLOATS!".

I guess its easy to get things backwards when you don't know which end is up.


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