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Health & Fitness

Late Autumn Change in Routine

On this, the first truly COLD morning of Autumn, did you have a change in your routine? This blogger did, starting with a bath...

What did you do on this, the first truly COLD morning in late Autumn? Did you hit the snooze button for ten more minutes of warmth and cuddling? Did you pull out that cowl sweater or that Mr Rogers cardigan from 10 years ago and try to match it with your wardrobe? Did you finally turn on the thermostat? Whatever you did, this blogger hopes your change in routine matched the change in season.

This blogger skipped the gym and showering there altogether. Instead he brewed some Java and stretched his Yoga muscles while running the hottest bath water he could stand---er, sit in. Bubbles would be too girrrly, but he did toss in Rubber Ducky. He also "pooped up" (as his mother would say) the thermostat.

He brought his cuppa of steaming "pumpkin spice" coffee (with a double shot of cream) from the kitchen, and gingerly stepped into the Yellowstone thermal springs. He has one of those gigantic porcelain tubs so he went supine like a submarine diving. His coffee cup was precariously perched on the edge of the tub and soon his mind was flooded with blogging images.

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First, he felt he was marooned and half-submerged in the surf of a tropical island; should he decorate the palm tree with twinkly lights? Then snatches of holiday verse rose in his brain like steam from the water: his stockings (clothes) were hung by the chimney (furnace vent) with care... Next he lathered up the washcloth with Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap and recalled last Thanksgiving when an O.C.D. guest had emptied the soap dispenser with her frequent hand washings because she loved the "tingly, peppermint sensation". Finally, he imagined he was Marat Sade composing a pamphlet to his revolutionary followers. The "Civil Behavior in a Humanistic Society" would be a Martha Stewart treatise on reinstating civil manners to a society gone awry with rudeness, commercial distractions, and electronic interruptions.

As the water cooled, the blogger's bliss was replaced by a fear of "Where the Wild Things Are" kind of day. It was mid-month and bills were due---including the gas bill. A lunch meeting loomed with his editor---would the editor hate this blog? Like a Chinese dragon, long and sinuous, the late night tutoring session with his Taiwanese student reared its head. As he pulled the plug, the blogger let his fear and Rubber Ducky be sucked down the water's swirling vortex toward the drain.

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Time to begin a new day!

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