Cardio Drumming, Charles Darwin and Training the Girls

Ohmygod! The cardio drumming class started this week at the senior hall and was it ever fun. I was afraid enough people wouldn’t show up and it would get canceled but the opposite happened. They had enough large exercise balls for twenty people to beat on but twenty-seven showed up and the late comers had to beat their drumsticks on chairs. Three bucks for an hour’s worth of trying to coordinate your drumming with the music, the people next to you and the instructor was a challenge that had us all laughing and a few drum sticks flying in the air, not to mention some balls rolling off their platform baskets. And you actually do work up a sweat. It was the most fun I’ve had exercising since I injured myself doing Zumba a few years ago and before that, a belly dancing class I took decades ago when I still had the hip action to make the jingle bells on my costume ring. After drumming class, I went out to lunch with one of my friends from the Gathering Girls and I ate chocolate pudding for dessert just in case I burned up too many calories doing cardio drumming. Can’t risk that happening. I’ll need my body fat to keep me warm this coming winter. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Alan Alda from the old M*A*S*H series did a documentary for PBS and the Travel Club I belong to played the DVD this month. Scientific American Frontiers: Voyage to The Galapagos (season 10, episode 1, 1999) retraces Charles Darwin’s footsteps to the Galapagos Island, located 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador that helped him form his Theory of Evolution. They are geographically isolated islands that are actually the tops of volcanoes sticking out of the Pacific Ocean near the Equator and they are home to plants and animals that have evolved completely different than anywhere else in the world. The islands are also the home of The Charles Darwin Research Station where scientists are working to protect the unique ecosystem. I was especially fascinated with how they were able to bring their 500 pound tortoises back from near extinction, going from only eight females and one male to over 100 tortoises. They’ve discovered that it's the outside temperature that determines if an egg will hatch a male or female tortoise. So they keep the eggs they want to hatch as male tortoises warmer than the eggs they want to be females. Going on a cruise that takes in the Galapagos, Peru and Macu Picchu costs $7,250 for 13 days and 12 nights and I honesty can’t ever imagine me spending that kind of money to travel, but show me your photos when you get home and I won’t be bored.

This week was also the long awaited appointment to get a bra fitting. The senior hall director said she had no idea this would be such a popular thing to put on the calendar. Instead of just one day of fifteen minute appointments and one fitter she had to get the company to bring in three fitters to do appointments simultaneously all day long. Apparently, a lot of us ladies wanted to get our girls in bras designed for the geriatric set instead of those bras made for perky little twits who think their boobs will never succumb to The Law of Gravity. 

I was told to go in the dressing room, take off my sweater and leave on my bra. I did. Then a giant of a woman came in who made me feel like a dainty princess-in-waiting and trust me when I say, that’s a hard feat to accomplish. The first words out of her mouth were, “Those girls need to come up” and then she named a bra size she thought I was wearing and damned if she was right. She took out a tape measure and measured from the center of my body in front to the center of my body in back, below my bra band. Just half my body! She sang the alphabet song as she left and came back in with a bra for me to try. It was two cup sizes larger than I came in wearing! TWO! It fit like it was custom made. I wanted it to be more complicated than eye balling my boobs. I wanted to see more bra styles to choose between but she said, "No, that's the one you need." $69.95 for a plain Jane micro-stretch fabric. No lace. Taupe colored. I was floored by that price. I normally don’t spend more than $25 on a bra. 

I told her I’m not a taupe kind of lady and she said they could order me another color. I was torn. I resented the idea of paying so much but the girls were happy and sassy, so I gave in after doing some quick math that told me $70.00 would only reduce my heirs inheritance by $17.50 each. (I can justify anything if you give me a minute to think.) I have to wait two weeks for the order to come, assuming Fort Lauderdale where the parent company is located is up and running after Hurricane Irma passes by. Fires, floods and hurricanes with tornadoes inside. Now Mexico just had its strongest earth quake in a century and is expecting a tsunami. It’s about time Mother Nature takes a long time out. We’ve had enough! ©

Note: The Anita bra at the top is the exact bra I tried on and ordered at the fitting.