Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
18.5, and the heavy lifting
18.5%: that’s my current body fat measurement. Solidly in “good” territory and close, very close, to “excellent.” I suspect this means I’m close to my target body weight . . . body mass index be damned.
After my last session with the trainer, I rented a truck, came home, and loaded up all the cardboard and packing paper. I suspect I had a couple hundred pounds or more of cardboard — maybe more, since I’m terrible at guessing weights. I know I filled a ten-foot truck and that it took four or five hours to load and unload.
Unloading was the real bitch. The recycle bins are designed to discourage dumping; you have to fit your cardboard through slits and holes and smallish squares, so there’s really no chance of depositing boxes in their natural boxlike state. I had a couple dozen boxes jam-packed with packing paper, and I had to unload all the paper then break down each box. That’s in addition to the dozens and dozens of boxes I had already broken down.
So what it all amounts to is several hours of an almost total body workout: not much on the abs, but lots of leg and upper body work in 90 to 100 degree weather. I’m bushed.
Here’s what I want to know: is there a mitzvah for recycling cardboard and paper? Our rabbi back in Crescent City, a lefty if ever there was one, once tried very hard to find some basis for environmentalism in the Old Testament. He couldn’t. Nevertheless, Judaism is if anything a flexible religion, adaptable to changes in technology and social mores, and so he felt one could exercise great liberty in declaring that certain practices are, indeed, good in God’s eyes.
As an agnostic, this is little more than a passing curiosity for me. I guess I’ll have to be content with the fact that I had one hell of a workout today.
In other news: we received Jake’s midterm grades, and he’s pulling As in everything except his theology class. I suspect this is because he missed an important test, and the teacher probably had to count it as a zero until he makes it up. Or at least I hope that’s the reason. He makes up the test on Monday, and I think we’ll email the teacher to make sure that’s the reason for the low grade.
D.
