Fitness by Kathleen

The eclipse saved the day, lovely to see Americans gathering happily to do something other than celebrate their own poor sad endangered whiteness or to protest Nazis. I missed the eclipse here in Toronto - tried to look up mid-afternoon but without special glasses, saw no moon passing by. Apparently I could have looked at the sun through a colander. Next time. My American cousin Barbara, however, who has an undergraduate degree in astrophysics and spent her working life as a research scientist, was in Wyoming; her high school physics teacher had called a class reunion to watch the eclipse together there. Barbara was interviewed by CBS and appeared on national news for a whole 15 seconds! "Come with us next time," she wrote to me. I sure will - it'd be wonderful to watch the next eclipse with an astrophysicist who happens to be a very nice cousin.

Sam just sent me a text. "Everybody over the age of 5: Never look directly at an eclipse. Leader of the free world:..." And there's a picture of Trump, squinting up into the sun. While we're on the subject, how I wish the world would let the disgusting Steve Bannon crawl back under his rock. Now the press is quoting Breitbart at every turn. Giving these hideous guys a platform is how we got into this mess.

I had a treat yesterday morning. One of my dearest friends is Kate Trotter, lovely and talented actress and now psychologist-in-training. I've watched her daughter Kathleen from earliest childhood grow up to be an accomplished, lithe young woman, now the fitness columnist for the Globe, author of a book about fitness and personal trainer to the stars. I've been feeling achey and creaky, as if my poor body is losing ground, which it undoubtedly is, so I got in touch with Kathleen to ask for a fitness assessment. She went over my body, measuring my range of motion, watching for drooping shoulders and misaligned hips, pointing out that I favour one side, but mostly, she said I was pretty fit (for my age, she didn't say because she's much too nice.) She just sent me a detailed list of exercises I should do and will explain them on Thursday when I see her again. But this morning, I did the stretching exercises she'd assigned for me to do before getting out of bed - only five minutes or so, but I feel better already.

All this is especially necessary as I am doing nothing, I mean nothing, but sit and write and revise. I'm on a roll, want to finish this draft before the end of the month. Was supposed to go to a friend's glorious cottage this week and instead am sitting here fiddling with words - as Oscar Wilde said, I spend all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out again.

Heaven.

Eleven cucumbers growing, and here are the fading magnificent roses of late summer: