A man, a plan, a canal, a nap: Panalanaca

Plans are getting in the way of my plans.

Remember those 100 days of summer––the ones that spread before me as far as the eye could see, like a peaceful, dewy meadow? Like an all-you-can eat buffet? Like a mixed metaphor?

We're 26 days into June, which leaves me with. . . 100 minus 26, borrow one from the tens column, four, leaving nine minus two is seven. . . 74 days of summer left.

My Bridget Jones–style accounting of the Summer of Four Things would be as follows:

Books read: 2 (one of them being Bossypants, which was thoroughly delightful and consistently funny, but more like reading a very long, very entertaining magazine article than what I think of as a Neptune-sticker-worthy book. No offense.)

Writing accomplished: You're lookin' at it.

Cartons emptied: 1, the contents of which didn't get re-distributed, just unloaded into another half-full carton.

Exercise performed: The only satisfactory category. I've continued to take three Pilates classes a week since the beginning of June. Am I getting stronger, longer, bendier? Well, I've completed 13 sessions/classes so far. Remember it supposedly takes 30 to make a visible difference, so, the jury's still out. And they've ordered dinner.

What I've spent more than a reasonable amount of time doing: Making plans.

They're not complicated plans. They're not preparing-for-the-2012-London-Olympics–type plans.

Ill-conceived? 

They're mostly for small trips, and one slightly bigger one, which seems to be taking all my managerial skills to put into motion. The alternative might be to try to wing it, as it were, and NOT make plans––just see where the road takes us, but this is less my style now than it might have been thirty years ago, when it was also not my style.

Anyway, my point is, that as much as it appealed to me not to make plans for the summer––to attempt "just drifting. Here in the pool"

––stuff keeps happening.  The axiom about plans that comes to mind is the one about how they gang aft aglay for mice and men; or there's that one that asks "How do you make God laugh?" But I'm finding that what has gang aglay here is my attempt NOT to have plans.

I got a whole bunch of reminders this week that neither plans nor non-plans can necessarily be counted on. I went back to Washington, DC/Silver Spring MD for my cousin's funeral. A funeral is reminder enough that the all-you-can-eat-buffet approach to the future is ultimately delusional. 

I also attended a Health and Fitness Expo on Saturday, where I got a couple of free screenings––one for cardiovascular health and one for bone density. The first reinforced NP Patty's conclusion that it would be a good idea to improve my BMI, and unless I can grow a couple more inches, that is going to mean losing weight. The bone density scan gave me another wake-up call: time to get serious about calcium, weight-bearing exercise, and possibly becoming more friendly with the Flying Nun.

There is a connection between the confluence of these health issues––and several more that concern others in my immediate circle, plus let's add in all the warnings about skin cancer that have resurfaced this month––and the premise that underlies my whole "What's next for me?" quest, but I'm not putting my finger on it.

Is it as simple as, "Don't buy green bananas?"

I managed to get a picture of food in this post after all.

I don't think I have to go that far.

But I definitely have to buy more  green leafy vegetables if I want to keep making plans and non-plans.