Dave & Peggy, Not done Yet!

Somebody invented the seedless watermelon, which is wonderful, but apparently nobody thought to do anything about the seeds in raspberries. I suspect the raspberry industry needs better representation in these meetings.

After almost twenty years of teaching movement, I've become increasingly suspicious of the word “proper.” Proper posture. Proper stretching. Proper exercise. Proper according to whom? I've met an awful lot of bodies that apparently never read the instruction manual.

I don't understand people who wake up cheerful and immediately want to have a conversation. I admire them from a distance. Preferably a considerable distance, until I've had my coffee...

I think one of the great mysteries of modern life is why we can remember something embarrassing we said in 1987 but can't remember why we walked into the kitchen thirty seconds ago. Apparently my brain has a very peculiar filing system.

Who was the first person to look at an artichoke and decide it was dinner? It's basically a thistle wearing armor. You peel off leaves, scrape tiny bits of food off them with your teeth, and eventually discover something called a heart. That's a lot of commitment to a vegetable.

People sometimes tell me they're too old to start exercising. I'm 73, and I still haven't found the official age when we're supposed to stop trying things. If somebody knows where that rule is written, I'd be interested in seeing it.

I've never understood why we call it a sunrise. The sun isn't rising. We're spinning toward it at roughly a thousand miles an hour. Hmmmm... but “Earth Rotation Appreciation Hour” doesn't have quite the same appeal.

Somewhere tonight, a dog is standing at the back door asking to go outside. Five minutes later, that same dog will be standing on the other side asking to come in. And tomorrow we'll repeat the entire procedure. I'm beginning to suspect they've trained us rather well.

Why do we call it a pair of pants when there's only one? A pair of socks makes sense. Two socks. But one pair of pants? And if I cut them in half, do I finally have two pants or just a ruined afternoon?

I've watched people spend years trying to make their bodies do things they think they're supposed to do. Sometimes the most interesting moment in class is when somebody discovers a completely different way to accomplish the same thing. Who decided there was only one right way in the first place?

I wonder who decided that waking up at 4 AM makes you disciplined, but going to bed at 8 PM makes you old. It's the same eight hours of sleep. Apparently the clock gets to decide whether you're ambitious or boring.

I wonder what dogs think we're doing all day. We leave the house, disappear for hours, come back carrying groceries, stare at little glowing rectangles, and occasionally throw a perfectly good ball across the yard for no apparent reason. They must think we're a very strange species.

Who decided cauliflower should pretend to be everything else? Rice, pizza crust, mashed potatoes, even chicken wings. It's a perfectly respectable vegetable. At some point somebody ought to tell cauliflower it's allowed to just be cauliflower.

I wonder how many things we believe about our bodies simply because somebody told us when we were young. I've spent decades questioning some of those things. The surprising part isn't how often the old advice turns out to be wrong. It's how confidently it was delivered.

I've never understood why people say they got up on the wrong side of the bed. I've been getting out on the same side for years, and I can assure you it hasn't prevented me from having a lousy morning.

Sunday night has a strange reputation. We spend the whole day enjoying ourselves, then somewhere around dinner people start acting like Monday is lurking outside the window with a warrant for their arrest. Poor Sunday. It never gets to finish its shift in peace.

How many people have bought a treadmill with the best intentions, used it for three weeks, and then discovered it's an excellent place to hang laundry. That's a pretty expensive clothes rack, although I suppose it does have a motor.

Why do we say somebody is “out of shape”? What shape are we supposed to be? I've seen people who look like Greek statues struggle to touch their toes, and people with bellies who move beautifully. Apparently shape isn't telling us the whole story.

I like being awake before the rest of the world gets organized. Nobody's selling me anything, nobody needs an answer, and even the dogs seem willing to postpone their demands. It's a lovely little window of civilization.

Somebody invented the rocking chair and decided the whole point was to move back and forth without actually going anywhere. And people loved it. Maybe we've been onto something for a very long time.