You can't walk home

O.K., I fell off the wagon. All it took was registering for college and starting during the summer semester. It became hard to go to the gym, followed by impossible to go to the gym in the fall, because I registered for 4 courses while working nearly full time at the bus company and having two sons home.
Naturally it was too hot to exercise in the summer so I languished by the air conditioner while I studied and napped. I became sedentary, and stopped counting the carbs. Soon the old glycemic swing had me craving sweets again. It wasn't hard to put on almost 10 of the 30 pounds I had lost, and hover at that mark. About 1 month ago my monitor on the bus, Nestor, who by now had lost about 80 pounds, nagged me and shamed me into getting a little more serious. Nestor has a mild touch of diabetes, and my dieting last winter got him started on his diet. He stuck with it. He eats little else but turkey, lite bread, lite mayonnaise, lettuce and water. I'm sure there are a couple of other things he eats like boiled plantains.
Now I have to hear him daily remind me how good he's looking and how great he's doing. He keeps telling me I'll never lose weight if I keep drinking soda. I tell him it's diet. He says it doesn't matter. I say 0 calories, see, look at the label. 0. He says look at the color. There's calories in there. I say that's food coloring and I need the caffeine to stay alert while I'm driving. He shakes his head and says you'll never lose any more weight that way. I say, you really need to stop eating that diet butter. It's full of hydrogenated oils and it's not good for your heart.
You know, this is much more motivational than hearing someone say I know you'll do it. Or, you look great just as you are. Nestor has thrown down the gauntlet. He's told me I can't do something. So naturally I have to prove he's wrong to him, and to me. My Irish is up. So, I stop trying to rationalize that apples, made into an apple crisp, are healthy. I start having more soup. I convince Nestor that we have to walk during the 10 or 15 minutes between our middle and elementary school runs. Boiled chicken becomes the basis for all major meals. Breakfast happens at 9am instead of 6 am.
I can't bring myself to eat salad again. Lettuce sits untouched in the crisper until it turns brown. Anything stored in the vegetable bin is safe, because the boys won't touch anything that looks remotely fresh and doesn't come in a box. So the vegetable bin becomes the best place to hide my Pepsi. Sean, who is working nights stocking shelves at Walmart has started pilfering my Pepsi. The most effort I care to put in, in the kitchen, is to heat a bag of veggies from the freezer.
Grudgingly I have to admit that Nestor is right about the soda. It does have to go. It's my last great vice. I have no resolve to conquer this problem. But, I have made one effort that is making a difference. I live 3 miles from work. Typically I pick up the bus in the morning and keep it during the day at home after the morning run, do the afternoon run and return to base and get my car. Now that I'm in school, I find that I need my car at home during the day more often, to get things done that I don't have time for after work. I can save time going to work by keeping the bus at home during the week. So Monday morning I get up and walk to work at 4:30 am. Monday's are good for this because there is no midday run for preschool on Mondays, and I can rest and/or study for 4 hours before the high school run.
After work I come straight home and have 15 to 20 minutes extra to do chores, errands, homework, eat dinner and get ready for school at night. Same goes for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The first Monday I did this it worked out well. I even had time when I got home with the bus to take a quick shower before Nestor came before the run. Friday, when it was time to drop the bus off for the week end, I made the mistake of trying to walk home in the afternoon. Several buses honked at me, and one of the drivers stopped to offer a ride. I said no that's o.k., but later she came back and insisted. I guess I would have to be crazy to walk that far. That was Nestors reaction the first time I told him. He actually noticed right away, because when he came to the house before the run he could see my car in the driveway. I told him it wasn't crazy. There are side walks all the way, except for the last 1/4 mile. There are street lights most of the way. No one in their right mind is up that time of the morning, (heh, heh, heh) so it's perfectly safe. It's not like I'm walking through Lawrence.
So I realized that if I wanted to walk home on Friday, it would have to be at 4:30 in the morning when all the rational, sane bus drivers were still in bed. Nestor, being the good friend that he is, wanted to discourage this plan, so on Thursday afternoon he tells me about the time in Puerto Rico, when he was staying with his dad, he was walking home past a grave yard and saw a ghost floating 2 feet off the ground. He's a big man, and not afraid of anyone, but he ran like the wind, away from there. I naturally asked him why he didn't take a good look at the ghosts face, determine if it was a man or a woman, ask it what the afterlife was like, and so on. I'm sure there was no coincidence that I would be walking past 3 grave yards on the way home in the next morning.
Well, as you might have guessed, I wasn't going to let a silly ghost story discourage me from walking home. It was reasonably warm with my two sweatshirts on and a wool hat and gloves. There was very little wind and the gloves came off after the first mile. The moon was full and the stars were bright, and when I reached the Elmwood cemetery, I thought of Nestor and walked straight through the middle of it. I wondered why I wasn't seeing any ghosts, but then realized at 5am, they are probably sleeping like everyone else. I looked at the big dipper and found the north star, and then saw a shooting star.
I'm not as young as I used to be, who of us is, and I find that one of these walks leaves me achy for a couple of days. It's not the same as walking on a tread mill. There are curbs and sticks and acorns and hills and mail boxes and everyone on 113 has their trash out on Monday mornings. That last 1/4 mile has me walking on an embankment when I need to be out of the road. I even got a little cocky once or twice and thought I would try to jog a little bit. Big mistake. I still walked to work the next Monday though. Today was a 1/2 day and for some reason (aches, pains, exhaustion from all that school work) I didn't want to get up at 4:30 this morning, and slept in until 5:30. I had to walk home after work. Once again, one of the bus drivers caught up with me before I was 1/2 way home and picked me up and told me to call her when ever I needed a ride. Bus drivers are awesome people. I was achy. I had an appointment at 2 pm. I could have walked, but I've lost 8 of those 10 pounds and I'm not feeling the need to kill myself losing the rest. I know winter is coming and the first snow fall will put an end to this episode. I'm going to have to be disciplined about the early morning walks. After 5:30 am, you can't walk home.