Lindsay is now way deep into knee rehab, and Lock Haven seems the greatest place to do it. The school is full of people doing degrees in physical therapy and similar health-care specialties, so Lindsay does two days at an official practice off-campus and two on-campus with the training staff. She had originally been told she would be on crutches for a month, but the crowd out there is saying she may be off them in a week. Which, of course, leads me to a question: Why is Doctor and Trainer Gordon in Massachusetts having to come up with upper body and core workouts for Lindsay to do? Let’s go, officially trained trainers!
This past Monday, Lindsay hit me up for an upper body workout. It would be her first real workout in about three to four weeks, so I said, “I’m going to assume you are totally out of shape and give you light weight and a lot of reps.” She reported later that the workout had taken ninety minutes but part of that stemmed from its being “Tinder hour at the Lock Haven gym.”
Ah, Tinder hour. A decade ago, we belonged to the local YMCA. Lauren and I would go after work and lift, do cardio, and mix in some cross training workouts. I started regaling the kids with tales of “Tinder hour at the Y.” We live near Bridgewater State University, and it seemed that half the student population showed up to workout at about five pm every day. It was a fight to get a chance at the bench press or the squat rack because muscle shirt Brad was always on the bench while Lululemon Kendra was on the squat rack where she had bands around her thighs as she did squats or barbell lunges with about sixty pounds. But the treadmills could be tough to get too because pink-workout-gear Tasha and her crowd were on them, wearing bands around their thighs and stepping sideways or backward up a steep incline with the speed set to slow. Everyone’s favorite bro, Chad, had a posse on the free weight benches (stop skipping leg day, Chad! your biceps aren’t supposed to be bigger than your thighs!), while Sheila kicked off her shoes to do barefoot deadlifts and traded off with Tanya who loaded the bar with 135 lbs so she could do weighted hip thrusts. The swirl of perfume, deodorant, and sweat around the place was incredible (and I mean that in the word’s original sense).
I used to regale the kids with tales of all these physical specimens and their hyper dedication to their butt cheeks, abs, pecs, and biceps, so the girls decided they should start lifting and check it out. Sure enough, the first time I brought Lucia at that time of evening, we walked past the treadmills where one of the sideway band walking girls was creeping up an inclined treadmill while maintaining a perfect ponytail with not a strand of hair out of place across her scalp. Lucia turned to me and said in the loudest possible stage whisper, “DAD! IS THAT ONE OF THE TINDERS?” Good lord.
This Wednesday, Lindsay messaged again that she needed a new workout. I increased the weights, altered some of the exercises, and sent something back to her. In the late evening, I asked her how it had gone.
Lindsay: Carson and I are doing it tomorrow. The wrestling lift tomorrow is legs so I can’t do anything anyway, so I’ll do this instead.
A moment passed, and then this.
Lindsay: And we were supposed to take an hour nap at 4:30 and then we woke up at 8.
Me: So that’s the real reason you didn’t do the workout.
Lindsay: Yeah
Readers, remember those good ole carefree days in college where you could take an afternoon nap for four hours? Yeah, that was awesome.
Speaking of workouts, Tuesday morning was rainy and chilly. I drove Graham to school, and when I got back, Lauren had taken Dobby for a full 2.2-mile walk. He was shivering from the rain; I was planning some interval running mixed with body weight exercises, and I knew that I wouldn’t get out of the house without Dobby having a meltdown. So I got out his raincoat, which he hates. As soon as he saw, he began running a loop through our dining room, around the stairs, through the hall, and back through the kitchen. If I went one way, he went the other. When I changed course, he changed course. Now and again, he used the dining room table and chairs as a shelter. Finally, Lauren stepped in, and we cornered him. I got his coat on, and of course, it rendered him totally incapable of movement, as shown.
When I got his leash on, Dobby’s body was then reanimated, and he managed to overcome this mortification to participate in the intervals. But he spent the rest of the morning glowering at me. As with so many things in life, there is no easy way for me to win—I would have been a heel if I had let him at home.
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His Smile Lit Up a Room and Other Things to Say at My Funeral 