Acting His Age

We'd gone to an AARP meeting a few weeks ago and met our friends, Cal and Myra there.  They'd come with another friend, Tom who we enjoyed meeting.  The AARP meeting was about elder care which we felt was quite informative.  In fact, it was from this meeting that Art decided to volunteer for the Meals on Wheels program.

There were different workshops being held so Art and I split up.  I stayed with Myra while Art attended the workshops with Cal and Tom.

When we went to Tai-chi this week and met Cal and Myra, they had smiles on their faces.  Myra told me that their friend, Tom had mentioned that he thought Art was in his 30s or 40s.

Ummmmm....

OK... Now that is a stretch.  He is heading toward 70 after all.  No, I don't think Tom is visually handicapped.  I do think Tom's opinion is based on a perception Art gives of his energy level and his excitement with everything around him.  Our daughter, Tiffany has always said that traveling with her dad can be exhausting and has admonished him at times to be easy with me even though I am five years his junior. Art has an almost frenetic energy level when we're traveling, wanting to see every corner of every interesting thing that must be waiting for him to discover.  At times it seriously wears me out.

How does he do it?

He tries to keep a regular exercise schedule.  He eats as healthily as possible.  I had a chocolate dipped cone at dairy queen today.  It was our reward for another exhausting day doing a million errands (returning the broken HP monitor at Fedex because... yahoo!  I did receive a replacement HP monitor.). We also went for our immunizations at Tripler Army hospital for our trip to China next year.  We also did shopping, mailed a package at the post office and I started it all with my zumba class. 

Anyway, back to that ice cream cone.  I had the chocolate dipped, but he had the plain.

Art also makes sure he gets his eight hours of sleep every night and does his exercise in the early morning hours before the sun is too high in the sky.  He stays away from cigarette smoke, limits his meats, alcohol, fat and salt, takes vitamins only when he thinks he needs it and keeps up with health news.

He says he does this because his family doesn't have the best healthy genes around. 

Whatever it is, it's kept him pretty darn strong.  The only problem I told him he's got is that he's so thin that if he ever gets trapped in a snow storm, staying warm will be a challenge.

Aha... then he'll wish he'd had the chocolate dipped cone today instead.