I was thinking in the wee hours of the morning about how the body and mind adapt to the rhythms (or ruts) that make up our daily life. I guess it’s no big epiphany, but for a retired guy with no place to be and no one to answer to, I pretty much reliably adhere to a set schedule. It goes something like this:
0430ish–wake up, let the dogs out, have coffee, catch up on current events through the magic of the internet.
0615–feed the dogs
0645–take my meds, log my blood pressure and vitals, get dressed
0700–take the dogs for a 30-minute walk.
0730–breakfast, either at home or out
0830–morning walk, usually for 1.5 hours. Monday/Wednesday/Friday are group hikes, so the schedule varies. Tuesday is shopping day, so I take the day off from walking.
1100–daily one hour nap
1230–afternoon walk (/Thursday/Saturday/Sunday) usually one hour.
1400–I spend an hour or so with my faithful readers here at LTG.
1630–Head out for my daily dose of beers. Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday/Saturday I’ll throw some darts into the mix.
2000–Rarely get back home later than this. Will come home earlier if I don’t eat out. Usually have a smoothie and a little internet.
2100–I’m almost always in bed by nine o’clock these days.
0130–It is weird that every night I wake up about the same time with congestion, cottonmouth (I breathe through my mouth because of the congestion), and the need to pee. It usually takes an hour or more of processing random thoughts or suppressing memories before I can get back to sleep.
And that’s pretty much my life. And no, I’m not complaining. It beats the hell out of the alternative!
Yesterday afternoon I played the final singles league match of the season against Espie. I literally saved the best for last I guess, winning 13-3 and throwing quality darts consistently throughout the match.
So this is how the singles league finished up:
Anyway, it was a good inaugural season, and we still have the finals tournament to complete. The top three (Cristy, me, and Espie) will play head-to-head to determine the champion. Stay tuned!
After my darts match, I headed out to Cheap Charlies to spread some dollars cheer. Bargirls need love money too. Had some beers, bought some lady drinks, and watched the sun go down.
That seemed to be a signal to get my ass home as well.
I had some work to do in the kitchen; resurrecting the ribs I had cooked the night before that got preempted by the Korean chicken wings.
Bowl of rocky road ice cream for dessert, then off to bed a bit before 9:00 p.m., just like clockwork. When I woke up at 1:30 in the morning, writing this post was one of the many thoughts that were churning in my head and keeping me tossing and turning until well after 3:00. Oh well, it’s not like I had anything better to do with my time.
And now it is time to head out to Alley Cats for the Friday night dart tournament. Then we will see what happens after that, maybe some Mango’s pork chops are in my future.
I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow!
You are Mark Wahlberg’s dad and I claim my ten dollars.
4.30am start? I thought that was when you were rolling home. Your pics are never time stamped so always assumed it was whore o clock. Never figured you for Cinderella with a bitch for a fairy godmother.
That said, I find myself impressed. There’s some iron discipline in there amidst the beers. Just out of curiosity, are most of the other guys we see in these annals similarly conscious about balancing out the good times with the healthy? Or are they more dissolute?
The ribs look good, glaze or not!
I could learn a thing or two from your disciplined schedule. Part of my problem is that I’m juggling several projects but not accomplishing much with any one of them precisely because I’m not scheduling my time in a disciplined manner. While I can’t follow the monk’s schedule of sleeping at 9 and waking before dawn (Korean monks sleep at 9 and wake up around 3:30 a.m.), I can probably come up with a better schedule than the chaos currently ruling my life. Thanks for the wisdom.
Dan, the Wahlberg reference went over my head. He was born in 1971 when I was 16, so I guess it’s technically possible I could be his father, but I don’t think so. 🙂
I blame COVID for my newly found self-discipline. Back when we had a 7 p.m. curfew I adjusted my habits accordingly. Curfew is midnight now, but I never see it. I’d say I’m one of the few people around here who adhere to such an early schedule, although I only know a couple who routinely push the window and stay out after midnight.
Kev, I don’t want to leave the impression that my early to bed, early to rise regimen is predicated on self-discipline. It’s just one of those patterns/ruts I managed to fall into. My body clock had to adapt to the early COVID curfews and now it brooks no argument when bedtime rolls around.
I didn’t realize I was keeping a monk-like schedule. Let me meditate on that one for a bit. 🙂 I do actually like getting up and starting my day early, so it would be hard to change that now. I’m thinking I may want to push my bedtime back an hour or two though. Unlike you, I don’t have any meaningful projects to occupy my time. Might try to incorporate some television before sleep into my routine.
COVID or not, quite an impressive regimen McCrarey. moderation in everything is the key to a lengthy life. Your drinking partner for the night is wearing a shirt with Dickies on the front. Is that some type of subliminal message? Looking at the pic of your homestead, it appears you have some scorched earth on the hill behind you? Is that the result of a careless smoker or controlled burn? Peace Out!
Thanks, Soju. I hadn’t really noticed the Dickens shirt, but she’s a teaser…anything to keep the drinks coming!
It’s an old photo, last year I think. That was supposed to be a controlled burn, but it went out of control. Had the fire department spraying it down in the end…