The Rondo Pools people came out this morning and spray-painted the outline of the pool onto the ground in our backyard. Then they put up a sign in the front yard.

                
I used to think that pool companies put up these signs as advertising - that they were saying "Hey - see this? These folks here trust us to put in their pool! Maybe you should do that, too!"

Now I realize that they put up these signs for the same reason that Puritans would put people into the stocks in a public place - because it subjects the victim to ridicule or pity.

Now, anybody driving down my street can look at this sign and say "Gee, poor guy - looks like his wife is buying a pool. Boy, is HE gonna be broke forever. I do hope that he made sure that he got a new razor and mp3 player before she signed the papers, or he's gonna be hairy and music-less for a long, long time".

But probably not that long, come to think of it, because I'm gonna be dead soon.

Just got back from the cardiologist.

I'm in great health - but my LDL is "slightly elevated". Now, my HDL is great, and I have a great ratio, but still my LDL is "slightly elevated". So my doc wanted me to go see a cardiodoc, since I turned 50.

After the blood pressures and EKG and interview questions, the cardio doc said that I was in great shape - why did my doc want me to see him?...Oh, he was concerned about your LDL and thought I might want to prescribe medication? gee, let's see - how's your diet?

I told him, and we discussed it - both past and present - and he decided that I shouldn't have meds because there is "so much room for improvement in my diet" with respect to cholesterol.

See, when I used to actually be able to run races at a locally-competitive level, I ate brown foods that didn't have fat in 'em - pasta, potatoes, breads - didn't eat fat at all. Now, it didn't make me thin, but it did keep my weight low and kept my cholesterol levels ridiculously low as a side effect.

But then the PRs stopped coming, with the advancing years, and I kept slowing down;I also started skiing more, and lifting more, which made my weight go up;  then I moved to Vermont, where it was cold, and (as I recall) as I crossed the 40th Parallel on the way from Tucson to Burlington, I started craving red meat and cheese, and I've eaten without respect to things like "cholesterol" since then.

He suggested that I basically go back to the way that I used to eat when I was still really running and racing.

And I think that that will be impossible to do; therefore, I'm gonna die soon.

See, since my real running career is over, I find it almost impossible to imagine eating like that because the doctor said to do so.

You don't eat brown breads and fatless pastas and baked potatoes with Butter Buds because the doctor said that you have to lower your cholesterol.

You only eat like that to break 38 in a 10K.

My friend Larry Duke back in Alabama used to say "I find it impossible to exercise, but I can train all day long" - I can't run to get healthy, but I can run to run in a race. I can't run to lose weight, but I can lose weight to run in a race.

And I can't eat egg whites and fat-free dressing to lower my cholesterol, but I can do that to run in a race.

But now I'm old, and bald, and slow, and no amount of running (or eating right) is gonna make me fast again - so, while I can say that I'll try to do that all day long, that's just not the way that I am wired - my feet don't fit that limb. I'm trying to do it today, but I can already feel the internal resistance building up.

So it's gonna be a short,miserable life - miserable because I'll spend what little life I have left sitting in the middle of the desert paying for a pool...

....and short because I don't know how I can comply with the doctor's instructions - especially when (here's what the little devil on my shoulder keeps reminding me of) my genes are gonna kill me anyway.

When all of the doctors are done, and all of the tests are done, and all of the plans are laid and all of the intentions made - at the end of the day, the chromosomes win. They don't even know that they were in a struggle - they just WIN.

So somebody go get me some mayo for my cheeseburger - with extra cholesterol, please; hey, if I die soon, I won't have to pay for the pool.