Love Bug Season

Ah Monday - the reality check that puts my ample rear end into a chair all day long, solving the problems of four hospitals’ software systems.  Sitting.  In a chair.  All day.  I would have taken a walk on my lunch break or even after work, but this is love bug season.  For those of you fortunate souls who are unacquainted with love bugs, let me give you the Cliff Notes version.   They don’t bite and they don’t sting, but they are an unbearable nuisance during their swarming season in the spring and late summer.  They have a slightly acidic body chemistry that will literally eat the paint right off your car, which will become plastered with love bugs anytime you have the nerve to venture out on the road during love bug season.  They are evil, disgusting and annoying to the extreme.  And they love to get in your face.  They are swarming everywhere and if I were to go out for a walk, I would look like a crazy woman who is just begging to be hauled off in the paddy wagon in a stylish (but slimming!) restraining jacket.  Because the only way to walk through the swarms of love bugs is to wave one’s arms wildly about the head and face the entire time.  And even utilizing said love bug – warding tactics, I still would have returned home be-speckled and disgusting.  No thank you.  I contemplated the evil elliptical which sat there smirking at me all day long.  Yes, it was smirking – I swear it was! 

However, when I walked out to grab my mail, I noticed that the love bugs were avoiding the pool area, strangely enough.  Maybe they were avoiding the mud daubers that like to hang out there. Right there, I had an epiphany.  For today’s exercise goal I would swim laps.  It sounded like a reasonable plan to me.  I am a strong swimmer, or at least I used to be. When I obtained my scuba certification at the ripe old age of 20 (during my former athlete years) I swam laps in the pool 4-5 times a week, for an hour at a time.  Being more than double that age now, I felt justified in swimming for half of that length of time.  Piece of cake, right?  I can hear your snickers now.  Go ahead and gloat, you meanies -  you were right.  I set off at a moderate pace, alternating freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke and sidestroke.  I threw in some alternating periods of wind sprints with the freestyle, my fastest stroke.  Thirty minutes later, I crawled gasping out of the pool, feeling distinctly faint, and resembling a giant strand of overcooked fettuccine.   Seriously overcooked fettuccine.   Not in the least bit al dente.   Still, I felt great once I was able to move and breathe again.  I felt well enough to fix up a wonderful seafood dinner before collapsing in my recliner for a well earned evening of Dancing With The Stars.  Does watching other people burn calories count?