Elliptically Speaking

For many years Ox and I took exercise by walking – at Mint Springs and up Bear Den Mountain.  These walks gave me enormous pleasure.  We got a stationary bicycle, from a company that sold used athletic equipment, to supplement our walks. After time, my knees hurt when I walked and I started making excuses not to go.  I continued to bicycle in the middle of the kitchen.  Eventually,  the bicycle broke and Ox moved it to the front porch. 

We found ourselves in Sears one early January.  Sears would deliver the NordicTrack Elliptical Exerciser they had on sale.  I thought that this kind of exercise would be easy on my knees.  Ox bought the thing for us.  We set it up in our kitchen. 

 

Ox put a wooden apple crate on top of a wobbly old cart we had; he set up a heavy old television on top The construction looked very Dr. Suess, but the television was at the exerciser’s eye level.  I elliptically exercised for many weeks but my knees always hurt more after I used it than they had before.

The exerciser was very long when extended for use; when folded up it only took up a third of the kitchen.  Ox found the exerciser to be a useful coat rack; I used its uprights as plastic bag dryers.  It divided the kitchen into two alleys. 

Many years later, long after my two knee replacements, I got fed up with the Behemoth that ate up our kitchen.  I asked Ox, “If I can find someone who’d use it – could we please give the exerciser away?”  He assented.

When she heard it was up for grabs, a friend said she’d like to have the exerciser. Her son was coming home with his truck soon, and he’d help her get it.  My friend and her son came and got to work. The son, a very cheerful and strong young man had almost single handedly gotten the machine into his beautiful new truck before I even knew they were here.

Now we had a tipsy, heavy old television in the kitchen and a lot of space.  I begged Ox to let me find a good home for the television.  Seeing the camel’s nose in this request, he balked.  We had words.  Finally I saw that I asked too much.  Then I remembered that the television had a slot in it for VCR tapes.  We moved the crate to a new and stable little table in kitchen, tightened up the screws on the old cart.  The kitchen now holds two people at once.  It is now a room that has a television/tape player, space to do Tai Chi, and two new VCR tapes to show me how.  Hooray!