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The evening started with our friend, Pili, coming over to discuss gardening.  This is the time of year to make plans and order plants.  I got out about a dozen gardening books.  We both had catalogues and we began to plan for green growing things.  Maybe a vegetable garden this year, and a berry patch.  More roses for the front bed.  More roses for the rest of the yard.  A sunflower patch for the birds. More plants for the shade garden. Heirloom tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, and all the things that go into a really amazing salad.  Some new plants, some old friends that didn’t survive last year, and some that we’ve been wanting.  I want Hollyhocks this year.  That I’m sure of, and Trinity wants more violets.  Fine with me, I love violets. Then we broke for dinner, Trin went to bed, and now Pili is giving us massages.  She is a woman of many talents; green thumb and masseuse, among just two things she does well.  I think I’ve said in an earlier blog that she is a wonderful cook. I’ve had my massage, and now it’s Jon’s turn.  I can hear them behind me, his voice almost sleepy, and hers telling him to breath.  She complained that I kept tensing up.  Me, tensing up, surely not.  But she pummeled and prodded until my muscles surrendered to her expert touch.  Now I feel all loose, limber, and oiled.  The faint scent of the almond oil comes pleasantly off my skin like warm, perfume.  Part of the soreness that she worked out of me was from her wife, C, who is helping me work with weights two days a week.  I wanted someone to help me work up a routine, and always before it had been a guy helping me, so this time I asked another woman, and it’s working well.  Besides, C, has some of the most amazing arms I’ve seen on anyone, male or female.  When asking for help find someone who is doing what you want to learn, doing it well, and getting good results, then ask, "Teach me."  Some of the exercises are old friends, like some of the plants, but some of them are new to me.  Someday I hope to be able to lift enough weight that C doesn’t look like she’s handling butterflies when she hands me back the weights.  So, light for her, but when I remarked on that this morning, she said a wise thing, "You have to start somewhere."  So very right.  So, I’m on my second week of two days a week weights; two days a week yoga; one day a week pilates.  Now if my ankle would just cooperate I’d add tread mill back in, and I’d be set. But for a few weeks, maybe a month, I’ll stick with this and see how it works. The weights are new so I’ll give them a month, at the end of that time I’ll see if I can, or am willing, or feel the need, to add anything else.