Author: lyftingmeup

I have become a dedicated lap swimmer. Currently we are at our place at the Wyndham Resorts in Pagosa Springs, CO. It truly is a home away from home, only five hours away from Arvada. This particular resort has a great amenity called the Community Recreation Center. They have a wonderful swimming pool that I am able to use as part of our stay. Each day you must sign up for a time and a lane. Today I got my favorite lane (8) at the 8am start. It’s pretty simple—you sign up for a lane and you get it for…

Two years ago today I lay flat on my back, completely immobile. I found myself at the Kaiser Health acute Covid unit. I had been double vaccinated and had exercised reasonable levels of caution. I was very sick. Maybe only recently have I grasped just how sick I was. No, I was never on a ventilator, or in a coma, but I was sick, real sick. I will skip the gooey details but suffice to say I was completely incapacitated. I have very distinct memories about the whole journey. I remember being cared for by an amazing team of care…

In 1955 my parents took their three kids to see a big hole in the ground. This is where our new house was being built. It was on a very long block at the top of a hill. It was in a classic post WWII housing development. New homes, new schools, new almost everything. I do remember that it was hard for a six year old Mark to comprehend that the hole could become a house. There were many trips in the family station wagon to visit the progress of the building. I was given a very special job. Because…

My mom Pat was a pretty amazing cook. I really did not know how great she was until I left home. Whether it was cooking meatballs from scratch or homemade chicken and noodles, the food was amazing. Once we had a foreign exchange student stay with us on a cross country trek back to NYC, where, he and 800 students would return to Europe after a year in the USA. His name was Tony and he was from Milan. My mom dared to make her homemade spaghetti and meatballs and soda cracker peach pie for his goodbye dinner. “Mrs. Pumphrey…

The first time I remember playing volleyball was at the YMCA Camp Crockett. The scene was something like this—an open meadow with a net strung between two pine tree poles. On each side of the net were probably 15 boys with a couple of adult counselors. The volleyball, if it ever made it from one side to another, was hit in whatever method possible. We had to step over small rocks, road apples and cow pies. It was great fun. It seems that every camp I went to, whether it be The Y, Boy Scouts, or church, had some form…

I have been told that people enjoy lists so here is one from me. 10. The shift in the feel of the air that shows up around August 23. Everything moves from Summer’s heat to a crisp clean feel. Once it shifts the next three months move to Autumn. 9. The Colorado State Fair. Growing up in Pueblo, we were reminded often that we lived in Pew-town. Well, when late August hit we were the center of the state’s attention. Yes, I plan to go this year—cane and all. There is something reassuring about an entire barn full of bunnies.…

There is a new invasive species moving into Colorado. Rumors of its coming have been circulating for months. My first sighting of its arrival took place a few weeks ago. I am not sure why I still often look at the ‘plates’ on other cars. I find out-of-state plates a source of both curiosity and irritation—‘please feel free to visit but enjoy your ride home’. I am not a big fan of personalized plates, but I am a sucker for trying to figure out everything from the narcissistic gloats to secret codes. The arrival of the BLACK PLATE seemed like…

I just finished a 4,600 mile roadtrip which provided more than a few blog ideas. I had settled on writing about my second “fast food” encounter, and with a few hours of driving by miles and miles of cornfields, I was not lack for thinking time. All that ground to a halt when, on the final leg of the journey, I had that all too familiar feeling of my second Covid battle. I guess spending five days with a few thousand of my closest friends set up the Petri dish of viral abundance. I immediately got on the phone with…

It’s not that I am “anti-sugar”, I can still be very tempted by the pastry rack at Starbucks. However, I do my best to stay far away from refined sugar, which is both a discipline of 23 years of Type 2 diabetes, and a desire to maintain a healthy body weight. For the last few days I have been visiting in the South. I am always confused when I order iced tea and I am asked “Do you want sweet tea?” If I wanted sugar in my tea I would put it in. More than once I ordered Iced Tea…

” One of my simple pleasures is being the first person in the morning to go lap swimming in our HOA pool. There is something very serene about being alone in the pool, where not even a ripple shows. On a morning after a nice Colorado thunderstorm the water in the pool seems even more inviting. I started lap swimming about four years ago. Except for my two month battle to survive Covid, and prat fall this winter, I have maintained a pretty vigorous daily swimming routine. In fact, on July 4th I swam 84 laps to remind myself that…