When I was on vacation last month, I forgot most of the good habits I've developed lately. Not all of them. I ate a little more than I do at home, but I did almost no snacking between meals, and what I did eat was probably healthier food than I fix for myself anyway. (The beer and wine, on the other hand ... )

Still, I managed not to remember that sitting in a lounge chair all day, reading Clyde Edgerton and Douglas Adams, isn't going to keep my body in shape to pull weeds vigorously every afternoon. I can't last more than half an hour out in the garden these days, and I'm even getting short of breath walking to the post office.

Now that I've been back for almost as long as I was gone, I should be starting to recover some of that lost muscle tone, or whatever it was I lost. Maybe it's sitting around watching television (or TiVo) so much these days that's keeping me down. It could be the wind that shoots through here every day that has my eyes burning and my head feeling mushy.

It's not as if I didn't get any exercise while I was at the lake. Oh, wait a minute. Yes it is. I did some walking, but no serious hiking. What little "swimming" I did amounted to little more than floating in a life vest. Even when the kids were hitting the wiffle ball to me off the back of the houseboat, I made them chase it.

So I guess I really have no one but myself to blame if I've gone all soft. Not that I was a superstar athlete to begin with, but at least I was getting to the point where I could move around. Now I get winded so easily...I think I need another vacation!

David dropped by this afternoon, as he sometimes does if there's too much traffic on his way home from work (or, in this case, if he's being tailed by a cop and forced to drive too slowly). My house is conveniently located just off his main route, at a point where he can duck out of the way for awhile.

He's bummed about the death of Lynyrd Skynyrd's bassist Leon Wilkeson, because he had tickets to a concert in Lake County Saturday night (David, that is, not Wilkeson). But he's going to three other shows this week — two at the fair, and the Smokin' Armadillos at the Luther Burbank Center Friday night.

It's not as if he's at loose ends with nothing to do Saturday, though. He always has contingency plans. It's sort of a mystery among his friends when he ever sleeps. (His family sees him sacked out on the couch often enough to know that he works in enough sleep to keep himself refueled.)

Here's how smart TiVo is: I was watching the baseball game when TiVo asked me if it was okay to change the channel so it could record Ed. I said no thanks, that I wanted to keep watching the game, but I probably would have watched Ed if no game had been on. It's a show I like, but how did TiVo know this? I never told it.